Beatrice cleared her throat. “Mr O’Conner.” Then cocked her head in that way which had caused a Spanish brigand to flee. “Mrs Locke and I require two horses prepared. We are to ride out to that meadow yonder and sketch the loose mares.” Of course, she used the royal ‘we’ in regard to the sketching but Mrs Pettifer had also prepared a sumptuous picnic…
After buttoning his waistcoat, he unhurriedly turned his back on her – the blaggard – and replaced a small tin box within a drawer.
He still had a fine backside.
“Of course,MrsCassell.” And he swivelled on his heel to face her.
“What happened to your tooth?” she blurted. Then wished it back.
His ink-black eyes flashed. Still damn handsome even with the gap, added to which the rough stubble and grey-stranded hair oozed an air of menace which he’d been without as a youth.
“And how do ya think I lost it,MrsCassell? The fairies didn’t pluck it out one night whilst I slept.”
TheMrswas beginning to particularly grate upon Beatrice’s nerves.
“I’m sure I don’t know,MrO’Conner.” A fury was rising within her, turbulent and hazardous. Unlike Hebe, she’d never been one to stifle her emotions but allowed them free rein.
Of course, that had been her and Redmond’s blessing…and curse – the two of them such fierce-blooded creatures who’d found a passion that had scorched uncontrolled, not caring that others had seen them in the forest, invincible, young and unafraid as they were.
She stiffened her spine, eyes widening as his brazen stare eased lower, loitered on her bosom and slid down her skirts.
The insolent shagbag.
“How dare you, Mr O’Conner,” she hissed.Keep calm be damned.
“How dareI, Mrs Cassell? I dare much for what ya cost me.”
Beatrice’s muscles quivered. “Cost you!”Disregard the past be damned.“I waited for you, Redmond. Held out for three long years against my father’s derision and my brother’s…” She set a trembling fist to her mouth.
He took a step. Halted. “He hurt ya?”
“There are many ways to hurt, Redmond. He shamed me in front of everyone he could. Made me feel unworthy. A whore. My love for you a twisted repellent act, and I was scorned, dumped in a forgotten manor house.”
Lips rippling with anger, he tugged at his neckcloth. “And I was dumped in Cork with nothing but the clothes on my back.” He took one step forward. “And a bloodied face.” Another. “I slept in ditches. No work. No food.” And another. “No money to return.” Then he stood before her. “And all because I dallied with the master’s faithless seventeen-year-old daughter.”
Her hand flew out before she could halt it, her temper, her torrid temper as ever dictating her actions.
Redmond barely flinched as her palm struck his cheek.
“I was ruined. A disgrace, Redmond. And all I’d done was to fall in love with you.”
A bark of laughter. “Is that so? Well, I returned four years later to find…find ya married to some fella old enough to be ya bloody grandfather.”
“Mr Cassell was a kind man. Offered his name and status when I had nothing. So do not seek to attack him, Redmond O’Conner. Just me.”
“Ya loved him?” he spat.
“A different kind of love. There are many types I have learned – respect, companionship.”
“And what was ours?”
“Young. Impulsive. Passionate. The type that burns brightly but…” She dug nails to her palms. “…dies quickly.”
He stared, soundless and still, before brushing past her. “I’ll bridle ya horses.”
But Beatrice twisted, frowned at his rigid shoulders.
Just one question.
