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She stumbled, a hidden tree root sending her falling backward with a little screech, and she threw her arms wide, dropping her lantern in an awkward attempt to catch herself.
He beat her to it, his large, strong hands coming around her arms, catching her, lifting her, pressing her back against a large oak tree and, before she could regain her footing and escape, bracing against the wood to cage her in his arms.
The boy she remembered was gone.
The man in his place was not to be trifled with.
He was very close. Too close, leaning in, lowering his voice to a whisper, the breath of his words against the arch of her cheek heightening her nervousness. She did not breathe, too focused on the heat of him, on what he would say next. “They’ll even marry an aging spinster to get it. ”
She hated him then. Hated the words, the way he spoke them with such simple cruelty. Tears threatened.
No. No. She would not cry.
Not for this beast of a man who was nothing like the boy she’d once known. The one she’d dreamed would one day return.
Not like this.
She struggled against him once more, irritated now, desperate to be free. He was stronger than her by half and refused to release her, pressing her back to the oak, leaning in until he was close—too close. Fear lanced through her, followed by quick, blessed anger. “Let me go. ”
He did not move. In fact, for a long moment, Penelope thought he had not heard her.
“No. ”
The refusal was emotionless.
She struggled again, kicking out, one booted foot connecting with his shin, hard enough to spur a very satisfying grunt. “Dammit!” she cried, knowing that ladies didn’t curse, knowing that she would likely spend an eternity in purgatory for the transgression but not knowing how else to communicate with this brutish stranger. “What are you going to do, leave me here in the snow to freeze to death?”
“No. ” The word was low and dark at her ear as he held her, easily.
She did not give up. “Kidnap me then? Hold me for ransom for Falconwell?”
“No, though it wouldn’t be a terrible idea. ” He was so close, she could smell him, bergamot and cedar, and she paused at the sensation of his breath brushing over the skin of her cheek. “But I’ve got something much worse in mind. ”
She stilled. He wouldn’t kill her.
After all, they’d been friends once. Long ago, before he’d become handsome as the devil and twice as cold.
He wouldn’t kill her.
Would he?
“Wh—what is it?”
He stroked the tip of one finger down the long column of her neck, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Her breath caught in her throat at the touch . . . all wicked warmth and nearly unbearable sensation.
“You have my land, Penelope,” he whispered at her ear, the sound low and liquid and altogether too distracting even as it sent tremors of anxiety spiraling through her, “and I want it back. ”
She should not have left the house that evening.
If she survived this, she would never leave the house again.
She shook her head, eyes closed as he wreaked havoc on her senses. “I can’t give it to you. ”
He stroked one hand down her arm in a long, lovely caress, taking her wrist in his firm, warm clasp. “No, but I can take it. ”
She opened her eyes, met his, black in the darkness. “What does that mean?”
“It means, my darling”—the endearment was mocking—“that we are to be married. ”
Shock coursed through her as he lifted her arm, tossed her over his shoulder, and headed into the trees toward Falconwell Manor.
* * *
Dear M—
I cannot believe that you did not tell me that you were named head of class and I had to hear it from your mother (who is very proud indeed). I’m shocked and appalled that you would not share with me . . . and not a little bit impressed that you managed not to brag about it.
There must be masses that you haven’t told me about school. I am waiting.
Ever patient—P
Needham Manor, February 1814
* * *
Dear P—
I’m afraid head of class isn’t much of a title when you’re a first-year; I’m still subject to the whims of the older boys when I am not at study. Fear not—when I am named head of class next year, I shall brag shamelessly.
There are masses to tell . . . but not to girls.
—M
Eton College, February 1814
Bourne had imagined a half dozen scenarios that ended in his ferreting Penelope away from her father and her family and marrying her to reclaim his land. He’d planned for seduction, and for coercion, and even—in the extreme—for abduction.
But not one of those scenarios had involved a snow-covered woman with a penchant for danger and less than the recommended allotment of sense approaching him in the bitter cold of a Surrey January in the dead of night.
She’d saved him quite a bit of work.
Naturally, it would have been wrong of him to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.
And so he’d taken her.
“You brute!”
He winced as she pounded her fists against his shoulders, her legs flailing about, their awkward angle the only thing that kept him from losing critical parts of his anatomy to a single well-placed kick.
“Put me down!”
He ignored her, instead capturing her legs with one arm, tilting her up until she squeaked and grasped the back of his coat for balance, then resettling her on his shoulder, taking no small amount of pleasure in her grunted “Oof!” as his shoulder found purchase in the soft swell of her stomach.
It seemed that the lady was not pleased with the direction of her evening.
“Is there a problem with your ability to hear?” she said archly, or, as archly as one could sound while tossed over a man’s shoulder.
He did not reply.
He did not have to. She was filling the silence quite well with her muttering. “I should never have left the house . . . Lord knows if I’d known you would be out here, I would have locked the doors and windows and sent for the constable . . . To think . . . I was actually happy to see you!”
She had been happy to see him, her laughter like sunshine and her excitement palpable. He stopped himself from thinking about the last time someone had been so happy to see him.
From questioning if anyone had ever been so happy to see him. Anyone but Penelope.
He’d stripped the happiness from her, coolly, efficiently, with skill, expecting her to be cowed by it, to be weakened.
And she’d spoken, soft and simple, the words echoing across the lake, punctuated by the falling snow, the rushing of blood in his ears, and the biting knowledge of the truth.
You’re on my land.
It’s not yours.
You lost it.
There was nothing weak about this woman. She was strong as steel.
With a handful of words, she’d reminded him that she was the last thing standing in the way of the one thing he’d wanted for his entire adult life. Of the only thing that gave him purpose.
Falconwell.
The land from whence he had come, and his father before him, and his father’s father before that, back generations—too many to count.
The land he had lost and vowed to regain.
At any cost.
Even marriage.
“You cannot simply carry me off like . . . like . . . a sheep!”
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