by Lydia Dare
“Robert and Nathaniel will kill you.”
“They can try,” he replied evenly. “I heal quickly, remember?”
“Then why…” Her voice trailed off and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“Then why what?” he prodded.
After a moment she met his eyes, her green orbs tinted with uncertainty. “Never mind.”
“No, please continue.” Not knowing what she meant to ask was next to torture.
Lady Madeline squared her shoulders. “Then why do you have a scar on your cheek, if you can heal?”
Wes touched the imperfection on the side of his face. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
She scoffed. “I just saw you turn from man to wolf before my very eyes. But the story behind your scar would be too much for me?”
No, but the telling wouldn’t be enjoyable. He’d never suffered such physical pain as he had the night he’d received his wound. “Have you ever heard of a vampyre?”
Lady Madeline shook her head.
Not that Wes was surprised. She had led a fairly sheltered life thus far, one in which monsters had no place. They still didn’t, Wes being the lone exception to that rule. “The telling isn’t for a lady’s ears.”
“Does Lady Eynsford know?”
Wes nodded once. Cait had helped tend his wound, not that her ministrations had countered the effects of a vampyre attack. “Someday, when we’re old and grey, I’ll tell you the whole story if you still want to know.”
“When we’re old and grey. You really do mean to marry me?”
Wes nodded once more. “There’s no other way. And come morning, when the castle knows you’re missing, it will be far better for you to have eloped than to have simply disappeared with me.” Not by much, but it was still true.
“You leave me in an awful predicament, Mr. Hadley.”
“I’m aware of that, Lady Madeline. And I’m sorry.” At least she wasn’t crying anymore. Though she still looked fairly perturbed about their situation. “I can assure you—” he began.
“You can assure me of nothing,” Madeline interrupted. “Aside from the fact that I’ve been abducted and taken to be married against my will.”
He had no choice. Didn’t she see?
“You cannot assure me that this is the best bargain in my situation.”
Bargain? Who’d said anything about a bargain?
“I always knew I’d have a loveless marriage, but this wasn’t what I had in mind,” she continued as though he wasn’t even in the carriage.
“Our marriage doesn’t have to be loveless,” he said quietly.
“I knew I’d never have love, but I had hoped for a little passion.” She continued to talk softly to herself, but he heard every word.
“What do you know of passion?” He had to ask.
“Nothing yet,” she spat back at him. “And by forcing this impromptu marriage, you’re removing my only chance for it.” She sputtered for a moment. Then she raised her gaze to his and said, “I can read, Mr. Hadley.” She sniffed. “I read a lot.”
“And this is where you found out about this overwhelming passion you seek?” He bit back his grin. He’d show her passion.
“Don’t mock me, Mr. Hadley.”
The light from the carriage lantern shifted as Renshaw turned the vehicle and the moonlight danced upon her face. That was when Wes realized that she was filthy. And wet. And she was probably cold. Oh, what a pitiful excuse for a man he was. He’d knocked her to the ground, gotten her dirty, and stolen her one desire in life, to have passion. He couldn’t fix the first two. But he could damn well work on the last.
Wes leaned forward and took her hand in his, his thumb brushing caked mud aside as he caressed the top of her hand. “I’m not mocking you, Lady Madeline.” Then he stretched out an arm and scooped her into his lap.
“What are you doing?” she protested, swatting at him like he was a pesky fly. Her hands fluttered around as though she had no idea where to put them.
“Be still,” he said as he captured those flyaway hands in a gentle grip. When she didn’t comply, he followed with, “Please?”
“You don’t have any clothes on,” she hissed at him.
“I am well aware of that fact.” In truth, he was more than aware of it. Her rosewater scent enveloped his senses as she squirmed in his lap. “But I want to show you something.”
“If you plan to show me your person, you can just forget it,” she said, covering her eyes with her hands.
Wes chuckled as he pulled her hands down and placed them on his chest. “I should like to try something, if you’ll allow it.” His heart thumped in his chest, and he felt like he’d just run a mile rather than simply hauling a lady across the coach and into his lap. He forced himself to calm for a moment. But the heavy thump of his heart continued. As did the hardening of his member beneath the lap blanket that covered him. He pushed his own desires to the side as much as he was able. “Kiss me, Lady Madeline,” he said softly.
She froze in his arms. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“So you can see what this passion is all about?” he prompted. So, I can show you that loving you is one thing I might do well. It might be to your satisfaction, even if my purse is not.
“But…” she sputtered.
Before she could utter another syllable, Wes threaded his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck and pulled her head down to his. His words were no more than a murmur against her lips. “Have you ever been kissed before?”
She shook her head slightly, her face close enough to his that he could feel the whisper of that silky skin as her lips brushed his. Now he could hear her heartbeat in his head along with his own. It beat a runaway rhythm, and Wes doubted that fear was the cause of it this time.
“Never?” Of course, someone had tried to kiss her. She’d had enough suitors.
“Never,” she confirmed. Her heartbeat grew louder and louder in his head, thumping as madly as his own pulse. Then she straightened her back and pulled away from him. He could have easily subdued her, but he wanted to kiss her. And for her to want it. “And I’m not going to start with someone like you,” she said.
