The Marriage Ring (11 page)

“Two…four.” He swallowed. He hadn’t the strength to say the word “days,” and Grace knew she couldn’t let him continue this way. He gave his head a sharp shake as if trying to clear his mind. “Dawson hasn’t c-come b-back with the coach?”

“No. I haven’t heard a sound.”

“H-he’s gone to my uncle. M-my uncle’s m-man.” He made a disgusted sound.

At least he hadn’t grown disoriented—yet.

Grace reached over and put her arms around him. He was shivering again. Her fire wouldn’t be enough to warm him up, and she was growing cold herself.

“B-bloody f-fool,” he said.

“No, you aren’t,” Grace said. “You are the strongest, most couragest, noblest man I know. I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.” She hugged him for encouragement before saying, “Now, take off your clothes, and don’t argue with me.”

Richard was absolutely certain the cold had gone to his ears and he wasn’t hearing clearly.

Miss MacEachin knelt in front of him. “Do you understand me?” she said in her wonderful, lilting accent. “It’s growing colder. Wet clothes kill. You must take them off.”

“No.”

“
Please.
”

There was urgency in her voice, and he knew she was right. Or perhaps he was just too tired to care. His limbs had turned to lead. The simplest move called for great concentration.

She was already undressing him.

He let her. He couldn’t help. He felt a babe, unable to perform the simplest task for himself—and deep in the recesses of his mind, he knew she was right. He was in trouble.

“Lie back,” she whispered.

Richard collapsed onto his back. He was conscious of her unbuttoning his breeches but he felt no reaction, and that was more of a concern than his ceaseless shivering or how dull his mind had become.

Miss MacEachin threw his greatcoat over him. He huddled naked beneath it, turned toward the fire and anxious for any warmth it might offer. She threw a log on the flames.

“I need to go for more wood,” she whispered, or at least, he thought she was whispering. Her voice sounded as if it came from a great distance.

He nodded.

“Try and stay awake.”

Richard heard the plea in her voice. He’d try, but he was very tired.

He closed his eyes. He hoped she understood. He had no choice. His lids wouldn’t stay open.

If only he could shake off this terrible cold. Then he’d stay awake. He’d do anything for her—

Another body snuggled up to his, pulling the coat so it covered both of them.
Miss MacEachin.
She was stretched out beside him, her legs along his. Her hips nestled his buttocks while her arms wrapped themselves around him.

It took several minutes before he realized, she was as naked as himself. Her bare flesh was against his.

Richard couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think.

“This will help,” she murmured. “We’ll beat this. Together.”

Slowly, Richard released his breath. The violent shivering ebbed but he felt colder than ever. She held him tighter. He wanted to tell her everything would be fine, but his lips couldn’t form words.

For long moments she spoke to him, repeated, “It will be fine. All will be well.”

And then he felt her hand on the most private part of his anatomy.

She cupped him, held him. “This will help,” she whispered. She kissed his shoulder, his back, his arm.

Richard stared at the fire as her skilled hand brought him amazingly to life. He rolled over to face her, stunned, his confused mind not comprehending.

She looked down at him, so lovely in the firelight it almost hurt his eyes to look at her.

“It’s all right,” she whispered.

Her hair curled around her bare shoulders. His gaze fixed on her naked breasts. They were as he’d imagined, full and round, but the nipples were rosebud pink and tight from the cold.

He grew harder. Her hand tightened on the length and shape. The movement felt good…alive.

She rose above him, his black greatcoat around her shoulders. The firelight highlighted the curve of her waist. He caught a glimpse of dark hair at the juncture of her thighs. He raised his gaze to her breasts. Her beautiful breasts—

Miss MacEachin lowered herself upon his arousal, the intensity of her body heat overwhelming him.

He felt his release. It seemed to flow from every vein, every pore of his body, and filled hers. It shocked him with its intensity, its power.

So this was what drove men to madness.

At last he
understood
.

His heart pounded in his chest, pushing the blood through his veins and bringing him back to life.

Miss MacEachin leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest. He closed his eyes, still assessing what had just happened. He could feel her watching him, knew her concern.

And then he felt himself harden again.

He was still inside her. He stretched, grew powerful, filled her.

Richard’s hands went to her waist, holding her as he began thrusting himself up inside her. She leaned back. She knew what he needed far better than he knew himself.

This time, his release wasn’t immediate. The heat between them grew more intense. Richard was driven to push himself further. He could hear his labored breathing. He opened his eyes, saw her above him, riding him. Her eyes were closed now and he didn’t think there was a more beautiful sight than she, naked and moving to his rhythm.

He said her name.
Grace.
What a beautiful name! He repeated it, over and over until words were lost to him. The release began building in him. Hot, furious, demanding.

