Naughty in Nottinghamshire 02 - The Rogue Returns (18 page)

Roane took another step. “I cannot say.”

“It just… I can’t…Aaaahhhhh!” Bending over at the waist, she screamed into the rain. “I am just so bloody angry!”

“I know, sweetheart.” Roane closed the space between them and pulled her into his arms. “Shhh, we need not speak of it anymore.”

She stood rigid, though she only wanted to melt into his embrace. “If I can’t understand, how can I help Harry? He is doing all the same th-things and I am just so afraid for h-him.”

Roane ran his hands up and down her spine, encouraging her to soften. “There is no way to save a man who doesn’t want to be saved. No matter how hard you try.”

Helen turned her head into the bare skin of his shoulder and accepted his comfort. He was warm and solid, and he’d known James. Like the rain-swollen river, her grief and fear and anger poured through her. Poured out of her like a terrible illness. All that was left was knee-buckling, gut wrenching sorrow and hideous, gulping pain.

She could control nothing in this life. Not death. Not love.

Roane stroked her hair, murmuring things she could barely understand as her shoulders shook and her breaths hitched. Saying things about how brave she was, how he wished he’d been there for James, how he admired her. Raspy sobs escaped her and she pressed her face deeper into the bare, salty skin of Roane’s neck and shoulder. And still he talked, like he did to his horses, murmuring a song of praise and comfort.

She cried for James. For Harry. For everyone, all the mothers and daughters and sisters and wives, who had lost a man they loved. For death itself, and life, and this broken-open world where nothing is safe and everything is taken away at the end.

She cried until the river of grief had run its course.

Slowly, her anguish faded, and she became aware of warm arms. Of salty musk, heavy muscle and a rhythm of breath that was not her own. Desire spiked through her, hot and demanding, and she pulled back.

“How ho-horrible.” She tried to laugh as she mopped her face with the blanket. “That was the most in-inelegant crying.”

Roane stroked a hand down her messy braid, sending tingles across her scalp. “You can cry on my shoulder anytime, love.”

She half-laughed, half-sobbed. Her blood was thick with him, with want for him. She looked into his warm eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Hmm?”

His other hand worked its way inside her blanket and slid up her bare thigh. She tried to scoot to the side but only managed to smash herself up against him. He had her trapped there, between his hard chest and the wet tree behind her.

“You are still chilled, buttercup.”

She was? She didn’t feel cold. She felt feverish. And nervous. And totally unsettled. Heat filled the slim space between them, tinged with the scent of smoke and pine. Rain pattered all around, a curtain of sound that encircled their small world.

She was too broken open and vulnerable for this. For him. She placed her palm on Roane’s chest, as if to give him a shove. His muscles were hard, hot beneath her palms, and she snatched her hand away. Fear, or something like it, snaked up her arms and sent her heartbeat banging against her ribs.

She wanted him. Too much.

“What are you doing?” she asked again, breathless.

“Touching you.” His hand inched up her thigh.

“Why?”

“Because I want to.”

He had a small scar above his left eyebrow, and another across the bridge of his nose. He’d probably acquired them in a fight. He was
trouble
, but she wanted him anyway. “And do you always get what you want?”

“The question is do you allow yourself to get what
you
want.”

She closed her eyes. “Of course I do. I’m spoiled.”

“I’m not talking about
things
, Helen. I’m talking about your heart. Your body.”

She couldn’t think about that right now. “I came on this journey.”

“Do you want me?” His breath feathered across her neck. “Do you want me to keep touching you? Will you let yourself enjoy it?”

Yes. God, yes.

No
, the broken part of her screamed. Not him.

She shook her head and pushed his hand away. “You ask too much.”

He planted a kiss on the corner of her lip, then dropped his hands and stepped away. “Think about it.”

Oh, she would. She could hardly think about anything else.

R
OANE TINKERED AROUND THEIR SMALL CAMPSITE
, thrust a hot cup of tea in her hands then disappeared to see to the horses.

