Before the Fire Page 3

  “Goodness George, you’re being obnoxious.”

  “I’m sorry mother, but this is where I draw the line. I simply refuse to wed with a woman who partakes in the picking of the nose. It is unseemly.”

  And so had been the exchange between mother and son for eight dreadfully long years. Lady Julia would attempt, the Earl of Blackmore would deny. Lady Julia would regroup and try again, the earl would shutter and say nay.

  It was only now, all these years later, that Lord Blackmore had at last resigned himself to the fact that he must find a countess. He was a hard worker, not at all a dandy who expected an estate to run itself of its own accord. He would handle the obtainment of a new wife in the same sensible fashion with which he had long obtained new horseflesh or farming equipment. He would make discreet inquiries, choose his countess well, get her with heir, and be done with the matter.

  George sat pensively as he stretched out his long legs and enjoyed the carriage ride provided by the new team of grays he’d recently procured in London. His mother had been right all along. It didn’t matter what the girl looked like. What was important was that she birth him a few heirs.

  And that she not engage in the picking of the nose.

  Yes, the earl would remarry. He would father a viscount before the year was out.

  George smiled as he watched the city roll further and further into the distance from the window of his carriage. The grass in the countryside had never looked greener. The trees had never looked more fragrant. The peasants had never looked plumper.

  The earl’s smile evolved from barely detectable to breathtakingly brilliant. He had a goal. It felt good to have a goal. Goals were a fine thing. He would find a bride.

  So why then, during the height of the London season—the very place where he was most likely to find a suitable countess—why was he, George William Frederick Alexander Wyndom, the ninth Earl of Blackmore and heir apparent to the Duke of Browning, riding toward his estate in the country?

  George sighed. Whoever had invented the word goal was undeniably a cad.

  * * * * *

  “That will be all, Stuart.”

  The butler inclined his head and walked quietly from the earl’s study, closing the door behind him. George took a resigned look around at the mountain of correspondence that had accumulated during his brief sojourn into the London season. It was amazing how much could happen in a fortnight. He sat down at his desk, picked up a quill, and delved into his pile of awaiting work.

  Two hours later, he was interrupted by a knock on the study door. “Yes? What is it?”

  Stuart entered, bowing respectfully as he met the earl’s furrowed brow. “Your mother to see you, my lord.”

  George sighed. Lady Julia would no doubt have an earful of reprimands to bestow upon his person for leaving London during the height of the season. As much as he’d like to refuse her entry into his study, he knew it would be a useless endeavor on his part. His mother would simply track him down him and irritate him all the more. “Very well Stuart, show the dowager countess in.”

  A few minutes later, Lady Julia glided into the Blackmore study. George rose to his feet out of respect for her. His mother was a pestering hellion, but he loved her dearly. He inclined his head politely. “Madam.”

  “George.”

  Lady Julia sauntered toward her son and regally took the seat opposite the one he had been sitting in moments prior. “Do sit down. We’ve much to discuss.”

  “Mother,” he countered as he plopped down onto his chair, “we’ve nothing to discuss. I did as you asked. I went to London. I found no gel who was suitable.”

  Lady Julia raised an elegant brow. She tssked as she shook her silver-blonde head. “Come now, Georgie, out of all the marriageable women in London you could not find even one worthy of birthing an heir?”

  George raised his eyes to the heavens in silent supplication. “Mother, how many times must I ask that you refrain from calling me Georgie? I am hardly a boy of five, milady.”

  Lady Julia waved her hand impatiently through the air. “We stray from the topic at hand, dearest. Let me come straight to the point. Why did you leave London before acquiring a bride?”

  George drew a calming breath as he worked his fingers through his raven black hair in agitation. “I made the acquaintance of no one I would consider taking to wife. Mother, I promised you before I left for London that I would wed before the year was out and so I shall. But I shall do it my way in my own time.” His eyes narrowed into green slits as he rubbed his temples. “Question me no further.”

  Lady Julia inclined her head, sensing it was time to back down. Her son was in one of his infamous surly tempers. The curse of the Blackmore men, those tempers. Her husband had possessed the temper, as had his father before him. And now, along with the title and lands, the Blackmore temper belonged irrevocably to George.

  Lady Julia regarded her son in silence. She wanted happiness for her boy. Even more than she desired a Blackmore heir, she desired George’s contentment. Lady Nina had managed to not only break her son’s heart, but her unknown murderer had managed to taint his reputation. Though no one in society would dare to question the earl to his face, it was widely whispered that Lady Nina had met her end by Lord Blackmore’s hands. Those who carried on in society believed the rumors. And she knew that George was aware of that fact.

  Lady Julia sat up straighter in her chair, proud of her son as she was. He had endured all manner of heartbreak, lies, and gossip, yet he remained a stalwart paragon of pride and gentlemanly virtue. He wasn’t the handsomest of men, at least not in the foppish, fashionable sense, but he was a good man. A true gentleman. George was all things noble and chivalrous. No mother could be prouder. She just wished he wasn’t so incredibly…alone.

