She leaned toward him and whispered in his ear, “You grab and hold him and I’ll stuff this in his mouth. All right?”
James hesitated for a million years before nodding.
They both turned to look at Visel. His expression was unreadable, his body tense and coiled. “Why do you need to gag me? I won’t shout.”
“I wouldn’t trust you any farther than I could throw you.”
Visel sighed. “Well?” he said, speaking to James. “Go ahead, I won’t struggle. Trust me, I’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride while your mistress breaks her legs, or worse, jumping out of this carriage. I’ll be glad to be rid of the two of you; I only ask that the gag not be uncomfortably tight.”
Eva looked at James. “He’s wily, James, and this is probably a trick. But you grab his hands and hold him, and I shall tie on the gag.”
Lord Visel chuckled, but he was as good as his word. He did not struggle even when Eva crouched in front of him, hunched over and her feet spread wide to keep some balance in the cramped confines of the moving carriage.
He watched her with a glint in his eyes she could not like as she tied the neckcloth around his head. But his looks hardly mattered anymore because she wouldn’t have to look at his face in a matter of moments.
Once the gag was secure she scooted back to her bench, breathing heavily, as if she’d done something strenuous. Eva was surprised and maybe even a little disappointed that Visel had given in without a struggle. Not that she wished to be around him any longer than need be, of course, but she would have enjoyed giving him a good cuffing.
“I’ll go first, my lady, and I’ll take the satchel with me,” James said, pulling her attention away from Visel. “I’m going to make sure these knots on his wrists will hold. Perhaps you might sort through the bag and remove anything that won’t make the jump.”
“Good thinking, James.” Eva bent down and opened the heavy leather satchel. It took her a few minutes to sort through the accumulated debris: a half-full jug of coffee, an empty jug of beer, cutlery, a heavily thumbed copy of Gulliver’s Travels—her favorite book—extra rope, a small bag of ammunition for the gun she’d borrowed, and more. She removed everything except the cleverly folded map of the North of England, two clean if slightly rumpled neckcloths, a small folding penknife, her book, and a packet of hard candies that James adored.
“All right,” she said, sitting up and bringing the bag with her, handing it to James, who was looking even more worried than usual. She smiled. “It will be fine,” she reassured him.
James smiled sickly and nodded.
Visel was watching her, his eyes hooded, but his lips curved into a smile around his gag.
“I don’t know what you’re so happy about,” she said, giving him a dirty look. But that only made him smile more. He was a horrid man.
James’s face was an alarming red as he slung the satchel over his body crosswise.
“James?” she asked, squinting up at him. “Is aught amiss?”
His jaw tightened, he hesitated, but then he shook his head before peering out the window. “It’s drizzling. This will be a mess, my lady. Are you sure you—”
“Yes, let’s get on with it.”
“Neither side looks any better than the other.” He frowned, snatched off his cloth cap and stuffed it in the satchel, took a deep breath, and cracked open the door on her right. He glanced ahead and then pulled his head back inside. “Just make sure you jump as far away from the wheels as you can. Push off from the—”
“Good Lord, James. I think I will know how to fling myself from a carriage.” But she was scared and her body had begun to sweat as she stared out the window at the rapidly passing countryside; the carriage was moving fast. She swallowed down the lump of fear. “Go on. Get on with it.”
He cracked open the door, wedged his huge body in the gap, and then sprang out. It all happened in the blink of an eye. The door flapped free and she quickly grabbed it before it could spook the horses. She gave Visel one last look and a jaunty smirk that she did not feel.
“I hope you have a pleasant journey, my lord.” She turned from him and crouched on her haunches, preparing to jump. She heard a muffled sound behind her just before a pair of legs wrapped around her middle.
Eva squawked and instantly began to struggle, thrashing and pounding on his legs, which were like bands of iron. “Let me go, you brute, you’re squeezing me. Let me go!” She punctuated her words by hammering her fists on his shins.
“I don’t think so, darling.” The voice was distinct, certainly not that of a man who was gagged.
What?
Powerful legs drew her inexorably away from the flapping door, until he caught her with his hands and pulled her tight against his body. His arms replaced his legs and she found herself held in a viselike grip.
“Now, now. Quit thrashing or you’ll hurt yourself. And you don’t want me to have to tie you up, do you?”
Eva bit her lip to keep from yelling. “Let. Me. Go.”
He laughed, his big, hard body vibrating against her back. “I think not.”
“Just let me go and this can be over and you can crawl back under whatever rock you came from.”
“That’s hardly a thing to say to your husband-to-be.”
His words sent a thrill of fear through her. And something else.
“Please,” she said, trying to remain calm—to sound rational. “James will be lying back there wondering what happened.”
“I doubt that.”
“He will—and he’ll come for me if I don’t join him. He knows where we are going and has plenty of money to pay to get to Doncaster.”
“I don’t think so, darling.”
She squirmed in his unbreakable hold. “What the devil do you mean? Of course he—”
His face dropped close to hers, his hot breath on her temple. “James won’t be expecting you. Who do you think untied my hands so I could grab you, sweetheart?”
Chapter 4
“I hate you.”
“You’ve already said that. Several times, in fact.”
