She chose the ensemble because she had been told she looked “quite fetching” in it. She even felt “quite fetching;” or she had on other occasions when she’d worn it. How silly and vain of her.
She should never have allowed her parents to drag her out to the far reaches of Yorkshire on such a mercenary mission. Her promise to his brother, a man she’d loved dearly, was the excuse she allowed herself for even contemplating this trip. It was obvious, in spite of his mother’s assurances, their visit was a blatant imposition on a man still in mourning.
For his brother.
For his military career.
For the man his wounds insured he would never be again.
Perhaps, even for his broken engagement. What if he was still in love with her sister? She’d had to share a great deal with Clemmie, but she drew the line at sharing a man’s heart. Especially this man’s heart.
Oh dear. The entire thing waxed worse and worse. Peeking from under the brim of her smart little bonnet, Adelaide studied Marcus carefully.
His long, slender hands sported a few scars, but managed the reins of his spirited blacks with ease. A cavalryman’s sculptured legs and powerful thighs, notwithstanding his injury, were encased in mirror-shined Hessians topped by fawn-colored buckskins. Snowy white linen, contrasted by the dark blue superfine of his perfectly tailored jacket, covered the muscular chest and tapered waist of a man accustomed to action. Sitting behind a desk administering an estate, attending balls and routs and musicales, were not the activities to mold a man like Marcus Winfield.
She moved on to his face. A patrician nose and squared jaw, complimented by hair so black as to appear blue in certain lights, and eyes of the coolest green—the word “striking” had been used to describe his visage more than once. From the instant she’d first seen him, Adelaide had deemed his the most noble and handsome face in London, perhaps in all of England. The scar left by a French cavalryman’s saber never altered her opinion.
The face she had watched in secret during the Season before Waterloo had smiled and laughed and flirted with all the exuberance of any young man of fortune and breeding who still believed the glittering promise of the ballroom could forever hold the sorrows of life at bay. In less than a year all of it had faded away, to be replaced by a seriousness of purpose and a sorrow she could hardly bear.
“Miss Formsby-Smythe, if you like I can stop the carriage and pose for you.”
Adelaide had grown so engrossed in her study of him, when he spoke she almost fell off the phaeton perch. “Pose, Your Grace?”
“Isn’t that what young ladies do on these outings? Sketch or paint or gather flowers to press?”
She took a deep breath. “I fear I owe you an apology, Your Grace.”
“Nonsense.” His expression reminded her of one of those outcroppings of rock they’d passed, save for the tiny muscle that flexed in his cheek. “I assure you I am accustomed to people staring at my face. Think nothing of it. I try not to.”
“No—that isn’t—I mean—” Between the bouncing of the phaeton and the heat of his storm-tossed green eyes Adelaide had trouble gathering her thoughts. “I am sorry my parents have seen fit to interrupt your solitude to try and foist me off on you. I should never have agreed to come here. I do wish you would accept my apology.”
The realization of what she’d said spread across his face like a gathering gale. The ghost of the young major disappeared and once again the haughty duke was in his place.
“Ah.” he said briskly. “Exactly as I suspected.” He jerked the carriage to a sudden stop and afforded her the full force of his unrelenting gaze. “It was perfectly acceptable for your sister to jilt the disfigured Major Winfield in such a grand fashion. However, a duke, scarred and crippled though he may be, is a much more acceptable addition to the family.”
“Sir, you really mustn’t—”
“Your sister showed a great lack of foresight in jilting me and then rushing to marry Mister Edgehill, wasn’t it, before my brother died?”
“Viscount Edgehill,” Adelaide corrected him. “And you could at least try to believe my parents feel guilty about my sister’s unfortunate treatment of you. They are attempting to make amends by offering you… Well…”
For some reason, it was no longer important to finish that particular sentence. Especially as they sat stopped in the middle of a forlorn stretch of the rocky open moor. Worse, having looped the reins around the brake, his hands were now free. To strangle her, perhaps?
