“You were hurt,” he supplied.
“I was scared.”
Scared.Could she have made him feel worse?
Of course she’d been scared. Only a big lug of a lackwit would have pinned a virgin to the dammed wall.
“Don’t be scared.” He’d protect her, even from himself.
“Are we safe, then?” She blushed. “I mean, do you think we’ve been followed?”
He listened. Nothing but the sound of raindrops and the whistle of wind. “If they were in pursuit, I think they would have overtaken us by now—or at least be close enough to hear.” His eyes roamed over her bruised and windburned cheeks down to her chapped hands. “How long were you planning on riding on the back of this carriage?”
She shrugged. “All the way to Scotland, if I had to.”
“Youknowyou couldn’t have. You were half”—he paused to steady his voice—“dead last night.”
She lifted her brows. “Why, Rayne. You actually sound as if you were concerned.”
“I was.” He pursed his lips, preventing himself from confessing anything more.
“Imayhave overestimated my strength.” She looked away. “It’s wearing, you know.”
“I know.”
Her gaze snapped back. “You’ve ridden on the back of a carriage?”
“I’ve ridden—and driven—carriages every possible way—inside, outside, topside, in the rear…”
Fascinating to watch her estimation of him alter.
How she’d managed to fool the ton into believing her demure, he could not say. Her emotions were splashed across her face, obvious as waves in churning water.
Or perhaps she was a cipher to which he alone held the key?
Remember.She saidstop.
He’d failed to read her signals when he should have been heeding them most.And Cracked-skull.He couldn’t forget she was pledged to another man.
“You took care of me last night,” she said.
“It was my ple”—he stopped himself from uttering a word that would have conjured the weight of her body against his chest—“responsibility.”
His responsibility. His pleasure. His ruin. Julia, in a nutshell.
“And you didn’t hand me over to the rector. Why?”
“Like you said,” he lied, “the rector would have insisted on posting banns, right then and there.”
She twisted her lips. “Evenifa coaching inn was the proper place for banns, the rector could have insisted on nothing—not without Markham’s consent.”
“Why, Julia, are you telling me youlied?”
“Stretchedthe truth a tad. He was there, though I doubt he would have forced me to do anything I did not agree to do.”
Like marry someone everyone agreed was absolutely wrong for her. Which he’d known.
Hurt to know she saw him as unfit, too, however.
