Lord Holt Takes a Bride

by Vivienne Lorret

  Not that it would matter either way. She’d made her decision. And the sooner she started, the better.

  Turning around, she tried to descend backward. At least that way, she wouldn’t have to worry about exposing her undergarments to the viscount. Not only that, but her corset was pinching again, the busk digging into her navel, and she didn’t want him to see her wince.

  Folding the thick hem around one wrist, she took a hasty sip of air, and clutched the meager strip of framing on either side of the door. Then, clenching every muscle inside her body, she lowered her bottom through the opening.

  A pair of strong hands settled over her hips and she squeaked with surprise.

  “As much as I enjoy this view,” the blackguard said in a low drawl, “I will not stand by while you hurt yourself.”

  Winnifred paid no attention to the warm tingles spreading down her limbs and up her torso. And didn’t give a passing notice to the quick flutters low in her midriff.

  Or at least, she tried not to.

  Momentarily breathless, she said, “I will manage perfectly fine . . . on my own. Kindly remove your . . . hands from my person.”

  He growled but obeyed, stepping aside.

  She lowered one foot to the ground, then the other, and planted her slippers securely beneath her. Proud of her accomplishment, she cast him a smug look over her shoulder and took a step back . . . but without realizing that a portion of her dress refused to leave the carriage.

  A tug. A rip. And before she knew it, she was flat on her rump, her teeth clacking together, her hands full of rocks and dirt and grass.

  Angry, she batted down the cloud of tulle and taffeta and blew the mass of fallen hair from her forehead. “I despise this dress!”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think the lace is quite nice.”

  “There isn’t any lace on—”

  She gasped. With a glance, she saw that the hem had risen above her knees, exposing the two rows of Belgian Point de Gaze that edged her sheer white linen drawers. Squeezing her legs shut, she hastily shoved down her skirts.

  “Cad,” she muttered. He had the nerve to flash a grin that made heat climb to her cheeks. And when he extended his hand to help her up, she glared at him. “Don’t you think you’ve taken enough liberties today?”

  “It’s still early,” he teased with an impatient waggle of his fingers.

  She shooed his hand away and awkwardly stood on her own, brushing off her skirts the best she could. “If I didn’t find you so utterly reprehensible, you would make the ideal subject to study.”

  “If that’s a reference to the book your insane friends mentioned, then I want no part of it.”

  “You needn’t worry, regardless. A man like you would only deserve a small mention in the chapter ‘How to Spot a Scoundrel.’”

  She was sure that Jane and Ellie would understand that she could no longer offer insight into the reasons that gentlemen marry. But she had to contribute something. She may as well use the horrid man at her disposal.

  He scoffed. “You didn’t even know who I was until I told you.”

  “Perhaps.” She shrugged, pursing her lips. “But I knew you were a scoundrel right off with the way you . . . And then how you . . .” She waved a hand toward the carriage and arched her brows with meaning, recalling every improper touch. Her cheeks caught fire, flushing crimson, and she cleared her throat. “Well, you know what you did.”

  The rascal had the nerve to chuckle.

  Without warning, the sound touched a raw wound inside her. The one that reminded her of every disappointed sigh from her mother. Every grunt from her maid tying up her laces. Every look of disgust from Mr. Woodbine.

  And suddenly she realized that she’d been intimating that the excessively handsome Asher Holt had been attempting to seduce her—freckled Winnifred Humphries with the impossible hair and plump figure.

  That chuckle told her she was a fool, and it reminded her that a man could only be interested in her father’s money.

  “What was your aim in kidnapping me, hmm?”

  He shook his head and glanced up to his driver. “There was no kidnapping, Portman. I merely aided in her escape.”

  “By deceiving me!”

  He returned his attention back to her with a frown. “If that was true, then I’d hardly have told you my name, or revealed that I was the one your friends accosted. All I wanted was to get back the money they stole from me.”

