A Lady of Persuasion (22 page)

“Ho, there,” he told them. “Easy now.”

Holding the reins firmly, he kept the team turning in a circle, murmuring succinct commands and words of assurance. Gradually, the hoofbeats slowed. Bel’s thundering pulse slowed, too.

Toby eased up on the bit, steering the team off the green and onto a side road. They ambled on for several minutes thus—Toby droning on in a hypnotic monologue, holding tight to the reins, never turning his attention from the horses. As they moved away from the center of town, the dwellings they passed grew smaller, further apart. The cobblestones paving their path gave way to dirt, muffling the horses’ hoofbeats. The world felt very quiet.

Finally, Toby drew the team to a halt where a wooden stile marked the boundary between town road and country lane. Sliding down from the horse’s back, he lavished pats and verbal praise on the mare as he looped the reins around the stile.

Then—at last—he turned to Bel.

“Softly now,” he said, approaching the carriage door and unlatching it with a gentle click. “We don’t want to startle them again.” He held out a hand to her.

Bel stared at it. She’d been clutching the onto carriage with both hands for so long, she couldn’t muster the courage to release them.

“It’s all right now,” he said, in the same deep, soothing tone in which he’d spoken to the mare.

“Give me your hand.”

That tone worked on her, too. She gave him her trembling hand, and he helped her down from the landau—slowly, cautiously—supporting her with one arm about her waist. There were no people milling about the nearby cottage; presumably its occupants had assembled at the square.

Wordlessly, he led her over to a low wall of stone, beyond which farmland spread like a rumpled quilt.

Lifting her effortlessly, he set her on the wall and stood back a step. His eyes scanned her from head to toe as he assessed her condition. “Are you well?” he asked, frowning with concern.

With sure fingers, he untied her bonnet and set it aside. He lifted one of her arms, then the other, running his hand along each to test the soundness of her bones and joints. “You’re not injured? You took such a blow with that turn, I’m concerned for your ribs.” He placed his hands flat against her torso, framing her ribcage.

“Toby,” she said quietly.

He did not lift his head. “Are you hurt here at all? Any difficulty drawing a breath? Do you feel any pain when I—”

“Toby.”
Bel raised a hand to his lips, damming the stream of anxious speech. Then she slid her palm along his smooth-shaven jaw.

Exhaling slowly, Toby closed his eyes.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “I’m unharmed, thanks to you.”

His hands slid around her waist, and he gathered her to him tightly. Tightly enough that, had she truly suffered a broken rib, there would have been no denying it.

“My God,” he said, sighing into her hair and gently rocking her in his arms. “My God.”

Bel buried her face in the linen of his shirt, now softened with heat and the scents of both man and horse. And then she began to weep.

“Yes, darling,” he murmured, stroking her back. “Go ahead, cry. The danger is over and you are unharmed, and for that you may weep just as long as you wish. Shed tears enough for us both, if you’d be so good.”

“Oh, Toby.” After a time, she sniffed against his waistcoat. “I’ve never been so frightened in all my life.”

“That makes two of us, then.”

“Does it?” She lifted her face to his.

“No,” he said, his brown eyes growing thoughtful. “No, I think it makes us one. Doesn’t it?”

Bel nodded as he lowered his lips to hers. Yes, she understood perfectly. Nearly a week ago, they’d been married. She’d lost count of the times they’d engaged in the marital act since. But only now, in this moment, did she feel truly
wed
to him. As though they shared one future, one life. For better or worse, in safety and in peril. He’d risked his life to save hers, and now—now there was no more “his life” or “hers.” This was
their
life now.

And their life began with a sweet, tender kiss.

The kiss didn’t stay sweet or tender for long.

Toby tried to hold back. He really did. But one stroke of her tongue against his, and the reins of his passion slid straight out of his grip.

So he filled his hands with Isabel instead.

With artless greed, he clutched at her hips, her breasts, her bottom, her thighs. He wound the fingers of one hand into her hair and cinched it so tight, she gasped.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her throat. “I’m so sorry. But Isabel… Christ, I need this.”

