He was hot and immovable as a stone wall. His mouth was wet and he tasted unpleasantly of stale food. His tongue felt like a slug. Wanting to vomit, she struggled, but the sloppy lips kept sucking.
Through fury and revulsion, she felt the wheels’ rhythm change. The carriage left the driveway and bumped over grass. Grim despair clawed at her. At least on the drive, there was hope of rescue.
Panting with lust and excitement, he raised his head. “If you’re no virgin, the marriage is off. Damaged goods have no place in my collection.”
“I’m devastated to hear that,” she snarled.
His hold on her wrists tightened, twi
sting the fragile bones together. He hauled her forward until she lay across the seat. His body squashed her legs and pelvis into immobility.
“You know,” he said almost idly. “I’ll enjoy teaching you obedience.”
When his swollen rod prodded her stomach, she yowled with disgust and jerked helplessly. Her fear attained such a pitch that she abandoned all pride. “Please don’t do this. For the love of God, have pity.”
His silent laugh vibrated against her. “Capital. Already you’re learning.”
Inexorably he flattened her onto the seat and kneeled over her, a figure from a nightmare. She kicked uselessly and screamed again, although nobody would hear except this spawn of Satan.
“I hate you,” she spat, wrenching her head aside when Lord Neville slobbered over her neck.
As the carriage juddered to a stop, he pawed at her skirts. Loathing Lord Neville as she’d never loathed anyone, she bit her lip and prayed. Although surely even God couldn’t save her now.
Breathless, Richard broke from the trees and dashed across the driveway to pound on the gatehouse door. “Open up, for God’s sake! It’s an emergency!”
The gatekeeper’s grizzled head appeared from an upstairs window. “Has there been an accident?”
“Did Lord Neville Fairbrother’s carriage pass?”
The man, thank heaven, didn’t waste time asking questions. “Nobody’s gone yet.”
“Thank you!” Richard shouted as he sprinted back up the drive.
He almost missed the break in the shrubbery where the carriage had turned off. And that distant, muffled sound could be a bird’s cry. Except that he was so attuned to Genevieve that he immediately recognized the scream as hers.
That fucking, sodding, hell-ridden mongrel Fairbrother. Richard crashed through the rhododendrons.
“Get down or I’ll blow your skull to dust,” Richard snarled to Greengrass. When the thug didn’t immediately abandon the driver’s box, Richard raised his pistols until the metal barrels glinted in the carriage lamps. “If you imagine I’ll show the slightest hesitation, you underestimate quite how much your spying has irritated me.”
“Hold your fire, damn you.” Greengrass scrambled to the ground.
“Stand over there and don’t move.”
Richard waited until the man lumbered clear of the coach. The silence was ominous. Why the hell wasn’t Genevieve shrieking her head off? Keeping an eye on Greengrass, Richard stepped up to the vehicle and flung open the door.
It banged against the carriage’s body like a cannon shot. Inside, lamps illuminated a scene that Richard would never forget, no matter how long he lived. His blood froze to icy sludge and his belly lurched in sick rage.
Fairbrother’s massive form forced Genevieve into the bench. All Richard could see of her was the pale tumble of skirts to the floor and the cascade of golden hair against dark leather.
Fairbrother jerked sideways. “What the fuck are you doing, Greengrass?”
Unbelievably, the cur had been too busy subduing his victim to notice Richard’s arrival. Richard’s anger flared to white heat when he saw one beefy hand plastered across Genevieve’s mouth. Above Fairbrother’s paw, her eyes were wide and shining with tears.
“Get off her.” He didn’t recognize the voice as his.
“Evans?” Fairbrother sounded shocked rather than afraid.
“Move before I put a bullet in your stinking hide.” Richard bit off each word.