by Hatch, Donna
Cole seemed to be amused by the whole thing, trying not terribly hard to smother a grin.
“What?” Alicia demanded when the footman departed.
Cole shrugged. “It’s possible her ‘headache’ is nothing more than a tryst with her lover.”
“Cole Amesbury! What a thing to say.”
He chuckled. “Her husband is twice her age and an invalid. You can’t expect a thirty-year-old woman to live a life of celibacy, can you?”
She glared at him. “Are all men so depraved, or just you?”
He laughed. “Most are, I fear. However, I’d expect her to be a bit more discreet than to leave you to return home alone. Who knows? Maybe it is a mere headache.” He turned pensive. “Nicholas would have my head if he found out I’d let you travel all that way alone. I had best escort you home.”
“What? And risk that kind of scandal?”
“You’re a married lady now, Lady Amesbury. The scandal dwindles once you are no longer husband-hunting.”
“Still,” she sputtered. “It would reflect poorly upon me. And him. He—”
“Would shoot me if harm came to you after I allowed you to travel home alone at night. He’s as good a shot as I. And Aunt Livy likes him better. She’d never let me live in peace.” He grinned.
Alicia smiled reluctantly. “Very well. I admit, I’m not overly fond of traveling alone at night.”
His grin turned wry again. “Someday, you’ll say you’d love to spend an hour in my company.”
A gentleman approached for a dance, and the dancing and music swept her away.
All too soon, the magic ended. Alicia’s joy did not, however. She climbed in to Cole’s coach still smiling at her charming escort. They talked and laughed while the coach made its way down the road. The swinging lamps played with the shadows. He lounged across from her, his long legs stretched out, and she marveled again at his handsome face and the breadth of his shoulders.
As she relaxed, she became aware of how badly her feet throbbed from so much dancing. She removed her slippers and rubbed her feet.
“Here, let me,” he said.
She only weakly protested as he massaged away her soreness. His large, strong hands dwarfed her feet.
“Ohh,” she moaned, “that feels wonderful.”
With controlled strength, he coaxed the soreness out.
“Mmmm,” she heard herself moan again.
“Stop that, you’re making my imagination run wild.”
“Hmmm?”
His eyes glittered darkly in the lamplight. “Never mind.” He rubbed her feet until she felt both renewed and drowsy before his hands stilled. “Better?”
Drowsy, she smiled, her eyes half opened. “I think I could dance for a few more hours now. You have magical hands.”
He opened his mouth, but then closed it firmly without speaking. The carriage rolled its way over the rutted road and they fell into a comfortable silence. He moved to her side of the carriage and eased himself in the seat next to her. His hands cupped her cheeks, his thumbs caressing her skin as ever so slowly, his head lowered toward hers. Her heart pounded in anticipation as his nearness, his touch, filled her senses.
A tiny smile touched one corner of his mouth an instant before he brushed her lips with his. Once. Twice. Then he settled in for a kiss. She was lost in the sweet warmth that permeated her body, vibrating every nerve, stirring her to acute alertness. He tasted mildly of sweet wine and cinnamon. She breathed deeply of his masculine scent while his surprisingly soft lips gently tugged at hers.
The only other man who had tried to kiss her had been rough, brutal, and nothing like this. Only the slightest pressure of his large, strong hands on her face kept them anchored beyond the gentle contact of their lips. She knew she could escape at any time and he would not press her, but escape was not her wish. She wanted more.
He obliged her unspoken desire. His hands guided her head to a different angle, coaxing her lips to part. He deepened the kiss, his controlled passion coaxing her to follow, stirring her to greater heat.
She met him, hesitantly at first, but as desire stirred her blood, she let her hunger guide her in response. His heart thudded under her hand. Instinctively, she slid one hand up his coat toward his head, speared his surprisingly soft hair with her fingers, and pulled his mouth more firmly upon hers. A strangled groan escaped him and he trembled with restraint. Sweet desire made her pulse gallop.
