“Marcus, the consequences are too grave. Remember what happened when you climbed onto the dais at Green Park? And this is so much worse. I can’t let you take such a risk with your life and your freedom. I don’t know how I ever imagined it would be all right to allow it.”
“Portia, Portia…” he sighed. “That is why you are being kidnapped…abducted…whatever you want to call it. So that whether or not I take a risk isn’t up to you. I’m not one of your responsibilities or your charities. Please, don’t waste your guilty conscience on me. You didn’t ask me to take you away from London, I did it all by myself, and I’ll face up to any repercussions, all by myself.”
“But Marcus—”
“Do you want to be kissed?” His eyes were wide open now and the devil was in them.
“What do you mean?” she whispered uneasily.
He unfolded his arms. He sat up.
“No, no, I don’t want to be kissed!” she said, shrinking back and drawing her cloak tightly around her, as if it would protect her.
He looked into her eyes a moment more, and whatever he saw in them made him smile in that arrogant, male way. “Then hush,” he said gently, “or I will have to ravish you.”
Marcus was pretending to sleep. It seemed the easiest option. If she saw he was awake, he’d be peppered with questions and recriminations from his lady love. He’d tried to reason with her. After all, he had saved her mother, and as the considerate kidnapper he was, he was bringing her maid, despite the fact that it made it very difficult for him to seduce Portia.
But she wouldn’t listen.
Until he threatened to do to her the very thing he was longing to do. Kiss her.
He smiled.
“I saw that,” she said triumphantly. “You’re not asleep at all.”
“We’ll be changing horses soon.”
“Aren’t we going to stop anywhere for longer than a few moments?”
“Obviously you don’t get kidnapped very often, Portia. It isn’t usual for kidnapper and hostage to stop for a nice meal and a bed at an inn during their flight.”
“They will come after me,” she insisted raggedly. “You don’t know what Arnold is like, how single-minded he can be when it comes to getting his own way. You’ll be thrown in gaol.”
“It won’t be the first time,” he reminded her.
She stared at him. “Why are you doing this, Marcus? You agreed it was over between us. We said good-bye.”
“I changed my mind,” he drawled.
“You must let me go. Please. If we’re found together, they will arrest you. They may even hang you!”
There was such anxiety and desperation in her voice that he was moved. But he wasn’t about to change his mind. “Portia—”
Then Hettie piped up.
“What’s there to go back to, lieben? The Gillinghams? The queen? They do not love you. But this one…this one does.”
“Hettie,” Portia groaned, “you wretch. Whose side are you on?”
“I am on your side,” Hettie said firmly.
Momentarily outmaneuvered, Portia huddled in her corner and stared out of the window at the countryside slipping by. After a time Hettie began to snore gently.
“You’ll be safe with me,” Marcus said at last. “Hettie is right. I love you. I must. I’ve never felt like this before, not for any of the others.”
“You’re outrageous!” she gasped. “How many others?”
“Portia, I can make you happy. It’s true you will no longer be the apple of the people’s eye, but you’ll be mine.”