Chapter Six
“A ll ready to ride!” Tessa hurried into the stable yard where Chase stood next to two saddled horses, talking to Tanner, the only groom still employed at the castle. Her stomach pinched with nerves, although God knew she had no reason to be nervous. She’d known Chase for years, considered him to be an older brother—
Except that the thoughts about him that had invaded her dreams last night were anything but brotherly.
Dream after dream had left her tossing and turning, from ones in which she continued to waltz with him across the countryside and into the dawn, to others in which he stopped dancing and pulled her into his strong arms, lowered his head, kissed her…and nothing like the kinds of kisses Robert Renslow had attempted to steal during their walks and quiet conversations. Robert’s kisses had left her bored. Nothing about Chase bored her. Never had, even when she’d been little more than an admiring young miss. Certainly, her foolish mind knew that, and that was why it had filled itself with such wild images that she’d woken in a scarlet flush.
There had been nothing to do about it except to tell him exactly what a horse’s arse he’d been to her, Winnie, and their family, and right to his face, too. So she had come here to do exactly that, only to find herself sympathizing with him. He was nothing short of a charming devil, without even having to try.
But when he saw her, the surprised gaze he raked over her from head to toe was as good as a splash of cold water in bringing her right back to reality.
So was the frown that followed immediately in its wake.
She hadn’t found ladies’ riding clothes anywhere. For heaven’s sake, what good was a three hundred room castle if it couldn’t even cast up one old riding habit? So she’d no choice but to don a groom’s old clothes she’d found in storage—a coarse brown jacket and waistcoat over a work shirt buttoned at her neck and men’s trousers, complete with a pair of worn boots. Her hair was tucked up beneath a tweed cap, and a pair of leather riding gloves dwarfed her small hands.
Chase pointed his riding crop at her. “Which stable boy did you accost to get those?”
“I’ll never tell.” She stopped in front of him, took the riding crop from his hand, and slapped it against her boot to remove a piece of dried mud. “Besides, according to your housekeeper, there isn’t a riding habit anywhere in the castle.”
“I suppose not.” He turned to squint toward the sky where the sun should have been if not for the layer of thickening clouds lowering slowly over the castle like a lid. The weather threatened to end their ride before it had even begun. “Eleanor didn’t like horses. She was afraid of them and never learned to ride.”
Irritation burst inside her at his unintended comparison, and Tessa tapped the riding crop against his chest. “I’m not Eleanor.”
“No.” An inscrutable expression gripped his face as he took back the crop. “You’re certainly not.”
A roiling emotion she couldn’t quite name rippled warmth through her, and she turned away before he could see any rising color in her cheeks.
The groom helped her onto a bay mare while Chase easily swung up into the saddle of his gray gelding. Then they set off together down the front drive, only for Chase to lead her away from the wide, tree-lined avenue and across the cliff tops stretching away toward the north side of the estate, where the old deer park edged against acres of orchards and gardens.
Tessa had always been a solid horsewoman, ever since her father taught her how to ride on a Shetland pony when she’d been only four, and she easily kept up with Chase. Too easily. Their pace was frustratingly slow, and even her mare noticed their snail’s pace, shaking the reins and tossing her head for the freedom to run. Perhaps he didn’t think her capable of handling a horse, too afraid she’d hurt herself, and so kept their pace painfully slow out of some misguided attempt to protect her. Worse—that she was too much of a proper lady to enjoy racing across the cliff tops.
Well, that could never stand.
So when they reached the edge of the flat downs stretching above the water below, Tessa loosened the reins, tapped her heels against the mare’s sides, and, with an exhilarated laugh, sent the horse forward into a gallop.
“Keep up, if you can!” she shouted back at Chase.
She lowered herself in the saddle and urged the mare to race faster toward the two abandoned cottages in the distance where the ground sloped down toward a rocky beach, their whitewashed stone walls and shuttered windows made eerie beneath the gray clouds. Even from the cliff tops and despite the pounding of horse hooves, she could hear the crashing surf thundering against the rocks far below.
Her mount wanted to run, so she gave the mare her head and let her find her own pace as her hooves ate up the ground beneath her. Oh, it felt wonderful! Tessa hadn’t ridden like this in far too long, and Lady Bentley’s restrictions on her behavior this season had her chomping at the bit for freedom as much as her horse was.
