She held his gaze. “No… But I am sorry the rector and Miss Watson have gone through all this trouble.”
“Miss Watson?”
“The maid said the rector was with a woman.” She frowned. “I’m not sure it was Miss Watson. I suppose he could have brought his wife.”
“The rector must care for you a great deal to have come after you in this weather.”
“Or”—her eyes crinkled—“perhaps he just dislikes you.”
“Beyond Farring, most do.”
“I do.” Her grin disappeared. “Like you, I mean.”
A strange sensation filtered through his chest. Like him? After everything he’d done?
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “You know I didn’t mean what I said, don’t you?”
“You were hurt,” he supplied.
“I was scared.”
Scared. Could she have made him feel worse?
Of course she’d been scared. Only a big lug of a lackwit would have pinned a virgin to the dammed wall.
“Don’t be scared.” He’d protect her, even from himself.
“Are we safe, then?” She blushed. “I mean, do you think we’ve been followed?”
He listened. Nothing but the sound of raindrops and the whistle of wind. “If they were in pursuit, I think they would have overtaken us by now—or at least be close enough to hear.” His eyes roamed over her bruised and windburned cheeks down to her chapped hands. “How long were you planning on riding on the back of this carriage?”
She shrugged. “All the way to Scotland, if I had to.”
“You know you couldn’t have. You were half”—he paused to steady his voice—“dead last night.”
She lifted her brows. “Why, Rayne. You actually sound as if you were concerned.”
“I was.” He pursed his lips, preventing himself from confessing anything more.
“I may have overestimated my strength.” She looked away. “It’s wearing, you know.”
“I know.”
Her gaze snapped back. “You’ve ridden on the back of a carriage?”
“I’ve ridden—and driven—carriages every possible way—inside, outside, topside, in the rear…”
Fascinating to watch her estimation of him alter.
How she’d managed to fool the ton into believing her demure, he could not say. Her emotions were splashed across her face, obvious as waves in churning water.
Or perhaps she was a cipher to which he alone held the key?
Remember. She said stop.
He’d failed to read her signals when he should have been heeding them most. And Cracked-skull. He couldn’t forget she was pledged to another man.
“You took care of me last night,” she said.
“It was my ple”—he stopped himself from uttering a word that would have conjured the weight of her body against his chest—“responsibility.”
His responsibility. His pleasure. His ruin. Julia, in a nutshell.
“And you didn’t hand me over to the rector. Why?”
“Like you said,” he lied, “the rector would have insisted on posting banns, right then and there.”
She twisted her lips. “Even if a coaching inn was the proper place for banns, the rector could have insisted on nothing—not without Markham’s consent.”
“Why, Julia, are you telling me you lied?”
“Stretched the truth a tad. He was there, though I doubt he would have forced me to do anything I did not agree to do.”
Like marry someone everyone agreed was absolutely wrong for her. Which he’d known.
Hurt to know she saw him as unfit, too, however.
“Did you continue out of fear he’d force you to wed me?” he asked.
“No.” Her gaze flitted away. “And you? You never truly answered the same question.”
“No.” He kept his answer simple.
Fear of wedding Julia hadn’t been part of the equation.
Even if the rector had bodily dragged him back to Southford, Rayne was certain Markham would never insist on marriage…not if Markham could think of any other way to preserve Julia’s reputation.
Curiosity. Excitement. The force of Julia’s enthusiasm—those had been the primary movers. The wild way her dark eyes flashed. The unspoken demand he take up her gauntlet and give his all. The sense he would eventually resolve the conundrum she embodied, despite having bungled everything so far.
For better or worse, they’d set out on this journey, and everything in him told him they must finish, no matter what he must confront on the way.
And if he told her even half the truth, she’d probably laugh…or cast herself from the speeding carriage.
He studied the ceiling. “I’d hate to disappoint Edmund Alistair Cabbage, after all.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her deflate.
“And you, of course,” he added softly. “I’d hate to disappoint you.”
She did not reply.
Maybe she hadn’t even heard.
He fixed his gaze on the blur of passing trees—stark, bare, and wet with the winter rain. He wished he understood the mechanizations of her mind. But they might as well have been written in Middle English.
But he couldn’t criticize, could he? Because it wasn’t sense that made him reach across the carriage, beckoning her to rest against his side, any more than it was sense that made her respond with a sigh and then settle her head against his shoulder.
And it certainly wasn’t sense that encouraged him to thread his fingers through hers and then rub his thumb back and forth across the line down the center of her tiny palm.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he said.
“I didn’t thank you,” she replied.
Chapter Eight
Under the weight of all she could neither define nor speak, Julia suffocated in wordless stillness.
But was the silence crushing?
Or was Rayne the instrument of her slow asphyxiation?
Rayne, mysterious.
Rayne, mercurial…changeable as the sentiments he’d roused in her heart. First, infatuation. Later, loathing. And now?
