Moonlight And Mistletoe

A twist of the picklocks and the box was shut. Hester pushed it back carefully until it fitted its old mark on the carpet, then helped Guy position the chaise so it too fitted into the dents its feet had left. She held the lantern barely open while he retrieved the cushions, then let herself be swung down into the flowerbed while he followed her, closing the window soundlessly behind.

It seemed they were safe.

Guy clenched his teeth firmly shut and drew along, steadying breath of freezing air in through his nose. His head was spinning with tension, concentration, fury with Hester and churning emotion over the discoveries in that box.

First things first, he told himself, keeping one hand firmly on Hester’s shoulder and guiding her towards the low wall. ‘Go along the wall.’

‘I know,’ she snapped back, low voiced. ‘How do you think I got here?’

‘By broomstick,’ Guy muttered and was almost caught off balance as she swung round furiously to face him.

‘That was unkind, unjustified-’

‘Look out!’ Guy seized Hester as she swayed on the wall and the terrace was suddenly lit by a flood of light from the central room facing on to it. This was more than one candle: someone had lit every light in the room and then thrown the curtains back.

Caught like an actor in the stage lights Guy froze, Hester clasped in his arms, and looked at the scene within. Lewis was standing with his back to the window, having obviously just flung back the curtains, his sister, untying the ribbons of her bonnet, was walking towards him. At any moment they would look out on to the terrace and see the figures on the wall, petrified like two statues.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘Run!’ he urged and Hester did, straight as an arrow, surefooted on the narrow wall, unhesitating until she got to the end where she caught hold of a branch and swung herself quietly down on to the betraying gravel. Despite his anger with her Guy felt a wave of pride wash through him. Foolish and stubborn she might be, but Hester had courage and quick wits, which filled him with admiration.

Not, he thought grimly as he took her arm and marched her unceremoniously around the house and down the drive, not that l am going to hesitate for one moment in turning her over my knee and tanning her backside just as soon as we are somewhere safe.

To be afraid on his own behalf had not occurred to him; one assessed the risks, took precautions, had a strategy for escape if necessary. But to find the woman he loved careering around in the darkness, plunging herself into danger in a house occupied by people whom she knew to wish her no good-that had shaken him.

And Guy Westrope was not accustomed to being shaken, decidedly unused to people flouting his wishes and, most of all, a complete stranger to having his mind and will taken over by a brown-haired chit of a girl with golden flecks in her eyes.

They turned out on to the road and he unshuttered the ‘glim’, as Stuttle, the third footman, called it. The small crowbar-or ‘bess’, according to Stuttle-was wedged uncomfortably in the waistband of his trousers. It had proved extremely effective; Guy resolved to slip the man a half- sovereign. Besides rewarding him for his assistance, it would do no harm to keep him loyal. Men with Stuttle’s skills were better on the inside than on the outside with a ‘bess’ in their hands.

The grim smile this thought provoked must have lingered on his lips, for as soon as they reached the barn and Hester tugged her arm free of his grip, she demanded, ‘And what is so amusing?’

‘Nothing whatsoever.’ Guy checked on his hunter, who was nose to nose with Hector, then set the lantern down on a ledge. ‘There is no humour whatsoever in a well-bred young lady galloping around the countryside, unconvincingly dressed as a boy and attempting breaking and entering.’

‘I more than attempted it, I succeeded,’ Hester snapped back, a not-unattractive flush colouring her cheeks. ‘And the breeches are simply because I needed to be able to ride easily, I was not attempting to convince anyone I was a boy.’

‘Well, that’s a mercy,’ Guy drawled, allowing his gaze to wander from the feminine curves filling Jethro’s breeches to the angry thrust of her bosom. God, how he longed to push her down on to that heap of hay, kiss that angry mouth with its full lower lip, caress those long, shapely, provocatively displayed limbs.

‘Why you… you rake!’ Hester took an impetuous step forward, hand raised. ‘How dare you ogle me like that?’

‘I am merely…Hester, what have you done to your hands?’ He caught her wrists, turning her hands palm up and pulling her towards the lantern, lust and anger turned instantly to concern. The cuffs of her shirt had blood and dirt on them, the gloves were shredded and grazed, cut skin showed through the tears. ‘Hester.’ Words would not come.

Somehow, through all the mysteries and alarms at the Moon House, he had managed to keep his apprehension for her within bounds, to be rational about it, to assess the dangers and put what precautions he could in place without giving way to his instincts to simply march in, drag her out to a carriage and drive her away somewhere safe.

But these ugly grazes on her soft skin, the way she had ignored what he knew must be painful while he had dragged her out of the house and down the drive, made his heart stop. ‘Hester,’ he said again, gently turning back the cuffs of the gloves and drawing them off her hands. ‘Oh, my poor darling.’ He lifted them, one by one, and kissed the inside of her wrists, clear of the grazes. Under his lips her pulse fluttered beneath the blue-veined skin.

‘Guy?’ He looked up and saw her eyes were clouded with tears.

‘Sweetheart, I’ve hurt you, I’m sorry. And I dragged you out of there, frogmarched you down the drive, shouted at you.’

‘Hissed at me, you mean.’ She was smiling at him, rather mistily. ‘You didn’t hurt me, and I know why you were angry, it was the same reason I was so cross with you. We were frightened for each other, that was all.’

‘You were frightened for me’?’ Holding her wrists so her hands were kept free at her sides, he drew her towards him until he could bend his head to rest his forehead against hers. On the cold air she smelt faintly of her distinctive, mossy scent. ‘I love you, Hester.’

‘I love you too, Guy.’ The words escaped from her lips before she could recall them, before his declaration registered with her mind rather than her heart. ‘You said-you said that you love me?’

‘Yes. Love you, want you, desire you. I have been afraid to put it to the touch. Somehow I thought you regarded me more in the light of a friend than a husband.’ His lips pressed against her forehead, her eyelids, down to her mouth.

Husband? His kiss silenced her protest, making her head spin with a sensual onslaught even as she tried to be rational, tried to think. How was it possible to move from absolute happiness to despair in the flight of a second? Could she tell him about her mined reputation? Even if he believed her, would she ever be confident that he was not simply honouring his offer to marry her when, if he had known from the beginning, he would never have offered for her?

He must have sensed her inner turmoil, for he lifted his head, keeping her in his arms as he looked down into her face with a wry smile. ‘My poor darling. I must win some sort of prize for the most wretchedly timed proposal ever. You are cold, shaken, hurt and we are standing in a filthy barn at midnight. I think I must take you home, call again and attempt to do this once more in form.’

‘Guy, I cannot marry you.’ The words were forced from between stiff lips, but she had to try to convince him, not let him go through a night believing she would accept him.

‘I understand.’ He went to check Hector’s girth, then to hold the stirrup for her. ‘Come, up you get before you are too chilled to sit a horse. Do you need a leg up?’

‘No. What do you mean, you understand?’ Bemused, Hester took the reins, then winced.