He raised an utterly irritating eyebrow in response. His only response.
“Well,” she snapped. “Clementine hardly jilted you in a ‘grand’ fashion, Your Grace.”
“She took one look at me at the St. Andrew’s ball and burst into tears.”
“I —”
“After which she ran sobbing from the ballroom, screaming she would rather join a convent than marry such a scarred monster.”
She adjusted her bonnet away from her face and huffed. “You really have no one to blame but yourself, Your Grace.” There. She had actually said it. And once she saw the outrage on his face, she sincerely wished she had not.
“Exactly how is your sister’s callous treatment of me my fault?” Each word a chip of ice, his eyes weren’t the only things capable of freezing an unsuspecting woman.
Adelaide threw up her hands in disgust. “Men,” she declared. “You are all such idiots. Really.”
“Idiots?” he shouted in a rather unducal tone. “Idiots?”
“You fix your affections on the first glittering debutante you see, and then like a raven spying a shiny penny, you refuse to see anything else.”
“Of all the —”
“You do not care if she has more hair than wit. Her strength of character is of far less importance to you than the number of times she giggles in your presence. As long as her eyes sparkle when she looks at you adoringly, the fact she does not actually see you matters not at all.”
“Miss Formsby-Smythe, I assure you —”
In spite of appearing a raving lunatic, Adelaide hadn’t the power to keep silent. “And so, you give your heart to this glittering creature on the floor of a glittering ballroom and everyone sighs over your glittering romance. Then at the first sign of real adversity you discover all that glitters is indeed not gold. Your diamond of the first water is not a diamond at all but glass—shattering at the first pebble’s throw. But really, Your Grace, what did you expect?”
As quickly as the words tumbled out of her mouth, they stopped. Adelaide was appalled. She had railed at him like a fishwife. At a duke, of all people. Whilst he stared at her in what had to be stupefied amazement, she sincerely wished the ground would open up and devour her.
“I would hardly call this.” His voice was bitter as he ran his hand down his face. “Or this,” as he gripped his twisted leg, “A pebble. Your sister had every right to be horrified.”
“My sister was a fool,” Adelaide blurted. “A complete and ninny-headed fool.”
Her voice faded to a whisper. Marcus heard her nonetheless. For some inexplicable reason, he needed to remove her bonnet. So, he did.
He’d assumed she would be an ethereally golden blond like her sister. He’d paid so little attention to her since she’d arrived, he’d have been hard pressed to describe her until now. Her hair, piled untidily on top of her head, was not the nearly white gold he’d expected at all. It was the color of honey when lifted into sunlight. Her deep brown eyes reminded him of those of a fawn he had watched on a sunrise long ago. He was seeing her, seeing her for the first time. Without touching, he knew her skin would be as silky as a summer breeze. Her face told a tale of fairies and magic and adventures—all of the dreams of a boyhood lost to him long ago.
“Why did you do that?” she asked softly.
“I wanted to see you,” he said more roughly than he meant. “In all the time I courted Clementine, I never truly saw you. Why is that?”
“You courted her for forty-three
days before you returned to your regiment. Hardly any time at all.”
“Forty-three days?” Those deep brown eyes drew him so. He hadn’t the strength to look away from her. “Are you certain?”
“You met her on March 3rd at the Billings’ rout. You left to rejoin your regiment on April 14th. It was a Wednesday. It was raining.”
She recited it as if it were some of the most precious information she knew. Her words warmed him in spite of the overcast sky and damp wind blowing across the moor. He envied the wind that caressed her face and fanned a lock of hair across her cheek.
“You appear to have kept a detailed journal on the subject,” he teased. The sudden flush of her cheeks revealed he’d hit upon a truth of some sort. It surprised and pleased him all at once. The rosy hue made her eyes topaz jewels.
“Did you, Miss Formsby-Smythe?” He brushed the tendril of hair away from her face.
“Did I what?” Her eyes widened and her lips parted.
