Page 11 of How to Tempt An Earl (Wed Within a Year #2)

I n the span of a few hours everything had changed and yet nothing had changed. The thought chased itself around Celeste’s mind as she lounged against the strength of Kieran’s chest, her body far more relaxed sitting before him on his horse today than it had been a few days ago. It no longer felt strange or invasive to sit in the vee of his thighs, to feel the muscles of those thighs press about her. His body was known to her now, as hers was to him, and deliciously so.

What did their walk by the stream mean? Anything? Nothing?

And so, the thought came full circle again: everything had changed; nothing had changed. The latter was the implicit promise they’d made to each other. They were people of the world, experienced in the body’s pleasure. Passion had many explanations; it was a natural outgrowth of having faced great danger and survived. It needn’t mean anything more than that. It didn’t change their circumstances.

No matter what they’d done beneath the oak or why they’d done it, it didn’t erase the reality that Roan and Vincent were tracking them. There were only two outcomes. Either Roan or Vincent would eventually find them, or Kieran would find them. She was existing within the endgame, after which her fate would be decided. The point was there would be an ‘after’.

These days on the road and the days that would follow in Wrexham would end, just as her days at various boarding schools had all ended. Like so much in her life, this interlude would be temporary. She could only allow herself to fall for Kieran Parkhurst with that single understanding firmly entrenched in her psyche: this was not permanent; it would end, and with it her association with him. She would go on from him and from Wrexham. Holding that understanding close would lessen the pain of parting.

Already, she didn’t want to think about leaving him. Already, she liked him far too much on far too short of an acquaintance for the simple reason that, beyond the jaw-dropping body that possessed the ferocity and power of a warrior, and the dark eyes that promised a girl he could and would make all her dreams come true, Kieran Parkhurst was nice . And nice was hard to find in her world. He was nice to everyone, from the water-trough boy to someone like her.

It was that last piece that she found compelling. He could have strategically chosen to feign niceness to her in exchange for whatever it might woo from her—information or sex—but he’d had nothing to gain from being nice to the water-trough boy at St Luke’s. He’d likely never see the boy again, and yet he’d done what he could in that moment to ease the boy’s needs. She’d learned under Roan’s tutelage that men were always willing to appear nice to a beautiful woman; pretending was easy. A person could always tell a man’s true character by how he treated animals and the downtrodden. Kieran saw people, all people. He saw their worth and their pride. When he could have shown her pity, he’d shown her admiration instead.

‘Penny for your thoughts.’ His voice was low at her ear as they rode beside the coach. ‘I’m only asking because I can almost hear you thinking, but not quite,’ he teased.

She settled more firmly against him. ‘I was thinking about you.’

‘Did you reach a verdict?’ He steered around a low spot in the road to spare Tambor the change in terrain—further proof she was right about him.

‘I did.’ She tilted her head up to see his face and smiled. ‘You are nice.’

He laughed down at her and she liked too much how the corners of his eyes crinkled and his face broke into an infectious smile. ‘I am nice. When I can be.’

She returned her gaze to the road. ‘It must be difficult to have to always make that determination.’

‘If I didn’t, I’d be riding dead.’ It was not a particularly funny joke, because he was right. A Horseman could not always be nice, could not always believe those who came forward with information or asked for help.

‘What does it say about the world that we cannot simply be nice all the time? It’s a sad commentary. You are right: one must mete out niceness as if it were the most precious of jewels.’ She’d been nice to the wrong man once and thrown her proverbial pearls before swine. She’d paid for it, and she’d never forgotten the lesson.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kieran offered quietly.

‘Why?’ The words caught her off guard.

‘If you understand the need to protect your niceness, then it means you’ve learned that lesson the hard way. So, I am sorry for that. It’s not a pleasant lesson to learn, but it is one that stays with us.’

Ah, so the Horseman had some experience with that too. What a very human thing to have in common. She leaned back against him. His arm came about her in silent accord and for a little while she felt closer to him than she’d felt to anyone for long time. It felt good—dangerously good—to share such a connection. Old fantasies, old girlhood hopes and na?ve dreams once locked tightly away began to rattle their cages. She let them, knowing full well it would make it more difficult to put them away when the time came—and the time always came.

* * *

Kieran didn’t call a halt until the sun was setting. He told himself it was because they’d not set a gruelling pace this afternoon on account of the heat and the long night prior, but if he was being honest he might also have been reluctant to see the ride come to an end. It would mean relinquishing Celeste in exchange for the chores of establishing camp—a poor trade in his estimation. He’d enjoyed her presence today, the feel of her body against his and the way she tipped her head up to look at him when she teased.

