As far as she could see, she faced a simple choice: go to Rafe’s room, to the left of the suite she was sharing with Esme, and resume their engagement—the one he’d summarily terminated—or alternatively accede to his high-handed decree that now was not the time. That she needed more time to think before she could declare her own mind. That regardless of what she thought and felt and wanted, they had to wait …
Until when? Until he decided she’d thought enough?
Until they reached England?
She knew what she thought about that.
“He wants me—at least he didn’t deny that. Not that he could.” Not with his erection acting as an excellent barometer of his lustful thoughts. “And what,” she muttered, “was the point of raising the prospect of us marrying—as he undeniably did—if we’re not to proceed to make up our minds?”
She was sure she was in the right about his—their—intended direction; his subsequent actions supported her conclusion. He was insisting on giving her time to consider, and reconsider, before they took what he considered an irrevocable step. She, however, didn’t see that same step as irrevocable, not if it proved that they didn’t suit, but she would allow that, honorable gentleman that he was, he would deem it an unbreakable commitment.
All very well, but how was she supposed to make up her mind about whether they would suit, whether what might exist between them was of sufficient power and intriguing wonder to make her finally contemplate matrimony, if they didn’t take that step?
If they didn’t explore the connection between them further?
“Aargh!” She swung about and started to pace again. The frustration she felt was novel, not something she’d had to cope with before.
If she’d been able to revert to her previous self—the self that had been perfectly willing to hide behind a prim andproper façade—she might have been able to go along with his conventional and no doubt proper decree. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. The Loretta who’d been willing to live within the constraints of proper reserve had died.
Slain by exposure, however brief, to passion and desire.
Thanks to Esme, she’d lost Loretta-the-demure’s clothes, and now, thanks to Rafe and her reaction to him, she’d lost Loretta-the-demure altogether.
Of course, Loretta-the-demure had always been a construct, a façade she’d fashioned for her own convenience, but she doubted she could resurrect even ghostly remains. Loretta-the-demure was gone. Forever. She had no patience with such restrictions, not when it came to this. To Rafe. To Rafe and her. Whatever Rafe-and-her proved to be.
“I have to find out, that’s all there is to it.” She swung around and headed for the door.
Crossing the suite’s parlor, she tapped on Esme’s bedchamber door. Hearing Esme’s voice bid her enter, she did, shutting the door behind her.
Propped up on a mound of pillows, her novel open in her hands, Esme arched an inquiring brow. “Yes, dear?”
“I have a problem and I need advice.” Loretta stalked to the armchair angled beside the bed and sat down.
“How wonderful.” Esme shut her book and smiled encouragingly. “I’m all ears. Do tell.”
Loretta cast her incorrigible relative a warning glance, but Esme’s eager response made it easier to broach the issue at hand. Esme and Richard had shared a long and loving union; if anyone knew the best ways for a Michelmarsh female to approach the matter of marriage, Esme did.
After gathering her thoughts, Loretta began, “Matters have reached a point where in his mind the next step, once taken, makes a wedding unavoidable. However, to my mind, I cannot make a reasoned decision to marry until after that step, and possibly several after, have been taken.”
“Ah, yes.” To her credit, Esme kept her lips straight. “Thatstep. And yes, I can see the dilemma.” She paused, clearly considering. Her expression grew more serious as she did. “Sadly, I must advise that that dilemma is one you will need to deal with—you cannot avoid it. It arises because of the sort of man he is, and really, you wouldn’t want the dear boy without that streak of chivalrous loyalty. It’s a part of him you can’t and won’t want to excise, so you’ll have to find a way around it.”
“But how? I want to go forward and learn what I need to know, and he’s clinging to propriety.”
“Not so much to propriety as to what he believes to be the honorable path. But tell me this—what is it you need to learn from this next step?”
The question gave Loretta pause. She knew what she wanted, but did she know why? “I need to learn … whether what’s between us is powerful enough, potent enough, intriguing and mesmerizing enough to hold me. To keep my attention not just because it’s new and not something I’ve experienced before, but because it, and even more what feeds it, is something I crave and will keep craving … I suppose until death us do part.”
Esme regarded her shrewdly. “From any young lady that would be a good answer, but from a Michelmarsh it’s an excellent answer—indeed, exactly the right answer. And regardless of all social conventions and exhortations to the contrary, you are correct—you are following the right path. Michelmarsh females have never done well in marriages that failed to satisfy the criteria you described. You do not wish to know what happened to my aunt Gertrude—or to her husband. She was the last Michelmarsh female to defy our heritage and make a match that did not satisfy our family nature’s particular demands.”
Loretta nodded. “So I’m right. I thought as much.”
“Indeed, but before you go forging on, as I would encourage you to do—for what else can you do, after all?—I should point out there is one large and unavoidable consequenceyou might want to consider before you take that inevitable next step.”
“What consequence?”
“That wedding he spoke of? If you take the next step and all the criteria are satisfied, that wedding will come to pass. There will be no avoiding it. Once you take the next step and learn your truth, if the answer is positive you need to be prepared to follow that truth, to honor it to the end of your days. As I have, as your father did, as your sisters and brothers—even Robert—will. It’s not something that can be explained adequately to someone who has yet to feel it, but once your Michelmarsh heart is engaged, there will be no turning back.”
