“Why am I not surprised your horse has the same manners as you?” Charles said from a safe distance away.
Mungo helped Eliza up, then mounted behind her. Calder was driving the cart with the three girls in the rear and Fenella seated beside him, her head on her father’s shoulder.
“Rest easy now, Eliza.”
Her head fell back against him with a soft sigh he felt through her body. “You’re still angry,” she murmured.
“Aye,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist as he gathered the reins. “And I’ll stay that way for a while yet. After that….” His voice dipped low, intimate. “We’ll discuss your reckless tendencies at length.”
“Everyone ready?” Bram shouted from his mount.
They all agreed they were, and were soon heading back down the drive a great deal slower than the way they’d arrived. The danger was behind them now.
Eliza fell asleep ten minutes later, her body losing all tension and slumping back into him. Mungo opened his jacket and wrapped it around her. This, having her in his arms, felt right and good and gave him a feeling he’d never really had before. Contentment. Was he terrified of what tomorrow held, the things they would need to say to each other? Absolutely. But for now, she was safe in his arms, and he would not allow himself to think beyond that until he needed to.
“She sleeps.”
“Aye.” Mungo shot his friend a look. “Spit it out, then, Bram.”
“It’s good to see you undone by a woman, Mungo. By love.”
“I’ve loved before.”
“Loving us is different, as you very well know,” his friend said as they rode toward London, side by side.
“You should be honest with yourself and her, Mungo. You need to tell her what’s inside you, my friend.”
“Aye, I know, and it’s making me itch like I’ve rolled in stinging nettle.”
His friend was smiling. “She’s good for you and just the right woman to handle you, Mungo.”
“Do I need handling, then?”
“Are you serious with that question?” Leo demanded. “Of course you need handling. I’ve never met a man who needed it more.”
He looked at the men to his left and right, and all nodded. Mungo didn’t speak again, just pulled the woman in his arms closer and prodded around inside his chest.
So this was love, then.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
She’d spent part of the ride back to Crabbett Close asleep in Mungo’s arms. Safe,she had thought as they left Three Waters, and the hell they’d narrowly escaped, behind.
They had spoken very little on the journey, and Eliza had been grateful for the silence. It had been enough simply to feel Mungo’s solid warmth behind her after so much fear. But that fragile sense of peace slipped into uncertainty the moment they’d entered Crabbett Close in the early hours of the morning.
The cart had taken the girls to the Hellion household, and Mr. Greedy was to be roused to tend them there. She’d offered to help, but Mungo had told her there would be enough hands to do that, as she was exhausted.
He had then dismounted outside number 11 with her still in his arms. The second her feet touched the ground, she stepped away from him. After offering a garbled but heartfelt thank-you to the men who had saved her, Eliza had hurried up the steps, through the door, and into the waiting arms of Ivy, who had hugged her tight and then sent her to her room.
Eliza bathed, dressed in her nightgown, and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. Her entire body ached from her scalp to the soles of her feet.
In the darkness, she begged sleep to take her. It didn’t. Her thoughts now churned restlessly instead.
What happens now?
Did Mungo want a future with her, or had she imagined everything in the terror and relief of the night?
The knock on her door came an hour later. She climbed out of bed and opened the door to see an angry Scotsman standing there.
