'Decency? Discretion?'
Rachel caught sight of a brief flash of white in the coach's murky interior.
His mordant tone betrayed the smile as sarcastic. 'I'll beg you to say nothing, if need be,' she informed him quietly, proudly.
'I know you consider
me
a villain, Rachel, but I was under the impression William has always found favour with you. Would such an upright character have told me if he suspected I might repeat it?'
'I can't imagine why he told you.'
'Well, I'll tell you why: he was warning me that if my dealings with you over Windrush resulted in the same sad condition befalling you as has afflicted Isabel, I'd have him to answer to.'
Rachel's audible gasp made him grunt a laugh. 'Had the possibility of a wedding-night baby not occurred to you, sweetheart?'
'Of course I knew of the...the risk. But for William to imagine I might...I would...'
'It wasn't your morality he was doubting, it was mine; and my powers of seduction. Perhaps I should be flattered,' Connor wryly remarked. 'And you need not fear his mother will learn anything from him. His firm intention is to marry June and protect you as his sister.'
'He's a fine man. My father should be grateful to have secured such a son.'
'I'm sure he shall be.'
'Yes.' After a pregnant pause, Rachel murmured, 'You have put yourself in an awkward position, sir.'
'I have?'
'You implied we were betrothed. You said it in front of witnesses.'
'I'll never ever get engaged again. I've said that in front of witnesses, too.'
'You said I was your bride-to-be, you gave me wedding gifts. The magistrate heard. So did Sam and your butler.'
'I'll jilt you. What could be better? It'll close the circle.' He jerked backwards into the squabs. 'I'll gazette a notice that we're to be married at the end of this week, then publicly jilt you. You'll have an avalanche of sympathy, I'll be despised. We'll be even. It'll cure everything. You can take the deeds to Windrush home with you. It would be the least a breach-of-promise attorney would extract and I won't contest it.'
She gazed at him through a mist of dignified tears. 'Yes. I understand. Thank you. That should cure everything.'
She had sat a full minute longer with him in the dark, unwanted, delaying him. Quickly she felt for the door handle before the swelling hurt in her chest exploded. She conquered it long enough to blurt, 'You're wrong in thinking I had an intuition you were wild and that was why I jilted you. I swear I never knew. I believed you were honest and ethical...tediously so.
You played your part well. I ran away because...'
'Because...?' he prompted, dulcet yet demanding.
'I hoped you would follow me,' Rachel murmured, a tiny watery laugh choking in her throat. 'I thought if you truly loved me you would come and get me.' With that she was out of the coach and running for her door.
She banged on the knocker, her body shivering with anguished sorrow.
Within a moment Sam Smith, buttoning up his waistcoat, was peering through a crack at her. He pushed the door wide, solicitously ushered her in and was closing it when a hand and a booted foot stayed it so powerfully that he was sent staggering back a few paces. 'Go to bed. Now!' Connor ordered the lad. Sam didn't hesitate in obeying. With a subtle look and a nod he was gone towards the servants' quarters and Noreen's snug, welcoming arms.
'Whose servant is he?' Rachel demanded querulously, shaking from head to foot. She self-embraced, chafing at her arms to warm them. 'Yours? Mine?'
'Ours,' he said as he stalked her back against the front door.
She turned her head, avoiding those penetrative, glittering eyes. 'Go away, Connor, I'm tired. I shall go home tomorrow, I'll be out of your way, for good, I swear.'
'Say that again.'
'I'm going home, tomorrow, I swear,' she gasped, trying to pass him, but he trapped her with flat palms slamming against the timber either side of her head.
'Not that! Tell me again why you ran away.'
She turned her head, shielding her distress. 'No,' whispered out of her.
'Tell me...' a mellifluous voice threatened.
'I wanted...I wanted you to follow me. I wanted you to properly love me...'
she cried.
'Properly love you?'
he gritted with such guttural passion that she cringed.
