by Diana Quincy
Walking in long, purposeful strides, he slapped her bum and hissed, “Be still before I drop you on your head.”
“Ouch!” she yelped. “One of us has clearly already been dropped on his head.” She squirmed and kicked even more vigorously. To keep from losing his grip on her, he clamped a hand hard over her hips, which were fuller and far more womanly than he would have thought. The Emilia he remembered had been a narrow slip of a girl. “I swear, if you don’t put me down I shall bite you.”
Considering the hot outrage vibrating from her, he wouldn’t put it past her to take a chunk out of his arse, especially given that her face wasn’t far removed from his nether regions.
“What happened to you?” he asked her, at the same time sensing Graves coming up behind them. “You used to be quiet and biddable.” As he spoke, he swung around to plant Graves a facer. Caught unawares, the other man went down with a grunt, but Sparrow knew Graves well enough to know he wouldn’t stay down for long.
“What did you do?” Emilia shrieked, twisting her body for a glimpse of the injured man. “You hit him!”
“Indeed I did.” To make sure Graves would stay down, Sparrow slammed the point of his shiny Hoby boot into the man’s gut. Graves crumpled to the stone floor.
“What is wrong with you?” Emilia’s voice rose in alarm as she struggled to get down, kicking her legs below where his forearm gripped her across the knees. “Why are you accosting my guests?”
“I doubt you would have appreciated the gift he had in mind.” He scanned the vestibule for the quickest escape. Going out the front with the bride slung over his shoulder wouldn’t do. Spotting a door at the west end of the corridor, he ran toward it, his heart laboring hard under the burden he carried. Emilia had more meat on her than he recalled.
He reached the door and tried the latch, breathing a sigh of relief to find it unlocked. Pushing the door open, he stepped inside, closing and bolting it behind him before scanning the space. It was a meeting room of sorts, containing an oak table flanked by several ladder-backed chairs. Sparrow eyed the lone, stained glass window on the opposite wall.
“Put me down, you oaf.” Emilia straightened her body like a board in an attempt to get him to lose his grip.
With a stifled curse, he bent forward and set her down on her feet. “Don’t move,” he warned.
She stared at him with big, incredulous green eyes, their shade as intense as the brilliant jade necklace he’d bought Marie from Russia. The unwelcome memory of his former mistress burned through his innards like acid. Emilia pivoted and tried to unbolt the door, prompting recollections of the past to fly out of his mind.
He slammed a palm hard against the wood, preventing her from opening it. “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” She spun around, her eyes flashing, her cheeks coloring beneath the faint freckles fanning out from the bridge of her nose. “What am I doing? I’m trying to get married you big, fat idiot!”
“There is no call for a lady to use such language,” he said absentmindedly, his real focus on the window.
“There is when the man who ruined my life is back to do it again.” She struggled to pull the door open.
He kept a firm hand against it. “Ruined your life?” But he hardly registered the words. His preoccupation was with getting her safely out of the church. Catching her hand, he moved toward the window, dragging her with him.
Her white, satin slippers skidded along the stone floor as she tried to hold her ground. “Let me go,” she wailed. “What is wrong with you? I’m meant to be getting married today.”
“Shield your face and stay behind me.” Holding firmly to her hand, he lifted a chair and hurled it against the window, shattering the glass.
She jumped, startled by the action. “You’re mad.” She went very still, searching his face as though really seeing him for the first time. He registered the fear and alarm in her eyes. “Who breaks windows in a church?”
He placed both hands firmly on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. “Emilia, do not be afraid.” He spoke in gentle but resolute tones. “I have no desire to alarm you, but I must keep you safe.”
Her wary gaze held his. “Safe from what?”
“There is a hired killer out there.”
For a moment she just stared at him, digesting his words. Her face looked remarkably small surrounded by the huge lacey rim of her hideous bonnet. “A hired killer.”
He gave a sharp nod, impressed by her calmness. “Exactly.” Shrugging out of his tailcoat, he bunched it up and wrapped it around his fist, using it as a muffler to protect his hand as he punched away what little glass was left in the window.
“A hired killer here,” she said from behind him. “At my wedding. At St. George’s. In Mayfair.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Yes, and so we must be away from here post haste.”
