Twice Tempted by a Rogue (Stud Club #2)(21)

A puckered scar on his chest snagged her attention. Near his right shoulder, about the size of a shilling and just as round. It must have been a musket ball wound. She got lost in that scar for a moment, wondering what had become of the ball. Was it still lodged somewhere within that dense, powerful shoulder? Or had it ripped straight through? In either case, it was a miracle his arm hadn’t separated from the rest of him, and that he still had the use of the limb at all.

Abruptly realizing she was being rude, Meredith lifted her face to his. With relief, she noted he wasn’t looking at her, either. He was staring intently, thoughtfully—perhaps almost wistfully?—at something beyond her. Which was odd, because she knew there was nothing behind her but rocks. For a moment, she resisted the urge to turn around.

But then she gave in to temptation and turned away. Just as she’d suspected, there was nothing to see but the same eternal moorland—sloping gorse mottled with boulders. A harsh, endless landscape in shades of gray and brown and muted green, capped by a sky so endless and blue, she imagined an ocean couldn’t rival it for depth or hue.

Not that she’d ever been near an ocean.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s pretty.” He sounded surprised. “This place. Over the years, I’ve never remembered it that way, but it’s …” He sighed roughly. “It’s beautiful.”

Meredith stared, trying to imagine this vista through the eyes of someone who hadn’t grown up looking at it every day of her life. She thought of the adjectives travelers used: forbidding, eerie, lonesome. Even some of the villagers avoided the high moorland for years at a time. Up here, there were no trees, no shelter from the wind and sun. No mercy. There was a reason they’d built the war prison not twenty miles away. Despite the brilliant colors and vast expanse, to most this place resembled a jail made of emptiness rather than walls.

It took a certain courage, to look on this landscape and call it beautiful.

“It is beautiful,” she said, turning to face him. And so was he. Rugged, scarred, wild …

“I’m glad you think so, too. Since you’ll be looking on this view the majority of your days, once it’s finished.” His smile was a flash of white in his tanned face.

Beautiful. He was a beautiful, enormous, impossible fool of a man.

“You know,” he said slyly, “if I had a few laborers, I wouldn’t need your father out here at all. Surely you have some influence with the local men.”

She did. But that wasn’t the point. “I know you mean well. But you can’t expect to simply ride back into Buckleigh-in-the-Moor one night and have the village on your side the next morning. The name Ashworth is a curse in these parts. People still remember your father’s misdeeds, even if you’ve forgotten them.”

He grew pensive, tight. “I haven’t forgotten them.”

She cursed herself silently. Of course he wouldn’t have forgotten them. They’d been beaten into him but good. Even now, he probably still bore marks from them, somewhere under all those battle scars.

He said, “I promise you, I remember my father’s misdeeds as clearly as I recall my own. And that’s why I’ve been spared all these years, so I can return and set accounts to rights.”

Suddenly, his mood lightened. He smiled and stretched. The muscles of his abdomen rippled, drawing attention to the line of dark hair dividing them, like the old Roman leat scored the rock-solid moor. Meredith’s mouth went dry.

He said, “I ought to be working. Come now, Mer—” He raised an arm, his biceps flexing as he scratched the back of his head. “Mrs. Maddox. Surely you can—”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she blurted out. “Would you please put a shirt on while we’re speaking?”

His face went red. “Of course. I beg your pardon.” Loping a few yards up the incline, he crouched to gather a scrap of white. As he bent, she noted a larger, uneven scar on the back of his shoulder. The answer to her question. Evidently that musket ball had ripped straight through.

A little shudder passed through her as Rhys strode back, yanking the shirt over his head and letting the linen drape loose about his waist.

There, now maybe she could think. Maybe. The sun was beating down on them both, but she knew she had only him to blame for her overheated condition. There was nothing to do but retreat and regroup.

“We’ll discuss this further tonight,” she told him. “Back at the inn. Dinner will be at six. See that you’re not late. I’ve brought you a packed luncheon in the meantime.” She thrust the basket at him, and he took it, surprised. “Be certain my father drinks enough water and finds some shade, or I’ll have your hide. The weather’s fair, but if there’s a mist or a storm, you’re both to stay right here, do you understand? I’ll send men out to you. You’ve been gone from these moors far too long to find your way in the dark. That’s all I need, is for the two of you to go wandering into the bog.”

He flicked a bemused glance toward the bright, cloudless sky. A chuckle rumbled from his throat.

“What?” she asked, her wits fraying at the edges. “What now?”

“You’re speaking like a wife already.”

She made a dismissive gesture. “You’re impossible.”