Helen Dickson - Rogue in the Regency Ballroom

The moment she rose, her gaze met Kit’s own—and Caroline almost saw the lightning flash that passed between them, causing a tension that held and held, teetering on the brink of—what? Catastrophe, or gathering strength for an assault on their emotions, their baser instincts?

Amanda spent the night tossing and turning in her bed, finding it impossible to dispel thoughts of Kit from her mind and unable to understand the turbulent, consuming emotions he was able to arouse in her. Just when everything was running smoothly, this arrogant man with mocking dark eyes and breezy, determined manner—and far too handsome for his own good—had forced his way back into her life.

She recalled the moment when she had risen from the table, the moment her frigid gaze had settled on his features. He had leaned back in his chair, fingering his wine glass. His gaze had raked over her with the leisure of a well-fed wolf, with an irritating smile flirting on his lips. The assured gleam in his eyes had told her he was not going to go away.

During the days that followed Kit’s arrival at Eden Park, Amanda scrupulously resolved that any future contact between them would be brief and impersonal. It was a decision made calmly and without emotion. But emotion set in whenever she set eyes on him. The effect he had on her, the emotional turmoil he evoked, was nothing short of frightening. In fact her thoughts were so preoccupied with him that she could not sleep.

Kit seemed to be everywhere and perfectly gauged, appearing when she least expected him, lolling on a tree or a fence somewhere, casually striding about the place as if he owned it in search of her father, not once stepping over the line, but for ever battering at her defences.

She was beginning to feel like a fox being run to earth by a pack of hounds, for she knew he was after total submission and Kit, in his supreme arrogance, knew he would succeed. She could see the sensuality behind every look and could no longer pretend that desire did not burn just beneath the surface in them both, waiting to flare into passion. There was nothing she could do to prevent it, to deny the hold he already had over her senses. Just when she had been enjoying her freedom he had arrived to disrupt her present contentment. Suddenly her future was precarious, her life beset with tension and apprehension, like a threatening storm on a hot and humid summer’s day.

And Nan didn’t make things any easier when she learned that Christopher Claybourne had returned from the dead. Shocked and shaken, Nan had no sympathy for her whatsoever, saying she had no one to blame for her predicament but herself, and that no good would come of it.

‘The point is, Nan, what am I going to do?’

‘As to that, no one can tell you. You will do what you want in the end.’

‘Father is not going to know, Nan—at least, not yet,’ Amanda said curtly. ‘Unless you tell him.’

‘I won’t say anything,’ Nan answered with an air of injured dignity. ‘I am just warning you to have a care. I know your father has always allowed you to do much as you please, but that doesn’t mean he’s soft.’

‘Neither am I,’ Amanda said grimly.

Nan didn’t reply, although she privately thought Amanda was storing up a world of trouble for herself.

Amanda was relieved that Nan promised not to tell a soul, and in particular Mr Quinn. Amanda sincerely hoped Mr Quinn had not met Kit in Charleston; if he had, he would recognise him immediately and her secret would be out.

Kit’s feelings where Amanda was concerned, now he had seen her again, made him more determined than ever to make her fulfil her side of the bargain. Beautiful, intelligent, with a natural-born wit and as elusive as a shadow, she was a prize, a prize to be won. He tried telling himself that his growing fascination with his wife—a fascination that was becoming an obsession—was merely the result of the lust she had stirred in him in Charleston Gaol, but he knew it was more than lust that held him enthralled.

As he considered Amanda indisputably his, the days spent watching her were the ultimate in frustration. His expectations grew more definite by the day, increasingly becoming more difficult to subdue. He wanted her to be his completely, recognised as his, to openly establish the link between them as an accepted fact, but he must be patient since, contrary to what Amanda might think, she was not the only reason that had brought him to Eden Park.

However, he could not ignore the irritation and abrasion at watching other men dance attendance on her—a primitive reaction against any man casting covetous eyes on her.

Kit didn’t dine at the house again. Amanda told herself that as an employee this was as it should be, but she was unable to quell her disappointment and he was conspicuous by his absence. She avoided him for days, although she could not stop thinking about him and allowed her imagination to torment her. Unbidden, his image would enter her mind—the hazel eyes flecked with gold, his rich dark brown hair and slanting grin. Her body responded to the image with a treacherous melting, while her emotions drifted through guilt and longing to self-exasperation.

Whenever she closed her eyes, flitting between conscious moments and her dreams, he haunted her. Maybe thoughts such as these were causing her irritating preoccupation with him. Perhaps if she could just see him she would be cured of it. And so, for the first time in a week, she went to the stables, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, intending to ride over the moors anyway.

With the addition of more and more horses, which meant employment of more grooms and stable lads to look after them, the stables were a constant hive of industry. Amanda’s gaze did a quick sweep of the yard and paddocks, hoping to see Kit’s tall figure, but he wasn’t there. When she casually enquired of a groom as to his whereabouts, he told her Mr Benedict had taken one of horses out on to the moors for some exercise. She was unprepared for the feeling of disappointment that swept through her.

In no time at all one of the lads had saddled her horse and she was cantering out of the yard. The landscape changed as she headed for the moors, scanning the unfolding hills for a horse and rider, but there was nothing, only sheep and the occasional farm with smoke curling from its chimney into a windless sky. She sighed, pointing her horse in the direction of the high peaks, still capped with winter snow. Kit could be miles away in any direction.

The sun had lifted and the day was crystal clear as Kit rode up the steep valley, the mount’s hooves striking sharp against the rocks, and crackling bracken. He felt completely at home riding among the craggy hills that lay all about him and almost touched the clouds which raced above. The Derbyshire peaks were high and cold and breathtakingly beautiful. It was a wild, spacious terrain, with patches of woodland and open lakes. Here he felt completely at peace.

Why this should be so was no mystery to him since his incarceration. Crushed by the unsupportable distress his time in Charleston Gaol had caused him, he often came to the tranquil and everlasting peaceful valleys and hills to gain relief from the empty stillness, which was quite profound. The very power and strength of the rocky peaks, their durability, gave him hope for the future.

There were times when he was exercising one or another of the mounts on the moors when he would see Amanda riding out, supple and trim in her tweed habit, and he would pause out of sight and drink in the sight of her. As she galloped over the rocky terrain, she rode like the wind, with the blind bravado of a rider who has never fallen off—and if she ever had fallen, it had been into the straw. The clash of his emotions as he watched her would leave him irritated and he had to struggle to stop himself breaking cover and riding out to meet her.