There came no reply. No female admonition to be away from the sanctity of her bedroom, not even an invitation to come in.
Not that he’d been looking for one. He was only worried about keeping his promise to her. And in a timely fashion. It would be a far cry better for everyone if she was well away from Bramley Hollow. His quiet, well-ordered life was being turned upside down by her arrival, and he wanted his solitude back. Egads, the ball his mother intended to throw would have half the ton at Finch Manor. Old friends and flirtatious conquests. All here to view the wreckage of his misspent youth.
He clutched his cane more tightly. His leg throbbed from a day spent gadding about. Pacing about the gatehouse, climbing up to the attic to find the trunk with his old dress clothes—for he could hardly come up to dinner in his usual country togs—and then the last hour spent lurking about the backstairs. No wonder his leg hurt like the very devil, for he hadn’t been on it that much since the day he’d fallen in battle.
Tapping on the door again, he whispered a little louder, “Miss Smythe, I need just a moment of your time.”
Nothing but silence greeted him. He stared for a moment at the solid panel. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep or was suffering from one of those megrims that befell ladies. After all, she’d spent the good part of the day with his mother, and that was enough to do in most anyone.
It really would be in bad form to wake her. Yet…
He knocked on the door a little harder. “Miss Smythe, are you well?”
When yet again there was no response, another thought struck him. A premonition of disaster sinking into the pit of his stomach.
She’d left. Fled Finch Manor. And without him.
But even as he ran through the hundreds of routes she could have taken to the main road, how he would scour the countryside to find her, he heard a clunk of something falling to the floor inside her room, followed by a mild curse. Not much of an ear bender, but enough to make him smile.
Smile that she was still here.
“Miss Smythe, if you do not open this door at once, I am going to come in.”
“Go away.” There was another thump and clunk, and yet another curse.
This time he didn’t wait for an invitation. He opened the door and made his laborious way into the room.
Miss Smythe stood in front of the window, holding it up with one hand. Not only was she dressed in her traveling clothes, but there by her feet sat her valise at the ready.
So she was trying to leave. And without his help. Jemmy squared his shoulders and wished his cane to perdition. Did she think him so useless that he was unable to keep his word?
“Oh, do stop gawking,” she sputtered. “And find something to prop this window open.”
“What are you thinking?” he said, stomping into the room, his leg now the least of his worries. To his horror, there was an oddly fashioned rope—made out of, if his guess was correct, the sheets from her bed. One end was tied to the leg of the grand four-poster that took up a good portion of her room, while the rest lay coiled nearby.
“Mr. Reyburn,” she said, struggling beneath the weight of the half-open window. “Please, I need your help.”
He crossed the room and took hold of it. She sighed, then bent over to retrieve her rope. But by the time she’d turned around, he’d closed the window and flipped the latch shut.
“What are you doing?” she said, nudging him out of the way and starting to struggle with the heavy casement again. “It took me a good half hour to chisel that open, let alone the time to make the rope. And what with every servant and bothersome fellow coming in here pestering me with your mother’s questions, I haven’t much time to spare.”
“You can’t go out the window with that,” he said, pointing at her tattered sheets.
“And whyever not?”
He didn’t answer, just picked it up and held a width between his hands. Then to make his point, he gave it a good tug and watched her eyes widen with horror as her well-intentioned knots pulled apart. “If the fall didn’t kill you, Father would put you in irons for damaging his roses.”
She wasn’t thwarted for long. A wild light filled the lady’s green gaze, and she caught up her valise and started past him. “I must be away from here, away from this madness.”
He reached out and caught her, and without even thinking tugged her into his arms. “You aren’t going anywhere, not without—”
She began sputtering something, and as he stared down at her all he could see was the fire in her eyes, all he could hear was the passion of her protests.
Her passion—that was what did him in. He wanted nothing more than to throw himself into the tempest that was so much a part of her character—to steal a kiss that he suspected would make a man forget that he didn’t want to live.
And in that wild, delirious moment, suddenly all he wanted was to live—a life full of passion and adventure, everything he saw blazing there in her eyes. So this time he put aside any hesitation and caught her lips with his, kissing her hungrily.
Oh, it had been a long time, but he found that once he’d taken that devilish first step, his rakish desires had no trouble leading him back down the path of temptation.