  “Jane and Ellie may have used less than sound judgment the other night, but they never would have robbed you.” She set her hands on her hips and eyed him shrewdly. “The truth of the matter is, you thought to ransom Lord Waldenfield’s daughter to gain a fortune.”

  He scowled back at her.

  “I dunna want any part of this, my lord,” Mr. Portman interjected from his perch, his brow knitted beneath a brown beaver hat. He clutched the reins so tightly that the horses shifted nervously on the rain-softened path. “My wife is about to have our first babe. I canna go to gaol! And, if you’ll permit me to say it, you canna either.”

  “No one is going to gaol,” Asher said with the steady assurance that only a blackguard—far too familiar with such episodes—could summon. “We’re simply going to step back into the carriage and figure out a way to return Miss Humphries to her father before any permanent damage has been done to her reputation. After all, I don’t want to end up married to a willful, spoiled little heiress for the rest of my life.”

  “Ha! My father would sooner sell me to a shopkeeper than a profligate like you. At least then he’d gain something of worth in return,” Winnifred hissed. “And for your information, I would have paid handsomely for you to escort me to my aunt’s. Far more than you claim to have lost. Oh, and by the by”—she narrowed her eyes—“just how were you intending to recuperate your money, kidnap my friends as well?”

  “Are you admitting that your friends stole my money, then?” he asked, his tone gaining volume as their argument progressed.

  “Absolutely not! Though you were certainly quick to suggest selling my necklace to a jeweler and, I imagine, eager to take your share of it.”

  “We’ll never know, will we?” He sneered. “And this is the gratitude I receive for having saved you from a pair of ruffians!”

  “For all I know, they were after you!”

  He arched a brow. “As far as I am aware, you are the only one of us who has recently absconded from her own wedding. Moreover, if not for my assistance, you would likely be married to that philandering Mr. Woodbine this instant. Do you think he planned to share a bed with you and his mistress this evening?”

  Winnifred gasped. He’d crossed a line. By the ever-so-slight widening of his eyes, she could tell he knew it, too.

  “You. Are. Despicable.” She’d had enough. “I’m leaving! You can go to my father if you like. Or, better yet, go to the devil. All I know is that I never, ever, want to see you again. Now, hand over my necklace.”

  “I don’t have it. You probably left it in the . . .”

  They both turned toward the carriage. But it wasn’t there.

  Apparently, at some point during all their shouting, the driver had pulled away. And worse, with her necklace.

  Chapter 8

  They stared down the tree-lined lane, catching a fleeting glimpse of the carriage. But Mr. Portman had spurred the horses, driving far too fast for them to reach. Then he vanished like flaming brandy-soaked currants in a game of snapdragon at a Twelfth Night party.

  “Splendid. You’ve scared away your own driver,” Winnifred accused, throwing her hands up in the air. “He’s likely heading back to London to fetch a fine price for my necklace and will soon be gorging himself on tea and toast.”

  And oh, what she wouldn’t give for a spot of tea and even a crumb of warm, crusty bread. More than a day had passed since her last morsel, and now the pebbles beneath her feet were starting to look appetizing.

  “Say what you will about me, but leave Portman out of it,
” Lord Holt said darkly. “He’s an honest man. If it wasn’t for all your accusations about kidnapping, then we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

  She turned on him, unwilling to concede one iota. “Pardon me, but I wasn’t the one who kept my identity a secret. You knew precisely who I was. And if I had known who you were, I . . .”

  “Yes? You would have done what, exactly?” He arched his infuriatingly smug brows and blinked with false owl-eyed innocence. “Skipped gladly back inside the church to marry your beloved?”

  Winnifred hated Asher Holt. She didn’t bother to say it, but believed her feral growl spoke volumes as she stormed off toward a wooden signpost at the end of the lane.

  He kept pace beside her. “You and I both know you would’ve chosen to stay with me. There’s a sensible woman lurking somewhere inside you. The same one who talked her friend out of drugging me with laudanum the other night. And I firmly believe that, after you learned about the money they—”

  She speared him with a glare.

