Chapter Thirteen
“Oh, aye… I saw ’em,” the man said, chewing on a bit of straw.
“Back a ways, just south of Nottingham. Saw her with a fine handsome fellow, I did. At the public house. They were in a hired carriage which was headed north. Took ’em for a pair of love birds, I did.
Not that they was improper like. But you can tell when a pair is right enough for one another. ”
Beside him, Reginald felt Pozenby’s fury growing exponentially with every word the stagecoach driver uttered. “Did you happen to catch the name of the gentleman my daughter was with, sir?”
“No, sir. Can’t say I did. Heard their driver addressing him as m’lord, though. I reckon if one’s offspring has to run for the blacksmith’s anvil, there’s worse things than having her do so with a titled gent!” The driver chortled.
“He stole her!” Pozenby all but shouted. “Stole her from her parents’ home like a common thief. And you act as though it was done for your amusement!”
The driver, unfazed by the aging and progressively more unkempt nobleman’s fury, just shrugged. “Didn’t look like she minded it too much… caught ’em stealing glances at one another like they couldn’t keep their eyes to themselves. Not a bad way to start off, if I do say so myself!”
“You don’t say! You do not say anything else… not another word from you unless it’s to tell us you heard their destination!” Pozenby shouted.
They’d overtaken the hired coach but the driver had been long gone and the coach itself had been empty. It was then that they knew their mad dash to Scotland was but a ruse. Now, at a less-than-hospitable inn near Sheffield, they were finding out the disastrous news that they were likely too late.
“Not where they was headed, but did hear ’em say to the driver they meant to walk for a bit. If’n that’s the case, couldn’t have been going far,” the man mused. “Mayhap he was a local gent and they didn’t need to go all the way to the border to get married. How old is your daughter, sir?”
Old enough. And that was the problem. She didn’t need his consent to marry.
Even if they did manage to find her before the marriage was consummated, there was a very real likelihood that he would not have grounds to challenge it for an annulment.
And whatever Pozenby said, the man was not well liked enough to command favors of the court.
He was barely tolerated in society due to his malodorous presence.
In truth, if the man weren’t ridiculously wealthy, he’d have been ostracized long ago.
“That is not your concern,” Pozenby snapped at the man before turning on his heel and walking away.
The stagecoach driver eyed Reginald for a moment. He made no effort to camouflage his disapproval. “If I had to choose which man for my own daughter to be tied to, I know which one I’d pick.”
“Well, then how fortunate it is that she is not your daughter. Good evening,” Reginald said, now equally put out with the man.
As he reached Pozenby, he heard the man yelling at the proprietor of the establishment to procure fresh horses for them.
The proprietor was attempting to explain why that was impossible.
Lack of light. Freezing conditions. And with every protest from the proprietor, Pozenby’s face nearly purpled with rage.
Suddenly, and without any warning, Pozenby’s clutched at his chest. The man’s florid complexion went suddenly ashen, his pallor as gray as the polluted London sky.
Then he collapsed to the floor. And no one, not Reginald nor the much-maligned proprietor, made any great hurry to aid him.
In fact, almost everyone remained completely still and quiet while the smelly and bullish man breathed his last.
“The room is paid for?” Reginald asked of the proprietor as Pozenby’s remains were carted out by two locals who complained loudly of the task.
“It is, sir. Will you be keeping it then?”
“Yes,” Reginald said. “I’ll leave at first light.”
“And your companion, sir? What are we to do with his remains?”
“Cart him up and send him to his next of kin.”
The proprietor blinked. “Who would that be, sir?”
Reginald shrugged. “I do not know. He’s Lord Pozenby. Consult a copy of Debrett’s Peerage. It should answer the question for you well enough.”
With that, Reginald left the innkeeper gaping after him and climbed the stairs to the room his late companion had paid for.
And all he felt was relief. It would give him time to figure out some way to manage the debt.
Perhaps if he could placate Daphne in some way, and her new husband—whomever he was—they might be inclined to generosity.
Fletcher had a multitude of regrets which would likely come back to haunt him at some point in time.
But for the moment, not a one of them was a deterrent to what was about to occur.
Consummating his marriage to a woman whom, in a very short time he had come to both admire and to long for in a way that defied description, on the hard floor of the drawing room of a house that was rapidly falling into ruin around him was certainly one of them.
Oh, not the consummating. He was quite eager for that.
It was more that the location and amenities left quite a bit to be desired.
A bed. A bed would certainly have been a nice touch.
And while there were bedchambers above, he wasn’t entirely certain of the soundness of the roof above them, nor of the cleanliness therein.
The drawing room had at least been habitable and was where he’d stayed when last he’d been there.
But it was not the time for regrets or doubts.
Daphne, naked and eager in his arms, was a gift that he meant to savor, whatever their surroundings might be.
To that end, he put himself to work ensuring that she would receive as much pleasure from the encounter as he could possibly manage.
He left her mouth, kissing along her jawline, down the slender column of her neck to the delicate slope of her shoulder, the arched line of her collarbone and lower still, to the upper swells of her breasts.
