Stephanie Laurens - All About Passion

He should have felt shaken to his core. Instead, he felt victorious, deeply content with his wife safe and warm in his arms. He glanced down at her face, studied her profile. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

She glanced up, emerald eyes wide, then she smiled. “I was frightened and shaken, but now…” Her smile deepened. Lifting a hand to his cheek, she turned in his arms and drew his lips to hers. She kissed him, gently, long and lingeringly. Then she drew back and looked into his eyes. “Thank you for saving me.”

He smiled. Looking ahead, he steered the grey toward the stable.

The next morning, Gyles went riding alone, leaving Francesca asleep, warm and sated in her bed. He rode along the river to the bridge, inspected the new trusses, then rode up to the downs.

Some called the landscape bleak, mile upon mile of emptiness with only the call of larks high above to puncture its loneliness. Today, that suited him-he needed time to think. Time to reflect on the changes in his life, to try to understand them.

He hadn’t imagined marriage would cause such change, such inner upheaval. Marriage to Francesca had. He’d known from first sight that she was potentially unsettling, yet unsettled was not what he felt. She spoke to him-the man not the earl, the barbarian not the gentleman-and he, most unexpectedly, had become accustomed to that. He wasn’t sure what having her in his life was doing to his wilder self. Perhaps she was taming the barbarian.

He inwardly snorted, and thought of the day before.

Thought of all he’d felt when he’d seen her bobbing wildly on the back of the runaway black. His old fear had risen, sharp, intense-the fear of having her fall and die like his father. Yet, along with the fear, this time had come resolution, the determination to save her, the conviction that he could, and would.

And he had.

Yesterday he’d lived the difference between being thirty-five and powerful, not seven and helpless. He felt as if old demons had been vanquished. Ironic that he owed Lancelot Gilmartin’s foolishness for that.

He slowed the grey as the escarpment drew near. He set the huge horse down the track to the Castle, cantering down the slope. Almost immediately he sensed an odd kick in the horse’s gait. Reining in, he dismounted. A quick inspection confirmed one rear shoe was loose.

Patting the horse’s neck, Gyles drew the reins over his head. “Come on, old son-let’s walk.” It wasn’t that far to the stables, and he still had plenty to ponder.

Like love, and loving.

Yesterday had demonstrated how deep were the waters into which he’d drifted, yet he still had his head above the waves. He cared for her, of course, and she seemed content with that, with the concessions he’d made. He’d let her into his life-he paused and reconsidered: bit by bit she’d won her way into his life, if truth be told. They’d come to an amicable arrangement, one that fell short of him committing to love.

Was that enough? Enough to keep her loving him?

Eyes on the ground, he walked down the track, and admitted he didn’t know. Her resolution on the battlements on the morning after their wedding still rang in his mind.

One thing he did know-he wanted her love, wanted her loving him, now and forever. The barbarian within had seized that prize and was not about to let go.

The image of the first time he’d seen her, the fact that he’d wanted her from that moment, led his mind to his mistake, to his initial perception of Franni-to the fact he’d been idiot enough to imagine she would make him a suitable wife to the point he’d thought it was she he was marrying.

God forbid. Thankfully, fate had.

He’d been as arrogantly foolish as Lancelot in his approach to finding his bride, but fate had taken pity on him, overriding his machinations to plant the right candidate at the altar beside him. And arrange matters so that, despite her temper, she’d been agreeable to marrying him. Agreeable to loving him.

He’d been so wrong about his bride-was he also wrong in refusing to love her? In not allowing what could be between them, what she wanted to be between them, to grow?

Fate had been so right over the matter of his wife. Did he dare to trust in fate again over the nature of their marriage?

Blowing out a long breath, he turned down the last stretch of track. Beside him, the grey slowed. Gyles looked up.

A yard ahead, a leather strap was stretched across the path just above knee height, secured around tree trunks on either side.

It was a leather rein from some carriage harness. Gyles halted before it. He tugged-it wasn’t taut, but didn’t have much give. He looked at the grey, judging where the strap would hit. He tested the leather, tested the knots securing it. Thought of what would have happened if he’d come down the path at a canter.

Or up the path at a gallop.

Frowning, he untied the strap from one tree trunk, rolling it in his hand as he crossed to the other tree.

He was the principal user of the path. Other than him, only Francesca rode this way. When exercising his horses, his grooms used the track along the river where they cantered under Jacobs’s watchful eye.

The implication was obvious. “Who?” and “Why?” were less so.

He had no local enemies that he knew of… except, perhaps, Lancelot Gilmartin. Glancing at the leather rolled in his hand, Gyles stuffed it into his pocket, then caught the grey’s reins and continued down the track.

Despite the boy’s foolishness, he couldn’t believe it of Lancelot. Such cold-bloodedness seemed unlikely-and he’d certainly have considered that Francesca might be the one caught, and surely he wouldn’t want that. Then again, given her verbal dissection of his character… could youthful adoration turn so quickly to hate?

But if not Lancelot, then who? He was involved in political schemes which others vehemently opposed, yet he couldn’t imagine any of the opposing camp employing such tactics. That was too fanciful for words.

He pulled the rein out of his pocket and examined it again. It was damp. It had rained last night but not since dawn. The rein had been strung there at least overnight. Possibly for longer. He thought back to the last time anyone had used the path. He and Charles had gone riding the first morning of their visit. After that, he and Francesca had gone by other ways.