“My lord?” The coachman’s voice broke through the darkness.
Cole closed the kiss and lifted his head. “What is it, Parker?” His voice sounded hoarse.
“Trouble.”
He released her with a regretful, rueful smile, caressed her cheek, and then put his head out of the coach’s window to converse with the driver, but the wind carried their voices away from her. Her senses spun with Cole’s taste, his scent, his touch, the desires he stirred.
Cole pulled his head back inside, his expression dark. He drew in a breath, held it a moment, and then released it in heavy exhale. The sweet bliss that had enfolded her faded at his grimness.
“What’s amiss?” she asked.
“Alicia, move to the other seat.” He indicated the bench across from her.
After she complied, he knelt and lifted the cushion of the seat they had recently vacated to reveal a compartment filled with handguns. Cole deftly loaded them all and laid them out on the seat next to her in a neat row, all the handles facing the same direction.
Seeing guns in his hands left her cold. “What is it?”
“Highwaymen. Take off the pearls and give them to me.”
At his commanding tone, she obeyed without question. After placing her jewels in a small cache hidden in one corner of the compartment, he blew out the lanterns and parted the curtains over the windows. Alicia craned her neck around his head to see riders approach from both the front and the rear of the carriage.
A voice called out, “Stop the coach and cooperate, and no one will get hurt.”
As the carriage slowed, riders surrounded them. Alicia’s heart pounded. Her breath rasped loudly in the stillness.
Cole placed a hand over hers. “Courage,” he whispered.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she watched Cole soundlessly heft a gun in each hand and held them poised, his hands steady, his expression impassive. She could easily imagine him as a soldier—deadly, ruthlessly calm in the face of danger.
“We carry no money,” Cole called out.
“Send out the lady.”
They exchanged wide-eyed glances and Cole frowned, clearly wondering why they would make such a demand. “Lie down,” he mouthed.
Alicia sank to the floor and lay with her cheek resting on the floorboard.
“If it’s ransom you wish, take me!” Cole shouted.
How noble of him to protect her. She closed her eyes, berating herself for her low opinion for the man who had repeatedly proved himself courageous and honorable.
“We want the girl.”
Alicia peered out from a crack between the door and the frame. The bright moonlight glinted off the highwaymen’s guns pointed at the coach. One of the highwaymen, she presumed the one who had spoken, eased his mount closer.
“Send her out now, unless you wish for bloodshed!” the leader called.
She glanced up at Cole who had his guns trained carefully upon the highwaymen. An explosion erupted from beside her. With a gasp, she covered her ears. Smoke curled from the barrel of Cole’s gun. The leader let out a grunt and folded in his seat, but before he dropped from his saddle, Cole fired again and another rider fell. Both lay motionless in crumpled heaps on the ground. With howls of fury, the highwaymen all opened fire.
The coach began moving again, and judging from the swaying, the horses were at a full run. A hole flowered in the doorframe, and the wall behind her splintered. She flattened herself, her heart hammering against the floorboards. Perspiration trickled down the side of her face. Cole dropped his discharged gun
s and picked up others, firing without pause as incoming balls tore their way through the walls of the coach and the seats. The acrid smell of gunpowder stung her nostrils.
Cole dropped his guns next to Alicia in a small pile of firearms scattered on the floor and picked two more, watching out the narrow back window. He continued firing outside as the highwaymen pursued, their shots growing wider as they fell behind.
In the semi-darkness, she could not see his expression, only the direction of his gaze. “Are you all right?”
She nodded mutely.
“Alicia?” A trace of panic colored his voice and she realized that he could not see her clearly enough to have seen her nod.
“Yes.”
“A ball didn’t strike you?”
“No. I’m unharmed.”
Another gunshot from outside shredded the back curtain. Cole grunted and fired back both guns. He dropped them and picked up his last two, his gaze sweeping the road behind them. No returning fire came.
