Curtly, he said to the nearest stable boy, "Ready my carriage. My wife and I intend to take our leave of this place tonight." The coachman, who had been standing within earshot, put down his dipperful of water and wiped at the soot on his face. "I'll be ready in a hurry, Mr. Watterly. I'm glad to leave this place."
Now that the fire was out, furniture and charred bedding and luggage were being dragged outdoors or dropped from windows, to be thoroughly doused to prevent another outbreak of fire. The preparation to leave seemed to take forever in the chaotic yard. Dawn was brightening the landscape as they finally entered the carriage to make the journey. Hero had to wonder if the stench of burned wood, leather and wool would ever leave her nostrils.
As he helped her in, she turned to him, suddenly puzzled. "Where are we heading now? The only clue we have is the key. We found no note."
He said abruptly, "I am taking you back to London." He was grimly determined, and she could see that he had no intention of listening to her arguments in this matter. "This is the second time your life has nearly been lost."
She was not willing to give up the battle so quickly, no matter that he was not in the mood to listen to her. "But they have several fires a year, the landlord said so himself."
His brows knit together in a frown. "I do not care how many fires they have. This one nearly killed you. And I believe it may have been deliberately set to do so."
Deliberate? "Why would you think that?"
He said quietly, "Because the room below yours is where the fire started." He pressed her shoulder with his hand to quiet her when she would have protested. "I spoke to the innkeeper. We both agree that you are fortunate you woke when you did." There was guilt shadowing his eyes yet again. "Especially since I was nowhere to be found to rescue you."
She considered the possibility that the fire had been meant to hurt her, then dismissed it. "How could they be certain I would not wake and escape, as I did?"
"There is no doubt the fire was set deliberately, Hero."
"That does not mean it was meant to kill me. It could have been meant to dislodge us from the inn."
He pressed his lips together impatiently. "Then perhaps we can consider it a warning. A warning that you should not be here."
She climbed onto the carriage step, wondering how to persuade him he was wrong to send her back to London. Wrong to keep her at arm's length. She was his wife. She froze in the carriage entrance. "Arthur."
He pushed gently at her back. "Get in please, Hero. I am behind you."
She swung into the carriage at once, sitting hastily in the seat as she grabbed for the folded square of paper. As he sat across from her, she held it up. He took it from her and read it swiftly. The look on his face was as tortured as she had ever seen.
Obviously, they were set upon the chase again. Well, good, then. She hadn't wanted to go back to London anyway.
"What does it say?" she asked softly, fearing that they were heading for the wilds of Wales without proper clothing or supplies.
He handed it over to her, saying nothing. She read it several times. The note was puzzling but clear. Go home, it said. And that was all.
She looked up at him with incomprehension and not a little disappointment. "London? After all this, we are being sent back to where we began? Back to London?"
He looked at her in puzzlement. "No." He shook his head. "Not London, Hero. Home."
For a moment she still did not understand. And then everything became clear. Of course, she was now Arthur's wife. Home for her was no longer Simon and Miranda's London town house, or her brother's estate, Anderlin. Her home was Arthur's estate. A place she had never laid eyes upon before.
"Oh." She settled back against the seat. Home. Her curiosity rose. "How long do you think the trip will take us from here?"
He frowned in thought, and then answered, "Two days, no more, if we press hard."
"Two days." Part of her was disappointed there would be more travel. Another part of her would have liked to put off the reckoning for longer. Arthur's estate would require a mistress, and as his wife the task would fall to her. On the road, she could be a simple traveler like all the rest. But once she reached her new home, she must take charge.
She sighed. Would the servants recognize that their new mistress was totally unequipped to handle the job? Would Arthur's grandmother allow her time to adjust to her duties, or would she be expected to run the house immediately?
Seeing her concern, Arthur took her hands in his and leaned toward her anxiously. "Two days, but only if we press hard. If you like, perhaps we should take three, or even four. After all, you have had an ordeal."