“Are the magical fairies here, too?” A disbelieving snort escaped her lips. “Thank you for your concern, but I think I’ll take my chances.” She marched toward the door.
“Damnation!” Frustration pulsed through him. “We don’t have time for childish tantrums.” He could waste these few precious moments arguing with her, or he could save her life, whether she liked it or not. Without another word, he picked her up, walked over to the window, and chucked her out.
—
Emilia landed on her rump with an unladylike thud. She really should have gone easy on the teacakes during these last few weeks leading up to the wedding. Instead, she’d indulged all the more, as if it were possible to eat her nerves away. Tears threatened. How in blazes had she ended up sitting in the dirt with her once-pristine gown looking more like a dust rag than the finest French lace and satin?
Shiny black boots with swinging cream tassels landed with a hard thump beside her. Sparrow held out his hand. “Come.”
She shook her head, biting her lip to keep the tears from falling. “Please leave me be.” It was not as if he hadn’t already hurt her enough. But this, this was beyond anything she ever could have imagined. Suddenly, she brightened.
“Blazing bats in the belfry! This is a dream.” She spoke aloud more to herself than to him and nodded excitedly. “Of course, of course. It’s a bad dream.” She exhaled a long sigh of relief. “What else could explain Hamilton Sparrow being here?”
It had been a long time since he’d appeared in her dreams. In the months after he’d jilted her, he’d come to her often in the night, begging for her forgiveness, proclaiming his undying love before leaning in to give her a passionate kiss, but she’d always startled awake before his lips touched hers.
“This is no dream.” His expression was grave, his tone desert dry. “I assure you.” A horse came clopping up, led by a boy Sparrow seemed to know. “My thanks, young Joe,” he said to the youth.
“A nightmare, then,” Emilia mumbled to herself, getting to her feet with a sinking feeling in her belly. This was no dream. She could feel the sun on her face, the rawness of her behind where she’d landed on it, and the strength of Sparrow’s hands as he reached down and picked her up as though she hadn’t been inhaling every sweetmeat she could get her hands on since she’d become betrothed.
Would Edmund have carried her as effortlessly on their wedding night, if at all? With every pound she’d gained, she’d noted the glimmer of disapproval in her betrothed’s eyes and yet that silent censure seemed to make her indulge all the more. Her mother always said she was a contrary girl. Perhaps Mama was right.
Sparrow settled her atop the colossal silver stallion. She didn’t dare squirm now. She wasn’t much of a rider and being on the back of the enormous beast meant she was entirely too high off the ground for her comfort. Sparrow leapt up, landing in the saddle behind her. His warmth and proximity sent a shiver up her spine.
The young boy cast a worshipful look up at his master. “Will that be all, m’lord?”
“Yes.” The horse started, but Sparrow got a firm handle on the beast,
quieting him almost immediately. “Return to Berkeley Square now. And Joe.”
The boy whipped around. “Yes, m’lord?”
He tossed him a coin. “Not a word to anyone. As far as you know, I attended the wedding.”
“Aye, sir.” Joe grinned wide and snatched the gleaming coin out of the air before scampering off. Sparrow urged the horse into motion.
Every muscle in her, even ones she hadn’t known she had, tensed as she gripped the saddle to keep from plummeting off the massive moving pile of horseflesh. “Am I to know where we are going?” she asked stiffly.
“To safety.”
“And where, pray tell, is that?”
“I’ll be sure to let you know when I puzzle it out.” Holding the reins, his arms encased her from behind, he urged the beast beneath them into a trot, an occasional jolt from the cobblestone back streets bringing their bodies into contact.
She realized she’d never been so close to him before, not even during their betrothal. Back then he hadn’t even tried to kiss her. Her cheeks burned with humiliation at the remembrance of just how distasteful he must have found her.
And yet here she sat—fool that she was—acutely aware of Sparrow’s powerful form behind her when she should be at the altar exchanging vows with Edmund. Instead, she breathed in the scent of bergamot and male exertion like it was oxygen, her heart slamming against her ribs with the same force as the mount’s hooves struck the cobblestone street.
