Page 95 of A Match Made On Duchess Square

Clement’s jaw cracked as he rubbed the spot where James’s punch had landed.

“You all right?” James asked.

Clement merely glowered at him.

“Guess you are,” James muttered, not regretting throwing that oaf off his stride. No one called him a dolt and got away with it.

“The lady is my betrothed.” Clement curled his hands into fists. “What business is it of yours what we do?”

Gwendolyn got between them as Clement raised his fists and prepared to go at James like an enraged bull. “Enough!” She turned to James. “I do not need you to protect me from Andrew. What are you doing here?”

“Everyone was worried about you. What were you thinking to ride off with a man you haven’t seen in years? He could have done anything to you, and we would not have been nearby to protect you.”

“I’ve known him all my life,” she said. “And in the years he and I were apart, I have been taking care of myself just fine.”

James snorted.

She inhaled lightly. “What’s that snort supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Forget it. I was under the mistaken impression that… Never mind.”

Apparently what had passed between them last night did not hold the same significance for her as it had for him.

Was it going to be that simple for her to forget their intimate moments? Forget how it bound their hearts, and forget him after a few minutes of talking to this wretched oaf?

He turned to Clement, found him smirking, and wanted to punch him again. But he had never settled an argument with fisticuffs in all his life, not even in his rakehell days, when too many evenings had been spent in unsuitable places and engaging in unsuitable liaisons that sometimes required hasty exits to avoid encountering angry husbands. He knew better than to start now.

“Gwen, you’ll have all the privacy you need in my parlor or walking about my grounds. Choose anywhere at Milbury Hill you prefer. I just do not like that he has you so far away from home.”

“Afraid I’ll abduct her?” Clement muttered, and gave him a shove. “Or are you the one who is trying to hold her back? Get out of here, you old goat. Gwen doesn’t want you. Did you not hear her tell you to go away? Or are you deaf, too?”

Clement shoved him again, and James intended to shove him back, but Gwen once again scrambled between them, so he wound up sheltering her instead of tossing her belligerent betrothed into the water to cool off.

He wasn’t certain exactly how it happened, but with Clement’s next shove, all three of them wound up tumbling into the stream. “Gwen!” he shouted.

She did not know how to swim, and although the water was not above her head, it was still fairly deep and the current was strong and moving fast. She tried to stand up, but the current kept knocking her over because she fought against it instead of letting it carry her toward the shore.

James reached her in two strokes and wrapped his arms around her.

“I have you,” he whispered, hauling her firmly up against him and ensuring her head remained above the water. “Don’t struggle.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on fiercely. “James!”

“Hush, sweetheart. I’m not letting you go.”

“Oh, my necklace!”

That blasted teardrop thing that she loved to wear, but it kept unclasping every time she fell into the water. He caught it as it was about to slip into her glorious bosom, which he dared not dwell on at the moment. “Got it.”

“Thank you,” she whispered fervently against his ear.

“Right, let’s all go back to the house and work this out. I’ll give Clement a change of clothes.”

He paused a moment to make certain Clement had made it out of the water before he sat Gwen on his horse and mounted behind her, once more wrapping her in his arms. “Clement,” he called from his perch on Romeo, “follow us back to Milbury Hill. You may borrow some of my clothes while yours dry. You and Gwen still have much to talk about.”

He hoped Gwen did not sense his pleasure at watching Clement crawl onto the grassy bank, remaining on his knees and staring in dismay while James rode off with her.

“He wasn’t going to harm me,” Gwen declared.