Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
T he storm had passed, but the rain lingered, drumming against the fractured roof of the ancient church and spilling through its empty, shattered windows. Juliet tended the fire, finding ample dry wood amid the sheltered corners of the ruin. Barefoot and clad only in her shift, she glided through the dim space, acutely aware of Horatio's gaze tracking her every step. It was a feeling of intense eroticism, being watched by eyes that she knew held desire for her. The feeling of excitement it engendered left her breathless.
Each time she returned, brushing off his attempts to take the task from her, she settled beside him, tucking her legs beneath her. Horatio would then lift his arm and she would smile happily as she snuggled against his broad, muscular body.
“So, what happened to you… after your father disowned you, I mean?” she murmured against his chest, upon returning from one of those trips to the fire. “If it is not too painful to speak of.”
“It is … but one that I came to terms with long ago,” he smiled bitterly. “At first, it was hellish. I nearly starved after the little money I had ran out. I had no shelter, no skill for surviving the elements. Desperation drove me back to Ravenscourt. I hadn’t eaten in three days and slept wherever I could find cover—hay stacks, under hedges…”
“Were there no friends to take you in?” she asked, her voice soft.
“They ceased to be friends once the scandal broke,” he said flatly. “All of them turned their backs.”
“That is awful,” she whispered. “And all because of me...”
“No,” Horatio said emphatically, his tone brooking no argument. “Because of me . I chose honor over sense and accepted Marlingford’s challenge. I could have refused—swallowed my pride and worn the name of coward—but I didn’t.”
“But there would have been no duel if I hadn’t lied. I—I should have been stronger.”
Horatio gently reached down and cupped her chin, angling her face up towards his. His lips found hers in a kiss both tender and consuming, silencing her protests. When he finally released her, Juliet gasped for air, her heart thudding in her ribcage.
“Had you acted differently, we might never have met,” he reminded her gently. “And I would have been a very different man. Those years on the road shaped me. I would not change a thing. It was a trial sent to make me worthy of my title. Worthy to call myself a man. Do not regret, my sweet.”
Juliet allowed her head to fall back onto his shoulder, putting her arms about him until a wince of pain from him reminded her of his injury.
“Perhaps that could be regretted,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
But when she peeked up, she could see that he was smiling.
“So, you went back to Ravenscourt? Did your father not relent even then?”
“No. I was driven off the estate at gunpoint. He was furious. I had thought some of that anger would have dissipated in the intervening time, it had been three months at that point. I was able to enter the house. Heard my father's voice sounding very jovial and happy in the Black Study—that was always his preferred room for company. Whoever he was entertaining, I don't know. When I made myself known, they left. I saw the door slam on the far side of the room and was confronted by my father as enraged as I have ever seen him. Curious.”
“Whom was he seeing?” Juliet wondered aloud.
Horatio didn't answer but gazed into the fire, lost in thought.
“How peculiar that I have only now remembered that I heard a woman's voice before I entered the room. I assumed it was my aunt but I don't think it was. Odd that I have never recalled that particular fact until now, all these years later…”
“Perhaps you simply cast the memories aside, refusing to dwell on them. And now that we are discussing them, something has come back to you,” she offered.
“Possibly,” he whispered, brows furrowing in contemplation. “Alas, it does not matter. I ran, destitute and alone. I went from poor house to poor house. Sometimes I ran and hid from militia constables on the lookout for vagrants without gainful employ. Somehow, I made it as far as Bristol, and that was where I met Dickens Hall, formerly of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. Against all judgment, he believed my story. He saved my life. Gave me a job, my self-respect.”
“That is a remarkable journey,” she muttered in awe.
“And one that changed me forever. I saw what life is like in this country for those without the privilege of rank and wealth.”
She sat up to look at his face. There was such conviction in his words.
“It made me want to do something about it. Do something to make the lives of ordinary people better somehow,” he went on.
She saw a fevered light in his eyes now, hard passion in his voice. “How?” she asked with wonder.
This was language she was not accustomed to hearing. It sounded dangerously close to revolutionary, which made it exciting, thrilling . Horatio put his head back against the cold stone pillar by which they sat.