"No, we should press on."
"I should have guessed you would say so." He touched her cheek, and his finger came away stained with soot. "You are shivering, and your skin is cold. Come. You must get out of your wet clothing." He pushed aside the cloak he had draped around her at the inn and began to tug at her nightdress.
She pushed his hands away. "No. Let me." For the first time she realized what she must look like in her rain soaked nightgown, covered in grime, her hair down. No wonder he wanted to exile her to London. Her plain looks had never made her feel more self-conscious than she did at that moment, covered with soot and half dressed as she was. She struggled with the wet linen until she had it wrapped around herself so tightly she could not move.
He watched as she struggled, his eyes growing darker and darker. At last, with an impatient growl, he reached into his pocket and took out his page cutter. It took only seconds for him to free her from her wet linen bindings, leaving her without a stitch of clothing. And then her shivering began in earnest.
Arthur had meant to make a joke about his pocket Excalibur freeing them once again, but the sight of her naked and shivering stole the humor from him, replacing it with something darker, more possessive. He had nearly lost her in the fire. He pulled her into his lap and held her tight against him, rubbing his hands up and down her arms and back to bring warmth to her cold, cold skin. He draped a carriage blanket over them, meaning only to share his warmth with her.
She pushed her icy hands against his chest, tried to move away from him. "No, I will get you covered with soot."
"Stay. I will warm you." He held her tight, until she ceased her struggle and rested against him. His hands moved on her cold flesh, warming her. Warming himself in the fires of hellish torment. He closed his eyes to give himself strength to fight the temptation to pretend she wanted him. That was a mistake. The feel and scent of her assaulted the barriers he had put up between them to keep her safe from his need for her.
"Your clothing is wet, too." She unfastened his shirt and pressed her bare skin to his as she tried to push his wet jacket and shirt together down over his shoulders. He sat very still, praying that he would survive the torment. "I cannot get it off," she whispered in his ear. "You must help."
He leaned forward and shrugged out of his jacket. Out of his shirt. She tossed the wet clothing to the floor of the carriage and settled back, pulling the blanket over them both.
He held her close, breathing slowly, evenly, desperately.
She turned her face into his neck and pressed her lips to his jaw. "I am warmer, now. Thank you. You can let me go if you like."
Her breath was warm on his ear, the lightest tickle. Not a thing to break a man. Except today. He could have lost her. He let his hands explore the shape of her breasts, her waist, her hips. And when she drew in a startled breath, he turned his head and kissed her open mouth. A deep kiss. A demanding kiss. The kiss a prince would give, not a frog.
He laid her back against the seat and braced himself over her so that any rough sway or jolt of the carriage would not have them joining their damp clothing on the carriage floor. He did not know if she understood what his actions meant for them, but she opened her knees to him when he pressed between them, and she wrapped her legs around his waist.
He needed one arm to keep them braced on the seat, so he broke his kiss to whisper in her ear, "Unfasten my trousers. I cannot reach."
For a moment, she did not comply and he thought he would go mad, and then her hands moved to his trousers, unfastening them, pushing them down past his hips, freeing him. He rubbed against her, skin to sensitive skin, in exquisite torment.
She shifted under him and he pressed against her, pressed inside her, pushed deeper, moving slowly as she stilled beneath him. He swallowed her gasp of pain with another demanding kiss and buried himself deeper still. Her legs loosened their grip, and she tried to move away from him, but there was nowhere for her to go. "I almost lost you," he repeated like a chant, or a prayer, as his hips worked in a rhythm with his words, until he felt the possessive rush of his climax wash over him.
Pinned beneath his suddenly heavy, still frame, Hero worried that she would be crushed. She struggled to free herself and sit upright. In an instant, his weight lifted from her and she was once again pulled into his lap and held tight against his chest. Raggedly, he whispered in her ear, "I beg your pardon. I forgot myself. I —"
"You owe me no apology. I am your wife." Forgot himself. Was that what he had done? If he had remembered himself, would she still feel the burning path of his passage between her thighs? Miranda had lied. This thing between men and women was not at all pleasant. At least, not that last part.