“Did you keep a journal about me?”
Into the silence the moor breezes whistled melodiously. The horses’ harnesses jingled in shimmering counterpoint. The phaeton creaked softly in the wind.
“Yes.” One word, so insubstantial the wind nearly swept it away.
“Why would you do that, Miss Formsby-Smythe?” His throat ached.
“I don’t know.”
Those three words fired his blood as nothing ever had. He needed to touch her almost as much as he needed his next breath, a breath his body struggled to take.
“I am afraid you have left me no choice, Miss Formsby-Smythe. No choice at all but to kiss you.”
“Really, Your Grace?”
He lowered his head. “Oh yes,” he breathed across her lips.
“Then I do wish you would call me Addy.”
“Addy,” he managed to rasp before he touched his lips to hers.
Soft. He never dreamed anything could be as soft as Adelaide’s lips. She expressed no hesitation, no guile, only a gentle sigh of satisfaction. She gave warmth and comfort and a thousand little things he never knew he needed, never knew he missed.
Marcus had kissed and been kissed by many women in his thirty years. The memory of those kisses slipped away like a morning mist when he kissed Addy. He groaned helplessly when her arms rose to pull him closer, her tenderly demanding hands stroking the overlong hair that fell over his collar. She smelled of lavender and the open sky. She tasted of wild honey.
He should not be doing this. She was so young, so little acquainted with the world and he; he was far too old for her in so many ways. His mind understood perfectly. The rest of his body, however, was of a completely different opinion. The curves of the wondrously soft form pressed to his were anything but childish. Her body spoke to his, demanding he deepen the kiss. Her squeak of surprise opened her mouth to the teasing flicks of his tongue. When her tongue touched his in hesitant answer all thoughts of age and right and anything outside of this moment flew out of his head.
If Adelaide died this instant she’d count her life complete. Marcus Winfield kissed her. Was kissing her. Very nicely too. Nice was too insipid a word, but at present short, single syllables were all of which she was capable.
She was about to go up in smoke at any minute. His hands, pressed to her back, burned through her clothes. His lips branded her beyond anything in her wildest maidenly fantasies. His scent, sandalwood and fresh linen surrounded her. He tasted of heaven and rain.
She was not altogether certain what he was doing with his tongue, nor what hers was doing in response. She only knew she did not want it to stop. Then again, as he trailed kisses across her cheek, along her jaw and down the tender, sensitive column of her throat, she did not want him to stop doing that either.
“Dear God, Addy,” he murmured. “You must stop me. I cannot…”
“Oh, Marcus…” What on earth? Adelaide managed to twist her head back and forth. Confusion turned to clarity. “We’re sinking.”
Marcus clasped her face between his hands. “I know I am,” He assured her as he began to nibble her earlobe.
“No, Your Grace, you don’t understand,” she babbled. “Marcus!” The seat tilted sharply.
He grabbed the reins as the horses reared and pulled forward. The ground began to rumble and give way beneath them.
She grabbed his arm. “We appear to be sinking.”
“So we are.” His cool tone might vex her if she weren’t scared witless. She watched him do a thorough reconnaissance in a single glance. “Hold on.”
The back wheels of the phaeton rolled into the growing hole.
Adelaide screamed. Marcus urged the horses on, which succeeded in making them more frantic to escape the abyss forming behind them.
“Jump, Adelaide. Jump clear.”
“Are you mad?” Adelaide cried. When she’d wished for the ground to open itself and devour her, she had not meant it so literally.
She was more than a bit put out of all her wishes, the Fates or God or whoever was in charge of such things had chosen to grant this particular one. Everyone knew a subsequent wish cancelled all previous wishes. And at the exact moment the ground had opened up she had been fervently wishing Marcus Winfield would never stop kissing her. A foolish wish perhaps, but then so was the one the Yorkshire moor saw fit to grant.
“I really would prefer you not call me an idiot, a fool, and madman all in the same day.” He spoke far too calmly for a man facing imminent death.
