In that sense, they were a match.
She shifted again.
“What do you want to say?” he coaxed once more, insufferably calm as ever.
Excruciatinglyknowing.
That was something the distance and time had allowed her to push aside—the way he had always seemed to anticipate her needs, her wants. The way he seemed to read her mind.
“Why have you come back, after all this time?” she demanded. “Why, when I have found my happiness at last, do you seek to ruin it?”
Before he could answer, a thump rocked the carriage, and the vehicle rolled to a stop. Alarm went through her. Surely that was not what she thought it was?
“Remain where you are,” Needham told her grimly, before rising and throwing open the carriage door.
He leapt from the vehicle and landed with a stealthy grace some small, wicked part of her could not help admiring. Her husband had always cut a dashing figure. Indeed, it had been one of the qualities that had originally drawn her to him, back in the days when they had courted.
How long ago.
Her heart gave a pang at the memories she had kept buried.
He disappeared from her sight then, striding to the front of their carriage, presumably to find their driver and the source of the bump and their sudden stop, both. She waited impatiently for an indeterminate span of time before remonstrating herself.
Why was she listening to Needham? What was happening? Why had they stopped?
Her mind made up, Nell rose from her seat, moved to the door of the carriage, lifted her skirts, and leapt to the road below.
“BROKEN AXLE,” REPORTEDthe driver as he bent before the front left wheel. “There’ll be no repairing it here. I will walk back if you and her ladyship want to wait, and bring a new carriage. I will just see to the horses before I go.”
Despite Nell’s insistence he did not know her, Jack had no doubt she would not wish to wait for anything. Indeed, he had a suspicion she was probably already about to leap from the carriage herself.
“Excellent plan, Gibbons,” he told the driver. “We will await you here.”
Acting on his hunch, he stalked back around the stayed horses just in time to find his wife lifting her gown to reveal striped silk stockings and red garters just above her knees. The sight was so arresting—akin to a fist to the gut—that he was momentarily speechless. He felt as if all the air had been robbed from his lungs. White-hot desire scorched him, from the inside out.
Her calves were so shapely. Her knees—by God, he had always adored her knees. There was a mole on her right one that had once entranced him. But these bold, vivid stockings…they affected him more than he wanted to admit. Because they were the sort of undergarments a woman wore when she intended to show them to another.
And that other was decidedly not Jack.
She launched herself into the air in the next breath, not bothering to wait for assistance or a step. He moved forward just in time to catch her against his chest, steadying her when she would have otherwise taken a vicious spill.
For the second time in as many days, he was saving her from breaking her beautiful neck. Her recklessness needled him.
“What the devil do you think you are about?” he demanded, clutching her to him, his heart thundering in his chest.
Lily of the valley hit him, mingling with the fresh scents of summer: grass, warm soil, wheat. The sun cast a warm golden glow over the landscape. The vibrant beauty of the verdant surroundings paled in comparison to the woman in his arms.
Her hat was adorably askew, her eyes flashing with unrestrained fire. “I was seeing what happened to the carriage and why we have halted.”
He did not release her. Now that he had her where he wanted her, how could he bear to let her go so easily? Behind her, Gibbons was already on his way back to Needham Hall by foot, leaving the two of them alone.
“There is a broken axle on the front wheel,” he told her. “We will have to wait here while the driver returns and fetches another carriage.”
“Wait here?” Her disapproval of such a prospect was evident, in both her tone and her expression.
“Yes.” Still, he could not seem to move away from her, to disengage. She felt so damned good in his arms. “The carriage cannot proceed as it is. Unless you would prefer to walk to the village, which I estimate to be a good two hour’s walk, or proceed back to Needham Hall on foot, we have no choice other than to await Gibbons’ return.”
She pushed at his chest. “You plotted this.”
