In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster (25 page)

For a long moment, she held his gaze, then her lips very faintly curved. “I take it you’d prefer to be wise?”

He nodded. “Perhaps it’s simply the scholar in me, but I can’t see any point in going the other way. The usual way.”

She held his gaze; a long moment ticked by.

He forced himself to remain as he was, his arms, like hers, loosely clasped about his knees. The fading warmth given off by the dying embers seemed to his wayward senses to be replaced, superseded, by the warmth of her, by the alluring temptation of her nearness.

Then she inclined her head. “I agree.” Her eyes remained on his as she freed one hand, raised it. “So let’s roll the dice, and see what comes.”

Her hand touched his cheek, framed, caressed, then, lids lowering, she leaned closer, nearer, and her lips met his.

And she kissed him again, openly, directly, with no possibility of doubt as to her intent.

Lids falling, he savored the contact, so amazingly sweet. He’d kissed women enough over the years, but never had a simple kiss been this addictive. Shackling the fingers of one hand about his other wrist, forcing himself to remain as he was, he kissed her back, then tempted her further.

And she came.

Swiveling up to her knees, Eliza deepened the kiss, instinctively surrendering her mouth, luring him to take. She pressed nearer, her breasts firm against his upper arm, the hard edges of the rose quartz pendant still safely tucked between her breasts impinging on her senses.

Urging her on. She leaned in, with her lips pressing for more … then he moved.

Shifting, he broke the kiss and drew her into his embrace, swinging her down across his hard thighs, his lips following hers to engage again.

To capture, sup, and savor again.

Drawing her back, drawing her on, into the steadily deepening caress.

The moments spun out in giddy delight, in gentle if illicit pleasure. They traded caresses, the reins shifting between them so that first one commanded, demanded, made their wishes clear, leaving the other to respond before stating their own agenda.

The firmness of his lips, the heated stroking of his tongue, the roughness of his stubble against her palm, the silk of his hair as her fingers explored, wreathed through her senses and filled her mind.

She kissed him back, increasingly boldly, increasingly confident that, as he’d stated, they should simply flow with this tide —

Whoot. Too-whoot.

They broke from the kiss, both looked about, then their senses caught up.

“Owl.” Jeremy looked back at her, at rosy red lips, at hazel eyes in which pleasure was alive … the thought of what should come next welled and filled his mind. But … it was too dangerous out here, in the middle of nowhere.

Before them, the fire had all but died.

She blinked. He saw no regret in her eyes, not even any awkwardness, yet …

He steeled himself. “We should go inside. We’ve a long way to walk tomorrow.”

She looked at him, then nodded. “Yes, you’re right.” Her voice was husky and low.

She moved to rise. He helped her to her feet, then got to his.

He glanced at the spit, still hot, at their plates set to one side. “We can clear this up in the morning, when we can see well enough not to fall in the stream.”

She laughed softly and turned to the cottage door. “A pertinent consideration.”

Returning with the candlestick, she let him take it and kindle the wick on the last of the embers. He handed the candlestick back to her. While she slipped into the bushes, he considered one of Charles St. Austell’s stories about spending the night in some isolated spot in enemy territory.

Last night, despite the bolted door, they’d been vulnerable while they’d slept.

When Eliza returned, he waved her inside, waited until she lighted a second candle, then took the first and circled the cottage several yards out, laying dry brittle sticks in any spot where a man could tread.

Finally satisfied that he’d done all he could to ensure her safety, he entered the cottage and bolted the door.

Two minutes later, with him stretched out on the larger bed and her on the smaller, within arm’s reach, he blew out his candle, closed his eyes, and lectured his unruly body not to get ahead of him.

There was no need to overwhelm themselves all at once.

He needed not to think but to assimilate. To absorb.

Before they moved on.

Following the dice she had, with full intent, started rolling.

One step at a time.

The next morning they started out bright and early to walk through and out of the hills. According to the map, they had most of the Moorfoots still to conquer, at the very least a good morning’s walk before they reached Stow.