She’d been completely herself this afternoon. There’d been no coyness, no guardedness. Her real self was delightful—fresh, fun and straightforward. But he positively hated that Roan had had access to that; had taken that wonderful freshness and polluted it. She’d said he was nice, but Kieran wanted to do violence to whomever had made her pay for her own niceness. He’d not pressed for her story, although his curiosity had been rampant. That she had a story told him all that was needed. He recognised the rest was only necessary for his own gratification—gratification that had been stoked further as a result of their interlude in the woods. It was an unlooked-for consequence—proof that, no matter what arguments he’d made in his mind about limits, intimacy was seeping in past boundaries he’d set despite his best efforts. This journey, this task, was quickly becoming about him and her and less about the Horsemen and Roan.

And he did not resent it; he did not necessarily want to change that trajectory. That was the real danger. Offering her pleasure today against the oak tree had been exquisite; watching her claim her passion, her long neck arched, pleasure purling up her throat, had been pure masculine delight. That alone would have been enough for him, but she’d taken it a step further and offered him pleasure in turn. The echoes of her hand on him still reverberated in his blood. She’d answered his body’s needs instinctively, her hand sensing the pulse of him, the rhythm of him, and matching it in an intimate dance of cock and hand. In those moments he’d been met, answered and fulfilled most unexpectedly. It had not been mere physical release.

He was honest enough to admit that the interlude had rendered far more in terms of feeling and emotion than he’d anticipated. Having had a taste of the potential between them made him hungry for more but also cautious of such passionate gluttony. Forewarned was forearmed, as his grandfather liked to say. If they knew now how explosive it could be between them, then they knew empirically not to stoke the fire, even as the temptation to do just that still lay banked between them.

* * *

He and his men were efficient, and it didn’t take long for their simple camp to be established. He made a trip to a nearby river for washing water. When he returned, he discovered Celeste had been busy too. While the men had been caring for the horses, she’d been caring for them. She looked up from a makeshift table where she was laying out an evening meal and smiled at him. She was slicing bread and the sight stirred something so dangerous, so strong, within him that he had to stop and gather himself. The table was nothing more than the storage trunk that had been strapped to the back of the coach, the meal was simple and was not even hot—he’d not wanted to risk a fire attracting attention—but somehow she’d transformed it into a feast. His mother had always said the fastest way to tame a wild man was to find him a cultivated woman. His mother may have been right. She usually was.

‘Wash up, men, and let’s eat. We can’t come to this meal with dirty hands.’ Kieran set the bucket down next to the basin and she flashed him a smile of appreciation for the support. But the appreciation, he thought, was all his. It took a special kind of person to put themselves forward; to make themselves part of a team that pre-dated their membership. What woman had he met this spring in London who would have done as much? Which of his dance partners, in their fine silks and jewels, would have joined in, laid out a meal or thought about others before themselves? He was fairly sure Lady Elizabeth Cleeves would have sat by the coach and expected to be waited on.

The five of them ate together, telling stories of past missions. Bert, Eric and Matt tried to outdo one another in an attempt to impress Celeste, whose efforts and comportment in difficult circumstances had won their approval. Overhead, the stars came out, a twinkle at a time in a lavender sky trending to deepest indigo. One by one, the men drifted off into the darkness to take care of evening needs and chores. Celeste rose and busied herself packing away the food in the storage trunk.

Kieran reluctantly went through the motions of converting the coach seats into a bed, privately acknowledging to himself that was the last place he wanted her to sleep tonight. He’d spent the meal in a state of semi-arousal, watching the evening light limning her profile, living for the moments when she looked across the circle of people and smiled at him while she laughed at something one of his men said. Here was a woman who might come alongside a Horseman, who, in her own way, had some experience living in a Horseman’s grey world between good and evil and who understood the dangers inherent in that life. She was living those dangers right now and yet she was capable of conquering her fears.

Some might say his imagination was running rampant, his reason dragged away by a beautiful woman like a coach drawn by wild horses incapable of self-control. Logic taunted him: how could he know so much in so few days? He’d been wrong once before. But the rebuttal came swift and fast: it was his job to know and to draw accurate, fast conclusions. He’d learned his lesson with Sofia. He and his brothers had lived and died on those insights, on the ability to read the details and nuances. He had to trust himself that he would not be wrong again. And yet doubt niggled: what if he was?