Behind her, Chase’s gelding surged into a gallop. He pulled up even with her, her little mare no match for his larger horse. When Tessa glanced sideways at him, she saw a look on his face that tore her breath away. Happiness.
She urged her mare to go even faster as the cottages rapidly approached, but Chase won their race by a nose. She suspected he’d held his horse back to make the race more of a match than it actually was, but she didn’t care. What mattered was that when she dropped to the ground, gasping to catch back her breath, he was laughing as hard as she was in genuine pleasure.
“I won,” she announced as she tied her horse to an old post at the side of the cottages.
“What on earth makes you think that? You came in second.”
“Yes,” she challenged, giving him a sly smile. “But I had better riding form.”
He shook his head. “You’ve been in society too long if you think that’s what matters in a horse race.”
“‘A proper young lady does not ride horses beyond a gentle trot,’” she mimicked Lady Bentley’s high-pitched, nasally voice as she followed him toward the cottages. “‘And even then, she must pretend to be frightened witless so that the gentleman with her can think himself superior.’”
“Good God,” Chase muttered. “Is that the kind of nonsense she’s been feeding you?”
“‘And better yet if she can appear to lose her seat and need to be rescued by her suitor,’” she added in reply, then grinned. “What do you think, Chase? Should I have screamed in terror at the bounce of a trot and pretended to let you rescue me?”
“Thank goodness I’m not your suitor,” he said as he approached the door of the first cottage and shoved it open. “I don’t think I’d survive.”
“Yes,” she repeated with a tight smile, not letting the unintended sting of his comment show. “Thank goodness.”
“Has Mr. Renslow ever rescued you from a trotting horse?” he asked as he stood in the doorway and glanced around at the cottage, as if appraising its state of disrepair in the face of deteriorating weather.
“I don’t believe Robert rides, at least not for fun. He seems too serious, too focused on his work, for such distractions.”
Hands on hips, he stared up at the roof and the patch of gray sky visible through the beams and slate tiles. “And you think you two will be well-matched for a marriage?”
“As well as any marriage, I suppose.”
“Does he know what kind of spirit you possess?”
“‘Never reveal your true nature until you’ve signed the church registry,’” she imitated Lady Bentley again. “‘By then, it’s too late for the gentleman to do anything about it but accept it.’”
Chase shot her a look over his shoulder and ordered, “Keep that woman away from Winnie.”
Tessa laughed.
He stepped inside the dark interior of the empty building, and Tessa followed, greeted by a whoosh of stale, musty air. He crossed to the window to throw open the shutters.
“I haven’t been inside these buildings for over a decade,” he mused. “And they haven’t been used in far longer than that.”
“You should repair these two cottages. I’m certain there are tenants in the village who would love to live here. You could put in a sheep pen behind this one, a garden between them, or turn one into a drying shed as long as the other is inhabited to keep thieves and smugglers away.”
He sent her a curious glance. “I didn’t realize you knew about estate affairs.”
“I know a lot of things.” She couldn’t help but twist the digging knife of that rejoinder and muttered beneath her breath, “And you would know that if you were around more often.”
A grudging smile played faintly at his lips. “I suppose I deserve that. I’ve just never encountered a lady who cared about estate business, that is beyond whatever pin money it generates for her.” Then he let his smile quirk into a grin. “Perhaps you should forgo marriage and become a farmer.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And perhaps you should go jump in—”
“Seriously, Tessa.” He reached past her shoulder to pick at a large splinter on the doorframe. “Are you certain Renslow’s a good match for you?”
“Yes, I do.” Not at all. But there would be time to learn more about each other during the rest of the season. On paper, he was the perfect husband for her. She just had to make the rest of it work.
He kept his attention focused on the doorframe behind her, half-trapping her between his arm and the door. “So you’ve given him permission to pursue you?”
She laughed, albeit a bit too loudly. “You make it sound as if he’s hunting me like a doe!”
His dark eyes found hers. “Isn’t he?”
“No.” She swallowed hard as he shifted his weight and brought himself closer to her. “If anything, I’m the one who’s pursuing him.”
“Because you need a husband.”
“Because I want a husband.” She added in Lady Bentley’s voice, “‘And a rich husband is as easy to love as a poor one.’”