Although the sun shone, the air was bracing. The lighter saddlebag over her shoulder, Eliza tramped in Jeremy’s wake. The Moorfoots seemed to be a series of knobbly folds; they climbed up and down constantly, tacking first to follow the flank of one largely barren, moorlike hill, before turning to skirt the next.

The walking wasn’t so much hard as demanding. They had to negotiate fern fields and leap countless little burns. They passed a small shooting lodge tucked into a narrow valley between two hills; at one point they walked through a stretch of forest where the shadows were so dense she shivered.

There was more than enough to see and do, to keep her mind occupied simply with getting on, to avoid thinking about the events of the evening, yet time and again her mind slid away to do just that. To consider, circle, poke, and prod at whatever this was that was happening between them.

This — being with a gentleman like this, entirely cut off from their normal world, only to discover a connection neither she nor he had thought likely — was beyond any situation she’d expected, anticipated, or even dreamed of.

In this, she had very little in the way of experience, her own or any of her mentors’, to guide her.

Eyes on the ground, she followed in Jeremy’s tracks. That morning, when they’d woken, availed themselves of the nearby stream to wash, then, working side by side, had quickly cleaned, straightened, and neatened the cottage, she’d kept expecting some moment of awkwardness, some sudden attack of self-consciousness on her or his part.

It hadn’t happened. Instead, she’d been aware that he’d been watching her with the same expectation. Again and again their eyes had met, and they’d waited … the entire morning had passed off without one hint of real awkwardness between them.

Before they’d left, Jeremy had laid a gold sovereign on the deal table. He’d looked at her in query. She’d nodded her approbation, then had led him from the cottage and they’d set off.

She couldn’t quite understand why, with him, she could behave as she was, and he could behave as he was, and somehow it seemed right. They were working together in a manner she would never have imagined might be between a tonnish gentleman — and no matter his scholarly reticence, Jeremy Carling was definitely that — and a distinctly tonnish lady.

They’d reached a difficult-to-negotiate rocky rise. She grimaced. Without any discussion, she halted, waited while Jeremy scrambled up, then held up her hands. He grasped them and pulled her up.

In perfect harmony without needing any words, they fell back into line and continued on.

She was starting to think that she and her family ought to thank the mysterious laird. If he hadn’t sent Scrope to seize her and whisk her all the way into Scotland, she wouldn’t now be walking the Moorfoot Hills alone with Jeremy Carling, enjoying herself hugely and learning far more about herself and him than she’d had any idea existed to be learned.

Their exchange before the fire pit had been enough to confirm that, amazing though it seemed, he and she were thinking along similar lines. That neither was yet sure what the outcome of their deliberations would be, what the destination of the road they were currently metaphorically walking down, together, hand in hand, would be.

To her mind, that slow, deliberate progress was perfectly acceptable; she wasn’t the brave, adventurous sort like her sisters — she needed to feel her way through things.

To discover that he felt the same, that he saw such an understated, undramatic, stage-by-stage assessment as their most sensible way forward, was not just a relief — it was a revelation.

Her gaze rested on the windblown locks of his dark hair, then skated over the breadth of his shoulders. She wasn’t the least bit bothered that, given their present trek through the morning, it was highly unlikely they would reach the border that evening, and would therefore have to spend another night, together alone, somewhere along the way.

Walking steadily on, she turned her mind to what the evening, and the night, might hold.

They emerged from a cleft between two hills and halted.

They were still high on the flank of the range, but the ground before them fell gently away across a wide valley, silver burns wending their way around progressively lower gentle hills to join the thickly treed line of a river. The river lay on the other side of the valley floor, closer to the rise of the next range of hills.

Having unfolded and consulted the map, Jeremy squinted across the valley. “The river’s the Gala Water, and that”— he pointed —“is our destination. Stow.” He refolded the map. “We should be able to hire another gig there and head south at a better pace.”

At various high points along their route, he’d paused and looked back, scanning the hills behind them for any sign of pursuit.

Eliza glanced at him. “The laird isn’t following us anymore, is he?”

