Tempted (10 page)

“What the devil are you doing?”

“Carrying you,” he wheezed because, good lord, she was no milk and water miss.

“Are you daft? Put me down, you nodcock. You cannot carry me. We need to hurry. Asides, you’re not strong enough.”

He drew himself up. “I beg your pardon.”

“You are not”—her green eyes narrowed—“strong enough.”

“I am, too,” he said, even though his arms already began to feel the strain. But Demme if he wasn’t committed to carrying her. At least for a bit. He owed her that much.

And so he did, carry her, that is, though it wasn’t until the weight of her near bowed his back that he began to think he might, perhaps, do as she asked.

She must have sensed his growing weakness. Or perhaps it was the way he kept stumbling over roots, his feet feeling oddly heavier as he carried her. Whatever it was, she said, “That’s enough, my lord.”

His arms began to shake, either from the strain of carrying her or the lovely way having her up against him made him feel—

“Put me down.”

He didn’t want to. He truly didn’t want to, though he’d begun to suspect it was because he rather liked the way carrying her made him feel. Still, he did as asked, gently, though reluctantly, setting her down.

She immediately sat on the ground, lifting her foot up for inspection. “I think I might need a bandage,” she said with a frown.

He followed her gaze, and his abdomen clenched, his heart almost seeming to stop and then ache as he spied her foot. Good lord. “Mary, why did you not say something?”

He sank to his knees beside her, picking up the foot and cradling it gently. It was torn to shreds.

“We needed to escape,” she said simply.

He felt the biggest of cads. “You should have told me.” “Why, when we couldn’t stop?”

And George Alexander Essex Drummond, marquis of Warrick, heir to the duke of Wainridge, simply marveled. Her courage took his breath away. She may be a nurse. She may be of common blood, but, odd’s teeth, she com-ported herself as nobly as any blue-blooded miss.

“Bloody hell, they hurt.”

Well, some of the time.

Chapter Nine

Mary noticed Alex staring at her oddly, but she told herself to ignore the gleam she thought she saw in his eyes. Weren’t no sense in the either of them getting all mushy, not when she were shivering from cold now that she was away from the heat of his body and the cool morning air felt as freezing as the pads of a dog’s foot.

“You’re cold,” he pronounced.

“And hungry,” she added. “And tired. And wondering what the blazes we’re going to do out here in the middle of nowhere with no blunt, no horses and nothing to recommend us to a person other than my good looks.”

He looked past her and beyond, his lips compressing into a frown. “Indeed, Mrs. Callahan. You have a point. We are in a fix, although I find myself grateful that it’s
me
in this predicament and not my daughter.”

And oddly enough, Mary was, too. Not even Gabriella deserved to be kidnapped. Nor did his lordship here. She studied his profile, the worry he felt for his daughter evident by the white parentheses which cupped his mouth.

“She’ll be all right,” she found herself saying. “I doubt she’ll even notice you’re gone what with her constant tantrums and the like.”

It was an attempt at humor, but it fell woefully flat. “Indeed, Mrs. Callahan. Indeed.”

And then Mary jerked. “Abu,” she gasped. Lord above, she’d forgotten about her pet. She hadn’t closed her bedroom door, which meant her pet was running loose—

“God bless you,” he said, frowning down at her. “You’re sneezing. The cold must have gotten to you.”

Sneezing? She almost corrected him before realizing she couldn’t tell him about her pet presently loose at his father’s estate. Hell’s bells.

“Here,” he said, sinking down to his knees and then grabbing the hem of her night shift. “Let’s see if we can’t at least get your feet warm.”

“What the blazes are you doing?”

“Makeshift shoes,” he said, tugging at the fabric which gave—in Mary’s opinion—all too easily, which likely wasn’t surprising considering it was the cheapest fabric on God’s green earth.

“Here,” he said again, tugging a long strip off the edge. “Wrap it around your feet.”

Funny. He didn’t even take a peek as he worked. She’d never seen a man pass up an opportunity to stare at a woman’s walking sticks.

He tore off another strip which she then took from him, trying to ignore the way her bum sopped up moisture.

“The tighter the better.”

“I know. I know,” she mumbled, trying not to wince as she did as instructed. Hurt like the very devil, they did.

“Here. Let me help you stand.” He held out his hand. Mary stared at it for a moment, then reluctantly placed her palm into his. Hot, his hand was, making her realize she felt near to freezing.

