He jumped when he heard a branch crack and plummet down, taking others as it fell, hitting the ground with a resounding thump, not fifty yards from where they were.
As he pushed a tree limb out of their path, he made a list of what he should be grateful for. They did not have to walk into the wind. It was not snowing. Or raining. He moved along hoping they would find a road or, please God, a house with a generous host.
Neither one of them spoke. He watched for falling branches, keeping track of trees and where they came down. It was so constant that after a while he did not even look to see where they fell as long as it was not directly in front of them.
God bless Troy for her steady nerves. Once or twice he turned to see how Lollie was faring. She had her face buried in his coat, her mop of hair all he could see.
The wind was a brutal enemy. Several times there was a gust strong enough to push him sideways. He wanted to move faster but knew it would expend too much energy if they were facing a walk longer than a mile or so. He settled into a slow, steady pace, the way the troops marched when they knew they would be at it for days.
He forged onward, praying that they would find shelter before the cold claimed them. Surely, God would help her, if not him.
Finding shelter was the first item on his list. Making sure those sweet green eyes did not become clouded with illness or the cough become something more than an irritation. After that she needed something to eat to help settle the brandy.
He did not even want to think about how Lollie would respond to the fact that she would be away from her home for another night, a possible death blow to her reputation. If her world was rigid her standing would not survive this. There were families you could count on and families like his that were more concerned with their status than with one another.
Michael tried to keep his mind on the future and ignored the shivering that was verging on the uncontrollable.
OLIVIA POKED HER HEAD out of the collar of his coat and the wind made her gasp. She braved it long enough to see how Mr. Garrett was managing. The wind whipped his jacket away from his body. It could not be giving him much protection. He was wearing a hat, but it barely covered his ears and he had no scarf to protect his face.
How long could he endure this? She was cold enough with a coat wrapped around her and with Troy’s warmth on her legs. Should she suggest he ride with her? She could return the favor and warm him as he had warmed her. Tucking her head back into its cocoon, she debated.
Michael began to second-guess his judgment. They should have stayed where they were. They should have gone in the other direction.
When he could not stop shivering he stopped their progress and stumbled back to Troy and Lollie. She lifted her face, full of worry, and peeked out of the neck of his greatcoat.
“I am going to find my blanket. I should have thought to do that before.”
Without hesitation, she handed him the brandy flask. He took a long drink and gave it back to her, and began searching through his pack for the blanket. A tree crashed to the ground on the trail in front of them. Lollie gasped. Even Troy shivered with a restless dance.
Michael did not even look, merely wondered if it would have hit them had they not stopped.
As he pulled the blanket out of his pack, Lollie leaned over so he could hear her despite the wind and her need to whisper. “Climb up here with me. We have no choice.”
“I’ll walk beside Troy. She’ll act as a windbreak.”
“No.”
Her warm breath on his ear burned it. The wind seemed warmer now, his body not as cold.
“You need more than a windbreak. You need warmth.”
“If I can rest for a few minutes, curl up somewhere, I will be warm enough.” He was having a difficult time forming the words. He began to turn away to find a spot.
She grabbed his shoulder. “You said you would not leave me.” Before he could tell her that he was too tired to argue she was off the horse. Grabbing the blanket, she spread it on the saddle.
“We will ride together, Mr. Garrett, with your greatcoat around both of us.”
“After I rest.”
“No! You cannot lie down. That is the worst thing you can do. Stop arguing and climb up. It will not be a comfortable seat but it will help keep us alive.”
God help him, if she would stop badgering him he could close his eyes and rest.
“Listen to Troy. You insist that she is the smartest horse in the world. She will tell you.”
Her urgency made Michael wonder why she was so worried, or if what she really wanted was company. His horse betrayed him with a vigorous toss of her head and he decided to give them both what they wanted.
He nodded. She took off his greatcoat and climbed back on Troy, in an amazingly unladylike way. He could see her legs all the way up to her hips and smiled at the unexpected show.
“Hurry, and stop smiling. This is no time for lascivious thoughts.”
With his greatcoat slung over his shoulders he climbed up behind her. The first time he tried, he could not stop his shaking long enough to control his legs. With an effort and a hand from Lollie he seated himself on his second try.
She felt so warm and welcoming. He rested his head on her neck, warming his nose as he wrapped the coat around her. By the time he finished, the coat was wrapped around both of them, not actually closing in the front. It was the best they could do, not ideal but already he felt warmer and imagined that she was colder. He gave her his gloves. She put them on without comment and took the reins.
Troy took up the pace again.
Michael wrapped his hands around the shirt she wore and joined his fingers under her breasts. He turned his hands so that the fullness of her breasts rested in them with the material between her flesh and his. Her hips were between his and his body warmed quickly. The sexual pull he felt was so strong that it was all he could do not to put his hands between her legs and burn himself with the pleasure of it.
6
OLIVIA COULD FEEL HIS HANDS warming against her stomach, his cold fingers beneath her breasts. But if he moved his hands any lower she would have to do something even if this was a matter of life and death.
