She inhaled a steady stream of air through her nostrils.
Stone will save me.
She exhaled.
He will come after us.
Inhale.
But what if he doesn’t? What if he’s had enough of me?
But he’d chased after her even when she’d been nothing but an annoyance to him.
Besides, he loved her now. He had to come!
“Promise not to scream if I take it off?” Culpepper was watching her again, and she nodded slowly.
Bending down, he fumbled with it and then it loosened. Tabetha spat it out and drew in several gulping breaths.
“No screaming, now. You gave me your word. Although your word isn’t worth all that much, now is it?”
Because she was the one who had started all of this. She had flirted with him. She had been flattered by his attentions and then accepted a most unacceptable proposal.
“I’m sorry.” So very sorry! But not because she’d inconvenienced this villain—because she’d been so stupid.
“What did you do with Archimedes? Did you sell him?”
She remembered how Archie had taken to Charley. Would the duke be willing to let her go if he thought he had a chance at getting Archie back?
“If you turn us around, I can take you right to him. He was under the bed. I would have told your men if they hadn’t gagged me.” Of course, this was only a ruse, she’d never put dear Archie in his clutches again.
“Idiots.” But he didn’t pound on the roof as she’d hoped.
“My wrists hurt. Could you untie them?” She did her best to sound helpless and forlorn. Which… truth be told, wasn’t totally inaccurate.
“Why should I trust you not to fight me and then try to get away?”
Why indeed? She bit her lip. “Because we’re in the middle of nowhere. And your men are right outside. I promise, I won’t do anything stupid.” She forced a sobbing sound. “It hurts.” Another sob. “Please.”
“Stop your blathering.” He leaned forward again, sighing heavily as though making the effort to untie her was a great annoyance. But feelings returned to her hands as the ropes loosened behind her.
Partially free now, she pushed herself up to sit. She fisted and then opened her tingling hands in front of her. It was a start, but she remained at the duke’s mercy. The carriage bumped and rolled along. How far could they have traveled already?
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“London first. I’ll need to speak with your brother again.”
“Ransom?”
“Oh, no, my dear. Because that would imply some sort of wrongdoing on my part. I intend to collect what remains of your dowry.”
“But I’m already married!”
“Did you think I couldn’t convince the anvil priest to strike it from his records?”
“We still have the original certificate.”
“You mean the one Mr. Spencer kept in his jacket pocket? The same jacket he left draped over a chair in a public taproom?” He patted his pocket and laughed. “It will come in handy when I have my forger draw up a new one for the two of us. Your brother will have no choice but to pay, especially after I’ve shown it to all the papers.”
Tabetha set her jaw and straightened her spine.
She was married to Stone, and she intended to stay married to Stone.
“Looks like you’ll be a duchess, after all.” The duke chuckled softly.
“Over my dead body.”
“Come now, Lady Tabetha, no need to be dramatic.”
“Mrs. Spencer,” she corrected him. “My name is Mrs. Spencer.”
There was no way she’d let him get away with this. She’d bolted from him once; she would do it again. Hadn’t he learned the first time?
She didn’t speak after that, choosing instead to keep her thoughts to herself—thoughts of escape.
After a while, the duke’s head tipped forward and his breaths gave way to high-pitched snoring. Tabetha surreptitiously eased her hands to her feet and worked at the knots around her ankles until they, too, had loosened.
She would wait for the perfect opportunity. They’d have to stop for water and to change out the horse.
And when they did, she’d make a run for it.
And hope like hell that Stone wasn’t far behind.
Chapter 28
Redirect
Stone stroked the side of Poppy’s head as the determined mare walked swiftly down the road. They’d ridden hard for most of the morning, stopping only once for water, but the afternoon sun only made matters worse. Even so, Poppy sensed his urgency.
Almost as though she, too, missed the lady she’d been pulling.
After he got Tabetha back, he would make sure the loyal mare was stabled in the best accommodations a horse could have. Or perhaps he’d let her out to pasture.
In all his life, he’d never driven a horse this hard, and he felt guilty for it.
But not as guilt-ridden as he did over allowing Culpepper to get ahold of Tabetha again. If so much as an inch of her was harmed, Stone would pulverize him, duke or not.
He should have known better than to drop his guard like that. Westerley had ordered a search of the inn, but Stone knew it would be useless.
A groomsman had informed him that a carriage drove away from the inn shortly after midnight. The man described it as an ornate but slightly neglected vehicle and that it had driven south toward London.
It had to have been Culpepper’s.
Westerley rode neck in neck with him, while Chase escorted the ladies in various coaches from behind.
“Hold up!” Stone held out a hand. A thick cloud of dust hovered over the road some distance ahead. The disturbance just as easily could have been made by a farmer’s cart, but his instincts told him otherwise.
Poppy drew to a halt, waiting for his next command.
“We could cut across that field and ambush them from the front,” Stone suggested.
“He had four men with him.”
“And two have pistols,” Stone remembered from his previous altercation.
“So…”
“Shall we?”
With a nod, both of them turned their horses onto the rough. It took them less than five minutes to work their way across the meadow and back toward the highway.
