Page 77 of Gambling with the Earl
“If Miss Katherine Alden thinks there’s a need to follow someone over the cliffs, then who am I to question it?” Alfredhelped her up to the front of the trap and folded the blanket over her knees.
“You’re very kind.” She swallowed back tears as he hitched the cob to the back of the car.
Alfred swung himself up beside her and patted her knee. “I only hope the Earl of Rossfarne is worth all the trouble.”
*
Daylight was fadingand the proximity of the cliff edge had reawakened the ghosts of his childhood, but he urged the horse on, encouraged by the twinkling lights of Rossfarne which grew closer with every stride.
Now that he had decided to turn back, he was seized with a frenzied impatience. He had to make things right with Kitty. To apologise for his anger and his hard-headedness.
He heard the approaching trap long before he saw it. He reined the horse in to wait for it to pass, but as soon as his eyes alighted on the familiar figure sitting up front, his twitching impatience ceased.
It was her. And yet it wasn’t. The woman sitting in the trap was a lady in a beautiful silken gown. Her long red hair was scooped up elegantly on the top of her head. The old man handed her down from the cart as if he were escorting a queen.
Guy knew a rush of adrenaline, familiar from the battlefield. He dismounted from his horse, abandoned the reins and stepped towards her, hardly daring to believe she was not some wondrous mirage conjured by his fevered imagination.
This was the woman he had held in his arms. Those were the lips he had kissed. How had he found the courage? She was radiant, unattainable even.
“Guy?” she ventured, biting down on her top lip, a habit he recognised.
“Kitty.” His voice wobbled. When last they met, she had worn the garb of a poor servant. She had bobbed her head to him and addressed him as “my lord,” when all the time she was the daughter of a lady.
But hadn’t he always known it? From her grace and her bearing, coin or no, Kitty had been a woman of importance.
Her green eyes arrested him. “Were you returning to Rossfarne?”
“Yes.”To see you, his mind added, but his lips closed over the words. Her polish and poise had thrown him afresh. What right had he to profess his love to such a beauty?
What then, had he been riding into the night to achieve? Guy shook away the insecurities which had plagued him since childhood and summoned the confidence to step forward and take her gloved hands inside his.
“I realised I had forgotten something.” His voice was strong again. He planted his feet apart and breathed deeply, even as her bewitching citrus fragrance washed over him.
“Oh yes?” Her face tilted towards his. Her rosebud lips parted. He fought an urge to lean down and kiss her. His body yearned for the feel of her pressed against him, but first he must put right what had gone wrong between them.
“You.” He swallowed. “I could not ride away from you.” She squeezed his hands. The smallest gesture of encouragement but it unleashed a damn inside him. “Forgive me, Kitty. I should not have spoken so harshly.”
“No.” She shook her head so violently a red-gold tendril of hair escaped to flutter around her shoulders. “It is I who must apologise. I should have told you the truth long before I did.” Her voice was strong, but her heavy breathing betrayed her regret.
“You came out here to find me?” He hardly dared to believe it.
“First I ordered your boatman to row me across to the castle.” A faint blush rose up to stain her cheeks but she pushed on with her tale. “When I discovered you had already left, I borrowed a horse to come after you.”
“You rode out here, all alone?” He looked back at the waiting trap.
“For a while,” she paused. “I acted in haste, but I would have done anything for the chance to see you one last time. To tell you how sorry I am. And to tell you…” Her words faltered.
“To tell me what?” He placed a hand in the small of her back, drawing her closer. It took iron self-control not to crush her into his arms.
She bit down on her lip. His thumb skimmed over her cheek, and she closed her eyes, leaning into his touch.
“To tell you that I love you,” she said.
Her simple honesty floored him. It was as if he’d been waiting his whole life to hear those words.
“I love you too, Kitty,” he whispered.
She smiled, a ray of sunshine through the darkness. “You told me after the storm that you were falling in love with me. I couldn’t say it back, not when I was still deceiving you. But I couldn’t let you leave without knowing how much you mean to me.” She glanced back at the trap and the manservant who was studiously looking up at the clouds. “I guess that’s what’s happening, isn’t it? You’re going away? The castle is all shut up.”