Celeste came to the coach as he finished setting up the bed. ‘The food is all packed away. I prepared enough for breakfast tomorrow. All we have to do is unpack it again,’ she explained, poking her head inside the coach, but not before he caught a glimpse in her eyes of the reluctance he felt.

‘Thank you for setting this up,’ she began, fanning herself a bit. ‘It was warm today. The coach is a little stuffy. I thought I might sit up a little while and let the night air do its job before I retire, if that’s all right? I don’t want to keep you up.’

Kieran laughed, his voice low, his words just for her. ‘Too late. You’ve been keeping me up all evening.’ A knowing light flickered in her eyes and he pressed his momentary advantage. ‘Come lie with me. It’s a beautiful night and we can keep each other company.’

Want and warning flashed in her eyes. ‘I will, but just company, Kieran. Anything else might be too much too soon.’

He nodded and brought her hand to his lips for a courtly kiss. ‘Come and keep company with me, my lady.’ This afternoon had got to her too, it seemed. It had been moving, pleasurable, but it had not ended there; it had not been a shallow, purely physical interlude for either of them. It had opened deep places within them and now those places, those ideas, had to be contemplated before anything further could happen—or perhaps, like him, she might decide anything further would be too much.

They settled on his blankets far enough from the others to have their privacy and he drew her against him as they looked up at the sky. That she’d come to him spoke of the growing trust between them. She trusted him enough to expect he’d keep his word—company only tonight, no lovemaking beneath the stars. She liked him enough to want to keep this intimate company where they might lie together, their bodies taking comfort from the closeness of one another. There were many reasons for seeking such comfort and he was no stranger to them. They’d faced death yesterday. It was entirely natural to want to counter such an experience with seeking proof of life through physical closeness with another.

He would give her that comfort because she needed it, even if she didn’t realise the deep-seated reason for it, and because it was all he could give her. He stroked her arm in a gentle caress, matching his breathing to hers as their bodies settled to one another. ‘My brothers and I used to camp out in the summers, at Willow Park or at Sandmore—my grandfather’s estate. There was a lake at Sandmore and Grandfather would set up tents for us. But we hardly ever slept in them. So, Grandfather would send our tutor out with us and make sure we learned the stars while we were at it.’

‘Your grandfather sounds like a very astute man,’ she murmured.

‘He is. He’s eighty-eight and I wonder how long we’ll have him. He doesn’t leave Sandmore anymore. He’s turned the Horsemen over to Caine entirely, although he’ll stay on to advise for a couple years—his words.’ Kieran laughed. ‘Grandfather’s been in the game too long to ever really leave it. He can’t quite let go.’ He was silent for a moment, pushing back against the emotion that rose in his throat unexpectedly. ‘I am not looking forward to the day when he’s not here.’

‘He’ll never leave you. He’ll be with you. You’ll carry him with you in ways you don’t expect and, when you need him, he’ll be there.’ She traced a soft circle around his heart with her fingertip. ‘Perhaps it’s silly, but I feel closer to my father now that he’s gone. I’ll be playing the piano and I’ll hear him in my head saying, “that’s a pretty tune…you play so well”. Or I’ll be reading a line from a book and think about how much he’d like a certain turn of phrase, or an author’s new novel, and it’s like sharing it with him as if he were really there.’

Kieran closed a hand over hers where it lay on his chest. ‘I like the thought of that.’ He played with her fingers, lacing his through them. ‘You play the piano?’

‘Yes!’ She laughed. ‘That wasn’t the point of the story, though.’

He raised his head up far enough to kiss her fingertips. ‘I know. But I like learning about you.’

She sighed against him and he thought this was what real contentment was, to lie here with someone and simply be ; not to worry about ‘the game’.

‘I like learning about you too. Tell me more about your camps. Was your tutor successful in imparting any knowledge?’

‘That sounds very much like a challenge. The late summer sky is one of my favourite times to look at the stars. The night air has a briskness to it, and the sky is bright. A lot of constellations are visible.’ Kieran raised an arm, his finger tracing the sky. ‘In the south, you have Cygnus, the swan. That bright star there, Deneb, is its tail.’ He moved his finger from star to star, outlining the form for her. ‘Cygnus has a long neck, like you—a beautiful, elegant neck.’

‘You are a shameless flatterer.’ But he noticed she snuggled closer. ‘What else is up there?’

