A Warriner to Protect Her

by Virginia Heath

  He sounded so supremely confident, it went some way to allay the worst of her fears, bringing down her level of fear from completely petrified to merely terrified. If—no, when she got through this, it would probably take Letty weeks to feel anywhere near normal again.

  But Jack’s solid, calm presence did help. Ever since he had found her in the priest hole, she had drawn comfort from his strength. His house had been ransacked, the family’s belongings ruthlessly strewn on the floor and trampled over. Yet Jack had simply cast his eye over the damage and shrugged. He tasked Joe and Jacob with clearing up the worst of the mess in the great hall so that they could all sit down and took Letty into the kitchen where he set the kettle to boil, keeping her busy by distracting her with mindless chatter while he made them all some tea. By the time it was ready and they carried it back into the hall, his brothers had almost put the room to rights and had hidden any evidence of the wanton destruction created by her would-be captors.

  Then, the five of them had planned and prepared for the dangerous journey back to London. Too shaken to really participate, Letty had been grateful Jack had taken the time to seek her approval of every decision that was made, making sure she understood exactly what to expect. If they reached the Great North Road safely, they would travel to London under the veil of darkness, resting during the daylight hours so that there was less chance of anyone seeing her. It would take longer, and there were the added dangers of footpads to consider, but as those scoundrels would only want her possessions, of which she currently had none, they were a lesser evil than Bainbridge and her treacherous uncle. For safety’s sake, any rest stops would likely not be in comfortable inns for the first day or two. Once they were closer to the capital, and as long as they had encountered nothing hostile on their route, they might be able to risk one of them. But it had to be a busy one, Jamie had cautioned, because people saw far less in crowds. London, Jamie claimed, would be the very best place to hide and Letty believed him. The circles she moved in were small and close knit. Those well-heeled, well-spoken paragons of society rarely ventured out of Mayfair or the usual fashionable haunts. If they took a room somewhere like Cheapside, while the ugly legal necessities were dealt with, she sincerely doubted her peers, or more importantly her uncle, would be any the wiser.

  Their horses picked slowly through the black forest. Letty made sure she was close on Jack’s tail; it was too dangerous to risk even the dimmest of lights. After what seemed like an eternity, they heard the unmistakable sounds of rushing water. Jack stayed his horse so Letty could move up alongside him. He reached out one hand and gently cupped her cheek for a second. ‘Are you all right, Letty?’

  He had been doing that a lot since he had found her, she realised, taking every opportunity to touch her. Almost as if he needed to reassure himself she was safe and whole. Letty liked it. The gestures suggested he cared about her, and right now he was her whole world.

  ‘I will feel a whole lot better when there is a good hour or more between me and the Earl of Bainbridge.’

  His hand sought hers, held it, his thumb massaging her palm. ‘I will not let him near you, sweetheart. I promise.’

  And every time he called her sweetheart, her silly heart soared, even though he only ever used the endearment when she was upset or distressed. It didn’t really mean anything. Any more than the emerald had meant anything more than what it was. A gesture of thanks. A small token. Yet Letty had been supremely conscious of the gold band encircling her finger from the second Jack had put it there. He let go of her hand and she automatically brought it to touch the ring, her index finger tracing the smooth stone. It had become a habit. A ritual. Soon, the small, old heirloom would be all she had of him.

  Jack directed his horse south and she followed. Their progress was painfully slow as the forest closed in on them. Proud, tangled roots prevented the horses from building up any speed or momentum while low-hanging branches caught against her sleeves. With them came the dreadful memories of the last time she had been here, terrified and alone, yet determined to escape. In such a short time, she had now come full circle. The irony of the similarity was not lost on her, although this time Letty was not alone. She had Jack. And for the first time, he was bathed in moonlight. Ahead of him, she could see why. The trees had thinned and there appeared a valley cut through them. They had reached the road.