“That's just it. I don't know. For so long, I had thought that the first step must be to restore my name, my family's reputation. That I would be able to do more if my standing was reinstated. But as to what I can do... I just do not know.”
Juliet's mind raced. She thought of the possibilities. They seemed endless. Surely a Duke with the ear of the Regent, as the Templeton family once had, could achieve anything he chose. She wanted to help, found the idea exciting beyond words.
But then a shiver ran through her. It left a dull ache in its wake, deep in her bones. She hugged herself, waiting for the feeling to pass.
“Juliet… what is it?” Horatio asked abruptly, sitting up.
“I am very cold all of a sudden. Do not worry,” she replied from between chattering teeth, “it is something I have experienced before. The fire should warm me.”
Horatio took her bare arms, rubbing his hands up and down them. His touch was warming and she found herself relaxing against him once more. The chill remained deep within her though. His hands went around her back, rubbing tenderly.
“Is it part of your illness?” he asked.
“Something that used to happen to my mother when she began to decline,” she replied.
She closed her eyes, her hands steadying herself against Horatio's chest.
“And… how long have you been experiencing this particular symptom?”
There was sudden tension in his voice and Juliet knew why. It made her feel that she was the cause of his distress. Far better if he had never had to face the prospect of her death. If her ultimate demise was that of a complete stranger to him.
“Better if you had never known me,” she whispered.
“No!” he growled with ferocious strength. “This may have been a battle you have become exhausted by, but I am new to this fight. I will not surrender so easily. This fellow in Carlisle will tell us everything he knows or he will answer to me.”
Curiously, Juliet took a measure of comfort from Horatio's apparently indefatigable resolve. She knew it was hopeless—but his hope was infectious.
“It has been a very long time since I dared to hope for anything,” she murmured. “I have made no concrete plans because I do not believe I will be alive long enough to see them to fruition.”
Horatio’s head perked up a little just then. “And what would you wish to do if that were not the case?”
She pondered his words for a moment. “I wanted to be the first female accredited and qualified veterinary surgeon,” Juliet said with a chuckle.
“Then do it! I shall provide you with all the resources you need financially. And what social pull I can muster, though the Templeton name is not yet what it should be.”
“It would take years,” she protested.
“Then take years!” he replied eagerly.
“If only things were so simple. I do not have years.”
She felt Horatio's embrace tighten around her, as though seeking to hold her to life by virtue of his embrace alone. Refusing to allow her spirit to leave her body. He drew her beneath his chin and held her ferociously there.
“If you leave this world, then I will pursue you like Orpheus. I have looked death in the face and lived to tell the tale. It can be done.”
The fire was sputtering low now, a change in the wind sending a haze of rain misting in through an empty window casement. A shower of sparks rose along with a hissing gray smoke.
Juliet glanced up at Horatio. The man who had volunteered himself for the role of hero to rescue her from the underworld. She opened her mouth to speak, to tell him that it was futile, her fate had been decided a long time ago. But Horatio stopped her with a finger to her lips.
Juliet looked into his eyes. He said nothing, simply watched her. It was all she needed. There was a smile playing across his lips. His eyes were dark and expressive. They communicated so much. Juliet felt his emotions, his compassion, and his resolve to act for the good. His face blurred before her eyes, screened by the tears that welled up in her own emerald ones.
She raised her head until her forehead touched his. Never had she felt so close to another person. Even when sharing physical intimacy with him, she had not felt this close.
But what did it change?
The illness which she suffered had killed her mother and destroyed her father's spirit. There was no cure and the only physician with any knowledge of it did not want to know her. There was no hope. Could be no hope. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She wanted this life. Wanted a life with this man. A life with a future. But wanting it did not, could not make it happen.
“You are refusing to believe that you have a life to live. That you have a future to look forward to. I will not give up this fight so easily. I cannot give up. I did not give up. When I was starving and alone, crawling along the road because I did not have the strength to walk... I still went on. And hope came where I could not have foreseen it. Believe in me, and I swear by you, I will find a way,” Horatio said gravely.
