Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
J uliet melted into Horatio’s arms.
Her body pushed against his and she felt the hard muscles of his chest and stomach. Her hands were pressed against his pectorals, feeling the steel of his physique. She pressed with her fingertips, wanting to touch the tight skin beneath the clothes that separated them. Then she let her hands slip down, feeling the contours of his body.
It was deliciously reckless. Wonderfully wanton.
Her lips became warm and then hot, pressed against his. Her body was afire. His strong arms enveloped her, holding her against him. She had felt the strength of those arms before but never in passion. Now, she was acutely aware of his hands on her body. Aware that only thin layers of fabric separated them. A thin layer but frustratingly present, nonetheless.
Her head spun at the notion of being stripped of that barrier. She had been naked before him once. A barrier of branches and leaves had been all that protected her modesty then. He had not looked, she was sure. Now, he could if he wished.
Juliet moaned as his lips left hers, a moan of frustration. Until they returned to kiss her neck. Her body went limp, knees weak until she was held up by his embrace alone.
A sound reached her from behind. It was the growling of an angered animal. Reality rammed itself home into her consciousness.
Her eyes opened just as the crashing began. The crashing of an angry, bellowing bull forcing its way through the undergrowth.
Juliet looked up, seeing Horatio stare over her head, his eyes widening in alarm. Then he was spinning around, thrusting Juliet away from him. She fell, looking back to see Horatio placing himself between her and the man who was rushing out of the bushes with a long-bladed knife held low. His eyes were alight with malice and his face was covered in blood. He screamed his rage as he came, swinging back his arm to lash out with the knife in a deadly arc.
Horatio stepped forward into the path of the arc, and Juliet screamed her terror for him. He raised his arm and the blade bit into it. Horatio grunted, then grabbed for the arm that wielded the blade. But the man, Tom , was already twisting free, pulling his knife away and stabbing forward. Horatio was caught off balance, instinctively crouching to guard his wounded arm. The knife bit into his side and then skidded across his ribs. Horatio arched his back, crying out in pain. Tom was grinning beneath the blood that poured from a broken nose and split lip. His eyes found Juliet and the grin widened.
Horatio saw and grabbed the wrist holding the knife. He seized it, lifted the arm, and twisted it hard. Tom was spun around, knife falling from suddenly nerveless fingers. There was a loud crack and Tom screamed, a sound high-pitched. Horatio released him, dropping to one knee, one hand going to his side. Tom cast one frightened look at the pair of them and then stumbled away into the undergrowth, clutching his broken arm to his chest, abandoning the weapon with which he had tried to commit murder.
Juliet was frozen but only for a moment. She scrambled to Horatio’s side, ignorant of the mud and wet foliage around her. He looked at her with eyes tight with pain and tried to grin.
“I have done worse to myself when trying to get a stone out of Thunder’s hooves,” he muttered.
“Do not be foolish! I am not some shrinking violet that faints at the sight of blood,” Juliet told him.
Blood was flowing over Horatio’s left hand which was clamped over the wound on his right side. Gently, Juliet coaxed him back until he was sitting on the ground. She drew his hand away from the wound in his side and undid his coat, pushing it aside. Then she lifted his shirt from the waistband of his breeches. It was hard to see the wound properly beneath the blood that welled in it and coursed down his side.
She took off her cloak and picked up the discarded knife. With it, she cut a wide strip from the base of the cloak and wadded it up. Then she pressed it against the wound.
“Hold this in place with all your strength. Let us hope that it stops the bleeding and that the wound is not too deep,” she said.
Horatio watched her, face pale and teeth set.
“We need to get back to the castle so I can dress your wound properly,” Juliet told him.
A deafening peal of thunder drowned out Horatio’s reply. Juliet saw his lips moving but could not make out the words. The flash had come just seconds before the sound. Horatio looked around and shook his head.
“We’re a couple of miles from the castle. It isn’t safe to be in the woods with a storm over our heads. But I know somewhere close by where we can take shelter.”
