“Because nobody is good enough for you,” the lord interjected, drawing her up short.
“What?”
“Isn’t that what you said?” he asked. “That nobody is good enough?”
Hearing those words echoed back to her felt like a breaking point, just like the blasted wheel on this thrice-damned carriage.
“You arehorrible!”she snapped, speaking half to him, and half to Gwanton, who really had gotten off too easily with a single punch to the nose, after the days of torment he’d put her through.
“Very well,” the lord said and then ducked out of sight.
“No, wait!” The word hiccupped out of Clio in a sob, and the man ducked back into view, the fearsome frown on his face there only for a moment before it vanished into clear concern.
“Wait,” he said. “You’re frightened?”
“Yes!” She all but screamed it. To hell with pride. That had left eons ago. “Why do you think I’m so upset!”
He didn’t answer that, which Clio figured was for the best. She doubted she’d like whatever he’d thought was the cause of her upset. Instead, he swore quietly under his breath.
“Very well,” he said. “Watch. I’m going to lean down to grab this hammer, but you will be able to see my hand on the door the whole time. Watch, aye?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice small. She watched his hand avidly as he leaned out to grab the tool. He had a rough, masculine hand, with a faint dusting of hair on his knuckles. One of his nails was cracked.
Not a gentleman’s hands, or at least not what she’d normally assume a gentleman’s hands would look like. She had just enough time to think that he really had been petulant and unfair about her mistaking him for a shopworker, with hands like those, when his head reappeared.
“Whoever owns this carriage won’t thank me for this,” he said. And then, with a few mighty slams of the hammer, he broke the hinges of the door and threw the now-useless slab of wood inside.
“Give me a hand, then, miss,” he instructed, reaching in to help her to her feet.
Clio had never felt so agreeable in her life.
She reached up to him, grabbing his hand. When her gloves made the grip too slippery, she threw them aside—they were stained anyway—and touched him skin to skin.
His fingers felt as rough as they looked, and Clio had never felt anything better, not when this was the hand that promised to get her out of this dark, tight space.
He hauled her up with impressive strength, the muscles beneath his sleeve bunching visibly even through the fabric.
“Press your foot on the side there,” he instructed, not even sounding as though he was straining very much. “That’s a good lass, there you?—”
But Clio’s foot slipped. She shrieked and would have dropped back to the bottom of the carriage if not for the lord’s quick action. He seized her by the other elbow, and Clio fought the instinct to kick her feet aimlessly in the air, knowing it wouldn’t help. As soon as she was able, she threw her arm around her savior’s shoulders, then his neck, until he had pulled her up enough that she could sit on the edge of the carriage.
She was shaking. Trembling, really. She didn’t dare let him go, lest she topple either back in or down onto the street below.
“We’ve got to get down,” he said, not trying to pry her arms off him. “I don’t trust this wheel to?—”
He hadn’t even finished talking when the carriage gave another sickening lurch. Clio, who had been summoning the courage to release him, latched on even harder and released a deafening scream right into the lord’s ear.
“I’m lucky that’s the ear that I already hurt,” he grumbled, but she ignored him, because she was focusing on not losing the meager breakfast she’d eaten on the ship. Lord, how had it been mere hours since she’d arrived in England? There had been a lifetime’s worth of activity.
Perhaps realizing that Clio was no longer going to be of very much use, Lord Ferrars wrapped his arms around her waist and guided them carefully to the edge of the carriage. He kept her pressed tightly to him as he climbed down, and soon—though not soon enough—Clio felt her feet land on blissful, solid ground.
Except then she was lifted again, because the carriage began to tilt once more, and the gentleman grabbed her around the waist and swept her out of danger, his steps slightly hitching at the addition of her weight and the absence of his walking stick.
Several onlookers leapt out of the way with a cry as the carriage settled onto its top with a crash. Clio shuddered to think what might have happened to her if she’d still been inside—or worse, on top.
“You’re fine, princess,” the gentleman said in the same soothing tones he might have used on a skittish horse. In another situation, Clio might have been offended. Given that she couldn’t seem to force her arms to release him, however, she didn’t think she had grounds for any kind of protest.
She just felt so … safe with him holding her. This was clearly irrational, and likely some sort of nervous affliction from the long day she’d suffered, but she was not yet able to convince her body to be reasonable about this.