Chase didn’t laugh as she’d hoped. Instead, he took the liberty of slowly reaching for the collar of her jacket and gently straightening it. “Promise me you’ll do that.”
Her skin tingled where the backs of his knuckles brushed against her neck. “Do what?”
“Love the man you marry. No matter who he is or how much money he possesses—or doesn’t.” He fussed with her shirt collar and the plain neck cloth she’d haphazardly tied around her neck. “Promise me that you won’t marry anyone you don’t love, no matter what kind of pressure you feel to wed.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” she dared to ask yet couldn’t make her voice emerge louder than a husky whisper.
“Yes.”
His hand fell away, and he stepped back, turning away from her for one last glance around the cottage before walking outside.
Tessa followed after and joined him as he circled the two cottages, examining the exteriors as closely as he had the inside. But tension hung on the air between them now, and unease roiled in her belly. She understood his grief, but she didn’t owe him any explanation about her choices for the future. Not when he’d left the way he had, not when he planned to leave again—
“Mr. Renslow is joining Lady Bentley and me for dinner tonight,” she confessed, unable to stop herself. “I plan on telling him then that he has permission to court me. There’s no point in putting it off any longer.”
“No, I suppose not,” he mumbled, distracted by the condition of the cottages.
“He truly is a good man, Chase.” Her words didn’t seem to convince him. “I’ll be lucky to be his wife, and he’ll be kind to Winnie.” And he would keep them off the streets and out of the poorhouse, which was exactly where they would be heading if she didn’t find a husband. Soon. “I don’t want you interfering.”
He gave her a look of such exaggerated innocence she half-expected to hear an angel strumming a harp. “Why would I interfere?”
She arched a brow. “Because you don’t want me to make the same mistakes you did?”
“Exactly. Which is why you need to trust me when I tell you that—”
He broke off, his narrowed gaze drifting over her shoulder and along the ground as it sloped away from the cottages, down toward the rocky beach at the water’s edge. He froze, all of him tensing visibly, except for the flaring of his eyes and the instant paling of his face.
“Chase?” She turned to follow his gaze. “What is it?”
“Thomas,” he whispered, barely above a breath, his attention glued to the beach.
A chill darted up her spine. “What are you—”
“Thomas!” He broke into a run, charging down the rapidly sloping ground like a bull. His boots pounded over the turf. “Thomas!”
Each shout, yelled at the top of his lungs, pierced her, and her heart froze with an agonizing jolt. Whatever he’d seen—no, whatever he thought he’d seen—there was absolutely no possibility of it being his dead son.
“Chase!” She took off after him, but her shorter strides were far slower.
By the time she reached the small beach, he had already scrambled across rocks the size of traveling trunks that lined the narrow strip of sand where the receding tide lapped at the land in relentless waves. He stopped at the water’s edge and lowered onto his boot heels, staring at something lying against the rocks.
Tessa slowed as she drew nearer. She approached carefully, her footing unstable on the slippery rocks, and peered over his shoulder at a tangled mass of what looked like a clump of old sails and ropes, discarded from some boat plying the coastal waters and thrown up by the churning sea.
Chase didn’t move as he continued to kneel over the mass.
“I thought…” he murmured, his troubled voice barely louder than the waves slapping at the rocks only a few feet away. “For a moment, I thought…”
“I know,” she whispered and rested her hand on his jacket. Squeezing his shoulder reassuringly, she lowered herself to sit on the rocky outcrop next to him. He shook beneath her hand.
“I saw this on the rocks, and I wasn’t thinking—” He broke off and pulled in a breath so deep it shivered through him. “I know it couldn’t have been Thomas. But when I saw it…when I thought…”
“I know,” she repeated and wrapped her arms around him. She was desperate to ease the pain overwhelming him. “We all want them to still be alive,” she whispered, afraid he couldn’t hear her over the waves, yet afraid to put voice to those words at all. “I still have dreams about Eleanor returning home, as if she’d simply taken a holiday.” She tightened her hold around his shoulders. “But it’s all right to think of them, to miss them so much we think we could have them back with us.”
His eyes squeezed shut against the demons he carried inside him, as if he couldn’t bear to look at the piece of cloth and rope that had tricked him.
Her heart wept for him. She whispered in his ear the only words she thought might bring him comfort, “You’re going to be all right, Chase.”
