An emotion he could not identify followed close on the heels of the realization that he knew nothing of this woman. Not her name. Not her face. Not even a hint of who she was. It had not occurred to him that she might possess entanglements. His hands loosened from her wrists and he pulled back. Her arms fell away from him, and she quickly scrambled back across the carriage.
The fleeting thought passed through his mind that he should return her and forget her sultry-soft voice. Then he heard Jack’s voice, hard and matter-of-fact, whipping through his head, explaining that Ash was not good enough to be his heir. Not good enough …
Now, more than ever, he was convinced their marriage would be good for her. For the both of them. It would save her from her situation as some man’s tart and grant her a life of legitimacy. He offered her freedom. He just had to make her see that.
“You were leaving for Spain,” he began, his voice quiet but firm. “No longer. Now you are journeying to Scotland with me. On the way there, you’ll realize that I’m offering you something this protector of yours never could.” He would convince her of that.
“And what would that be?”
“Freedom. The means to be an independent woman. To go anywhere and do anything you want.”
She held silent for a moment, and he knew he’d baited the hook. She was listening, perhaps for the first time. “You don’t plan to force me to wed you …”
“I won’t have to,” he replied. “You’ll see the wisdom in this. We’ll use the journey to better acquaint ourselves.” He heard her sigh, felt it ripple through him. A good sign. She was relenting. One more inducement and the deal was done. He was certain of it. “We need not even consummate the marriage. It will be assumed. After a few months, you can go anywhere you wish … fully funded.”
“A few months,” she echoed. He did not mistake the longing in her voice.
“Do yourself a favor and take the time to consider what I’m offering at the very least.” His voice fell with a quiet hush, calm for all the tension riddling him as he awaited her response.
“Very well,” she whispered at last. “I’ll consider it.”
His head dropped back on the seat. “You should rest until we reach the inn,” he suggested, feeling suddenly weary, none of the triumph he expected to feel present at her near agreement. None of this had gone quite as he thought … not that he had thought much about how they might interact—about her at all. He certainly hadn’t considered that she might belong to another man. His hand curled unconsciously into a fist.
“When will we stop?”
“We had a late start. It’s nearly dark. We’ll stop just outside the city. Not too long.”
Then everything would be better, he vowed, turning to gaze out the thin part in the curtains, watching the dark shapes fly past. It had to be. He couldn’t accept defeat. Not on this. Even though he couldn’t force some woman to wed him against her will, he would not give up until he persuaded her to agree.
He imagined the evening ahead. They would exchange pleasantries and come to an accord over a fine meal, a cozy fire crackling and warming the air. He would entertain her in a civil manner, charm her, compliment her fine eyes … woo her so that she fell readily into his lap and married him with little fuss.
There was no reason events shouldn’t unfold amicably between them. Sighing, he relaxed back against his seat, letting the merry vision fill his head. And almost believing it.
As she gazed at the shadow of the man who abducted her, Marguerite could no longer deny the truth. No more lying or pretending to herself. It was there, staring back at her. Everything pointed to it. The signs were inescapable. As definite as the hard male body sitting across from her, reality stared her coldly in the face.
Madame Foster was no fraud.
Even as she confronted this bitter truth, Marguerite recalled something the woman had said in her cluttered parlor. Something that gave Marguerite hope and determination to push on, to thwart the scoundrel who sat across from her so confident in her surrender.
No one’s fate is etched in stone. A moment’s decision can alter the course of fate.
Marguerite would do that—she would alter her fate, do everything in her power to prevent the future Madame Foster had divined. She must. Whatever it took, she would not marry the arrogant brute with the mesmerizing voice. As long as that didn’t happen, she would be safe. That, above all else, must not come to pass. Let him think she took his offer under consideration. If he deemed her compliant, it would make him easier to escape.