'What I felt for you then Rachel, was very proper and God knows I loved you.' His head lowered as his savagely taut lips steamed warm breath against her neck making her head angle languidly. 'Do you know what it took to be so gentle and respectful and restrained when what I really wanted to do was—' His eyes abruptly closed, his jaw tightening until a muscle jerked by his mouth. 'You drove me mad. I thought I'd go insane with wanting you, yet I stayed faithful. I didn't take a mistress, fearing you'd suspect me a philanderer if you learned of her existence. I was rarely tempted; it was only you I wanted. For four months I was celibate. I continued waiting, tolerating your teasing, your flirting, your provocation.' A hand jerked her averted face up to his. 'Now you say I didn't
properly
love you? I've never loved anyone more properly in my entire damned life!'
'You loved her...'
'Who? Maria Laviola?' Connor asked, his incredulity tinged with amusement.
'No...' Rachel saw genuine incomprehension in his eyes. He had no idea who she meant. 'The wife of your grandfather's friend. You loved her, surely?'
'Perhaps I did, at first, if I was capable of such an emotion at that time. But it was hardly proper. Bernadette was married to a nobleman and satisfied with her situation until I happened along and coaxed her into a liaison. I was arrogant, egotistical and covetous of many things. The fact that she Was initially reluctant and needed wooing was probably an inducement rather than a deterrent. To my shame I can still recall feeling quite relieved when my grandfather brought the affair to an abrupt end after six months, for she'd become unattractively clinging and possessive... rather a nuisance. Her husband welcomed her back but I knew, as did she, that their life together was irreparably damaged by scandal and suspicion; scandal and suspicion that I had caused. I knew all that yet it bothered me little at the time. Within a month I'd found someone to replace her. I began returning her letters, unopened.'
Rachel watched self-disgust curl his lips as his eyes shifted to bleakly stare at the wall. He had his own conscience to salve, she realised. Connor Flinte, a heroic, decorated Major in the Hussars, with an earldom and a fortune and a reputation as an admirable, honourable gentleman, was tormented by a youthful folly of his own. He had acted as rashly, as selfishly in adolescence as had she. A pale hand tentatively smoothed his saturnine expression. The wonderful sensation of warm abrasive skin beneath her fingertips emboldened her to slide the hand and comfortingly cradle his cheek. He turned his head so his lips brushed a reciprocating caress on her palm.
'At eighteen I thrived on challenge...confrontation. I'd been spoiled as a child by a rogue of a father who knew at thirty-six he wouldn't ever be forty. For three years, from when I was thirteen years old and the physician told him his lungs were too badly inflamed to cure, until I was approaching my sixteenth birthday, and he died, he tried to give me a lifetime's affection and attention. He indulged me with too much money, tolerated my excesses; praised them sometimes. He instructed me in the ways of the world and its baser pleasures, led me to believe anything in life was attainable if you were prepared to grasp every opportunity and live for the moment. And he told me constantly that I was like him. And I am, aren't I? He abducted the woman he wanted; I would have coerced you into bed. Gallant charmers, the Flinte men...' he remarked satirically. 'Blood will out, I suppose...
'Despite his failings he was a charismatic character. I loved him. So did my mother; she adored him, despite knowing of his weakness for women and riotous living. He idolised her, too; she was the only woman that mattered in his life, the only one who could to any degree control him.' He stole a look at Rachel. Her wide-eyed, rapt attention was all the encouragement he needed to continue enlightening her about his early life.
'After the business with Bernadette, I enjoyed a year or so more of debauchery before army discipline and my grandfather's quiet homilies tempered my licentiousness. Throughout my wild youth my grandfather had persevered in bestowing on me his wisdom. Despite my best efforts to ignore such worthy education, it had rooted in my mind, and maturity had helped me to appreciate it. When a brat I thought him a sanctimonious old miser who'd preach about abstinence and duty. Still I loved him. Now I thank God that his influence on me was as great as was my father's. He threatened to kill my father on numerous occasions. It was only my mother's constant mediation—and her physical presence—that kept them from each other's throats. I expect your father might have dealt the same way with me.