He got to his knees awkwardly, one hand on the ground, the other pressed to his side. Impulsively, Juliet took his face in her hands and kissed him. It was a longer kiss than she had intended to give, but once her lips were against his, she could not stop. Quite involuntarily, her lips closed around his bottom lip and she found herself sucking it, hungrily drinking in the taste of him. When she opened her eyes, breath coming in short gasps, Horatio was smiling.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?” Horatio asked.
“For saving me. For not giving up on me. You should have. I will bring you nothing but pain.”
“We’ll see,” Horatio replied.
He stumbled to his feet and looked around the wood. Trees clustered around them with lush undergrowth in all directions, shaking from the impact of the rain upon leaves and fronds.
“This way,” he muttered, “hurry. The storm is directly overhead. Any one of these trees could be hit.”
Juliet followed him through the woods with flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder all around them. She flinched at each flash, expecting the peal of thunder to follow. Each time the sky lit up she looked at the tall, swaying trees with fear, anticipating the blaze of fire that would follow a strike.
Horatio stumbled, falling to his knees more than once as he led Juliet by the hand down a slope at the foot of which was a stream. It was a dozen feet wide and frothing where its swift water dashed against rocks beneath the surface. Horatio turned to follow the path of the stream, heading in the opposite direction to its flow. The trees overhead provided a tightly meshed canopy that held off some of the rain. But the sounds of the storm reached them with unsubdued ferocity.
“Not much further,” Horatio grunted, his boots slipping in the mud and almost sending them both into the fast-flowing stream.
They rounded a bend, and before them was an open area in which the stream widened and became shallow. On either side were broad expanses of shingle and sand, the trees withdrawing. On the other side of the ford, nestled against the gentle slope of a hillside meadow, was a ramshackle stone building. It had empty windows and the remains of a square tower at one end which ended in uneven stonework not far from the broken roof.
“It looks like a church…” Juliet murmured.
“It was . Very old and a very long time since it was used as such. I discovered it when I was a boy. And I unearthed much older foundations next to it, where the stream has eroded away the bank. Roman, I believe. A very old place indeed.”
They splashed through the stream, coming under the full force of the storm until they were stooping through the low doorway to the old church and into cool, dark safety within.
Juliet found herself in a small chapel open to the sky at one end, where the altar would have been. Ancient pews still stood here and there, as though scattered. The wood was dusty and dry seeming. The flagstone floor was carpeted in dust, through which the tracks of animals and birds could be seen. The storm seemed to lessen its intensity when they stepped inside. The rain didn’t seem as loud or the thunder as close.
Horatio staggered to a pew and sat with a sigh. Juliet knelt before him, still holding the long-bladed knife. She set to her cloak to make bandages and dressing. Glancing around, she saw water collecting in an old pewter dish and went to collect it. Bits and pieces of pew were scattered in the dry part of the church and she built them up into a small fire. Finally, she struck the blade of the knife against a corner of upraised flagstone, throwing up sparks that eventually set light to her gathered kindling. She placed the pewter on top of the fire to allow the water to be brought to the boil.
Horatio watched with an interested expression.
“There is a school of thought that proposes boiled water is better than cold for cleaning wounds. I am unsure as to why,” Juliet murmured as she toiled away, “but I have read it. Perhaps the heat purifies the water.”
“Interesting notion. I would have splashed rainwater on it. Where did you read this?”
“A friend of mine keeps a large and varied library. He sends me books he thinks I would find interesting,” Juliet said.
“ He ?” Horatio probed. “Should I be jealous?”
Juliet flushed as she crouched beside her makeshift kettle. “I don’t know. Kissing me does not mean that you care enough to become jealous at the presence of another man.”
“I was told that you are promised to another,” Horatio said, “yet you allowed me to kiss you.”
Juliet considered her answer. It involved a secret that was not hers to tell.
“I am not. But I pretend to be,” she finally said.
Horatio looked confused. “What would be the point of that? Do your Aunt and Uncle try to force you into marriage?”
“They have suggested matches. None of them what I would regard as suitable. And I have become increasingly afraid that I will eventually have to accept one of them because I am living off my Aunt and Uncle’s charity. I do not like being their dependent.”