And now, poor wretched man that he was, he had no choice but to hold her fast and complete what his Maker had designed him to do.

Her muscles tightened, holding him—and he was lost. Blissfully, completely, utterly lost.

He held her waist as he emptied himself into her. The force of life flowed between them—and Richard felt alive.

She’d done it. She’d saved him. He collapsed to earth.

Grace’s body fell onto him. He brought his arms around her, cradling her close. Her head rested on his shoulder.

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Part of him was too humbled for speech; another part overwhelmed.

She’d changed him. Made him a man. God help them both.

Richard drew her with him as he rolled on his side toward the fire. He shut his eyes and within minutes his battered body fell into an exhausted sleep.

Grace lay very still, her heart pounding against her chest.

Dear God, what had she done?

She had no doubt she’d saved his life. His shaking had stopped and the color had returned to his skin.

But at what cost?

And she realized she was afraid of what he would think on the morrow. Men were funny creatures. She’d started to like Mr. Lynsted.
Richard.
Even his given name felt good to her.

She’d wanted to believe he admired her, too.

They’d started off enemies, but he’d earned her respect. Now, she didn’t know what would happen.

He cradled her body with his own. His right hand rested between her breasts.

Mr. Lynsted was a well-formed man. Grace could count on one hand the men she’d been with…but she’d reached a point where there was no mystery, no power to the act of joining. It had become perfunctory, a matter of survival. She didn’t desire men, they desired her.

However, tonight, the tables had been turned. She’d felt the quickening in her loins, experienced the sharp, fine edge of desire and been lost to the sensual satisfaction of release.

He’d taken her there, this giant, courageous man…whom she sensed had been celibate before this night. A moral man who’d unwittingly revealed the purpose to God’s design to a jaded woman as herself, and she felt shame.

Certainly he would think the worst of her.

That’s the way men were. Once they lost respect for a woman, they became demanding, uncaring, or a host of tiny insults that cut at the heart.

And what did all this say about her? Was there something between her and Richard…something her actions this evening may have just destroyed?

Or had she, at last, gone completely wanton?

He stirred. Without waking, he grew hard again. His arousal pressed against her back.

Grace lay still, uncertain. He shifted. She felt him searching. She turned to him. He entered her swiftly, filled her, began moving inside her, and God help her, she was lost to the current of sweet, pure sensation.

Tomorrow she’d worry. Tomorrow, she’d protect herself from hurt…and from being destroyed the way only a man who’d slipped past her defenses could.

Chapter Eleven

R
ichard woke to the smell of cooking meat. He opened his eyes to see Grace holding a spit of meat over the fire. She was completely dressed, even wearing her wool cape, her hair curly, loose, and wild around her shoulders, the way he liked it best.

Vivid memories came rushing back to him. They weren’t dreams. He was naked beneath his greatcoat. His body felt well used, content,
alive
. She’d saved his life. Her method had been unusual but very effective.

Grace noticed he was awake. Her gaze didn’t quite meet his as she said, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he answered, his voice rough with sleep.

“I assume you are hungry?” she said. She looked clean and fresh, while parts of him smelled of sex.

“Starving.”

“Then, you’d best dress. Breakfast will be ready any moment. I folded your clothes and put them beside you.”

A vision of her sitting astride him rose in his mind. “Thank you,” he said, sitting up and pulling his greatcoat around him. He was no longer self-conscious about his nakedness. In fact, he wished
she
was still naked. His body immediately eagerly approved the idea.

On second thought, he
was
self-conscious. He wasn’t about to parade himself around aroused, especially since she had yet to make eye contact.

He rose to his feet, turning his back to slip his hands through the arms of his great coat. He gathered his folded clothes and picked up his boots. “I’ll be back.”

Grace didn’t respond.

Richard made his way down to the river. With each step, he reminded himself he was a dunderhead.

He’d had sex.
He, Richard Lynsted.
And not just any sex. He’d had sex with the most beautiful woman of his acquaintance, and instead of being at ease, intelligent,
sophisticated
about it, he spoke in simple sentences. He didn’t even know what a man should say to a woman after she’d turned his life inside out.

Thank you?

Please, may I have more?
More, more,
more
.

A splash of cold water in the face brought him to his senses.

Richard scrubbed himself clean while frantically working up the courage to climb back up the bank and face her. He imagined it would be easier with clothes on but once he’d dressed, he still felt awkward and shy. His confusion was compounded by the understanding that Grace let him have a “poke,” as his uncle would say, not out of attraction but out of mercy.

He’d had a mercy poke.

God, the thought was humbling…and yet, they’d had sex several times. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her.

Heat rose to his face. No wonder she wasn’t communicative with him. He’d been a randy fool.

