Chapter 16 #4
Lost in the warm caramel of his eyes, Sylvia felt her heart, which had slowed, start to beat faster. She arched her brows. “Your future?”
His lips eased. His gaze still locked with hers, he raised her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “You,” he whispered. “You are my future, and I’m not of a mind to allow anyone to steal the years I hope you’ll agree to share with me.”
Her heart leapt, then raced. She studied his eyes. “Is that an offer, my lord?”
He tipped his head, his lips curving. “Not as such, but it’s the promise of one.” His expression remained relaxed, but there was seriousness behind his next words. “You’re a clergyman’s daughter—I plan to do everything by the book in wooing you.”
She felt her heart soften and shift, and in that instant, she knew to her soul that her heart was already his.
That she’d succumbed to this nobleman reputed to be a rakehell, who was, in fact, so much more.
Certainty filled her; she let it show in her eyes, let the radiance of it fill her smile.
“M’lord, what do you want us to do with this blighter?”
Ollie’s question broke the moment. Together with Kit, Sylvia looked to where the three boys still had their attention focused on the fallen Nunsworth.
“He’s getting squirrelly,” the lad, who Sylvia had realized from the boys’ exchanges was none other than Jack the Lad, reported.
And, indeed, Nunsworth appeared to be trying to surreptitiously shift into a position from which he could swing away from the boys.
Not that they would let him escape.
Smiggs lumbered up, a length of heavy rope in his hands. “The watchman told me where to find this. He’s—pardon the pun—ropeable about letting Nunsworth down him.”
To the boys, Smiggs said, “Keep those poles handy. Whack him if he gives me any trouble.”
The boys shuffled and circled as, none too gently, Smiggs rolled Nunsworth over, hauled his hands behind his back, and secured them with the rope.
Then Smiggs reached down and bent Nunsworth’s legs at the knees, looping the rope around his ankles and cinching it tight.
“See?” Smiggs said to the boys. “This is how you hog-tie a man. It’ll keep him right where he is until we decide different. ”
While the boys, curious, inspected Smiggs’s handiwork, Kit rose, crouched by Sylvia’s feet, and untied the hobble Nunsworth had fashioned. Then Kit straightened, reached down and gave her his hand and, when she put her fingers in his, drew her upright.
She swayed, and he caught her around the waist. She leaned into his support as the boys turned their way. “Thank you, boys, for coming to save me. I don’t know how you realized that I was in danger before I did, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
All three boys blushed and looked bashful.
“Tweren’t nothing but what you deserve, miss,” Ollie said, “for all your hard work at the school an’ all.”
The other two nodded earnestly. Then Jack’s eyes lit, and he added, “And it was fun!”
Kit chuckled, and she smiled. Then he urged her to the door.
They left Nunsworth, trussed and mumbling curses muted by the metal pail, on the mill floor and walked out into the gathering dusk. Kit led her to the bench against the wall and gently—as if she was porcelain—eased her down to sit.
She shot him a grateful smile; she could do with a moment to gather her wits and simply breathe.
With a last glance to reassure himself that she was as well as she could be, Kit walked to the other end of the bench to speak with the watchman.
Smiggs headed for the lane, calling, “I’ll fetch the curricle.”
The boys, Sylvia was touched to note, hovered protectively beside her; if she wasn’t much mistaken, the Cavanaugh effect was rubbing off on them. She summoned a smile and focused it on Jack. “Jack, isn’t it?”
He blushed and essayed an awkward bow. “Pleased to meet you, miss.”
She smiled more broadly. “Not half as pleased as I am to meet you.” She included Ollie and Ned with a glance. “All I know is that Jack somehow ended up in the boot of Nunsworth’s gig.” She arched her brows at the three. “How did that happen? How is it that all three of you are here?”
They told her, with a great deal of color and explanation thrown in.
By the time they’d finished recounting it all, and she’d commented appropriately along the way, they were quite puffed up with pride—in her opinion, entirely justifiably—and, with the usual resilience of youth, had already forgotten the tenser moments of the drama and were inclined to cast the whole as a magnificent adventure.
She envied them that ability. It would be a long time before she forgot Nunsworth and his terrible plan.
Smiggs drove Kit’s curricle into the clearing and drew up before the open mill door.
Along with Smiggs, the three boys, and even the watchman, Sylvia looked at Kit.
Kit read the question writ large in all the faces turned his way. What now?
He glanced through the open mill door, beyond which Nunsworth remained securely hog-tied, then looked at Sylvia. “I believe it’s time we called on your father.”