Page 9 of A Touch for All Time (For All Time #3)
F rosty swirls rose from Ghost’s huge nostrils, but the horse made no sound nor moved an inch in the brisk morning air. Gray wondered, while they waited in the stillness of the forest, if his horse cursed him for bringing him out into the cold. Gray doubted she did, since Ghost, a splendid war horse, had been with him in the army. Thanks to Ghost’s color, on foggy mornings, like this one, Gray went unseen until he was on top of his enemy.
He’d left the castle on the pretext of finding more thieves from the band that had been raiding the villages. But he wanted to be away from the woman who brought him to the edge of a precipice with her smiles behind a saucy mouth and her fierce courage even in the face of a brute like Harry Gable.
The bastard. Gray knew Harry had threatened to toss Miss Darling out into the cold if she didn’t laugh at him. She’d risked it for Gray and lost. He’d had no choice but to offer her a bed. It was one more thing to hate Harry for.
Aria Darling was turning his insides to warm honey. He wanted…no, he needed to be away from her, so he came out here, where the cold felt familiar.
He pulled his hood farther up on his darker, wet head. He’d bathed and washed the lard and powder from his hair on the beach along Castle Cove. His body had dried, but his hair hadn’t. He felt a chill from deep within and blamed Miss Aria Darling.
He’d wanted her to dance. He’d even considered dancing with her, but she’d refused. In the cold light of day, he was glad she had refused. He must have been out of his mind. Why did he want to get closer to her? She was already in trouble. He thought of her too often. He even thought of her family now. He fell, lost in the memory of the blue depths of her eyes. His blood sizzled in his veins at the thought of touching her. He’d promised to catch her if she fell.
He heard a twig snap to his left and inched his ear toward the sound. His thighs tightened around Ghost. Easy, my lady. Not yet.
The horse didn’t move.
Something running through the bare bramble. Something big.
Now!
Ghost leaped forward and took off running. Sitting low on her back, Gray barely had to guide her. She knew what they were after.
Gray saw the rider, the first of three more. They rode up beside and behind Gray, swinging their swords. He ducked and blocked with his sword, but he didn’t want to kill them.
“I’m the Marquess of Dartmouth. Stop, and your head won’t be impaled on a pike in front of my castle.”
Two of them slowed and lowered their swords. Gray pulled on the bow behind him, then plucked an arrow from his quiver. He aimed upward and let the arrow fly. Before it landed, he loosened the rope tied to his thigh, leaped from Ghost, and tied the two men to Ghost’s waist.
“If you try to escape, she will kick your face off.”
The thieves paled and swore they wouldn’t try. Gray ran to the third thief felled by his arrow. The thief was hit in the shoulder. It had been a risky shot. Gray couldn’t aim for the culprit’s leg. The arrow would have gone through flesh and blood and landed on the horse. He checked the horse just to make sure the creature wasn’t injured, then dragged the thief to his two friends. The thieves’ horses, though untethered, remained close to Gray.
“What’s goin’ to happen to us?” one of the first two asked.
“That’s up to my father,” Gray let them know and moved toward Ghost. He gave the horse a scratch down her long nose. “It was worth getting out of bed for, hmm, old friend?”
“So then,” said the thief with the arrow through his shoulder and a sneer on his face, “the rumors are true, you do speak to animals.”
“Mostly just this one,” Gray smirked at him, then leaped onto Ghost’s back.
“My lord?” the other of the first two called out.
Gray half turned to him, tied to Ghost behind them.
“Will we be killed? You said we wouldn’t be.”
“I said you wouldn’t be impaled on a pike in front of my castle. Do you remember?”
The thief, a young man of about eighteen years, lowered his gaze and nodded. “My father will never forgive me, but I had no choice. My mother already perished from lack of food. My father suffers constant ailments, and there’s no food for him to get well.”
Gray had little compassion for those he knew and none for strangers. Spending almost six years in the military had done nothing to nurture such a wasteful emotion. “Better if you had considered all you’ve told me before you robbed what you needed from others who need it as well. The life of someone else’s father means little compared to yours?”
“To me, it does,” the young thief cried. “Forgive me for saying, my lord, but no one’s father means more to me than mine.”
Gray looked him over in his tattered breeches and a coat in even worse condition. Was the boy’s story true? He guessed there were many more similar stories out there. His father was still in control of laws and the punishment for breaking them, money collected from his vassals for land and agriculture, and more. The full bellies of his people had never been a priority to the duke of Devon. They wouldn’t be important to Timothy Cavendish either. That’s why Gray didn’t have the luxury of just leaving the way his mother had. What did he really care about rules and the selfish men who made them? But when his father died, Gray had to make certain Cavendish didn’t take his title.
“Please, my lord, if you would just check on my father occasionally. His name is Nate Somner.”
The first thief scoffed. “You think the marquess will do anything for you but deliver you to his father for the noose? You are a fool boy!”
