Meredith had to admit, her father did look happier and healthier than he had in months. Enthusiastic, even. But if this horse breeding scheme fell through, he’d be devastated.
“I’m certain he is excited, and that’s the problem. You’re getting him all agitated about things that may never come to pass. It’s not good for his heart.”
And it’s not good for my heart, either.
“I’m not setting him up for disappointment. I’m preparing him for eventualities. You’re the one becoming agitated about things that won’t come to pass.” He chucked her under the chin. “I’m not going anywhere, Merry Lane.”
“Please …” When he said such things, with sincerity in those warm brown eyes, he made her want to believe him so desperately she could barely stand. “Please don’t call me that.”
“You don’t like it?”
Not even Maddox had called her Merry, nor her lovers since. Her lovers hadn’t called her anything at all. Well, the one nice gent had called her “love,” and then there’d been that haunted-looking soul who’d called her “Sally” over and over again, then wept noisily in her arms for an hour afterward. That had been awkward. He’d put her off the whole business for a year.
It had been a long time since she’d felt a man’s arms around her. And Rhys had some very fine arms. They could probably wrap around her twice.
Focus, Merry Lane.
“It’s too familiar, and you know it,” she said. “I don’t even answer to Lane anymore.”
“You’re right,” he said, nodding. “We should do this properly. I’ll not call you by your Christian name till we’re married. And even then, only after the novelty of calling you Lady Ashworth wears off.” He smiled. “Might take a month or two.”
Who would have guessed it? The man could be downright charming when he wished to be.
And all too often, she could be a complete fool. “Y-yes, but … That is, I mean …” She stammered a bit, dropping her eyes in an effort to gather composure. The effort failed.
A puckered scar on his chest snagged her attention. Near his right shoulder, about the size of a shilling and just as round. It must have been a musket ball wound. She got lost in that scar for a moment, wondering what had become of the ball. Was it still lodged somewhere within that dense, powerful shoulder? Or had it ripped straight through? In either case, it was a miracle his arm hadn’t separated from the rest of him, and that he still had the use of the limb at all.
Abruptly realizing she was being rude, Meredith lifted her face to his. With relief, she noted he wasn’t looking at her, either. He was staring intently, thoughtfully—perhaps almost wistfully?—at something beyond her. Which was odd, because she knew there was nothing behind her but rocks. For a moment, she resisted the urge to turn around.
But then she gave in to temptation and turned away. Just as she’d suspected, there was nothing to see but the same eternal moorland—sloping gorse mottled with boulders. A harsh, endless landscape in shades of gray and brown and muted green, capped by a sky so endless and blue, she imagined an ocean couldn’t rival it for depth or hue.
Not that she’d ever been near an ocean.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s pretty.” He sounded surprised. “This place. Over the years, I’ve never remembered it that way, but it’s …” He sighed roughly. “It’s beautiful.”
Meredith stared, trying to imagine this vista through the eyes of someone who hadn’t grown up looking at it every day of her life. She thought of the adjectives travelers used: forbidding, eerie, lonesome. Even some of the villagers avoided the high moorland for years at a time. Up here, there were no trees, no shelter from the wind and sun. No mercy. There was a reason they’d built the war prison not twenty miles away. Despite the brilliant colors and vast expanse, to most this place resembled a jail made of emptiness rather than walls.
It took a certain courage, to look on this landscape and call it beautiful.
“It is beautiful,” she said, turning to face him. And so was he. Rugged, scarred, wild …
“I’m glad you think so, too. Since you’ll be looking on this view the majority of your days, once it’s finished.” His smile was a flash of white in his tanned face.
Beautiful. He was a beautiful, enormous, impossible fool of a man.
“You know,” he said slyly, “if I had a few laborers, I wouldn’t need your father out here at all. Surely you have some influence with the local men.”
She did. But that wasn’t the point. “I know you mean well. But you can’t expect to simply ride back into Buckleigh-in-the-Moor one night and have the village on your side the next morning. The name Ashworth is a curse in these parts. People still remember your father’s misdeeds, even if you’ve forgotten them.”
He grew pensive, tight. “I haven’t forgotten them.”
She cursed herself silently. Of course he wouldn’t have forgotten them. They’d been beaten into him but good. Even now, he probably still bore marks from them, somewhere under all those battle scars.
He said, “I promise you, I remember my father’s misdeeds as clearly as I recall my own. And that’s why I’ve been spared all these years, so I can return and set accounts to rights.”
Suddenly, his mood lightened. He smiled and stretched. The muscles of his abdomen rippled, drawing attention to the line of dark hair dividing them, like the old Roman leat scored the rock-solid moor. Meredith’s mouth went dry.
He said, “I ought to be working. Come now, Mer—” He raised an arm, his biceps flexing as he scratched the back of his head. “Mrs. Maddox. Surely you can—”“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she blurted out. “Would you please put a shirt on while we’re speaking?”
His face went red. “Of course. I beg your pardon.” Loping a few yards up the incline, he crouched to gather a scrap of white. As he bent, she noted a larger, uneven scar on the back of his shoulder. The answer to her question. Evidently that musket ball had ripped straight through.