Riding like this had been her idea, she reminded herself. He had even refused. Thinking on it, he must have been half crazed with cold to think that stopping to rest was a reasonable thing to do.
They passed the newly fallen tree and she wondered if Mr. Garrett was too lost in his confusion to see that the tree was healthy, showed no signs of rot. It was a single solid trunk at least fifty feet high.
She turned to remark on it and realized he was asleep, his cheek lying on her neck so that when she turned her head his lips touched the spot just below her ear. Oh! It sent a thrill through her all the way to her belly. Olivia turned her head to face straight ahead and pretended she could not feel his cheek against her neck. Could a man arouse a woman without even trying? Apparently. Oh my.
“You know this is the worst time of year for a windstorm.” If she talked aloud about something prosaic maybe he would wake up and be the gentleman he was raised to be. She cleared her throat and tried to speak normally. If she turned her head again he might be able to hear her.
She did, and this time his lips found her earlobe. “In the spring the trees soak up water like sponges and they are much more likely to fail in a strong wind.”
He took her earlobe between his lips and she gasped. “Are you awake, Mr. Garrett?”
“Hmm,” he said and straightened. “So sorry, Miss Lollie, I thought that was a sweet treat for me. It tastes like you smell, of cinnamon and spices.”
“Yes, well, I hope you are warmer now.” That was exactly like something her governess would say. Tildy had always sounded more proper than she actually was.
“Much.” He moved his hands from under her breasts to her hips, which was not altogether an improvement.
Before she could ask him to move his hands to, say, her shoulders, he wrapped his arms around
her and rested his hands on the saddle horn. Somewhat better. But hardly a scene she would want to recount to her brothers.
He must have fallen asleep again, his head lying heavily on her shoulder. Please let him be resting and not giving up the fight. If he died, she could not manage. She would die.
She kept them on a southward track using the wind as a guide as Mr. Garrett had suggested. The gale force had eased to a steady blow. It would have been bearable if it had not so brutally chilled them earlier. Plus night was coming on quickly and she could see lightning in the distance. Was it possible for things to grow worse? She sniffed back the tears that were her last consolation.
Four hours ago she could not have imagined ever letting a man touch her again, much less sit this intimately between his legs.
The will to live had made a number of conventions seem unimportant now. Running nearly naked in the woods, spending time with a man to whom she had not been properly introduced.
To think what a fuss the dowagers made over more than two dances with the same man. They would have apoplexy if they heard about this. She laughed even though the first thing they would say was that it was “not a laughing matter.”
Her brothers were anything but models of virtue, except for Lyn who never put a foot out of place. They would stand at her back if her reputation suffered. Lyn would do what he thought best. But that was both reassuring and worrisome. What if he insisted she go to London? Lyn had never understood that all she wanted was her family near and her cooking. It was all she truly cared about.
A streak of lightning and a low rumble reminded her that first they would have to survive the night. How hideous to have come this far and die where no one would ever find them.
“That is not going to happen,” she said to herself, then raised her head and shouted. “It will not happen.”
Mr. Garrett made a sound and Olivia’s mood lifted. They had come this far. “When we are home we will celebrate with cake and champagne before a blazing fire.” She went on in silence debating what kind of cake and thought about closing her eyes for a few minutes. Troy was smart enough to find her way.
Troy must have read her mind. She raised her head, jingling the bridle, and Olivia looked up. Was that something square and solid ahead of them?
“Mr. Garrett. Please, you must wake up.”
She felt him raise his head from her shoulder.
“Up ahead. Do you see that?” she whispered.
“YES,” Michael whispered back, thanking God for the distraction. Now that he was warm enough to think clearly he was not sure how much longer he could stay this close to Lollie without doing more than kissing the side of her neck and nibbling her ear.
Even in sleep he had not been able to escape the feel of her. His half-waking fantasies were more carnal than erotic. Lollie deserved better than that.
He could only imagine how hard it was for her to let him be this close.
“There are no rock formations that square. Even in the Dark Peak. Could it be a building, Mr. Garrett?”
He fought off lethargy and strained his eyes through the fading light. Taking the reins from her, he urged Troy to the right. “Yes, yes. I think it is. No light, no smell of fire. It’s an empty building, Lollie. But that’s better than nothing.”
He did not like the trees that surrounded it, but they had no choice and, thank God, it seemed the wind was weakening. By the grace of God and His love for Lollie they had found a refuge.
Troy sensed his interest and picked up her pace. Lollie must have felt it and sat up straighter. “It looks abandoned.”
“Yes, it does. Lollie, we cannot afford to be choosy. I know it looks run-down but it has a roof and four walls.”
“We have no choice,” she agreed.
“Can you stand another few minutes out here? I will go see if it is safe.” He supposed a rotten floor or a large dead animal might discourage him. But not much else.
“Yes. Hurry. Go inside out of the cold. Now I am worried you are the one who will die.”