He pushed her a little way from him so that he could examine her expression. She tried to look away, so that he would not see her dismay. He touched her cheek and said regretfully, "Tears? I had hoped to do better by you." He wrapped her in the carriage blanket and settled her in the seat across from him. "It is said that the first time can be difficult. I imagine that is especially so when the marriage was unexpected and unwelcome."
She could not speak of it directly. She would not. But he looked so distressed she blurted out, "The milkmaid seems to find such action pleasurable. I am sure we will, too, in time."
He pulled a carriage blanket around himself and repeated bleakly, as if it were a death sentence, "In time."
After a long silence, he said. "Would you like me to take you back to London?"
"Of course not."
His gaze searched hers, as if he did not trust her to answer truthfully. "I only want to do what is best for you, Hero." Tenderly, he took the blanket she had draped around herself and tucked it in around her more tightly, as if he thought she must be cold.
She was anything but cold. The burning between her thighs was fading and the warmth of his touch, his words, soothed through her. She enjoyed the feeling of being cared after. If the price of all of that was a momentary discomfort now and again, it would be worth it.
An irresistible urge to kiss him stole over her. After all, his lips were so very near hers and the carriage was a private place. But now that she knew where the kissing would lead, she thought better of the impulse. "I want to press on, Arthur. I want to see my new home as quickly as possible."
To her relief, he nodded and sat back, out of kissing range. "Fine, then, we shall press on. But I promise you, despite our hurry, we will make time to stop and find a comfortable and orderly place for you to clean up and change into a new gown."
Again, she felt cherished. "Thank you." She could come to like this feeling. Although she must have a talk with her elder sister about the definition of pleasurable when next she saw her.
"After that, however, we will not stop until we come to an inn." He raised his brow as he amended "— a suitable inn — to rest tonight. I will never ask you to stay in such a hovel again."
She smiled at him. Another night in an inn. One with clean sheets possibly. And good, hot food. It seemed like heaven. Exhausted from her experience, but relieved she was a life at last, even if a poor one who could bring her husband little pleasure, she fell asleep, waking only when the carriage came to a jolting halt.
In haste, and with help from a maid pressed into temporary service from the nearby inn, Hero changed into a clean gown and washed away as much of the soot and grime as she could manage in such makeshift circumstances. When she returned to the carriage, she saw that Arthur had also exchanged his damp clothing for fresh. She found comfort in the thought that they were both properly dressed and there would be no more chance for a repeat of what had happened earlier.
They pressed on as soon as she was ready, with fresh horses and the intent to carry on as quickly as possible. Though they bought a meal at the inn, they had the innkeeper pack it for travel so that it would not slow their journey.
Washed, and dressed in clean clothing, Hero felt better able to handle the arduous trip again, although she could still smell the lingering odor of the fire on her, but it was not so pungent as before. She glanced once at Arthur and caught him looking at her. She could not help but hope he was thinking what she was, that tonight, with the awkward beginning to marriage behind them, they could share the bed in comfortable companionship.
But though he found a wonderful inn, and shared a delicious meal with her, he did not join her in the bed. The minutes ticked by as she tossed and turned restlessly, waiting for him to arrive, listening every so often to see if she heard the crackling sound of fire in the inn. Though she fought sleep valiantly, the door to the room remained closed.
What was wrong with her? Instead of coming upstairs to his new bride, Arthur stayed in the public room, drinking, talking — gathering rumors, he no doubt told himself. She could no longer help but think that one motive driving his obsession to see the night out was to avoid her. How could the man be so solicitous of her one minute and then abandon her the next?
Arthur sat listening to the ebb and flow of conversation in the public room at the inn. Unable to help himself, he examined each and every new face, searching for a clue as to whether this was his mysterious note writer.