  It broke Lady Julia’s heart to know that her beloved son had all but cloistered himself inside of Blackmore’s walls for the past nine years. He showed no interest in marrying, no interest in much of anything at all aside from working himself into an early grave to distract himself.

  She’d heard enough gossip over the years to know that her son had kept the occasional mistress, as he was a man with a man’s needs, but she hadn’t even heard a rumor such as that one in at least four months. He was alone, her George, and whether or not he would approve she was determined to bring an end to it. One way or another, she would call a halt to his self-imposed exile from society and see him wed.

  The problem stemmed from finding the right girl. The chit had to be special. George would not abide the marriage bed with a bride who feared she was to become his next murder victim. Her son was a huge man of hulking proportions who men and women alike innately feared as it was. Add to that the malicious lies that had been spread about him over the course of the past nine years and the fear young gels abided grew into pandemonium proportions.

  But somewhere the right girl was waiting. And Lady Julia, the Dowager Countess of Blackmore, would find her.

  * * * * *

  Kane smiled at her handiwork. It was a fine cottage, the house she’d ordered the replicator inside of her laser-c to build. The house was smallish, but quaint. The sort of fairytale house of yesteryear she’d learned about during the data injection. The cottage wasn’t so grand that it required droids to upkeep it, but it was large and formidable enough to keep her from being labeled a peasant should she happen to cross paths with a primitive.

  And more important than anything else, the cottage gave her a home base, a place to hang her head after a weary day of searching the forest for the kabitross plant. All in all, the domicile served its purpose.

  Kane opened up her travelling kit and, moments later, injected a visual guide directly into her brain’s synapses. She squinted her eyes closed, moaning against the momentary nausea and dizziness that always accompanied the transfer.

  Unfortunately, there was no other way to inject a visual guide but through the synapses and she simply refused to work without one. The visual guide’s effects w
ould last for approximately twelve hours, giving her all of daylight to use her chemically-induced hawk-like visual acuity to search for what she was hoping to find.

  When the nausea and dizziness had subsided to a manageable level, she walked over to the nearest table, picked up her laser-c, and secured it into the thin leather holster strapped to her thigh. She then shook out her skirts, patted her lady’s coif, and grinned at herself in the mirror.

  This was more invigorating than travelling off-planet! More exciting than the discovery of a new galaxy!

  After a brief perusal of the image she presented, Kane verbally ordered the mirror to return to its former status of eighteenth century wall. She turned on her heel and headed for the cottage door.

  It was time to do what she did best.

  It was time to hunt.

  Chapter 4

  The earl took Socrates out for a brisk ride through the woods of Blackmore. It felt damned good, riding against the wind with no destination in mind. It gave him time to think, time to be away from his multitude of responsibilities to country and kin, time to forget he was the Earl of Blackmore who needed a countess and an heir and to simply be George.

  George drew Socrates to a halt ten minutes later. He dismounted next to a tall pine tree, then pulled a plump, crisp apple from his coat pocket and fed it to his horse. While Socrates munched, George looked around, hoping to find a stream for his Arabian to drink from. He had ridden the animal too hard. The powerful horse looked ready to fall over in a fit of exhaustion. He felt a tremor of guilt, realizing his height and musculature were heavy enough for the horse to carry around without the added burden of running him in a full gallop for hour upon hour.

  “I apologize, Socrates, but I’ll be damned if I know where we are,” he mumbled to himself. George surveyed the woods with a frown. He was certain they were still on the outskirts of Blackmore lands, but where about he hadn’t any notion.

  He was just about to give up entirely when the soft sound of—a woman’s singing?—floated through the air and caught his attention. George squinted towards what looked to be the beginnings of a clearing deeper into the neck of the woods. “Stay,” he absently muttered to his horse as he followed the singing on foot.

  A moment later, he quietly crept through the thick of the trees in an effort to locate the owner of the lulling voice. It had an earthy, sensual quality to it that seemed to beckon him closer. He hadn’t been so intrigued by the possibility of making the acquaintance of a woman since Nina, the witch of a wife who had betrayed him. And, ironically enough, he didn’t even know what this singing siren looked like.

  She could be as hairy as Harriet, who, the more he thought on it, was appropriately named. Or she might sport an eyesore of a mole as Jane did.

  George shrugged. So long as she didn’t partake of Irma’s sordid habit, he wouldn’t mind.

  The sounds of the woman’s singing grew louder as he closed in on his prey. He was able to make out an odd accent in her lyrical musings, one he had never heard before. George smiled as he listened to the siren’s call:

  I’d like to teach the world to sing

  In perfect harmony

  I’d like to buy the world a coke…

  George shook his head. He had no notion what a coke was, but if the singing woman knew where to purchase one from, he could endeavor to aid her in her goal. He strode toward a thicket of trees from where the singing appeared to be the loudest. A jolt of awareness swept through his body, telling him with all certainty that he would soon be upon his quarry.

  George walked into the green thicket and placed his large hand on the feeble branch of an otherwise sturdy oak. He drew in a steadying breath as he prepared to move the branch to see what awaited him on the other side. Tendrils of nervous excitement twined in his belly as he slowly moved the branch out of the obstruction of his view.