He led Troy to the leeward side of the house. Being out of the wind was such a relief that this spot was almost enough, especially when he considered the challenge of disentangling himself from Lollie.
She brushed off his apology for exposing her to the cold so he wasted no time unwrapping his greatcoat and laying it out behind him, draping it over Troy’s hindquarters. With his foot in the stirrup and his hand on the front of the saddle, he levered himself off.
Once on the ground he reached up. Lollie bent over and he lifted her from Troy. The horse sidled closer and Lollie was in his arms with her body pressed against his.
Lollie had put her arms on his shoulders and now she slid them down his chest, hugging him as hard as she could, pressing her face into his chest. “Please be careful.”
“I will come back as soon as I know it is safe.” As he spoke Michael pulled the greatcoat off Troy and wrapped Lollie in it, pulling her arms away from him. He kissed her on the forehead, reminding himself that all she felt was gratitude.
NO ONE HAD COME to the window or the door as he approached. There was no sign of life of any kind, but there was also no dirt or cobwebs on the door. The windows had been cleaned of the worst of their dirt. Abandoned for awhile but in use fairly recently.
Michael knocked at the door and turned the handle at the same time. No one answered and he stepped inside. The place was well aired, which also argued for recent use.
Without the wind’s battering cold Michael felt warmer instantly. As his eyes adjusted to the new kind of dark, he could see a candle on a table with a tinderbox next to it. He wondered who would leave a candle and flint behind. Someone very wealthy or in a great hurry.
It was an effort to control his shivering enough to light it, but he finally succeeded. With the dim light casting uneven shadows Michael turned to face the room and knew what they had stumbled across.
Lollie’s prison.
There was no furniture beyond a bed, a table, and two chairs. The bed had rope springs and some kind of straw-stuffed mattress, but the real confirmation that this was the place Lollie had been held were the ropes that trailed from the bedposts.
Rage at the inhumanity man could heap on an innocent girl came with memories. He wanted that kind of cruelty to have ended with the war, to be part of the past, but he knew it would go on as long as man wanted more than he had. A cottage in Derbyshire could be as much a battlefield as the streets of Badajoz.
Michael pulled the ropes from the posts and threw them across the room with all his strength. They hit the wall with the sound of a whip breaking over a back and slid to the floor in a corner. He kicked one of the chairs. It bounced off the wall and fell, still in one piece.
Still breathing heavily but with his temper under control, Michael went to the fireplace. Her kidnappers had left a stack of dry wood next to the fire and even though it was obvious that no one had used it for hours, there were still warm coals in the grate.
The ropes, the candle and now the warm fire. They might not be gone for good. If her kidnappers were to return he and Lollie would face an entirely new set of problems.
He was marshaling arguments to convince her they had no choice but to shelter here, when he realized that if she had been blindfolded for her whole captivity she had never seen the place. If he could act naturally she might never realize it.
If acting was a lie, it was one of those wrongs that was the right thing to do.
He found her huddled next to Troy.
“It’s empty. Has been for awhile,” he called as he hurried to her side. A streak of lightning and a rumble echoed off the hills. With a nod she patted Troy’s neck and followed him.
Before they reached the door she stopped and, with an embarrassed sigh, turned to the woods. “I must…”
“Go ahead but stay out of the wind. Troy will stand guard and I will start the fire.”
A mark of trust on his part, though only the smallest. Only a fool would run off
with rain threatening on top of the wind.
Just as he began to worry that she had decided to try for home, he heard her. He stopped tending the fire and was almost at the door when she came in. Three steps into the room she stopped, her hair wild from the wind, her face a picture of recognition and disbelief.
Before he could say a word she began backing out of the room, shaking her head. “No, no, no. Not here. Not here.”
7
NO HYSTERICS, Lollie. I thought we were beyond that.” He took her by the shoulders. “This is our only choice.”
With her hands against his chest, she pushed and pushed. “I am not hysterical!”
Michael let go of her and went to bar the door so that she could not leave. There was lightning and some thunder, but in her agitation he did not think the threat of the worsening storm would keep her from doing something foolish.
Before he turned around he heard the clink of something thrown with force hit the window, cracking the glass. Three more struck wide of him.
“Your brothers might have taught you to throw but they left out the lesson about aim. Or you were not paying attention.”
“Leave, or I will hit you with your pistol.” She raised the gun over her head. “I would rather be on my own than spend any more time with a liar like you.”
The gun, even without ammunition, could be a far more damaging weapon than the stones. She was making the most of her pitiful armory.
“To think I believed you, did not want you to die. You are a bastard, do you hear me? I hate you.”
A distraction, Michael thought, he needed a distraction, or one of them would end up hurt. Troy! No better diversion than a horse in a cottage. He could count on Troy’s cooperation. It wouldn’t be the first time she had entered a house.
Michael opened the door, silently thanked whoever built the cottage for making the entrance big enough to fit a grown horse, and whistled for his mare.
Mary Blayney Page 30
