Page 41 of Against the Wind

Holding her tight, Martin whispered soothing words. “Shhh…ma cherie. You’re all right now. He’ll never hurt you again.”

Still, she trembled. “Do you think he is searching for me?”

“I suspect so.” He drew Kit to his side, lying back on his pillow. “The man is obsessed, and his type never accepts defeat easily. Even if he isn’t deranged, which I suspect he is, his ego won’t allow him to leave off. Eventually I will have to deal with him. But you need not worry about that now. Try and get some rest.”

He kissed her, and Kit clung to the comfort he offered, his whispered words between kisses calming her. His lips were so gentle, she could feel herself relaxing. The man had magic hands and fingers that made her tingle. She wanted his hard body next to hers.

Her hands drifted to his broad shoulders and into the mahogany locks of his wavy hair. His kiss turned more insistent, his tongue moving in slow seduction.

“Wait!” She wrenched back, though her body protested. “You promised.”

“I was hoping you’d changed your mind, Kitten. I am finding you nearly impossible to resist.”

“And I want us to share more than a bed. I need some time together before we resume our…before we consummate the marriage. I’ve never been courted, Martin. Not really. I rather like the idea.”

She could feel the tension in his body as he rose. “If courting is what you desire, you shall have it. But I don’t think we can sleep in the same bed, at least not for the time being. It’s too difficult to be so close to you. I fear I may not always act the gentleman.”

Kit watched him pull on breeches and boots. He was firm and lithe and compelling, his back muscles flexing in the pale light from the window as he reached for his shirt. She wanted to reach out and draw him back under the warm covers, but she’d made this commitment to herself so she refrained. She needed some control over her life, and it seemed this was one way she could have it.

“I’ll be back,” Martin said. He spoke in a low voice she barely heard. Then he left the bedchamber.

He woke on the settee in the parlor where he’d spent the remainder of the night after returning to their rooms.

Uncoiling from his position on the small piece of furniture, Martin shook off the memory of holding Kit after her nightmare. Just thinking about her warm body caused his morning erection to stiffen. The walk in the cold night air had helped slacken his craving, but he had not returned to their bed. The vixen was too great a temptation. The more time he spent with her, the more he wanted her, so for the time being he would sleep alone.

Entering the bedchamber, he nuzzled Kit from sleep. “How about breakfast and a ride around Pentridge?” Before he met with the duplicitous William Oliver he would dispatch John with a message seeking approval from the Prince Regent to intervene and expose the man should it become necessary to prevent violence. While John was busy with that task, he would ascertain the lay of the land.

She slowly opened her eyes and stretched. “Sounds perfectly wonderful.”

“Or”—he pulled her into his arms—“we could stay in this morning and spend some time in bed.” He was teasing of course, but there was always the slight hope she would recant her request for more time. His hope became enthusiasm when she responded with a shiver to the kisses he spread along her soft, warm throat.

“Martin,” she murmured. “You are distracting me.”

“I fervently hope so,” he said.

“Breakfast and a morning ride would be most welcome,” she said before he could begin kissing her again.

“Well, I promised you a ride, so you shall have one, though I’m tiring of this arrangement, Kitten,” he grumbled. He took her earlobe between his lips and gently pulled, and when she pushed at his chest confessed, “Waiting for you does not come easy.”

She trembled in his arms. “It won’t be long, Martin.”

Encouraged, he sat up and touched her nose with the tip of his index finger. “While you change, I’ll see about our horses.”

If Oliver was to stir the men of the Midlands to an uprising—and Martin sincerely hoped he would not—he had best know the land they’d be fighting on. For that reason Martin was soon taking a tour of the countryside.

He gazed in quiet awe at the woman riding next to him. In her Turkey red riding habit, she looked more a lady than ever. Wife. His wife. He could scarcely believe the auburn-haired vixen was his. There were times, like now, as they reined in their horses to absorb the wide expanse of green hills before them, when he saw more than a beautiful woman. He saw his heart reflected in that enchanting smile and wondered if he wasn’t actually falling in love with her. Perhaps it had even begun that night he first glimpsed her in the moonlight.

It had been over a month since he first made love to her at Willow House, and he wondered how long he could keep his promise. If it had not been for this assignment, this troublesome adventure in folly, he would have swept her away on a wedding trip to grant her wish to see faraway places. A wayward strand of lovely hair caused him to nudge his horse closer, and he reached over to smooth the auburn tendril away from her forehead and wrap it around her ear. The contact sent waves of desire coursing through him, but her smile was all the reward he needed—for now.

They spent the morning riding around the small towns near Pentridge: South Wingfield, Belper and Ripley, the closest town. The sky joined gray clouds with patches of blue over the green tree-covered hills. Bucolic calm belied the rebellion Martin knew brewed just below the surface.

As they approached Ripley, he could see in the distance the sprawling Butterley Ironworks. There, he had learned, hundreds of men worked, men that Oliver would try to enlist to his cause. Martin felt a foreboding sense of what could happen in this tinderbox, and he was torn again by the competing desires of wanting to have Kit with him always and wanting to send her away in fear for her safety. But London carried its own threat he knew. His mood grew dim, matching the darkening sky overhead.

From atop her horse Kit asked, “Would it be all right if we stopped here so I could draw the ironworks? I brought my sketchbook and pencils.”

“Certainly,” Martin said. “We’ve time, as long as the rain holds off.” He dismounted and led his horse to the side of the clearing in front of the factory near a small copse of trees. “You can sit over here where it’s more sheltered.”

Kit followed, and he helped her down from her horse. Spotting a fallen tree that provided a rugged bench to sit upon, he let her retrieve her sketchbook from her saddlebag and helped her settle onto the log.

Martin studied the factory in the distance and then turned to see Kit concentrating on the large structure, her bottom lip held firmly between her teeth as she drew. The pose was endearing, reminiscent of what he imagined she’d looked like as a young girl set upon an arduous task. Perhaps as a youth she had tried to please her father but her spirit kept her from being a compliant child. He loved her all the more for that spirit.

Unable to resist, he came up behind her, placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. She turned away from her drawing to give him a small smile, and then returned to her work. She looked happy. He drew pleasure from seeing that, and peeking over her shoulder he saw the large ironworks take form on her paper. Her talent was impressive.

Martin returned his gaze to the factory, but this time with the informed eyes of a spy. Plumes of black smoke belched from the large blast furnaces set against a grassy knoll. This place would be important. Not only did it hold the largest group of men to be levied, but also the largest source of weapons. His eye fell on the cannon standing in front of the ironworks. God save them all if Oliver planned to use it.

“The factory is much larger than I would have thought,” Kit said, pausing in her sketch to survey the looming brick buildings and the tall chimneys releasing smoke to the breeze.

Martin watched some workers trickle out of the large open gates and wondered how many who worked here had lost their livelihood in the last few years. He would have to speak with the man in charge to warn him of what was coming.

“Before it was the ironworks it was the Butterley Estate,” he said to Kit as he took in the sprawling site. “Many of these are original buildings, adapted for the making of iron tools and machines. It was when they dug the Butterley Tunnel for the Cromford Canal, just there alongside the compound, they discovered veins of coal and iron.”

“Why, Martin, you sound like a professor of local history. Wherever did you gain that knowledge?”

“From our coachman. He was a wealth of information on Pentridge and the towns surrounding it.”

“Yes, he was,” she agreed.

Martin stared off into the distance, wondering what kinds of weapons and men could be mustered at such a factory. The coachman had offered little with sureness, but he’d used the word hundreds.