The young thief closed his eyes to keep his tears from spilling over.
Gray cast the first thief a murderous glare. “What do you think you deserve for stealing from the mouths of children?”
“Forgive me,” the young thief cried without opening his eyes.
Gray stared at him for a moment, then turned and flicked his reins. Ghost trotted along at a slow pace, while the wounded thief and his unrepentant companion went back and forth from complaining to begging for their lives. Gray listened to some of it, but he was mostly immune to begging. He’d heard it often in battle.
A raven gave out a shrill cry above his head. Gray and the other three men looked up, for the bird was flying low.
It was big, the same one that had followed him the last time Gray had been out. He scowled at it. What did the creature want? He felt an elusive memory pass through his head of being young—perhaps five or six—and laughing while he ran through his mother’s garden with a raven pecking softly at his sides and back.
A large raven killing George Gable.
He put the memories out of his head. Miss Darling made it easier to do, since she constantly plagued his thoughts.
She had accused him of being nasty to the Gables and she even defended Will Gable. Part of him was the slightest bit bothered by it. It didn’t matter what she felt for Will. She was going to leave if she found the correct door. The thought of going with her to perhaps find his mother, crossed his mind. But he didn’t want to find her and he wasn’t about to let Cavendish have Dartmouth.
He simply had to guard himself extra hard against Miss Darling and all the things about her that tempted him to tear off his armor and compel her to stay. He didn’t find her half as irritating as everyone else he knew. She was dangerous—so dangerous, he thought, shaking his head at himself. He could almost feel himself falling to every useless emotion that had a name.
But she drew him the way music did. After checking and finding it gone, Gray was certain the key his grandmother had given him was the object that brought Miss Darling here—to the past. Miss Darling was a dance teacher and a dancer herself. It was as if she were handpicked and sent back to him all wrapped in a pretty bow. Yes, he believed it all. It made sense to his poor head that his mother had gone ahead . That grandmother had gone next and had given the key to Miss Darling. The questions were why and how much did Miss Darling know? Was she in on the grand plan? Or was she too a victim of the Blagdens?
She’d been broken, like him, and it had cost her what she loved most.
He scowled at himself as a wave of warmth, like the deepest caress, flowed through him. Empathy. The first of the curses. Mother to sympathy and compassion, they wreaked havoc on the heart and if he wasn’t careful, he could find himself torn to bits, not by any forest animal, but by the people around him.
Not him. Not ever again.
He ignored the young thief’s quiet cries and handed the three men over to his guardsmen to be brought to the dungeon. But when his men turned for the stairs, Gray followed them. He reached the young thief’s coat and yanked him around to face him.
“We’re going to validate your story.” He didn’t give the boy the opportunity to reply but dragged him in the opposite direction.
He practically flung the thief into the saddle of one the three horses that had followed him home.
“Take me to your father,” Gray demanded, leaping onto Ghost’s back.
“Thank you, my lord. You have my loyalty above my own life.”
Gray shook his head. “Don’t die for a sentiment. Always do what you can to protect your life.”
They traveled north to Norton and reached the small hovel where the young thief, who was called Robin, claimed to live.
Nate Somner was blinded with age and extraordinarily thankful that the marquess of Dartmouth would deign to take such care of his son. “He is a good boy,” Mr. Somner said of his son.
Gray nodded. He hadn’t told the boy’s father the real reason he brought him home. “Yes. I believe he is.”
Gray warned Robin never to rob again and left him to care for his father. He returned to the castle alone. When he set foot beyond the castle doors, he sensed Harper in the shadows, watching to make certain he came home safely. He kept up his pace to his room, though twice he almost turned to order her out of the shadows.
He was glad no one else—like Miss Darling for instance—met him in the halls. He wondered, for the briefest of moments, where she was.
Without considering what it meant, he allowed himself to wonder what it was like in the future. What was dancing like? Miss Darling stirred something in him. He was curious about her dancing.
Curiosity. Another curse that gives birth to temptation. He couldn’t be tempted by her. He wouldn’t allow it. No lady at court had ever tempted him. The years he fought for the king were spent in celibacy. He didn’t mind. He was with a woman once and it wasn’t what he’d imagined it to be. Sexual intimacy hadn’t been intimate for him. It had been quick. He didn’t have the heart for it, so he stopped doing it. But on more than one occasion while in the company of Miss Darling, the memory of the first time he’d seen her in a scandalously short skirt and her legs encased in some sort of hose, as tight as her skin, stirred his blood. The sound of her voice, her laughter, even when she reviled him, sent tremors deep into where his heart and soul slept.
She had the courage to stand up to him, and to Harry Gable, as well. She’d reached out her hand to Gray, unafraid of being bitten, and touched him. How long before she discovered the wolf she stroked had been locked away for a reason? Only…he couldn’t remember what it was.