  “—about the money that went missing,” he amended through gritted teeth, “then you would have concluded that I am merely an innocent man caught up in a situation not of my making. At that point, you would have sold your necklace and paid me, before setting off on your merry way.”

  “Perhaps I would have stayed in the carriage if you’d told me the truth. We’ll never know, will we?” she spat, firing back his own words. “Your actions—and yours alone—have brought us here, stranded and without another conveyance in sight.”

  She marched onward. Ire helped her to ignore the sharp rocks beneath her slippers and the pinch in her side. She only wished it would help the light-headedness that made her head ache and her vision wobble. Her stomach gave another mournful wail. Thankfully, this time she didn’t think he heard it.

  “Portman wouldn’t have gone far,” he said with conviction. “Most likely, he’s already turned the horses around and is heading back for us.”

  Hmph. “You certainly put high stock in his devotion to you over the needs of his family.”

  “And just what do you mean by that?”

  Unconcerned by the edge his voice acquired, she lifted her shoulders in an offhand shrug. “Only that I noticed the dilapidated state of your carriage. Not to mention his weather-beaten hat and the mended patches on his coat. I only have to wonder how long it has been since he’s earned a decent wage. After all, he does have a family to consider. A child on the way . . .”

  And now, a four-strand pearl necklace in his possession.

  As if she’d said her last thought aloud, he leveled her with a dark look. “Contrary to what someone like you would know—you, with pearls on your dress and your father’s fortune to cement your friendships—there is a far more valuable commodity than money, Miss Humphries. It’s loyalty. And Portman has that in abundance.”

  He stalked ahead of her, leaving her to stew in his wake.

  Of all the nerve! She didn’t have to purchase her friends. Having learned ages ago how people treated her once they discovered who her father was, she knew how to spot those who merely pretended to like her.

  As for Jane and Ellie and Prue, they had become her friends before they ever knew about her dowry or her father’s many bank accounts and landholdings. She would do anything for them and, in turn, they would do anything for her. So, contrary to what this presumptive jackanapes thought of her, she knew all about loyalty. Far more than a man like him could ever know.

  Squinting furious thoughts at his profile, she stopped beside him at the fork in the road. She didn’t miss the uncertainty tightening the flesh around his eyes when there was no sign of a carriage of any sort.

  “As I recall, there’s a tavern not far from here,” he said with a jerk of his chin toward the road to the left. “That’s likely the only place to turn a coach around without getting stuck in a trench.”

  Winnifred reserved comment. Her opinion of the man who abandoned them was not nearly as elevated.

  “Once we find him there,” Holt continued tightly, practically daring her to contradict him, “we’ll settle up our account and I’ll see you safely home to London. What you choose to do after I deliver you to your father’s house is none of my concern.”

  “Lord Holt, I release you from any sense of obligation that the guilt over deceiving and kidnapping me has incurred. And even when we don’t find your driver waiting”—she had to get one more dig in for good measure, and quite enjoyed the thunderclap of irritation in his dark eyes and the way the muscle pulsed on the side of his arrogantly chiseled jaw—“that is where you and I will part ways. After all, I imagine that one of the pearls on my dress will garner me a delightful meal and transportation far, far away from you.”

  Then she turned on her heel and headed down the road, careful to avoid the deep wheel ruts. She didn’t want to twist an ankle, after all.

  “And how do you think you’ll fare without me?”

  “Trust me. My day will only get better without you in it.”

  The instant the words fell from her lips, it started to rain. A veritable monsoon flooded down through the canopy of trees.

  He had the nerve to laugh as he walked toward her, shrugging out of his caped greatcoat. “You were saying?”

  * * *

  From a distance down the road, Asher glimpsed the familiar mottled brick facade of the Spotted Hen through the downpour.

