Amanda Scott (29 page)

“If they’ve even noted his disappearance,” Jack said. “What are you waiting for, Oliver? You have your orders.”

Nodding, Oliver took himself off at a lope. Miss Lavinia, casting a glance at the earl, quickly gathered up Giles and Melanie and disappeared with them back into the shrubbery.

Sabrina was earnestly explaining to Mr. Scopwick just then that since she had no intention of marrying him, he ought not to take her to task for her actions, and that, contrary to what he believed, she had indeed brought a footman with her when she ventured out-of-doors. The man had been carrying her poor-box offerings for her and she had sent him on ahead to the vicarage when she had turned off the path in search of the vicar.

Emily, noting that her sister no longer seemed as frightened of the big man, found herself wondering how her parents would react if Sabrina should even hint that she might accept his proposal.
Sabrina Scopwick
! The name certainly had an odd ring to it, to be sure.

She snapped out of her reverie when one strong arm embraced her shoulders and another moved to the back of her knees. “What are you doing?” she demanded of the earl.

“Taking you back to the Priory, where you ought to have stayed in the first place,” he said, scooping her up into his arms. “And if you know what’s good for you, my lass, you won’t keep bleating at me along the way.”

Since her mouth was already open to voice her protest at being manhandled, Emily stuck her tongue out at him. To her relief, he grinned at her.

“Very pretty behavior, Miss Wingrave. You have surely made your reputation with young Bennett there.”

Having forgotten Mr. Bennett’s presence, she started and looked back over her shoulder, only to relax again when she saw that the young man had perched himself upon a fallen log near Miss Brittan and was engaging her in conversation.

“He is too busy to notice what I do,” she said.

“Learning to speak French, perhaps,” the earl replied dryly.

“I would never have taken her for a Frenchwoman,” Emily said with a sigh, leaning her head against his shoulder and thinking how very comfortable that position was. Her arm scarcely ached at all now.

“She fooled us all.” His tone was grim, and she knew he did not like the thought that he had been taken in by the governess as easily as everyone else had been.

Not wanting him to think badly of himself, she offered a distraction. “I could just as easily walk, you know.”

“No.”

She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “Do you mean
no
in the sense that I cannot walk or
no
in the sense that you do not mean to allow me to do so?”

He stopped and looked directly down into her face, his eyes narrowed. “Miss Wingrave, do you ever do as you are bid?”

She blinked. “Often. What particular error have I committed this time? To make you demand such a thing, I mean,” she added hastily, not wishing to hear a list of her misdemeanors and perfectly certain that at the least encouragement he would provide one. The fact that his eyes gleamed told her she had been right to qualify her question.

He said gently, “I told you not to bleat at me all the way back to the Priory.”

“You make it sound as though we’re miles away. Am I too heavy for you, sir?”

He chuckled and began to move rapidly forward again. “You are a featherweight, as you know perfectly well. Look here, Emily, do you really want me to put you down?”

“No.” She felt warmth surging to her cheeks and looked quickly away. His arms tightened, and the warmth in her cheeks spread immediately to the rest of her body. Looking up at him again, she saw that a tiny smile was playing on his lips, but he continued to look straight ahead. No doubt, she told herself, he did not wish to embarrass himself by tripping over something in the road. He made no attempt to engage her in conversation, and she decided to show him that she could keep her mouth shut if she wished to do so. Bleating, he had called it, as though she were a chatty ewe.

Relaxing, she closed her eyes, the better to enjoy the sensation of being carried in a pair of strong arms while resting her head against a solid, well-muscled shoulder. What, she wondered, would it be like to be married to Jack, to owe him her duty and obedience, to feel his hands upon her body whenever he wished to touch her? The last thought brought a rush of unfamiliar sensations washing over her, and her eyes flew open.

She had been dimly aware of the crunch of pebbles beneath his feet, so she was not surprised to see that they had reached the drive. Jack was still gazing straight ahead, and she took the opportunity to look more closely at his face. He was truly a handsome man, she thought, although from her present angle his eyes looked more deeply set than ever. Indeed, she told herself fancifully, his heavy brows overhung them like ocean cliffs over the shingle, shadowing the dark, mysterious recesses beneath.

He looked down at her suddenly, and so focused was her attention upon his countenance that he startled her. Jack grinned, his white teeth flashing in the sunlight, his eyes twinkling at her confusion, but still he said nothing. When she opened her mouth, wishing only to break the odd silence that had fallen between them, he grinned wider and murmured, “Bleat, bleat,” and she shut it with a snap and closed her eyes again determined not to give him the satisfaction of making her speak or look at him.

The rhythm of his stride changed as he hurried up the stairs, and once inside the house, he gave rapid-fire orders to Merritt and to William as he carried her into the library and laid her down upon the sofa.

“Sit up,” he said to her then. “I want to see if you are still dizzy.”

“You might have learned that much by allowing me to stand before now,” she said.

“I might have. Now, do as I bid you.”

She swung her feet to the floor and sat upright, surprised to discover that she did indeed still feel dizzy. “Surely I did not lose so much blood as that,” she said, looking up at him in bewilderment.

“You suffered a shock,” he said. “The dizziness ought to pass quickly now, but don’t attempt to stand up just yet. I want to get that wound cleaned up and get a proper bandage on it.”

“You’re a doctor now?”

He gave her a direct look. “I will certainly send for Dr. Prescott and hope he treats you as you deserve, but for now I am perfectly capable of doing what must be done. The bullet passed through the wound cleanly, but there is always risk of infection. You will need to take care for a few days until we may be certain there is none.”

Sobered by the thought that infection could mean her death, she made no reply. To her infinite gratitude, once William and the butler had brought him the items he required, Jack rejected their offers of assistance and sent them out of the room again, but it took more effort than she would have thought possible to withstand his attentions when they had gone.

