Reese's Bride. Kat Martin

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      She was staying at Briarwood. Reese had agreed to help her. She could hardly believe it.

      And yet, in her heart, she had been certain, no matter his personal feelings, he would not turn her away.

      He walked into the room a few minutes later, tall and masculine, the image of authority and strength. For an instant, she caught the glint of silver on the head of his ebony cane. She knew he had been injured. She didn’t know how badly he was hurt.

      Icy blue eyes fixed on her face. “You are here—at least for the moment—and you are safe. I’ll have Corporal Daniels fetch the physician—”

      “There is no need for that. I just need to sleep. Perhaps tomorrow …”

      “You’re certain?”

      She wasn’t the least bit certain, but she had already put him to enough trouble for one night. “Yes.”

      “All right, we’ll wait until the morrow.”

      “Thank you.”

      “In the morning I’ll expect you to tell me exactly what is going on.”

      She struggled to sit up, eased back until her shoulders rested against the carved wooden headboard. Reese made no attempt to help her.

      “Tomorrow my brother-in-law will discover Jared and I are missing. Sooner or later, he’ll find out where we are.”

      “As I said, as long as you are here, you are safe. Get some sleep. Your Mrs. Garvey is with the boy. We’ll talk in the morning.” Turning, he left the bedroom and Elizabeth realized how rapidly her heart was beating. Dear God, until that moment, she hadn’t realized how painful it would be to hear the sound of his voice. How difficult it would be to suffer Reese’s bitter dislike of her.

      She hadn’t realized the feelings she had believed so deeply buried remained just beneath the surface.

      She had to guard them, keep them carefully hidden away. If she failed, if she allowed the slightest crack in her heart, the pain would simply be too awful to bear.

      The light of a crisp fall day streamed into the house as Reese made his way down the hall toward the breakfast room, a sunny chamber that overlooked the garden. With its creamy yellow walls and the chairs at the table upholstered in soft moss green, it was a room he enjoyed sitting in to read his daily newspaper and eat his morning meal.

      Not today.

      Today his mood was grim and had been since he had awakened from a restless night of sleep. As was his habit, he had been up for several hours, working in his study for a while then going out to check on his livestock.

      Besides his big black gelding, Warrior—like Reese, a veteran of the war—he had, since his return, purchased several mares and a blooded Thoroughbred stallion. With his damnable stiff leg, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to sit a saddle again, but he had been working to stretch and retrain his muscles, and even if he couldn’t ride, he refused to give up his horses.

      His latest purchase, the stallion, Alexander the Great, came from prize racing stock. Reese had seen him run and he believed the horse would sire colts capable of winning at Ascot and Epson Downs.

      Still making his way down the hall, a noise inside the breakfast room drew his attention. As he walked inside, he saw Elizabeth and her son seated at the table, and his chest tightened at the sight of them there in his house.

      He took a deep breath and released it slowly, and continued into the sunny room. The pair were enjoying a meal of sausages, creamed herring, and eggs, though Elizabeth didn’t seem to actually be eating, just moving the food round on her plate. She looked up at him just then and the gratitude in her eyes made his chest tighten even more.

      It was merely his dislike of her, he told himself, and anger than she had embroiled him in whatever turmoil her marriage to Aldridge had created.

      “Jared usually eats with his nanny in the schoolroom,” she explained a bit nervously, “but since the house is new to him, I brought him downstairs to breakfast with me. I hope you don’t mind.”

      He looked at the boy, whose eyes were dark and round and clearly uncertain. He perched on the edge of his chair as if he might run. A small silver horse, a unicorn, Reese saw, sat on the table in front of him.

      “I don’t mind.” He turned away from the child. It was hard to look at Aldridge’s heir and not feel jealous. The boy should have been his. Elizabeth should have been his.

      But money and power had been more important than the promises she had made or her declarations of love.

      Then again, perhaps she had never felt the least affection for him. Perhaps it had all been pretense.

      “I’m done, Mama,” the boy said. “May I be excused?”

      The child had stopped eating the moment Reese had appeared in the doorway. Elizabeth seemed to sense his distress and managed to smile. She looked paler than she should have and now he noticed her eyes seemed a duller gray than they usually were, without the faint blue undertones that made them so appealing.

      “You may go,” she said to the boy. “I’ll be up in a little while.” Her gaze found Reese’s across the table, a little out of focus, he thought. “Perhaps his lordship will allow us to take a walk round the grounds. The trees are lovely this time of year.”

      Reese merely nodded. He didn’t intend to punish the boy for the sins his mother had committed.

      The child slid down from his chair, grabbed the unicorn, and hurried out of the breakfast room. Reese walked over and poured himself a cup of coffee from the silver urn on the sideboard. He’d been hungry when he walked in. Seeing Elizabeth there, looking like the wife he had once imagined, his appetite had fled.

      As a footman picked up her half-full plate and whisked it away, he pulled out a chair and sat down across from her, leaning his cane against the edge of the table.

      Elizabeth was staring out the window into the garden, which was completely overgrown, the plants sprawling over their low brick enclosures into the pathways, fallen leaves covering the ground. The gardener had quit before Reese’s arrival. There hadn’t been time since his return to hire another one but he vowed he would soon see it done.

      “How are you feeling?” he asked.

      “A little better. I still have a headache but it is milder this morning.”

      “Explain to me again why it is that you are here.”

      She lifted the porcelain teacup with a trembling hand and carefully took a sip, giving herself time to formulate an answer. She set the cup a bit unsteadily back down in its saucer.

      “I know your penchant for honesty so I shall not mince words. I can’t be certain, of course, since I have no sort of proof, but I believe Mason and Frances Holloway are giving me something to purposely make me ill. My son is heir to the Aldridge fortune. Should something happen to me, his guardianship would fall into their hands. My brother-in-law and his wife are ruthless in the extreme. I believe they are after Jared’s money.”

      He had never liked Edmund or his brother, Mason. Edmund was СКАЧАТЬ