Helen ate a soggy dinner of bread and ham, then snuggled down in her bedroll. The low light of the fire outlined Roane’s shirt and breeches hanging from a tree limb to dry. Her ruined dress and chemise were also there, and it gave her an odd thrill to see their things mingled together.

She flopped around on her uncomfortable pallet and tried to sleep. But boredom overcame her, and she did something she’d wanted to do for days. She snooped into Roane’s bag and pulled out his journal.

Torn between guilt and curiosity, she flipped open the pages and sat back on her bedroll.

Drawings filled the pages. Beautiful, skilled drawings of horses and arid hillside, of ragged looking men and strange plants. One was of a beach, something tropical and far away. Another was of a desert, flat and filled with scrub brush. He’d used some kind of red die to color the sand.

Had he drawn these? Where?

And how had he come by such skill? The drawings were more than a quick sketch of a place. They captured the feel of it, the smell of the air and the touch of the sun.

She turned page after page and the subject changed. Instead or horses and landscapes, he drew men. Ragged, rough looking men. Men crowded together in the hull of a boat. Men in chains wielding picks and chipping at huge rocks. Men in odd block-colored uniforms tied behind wagons.

A chill crawled up her spine, and she quickly flipped to the back pages. There were a number of drawings of her. Her face. Her seated atop Starlight looking ridiculous in her bonnet and skirts hiked up to her knees. The curve of her neck and shoulder. Her playing with Mittens.

She turned back to the beginning pages.

Roane had been somewhere strange, somewhere violent. He’d been whipped, perhaps worse. Her heart lurched into her throat, and she closed the journal with shaking hands. She didn’t know if she should feel compassion for him—or fear. What had taken him to these strange lands? Had he done something horribly evil?

She heard Roane’s voice through the trees and froze, then quickly stuffed his journal beneath her blankets. She rolled over and pretended to be asleep.

“The world is a tough place for a kitten without his mama.”

Helen bit her lip. He was talking to Mittens.

“Despite the basket, you are lucky Lady Helen took a liking to you. Not every orphan is so fortunate.”

Helen listened to the thump of his footsteps as he drew closer to her makeshift bed. She felt Mittens scamper across the covers, then heard the clatter of Roane’s boots hitting the earth.

“Don’t yell at me again, princess, but we’ll have to put our pallets side by side and share the blankets tonight. I can’t have you catching a chill.”

She couldn’t possibly pretend to sleep through that pronouncement. Helen opened her eyes and sat up. The fire had died down, and Roane was nearly lost in the shadows. She couldn’t look at him—she’d never known she could feel guilty and worried and curious all at once.

He added a log to the fire and stirred the hot ashes until they flamed. “My body heat will help keep you warm.”

Helen felt warm already. All he need do was talk of such things and she was plenty hot. Burning, in fact.

But she
shouldn’t
feel flushed. Not after what she’d seen in his journal. Then again, he had saved her. And held her while she cried… Oh, what a mess.

Roane tromped around the campfire, ignorant of the war occurring within her. “I’ll place warm stones beneath your pallet as well. We need to take every precaution.”

“Are the horses well?” she asked, changing the subject.

From the corner of her eye, she watched him turn in her direction. “Starlight came through a fighter. It is pure luck that she is unharmed. A bit spooked, but I took her out for a walk and she is not injured.”

“And the men?”

“The river is impassible for a good ten miles.” Roane made an ‘up’ motion with his hands, and Helen struggled to her feet. She kept the blanket wrapped around her, clutching the journal.

But she struggled with the layers of wool and the journal fell to her feet.

Roane looked down. Three heartbeats passed in complete silence as they both stared at the stolen book. “The lady likes to pry.”

Helen’s gaze jolted up to his. He was unsmiling, his arms crossed over his chest, and she was wary of him at once, this man she did not know.

But she
would
know the truth about him. She tossed her head back and gathered her courage. Roane wasn’t going to like this. “Where did you draw these pictures?”

“Ah, the assumption they are my drawings.”

His first avoidance tactic was to call into question the verity of the evidence. It wouldn’t work, not on her. “I am too familiar with men who talk in circles, Roane. Don’t try your tricks on me. Where did you draw them?”