He would have joined forces with Pemberton in tracking me down had I managed to seduce you.'
'I wouldn't have let them near you,' Rachel whispered. 'Not now I know.'
'What do you know, Rachel? That I'm pitiable?'
'I know you love me. You still love me, don't you?'
He flinched as though she'd scalded him, dropped his arms to his sides. 'How do you know that?' he hoarsely demanded, stepping back a few paces.
'Oh...suddenly I just know,' she said softly. 'There are those little loving things you do quite naturally for me, such as keeping me company when I'm sad and alone, or mopping spilled tea from my skin when I'm agitated and make a mess. You comforted me when I cried for Isabel and intervened when horrid Pamela Pemberton and my aunt tried to be mean to me. Then there are those important things you do to protect me, such as stopping those belligerent men fighting and arguing in my presence when their carriages got stuck. You saved me from vile Arthur Goodwin and from gaol by lying about our relationship. In doing so you have put yourself in quite a quandary for, despite saying you will never ever get engaged to me again, you have implied the reverse is true. Then there's other ways in which I can tell you care: I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice, I'll feel it soon when you kiss me. I know you love me, Connor. You can't escape.' She laughed softly as he spun on his heel, as though he might seek a way out.
'I meant what I said. I'll never ever get engaged again...know that too.' His tone was as poignantly bashful as was his stance.
She smiled a soft, womanly smile of triumph and peace. 'Neither will I. But it doesn't alter the fact that you love me. I know now that you took Windrush from my father simply to prevent that weasel Lord Harley having it. Had he won that night, he would have taken our home and never given one moment's thought to the havoc and distress caused us by its loss. You immediately granted us a dispensation so June's wedding plans would not fall foul of my papa's silly plot. You've returned us Windrush and taken nothing in its stead...not even your wedding night. And all this you have done for me...just for me. Because you love me.' Her voice cracked on an emotional sob as she strove to conquer for a few more moments the need to go to him, to put loving arms about him. There was still a little more to say.
'You asked me why I jilted my other fiances and I didn't properly answer you. I couldn't because until now I didn't know myself. I couldn't settle for Philip Moncur, or Mr Featherstone, or any man who wasn't as good...as wonderful as you. I was waiting for you to come back. I knew in my heart some day you'd come and get me.' She watched an unreadable expression tauten his lowered face. 'It doesn't matter that you'd rather stay single, Connor,' she coaxed, wanting him to look at her. Slowly she approached him, slid her silken arms up about his neck, putting her soft feminine curves boldly against the hard, masculine lines of his body. 'I've come close to you, Connor, and I'm looking at you because I really care what you might answer.
It doesn't matter that you won't marry me. I'll settle for my wedding night...again and again. I'll still love you in the morning.'
Connor tilted his head, looked sideways at her. A lopsided smile transformed into a choke of laughter then two possessive hands suddenly girdled her waist. His arms, the turn of his body, fastened "her to him. 'Now, what are you going to do if I take you up on that?'
Rachel flushed, chuckled, laid her head on his shoulder, abrading her cheek with his soft wool jacket. 'I visit Isabel every Michaelmas with Noreen accompanying me to York. She knows the truth about Isabel, for she and her sister have served us for a very long while. Every time I see Isabel she seems more serene. She has her memories, she has her son. She says she is content.
I should like that: to be serene and content. I don't mind if you make me your paramour. Just don't go away and leave me, Connor. I beg you...don't do that.' .
His face lowered to hers and in a husky, sensual tone he repeated, 'And I still want to know, Rachel...what are you going to do if I call your bluff?'
'You won't...'
'I'd like to...'
'I know...but you won't...'
'I might...'
'You won't...'
'You're very sure of yourself, and me, Miss Meredith,' Connor drawled in a voice of gravelly velvet. 'That string you've had me dangling on for six years...did you have it specially forged?' His lips descended, touched hers with teasing lightness that put her on her toes to protract the contact. With a groan he succumbed to her teasing little kisses, sliding warm parted lips to pay homage to her enthusiastic seduction.