“What are you doing here?” Gideon asked.
“Whatever I please. I don’t answer to you.”
Meredith knew she had to draw a close to this scene, and fast. She’d only just tidied up from the first brawl. And now Gideon had two men outside armed with pistols, and a wagonload of smuggled goods he’d no doubt kill to protect.
“He’s only here for the night,” she announced to the room. “And I was just going to show him to his accommodations. Mr. Myles, our trade will wait for tomorrow morning.”
There, she told Gideon with her eyes. Now do you see why you can’t go unloading that wagon tonight?
He did. But he wasn’t happy about it. He struck a petulant pose. “Darryl can show him upstairs.”
“It’s my inn. He’s my guest.” She turned to Rhys. “If you’d follow me, my lord?”
She didn’t wait for his reply, just turned and headed for the back stairs and hoped he’d follow. He did. The ancient bowed planks groaned beneath his weight, and the stairway suddenly felt too narrow.
“I’m sorry to make trouble for you,” he said.
“It’s no trouble,” she replied, slowing her pace. “But if you don’t mind my asking, why are you here?”
She heard him sigh. “Honestly, Mrs. Maddox?” Creak. “I’m asking myself the same thing.”
Fair enough.
“Your room’s just here,” she said, leading him down the corridor. She waited to the side, holding the door open for him to enter.
He strode a few paces to the center of the bedchamber and turned a slow circle, surveying his accommodations. Meredith held her breath, wondering what he’d make of them. She’d only finished redecorating the room this week. It was the opening salvo in her campaign to remake the Three Hounds into a quality establishment. A real inn, the type where well-heeled travelers would plan to break their journeys, not just reluctantly stop over if they’d broken a carriage wheel.
Meredith sighed as she went to start a fire. She really hadn’t the slightest notion what she was doing. Just this afternoon, she’d stood in the center of this room, feeling terribly proud of the new ruffled drapes and quilted counterpane. The blue china vase above the mantel added a touch of elegance, she’d fancied.
Now that she saw the small bedchamber from Rhys’s perspective, she noted the exposed rafters overhead, the dingy walls, the choking tang of peat smoke from the hearth …. It all looked hopelessly meager and drab. She could only imagine how it appeared in a titled gentleman’s eyes. Who was she fooling, anyway?
“Darryl will bring up your bags. Shall I tell him to act as valet?”
“No,” Rhys said quickly. She thought she saw him shudder. “Not necessary.”
“There’s the washstand in the corner.” Please don’t chip the new porcelain.
He nodded.
“We serve breakfast downstairs in the morning. And if there’s anything you need in the meantime, you’ve only to ask.”
“Thank you.” He tipped his gaze to the ceiling. “This room is rather …”
“Drafty,” she finished. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll send in Darryl overnight to add peat to the fire, and there’s an extra blanket in the chest. But then you might become overheated, in which case there’s always the window.” She felt, with distinct horror, that she was blathering on like a bedlamite, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “I know the room must be poor indeed, compared with what you’re accustomed to, but I do hope you’ll find it adequate to your …”
He turned to her and smiled.
And suddenly she had no more words.
“Adequate?” He shook his head. “In the army, I grew more accustomed to sleeping on hard ground than anything. My rooms in London were barren and cold.” He looked around the bedchamber. “I can assure you, this is the finest bedchamber I’ve known in years. True luxury. I’ll sleep well tonight.”
His words made her heart float in her chest. Blast it. She couldn’t start yearning for him. Well, she’d started yearning for him as a girl, but she couldn’t afford to take the practice up again now. He was leaving in the morning.
“In fact,” he said lightly, crossing to the window and peering out, “I’m so pleased with this room, I think I could kiss you for it.”
Oh, Lord. Now that wouldn’t help with her yearning problem.
His head jerked up, as though he’d surprised himself with the words. Of course he had. They were a ridiculous notion. The last time he’d looked at her, he’d seen naught but freckles and bone.
Confirming the foolishness, he said, “That’s strange.”
She tried to laugh, but couldn’t. He was drawing too near. Her pulse thundered in her chest as those giant boots carried him across the old, creaking oak floorboards. Floorboards she’d scoured with sand on hand and knee just a few days ago. Her shoulders still ached.
His deep brown eyes searched hers as he drew to a halt. “I think I’d very much like to kiss you.” He reached out and plucked a stray lock of her hair from where it lay on her shoulder, twisting it slowly between his finger and thumb. “What do you say, Merry Lane? Show me a proper welcome home?”
She could make a joke, or step away. She knew well how to deflect a man’s advances. Down in the tavern, she did it all the time. For each of the few men she’d taken to her bed since her husband’s death, she’d refused dozens more. But she’d spent her girlhood dreaming of this particular man, staring down at her with exactly that glimmer of desire in his eyes, speaking precisely those words to her.
I think I’d very much like to kiss you.
It was simply all too much. In a flutter of nerves, she blurted out, “Is there anything else you require, my lord?”
At her brisk tone, he recoiled instantly. “No.” He turned away, but not before she caught a wounded flash in his eyes. He rubbed one palm over his short dark hair. “No, I apologize. That was … wrong of me. It won’t happen again.”
Meredith stood there for a moment, watching him return to the window.