Esme grimaced. “That’s the brighter side of the coin. The darker side is that if you take your next step and the answer is negative, as soon as you realize you must pull back, pull away, and let him go. More, cut him off, however harsh and cold you have to be.” She paused, then went on, “The truth is, for a Michelmarsh, your next step is an all-or-nothing affair. If you win, you win it all. If you lose, you lose everything. You will not be able even to keep him as an acquaintance.”
Loretta frowned.
As if reading her thoughts, Esme continued, “Which means, dear Loretta, that quite aside from your own wants and needs, you have to consider his. You have to take his mission into account—weigh the risk of learning that he isn’t your destiny, and the effect that will have on any necessary interaction, in your scales.”
After a moment, Loretta said, “That’s not an inconsiderable risk, is it?”
“No. It’s not. A positive answer will strengthen you both. A negative answer will make life very awkward, and will distract and weaken him.”
Loretta growled, then pushed to her feet. “I’m not going to be able to just rush on and take that next step, am I?”
“Not if you want to do the best for him, no.”
Her late-night discussion with Esme had left her with too much to think about to countenance confronting Rafe then and there. She’d retreated to her room, to her own bed, and had tossed and turned for the rest of the night.
Now she sat in the carriage she’d approved and, wedged between Esme and the window, rocked and swayed as the miles slid by.
Rafe sat opposite, his long legs bracketing hers. Rose sat next to him, with Hassan beside her, filling the opposite seat. Gibson sat on the other side of Esme.
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Esme was such an experienced traveler that she could sleep sitting up. Loretta felt a stab of jealousy. She was tired, yet could barely nod off; her rest was fitful at best. Despite the dreariness of the journey, she didn’t think Rafe or Hassan even dozed. As usual both remained alert and watchful.
Beyond the carriage, dark sentinels of the forest flashed by. Even when she roused herself enough to peer out, all she saw were trees. They paused only briefly to change horses, and for lunch at a village tavern, then rushed on, through the Black Forest.
Trees, and yet more trees.
With Rafe directly in her line of sight, her thoughts had little reason to wander. They remained fixed on him, circling the decision she had to make. To go forward now, or wait until later.
Much later, after they were back in England.
She appreciated all the points Esme had made, yet had to question whether waiting until she was once again under Robert and Catherine’s roof wouldn’t make matters significantly more difficult, especially with respect to taking that next step. Aside from all else, as she understood it her rejection of eight suitors had garnered her a certain notoriety, which would focus attention on her when she returned to London, and the last thing she would wish was to be dealing with Rafe, feeling her way forward with him, all under the glare of the ton’s avid interest.
Yet when it came down to it, she wouldn’t—couldn’t—goforward with him, couldn’t agree to any more formal connection, until she’d learned the answer to her questions, which she wouldn’t until she took that next step.
Her thoughts went round and round until she felt like screaming.
The alteration in tone of the wheels on the road came just in time. The carriage slowed, then swung onto a larger road, and at last the trees fell back, the forests ended, and the wide swath of a river appeared to their left.
“The Rhine.”
Rafe’s murmured confirmation registered. She looked out at gray water rippling under a brisk breeze. Saw the last leg of his mission looming. Minutes later, the roofs of Strasbourg and the spires of its cathedral appeared ahead.
She was going to have to do something to break their impasse. She was going to have to decide whether his immediate well-being as well as her own were worth risking in pursuit of something more powerful and infinitely more enduring.
She was going to have to decide just how wild, bold, and reckless she could be.
The only certainty she felt as the carriage slowed to cross a stone bridge and enter the town was that she was going to act. She wasn’t going to wait until England.
The Beau Rivage was a small inn catering to those who lived in the country surrounding the town and had business on the river. Half-timbered with a sound slate roof, it stood facing one of the numerous minor quays.
The innkeeper at Ulm, apprised of their requirements—a modest inn not in the town center but close to the shipping offices—had suggested the Beau Rivage. The instant he set foot inside, Rafe knew the man had steered them well.
Although the inn did not have suites, with the weather turning cold and sleety there were few other guests; it was easy to hire one entire corridor of rooms. Rafe took a quick look,confirmed the quarters were both adequate and defendable, then returned to the carriage to hand Esme and Loretta down.
Esme peered at the building through the thickening river mist. “It’s rather small.”
“In this case,” Rafe said, taking her arm, “small means difficult to infiltrate because everyone knows everyone else on the staff.” And despite the timber in the building, with the river so close and the chill damp fog increasing, there was little chance of anyone setting the inn alight.
Esme slanted him a glance. “You’re sure we’ll find cultists here?”
“I’m absolutely certain of it.” They hadn’t sighted any yet, but they’d avoided the town center.
He escorted both ladies and maids inside, introduced the innkeeper and his beaming wife, then followed his charges up the stairs and briskly assigned the rooms he’d chosen.