“I know,” she said, tugging at his cravat. “I need it, too.”

He needed to feel her. All of her. Every living, unharmed inch of her body. For a terrifying moment, she’d been lost to him. She’d been safely returned, thank heaven, but it wasn’t enough to simply see her alive and hear her say she was well. He needed to feel it. To verify with his hands, lips, tongue that each glossy strand of hair and silky curve of her flesh remained exactly the same.

“Isabel.” He groaned as she worked her hands under his collar and her fingernails raked against his bare flesh. “You have to stop me. God knows, I can’t stop myself.”

“Don’t. Don’t stop.”

Three more arousing syllables were never spoken.

He had so much energy coursing through him—the fuel of resolve and desperation and vein-chilling fear. And now that there was nothing to fear, no desperate crisis… all that energy simmered inside him, building, rising, needing release. He wanted nothing more than to get inside her and let it all explode. Right here, on this stone wall—which seemed to be just the perfect height, God bless the world.

And God bless his wife, she pulled up her skirts so he could nestle his hips between her thighs and test that theory.

Yes
. A low moan escaped them both as he pressed the hard ridge of his erection against her feminine core. Just exactly the perfect height. Now it was only a matter of removing these bothersome layers of fabric …

He snaked one hand under her petticoat. Her thigh went rigid beneath his palm.

“Toby, someone’s coming.”

He rested his brow on her shoulder and cursed.
Someone’s coming
. Oh, why, why, why, why couldn’t it be him?

“It’s the coachman,” she said. “Oh, I’m glad he’s alive.”

“So am I,” Toby said. Stepping back, he released her thigh and rearranged her skirts with sullen tugs. “Now I can kill him.”

Here came that gently reproving Isabel look, and the matching patient tone. “Toby—”

“No, no. I know you’re right. I’ll sack him. Without a reference. And then I’ll kill him.”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

No, it was mine
, Toby thought ruefully. He should never have let her stay. He should have anticipated the melee. He should never have agreed to run for office in this blighted borough in the first place. “Are you well enough to drive home?” he asked.

She paled. “Must we?”

“Well—”

“Please, Toby. I can’t get back in that carriage right now, not with those horses. Not today. I just can’t.” Tears welled in her eyes, catching on the ebony fringe of her lashes.

“No, of course not. I understand, darling.” He cast a glance over her shoulder, out at the countryside. “Wynterhall is only about two miles’ distance, if we cut across the fields. Would you prefer to walk?”

“Oh, yes.” Her face brightened. “I would prefer it. In fact, I suspect I’d enjoy it.”

Toby suspected he would, too. There were any number of stone borders between here and his estate. Haystacks, too, and smooth-barked trees. Yes, walking could prove a very enjoyable alternative to traveling by carriage.

He exchanged a few words with the driver and then vaulted the wall before swinging Isabel around and helping her down the other side. She laughed. It was a giddy, girlish sort of laugh that he didn’t recall ever hearing from her before. He liked it.

He took her hand, and together they started off across the field.

For some time, they did not talk. It seemed too soon to speak about what had happened in the square, but also too soon to think of anything else. So they simply walked in silence. They walked like children, letting their linked hands swing between them as they made large, purposeful strides past the knee-high grain. First fast, then slow, then quickly again as they gathered momentum coming down a slope.

When they reached the opposite edge of the field, Toby helped her squeeze through a gap in the hawthorn hedgerow.

“Just a moment,” he said, once they’d both made it through. “You’ve a bit of bramble in your hair.” He disentangled the offending twig and held it up for her inspection before tossing it aside.

“Thank you.” She blushed, popping up on her toes to kiss him.

It was lovely, that kiss. Petal-soft, and innocent. And it told Toby instantly that he would not be tumbling his wife against a tree, somewhere along the journey home. All that sensual urgency between them earlier—they’d lost it somewhere in that barley field. Now it was comfort that warmed the place where his fingers grazed her wrist. Comfort, and companionship, and a general sense of all being well with the world. Toby couldn’t honestly say it was better than sexual release. But neither could he say it was worse.

