Reckless Viscount (17 page)

He couldn’t tell if she was finally satisfied with her perusal or if she simply decided to give up. She straightened again in her seat, stiffening her spine with purpose. Lifting both hands, she smoothed the soft fly-away curls back from her face and twisted the length of hair before dropping it down her back.

Displaying amazing patience, Irish looked back at him in silence.

He cleared his throat. Discomfort settled heavily in his gut and his throat felt dry beyond belief

“I have discovered where we are and where we are heading.”

A fine strand of hair slid forward against her cheek and she lifted her hand to tuck the tendril behind her ear. Her slim fingers trembled with the task, and though her gaze was direct and fearless, her teeth worried at her lower lip. She was not as composed as she tried to appear.

“We are quite a distance north of London.”

She blinked, but otherwise did not show any reaction to his statement.

“How far north?” she prompted.

“Only another full day and night from Gretna Green.”

Her spine jerked as if she had been poked in the ribs and her wide eyes fell on him with wary disbelief. “Excuse me, but it sounded like you said Gretna Green, as in Scotland.”

“I did.”

“Isn’t that place infamous for elopements?”

Leif tilted his head and cast her a teasing grin. “It would seem you were so desperate to have me for a husband you just couldn’t wait to go the traditional route.”

He had hoped to get at least a flicker of a smile, but she just stared at him as if he’d claimed to be the King of England. Her jaw dropped open, then snapped shut again. She took a strong and steadying breath, and when she spoke it was slowly as if she wanted her words to be clearly understood.

“There’s nothing living on this earth that’ll convince me to marry you.”

“Nothing,” he repeated with raised brows. He couldn’t help glancing aside at the bed where they had lain together. Would the girl try to deny he had claimed her maidenhead?

She noticed his minute gesture, and though she blushed she did not look away.

His Irish never glanced away.

Leif was quickly coming to realize that she much preferred to face things directly. It was such an unexpected trait in a woman so young, but he appreciated it though he wasn’t certain he fully trusted her calm composure. Her passions ran deep and strong. That she managed to control such turbulence proved that what she displayed on the outside could be masking any number of emotions churning inside.

He had made it his aim to know many different women very well. What they dreamed of at night, what they feared, what they yearned for and loathed. He had spent years practicing the art of quickly and accurately reading a woman’s weaknesses and strengths. But in the young woman before him was a blend of female elements different from any he’d encountered before.

“We
are
going to be wed,” he insisted, trying to put a large measure of calm certainty into his voice. “And if you’ll hold onto your righteous fury for just a bit longer, I’ll explain why we really haven’t got much of an option at this point.”

He knew it was tantamount to prodding the lion, but he couldn’t seem to resist the opportunity to tease her. He leaned back on the bed, propping himself on widespread hands, and his expression slid purposely into one of sexual suggestion.

“Though if you wish to release your wrath, I completely understand and will be more than willing to oblige you in redirecting your passions to a more pleasurable pursuit.”

In spite of her obvious embarrassment, her jaw was tense and her gaze direct when she replied. “You’d be surprised how much pleasure I can derive from unleashing my wrath, my lord.”

Her ready and clever retort surprised him, and he had no doubt as to the truth of her words. Her voice still rolled with the sounds of her brogue, but not nearly as heavily as before. Yes, she was still angry, but the earlier flames of fury had been reduced to a glowing smolder. Again, he noted the control she exerted over her emotions. After having experienced just how brightly her passion could burn, in fury and in desire, it amazed him that she managed to contain them at all.

He was startled by a swift and hungry yearning to test her inner resolve. Not now over the matter of her abduction. Later. In his bed. Her slight body spread open and vulnerable before him, trembling in resistance to the gentle manipulations of his lips, tongue and fingertips as he searched for the key to unlocking her self-restraint. He needed to take more time with her, devote himself solely to unleashing the full force of passion she fought to withhold.

God, he wanted her again.

“Your explanation?”

Her stern prompting recalled him to the more important, though decidedly less pleasurable, matter at hand, and he regretfully left his fantasy to be revisited at another time. The lingering throb of need in his cock, however, was not so easily subdued.

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his spread knees. The new position afforded a slight measure of relief to the aching pressure in his groin, but also brought him closer to her. He needed her to see the earnestness in his expression. She needed to feel the truth of what he was about to tell her.

“My actions last night were known to others. Peers and lords. Men who would spread word of your abduction for their own amusement.”

Earlier, when he had gone to stables, he had found their driver and carriage, loaned to him by the son of a duke. That one, he remembered, had been rather zealous in his part to help Leif win the wager. Discovery of the carriage and driver had revealed a whole world of problems. Personal servants talked. And Leif was nearly certain he had not been discreet in the execution of Miss Granger’s abduction. How he had managed it all in the condition he must have been in was a wonder.

“If we were closer to London, we might have had a chance at returning you to Blackbourne and concocting a story to explain your absence at least so the scandal could be minimized. As it is, we have already traveled too far from town. By now, all of London likely knows of your abduction. Being that I am involved…well, certain assumptions will be made.”

“Assumptions of activities such as what happened on that bed,” she stated sharply between clenched teeth, gesturing with a slim and trembling hand. “Was that your plan? To ruin me so I would have no choice?”

“No,” he replied quietly. He met her furious gaze, not expecting her to believe him. “What happened between us here was entirely unexpected and unpremeditated. And I do not apologize for it.”

Chapter Fifteen

Abbigael was in shock. That must be why her nerves buzzed at the height of awareness and her stomach kept fluttering with a sensation that was a little bit fear and a little bit expectancy. It was shock that made her knees tremble and her heart beat faster.

