Not the Dukes Darling by Hoyt, Elizabeth (19)

The blast of the gunshot deafened Freya and she jerked, hitting her head against stone. Had both men’s guns gone off? Oh God! Where was Harlowe? Had Lord Randolph shot him?

Was he dead?

She wrenched at her bonds, trying to get her hands free, and rocked violently on the floor of the nook she was in.

And then she heard his voice. “Freya. Freya.”

Warm hands grasped her, and Harlowe’s face was pressed against her own. Tears started in her eyes, running sideways down her face because she’d fallen to the side. How dare he frighten her so? How dare he make her think he’d left forever?

He was shaking, his big body trembling with panic tightly kept in check.

Damn it. She needed to talk to him. To tell him it was all right.

They were both alive.

His hands were on her now, cutting away at the cords with a penknife, and he was murmuring all the time.

“You’re fine. It’s all right. Don’t be afraid. God, Freya, God.”

Her hands came loose and she tore the cloth from her mouth. She caught his face between her palms and pulled him to her, kissing him.

Tasting his life. Tasting the salt of her own tears.

“Kester,” she whispered. “Kester.”

She was shaking, and he caught her in his arms. “It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s all right.”

He thought she was frightened for herself, she could tell, but that wasn’t it. The entire time Lord Randolph had held them, she’d thought only of Harlowe.

She tried to tell him that, but her words were caught underneath his lips, and then he was lifting her into his strong arms.

He turned, and she saw lights coming closer from the foot of the spiral staircase.

“Your Grace!” one of the Lovejoy footmen called. “What happened?”

“Lord Randolph tried to kill Miss Stewart,” Harlowe said as they went by. He never broke stride. She could see that his face was gray and drawn in the candlelight. “I shot him.”

Someone swore.

Freya said frantically, “Don’t forget Messalina and Lady Randolph.”

Harlowe met her eyes and paused. “Miss Greycourt and Lady Randolph are in the next room. Lady Randolph will no doubt need a physician.” He glanced at the footmen. “Make sure Viscount Stanhope doesn’t interfere.”

Freya saw the footmen hurrying to the room where Messalina and Eleanor were as Harlowe turned and carried her away.

“I can walk,” she said, less loudly than perhaps she might’ve.

“No.” He mounted the stairs seemingly without effort.

The Randolph kitchen was crowded with men.

“Your Grace,” Lord Lovejoy said, looking flushed. Aloysius Lovejoy and Lord Rookewoode were behind him. “My wife told me that you were in need of help.”

Harlowe nodded. “Your footmen are below and may need assistance in bringing Lady Randolph up the stairs. She has been most terribly treated by her husband.”

“She’s alive?” Lord Lovejoy’s jaw dropped.

Harlowe merely nodded, setting Freya down on a chair.

“I really can walk,” Freya said softly as Harlowe examined her scraped wrists. “Harlowe?”

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said abruptly, head bowed over her hands. “Damn it, Freya, why the hell didn’t you rouse me and tell me where you were going? Lady Lovejoy had to wake me to alert me to the fact that you were in trouble.” He glanced up finally, and she could see that his brilliant blue eyes were haunted. “I could’ve slept through your murder.”

“It’s my work,” she said, knowing it sounded weak. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head and then, evidently deciding that her wrists were fine, lifted her again.

“Harlowe?”

He ignored her, striding through the house and out into the yard.

The sun was just breaking over the horizon.

There were horses tied in the stable yard, and he placed her on the back of one, swinging himself up behind her.

He rode back to Lovejoy House with her in his arms, still without speaking.

Almost as if he were afraid of what he might say if he opened his mouth further.

Freya closed her eyes. Perhaps she ought to be supervising Lady Randolph’s release or arguing feminine autonomy with Harlowe. But all she could bring herself to do was enjoy the slight breeze on her face, the rocking of the horse beneath them, and the warm, solid feel of Harlowe behind her.

She was alive.

They both were.

Harlowe insisted on continuing to carry her when they reached Lovejoy House. They swept past an astonished, sleepy butler and up the stairs to Harlowe’s room.