  He told himself that he was behaving silly, she was but a woman for the love of god. Why was he sweating as though he was about to be the first mortal ever to lay eyes on an immortal goddess?

  Telling himself how he should behave did little to quell his anticipatory restlessness. He felt every inch the hunter closing in on a relished kill.

  George slowly drew back the branch and peered into the opening left in its wake. There was a stream very near to his standing position. The clearest, bluest stream he had ever seen running through Blackmore lands. And there was a woman splashing around in it. Naked. Scandalously, wantonly, gloriously naked. George grew immediately erect.

  The siren stood in knee deep waters, her cascading hair glistening the color of moonbeams as it pooled around her. It was unfashionably long, like a maiden from King Arthur’s court might have worn her hair, and breathtakingly lovely. It was the same mesmerizing shade of yellow-gold as the triangle of hair between her thighs. The siren’s breasts were ample, each of them capped off with a taut rouge nipple.

  George imagined himself walking up to her, as bold as he pleased, and taking a berry-colored nipple into his mouth. He would suckle from one and then the other, over and over again. She would give herself to him without hesitation, begging him to fill her with his loving manhood.

  George sighed as reality struck him in the unforgiving way it had about it. This exquisite, earthy woman would never want a man such as himself. He was an earl, that was true, but there were other earls. Handsome earls. Earls without gossip attached to their names. Earls that society didn’t falsely whisper about as murderers of their first wives. Hell, a woman of this siren’s appeal could aim higher than an earl altogether and entice a duke into the marriage bed, or even a prince unlikely to succeed to the throne. Of course, if her penchant toward splashing about naked in streams ever got out her reputation would be in tatters.

  Entranced, George watched the woman bathe. He knew he shouldn’t, that his spying wasn’t proper, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

  The siren splashed her upper body with water from the stream as her singing winded down into whisper soft humming. George sucked in his breath and groaned when the droplets of chilly water made contact with her nipples, causing them to lengthen into pebbled points. They were so erect, so succulently hard.

  The siren emerged from the stream a few minutes later and plopped down onto the grassy shore. She closed her eyes and laid back on the slope, hands cradling the back of her head, and smiled up to the sun. Her nipples smiled too. In reaction to the full force of the sun’s heat beating down upon them, the siren’s rouge points grew even harder and longer. A yearning like he’d never known raged through George as he watched her body’s reaction to nature in fascination and hunger.

  He wanted her. God how he wanted her.

  The siren moved her hands from under her head and stretched them out as far as she could reach above her head. The position thrust her breasts upward in an invitation that George feared would cause him to spill his seed right then and there.

  He leaned in closer to get a better look.

  He muttered a curse when he lost his footing and stumbled from the protection of the forest trees.

  * * * * *

  Kane was enjoying this relaxing indulgence of sun and water. It reminded her of the grassy shores of Nero, a planet in the Falon star system she’d explored a few years past. The trip to Nero had been an exercise in futility in terms of locating the plant-life she had sought. The only thing there was to recommend the entire journey was Nero’s grassy shores. And Timal. She had purchased the droid from a fellow planabotonologist there who needed to sell him in order to dissipate the jealousy of her humanoid lover.

  Unlike droids, humanoid men could couple with humanoid women without the benefit of filing for permanent companionship. Kane had never believed that universal law to be just, for it was no doubt created by humanoid males who were jealous of the masculine perfection of the droids. The law made sure a woman thought twice before spreading her legs to a robot.

  Kane basked in the rays of the glowing sun, enjoying every moment of it. F
or two days and nights, she had searched high and low in the forest for the kabitross plant, only to find failure at every turn. She deserved the luxury of this much-needed break. She would lay here and indulge for only a while longer, she silently promised herself. Yes indeed, just a few minutes more.

  No longer than that.

  Definitely not.

  Maybe not.

  She’d have to wait and see.

  Kane stretched her arms above her head and enjoyed the pampering heat that the sun blanketed her body with. This was as close to heaven as she was likely to get in the eighteenth century.

  Not even a moment later, a tingling sensation made its way down Kane’s spine, telling her without visual confirmation that she was no longer alone in the clearing of the woods. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know that a male humanoid was looming in the vicinity. She didn’t need to see the stranger to sense his presence. Every cell in her body was vividly and innately aware of him. Besides, she had also heard the man mutter something about having the bloody luck of a cursed heathen on Judgement Day as he fell unceremoniously to the ground and hit it with a soft thud.

  Kane opened her eyes, preparing to dash toward her clothes and the safety provided only by her laser-c. Damn! She had scouted the place before bathing and found it completely secured.

  Being naked in front of a strange man didn’t bother her. After all, it was a common occurrence for men and women to shower in front of each other in the collapsible sterile chambers provided by NASA while exploring together off-planet. In situations such as those, there was no room for modesty.

  What bothered Kane to the very core of her being was the uncertainty as to whether the oncoming man was friend or foe. A primitive friend would be interesting, not to mention a fantastic story to tell her team when she went back to the twenty-fifth century. But a primitive foe? Who could say what dungeon he’d seek to lock her into?