“Scream if you like,” he said grimly as he poured over her arm a liquid substance that stung like the fires of hell.

“I will not scream,” she said through gritted teeth, “and damn you, Jack, that stuff’s whiskey. I shall smell like a gentlemen’s club.”

“I know what it is. Brandy was more readily available to Merritt than vinegar or turpentine, either of which would have done the job as well and both of which, in my opinion, would have reeked even worse. How do you know what a gentlemen’s club smells like?”

She grimaced at another sharp slice of pain. “Must you be so brutal? I only imagine what it must be like, of course. Why must you soak me in that stuff?”

“I am not soaking you. I am only doing what I may to prevent infection.” As he dusted the wound with basilicum powder, wrapped a clean bandage around it, and fastened the bandage securely, he added, “Instead of complaining, you may be grateful that you are not a soldier in battle, for I can assure you that you would find having hot tar or pitch poured over your wound a good deal less enjoyable than this.”

“I think, considering the state of your temper a short time ago, I ought to thank the Fates instead that there is no tar or pitch at hand,” she said tartly.

He did not smile this time but said, “I realized from what Dolly said that you meant to warn us about the duel and did not purposely break your faith with me, but your behavior, for all that, was nonetheless foolish.”

Remembering that her first intent had not been innocent at all, Emily had the grace to blush, but Jack took little note of the fact, and if he thought it unusual of her not to respond immediately, he did not say so. Instead, he said quietly, “What devil possessed you to leap at that villain as you did? Good God, Emily, you might well have been killed! Indeed, for one awful moment I thought—”

He was still kneeling in front of her, and when he broke off, his jaw working strangely, she reached her hand out to touch his face, noting the roughness of his cheek but thinking more about the gentleness of which this volatile man was capable.

“You have been vexed with me many times,” she said in a low voice, “for failing to think before I act. I fear this was but one more such time. Are you still vexed, sir?”

“Was that the only reason you acted as you did?” He was looking directly at her again, his gaze oddly intense.

She swallowed carefully, wondering if she was about to commit a fateful error. “No, Jack, that was not all.”

He sighed with relief. “Well then, my love, will you?”

“Will I what?” she demanded, stubborn to the end.

“Will you marry me, of course?”

A silence fell.

Finally Jack said, “Well, love?”

Emily looked at him, feeling suddenly rather shy. “I thought you were angry with me even before this business today. You have scarcely spoken to me, after all.”

He touched her hand. “I have known for some time that I had fallen in love with you, but when I let my feelings show the first time, you froze up like a winter lake.”

“I thought you were playing games again,” she said, “like last Christmas. I couldn’t believe you really loved me. I suppose I feared being hurt again, and then you said such cutting thing about Stephen Campion. True things,” she added, looking away, “but painful nonetheless.”

“I know.” He grimaced. “I was a brute, but when you accused me of playing a game with you, I took it hard. At first I was angry, but then I began wondering if I really was in love after all these years, and wondering, too, if you could ever love me. It occurred to me that I might just be believing what I wanted to believe. I wasn’t certain that you knew your feelings either, despite your response to me when I kissed you, so I decided to give you time to be sure of them without overbearing influence from me.” He smiled at her. “I knew the answers to all my questions when I saw you leap at the Frenchman and feared for my own sanity when I thought he might have killed you.”

“You were so angry,” she murmured, her hand gentle against his chest. “I was afraid too, Jack, for you.”

His eyes narrowed again and he covered her hand with his, squeezing tight. “I understand why you did it, Emily, but I hope you will understand me, too, when I say that if you ever frighten me like that after we are wed, I will make you wish you had never been born.”

Emily lifted her chin and gave him a challenging look. “We will fight all the time,” she said, thrilling within to the thought of many years spent pitting her mettle against his.

“No doubt we will,” he agreed, smiling again. “You learn slowly.”

“As do you, sir, though I am not nearly so brutal as you are. You will beat me.”

“Certainly,” he said, grinning broadly now. “At least once in every fortnight if I’ve got any sense at all.” Then, more seriously, he said, “Will you risk such a fate, lass?”

“Well …” She paused, watching him, satisfied when he began to look a little anxious. “Very well, I’ll risk the consequences if you will, but hear this, Meriden. You are not the only one who can make good his threats, you know. I promise you by all you hold holy that I will make you very sorry if you ever so much as lay a hand on me.”

“I intend to lay hands upon you often,” he said huskily, pulling her to her feet and suiting action to words.

As he caressed her, Emily’s senses stirred to respond to the fire his hands lit in their wake. She raised her arms and put them around his neck, lifting her face to his, aroused to a passion she had never experienced before by the increasing heat of her own body. As he bent his head to kiss her, Jack’s right hand cupped her left breast, igniting new, more fervent sensations. Emily pressed her body against his, trembling one moment, delighting in the hardness of his muscles beneath her moving fingertips the next. The pain in her arm forgotten for a time, she kissed him harder, opening her lips in invitation to his exploring tongue. Moments later, when he lifted his head to look at her, she was breathing hard, as though she had been running, and her eyes were shining. He said softly, “I’ll never be sorry, Emmy love, never.”

A fourth-generation Californian of Scottish descent, Amanda Scott is the author of more than fifty romantic novels, many of which appeared on the
USA Today
bestseller list. Her Scottish heritage and love of history (she received undergraduate and graduate degrees in history at Mills College and California State University, San Jose, respectively) inspired her to write historical fiction. Credited by
Library Journal
with starting the Scottish romance subgenre, Scott has also won acclaim for her sparkling Regency romances. She is the recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award (for
Lord Abberley’s Nemesis
, 1986) and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. She lives in central California with her husband.

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