A gut reaction forced his hand up. He rapped hard on the roof of the carriage and yelled for Jonas to stop. The wheels had yet to cease their rumbling before Miss Holden reached over her aunt, grasped the door handle, and pitched herself outside.
Chapter Seven
On the threshold of both passing out and casting up her accounts, Kate stood ten feet from the carriage, gulping in as much cool autumn air as her lungs would hold. Never one to give in to swooning, she stood praying for the ground to stop swaying and her stomach to stop tumbling.
“Miss Holden?”
A flood of embarrassment washed over her as Lord Wesley’s concerned voice sounded not a few inches behind her. As well, she believed the pressure on her shoulders was not the heaviness from her weak condition, but that of his warm and assured hand.
“Please don’t make this worse than it is,” she said, exhaling a staggering breath.
“You’re not well.”
Of course she wasn’t well. The heat inside the carriage might as well have been an inferno. It not only increased her queasiness of tight and confining places, but it also amplified her anxiety so that she thought she’d expire if she’d stayed a second longer.
Like a fish out of water, she’d concentrated on every oppressive breath until Lord Wesley injected his knowledge regarding her most personal letters from Edward. His bold insolence, coupled with her phobic condition, thrust her over the edge. Why the carriage halted, she did not know, only that it did.
In a rush of frantic desperation, she’d thrust herself into the open, the refreshing breeze, her sole salvation. Now, standing in the darkened morning, the gray clouds so low they seemed to stroke the ground, she knew she could go no farther, especially not with him. Regardless of his malevolent intentions toward the Garretts, regardless of his deviousness regarding her personal possessions, his very presence weakened her resolve to keep remembering them.
She believed he held some wicked influence over her, so immoral she trusted herself less than she trusted him. Still, she turned and stood steadfast before his exquisite form.
His eyes narrowed to stormy slits. “What is your intention?” he asked in a tone both deep and forewarning.
She hesitated to say a word, unsure of his reaction. Her silence only prompted him to step closer.
“Your intention, Miss Holden?”
Kate closed her eyes, still trying to regain her bearings and confidence around him. “I…I wish to walk the rest of the way.”
His hands dropped as the restless air stilled around them. She opened her eyelids and stared across the rolling green treeless hills, shadowed by the puff of granitelike clouds above.
“No.”
She sliced her gaze back to him, finding his eyes threatening and tumultuous. She raised her chin and spoke as if she had some authority to persuade him one way or the other.
“No? I have not asked your permission.”
A flash of lightning streaked across the sky behind him, mimicking the spark she witnessed in the depths of his stare. He shifted closer and bent his head. His sultry breath kissed her cheek, igniting the tug-of-war between her heart, body, and mind.
“I forbid you to walk a step, much less a mile. It’s too dangerous, and you are too frail to go such a distance unattended.” He jerked his head toward the vehicle a few feet away. “Now, you will return with me to the carriage and ride the remainder of the way like the rest of us.”
She supposed he expected her to nod and stride by him in somber defeat. She did not. Instead, she glanced around his looming figure to the object in question. Through the half-open windows, the Garretts gawked at them, one piled atop the other, with Lady Sophia and Claire stationed at the bottom. While Lilly stared in wonder and Deidra gaped in surprise, Claire glared in staunch disapproval and suspicion.
Afraid to know too much of her aunt’s reaction, Kate returned her attention to Lord Wesley, who, to her astonishment, stood with his lips twisted into a triumphant smile.
Be brave.
She inhaled deeply before informing him, “I am a grown lady, and you cannot force me back into that carriage.” Her voice broke as she lifted an unsteady finger and pointed behind him.
She held out hope he’d realized the level of her discomfort and let her go. That was until he smiled a devil’s smile.
“Oh can’t I?” he asked. She retreated as he stalked toward her, slow and calculated. She prayed her blind path was void of sticks, scurrying creatures, or any object that would impede her backward progress.
