Follow My Lead (37 page)

She held his gaze as Jason felt something shift beneath his feet, and he fought to keep steady. “That cannot be true,” he rasped finally, his voice coming back to him.

“Oh, I like you!” she cried, taking a step forward, but Jason, not wanting to be comforted at the moment, took a step back. “Of course I like you. I don’t think I could do what we did with someone I disliked, surely.”

“Surely not,” Jason replied snidely.

“And of course, I liked it,” she continued in a bid to soothe his wounded pride, and yet somehow every word she said just plunged the knife deeper. “At least, I found the entire evening very . . . interesting. And, and nice. But it was just an experience.” She looked up at him sadly, trying to find his eyes, but he gave her no quarter. “I just wanted to know what it was like. But I still want the independent life I’m fighting for. One night doesn’t change that.”

Jason looked over at her then, let his gaze rake coolly, dispassionately over her body. “You’ll have to forgive me, Winnifred, but I don’t take very well to being used.”

Winn flinched backward, as if struck. “I wasn’t . . . that is, it wasn’t my intention—”

“Oh really?” he replied coldly, imbuing his voice with all the authority a dukedom gives it. “Are you saying you did not take my hand and pull me to the loft in an attempt to check me off your imaginary list?”

She blinked, unable to deny it, her inability to hold his gaze serving instead as an admission.

“You did,” he intoned, understanding finally, finally breaching his thick skull. “Oh holy hell, you did. You thought, ‘Here’s something new I haven’t yet accomplished, I’ll do it and cross it off my list and be done with it.’”

“That’s not fair—” Winn began, but Jason, for all his cold demeanor, was becoming remarkably hot underneath his collar.

“
Goddammit
, Winn!” he yelled, startling Wolfgang from his munching and Winn from her reasonableness. “Are you really this selfish? This unfeeling?”

“I told you last night, I don’t think I have what it takes to love someone, so why are you—”

“Because, I, unlike you, have feelings.” His anger was unparalleled, but it was more than that. It was pain, a slicing through his skin and deep into his chest, making his blood run thick and hot. He breathed deep, trying to keep his anger and his pain under control. “I knew, I
knew
last night, that I would regret my actions come morning, but I certainly didn’t think it would be in quite this manner.”

“I’m sorry,” she said meekly, eliciting scornful laughter from Jason.

“And that’s the true irony of it all!” Jason crowed. “I’m the one that’s supposed to be begging forgiveness from
you
. If you were any other woman in the world, and if you were at all
sane
, you would be railing against me for my brutish, drunken actions!”

“For heaven’s sake, are you mad at me now? For
not
being angry with you?” Then Winn threw up her hands. “Fine. Perfect. I’ll just wait over here with Wolfgang until it’s over, if you don’t mind.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Jason spat out as Winn tentatively crossed to the besotted horse, who was more than happy to have his beloved closer and therefore under his protection.

Winn regarded him with an unnerving sense of calm. “It means . . . when is it my turn to be mad at you?” She sighed tiredly. “You yell at me on the deck of the
Seestern
, chide me at every opportunity, and nearly take my head off once we were outside of Nuremberg. And even though you’ve managed to make my journey a
hell
of a lot more complicated, I like to think I’ve kept my temper very even.” Jason wanted to point out that she was glossing over the slap that echoed across lower Bavaria just two days prior, but held his tongue. “So since you have the protocol of argument down, do let me know when it is my turn to be mad at you,” she concluded with a shrug, crossing her arms over her chest.

It was as if the world had turned upside down on him, Jason thought as he rubbed his eyes, which had suddenly grown oversensitive to the light, a sure sign of an impending headache. “Winn, you
should
be mad at me! I took your virginity last night.”

“I offered it, fairly thoroughly.”

“And I should have been gentleman enough to refuse what you offered! Because actions . . . especially actions like these, have consequences.”

“If you mean a child,” Winn countered, “I was aware enough to realize you spilled yourself on the straw. Therefore, I am not particularly worried about the consequences.”