They rode in silence for several moments while Cole kept watch. Finally satisfied, he set down the guns and helped Alicia to her seat. He scooped her into his arms, crushing her against his hard, strong body, and let out a ragged breath. As the danger passed, the reality of their peril caught up to Alicia and she shuddered, tears gathering. They might have been killed. If not for Cole’s skills as a gunman, they surely would have been. Or she would now be in the hands of criminals. She let out a sob.
Cole held her, arms strong and soothing, all signs of the merciless gunman gone. He murmured words of comfort while she wept. She lay against him, wishing things could have been different between them. How right it felt to be encircled by his arms!
By the time they arrived in front of the baron’s home, she had pulled herself together and dried her tears.
“You took a terrible risk, Cole.”
“I’d die before I’d deliver you to unscrupulous men.” His tight, angry voice betrayed his concern.
Predawn gray spread across the eastern sky and mist swirled above the ground. He helped her out of the coach, holding her hand for a moment longer than necessary. His eyes searched hers with an intensity that set her heart racing. Then his expression softened, and he brushed a kiss against her temple before turning away.
He glanced at the coachman. “Parker? Are you all right?”
The coachman sat hunched over. “Well ’nough, sir.”
Cole swung up onto the seat and carefully eased the driver’s body back, causing him to unbend. The man sucked in his breath as Cole probed his side and then swore softly.
“Come inside, Parker, we need to have that attended.”
“Jest a scratch, milord.”
“No arguments.”
Cole helped the man climb down while Alicia stood by feeling useless. As they mounted the front steps, she offered her arm to the coachman who obliged her, but leaned more heavily on Cole.
“I’m sorry,” she said to them both. “They wanted me.”
The coachman managed a weak smile, revealing a gap in his teeth. “We wouldn’t let the likes o’ them ’ave ye, milady.”
Servants swarmed around them as Cole explained. Mrs. Hodges waded in, shooing the rest away. “Come on then, let’s have a look at you. Potter, send for the doctor.” She led him away, leaving Cole and Alicia in the foyer.
Helplessly, she glanced up at him. A dark stain spread on his arm below a tiny hole in his sleeve.
“You’re hurt,” she gasped in alarm.
“It’s not bad.”
“Mrs. Hodges!”
Alicia’s frantic call brought the woman running. “The driver will be all right. I’ve sent for Doctor—” she stopped short. “You, too, my lord?”
“It’s nothing.”
“You men!” Mrs. Hodges sighed in exasperation. “Come into the kitchen where the light is better and let me have a look at you.”
“I’m only grazed,” Cole protested.
Her eyes flicked to Cole’s. “My lord would have my head if he thought I hadn’t seen to you properly.”
Cole’s mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “As you wish, madam.”
They lit every lamp in the kitchen before Mrs. Hodges peeled off his cravat, frockcoat, and waistcoat. After unbuttoning his shirt, he pulled the neckline aside just enough to expose his wounded shoulder. The bullet had cut a path through the flesh of his upper arm below the shoulder. The wound still bled freely.
“It’s not bad, my lady,” Mrs. Hodges assured Alicia.
Alicia hoped she would never see a wound that the intrepid housekeeper would consider serious. This one made her shiver. While Alicia helped Mrs. Hodges clean the injury, Cole’s eyes remained shielded, his lips clamped together.
The desire to offer him comfort beset her. She folded her hands together and ordered herself not to touch him. “Does it hurt very badly?”
He shook his head but his teeth remained clenched.
Mrs. Hodges scoffed. “It’s pointless to ask a man if it hurts. They think they have to be so manly but really, they’re just big children. I’m in need of fresh bandages. I’ll be back momentarily.” She swept out of the room.
Cole sat motionless, his mouth tight. Alicia stared at the rounded, solid muscles of his chest and shoulder. His body had been beautifully sculpted. Even wounded, he was large, powerful, and oh, so wholly male.
Cole stirred. “I’m sure it must give you some sense of justice seeing me this way.”
