Your mistake?She heard Farring in her mind.Leaving a sullen man in silence for too long.
“Well?” Julia asked. “Do you want to be forced to marry me, or do you want to get into the waiting carriage?”
She grabbed his valise and headed down the stairs, breathing a sigh of relief as she felt Rayne at her back. The corridor floorboards creaked under her feet, and the rumble of conversation within the tavern ceased.
Rayne pulled her into the closet beneath the stair, putting his hand over her mouth.
The scent of leather and spice overwhelmed her fear. Carefully, she removed his fingers.
He twisted and grabbed hold of her arm. Then he placed his ear against the wall, inadvertently covering her body with his.
Terribly inconvenient. His cheek nearly touched her lips. Why, without even moving, she could lick his ear.
She wrinkled her nose.
Why onearthwould she want to lick his ear?
Disgusting.
Except it wasn’t.
Renewed desire blossomed as prickly heat inside her belly.
You see?She scowled.Slow makes sense of confusing desires.
Not that she could tell him now.
Or ever.
People didn’t actually talk about these things, did they?
She had no idea. And no one to ask. She thought of Katherine with a pang.
She shimmied down, intending to duck beneath Rayne’s chin to place her ear on the door next to his, but the buttons on his waistcoat brushed her breasts, adding a new sensation to the ones already confounding her senses.
Rayne placed his other hand on her hip. Heat forced time and breath to stop.
Boots moved through the hall and up the stairs, pounding with the pace of her heart. When the first chamber door opened, Rayne swung open the door and whispered, “Go.”
The young maid who’d delivered the warning frantically motioned them toward the back door.
Outside, the sky churned in threatening shades of gray as they sprinted across the courtyard and behind the barn. As promised, the traveling chariot was waiting.
Greg the postilion—thankfully not one of the boys from the night before—held open the door. “Can’t promise we’ll get far, guv. Heard the dam at the county line’s straining bad. Could take out every bridge for thirty miles if it goes.”
Rayne’s face hardened.
Julia’s illusions vanished. He would give in. Hand her over to the rector and her fate. Then he’d simply wash his hands of her once and for all.
A man unafraid to walk away from everything he knew was not a man who would make this kind of sacrifice.
“We’ll get as far as we can,” Rayne said. Then he held his hand out to her. “Your carriage, my lady.”
…
Rayne planted his feet and held steady as the carriage rocked, rumbling along the uneven, rutted roadway. So much for the series of outrageous tolls they’d paid in the last five hours.
Then again, given the mud, he supposed he should be glad they hadn’t gotten stuck.
