He walked off before she could object, cursing under his breath at the foolishness of impulsive boys, stubborn women, storms, and his own dodgy leg. He would manage. He always did.
CHAPTER8
Patience almost believed she hadn’t been dry in a month. She rode astride Algernon, her skirts hiked to her knees and her cotton hose clinging, wet and cold, to her skin. The rain that had drenched them as soon as they rode out of the inn’s stableyard came and went, but had not stopped entirely.
She might have been miserable, except heat radiated down her back where Zachary Newell sheltered her against the hard wall of his chest and—she blushed to think of it—belly. She held the reins; he held Patience. At least he anchored her in place with one strong arm while his other held up the makeshift shelter of oiled cloth. The oilcloth draped around them, covering Zach’s back, her shoulders and his. He had to lean his head down in order to keep hers covered.
Her position was perilous, cold, and utterly scandalous, yet Zach’s commanding presence wrapped her in a blanket of security. Even her frantic fear for her missing student was kept in check by his decisive leadership. When she hesitated at the crossroads, worried Norb might have wandered up to the landfall in the direction they came, Zach repeated Froggy’s certainty the boy had gone to the marsh. When her companion’s sharp eyes found the track before she could pass it, grey and dim in another of the sudden downpours, his deep voice vibrated through her, assuring her the horse would step carefully as long as they went slowly enough.
She quickly saw the impossibility of taking the wagon on the narrow track. One wheel could have slipped into the high water that sloshed onto the track still in places; it would have pulled the whole thing over. The first hours dragged by while Algernon crept forward until she wanted to scream, but the big horse stepped carefully, one foot in front of the other. Until he didn’t.
“Hold on.” Zach slipped off and retrieved his crutch from the holster he and Ryman had contrived.
“The track has disappeared,” she groaned.
“Not entirely. It is merely flooded for a way.” He pointed forward and off to the right where the track could be clearly seen above the marsh.
The rain, which had been slowing all day had dwindled to an intermittent drizzle over the marsh, but the waters ran high. “There’s no way to see how it meanders over there!” Her heart sank to her half boots.
Zach, leaning on the crutch and grimacing, didn’t answer. She suspected that the ride astride, cramped behind her, bedeviled his leg. When he stepped into the flood where the road disappeared, she held her breath, but he surprised her by taking the crutch from under his shoulder and tamping it in front of him.
“Give me the reins,” he said, reaching back.
“What—”
“Trust me and this horse.” He took the reins and led Algernon, testing the way in front with his crutch every few steps. With every one, she held her breath in terror, expecting him to sink into the marsh. Zach, unperplexed and utterly confident, pushed forward, and her admiration grew with every step. She could never have done this alone.
As if in blessing, the rain stopped entirely just as they came up on the clear track and a momentary dizziness shook Patience, faint with relief. Two strong hands grasped her waist, pulling her off the horse. She slid down his hard body and sank into his arms. He held her momentarily before moving mere inches away while he searched her face. Tender fingers cupped her cheek. “We’re safe.”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth to keep them from chattering and nodded. It took all her strength and the tattered remnants of her self-control to keep from wrapping her arms around him and clinging to the safety he offered. “But we’ve seen no sign of Norb, and we have miles to go.”
They stood for a while next to the sturdy animal that carried them this far, stretching their legs and refreshing themselves with cheese and bread from The Queen’s Barque. The silence became uncomfortable eventually.
“Tell me about Zachary Newell. You have my entire sad story, but I know little about you.”
“There’s little enough to know, but I’ll tell you a bit while we ride. First, we need to get going.” He returned the crutch to its holster, rolled up the oilcloth, and fastened the saddle bag. “Hold Algernon steady while I mount.”
She stood at the animal’s head running a soothing hand down his neck, wondering how a man with half a leg missing and no mounting block would manage the thing. She needn’t have worried. He went around to the left and gripped the saddle with his graceful fingers, so tender in his touch, but strong when he seized the saddle. He pulled himself up, muscled shoulders rippling beneath his jacket, until his right foot took hold in the stirrup, and threw his left leg, stiff and wooden, over the horse’s back.
He grinned and reached a hand to her, pulling her up in front of him with perfect ease. He anchored her against his chest; with no need for their oilcloth, he kept the reins and urged the horse forward. “Now you know a little more about me. Some things can’t be managed gracefully,” he said. “What else would you like to know.”
Everything.
She let her head sink back against his shoulder, and closed her eyes prepared to listen.
* * *
Thank God for her questions.The woman’s body nestled so close to Zach’s made him cross-eyed with longing, yearning for a woman he’d resolved to keep at arm’s length, one too far above him for any honorable relationship and too honorable for any other kind.
“My father was a printer, a freeman of Rumsford.” He couldn’t keep pride from his voice. They’d owned their business and the building that housed it, he explained. It belonged to his brother now. Still, she must see the great distance between a printer’s son and the Earl of Montour.
“We lived above it. My brother and I shared in the attic—a great privilege that, to have a place of our own.”
“Older or younger?”
“Jeremiah is younger.”
“Yet he has your father’s place.”