They sat in silence. She rocked with the carriage’s rolling motion, biting the edge of her thumb, gnawing it the way she used to do when she was a child. First at the bedside of her ailing mother, and then later, cold and hungry, often ill as she slept in a tiny cot on the second floor of Penwich School for Virtuous Girls.
She felt that way again. Not ill, but cold, helpless, a fate not of her choosing pressing in around her, suffocating her in a tremendous dark fog.
Not again, she vowed. Never again.
She wasn’t a helpless child anymore but a woman full-grown, and she wouldn’t die without having fully lived.
She couldn’t trust his promise for a temporary in-name-only marriage. Not for a moment. Too much depended on whether he spoke the truth—her very life. She wouldn’t put anything past a man who dared to abduct her. Let him think she surrendered, agreed to his ridiculous proposition. Then, when his guard was down, she’d leave him in the dust.
She’d have everything she ever planned for herself. Adventure, passion, the experiences she’d never allowed herself.
Life. Finally, life.
Chapter 9
Incredibly, Marguerite fell into a doze against the carriage wall. She napped fretfully, jostled awake from time to time when the carriage hit a rut. She would crack her eyes and assess the shadow across from her, a biting reminder that she was far from the safety of her bed at the Hotel Daventry. Far removed from a trip to Spain with Roger and the adventure of a lifetime she had promised herself.
The memory of her abductor’s voice curled around her, smoky and deep. A bothersome and confusing reaction. Why should she feel anything but fear for the faceless stranger determined to make her his wife? He represented everything she must avoid.
Reminding herself they weren’t too far from London, she rubbed the vestiges of sleep from her eyes. She could still manage to find her way back to her hotel in time for tomorrow’s departure. Roger told her he would collect her at noon. She squinted at the dark outline across from her. He sat still as stone, but she did not deceive herself. She knew he was awake, had likely been watching her the entire time. A cat eyeing its prey. The hairs at her nape prickled. Rather irrationally, she wondered if he could see her. Did his gaze penetrate the dark like that of some predatory beast?
When the carriage finally slowed, she pulled upright, snapping alert, prepared for the first opportunity to escape no matter how the memory of his voice tumbled through her and settled like liquid heat in the pit of her belly. She told herself it was simply her decision to discard propriety, to embrace carnal pleasure that had awakened this hidden part of her. Nothing more. Not him specifically. Heavens, no. She had not even clapped eyes on his face.
“Where are we?” she asked the precise moment a groom pulled open the door.
A sudden draft whipped inside the carriage. She wore no cloak and her wool gown afforded scarce protection. Instantly her teeth clattered, and she hugged herself tightly, squeezing her arms.
Her abductor moved like a jungle cat then, proving that he was indeed quite awake. He descended the carriage with smooth movements, reaching back inside for her. He lowered her effortlessly to the ground, where she could appreciate the full height of him a scant moment before he turned and pulled her toward the waiting inn with its flickering windows that promised light and heat.
She sucked in a great, icy breath, preparing herself for what she knew she must do as her feet tripped, one after the othe
r, through the slushy ground.
She held up her skirts, cold mud splattering up her calves, well past her half boots. With a deep breath, she fixed her sights on the inn’s double doors. She could do this.
She envisioned the scene perfectly in her head. She would unleash an earful on the first person she saw on the other side. In minutes a magistrate would arrive, gripping her arm supportively while her captor was hauled off to the gaol.
She almost felt sorry for him. She almost felt guilty for breaking her promise to grant him time to convince her that marrying him was a good idea. Almost—had her happiness, her very life, not been at stake. Time was something she did not have.
As he guided her across the last half of the yard, she glanced up at his profile, steeped in the deep cover of night. The flickering lanterns hanging outside the inn afforded little relief.
A dog barked, rushing to greet them. Her blood pounded in cold-constricted veins as she practiced various dire proclamations in her head that would stir any soul to action.
She visualized three very large, very mean-looking men sitting inside the inn. The sort of men who loved their mothers and harbored deep-rooted protective instincts toward the fairer sex. They would surge to their feet on her behalf.
