The River of No Return Bee Ridgway (best free ebook reader .TXT) 📖

been the desperate one that day, the younger one, despite their ages, and somehow she had calmed him, soothed him. He had then carried her with him through the years as a misty memory.

Now her eyes were deep, storm-tossed. She needed him.

He bowed. “I am at your service,” he said. “Tell me how to help you.”

A smile broke across her face, and Nick realized that until this moment he had been seeing a pale shadow of Julia Percy, dimmed by her own defensive courage. Glad color rushed to her cheeks and she burst into speech. “Thank you, my lord. It has been the worst of times . . .”

Her voice washed over him. He was here again, where he never thought to be, and Julia Percy was alive. She was struggling against the ridiculous strictures of her age, but it was her. Nick watched her face as she spoke: her dark hair and eyes, her vivid face. . . .

God! The river was dragging at him full force, and he had to fight his way back. She was still speaking, and he held on to her voice until it broke through and made sense.

“. . . but Eamon is difficult. He does not allow me to go abroad into society, and I have not been able to convince him that I need a chaperone to maintain my reputation.”

“I don’t understand; he doesn’t let you out? Is he mad?”

“I believe he is.”

“Why has Clare not asked you to stay at Blackdown?”

“Clare is at Blackdown!” She frowned. “I thought her gone to London with Bella and your mother.”

“She helped them settle in London but she prefers the country. She has been at Blackdown since just after your grandfather’s death. I am shocked to learn that she has not contacted you.”

That open face shut its doors again—slammed them, rather. “Oh.” She put her hand on her horse’s pommel. “She has heard the gossip. She believes it.”

“No. I am sure she has not, would not.” Nick put his hand over hers. “Do not go riding off just yet, Julia.”

She whispered, and he knew it was because if she spoke any more loudly she would either shout or cry. “Of course she believes it, Nick—my lord. I rode into the village yesterday. I saw their faces. What they believe of me, of my mother—”

“They!” Nick scoffed. “Give Stoke Canon a man, a woman, and a slightly irregular situation, and it will serve you a steaming bowl of scandal broth before an hour has passed. They will sing a different tune once you are at Blackdown. As for Clare, she is not such a ninnyhammer, but if she is, then she must simply change her mind. In any case, I am taking you back to Blackdown right now. I will not have you return to Castle Dar.”

He was amazed to see her sad eyes glint with humor. “So speaks the great marquess.”

She was teasing him from out of the depths of her fear. He smiled. “Why shouldn’t the great marquess have his say? I have to be good for something. Riding roughshod over my sisters is one my most venerable duties.”

That small sparkle faded. “I thank you for your kind invitation, my lord, and believe me, I accept. I accept wholeheartedly. But I cannot come with you at once. Although the scandal is baseless, Eamon has reason enough to want me at Castle Dar. If I come with you now he will simply demand me back.”

“Demand you back? You’re a full-grown woman. You can do as you choose. . . .” Even before the words were out of his mouth, Nick realized that the sentence he had just spoken only made sense after two centuries of struggle that had yet to happen.

“Where exactly have you spent these past three years, my lord? Among some Amazon tribe?”

“In all honesty, I cannot say,” he said, and it was almost true. “I—I had amnesia.”

“It must certainly have been somewhere quite different from England.”

“It was.”

She simply looked at him. She, who had known him as a child and now saw him as an adult. Nick couldn’t believe how good it felt to have that gap bridged. How good it felt just to have those ink-dark eyes rest on him, even with that quizzical look in them. “Then I’ll kill him,” he heard himself saying. “If he won’t allow to you to come to Blackdown with me now, I’ll kill him.”

She laughed. “You will have to make up your mind between the two options you give me. Either I am to do just as I please and walk out of the front door, or you are to kill him and carry me off like a pillaged sack of flour!”

She was right. He did sound like a maniac. He needed to get control of himself. Himselves. But he didn’t want to. Her laugh was enchanting. It was the same one he had heard yesterday as she galloped away toward the river. He wanted to kiss her. He Nick Davenant, and he Nicholas Falcott. For once they wanted the same thing.

He dropped his hand from where it rested on hers, to keep himself from grabbing it and pulling her to him. “What do you propose, then?”

She looked down the fields toward Blackdown. “I had been planning to run away. I could affect a bolt to London and come to you instead.”

Nick sucked in his cheeks. “But that would cement your bad reputation, and frankly it would besmirch my name as well.” He smiled. “And since I am as pure as snow and as guileless as a dove . . .”

She snorted. “Oh, indeed.”

The snort did it. Nick was lost. He stared at her like a mooncalf. Why shouldn’t he fall down on one knee right here and ask for her hand? He was Blackdown, at least partially. And she was an earl’s granddaughter. If it weren’t for the Guild he wouldn’t even hesitate. He would be expected to do it. Do it and then live happily ever goddamn after, day following day.

“My lord?”

He blinked.

“Is something amiss?”

“I . . . need to