Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

She stiffened tighter than a virgin in a brothel, which, he supposed, wasn’t all that much of a surprise. He just pulled her closer and pressed her cheek down against his shoulder. Her arms were as bare as her legs, which were against his, all smooth and delightful. He turned his face into her hair and said, “It’s all right. Don’t cry unless you’re hurting, and not just feeling miserable about this impossible situation that you, I might add, are responsible for getting us into.”

“You didn’t have to come after me. You could have let me have Durban for a while. I would have returned him.”

He started to burn her ears, but he felt her tears on his neck and cursed instead, then stopped cold. “No, I won’t curse again, at least until it’s impossible not to. I have this feeling that with you near at hand, cursing will become a regular habit with me.”

“My mother hated cursing. Once I said ‘damn’ when I was just a little girl and she made me eat a bowl of turnips. She wouldn’t let me add any salt or butter, nothing. I came to hate turnips very quickly. I can’t look at a turnip now without thinking about that one small ‘damn,’ which felt very good saying at the time.”

“Turnips, huh? A better punishment than having a mouth full of soap, which I understand is the time-honored curse punishment. Now, you’re warming up and so am I. Let’s just rest here a couple more hours until our clothes are dry.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll go back to London.”

His skin felt itchy from her tears and he shifted just a bit, bringing up his hand to scratch himself. When she realized what he was going to do, she did it for him, lightly digging her fingernails into his shoulder and neck.

“Thank you,” he said. “You hair smells good.”

She sighed. “You shouldn’t say that. I’m nineteen years old. I don’t know you except for what the aunts said, and they aren’t sure if you’re nice or very wicked. You’re naked. I can feel your legs and they’re hairy. My rib hurts and so does my head.”

“All right. Take a nap. Oh, yes—I’m not wicked. I’m staid, even proper. This one small incident with us lying here bundled together isn’t the norm. Trust me.”

“I don’t know about trusting you just yet. Yes, the aunts wondered if you were like your father. They didn’t like your father.”

“I didn’t either. Go to sleep.” He was the one, however, who was lightly snoring five minutes later.

She’d never before lain half-naked against a fully naked man. It was at once strange and just a bit exhilarating. What to do now? She lightly scratched his shoulder again.

When she woke up, she was quite alone, packed in straw like a fish on the dock. She opened her eyes and stared around her, not moving until she remembered, and then she sat up quickly. She was so dizzy that she nearly fell over. She sat very still, waiting. Finally her head cleared. She saw him some six feet away, shrugging into his waistcoat.

“Are the clothes dry?”

He turned around and gave her a smile. She’d never seen him smile before. It was quite nice. In fact, it was a smile that would have knocked her flat—would have knocked any female flat, she imagined—if she weren’t sitting here with only her chemise on, with straw sticking out of her hair. If she hadn’t believed him to be a womanizer, and possibly just like her stepfather, she would have thought his smile quite the nicest smile that had ever been bestowed upon her. On the other hand, he’d assured her that he wasn’t wicked. In her meager experience, however, men weren’t to be believed.

“Yes, they’re dry. How do you feel?”

She was no longer dizzy, thank God. She silently queried her body, from her rib to her head. It wasn’t too bad, just light throbbing in both places. She did feel a bit heavy, perhaps on the dull side, and that was odd, but it wasn’t bad enough to say anything about. “I’m fine, but I don’t want to go back to London, unless it’s just to leave you there with Brewster and make certain I’m on the road to Folkstone.”

“Not likely,” he said, giving more attention to the wrinkles in his coat than to her very serious statement.

She

didn’t think it was very likely either, but still, he could have perhaps explained, apologized, even smiled at her again. She watched him walk to her and drop her clothes onto the straw.

“Get dressed. I’ll see to Durban and Brewster. They’re probably thirsty.”

She was fastening her breeches when he came back into the barn. “The sun’s brighter than a woman’s smile when her lover gives her a diamond necklace.”

“I’ve never heard it put quite that way.”

“I’m sometimes a poet,” he said. He narrowed his eyes and looked at her closely from toe to head. “You look like a wreck.”

“So do you.”

“Yes, I suppose neither of us would be welcome in a London drawing room. On the other hand, my face isn’t a mess of blue and green and yellow bruises like yours is. Let’s go get something to eat. There must be a town nearby with an inn.”

The Corpulent Goose was the premier inn in the market town of Grindle-Abbott. Set in a small yard surrounded by oak trees and a little stable, it faced the town square on High Street. The Corpulent Goose was at least three centuries old and looked every decade of it, but still somehow managed to retain a touch of bygone elegance, what with its slate roof that sloped sharply and dozens of small diamond-paned windows that were sparkling clean.

The taproom was very small, holding only four square wooden tables with benches so old they looked worm-eaten.