“I’ll let you.”
“This must be uncomfortable.”
“I’m quite content to have you in my lap as long as you’d like to stay, my lady.” His cock protested a bit, but only because he longed to lay her out in a bed and make love to her properly.
Turning his head, he pressed one long kiss against her cheek.
But a moment later, she began to shift, lifting off his lap. He helped her stand and settle her skirts. Then she surprised him by settling in his lap again, this time with her legs stretched out on his bench and her backside balanced on his thighs.
She tucked her head against his chest, and he rested his chin against her hair. They fit together as if they were meant to be next to each other.
Having Lucy in his arms was as close to feeling content as he’d felt in so long.
That thrilled and terrified him equally. The moments in his life when he remembered feeling this way—happy, secure—everything had been ripped away from him. First his family, then his fortune.
“You’ll wake me before we reach Invermere?”
“Of course.”
He heard the parts of her question that were unspoken.
When they reached the manor, everything would change.
“I think she’ll like you,” she murmured sleepily.
James wasn’t sure of that at all.
Chapter Sixteen
“We should be close now.”
Lucy blinked her eyes open and straightened so quickly she bumped James’s chin.
“I’m sorry,” she told him as she scrambled off his lap. The side of her body that had been pressed to his felt as if she’d fallen asleep against a furnace. Her limbs felt languid, but her mind raced.
Invermere. They’d soon arrive. And she’d have to face her aunt.Theywould have to face her aunt.
Rain pelted the carriage in a steady tattoo, and the darkening sky made it easy to use the carriage window glass as a mirror.
“Good grief.” Her hair was a jumble, but she decided that slipping the bits she could back into pins made more sense than taking the whole of it down and trying again. “I look terribly unkempt, don’t I?”
James smiled at her, an easy, seductive smile. “You look magnificent and exactly like what you are. A lady who’s been pleasured and had a nap in a cramped carriage.”
“Ugh, not the picture I’d like to present to Aunt Cassandra.”
“She’ll simply be happy to see you.”
Lucy considered that sentiment and hoped with all her heart that it was true. And more, that she could speak to her aunt sensibly about James and his reasons for selling Invermere. Of course, she had no wish to be seen to take sides, but she understood the matter from two perspectives now. The question was whether her aunt would be able to do the same.
“We’re on the approach now, I think.” James pointed to a stone structure that looked as if it had once formed part of a gate at the entrance of Invermere property.
“Yes.” She recognized the structure from that moonlit night just a few days ago. It felt like weeks had passed since then.
While Lucy watched at the window, she sensed James watching her. Turning to face him, she felt an ache deep in her middle, as if she was already mourning the loss of their closeness.
He felt it too. A new wariness she sensed from him. All the ease of the last few hours had seeped away.
“Maybe all will be well,” she said, but her tone sounded doubtful even to her ears.
