Cody relieved Brandon of the lantern and kept abreast of his brother as they tried the alternate route from the house. After three miles he was ready to abandon the search but said nothing to Brandon. He could not ever recall Brandon looking so…sointense.His thoughtful regard of his brother dissolved when Brandon pointed to a fleeting shadow among the trees.
“There! Did you see it?” Without waiting for Cody’s reply, Brandon nudged his mount to a gallop. He was alighting to the ground by the time Cody caught him. “Keep the lantern high, Cody.”
Cody dismounted and followed Brandon on foot into the woods. He stopped short when Brandon halted and bade him listen. After a moment when he heard only the sound of his own breathing, his ears caught the same thing Brandon had. It could have been an animal, but Cody didn’t think so. “This way,” he said, and they started off again in the direction of the intermittent thrashing.
Shannon’s sleeve caught on the underbrush and she struggled to release it. The prickly branches defied her efforts as if they were a living thing. Her breath caught on a sob as she finally tore free and continued her flight away from the road.
Why was he following her? she wondered wildly. He wanted her gone; it was evident in the way he had spoken to her. Yet she knew without a doubt it was Brandon Fleming who was coming after her. She did not think she had mistaken the profile of his large frame on horseback.
Shannon tripped over a fallen log and landed on her hands and knees. She heard a voice say, “This way,” and she scrambled to her feet, fear lending her strength. Rushing through the undergrowth with no sense of direction to guide her, Shannon glanced behind her to make certain she kept the lantern light at her back. She was breathing heavily, her heart pounding so loudly that she thought it would surely burst in her chest. Her legs trembled and her hands shook, but she forced herself to keep going. The approach of the light was relentless, a constant reminder that she could not hope to outrun her pursuers. The back of one hand covered her mouth to stifle the terrified sob that rose in her throat. She stumbled again, this time on a loose root, and fell flat out on the hard ground. It was like drowning, she thought, trying to breathe when her lungs would not take any air. She rolled into a thicket, curled into a tight ball, and squeezed her eyes shut. Childlike, she thought if she could not see them, they might not see her.
Brandon stopped Cody by placing his hand on Cody’s shoulder. “I’ve lost her. Can you hear anything?”
He was quiet a moment, frowning when he heard only the normal night sounds. “She came this way. I’m sure of it.” He took a few steps forward and tripped ignominiously over the same root that had caught Shannon. He managed to stay upright, but the lantern fell from his grasp and rolled toward Shannon’s hiding place.
Neither man said a word as they stared at the crouched figure in the underbrush. Cody, for the first time, acknowledged to himself that the woman in question was not Aurora. If Brandon’s wife had fled, she would not have worn a plain day dress, devoid of lace or ruffles. She would not have braided her hair or donned a mobcap. The clothes were Aurora’s, all right, but the one time Cody had seen Aurora in them was when she wanted to mock Brandon for bringing her to the folly and expecting her to share in the running of it. They were her slave clothes, she had told Brandon.
Brandon remembered the clothes as well, and his mouth tightened. Shannon had chosen the simplest dress in what remained of Aurora’s wardrobe, and even then he doubted she had ever worn anything as fine as his wife’s castoffs. He regarded her tightly closed eyes and her pale, dirt-smudged face, and felt his own lips relax until the semblance of a smile pulled at the corners. “You can open your eyes, Miss Kilmartin,” he said, hunkering down beside Shannon. “You’ve been found.”
Cody listened with undisguised interest to the soft coaxing in Brandon’s voice. Clearly his brother had some feeling for the chit. It was much the same tone he used to lift Clara’s spirits, but Brandon would have to be mad to regard Shannon Kilmartin as a child. She was very much the image of Rory Fleming, and Rory was certainly no child.
Shannon shrugged off Brandon’s hand when he touched her shoulder, but she opened her eyes. The lantern light blinded her vision, and Brandon thoughtfully picked it up and handed it to Cody.
“Come out,” Brandon cajoled. “We’ll take you back to the folly.”
Before anyone could guess her intention, Shannon shoved Brandon away, scrambled to her feet, and began running. She had only gone a few yards when Brandon’s arm, as firm as iron, slid around her waist and brought her up short. She was turned in his arms and her mobcap fell unnoticed to the ground. She was too angry for tears, and they only shimmered in her violet eyes. Beating uselessly against the hard wall of Brandon with her fists, she railed at him. “I won’t go back! I won’t!”
“I’m not giving you a choice,” he said, not unkindly.
