Winnifred was sure that a laugh wasn’t appropriate under the circumstances. But there was so much joy rising inside her that it hummed in her throat. He answered with a low murmur as he angled her mouth beneath his, his fingertips stealing into her freshly pinned hair.
Letting go of the side of the cart, she cupped her hand over his cheek, where this morning’s shave had left his skin smooth and taut and fresh as sun-warmed spices. She was so enthralled by this wondrous occurrence, she completely forgot that neither of them was holding on.
Then a bump in the road bounced them up into the air.
With a blink of surprise, Asher snaked a hand around her waist, securing her against him the instant before they smacked down on the cart again. If they’d been traveling any faster, they likely would have landed in the dirt. Or worse, in the water. Because now she saw that they’d crossed a narrow bridge.
“Careful.” Mr. Champion’s chuckle of amusement suggested that he’d known what they were doing. “The Welland bridge is a mite bumpy.”
Blushing, she made herself busy by securing her hold on the railing and brushing off her skirts. She waited until the last possible moment to look at Asher, hoping she wouldn’t see him wipe off her kiss or his complexion turn the color of pea soup.
Garnering her courage, she glanced at Asher as he cast a perturbed glare at the farmer’s back. Then he shifted his gaze to her and his expression softened.
Reaching up, he tenderly brushed her newly disheveled hair out of her face, sending her pulse tripping through her body. Her fluttering heart might not survive the day.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“A little shocked, perhaps,” she said with all honesty, her gaze drifting to his mouth. “That was—”
“A fine lullaby for the hoity-toity, to be sure,” Mr. Champion chimed in. “But in these parts, you’ll need a tune that’s lively. What the folk around here want to hear at night, when the long day’s work is finally done, is somethin’ they can tap their foot to or even dance to, if the spirit takes them.”
An understandable request. She had professed to being a traveling musician, after all. An entertainer. Yet with her head still spinning from Asher Holt’s kiss, she could hardly think.
“My parents preferred more sedate tunes.” Her music training had been to impress guests of her parents with round tones and crystal-clear notes. It was only her love for singing that had made each lesson a delight instead of a chore. “I could sing something like ‘Of Plighted Faith.’ The melody is quite lovely.”
“That melancholy drivel? What about ‘The Joys of Country’ or ‘Two Maidens Went A-Milking’?”
“I’ve never practiced either of those.”
“Practice,” he muttered with a scoff. “Just put your heart in it, lass.”
Then, much to her astonishment, the farmer cleared his throat and began to sing in a deep, robust baritone. She’d heard the energetic tune performed at the less stuffy gatherings she typically attended with her friends. Recalling it easily, she sang the second chorus with him and hummed along with the verses. But blushed at some of the bawdy lyrics.
Asher grinned as he watched the road they left behind, his long fingers drumming on the grayed wood between them, and she wondered if he was thinking of their kiss, too. Then again, considering the number of eager lips he’d likely encountered in his life, this might have been nothing more than an impulse. As quickly forgotten as scratching an itch.
Doubtless, he was merely thinking of how they were making better time now. Truth be told, they were traveling at a fine clip. The livelier the tune, the faster the farmer drove the cart.
And perhaps, Asher was also thinking about the money he would gain at the end of the journey.
The thought poked a sore spot inside her, but she quickly shrugged it off. After all, he had plans for his life, so why shouldn’t he be thinking of them? It was positively ludicrous to imagine that one kiss would change anything.
All that really mattered was that he had kissed her because he’d wanted to. For now, she would keep that as a bandage over an old wound.
With all things considered, it was still going to be a fine day.
Peering up to the sky, she saw a smattering of fluffy white clouds, floating on a cerulean sea. The roads were relatively fine. And best of all, there weren’t any blunderbuss-toting ruffians after them.
Though she wouldn’t dare say the words aloud, it seemed like nothing was standing in their way.
* * *
“Oy,” Mr. Lum said, “give over the reins, Jamey. My grannie could drive faster than you and she’s been six feet under for more than twenty years.”