She lifted her hands, palms up, and prepared to solicit an ultimatum to spare her the dread of returning to the jostling mausoleum.
“I beg of you, my lord. Allow me to walk, and I will do…I will do anything you wish.”
She knew she’d placed herself in the gravest of moral dangers. Right then, it seemed a tolerable compromise. A foot away, he ceased his advance, canting his head and narrowing his eyes at her.
“Anything?” he whispered out of earshot of her ogling relatives.
Unable to speak, Kate nodded and clutched the sides of her dress, waiting for his response. He shifted his now dusty boots apart and lifted a long, tan finger to rub along his jawline. A wicked smirk grew wider with every shallow breath she inhaled.
“As promised, I shall throw a dinner party, and on that day, I will ask you to dance, and you will, without hesitation.”
Kate breathed a sigh of relief and disappointment. She’d been so sure he’d request another kiss, and her stomach had fluttered with the notion. She smiled, appearing not to care what he wanted from her. For now, a dance was innocent enough. She began to nod until he said exactly which dance he preferred.
“An intimate dance, alone, without an escort or chaperone, which allows no slither of light between the partners involved.”
He didn’t wait for her reaction and left her with her mouth agape, as the much-needed air expelled from her lungs. If a kiss caused her stomach to flutter about, then a dance like the one he described, caused her body to shudder with anticipated anxiousness.
“Oh bother,” she whispered, unsure if she’d ever leave Penndrake as innocent as she would arrive. Even if she uttered a word in protest, she doubted he’d hear it. For now, he’d placed enough distance between them, stopping to converse with a few of the grooms he’d brought along for the trip.
Despite her aggravation with him, she stared after his confident form. With his shoulders pulled back, his profile long and powerful, he stood intriguing and ominous at the same time. In a pair of formfitting black trousers, an unpadded black tailcoat, matching waistcoat and cravat, he also stood as the most prosperous.
She was certain, if her father found them conversing as they had a few moments ago, he’d announce the reading of the banns by the morning. Kate shook her head to the abrupt and reckless thought. How could she even imagine such a notion?
She ceased her mind’s prattling and shifted an inquiring glance toward his lordship, their gazes meeting and locking together. Heat spread to her face. His expression remained indifferent and blank, like a man at a card table determined to keep his emotions from revealing his hand.
She blinked, forcing her attention elsewhere, which, unfortunately, collided with Lady Sophia. The woman squinted through the open window, her blue eyes a pair of tiny slits, her mouth pinched into a tight, disproving pucker.
Ashamed of the scene she’d caused, Kate rotated back toward the narrow path and open field. A flock of geese traveled in a V pattern above the swaying grass, disappearing into the gloom of the coming storm. The dismal clouds hovered a few miles away, waiting for the precise minute to unleash a torrent of chilly, heavy rain upon her head.
It seemed an exhilarating alternative to the closeted carriage in which she’d found herself. She sensed the urgency to start forward when the pounding of horse hooves shook the ground and came to an abrupt halt beside her.
She shivered and lifted her chin, suspecting and finding Lord Wesley atop
the impressive charcoal-colored gelding she remembered from yesterday, its coat so shiny it glistened like polished glass.
He dismounted, landing a few inches away from her, their bodies almost touching. “You will ride the rest of the way in,” he said, empathic and demanding.
“I will walk,” she countered and turned to continue on her path.
“You will get lost.”
“Good!”
Too angry and stubborn to care about propriety, she hurried along until the beast and rider tore out along the path, kicking up dust and rocks in their haste to leave. Not long after, the carriage rambled forward, the Garretts peering at her with contemptuous and curious expressions.
“Your imprudence will ruin you some day, Miss Kate Holden,” her aunt bellowed out of the carriage window.
Kate dropped her attention to the ground to keep from witnessing the wide-eyed glances of her cousins and her fuming aunt. The clattering wheels disappeared over a wide hill with Kate continuing her solitary journey toward Penndrake. Time passed without incidence, her mind full of regret for not attempting to bring up the subjects of the letters or her comb to Lord Wesley.
