Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback) (16 page)

She watched the long fingers of the weeping willow whisk the cold little pond below the house, and wondered if he would even wait for the banns to be read, or acquire a special license and have it done before the week was out. The weeping willow suited her mood exceedingly, and her eyes followed the long mournful curves of its branches, sweeping back and forth along the shore of the pond — and what was that?
 

A movement, coming from the shadows, and crossing the silver lawn at an angle, heading not for the front door or the back, but directly towards her window.
 

She leaned out, curious.
 

And then as the figure came closer, she recognized the person by gait and height and build: it was William Archer. Her heart leapt, and she was confused by her own rising feelings. He had ruined her life, and yet he was the only person in the world she wanted to see.
 

Perhaps she had gone mad before the marriage had even commenced.
 

“William!” she called, as hushed as she could, and he turned up his head and took off his hat so that the moon fell full on his face. He was meltingly beautiful in the moonlight, as lovely in the shadow and silver as he was in the daylight with the sun shining about him like a god. And that was when Grainne knew, her heart racing, that she had not fallen victim to some silly crush. She had fallen in love with William, real and true and hopeless love. She had been in love with him during this whole sordid business. That was why she hadn’t fought him when he’d taken her away with Len, that was why she hadn’t wept for Len and his faithlessness, that was why she had been leaning on this windowsill tonight, feeling the cold wind raise gooseflesh on her arms; because she had been trusting, and loving, and hoping, for William.

“Grainne!” he exclaimed. “Why are you leaning out of your window like that? You may fall!”

“Would you catch me?” she asked, only half-teasing, and positioned herself upon the window-sill. “Would you whisk me away from here, and all my sorrows?” Perhaps he would. Perhaps he only needed the suggestion.

“I cannot,” he said, and his voice was heavy with sorrow. But not as heavy as hers, at hearing the words. Whatever hope had sprung up in her chest dissipated immediately. He had not come to rescue her from her fate, after all.

“I would come with you,” she tried, abandoning all pretense. “I was not born to be Mrs. Maxwell, and preside over sheep-shearing gangs, and you know it, William Archer.”

He only shook his head. “I must leave in the morning. I wanted to tell you I was sorry.”

She could not reply. Her head seemed to swim and for a moment she wavered back and forth on the ledge of the window.

“Grainne!” William cried, truly alarmed. “Please, I beg you, get down from that window ledge before you fall.”

She shook her head. “I am fine. Go away and leave me alone.”

“Grainne, I wanted to tell you…” he stopped, and in the moonlight she could see his features blur with confusion. “I wanted to tell you… how… I…”

“Yes?”

“How I regard you.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but it was not a thrilling avowal of love, and anything less than that was bound to be disappointing. She leaned her chin on her hand again. “I regard you, too.”
 

He looked at her inquiringly. “You do?”

She nodded. “Mmhmm. Exceedingly. Such regard.”

“How long have you had such regard for me?”

“Ages.” Grainne began to warm to the game. “I think have regarded you since I saw you with the fox cub. I could never have such regard for a man who was not gentle with animals.”

“I feel the same way about your way with animals,” William admitted. “But your way with me… I am taken with that as well.”

Grainne felt her cheeks heat. The conversation was beginning to get quite interesting. “I endeavor to treat those I hold in high regard and esteem with the same level of respect and gentleness that I would treat my horses,” she said playfully. “I might even regard you more than my Gretna.”

He smiled up at her. “That is high regard indeed! I am honored.”

She grew more daring. Let them come to a point, and she would see if she could win him over at last. “And what shall we do with all this shared regard, sweet William? I grow chilled on this window-ledge, and you tell me you are to say good-bye. All the signs would point to our parting, and yet our regard for one another ought to prohibit such a leave-taking.”

His smiled faded. “I must return to my father’s sick-bed,” he said gravely. “I have no time to spare. I must be in London as soon as possible.”

