A stranger.
He raised his eyebrows. “I thought you must be deaf,” he said.
He must have been speaking to her before she became aware of his presence. She smiled at him, feeling some amusement as well as some embarrassment at his words. He was a young man, rather dashingly handsome.
“Egad,” he said, “but I am glad I took to the road early this morning. Have you escaped from your milking chores, wench?” He dismounted from his horse as he spoke and led it closer to her.
Oh. She felt her smile fading as she shook her head. What a wretched embarrassment to be mistaken for a milkmaid. This would teach her to stay well within the confines of the park when she was dressed thus. And she could not even explain.
He laughed and said something she could not see. But he continued. “You would be wasted squatting on a milking stool caressing udders,” he said. “I could put your hands and your... derriere to far more pleasurable use.” Brown eyes roamed over her from head to foot, pausing suggestively with the pauses in his speech. He abandoned his horse to graze on the grass at the side of the road and strolled closer to her.
Emily shook her head firmly and lifted her chin. Her heart began to beat uncomfortably fast. It was just the sort of situation that sometimes appeared in her nightmares. In reality she was rarely alone in a place where a stranger might come upon her. She wished desperately that her legs were on the other side of the stile. She mentally calculated how long it would take her to swing them over. He was not a particularly tall man, she noticed, but he was very solidly built, and he had an indefinable air of command about him. He looked like a man accustomed to having his own way.
“I have rendered you speechless?” he said, laughing at her again. “Come, wench, I would taste of those lips. And perhaps of something else too. Yes, undoubtedly of something else, though I would do more than taste there—I would delve deep for a sweeter feast. The roadisdeserted, I am happy to see, and the hedgerow in yonder field is quite secluded.”
She did not see every word. She did not need to. She was desperately frightened.
Ashley.Ashley.For the moment fear paralyzed both her body and her mind. All she could do was silently scream out his name and wish for a miracle.
The stranger took another step toward her.
“No.” She held her hands palm out in front of her. “No.”
“No?” He became instantly haughty, though the laughter was still there in his eyes. “No, wench? But I say yes. I will give you the chance to earn half a sovereign for yourself before breakfast. A princely sum for a truant milkmaid. But perhaps I will judge that you have not earned even half a farthing if you protest.”
Her brain was beginning to function again. She half smiled and kept her eyes on him as she swung her legs over to the other side of the stile. He stood still in order to watch her.
I am Lady Emily Marlowe. I am a guest at Penshurst. The Duchess of Harndon is my sister.But there was no point in wasting time verbalizing the words in her mind that she might have written down if she had had the chance. It was impossible to speak them. Her mind, still terrified but mercifully released from its paralysis, worked frantically.
“Ah,” he said, obviously believing that she moved in compliance with his suggestion, “the offer of half a sovereign has done the trick, has it? This will be rare sport, wench, money or no money, I warrant you. I daresay you enjoy a good rutting as well as I.”
He was within arm’s reach of her. She started suddenly with surprise, her eyes as wide as saucers, gazed beyond his shoulder at the imaginary rider who was not approaching down the road behind him, and pointed with one dramatic arm. She hoped—oh, she hoped and hoped she could say it right.
“L-l-look!” she said.
And then, when his head went back over his shoulder, she hurled herself down from the stile and began to run. The grass was slippery among the trees, but her toes gripped it surely. She knew that she had only a few seconds’ grace. It would not take him long to climb over the stile, and surely he could run faster than she. Her back crawled with terror and for once the silence was menacing, but she dared not waste a moment in looking back. She tried to decide whether it would be better to weave among the trees, hoping to lose him, or to run a straight course through them, as she was doing. She tried to decide what she would do when he caught her. Panic was robbing her of both breath and rationality. And finally she could deny the panic no longer. She turned her head to look back.
She could still see him, though he was not close. He was only just on her side of the stile. He was down, one knee bent, the other leg stretched out ahead of him. He must have skidded on the wet grass. He touched his right hand to the brim of his hat in a mocking salute. He said something, but she could not read his lips at that distance. She turned her head again and ran on.
Ashley was not at home. She entered the house at a run, looking neither to left nor to right. She raced upstairs and hurled herself at the door of his bedchamber and through it. He was not there. Nor was he in his dressing room. She gripped the back of a chair there for a moment, gasping for breath, setting a hand to the stitch in her side, not sparing a single thought to wonder how she even knew where his room was. Then she raced downstairs and into the breakfast parlor. It was empty.
The footman in the large tiled hall looked at her impassively. Not by the flicker of an eyelid did he show any reaction to her disheveled appearance. But he had come closer to the door of the breakfast parlor.
“His lordship is out riding, my lady,” he said with careful lip movements, “with his grace. Her grace is, I believe, with Lord Harry in the nursery.”
Anna. Luke. She stared blankly at the footman. She had not even thought of running to either one of them for help. But Luke was gone anyway, and she would not disturb Anna, who she knew must be feeding Harry. She nodded to the footman and turned back to the stairs.
She paced in her room, with the door firmly shut, for several minutes, stopping frequently at the window to peer downward. But she did not know where he had gone or from which direction he would return. And she could not see the stable block from her window. She finally threw herself facedown onto the bed. She wanted his arms tight about her. She wanted her head against his heartbeat. She wanted the strength of his body enclosing her. She wanted to climb right inside him. She gathered fistfuls of the bedcover into her hands and held tight. And then she turned onto her side and drew up her knees, curling as nearly as she could into a ball. She started to shake so uncontrollably that her teeth chattered, but she could not even reach out to pull the cover over herself for warmth and protection.
Ashley,she thought,come home. Please come home.
After a long time she felt enough in command of her body to get up again. He must not see her like this, she decided. Her hair was wild and tangled. She could see a twig caught in one lock that lay over her shoulder. Her hands and feet were dirty. Her dress was torn at one side. She could smell her own perspiration. She spread her hands in front of her. They were still trembling. So were her legs, now that she was standing on them. She rang the bell for a maid and stripped off her dress.
She felt hardly any better half an hour later, though she was clean and neatly dressed and had had her hair braided and coiled at the back of her head beneath her lace cap. She had deliberately chosen one of her favorite new gowns, an open gown of spring green, its robings embroidered with spring flowers, the petticoat beneath a slightly lighter shade of green. She wore stays and small hoops. But she did not really feel better. She descended the stairs at a sedate pace, her chin up, her expression serene. She had made enough of a spectacle of herself for the servants earlier.
She was not sure she could say the word properly. It began with that invisible sound. “Lord Ahshley?” she asked the footman.
“His lordship is in the library, my lady,” the footman said with a bow. “He is with—”
