“I’m nae following’ yer orders today, Erskine,” Tam shook his head.
“Why nae? Ye always do!” Erskine was getting restless. He needed to be on his way again. Each minute he wasted was another minute for Laura and Lord Moore to move ahead.
“Nae today,” Tam smiled. “We’re goin’ up there.”
“One day,” Camden moved to his side, “if Aiden and I are so lucky to find lasses we want to marry, ye can do the same for us.”
“Agreed?” Aiden asked.
Erskine looked between the three of them, both impressed and grateful to his friends’ kindness.
“Agreed.” He relented.
“Then, let’s go,” Camden said, and the four horses lurched forward again, heading toward the dangerous hill path.
* * *
Laura was scrambling with every ounce of energy she could muster in order to get the Earl off her.
“Let go of me!”
Yet, he would not be moved. He was braced above her, with her back on the seat of the carriage and his hands grappling at her skirts, trying to lift them.
“No!” she lashed out, balling her fingers into a fist like she had seen Erskine do and punching Lord Moore straight in the nose. He reared backward, the dull thud echoing strangely in the carriage.
It released her from his grasp for just a minute. Enough that he was sitting back on his haunches on the seat, rubbing his bruised nose. It had not been a particularly hard hit, but it was enough to bruise and wind him. Laura moved to the opposite end of the carriage, reaching for the door and wondering if she could fling herself from it. She could see how fast the world was whipping past the window.
I could be jumping to my death, at the very least to some nasty wounds!
Yet she didn’t care. She would prefer that injury to what could be about to happen in that carriage.
She reached for the door handle, fumbling for it, but before she could take hold of it, she felt Lord Moore’s hands on her again. He had hold of her skirt and was drawing her backward until she was forced to the floor of the carriage, the back of her head striking the floor with an awful thud.
She winced against the pain as he threw himself over her again.
“Listen to me,” he bent over her, his words burning with anger so much that his voice was raspy. “You are mine now, do you understand?” She could see in his eyes the mixture of feelings: the ire and the arousal.
“No, I do not,” she said back to him, trying to shake her head, but she fell still as he braced an arm against her chest, pinning her shoulders to the ground.
“Well, you’ll understand soon enough.” He smiled wickedly and reached for her skirts, but from his position straddling her knees, he had revealed a weak spot. She drove her knee up sharply, connecting with his length in an awful assault.
The cry of pain he let out sounded as though it belonged to an animal, more so than a man.
“You will pay for that,” he whispered before changing his straddling position so that now his knees were either side of her hips, her legs unable to land a hit on him at all.
He reached back behind him with his free arm for her skirts again, dragging them upwards.
I cannot stop him forever.
The thought crushed her. She thought back to the moment she had made love to Erskine and compared it to the agony she was about to endure.
“Even if you take this body,” her words caught Lord Moore’s attention, making him still, “you will always know you were not the first to have me. Remember that —– ahh!” he adjusted his arm so that it went across her neck, stopping her.
“Then I’ll just have to ensure I make more of a mark on you than he did,” his voice drawled, making her shiver with fear, but this new position had released her arms.
She tried to push him off, delivering sharp blows into his chest, again and again, but he clambered to hold them down.
Soon with one hand, he pinned her wrists together and held them at the side of her head. She was using her whole body, trying to get him off her, just as he lifted her skirts entirely and dropped between her legs.
