“Oh, my poor dear,” a sweet voice breathed close to his ear.
Opening his eyes, he saw a petite blonde girl leaning over him. His vision was still cloudy with the drug, but he guessed it was Miss Hunt, the woman he had met at the ball last evening. The damned chit who’d gotten him into this nightmare, all because she’d taken a fancy to him. He knew he was good with women, but he’d never suspected he wasthatgood.
The lass was pretty, of course, but looks weren’t everything to Brodie. A woman could rival Helen of Troy, but if she dared restrain Brodie, he would never be hers.Never.
“I am sorry it must be like this,” Miss Hunt gently cooed as she cupped his face. Her blue eyes burned bright as she leaned down and kissed him, as if that would somehow win him over.
“Untie me, now,” he demanded.
“Papa says we mustn’t, not until you calm down and agree to the marriage terms.”
Miss Hunt kissed him again, flicking her tongue against his pursed lips. He refused to indulge her mad desires.
“You lied to your own father, you mad hag! Saying I bedded you.”
“Don’t think of it as lying. Think of it as ... shifting around the order of events. Once we are married, I promise to let you bed me every day, Mr. Kincade. I will be a good wife, I will,” she said earnestly.
“Why me? Why not another man?” He was finding it easier for his tongue to move. The laudanum was wearing off.
“Because you aremagnificent.” The girl threaded her fingers through his hair. “That dark hair, those stormy gray eyes, those features cut from marble, and your body ...” Her eyes rolled down his chest to his legs. “You have a muscled physique not often seen among the gentlemen of England.”
“It’s because I have lived and worked on the land,” Brodie said quietly. “I ken what it means to go hungry, to be poor, to have to work to stay alive. You ken none of this. We willna suit as man and wife.”
“Oh, we will, I assure you. Would you like some water?”
“Aye. I’m damned thirsty.” His voice was hoarse and his throat scratchy.
She poured him a glass, and he was indeed grateful, but the second he took that first bitter gulp, he recognized the taste and his heart hammered with panic.
“You drugged me, lassie ... you ...” He said no more as he sank into oblivion.
Lydia cursedin a very unladylike fashion. She and the coach driver, as well as Tucker, the Russells’ tiger, which was what they called the small boy who rode on the back of the coach, all stared at the broken carriage wheel in dismay.
“If it isna one thing, ’tis another,” the burly Scottish driver muttered. “Well, there isna a thing we can do right now, Miss Hunt.”
“Yes, Mr. Graham, you’re quite right.” She eyed the darkening streets with a little trepidation but far more resolve. “I shall have to walk.”
“Not alone you won’t.” The driver turned to the little boy who stood beside him. The lad couldn’t have been more than ten. “Tucker, run home as fast as you can, fetch the grooms, and have them mend the wheel. Tell the mistress I’ll be escorting Miss Hunt home.”
“Yes, Mr. Graham.” The boy ran off like a shot, racing back the way they’d come.
“Is it safe for him to be out alone?” Lydia didn’t want the child endangered for her sake.
“This is Bath, miss, not London. ’Tis far safer. Tucker is a right quick lad, Miss Hunt. He willna do anything to call attention to himself.”
Lydia hesitated a moment longer, then joined Mr. Graham as they walked along the pavement together. It would be a fairly long walk in the dark with only the streetlamps to guide them. But she was glad of the coach driver’s company more than she could say, and she decided a bit of conversation would not be impolite.
“Mr. Graham, if it would not trouble you, might we converse a bit while we walk?”
The coach driver nodded. “If it pleases you, Miss Hunt.”
“You’re from Scotland?” It was more of a rhetorical question, but she was intrigued after seeing Brodie Kincade. She hadn’t had too much interaction with Scotsmen. They were a bit of a rarity in Bath, at least so far as her social circles went.
“Aye, I was born in Inverness, raised there as a lad before I moved to London with my family.”
“What was it like? Scotland, I mean.” She was curious to know more about a land that made handsome, brooding men like Brodie Kincade.
Mr. Graham was silent a moment, but she could sense he was thinking of his childhood there. “It is a place of nature and magic,” he finally said. “The night sky is filled with stars, and a man can still see the old gods in the woods and hills.”