He curved and pulled like a hook, a question mark, a query without an answer, all the while comfortingly stroking her palm.
He could be caring in one moment—lending her his shirt, easing her chills with a warm, steady embrace, pillowing the jerks and sways of the moving carriage with his body. Then, in the next moment, he could become fire…or ice.
Perhaps that was why she felt as if she must hold her breath. Purposely, she exhaled, watching out the window as the passing leafless branches scratched the low-hanging clouds.
Funny thing was, both when she’d decided to pose as Rayne’s footman and when she’d decided to return to the road this morning, her aversion to long carriage rides hadn’t factored into her decision.
Not once.
Her fears hadn’t made a bit of difference. She’d never considered how her stomach churned and pitched when she’d nothing to distract her within a small box hurtling forward at unhealthy speeds. Or how the walls of any carriage felt like they were slowly closing in.
And she had a feeling he wouldn’t believe her if she told him how scared she was right now. Not just of the carriage, but of what was between them. Scared to the point that her fear sometimes masqueraded as anger.
Nor would he believe that the simple motion of his thumb against her palm made everything feel so much better.
She wasn’t afraid of all confined spaces.
Southford’s priest hole had been her favorite place to hide. Inside, against the brick chimney, she’d felt safe in the warm and quiet and dark.
She felt the same way when she rested her head against Rayne’s shoulder, which made little sense, since he was about as harmless as a
n oil-soaked wick near a flame. And just as likely to ignite.
Ladies were permitted tears and fainting spells, but they were never permitted violent, inner volatility—the kind that Rayne spewed with abandon. The same kind that threatened to overflow when she was scared.
She, like every other lady, was expected to remain placid.
Passionless.
Which left men like Rayne—bursting at the seams with feeling—alone in a prison of their own want. She angled her gaze through lowered lashes. She shouldn’t be sympathetic to his ungoverned sentiments. Grit your teeth and persist was practically a national motto, and she’d learned to hide her extremes. But she’d had lessons—and protective siblings. Rayne—once the polish faded—was unvarnished human vehemence.
Perhaps that was why he fascinated.
They were the same, but raised vastly different. She only wished she knew how to bring their disparate parts together.
The carriage slowed. Rayne paused mid-pensive stroke. Their gazes met and held.
The silence between them reshaped into alarm.
“We’re stopping.” She noted the obvious, leaning forward. All she could see were rolling fields in either direction. “Why isn’t there a window in the front of this—”
“Traveling chariot,” Rayne supplied, already donning his coat. “Because a traveling chariot’s purpose is comfort. I knew taking it was a bad idea. ‘You’d be doing me a great favor,’ Farring said. Little did he know!” Rayne shook his head as he opened the door. “This is the last time I listen to him.”
Julia squinted as the door slammed closed.
Farring had talked Rayne into taking the coach? Gooseflesh raised the hairs on her forearm. She’d done some outrageous things, but she never would have gone after Rayne without Farring’s encouragement. What had Farring argued?
You may be the last hope Rayne has.
Farring had suggested Rayne felt more for her than he’d revealed. Farring had arranged to deceive her family into believing she was staying with Miss Watson. All this, she knew. But knowing Farring had convinced Rayne to take the carriage in the first place? That changed everything. Could Farring have set an intentional trap for them both?
Her stomach swerved.
She’d always believed Farring to be a laughing, jovial sort of man, the kind who had no interest in meddling in the affairs of others. Except, clearly, he did meddle. He’d even admitted he meddled.
In fact, when she looked back on the past few years, she suspected he’d meddled even more than she’d previously understood. Like, for instance, the time he’d appointed himself Katherine’s escort when she and Bromton weren’t speaking, preventing Katherine from having to fend off an onslaught of undesired suitors. Like the time he’d convinced Markham to make his fake courtship of Clarissa real and bring her to Southford? Like the time he’d suggested Julia move in with his parents and share a come-out with his sister—which had ensured her societal success but also kept her from acting rashly in her anger over Rayne?
He’d been meddling all along.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling as if she might be sick again. She knew she had intentionally set out to abduct Rayne, but Rayne did not.
What would he do if he found out she’d meant to alter his life, had colluded with Farring to do so, and then lied to him about her reason for going on this journey?
Naturally, he’d assume she’d been in on Farring’s deception from the start.
Outside the carriage, Rayne’s voice rose sharply. “I don’t believe you understood me. We have to keep going.”
“I refuse,” the postilion answered, equally loud. “You can continue, if you’ve a mind to risk your neck. But I won’t go any farther. The river was lapping at the edge of the last two bridges. That we made it this far is sheer luck.”
“So you are just going to take your horses and abandon us and the carriage?”
“I’m not going any farther. As for the horses, I named my price.”
Rayne yanked open the door. The hinges squealed over the distinct sound of rushing water. “The postilion is going to abandon the carriage.”