Something inside Wes tripped and he forced himself to steady. “Someone like me? You mean a Lycan?”
“Well, that, too,” she said. “But I’m fated for a grand union.”
“A grand union with a huge settlement of funds and no passion whatsoever.”
“I know very little about passion, so I suspect I’ll barely miss it.” She jumped up from his lap and landed on the other side. But he couldn’t let her go that quickly. He followed and pressed her back in her seat, as he sat on his knees before her. “Must you hover over me so?” she asked. Her lips were open as she inhaled heavily. Her eyes searched his face in the dim light. He hoped she wasn’t appalled by what she saw, her eyes lingering on his scar.
“I am not one of your kind, Lady Madeline,” he began, forcing himself to stay calm.
“Well, that was obvious, even before tonight.”
He forced himself to relax, despite her bruising words. “And now I’m even less a man to you, is that it?”
“It’s not that,” she started, an appalled expression on her face, as though she’d finally realized the folly of her words.
“You think me beneath you.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. It tore at his pride. The only time he wanted to be beneath her was with her impaled on his shaft, riding him. The beast within him rose and he forced himself to settle.
She seemed to weigh her words. “I think you’d never be an acceptable match in the eyes of my family.”
“I don’t give a damn about your family. What about you?”
“What about me? I don’t even know you.”
Wes lowered his head until he hovered a mere breath from her mouth. “You could know me, if you tried.”
She opened her mouth to speak, and that was when Wes swooped in and touched his lips to hers. Sh
e froze beneath him, but she didn’t pull away. Her lips met his hesitantly. Wes tilted his head so he could fit his mouth properly against hers, and he very gently sipped at her lower lip.
The beast within him wanted to growl at her, press her against the squabs, and have his way with her. But he held back and very gently cupped her face in his hands. Her lips were questioning him as surely as any words that could have come from her mouth. Very tentatively, she arched her back and brought herself closer to him, her cold little hands landing on his naked chest.
Wes coaxed her mouth to open and very gently invaded that warm, sweet cavern. She startled for a moment, but then she reached for his shoulders and her tongue rose to meet his. She was a novice at kissing but a most willing student. He didn’t pull away until she was soft and pliant in his arms. “Was that what you imagined passion to be like?” he asked, his own voice choppy with desire.
She nodded, her mouth opening as though she wanted to say something, but no sound came out. He’d obviously affected her with that kiss. Affected her to the point where she couldn’t put her words together. A little part of him began to hope. “Is that what you’d hoped for in a marriage?”
“Yes,” she finally said. She hadn’t removed her hands from his shoulders.
“Yet you still think me beneath you?”
“I never said that,” she began. But she avoided his gaze. She still looked a little shocked by the power of that kiss. To tell the truth, so was he. “Are you going to kiss me again?” she finally asked.
“Do you want me to?”
She nodded hesitantly, as though her emotions weighed heavily against her sense of propriety.
Wes moved back to his own seat, and her body rocked forward as though there was an invisible pull between them. It was real. He was certain of it. But she wasn’t. “You want me to kiss you, but you don’t want to be my wife,” he finally said when he was settled on his side of the carriage with the lap blanket hiding the sizeable bulge she’d just provoked. “That doesn’t speak of a promising future.”
“I didn’t say I don’t want to be your wife,” she said forcefully.
Wes smiled. “Oh, good. Then you’ll be much more compliant when we reach Gretna.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to be, either. I will most definitely not be compliant.”
Wes scoffed. “You weren’t born to be compliant.” He tsked beneath his breath. “A shame, really, that you have been trained to be so obedient.”
“Since when is good breeding a shame?”
He chuckled again. “It’s only a shame if you don’t get to do any good breeding.”
She gasped. “That’s what you want to do with me? Breed?”
The very thought made his heart beat faster. “More than anything,” he said honestly. “And I really want to kiss you again.”
She didn’t look up at him as she murmured to herself. “So, what’s stopping you?”
“I’ll kiss you again when you ask me for it. And not before.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Begging is not necessary, Lady Madeline. You need only ask me nicely.”
She pressed her lips together and didn’t utter a sound.
Wes had more pressing matters to think about. He glanced down at the blanket covering his lap. What irony: for the first time in a long while he had full pockets. Unfortunately, those pockets were folded neatly with his clothes in the stables at Castle Hythe. He wondered how long it would be before the Hayburn men decided Lady Madeline had run off with him. Hopefully Renshaw could drive like the wind.
Nine
A bright light invaded Maddie’s darkness, and she blinked her eyes open. She closed them quickly again and covered her face with her arm. “The drapes,” she muttered. Why were the dratted things open? And why did her head throb?
“You snore,” a very male voice remarked, from just a few inches away.
She knew that voice. Didn’t she? “I do not,” she insisted.
“You do.” Maddie’s pillow moved beneath her head when the man laughed.
