Page 4 of The Forbidden Love of an Officer (The Marlow Family #7)

As he heard the rustle of frozen leaves on the ground, Paul whispered, ‘Ellen…’ into the night.

His breath rose in a mist into the cold winter air.

He was on the Duke of Pembroke’s land. He had not dared encourage her to take a horse, so he had come close enough that she might walk from the house and find him.

He waited at the end of an avenue of yews, out of sight of the house, in a place she could easily see him. His horse whickered, sensing something, or someone. ‘Ellen?’ he whispered again.

Still no answer.

He listened, wondering if she had been caught as she left the house. He hoped not. If she had been caught her father would allow her no freedom and short of leading a military assault on Pembroke’s home, he would not be able to get her out.

The horse shook its head, rattling its bit, and snorted steamy breath into the cold air. The chill of the winter night seeped through his clothes. There would be a hard frost. He hoped she had dressed in something warm.

He would have to buy more clothes for her before they sailed. She would need garments to keep her warm in the sea breezes she’d face on their journey to America.

There was another sound.

‘Paul…’

‘Ellen.’

How did this woman manage to make his heart beat so erratically whenever he saw her? He could run into battle and not be so affected.

A band of silver light reached through the scudding clouds and caught her face. She looked even more beautiful in the dark. Ethereal.

He let go of the horse’s bridle and instinctively moved forward.

He had never held her. In the summer there had been no moments alone, she had been strictly chaperoned and when she had come to meet him she had brought the groom and her sister.

Even when they met a fortnight ago, she had still brought the groom.

This was their first time alone. ‘Ellen.’ He embraced her, his arms wrapping about her shoulders.

In answer her arm came about his waist. It was the most precious feeling of his life.

He would always remember this day. She was slender and there was a feeling that she was delicate.

She slipped free, but he caught her nape and pulled her mouth to his, gently pressing his lips against hers. It was her first kiss, he knew; he could tell by the way her body stiffened when he had pulled her close. He let her go, an unfamiliar tenderness catching in his chest.

‘Come.’ He took the leather bag she carried. ‘Will you ride before me, or would you rather sit behind my saddle and hold my waist?’

‘Would it be easier if I ride behind you?’ Her voice ran with uncertainty. She was giving up everything to come with him.

‘Do what feels comfortable for you, Ellen.’

She nodded, avoiding his eyes. ‘I would prefer to ride pillion.’

‘Then you shall.’ He softened his voice, hoping to ease her discomfort.

Turning to the horse, he slipped one foot in the stirrup, then pulled himself up. ‘Did you have any difficulty leaving the house?’

‘No, the servants’ hall was quiet, and the grooms had all retired.’

He rested her bag across his thighs, then held a hand out to her.

‘Set your foot on mine and take my hand. I will pull you up.’ He watched her lift the skirt of her dark habit, and then the weight of her small foot pressed on his, as her gloved fingers held his.

She was light, but the grip of her hand and the pressure of her foot made that something clasp tight in his chest, and the emotion stayed clenched as her fingers embraced his waist over his greatcoat.

He shifted in the saddle, his groin tightening too. A few more days. Just days. He had been waiting months. As he turned the horse, Ellen’s cheek pressed against his shoulder.

‘Did you tell anyone you were leaving? Your sister? Or your maid?’

‘No. I did not want them to have to face Papa knowing the truth. He would know they had lied, and then who knows what he might do.’ Paul urged the mare into a trot as Ellen continued. ‘He made me spend the day on my knees reading the Commandments because I refused to marry the Duke of Argyle.’

‘Today?’ He wished to look back at her but he could not turn in the saddle with her behind him.

Her father had been diabolical to Paul, sneering as though Paul were nothing when he had done the decent thing and spoken to him to offer for her.

He could imagine the way Pembroke treated his girls.

He had to get Ellen to Gretna before her father caught them, so she never had to come back and face his retribution.

He stirred the mare into a canter as Ellen’s arms wrapped about his waist, firmly hanging on to him.

‘Yes, today,’ she said, to his ear. ‘He came to my room this morning, to ask if I was repentant.’

If she was repentant? She’d done nothing wrong, as far as her father was aware.