  Jack slid off his horse and handed Letty the reins. She tried to remain calm when he retrieved the pistol from his belt and she heard the hammer cock with an ominous click.

  ‘I am going to check we are alone. Stay here.’

  He crouched down and manoeuvred his way deftly through the trees to step on to the lane, then for several heart-stopping minutes, he disappeared from sight. A twig on the ground snapped and she almost jumped out of her skin, until she saw him, smiling sheepishly, emerging from the undergrowth.

  ‘Sorry. I should have said something. I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘As I haven’t stopped being scared for hours, a puff of wind would likely scare me. It was sensible you didn’t warn me. Anything above a whisper has the potential to get us both killed. Is the coast clear?’

  ‘I checked both ways. I never saw a thing. I think it is fairly safe to assume they will be watching the road closer to the house rather than here. We are at least four miles away from the village and there is not another one for ten miles.’ She watched him haul himself effortlessly back into his saddle and nudge his mount down the small incline to the road. He waited patiently at the bottom while Letty did the same. ‘It’s pitch black and thankfully not raining. If ever there was a good opportunity to make some headway, it is now. If you’re up for it, I say we push these horses for the next hour or so.’

  They both set off simultaneously, varying between a trot and a canter until they approached the outer edge of the next village when Jack slowed and signalled her to do the same. ‘Two fast horses clattering through the centre of a village in the small hours might arouse suspicion. Let’s keep to the grass and avoid the cobbles.’

  * * *

  This formed the pattern of the next couple of hours. As they tore up the miles, Letty began to relax, although as the night time began to dissolve, she also realised she was exhausted. Jack found a road marker which warned they were only a few miles from Grantham. Even Letty knew it was too popular a stopping point on this road and would soon be filling up with early morning travellers keen to be on their way. Wearily, they turned their horses and plunged across fields instead, hoping they would find a suitably deserted place to rest in until the evening.

  The big barn had an air of dereliction about it, perched as it was on a hilly pasture and well away from the rest of the farm buildings. As Jack had suspected, it was a spare hay store which was mostly empty, therefore they were unlikely to be bothered as the farmer’s cows would all be closer to home in the dead of winter. Letty helped him to settle the horses at one end and fed them while Jack found water for the animals to drink. Once that chore was finished, they hungrily ate some of the food they had packed, swilling it down with milk.

  Neither of them spoke, they were both dead on their feet. The hours of stress had taken their toll. Letty was so pale it worried Jack. The strain of her most recent ordeal was written all over her lovely face, yet she had not complained once on their long and arduous journey through the cold, damp night air. She needed several uninterrupted hours of sleep in a comfortable feather bed. Unfortunately, this ramshackle barn was going to have to do. It was about as far away from the luxury she was used to in Mayfair, but it was remote and almost watertight.

  Letty packed away the uneaten rations in a saddle bag and fetched the blanket they had brought while Jack built her a nest to sleep in at the top of the haystack, away from view. If anybody did happen across them while they were sleeping, it would take a goodly while to find her and hopefully by then she would be prepared with her pistol. She
smiled at him gratefully as he helped her to climb up and sank into the straw with a sigh. ‘I can’t remember ever looking forward to sleep more.’

  Jack unravelled the bedroll and draped it solicitously over her. ‘Where is your pistol?’

  She retrieved it from her waistband and waved it at him. ‘I know. I shall sleep with it close by.’ He made to clamber back down from the stack and she frowned. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I shall sleep down here—near the door.’ He wasn’t particularly looking forward to lying on the draughty wooden floor, but with a bit of straw he supposed he could manage well enough.

  ‘No. That will not do. You need your rest, too, Jack. I thought you were going to sleep up here. With me.’

  The sudden surge of desire cut through his exhaustion very effectively, until he realised it was not a romantic invitation at all. ‘That would hardly be proper, Letty.’