“Do you want me to carry you again?”

No, she did not. His kindness had begun to make her weak in the mind. Why else would she feel the urge to say, “Yes,” when all she wanted to do was keep her distance from him.

“I can walk,” she grumbled.

He didn’t look like he believed her. Well, bully for him. She took a step, biting back an oath at the stinging pain which shot up her heel and into her leg. Bloody, bleedin’ hell. Why the devil did it hurt so badly all of a sudden?

“Are you certain you do not wish for my help?” he asked.

She waved a hand at him in dismissal. She would walk, confound it all, even if it meant she’d have bloody stumps when she got to where they were going, wherever that was.

The shadow of a bird floated on the ground near them. Terrific. Like as not a carrion bird come to feast on her stumps when she keeled over and died. She gritted her teeth and pushed off.

And walk she did, for what seemed like forever and likely was. Through it all, Alex was right there to catch her when she stumbled, which was often, his expression all that was kind as he helped her along. It fair drove Mary mad. She didn’t want him to be kind to her. Frankly, she didn’t want to react to him at all. The men in her life had never been what one would call soft on her. Yet here one was, a bleedin’ lord, for goodness sake, who treated her like fine china.

And you love it.

Aye, she did. Wished for just a moment—

Ach, you’re having those fairy-tale notions again.
And she was, even though she knew it would end. It always did.

The house came into view suddenly, Mary coming to a halt when she spied it through a break in the trees.

“Let’s go around,” she said, turning in the opposite direction.

“Around? Are you daft, woman? You need clothes, shoes, and ideally, a warm fire. Not to mention, the sooner we secure help, the sooner we can return to Wainridge and Gabby.”

She looked up at him, unsure if she’d heard him correctly. “And you think they’ll help us there?” she asked, pointing to the house—well, more of a manor, really. Square it was, and three stories high, but large enough to tell those who came upon it that the owner was landed gentry. Ivy covered the front of it, white-trimmed windows that sparkled in such a way as to denote an army of servants with washrags in their hands.

“Of course, once I tell them who I am.”

Lord, would you listen to him?

“You think they’ll believe you?”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

She almost laughed. They were both covered in dirt, the hem of her robe torn, and now tattered and frayed. Her hair hung down her back like a gypsy with dandelion hair and he wanted to go calling on the neighborhood lord.

Dicked in the nob for sure.

But she shrugged, convinced that when his silliness here knocked on that door, it’d be slammed in his face almost as quickly as it’d opened, but there’d be no convincing
him
of that. So her expression said, “Suit yourself.”

He half-bowed.

She rolled her eyes, thinking the man would try the patience of a glacier. When he turned away, she hobbled behind him as he led the way.

The house seemed to grow as fast as a two-year-old as they approached. Oh, it were nothing compared to the duke’s home. But it was a country gentleman’s home, no doubt about that, and in Mary’s experience, there was no bigger snob in all of Christendom than the landed gentry. They didn’t have titles, aye, they didn’t even own a fancy crest, but they acted like it.

“We should knock on the back door,” she said simply because she knew they stood a better chance of gaining sympathy from one of the under staff than a butler, or any other member of the upper staff. That much she’d learned in her brief stay at the marquis’s home.

“Don’t be silly,” he said, “we shall ring the front.” Mary rolled her eyes.
Ring the front,
she silently mimicked. The man had bangers for brains.

“Stay behind me,” he ordered, trotting off across the lawn and strolling toward the door like they were in bleedin’ London. Mary half expected him to pull out a card. She almost snorted.

There were no steps, just a plain gravel path—didn’t it just figure?—that led to the front door and had Mary wincing the whole way, though she tried to keep to the carriage ruts where the stones had faded to dirt. For the first time she found herself wishing she’d be wrong. Aye, how nice a warm fire and a tub of water to soak her feet would be. And then later to return to Abu. And, aye, even Miss Gabriella. Cold must be getting to her because she actually missed the little termagant.

They reached the front door. Alex knocked on it. Actually, what he did was lift a brass ring attached to the nose of a lion and let it fly. Fancy door that, she noted, elegant scroll work carved into S-shaped patterns, a brass kick plate that shone so brightly, she could see her bandaged feet in them.

The door opened.