He didn’t turn back around as he said, “You’d best leave me, hadn’t you?”
So she slipped out the door and drew it shut behind her. Then she punched the doorjamb with a low growl.
Damn, damn, damn. In all her life, she’d never been so frustrated with herself. She’d just let slip the opportunity—the one single chance she’d ever have—to share a kiss, and most likely a bed, with the man she’d wanted since she’d scarcely understood what wanting meant. Not only that, but she’d given him the wrong impression with her refusal. Now he thought she found him unattractive and unkissable, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Gideon was still downstairs in the bar. She needed to see his wagonload of goods stowed safely in the horse barn. Not to mention, finish serving her customers without losing more furniture in the process.
But Rhys would leave tomorrow. She would never have this chance again. She worked so hard for this place. Every day, all day. Didn’t she deserve one night for herself?
She rapped firmly on the door.
When he opened it, she spoke quickly, before she could lose her nerve. “You could,” she said. “You could kiss me. I wouldn’t mind.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“No.”
He cupped her jaw in his hand and tilted her face to his. It was only then that she realized she’d addressed her fearless speech to his coat button.
His thumb stroked her cheek tenderly, and she let her eyes close. He did it again, dragging his thumb from her cheekbone to her jaw. Just that gentle brush of his skin against hers had her whole body humming.
Unable to bear the anticipation a moment longer, she opened her eyes.
He didn’t kiss her.
“Thank you for that.” He touched a fingertip to the corner of her mouth before releasing her. “Good night, Mrs. Maddox.”
Before she could bid him the same, he’d closed the door.
Chapter Three
If only stone could burn. In the thin gray dawn, Rhys stood before the gutted shell of Nethermoor Hall. After such a long absence, he hadn’t known what to expect. He’d fantasized about finding the place just a scar on the moor, a still-smoking pile of cinders and lime. But those hopes had been disappointed. For unlike the roofbeams, floors, and passageways, Nethermoor’s exterior walls had been built of stone. And damn it all, stone didn’t burn.
Much of the once-great house’s masonry had disappeared into the Dartmoor mist, no doubt scavenged for new construction. But here and there, an orderly stack of stones persisted—the corner of a room, an arched doorway leading from one nowhere to another. Fourteen unforgiving winters had scrubbed the remaining rocks of soot, and they appeared as weathered and permanent as so many granite tors pressing up through the moor’s endless swaths of gorse.
Time and rain could do their worst for centuries. A conflagration could consume the surrounding heath. But Nethermoor Hall would never completely go away, because it was made of stone, and stones were forever.
Turning away from the house, Rhys walked the short distance to where the stables had once stood. Where the fire had begun. Little remained to mark the site, save a low border of rocks outlining the foundation. The place had grown over with moss and sedge. He kicked at a blackened piece of metal on the ground. An old bridle loop, perhaps. Or maybe a bit. An icy shiver crawled over his neck.
Behind him, his gelding whickered uneasily. The horse didn’t like the place any more than he did. Maybe he should have given more credit to Darryl’s tales. Maybe the scent of singed horseflesh did linger on the breeze. Did the perk of the horse’s ears mean he caught the faint echoes of equine screams?
Rhys shuddered. In the years since leaving Nethermoor, he’d heard the death cries of many creatures, human and inhuman. But none were as eerie or chilling as the sounds this place had etched on his memory—the crisp, rhythmic crack of a whip kissing hide, the whoosh of a wind-fueled blaze, and those panicked screams of trapped horses.
Darryl Tewkes was right. Rhys should have died with those beasts fourteen years ago. He’d been courting death every day of his life ever since. But he was the human equivalent of a goddamned boulder. Huge, hard, indestructible. He’d weathered the daily beatings in his youth, the countless schoolyard and tavern brawls, the ravages of battle. He was starker, meaner, and scarred for his pains, but still here.
Still here. Standing in front of this hellish pile of rocks and misery he’d inherited.
If only stone could burn.
A bitter taste filled his mouth. He turned his head, intending to spit, but found himself doubled over and retching instead. God damn it. Eleven years in the infantry, and he’d never once vomited in battle.
Get up, the voice inside him said. The cold, commanding voice he’d never been able to silence, even with a hundred cannons thundering in his ears. Get up. No matter what struck him down—fist, shot, bayonet—he somehow always staggered to his feet, ready to take more. Get up. On your feet. Stand, you miserable piece of filth.
Rhys stood.
Slowly turned.
And left, without looking back.
He was tempted to ride straight on to Lydford, leaving Buckleigh-in-the-Moor behind him without so much as a farewell. But he had to return. He’d left his bags at the Three Hounds, for one. His horse hadn’t been fed, and neither had he.
Most of all, he needed to see Meredith again. He owed her an apology for that boorish proposition last night. Simply because she’d been the only soul in the village to greet him with civility, it didn’t follow that she’d eagerly fall into bed with him. He couldn’t think what had possessed him to even suggest it. He’d been so tired and bleary-eyed, and just a bit drunk on those soft, shy glances. He’d simply wanted to get close to her and stay there for a while, and learn if her hair smelled as lovely as it looked. And afterwards, sleep. Sleep and forget, instead of spending the night tossing and cursing the rafters.