Hands on his hips, Rafe looked down at her. “You could give me a letter stating your wishes—that you wish your people to respond to the situation as I describe it.”
“Oh, I’ve already written such a letter, dear boy, but I speak from experience when I tell you that without Loretta, my flesh and blood, and indeed one of my heirs, standing before him and stating unequivocally that I did indeed write that missive and that it does indeed represent my wishes, Heathcote Montague will not budge. Why, when I was trying to manage things from Scotland, the stubborn man posted all the way up into the Highlands just to confirm that the missives he was receiving were indeed from me and correctly represented my wishes. He’s the definition of cautious when it comes to his clients’ business. I daresay that’s why he’s so highly thought of.”
Rafe could detect nothing but calm certainty in Esme’s eyes. She was speaking the truth, at least as she knew it. He didn’t dare glance at Loretta to see how she was taking her relative’s maneuvering.
“Besides,” Henny said, glancing at Loretta, “the convent is no place for an active young lady.” She looked at Rafe. “As I said, we’re a closed community. No one visits us, and we rarely venture out. All very well for Esme, especially as she and I have so much catching up to do. But for Loretta … she’d be climbing the walls in a week, and her Rose with her.”
Finally, Rafe glanced at Loretta.
Shifting her gaze from Henny, she met his eyes. After a moment’s silence, she lightly shrugged. “Unless you have some strong counterargument, it appears Rose and I will be traveling on with you.”
Loretta understood Rafe’s difficulty; she, too, felt torn. Riding back in a hired carriage after parting from Esme and Gibson at Henny’s convent deep in the forests a short way from Bingen, she still felt the tug of conflicting emotions.
On the one hand, she was hugely relieved that she would be traveling on with Rafe—aside from all else, after all that had passed between them, and even more all she hoped would come to be, what she was almost certain she would learn if she pressed hard enough, the instant the possibility of being left in the convent had loomed, one question had risen, screaming, in her mind: what if he was injured again?
She was highly conscious of the warmth of his large body as he sat in the carriage alongside her. Who would continue to tend his arm, to salve and rebind it, as he was loath to do and had to be constantly reminded? If she didn’t, who would? Could she trust Hassan to insist in the face of Rafe’s tetchiness?
As for the prospect of any worse befalling him … that she wasn’t prepared to contemplate. Not at all.
The relief she’d felt when Esme had declared and insisted that she travel on with him had been acute.
But she didn’t like leaving Esme either.
Henny had arrived immediately after breakfast in reply to a letter Esme had apparently dispatched by courier the previous night, requesting asylum. Gibson had already had their bags packed.
After their discussion in the salon, there’d been no sense in dallying. As Esme had pointed out, they’d already spent more time in Bingen than Julius had allowed for; the boat needed to get on.
She, Rafe, Hassan, and Rose had accompanied Esme, Gibson, and Henny back to the convent. They’d stood at the gates and hugged and kissed—Esme had insisted on tugging Rafe down and kissing his cheek, too. Then she’d gone inside with Henny. Loretta had stood beside Rafe and waved until the door of the convent had swung shut and sealed Esme away.
But Esme was now safe, as safe as she could be, which was also a relief. Over their travels, Loretta had grown deeply fond of her outrageous and incorrigible great-aunt.
Although the sky was overcast, the clouds had remained high and the rain had held off. The day wasn’t as cold as the one before—it was a good day for traveling.
“Here we are.” Rafe leaned forward as the carriage slowed, then opened the door and stepped down to the wharf.
Out of habit, he surveyed their surroundings before turning and handing Loretta down. Leaving Hassan to climb down and assist Rose, he led Loretta to where the Loreley Regina bobbed at dock, the crew waiting, eager to be off.
“I hope she’ll be all right,” Loretta murmured as he assisted her up the gangplank.
“Esme’s a suvivor. She’ll probably drive Henny to distraction, but …” He stepped down to the deck. “As soon as my mission’s complete, I’ll go to London, meet with her Mr. Montague, and then I believe I’ll pay Sir Charles Manning a visit.”
Leading the way into the prow, Loretta glanced back at him. “That would be … very kind.”
Strolling after her, his eyes on hers, he shrugged. “It’s the least I can do in recompense for the many good things your estimable relative’s interference has brought me.”
Looking into his eyes, she read the message therein, then smiled her secretive smile and halted by the rail to watch the roofs of Bingen slide away.
In the early afternoon, they started the descent down the stretch of river known as the Rhine Gorge. The river swung north. Where until then the river banks had been low lying, strips of meadowland running back to meet whatever hills and mountains marched nearby, now cliffs rose directly from the water on either side; the river rushed between with increased force, whipping into small whirlpools close by the rocky shores, sweeping the boat on in unexpected surges.
Julius and his crew handled the challenges with a mixture of gusto and aplomb, checking and resetting their sails, constantly shifting position to ride the currents safely. To them, guiding the small riverboat through the tricky waters was a game, one they relished and were confident of winning.
