THE ROAD OUT front was noisy, crammed with an endless stream of people fleeing London. A well-worn path in back of the inn led up into gently rolling hills, and it was here that Lord Greystone guided her.
It was a cloudless night, the wind having blown every wisp over the horizon, and Amy could just make out his profile, dark against the moonlight. Aided by what seemed a million stars, her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
Twisting the gold ring on his finger—the ring she had made—Lord Greystone cleared his throat.
“How is your hand?”
“Not too bad.”
“Are you right-handed, or left?”
“Right.”
“It will be a spell before you can write, then.”
She shrugged. “I expect so.”
Lord Greystone paused, and the fingers of one hand drummed against his thigh. “Amy…”
His voice sounded too serious. She didn’t want to discuss…it. Not yet, not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Or, if she were lucky, perhaps this was all a horrible dream, and tomorrow she’d wake up back in Cheapside.
She was glad for his presence, but she wished they were back at the inn, sitting side by side with tankards of mind-numbing ale, not saying anything. If he were going to insist on talking to her, she would have to make sure the conversation stayed on safe subjects.
When the drumming stopped, she took a quick breath. “You…you’re very good with the children.”
“Thank you.” He looked relieved. “Davis is an enormous help.”
“Why are you…doing this? Caring for these children, I mean. It’s very nice, but…”
“But why am I shepherding children when every other able man is still in London, fighting the fire?” Lord Greystone led her up a rise to where he’d spotted an ancient, broken stone wall. He seated himself upon a low section. “It’s difficult to credit, but I’ve always felt a kind of…empathy, I suppose you could call it, for children who are lost or abandoned. Perhaps I would have been of more use fighting the fire, but—”
“No, not at all.” Amy levered herself up to sit on the wall, angling to face him. “The children needed you. Thousands are fighting the fire; one more would make little difference.”
Lord Greystone hesitated, then shrugged. “I know how those children feel. When I was small, my parents left me quite often. Most of the time, in fact. And I was lonely and scared all the time. I wasn’t the bravest of boys,” he admitted ruefully.
“They left you?” Amy could barely conceive of such a childhood; her parents had never left her for so much as a day.
Until today, she realized suddenly.
She felt a brief, sharp stab of grief, then pushed it down, down, far inside, like stuffing one of those new jack-in-the-box toys back under its lid.
She bit her lip. Lord Greystone was watching her. As long as she kept asking him questions, she wouldn’t have to think about it. “Why…how could they do that?”
He cocked his head. “They were passionate Royalists. Cavaliers. King and country came first. We, my brothers and sister and I, were such a distant second we barely even counted.”
“But…where did they leave you?”
“Oh, at home—with kind servants. They weren’t cruel—they didn’t actually abandon us. But to a child…well, it felt as though they did. To me, anyway.” He paused, twisting his ring again. “My brother Jason—he’s a year older than I—feels differently. He’s always idolized our parents, most especially our father.”
“How about your sister?”
“Kendra and her twin, Ford, were so young they never knew any other kind of life. They’re sixteen—about your age, I think?”
Amy nodded. “I’m seventeen. And now?” she asked. “How do they feel about it now? Your parents, I mean. Are they sorry?”
“They died. At the Battle of Worcester, fifteen years ago.”
His parents were dead…just like hers. “Oh…” she started, then couldn’t say anything more.
Mistaking her renewed grief for sympathy, Lord Greystone rushed to reassure her. “No need to feel sorry. It was Charles’s last stand against Cromwell, and my folks wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Soon afterward we were taken to Holland to live with other Royalist exiles. We were safe. After a while I realized I didn’t miss my parents much, since they had hardly ever been around anyway.”
He fell silent, gazing out into the endless dark rolling hills.
“Was your family Royalist, Amy? During the war, I mean?”
“No,” she said slowly, pausing as she thought how to explain it. “I mean…we weren’t not Royalist, either. We were—nothing, I guess. Papa just tried to keep doing business no matter what happened.” To Amy’s surprise and dismay, her mention of Papa released a floodgate of emotions. Tears began welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, chagrined that she couldn’t control herself.
“Don’t be sorry. Whether you were Royalist or nay—it doesn’t signify. It seems a fine survival tactic to me.”
She couldn’t answer. Her throat seemed to close up, and a warm teardrop rolled down her cheek and splashed onto her clasped hands.
“Amy?” Lord Greystone probed. “Where is your mother?”
She tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. “Gone,” she answered in a quavery voice. “The plague took her. Last year. She fell ill and we had to leave. We went to France, and I never saw her again.”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. He moved over on the wall and placed an arm around her shoulders. “I’m truly sorry.”
His voice was soft and compassionate, but she wasn’t ready to accept sympathy just now. It made everything too real.
“I…” His arm tightened around her. “I don’t understand. Your father, why he went back inside. When the shop was aflame.”
Slow tears overflowed, quiet tears, not a storm like earlier in the day when he’d found her. They burned in her eyes and traced hot paths down her cheeks.
She was so exhausted.
“He wanted a painting of my mother.” She brushed at the tears with the back of her good hand.
“A painting?” She could feel Lord Greystone beside her, shaking his head in disbelief.
“He had to have that picture. A miniature. He used to sit for hours, staring at it. Perhaps—perhaps he didn’t really want to live without her,” she said with a flash of insight that felt like a knife in her chest. “Now I have no one. I’m all alone.”