She stared at him, completely caught off-guard. “No. Of course not. How can you say that?”
The shields dropped, baring self-recrimination. “Poetic justice, I suppose, since this is what I did to your twin.”
Alicia sank into a kitchen chair next to him. She kept her voice soft, but spoke with fervor. “I take no satisfaction in seeing you hurt.”
He continued as if he had not heard her. “If I develop a sickness and die, you can dance on my grave. Perhaps I should insist they cut off my arm first.”
Truly alarmed, she leaned in. “No. I do not wish you to…” She could not even bring herself to say the word.
She wanted to hold him, comfort him, reassure him. Blood ran continually down his arm from the wound. She cleaned it again, wondering if a man as strong as he could actually die from such a minor wound as this.
She forced cheer into her voice. “This is only a scratch. You shouldn’t sicken from this.”
“It’s no worse than what I did to Armand,” he said darkly.
Panic seized her at the thought of the possibility of Cole lying feverish and dying. “I’ll have the doctor—”
“Don’t trouble yourself.” Cole stood, his face wooden, his chest rising and falling quickly as if he found breathing difficult. “My valet comes from Romany stock and has more medical knowledge than any English doctor I know. He’ll attend me.” He took the cloth from her hand and pressed it to his arm. With his other hand, he scooped up his discarded clothing and headed for the door.
“Cole.”
He halted, his broad back still toward her.
“Thank you. For saving me. You are very courageous. I’m sorry you and the coachman got hurt.”
“I will never allow harm to come to you.”
“I know. And I owe you an apology.”
He turned then, his searching gaze probing her face.
She held out her hands in a helpless gesture. “You’ve tried to help me many ways; the offer to marry me was most generous. And thoughtful. As was the offer to elope. And then you convinced your cousin to marry me and give me a place of safety. I never thanked you for your kindness. Instead, I’ve been rude and hateful to you. I’m sorry.”
He watched her, his blue eyes shuttered. “You lost your brother and your parents because of me.”
“I had painted you as a monster, but I was wrong. And I had become so comfortable blaming you for all my troubles that it clouded my judgment.”
He swallowed hard. “Alicia, I swear to you by all that’s holy,
if I could change the past, I would.”
She teared up at the anguish in his face. “I know. After you told me about the events that led up to—” she choked, “the duel, I realized that you never meant to really harm him. Or me. For the first time, I see you clearly.”
He grimaced. “You might not like me any better, then.”
She laughed softly. “I like you better now that I’m not trying so hard to hate you. I truly am sorry for being so terrible to you.” She rose up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his cheek, resisting the urge to kiss those lips and reawaken the passion that had been between them only moments ago. But kissing him in the coach had been wrong, and kissing him in her husband’s home would be even more so.
He stood with his eyes closed for a moment before turning to stride quickly away.
Desolate without him, Alicia resisted the urge to call him back. Kissing Cole in the carriage had been a catastrophic mistake. Guilt for betraying her husband ate through to her soul. She wept for the man she could never have and cursed herself for being so faithless.
CHAPTER 21
Cole glared at the canopy over his bed while shadows slipped from the room as the sunrise sent thin rays between the draperies.
Stephens had cleaned his arm where the bullet grazed him and applied several painful methods of insuring sickness would not set in. After Stephens sewed the wound and properly bandaged it, Cole sent him away with every intention of pacing the floor restlessly, but apparently Stephens had given him something to make him sleep. The scoundrel.
Painfully, Cole arose. He tried to dress without waking Stephens, but his sore arm prevented him from doing anything so independent. He was forced to ring for help.
Stephens entered, looking disgustingly fresh and alert, and all too pleased with himself. He cleaned the wound again. “This will be fine, no need to worry.” He wound a bandage around it.
“I need to shave and dress.”
“You should stay abed and rest another day.”
“Stop coddling me and help me dress,” Cole snarled.
Stephens wisely kept silent, but continued to fix him with looks of remonstration.
