The Prince's Bride

Chapter Ten

It would never occur to Ryan to simply show the man evidence of his cousin’s abuse. Perhaps this had been her error all along. What finally got his attention had not been the damning proof of her letters or even her awkward thoughts of seduction, but evidence of what Maurice had done. Who could have guessed? Not Ryan. She was not a natural victim. She thought to appeal to Gabriel’s sense of decency and duty; in a pinch, his loneliness. But his sympathies lay with wounded horses, so of course she should cast her lot with the bitten and beaten. God knew she had the wounds for it.

After he’d plucked her from the fence, she’d spent a long, mortifying moment fearing he meant to carry her inside. It was one thing to be borne through the forest for the sake of expediency; quite another to be conveyed about like an invalid. Which she was not (an invalid). The dog attack had been terrifying and hurt like the devil, but apparently she’d “been very lucky.” The muscle had not been severed from bone; the bleeding had been stopped before too much blood had been lost. The doctor said she would recover, save an annoying new panic around dogs.

In the end, Prince Gabriel hadn’t carried her. He’d walked silently behind her, reaching around to open the door, jerking his head in the direction of the bedroom. She kept ahead of him, plodding into the darkness.

“Is your, er, waterfall... secluded?” she ventured. She should maintain some sense of decorum, she told herself, even alone in the forest. Even in this cave.

“It’s here,” he said, stepping around her. They’d entered the bedchamber and Ryan was relieved to see the candles were still bright from the earlier tour. He strode to the notch in the wall she’d asked about earlier, holding a candle aloft.

“Careful,” he called from behind the rock. “It can be slick.”

Tentatively, Ryan followed. She was aware of the sound of splashing water, the smell of moisture, and a heaviness to the air. A soft, misty spray tickled her face. The walls of the cave were slicker here, shiny with moisture. It was—she squinted in the candlelight, peeking through the vapor—a little room.

“Keeping a flame can be a challenge here,” he was saying, holding the candle to a lantern hanging from the stone. “It’s the wetness.”

When the wick caught, the light doubled. He stepped away to reveal a small underground waterfall splashing onto a slab of rock. The shower of water fell from a high crevice in a downward stream. The slab behind the waterfall was wet where water poured from above.

Mesmerized, Ryan looked to the floor. Floorboards had been laid like a small dock, extending from the shoulder of rock to the spot where the waterfall splattered into an iron grate. Large craggy stones lay beneath the grate and the falling water ran through the iron bars and drained away.

“Is it a natural spring?” she asked.

“Yes.” He wiped water droplets from his face with his sleeve.

“And the water is warm?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “It’s very warm. This was Samuel’s reason for building out the cave. Warm, running water is a rare luxury, indeed.”

“Quite so,” Ryan said. Her skin tingled, thinking of the heated water, and the cool air, and the thrill of bathing in an actual waterfall. She wanted to try it—in fact, she couldn’t remember wanting the simple pleasures of warmth and cleanliness more—but she felt suddenly shy and uncertain. How did one transition from uninvited guest to... to bather? Undressed and splashing about in an underground waterfall? In the home of one’s estranged fiancé? It was so unimaginable; it was like guessing the procedure for spinning straw into gold.

“Could I trouble you for a... a towel that I might use for...” Ryan scrambled for the correct word “...for after?”

He stalked to a cupboard in the bedroom and returned with a white towel. It appeared well worn but clean. He held it out to her. Ryan accepted it. He did not leave. Together, they stared at the waterfall. A tendril of steam unfurled between them.

“And sorry,” she ventured again, “is there... soap?”

“There’s a ledge beside the spray of water. Do you see it? There is soap on that ledge.”

“Oh, lovely. All of this is very welcome, indeed. My wound is almost healed, I assure you; but I’d be lying if I said a warm waterfall didn’t sound very therapeutic.”

More staring.

“After I’ve stepped into it,” she went on, “can I trouble you to, er, collect my dress and hang it by the fire? Even five minutes of heat would do it well, I think. I’ll just leave it—”

She glanced around.

“On the floor? Shall I?” she suggested. “It will soil your bedding if I lay it out.”

“I’ve a woman who comes several times a month to tend to the laundry and the floors. Please do not worry about the house.”