Mary took one look at the man who answered the door and said, “Lord, we’re in for it now,” under her breath, even as she almost closed her eyes in delight at the warm air that filtered out to them and stirred loose strands of her hair.

“May I help you?” he asked Alex in as pompous a tone as she’d ever heard from his lordship. Tall he was. And thin, with gray hair. When his hazel eyes slid past Alex to land upon her, they widened a bit, then just as quickly narrowed.

“I wish to speak to the master of the home.”

The eyes moved back to Alex, a condescending brow lifting. “Do you now?” he asked.

“Yes.” And Alex only made it worse by saying, “Immediately.”

“I’m afraid he’s not receiving guests today.” “But—”

The door slammed in their faces.

Alex jerked so violently, Mary thought he might launch himself to the moon.

“Impudent man,” he said, turning to her. “Did you
hear
his tone of voice?”

Mary had heard that tone all her life, especially where swells were concerned, and so she only shrugged.

Alex turned back to the door, reaching for the door knocker again.

“I wouldn’t.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because if you annoy him, he might set the sheriff, or magistrate, or justice of the peace, or whatever passes for law in these parts, and then we’ll be in a fine kettle of fish.”

“But I should welcome a sheriff’s intervention.”

“If a fancy butler doesn’t recognize you for what you are, what makes you think a sheriff will? And I should remind you, m’lord, that vagrants are incarcerated for wandering the countryside. Transported for being guilty of nothing more than having no place to call home.”

“I am the Marquis of Warrick. I am not without a home.”

And with that, he turned, lifted the brass handle, and let it fly.

Mary looked heavenward again.

The door swung open and a blunderbuss emerged. “What’d I tell you?”

“What the blazes do you
think
you’re doing, man?” “Go on. Get out of here,” the butler said. “The both of you afore I report you to the squire.”

“What’d I tell you?” Mary repeated, clucking her tongue.

“Then report me, you fool. I am the Marquis of Warrick,” Alex said, drawing himself up to his full height. “I am a member of the House of Lords. Heir to the Duke of Wainridge and I demand to see your master.”

Mary had to give him credit; if she’d been that butler, she might have found herself wondering if Alex spoke the truth. Alas, she forgot the one cardinal truth; people only ever saw what they wanted to see and it was far easier to see the worse.

“Off with you,” the butler repeated, waving the firearm.

Mary took a step back. To give him credit, Alex did, too.

“Now,” the butler added with another wave.

“I shall come back,” Alex said. “Someday I will come back in my coach and six and speak to your master about your abominable treatment—”

The butler lowered his weapon and slammed the door. Again.

“Why that—” She watched as his fists clenched. “Of all the—” The tips of his fingers reddened, he squeezed them so hard. “I ought to—”

“Finish a sentence?” Mary asked, crossing her arms in front of her. With the door closed, it’d turned as cold as an icebox again. It made her skin start to sting, made her body jerk with a great spasm of a chill, made her wish, for just a moment, that his lordship had succeeded with his silly plan. Ach. She hated always being right.

“I simply cannot believe—”

“That without your fancy horses and carriage you weren’t recognized as a lord?” He gave her a non-blinking stare. “Let me tell you something, m’lord, people are cruel to those they consider beneath them. It doesn’t matter if you have fancy talk or expensive clothes. We look like dredges, you and I, so that’s what we are. No amount of caterwauling will change that.”

And yet he looked like he might give it another try. Well, she wished him well. She, for one, wasn’t going to spend the night in a college, no matter that it might be warm.

She would give anything to be warm.

Anything.

But the cold had settled deep into her bones and she was bleedin’ tired of it. And worried about Abu, and the fact that some fool duke might kill her pet after mistaking it for an exotic animal that he could add to his collection of trophy heads.

“Where are you going?” he called out after her.

“To find me some clothes.”

“And where do you plan on doing that?”

“If I knew that, mayhap I’d be there already.”

But she’d only taken two wincing steps when a voice cried out, “There they are, Sir Thorton.”

Alex and Mary turned, Mary groaning at the sight of the bewigged man that trailed behind an outraged butler, two fart catches following behind the fancy toff. Mary had been around long enough to know there were wigs and there were
wigs.
This wig was a magistrate’s wig. She’d stake her favorite costume on it.

“Damn,” she heard his lordship mutter.

“I’ll wager we won’t be seeing your daughter any time soon,” Mary added.