Instead of agreeing with her, he stiffened. He rocked back onto his boot heels and removed himself from the comforting circle of her arms. The hard look he fixed on her made her shiver.
“We both know better,” he told her, his voice as cold as ice.
Her lips parted, not knowing what to say in reply to that self-damnation. What it must have cost him to admit to something like that, to let her glimpse such a deep vulnerability… But her chest ached with a blackness she hadn’t felt since she first heard the news of the boat’s sinking—grief. Inconsolable. For him.
She hesitated, momentarily overwhelmed, and bit her bottom lip, her mind whirling in desperation to find the words to reassure him that he was wrong. Dear God, what he had been through in the past two years, what he was still going through—
“You will be all right,” she whispered, but no sound came from her numb lips. We both will.
If he heard her, he didn’t let any reaction show through the impenetrable mask his face had become. Instead, he rose to his full height and silently held out his hand to her.
She stared up at him. The wind buffeted his back, stirring his hair and tossing the tail of his greatcoat around his legs, making him resemble a vengeful god emerging from the sea. Or a harbinger of something dreadful about to happen.
Shaking away a rising shiver, she slid her trembling hand into his, and he helped her carefully over the slippery rocks and away from the water, back toward the rising slope that cut a path up to the cottages and their waiting horses. She allowed herself one surreptitious glance over her shoulder, back down at the tangle of sail and rope wedged against the rocks. Even from this distance, she could easily see that the shapeless mass wasn’t a child. It wasn’t even close to resembling one, and the rip in her heart for him tore deeper.
They didn’t talk as he helped her onto her horse, with the ride back to the castle just as awkwardly silent. The wind had picked up, saturating the coast in a briny stench of salt and seaweed, and in the distance, she could see the slant of dark-gray lines where rain poured down from the clouds. They returned to the castle just as the first sprinkling of cold mist began to fall onto their heads.
When they rode up to the stables, Tanner wasn’t there to take the horses. So they both dismounted and led them inside to tie them to their stall doors.
Tessa leaned her shoulder against one of the posts lining the wide central aisle and watched Chase as he unsaddled both horses. The man was an enigma, always had been. How he had been able to grow into such a good man without a father or a loving mother she would never know, but she did know it came at the cost of keeping his heart from everyone, including his wife. And her.
Perhaps that was what happened to little boys who were forced to grow up too quickly. They spent so much time protecting themselves that they never learned to trust that affection could be real and selfless.
But she could also recognize the soldier in his proud bearing—the same one her father had possessed before Genappe. She saw it in every inch of him, even as he led each horse into its stall and lingered to give the mare an apple from the burlap sack on the floor.
“I’ll ask Tanner to ready the carriage to return you to Weymouth,” Chase informed her as he stripped off his gloves and tossed them onto a nearby bench. “I know you’ll want to leave as soon as possible.”
Tessa straightened away from the post, her hands falling to her sides.
“And you don’t need to find an excuse for rescinding your decision to stay here. I understand completely that you’ve changed your mind.”
She put her hands on her hips. “The hell I have.”
His eyes darted to hers as she slowly approached him.
“Understand this, Chase Maddox,” she warned. “I am not the kind of woman to be run off so easily. I told you I’d help you go through the rooms and close up the castle, and I meant it.” Then she added, lifting her brow, “Nodcock.”
His lips twisted into a grimace. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Impulsively, she darted up onto her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
She’d kissed him like that a hundred times in the past, ever since they’d met, when it had become clear to her how important this man would be to her family. But never before had she lingered with her lips against his cheek like this, her body pressed lightly into his. All her senses swam as his nearness assaulted them, from the warmth of his skin beneath her lips to the wonderful scent of him—a masculine mix of man, horse, leather, and cognac that filled her until goosebumps sprouted across her arms and the back of her neck tingled. The solidity of his body gave her instant reassurance. More than that, she felt the undeniable urge to lose herself in his strength.
Oh, what an utter cake she was! Foolishness heated her cheeks as she began to lower herself to move away.
He took her arms and stopped her.
She stilled, leaning half against him in an unsteady incline and supported only by his hands. “Chase,” she whispered.
Releasing a ragged sigh that shook his entire body, he lowered his lips to hers.