Ryan stared in the direction of the bed. Would it be too much to ask, she wondered, to request a change of clothes? She glanced back to him, clutching the towel.

“But can I impose on you for an old nightshirt or dressing gown that I might wear for sleeping...” She let the sentence trail off.

He made a second silent trip to the cupboard and returned with a folded garment in white linen. A man’s night shirt. She stacked it on top of the towel.

Ryan waited a beat, hoping he would say or do something to facilitate how she might go from standing there, clutching linens, to splashing about in his waterfall. It was a vain hope. He was silent. He was nothing if not consistent.

“Are you afraid?” he asked finally.

“Oh no—not afraid, more like uncertain. We bathe in a large copper tub at Winscombe. And when we swim, it’s in the Atlantic Ocean.”

He shook his head. “This is like standing in a warm summer rain, only better. Here—sit on this ledge.” He pointed to a shallow ridge of rock beside the waterfall.

“Now?” she heard herself ask.

“I’ll show you,” he said.

Still clutching the towel and nightshirt, Ryan settled on the ledge. The mist was thicker here, more like fog. Warm droplets dampened her face. She could feel her hair growing heavier, absorbing the moisture. A fine sheen of condensation settled on her dress and her hem soaked up water at her feet. She snatched up her skirts, exposing her ankles.

“Wait,” he said, frowning, “but have you worn your shoes?”

“Oh, well I’d not yet— You marched me here from the paddock.”

“First rule of the waterfall,” he said, taking a knee in front of her. “No shoes.”

While Ryan watched, he took up her heel and tugged off her left shoe. She’d not bothered with stockings, and her bare foot slid free. She settled it on the damp stone floor and he reached for the other foot, tugging at her shoe.

“The floor is so warm,” she said.

“The hot spring heats the rock.” He set her shoes away from the water. “Now put it in,” he said.

“In?”

“Put your foot beneath the spray.”

Ryan cinched her skirts higher and tentatively extended one foot to the stream of water.

“Ouch!” she gasped, snatching back her foot. “It’s boiling hot.”

He shook his head and reached for her foot. His fingers grazed her arch on the underside and the ball of her ankle above her foot. Ryan felt the contact up and down her leg.

“One stream of the water is very hot—yes,” he told her. He propped her foot on his bent knee. “The hot band of water comes from the thermal spring. But there’s another stream that falls beside it, and it’s very cold—the temperature of any stream you might encounter. When you bathe, you mix the two together. May I?”

Mesmerized, Ryan nodded. Carefully, he lifted her foot from his knee, extending her leg. With his other hand, he cupped the cascading water and ladled it over the proffered foot. Ryan jumped, afraid of being scalded, but the water from his palm was warm.

“Do you see?” he asked, his voice had gone hoarse. She looked to his face, studying his profile. He was intently focused on cradling her foot in his hand and diverting the falling water.

“Oh yes,” she said softly, “that’s very nice, actually.” She wiggled her toes and leaned back, giving him more leg. He slid his hand from her heel to her ankle, splashing the water higher. Ryan’s breath caught. The warm water on her cold foot sent tingles up her leg; his large hand on her ankle set off a fizzier, bolder wave of sensation.

“Give me your other foot,” he said, settling her first foot on the grate. He took up her other foot and squeezed, enclosing it in his large hand.

“You’re freezing,” he mumbled, massaging her foot. “It was careless to go back out.”

Ryan had some vague notion of carelessness and outside, but it was hardly her focus. Every pulse of attention was on his hands. She struggled to stay upright on the ledge. She had no words. She could only stare, vision blurred, at the top of his head as he bent over her foot. He knelt so close to the waterfall, moisture saturated his shirt. The fabric had gone translucent in the candlelight, and it clung to his muscled arms and shoulders. She’d known he was powerful—he’d carried her up a mountain—but seeing the size and shape of him kneeling at her feet? She couldn’t look away. Mindlessly, she settled a hand on her skirts and ever so carefully tugged, inching up the fabric to bare more ankle to him... then shin... then calf.

“Dip it in.” He extended her foot to the waterfall. His voice was now winded and rough. His chest rose and fell. He was... he was—

He feels it, too, she thought.

Ryan knew too little of men to assign a name to the “it” in question, but she could identify a shared experienced. She was also short of breath. Her hands shook. Did his heart pound? Her heart beat so furiously, it could fracture the walls of this cave.

