by Anne Gracie
“You can’t travel in those wet clothes,” he informed her. “You’ll catch your death.”
She looked down at the ruins of her dress, some light-colored thing partly revealed beneath the filthy cloak, and sighed. “I s-suppose so.” Her teeth were chattering.
He lifted a small valise from an overhead rack and pulled one of his shirts from it. “Take off everything that is wet, and then put this on.”
“Here? In the coach?” Beneath the mud and bruising a blush crept over her skin. She gave him a look in which innocence fought with awareness and strove for indignation. For a girl who’d just fought off an abductor, and who looked—and smelled—like she’d been dragged through a haystack and then rolled in a pigpen, it was almost seductive.
Which was ridiculous.
He said irritably, “Well, unless you expect me to stand outside in the rain while you change”—he gestured to the window to point out that rain was pelting down again—“yes, here in the coach.”
And before she could suggest that she would prefer him to get soaked while she stripped off her odiferous attire, he grabbed a fur-lined traveling rug. “Here, I’ll hold this up to protect your modesty. You can wear one of my shirts—I’m afraid I don’t have any gowns with me—and then wrap yourself in this. We’ll stop at the next town and get something more suitable for you.”
“Very well.” She unfastened her cloak and shrugged it off and handed it to him. He dropped it on the floor. And his mouth dried.
She was wearing a badly soiled evening gown, filthy now, but it was apparent to Ned that it had been both expensive and in the first stare of fashion. Wet, filmy layers of pinkish gauze clung to her like a second skin, almost transparent, outlining luscious curves. Her face and hands were muddy, but her breasts, enticingly displayed by the low-cut neckline, were creamy and lush.
With an effort he dragged his gaze to her face.
She gazed back at him, wide-eyed, her eyes as gray and liquid as a winter sea. Dark hair streamed down over her shoulders in dripping clumps, a mermaid come to call, wet, luscious and enticing. A pair of tight, berry-hard nipples thrust invitingly toward him.
He swallowed. It was just the cold. Nipples did that in the cold. But it took all his self-control to keep his gaze focused on her face.
“You’ll have to help me. It’s fastened down the back.”
He put the rug aside and moved to the seat beside her. She turned and lifted the wet mass of her hair so he could undo her gown. He stared for a long moment at her pale, vulnerable nape, then set himself to the task at hand.
The dress was cunningly constructed of a series of overlapping layers that, sodden, clung to his fingers. He was well experienced at helping women out of their clothes, but he was damned if he could see how to unfasten this blasted dress.
“The hooks are very small, I’m afraid. Can you find them?”
He fished around and found a row of tiny hooks. Of course they would be tiny. He swore silently as he fumbled with each minute and impossible fastening, then became aware of the soft creamy flesh he was revealing beneath. Cold, damp flesh, he reminded himself. She was still shivering. He all but ripped the last dozen hooks from the dress, then removed himself to the opposite seat and raised the rug in front of him to block out the sight of her.
Behind the fur barrier she wriggled and rustled and sighed.
It was damnably erotic.
“What should I do with my dress? It’s making the seat all wet and dirty.”
“Throw it on the floor.”
He heard a sigh. “It was a beautiful dress once,” a sad little voice said from the other side of the fur blanket. A dirty pink bundle plopped wetly onto the floor between them. He scraped it into the corner with the toe of his boot.
He waited. The wriggling and rustling did not resume. His arms were getting tired. “Are you finished?”
“No.” There was a pause, then, “Did you say I should take off everything that was wet?”
“Yes. Unless you want to catch an inflammation of the lungs.”
“But . . . I’m soaked to the skin.”
To the skin. He closed his eyes. He did not need this, the thought that this unknown, filthy and yet somehow appealing female was going to be naked, with nothing but a fur rug between them. He said in a hard voice, “Take it all off, then. Your virtue is safe with me.”
“Oh, I know that, Mr. Galbraith.” There was not a shred of doubt in her voice.
He was almost insulted. He had a reputation as a rake, dammit! Who the devil was this girl—who on the one hand seemed like a virtuous maiden, unless he misread her completely—and yet she would climb into a carriage with a perfect stranger and happily strip to the buff at his command.
Trusting him not to ravish her.
Though it seemed that to her, he was not a stranger. How did she know his name?
He pondered that conundrum as she wriggled and panted and tossed soggy white garments onto the pile on the floor, garments he preferred not to think about. First a petticoat, then a chemise, followed by stays, and oh, lord, there went the stockings. He waited for a pair of drawers to join the pile, but there were none.
Only three kinds of females didn’t wear drawers: the sheltered, old-fashioned kind; women who couldn’t afford them; and tarts.
He waited. The suspense was unbearable. “Are you finished?”
“Yes, but I’m still quite damp. Do you have anything I can dry myself with before I put your shirt on?”
Damn. He should have thought of that. “Hold the rug for a minute.”
She took hold of it and lowered it to her chin. Her eyes were light gray, rimmed with long dark lashes, and gleamed in her dirty face like polished pewter. The pupils were huge and dark and looked slightly unfocused. The effects of the drug, he assumed.
