She ought to stay mad at him.
Nia rolled her lips together, and then allowed a tentative smile. Reluctant, only because the newness, the unfamiliarity of everything that had happened, left her more than a little raw. “I forgive you,” she said. “But in the future, will you just ask?”
She wasn’t accustomed to being this close to anyone, and she doubted he was either.
“I will,” he said. Then he sealed his promise with a slow, searching kiss. It was sweet, and she tasted mint and tea on his breath. His kiss felt familiar, but still exciting. Exciting in that it was hers. Tempted to slide her hands around his neck, to surrender to the flames licking inside her, she ended the kiss instead.
Drawing away. More than a little regretful when her gaze flicked to his mouth—shiny, wet… and so kissable.
And he watched her with knowing eyes.
“Coachman Will is waiting,” she said, her voice hitching along with her heart.
If they traveled the remaining miles to Gretna Green tonight, they’d have a decision to make tomorrow.
And although wisdom insisted that marriage was a forgone conclusion, she was also all too aware that he hadn’t much choice. He’d have avoided marriage for years, perhaps decades, if she hadn’t essentially trapped him into helping her.
He eyed her skeptically, not ready to release her from his embrace. “You are good?” He gestured between them. “We are good?”
There was nothing she could deny him. So she reached up and caressed his face. “So good,” she repeated his answer from earlier. “Too good.”
* * *
After climbing into the carriage, Jasper arranged the two of them into what had become their usual position, and for the first few hours, as they drove along the road that proved to be the least traveled so far, both caught up on some of the sleep they’d lost the night before.
Jasper couldn’t ignore that their relationship had shifted into something unfamiliar to him. The attraction had evolved into something that went beyond the physical and beyond simple friendship. She was a part of him. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
All he knew was that the idea of not being with her was unthinkable. Holding her made him feel whole. His heart lifted with her smiles, and he eagerly anticipated hearing her thoughts, listening to her laugh.
If she cried, he wanted to be the person to wipe her tears.
What the devil had come over him?
In a bid to finish their journey before darkness fell, Jasper and Nia picnicked in the carriage again, laughing when they hit a bump, feeding one another, and even exchanging a few kisses in between bites.
What ought to have been a tedious journey wasn’t tedious at all, but rather delightful.
And yet, having made love the night before, unanswered questions hovered between them. Because tomorrow morning, they’d go to one of the blacksmiths and make their union legal.
It wasn’t something either of them had wanted, and yet it had become a forgone conclusion.
But did she resent it? She’d endured massive changes in her life this week, leaving her family behind, estranging herself from society…
He’d become her only choice.
“We’re going to go through with it, then?” he asked. They’d finished their meal and returned the basket to beneath the opposite bench hours ago. And as she lounged against him, an arrangement they both seemed to prefer, they’d fallen silent for a long stretch of time.
“It?” she asked.
“Marriage. To one another.” His voice was teasing, making light of the serious subject.
She shifted, moving away, but turning to face him. The blue in her eyes was darker than usual and twin lines formed between them. Looking all too serious, she asked, “What do you want, Jasper?”
The woman who’d been coerced into two different unwanted betrothals was concerned with his preferences over hers. He’d… deflowered her. He could have hired a companion to travel with them. He could have ridden Bard alongside the carriage.
But he’d chosen to ride inside the carriage and, in doing so, had essentially sealed their fate.
In such close proximity, what had he thought would happen between the two of them?
