The River of No Return

looked at him. She, who had known him as a child and now saw him as an adult. Nick couldn’t believe how good it felt to have that gap bridged. How good it felt just to have those ink-dark eyes rest on him, even with that quizzical look in them. “Then I’ll kill him,” he heard himself saying. “If he won’t allow to you to come to Blackdown with me now, I’ll kill him.”
    She laughed. “You will have to make up your mind between the two options you give me. Either I am to do just as I please and walk out of the front door, or you are to kill him and carry me off like a pillaged sack of flour!”
    She was right. He did sound like a maniac. He needed to get control of himself. Himselves. But he didn’t want to. Her laugh was enchanting. It was the same one he had heard yesterday as she galloped away toward the river. He wanted to kiss her. He Nick Davenant, and he Nicholas Falcott. For once they wanted the same thing.
    He dropped his hand from where it rested on hers, to keep himself from grabbing it and pulling her to him. “What do you propose, then?”
    She looked down the fields toward Blackdown. “I had been planning to run away. I could affect a bolt to London and come to you instead.”
    Nick sucked in his cheeks. “But that would cement your bad reputation, and frankly it would besmirch my name as well.” He smiled. “And since I am as pure as snow and as guileless as a dove . . .”
    She snorted. “Oh, indeed.”
    The snort did it. Nick was lost. He stared at her like a mooncalf. Why shouldn’t he fall down on one knee right here and ask for her hand? He was Blackdown, at least partially. And she was an earl’s granddaughter. If it weren’t for the Guild he wouldn’t even hesitate. He would be expected to do it. Do it and then live happily ever goddamn after, day following day.
    “My lord?”
    He blinked.
    “Is something amiss?”
    “I . . . need to think.” He stepped closer to her. “I need to think, and I need to consult with Clare. Don’t run away. Don’t do anything. Just meet me here tomorrow.”
    Her eyes widened, and he realized he was looming over her, demanding that she meet him again, unchaperoned. For God’s sake, the nineteenth century! It was ridiculous. “To make plans,” he said, stepping back.
    “Of course.” She put her nose up, affecting not to have misunderstood him. Perfection. “That is, if Clare raises no objection to you trysting with the whore of Stoke Canon.”
    “I shall be here, Julia, never you fear. Now let me toss you up.” He put his hands at her waist, felt the delicious swell of her hips, and in spite of all his instincts, which urged him to pull that beautiful derrière back against himself, he placed her neatly in her saddle, allowing his hand to rest for just a fraction of a second on her thigh.
    She looked down at him, her eyes grave. Then, without saying anything more, she turned Marigold back toward the path through the woods. The horse made its careful way through the trees, soon disappearing into the shifting shade. Nick stood stock-still, staring after them. Then he yanked Boatswain’s head up from the grass, threw himself into the saddle, and galloped all the way back to Blackdown House.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    J ulia rode slowly through the woods. Blackdown was back from the dead. And just in time to help her.
    She had recognized him immediately, but the longer they talked the less she could see the boy in the man in front of her. By the end of their conversation she had felt she was talking to a stranger. His eyes crinkled when he smiled. What had been dimples were now two deeply carved lines. He had a scar across his eyebrow.
    Well, he had been in the wars, hadn’t he? He had been lost for three years. He must have been terribly injured, not to know himself for that long. Terrible things could age a man.
    This new Blackdown was unsettling. The distance in his eyes had suddenly become a nearness that seemed to sear right through her. The strength she had felt in his arms when he helped her into the saddle. He was grown.
    As was she. Twenty-two. Almost on the shelf, that’s how grown she was.
    In other words, the years had flown. Time had passed. There was nothing strange in that.
    Yet there was something off-kilter. Time had passed, but it had passed wrongly. Blackdown looked older than he should. And she, who had never seen the world, never been to a ball more grand than an impromptu minuet at a neighbor’s—she realized,