“I have to slow down to turn off the main road, don’t I? Holt is likely taking nothing but side roads to avoid us catching him.”
“At this speed, if Holt were walking, he’d be apt to pass us.” Lum tried to snatch the reins, but his wiry cohort switched hands and kept them just out of his reach.
“I’ve been thinking,” Jamey began, squinting as if the process caused him pain. “Holt might know we’re on to him and, if that’s the case, then he’d keep to the main road to make better time. Wouldn’t he?”
Lum rolled his eyes skyward. “Here I sit, trapped on a snail beside a man who’s coddling his own brains.”
“Well, I ask you, have we seen hide or hair of him, or have we not?”
“Just move it along. Turn down your bloody road— Watch it, idiot!”
Suddenly, a posh white-glazed chariot charged out from a narrow road cut between the trees. Lum’s warning came just in time to miss a collision by an inch. The horses shifted, straining against their rigging and pawing the ground.
The woman holding the leads merely laughed to her man, who was standing so close that a single hair couldn’t fit between them. “Naughty man! Just look what you almost made me do. And now I’ve frightened these men because you can’t stop stealing kisses.”
“My apologies, gentlemen,” the man said. “I should have known better than to let Gwyneth take hold of the reins.” He tweaked one of the blue-and-white ribbons on her hat. And when she wiggled back against him, he issued a pained laugh, cinching an arm tighter around her waist. “Be still now or we’ll be gone so long that she’ll wonder why I don’t return with any fish from my outing to the lake.”
Her low, taunting reply drifted over on the breeze as if neither of them realized they weren’t alone. “I’ll simply tell her that you were helping me deliver alms to the poor.”
“We’ve been making the poor wealthy as Croesus of late.”
Perking up at the mention of money, Lum sat up straighter. Never one to miss an opportunity, he said, “See here, you could’ve cost me my horses and a gig. Not only that, but my addlepated brother will likely suffer fits of skittishness ’cause of this.”
As luck would have it, Jamey tilted his head and blinked in blank confusion.
The man in the chariot dragged his attention away from his wriggling armful and looked to Lum with impatience. Reaching into the slender pocket of his waistcoat, he tossed a gold guinea with a flick of his thumb.
“For your trouble,” he said. “They pour a fine pint at the Grinning Boar coaching inn in the village.”
Lum snatched it out of the air and tested its worth between his teeth. Then he tipped his hat. The man resumed his hold on the woman and they set off with a jerk, the swift propulsion whipping her thin hat ribbons like cavalry banners at full charge.
“You have an addlepated brother?” Jamey asked when they’d gone.
Lum took the reins. “Just get the brake, Jamey. We’ve got to make time now and we’re keeping to the main road.”
“But what if he’s taking the side roads? We could miss him altogether.”
“Then we’ll be waiting for him at Gretna Green, waiting to stuff him and his heiress in the boot,” Lum muttered.
“Well then, since we’re already ahead of schedule, stopping at the Grinning Boar wouldn’t hurt. I could
certainly use a pint.”
Lum opened his mouth to argue, but he had a powerful weakness for a well-poured ale. “Very well. But only one.”
“You said that the last time we went to the pub. Then you ended up passed out over the table.” Jamey guffawed. “Remember that?”
“Shut up, idiot.”
* * *
Leave it to Asher to complicate a perfectly good plan.
All he had to do was take a runaway heiress to her aunt’s. Simple enough.
He’d been schooled to keep money matters from becoming personal. If he hadn’t been, then selling off his mother’s things when he was just a boy in order to pay his father’s debts would have killed him.
As Asher grew older, it became second nature to keep a barrier in place between business dealings and pleasure. He never crossed the line. Hell, he’d once had a pretty matchmaker throw herself at him, when all he’d wanted was to hire her to find him a wife.
That was when he’d given up on the notion of marrying an heiress. The process was more trouble than it was worth.
