Chapter 16
By now, the stars were thick above them. So thick, Lily could see her own shadow. They needed no lamps at all.
The campfires had been banked, save for the night watch. The horses shifted in their night dance. Otherwise, all was quiet.
Edward led her a little way from the tent. He spread his mantle on the new spring grass and motioned her to sit.
Lily insisted on standing. A frown gathered on his brow.
One glance told her His Arrogance had returned. The soft moment they’d shared in the tent vanished.
“What is it you need to say to me that could not wait until the daylight?” he asked, his words clipped with impatience.
Lily had an urge to hit him. He accused her of impatience! She took a deep, calming breath. It almost strangled her, but she must hold to her purpose—where were they going?
Something wasn’t right. She could feel it, but she could not see it. Her eyes were veiled. The reason for that rested with this man.
“Cat got your tongue? Let me hear what couldn’t wait,” he pushed again.
“Might I point out…?” Lily scrambled to find her footing.
Much to her annoyance, he chuckled. His dimple winked at her. “It occurs to me, my lady, that you prevaricate. You have summoned me on false pretenses, for there is nothing urgent here,” he teased. “Could it be, you look for a tryst?”
“I am doing no such thing, and you know it,” she snapped and cringed because even to her own ears she sounded like a fishwife.
“Ah, lovely Lily, a man can but hope. Sometimes I find myself yearning, don’t you know? More petals, fewer thorns.”
Lily scowled at his tomfoolery. She had no intention of playing his flirting game. “I want—no, I demand that you tell me where we are going. And do not insult me by telling me Holt,” she flung her hand out. “Holt is that way,” she said, pointing over her shoulder. “Even I know that.”
Edward studied her for a full minute straight-faced. Then, very gently, he took hold of her hand and swung it in the opposite direction.
“Holt,” he told her carefully, “is over there.”
Lily chose to ignore the heat in her cheeks. “It matters not. The fact is we are not going in that direction, either. You have lied to me. How do you explain that?
“You are right,” he said after a pause, “I have not explained yet because there was no pressing reason to do so. Also, there is no easy way to tell you. However, I did not lie to you. I am taking you to a place where you will be safe.”
“Safe from whom?”
“Your unreliable, interfering, family for one—” he began, but Lily’s head jerked as if he had hit her, and he closed his eyes momentarily.
“My family?” She could not have been more shocked. “What do you mean?”
He ran his hand over the back of his neck and looked at her once more. Eye to eye, she stared right back.
Bebother and bash the man! She told herself in frustration.
Why did he have to be so… so beautiful? Like an elven prince, clothed all in starlight, all night shadows and mystery.
The very idea played havoc with her thoughts; it set off a fluttering feeling inside.
Feelings she did not want to acknowledge.
She could hardly concentrate on the matter at hand; he distracted her so.
Chiseled and proud, the jut of his jaw bathed as it was in the shadow of his bristles, his seductive mouth, he threatened her in ways she could not name. It set her nerves on edge. His height forced her to step back to see him.
She did not want to look upon him too much. He was too virile, too powerful, too everything. He could crush her and discard her with a flick of his hands.
A harsh sigh escaped him. “I have enemies. You know that. What I discovered a few days back is that the attempt that failed in Glumfell Forest would be made again. This time, your carriage would be ambushed on the way to Holt.”
“B-but what have your enemies to do with me? And you say my family is involved? How?”
“I’m getting to that,” he told her, his voice suddenly devoid of emotion.
He might as well have been describing a preference for a particular breed of sheep.
“I made certain that the ambush would fail way before they came within sight of you.
Their plan, once they snatched you, was to hide you somewhere in Wales.
Now that we are contracted, but not yet wed, they wanted control over you.
That is what they are after. To hold me hostage, keep you alive so that an annulment of our union would be impossible, as would the consummation.
I would not be free to wed and hence, eventually, when I died without legal issue, my properties would likely be returned to the crown.
Thus, they hope to have their confiscated land reinstated.
‘Tis the same plan that John Percy revealed to you, as you might recall?”
“Your tales are full of fancy, my lord. You think of your estates, your overlordship, but my father and brothers would search all of Wales and beyond until they found me. In any case, there’s no need for your tale of schemes and plots.
