Chapter Four

“Would you look at that? It’s a miracle.”

I jumped at the deep male baritone and lost my balance, teetering over the bushes once more. Strong arms plucked me from the danger. They pulled me against an unyielding male body, one taller than myself.

I groaned. Not him again.

My eyes still hadn’t fully adjusted to the night air. I hadn’t noticed him approach.

The moment I regained my balance, he released me. Thank Zeus. I’d feared he would toss me over his shoulder again. I shivered at the absence of his warmth, but drew my arms around my torso like a blanket.

“Miss Wellesley walks again,” the man said, his voice dripping with contempt.

I returned the sentiment tenfold. Lifting my chin, I said primly, “It looks as though I wasn’t as injured as I thought. Finding oneself locked in a room with no explanation does wonders to spur one to good health.”

“I’m sure.”

Goodness, he and Francine were matched for sarcasm. I should lock them in a room together.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”

He blocked my path. “What sort of cad would I be if I let a woman wander alone in the dark?”

“The tolerable kind.”

He offered his arm. “Alas, it’s not in my nature.”

“To be tolerable?”

He ignored the quip. When I didn’t take his arm, he squirreled me away from the manor. “I can’t let a well-bred young miss wander alone in the gardens.”

“I’m not in the gardens. In fact, I’m barely out of the manor.”

“Nevertheless, it is my duty to see you safely inside once more.” He caught my hand and pinned it into the crook of his arm.

I tugged, but his grip weighed like an anchor. He herded me toward the terrace and makeshift ballroom. I balked. If anyone saw me with him in this tattered state of attire, I would be ruined.

I dug in my heels and hauled him toward the looming hedges, the shadowed forms smelling green, like pine. Francine would know their exact species. I didn’t care. If the stranger refused to release me, then he’d help me locate Frederick. The man halted. He held firm.

“I…think I lost my fan in the garden.”

“You can find it tomorrow, when it is light.”

“By then it will be ruined—”

The man’s clamp was unyielding. He tightened it farther. “Leave my cousin and Captain Paine to their walk uninterrupted.”

All trace of joviality was gone from his voice. His commanding and chilling tone stilled me in place. I reeled as I processed his words. His cousin? They looked nothing alike.

This time, he let me break free of his grasp. I did not mistake the move for a triumph. His looming presence left no doubt he could recapture me with little effort.

“Mr. Johnstone—”

“Lord.”

“I beg your pardon.” I shook my head. “You must take me for a dimwit. There is no Lord Johnstone in the peerage.”

“No, but there is a Lord Hartfell.”

That’s how I recognize him! With his scruffy sideburns, square jaw, and broad-shouldered figure, he didn’t much resemble his dear old mum. How had such a sweet woman given birth to a savage such as him? She and my mother were friends, the same as his father and mine had been friends…at least, until the late Lord Hartfell’s death before I was out of swaddling clothes.

With my sweetest smile, I pointed out, “If you’re Miss Johnstone’s cousin, shouldn’t you protect her virtue by discouraging her from spending time alone with gentlemen?”

Hartfell crossed his arms. Immovable.

“You make it sound as though she’s entertaining a harem. She’s walking with one man, and an honorable one as near as I can tell.” The shadows obscured his face, but his voice was thick with a scowl.

This seemed to be a sore spot to him so, naturally, I prodded him further. With a shrug, I said, “By all means, if you’d like to take the chance, stay here with me. But how well do you know the captain, really?”

I would spend a fortune to be able to see his expression right about now.

“I would be keeping a much closer eye, if not for your shamelessness.”

He said it in such a dark, glowering, murderous tone, I had to laugh.

He made a noise reminiscent of a growl, like an animal. “You don’t even have the modesty to be ashamed.”

“I believe that is the very definition of shameless.”

He loomed closer. His body, coiled with tension, surrounded me with heat. From his hostile stance, he wanted to wring my neck. I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. Somehow, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. Or perhaps I simply didn’t care. It was another facet of the appeal of riling him.

An ominous roll of thunder rumbled, as though to punctuate the danger.

It was so alluring, I didn’t know when to stop. Smiling broadly even though he couldn’t see, I added, “Being meek never got anyone what they wanted.”

He wrapped his hands around my upper arms. I didn’t know whether he meant to pull me closer or push me away.

And then the sky fell open, pummeling us with icy sheets of rain.

I recoiled, intending to run for cover beneath the eaves of the manor or the nearest tree, but he held firm. Another peal of thunder shook the sky, followed by a sheet of lightning that lit up the heavens. It illuminated Hartfell’s face. He stared at me, intent, as though he held me in the open as punishment for prodding him.

The lightning quickly faded, leaving me in the dark and wet.

“Do you want us both to catch our deaths?”

That stirred him into action. He released one arm. His cold glove slid along the length of my other arm to my wrist. He used the hold to tug me behind him. I stumbled as I kept pace. Lightning illuminated our path in ragged spurts.