Such was the conviction in his voice that Juliet wanted to believe him, wanted to surrender to his confidence.
“I am a stranger to hope,” she whispered. “You have known me a matter of two weeks. I could be gone from the world leaving behind no trace and no grief. If you were to forget me, it would spare you the pain of a widower. Free you to restore your family name.”
Horatio silenced her with another kiss. Thought fled. Worry fled. Juliet felt lighter than air. The burden that she had carried for her entire life lifted from her shoulders. She gave herself to Horatio's calm strength.
She reached up, stroking her fingertips down his angled cheeks, feeling the contours of his handsome face. Tracing his neck, she could feel his pulse. It thundered at her touch, matching her own. Despite the bound injury to his forearm, he held her tightly to him. She knew that he must be causing himself pain, but his desire for her was supreme, overcoming pain. Where he touched her, she felt as though the flimsy material of her shift was burning away. As though his passion and desire for her manifested as heat through his hands. The memory of his touch on her bare skin was intoxicating, making her head spin. She wanted it again, wanted to touch his skin, to taste him.
She felt herself moving back, surrendering to the pressure of his body above her. He was bearing her down and it did not matter that the floor was of stone. The heat from the flames was as nothing to the blazing inferno of the lust he awakened in her. As she lay back, his body pressed against her. Horatio suddenly groaned in pain, shifting to his side. Juliet realized then that as she had lifted her legs to circle his hips, her knee had pressed into his wounded flank.
“I am sorry!” she cried out, horrified.
Horatio grinned a tight smile of pain and shook his head. He lay back on his good side.
“My heart is willing, but I am afraid my body is weakening,” he muttered ruefully.
Juliet twisted from her back to her side so that she faced him. Face scarlet and chest heaving, she took a firm hold of the front of her shift with both hands and pulled hard. The material stretched and then tore, the rip opening down the middle. Horatio's eyes widened at the sight of her naked breasts. Juliet pushed the material from her shoulders and down to her waist, then beyond. She lay before him, utterly naked. Horatio boldly ran his eyes over her body from head to toe. His gaze was like a physical caress. She could almost feel each part of her it lingered over.
“Is there a way to do this that will not cause you pain or exacerbate your injury?” she asked innocently.
There was no way that she could imagine making love that was possible with such an injury. She hoped desperately that Horatio could think of a way. He kissed her lips, softly, then with increasing desire. He kissed her breasts, one followed by the other. Then her stomach.
“There is a way. It is primitive and animalistic. And possibly sinful.”
“Then I wish to be sinful,” she whispered hoarsely.
Horatio smirked.
He gripped her waist and spun her effortlessly, positioning her with a confidence that sent a thrill through her. She let him move her, her body pliant under his hands as he positioned her exactly how he wanted. When she glanced back over her shoulder, his smoldering gaze pinned her in place.
He was on her then, his chest pressing against her back, his breath hot against her ear. His mouth claimed her neck, his tongue dragging over her skin in a way that made her gasp. His hands slid up to cup her breasts, kneading, teasing until her moans filled the room. Every touch was deliberate, every movement designed to unravel her completely.
When he finally entered her, she cried out sharply, her body arching under the sudden fullness. He gripped her hips hard, holding her firmly as he began to move. His strokes were deep, relentless, each one driving her closer to the edge. The sound of their bodies colliding filled the room, a rhythmic slap that mingled with her soft cries and the guttural groans escaping his throat.
Juliet’s hands clawed at the ground, her body rocking in time with his every thrust. His pace quickened, his hands sliding lower to grip her thighs, pulling her back against him with every movement. The intensity left her gasping, her body trembling as he took her with unrelenting focus. The sensation was overwhelming, the edge of pain only heightening the relentless pleasure that consumed her.
Time ceased to be. Juliet had no concept of its passing. They made love to a crescendo of panting and moaning. Of whispering each other's names and clutching each other's bodies.
Then, they were lulled to sleep by the sound of the rain above them as the fire slowly died down.