He jumped down and stood before her, gripping her shoulders. “You’re not alone, Amy.”
“Yes—yes, I am. My parents are gone…my home is gone…”
Well, there was Robert, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her.
But there was no one to make her marry him now.
“You must have family, somewhere?”
“Only my Aunt Elizabeth.” The words came out a whisper, forced through her painfully tight throat. “She lives in Paris. Last year when I stayed with her I was miserable.”
“You’d just lost your mother,” he reminded her gently. “You would have been miserable anywhere.” With him standing and her seated on the wall, they were of a height. His eyes searched hers, an intense gray, their color neutralized by the darkness. “It’s not so bad as all that.”
More tears brimmed over, and she saw his brow crease in response.
“I wish I weren’t alive,” she whispered, dropping her head to escape his penetrating gaze.
“Never say that,” he said vehemently. “It’s good to be alive. Never ever say that.”
Hesitantly, almost shyly, he leaned forward and reached his arms around her, pulling her to him. Her downturned face was squished against his shoulder, her body rigid with tension and uncertainty. She finally had to raise her chin to breathe and felt his cheek graze hers, warm and a bit rough. The unfamiliar sensation took her aback.
“Dear heavens,” she whispered.
It was the first human connection she’d felt since she saw her father disappear into the raging inferno that used to be her home.
Suddenly, here in Lord Greystone’s arms, she was far away, removed from her hostile reality, and she wished she could stay here in his arms forever. He stroked her hair, and she let him, lulled by the gentle tug of his fingers working slowly, patiently through her tangled curls. Some of the tension drained from her body. She was only half-aware of her arms snaking around him, her chin settling snugly in the crook of his neck.
Dimly realizing that his attempts at comfort were edging too far toward impropriety, Colin tried to pull back. But Amy came off the wall with him, sliding down his front until her feet came to rest on the grass, her face pressed into his shirt, her tears soaking the thin linen.
Criminy. Despite her gut-wrenching misery, he couldn’t help but think how good she felt in his arms. It was absolutely…flustering.
In fact, with Amy pressed up against him, he could hardly think at all.
When she wiped her eyes and tilted her head back to look up at him, he pulled her even closer and touched his lips to hers.
The travelers rumbling by in the background, the crickets in the hills, the wind blowing past…all faded away. Like magic.
Amy was so surprised, she kept her eyes open instead of squeezing them tight as she always had against Robert’s kisses. But then, this was nothing like Robert’s kisses. This kiss was soft and sure, warm and welcoming. It was like a potion—she couldn’t remember who she was or whether she had any problems. Lord Greystone smelled smoky and salty but tasted like the ale they’d had at dinner, only sweeter, and he was just as beautiful up close, especially when he opened his startling emerald eyes and looked straight into hers—
Colin wrenched away, his arms falling to his sides. His breathing was sharp, his nerves jangling. What was he doing?
Kissing a girl who wasn’t his betrothed, that’s what.
And even worse, he was taking advantage of Amy’s grief, her vulnerability, her overwhelming loneliness. What on earth had come over him? He wasn’t that kind of person. He’d always thought of himself as cool and rational, never carried away by impulse.
And certainly never anything less than a gentleman.
He was thoroughly disgusted with himself.
Amy stared at him, dazed, her legs wobbly.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He didn’t sound like Lord Greystone, Amy thought. His voice was rough, and he did look sorry—ashamed, even.
“Sorry?” Amy’s senses were still spinning. She wasn’t sorry, not one bit. She’d never imagined any person could make her feel like someone else, in a different time and place, and she’d wanted that feeling to go on forever.
And, unless she was mistaken, he’d felt much the same. Surely he couldn’t have kissed her like that if he hadn’t. Or could he? She realized she had no idea.
“You’re sorry?” she pressed.
“Well, not sorry exactly,” he said in that unfamiliar rough voice, fumbling for the words. “It’s just…I shouldn’t have done that…taken advantage of you like that. Not that I didn’t want to—oh, a pox on this!” He took a step toward her and put his hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length, clearly exasperated. “You’re a proper young merchant girl, and you’ve suffered a frightful tragedy, and I mean to protect you, not—not ruin you.” The flush rising up his neck was visible even in the dark.
His words sounded sensible enough. The girl Amy was yesterday surely would have agreed. But today, battered and bruised and alone in the world, she wasn’t sure of anything.
Except that she’d like to kiss Lord Greystone again.
“My lord—” she began.
“Colin,” he interrupted. “I imagine once you’ve kissed a fellow, you’re allowed to call him by his Christian name.”
Amy blushed furiously. Still, she tried the name in her head. Colin. She’d never called a nobleman by his given name, and it should feel wrong. But now she thought Colin, and it made her feel warm all over.
“And if you were about to tell me it doesn’t matter,” he continued, “you’re wrong. It matters a lot.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He shook his head. “It’s late, and we’re both very tired. We have a long ride to Cainewood in the morning. Let’s get some sleep.”
He took her good hand and pulled her toward the inn. She followed reluctantly. There was no arguing with him, it seemed.
Her hand tingled where his bare skin touched hers. She’d held hands with Robert and never felt anything at all. Even with her limited experience, she knew this couldn’t be normal.
Was it not the same for him?