We reached the manor. The eaves did little to quell the downpour, and droplets of rain slithered down my back. Because of the wind, the front of my dress conformed to my skin. Hartfell groped along the wall, presumably searching for any door or window that wasn’t locked.

He yanked open the first unlocked door and drew me inside. He shut the door so forcefully, the delicate windowpanes in the French door rattled.

“Where are we?” We hadn’t entered by way of the kitchen this time.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the room: the shadow of a desk, tall, overreaching shelves, and a fireplace with dry logs in the grate. The image faded with the streak of light.

I shivered in my soaked clothes. “We should light a fire,” I said, pulling away my hand and tucking my arms around my middle for extra warmth. “There are logs in the grate.”

Hartfell grunted in agreement, but made no move to perform the task himself.

Fine. I didn’t need a man to light a fire. I’d seen it done before. I’d do it myself.

I stomped with purpose in the direction of the fireplace. A sharp corner stabbed me in the thigh. I hissed in pain and doubled over, rubbing the tender spot.

“Miss Wellesley?”

If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn Hartfell sounded concerned.

“I’m fine,” I said between gritted teeth. I tested my weight on the leg. No harm done, but Good Lord, did it throb. “I walked into the desk. It’s nothing.”

This time, I groped along the length of the wood. It was cool and glossy to the touch. As I reached the end, a blaze of lightning granted enough illumination to gauge the distance to the mantle and discern no other obstacles to cause me injury. The bolt, followed by a deafening peal of thunder, left a purplish imprint of the room on my eyes. I stumbled forward, blind, and released a breath when my questing fingers brushed against the mantle. I dropped to my knees, searching for the tinderbox.

Just as I grasped the squat cylinder, Hartfell barked, “You’re making a mess of it, woman. Let me do it.”

I hadn’t even opened the tinderbox yet. I did so and fumbled for the striker and flint nodule. While I pulled the damper off the tinder, Hartfell grunted in pain. Ha! I wasn’t the only person to bumble into the desk. I smiled. I hoped he’d hurt something a good deal more tender than his massive thigh.

Don’t think of his flesh. Or the bruise sure to form there. I poised to strike the flint and steel together. The first pass yielded only one small, pathetic spark that winked out before a full second passed.

“Give that to me. I’ll do it.”

I hunched my shoulders over the tinderbox, shielding it. “No. I don’t need your help.”

“Stubborn woman.”

I pressed my lips together. Unlike Mary, I didn’t succumb to tongue lashings regaling everything a woman was capable of—including the lighting of tinder. But, for once, I wanted to deliver a lecture to send him reeling. I pictured his smug expression in my mind as I struck the flint again.

Two passes later, a flare of sparks ignited the dry cloth in the tinderbox. Hartfell snatched it out of my hand.

“Give me that.” He lit a candle, snuffed the tinder with the damper, and used the candle to light a log.

I leaned back against the corner of the gargantuan desk with a smug smile. Let him think he lit the fire. My hard work had yielded the flame, not his.

The log caught fire reluctantly. After a few moments of dangling the flame along the bark, small licks of flame sprang into being. Thin tendrils of smoke curled off of the bark, a bitter but soothing scent. The fire crackled as it devoured the wood, growing stronger.

As I shifted away from the growing pool of water seeping from my dress, a shiver crawled along my exposed arms. The fire grew sluggishly, emitting more light than warmth.

Finished, Hartfell placed the candle on the mantle, still lit, and turned to me. He stretched out his hand. The tan leather of his glove glistened with moisture.

He rolled his eyes. “Accept my help, will you? I mean nothing by it.”

I held his gaze a moment more. With his eyes glinting from the fire, I couldn’t decipher his intentions. I slipped my hand into his damp palm. He lifted me to my feet with ease.

Rain splattered the glass of the door leading outside. The silhouette of tree branches tossed in the gale. The wind howled past to frequent rumbles of thunder and the occasional snap of lightning. Not even the lure of finding Frederick could entice me into that tempest.

At least the storm bought me more time. Frederick wouldn’t be able to leave in this weather, not unless he wanted to chance his death.

The rustle of cloth hailed Hartfell removing his jacket. Ignoring me, he laid it on the floor in front of the chuckling fire. Not a terrible idea. After unknotting and unwinding the cravat from his throat, he discarded it onto the gleaming desk. Then he went to work on his shirt.

I turned my back. “What in damnation are you doing?”

“My clothes are soaked. Yours, too. Even if you’d like to catch a chill, I’d rather avoid it.”

He sounded amused, not at all contrite or ashamed. And he’d called me shameless.

“We’re very much alone,” I reminded him.

“If we stood in the middle of a crowded room, it would hardly be appropriate for me to undress.”

At that, I whirled on him. “It is not appropriate now!”

His shirt hung over the back of the desk chair. He stood, utterly bare from the waist up, in nothing but his breeches and boots. The soft-looking mat of hair on his chest glimmered golden in the firelight.

He lingered far too close. A ballroom would not have been enough space between us, but he stood scarcely two steps away. With his ground-eating strides, maybe one.