It was different. Different from anything he’d known with a woman before.

He was still pondering it minutes later, when Isabel gasped and drew to a halt in the center of a pasture.

“Good Lord, what is it?”

“Your speech!” She clapped her free hand over her mouth and turned to him, smothering a burst of giddy laughter with her palm. Lowering her hand, she continued, “Oh, Toby. You never made your speech.”

“Never you mind.” Chuckling, he squeezed her hand as they continued walking. “It’s not as though anyone would have listened after that uproar, now is it?”

“But… but what happened? That Colonel Montague and his strange speech, the musket fire …

I still don’t understand it.”

“Colonel Montague is our local war hero. He stands for every election and has done for decades. Always runs on a platform of subduing treasonous rebellion in the American colonies.”

Isabel slanted a look at him. “Haven’t the American colonies been independent for—”

“Thirty-five years? Yes. He’s not called Madman Montague for nothing. The old soldier’s a bit touched in the head, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I had. And I thought it was horrid, how his illness was exploited for the public’s amusement.

The poor man.”

Toby refrained from noting that the “poor man” had very nearly got her killed today. Just like his sweet wife, to look back on the afternoon’s horror and feel nothing but sympathy for the decrepit sot. “It’s not so mean-spirited as you might think. The old fellow enjoys the attention; the crowd enjoys his enthusiasm. He never gets any votes that don’t come from those oafish nephews of his; but one could say he achieves his goal just the same.”

She gave him a skeptical look.

“He rallies the borough,” Toby explained. “For an entirely fictional cause, to be sure, but the unity he engenders is real. It can’t be a completely bad thing, for the townspeople to gather every few years and answer the call of duty, honor, vigilance.” He recited the words with gusto and gave her a wide grin.

She was not amused. “I take it the musket salute is not usually part of the routine.”

“No, no. That part was a surprise, I assure you. And I’m certain this will have been Montague’s last candidacy. Wild-eyed speeches are one thing, but he’ll not be permitted to pull a stunt like that again.” Toby shook his head. “Don’t know what the old fool will live for now.

It’s a bit tragic, really.”

Isabel replied hotly, “What’s tragic is a man stripped of his dignity. If he’s touched in the head, as you say, he should be pitied and protected. Not paraded before the town every few years as a laughing stock.” Her accent grew increasingly pronounced as she spoke; her strides became clipped. “Madness is a serious condition, not a joke.”

Toby couldn’t recall ever seeing her so agitated. Was this some misdirected reaction to the day’s distressing events? The way she defended Montague so vigorously, one would think she had a personal reason to take offense.

Bloody hell
. She did. Toby silently cursed his thoughtlessness.

“Isabel, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’d forgotten your mother’s illness.” Her fingers slipped in his grasp, but Toby tightened his grip. She wouldn’t get away from him that easily. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean—”

“How do you know about my mother’s illness?”

“Gray told me. Before we were married.”

“Truly?”

He nodded.

“And it didn’t disturb you at all?” she asked.

“Why should it disturb me, that your mother contracted brain fever?”

She gave him an incredulous look, as though the answer ought to be obvious. “Because she went mad. No one wants to marry into a family with a history of insanity.” Her eyes fell to the carpet of grasses and wildflowers. “I should have told you myself, but I was afraid you …”

“Afraid I would change my mind?”

She nodded.

Toby pulled her close and wrapped an arm about her waist. He wasn’t certain how to reassure her. He could tell her that of all the potentially objectionable things about her family—their precarious social standing, her connections in trade, her bastard half-brother Joss, her other half-brother Gray, who was his own brand of bastard … not to mention the fact that her sister-in-law was the woman who’d jilted him not one year ago—the information that her mother had narrowly survived a tropical fever would hardly have tipped the scales.

But he suspected that little speech wouldn’t help.