“Wait a moment.” His hand on her arm pulled her to a stop.
She blinked at his shadowy form, trying to decipher his intent. A slight popping sound filled the air. She cocked her head, recognizing the sound but not quite placing it. At least not until he splashed her liberally with gin.
He’d uncorked a bottle.
She cried out as alcohol saturated the front of her dress, sinking through her chemise into her very bones. The overpowering aroma wafted up, burning the inside of her nose.
“Forgive me,” he said, popping the cork back in place, and not sounding in the least contrite. “A precautionary measure.”
“What are you doing?” she demanded between chattering teeth. “You’ve ruined my dress.”
“And, I imagine, your credibility. I don’t intend to risk you prattling on that I’ve abducted you. I’ve spent a time or two behind bars as a lad. It’s not an experience I relish repeating.”
She sputtered, at a loss for words. Could he read minds? How had he conceived it was her intention to see him locked away?
He continued, “Should you heap pleas upon sympathetic ears, I shall confess, to my shame, that I have a very drunken wife.” He mockingly clucked his tongue. “Have you ever heard of such a thing? Quite embarrassing. A sickness, really. I don’t know what to do with her.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
In the gloom, he waved a hand over her person. “Oh, it’s quite done already, my love.”
My love. The empty endearment puckered her skin to gooseflesh. The cad was a stranger, an utter malcontent. His potent voice and empty endearments should not stir her in any way.
“No one would believe such drivel! I’m not a drunkard.”
Taking hold of her arm again, he said lightly, “Why should this bother you so greatly? You promised you would hear me out and give us some time to become acquainted. Unless you lied and planned to escape me all along.”
She snapped her lips shut, unwilling to admit that was precisely what she had hoped to do, and loathing that she should feel a flash of guilt.
Her captor strode toward the inn, his long fingers looped around her wrist. She stumbled after him, trying to recover her composure and not appear the drunkard he sought to portray her.
With the front of her gown soaked, she shivered as they entered the inn’s toasty confines. Still, she suspected her trembling had more to do with her anger than the cold wet.
Stepping into the large well-lit room, she blinked like a mole emerging from the earth, searching, seeking a friendly face—someone who might aid her.
Her gaze locked on a cheery-faced man, nearly as round as he was tall, waddling toward her at what must be quite the clipped pace for him. He wiped meaty hands on his apron, exclaiming, “Welcome, welcome, my fine friends!”
Marguerite opened her mouth to declare the brute beside her the lowest scoundrel, an abductor of innocents. With those hot words burning on the tip of her tongue, she turned to face her accused, ready to condemn him before he bandied his lies about her.
Mouth open, words hovering so close, she froze. Utterly robbed of speech, she stared.
The hard lines of his face reflected her own surprise. Or was it horror?
The innkeeper had reached them by now, but still they continued to gawk at one another. Her abductor’s dark eyes crawled over her as though he had never seen a female before.
It was he. Him. The man from the St. Giles. “Courtland,” she whispered.
“Marguerite,” he returned, mouthing her name so quietly she scarcely heard him.
Now the bothersome effect of his rumbling voice made sense. It had been the same then, when he’d pressed his body to hers, when he’d touched her so intimately and had spoken near her ear. On some level, she must have recognized him. She must have known.
“You,” she hissed. She shook her head as though dizzy, struggling to reconcile the scoundrel from St. Giles with this man who claimed to possess great wealth. Wealth enough to tempt her into matrimony—at least to his thinking.
He blinked and whatever emotion she had awakened in him vanished. His dark gaze stared at her coolly, the light lost, dormant. Once again, he was in control.
“Of course, my dear,” he soothed in the beleaguered voice of an afflicted husband. She followed his gaze to the watchful eyes of the innkeeper. “It’s always me. By your side.”
