Though her heart hammered and defeat seemed inevitable, she hiked up her nightclothes and ran until her lungs burned. Behind her, the devil jogged, confident he would catch his prey.
Then the thunder of hooves shook the ground beneath her feet. A muscled black stallion burst from the gloom, rearing as its rider fired a warning shot into the night air.
Olivia blinked, caught between shock and wild relief.
The marquess had returned. He’d come back for her.
“Miss Woolf,” he growled, settling the beast with utter mastery. “Put your foot in the stirrup. Give me your hand. Now! Hurry!”
There was no time to protest. She reached for him as he leant down, his iron grip seizing her wrist and hauling her up as though she weighed no more than a child. She landed hard against him, swamped by his size and the solid breadth of his chest. His arm locked around her waist, holding her steady as the stallion surged forward.
Her attacker roared behind them, the crack of a pistol splitting the night. The ball sang past, harmless, yet close enough to make her flinch against the marquess’ coat.
“Get down!” Lord Rothley barked, forcing her to shrink lower against him as the horse thundered along the lane. “And for heaven’s sake, hold on.”
She clung to him, cheek pressed to his chest, arms locked tight about his waist. The fierce rhythm of his breathing reminded her how close she had come to dying.
“What made you come back?” she asked, afraid she might never let go of him, knowing she owed him her life now. Hecould ask anything and she would have to agree. She was forever in his debt.
“A sick feeling in my gut,” he said, cursing her attacker and promising to end the man once he was caught. “It was as if I felt your fear calling me. If I’d ignored it … if I hadn’t turned back …” He muttered another profanity.
“It helps not to dwell on what might have been.”
A mirthless laugh escaped him. “I’ve spent my entire life failing to do exactly that. It’s the bane of my existence.”
“We’re alive. That’s all that matters.”
“Yes, but not free of the torment.” He paused, the next words almost apologetic. “I may have led him here. In coming to offer sanctuary, I almost lost you in the process.”
Lost her? He made it sound like they were star-crossed lovers, bound by fate, as if nothing mattered but finding each other. If she were not careful, this man might slip past her guard.
“None of this is your fault.” What mattered now was where to go and what to do. “I’ll need to ask the countess to take care of the birds while I devise a plan.”
She felt the weight of his gaze before he spoke. “Rest now. We’ve a long ride ahead. We’ll discuss this once we’re home.”
“Home?” She swallowed the lump in her throat. The only home she had known burned to the ground when she was fourteen. She had not stayed in one place longer than six months since.
“Studland Park.” He gave her no chance to protest. “My offer still stands. Let me help you escape your past. In turn, help me escape mine. I’ll afford you every freedom. You have my word.”
She sat with that thought, trying to imagine how a marriage of friendship might work, but every problem she could conceive surfaced. “I wasn’t raised to hold such an elevated position.”
“Yet you’re the most graceful woman I know.”
Oh, this conversation was more dangerous than pistol fire. “Says the man accused of keeping a harem of women in his cellar. People don’t invent such things without reason.”
“That’s something you must judge for yourself. We’ll discuss it over a late supper, in the safety of my drawing room.”
They reached the King’s Road tollhouse, a modest brick cottage not unlike the one she had left behind. Even now she pictured the felon rifling through drawers and cupboards, desperate to uncover the item that eluded them both.
“We need to rescue the birds tonight.”
“I’ll have my coachman ride out,” the marquess said, drawing his stallion to a halt at the tollgate. He slid his hand between them, his fingers brushing her body with a husband’s familiarity, and drew a coin from his pocket. “Trust me, no one wants to meet Kincaid on a dark road.”
A shutter opened, the gatekeeper’s face ghostly in the lamplight. Rothley passed him a penny without a word. The man ducked his head, raised the bar, and they were away again.
“You have a house in town. Can we not rest there?” The plea was born of a need to put some distance between them, to gather her wits.
“I can protect you better at Studland Park.”
