The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📗

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

With a quick motion he grabbed her waist and pulled her close against him; she laughed, but his face was very serious. “Really, Julia? I would very much like to test your comprehension.”

She pushed her hands against his chest. “Let me go, you provoking man. I understood it very well.”

He released her and took her arm again. “All right then,” he said as they resumed walking, “answer me this. What does John Donne say about freedom?”

Julia blinked. “Freedom? Freedom was not what I was paying attention to in that poem.”

“And you claim to have read it carefully? Tut tut, Miss Percy. I am disappointed in you.”

“Oh.” She sketched him a low curtsy. “Mr. Schoolmaster Lord Blackdown, sir. I am sorry to have fallen in your regard.” She held out her hand, palm up. “I am ready for the ruler.”

“No, listen, Julia.” He caught the hand she held out and kissed the palm, then held it firmly as they continued walking. “The poem isn’t simply about . . .” She felt him searching for a word and was glad when he chose the plainest one. “It isn’t simply about sex. Listen.” He quoted: “‘How am I blest in thus discovering thee! To enter in these bonds, is to be free.’”

They walked hand in hand for a moment, Julia’s playful courage dissipating. “I don’t understand what you are saying, my lord.”

“You have called me Nicholas before. Please dispense with this ‘my lord’–ing.”

“I cannot call you Nicholas in public. You are Blackdown.”

“I am not Blackdown.” His voice was harsh, and his fingers tightened painfully around hers.

“Are you not?” She looked up at his angry face. “Is that not the most signal thing about you?”

His hand relaxed. “I’m sorry.” He managed a small smile. “I know it makes no sense. It’s just that I spent years liberated of that man, and I didn’t miss him at all. Now I’m back and I find it hard to make peace with him.”

“You had amnesia.”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Across those years that I had forgotten myself, I became a different man. A man named Nick Davenant. Now that I am returned, I find that I don’t care very much for this great marquess, this Lord Blackdown.”

She said nothing but held his hand tightly. Nick Davenant.

Meanwhile Nick—she could never think of him as Blackdown again—dropped his gaze to their clasped hands. “When we last spoke about such grandiose topics as freedom, after that kiss, at the edge of the woods . . .”

“You told me you were not free.”

“I was not speaking of another woman, Julia.”

“I know. You were talking of the count.”

He stared. “How do you know that?”

The truth wanted to burst from her. No . . . it wanted to rise from her like a feather on a breath of wind. But instead she dropped her gaze from his and walked more quickly, pulling on his hand. Who then was this Nick Davenant, this new man? She could not quite bring herself to trust him . . . or to break faith with Grandfather.

They emerged from the trees into the sunlight, and Nick took her arm decorously again, but she could feel the tension in him. When he spoke, his voice was low and urgent. “What do you know about Count Lebedev? What do you know about me? What do you know . . . about your grandfather?”

“My grandfather?” Julia’s heart lurched. This was cutting to the heart of the matter. Soon enough he would be asking her about time! “Nothing,” she said emphatically, her memory flashing to Grandfather on his deathbed, begging her to pretend. Her thoughts toppled into panic. “Oh, God!”

Nick grabbed her hand and held it again, clearly not caring who might see. “Look at me!”

She met his gaze with caution.

“What do you know about your grandfather?”

She pulled back. “Let me go!”

He dropped her hand, but his voice gained in urgency. “You can trust me, Julia. I won’t betray you. I am . . . oh, bloody hell, just give me your hand again! I need to touch you.”

She held it out, feeling somewhat unreal, and he took and placed her palm firmly against his chest. “I consider myself bound to you. And I am also free. Do you understand? I told you I was not free, that day in the rain. But I rescind those words. Remember the poem, Julia. ‘To enter in these bonds, is to be free.’ Do you understand?”

“I think so.” She could feel his heart beating, and her panic sank again. “I . . . I don’t know why you would ask me about Grandfather.”

Nick searched her face. “You really don’t know? You don’t know anything?”

“I don’t know what I know. He told me nothing!” She shook her head, to dispel the rushing of blood in her head, the terrible loneliness and fear. “I know nothing!”

“We must talk,” he said, letting her hand go. “Privately. And soon.”

She whispered, “I can’t tell you anything.”

Nick frowned, his eyes bleak. Then he glanced up. His sisters were looking back at them. “We must keep walking.”

He took her arm once more and they walked in tense silence, her elbow tucked so tightly against his side that she could feel the way his body moved beneath his coat.

“What is Count Lebedev to you?” she asked, once Bella and Clare seemed distracted again by Solvig’s antics.

Nick puffed up his cheeks and blew the air out slowly as he searched for words. “In a way, Arkady is a fellow soldier. But I don’t know if we are comrades in arms or enemies. It is very hard—impossible—to explain.”

“Count Lebedev has power over you,” she said slowly. “But not, perhaps, as much as he thinks? Is that it?”

Nick nodded. “In a way, I am bound to him. He doesn’t think I am free. He thinks me his lackey. For the time being I must pretend. I must seem to do as he says. But I am determined to be free, Julia, and I would never betray you to him. Do you understand me now?”

So they were both pretending. “Yes,” Julia said with more