A little shudder passed through her as Rhys strode back, yanking the shirt over his head and letting the linen drape loose about his waist.
There, now maybe she could think. Maybe. The sun was beating down on them both, but she knew she had only him to blame for her overheated condition. There was nothing to do but retreat and regroup.
“We’ll discuss this further tonight,” she told him. “Back at the inn. Dinner will be at six. See that you’re not late. I’ve brought you a packed luncheon in the meantime.” She thrust the basket at him, and he took it, surprised. “Be certain my father drinks enough water and finds some shade, or I’ll have your hide. The weather’s fair, but if there’s a mist or a storm, you’re both to stay right here, do you understand? I’ll send men out to you. You’ve been gone from these moors far too long to find your way in the dark. That’s all I need, is for the two of you to go wandering into the bog.”
He flicked a bemused glance toward the bright, cloudless sky. A chuckle rumbled from his throat.
“What?” she asked, her wits fraying at the edges. “What now?”
“You’re speaking like a wife already.”
She made a dismissive gesture. “You’re impossible.”
“See? And there you go again.”
With a low growl of frustration, she turned to walk home.
“It wasn’t a complaint,” he called after her. “I rather liked it.”
So did she. So did she. And that was the most impossible thing of all.
Chapter Six
That evening, Rhys was halfway through his third plate of stew before he paused to draw breath. The day of heavy labor had left him ravenous and exhausted, but in a good way. An honest, productive way. With a pleasantly full belly, he sat back in his chair and watched Meredith as she went about the honest, productive business of running the inn. He shook his head. It wasn’t right. His own day’s labor was over, and she had hours yet to work. Had she even taken her own dinner?
Tonight she had a small group of travelers to tend—a middle-aged man and two younger ladies. Rhys supposed one was the man’s wife and the other his wife’s sister or cousin or some such. But just watching them interact, damned if Rhys could pick out which was which. The man didn’t favor either lady with particular attention or regard. Pathetic. What a waste of matrimony. Once Meredith was his wife, he’d make certain every man in the room knew she belonged to him.
For this evening, however, he was forced to content himself with watching his future wife tend her customers—serving them steaming plates of food and mugs of hot tea, chatting briefly with them about their journey. He hated that she’d been forced to work so hard, but she clearly took some pride and enjoyment in it.
She gave him a smile as she passed his table on her way back to the bar. A sweet, fleeting curve of her lips—and an accidental one, if her quick correction to seriousness was any indication.
As soon as Meredith left the travelers, down swooped Darryl Tewkes like a carrion bird. “Will you fine gentlefolk be staying long in the neighborhood?” He pulled up a stool to their table, crowding the ladies together. “We’ve all manner of fascinating sights here in Buckleigh-in-the-Moor. I’d be glad to tour you around, in the morning.”
“Sights?” the man asked through a mouthful of beef. “What sights?”
“Why, it’s a mystical journey through time, you see.”
Rhys drowned his groan with a large swallow of ale. He listened to Darryl launch into his now-familiar speech: the tinners’ works, the cairns, the stone crosses, the tors …
“And best of all …” The gawky youth lowered his voice. “… the haunted ruins of Nethermoor Hall.”
“Haunted?” The two ladies echoed him in unison, then looked to one another wearing matching expressions of horrified glee.
They had to be sisters.
“Aye, the cursed house of Ashworth,” Darryl continued, leaning in close.
Rhys cleared his throat and pushed back, scraping his chair legs against the flagstones.
Darryl froze. The two young ladies went so pale, they might have been ghosts themselves. After a long moment, Darryl raised his head and gave Rhys a chagrined, twitchy look, as if asking permission to continue.
With a quirk of his neck, Rhys picked up his ale and pointedly moved on, ignoring them all. Let Darryl Tewkes tell his fantastic stories while he could. Soon the name Ashworth would mean something different to this village. Something other than a curse, or a macabre sightseeing attraction for travelers passing through.
He caught sight of Meredith at the bar. She was smiling and flirting with a hunched old man as she poured him a glass of gin. Her hair was falling loose from its braid again, and heavy locks dipped and swooped as she bent to retrieve a glass or stretched high to replace the bottle on its shelf.
God, she was a joy to watch. He’d grown accustomed to the idea of marriage very quickly, for a man who’d shuddered at the very notion for the whole of his adult life. That, more than anything, proved it must be destiny.
Even now, as he watched those dark strands working loose from her plait, his fingers ached to stroke her hair. He’d never taken time to do such a thing with a woman before. Perhaps he’d felt the lanky strands of a harlot’s hair slithering over his bare skin a time or two, but he’d never wanted to touch it on purpose.
He wanted to touch Meredith everywhere. Caress her brow with the backs of his knuckles—the callused pads of his fingertips were too rough. Curl his fingers in that hair, bury his face in it. Wake early on a Sabbath morning just to lie abed for hours and count every strand. A man could do that with his wife, couldn’t he? Sprawl out on the mattress, tuck her head against his chest, and stroke her hair for the sheer pleasure of it?