Now, more than before, she needed to find where he’d placed them. One, to expose them to her aunt and convince the woman the marquess was not a man to be trusted, and second, to keep Edward from discovering the missing items and drawing some disreputable conclusion.
There was also the forbidden dance she’d promised with his lordship, an engagement certain to become a disastrous affair. If she couldn’t keep herself from kissing him on a garden bench, their bodies placed a foot from each other, how in the world did she expect to refrain from doing anything more disgraceful, or worse, irreparable.
She’d begun to feel her parents’ shame when lightning split the sky and a clap of thunder shook the ground. She glanced up as a perpetual curtain of rain fell hard upon her awaiting head.
Resigned to run instead of walk, Kate picked up her tattered hem and sprinted for a quarter of a mile in the blinding downpour. Still upright and soaked to her bones, she slowed, the heaviness from her clothes making it harder to escape. Then shivering, she stopped altogether.
Just ahead lay a bend in the road, connected to a lush hill marred with silvery rugged rocks embedded into its side. The rising knoll obstructed her sight, but she felt close to the Penndrake property. Just a little bit farther.
Weary, she trudged forward, imagining the warmth of a crackling fire and the feel of dry fabric next to her damp skin. Her mind adrift in thoughts of her ambiguous future, accentuated by the constant rumble of thunder, she didn’t hear the approaching horse or his enthusiastic rider until it was too late.
She screamed from the explosive intrusion, causing the charging beast to rear back and almost upend its black-shadowed rider. She froze where she stood, her heartbeat hammering loud and relentless. She tried to move, but her legs, weak and shaking, kept her in place.
The charcoal-colored beast returned its front legs to the sodden ground and danced before her while expletives tore from its rider’s mouth. Kate thought about running past him, eager to escape what was sure to be Lord Wesley’s hellish arrival.
He tapped his horse, the magnificent beast maneuvering to block her path. She raised her chin to keep from appearing timid, her pulse skidding at Lord Wesley’s towering form and arresting presence. God, she was sure she’d never seen any man look so virile.
He was drenched, his shirt and waistcoat clinging to his expansive torso, his black hair plastered to the side of his chiseled face.
What a series of bewildering miseries. She wanted to cry and thought it a perfect time since he wouldn’t be able to tell the rain from the tears. So frightened of the next heartache or disappointment, she’d prepared herself to run, or in her case walk, in the opposite direction everyone wished her to go.
“Are you trying to make my life miserable, Miss Holden?”
Despite her first instinct to remain quiet, she planted her feet and replied with a resounding, “Yes!”
He wasted little time in throwing the reins aside and jumping down, his boots landing with a loud thud very close to where she stood.
The wind shifted and the sky released another torrent of rain upon her sodden head. Lord Wesley’s face, a canvas of hard lines and rigid curves, showed a relentless fury. Kate knew a lord did not expose himself to the elements like this, especially to a female he expressed no partiality to or one who refused to heed his authority. If he chose to throttle her, she had no reason to fight him.
Just as the air crackled from the charge of their stares, he bent down, and without warning, ripped her dress from hem to thigh. A surprised scream lodged in her throat. A moment later, he scooped her up and dropped her onto the hardened saddle. She’d barely seized the pommel when he propelled himself up behind her, wrapping his powerful arms around her waist.
He spurred the horse into a gallop, the blurry landscape rising to meet them as they reached Penndrake in a matter of minutes.
The wrought iron gates stood open wide, allowing them to pass through as it presented an expansive curving path. It guided them to the stone house with its Gothic pinnacles towering above the murky heavens. At an ivy-laden archway, they slowed to a lazy trot, Lord Wesley using the opportunity to lower his mouth to her ear and growl into it. “I should throttle you right now.”
Missing from his gruff tone was a ferocious conviction to follow through with his threat. Sensing an undercurrent of amiability, Kate sank deeper against him, relishing the sanctity of his embrace, the comfort of his presence, and his heady scent accentuated by the driving rain. She savored the moment before her tongue betrayed her.