He kicked the door shut behind them.

Tess trotted over, tail wagging, to greet them.

Harlowe placed Freya on the bed as carefully as if she’d been made of eggshell and began to undress her.

She watched him, this grave, handsome man. This man who had killed another for her.

The man she’d thought she’d never see again only hours before.

His brows were drawn together as if he worked on the most important chore in the world.

Several strands of hair had come loose from the tie at the nape of his neck. She lifted a hand and stroked a lock back over his ear.

“I thought Randolph might’ve already killed you,” he said, his voice low. “When Stanhope led me to the cellar. I thought Stanhope might be about to show me your body before Randolph killed me.”

Her hand stilled, and then she lightly touched his cheekbone. “But he didn’t. I’m alive.” She searched his cerulean eyes. “You came down into that horrible cellar for me. You put aside your own agony to save me.”

He shook his head as if denying any bravery and pulled her bodice and stays off. He threw them rather cavalierly to the floor before removing her skirts, stockings, and shoes.

“I didn’t know what I would do if Randolph had killed you,” he said, standing to kick off his shoes. “I thought about letting him shoot me.”

Her heart seized and she said very carefully, “I’m glad you didn’t.”

He stripped off coat, waistcoat, shirt, breeches, and underclothes, and then pulled her to her feet.

He lifted her chemise over her head without saying a word.

She started to speak, then saw his set face and raised her arms instead.

Then she was as nude as he.

Only at that point did he pause, his hands hovering as if he was afraid to touch her.

She looked at him and saw bleakness in his face.

That wouldn’t do.

She lifted her hand and laid her palm over his left nipple.

Over the place where his heart beat most powerfully.

She could feel the beat beneath her fingers, strong and steady.

Rather like the man himself.

“Freya,” he whispered, and drew her into his arms.

He was so warm. His chest pressing against her breasts, his thighs on hers. His cock bumping into her belly.

He bent his head and kissed her. Sweetly at first, his lips brushing over hers.

But that didn’t last long. As if a chain had snapped, he opened his mouth hungrily over hers. She parted her lips, letting him tip her back, feeling the room whirl as he picked her up and set her on the bed again.

“Freya.” He lifted his head to whisper against the corner of her jaw. To trail his lips down her neck, to mouth at her collarbone. His hands were stroking, caressing her hips, her belly, her breasts.

She gasped, trying to regain her equilibrium, but his urgency was carrying her along. Taking her without letting her think.

Overpowering her with the feelings he provoked.

She’d thought she’d lost him.

She didn’t ever want to feel that again. She wanted to tell him. To explain how her heart was beating too fast and he was the only one who could keep her from flying apart.

That she didn’t want anyone else but him. Forever and ever.

But the words were caught and flung away by the storm between them.

His mouth was on her nipple, sucking strongly, and she cried out, arching beneath him, spreading her legs.

She could feel his penis, hot and hard, slipping along her inner thigh.

She reached down and grasped him, putting him at the entrance to her body.

He raised his head and stared in her eyes as he pushed into her. Thrusting without pausing, without relenting, making her body part and receive him.

As if this was where he was meant to be.

As if she’d waited her whole life for him to fit his body to hers and make them one being.

She lifted her legs and wrapped them over his hips, trapping him there.

They were perfect.

Holding each other, breast to chest, belly to belly, cock to quim. Halves made into one whole. He laid his mouth against hers and kissed her as he rocked his hips into her.

It was a gentle, almost infinitesimal movement. Like the ripples that spread from a pebble thrown into water. Silent. Slight. Nearly invisible.

But there all the same.

He rippled against her and she felt it in her soul.

This was beautiful, what they did here together.

She dug her fingers into his broad shoulders, wordlessly urging him on. Silently pleading.

Everything that had ever happened in her life had led to this point. All the actions she’d taken, both good and bad, wise and foolish, she had taken them all but to arrive here, in this quiet bedroom, rocking together with this man.

Achieving immortality.

It was building within her, she could feel it. That greater wave, those sparks lighting here and there throughout her body. She wanted…she wanted…

Oh, her center was on that edge.

