And so he kept her talking even when they stopped at the inn. He plied her with wine and hearty fare while she spilled tales of pigs birthing piglets into her hands and men bringing home stags for the women to clean and cook. Soon they settled in chairs by a good fire, and he sat with rapt attention while she curled her feet up beneath her skirts and shared yet another tale.
She was a fine storyteller, and he could listen to her tales throughout the night. He noted that she avoided all stories about witchcraft, and he would need to press her on that soon. But in the meantime, he listened to her voice as her words thickened with her accent, and he tried to imagine himself living among her people.
All he could see in his mind’s eye was her as a child, running free in the sun. Her as a young woman working as midwife and healer. Her as a grown woman watching everything while planning her escape.
She dazzled him, and he could not wait to take her to bed.
Unfortunately, that would not come until after he spoke with his men. They had arrived a few moments before. He had seen and heard them through the window onto the courtyard. So he took his lady’s hand and squeezed it.
“I must speak to my men. I have asked the innkeeper to bring you paper and ink, and his daughter will act as maid for you tonight. Are you still able to remember the things I asked you to write this afternoon?”
Her cheeks were flushed with pink, and her lips teased him with their darker color, but her eyes were no less bright as she laughed. “I remember everything,” she said with an expansive flick of her hand. It was not a large movement for most people, but for her it was as loud as a shout.
The wine had done its work, and she would welcome him this night. Or so he hoped. He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss first on the back of her hand, and then more slowly into her palm. She smiled when he did that, her eyes sparking with interest, and so he let his tongue carve a small circle there before he slid up to her wrist.
Her brows rose, the skin above her bodice flushed, and—
Thunk, thunk.
That could only be Jonathan. He used his fist for everything, including a simple door. He sighed.
“I must go, but I’ll meet you in our chamber soon.”
She bit her lip and nodded, and he could not resist. He stretched forward and caught her mouth with his. He tasted the wine on her lips and the sharp onion from dinner. He smelled the citrus perfume she used and felt the ease with which she fell into his kiss. And just as he was thrusting inside her mouth—
Thunk, thunk, thunk!
He growled low in his throat. Especially as the sound was followed by Jonathan’s heavy tones.
“Reuben! We’re nigh to fainting with hunger. Are you deaf or dead?”
He broke the kiss, stomped to the door, and hauled it open. “An’ what need do you have to lay your fist down to interrupt me and my lady wife?”
“What lady wife—” Jonathan cut off his words as he sighted her sitting there all flushed and pretty. Then he looked back at Reuben who made sure to glower as dark as any husband interrupted on his wedding night would. “Is that Lady Rebecca?”
Oh, damnation. As far as his men knew, nothing had changed since this morning when his determination to wed Lady Rebecca was well-known. He cursed under his breath, then quickly amended his tone.
“My darling,” he said in as courtly a manner as he could manage. “May I make known to you Jonathan Armstrong?”
“I remember him,” Iseabail said as she stood with graceful ease. “He was with you when you rescued me from the highwaymen.”
“Blimey,” Jonathan breathed. “You married the maid?”
“I married Miss Iseabail Spalding, ward and niece to Baron Bain.”
“Oh! The one with the dowry.”
Trust Jonathan to think of the money first. Though in the man’s defense, that’s what Reuben himself had taught.
Iseabail laughed, a cascade of notes that likely would not be so pretty without the wine she’d consumed. “I am the one with the dowry, assuming you and your men can wrest it from my uncle’s cold, dead hands.”
Jonathan sobered, his gaze hopping between Iseabail’s amused expression and Reuben’s colder one. “Truth? Cold,deadhands?”
Reuben did not have a ready answer. He knew his wife believed that the only way to gain her coins was to kill her uncle. But that was a dark business, and he was unsure that killing a woman’s kin was the best way to begin a marriage no matter what the bastard had done.
“I’ll speak to you in a minute,” he said. “Get some food in the main room. We’re resting here for the night.”
Jonathan’s expression lightening into a grin. “Your wedding night, yes?”