But with Winn it was proving impossible to keep his distance.
Damn it all. Whatever happened to his vow—just this morning—to resist temptation at all cost? And yet, he’d kissed her.
In fact, he could still feel the soft welcome of her flesh and the tingling vibration from her hum of pleasure. And they’d only been getting started, too. Imagine how it might have been if they hadn’t been interrupted . . .
No. Best not, he thought. It was better if he kept his mind on the plan instead.
“You’re a quick study, lass, and have a fine ear for music,” Champion said after teaching her a half-dozen tunes. “I must confess that, for a time, I thought you’d made up your entire story about being down-on-your-luck troubadours. And I’m even more ashamed to say that I thought you might have been out to steal my horse.”
Winn’s eyes widened with comic alarm as she looked at Asher.
Sunlight gilded her burnished, half-tumbled hair and the tips of her lashes. And there was a guilty, impish smile on those perfect pink lips that begged to be kissed. “It would be positively criminal to take advantage of your hospitality in such a way.”
“Criminal, indeed,” Asher muttered with one last glance at her mouth.
The farmer chuckled good-naturedly. “I’ve a mind to take the pair of you to the Grinning Boar. It’s just up a ways. They’ve a fine lamb stew, and patrons enough to share a bit of coin for a proper tune from a pair of troubadours. Though it’s a pity you don’t have your lute, lad. If you’re good enough to inspire Mrs. Strewsbury to blush at the mere mention, then I should’ve liked to hear you play.”
Winn’s gaze collided with Asher’s. In her flushed cheeks, he could see the shared memory of their bodies nestled close in the straw, and he felt that pull again.
Instead of giving in, he gripped the side rail of the cart as if he were shackling himself to it and forced himself to look away. This was not a complication he needed.
On edge now, he turned his attention to the road behind them and caught sight of a conveyance rushing up fast in the distance. Instant alarm sprinted through him, and he wondered if the henchmen had found them.
Reflexively, he took Winn’s hand, ready to flee into the trees that bordered either side of the road. Then he saw streamers of bright blue-and-white ribbons waving from a bonnet.
Asher relaxed. It wasn’t anything more than a pair of lovebirds on an outing. Nothing to worry about.
His gaze rested on Winn as she happily hummed a tune. Her hazel eyes brightened as the chariot approached, as if she were imagining herself holding the ribbons, pealing with laughter, the wind in her face.
He could tell from her talk of visiting far-off places that she had an adventurous spirit. Perhaps that was the reason she hadn’t complained over any hardship they’d suffered. She was born for escapades like this. And he might very well be losing his marbles, but he was enjoying himself, too.
At the moment, his only possessions were a ripe suit of clothes and a pearl-handled knife inside a pair of mud-and-shite-encrusted boots. Though, strangely enough, he couldn’t remember a time in his life when he felt such unfettered contentment. Perhaps all he’d needed was distance to distract him from his father’s constant plague upon his life.
While pondering that, he realized that he was still holding Winn’s hand, their fingers threaded together, his thumb coasting over her soft skin. And it felt so pleasant that he was reluctant to let her go. So he didn’t. There was no point in worrying over every simple gesture, after all.
The pair of approaching lovers drew his attention again. The way they held tight to each other and to the reins would have raised a brow in certain circles, even with the glint of a gold wedding band on the woman’s finger. But they were obviously married and simply enjoying an afternoon of play. Nothing wrong with that, in Asher’s opinion. In fact, if he ever took a wife . . .
He shrugged himself free of the wayward thought and released Winn’s hand.
Distracted, he watched as the chariot began to swerve around them, recklessly skirting the slope of the road, and he heard the man call out with a laugh, “I warn you, Gwyneth. Slow down or you’ll lose your hat.”
“My hat be damned!” the dark-haired woman called out as she untied her ribbons and flung her hat into the breeze. “Drive me into the village tomorrow. You can take me to get a new hat, and then you can take me as well!”
