Unless…
Was he determined to make an example of her? That was who he was, after all. A man didn’t achieve Armitage Hart’s success by showing criminals compassion.
It wasn’t a comforting thought, but she wouldn’t make it easy on him.
She stumbled down the beach, her legs on fire and her panting breaths echoing in her ears, past East Street, then Black Lion Street. If she could make it as far as Middle Street she might be able to lose herself in the dozens of narrow, twisting alleyways there.
Just a little further, a few more paces, and?—
“Oh!” Without warning, the loose sole of her half boot chose that moment to give up the ghost. It ripped loose and went flying into the air. She pitched forward with a cry, the beach rushing up to meet her, and there wasn’t time to do anything but squeeze her eyes closed and brace herself for the impact.
It never came. Her nose was a breath from smashing into the sand when a pair of long arms closed around her waist, stopping her forward momentum with a jerk, and suddenly a wall of hard chest appeared underneath her palms. He lowered her with surprising gentleness until her back met the sand, but then…
Then, he did something unspeakable.
He lowered himself right on top of her!
“What do you think you’re doing?” She wriggled and thrashed like a fish underneath him, but he was too heavy, and his impossibly long limbs seemed to be everywhere at once. “Release me this instant!”
“I beg your pardon for my forwardness, madam. You have my word I won’t hurt you, but I don’t fancy another sprint around Brighton.”
She was covered in sand and sweat, her lungs were pumping like a bellows, and her heart was scrambling to find a way out of her chest. She had a large, infuriated gentleman on top of her, yet somehow, to her utter humiliation she went still at the soft, husky murmur of his voice in her ear.
“Much better, Miss…er, Miss…”
There was no sense in keeping her name a secret now, was there? He was going to find it out soon enough. “Miss Bathurst.”
God above, how had it come to this?
“Miss Bathurst. Tell me, Miss Bathurst, are you always this much trouble?”
A thousand words rushed to her lips, but not a single word emerged.
She could only gaze up at him, speechless.
He gazed back down at her, equally silent. A moment passed, another, the only sound the rush of the waves breaking on the beach. They lay there for some time with him on top of her, both still panting, neither of them speaking, but then, without so much as a by-your-leave he caught the brim of her hat in his fingers and swept it off her head.
“Ah.” He took up a lock of her hair and studied it in the moonlight. “Red. Just as I thought.”
He smiled at her then, an oddly sweet smile, and she blinked up at him, dazed.
Dimples. Armitage Hart had dimples.
“We meet again, Miss Bathurst, and not a moment too soon.”
She sniffed. “I haven’t the vaguest idea what you mean.”
“No? Then you don’t recall nearly killing me with your parasol two days ago?”
“Killing you? What nonsense. I never tried to kill you. The wind snatched my parasol out of my hands. The same thing might have happened to anyone.”
“Why, Miss Bathurst, do I have a sneaking suspicion these things that might happen to anyone happen more frequently to you?”
She didn’t reply, but glared at him, her brows drawn and nose wrinkled as if she had every right to be affronted, despite having just robbed him.
It was maddening, yet utterly charming at the same time.
“You’ve had an eventful few days, haven’t you, Miss Bathurst? Do you ever simply play cards, or attend musical evenings? That is, after all, why most people come to Brighton.”