The carriage lurched back again. She imagined she smelled the stench of fear on the horses as they tried in vain to pull it free. Her very real terror had a taste all its own—bitter and sharp. With a loud crack the shaft between the horses broke under the strain.
“Addy, for the love of God, jump!” Marcus commanded.
She rose halfway to her feet. The carriage threatened to jerk out from under her. Her bottom slammed back onto the seat. “No, Marcus, I cannot.” She clutched his arm tightly.
Like something out of one of those awful gothic novels, the collapse of the ground rose in a deafening roar. The horses screamed and the phaeton broke apart. With a frantic lunge the team was free of the shattered conveyance and it tumbled out from under its passengers into the chasm. Marcus held onto the reins with one hand and to Addy with the other as they dangled over the precipice. She knew he could not hold the panicking horses that strained to pull them out of the chasm or to escape his grasp and make for home, whichever came first. Even now she slipped further into the darkness below. The phaeton hit with a loud crash.
“It doesn’t sound bottomless,” she ground out, with far more optimism than the current catastrophe warranted.
“That’s good,” he replied with a grin that made her stomach flip. “If we fall too far, I might break my good leg.”
“That would be quite insulting.” A short gasp escaped as she slid down his arm. He grabbed her hand in a crushing clasp.
“You are a real brick, Addy. I’ll get us out of this.”
“I hope I am not a particularly heavy brick, Marcus.” She watched the reins slide through his fingers. Adelaide screamed.
Chapter Two
Knocked breathless from the fall, for an instant or two Marcus was back on the battlefield at Waterloo instead of lying upon the wreckage of his new phaeton. As then, he was uncertain if when he finally did get to his feet all of his limbs were going to come with him. Once he opened his eyes, he saw a graying darkness. The sole light came from above, but even it came in fits and starts as storm clouds flitted across the sky. Addy lay on top of him.
“Addy?” His heart beat wildly. He tentatively touched the shawl of honey gold hair that covered his chest. To his relief, she moved.
“Do all of your outings end so dramatically?” Her dry, put upon voice made him want to laugh out loud.
“This is my first outing in some time. I may be a bit rusty.”
“Yes, a bit,” she agreed. She pushed herself into a sitting position.
“U
mmpff,” he grunted.
“Oh dear, have I wounded you?”
“No, that is an old wound,” he assured her, rubbing his chest. “Now that,” he continued as she trod on his hand, “is new. Could you please be still?”
“Dare I hope your soldier’s instincts are still with us, and you know exactly where we are?”
After abruptly (short and sharp pain being preferable to long agony, especially when witnessed by a young lady) rising to his feet, Marcus took in their surroundings and then the hole that opened the path to their current predicament. His mouth tasted of dust, but the air was damp.
“Of course I do,” he said firmly. “We are in a cave. Yorkshire is riddled with underground caves and old mines. Extraordinary.”
As his eyes adjusted to the limited light provided by the large hole overhead, he made out the rock formations and the varied striations of elements in the walls. Caves had always fascinated him.
“Extraordinary?” She dropped the remains of her mangled bonnet onto the phaeton wreckage. “We could have been killed and you find it extraordinary? Is it any wonder I find men idiots?” Her teasing tone amazed him. Other women would be shrieking their heads off by now.
“All men or just me?” He raised his eyebrow in mock anger.
She lifted her eyebrow in a perfect imitation of his. His bark of laughter echoed around the stone walls. “I daresay you did not find me an idiot when I was kissing you,” he said. Marcus repeated the gesture with his eyebrow, because he knew it would amuse her.
“Even an idiot has instances of brilliance.” Her voice was overly bright. “How do you intend to get us out of here?”
He suspected she was more frightened than she let on. Having lived through cavalry charges and cannon barrages, Marcus was far better equipped than a sheltered young woman to deal with something like this.
Lost In Love (Road To Forever Series #1) Page 2