He’d been invited to lodge at Trey’s house but had declined. For his pursuit of Kate, he wanted more privacy.
Trey fell silent as he negotiated the curricle through heavy traffic. After directing the grays across a crowded intersection, he continued the conversation.
“Bella told me something of your plan—that you intend to ask Lady Katharine Wilde to find a match for you. I’m acquainted with her brother, Beaufort, but I don’t know her well. Isn’t she the one who rescued the child injured in the ruins at Beauvoir?”
“Yes, the young son of a tenant farmer. He might well have died had she not discovered him after his accident and risked her life to save him.”
A wagon lumbered into the middle of the street, claiming Trey’s full attention, leaving Brandon time to recall the incident at Beauvoir—the lavish Beaufort country estate—a few months after he had met Kate.
That afternoon had given him a new appreciation for her courage. A superb horsewoman, she never missed a chance to ride. Although it was a chilly, stormy afternoon, they’d been galloping hell-for-leather across the Kentish countryside. If he lived a hundred years, he would never forget the enchanting picture she made, laughing with exhilaration, her face flushed from the wind, her vivid hair streaming out behind her.
When eventually they came upon the ruins of an ancient church, they slowed their horses to a walk. Just then the wind died down long enough for her to notice a misplaced sound.
“Listen…Did you hear that?”
Kate insisted she heard a moan coming from inside the ruins, and when they rode closer, the faint weeping sound grew stronger. She dismounted and scrambled over the rubble, calling out, “Hello?” Brandon hastily joined her and warned her to take care.
“I will. It looks as if several walls have collapsed.”
“More than that,” he replied, pointing across an open space.
Evidently the floor had partially given way, bringing down much of the adjacent room into what must have been the cellar. Through a gap in the rotten boards, they could make out a pile of stones and debris strewn with wooden beams.
When the weeping stopped, followed by a pitiful cry for help, they ascertained what had happened: While exploring the ruins, a ten-year-old boy nam
ed Billy had fallen through the opening and broken his ankle, so that he couldn’t climb out.
Brandon intended to hazard a descent, but Kate objected. “No, I am smaller. You cannot squeeze into the crevice where he is trapped like I can. And you are much stronger, so you can pull us out. We can fashion a rope from my petticoats….”
They had argued briefly, since Brandon disliked the risk she would be taking with the structure so unstable. The remaining stone walls could crumble and crush her at any moment or bury her alive. Yet he knew her plan stood the best chance of rescuing the boy.
While they tied strips of her linen undergarment together, Kate kept up a steady stream of soothing words for Billy, focusing his attention away from his agonizing pain by asking about his family.
When they were done, she took a deep breath and carefully inched her way down the stone incline as Brandon fed the makeshift rope to her. All the while, he felt his gut clenching. But after an endless time, she reappeared, gritting her teeth but smiling grimly in triumph.
She had crawled back up the pile of rubble, with Billy gamely clinging to her back, despite his pain. Her lovely face was smudged with dirt and sweat, her hands and knees lacerated and scraped by sharp fragments of rock and mortar, but she was grateful to have helped the lad. They splinted his ankle as best they could and conveyed him to her own family physician, who managed to heal the injury well enough that months later, Billy could walk with only a slight limp.
She’d become a local heroine that day. Few noble ladies would have risked their lives to save a commoner child. Kate had also earned Brandon’s admiration that day. Her fearlessness was one of the things he liked most about her. That and her selflessness. In the intervening years, he had never met any other woman like her.
He could never forget her or her passion. Thus, it was no wonder that she’d stayed on his mind the entire time during the war. In the initial months, visions of a fiery redhead had haunted his sleep. He’d tried to ignore them but finally gave in. Thoughts of Kate had gotten him through the long, lonely nights at sea. In his worst hours, after a raging battle, he would call up memories of her.
Those memories had led him back to her after six long years. He’d orchestrated a reason to share her company, and used Bella to hook her into finding him a bride.
Naturally he couldn’t tell Kate what he was contemplating, not after rejecting her once already. But he couldn’t shake the suspicion that this could be his second chance. That he needed her freshness, her warmth. That he needed her to wash him clean with her inner fire, her strength of mind and spirit.
Her vitality was contagious, Brandon reflected. A mere quarter hour in her presence this afternoon had made him feel more alive than he had in a long while.
And yes, he wanted to explore this remarkable heat between them. To find out if her lovemaking was as sensual and wild and uninhibited as he imagined it would be.
He was under no illusions, however. If he decided to pursue Kate, she wouldn’t be easy to win. Overcoming her hurt and wariness would prove a definite challenge, although in truth he had expected her to be angrier with him.
And then there was another, greater obstacle. She wanted love, she’d made that very clear. He wasn’t certain he was even capable of love. Perhaps it wasn’t in his character. Or perhaps his experiences had deadened him to any deeper feelings.
His return to England had opened new possibilities, though. It was tempting to think he could forget the blood and battles, that he could live a normal life, perhaps with a wife, a family. As for marriage, he’d been profoundly unsatisfied with any of the conceivable candidates he’d met over the years, especially after knowing Kate.
Today had shown him that she was still an enchantress, accustomed to getting her way through charm and sheer persistence. She threw herself into every endeavor—and her search to formally mourn her parents would likely be no different.
Her bargaining had presented him with a dilemma. Unquestionably, he much preferred to put the violent elements of his past behind him. The prospect of clashing with hostile buccaneers held no appeal whatsoever. Yet he had no choice but to aid Kate in her quest to properly lay the memory of her parents to rest. He couldn’t let her go haring off to the Continent, intent on tackling a horde of French pirates on her own.