Standing by the prow rail beside Loretta, Rafe watched the river rush giddily past. The shadows cast by the cliffs swallowed them. Although the heights afforded excellent vantage points to watch boats barreling down the river, they were moving too fast for any direct attack. He suspected this day and the next while they rushed down the gorge would be their last relatively safe stretch.
That they’d managed to get this close to England without any clash with the cult was due entirely to his wisdom in choosing to travel via the rivers, combined with a healthy dose of luck. He suspected their luck would run out when they reached Bonn, if not before.
Until then, however … if his time in the army had taught him anything it was that life was too short to waste good times.
Shifting his gaze to Loretta’s face, he studied her clear profile. “Does your family retire to the country for Christmas, or remain in town?” He wanted to know; the answer would be relevant later.
She glanced briefly at him. “We usually congregate at one or other of my sisters’ houses. One’s in Berkshire, the other in Oxfordshire.” Looking back at the cliffs, she added, “I wonder if it’s snowed yet.”
“It’s the fifteenth of December, so it might have.”
Loretta regarded him as he leaned on the rail alongside her. “You’ve been in India for years—are you looking forward to a white Christmas?”
His brows rose; he considered, then replied, “Yes, I am. It’s been a long time since I spent Christmas with family. The thought of a snowy Christmas takes me back to those days.”
“You have brothers and sisters, like me. At Christmas, what games did you play?”
They swapped anecdotes, some clearly fond family tales, others too unexpected and particular to be drawn from anything but personal experience. Many were revealing, but if both of them noticed, neither drew back. They exchanged tit for tat, memories of being children in England and Christmases long past while the Rhine swept them deeper into its gorge, on between soaring forested cliffs.
Then Rafe spotted the first castle. Delighted, Loretta retrieved the guidebook Esme had left with her, flicked it open.
As the boat surged, dipped, canted, then whisked on, she read from the book while Rafe played lookout, scanning the heights for stone towers and crenallated battlements.
“Look!” Rafe pointed. “That’s the Loreley
Rock.”
Loretta gazed at the massive outcrop jutting out from the right bank. Frowned. “I thought it would be more … impressive. Are you sure that’s it?”
Rafe nodded. “Julius described it to me.”
They studied the rock, took in its heavy, watchful presence as the boat followed the river in a wide arc around its base.
“It must be the legend that lends it significance,” Loretta concluded. “Without that cachet, it doesn’t seem all that remarkable.”
At that moment, Julius looked out of the enclosed bridge and hailed them. “Come inside.” He beckoned. “Up here. The next section is dangerous.”
Keeping hold of the rail, they made their way quickly to the bridge. They climbed two steps to find Julius at the helm in the center, with two crewmen watching the river closely from the forward corners of the bridge.
“Hold on!” Julius yelled, never taking his eyes from the river ahead.
Grasping a window ledge, looking ahead, Rafe saw the river’s surface ripple and churn. Although the water to either side appeared smoother, Julius steered the boat into the dangerous currents.
The boat pitched. Loretta’s hold on the door handle slipped. Before she staggered Rafe clamped her to him, his arm about her waist, her back to his chest. He held her steady as the boat wallowed, then rolled, then shot ahead.
“The channel for boats is very narrow through here,” Julius called back. “It is the most dangerous part of the river.” Abruptly, he hauled on the wheel, righting the boat as it listed wildly, then one of the crew pointed and yelled. Julius swung the wheel the other way.
Under his expert steering, the Loreley Regina rocked and rolled, but overall continued surging on.
“Luckily,” Julius continued, “the passage is short and fast. It doesn’t last long.”
Just as well. Loretta was grateful for small mercies. Grateful, too, for Rafe’s arm snug about her. She relaxed back against him, knowing he was strong enough to hold her, and would, even if her feet went out from under her.
The warmth that stole through his coat and through her pelisse was soothing, too.
Comforting and reassuring.
The Loreley Regina slowed; a minute later the boat rode steadily, stablely, onward once more.
They thanked Julius. He grinned and snapped off a salute, then they returned to the forward deck.
Once again at the prow rail, they were joined by Hassan and Rose.
“We were in the salon,” Rose replied in answer to Loretta’s query, “but the crew warned us. Bumpy old ride, it was.”
Just ahead, the cliffs drew back from the river leaving a narrow strip of land just wide enough for small townships on both banks.
“That’s St. Goar.” Nose in the guidebook, Loretta waved to the cluster of houses on the left bank. Above the town, a castle crowned the thickly treed cliff. “This book doesn’t mention that castle. But to the right we have St. Goarshausen.”
They all studied the small town as the boat slid by. Rafe and Hassan noted and commented on the square defensive tower that stood guard toward one end of the town.
Loretta looked further along and up. “And that"—she pointed to a castle just beyond the town, perched on the point where the cliff swept back to the river’s edge—"is Burg Katz.”
The castle gradually came into full view as they rounded the next gentle curve. A sizeable edifice, it dominated that portion of the river, with a clear view south to the Loreley Rock and a similar view north along the next stretch.
Rafe and Hassan speculated on the military implications of its position.
The boat sailed on. The light was fading, the shadows lengthening as a winter’s dusk took hold. Peering ahead, Loretta pointed at another, even larger castle perched on a height a little way back from the river. “I think that’s Burg Maus.”