“It’s strange but I don’t feel as cold without my wet clothes, even though—” She blushed and looked away.
Ned didn’t need to complete the sentence. He was only too aware of her naked state. He fished in the valise, found a small towel, tossed it over to her side of the rug then took the rug back, raising it again to block out the sight of her.
“How do you know my name?”
“You’re a friend of my brother’s. We met at his wedding.”
Ned frowned. He usually avoided weddings. They invariably sparked his grandfather to fresh attempts to match him up with some female he—Grandfather—considered suitable.
“You were his best man.”
His best man? Ned almost dropped the rug. He’d only ever been one man’s best man. “You’re Cal Rutherford’s sister?”
She grabbed the drooping rug from his nerveless grasp and tucked it around her naked body—she had not yet donned his shirt—not showing the slightest awareness of her appalling situation as she gave him a warm and trusting smile. “Yes, don’t you remember me? I was one of the bridesmaids.”
He stared at her—she’d wiped her face clean—and tried not to let his gaze drop to where the fur rug was nestling like an animal against lush, bountiful breasts. This was Cal Rutherford’s sweet-faced little sister? Naked in his carriage—naked!—covered only by a rug? “You’re . . . Lucy?”
Her smile dimmed slightly. “It’s Lily. I’m Lily.”
“Put the shirt on,” Ned said gruffly. He wasn’t up to taking the rug from her grasp, so he stood and turned his back. Cal Rutherford’s little sister. Good God.
“Make sure you tuck the rug around you as well. The shirt isn’t very warm. You don’t want to catch a chill.” He needed her to be wrapped in thick, opaque, shapeless layers—preferably dozens of them—and not just because of the possibility of a chill. She was a luscious little armful—too luscious for his peace of mind.
His friend’s little sister. Not so little anymore.
Marriage bait.
“You
can turn around now,” she said after a moment.
He turned. She sat huddled on the seat like an orphan from the storm, her feet tucked under her, swathed to the chin in silky dark fur, the white edges of his shirt collar just showing beneath it. Her pale complexion, clean now and flawless—except for the deepening bruise on her cheekbone—glowed like a pearl in the shadowed interior of the carriage. Her mouth was full and lush, but her eyes were ringed beneath with heavy purple shadows. She looked exhausted.
How the hell had a sister of Cal Rutherford ended up in such a sordid mess?
He leaned forward and gently cupped her chin, tilting her face toward the light to examine the bruise. She sat quietly under his examination, blushing slightly. Her innocence, her open, trustful expression frustrated him. She had no business trusting strange men. Even if she knew—or thought she knew—who he was.
No one was who they seemed to be. No one. Not even him.
Especially not him.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, then silently berated himself for a fool. Of course it hurt.
“Not very much.”
He didn’t believe her. That bastard hadn’t held back with that backhander. A nasty blow from a ruthless villain. God help her if she’d ever married him.
Her gaze dropped to his knuckles, skinned and raw. “Your poor hands, are they—”
“No.” He shoved them in his pockets and sat back. The movement drew his attention to the soggy pile of clothing on the floor. “Faugh, that stench!” He opened the carriage door and kicked the pile of sodden, muddy clothing out onto the road.
“My clothes!” she exclaimed. She peered out the window, then turned to him accusingly. “What did you do that for?”
“They were filthy.”
“But that was my favorite dress.”
“You can buy another one.” She continued exuding silent indignation, so he added bluntly, “Look, whatever muck you fell in stank like a midden. I’m not traveling all the way back to London with a stink like that in the carriage. We’ll stop in the next town and get you a hot bath and something clean to wear.”
“Oh.” She glanced down at herself, sniffed cautiously, and blushed. He cursed himself silently for embarrassing her. She stank, but it wasn’t her fault.
“Do you have anything to drink?” she asked. “I’m very thirsty.”
He passed her a bottle. “Cold tea—a habit I picked up in the army. Never know when you might need it.” She drank it all down, draining it dry. Thirsty indeed.
“Thank you. I needed that.” She handed it back with a tremulous smile.
“So, I gather you weren’t eloping with that bastard?”
That put the starch back in her spine. “No, of course I wasn’t! He abducted me.”
“How?”
She flushed slightly. “He tricked me.” She fidgeted a little, tucking her toes more securely under the fur rug. “I was at the Mainwaring rout with Cal and Emm . . .”
She explained how she’d been enticed outside.
He frowned. “You didn’t realize the note was a forgery? You didn’t recognize your own sister’s writing?”
She turned a dusky rose-pink and didn’t meet his eyes. “No,” she mumbled, but didn’t explain. She’d probably had too much to drink, he decided.
She continued her story, explaining how she was shoved into a carriage and drugged—kept in a damned airless box like a coffin—and his anger grew.
She glossed over the part where she’d been let out to relieve herself, mentioning only that the pins and needles had made it hard to walk, and that the fresh air had made her more alert, but he could read between the lines at her complete mortification.
He wished now he’d beaten that bastard to a pulp and then dragged him and his damned coachman off to jail. If he’d realized at the time what he’d been dealing with . . .
