Chapter Four #2
Intent on “abducting” her away. Well, not in the strictest sense of the word, of course.
Only long enough to make his warning understood.
Yet why did it feel like he was getting damnably close to the same obsession that plagued his brother—an obsession that ended up in marriage?
Naturally, Drake had convinced himself he was doing this for practical reasons.
If Miss Sharpe was moving against them in some way, she ought to know exactly who she was dealing with.
But you didn’t come here from practicality. You came because you couldn’t stop yourself from coming.
Ah, yes, the devil within had a nasty way with words.
He didn’t appreciate the inner taunt.
Didn’t trust it.
Didn’t trust her, either.
“Fine,” she muttered, eyes sharpening on him. “I shall join you on one condition.”
“Do tell, Miss Sharpe.”
Her chin tipped upward, stubborn jaw setting. “You promise you shall not harm me in any way.”
Intriguing that she would choose a promise for a condition. “And you take me for a man of my word?”
“If nothing else, I am renting from your family. You should protect your tenants.”
Drake let out a laugh at that. “Protect our tenants, you say.” Well, one could say that was the truth.
“Is that not the case?” she challenged.
“You haven’t rented before us, have you?”
“You haven’t had a tenant like me, have you?”
Her face was tragically incapable of hiding her rising impatience. Her words, however, made his fingers twitch.
No, I have not.
Drake held her gaze, Drake held her gaze, keeping his features carefully blank so she would see none of what stirred beneath the surface.
This trembling little plot of land, this woman with her flowers and ridiculous purple-colored bonnet that quarreled with her flaming red hair—none of it seemed to belong in his world.
And yet danger often wore the face of innocence.
He motioned to his horse. Better not to drag this out. “Shall we?”
“Yes,” she muttered, motioning for him to go first. “Let us.”
Drake turned and strode to his horse, acutely aware of the soft footfalls reluctantly following him. “Cheer up, Miss Sharpe. This is hardly an abduction.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, Mr. Fury.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. He reached for the reins of his horse. “Back or front?”
She glanced between him and the animal. “I beg your pardon?”
“Do you want to sit at my back or my front?” He flashed her a quick grin. “Your choice. I don’t mind either position.”
“How very generous of you,” she returned dryly. “To offer options that are equally objectionable.”
“I aim to be efficient.”
Efficient her behind. Her nose wrinkled in frank distaste of her options. “There’s no saddle.”
“We don’t need one,” Drake asked, patting the horse’s back where a blanket had been strapped.
“This is . . .” her words trailed off.
Ridiculous, the pinch of her brow seemed to say.
“Well?” Drake prompted patiently.
“I’d rather walk.”
“That’s not an option.” A thought occurred to him. “Are you perhaps scared of horses?”
“I am not scared!”
“Then what is the difficulty?”
“The difficulty,” she said crisply, “is not the horse. It is the company.”
Drake chuckled. “Very well. My apologies. Then what shall it be? Will I be holding you or will you be holding me?”
“Must you put it like that?” she ground out through a clenched jaw.
No, but it was deuced entertaining to watch the various degrees of indignation cross her pretty face. Drake waited patiently for her decision.
She debated a full minute before biting out, “I shall sit at the front.”
Drake bit back a laugh, nodding. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Abductors cannot expect their victims to hold onto them.”
“I prefer the term gentleman of encouragement.”
She snorted his way. “What gentleman? Brute of unreasonable insistence.”
Might as well live up to her assessment of him.
“Since I am a brute . . .” He dropped the reins, and in one smooth, inexorable motion, he reached for her waist. The fiery woman gasped—an honest, startled little sound that sent a shiver of delight through him—and her hands flew to his shoulders. “I won’t be polite.”
He lifted her and deposited her onto the back of his horse, her skirts spilling over the horse’s flank.
Effortless. Light as breath. He caught the horse’s mane and vaulted up behind her, his thigh brushing hers as he settled.
He reached around her, his arms forming a cage as he gathered the reins.
The movement drew her snugly between his legs, and the same sweetness from last night invaded his lungs, her body familiar against his.
“Don’t worry, Miss Sharpe. I won’t let you fall. ”
“Mr. Fury!” she hissed, half outrage, half disbelief. “You truly are the brute they claim!”
“Why pretend not to be?” he murmured against the shell of her ear, urging the horse into an easy pace. “Are you comfortable?”
“Why ask when the answer won’t matter?” Her gaze snapped over her shoulder to his.
Sharp. Blue. Defensive. Beautiful. He ought not notice that.
Ought not let his attention linger on the faint sun-kissed freckles across her nose, the stubborn tilt to her mouth that made him want to haul her closer and kiss the anger right out of her.
Fool’s thoughts.
While he’d never been a man to deny himself a desire or indulgence, he didn’t need to consult a fortune-teller to know this one would bring him a lifetime’s worth of trouble.
“You are enjoying this,” she accused.
Point in bloody case.
“Not particularly,” he mostly lied. Because enjoy wasn’t exactly the right word, though it also couldn’t be discounted as the wrong one.
“I should never have trusted you,” she muttered, averting her gaze.
Ah, little flame. “I never asked for your trust.”
Even so, the word carried an odd sting that scraped beneath his skin. Trust. As if that were a thing to be required so easily.
“Good. You shall never have it.”
“Good,” he said back. “You should never give out such a valuable thing too freely.”
She said nothing to that.
Drake adjusted his hold of the reins.
He should have felt in command with her trapped in his embrace. He was always in command. Power belonged to the man who could hold it, and he was holding her. So why, by all the devils in Brighton, did he feel like she was the one with her hands on the damn reins?