Gyles reached the stable yard. “Jacobs!”

Jacobs came running. Gyles waited until he’d handed the grey to a stableboy before showing Jacobs the rein.

“It could be one of ours-heaven knows we’ve heaps lying about.” Jacobs strung the leather between his hands. “I really couldn’t be sure. Where was it?”

Gyles told him.

Jacobs looked grim. “I’ll have the lads keep a lookout. Whoever put it there might come back to check.”

“Possibly, but I doubt it. Let me know immediately if you or the lads see anyone or anything unusual.”

“Aye, m’lord.”

“And during the Harvest Festival, I want the stables closed off, and watched.”

“Aye-I’ll see to it.”

Gyles headed for the house, trying to dismiss the notion that had popped into his head. The conundrum of how a stone had become embedded in his wife’s mount’s hoof when the horse hadn’t been out. So the next time she’d been out, Francesca had ridden one of his hunters, a horse she couldn’t easily manage.

He’d been with her and they’d ridden out by a different route, but the scenario could so easily have been different. She could have gone riding by herself and taken the path up the escarpment.

Flexing his shoulders, he tried to push the resulting vision aside. It hadn’t happened, and all was still well.

That, he tried to tell himself, was all that mattered.

Striding up to the side door, he hauled it open and went inside.

The days leading to their Harvest Festival were filled with activity. Gyles spent much of the time within sight of Francesca, more to appease the brooding barbarian than from any conviction she was in danger. But while in his sight, she was safe-and keeping her in sight was no hardship.

His house came alive, filled with frenzied footmen; he was entertained to see Irving succumb to the pleasant panic. Even Wallace was seen hurrying, an unprecedented sight. Yet most of his mind remained on Francesca, his senses attuned to every nuance of her voice, to the tilt of her head as she considered some point, to the swish of her skirts as she hurried past. She was everywhere-in the kitchens one minute, in the forecourt the next.

And every night she came to his arms, happy and content and very willing to share all she was with him.

He tried, once, to settle with a news sheet. After reading the same paragraph five times and not taking in one word, he surrendered and went to see what Francesca was up to in the conservatory.

His mother, Henni, and Horace had arrived; he heard their voices as he strolled into the glass and stone edifice built out from the house beyond the library. With Francesca, they were sitting about a wrought-iron table positioned to make the most of the morning light.

His mother saw him.

“There you are, dear.” She held up her face; he bent and kissed her cheek. “Francesca has been telling us of all that’s planned.”

“I’ve volunteered to oversee the archery contests.” Horace squared his shoulders. “Did that years ago for your father. Quite enjoyed it.”

Gyles nodded and looked at Henni.

“Your mother and I will be roaming the crowd, making sure all is as it should be.”

“There’ll be so many here”-Francesca glanced up at him-“you and I won’t be able to be everywhere.”

“True.” He stood by Francesca’s chair, his hand on its back, and listened to her plans. He’d heard then before and approved them all; he listened not to her words but the eagerness in her voice as she recited the day’s schedule.

“By tomorrow evening, all should be in readiness.”

Henni set down her cup. “A pity you’ll have to wait until the morning to put out the trestles and boards, but it was ever the same. A Festival at this time of year can’t expect to be other than damp.”

“With luck, the day’ll be fine.” Horace stood. “Usually was, as I recall.”

“Indeed. The whole estate will be praying for a fine day-I haven’t seen such excitement for years.” Lady Elizabeth rose and kissed Francesca’s cheek. “We’ll leave you to your preparations.”

Francesca and Henni rose, too.

“Don’t forget-if you need any help, you have only to send a footman across the park.” Henni squeezed Francesca’s hand, then turned to the door leading outside just as a large shadow filled the doorway.

“Ahem!” Edwards shuffled, then raised a hand to the frame and lightly knocked.

Francesca recovered first. “Yes, Edwards?”

He gripped his cap between his hands. “I was wondering if I might have a word, ma’am.”

“Yes?”

He drew breath, glanced at Gyles, then looked at Francesca. “It’s the plums, ma’am. They need to be harvested tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? But tomorrow’s the last day before the Festival.”

“Aye, well, trees and fruit and weather don’t allow for festivals, like. The season’s been late, and the fruit’s just ripe-we need to get it in as soon as we have a dry patch long enough so it won’t be damp.” He glanced at the sky. “It’s been clear for the last few days. By tomorrow, the fruit’ll be right to pick-we daren’t risk the crop by waiting till after the Festival.”

Francesca had learned that the plum crop and the jam it produced was almost as old a Castle tradition as the Festival.

“So you’ll need all the gardeners and stablelads?”

“Aye, and the footmen, too. Even then, it’ll take the whole day.”

Francesca frowned. They would never manage the preparations for the festival without all those hands.

Lady Elizabeth turned to her. “You can have the staff from the Dower House, if that would help.”

Francesca nodded, then refocused on Edwards. “What if all of us pick? How long would it take then?”

“All?”

“The entire staff-everyone in the house. And the staff from the Dower House. Every pair of hands. That’s more than double the number you need to do it in a day. If you have that many, how many hours will it take?”

Edwards cogitated. “A few…” He nodded. “Aye-three hours would do it if we had that many. We’ve plenty of ladders and such.”

Francesca almost sighed with relief. “Tomorrow afternoon. We’ll complete all the preparations for the Festival, then have a late luncheon-then we’ll all gather in the orchard and bring in the crop.”