Chapter 9 #2
A hysterical giggle eased past her lips. The irony wasn’t lost on her. Another giggle slipped out.
When presented with frostbite rapidly setting in and her having potentially broken a rib or two, Linnie would still take this to joining her traitorous family and the smarmy Lord Culross on the other side of the street.
Linnie broke into all-out laughter.
Her right side, which previously smarted from her collision with the ground, now burnt from the force of her mirth.
A face appeared over hers, and Linnie’s lungs regained enough for the scream she intended to become a gasp.
“Are you hurt, miss?”
She’d died. There could be no other accounting for why a glorious, golden-haired angel hovered over her now. “I did not take angels to be killers.”
“Miss?” Confusion and concern clashed in his blue eyes, and they were the most radiant blues she’d ever seen.
Her teeth chattered even more wildly from the cold. “I’m d-dead.”
“I certainly hope not,” he murmured, and of course, being an angel, he also possessed the mellifluous tones of those celestial figures. “As that would make me the one who murdered you. Might I, however, help you?”
From the pain she was in, it became increasingly clear Linnie was very much alive.
Which also meant the gentleman before her was no angel as first suspected. Rather, he was the devil who’d interrupted her flight and caused her to fall.
“Help me? I do believe you’ve done enough already, sir.”
With that, Linnie started to get to her feet. Or she attempted to.
On her back like the turtle her cousin Arran brought back from his travels once found itself, Linnie found herself stuck in the heavy snow.
Abandoning her efforts, she flopped back down and closed her eyes. “Poor turtle.” She hadn’t properly appreciated the struggles he’d faced.
“Miss?”
Linnie opened her eyes. “Y-you,” she said tiredly, her teeth chattering. Miserable inside and out. “You’re still here.” This man was the bane of her existence.
“Still here. Do allow me to help you,” he said with greater urgency.
“I’ve already told you, I— Eek.” She let out a startled shriek as the gentleman wrapped strong hands about her waist.
With surprising strength and tenderness combined, he lifted her out of the bank and into his arms.
“S-sir!” she exclaimed, affronted—nay, unnerved—by the ease and power with which he held her. “Put me down this instant,” she demanded, her voice breathless. And she hated that show of weakness.
“You know, I don’t believe I shall.”
“You don’t believe you shall?”
The tall, muscular stranger shook his head, which only drew her attention back to his halo of loose, pale-blond curls.
Under ordinary circumstances, she might have appreciated his beauty. But with the trouble he’d caused her and his insistence on not putting her down, he was increasingly becoming a thorn in her side.
They remained that way, at an impasse—this gentleman without a name and Linnie, trapped in a peculiar stalemate. Neither of them spoke.
With the powerful breadth of his chest and the strong arms he’d wrapped about her, the gentleman conferred a welcome warmth, thawing Linnie of the numbing cold.
Then it occurred to her why he stood there without speaking. This wasn’t some sort of silent battle of the wills being waged. Rather he’d sought to keep Linnie warm. Nay, to get her warm.
Linnie edged back enough so she could steal a glimpse of his face. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?” she asked softly.
The gentleman glanced down. “Startled you into a nasty fall?”
“No,” she said on a rush. “I . . .” Linnie caught the playful glimmer in those cerulean-blue eyes and abruptly stopped. “Why, you’re teasing.”
“Given your inability to detect my humor, it appears I’m as poor at making jests as I am at rescuing damsels in distress.”
“Is that what you take me for?” she asked drolly. “A damsel in distress.”
“I confess, having happened upon you attempting to scale a wall, I guessed either a princess fleeing marriage to an odious monster, or a burglar. Some years back, there was a break-in on this very street.”
Her lips twitched. Given that it’d been her aunt and uncle’s house broken into, she knew a thing or two about it. “You don’t say.”
“No,” he said, failing to hear the laughter in her voice.
“I see. Given your earlier offer to help, you settled on—”
“Damsel in distress, of course.”
“Of course,” she echoed, and this time she didn’t hide her smile.
His expression grew serious. “Unless you are, in fact, a thief whom I interrupted mid-intrusion?”
Linnie assembled her features into a mask of deadly seriousness. “Which would make you the world’s worst investigator for not having waited and waited more. Now,” she said with more solemn gravity, “you will never know.”
“Alas, miss, unfortunately for you, I do know.”
She drew back in mock affront. “I beg your pardon.”
“You must be the damsel, my dear. Otherwise, you are the world’s worst pickpocket.”