“How does it feel now?” he rasped.

“What?” A whisper.

“The water? How does it feel?”

Glorious, she thought, but she said, “Hot and cold. Both at once. I feel heat around the edges and little stabs of cold in the middle. But also somehow warmth throughout?”

He glanced up at her. His eyes were half lidded. She wanted to touch his face.

“Yes,” he said, “it’s a mix; but you should feel warmth most of all.”

“I feel very warm, indeed,” she whispered. She used both hands to cinch up the hem of her dress, raising it to her knees.

“Allow me to...” he said, but he didn’t finish. He settled her foot on the grate—both feet now stretched into the cascade—and began to gently massage the warm water into her legs.

“Does the puncture wound pain you now?” he asked roughly.

She shook her head. She felt the opposite of pain. She felt only tingly, prickled pleasure and an urgent sort of building, a sense of anticipation, of breathless longing. His hands massaged higher on her leg with every swipe, and Ryan had never known such humming pleasure. She leaned against the damp rock and closed her eyes.

“Shall I help you unfasten your dress?” he rasped.

Her eyes sprang open. “Um...”

“It’s a waste to wash only your...” he turned back to her legs, bare now to the thighs “...feet,” he said.

“Well, I suppose if you don’t mind about the dress.”

He shoved up. “Turn round.”

Ryan blinked at the sudden command in his voice. Her heart twisted toward him, like he’d called it by name. Pulse racing, skin tingling, she retracted her legs and dropped her skirts. She stood on shaky legs and slowly revolved, presenting him with her back. He stepped to her.

For a long moment, he did nothing. She felt his looming presence like the hot vapor from the waterfall.

“Your hair is in the way,” he said.

Move it, she thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to invite this.

“Lady Marianne?” he prompted gruffly.

“Sorry.” She scooped her hair and swept it over her shoulder.

“There are no buttons,” he said.

“Oh—right. Well, they are hooks, I believe? You’ll take up the fabric on both sides of the seam and work it together until each hook releases. There are a great many of them unfortunately. The neck on this dress is rather high. But you need only do the top half. This will loosen the bodice, and I can spin the dress and manage the rest.”

These instructions were a miracle of composure. Her ability to concentrate had drained like the water in the grate—and good riddance. She didn’t want to think, she wanted only to feel.

He puffed out a breath like a man bracing to leap over a ravine. He brought his hands to the back of her neck, just below her hair. Ryan’s heart stopped. She grabbed handfuls of her wet skirts in both hands. Her whole life, she’d been dressed and undressed by other people; fussy maids, impatient sisters, her brisk, efficient mother. The feel of his large hands was as different from these as climbing a ladder was from falling to the ground. Now Ryan fell. Every nudge and jab reminded her that he was a man and his work was with saddles and rope, not ladies’ dresses. He fumbled with the first hook, but the second and third came easily. He jostled her as he worked, listing her this way and that, holding her steady with his own body, pressing his leg against her for leverage. Ryan could feel his breath on the back of her neck. By degrees, she felt the loosening bodice droop—

“What’s this?” he said suddenly, his hands going still.

“I beg your pardon?”

His voice was alarmed, sharp. The gruffness was gone. He sounded... angry.

“You’ve an abrasion on your neck,” he said. He retracted his hands and her bodice sagged. He stepped away. A chill rose up her spine.

“The skin is broken on your neck,” he said. “It looks as if you’ve been—but has someone garroted you, Lady Marianne?”

Ryan pressed the loosened bodice to her chest, holding it in place. “An abrasion?” she repeated, trying to comprehend. Her brain was swimming through the mist and the tingles and the closeness. She put a hand to her neck and—

—and remembered.How could she have forgotten?

“Oh,” she said. She turned to him, her cheeks burning. “Forgive me. It... it must look very gruesome indeed.”

“What’s happened to your neck?”

She raised her eyes to his. His expression was volatile.

Ryan felt the sting of sudden tears. He was angry? Him? He’d brought her here, he’d lied about his identity, he’d bathed her—touched her—and now he was angry with her?

Sheshould feel the volatility. She’d not planned to tell him about the marks on her neck—or the dog bite, for that matter. She’d planned to request his help plainly, calmly, with due gratitude and self-respect. It was how she preferred to be asked for help.