  For the past half hour, he and Winn had kept to the tree line, his greatcoat serving as a makeshift umbrella. They’d done their best not to touch each other, maintaining their mutual animosity. The weather, however, conspired against them. With his arms lifted to hold his coat aloft, it forced a more intimate proximity. Therefore, the duty of maintaining the sliver of space between them fell upon her. And she did it well, for the most part.

  She walked stiffly by his side, one arm wrapped tightly around her middle, the other gripping a handful of skirts away from wet grasses and mud. But there were occasions when she’d misstep, over a root or a stone, and bump against him.

  These errant collisions only lasted a fraction of a second. Yet every touch left a disturbing imprint on him, lingering warmly on his skin long after, like a burn that refused to heal.

  “The inn’s just up the way,” he said on a murmur, still feeling the heat of the last impact—the soft crush of breasts, her small hand splayed on his waistcoat, her quiet breath of surprise.

  She darted a glance at him, a blush on her cheeks as if she was thinking about it, too. “And soon we’ll be rid of each other.”

  Underneath this canopy, the scarlet strands woven through her wild curls seemed darker, turning a ripe, lush red. And in each breath, he caught a temptingly sweet fragrance that rose from her skin, making him think of sun-ripened berries.

  In fact, she reminded him of a strawberry, with freckles for seeds and the netting of her dress like the scratchy leaves that needed to be plucked away before a man could sink his teeth into the succulent fruit.

  Though, if Winnifred Humphries were any type of berry, she’d likely cost too much and turn out to be poisonous.

  Keeping that thought in mind, he paused beneath a brace of evergreens and directed his attention to the Spotted Hen on the other side of the rutted road.

  He’d only stopped here once, years ago, before the former owner had died, leaving the place to his brother. And now, the tavern showed signs of neglect. Weathered shingles on either side of a second story window hung at an odd angle. The gabled roof bowed inward like a soldier’s tent. And the black-painted front door flared at the bottom, where it had been warped by age and rain.

  So it surprised him to see two well-sprung carriages, fixed with high steppers near the stables. Clearly, this off-the-beaten-path location drew in clientele of means. And yet, as he peered closer, Asher’s keener senses became alert, tightening the bands of muscle across his neck and shoulders.

  Something wasn’t quite right with this picture.

  The men loite
ring in the yard, with their uneasy pacing and quick, shifty glances, seemed more like common variety highwaymen than drivers of fine landaus.

  Turning to Winn, he leaned closer to position his coat over her head. “Wait here. I’ll return in five minutes.”

  A pair of hazel eyes narrowed beneath an arch of rain-darkened leather. “Absolutely not. I’m wet. I’m cold. I’m hungry. And I’m not going to wait here while you find your driver, then flee for London with my necklace.”

  Stubborn, spoiled baggage!

  He gritted his teeth. “I only want to have a look around to ensure that we don’t step into another ordeal like before.”

  The last thing he wanted was to alarm her, or to see fear glance across her countenance. But he had to keep her safe. They were in this mess because of his brilliant notion to take her to the jeweler’s instead of directly home.

  “I’ll return shortly. Then we’ll make sure you’re dry and warm and fed, hmm?”

  And he intended to ensure all of those things once he delivered her to her father and regained the money that was stolen.

  Receiving a nod in response, he left her to stand beneath the fragrant pine boughs with a dry cushion of fallen needles underfoot. At least here, he could trust that she was out of sight, protected from the elements and, most importantly, not in any sort of danger.

  * * *

  Winnifred waited beneath the greatcoat for ages. So long, in fact, that her stomach started mewling a requiem for the dead. She’d never been so hungry in her life. Or cold. Or wet.

  If she were still in London, she’d be eating her wedding breakfast. Then again, likely not. Instead, she’d be staring at a plate of sumptuous pastries and other foodstuffs, unable to eat any of it—both from being sickened by the marriage altogether and from wanting to avoid censure. And she’d do this for the rest of her life.

  At least now she had the freedom to be hungry and to complain about it. And all it took was severing ties with everyone and everything she’d ever known. Happy thought, indeed.