To maintain their game, Linnie pressed her lips together firmly to hide another smile. “If I’m not picking pockets and instead am raiding houses, am I really a pickpocket?”
“Fair,” he allowed. The genial stranger made a show of thinking. “I’ll allow the world’s worst thief, then.”
“La! I am offended, sir.”
“Because I’ve taken you for a thief, or because I’ve taken you for a bad thief?”
Linnie tossed her head. “Why, both, of course.”
“I find myself guilty of that crime in the very short time we’ve known one another,” he said, all drollness.
They shared a grin.
His came so easy. It was uncomplicated, as was the light sparkle in his eyes. He put her so much in mind of Jeremy and how he used to be. Her happiness faded, replaced with abject sorrow.
Her smile faded.
This was who Jeremy once had been. This was who Jeremy still was. Somewhere, buried deep under the suffering and sorrow, lived the affable, ever-smiling gentleman she’d once known.
That was the end of any resemblance between Jeremy and the gentleman who now held her in a warm, protective embrace.
Aside from Jeremy, she’d never been this close to another man, or at least one to whom she wasn’t related.
This man possessed a sharp jawline and a chin less angular than Jeremy’s.
Where Jeremy favored unfashionably longer hair—and wore those midnight-black strands as well as any pirate in the romantic tales she used to read—her rescuer kept his loose, luxuriant golden curls cropped close, in the same manner he did the light beard upon his face.
He dipped his head closer. “It appears my greatest offense this night, miss, is whatever it is I’ve done to chase your smile away,” he whispered. The husky undertones stirred a familiar sensation—one she’d only ever experienced because of one man—in her belly.
Unnerved and desperate to free herself of an unwanted feeling that felt very much like a betrayal to the man she loved, she donned a grin and sought to restore them to their teasing camaraderie.
“Oh, no. Not at all, sir,” she said, all mock solemnity. “Your greatest offense certainly was interrupting my climb.”
“Ah, so I was right, after all. I’ve rescued the damsel.”
“At your service.” She bowed her head. “Though I would be remiss if I failed to correct ‘rescued’ for ‘thwarted.’”
He frowned. “Which would mean I’m the villain in your story.”
Linnie lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “You said it, sir.”
The charming gentleman appeared so wounded she could almost believe his act.
“If you’ll please set me down?” she asked.
He immediately complied.
Linnie’s ankle crumpled. She cried out.
The stranger immediately scooped her up once more. “Setting an injured damsel on her feet is the height of villainy.”
Through the throbbing pain in her leg, she forced a smile. “Never fear, there are two villains.”
Her savior’s blond eyebrows shot up. “Two villains! The plot thickens.” His eyes sparkled like stars on the clearest night.
Linnie stilled, and a memory whispered forward.
Someday, Linnie-Lou . . . you’ll board a ship and sail the seas, and when you do, you’ll witness for yourself the vastness of the universe and the brightness of those stars. They twinkle like diamonds in the sky . . .
Jeremy had once made her that promise. In her mind, she’d imagined he’d be the one to take her aboard his ship and show her the world. She’d resolved to make him fall in love with her, but could she? Could she, when there was so much between them and their families?
Of a sudden, Linnie wanted to cry.
Less attuned to her emotions than Jeremy had ever been, the gentleman continued on with the game they’d played before. Unlike Jeremy, who knew the very moment tears threatened, let alone fell.
“Never say I was correct earlier, and there’s an odious monster whom your family wishes to marry you off to.”
Taking in an uneven breath, Linnie closed her eyes and fought to keep from turning into a watering pot.
Against her cheek, she felt his broad muscles tense.
“Forgive me,” he said quietly. “I . . . I . . .” He floundered.
Jeremy would have known precisely what to say.
This time, she couldn’t fight. A tear slipped free, followed by another and another.
You know, they say “the rose and the thorn, and sorrow and gladness are linked together.”
He eased her back a fraction and took her in with worry-filled eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you distress this night. Not now, not earlier.”
“You were right,” she achingly confessed.
He furrowed his noble brow.
Linnie clarified. “My family wishes to marry me to some . . . gentleman.”
“Oh.” Understanding filled his eyes. “And based on your scaling of that wall and clear misery, I take it this is not a happy union.”
His wasn’t a question, but Linnie shook her head anyway.
As he spoke, he continued to massage her back, and his touch, strong and sure, kept Linnie’s misery at bay. “I take it he’s an odious fellow?”
“Worse than odious.”
His body tensed. “Has he hurt you?”