When Culpepper’s coach came around the bend, they were waiting for it.
Horses turned sideways, the two of them effectively blocked the road.
“Hand her over and no one gets hurt.” Westerley held a pistol in each hand, one trained on the driver and another on the outriders, while Stone dismounted and approached them on foot.
“Stone!” Tabetha cried out from inside. “I knew you would come.” The relief in her voice, although slightly premature, both emboldened and terrified him.
“Let her go, Culpepper,” he commanded.
Westerley motioned the men down from the coach and the others off their horses. “On the ground, faces down. Now.”
Stone’s attention remained riveted on the carriage, his body coiled.
Tabetha needed him.
“I want her dowry!” The door slowly opened, and Culpepper’s sorry mug peered out. “I need it. Otherwise, I’m finished. And if I’m finished, then so is she. I could have had anyone else. She gave me her word.”
Familiar bare feet slid out first, followed by her calves and the bunched fabric of her dressing gown. Although technically braided, most of her hair curled wildly around her face.
One of her eyes was half-shut and swollen. One of them struck her.
“I’ll kill you, you bastard.” Stone clenched his fists, preparing to unleash the white-hot anger rolling through him.
“He has a pistol!” Tabetha warned. A piece of metal flashed, the tip of the weapon almost hidden by her hair.
“You hurt her, and I’ll kill you with my bare hands.” But he couldn’t rush this, not with a pistol aimed at her head. For the first time in his life, he was truly
terrified.
He would not fail her.
“I told you,” Culpepper shouted from behind her, ”I just want the money.”
Westerley kept his pistols trained on the others. “You won’t see a halfpenny if anything happens to her,” he declared, not even blinking as he watched the men on the ground.
“So, let’s let bygones be bygones, shall we?” Culpepper’s arm snaked around Tabetha’s waist. “I’ll take your sister off your hands and in exchange, you pay off my vowels. Everyone wins. Even Spencer over there, stands to benefit.”
It was good to keep the duke talking, anything to distract him from the gun pointed at Tabetha’s head.
“Not sure I’m following you.” Stone clenched his teeth, relishing the thought of cutting off the man’s airway with his bare hands.
“According to Scotland, no record exists to prove your ill-timed wedding. You, Mr. Spencer, are free and clear. And dearest Lady Tabetha gets the title she’s always wanted.” He lowered his mouth to Tabetha’s ear. “Come now, it’s all you really care about, isn’t it, Lady Tabetha?”
No record? Stone reached in his pocket and sure enough, it was empty.
“Looking for this?” Culpepper held up the certificate, and placing a corner between his teeth, tore it in two.
He did this a second time and for a moment, Stone wondered if the man was going to chew the certificate up and swallow it.
But he only dropped the pieces on the ground, and a gust of wind immediately picked them up, tossing them across the road and off into the meadow.
“You are free to become my little grace, now.” He all but cackled at his own humor.
But Tabetha was not going to be taken easily. She narrowed her eyes, glancing over her shoulder. “I’m not your grace and I never will be!”
“But you’ve always wanted to be a duchess.”
“I don’t want to be a duchess!” she shouted, a panicked look in her eyes.
“Tabetha.” Stone demanded her attention. “Love.” He needed her calm.
Culpepper had already resorted to desperate measures in kidnapping her, an earl’s sister. Stone flicked a gaze to where the duke’s hand gripped the pistol. His finger was looking awfully twitchy.
His debts must be outrageous. He had nothing to lose.
Culpepper shifted his gaze to where his men lay cowering. “Let them up or she gets a bullet to the brain!”
“Tabetha,” Stone said evenly, and this time, she stilled and focused her eyes on his.
“I’m so sorry, Stone.” She looked almost resigned.
“You’re going to be just fine. Westerley can redirect the funds but we’ll all have to get to London first.” His words were very deliberate.
Redirect.
“Let them up or your sister’s blood is on your hands.” Culpepper’s attention remained on Westerley, who had no choice but to slowly lower his weapons.
In the same moment, Tabetha made a barely discernable dipping motion with her chin.
Redirect, she mouthed. She understood, and she trusted him.
God help him, she owned him. He was hers. In every possible way.
I love her. And the full realization, rather than frightening him, cloaked him in a deadly calm.
“Is that Archimedes?” Stone pointed up the road, and the duke’s head swung around. Exactly as he’d hoped.
At the same time, Tabetha punched the muzzle up, redirecting it, but not before a shot exploded, the sound echoing off the trees.
Tabetha dropped to the ground.
Stone burst across the space separating them and wrestled the weapon out of Culpepper’s hands. A single whack in the ducal nose, and the blighter was out cold. But… Tabetha…
Tabetha.
Scrambling in the dirt, he rolled her over, terrified the bullet had caught her after all.
“Stone!” Her scream pierced the air almost louder than the bullet had, and God help him, he nearly fainted.
Her slim but surprisingly robust arms flew around his neck. The little minx tugged him onto the ground on top of her. “I knew you’d come!” She peppered his face with kisses and then clumsily claimed his mouth with hers, laughing and crying at the same time.
