The Marquess's Scottish Bride: A Sweet & Clean Historical Romance (The Chase Brides Book 2) (35 page)

Caithren wasn’t at the table where he’d left her.

Fear sprinted along his nerves before he got himself under control. He tossed the new wool cloak he’d bought over her chair and walked around the tavern, checking every corner of the oddly shaped room. Then back to the table, his heart beginning to beat unevenly. He’d left her with his portmanteau and the burlap bag with the backgammon set.

All was gone.

Geoffrey’s and Walter’s faces flashed in his mind. But no one in the taproom looked at all concerned, and it was inconceivable that Caithren would go with the brothers without a fight. While it was true she couldn’t shoot, she’d kneed that ruffian on the road, and she’d punched Wat Gothard. And there was no sign of a confrontation.

Still, his pulse raced, his head felt woozy. What if they’d managed to lure her away? How would he find them? What would he do? He couldn’t think clearly when he kept seeing her standing in that courtyard with blood running down her arm. Blood from a Gothard’s blade.

If anything more happened to her, he would never forgive himself.

He paced around the tavern, stopping at tables, querying one patron after another. “My young wife was sitting there. Short, blond. Did she leave with anyone?”

No one had seen a thing.

When she came down the stairs, stepping gingerly on the heeled shoes, he spun around. His long legs ate up the distance between them.

“Where on earth were you?”

“Hold your tongue. Everyone is looking at us.” She walked to their table, set down the burlap bag, shrugged the portmanteau off her shoulder. “I took everything with me so nothing would go missing. I was gone but a minute.”

“You have an odd idea of a minute. Where did you go? How dare you disappear on me! I thought the Gothards had—”

“I had to…you know. Use the privy.” Frowning, she peered into his eyes, and then, unbelievably, her lips turned up in a hint of a smile. “I’ve never seen you really angry before. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I’ve never thought you were missing before,” he snapped out.

She crossed her arms and leveled him with a stare. “How about when I tried to escape you? Or when I fell asleep in the kirk?”

“Things were different then. Then I didn’t—oh, hang it.”

“Then you didn’t
care
?” she supplied. “You cannot say it, can you? That you care.”

“I care,” he said. “I care about making things right. I care about replacing what you lost on my account. I care that you get to London in one piece, not carved up by a Gothard’s blade.”

The sound of raucous laughter came from another table. Pewter tankards clanked on wood. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, either,” Caithren said softly.

“Why?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“Because
I
care.” Her gaze dropped to her crossed arms. “And I don’t mean about getting to London or the money you owe me.”

“Emerald—”

“And no matter what you call me, I care because of this—” She went up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.

Confound it. Calling her Emerald wasn’t working. There seemed nothing for it. He closed his eyes and kissed her back. Though he’d said he wouldn’t kiss her without an excuse, he was kissing her with no excuse in sight—and quite suddenly he knew he’d keep kissing her every chance he got.

His arms went around her, and the sounds of the tavern receded as she squeezed herself so close he felt her ancient amulet between them. Her lips were warm velvet; her flowery scent assaulted his senses.

How could such an exasperating girl be so sweet?

At the sound of a whistle, he pulled away to much applause.

“We see you found your wife,” someone yelled.

Caithren’s cheeks went from the pink of passion to the red of embarrassment. But that didn’t stop her from saying, “I got you to kiss me,” in a self-satisfied tone.

“Shall we go?” he asked with a laugh. He drew the new cloak from her chair and settled it over her shoulders. “It’s seven miles to Welwyn and beginning to rain already.”

“WE’RE NOT
going to make it, Jase!” Caithren yelled through the storm. She hadn’t known it was possible to feel so wet. Her new cloak was all but useless against the downpour. “If this gown soaks up any more water, poor Maid-of-the-Wave will be driven to her knees.”

A huge crash of thunder made both horses shy. The sky opened up and spewed twice as much water, a feat Cait hadn’t thought possible. Rain came down in blinding sheets. She couldn’t see as much as two feet ahead.

She felt Jason’s leg bump up against hers before his hand came through the downpour to grab her reins. “Shelter!” he hollered over the next crack of lightning. “Come with me!”

He led them off the road along a barely visible trail. Hidden in the trees sat an old thatched cottage. How he’d found the place she’d never know, but the mere sight of it lifted her heart.

She held both horses while Jason pounded on the door. No one came to answer. The shutters were all latched from the interior, and the door was locked. Water streaming into her eyes, Cait waited while he walked all the way around the one-room building.

“Closed up!” he called through the pounding rain.

She wanted to cry.

He stood stock-still for a spell, then disappeared behind the cottage and returned with a hefty log. Bracing it against his good shoulder, he stepped back and ran at the door.

It didn’t give, and she winced at his anguished yell. “You’re going to kill yourself,” she called. “You’re in no shape for this!”

But he tried it twice more, until the door crashed in. He nearly fell on his face after it, and, miserable as she was, Cait had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

“Go inside,” he told her, and she did, gratefully. After tethering the horses beneath some trees, he took their things and followed her, propping the door into its space behind them.

They stood there, dripping, for a long minute. Rain pounded on the roof. The cottage looked clean enough and boasted a bed with a thick quilt, a small table, two wooden chairs, and a brick fireplace. No wood, no candles, no oil lamps. The warped shutters let in a little light and a lot of rain that puddled near the glassless windows. But it was shelter, and Caithren couldn’t remember being more appreciative in her life.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Jason gestured helplessly. “It will be cold come night. And dark. All the wood outside is soaking wet.” He looked at the table and chairs.

Her gaze followed his. “You’re not thinking of burning them?” When he shrugged, she shook her head. “They’re not yours to burn. Besides, where would we continue our backgammon tournament?”