She wanted to whack herself in the head—if she dared loosen her death grip on the saddle—to shake the idiot romantic thoughts from her head. She had a willing bridegroom waiting for her at the altar. The man behind her, whose body occasionally rubbed up against hers, triggering unladylike sensations deep in her belly, had jilted her. He was no Prince Charming. More like Prince Misery-and-Disappointment, at least when it came to her happiness. She’d do well to remember that.
She focused on where they were going. He turned down Park Street and, up ahead, Portman Square came into view. It was empty of people and as they approached, she eyed the iron enclosure around the grassy lawn, which was dotted with trees and manicured high bushes. When they were near enough, she saw her chance for escape. Before she had time to overthink the haphazard plan, before the fear of falling consumed her, she seized her opportunity and threw herself off the mount and over the perimeter fence, landing hard on the softer grassy surface.
“What on earth…?” Irritation quickly supplanted the concern in Sparrow’s voice from atop the giant mound of horseflesh. “Bugger! What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
She shot up, stumbling over the folds of her gown, her dratted bonnet impeding her vision. A sharp pain shot up her left leg. “Ow! Judas! My ankle.” She hopped a little in her once-snowy wedding slippers.
Anger blazed in his blue eyes. “What did you expect considering how you jumped from my stallion in such a careless manner?” He was off the horse and leaping over the fence with his long, well-built legs before she could plan any kind of effective escape. “You could have impaled yourself on the iron spikes. What were you thinking?”
“What was I thinking?” Her ankle throbbing with agony, she wobbled back away from him. “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps I was reflecting upon the bedlamite who kidnapped me on my wedding day and ruined my chance at happiness.” Her voice rose in a combination of fury and frustration, edged with hysteria. “Maybe I was thinking if, by any wild stretch of the imagination, I do manage to find my way back to St. George’s that maybe, just maybe, Edmund will still have me!”
He watched her with an odd gaze, as though she were a scientific specimen he hadn’t quite puzzled out. “Come away with me, Emilia. I promise to explain everything.” His tone softened. “What choice do you have, really? If you are seen alone in public with a strange man in your bedraggled state, your reputation will be immeasurably tarnished.”
She skewered him with a furious look. “And whose fault is that?”
“I’ll fix everything.” Speaking soothingly, he stepped closer and took her arm as she imagined he might gentle one of his skittish mounts. “I give you my word as a gentleman.”
Something cracked in the air. It took her a moment to comprehend what it was, but Sparrow seemed to know immediately because he practically tackled her to the ground, covering her with his large, taut form. “Stay down,” he hissed. His weight pressed down on her, his muscles rigid with alertness, the unique virile scent of him blanketing her as surely as his body.
“Listen carefully,” he said in a harsh whisper in her ear. “When I get up, you are to move under the cover of the bushes. Do you understand?”
“Was that a gunshot?”
“Just do as I say.” His breath was warm on her cheek. “And wait here for me.”
“You’re leaving me alone?” she whispered incredulously into the ground.
“I’ll be back directly.” Then the reassuring weight blanketing her lifted and she saw Sparrow running toward the fence in long, purposeful strides. He drew something from his jacket that glinted in the sun. A pistol. Why was Sparrow carrying a weapon? Where was he going?
Staying low, she scrambled toward the bushes and plunged into them, her skirt catching on a branch while another bit of foliage scratched uncomfortably against her cheek. Perspiring and breathing erratically, she scooted back against one shrub, and hugged her knees to her chest, wondering, not for the first time, how she had come to be in this frighteningly ridiculous predicament on her wedding day.
Footsteps stomped toward her, the bushes in front of her rustled. She held her breath. Then Sparrow came into view and, because he wasn’t some random footpad, relief spiraled through her. This time when he reached out a hand, she took it immediately and allowed him to pull her up.
“Let’s go.” The words were brusque.
She stumbled behind him, pain pulsing in her ankle, as he pressed on toward his waiting mount. “What happened? Did you locate the person who fired the shots?”
“Yes,” he said grimly. “I found him.”
“And?”
Her breath caught as he swept her off her feet and onto the mount. “Let’s just say he won’t be a problem anymore.”
Love stories you’ll never forget
By authors you’ll always remember
eOriginal Romance from Random House
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