“For God’s sake! Your relatives should be calling me out right now—they should be forcing us to the altar!”

“But my father is not here to do such a thing. And I refuse to be forced anywhere or into anything.” She looked up at him, standing close to him—close enough to touch, but she did not reach out. “I wanted to find out what they write poems about—what inspired the masters to take up their brushes. And so I did. And now, we move on.”

“We move on,” he repeated dully. “Winn, you think of yourself as free from society, living just below its notice, but you are not. You and I should be mar—”

“Don’t you dare say it,” she said, putting a hand over his mouth. “I would never do that to you. I would never . . .
trap
you in that way.” Her eyes became suspiciously bright. “So don’t you dare do that to me.”

“Winn, I—”

“No. Don’t you see? I took the opportunity that was before me simply
because
I don’t have to worry about being in your life. After this is over, you are not going to take me back to England and teach me to ride a horse . . . That’s just folly. You are going to go back to your dukedom and a lovely, appropriate young lady who will agree to marry you. You,
Your Grace
, are going to go back to your life . . . and I intend to start mine.”

He was unable to tear his gaze away from her earnest hazel eyes, and as such, she was the one to falter first and lower her gaze. “Oh, we might run into each other at a Historical Society function . . . assuming I can gain admittance after all this madness”—she laughed a little at that—“but our paths veer away from each other.”

And at that moment, Jason felt something inside him sink, forcing his knees to buckle. Sink past the soles of his feet and into the dark German earth, put to rest there. Because she was right. This was an interlude for him. A holiday—albeit a mad one—away from the pressures of choosing a bride and living his life at home. He had done what he had promised Jane he would not do—he had run. And as soon as it was over, he was going to have to return home.

But the idea that she had effectively
used
him in the process of elemental discovery . . . that rang as false to him. No, hang it. That was complete and utter bullshit.

However, he didn’t say anything more to her, or she to him, while he paced in the dirt, and she, exhausted, took a seat next to the tree he had abandoned. Nor did they say anything to each other, when, some minutes later, Jason abruptly stopped pacing and untethered Wolfgang from the tree. He didn’t say a single word to her until she was situated on his lap, his arm wrapped securely around her waist. Then, ignoring her stiffness, her desperate desire to maintain some distance between them, he pulled her close to his body, his mouth fractions of an inch away from her ear.

“I don’t give a damn what you say,” he whispered, causing her to take in a sharp breath. “We were both there last night, Winn. And we both know it was more than ‘interesting,’ more than ‘nice.’ And more than just an experiment.”

Before she could reply, before she could even breathe, Jason urged Wolfgang into a trot. After all, the interlude had ended.

They had a journey to continue.

T
HEY arrived in Regensburg before nightfall and found the inn on Hohenfelser Strasse fairly easily, only stopping once for directions. Regensburg was a city growing in wealth and population, still rebuilding from the Battle of Ratisbon in 1809, where famously Napoleon himself was wounded by a bullet to the ankle. Regensburg didn’t have the bustle of Nuremberg, but it was certainly not allowing itself to be stuck in the past. Older, Tudor-esque structures were giving way to Georgian columned buildings with alarming speed, painted in pastels that sat brightly against the dull landscape. The streets were becoming cobbled by stone, and Hohenfelser Strasse was located right off one of the main paths.

Winn wanted to ask what the city had looked like the last time Jason was here, if he had come through here, six years ago when he took his grand tour of Europe. She wanted to ask but didn’t. Even that light bit of banal conversation was too heavy a weight to carry right now.

Once in the yard of the inn, they disembarked from Wolfgang, Winn admittedly more at ease with the animal after spending the better part of the entire day on his back. He hadn’t tried to eat her hair once during their periodic stops to let Wolfgang lap some water from a nearby stream. Now, as then, Jason dismounted first and then took Winn by the waist and lifted her down. Then, as now, he didn’t say a word to her, just turned away, this time stalking toward the door to the inn.