“That’s right.” Grinning, he pulled off his hat. Water poured from the wide brim. “I’m ahead.”

“You are not.” She set her own drenched hat on the table. “We’re dead even. Seventeen matches each.”

He dragged off the wet wig. His own hair underneath was just as soaked, sleekly black and plastered to his head.

“You look like a selkie,” Cait said.

He unfastened his cloak and let it drop to the floor in a sodden heap. “A what?”

“A selkie. A creature that takes on the form of a seal in the sea and a man on the land.”

“How flattering.” Amusement lit his eyes as they raked her from head to toe. “You on the other hand, look the picture of perfection.”

“Aye?” Laughing, she turned to shrug free of her cloak. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this gown weighs more than I do.” Bending at the waist, she gathered her hair and twisted it. Water streamed out onto the wooden floor.

As she straightened, her hair still bunched in one hand, Jason’s arms came around her from behind. She hadn’t even heard him move close. He pressed his lips to the nape of her neck.

Warm and soft. Her breath caught, and she stood stone still. She hadn’t imagined it the first time, she realized, a little thrill running through her at the thought. “What was that for?”

“I’ve been wanting to do that since the day I met you,” he said.

Quite unsure about this side of Jason and where it had come from, she turned to face him. His penetrating gaze was entrancing. “Well, I wouldn’t have stopped you,” she said.

“I don’t expect you would have.” He took a deep breath and looked away, the Jason she knew slipping back into place. “Let me fetch some dry clothes.”

Still stunned, she stood and shivered while he went through the portmanteau. One after another, their clothes came out, most of the pieces soaking wet.

She draped the garments on the floor around the room. “I hope they’ll dry,” she said on a sigh.

Finally, from the very bottom, he unearthed a pair of buff breeches and Mrs. Twentyman’s night rail and held them both up triumphantly. “Dry. Almost. Which do you want?” He waved the breeches with a grin.

Surprised and a bit unnerved by his playfulness, she snatched the night rail from his other hand. “This will do, thank you. Turn around.”

Thankfully, he obeyed. One of his feet impatiently tapped on the wooden floor, the wet boot leather squeaking with each motion.

“No peeking,” she admonished. Quite adept at removing stomachers now, she did so in all haste.

“Are you finished yet?”

“Nay. Stay put.”

His foot kept tapping while she wiggled into the night rail. Reaching beneath the hem, she pushed everything down and off, leaving her shoes in the wet pile when she stepped out of it.

“Now your turn.” She faced away to wait.

“I hate that night rail,” he drawled from behind her. “I think we ought to burn that thing.”

“You haven’t got a fire,” she said crisply. “And I haven’t got anything else dry to wear. Are you changing yet?”

“Of course.”

Wondering if he was watching her, she yanked up on the night rail’s sleeves, which fell well past her hands, and tightened the lacing at the collar. “Are you freezing?”

“Are you?”

She was goosebumps all over, though it really wasn’t too cold now that she was out of the wet gown. “Not since I changed. I’ll just take these clothes”—she bent to retrieve them—“and lay them out while you dress.” She started spreading the garments over what little floor space was left. “Don’t worry—I promise not to look.”

She made long work of squeezing the water from the brocade gown and wringing out its chemise. Her shoes were alarmingly soggy, but she sat them on the floor and hoped for the best. The stomacher was soaked, yet still just as stiff. Apparently Jason hadn’t been fooling when he said there was bone inside.

“Ready,” he called.

She turned, then whirled back away. “You’re still half-naked!”

“Shall I wear a soaking wet shirt?”

“Oh, never mind.”

Averting her eyes from his bare chest, she fetched the backgammon set and removed it from the burlap bag.

“Sit,” she said, plopping the drenched board onto the table. “It’s wet, but I reckon it’ll survive, seeing as it’s made from a cow that likely got drenched in its day.” She lined up the markers on their respective pips.

“I reckon it will,” he said, his voice tinged with amusement. Taking the dice cup, he rolled two sixes.

She sat across from him, trying not to notice the way his muscles rippled when he leaned across the board to make his moves. Though still a livid pink, his wound looked all but healed. Rain beat down on the roof, and thunder and lightning disturbed her concentration.

She lost three matches in a row.

“I’m hungry,” Jason complained as she reset the board.

“There’s some bread left in the pocket of my cloak.”

He rose to fetch it, treating her to a view of his broad shoulders and back. He returned with a handful of white mush. “I don’t think so.” With a groan, he tossed it into the empty fireplace.

“Maybe it will stop raining so we can continue on to Welwyn before you waste away of starvation.”

He snorted.

But the weather didn’t let up.

By the time Cait had lost two more matches, the rumbling was directly overhead and nearly constant. Dark was falling. Brilliant flashes of lightning lit the room through the ill-fitting shutters, but the sporadic brightness wasn’t adequate to play by.

Caithren squinted at the dice, trying to see what numbers she’d rolled. With a sigh, she rose and headed for the entrance, picking her way around the clothes that littered the floor. She pried the door free from where Jason had propped it within its frame, just enough to see outside.

The rain pounded down, assaulting her ears. “I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere,” she yelled over the noise.

“I expect not,” Jason said softly, right beside her. When she jumped, one of his arms came around to steady her. The other hand reached to shove the door back into place, blocking most of the sound.

She could still hear the rain on the roof and through the shutters, but the room seemed suddenly and immeasurably quieter. He swept aside her hair and kissed that spot on the nape of her neck again.

She shivered.

“Are you cold?” he whispered.

She wasn’t sure. Was she cold or just extraordinarily aware of his lips on her skin? Regardless, she nodded.

“Come to bed, then. I’ll keep you warm.”