wave of despair rolled over John, hard and cold. All his years of careful subterfuge and one moment with Celia pulled all the lies and façades away. He was being such a fool. “Am I so obvious?”
“Only to me, as I would be to you. To everyone else you are still the rakish, careless Sir John Brandon. But I have never seen you like this with a woman. What is she to you?”
John glanced around to see that they had fallen slightly behind the others and no one was near. They were all too occupied in their own cold misery to pay attention to anyone else.
“A few years ago, when I was in the country on a task, we had a—dalliance,” he said.
Marcus gave a low whistle. “And I take it matters did not end well?”
Considering he had betrayed her brother and his friends to their death, nay, it had not ended well, and he had left Celia—and his heart—behind. And he had never forgotten her since. “Nay,” he said shortly.
“But you still want the lady?”
John said nothing, and finally Marcus laughed. “Then I think we can look forward to many more brawls on this journey. Unless you make love to Mistress Sutton again, get past those icy walls of hers and rid her from your system.”
“Do you really think she would let me in her bed again, knowing all she does now?” John said bitterly.
Marcus said nothing in reply, and they rode on in heavy silence.
“Halt!”
Celia glanced up from the book she held in her hands to see the head of Lord Darnley’s guard blocking the procession on the road. She had not been reading at all, merely staring at the book as she felt John stare at her. As last night’s kiss flashed through her mind over and over.
Something had shifted between them in that kiss, something she sensed was profound even as she could not decipher what it was. What a hold on her he still had.
She was glad of any distraction. She put the book back in her saddlebag and slid off the cart, holding onto the wooden slats as the legs she had tucked under her cramped. Everyone else had come to a halt as well, looking relieved to stop. The day had only grown more bitterly cold, the snow falling thickly.
“The bridge across the river ahead is out,” the guard said. “We can either turn back and make camp, or go downstream to the next bridge and continue to the next manor.”
Either way, they were surely in for more cold. Celia sagged back against the cart as she watched the guards consult with Darnley and his men. It looked as if they would be here for a time. Celia turned and made her way through the milling crowd, away from the noise, until she found a silent spot on the sloped icy banks of the river. She wrapped her arms around herself and stood there very still, watching the freezing water rush past below her.
Surely this journey would never end? She would never be free of John, of seeing him every day and remembering. Remembering the foolish girl she had once been, how much she had wanted him. How much she still wanted him, curse it all.
She heard a soft footfall crunch on the frosty ground behind her, heard a breath, and she knew without turning who it was. She always felt when John was near.
“You seem to enjoy spending time with Lord Knowlton,” he said roughly.
Celia almost laughed. Was that jealousy in his tone? Surely not. That was too ridiculous. He was always surrounded by women. “He is charming.”
John gave a half-snort, half-laugh. “Of course he is. He wants to tup you.”
“He is a gentleman!” Celia protested, trying to dismiss the feeling of disquiet she had felt with Knowlton.
“So am I,” John said solemnly.
Celia shook her head. She turned to look at John and found he wore a fierce scowl on his face, his hands curled into fists. Because she had been talking with Knowlton? He had no right to care. Should not care. And she should not be feeling as she did either. As if her whole being was wound so tightly she might burst.
“John, you are the very furthest thing from a gentleman there could be,” she said.
“God’s teeth, Celia, don’t push me away like this any more!” he suddenly shouted.
He moved so fast she couldn’t back away, lunging forward to seize her arm and pull her towards him.
“Tell me what you’re feeling. Tell me how I make you feel.”
How he made her feel? Anger and pain as she had never known, everything she had locked inside her for so long, rose up in her like the fiery force of a volcano. It exploded from her, and she lunged forward to slap John across the face. “You left me!” she cried, all the pain of years ago flooding out of her. “Tell me why you did that? Tell me how you felt then. Tell me …” She slapped out at him again as he instinctively stepped back.
In her blindness, she caught him low on the jaw with the flat of her hand. It wasn’t a hard blow, but he was caught by surprise and fell back a step. She reached out to hit him again, and he caught her wrist in his hand. His fingers tightened on the slender bones there and she sobbed as she struggled to break free.
The flash of fury in his eyes, of some pain that answered her own, made her sob again.
“You have no right to question me, John Brandon,” she cried raggedly. “You have no right to say anything to me at all. You left me. You have no part in my life!”
“Celia …” he began, his voice tight as if he too was on the brink of an explosion. As if he held himself tightly leashed.
“Nay! I survive however I can now. And you—you …”
His fingers closed even harder on her wrist, a manacle she couldn’t escape from, and he reeled her closer. She tried to dig her boots into the frozen mud, but he was stronger.
His stare was so glittering, so intense. No one had ever looked at her like that before—as if he knew her, was part of her. Yet he wasn’t. Hadn’t been in so long. She had been alone.
She wanted only to leave him, to run and hide, to be free at last of whatever hold he had on her. She twisted her body hard as it touched his, trying to wrench away. But she overbalanced on her uncertain feet and fell heavily to the side.
Her hand was pulled from John’s at last, yet she couldn’t right herself. She felt herself toppling to the ground.
“Celia!” she heard him shout.
As she fell heavily onto the ice her leg caught on a fallen branch and she rolled forward. She had only a dizzy glimpse of him, of the raw horror on his face, of the flat grey sky above her, and then she was tumbling down the steep riverbank. Faster and faster.
She tried to catch at the ground, at anything she could find, but it slid out of her grasp. Her head struck something and bright stars whirled around her. Her whole body seemed to go numb.
Yet she felt it when she tumbled into the water. The icy-cold waves closed over her head, and it felt like a thousand daggers plunging into her skin. She tried to scream at the agony, and water rushed into her mouth.