Lady Eva was sitting across from him, hugging herself tightly, her face a mask of fury.
“My father will kill you when he finds you.”
“You’ve said that, too.”
“He will shoot you and run you through with his sword.”
Godric chuckled. “A thorough, man, is he?”
She cut him a narrow-eyed look that pulsed with loathing. “He is one of the finest hands with a pistol or a sword in all of Britain. He will make short work of you.”
“I have no doubt he could vanquish me with either weapon. However, if he kills me, I can hardly take you off his hands, can I?” he asked sweetly.
Her delicate nostrils flared. “I shall never marry you. Never.”
“Oh come, my lady. How could you think this would end any other way? You’ve spent the last twenty-four hours or so with me—much of it alone together in this carriage. If you think Lord Exley wouldn’t hold a gun to my head if I didn’t marry you, then you are deluding yourself.” He shook his head, giving her his own hate-filled stare. “You’ve done for us both quite nicely: we are both firmly trussed up—together—just like a Christmas goose.”
Godric could see the truth of his words penetrating the thick wall of fury that surrounded her. And his words were most certainly true: she’d bound them together when she concocted this asinine caper. He shook his head, all but choked by angry despair as he contemplated the future she’d forced on both of them. He might have the war hysteria, as she’d accused, and now he would have a mad wife to keep him company. And if she wasn’t mad, she certainly behaved as if she was.
As if reading his mind she said, “Your grandfather will never allow you to marry me.”
“I am a grown man, my lady,” Godric said, putting enough cold disdain in his tone to freeze a small body of water. “The duke does not direct my actions.”
“But you are his heir. And if you marry
me, then—” For once the little harridan could not give voice to her thoughts.
“I am his heir but there is an abundance of second and third cousins. I have plenty of male relations to inherit without making a copy of myself for the dukedom.” He cut her a cold look. “You may take comfort in the fact that I will never put a child inside you.”
Her beautiful ivory cheeks flared and she blinked rapidly. “You mean—”
“Yes, you shan’t have to do your wifely duty and produce an heir.” Godric saw no reason to tell her the real reason he’d not be begetting any children on her—or any other woman—because he didn’t have to tell her. The fact that a strain of madness ran in her family was a convenient—if cruel—excuse. Was it shameless and despicable of Godric to allow her to believe it was fear of her tainted blood that would keep him from breeding her? Yes, it most certainly was. If he had a heart—or a conscience—he might have been bothered by his lie.
For all that her face was usually an open book, Godric could not see what she thought of his words. Perhaps because she didn’t know, herself. She was, after all, an innocent girl, no matter how outrageously she behaved.
“How old are you?” he asked, even though he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know the answer.
“That is an impertinent question.”
“Eighteen?” He grimaced when she did not answer. “Good Lord. Seventeen?”
“I am nineteen,” she snapped. “Not that it is any of your concern.”
He didn’t bother telling her that his future wife’s age was very much his concern. Godric wouldn’t be surprised to learn she was lying. She seemed younger than nineteen, but perhaps that was her behavior. He had to admit he’d not come across a girl quite like her before, not that schoolroom chits were an area where he could claim any vast experience.
He pulled his gaze away and looked out the window. His sister Louisa would have been nineteen this year. She was as different from the firebrand across from him as two girls could be. She’d shared Godric’s fair coloring but her temperament had been gentle and sweet. Louisa was like a dove to Eva de Courtney’s hawk. Or perhaps his wife-to-be resembled a more clever bird like a raven or magpie; clever and mischievous and difficult to control.
“I can’t believe James would leave me in your clutches,” she groused.
Godric did not turn away from the rain-spattered window. “He did so for your own good.”
“How do you know that? You didn’t even talk to him.”
“I didn’t need to; he heard what I had to say and knew it was the truth—just as you would know if you’d take a moment to consider matters. The boy is no fool—for all that you have twisted him around your finger. He knew how this must end. Besides,” he added just because he could not resist poking her, “if you think he fancied the notion of tramping about the countryside playing nursemaid to a gently bred lady in—”
“I do not need anyone to play nursemaid for me,” she said through clenched teeth.
Godric watched as she struggled with her fury, all but glowing with rage at his words. How interesting: a girl who didn’t mind being called mad but became furious when you questioned her self-sufficiency? It demonstrated an unattractive and unfeminine tendency toward independence. But worse than that, it showed she was opinionated and tenacious and committed to getting her way.
Well, so was he: what a marriage they would have.
“Why are we having this argument, Lady Eva? What purpose does it serve? He is gone and you are with me. By tonight we will be in Doncaster. When we arrive I shall summon Sir Bertram. I will put you in a room, find you suitable clothing, and we shall continue our journey toward the border on the morrow.”
She bared her teeth and leaned forward. “You shall have to drag me to Scotland in chains.”
“It is all the same to me,” he said coolly. He’d be damned if he’d let the chit goad him into a shouting match.
Her face fell when she saw he could not be drawn. “Why? Why are you doing this?” she begged, her full lower lip quivering in a way that gave him wicked and highly inappropriate thoughts. “If you let me go now, nobody will ever know. You can go on with your life—I have seen you with The Kitten, I know you fancy her, you could marry her if you release me.”
