Part 9 (2/2)

”You'll just have to save them yourself.”

”The place is goin' to rack and ruin without you.”

”Not with Aunt Hester there! I'm sure she has everything under control. She's a paragon.”

”She's someone to help you with the work, and nothin' more. Someone to make life a little easier so you can have more fun with your family. When the babies start comin', she'll be an even bigger help. But the bottom line is, she's just a side dish, Rachel, not our main meal. We need you, honey.” He broke off and swallowed hard. ”I need you.”

Rachel gave a start when his scuffed boots suddenly came into view. The next instant, his large warm hand curled under her chin, and he forced her to look up at him. Rachel discovered that she was standing so close to him that she could see the sooty lashes that lined his eyes, the stormy gray-blue of his irises, the burnished tone of his skin. Her heart kicked hard against her ribs. He looked good enough to eat. He surely did.

”You have to come home,” he said huskily. ”There aren't any flowers on the table, and I love you so much, I can't live without you.”

With no warning, he bent and began fis.h.i.+ng in her skirt pocket. When he came up with nothing, he dived his hand into her other pocket as well. A satisfied gleam entered his eyes. The next thing Rachel knew, he was settling her spectacles on her nose. Bending slightly at the knees, he made a great show of looking her over. Then he flashed her a devastating grin.

”I knew it. You look adorable in spectacles.” He glanced around, as if to draw comment from others present.

Someone nearby said, ”I didn't know you wore spectacles, Rachel.”

Clint replied, ”She darn sure does. She just doesn't wear them in public because she has the fool notion they don't look good on her. I disagree. I thin she looks beautiful in them.”

Rachel cried, ”Clint, stop it. You're embarra.s.sing me!”

”Then come home with me,” he demanded in an oddly gruff voice, ”so I can tell you in private how beautiful I think you are.”

Tears filled Rachel's eyes, and her spectacles began to fog over. Clint took hold of her hand.

”Please, Rachel. Come back home where you belong. Every hour I spend apart from you, I die a little more inside. Please...” When she didn't immediately speak, he hastened to add, ”I'm sorry you felt cast aside after Aunt Hester came. Lookin' back, I can see how it must have seemed to you, me all of a sudden backin' off and usin' the corn husks as an excuse. But I swear it wasn't that way. I truly was worried about her hearin' us.”

Rachel shot a horrified look around. ”Be quiet! Do you want everyone to hear!”

”See?” he said with a devilish grin. ”It's a private affair, isn't it?”

She narrowed her eyes, but it was all she could do not to smile. ”You've made your point.”

”Then come home,” he said huskily. ”Where we can talk in private.”

”Oh, Clint. Are you certain you really want-”

He cut her off with a kiss that answered her question far more eloquently than words. A sweet, wonderful kiss that sent tingles down her spine and made her toes curl. Exactly the kind of kiss Rachel had always dreamed of and had never received. Until she met Clint Rafferty, of course.

”I love you,” he whispered against her cheek. ”Please believe that, Rachel. I'll love you forever.”

The throbbing timber of his voice, so packed with emotion, would have convinced Rachel. The way his hands shook when he touched her was added proof that he was sincere. Joy welled in her chest, nearly cutting off her breath, and she threw herself into his arms.

His arms...His wonderful strong arms. The instant they closed around her, Rachel knew she was where she belonged and where she would remain.

For the rest of her life.

The Mad Earl's Bride.

Loretta Chase.

Prologue.

Devon, England.

June, 1820.

The Devil was partial to Dartmoor.

In 1638, he rode a storm into Widdecombe, tore off the church roof with a lightning bolt, and carried off a boy who'd been dozing during the service.

This was merely one of several personal appearances. More often, though, Satan appeared in disguise as an enormous black hound or a ghostly stallion galloping across the moors.

His attachment to the area surprised no one, for Dartmoor could not have been better fas.h.i.+oned to suit satanic natures.

Storms lashed the rocky uplands, which loomed stubbornly in the path of Atlantic gales. Heavy damps swirled into the valleys, blanketing villages in impenetrable mists, shutting off communication and travel for days.

Then there were the bogs, filling the hollows and crevices of the highlands, shrinking and swelling with changing weather and season.

Narrow tracks of firm ground coiled through this unwelcoming terrain, yet even the paths could be perilous. At night, or in a mist or storm, it was easy enough for the unwary traveler to lose his way and-if he were especially unlucky-slip into a pulsing mora.s.s from which he would never emerge.

Some believed Dartmoor's mires were the Devil's own traps, devised to suck their victims straight down to h.e.l.l, Aminta Camoys told her son.

It was twenty-year-old Dorian Camoys's first visit to Dartmoor and the first time he'd seen his mother since Christmas.

”Most considerate of the Archfiend,” he replied as he walked with her to the edge of the narrow track. ”After slow suffocation by quicksand, the unfortunate sinner will find h.e.l.l's torments less shocking to his sensibilities.”

She pointed to a suspiciously verdant patch in the bleak wastes below. ”Some are bright green like that. There's a larger one half a mile ahead, but it's gray-much better camouflage.”

The afternoon had been bright and warm when they'd first ridden out, but a chill wind whirled about them now, and gray clouds swept in, driving out their wispy white predecessors and blanketing the moorland in shadows.

”Thank you for the directions, Mother,” Dorian said. ”But I do believe I can find my own route to h.e.l.l.”

”I collect you've found it.” She glanced at him and laughed. ”Like mother, like son.”

He was like her, in more ways than many would suspect.

Although at six feet tall he was by far the larger, the physical resemblance was inescapable. While fully masculine-and puffy and pale at present, thanks to months of dissipation pursued as diligently as his studies-his was the same exotically sculpted countenance.

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