He met her eyes. “Difficult to be sure — we can’t look back far in this terrain. But if he was still on our trail, I would have expected him to catch up with us before now.”

Resettling her saddlebag, she looked down across the valley. “Let’s assume we’ve lost both him and Scrope.” She glanced at him. “Which way now?”

He nodded to a shimmer of silver not far ahead. “The easiest route will be alongside the burns. Every little streamlet will join a bigger one, and eventually they all run into the Gala Water. According to the map, the largest tributary, the one this little stream will eventually join, flows into the main river near the bridge we want — the one near Stow.”

“Right, then.” Stepping out, she headed for the stream. “Let’s get to it.”

Hiding a grin, he followed. He’d only known her like this, out of society, for a handful of days, yet in that time she’d transformed, changed … or, as he was more inclined to believe, the demands of her escape and their flight had drawn another side of her, a different set of skills, a deeper, more innate strength, to the fore.

From what she’d let fall the previous evening, he gathered she viewed herself as somehow less than her sisters. Less an outgoing, willful, impatient, and unwilling-to-be-denied sort of young lady. In society’s and even in her family’s terms, that might be true, but there was a great deal more to her than that, she had a great deal more to offer than that, and, to his mind, what she lacked was more a blessing than a curse.

They halted near the stream and finished off the nuts, then continued walking while munching their last two apples. The sun beamed down as they crossed the valley, following one stream to the next, steadily descending toward their goal.

The way was easier than their morning’s hike. Jeremy remained behind Eliza, following her through the increasingly lush, if narrow, water-meadows bordering the river’s tributaries.

He drew level when they finally stepped onto the lane leading to the bridge over the river. He had to quell the impulse to take her hand. Instead, side by side, they strode across the bridge.

He tipped his head toward the buildings gathered about a church tower a little way to their right on the opposite shore. “That’s Stow.”

She nodded.

He’d noticed she limited speaking whenever possible while they were in public — while she was masquerading as a youth. Which was unquestionably wise. Her normal voice was light, musical, enchantingly feminine, and didn’t readily convert to anything male. She covered by speaking gruffly, generally incomprehensibly.

Stow held no unpleasant surprises. The tidy little town boasted several inns. Jeremy and Eliza chose one, arranged for a gig and horse, then went inside.

The taproom was reasonably crowded. Jogging Eliza’s elbow, Jeremy pointed to a table by the wall near one window. She nodded and led the way to it. Sliding the saddlebags from their shoulders, they sat.

A buxom serving girl materialized all but immediately. “Right then, sirs — what’ll you have? There’s a good mutton pie, or if you’ve a mind to it, there’s game pie, too.”

“Game pie,” Eliza mumbled, head down.

Fighting a grin, Jeremy nodded. “The same. And an ale for me.” He glanced at Eliza.

“Water,” she grumbled.

“Watered ale for the young sir, is it?” The serving girl made a note on her slate.

Jeremy arched a brow at Eliza.

Her eyes had widened, but after a fractional hesitation, she nodded.

He looked up at the serving girl. “That will do nicely.”

The girl beamed. “I’ll be no more’n a few minutes, sirs. Make yerselves comfy.” She bustled off.

Jeremy grinned at Eliza. “Watered ale?”

She shrugged and kept her voice gruffly low. “Why not? I’ve never had watered ale before — Heather said she had some when she was off with Breckenridge. I suspect I should try it.”

The serving girl returned as quickly as she’d said, sliding plates of pie and gravy before them. Jeremy asked for the reckoning and paid.

“Just in case we need to make a rapid exit,” he murmured in reply to Eliza’s questioning look.

The pie proved to be excellent, and the ale refreshing, if a trifle bitter.

Their exertions of the morning had sharpened Eliza’s appetite. Somewhat to her surprise, she cleaned her plate and drained her mug.

Jeremy had already finished eating and had pulled out their map. He’d been frowning down at it in a considering way. When she pushed her plate aside, he glanced at her, then shifted the map so they could both study it.