We are troth plighted before man and God, and king.
No one can separate us in this fanciful scheme you describe. ”
Edward’s face grew dark. He seemed to be opening his mouth to say something and then thought better of it.
“I am giving you the outline only, Lily. Who knows what chance may bring to each of us? I set out to stop their plan and did so. But now, I need to get you to safety and cover our tracks until we reach our destination.”
“And that is—?”
“Ravensworth.”
Lily gasped. His deceit revealed. All the pieces were falling into place. She wanted to cry out his betrayal; she wanted to break his sinewy arrogance. She saw it all, his machinations, his insistence on getting his own way. “Y-you perfidious… hell—”
“Careful,” he said, his voice very quiet now and edged with blades. “I do not suffer childish name-calling.”
“You suffer nothing, my lord Ravensworth. There is nothing that you are deprived of, nothing second place for you. You always win,” she said, trying to master her hot, tear-filled fury.
He did not reply.
“You had no intention of waiting the four months we so carefully negotiated. Negotiated, hah!” She put a hand to her temple.
He did not demur but gazed at her directly, stripping her resistance even across the space between them.
His words, frigid as midwinter, stabbed at her tender heart.
“I am a careful man. I intend to put the challenge beyond reach. Ravensworth’s walls will ensure that for me.
Both church and king grant me the right. ”
Who would have the audacity to gainsay him, Lily thought bleakly.
He reached out then and clasped her wrist. She looked at his large hand, and images played in her head of a cage door closing her in.
He could pulverize the bone with one squeeze, she thought almost hysterically. His power is overwhelming. She could feel his hand, and it burned her.
“You are to be my wedded wife, mam’selle, are you not?” he asked in a gentle voice.
She would have liked to defy him by not answering, but she could not escape his silent command that she confirm him.
“Are you not?” he rasped again.
“Yes,” she said, and her voice took flight as it left her mouth and the wind shredded it, and it vanished.
A satisfied look crossed his face, and his jaw became less rigid. “Then I will keep you, my lady, behind my walls so that you can become my bride in truth.”
“Perhaps,” she managed to say. It was bravado, and she knew it. Empty words. Anything to taunt him, anything to make her feel less vulnerable. “Much can happen between now and the walls of Ravensworth.”
Being satisfied with her earlier reply, he pulled her into his embrace and held her, tilting her chin up to receive his kiss.
He claimed her lips. Heat poured from him and sank into her heart, and she felt herself swept into a spinning vortex.
His touch set her alight. She thought to struggle, to deny him, but could not.
Her resistance was pitiful. She capitulated to his touch without a gesture of resistance. What was the matter with her?
For a moment, she pleaded with herself, not against but for the pleasure of his arms. Please a moment only. I can fight him tomorrow.
He seemed to sense her battle and gently stroked her hair. “Yield to me, Lily,” he said softly, and before she could answer, he pulled her closer.
She felt her breasts crushed against him, pressed against the solid wall of his chest. Both his arms slid down the curve of her hips to clasp her bottom, drawing her forcefully against his ridged thighs.
She was in no doubt where his passion went.
His hands were large, strong; he held her in place just where he wished, pushing into her, bringing her into contact with his arousal. She could smell his need, his potency.
All the while, his hungry kisses possessed and seduced her utterly.
His tongue filled her and filled her again, and she could not get enough of his taste, the texture of his velvet mouth.
She kissed him back with all the true emotion that swept through her, and she offered him everything.
Her hands splayed against his chest and trailed like silken ribbons over his face, his lids, the sweep of his jaw.
The extraordinary breadth of his shoulders.
As he touched her, so she attempted to copy him, sliding her arms around his taut hips, soothing him with long, languid strokes down his tight body. She could feel the impossible iron that bound the muscles of his arms, the expanse of his back.
He dominated her completely. From her throat came a small whimper of defeat.
“I want you, Lily,” he said softly into her mouth even as his lips placed light kisses upon the corners, on her closed lids, her forehead. “And I shall have you.”
And as suddenly as he’d embraced her, he ended it. For a minute, he stood there, adjusting his clothing, then taking her by the arm again, led her back to her tent. He tilted his head, indicating she should enter, but did not speak. In moments, he vanished into the night.