“You don’t believe anything I’ve told you,” she said, still struggling to be free of him. “But it’s true, I swear it.” A dry hiccup punctuated her statement, and the yellow light illuminated the tide of embarrassment that pinkened her cheeks. She lifted her face and stared at the solemn strength of the one above her. There was a hint of laughter in his eyes, and it was the end of enough for Shannon. She renewed her onslaught, pouring out her anger with clenched fists and flailing feet until she slumped, exhausted, against him. “You don’t understand. You don’t! Hedidarrange for my passage. I would have hanged otherwise. Dear God! Would that I had!”
Brandon gave her a little shake. “Do not speak so.”
Tears finally fell, leaving streaks amid the dirt that dusted Shannon’s face. “I can’t go back. Not where I’m not wanted. Not again.” Her head bowed and the top of her dark hair rested against Brandon’s shoulder. “I’m so tired of not being wanted.” She sobbed brokenly and felt the hands that held her loosen slightly and reposition themselves. Where once they had been a prison, they now offered comfort. “So tired.” With no warning Brandon lifted her in his arms. Shannon was too exhausted to respond with more than token resistance. Her head lay in the crux of his shoulder, and she wept softly against his chest.
The dark slashes of Cody’s brows were raised well above his eyes as Brandon turned and motioned him to lead the way out of the wood. As he retraced their path to the horses he assured himself he would wake from his drunken stupor and find himself in a bed above Redheart’s tavern, his face pressed firmly in the musky depths of a whore’s breasts. It was the only explanation that made any sense. He devoutly believed he had never left Annie Jones’s side.
He went through the motions of assisting Shannon onto Brandon’s saddle, thinking the only way to recover from this dream was to play it out. Surely it was not the same Brandon Fleming who had professed to want nothing further to do with women who was holding this particular woman with such infinite care. Only blue ruin could account for the things Cody was seeing now: Brandon’s face buried in the dark cloud of Shannon’s hair; Brandon’s voice trembling as it soothed and comforted.
Cody stood on the open road, alone and, it seemed, forgotten, holding the lantern at his side. For a moment he simply stared after his brother as Brandon kept his mount to a comfortable walk, then he grinned. There was no one to restrain his joyous whoop this time, and his swelling laughter startled his horse. Cody blew out the lantern, swung into his saddle, and followed his brother’s trail. It was suddenly clear to him, as clear as the pinpricks of starlight through the inky curtain of night. Shannon Kilmartin was the one love of Brandon’s life. He wondered if his brother realized it; then, more gravely, he wondered if perhaps Aurora hadn’t known it as well.
Brandon dismounted at the folly’s doorstep and lifted Shannon from the saddle. She went stiffly into his arms, murmured she could walk herself, but Brandon carried her in as if he hadn’t heard her objections. They were met in the foyer by a dozen family retainers, most of whom Shannon had never seen before. She was deeply shamed by their avid curiosity, the looks of digust they could not quite mask. She did not know who they were condemning: herself, Rory, or Brandon for going after her. She told herself she did not care. But she did. Very much.
She struggled in Brandon’s arms, her eyes begging him silently to release her. Again he took no notice of her wishes and slowly mounted the stairs. He seemed equally unaware of the way the servants were regarding him. Shannon closed her eyes.
Brandon paused on the stairs and looked down at Martha. “Where is Clara?”
“I put her to bed in your room. She couldn’t stay awake no longer, but she wants to know when you return.”
Brandon nodded shortly and continued to climb. Below him, the servants shook their heads, puzzled, and began to return to their own living quarters. Brandon stopped in front of his chamber and nudged the door open with his foot. “I want Clara to see you,” he said when he heard Shannon’s soft gasp.
“Does she know who I am?” Shannon’s face softened as she gazed at the small girl in the oversized bed. Clara’s thumb was in her mouth and her other hand lay beneath her head. “Have you told her?”
“She knows something is different, and I haven’t breathed a word to her.” Brandon could not help staring at Shannon. That her heart had gone out to Clara was clearly written in the gentling of her features. The wary expression in her eyes had vanished; the curve of her mouth was serene. He squelched the flash of envy he felt as being ridiculous. What reason did he have to be jealous?
He placed Shannon on the bed at Clara’s feet and sat on the edge of the bed by his daughter’s head. He teased the tousled curls and whispered her name. “There is someone here to see you, poppet. Come, open your eyes and see who it is.”
Clara’s lashes fluttered as Brandon lighted a candle.