  She giggled, the sound so unexpected after everything she had been through, clearly amused at his feeble attempt at behaving like a gentleman. ‘Nothing about our association has been proper, Jack, so I hardly think we need to bow to propriety now. Come up here.’ She patted the straw next to her and, to his consternation, his body took it as a signal. His groin tightened involuntarily.

  ‘I shall be quite all right, Letty. If I am near the door, I can keep watch.’

  ‘If you are near the door, you will freeze to death. Besides, I should feel much safer with you next to me than all the way down there.’ If it made her feel safer, then perhaps he should sleep up there. With her. How exactly was he supposed to sleep, while his body was rampant with need and the woman he wanted more than anything else on earth was lying next to him? She saw his hesitation and inadvertently used it against him. Her eyes were wide and troubled and there was a definite, fearful catch in her voice. ‘Please, Jack. I do not want to wake up in this strange place and wonder where you are. Don’t leave me up here on my own.’

  It was the tiny tremor in her voice which sealed his fate. Underneath her façade of bravery, Letty was terrified, as anybody would who had spent several hours alone, locked in the darkness, listening to the men who wanted to kill you pull apart a house as they searched it. Compared to that experience, his unfortunate physical discomfort paled into insignificance.

  With leaden feet, he grabbed his own blanket roll and climbed reluctantly to the top of the hay stack. There was hardly room for two, so he did his best to put some distance between them and stretched out next to her. Letty rolled on to her side and smiled sleepily at him, conjuring up thoughts of what waking up in the morning with her every day would be like. This close, even in the dampened early morning light in the barn, Jack could see the darker flecks of green which ringed her pupils. He supposed they gave her mossy eyes the depth which made them sparkle like emeralds. Her golden hair was almost the same shade as the hay she lay on, except the hay was coarse and lacked lustre; Letty’s curls shimmered like the finest silk embroidery thread.

  ‘I think we made good time last night. I hope your brothers are safe, too.’

  ‘Jamie will see them off. And if they won’t leave, he has a veritable arsenal in his bedchamber. I don’t fancy Bainbridge and your uncle’s chances against him.’

  ‘The last thing I want is any one of them hurt on my behalf. I have developed quite an attachment to the three of them.’

  But what about him? Had she developed an attachment to him? Jack wanted to ask so very much. Was there more to the precious lion embroidery, as there had been to his ring, or was he pathetically reading something into their relationship which was no longer there? Jamie was convinced she was—how had he put it?—mad for him. Mad being the operative word. Jack was certainly mad for Letty. Today he had been ready to commit murder on her behalf. The acute, visceral fear he had experienced when he realised she had been in danger had unmanned him. Seeing her so frightened, curled up in the priest hole, yet utterly relieved she was alive and unharmed, he had very nearly succumbed himself and wept with joy. Afterwards, when she had clung to him, he had almost told her exactly how he felt. Only common sense and his own deeply held beliefs that people under duress do not think entirely straight had stopped the ardent confession spilling from his lips. Despite the fraught circumstances, Jack suddenly decided he had to know if the hope in his heart, which refused to die, stood any chance whatsoever.

  ‘Letty... I was wondering...’ Jack turned his body to properly face her and noticed her shivering beneath the thin blanket and completely forgot what he wanted to say. ‘Oh, sweetheart, you’re frozen. Come here.’

  It had been an unconscious, natural decision to pull her into his arms. Sharing body heat and blankets made perfect sense, the pragmatist in him knew that, yet he had not fully thought the ramifications through. Letty eagerly cuddled up, wrapping her arm around his waist and hooking one leg snugly over his in order absorb the maximum amount of heat from his body.

  ‘Oh, that’s lovely. You’re so warm, Jack.’ And getting warmer by the second, but there was nothing to be done about it except grin and bear it. One arm curled possessively around her back, while the other fumbled for both blankets. He dragged one on top of the other, then bundled them around the pair of them so that only Letty’s golden head poked out. She sighed contentedly and burrowed into the crook of his arm. ‘I think we have discovered the perfect way to sleep outdoors. Perhaps sleeping in a barn isn’t quite so bad after all?’