Heavens! That wasn’t a pillow. And she wasn’t even in her bed. Or her room, for that matter. Maddie bolted upright, cracking her head against the fellow’s chin in the process. Her eyes flew open once more to find her maddening captor, Weston Hadley, seated beside her. The previous evening’s memories washed over her. Blast, it wasn’t a bad dream.
“There’s no reason to injure me.” He rubbed his chin where she’d bumped into him. “I find your snoring delightful.”
What a wonderful sentiment to wake up to. “I do not snore.”
One dark golden brow rose in mild amusement. “Indeed? And do you often listen to yourself sleep?”
Maddie glared at him.
“You may take my word for it that you do. Snore, that is.”
Infuriating man or wolf or whatever he was. She couldn’t be doomed to spend her days with this cretin, could she? Finally, their surroundings began to sink in to Maddie’s awakening mind. Where had he gotten clothes? “You’re dressed.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Very astute for so early in the morning.”
That was it? He didn’t plan to elaborate? “When did you… Where did you… How?”
Mr. Hadley gestured to the top of the carriage. “Luckily Renshaw is as good at playing cards as he is at driving.”
Was that supposed to make some sort of sense to her? “Cards?”
Mr. Hadley shrugged. “Well not on this journey, but his pockets were fairly plump when we left Kent. He bought these off an innkeeper at one of the stops to change horses. I had to give him my vowels in exchange for them.”
Now that Maddie took a good look at him, the clothes were rather shabby. Just the sort of homespun one might expect to be an innkeeper’s discards. Still the tattered shirt and slightly too-short trousers were better than no clothes at all. “I slept through all of that?”
He inclined his head once more. “And you slept through breakfast, my lady. But I did save a few apples, currants, and a hunk of cheese for you. Cost me more vowels, I’m afraid, but we’ll get all of that sorted out once we return to Eynsford Park.”
Whoever heard of borrowing funds from one’s coachman? Practically disgraceful. If she wasn’t in such an awful predicament, she would have laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. “Where are we?”
“We’re just past Cambridge.”
That far? “And you’re still alive, I see. So no one has caught up to us.”
“With everyone keeping Town hours at the castle? They probably don’t even know you’re missing yet.”
She hated to think he might be right, but his assessment did seem sound. It might be hours from now before her father or brothers finally roused themselves awake. She was a third of the way to the Scottish border, and no one even knew she was missing.
“They’ll know soon, however.” Mr. Hadley interrupted her thoughts. “I posted a letter to the duke a couple stops back. I didn’t want him to worry about you and wanted him to know you’re safe.”
She must have misheard him. Maddie’s blood turned to ice in her veins. “You sent a letter to my father?”
“I didn’t want him to worry,” he repeated. “It seemed a bad way to start off with him, making him worry unnecessarily.”
“What did you tell him?” she bit out. Heavens, her father!
Mr. Hadley sighed, and for the first time that morning, he looked distressed. “An enormous lie, of course.”
“Well, I would love to know those details.”
If she wasn’t mistaken, a slight blush stained his neck. “I, um—” He glanced out the window to avoid her gaze. “Well, I told him—”
The suspense was maddening. “Pray tell me, for pity’s sake.”
He finally looked back at her, frowning a bit. “I wrote him that we were madly in love.”
Her father was going to kill her.
“However,” Mr. Hadley continued. “I wrote that I knew he would never approve
of our match. And since I couldn’t stand by and let you marry another, I took matters into my own hands. Then I promised him that we would return from Gretna posthaste and I would accept any punishment he wanted to bestow upon me at that time.”
Maddie’s mouth fell open. What a thing for him to say! A small part of her wished his words were true, which was silly. She wasn’t eloping with Mr. Hadley because they were madly in love. She was eloping with Mr. Hadley because she’d stumbled upon his secret and he didn’t trust her to keep it to herself. “No mention of abductions or of your wolfish traits then?”
His frown deepened. “It would be best for you not to mention my peculiarities, Madeline. As soon as you’re my wife, your future will be linked to mine. For better or worse.”
’Til death would they part. There would be no divorce. If the King couldn’t procure one for himself, Maddie didn’t have a prayer in that regard. And there would be no annulment. Not after traveling all the way to Scotland and back with the Lycan. Her reputation would be forever tainted. Her father would never seek an annulment. There would be no point. No decent man would have her after this little excursion north with Weston Hadley. No, as soon as she said, “I do,” her fate would be sealed. Though in actuality, it had been sealed the moment she saw her husband-to-be transform into a wild animal before her eyes.
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” she muttered.
“That would be best for all involved.” He retrieved a knapsack from the carriage floor and opened the top. “Apple?”
Maddie’s stomach groaned in response. When had she last eaten? Sometime yesterday. She nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Hadley.”
“Weston,” he replied, polishing a red apple against his sleeve.
“I beg your pardon?”
He handed the fruit to her and grinned. “My name. Weston. If we’re to be married, I’d rather you not call me Mr. Hadley anymore, Madeline.”
She turned the apple over and over in her hand, a little nervously. Weston. She rolled the name around in her mind. “You said it would be best for all involved. Did you simply mean you and me?” He had mentioned protecting other people last night, hadn’t he?