“Understandable,” Horatio replied, wincing as he shifted in his seat, “but why not simply find a husband of your own? You are a beautiful, intelligent, and accomplished woman.”
Juliet blushed even more deeply and looked away.
“I mean it,” Horatio continued, earnestly. “I cannot conceive why you are not married yet.”
“I have told you,” Juliet murmured, unable to look at him now, “I do not want to make a man whom I care about into a widower.”
“Your Aunt claims there is no illness.”
Now, Juliet looked up. There was fire in her eyes. “She is lying. You have seen the attacks I have suffered. I am not prone to swooning over nothing, I can assure you.”
“I believe you,” Horatio said, simply. “So what does this other man get out of your… arrangement?”
“He is just a friend who wishes to help,” Juliet said, evading the question.
Nigel’s secrets were his own to keep. She would not betray him by telling Horatio the real reason that Nigel wanted to pretend to be engaged.
“Just a friend,” Horatio said, flatly.
“Yes. Just as you and I are… what are we? Engaged to be married but in name only? Or perhaps not even that. Frances thinks it is she who will be your wife of convenience.”
“She cannot compare to you. You are as beautiful as you are enigmatic. I have never met a woman so able to tie my heart into knots,” Horatio muttered.
He levered himself to his feet and Juliet stood, crossing the floor to him and pushing him back down.
“No. Stay where you are or you will open the wound further. I am going to remove your coat, waistcoat, and shirt, then clean and bind the wound.”
Horatio smiled as he obeyed, watching her as she set about her work. Juliet knew she was blushing furiously as she undressed Horatio. Even blood-streaked and rain-soaked, his body was remarkable. Juliet wondered if all men were so endowed with the body of a demi-god. She thought of Hercules as she dipped a wad of cloak into the boiling water and set about wiping away blood from his side. Horatio watched her face the entire time, not wincing or making a sound. So he was stoic, as well as brave and strong. A true hero of fairy tales. As she scrubbed at the blood, Juliet saw Horatio’s pale skin revealed. Just as she had seen it after he emerged from the water of the mere. She felt the scarring that reached around from his back.
“What happened here?” she whispered, letting her fingers linger for a moment.
“I was working at an inn in Cornwall, owned by my good friend and savior, Dickens Hall. There was a fire. I dragged Hall through it and timbers fell across my back. He in turn came back to drag me out. We saved each other, but the inn burned to the ground. I discovered that my father had never formally removed me as his sole heir a month later.”
“Dickens Hall? As in…”
“ Mr. Hall , the butler of Ravenscourt. Yes, I gave him the job, just as he once employed me when he found me starving and close to death by the roadside.”
Juliet pressed a wad of fresh cloth, cut from her cloak, against the newly cleaned wound, and began binding the dressing in place with a bandage from the same source. The revelation was a remarkable one. He had already mentioned to her his time spent wandering the byways of England but she had imagined him a wandering gentleman, with money in his pocket. Not a starving wretch. Or the employee of an innkeeper. There were layers to this man that she had not dreamed of.
“I’m sorry for the part I played in the circumstances that led you to that roadside,” she said, suddenly.
“Do not be. If you had not, then Dickens Hall would be dead, and I would be the poorer for not having his advice, wisdom, and friendship.”
Juliet nodded, pulling the bandages tight and tying them.
“That is well, but I still regret that I did not stand up to the bullies who were trying to destroy you. I should have had more strength of character,” she muttered fiercely.
“Easily said but not done. Especially for an orphan of… what? Thirteen, fourteen? You could not have been much older than that.”
“I was not,” Juliet exhaled.
“Besides, if you hadn’t, then we would not be here. We would never have met.”
Juliet looked into his eyes at that moment. Something in his voice had changed. He was staring at her as though drinking in every line of her face. Every nuance.
“Would that be a bad thing?” Juliet whispered, “I am doomed to die young like my mother.”
“Then we must make every moment count,” he whispered back.
He took her face in his hands and kissed her.