Godric didn’t tell her that up until this morning—when he’d woken up in this bloody carriage—he’d had no intention of marrying anyone, ever. But what would be the point?
“I find this topic tedious, my lady.” He cut her a repressive look. “If you cannot come up with something more interesting to say, perhaps you might have done and give us both some desperately needed peace and quiet.”
He might as well have saved his breath.
“I shall be the worst wife ever.”
Godric did not doubt it for a moment.
“I shall run away at the first opportunity and I shall—”
His hands shot out and he grabbed her upper arms, pulling her close until their noses were almost touching. “What you shall do is take yourself and your emotions in hand. You are nineteen, not nine. If you think I will tolerate bad behavior—threats, wildness, vulgar language, or disrespect—you are sorely mistaken. You will begin behaving like a lady from this moment on or I will find inventive and uncomfortable methods to encourage you to do so. And if you should have occasion to feel sorry for yourself and your predicament, let me remind you that you are the one who began all this by kidnapping me. It is time you learned your actions have consequences.”
Her jaw hung open, her remarkable eyes went wide, and tangled masses of blue-black hair surrounded her heart-shaped face. Godric had the maddest urge to suck her plump lower lip into his mouth, pull her into his lap, and let his hands roam her small but exceedingly curvaceous and touchable body. She looked bloody delicious in her tight buckskins and miniature top boots. He could have her out of her breeches in the blink of an eye. His cock throbbed and he wondered if she liked to ride; he would certainly enjoy teaching her to ride him.
Godric flinched from his own thoughts in horror: What the hell was wrong with him? Good Lord, the last thing he needed to do was bed this hellion in a fit of anger. He thrust her back onto her seat. That was the last thing either of them needed. He would bed her when the time came, to make sure the marriage was legal, but that would be an end to it. He’d not been speaking in jest when he said he would not put a child in her.
Godric turned to stare out the window, forcing his thoughts to stop moving, breathing deeply and evenly, tricks he’d learned during the long years he fought in the war. Most people believed he’d led an active and exciting life. The truth was that war was boredom punctuated by unexpected moments of chaos and merciless violence. A person could go mad in such an environment unless they developed a method of coping.
Madness. He cut her a swift look. But she was gazing out the other window, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her features taut. Was she mad? Was he? He’d certainly felt a certain type of madness when he’d heard the news about his family in his hospital bed in Portugal.
“I am sorry, Colonel,” the King’s guardsman had said, “but I have some rather bad news.”
Yes, rather bad. Even now Godric couldn’t help his bitter smile: how like an Englishman to call losing most of one’s family rather bad news.
One moment he’d been pitying himself because his injury would not allow him to walk for longer than ten minutes at a time. The next, he was utterly without a family.
Yes, rather bad news, indeed.
Godric had learned one very, very, very important lesson that day. No matter how bad one’s life was, it could always become worse.
* * *
The King’s Arms was the busiest posting inn Eva had ever seen. Postilions appeared to be lurking in the hedges that bordered the road, awaiting incoming carriages and coaches. Another inn sat on the opposite side of the road and some sort of competition was raging between them. The scene was chaotic as the chaise rolled up to the crowded courtyard and st
opped behind several others.
“We will wait in here,” Lord Visel said, his commanding tone making her bristle. “And if you have any thoughts of weaving creative tales of pirate kings or kidnappings or any other drivel, I advise you to forget it. The innkeeper knows me quite well, as I’ve ridden this way many times.” He gave her a mocking smile. “You see, this inn is on the way to my family’s country seat, Cross Hall.”
She ignored him.
They waited less than two minutes before the door opened.
A portly man dressed in the clothing of an innkeeper stood in the doorway, beaming as he lowered the steps himself.
“Ah, it is you, my Lord Visel. What a pleasure it is to see you again, sir.” His eyes flickered briefly to the earl’s unusual hair color, but of course the simpering sycophant made no mention of that.
“Thank you for your warm welcome, Mr. Johnson.” Visel’s pale, amused eyes landed on Eva. “I’m afraid I have a rather delicate situation.”
Mr. Johnson’s head bobbed up and down like an amorous pigeon’s. “Oh, yes, my lord. Young Oliver explained it all to me.”
Visel cut her an openly diverted look. “Oh, he did, did he?”
Eva narrowed her eyes at him.
“Yes,” the innkeeper said, “he told me you were engaged on a mission of, er, some delicacy.”
The earl laughed. “I suspected he was a wise boy. Did he mention summoning Sir Bertram?”
The innkeeper’s servile face flushed a dull red. “Well, as a matter of fact, sir, he did. But that was before I saw you with my own two eyes. Of course now that I know it is really you, I wouldn’t—”
“Please, do send for him. Tell him it is a matter of some importance. But, in the meantime, I would have your two best chambers and a private parlor.” His cold gaze flickered over Eva. “I believe we shall use your side entrance just now.”
Mr. Johnson had not stopped nodding. “Of course, my lord, right away.” His small eyes slid toward Eva and he recoiled at whatever he saw on her face, darting away without waiting for a response.
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