“I did not ask for you to rescue me, my lord. I was perfectly content to w-w-walk.”
“Damn it, Miss Holden, if you die in my company, there will be hell to pay.”
Despite her earlier feelings of comfort and contentment, his irritation ruffled her pride. While her legs dangled over each side of the horse, she twisted around so her nose came in proximity to touching Lord Wesley’s. “A shiver does not constitute the demise of one’s health. I-I…j-ju…”
Unable to finish her words, Kate buried her head into his chest and held the sneeze, a consequence she didn’t consider until it was too late. Against her cheek, she heard the erratic thumping of his heart, felt the inviting heat of his skin.
“You must get warm,” he said after a long moment, his tone vibrating against her right ear.
She lifted her chin, unsure of the man she’d find staring down at her, the carefree lord who flirted with Claire so easily or the affronted nobleman whose features resembled a Grecian statue, stoic and rigid?
In her company, she found the latter, of course. It perplexed her to know she caused such an offensive reaction in such a short amount of time. He continued to glower at her, his jaw tense and mouth tight. At the same time, a sense of feminine wonder overtook her. She disregarded all consequence and reached up to touch his face, wiping at a trickle of rainwater as it trailed along his chin.
Fascinated by his raw masculinity, she continued to explore, her fingers gliding over his skin until they stroked the softness of his lips.
This time she didn’t know who initiated the kiss, only that his mouth covered hers, breathless and fierce. He brought her against him, both sharing an equal yearning and affection, void of any mistrust or deception. Abandoning, for the moment, her doubts and insecurities, she grasped his soaked gold waistcoat, pulling the lapels apart to sink even closer to him.
His mouth slanted over hers, crushing and possessive. He stole her breath and her will, her limbs powerless to do anything but pull him closer. Dizzy, she closed her eyes, his satiny tongue stroking her lips before sweeping inside in a fervent and rapturous kiss. She moaned from his skillful seduction, the throaty sound shattering the connection and the intimate moment. He pulled back, his face rigid with restraint.
When she turned away from him, he didn’t stop her but
instead brought his arm around to keep her from moving one way or the other. He nudged his horse into a steady gallop, reaching the steps of Penndrake before she had the chance to sulk over her imprudent curiosity toward him.
Not a word was spoken between them as he guided her down to the ground before directing his horse with a subtle jerk toward the stables.
Kate prolonged her step toward the house until an older lady with blackish-graying hair tucked under a crisp white mop cap, motioned her forward from the front door.
“Oh, the master said ye’d be a miserable sight to behold.”
Kate tried not to take offense as the woman wrapped her in a heavy wool blanket, the scent of its master stimulating the earthen air.
“I’m Mrs. Abram,” the woman said, soft and patient. “And I’m the housekeeper here. Yer trunks have been sent to your room and there is already a warm bath drawn for yer cold bones.”
Kate smiled between shivers and trailed behind the husky housekeeper.
Through the familiar hall, they walked, Kate squeaking and sloshing and apologizing for leaving behind a puddle of water on the glossy Tudor floor and threadbare rug.
“Don’t be minding about that, miss. The master said my first priority is getting ye warm and into some dry clothes.”
Kind enough for him not to want her to die, she supposed. In a numb state, she followed, trying not to reflect on the latest kiss they’d shared. In the little time she’d known him, they had already engaged in two acts of unthinkable consequence rarely performed by two steady courters.
“Here ye go now,” the woman said, turning the cast-iron door handle to Kate’s room and pushing it with a good heave of her rounded shoulders.
Eager to get out of her soggy clothes, Kate drew up close behind, halting as her gaze drank in the elaborate and elegant bedchamber. Much larger and softer than her room at home, she stole inside, sure Lord Wesley had made a mistake in relaying to Mrs. Abram where she was to sleep.
A Mistress for Penndrake Page 7