A Reckless Encounter

“Didn’t you say they were robbed by footpads a few weeks ago? Maybe this wasn’t the first time they’d tried.”

“Maybe.” He rubbed his thumb across his jaw. “And maybe it wasn’t Carlisle’s men who attacked her. It occurred to me that it’s not what she knows, but rather what they think she knows that’s put her in danger.”

Tyler nodded agreement.

Damn Mowry, Colter thought after he parted company with Tyler. He had interfered again. There would be hell to pay for that later, and there would be hell to pay if the Runners caught up with them while he was still with Celia. He should have taken her to Katherine, but he hadn’t wanted to leave Celia in the city where she was vulnerable.

Celia. Green-eyed little minx, the only woman who had ever managed to hold his attention even when she wasn’t with him. It was the damnedest thing. He dreamed of her at times, of her soft, drawling voice, the curve of her mouth when she smiled, and those eyes…She infuriated him, yet he couldn’t get enough of her, of the smell and taste of her, even of her sharp tongue.

Christ, he’d let her get close to him. It was damned inconvenient. It affected his judgment, when he should keep his head clear and his goal primary. Celia St. Clair was an unexpected complication, a danger. He thought of her as he’d seen her earlier, eyes wide and staring at him with trust. It was her trust that affected him, her certainty that he would keep her safe.

Not once on the arduous journey had she complained, done more than sag wearily. There was courage in her that he hadn’t suspected, and a fortitude that he’d never thought she had. It was startling. How had he ever put her in the same class as the other women he’d known who accomplished flirts and basically very shallow, intent only upon the moment and their pleasure. There was so much more to Celia.

She was strong, firm to the point of stubbornness and surrender wasn’t in her nature. He wished he knew what secret she was keeping from him. It was obvious there was something she wasn’t telling him. It had nothing to do with the conspiracy, though. He was sure of that.

Events were moving at a fast pace now, and the prospect of a bloody revolt was more than just possible. It was a certainty. How would he keep her safe when he wasn’t sure where the true danger to her lay?

He swore softly and a passing stableboy gave him a wide berth, as if afraid to get too close.

Colter smiled grimly, not blaming him. If Colter looked like he felt at the moment, he must look pretty savage. But Christ, what was he going to do with Celia? Taking her to Harmony Hill was dangerous. Options were few; too far or too obvious. If Tyler was right and Mowry was behind the attempt to abduct her, few places were safe for her right now. Mowry had very disagreeable methods of interrogation.

Rain hissed, pattering atop the stable roof in a drumming rhythm. Music from a fiddle drifted from the inn’s common room when the door opened, and Colter’s eyes narrowed into glittering blue slits. She wouldn’t like it, but he knew where to hide Celia.

Unfortunately Celia resisted the efforts to keep her safe, struggling against him when Colter dragged her from a nice warm bed in the inn and out into the cold rain. Wrapped in a heavy wool cape over the yellow taffeta, she protested sleepily, “We can wait until daylight, can’t we? I don’t want to leave now!”

“Christ, keep your voice down, Celia.” His harsh voice grated next to her ear, and she shivered at the anger in it. He was so brusque, indifferent, his hands on her impersonal, as if he were tending a horse instead of the woman he’d taken to his bed.

Ignoring her futile resistance, he put her atop a horse instead of in a closed gig, and she grabbed at the saddle to keep her balance. She rode astride like a man, dispensing with any semblance of grace as her skirts bunched up around her knees, but he paid no attention to her efforts as he led their mounts from the dark stableyard and into the night.

It was so cold, the January winds bitter and biting, smelling of rain and mud. She clung to her mount as it stayed close to Colter’s larger animal, its hooves a pounding drum against the rutted road. Rain slashed into her face at times even though she ducked her head and pulled the hood to the cape as low as possible. Tremors racked her body and misery made her silent, not that he would have paused to listen to her protests or questions.

How had he changed so suddenly from playful lover to this hard-eyed stranger? It was frightening.

When fuzzy gray daylight came at last, it seemed they’d already been riding forever. Every bone in her body ached with fatigue, and Celia reeled in the saddle by the time Colter finally halted late in the day. They were beneath a rocky overhang, with winter-dead creepers brown traceries against rock walls, leafless trees clacking bare branches with a sound like the rattle of old bones. A soughing wind curled around wooded slopes, caught at the hem of her dress and fluttered her hood. She shivered, muscles protesting the involuntary reaction.

At least the rain couldn’t reach them here. She made no sound when Colter pulled her from her horse and led her into what turned out to be a shallow cave hollowed into rock. It smelled dank, and as if it had been used before.

He propped her against the rock wall, where gray light seeped inside. Working with silent efficiency, he rubbed down their horses, fed them grain from a burlap sack, then set about making a fire near the front of the cave. It was necessarily small, the damp wood obviously left behind by former occupants stacked on the pitted floor to one side.

Still crouched on his heels, he pivoted slightly to look at her when a tidy blaze spit sparks toward the low ceiling. “It’s smoking too badly to use long. Come get warm before I put it out.”

Wordlessly she hunched near the fire, spread her hands out to heat them at the licking flames. In the hellish light cast by burning branches, his face was set in stark relief.

“Take off the cape and I’ll dry it for you,” he said. When she didn’t move—couldn’t move for the shivering—he rose and came to her, untied it at the neck and slid it from her shoulders to hold it near the fire. She couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t seem cold at all, but was impervious to the wet clothes and icy winds.

His black hair was wet enough to drip down his collar, but he ignored it, as he disregarded his own drenched coat, now spread over a rock to dry out.

When she could speak, she asked, “Are we staying here all night?”

He glanced up at her through the smoke. “It seems the driest place for now.”

“I never thought England could be such a wilderness. It seemed so small and…and civilized.”

“A gratifying surprise for you, no doubt, to discover that we have our own share of uncivilized citizens. What we lack in size, we more than make up for in mettle. Ask any Frenchman.”

She shivered. Yellow taffeta clung to her legs in sodden folds. She looked away from him. “Do we have any food?”

“Beef and bread. A limited menu, but preferable to rocks or thistles.”