He heard footsteps coming toward him and looked up, away from his thoughts.
It was as if she stepped out of his head and landed in front of him, just her clothes were different. Unfortunately, she looked no less beguiling in her pale blue eighteenth century robe over layers of muslin, cinched at her small waist. Her long, chestnut tresses were loose, tied back at the temples. He half-turned to hurry back the other way, then realized how pathetic he must appear and straightened.
He counted how many of her footfalls echoed within him—or was it his heartbeat?
She was smiling.
He dipped his gaze to her lips when she reached him.
“Lord Dartmouth, have you been avoiding me all day?”
Had she noticed his absence? What did it mean? Why did he care? This veil of a woman seemed to have the power to demolish the great fortress he’d built around himself, where even animals dared not go.
“I had more thieves to catch, Miss Darling,” he told her woodenly.
“Did you catch any?”
He refused to let himself fall captivated by her shining, sapphire eyes and breathless smile. “Two. Now, if you will excuse me—”
“So then, you are avoiding me.”
He stopped. “I’m merely tired and wish to rest,” he said without turning to look at her.
“Fine, enjoy your rest. I’m going out.”
His eyes opened wider, and he spun around. “Miss Darling, don’t dare leave this castle alone.”
Concern. Yet another curse this woman brought upon him.
“Am I a prisoner?” Her eyes weren’t shining, they were blazing.
“No. Didn’t you hear what I just told you? I caught two more thieves today. It might be different in your future, but here, you’re a temptation few men will ignore.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, but her cheeks grew crimson. She patted them and stared at him. “You’re different?” she finally asked.
He nodded. “Yes, I am.” He resisted temptation every time he didn’t run his sword through certain individuals when he saw them. “Ask one of my guardsmen to accompany you.”
“Absolutely not,” she let him know. “I want to be alone.”
He laughed in disbelief and looked behind her at his bedroom door. “Weren’t you looking for me?”
“I was,” she offered him a cheeky smile, “before I found you and remembered what a dislikable person you are.”
“Did you forget so easily?” He mocked her with a lifted brow. “I’ll have to try harder to make sure you don’t forget again. Should I begin with returning you to the care of Harry Gable? He was about to throw you out in the snow because you refused to mock my dancing, hmm? Thank you for that by the way.”
He didn’t lose himself to the sweet confusion on her face, the sudden rush of warmth in her eyes.
What was he saying? He shook his head, then covered it with his arm. “Come with me.” Before he could stop his own feet from moving, his fingers from taking hold of her wrist, he went with her to fetch her coat and then led her back out of the castle.
“Where are we going?” she asked, letting him lead her to the stables.
“I was hoping you would tell me, since you’re the one who wanted to wander out.”
She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “But I told you I wanted to be alone.”
“And I told you not to leave the castle without an escort.” He matched her challenging glare and stood his ground.
“Well,” she said, looking away. “I can’t ride.”
He retrieved a small stool close by and set it down on Ghost’s left side. He didn’t need it. After years of riding the warhorse, he knew how to grasp the horse’s mane and mount in a single leap—which was what he did now. Once on Ghost’s back, he held his hand down to Miss Darling.
“You might as well take it,” he urged with a wide-eyed smile. “Don’t tempt me to chase you.”
She hesitated another moment, hugging herself and eyeing the stable exit. But instead of taking his second option, she held up her hand. He leaned down and closed his fingers around hers and hefted her up and into his lap.
She landed with a slight thud that rattled Gray’s senses. Behind her, he shook his head as if to clear it. “Where to?”
“To the Gable’s, then please. I’d like to see Will and let him know I’m alright.”
“He doesn’t need to know that.”
“I want him to know. Look, you offered to escort me to where I wanted to go. I want to go to the Gable’s house and say goodbye to Mrs. Gable and thank her for caring for my needs when I came here. If you refuse to take me, I’ll return to the castle and leave without you at another time.”
He said nothing but grasped fistfuls of Ghost’s mane and jerked his hips forward, unwittingly grinding them into Miss Darling’s bottom. When she turned to send him her deadliest glare, he offered her no response, though his insides were twisting, his blood scaling his veins.
“It’s inevitable in our situation,” he said evenly.
“What’s inevitable? That you’re going to touch me intimately again? I suggest you don’t. I’m not adverse to sinking my fist into your groin.”
He grimaced and shoved her away just enough to make her hold on tighter to his arms. He wondered as he rode her to the Gable’s holding as she’d requested, what had come over him. How was his iron resolve deteriorating so quickly? When he realized, after riding through the forest, that she hadn’t let go of his arms, he pulled away and then closed his arms around her.
“I won’t let you fall,” he promised, leaning down near her ear.
When he finally felt her relaxing against his chest, he leaned down again, just a bit closer to her. “Miss Darling, tell me about Mrs. Blagden, the one who gave you the key.”