He felt grateful when no one argued. He stepped back from the door of Esme’s room to allow two lads to carry in her trunk, then headed back to the room he’d selected as his own, the one nearest the inn’s main stairs.
His bags and weapons had already been left there, courtesy of the lads and Hassan respectively. He made short work of stowing things, then sat on the bed and cleaned and prepared one of the pistols he’d bought in Vienna.
Setting eyes on the Rhine and then entering Strasbourg had been like crossing a boundary—one marking the start of the last leg of his long mission. Urgency had gripped him, a sudden sense of being in action, real action, as if he’d just obeyed the order to set foot on some battlefield.
Everything suddenly seemed much more immediate.
He wondered where his friends, the three other couriers, were. It was the eleventh of December. Had any or all of them reached England? Had the Black Cobra struck at them? Had they got safely through to Wolverstone?
Unanswerable questions that only added to his battle-ready tension.
The pistol primed and ready, he stood, slipped the weapon into his coat pocket, buckled on his saber, then went to the door.
He met Hassan coming up the stairs. “I’m going to the shipping offices. You’re on guard.”
Hassan merely nodded and went on to his room.
The stairs were narrow and turned at right angles to descend to the ground floor and the foyer before the door. Making the turn, Rafe continued quickly down. The foyer gradually came into view. He saw the hems of ladies’ cloaks, and slowed.
The cloaks were familiar. The further he descended, the more of the ladies in question came into view.
Esme and Loretta. Waiting for him.
He stepped off the last stair.
Esme favored him with a bright, shiny smile that stated her determination louder than a roar. “Ready, dear boy?”
He glanced at Loretta, met her eyes. Determination was a poor description for the resolve he saw there.
Inwardly sighing, he offered Esme his arm. “The shipping offices are at the end of the quay and along the embankment.”
It was too soon for the cultists to have organized an attack.
When they entered the office of the Golden Eagle Shipping Line two hours later, he was feeling a good deal more grim. They’d already visited the offices of three other shipping lines. As they’d foreseen, there were numerous boats for hire, but they’d been of the slow, launch-cum-barge variety, in this season carrying mostly cargo and wedded to a ponderous, town-by-town schedule.
Fronting the main desk, Rafe asked what passenger vessels the Golden Eagle was running down the Rhine.
The clerk, by his appearance a retired ex-riverman, glanced past Rafe to Esme, then looked down at his register and confirmed that the Golden Eagle, too, had only passages on slow vessels available.
Edging Rafe aside, Esme stepped up to the desk. She smiled at the clerk, every bit as old as she. “But, my dear man, there have to be faster boats. I’ve traveled on smaller vessels myself—quick, quite luxurious boats just for passengers. Where have they all gone?”
The man blinked. Under Esme’s encouraging gaze, he somewhat cautiously admitted, “There are riverboats that cater for small parties, passengers only. During the season wealthy patrons hire them to cruise the Rhine on river excursions.”
“Exactly!” Delighted, Esme beamed at him. “We wish to hire just such a craft.”
“Ah … all such craft are in dock, out of the water now it is winter and there’s so much less call for them.”
“But I’m calling for one now.” Esme opened her eyes wide. “Our need is quite urgent. There must be someone with such a boat available. To whom should we speak?”
The clerk appeared lost in Esme’s eyes. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “My nephew—his boat, I think, is still in the water. It is a perfect vessel for a small party—I think you said you were six? His boat is as f
ast as anything on the river.”
Rafe stepped forward again. Satisfied, Esme eased back and allowed him to further question the clerk about his nephew—in his twenties, young and eager—and his boat. The Loreley Regina really did sound like the perfect boat for them.
The price the clerk quoted was exorbitant, but Rafe had expected that. He was happy to pay as long as they secured what they needed.
There was, however, one catch. The Loreley Regina was moored downriver and it would take a full day before she could be ready to sail.
Deciding he wanted to see the boat by daylight before trusting it, the captain, and his crew with the ladies as well as his mission, Rafe arranged to have the captain bring his vessel in to the quay opposite the Beau Rivage at first lightthe day after the next. If on inspection boat, captain, and crew passed muster, Rafe would pay the captain half the agreed sum, with the second half paid at Rotterdam, their destination.
Throughout the discussion and negotiation, he was careful to remain in his role of courier-guide, using Esme’s name and never mentioning his own.
With all as settled as it could be, Rafe ushered Loretta and Esme out onto the embankment.
“Quite fortunate, really,” Esme said as she accepted his arm, “that the inn faces the river.”
Rafe nodded, scanning their surroundings. The fog had thickened while they’d been inside. On the one hand, it hid them from any cultists’ eyes; on the other, the dense, drifting mists were an effective screen for any skulking assassin.
Tension leapt, a tightening sensation between his shoulder blades. He needed to get Esme and Loretta back to the inn.
Beside him, Loretta shivered and drew her cloak closer about her. He fought down the urge to loop his other arm around her and draw her close.
“Let’s get back.” She glanced at Esme. “It’s getting colder.”
“Indeed.” Esme waved with her cane. “I haven’t seen this much fog since London. But we are further north than we were.”
“And heading even further north,” Loretta pointed out.