He’d not told her father they’d been communicating since the summer.

He’d expected to be refused, and he’d not wished their pathway of communication closed.

All she had been guilty of, as far as her father knew, was that her presence and her company in the summer had attracted a man her father deemed unworthy.

She bore no guilt for being beautiful and charming.

God, how had Pembroke brought up this untouched, unscarred girl? ‘Did you tell him you repented?’

She laughed; a low soft sound he hadn’t heard before. ‘No.’

He smiled. It had taken him so long to make his offer because he had wanted to feel sure she had the strength to follow the drum.

She had it. She had a core of iron. She would survive.

He would make sure she did; though he didn’t doubt his way of life was going to come as a shock to her.

He had tried to warn her in letters, preparing her, but he could tell from her responses it was all whimsical rather than real. It would soon become real.

He stopped the horse suddenly, and strained to look over his shoulder, as it restlessly side-stepped. ‘You’re sure of this, Ellen? I mean, if you are not, I can take you back.’

In answer, her fingers pressed into his midriff, holding firm, stirring pain in his chest and his groin. ‘I am sure.’

I am sure too.

‘Then let us hurry.’ He kicked his heels and set the horse off at a canter, his mind on the treacherous tracks they were likely to encounter on their journey north. This was a race now.

The ground was hardened by frost, and slippery. The horse’s breath, and theirs, rose into the cold air in plumes.

They had a few hours’ lead, but?—

‘Papa said I was to have nothing to eat either. I told Pippa not to bring me any food.’

Then perhaps, if no one was to speak to her, their head start would be longer.

It could be twelve hours to a day before they realised she was missing.

Even so it was the wrong time of year for haste.

He hoped the cold weather and frost would hold.

Better that than rain and mud bound routes when carts, horses and men became bogged down.

His head had begun planning their flight like a bloody military campaign.

‘The coach is waiting for us at the inn. It will be ready. I’ve hired a yellow bounder.’

‘A coach and four?’

He smiled at the tone of excitement in her voice. ‘Yes. You sound as if you fancy driving them?’

She laughed again, that low heart-wrenching beautiful sound. ‘No, I would not have a clue, I have never even ridden in a fast carriage. It sounds exhilarating.’

Exhilarating? This girl was so wonderfully innocent.

But that was another thing that had drawn him to her, her naivety, it was such a contrast to his own knowledge of the world; she knew nothing of the horrors he’d lived through, though he was only a little older than her.

She was here to wash his soul clean of war and brutality.

They came to a gate, but he did not dismount, he merely leaned down to open it, and then they were in the woods, where the frost had not yet settled.

Here darkness reigned. It left him reliant on the horse’s sight as they kept low to avoid tree branches; then he had to slow and keep the horse at a trot.

When they reached the clearing at the bottom of the ridge on which her father’s tall folly stood, he took a moment to regain his bearings and then set off through the trees again.

Due to the darkness, it took half an hour to reach the inn.

When she dismounted, his mind counted the minutes passing, aware of her empty bedchamber and the people asleep back at Pembroke’s palatial mansion.

At some hour tomorrow they would discover her gone.

His heart beat in a steady firm rhythm as he held her hand and she slid from the horse.

While she waited on the ground, her arms nervously clasping across her chest, he dropped her bag onto the cobbled yard then slipped his feet from the stirrups, swung his leg over the saddle, and dismounted.

The ice had not yet settled in the enclosed courtyard, but the street beyond was white with frost. He patted the mare’s cheek as it snorted, and whispered a thank you, then looked at the small, yellow-painted carriage, and the horses which waited, impatiently shaking out their manes and snorting misty breath into the night air.

A groom took the bridle of the hired mare he’d ridden to fetch Ellen and another collected Ellen’s bag to place it in the boot of their carriage.

‘Come.’ He held out his hand to Ellen and she took it, in complete trust. He was a lucky man.

The inn’s grooms hurried ahead to open the door.

It was strange, holding a woman’s hand. When he had walked with a woman before, she had only ever lain her hand on his arm. This was more intimate. She belonged to him. He was responsible for her now, even if it was not yet official.