And without the distraction of conversation, all Winn had were those last words that he had whispered to her, echoing through her brain.
More than nice . . . More than interesting . . . More than an experiment
. Hours of silence, hours of road in front of them, and she could not concentrate on Dürer, or who Maria F. was, or where she might find her letters, if they still existed. No, the only thing running through her brain was Jason’s words.

She left a mournful Wolfgang in the hands of a young stable hand and crossed the yard (slowly—because no matter what she had told Jason earlier, she was a tad sore from the previous evening, and a tad more sore from sitting on a horse all day), following Jason inside. She found him bent over in conversation, his head dipped to meet the one belonging to the proprietor, Hecht.

The setting sun filtered through the window and hit his red hair, making it seem a flame. His long, lean frame, stretching under the worn and dirty linen shirt, the muscles hidden there more known to Winn than she cared to admit at the moment, but still her eyes could not look away. Jason talked with his hands, his most charming smile occasionally breaking through as, Winn assumed, he explained how they had come into possession of Wolfgang, and his instructions for leaving him here. Hecht responded back with laughter, and suddenly both men were chuckling at fate or folly or some such male thing.

And some part of Winn yearned, traitorously, to go and be near him. To wind her arm around his, to listen patiently to the conversation he was having and ask for translation. To feel his hand fall casually on the back of her neck, and for everything to be
normal
again.

But she couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t. Because those long hours of uncomfortable contemplation had taught her one fundamental thing: that even if the night before had been an experiment, she was wholly unprepared for the results.

She had felt too much. Why had no one ever written poetry about the overwhelming draw on her soul that resulted from lovemaking? Or, rather, perhaps they had, and she simply hadn’t paid attention, considering that part of it ridiculous. She, and no one else, governed her soul, after all. And she was determined to do so now, shaking off any sentimental notions about Jason’s form in the setting sunlight.

But the want she had! The basest physical desires were overrun by the deep-seated feeling that she could fall so easily into his arms and tell herself that it was where she was meant to be—and she was
not
meant for it, or for him. Therefore, that could not and would not happen. And so, she kept herself silent all trip. She kept herself protected.

Which was why she had been so utterly cruel to him, she knew in retrospect. Whatever impression he had of her now, she deserved. Not for wanting her independence, not even for taking the opportunity of last night to its inevitable conclusion—but perhaps, for the smallest lie, of telling him that her feelings were not involved in the process.

However, the walls must be maintained, and held.

But she couldn’t keep herself from the want.

“Good news,” Jason said, breaking into her thoughts, and breaking the silence that had existed between them since he had whispered those words in her ear. Goodness, her brain was so addled, she hadn’t even seen him cross to her. “There is a public coach leaving for Linz, Austria, in an hour. The tickets are a little out of our price range, but Hecht has offered us a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” she asked, surprised at her own lack of voice.

Jason grimaced. “It will take most if not all of our remaining funds. Unfortunately, Herr Wurtzer didn’t give me nearly what he had promised us, even with the borrowing of Wolfgang—but nothing to be done about it now.”

Winn nodded dully, processing the information.

“Good,” Jason replied. “I’ll just go . . . and purchase our fares . . . Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a spare coin. “Go get some food. You haven’t eaten all day.”

Neither have you, she wanted to say, but instead, as she turned, she impulsively reached out and caught his arm. “Jason, wait.”

He turned to her, one eyebrow raised expectantly.

“What if—what if I continued on alone,” she blurted out, her eyes never going any higher than his waist. “You . . . you’ve done so much for me already. You could take half the money and stay here in Regensburg for a bit of time—write your stewards to send you funds to get you home . . . I wouldn’t blame you, you know. Especially . . . especially after last night, and what I said earlier. You deserve to . . . Well, you deserve to. That’s all.”

Jason stared down at her for a hard second, then took her gently but firmly by the arm and pulled her out of the way of the comings and goings of the busy inn’s front rooms, into a small alcove two steps away. There, expression set along hard lines, he bent his head and kissed her.