Richard hated pulling his boots on without socks. Would hate more walking in them. It was a fit punishment for what he’d done.

He decided the best action would be to take his signal from Grace. If she wanted to discuss what happened between them, he would—although he hadn’t a clue what to say. After all, he’d been alone all his life. He didn’t express himself freely to others. It wasn’t his nature.

His biggest fear was that
he
should say something first.

Grace was putting out the fire when he returned, kicking wet dirt and leaves over the smoldering flame. “Your breakfast is on that stick.” She nodded to a stick staked into the ground.

“Thank you.” He picked up the stick. “You look well this morning.”

“I am.”

His appetite left. There was an undercurrent in her curt “I am.”

And he didn’t know where to go next with it.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked. She had yet to look at him. “I don’t know how far we’ll have to walk to reach a cottage or perhaps even a village.”

She was so capable. She made him feel like a damn eunuch.

“Grace, about last night—”

“Last night was nothing, Mr. Lynsted. We do what we must to survive. Are you going to eat your rabbit or shall we start walking?”

She didn’t wait for a response but started up the hill toward the road.

Richard watched her a moment, annoyed by her brisk authority. His memory might be a bit hazy because he was almost frozen to the core last night, but he recalled her being a willing participant. Had she not kissed his shoulder? His neck?

She’d disappeared from view, not once looking back. She behaved as she had when first they’d met. High-handed, distant, cold.

Richard tossed the rabbit aside and started up the hill after her.

He caught up with her on the road. His earlier discomfort and shyness had evaporated. He was boiling angry and surprisingly hurt. “Out with it,” he ordered as he fell into step beside her.

“Out with what?” she asked, her eyes on the road ahead of them.

Richard used his longer stride to block her path. “I want to talk to you about last night.”

She smiled, the expression cynical. “That’s unnecessary. There’s nothing to say.”

“There damn well is.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, sounding bored. “Congratulations, you’ve won the wager on bedding me.”

Grace would have walked around him, but he wasn’t letting her go on that note. He took hold of her. “Why are you being this way?”

She frowned at his hand on her person. Last night he’d had his hands on her hips, her waists, her breasts…

He’d not remove his hand now.

Her lips compressed in resentment. She stared at some point on his wool greatcoat. If she thought he’d back down at her silence, she was wrong.

The doubts he’d nursed evaporated. “I don’t like you this way. You act hurt.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. For the first time that morning, she looked at him. “I’m not.”

“I’d rather you let me freeze to death, than shut me out. That’s what you are doing, isn’t it?”

“Don’t we have other concerns to worry over—such as Dawson hunting us down or having to walk our way to Inverness? This isn’t important.”

She didn’t think
she
was important.

Richard had never thought himself astute, but he heard what she didn’t say. He
felt
it. It would be far more simple to let her go, to keep the distance between them.

But that wasn’t what he wanted.

Words he never thought he’d express came to his lips. “I know what it means to always protect yourself. To think no one cares. Or that you don’t matter. But you do matter, Grace. Perhaps, a week ago I would have been a ‘prig.’” He deliberately used the word she’d hurled at him. “I might have judged you, judged myself. I don’t. Do you understand?”

She considered him, her blue eyes solemn—and he knew he hadn’t said the right thing. It wasn’t enough. He knew that as clearly as if she’d spoken.

“I understand,” she answered. “I—” She stopped, as if thinking better of what she might have said, drew a deep breath, and then released it, her gaze drifting toward the rushing river beyond the trees lining the road.

“Grace?”

She smiled, the expression forced. “I’m not angry.”

“Then what is it?”

Another deep breath. A shrug. Then a confession, but not on the subject he wanted. “I worry about my father. And us. I don’t want matters to change between us. No awkwardness. I did what I must.”

“Yes,” he agreed. She was evading his concerns. She didn’t want to talk about the night before, and who was he to force her?

He released his hold. She nodded, her gaze slipping away from his and the wall once again rising between them.

She started walking and he followed. He could have told her that what had happened last night had meant something to him…but that would have called for trust, and he wasn’t ready for that. Apparently no more than she was.

Besides, the only woman he’d been with was her. For all he knew, everyone felt this used after a night like the one they’d had.

She didn’t owe him anything, so there it was.

“Do you believe Dawson will come looking for us?” she asked.

Richard appreciated a new direction for his thoughts. “I believe he’ll go to my uncle. My one hope is my father will learn of this and ask questions.”

Her silence reminded him that she thought his father was guilty.

“My father is not involved,” he said.

“You don’t want him to be.”

“I don’t…any more than you want to believe your father capable of a crime.” Tired of defending his father, he took the conversation toward a new tack. “Tell me, what will you do once you clear your father’s name?”