“London!” Grainne was shocked. She had never imagined, in all of her little fancies about William’s background, that he would have connections in town. How would he have become such a horseman if he had been raised in the city? And if he was truly a bastard son, as she had decided he was, how was it that he would be admitted to a death-bed by the rest of the family?
 

William nodded. “My father is in London. I have a duty to be with him.”

Duty, Grainne thought disconsolately. They all had duties to their fathers. Hers was particularly unpalatable, though. She wondered if she could put it off at all… buy a little time, perhaps. He was her last hope. “Will you return to us?”

William looked at the ground, and the moon glinted on the smooth locks of his mahogany hair, the same color as Gretna’s shining coat. There was a long pause before he looked up at her again, and she thought she saw something shine on his cheek. “I will not.”

She caught the great sob that rose up in her throat before it could escape, and with a wave of her hand she slipped back inside the house, closing the window determinedly behind her. She would not tell him good-bye, she would not watch him walk away from her. He had made his choice. He had come here, he had taken everything from her, and now he was leaving without her.

She had thrown herself across the rumpled bed, and was just contemplating letting her tears run free, when there was a scrape at the shutter.

Grainne’s heart raced. He couldn’t… the tree… her mind went in every direction and arrived at the same destination. The crazed man had climbed up the ancient oak tree outside the house, and found himself on her windowsill. “Fool!” she whispered and rushed to the window. What if he should fall — or be heard —

William was smiling when she flung open the window again. A cold wind came in with him, blowing back the curtains in her white face, but she didn’t feel the sting of the bitter air on her cheeks. She was frozen in indecision: there were no right choices now. She had begged for rescue, and he had come.
 

To her bedchamber. In the middle of the night. Even a girl who had lay with a gypsy in his caravan knew better than to let a man in her window.

“Let me in, Grainne,” he said gently, and the ragged edges of his voice gave away the emotion behind the gay smile. She stood back and gave him room to climb over the windowsill.
 

He landed gently on his toes, and then reached down quickly with his scarf to wipe away the leaves and wet grass from his boots. He shook the scarf outside the window and then pulled the panes together again. “I would not want to leave a mess on your carpets,” he explained practically. “There would be some question if a girl who is not allowed out of doors suddenly had a floor covered with grass.”

Grainne gazed at his tanned face, the firelight flickering over the raindrops on his cheeks and hair. “Why are you here?” she asked suddenly, keeping her voice low with great effort.
 

He looked flustered. “I don’t… I thought…” He looked at his hands, holding his wet hat so tightly they shook. “I was wrong to come here. I am sorry, Grainne. I put your reputation in danger.”

Coward! She was suddenly furious. Could he not even admit that he had come because he cared for her? Would he even now avow that he was leaving her to her fate, and never returning to Ireland? “My reputation is in shambles,” she replied shortly. “Perhaps that is why you thought you could say good-bye to me in my bedchamber?”

He frowned. “That is not what I meant.”

“It is!” She crossed her arms across her chest and fixed him with an icy glare. “Why else should you appear on my windowsill like a thief in the night? One last kiss for the road, eh William Archer? You may comport yourself like a gentleman,
Mister
Archer, but you are no better than you should be — just a horse jockey with a put-on accent, I should say!”

William’s jaw tightened and he flung down his hat. “Such vitriol from a woman who was moments ago mourning my departure! I suppose you are mourning your gypsy, and looking for any port in a storm to avoid respectability.”

Grainne was too startled by his choice of words to come back with a suitable retort. “ ‘Mourning my gypsy?’ “ she repeated. “What do you mean? If you are implying that I wish I had left with him… I do not.”

“That is not what I mean. Surely you heard he was sentenced to hang.”
 

She shook her head. “He was a horse-thief.” Suddenly she was overwhelmed with regret. She crossed to sit down on her bed, uncaring of the indelicacy, certain that her legs could hold her up no longer. “He was a horse-thief,” she repeated, more to herself than to William. “And I would have been a horse-thief with him.”

William crossed the room and knelt down before her. He tipped up her down-turned chin with one rough finger. She looked at him with a tear-streaked face. “You saved me,” she whispered brokenly. “You saved me once, will you not save me again?”