Rafe glanced at her. “Burg Katz, Burg Maus?” When, brows rising, she glanced at him, he explained, “Castle Cat, Castle Mouse.” He grinned. “I wonder what significance that has. Were the families actually the Katz and the Maus, or do the names allude to something else?”
The question resulted in some very inventive answers.
“Oh, here it is.” Looking up from the guidebook she’d been scouring for any suggestion of the true origins of the Cat and Mouse designations, Loretta swung around and looked back at the castle rising above St. Goar on the opposite bank. “That’s Burg Rheinfels.”
“At least that name makes sense,” Rafe said.
Having straightened from the prow rail to look back, he noticed the boat’s sails had been lowered. That, indeed, the boat had slowed.
As if in answer to the question forming in his brain, the rattle of the anchor chain reached them.
Julius swung down from the bridge and came toward them. “We will halt here for the night. This is a peaceful spot and as we need nothing in the town there is no need to tie up there.” He met Rafe’s eyes. “The river is too strewn with sandbanks and submerged islands to allow us to safely navigate the channels by night.”
Rafe nodded. “How are we faring with respect to our schedule?”
Julius grinned. “From here on, the river is swift and our way is fast. We should still reach Rotterdam on the nineteenth, as you wished.”
“Good.” Rafe glanced at the mists rising off the river now that the daylight had fled, then turned to Loretta, Rose, and Hassan. “Let’s go down and stay warm.”
By his calculation, they had that night, and if they were lucky the next, before they encountered the cult and the tension induced by his mission increased exponentially. They had been amazingly lucky; he held no illusions that such luck would hold.
Back in the salon, Rose settled with some sewing in an armchair at the rear of the room. Hassan sank into the chair alongside her.
Leaving them quietly chatting, Rafe followed Loretta to the pair of armchairs in the prow. Reflecting on the insights their earlier conversation about their childhood exploits had revealed, he waited while she sat, then lounged in the other chair and returned to that subject. “Tell me about your sisters and brothers—what are their lives like now?”
The more he learned of her, her background, her family, the better placed he would be to ensure his claim to her hand met with no unnecessary resistance.
Nothing loath, Loretta replied. “Robert is the eldest. He and his wife, Catherine, make their home in London. They have three children—”
Describing her married siblings’ households brought them and their spouses vividly to mind. The more she spoke, the more she remembered and sought to convey, the more she saw, the more she understood—the more clearly she saw what it was she was searching for.
What it was she wanted of life. Of a husband, of her future.
What it was she wanted of Rafe.
No one who knew her three married siblings and their spouses could doubt that an emotion deeper than mere affection linked each couple. Even Robert and Catherine shared that deeper bond.
Loretta hadn’t, until then, defined, even in her own mind, why she’d refused to agree with Rafe’s decree that he and she would wed. Why she was still holding aloof, holding back from that decision.
A decision Rafe wanted to insist she’d already made.
She hadn’t, and no matter what he thought, she did have alternatives.
If at the end of this journey, she returned to London, to Robert and Catherine’s household, only to discover that the social pressure to choose a husband had become too great, she would simply seek refuge with one or other of her sisters in the country. They would shelter her, and if this journey had taught her one thing it was that she didn’t lack for spine when she had need of it. It wasn’t in her nature to cause difficulties if she didn’t care about the issue, but if she did … she was confident, now, that she would act. She would retire from society until she reached the age of twenty-five, and was officially declared an old maid, on the shelf. Thereafter, the pressure to marry would largely evaporate, and she co
uld continue on as she had before—writing her vignettes and amusing herself with being an aunt to her siblings’ offspring.
She’d been happy enough before, and would be again. A lesser happiness than her sisters and sister-in-law had claimed, but she would cut her coat to suit her cloth and be content.
So her alternative life was real. It was there, ready for her to claim if she wished.
Prior to meeting Rafe, that alternative had been her first and, to her mind, only available choice. Now … while she spoke, she studied Rafe. He was leaning forward, drinking in all she let fall, asking questions that by their very nature revealed an inherent understanding of sibling interaction.
Studying his eyes, the clean lines of his face, she acknowledged that her previous first choice had slipped very definitely to second place.
What now stood in first place, what encompassed her most ardent desire for her future life, was … a relationship with Rafe that held that same element of deep connection that her siblings enjoyed with their mates.
That was what she’d been searching for—instinctively, intuitively—in their physical interactions. Some hint, some clue, that he and she might within them possess the necessary ingredient for that deeper bond. She knew what she sought went by the name of love, yet that word described such a broad gamut of feelings and reactions that it seemed wiser not to evoke it.
Wiser instead to search for the evidence of its existence. For its shadow, as it were.
So she’d started to search, and was determined to keep searching. What she’d found … was thus far inconclusive. What she sought might be there, in his heart and in hers, but she wasn’t experienced enough to be certain. Not yet.
But if what she sought was there … pursuing her agenda, devoting herself to the task of revealing it, confirming it, then strengthening and protecting it, was self-evidently the only reasonable choice she could make.