She tore her mouth from his, gasping, trying to get closer. To squirm until she could feel his cock rubbing that spot, that spot, that spot.

But he wouldn’t move any faster, any deeper, and for a long moment she thought she’d go insane, standing on her tiptoes, here on the edge, her body rising and rising.

She couldn’t take this.

Her eyes flew open and she saw no compassion in his blue gaze. Only determination. Only ruthless drive to bind them together forever.

Her mouth opened and she moaned as she dove, falling faster and faster, her body convulsing, her gaze locked with his.

So she saw it when he came after her, his lips curling back, the lines in his face deepening in agonizing pleasure.

She watched as they fell together and when they hit the water together she was still watching.

The ripples went on forever.

Christopher lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, the person most precious in the world to him in his arms. Strange that only weeks ago he’d not thought about Freya at all. She was a tiny piece of his past, lost and forgotten.

And then she’d exploded back into his life and stolen his heart.

His lips quirked at the thought. “I love you.”

She froze beside him. “What?”

He raised himself to one elbow, gazing down at her. Fiery hair spread in tangled waves over his pillow, gold-green eyes wide and startled. Pink, plump lips parted.

He wanted to remember her face for all the years of his life and beyond.

“I love you,” he repeated. “Will you marry me?”

Her brows drew together, and he read the answer in her eyes before she spoke.

“I don’t know…” She bit her lip.

It should be a small sop that it appeared to hurt her even to say it.

But it wasn’t. The pain spread through his chest, as lethal as a spear to the heart. He took a deep breath. “Why not? Can you tell me?”

She searched his face. “It isn’t because I don’t love you. Please don’t think that, because I do. I love you with all my being, Kester.”

“I know, sweetheart.” He stroked her hair back from her face. “That almost makes it worse.”

She nodded. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He felt his lips quirk. “I know that, too.” He didn’t say that she was hurting him anyway, because he knew they both knew that.

She closed her eyes. “It’s…it’s just that before this house party I never even thought about marriage. I was a de Moray, I was a Wise Woman and the Macha, and that seemed enough.” She opened her eyes again. “But now in the space of days everything I thought I knew and believed has been upended. I think I want to marry you, but how can I tell? I’ve spent every day here in close proximity to you. It’s like we’re in a special world. What if away from you I don’t feel the same? What if when I leave here and go back to the greater world I find out that I was wrong?”

“You think you might realize you don’t really love me?” he asked carefully.

“No.” She touched his jaw with her fingertips. “No, never that. But that’s just the point. I know that I love you. But I don’t know if marriage is the right thing for me. You influence me. When I’m around you all I want to do is be around you. I don’t know if I’m thinking straight.”

Her brows drew together.

He pressed a fingertip to her lips when she would’ve spoken again. “No. Listen.” He took a deep breath. “This is your decision and I’ll not sway it, no matter how much I want to, because I love you and this is what you need. Make no mistake: I hate it. I’d rather try and woo you and persuade you. Argue with you and take advantage of your love for me. But you have made it clear that you want—that you must—make this decision for yourself.” He paused, swallowing. “That in fact, you need to have the choice to refuse me forever if that is what you think best for yourself.”

Tears slid down the side of her face and into her hair as she listened to him.

Ran’s ring lay in the sweet dip between her breasts. He nudged it with his finger, feeling the body heat it held from her, and looked her in the eye. “I once swore on this ring that I would never retreat again from what was right. To me it feels right to stay by your side and give you comfort and protection. But that isn’t what you want.” He smiled painfully. “It may not even be what you need.”

“Kester,” she whispered.

“I’m thinking of you now. I’ll do as you wish. I’ll give the decision to you. But I can’t stay a day longer here, knowing that you are not mine, and be a dispassionate observer as you make your decision.” He leaned over and softly kissed her. “Therefore I am foresworn. I love you, Freya, more than anything else in this world. That is why I’m leaving.”

