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As he guessed, Marcus lost the tracks a few yards into the woods. Something was still nagging at him. Nell. Corinth, with his head turned towards home, needed no urging. They passed the point where the way branched off up to the folly, the big hunter eating up the hard ground as the track descended towards the park.
Marcus made for the front door. Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw a mark across the white expanse that covered the lawns. Corinth turned at a touch of the reins, leapt neatly over the skeletal rose border and cantered across to the tracks. Marcus jumped down and set his own booted foot against the clear, fresh footprints. They were unmistakeably a woman’s prints, the marks where her cloak had brushed the snow clear on either side as they headed for the edge of the woods.
Nell. And she had more than an hour’s start. Was she running from—or to—her dark man? Marcus stood, trying to listen to his instincts. All his life, it seemed, he had relied on his intellect to tell him what the right thing was. Now, with Nell, he no longer knew. Was he besotted and his judgement hopelessly awry, or should he listen to the still certainty within him that she was true?
Corinth bent his neck round to butt Marcus on the forearm and he looked up. ‘You know,’ he said to the big horse who pricked his ears and snorted, ‘I had no idea love was going to be like this. I thought, fool that I am, that it was going to be easy.’
He swung up into the saddle and rode hard for the house.
‘We can’t find Nell,’ his mother said as he strode into the Great Hall. She looked concerned, catching his mood.
‘I know. She’s been lured out. Watson! Get all the footmen in here and the keepers and the grooms. Open the gun cases. I am going to end this,’ he said grimly as his father emerged from his study, ‘and then I am going to marry Nell.’
Nell stood at the door of the folly and shivered. She was cold and frightened, she admitted to herself as she scanned the empty clearing. But she was also angry, burningly angry. This man, Salterton, was raking up her family’s tragedy for his own reasons. And it was not just what had happened to the Wardales. A man had been murdered and Lord Narborough had lived under a cloud of rumour and guilt ever since.
Salterton had put her in the position where she must try Marcus’s trust to the limit and that, somehow, felt worse than anything else. She put her hand on the cold iron ring of the handle and it opened onto the shadows of the room.
‘Come in, Helena.’ He was another shadow, standing by the cold hearth, his long, caped coat brushing his booted heels, his eyes glinting as they caught the light.
‘You have been reading too many Gothic novels, Mr Salterton,’ Nell said, pitching her voice down a little to keep it steady. ‘Really, all this drama! Can you not just say plainly why you are doing this?’
‘What, and have you run screaming out of the door?’ he asked, amused. ‘Empty your pockets, if you please.’
Nell pulled out the linings. ‘One pocket handkerchief. I have no pistol, you have my word on that.’
‘Then we will be on our way. Turn around, Helena.’
She thought of correcting him, telling him her name was Nell now. But his use of that long-ago name distanced him, made this less real. ‘Where are we going? I thought you wanted to talk.’
‘No, you wanted to talk. Turn around,’ he repeated. ‘I am sure you would much prefer to walk than be slung over my shoulder.’
‘Very well.’ Nell stepped outside. ‘Which way?’
‘Go around to the back of the folly and you will see a narrow path. Follow that. Do not look around.’
‘Very well.’ She could not hear him behind her as she threaded her way along the path, hardly more than the passage forced by deer through the bracken and brambles. ‘What did you say to me yesterday? That foreign language?’ She was less interested in the meaning than in judging how close he was; the man moved like a ghost.
‘Hmm? Ah, yes. I said, Where the needle goes, surely the thread will follow.’
‘A Romany proverb?’ she guessed. ‘You are a Gypsy?’
‘A Rom?’
Ah, she thought, he corrects me. This is something he is sensitive about.
‘I am what I chose to be, when I chose,’ he said, very close. ‘Turn down the hill—’
There was the thunder of hooves. A big horse, ridden fast. Marc and Corinth, Nell thought as Salterton’s hand came over her mouth and she was pulled back hard against him.
‘Stand still, Helena,’ he murmured. Through the trees there was a flash of grey as the horse passed, then the woods were silent again. Salterton continued to hold her. ‘You smell good, Helena,’ he said, his breath feathering her cold ear.
She bit down, hard, and wrenched at his imprisoning arm. Foolishly it had never occurred to her that she might be in that sort of danger.
‘You have spirit.’ He released her and gave her a little forward push. ‘There is no cause to fear, I do not force women. I have no need,’ he added a moment later as her pulse rate began to slow a little.
‘Your arrogance is astonishing,’ Nell said, concentrating on walking steadily. She refused to let him see he was frightening her.
‘It is only arrogance if it is unjustified.’ The chuckle from behind had her gritting her teeth. ‘Carlow has fallen in love with you. He will be so very unhappy to have lost you.’