The lovers were so lost in the moment, they never noticed that the cart they’d passed had slowed and turned onto a shaded lane before coming to a stop.
Mr. Champion stared at the narrow road ahead for a long while, the reins lying loosely in his hands. All at once, he appeared aged and weather-beaten in a way he hadn’t when they’d set off. His shoulders slumped forward as if the years of his life had suddenly plummeted down on him.
A curricle followed swiftly on the road without slowing, and above it a jaunty little bonnet hung from an elm tree, caught mockingly by blue-and-white ribbons twined around a branch like streamers on a maypole.
“That was my Gwyneth,” Champion said after the thunder of hooves faded in the distance. “And her sister’s husband.”
Both Winn and Asher shared a look. In the silence that followed, the air grew heavy, thick with the cloying scent of last autumn’s leaves decaying on the forest floor.
The farmer expelled a heavy breath. “Now I understand her eagerness to have her own conveyance to visit her . . . sister.”
“I’m sorry,” Winn said quietly and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
He nodded and patted her hand in return. “Much appreciated, lass. And I’m sorry, too. I suppose you know I’ll be heading back to the farm now. No sense in going on.”
Having anticipated what was to come, Asher was already standing on the road, ready to assist Winn.
Apparently, she wasn’t through. “But aren’t you going to follow them? Tell her that you love her?”
Without turning around, Champion shook his head. “Words like those belong in songs. Once a body gets to be my age, well, we learn that a person’s actions always reveal their natures, and whether or not they truly care for and respect you.”
“Which is why you should go after her.”
“No, lass. There isn’t a thing I can do that’d be good, for either of us.”
“But she’s your—”
“Winn,” Asher interrupted with a stern shake of his head, his voice low. “Leave it alone.”
She opened her mouth to object, but then nodded. Resigned, she laid her hands on his shoulders and he helped her down. Then Asher walked to the front of the cart to shake the farmer’s hand.
After they’d bid their final farewell and awkward wishes for the best of luck, they parted ways.
Beside Asher, Winn slipped her small hand in his. “Do you think he’ll change his mind and fight for her?”
He shook his head. From what he’d observed of the fa
rmer, it seemed his life had centered on attempts to make his wife happy. And if Asher could hazard a guess, he’d wager that Champion had suspected the affair for a while. “Sometimes the obstacles are too great to overcome and the best thing a man can do is to walk away and keep his distance.”
“Not if he truly loves her.”
“I imagine that Champion loves her so much that he still can’t bear the thought of all the pain she’ll face when—or if—he confronts her.”
“No. I refuse to believe he could simply let her go,” Winn said, adamant. She released his hand and proceeded to violently rearrange the pins in her hair. “I mean, honestly. Would you leave your wife if you truly loved her?”
Asher thought about what would happen if he’d ever fall in love with . . . well . . . an heiress like Winn, for example. And then he thought about his father’s obsession.
It took only a second for him to answer. “Yes, I would.”
Her hands stilled. Mutely, she stared into his face, her head tilted at an angle as if she were attempting to pry open his skull and sift through the contents. In the silence, he stepped forward to help with her pins.
It would be so easy to kiss her now. To simply lower his head and press his lips to hers. To watch her guileless hazel eyes drift closed. To feel her soft surrender . . .
“But how would she ever know?” she asked, sinking the pins he handed to her.
He shook his head, trying to remember what they were talking about. “Know what?”
“If you didn’t fight for her, then how would she ever know that you truly loved her?”
“Because I would tell this purely fictional creature in a million different ways, every single day.” He took a step back from Winn before he did something foolish. “There. Your hair is pinned—at least for the next five minutes—and we can be on our way.”
He was more than half tempted to offer his hand or proffer his arm as they set about walking but, once again, he decided it was better to keep his distance. There was no point in tempting fate.
“Thank you,” she began, glancing up at him through burnished lashes, “for not allowing me to steal his horse. Though, in the end, I know you wouldn’t have gone through with it.”
Lord Holt Takes a Bride Page 14