“So his destination was Gretna Green and a forced marriage,” he said when she’d finished. “An heiress, are you?”
She nodded. “Cal always warned us that men might want us for our money, but I never imagined . . . I didn’t think . . .” Her face crumpled and the big gray eyes filled with tears. “I’ve made such a mess of things. Everyone will be so worried.”
“Not your fault,” he said heartily, hoping to head off the incipient waterworks. “In fact, dashed clever of you to have the presence of mind to stick your tongue in the neck of that bottle.”
She looked up in surprise. “Clever?”
“Absolutely. You escaped from that villain all by yourself, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but if you hadn’t come along—”
“Don’t even think about it. I did, and that’s all that matters. We’ll get you back home safe, don’t worry, and nobody will know of your little adventure. And you won’t be tricked by any plausible blackguard in future, will you?”
She bit her lip. “I hope not.” It came out as a shamed whisper.
There was a long silence. He didn’t know what to say. He knew nothing about this girl, apart from who her brother was. He wasn’t used to the company of virtuous young women. He’d done his best to avoid respectable women since he’d sold out of the army.
He had no desire to marry, no desire to take on the responsibility for anyone’s future except his own. It would be necessary one day, he accepted that—he owed it to Grandfather, and to the family name. The blasted title.
But not yet.
She gave a sudden, convulsive shudder, then glanced at him self-consciously. “Just thinking about what a lucky escape I’ve had.”
He nodded.
“I can’t imagine what it would be like to be forced to marry a man you don’t know.” Her words were a little slurred still and the pupils of her eyes were dark. The remnants of the drug.
“Mmm.”
She added shyly, “I’ve always wanted to marry for love.”
“Ah.” He nodded, as if he had some idea of what she was talking about. Love? Marriage was about duty. And heirs. And responsibility.
Last year he’d almost married a woman he barely knew, the daughter of a friend of his grandfather. Only to please the old man, who he’d thought was on his last legs—the cunning old devil.
Ned hadn’t particularly fancied the girl, but he was philosophical about marriage—no matter what way you looked at it, it was a lottery—and he would have gone through with it. He’d let Grandfather down enough in his life; might as well do this one thing to please the old man before he breathed his last.
Luckily once the girl got to know him better, she’d called it off. What had she called him? A rake and a libertine, coldhearted, irreligious, unprincipled and irredeemable!
Which was accurate enough. There was worse too, in his past, though she didn’t know about that. Nobody knew, only himself. And the dead.
But Grandfather was still alive and kicking, which was the best outcome of all. If he loved anyone, it was his grandfather.
After a moment Lily glanced outside.
“Where are we, Mr. Galbraith? I have no idea how long I was shut in the darkness.”
“Call me Ned. Or Edward.” Mr. Galbraith from a girl only a handful of years younger than him made him feel like his father, even if his father was dead. For most of his adult life he’d been Lieutenant, or Captain or Major Galbraith. Or simply Galbraith to his peers. He glanced out the window. “We were a few miles before Boroughbridge when we met up.”
She shook her head, clearly having no idea where Boroughbridge was.
“A dozen or so miles from Harrogate.”
She gasped. “Harrogate? Harrogate in Yorkshire?”
He nodded.
“Then I’ve been missing for—how long? What day is it? I’ve lost all track of time.”
He told her.
“Thursday afternoon?” she whispered incredulously. “It
can’t be. The Mainwaring rout was on Tuesday night.” He watched as the truth sank into her. “Two nights away . . .”
They traveled along in silence after that. Ned was relieved when she finally closed her eyes. Pools of misty gray, fringed by thick, sooty lashes.
Cal Rutherford should have set a guard on her. She was a walking temptation to any man, and not just because she was an heiress. She was positively delectable—and too damned trusting for her own good.
Look how she was preparing to go to sleep, right there in front of him. A man she barely knew.
For all she knew he could have the morals of a tomcat—as bad as or even worse than the fellow who’d abducted her. She’d just admitted she was an heiress. Just because he was her brother’s friend didn’t necessarily mean he could be trusted with women. Or heiresses.
Of course he’d cut off his right arm before he harmed her—he did have some shreds of honor left—but she wasn’t to know that.
The coach swayed as it took a bend and she tilted dangerously, her eyes still closed. Lord, if she wasn’t careful she’d fall right off the seat. He swapped seats to sit beside her, and pulled her gently upright again.
Those long, dark eyelashes fluttered; she murmured something he didn’t catch and snuggled up against him. He looked down at her. Her head rested against his arm, her wet hair dampening his sleeve. He didn’t usually encourage—or even allow—women to cuddle up to him. He wasn’t the cuddling sort.
Blasted drug.
She muttered something unintelligible, and moved restlessly. The rug slipped to her waist. He swallowed—that shirt was too damned thin for words.
“Lily.”
She didn’t stir. He tried again, louder, and tried to push her into a more upright position, but she was deep asleep. He reached across her to tug the rug back up to decency again, and she sighed and snuggled into his inadvertent embrace, her warm, soft curves pressed against him, her unbruised cheek cuddled against his shirtfront.