The Stolen Bride

His face didn’t move, except for his lips. His tone was incredulous. “Why were you not chaperoned?” His stance had changed. His legs were braced defensively, as if he rode one of his brother’s ships.

Eleanor was stunned—and horrified. For she thought of being outside on the terrace with her fiancé being kissed and wanting even more kisses. Her cheeks burned. “How much did you see?” she managed. She had been worse than improper. She had been brazen. She had been bold.

“Everything,” he said, turning away from her. His strides were restless now. Eleanor suddenly noticed that he was moving differently, as if he was stiff and sore.

She found a rock and sat down. Should she attempt an explanation? What could she say? “I am fond of Peter—”

“I don’t care,” he said, uttering the words rapidly, and surprising her because of it. He had now turned red, too.

“He is my fiancé,” she tried.

“So you will become English?” His tone was mocking.

She shook her head. “We will live in Yorkshire—I mean, we were going to live there, in Chatton, but—”

“You’ve changed!” he exclaimed, and for the first time that day, his voice rose above a whisper. “You hated those two Seasons…. Elle would never leave Ireland!” He paused, but whether it was because of the exertion of speaking so rapidly and angrily or because he had said all he intended to, she did not know.

“I don’t want to leave Adare!” she cried.

“Then don’t!” he cried back, his voice rougher than before. He coughed and seemed angry that his voice had begun to fail him. “Does he know… that you can shoot…antlers off…a buck…moving in the woods?”

She was dismayed. “Sean, stop. I see that it hurts you to speak so much.” She was on her feet, reaching for him. His voice was getting lower and more inaudible with every word he spoke.

But he shook his head furiously. “Has he…seen you…dressed…like a man?” he cried, tripping over his words now, his voice dripping sarcasm as well as wrath. “Has he seen you…in breeches! Boots! The knotted belt!”

“Sean, stop!”

“He doesn’t want Elle!”

“Why are you doing this?” she begged.

“He wants that woman…the coquette!”

She shook her head in denial. “I have changed. I am a woman now and you had no right watching me kiss Peter! And you’re right—he doesn’t know me. But how could you disappear for four years? How? And then you come back and spy on me? And now you think to leave again—without me!”

“Yes!”

She struck at him with her open hand.

He caught her wrist before she could hit him.

She hadn’t meant to strike at him, for he was hurt and she loved him. But he had been badgering her so cruelly about Peter—and Peter was irrelevant to them now. She wanted to tell him all of that, but her own voice failed.

For she looked into his eyes and they were blazing. And she realized the light she saw there was not just anger but jealousy. He hadn’t let her wrist go; in fact, in seizing her wrist he had pulled her forward and her thighs were pressed against his legs. Her heart was already speeding uncontrollably but now it skipped, wildly, as she realized how hard his muscular thighs were. Hard…and male. Instinctively she shifted her weight and her breasts brushed his chest. Her nipples stiffened, hurting her, and she began to swell. She thought she might explode if he pulled her forward another fraction of an inch.

He became utterly still, except for his harsh breathing. And in that moment she realized that she would give anything to be in Sean’s arms and his bed, making love to him wildly, passionately, with no inhibition, touching his hard, scarred body everywhere, with her hands and her mouth, and letting him touch and kiss her that way in return. And he knew, because his gaze veered sharply to her mouth.

“You’re right,” she breathed. “Peter doesn’t want Elle. But you do.”

His grip tightened and he pulled her even closer.

Her nipples scraped her chemise and shirt and through the linen, his chest. His eyes widened and then he let her go.

“No. Elle was a child. Elle is gone.”

Eleanor stared at him, trying to recover her composure, while he paced, tense and shaken. “Sean. I am here. I have grown up, that’s all.”

He made a harsh sound, an attempt at mirthless laughter.

She walked slowly toward him. His expression twisted and he stared for so long that she thought he wasn’t going to speak. Then she realized he was summoning up his words. “You…belong…to Sinclair.”

“No! I belong to you!”

He jerked in shock, turned and began hurrying away.

She ran after him, drawing abreast of him. “You need to hide. I can help.”

“I’ll hide in the woods…for tonight.”

“And then you will leave? At dawn?” she demanded. He hesitated. “Yes.”

Her resolve strengthened. She would be packed and ready to leave at dawn, as well. In fact, she had the beginnings of a bloody brilliant idea. “No, not in the woods, it’s too dangerous.”

He glanced at her, his face filled with wariness.

“You can hide in my rooms.”

CHAPTER FIVE

EVERYTHING WAS AT STAKE now and Eleanor knew it—Sean’s life and his freedom, and her future with him. She refused to think about the fact that he had not agreed to let her journey to America with him. She refused to think about the years they had shared, when he had never once suggested that he might love her back. Instead, she would think about the way he had looked at her and the desire she had felt pulsing between them. She could not have misinterpreted that.

They had agreed that he would remain in the woods for the day, as there was no way he could steal into the house without, in all likelihood, being detected. Now that she knew he was back and being searched for by the authorities, she feared the imminent arrival of British troops. He seemed remarkably calm and unafraid, insisting he would hear their approach long before they could ever find him. Their plan was that he would go up to the house during the supper hour, when the family, their guests and the staff were occupied.

She’d finally had a moment to actually assimilate all that had transpired. She would never stop loving Sean, but he was a convicted traitor now. She knew that each and every member of her family would fight for his freedom and his good name, if they were given a chance. She also knew that no one, not her father, her mother or her brothers, would ever condone a match with him now.

If he had returned home with the same status as when he had left, it would not have been hard to convince her father to allow her to marry for love. Sean’s family was an ancient one, and once, his ancestors had been great earls, ruling half of Ireland, but he had been born the younger son of an impoverished Irish Catholic nobleman. His father had actually leased Askeaton from Adare, even though those lands had once belonged to the O’Neills. Yet the earl would have given her hand in marriage to his own stepson, and he would have gifted them with a small estate. Their life would have been a simple one; Eleanor would not have cared.

The earl would never approve of such a marriage now, not that Sean had offered for her. And no one would allow her to run away with him, if they ever suspected her plans. It saddened and distressed her that, so suddenly, her great family was being torn apart.

But they would spend the night together, and she could barely wait to be with him again. She had to know everything that he had been through. He had become so distant, like some dangerous stranger. Surely his wariness toward her would ease. And his insistence that Sean O’Neill was dead was absurd. Sean O’Neill was very much alive, even if he was thin and scarred, his voice strained and hoarse. He had been wounded somehow, but he wasn’t dead. The wounded healed, and Sean would heal, too. Eleanor intended to make certain of it.

Although he remained a short distance away in the woods, she missed him terribly. She wanted to sit close to him, his arm around her, the way they once had. She wanted to see him smile and hear him laugh. It had been so long! Did he even know that Tyrell was married and that he had two children? Did he even know that Devlin now had a son as well as a daughter? There was so much to share. And if she were very daring, she would encourage him to kiss her.

The tension inside her spiraled wildly. In spite of the dire circumstances, in spite of the changes in Sean, she was happy. He had come home and she would never let him go without her again.

Eleanor had reached the flagstone terrace and she slowed, glancing cautiously around. Her morning rides were usually over well before seven, before the sun had a chance to shake the chill of the prior evening. Well, it was past seven now, and the sun was high and warm. If it were close to eight, her father and her brothers and any number of their male guests were having breakfast in the morning room. Ladies rarely came down before ten or half past that hour.

Rex appeared before her, having been seated alone on the terrace. Eleanor jumped nervously. He smiled, limping toward her. “Did I give you a fright?” he asked curiously.