‘Sagittarius in the southwest, just a bit to the left of Cygnus. Scorpio should be up there, too, but I can’t find all of it tonight.’ He moved his hand east. ‘Pegasus is out tonight.’ He reached for her hand and together they drew the shape. ‘I think I have a star next to me,’ he murmured. ‘It has occurred to me that your name, Celeste, comes from “celestial”. I believe the Latin for it is caelestia : heavenly.’

‘You’re very good with your Latin, Kieran Parkhurst.’ She gave a throaty laugh that had him rousing.

‘I’m good at other things too,’ he murmured huskily.

‘Yes, you are.’

He might have kissed her then, but he heard the drowsiness in her tone, felt the lethargy of encroaching sleep in her body, and he’d given his word. Tonight was for comfort. He let her slip away beside him, watching the details of sleep: her green eyes closing, her breathing slowing, her body sagging against him. There was pleasure in that, too—pride that he could give her the gift of safe, deep sleep.

He played with the soft skeins of her hair, drawing his fingers through them. What a woman she was. How unfortunate that their circumstances would allow for only further physical exploration of the potential between them. And that could only be allowed if they didn’t let the fire consume them. There was no chance of exploring anything truly personal between them. That would require long-term association and they’d pledged themselves only in the short term. She would leave, and his circumstances did not permit him to offer a reason to stay.

Even when the threat of Roan had been exorcised and she was free of that bastard, he would not be free. He would still be a Horseman. He could not give her the fantasies that played in her mind, the fantasies she couldn’t disguise—fantasies of family and home, of security and permanence. It was not wrong of her to want those things or to hunger for them. But it was wrong for him to pretend he could give them to her.

Horsemen were not marrying men. He and his brothers had decided that a long time ago. Caine had decided that when a society miss had jilted him for lack of a title when he’d been younger. Kieran had decided that when he’d lay close to death from a knife wound delivered by a woman he’d thought he could trust. Yet Caine had married. His grandfather had married, fathered three sons and managed to preside for decades as the patriarch of a large homegrown familial network. Horsemen could marry. If…and there were a lot of ifs…a wife was willing to live with danger, disruption and the possibility of being widowed or of being left behind to raise children on her own.

Thank goodness Stepan had not married. It seemed an unfair compromise to ask of a woman. Yet, Lady Mary had loved Caine enough to make the compromise. In the case of Mary and Caine, love had triumphed over worries and ‘what ifs.’ He laughed to himself. What an interesting, illogical exercise this was to lie here contemplating marriage to a woman he’d known less than a week.

Overhead, a shooting star crossed the sky and he tracked the trajectory with his eyes. That was all this was—he and Celeste were shooting stars, a moment of startling brilliance as their paths crossed. They would move on because that was how their lives worked and because the circumstance that had brought them together would be resolved. What did they have between them outside of Cabot Roan? A few days’ adventure on the road? That was hardly enough to build a life on.

The road built a false sense of intimacy, and he ought to know better. This wasn’t the first time he’d been with a woman on the road, surrounded by danger. He knew the nuances of these situations. This wasn’t love. This was what happened when a woman in danger sought solace from her bodyguard. It was what happened when that woman’s protector did his job. It was up to him to provide comfort in whatever form it might take. Yes, sometimes it felt more real than others. But then, when all was safe again, both parties quickly discovered there was nothing of substance between them. Nothing that would last.

He’d once escorted an ambassador’s wife to Vienna. It had been a harrowing journey, fraught with the hazards of cross-country travel, including an incident with highwaymen. She’d been rather grateful for his protection on the road. But when he’d encountered her two months later in Vienna, at a ball, she’d given him only the briefest of nods.

Would he see Celeste after this? Where would she go? Would she want to see him again? Or would she, like the ambassador’s wife, prefer to put him and all of this out her mind? He couldn’t blame her. These were trying times full of things one did not expect to encounter. He’d killed two men in front of her. Women didn’t mind it in the moment, but later they didn’t care for the reminder of the violence. Or perhaps it was the reminder of their own reaction they didn’t enjoy facing—that they’d slept with a man who’d killed and they’d revelled it; they’d cried his name to the skies and screamed their pleasure into the wild. They had to accept that, deep down, they were just as much an animal as he was. It was not something well-bred women were raised to do.

Celeste’s chestnut hair spilled over his chest and he allowed himself the purely theoretical thought: maybe this time would be different. What would he actually do if that was the case? Maybe it would be easier if it wasn’t.