  And perhaps he should just shoot himself now and put himself out of his own misery. Hours of potential torture stretched before him. By the deep rhythmic sounds of her breathing, Letty was not similarly overwhelmed with lust and longing. Her dark blonde eyelashes formed perfect crescents on her soft cheeks and her arm across his middle, scant inches away from the particular area which was causing him the most angst, was weighted with sleep. Stifling a groan, Jack pressed his lips to the top of her head.

  ‘Goodnight, sweetheart. Sleep tight.’ At least one of them would.

  Chapter Twenty

  Only two days to go...

  Letty woke slowly, enjoying the weight of Jack’s arm looped around her waist and the feel of his strong, broad chest pressed flush against her back. In the two nights they had been travelling, she had learned a few things about Jack Warriner’s sleeping habits which utterly charmed her. Firstly, he talked in his sleep. The occasional word made sense, but most of the slurred mutterings which came out of his mouth were complete nonsense. Secondly, if she inadvertently moved away from him, he would instinctively roll towards her, curl his big body around hers and anchor her to him with a possessive arm across her middle. And thirdly, and perhaps not at all charmingly but quite thrillingly, just before he awoke the hard evidence of his desire nestled snugly against her bottom as it did now. All three things, he was blissfully unaware of she knew.

  Yesterday, to spare his blushes, Letty had pretended to be asleep when he stirred and had remained like that until he had hastily released her and clambered down the haystack. This morning, she was severely tempted to see how he reacted when she didn’t pretend, because his need to touch her constantly and call her sweetheart was not diminishing, no matter how many miles they put between themselves and her treacherous uncle. Something in their relationship had shifted and she was keen to explore what it was. Letty was beginning to hope Jack felt far more for her than simply lust—but the lust was a very good start.

  Like the shameless harlot only he brought out in her, Letty wiggled her bottom against him until she heard him stir. Jack shifted slightly and pressed that intriguing part of him closer, so she wiggled some more. He sighed blissfully and nuzzled his nose into her hair affectionately, then, to her complete delight, the hand which had been thrown over her waist snaked up and firmly cupped her breast. It all felt very nice and very naughty. Too nice and too naughty to suspend the experiment any time soon.

  She twisted slightly, to
give him greater access to her neck and chest, and allowed her fingertips to stroke the exposed skin on his forearm while her wayward bottom continued to brush against him. When his thumb began to rub lazy circles around her nipple and his lips found her ear, Letty felt a momentary pang of guilt. The man was clearly still half-asleep and she was taking blatant advantage of him. How would she feel if he had tried to take advantage of her while she slept?

  It was then that she smiled. Because if Jack had not been such a gentleman, Letty realised she would have been thrilled to bits. Boldly, she splayed her own palm flat on the hand which was currently lightly touching her bosom and shamelessly pressed it more firmly against her body, holding it in place as she shimmied her body around to lie flat on her back. Only then did she slide her palm under the hem of his shirt and caress the warm, smooth skin just below his ribcage. Jack mumbled some nonsense, but at the end of the incomprehensible sentence was one word which made her heart sing.

  ‘Letty.’

  It was half-sighed, half-groaned, yet it left her in no doubt he was thinking about her alone and not just any random woman, either remembered or imagined.

  ‘Yes, Jack. It’s Letty.’ Her hand smoothed its way to his shoulders and her mouth was barely an inch away from his. She would not be the first one to succumb to a kiss this time. If it was going to happen, it had to come at his instigation.

  ‘Mornin’, sweetheart.’ It was late afternoon, but she didn’t bother to correct him, because his hand had found the undone top of her shirt and was burrowing underneath it decisively. She moaned when long fingers touched the sensitive bare skin of her needy breast, but that moan was stifled by his lips on hers.