“Lady Marianne,” he repeated, “what’s been done to your neck?”

“I... lost a gold chain.”

“Lost it how?”

“It was a simple gold chain with a locket given to me by my late mother. It was... torn from me.”

“Torn?”

“Well, snapped off, I should say. It was a fine piece, in the end, because it refused to give without considerable effort. It took five or six firm yanks. The chain cut my skin.” She exhaled. “It’s healing. Like the wound on my leg, it’s healing—I will heal.”

“Maurice?” Prince Gabriel hissed.

She nodded, not taking her eyes from his.

“Why? Why would he tear jewelry from the body of... of his betrothed?”

“Do not say I am his betrothed,” she corrected, blinking back tears. “If I must be betrothed, it is to you.”

Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, a convict refusing his sentence. He took two steps back.

“Oh yes—deny it,” she said. “That is your luxury. Meanwhile, I’ve tried to deny the betrothal of the imposter, and he set his dogs on me and torn away my gold chain.”

“He’s a thief on top of everything else?” he gritted out.

“He didn’t steal the locket. He tossed it into the pond. My mother’s necklace. To make a point.”

“What point?”

“That he mustn’t be told no.”

“Told no for what?” he asked.

“For any reason,” she said, tears now spilling down her cheeks. “No I will not marry him. No he may not assume control of Winscombe. No he may not release our staff and install his own. No a manager from France may not replace my sister in tending the sheep. No I will not relocate to Paris to live in his castle. No he may not leer at my younger sister, nor corner her in passageways, nor grope her, nor intimidate any of us. It’s a rather long list, all the things I denied him; and he was spitting mad in the end.

“Even so,” she finished, swiping away tears, “no one was more shocked than me when he allowed his dog to attack me and then he garroted me—excellent description, by the way—with my own necklace.”

“Are there more?” he rasped.

“More what?”

“Do you harbor more wounds by his hand?”

“No,” she exclaimed, so very annoyed that it had come to this. “Surely one dog bite and the abrasion to my neck is enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Enough to justify me leaving my home and asking this very great favor of you.” Her neck burned and her leg ached and Ryan was suddenly cold all over.

He eyed her warily.

“Forgive this outburst Prince Gabriel,” she said—but then she remembered this wasn’t his preferred name. “Sorry, Mr.Rein. I find myself reeling from the carousel of emotions brought on by our introduction. My only goal in meeting you was to ask for a very little bit of help. Not a lot. I simply wanted you to publicly say your name and discredit your cousin. It was meant to be an inconsequential, totally reasonable request. Instead, I’m digging through your drawers and baring my cuts and bruises. I’ve somehow become the busybody; even worse, I’m the victim—which I hate. Not my planned method of persuasion, I assure you.”

“Saying a name publicly may seem reasonable,” he said, “but it can have far-reaching consequences, Lady Ryan. It’s no small thing to bring someone back to life after they’ve been given up for dead, least of all a prince. Even so, please do not misunderstand. I am very concerned. From the beginning, you’ve had my concern.”

“Let me be more clear,” she said tiredly. “I need less than a solution but more than concern. I need help. Not a lot, as I’ve said—just a little. At the moment, I’ll settle for this: Admit it. Admit that you are Prince Gabriel. The real, living Prince Gabriel d’Orleans.”

He stared at her, breathing in and out, in and out. Finally, he said, “I will hear it. I’ll hear what’s happened with Maurice. You can say it and I will listen.”

“Truly?” A rasp. She barely understood how they’d gone from feet washing to quarreling—and now he was inviting her to discuss Maurice? She’d begun to shiver; small, jarring shudders vibrated through her body. She was cold and hopeful and frustrated all at the same time.

“Now?” she said through teeth rattling.

“Have your bath,” he said. “Get warm. I will set out something to eat. We will... talk.” He began to back away.

She looked over her shoulder at the waterfall.

“Can you manage?” he called.

“Yes,” she said, “I can manage.”

In her head she thought, I can manage, I can manage, I can manage.

If only he understood how very proficient she was at managing... everything.

“I don’t mean to be a burden,” she said quietly, mostly to herself. She sighed quietly. She stepped toward the little ridge. “I simply need a favor.”