The smile that came to her lips was genuine. The tightness left her shoulders. “I don’t know. I used to dream of going to my cousin’s house and announcing to everyone they’d been wrong about Father. My uncle is an earl. Lord Cairn.”

Richard had not heard of him.

“When I was girl, they would invite my mother and me to their manor but you could hear them whispering about us. We were the charity cases. My uncle’s money kept food on our table and a roof over our heads.” She walked a few paces more and then added, “Mother was very envious.”

“And you were not? I would be,” Richard stated.

“I was too grateful to be envious,” Grace said. “My cousin Jenny and her brothers had the best books. There were pictures in every one of them. Their governess would read to me. She said the others wouldn’t listen to her but I always listened. My uncle always made certain I was included in whatever ball or rout or festivity they held.”

“That was generous of him.”

“It was. And he’d see that I had Jenny’s cast-offs. Mother hated that I wore them, but I wasn’t so proud.” Her smiled faded. “When I’ve proven my father’s innocence, I’m going to see my uncle. I’m going to thank him for what he did for me. I know he doesn’t believe I appreciated it. I fear he’s become sorely disappointed in me.”

“If your father was falsely accused, and my uncle’s actions make it appear that is true, then your family will understand.”

“Do you think?” The cynicism returned to her face, this time in her eyes. “Will all the loose ends be tied up neatly? You are the last person I would have thought a romantic.”

Her criticism stung. “If tying up the loose ends isn’t what you want, then why go through this?”

“Because I want to go home.” Her voice ached with longing. She glanced at him, suddenly shy. “Do I surprise you? I don’t belong in London. I miss my Highlands and Inverness where I know every street and the name of every family who live there. It’s taken me time, but I now know I should not have left. It’s the only place I’ve felt safe.”

“But you could always have gone home.”

“I wasn’t strong enough,” she said cryptically. “I am now.” Her words were more than a statement. They were a resolution. “You are starting to hobble,” she observed, changing the direction of the conversation.

Even though he was curious to learn more about her past, Richard knew she was done. “By the end of today, I may be willing to kill for a pair of wool socks.”

She laughed, the earlier tension between them slowly evaporating. “I imagine you might. We’ll see what we can find.”

“Find?” he repeated.

“One never knows what will crop up on the road. I’ve lived this life before. We’ll barter or do whatever to find you socks.”

“Do you think we might also find a razor?” he wondered, running a hand over his jaw. “Or am I pressing my luck?”

“We can try. You are already starting to look very roguish.”

“Roguish?” he questioned, secretly hoping for a compliment, anything that would indicate she was as attracted to him as he was her.

“Yes,” she said. “Another day’s growth and we can pass you off as a highwayman.”

The comparison pleased Richard. “From prig to highwayman. I sense I’m making progress.”

“Aye, you are. But we’ll have to find a dark steed for you. One that will make all the women swoon at the sight of you riding down the road upon it—what is it? What do you see?”

“I think there is a bridge up ahead. There, to the right. Can you see it?” He didn’t wait for her answer but took her hand. “Come along.”

She had to skip to keep up with him.

He’d been right. There was a bridge across the river and on the other side a good-sized village that included a mill on one side of the road and a small Norman church on the other.

“Come,” he ordered, not letting go of the hand he had taken.

Three dogs barked an angry warning as they crossed the bridge. They were hounds of dubious parentage and they stood on the other side of the river, warning at a distance.

As Richard approached them, he held out his hand. The barking stopped but they didn’t take a sniff. Instead, they kept their distance, escorting Richard and Grace as they entered the village.

There wasn’t any activity on the street. Save for the turning mill wheel, all seemed very quiet.

“What do you think?” Grace wondered.

“I’m not certain yet,” Richard answered.

“Perhaps we don’t want to linger here.”

“Perhaps…but first, let’s find someone and ask where we are,” he said.

There was no one in the mill house.

Richard started up the street toward the church, Grace trailing a step behind him. The cottages were freshly whitewashed with clean thatched roofs. One house had a lamb bleating in the walled front garden. Some chickens ran across the road in front of them. The dogs did not give chase.

At last, they saw inhabitants. A group of eight men and women huddled by the back of an oxen cart parked close to the church door. They looked up at the sound of Richard and Grace’s approach.

Three more men stepped out of cottage doorways. They were dressed in homespun and had the air of good, solid yeomen.

Grace stopped. “Something is not right here,” she whispered, pulling her hand from his. “The expressions on those people’s faces are too solemn.”

“The Scots are never over friendly,” he said, sensing nothing of her concern now that they had finally seen inhabitants.

She reached for his arm. “Please, I don’t feel good about this. There is something in the air here. Let’s leave now.”