Page 23 of How to Tempt An Earl
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.
Chapter Twelve
Being on the road in good weather made it easy to forget there was a world outside this journey. For Celeste, the days took on a pleasant rhythm all of their own. They fell into a routine of stopping, setting up camp, washing off the dust of the day, and preparing and eating an evening meal. All this amid stories of other journeys and other roads these men had travelled together and falling asleep beside Kieran while he told her tales of growing up at Willow Park, the stars keeping watch.
They’d not repeated the intimacy of the forest, which was both a comfort and a concern. They knew better now just how consuming their passion would be if unleashed. But that did not mean desire had subsided. It was still there, pushing hard against their defences, unwilling to be ignored or denied. It crept in, crawling closer with each story like an incoming tide, with each look, each touch, until it became a permanent presence between them with every day spent on the road.
They were not racing to their destination, but they were being deliberate and discreet in their route, staying off the main thoroughfares and choosing country roads instead, eschewing inns and villages. There’d been no sign of Roan or Vincent, or much of anyone. Cheshire, Kieran informed her, was a rural area devoted to cattle, cheese, salt and, most interestingly to her, silk.
‘The best way to understand a place is to get off the beaten path,’ he murmured in her ear late in the afternoon as they rode through the quiet countryside.
She thought the same could be said of people as well—get them out of their ballrooms and social cages, get them out into the country where there was nothing to do but talk to pass the time, and who knew what might be revealed? Talk built its own kind of intimacy, and its own kind of risk. It created a sense of knowing someone perhaps better than one truly did—a caution she’d best keep in mind.
‘It’s the lull before the storm,’ Kieran commented as they passed a field of wheat, ripe and ready. ‘The harvest is not far off. It’s good we’re passing through now. Next week, these fields will be full of workers, roads full of threshing crews. We would have been noted.’
‘I like it the way it is now. It’s as if we’re the only people in the world, and that there’s nothing to do but simply exist, eat, sleep and enjoy being in company with one another. It’s a reminder that perhaps we complicate our lives unnecessarily. We need so little when we’re on the road.’ That had been true even when she’d fled Roan. It was amazing how portable her life had become in the last month.
Kieran laughed. She felt his chest rumble against her back, the chest she slept against each night. ‘You may be disappointed to know that we should be in Wrexham tomorrow night.’ Wrexham—the end of this journey and the beginning of another. The beginning of the end. They’d not talked about Wrexham. Perhaps it was a tacit rule of the Horsemen not to plan too far into the future out of a need to focus on the moment at hand. ‘You’ll have hot water, a bed to sleep in and a warm meal,’ he cajoled her when she remained silent.
‘I have those things now.’ She had so much more. She had this man beside her, and while they were out here she could pretend he was hers; that they were partners and equals. She could ignore the contradiction of wanting him while also wanting her freedom.
In Wrexham, she’d start to lose her power. She’d have to surrender the first half of the list. She’d have to remember that men stole a woman’s freedom, that marriage stole a woman’s freedom; that the things she treasured—home and family—could only be had at great personal sacrifice. Those things had killed her mother. In the long term, it would be best to let Kieran go before she gave him too much power.
‘Let’: that was a ridiculous word to use with Kieran. He was not a man who ‘let’ people decide anything for him. Letting him go was as much a fantasy as it was to assume he wanted her to stay or that he sought anything permanent. He didn’t. Which made her own thoughts all the more ridiculous, too, and all this unnecessary worry that she’d have to decide to go or stay, to choose Kieran or her freedom. He’d not even asked that of her. He’d not spoken of a future that involved them together.
Wasn’t that one of the reasons she felt safe enough with him to allow the intimacy—because he expected nothing in return, only the moment? No, her freedom was securely intact. Wrexham would end the journey but it would not end her bid for freedom. She ought to feel relief at the knowledge that she’d been arming herself for a battle she’d not have to fight, but there was only emptiness when she thought of leaving Kieran and that he’d let her go when the time came. It was not the reaction she’d expected.
‘I see that life on the road has you in its thrall.’ Kieran shifted in the saddle behind her, perhaps picking up on her unsettled mood. ‘The road has a certain magic, but it’s only been a few days. It does get old.’
‘Out here, we can be whoever and whatever we choose.’ She could lie beside this man, could walk into the woods and seek pleasure with him beneath an oak tree, sit beside him for the evening meal and lean against his knee. No one condemned her. ‘But the moment we step back into civilisation, into even the most meagre village, our actions will be called into question.’
Unless she belonged to that man. Beneath the pomp and pageantry of courtships and weddings, that was what marriage was—the transfer of a woman’s ownership from one man to another. She hated that. Ownership and guardianship were just polite words for enslavement. She’d had a large enough taste of that with Roan to last her a lifetime. Perhaps that reminder would make it easier to leave Wrexham and Kieran when the time came.
She could feel Kieran smiling. ‘Who areyouout here, Celeste?’
‘A woman who can claim her passion. Who doesn’t need society’s permission to claim it, or censure her if she does.’ She gave a toss of her head. ‘Who areyouout here, Kieran?’ It was a fanciful question to ask. He was who he always was. A man could do and be whatever he wanted whenever and wherever he wanted.
‘Don’t you know?’ His mouth was close to her ear. She would miss that little intimacy—the way his voice lowered, the way he might press the tiniest of kisses behind her ear as he spoke. ‘Out here, I am yours. Yours to command.’
The words sent a jolt of awareness through her—awareness of him; awareness of her own power. He did indeed allow her to set the tone between them. He’d not pressed her for more since the oak tree. He’d been content to sleep beside her and to offer her the comfort of his body without requiring sex in exchange unless she desired it. She did desire it, but not yet, not when the boundaries between them were still unformed and still shifting; the relationship was still too new. They were still learning about one another. She’d rushed in too soon with David and she’d suffered for it. Yet each night when she’d lain down beside Kieran, the temptation had whispered that she could trust him with her body, that he would be different, and each night she’d got closer to giving in.
‘Eric’s back.’ Kieran gestured to a growing speck in the distance. She’d hardly noticed it. Eric had left after lunch to ride ahead. Now, he came galloping back to give a report.
‘There’s a village up ahead.’ Eric drew his horse alongside Tambor and the two animals touched noses. ‘They’re having a fair. There’s games and booths, food, ale and lots of people,’ he hinted broadly. ‘We would hardly be noticed, and we’re only a few miles from the border.’
‘Wearerunning low on food,’ Celeste mused out loud. ‘There’s only enough left for either supper tonight or breakfast in the morning.’ Although, it wasn’t much of a worry. They’d be in Wrexham by supper tomorrow. They weren’t going to starve. Still, the idea of a fair to celebrate their last night held some appeal. ‘I think we’ve earned a bit of pleasure.’
‘You heard the lady, Eric.’ Kieran laughed. ‘She wants to go to the fair. Tell the others.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered as Eric galloped off.
‘As I said, I am yours to command.’
* * *
An hour later, the horses had been put up at a livery, rooms arranged at an inn and she was strolling the booths on the common with Kieran beside her, excitement buoying her step.