He kissed her.

As it had that afternoon in the tack room, the kiss assailed her senses. She leaned back as he rose up over her, dimly aware of his hands on either side of her head, buried in the feathers of her coverlet, holding his weight from her body as she lay back upon the bed, abandoned to the kiss. Hot and demanding, his lips bruised hers, the stubble on his chin rubbed at her delicate skin, and with a sigh she welcomed all the roughness, wrapping her arms around his back and pulling his chest closer to hers.

“Grainne,” he whispered harshly, breaking the kiss only long enough to press his lips to her neck, her cheeks, the sensitive skin just below her ears. “Ah, Grainne.”

He gave up on holding himself above her, and let his weight fall upon her body; she felt a surge of pleasure at the touch of him all along her length, and the hardness between his legs that was pushing at her own hot, throbbing center had her entire body tingling with excitement. She brought her face up to kiss his neck and then, with a daring instinct, snatched at his earlobe with her teeth, giggling when he gasped with surprise and pleasure.
 

His hands were all over her, within her nightrail and without, pressing the soft cotton against her breasts, stroking her smooth belly, wandering towards her womanhood. She felt, between the shivers and the tremors and the gasps, that she ought to stop him. But why? She was ruined, she was a captive, and she wanted him. If they were caught, she thought wildly, so much the better.

His hand slipped between her thigh, and she lurched so hard she nearly flung him off the bed. Grainne had found, if she sat a certain way riding astride, that she could experience a rather thrilling feeling between her legs. But it was nothing compared to this explosion as William pressed at her neck with his mouth and explored her secrets with his fingers. She bucked against him, and as her breathing grew closer to moans and cries he covered her mouth with his, and then she was in a whirlpool of sensation, and there were fireworks against her closed eyes, and then the world tilted, and she thought she would die with the joy of it.

***

He lay beside her and watched her come back to life.

She saw him watching her and smiled. “William,” she whispered. “What in God’s name did you do to me?”

He smiled sadly in return. “Things I should not have done,” he admitted. “You are yet a maiden, my dear girl, but you are no longer an innocent.”

She shook her head ruefully. “I thought I was not an innocent before, but it seems there is much more than kissing in this game.”

“Step by step,” he said. Then he sighed. “I am sorry,” he said slowly, “that I cannot teach you the rest of the game.”

Her face changed. “You are going to leave me yet.”

He knew she would hate him. He would leave Ireland with his own true love hating him, and there was nothing to be done. “I cannot steal you away from your father’s house like a —” He stopped himself.

“Like a gypsy,” she finished for him, voice like ice.

“Grainne —”

She turned away from him, straightening her simple dress. “Go, then, William.”

“I will speak to your father before I leave,” he burst out.

Her face, when she looked at him again, was like the sun.

They spoke like two gentlemen in the parlor, but there was a coldness in the atmosphere that had William’s heart sinking before he could even bring up the question that burned in his mind.
 

“I am grieved that you are going,” Mr. Spencer said. “But I can certainly understand the circumstances. I wish you well, and if you want the position here again, you need only write and ask if it is vacant. I daresay I can find some room for a horseman of your talent very easily.” He rose from his chair and walked towards the library door, to indicate that the meeting was over. William understood; the morning was young, and he had much to do in the kennels and now, with William leaving, in the stables. But his business with the master of hounds was not over yet.

“There is one thing,” William said.

Spencer turned, eyebrow raised inquiringly.

“Miss Spencer — I beg your pardon, sir, but I wonder if your idea of her future is fixed yet.”

“That is really not your concern,” Mr. Spencer said thoughtfully, “But you are the one who restored her to me, so I can see why you might make it so. Very well, I shall tell you: she will be married to Mr. Maxwell, who has a very nice income and shall keep her comfortably.”

William’s heart lurched. He wondered if she knew for certain, sequestered up there in her bedchamber. He wondered if she had known last night, when she had begged him to take her away with him.