But then he startled her by launching himself forward, arms out in an attempt to embrace her.
Lucy jabbed hard at the man’s jaw. Pain shot up her arm, radiating out across her shoulder, but Nichols stumbled back, and that gave her time to escape from the train car.
Pushing the door aside, she glanced back to ensure Nichols wasn’t on her heels. Then she slammed into a hard, immovable bulk in front of her. Arms came around her and she struggled against the man’s hold until she looked up into those unforgettable dark blue eyes.
“Looks like it’s your turn to bump into me.” He grinned, and then his expression fell. “You’re trembling.”
“He—” Lucy gestured toward Nichols at the same moment the man lunged toward them through the open train car door.
“That bloody bitch assaulted me!”
The stranger from the platform immediately stepped in, pulling Lucy along so that she was behind the width of his body, sheltered from Nichols’s view.
“Step back. Now.” The man shouted so loudly, Lucy felt the echo of it reverberating in her own chest.
“I’ll have her thrown off this train,” Nichols blustered, though his voice wavered into a whiny pitch.
The stranger turned his head slightly to glance back at Lucy, a question in his gaze.
“He put his hands on me,” Lucy whispered, trying to control the tremor in her voice. “I punched him.”
One dark brow arched high before he directed his gaze back at Nichols. An arm shot out, and Nichols grunted. The man from the platform had Nichols by the throat.
“What’s the trouble here?” A porter approached from the far end of the corridor.
“All’s well.” Platform Man offered the porter a reassuring smile, then released Nichols, who coughed and bent at the waist as he caught his breath. The porter hesitated, glanced at each of them in turn and then went back the way he’d come.
“Get back inside and keep your bloody hands to yourself.” Without waiting for Nichols to offer any kind of resistance or reply, Lucy’s stranger pushed him back and shut the door in his face.
Then he turned to her. “Come with me.”
“I can’t.”
“If you’re worried about propriety, we can say—”
“No, not propriety. I need to get this to Miss Wilson.” Lucy pulled the bottle from the pocket of her skirt and grimaced as she felt a sting of pain when the fabric grazed her knuckles.
The man glanced down at the bottle, then immediately reached for her wrist.
He touched her quite freely, and for some reason she allowed it.
“You’ve injured your hand.”
“Miss Westmont?” Miss Jane Wilson approached from the direction of the dining car.
The man, who she seemed to keep colliding with and touching, immediately let go of her wrist. Apparently,hehad some sense of propriety.
“I worried when you didn’t return.” She quickened her pace and studied the gentleman pressed against Lucy in the corridor. “And who might you be, sir?”
“An acquaintance,” Lucy said with an awkward lump in her throat. Two hours to get herself into a scandalous muddle. Papa would never stop telling her he’d been right all along.
“James Pembroke.” He wielded that smile. Not quite the full arsenal he’d unleashed on her earlier, but a bewitching version that Lucy could see was working its charm on Jane Wilson. “A recent acquaintance, but a fond one, I hope.”
This caused Miss Wilson to go absolutely pink from the lace collar of her high-necked blouse up to the sharp edge of her cheek. “Jane Wilson,” she said a little breathily. Then she seemed to recall Lucy again.
“Are you unwell too, Miss Westmont?”
Lucy shifted the bottle into her uninjured hand and held it out. “Not at all. I’m well. But I—”