Breathlessly, I added, “Anyone might walk in.” My heart beat frantically, restraining my voice to a whisper. If I were discovered with him in this state of undress, I’d have to marry him.

A more odious fate, I couldn’t imagine.

With a shrug, he crossed to the closed library door and locked it.

My mouth fell open. “What did you just do?”

“I ensured no one would interrupt us.”

“Interrupt us? You make it sound like we’re having a conversation. You are undressing.” I lowered my voice and hissed out the last word.

He turned. “Maybe we are, and you’re just too blasted stubborn to hear it.”

His chest loomed within an arm’s reach now. I’d stalked toward him without noticing. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the unadorned flesh of his body.

He was what Francine would call an agreeable specimen. Of course, she referred to plants rather than people when she spoke those words, but no other description fit him. I hadn’t had the misfortune of seeing many men bare-chested, after all. My experience was limited to one.

The breadth of his shoulders devoured the space in the room, closing in on us until he seemed to surround me. The downy hair on his chest beckoned. Would it feel soft? Raspy? I clasped my hands behind my back to keep from finding out firsthand. My gloves, a bit damp, squelched softly. His muscular physique surprised me. What did he do to stay so supremely fit?

“Do you like what you see?” he asked in so low a rumble, I nearly mistook his voice for the thunder outdoors.

I raised my gaze. My cheeks roasted. I fought the urge to cover them. “You’re a boor,” I spat.

He smiled. A slow, lethal spread of his lips containing more amusement than mirth. His hooded gaze never left my face. He leaned back against the door. “Feel free to discard all pretense at civility.”

I jabbed my finger into his chest. “You are the one acting uncivilized by taking off your clothes. A gentleman would persevere.”

He caught my hand, but I twisted to leave him with my glove instead. I scampered back.

He straightened to his full height. Even from over a pace away, he loomed above me. I didn’t care for the feeling. I liked to look a man in the eye when I spoke to him, not at his collarbone.

I felt exposed with only one glove on. I thrust my bare hand behind my back.

He advanced with all the lethality of a crouched tiger. I staggered back. If I had to, I would run from him. Could I make it to the door in time? Heat radiated from him as he crossed the distance to me. It banished the last tremors from the icy rain. A flush crept over my body in more places than only my face. Secret places.

The backs of my thighs brushed against the desk. Hartfell hemmed me in, laying his big hands on the wood’s surface. His legs bracketed mine. The strong scent of sandalwood surrounded me.

I threatened, “Lay a finger on me and I’ll scream.”

He raised one eyebrow. The firelight cast an odd array of shadows over his face to make him seem at once disbelieving and frightfully murderous.

“You won’t,” he said, his tone low and intimate. Nothing violent in his tone of voice—only promising.

I fought the urge to squirm.

“If we’re discovered, we’ll have to marry. You don’t want that.”

It wasn’t a question, but I responded nonetheless. “You’re the very last man I’d accept.”

“Is that so?”

I lifted my chin. We stood so close, my breasts scraped over his bare skin with every breath. I leaned back. The movement brushed my hips against his instead.

“You hide your interest very poorly, Miss Wellesley.”

“I am not interested in you in any way.”

“Then why did you admire my form so openly?”

I balled my hands into fists. “That wasn’t interest. It was…scientific curiosity.”

He barked out a laugh. His gut rumbled with the force of it, so close, the tremors spread to mine. My breath caught at the peculiar sensation.

“You have an interest in science?”

Not in the least, but my dearest friend blathered on and on about it. I ought to have enough knowledge to fool him. “I do,” I bluffed.

“And what do you deduce from my form?”

I glared at him, but he maintained his relaxed stance. He didn’t budge an inch.

“Only that you are male, and obviously at ease with your nudity in front of women.”

“You call this nudity?” He lifted one hand to indicate his bare torso.

Naturally, my eyes shifted to that part of his body. I cursed myself and bit the inside of my cheek as punishment. The bite of pain quelled a sudden wave of giddiness.

Then he leaned closer. “I haven’t even removed my breeches yet.”

Yet? Heaven help me. I would perish from mortification if he did so.

In a strained voice, I said, “And I thank you for your restraint, sir.”

He laughed. Another belly-rumbling, quiver-inducing sound. His eyes narrowed with intent.

“You’ve kissed men before.”

The lilt in his voice made it as much a question as an accusation. I lifted my chin in challenge. “Dozens,” I lied. The truth was a smaller number, a handful of stolen kisses, no more.

His grin turned amorous. “Then one more kiss won’t tarnish your reputation more than you already have.”

He swooped in. My breath caught. I simultaneously hoped and feared he would meld his mouth to mine. But he stopped, hovering a scant inch away from my mouth. His breath mingled with mine, hot and ardent, sweet with the smell of wine.

“Kiss me,” he said.

Because he asked when he could have taken, I almost did. I swayed toward him.

I recoiled as someone jiggled the doorknob to the room.