He shrugged. “Here and there.”

Tactic two: broad generalizations and no real answers. She was going to have to be more direct. “Why do you have pictures of men making a road? Where were you?”

His eyes were cold as he glared at her. She’d never seen him like this before and a chill settled over her skin. Suddenly, she didn’t know if she even wanted the truth.

Who whipped you?

“Were you in some kind of trouble?” she asked

A muscle in his jaw ticked, but he didn’t reply.

Oh, this was not good. “Are you wanted by the law?”

“I am not wanted by the law,” he snapped. “I didn’t realize you were a Bow Street Runner. Are you a spy, Lady Helen?”

Avoidance tactic number three. Make it about her, not him.

“We are a team now, of sorts. It is important I can trust you. I
want
to trust you.” She huffed a breath. “Enough avoiding the issue. Where were you? What did you do?”

His lips widened into a harsh smile. “What didn’t I do, buttercup?”

Frustration burned through her. “Can you not take anything seriously?”

“What business is it of yours?” He uncrossed his arms and glanced at his journal on the ground. “It’s in my past now.”

Helen bent down and retrieved the book. He could take if from her if he pressed, but not without a fight. “How can I keep riding with you when you’ll not tell me more?”

“I don’t see that you have much choice in the matter. You’re as good as stuck with me now.”

“Am I to be your prisoner, then?” She challenged, angered by his refusal to tell her anything of use. “Will you tie me up?”

“I would like that, to tie you up.” He stepped forward and her breath froze in her lungs. “And I wager you would like it as well.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” she breathed. He was close now, close enough she could feel the pulse of fire between them.

“Pleasure, Helen. My mouth on you. Your submission.”

Hot, she was hot everywhere. And shaking.

She thrust his journal at him and moved out of the way. He tossed the book on his bags and watched her for a moment, then turned back and dug two small pits beneath the shelter. He placed rocks, heated by the fire, into the pits, then lay pine boughs and finally their bed rolls on top.

She could only watch. After all this they were, in essence, sharing a bed.

This was not good.

It was one thing to, well,
drift
together in the middle of the night when they were both half asleep and not fully cognizant of their actions.

It was something else entirely to make a bed together.

Her movements stiff from riding and cold, Helen pulled on her damp cloak and boots and wandered into the dark woods to have a moment’s privacy. The sky was pitch black, the clouds blanking out the stars and moon. A breeze ruffled the leaves, scattering droplets of rain on the earth. She looked back toward the makeshift bed. The bed they would share.

Roane was secretive. And willful. And dangerous.

He was not a man for her taking.

Whatever he made her feel, he was not for her.

He was trouble. Trouble. Trouble. She repeated that over and over until it started to seep through the thick haze of her brain.

She could let herself enjoy the warm bed, but not him.

With a stern nod of her head, she returned to the shelter.

Roane sat near the fire, golden and shirtless beneath his open cloak, and watched her approach.

“I’ll hang up your jacket and keep your boots close to the fire,” he murmured. His words, and the soft set of his mouth, told her he wanted to make peace. She supposed that was best. For now.

Without looking at him, Helen shrugged out of her cloak. His woolen shirt hung halfway to her knees, but she was, in essence, naked. Quickly, she slipped into the blankets and sighed as the heat of the rocks penetrated her cold bones.

Roane pulled up the edge of the blanket and scooted next to her.

Suddenly, the pallet felt small. Entirely too small. His body dwarfed hers, even back to back as they were.

He was right: his body was hot. A veritable furnace. The bedding, warm from the rocks, heated another thousand degrees with him inside. Helen felt wide awake. Warm and exhausted, but not tired. Not at all. Really, it would all be much easier if she could just fall asleep.

Roane shifted and his hip bumped her buttocks. She felt him freeze, then inch closer. His hand wrapped around her belly and he drew her back against him.

Awareness poured through her. Awareness of his size, his breath, his nearness. Acute knowledge of the pleasure of his kiss.

She was way beyond the realm of control, and she didn’t know what to
do
. She didn’t know how to manage this situation. Goodness, she didn’t even know what she wanted.