Certainly, it had nothing to do with the man staring at her with heat still smoldering in his gaze.

She studied him, searching for signs of deception. If he were lying to her, he was very good at it.

She didn’t trust him. Not even a little bit.

It seemed much of his memory had returned, yet he hadn’t bothered to explain why he had taken her other than to lead her into an elopement. What could drive a man to take such action? A gentleman at that.

Well, a lord anyway.

She narrowed her gaze on the man seated across from her, trying to ascertain what may lie behind his motivations.

Unexpected. Unpremeditated.

Not words she would have chosen to describe what she had experienced.

She had never expected such a wealth of sensation to exist anywhere, yet he had called forth the pleasure so easily from her body. With barely any effort.

Perhaps that is what had her so twisted. That he had given her such pleasure as if it were the most common thing in the world. Common for him. But not at all for her.

And for the life of her, she could find nothing in the intimate moments when she had been wrapped in his arms over which to feel the slightest bit of remorse or shame. The fluttering in her stomach grew more erratic as flashes of images and sensations flew through her mind. The smooth slide of his skin beneath her hands, the heat of his mouth covering her breast, the dark need she saw in his eyes a moment before he entered her body. A very insistent part of her wanted to revel in the sensual awakening and she struggled with the inexplicable temptation to cross the space between them and slide into his lap.

“Why do you want to marry me?” she asked as a means of distracting herself from the direction of her thoughts.

He lowered his brows over his eyes. The only sign he was getting impatient.

“I thought I just explained…”

“No.” Abbigael’s voice was stern to mask the way her wayward emotions had finally reduced her nerves to a tremulous mess. “I mean, why like this? Why the abduction? Why me?”

His eyes darkened and he lifted his hand to rub his knuckles back and forth against the stubble that grew along his jaw.

“I need an heiress,” he answered plainly.

Abbigael’s exhale caught in her throat. “That is painfully blunt.”

He leaned forward, his expression tight.

“I do not blame you for being distrustful, but I swear I will never lie to you. I need money. A lot of it. I cannot say exactly how I came to steal you from your bed,” his voice roughened, “but I know it involved an obscene amount of alcohol combined with the heedless desperation of a man with nothing to lose. I wish I could say for a fact that without being terribly foxed I never would have resorted to kidnapping.” He shrugged then and his expression slid back into that devil-may-care smile that always managed to trip up her heart. “In the spirit of being completely honest, it may have come to this anyway.”

Abbigael sensed the sincerity of his declaration. His tone was unapologetic, but buried deep in the rhythm of his words there was a poignant murmur of the desperation that had driven him to sneak into her room in the middle of the night.

That is what touched her. Because after all that had transpired in London, after she had believed her dreams out of reach, she could understand such a motivation.

She could refuse to marry him. She could return to Ulster, to her mother’s people, and continue to live out her life as a pariah. Misunderstood. Unwanted. Alone.

The instinct to fight surged through her. She wasn’t ready to accept such a fate.

“I want children.”

Aside from a very slight widening of his eyes, he accepted her quiet declaration with amazing calm.

He cleared his throat. “Children. Of course.”

She heard the discomfort in his voice. Heard it and understood it.

“I will marry you.” The words slipped from between her lips without her even thinking them. At first, she wasn’t sure she had said them out loud, but then he gave a sharp nod and stood.

“I have made arrangements to continue our journey and procured a change of clothes for you.” He gestured to the small wrapped bundle at the foot of the bed as he sidestepped past her. “I will be waiting downstairs. We still have a long distance to travel and I would like to be there by morning.”

The next hours blurred by in a series of posting inns, scenery that grew steadily more rural and boasted longer stretches between each village they passed, and a road that grew bumpier and narrower with every hour.

Abbigael absolutely detested long carriage rides. The close quarters that so effectively limited any kind of comfortable movement or proper stretching of limbs and the complete lack of stimulus to distract from the passing of minutes and hours rubbed on her nerves. Long trips could be made better, of course, by the right travel companion. Unfortunately, as soon as they had settled into their seats and started off down the road from the inn, Leif had promptly stretched his legs out, crossed his ankles, folded his arms over his chest and fallen asleep.

Without a word to her. Or even a look for that matter.

Abbigael fought her annoyance over what felt essentially like a dismissal and she tried to settle in for the journey ahead. She shifted in her seat, trying to get comfortable with the extra bulk of skirt bunched around her hips. The dress he had found for her was sized for a woman with significantly larger portions. She was grateful the shoes fit her well and at least the skirts covered her legs, feet and all. She also had a shawl of thick wool to wrap about her shoulders to protect against the morning chill that never completely dissipated, even well into the afternoon.

It was not long before Abbigael had cause to be extremely grateful that the carriage was so well appointed as the ruts and bumps occasionally sent her bouncing from one end of her cushioned seat to the other, and once, nearly onto the floor. After a while, she figured out a way to wedge herself into the corner of the seat by sitting sideways on the bench and pressing her back into the corner while propping her feet against the wall across from her. Not a very modest position, to be sure, but it wasn’t as if anyone else were conscious enough to be concerned with her lack of propriety.

She had hoped, after their first stop to change horses and stretch their legs, that she and Leif might have an opportunity to talk a bit about what would happen once they returned to London. But he hadn’t wanted to waste any time by sitting down to eat in the small rustic dining room the inn provided, and after finishing the basket lunch they attempted to enjoy while being jostled about in the carriage, he wiped his mouth clean and promptly returned to his slumber.