Tessa caught her breath, but the feel of his lips on hers wasn’t threatening or discomfiting. He felt familiar and safe, and she craved that security, leaning in closer until her soft front pressed against his hard chest. For a moment, she feared he could feel her pounding heart—no, that it pounded so fiercely he could hear it the same way she heard the coursing of blood in her ears with each jarring beat. Yet he was doing nothing but barely touching his lips to hers, barely moving them in faint, feather light caresses that made her wonder if he was even aware of what he was doing, or if he’d fallen into some sort of trance, the same way he had on the beach.
Then the kiss changed, and his lips increased their pressure.
There was no mistaking any longer that he was completely aware of what he was doing, but what was painfully clear was that he wasn’t kissing her from desire but from an attempt to find comfort and solace, for both of them.
Her chest squeezed beneath a riot of swirling emotions as his arm slipped around her waist and drew her tightly against him, while his other hand cupped her jaw. His lips teased hers, nibbling at the corners of her mouth and brushing back and forth in a way that was just as tempting as soothing. She couldn’t sort through all the thoughts spinning through her head or stop the growing flutters of warmth low in her belly, but she also couldn’t bring herself to move away. So when his hand slid to the back of her neck and his fingers began to tantalizingly massage her nape in tender entreaty, she softened her mouth and parted her lips.
A tension she hadn’t realized had been gripping him eased from his shoulders at her soft surrender, and he took her bottom lip between his and gently sucked. The soft draw pulled an ache down between her legs, and suddenly, she felt incredibly self-conscious to be wearing men’s clothing. Yet not self-conscious enough to end the kiss, finding just as much solace in the embrace as Chase.
But always she sensed the grief in him, lying just beneath the surface of his hard biceps that flexed beneath her fingers as she tightened her hold on him, penetrating through the taste of his warm lips enveloping hers. Even in the daring touch of the tip of his tongue to hers— especially in that, because as soon as he did it, he drew back, as if afraid of letting himself deepen the kiss too much.
A wave of regret crashed through her that he would hesitate when they both wanted it. So she mustered her courage and boldly touched her tongue to his, the way he’d been hesitant to do to her.
“Tessa,” he groaned into her mouth.
“You don’t…” she murmured against his lips, but when his tongue swept provocatively across her bottom lip and stirred such longing in her that she trembled, she couldn’t remember the rest of what she’d been about to say. She could do nothing more than sigh and welcome the gentle pulse of his tongue between her lips.
Then he was gone, stepping back and breaking the kiss so suddenly that she followed after him on one wobbly step, like a piece of metal pulled by a magnet. He didn’t stop backing away until he had put the width of the aisle between them.
Tessa stared at him, blinking rapidly. As her foggy brain fought desperately to clear itself, her foolish heart lurched into her throat, as if to cry out for more—more kisses, more comfort and security…more him .
“Your Grace!” a voice called out apologetically, followed by the sounds of quickening boot steps on the gravel fronting the stables. “Apologies, sir! I didn’t realize you’d returned.”
“It’s all right, Tanner,” Chase answered as the groom hurried into the stables. “We’ve unsaddled the horses. Please brush them down.”
“Yes, sir.” The groom tugged at his tweed cap in deference as he stepped past them toward the two stalls where the horses swung their heads out into the aisle in impatience for his attention.
Chase’s dark eyes never left Tessa’s mouth. His heated gaze stirred a ghost ache as if she could still feel his kiss, still cajoling for her surrender.
She reached up a trembling hand to touch her lips.
“Tanner,” Chase said as he dropped his gaze and reached down to snatch up his gloves, “would you have the carriage readied to take Miss Albright back to Weymouth?”
“Yes, please,” she interjected before the groom could reply, her hand falling to her side.
Chase’s expression turned inscrutable, the shuttering mask darkening his face and making it impossible to read his thoughts. As her stinging eyes stared at him now, with his arms crossed over his chest in his best impersonation of an immoveable mountain, she saw the old Chase she used to know…the man who had once hid all his emotions and deepest thoughts from the world, even from the people who cared most about him.
Yet she’d had fleeting glimpses today of the new man he had become over the past three years, of the vulnerability he would never have dared revealed before.
She refused to let him change back.
“I want to leave right away.” She lifted her head defiantly. “After all, I need to pack.” Her eyes fixed on his so there would be no misunderstanding, brooking no argument over her decision. “My sister and I will be arriving at the castle tomorrow for an extended stay.”