Julia’s eyes went wide. “But the last town was four miles back. And we can’t just wait in the middle of the road until the storm passes.” Unintentionally, she shivered. She imagined the carriage slowly turning over as the wheels sank into the mud. She envisioned them trapped, easy prey for the cold and the wet or worse—highwaymen. Her breath came in short, swift pants. “Rayne!”
He set his lips in a thin line. “There are pencils and parchment under the bench. Can you retrieve them?”
She slid off the bench and knelt on the carriage floor. “What do you need to write?”
“A promissory note and directions to my solicitor.” He sighed roughly. “I’m about to purchase a pair of horses. A pair of wildly overpriced horses.”
“They aren’t his to sell.”
“Believe me, with what he’s asking, his employer won’t mind.”
She removed the cushion and lifted the seat. “But why would you pay such a price?”
He shook off his hat and ran a hand through his wet hair. “Because there are not any other alternatives I will allow you to face.”
Her heart skipped. “Are the roads even passable?”
He sent her an inscrutable look. “The paper, please?”
She handed the only box inside the carriage to Rayne. He scribbled a note and folded the parchment.
“You’d best settle in.” He handed back the box. “If I were you, I’d keep hold of that strap.”
“You cannot mean to act as postilion?” Panic quivered in her throat. “You’re too big. The lead horse will balk. If anyone should—”
“Please don’t even offer. You know I’m not about to let you ride that horse in this storm.” Rayne’s hard expression did not change. “All we need to do is get to the next town. Then we’ll stable these horses and arrange for a new set and a proper driver.”
She stared at him in disbelief.
“We discussed this, remember?” he asked.
“If by discuss, you mean headed onto the road in a mad dash, then yes. Riding the lead horse takes skills, Rayne. Skills you don’t have.”
“You haven’t any idea what skills I have.” Then, softer, “I’ll manage, Jules. I’ll make sure you don’t suffer for my decisions.”
Her. He was concerned for her. She chewed on her lip. “Very well. But ask the postilion if there is anything about the horses you should know…and make sure the horses trust you.”
He flashed a half smile. “They’re post horses. They’re trained to accommodate various riders.” He tilted his head. “More than the horses’ trust, I need yours.”
That strange feeling bubbled up again. The sense she could feel what he felt—and what she felt was clearheaded determination.
“I trust you,” she answered.
She trusted he would do his best. She trusted he would not venture beyond his skill. She trusted that there was no one else she’d rather be with when facing rain, fog, cold, and questionable bridges on a muddy country road.
Or anywhere, for that matter.
His smile widened—an attempt to reassure.
Her insides went squishy. “Don’t get hurt.”
“I promise.” He caressed her cheek with his knuckle. Then he was gone.
She pressed her face against the cushion. “And don’t hurt me again, either.”
…
Rayne was too big for the horse. But he’d known he would be already—just as she had. But once he’d seen the panic flare in her eyes, he’d seen no option but to go onward.
His inner imperative—keep her safe, keep her with you—wasn’t interested in reason or details. Urging along an experienced horse in a steady ride was the quickest way to separate her from her fea
r.
Besides, by the time he’d settled into the saddle, the postilion had taken the promissory note and was already running back down the road for the nearest shelter.
He could not turn back even if he wanted. The road beneath them was quickly becoming a stream. And, if the bridges behind them had been as bad as the postilion claimed, retreat wouldn’t be any safer than forging ahead.
He encouraged the horse to move forward, keeping his pace slow as the wind whipped rain against his face, almost blinding. Any slower, in fact, and he’d risk sinking into the mud. But slow, he hoped, would cover enough ills to prevent catastrophe.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed—an hour, maybe more—but eventually he caught the scent of smoke on the wind and took a deep, fortifying breath.
Almost there.
Once they reached the next inn, there’d be warmth.
There’d be shelter.
There’d be rest.
He hadn’t told Julia the full truth—she’d been pale enough as it was. What he’d written hadn’t been payment for the horses but a promissory note, payable only in the event the horses were injured…or worse.
Which they wouldn’t be. He caught the first faint scents of a hearth fire, and occasionally, through the fog and the trees, he could just make out what looked like stables and an inn.
Definitely an inn.
Cold rain had soaked his beard and was working its way down his neck. He shook his head, scattering the pools of wet from the brim of his hat.
All he needed to do was cross one long bridge ahead and this particular trial would be over. But what of the next trial? And the next?
He’d ignored his troubles for too long. But whatever troubles may come, he wanted to face them with Julia. Eventually, he must tell her—let her know he hadn’t continued this journey with her because a land agent was waiting. Or because he wanted to deliver her to her groom.
Every mad choice he’d made since the moment he’d pulled her out of that fight had been for her and her alone.
After they reached the inn, he would do it. He’d be honest—perhaps for the very first time in his life. He’d tell her he wanted her to himself, even if honor demanded he also give her all the reasons staying with him would be a very bad idea—for her.
Diamond in the Rogue Page 10