Understanding at once that he was attempting to establish the pretense that they were married, she pulled her arm free in a wild jerk. “Oh, no you don’t,” Marguerite hissed in low tones. She lunged for the innkeeper, eager to explain her predicament, but Courtland stepped on her hem, his boot firmly catching her in place.
She staggered, wobbled, struggling to right herself, to pull her hem loose. And then suddenly, she was free. He removed his boot from her hem and she tripped against the innkeeper. A deliberate move, no doubt, to make her look all the more unstable.
“Umph!” the innkeeper exclaimed.
“I’m so sorry! My apologies,” she babbled. “He made me do it …” her voice faded at the look on the innkeeper’s face. He pressed one hand to his nose, the offending smell of her clearly devastating him. He placed his pudgy hands on her arms and quickly set her away from him. “There, there, now.” He leveled both of them with a stern look. “I don’t know what kind of establishment you think I’m operating here—”
“You’ll have to forgive my wife,” Courtland began, his tone placating and needling. Not at all him. That much she knew already. “We’ve returned from my great aunt’s ninetieth birthday celebration. The dear old bird—can’t believe she’s still getting on. Walks to the village and back every day. She even walks to church on Sundays, weather permitting of course, and that’s quite a distance. My wife here has difficulty controlling herself where spirits are concerned. It’s been a lifelong battle. But what can I do? I married the girl. I protect her as much as I can from her demons, but I cannot stand guard of her every moment—”
Marguerite sputtered, her nails cutting painfully into her tender palms. What a display! He belonged on stage. “You bounder! Wretch!”
The innkeeper looked wide-eyed between them.
The scoundrel with his liquid dark eyes even managed to look angelic and contrite as he shook his head. Blast the man! “I promise if you just let us a room for the night, we shall not cause any disorder and we’ll depart at first light.” The silver-tongued devil pulled a healthy pouch of coins from his cloak and dangled it for the innkeeper. “I’ll more than compensate you.”
The portly innkeeper wet his lips and snatched up the sack. “So long as you don’t disturb my other patrons.”
“ ‘Course, the missus will no doubt succumb to sleep the moment she touches down o
n the bed. ‘Tis the case in most these situations.”
With a brisk, businesslike nod, the innkeeper led them up a narrow set of steps. Her captor clamped down on her arm, continuing to talk over her protests and mutterings about his great-aunt’s birthday festivities and painting himself the veritable saint for so loyally abiding his sot of a wife.
At the door to their room, the innkeeper left them a lamp, offering the parting advice, “Appears she might need more of a firm hand from you.”
Courtland actually deigned to look sheepish, smiling feebly. It was such a false expression, almost ridiculous on his face, a face carved from stone. “I do let my tender feelings for her at times stand in the way of sound judgment.”
“It’s a rigid hand she needs, either from you or in an asylum.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
Oh, the miserable man! Marguerite looked around wildly. Any guilt for lying, for reneging on her promise to consider his offer of marriage fled. Her gaze scoured the room, landing on the pitcher sitting on the washstand. She tugged her arm free of her alleged husband.
Courtland released her, shutting the door with a click, isolating them.
This time, no masks. No darkness shrouding them. Just the two of them. She was alone in a bedroom with a very big, virile male intent on dragging her toward the fate she fought to avoid. And she had all but told him such a fate was acceptable to her. Of course, that was before she realized he was the scoundrel from St. Giles. Before he doused her in gin. She absolutely could not marry him.
Her gaze devoured the chipped pitcher, angrier than she had ever felt in her life. Her trembling hands closed around the heavy porcelain, her fingers curling over the curving handle.
Swinging around, she let the pitcher fly.
His eyes widened a fraction before ducking. The pitcher crashed against the wall.
With a grunt of disappointment, her gaze scanned the room for the next available object. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to seize anything before he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off her feet. Air escaped her in a great gust as his shoulder ground into her belly. She beat him on the shoulders, the back, anywhere she could reach. He stalked across the room, hauling her like a sack of grain, not the least affected from her efforts.
Wicked Nights with a Lover Page 7