She was safe. She was here. And she was his heaven.
She had always been his heaven.
When she shuddered and buried her face in his chest, he reluctantly lifted his weight up. She was soft beneath him but the ground couldn’t be comfortable.
“You aren’t trapped with me, love. You can be a duchess still. There are other dukes than Culpepper”
She blinked and shook her head. “I don’t want to be anyone’s duchess.”
“What about a countess?”
“I don’t want that either.”
“What do you want, Tabetha?” He had to know. Because if he didn’t let her walk away from him today, he never would.
“I want to be Mrs. Spencer.” She stared up at him, cradling his face with her hands. “Or Mrs. Chester. Whichever means I get to spend my life as your wife.”
Stone couldn’t resist her grin.
“God, I missed you last night.” His mouth claimed hers and this time, he settled between her thighs. A combination of love and joy and lust wrapped around him, and nothing but the two of them mattered.
“I missed you too,” she whispered, her lips glistening from his kiss. Desperately in need of another taste, Stone lowered his mouth—
“I could use a hand over here,” Westerley interrupted. “Judging by the lack of blood, I’m assuming she wasn’t hit. Well done, by the way, Tabetha. Where’d you learn to do that?”
“A friend taught me,” Tabetha answered, smiling into Stone’s eyes.
“Would you be so kind as to ask that ‘friend’ to get his arse over here? The two of you will have plenty of time to discuss… er… boxing lessons later.”
“I suppose he has a point.” But Stone hadn’t moved and neither had Tabetha… his wife.
Stone pushed up on his hands and flicked his gaze across the meadow.
The certificate was well and gone, which could possibly pose a few difficulties.
He grimaced. They needed to restrain Culpepper’s men. And Culpepper himself was going to require dealing with as soon as he regained consciousness.
And although he relished the idea of meting out some punishment, all he really wanted to do was hold her.
My wife.
Perhaps do more than hold her.
Realizing Westerley wouldn’t appreciate Stone’s present condition, Stone hovered, not allowing himself to touch her, taking a moment to focus on something else—anything but Tabetha—or risk embarrassing all three of them.
A rushing brook… but no, that only reminded himself of Tabetha’s bosom. Sleeping on the ground… again, no. He closed his eyes and pictured a naked four-legged creature with devilish-looking eyes.
Archimedes.
Quite effective.
He opened his eyes to stare into her coffee-colored ones, immediately forgetting Culpepper and Westerley and that damned certificate that for all he knew, by now, might be halfway to the North Sea.
“I love you.” So damn much. He couldn’t contain the words.
“As Stone Spencer?”
He knew what she needed. “Yes.”
“Does this mean you’re going to have to marry me again?”
“At St. George’s on Hanover Square.” How many times had he overheard her discussing her dream wedding with Lady Felicity? “Guests overflowing outside. Your mother and sister in the front row. My parents across the aisle. Your brother can give you away properly and neither of us will be bosky this time.”
“You’ll need a valet to deck you out in your wedding finery.” Her fingertip traced his mouth.
“I think Creighton might be able to handle that.” He chuckled. And then, “I’ll wear whatever you want me to.” He’d give her anything.
But then she grew serious. “I don’t need it, you know. I only need you
.” Tears shone in those eyes he would never tire of staring into. “I love you.”
“Could you plan this wedding another time?” Westerley complained.
Stone’s throat thickened with emotion, and he didn’t even attempt to answer her brother this time.
She loved him.
She wanted him and only him.
Stunned at his good fortune, he sat back and helped her off the ground.
“I’m a mess,” she quipped, studying her bare feet and torn dressing gown.
“You are.” Stone brushed the dirt off her skirt. “But you’re my mess.”
Chapter 29
Pesky Details
Having secured the duke and his men with the ropes from inside one of Culpepper’s carriages, preventing any chance of their escape, Stone and Westerley sat on the edge of the road reclining against a large oak, waiting for Chase and their wives’ entourage to catch up to them.
Completely done in, Tabetha lay on a blanket, her head resting on Stone’s lap, sleeping surprisingly peacefully. They’d offered to tie the men to a tree so she and her maid could sleep in the carriage, but she’d declared she never wanted to set foot in that foul-smelling vehicle again.
“I suppose one of us could ride back to meet up with Chase and the ladies,” Stone suggested. “Seeing as things are well under control here.”
“I suppose one of us could,” Westerley responded without enthusiasm. “I, for one, am content to wait here with my sister.”
Stone shifted his gaze to his old friend. “Who also happens to be my wife,” he reminded him.
Westerley bent his knees up, dangling his hands between them thoughtfully. “That wasn’t your certificate then? Culpepper was lying?”
Damn and blast. Stone exhaled in disgust. “No. They lifted it from my jacket when I took it off in the taproom.”
“Then you and my sister are not, in fact, legally married, and the two of you are going to have to wait to be… alone until after that elaborate wedding you just promised her.”
Stone hadn’t considered this.
“You’ll need to have banns read. My mother’s going to want to send out hundreds of invitations. Likely, she’ll plan a prewedding ball…”
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