Petite as she was, her figure was still delightfully curvaceous and so deliciously different from his own that every contrast was a study in pleasure.
As he maneuvered them toward the settee, he turned and eased himself down first, pulling her down with him so that she sat astride his thighs. It was an intentionally provocative pose, one that had a very predictable effect on him and one that she was incapable of missing.
“Do you have any idea what is about to happen?” he asked her, praying that someone, somewhere along the way, had spoken out of turn and not left her in complete ignorance.
She blushed so deeply that even in the firelight it was visible.
“Very little… my mother told me a few things when I was only days from walking down the aisle with Viscount Lynley, but I rather think it was very poor information. If I had thought, I might have asked Ellis. I think she’d have been a far better source. ”
“Likely,” he agreed. “I can’t tell you. I could, but I think in this instance we would likely be speaking different languages. But I can show you, Daphne, if you trust me.”
“I do,” she said. “More than you can possibly realize… or I’d never have had the courage to do… well, any of this!”
“If I do something you dislike, stop me. Tell me. It will not make me angry or upset. If I do something you do like, then do not hide that from me… Let me see what pleases you so that this is an experience both of us can enjoy,” he urged her.
“Can you do that? Just let yourself feel and let me see what you’re feeling? ”
“I think so,” she agreed. “But I won’t know what to say!”
He smiled then. “If I’m doing what I ought to, then you won’t have to tell me with words… I’ll know.”
And then they stopped speaking. He let his hands wander over satiny skin, touching her lightly, then more firmly.
And with each pass of his hands over her bare flesh, he made note of her response.
When she shivered, when she sighed, when she leaned into him or arched beneath his hands.
Every single response was catalogued, memorized—and everything he did after built upon that, upon the revelation of what she responded to.
And every response only fueled the fire burning inside him.
“This all feels very one-sided,” Daphne murmured, her voice thin and breathy. “Shouldn’t I be touching you, as well?”
“Later,” he said. “You may touch me at your leisure, but not now. This time should be one-sided… it should be all about you.”
Sliding his hand along the silken length of her leg, he coasted his fingertips back up, skating over her inner thigh until he could touch her intimately.
When she gasped, he kissed her once more, swallowing the sound so that only the snapping of the fire and their mingled breath were the lone sounds in the room.
As he explored her tender flesh, she moved against him, seeking her pleasure with a kind of abandon that ratcheted his own need for her.
The intensity of it, the need to possess and claim, was unlike anything he’d ever known.
And it was something his mind simply shied away from.
He was not yet ready to examine the reasons for it beyond the most superficial of them.
To do more was to court disaster. So, instead, he focused on her reactions, her sighs of pleasure, the way she arched into his touch.
And when she found her pleasure, when she shivered and clung to him as the release shuddered through her, he knew that the why didn’t matter.
What he did know was that no one—not her father nor Pozenby nor anyone else—would take her from him.
He lifted her once again, bearing them on to the floor beneath the hearth, his ancient dressing gown cushioning them as he freed the fall of his breeches and fitted himself between her thighs.
She didn’t question or protest, but welcomed him with a kind of trust that, given all she’d endured, was humbling.
Easing into her, feeling the slick heat of her surrounding him, he gritted his teeth, fighting every base urge to simply ease his own passions.
Instead, he moved slowly, ensuring that she was with him every step.
And when he did reach that ultimate end, she was with him, tumbling once more into blissful release.
Hours later, Daphne awakened once more with the weight of his arm draped across her. His thigh was draped over her, as well, his limbs heavy with sleep. It wasn’t comfortable but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was merely foreign to her, but it did offer her the opportunity to study him.
Dawn was breaking and dim light filtered through the curtains, casting his features in a complex mixture of shadow and silvery illumination.
He wasn’t angelic. No angel, she thought, could ever look so sinful.
And he did. His well-chiseled features were enhanced by the growth of dark whiskers that highlighted his sculpted lips.
The dark sweep of sooty, black lashes formed perfect crescent moons above cheekbones sharper than the most well-tended knife blade.
“You’re staring,” he muttered, his voice sleep roughened and his lips curving in the barest hint of a smile.
“It’s your fault. You’re too pretty. No one should have the audacity to look like you do after days of arduous travel and…”
“Amorous pursuits?” he queried, opening one eye to peer at her.
Daphne blushed. “Just so. If you were a decent sort, you’d look as haggard as I do at the moment.”
“Haggard,” he said with a laugh. “Hardly. Satisfied. You, my darling bride, look like a woman well satisfied… and it suits you. Just fine.”
Daphne blushed. “Well, I suppose that is a fair assessment of our present situation.”
He pulled her closer to him still, easing her beneath him as he rose above her on his elbows. “And if I am not satisfied? If I am never truly satisfied because wanting you is becoming as natural to me as breathing? What then?”
“Then I suppose we should endeavor to find mutual satisfaction. Don’t you think?”
He didn’t respond with words. Instead, he chose actions that were unmistakable in intent.