When Freya opened her eyes, it was to the late-afternoon sun coming in the window in her bedroom at Lovejoy House. Her eyes widened. She hadn’t meant to sleep the day away. In fact, after leaving Harlowe’s bedroom that morning, she’d asked for a bath in her room, fully intending to dress properly and help the household and Lady Holland.

Instead she’d laid down just for a moment and apparently slept all afternoon.

“How do you feel?”

The voice came from beside her bed, but disappointingly it wasn’t Harlowe’s.

No, he’d told her that he was leaving in order to let her make up her own mind about whether she could marry him. Her heart seemed to ache.

It was quite ridiculous to feel so sad when he’d done what she’d essentially asked him to do.

Freya turned her head and blinked at Messalina. “I feel very rested. But you had just as bad a morning as I. Why are you nursing me?”

Messalina shrugged—a strangely awkward gesture from such an elegant woman. “It’s what friends do, don’t they? Care for one another.”

Freya smiled. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

Messalina grinned back at her companionably.

Freya felt peace wash over her. This was good, sitting with Messalina. Having this tentative accord.

But she couldn’t lie in bed forever. “I suppose I must get up and dress for supper.”

“You can if you want, but I doubt it will be a very formal affair,” Messalina replied. “Jane has set poor Eleanor up in a room here. I think the doctors are still tending to her.”

“How is Lady Randolph?”

Messalina winced. “Better than I thought she would be, given how horrible this last year has been for her. Jane says she can stay as long as she wishes to recuperate. Of course she’s lost Randolph House now that Lord Randolph is dead, but I don’t think she’ll feel that’s any great tragedy.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want to enter that house again,” Freya said.

“Nor I.” Messalina shuddered, then looked at Freya. “How does this all affect the Wise Women?”

“I hope you don’t think me ghoulish, but Lord Randolph’s death is very good for us,” Freya said practically. “Without him, the Witch Act loses its major backer—he was the one who wrote the act and meant to present it. It won’t be presented to Parliament now.”

“Then you fulfilled your mission?” Messalina asked.

“Yes.” That at least was satisfying—she’d made the Wise Women a little safer.

“His death was best for Eleanor as well,” Messalina said darkly.

“Does she have any funds at all now?” Freya wondered. The estate was no doubt entailed, and the Randolphs had no children. Some distant relative would probably inherit.

“Well, that’s the odd thing,” Messalina said. “Apparently Lord Randolph drew up a will when they were first married and he never bothered to change it. Eleanor will have a tidy income, and there’s a dower house in London when she’s ready to enter society again. I’m afraid that however she does it, though, there will be quite a scandal when it’s revealed that she’s alive.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Freya winced. Poor Lady Randolph hadn’t done anything to deserve the notoriety that was about to descend on her. She glanced at Messalina. “What about Lord Randolph’s death?” Surely Harlowe wouldn’t be brought to trial for murder—he was a duke, after all—but her own history showed quite well what gossip could do if it got out he’d killed Lord Randolph.

“Fortunately Lord Lovejoy is the local magistrate,” Messalina said. “He’s ruled it an accident whilst Lord Randolph was cleaning his gun.”

Freya raised her eyebrows doubtfully. “And everyone who knows what really happened has agreed to this explanation?”

Messalina’s mouth twisted. “Lord Randolph was very unpopular in the area.”

“Hmm.” Freya murmured. “What about Lord Stanhope?”

Messalina snorted. “Apparently he’s in a great deal of debt,” she said with satisfaction. “Mr. Lovejoy knew about the debt through gossip and told his father who told Christopher. Christopher had the viscount clapped in irons and sent back to London to debtor’s prison. Christopher also made sure that the Randolph footmen and housekeeper were all arrested for imprisoning Lady Randolph. I don’t know how he managed to do so much before he left.”

Freya glanced away, feeling the prick of tears at her eyes. “Then he’s gone already?”

Messalina hesitated. “Yes? He left for his country seat, I believe. In Sussex? Or perhaps it was Essex.”

All Freya could do was stare at her and blink. She’d somehow thought—against all reason and despite the fact that he’d said he’d leave immediately—that she’d have another chance to talk to Harlowe before they parted ways.

To say goodbye.