She quickly shifted the bulk of her weight to her left ankle and hopped until she steadied herself.
“The blacksmith can loan me a horse,” he called over his shoulder without breaking stride.
Lifting her impossibly heavy skirts, she drew a deep breath and stepped forward—or rather, limped—determined to keep up and not humiliate herself by falling again. Not an easy task.
Especially with her ankle throbbing inside her boot.
Wincing, she stifled her pain and worked hard to keep up. Her breath fell hard and fast as she moved her legs. The throb in her ankle intensified, each footfall a bolt of agony.
His figure grew farther and farther away. He was leaving me.
Her eyes burned. A deep sob welled up in her chest and she fought to keep up. She gulped air, determined to swallow back the tears. I will not cry. I will not cry.
And in that moment, she felt crushed, beaten by life—her family, the mother whose letters were rare and few between, the cloud of poverty that perpetually hung over her, shadowing her every move and breath. And now him. A brute that didn’t care if he left her to drown in mud and rain.
The sting in her eyes intensified. Yet she’d be damned if she cried. If she succumbed to weakness. She stopped abruptly. Tilting her face to the sky, she let the deluge of rain wash over her, cooling her burning emotions.
“Keep up,” he called.
She dropped her head to glare at his back, wanting to lash out. To hurt. To weep uncontrollably.
And that, she absolutely refused to do.
Instead, she dropped where she stood in the middle of the road like a heavy stone sinking to the bottom of a riverbed. Uncaring of her muddied gloves—what part of her wasn’t covered in filth?—she buried her face in her hands.
And laughed.
Brittle, shaky laughter rose from deep in her chest. Laughter that she knew could change at any given moment and swing into humiliating tears if she weren’t careful. Busy on keeping those tears at bay, she did not hear him approach. Through parted fingers, she saw his boots stop in front of her. Her chest stilled, all laughter gone. With an odd sort of detachment, she studied the rivulets of water running down the gleaming length of his boots.
Dropping her hands, she scanned the long length of his body, her eyes stopping at his face, expecting to see condemnation there—unforgiving reproof for being weak and lagging so far behind.
He gazed down at her blankly, not a flicker of emotion on his stone-carved face. Sighing heavily, he leaned down and reached for her arm.
She slapped at his hand.
Frowning, he went for her arm again.
Again she slapped at his offending hand—this time with more force.
“I can make my own way,” she grumbled, determined to accept nothing from him. “Go on without me.”
His nostrils flared, his lips flattening into an unrelenting line. A warning she had no time to heed.
In one swift, fluid motion, he bent, slid an arm under her knees, and swept her up into his arms as if she weighed a feather. Shocked, she didn’t even struggle as he cradled her close to his chest.
His long-legged strides cut through the road with seeming ease.
“I can walk,” she muttered, holding her arms awkwardly in front of her, wondering where to put them.
“Of course you can,” he returned, not looking at her, simply staring ahead, unblinking against the steady fall of rain.
Giving up, she slid one arm around his broad shoulder, her fingers resting lightly at his nape, beneath the too-long strands of hair. His dark hair fell over her fingers and she fought the urge to stroke the rain-slicked strands. Her other hand relaxed against his chest, where the steady thud of his heart beat against her palm.
She studied his profile for a moment, her anger fading as he carried her forth so stalwartly.
Suddenly he looked down, his eyes locking with hers. This close she could see the dark ring of blue surrounding his gray irises. Something strange and foreign swelled to life in her chest, trapping her breath deep in her lungs like a bird caged—just as those intense eyes of his trapped her.
Perhaps he wasn’t such a brute. A brute would have left her behind instead of sweeping her into his arms like some kind of hero from Arthurian legend.
She gave herself a hard mental shake, reminding herself that those were legends, stories her mother had read to her as a girl. Real knights in shining armor existed only in fairy tales.
A relieved breath escaped her chest when the village came into sight—an assortment of several thatch-roofed cottages, a small stone church, a blacksmith’s barn and a large two-story inn that leaned ever so slightly to the left. The cottages, hunkered shapes that seemed to tremble in the biting wind, lured her like a first edition copy of Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication on the Rights of Woman.
The prospect of the warm fires burning behind those meager walls brought home her misery.
She’d give anything to be sitting warm and snug in front of a fire, a book in her lap, a steaming cup of tea and plate of honeyed scones within reach.
A clanging carried over the storm, coming from the blacksmith’s barn at the edge of the village.
They followed the noise, turning full force into the wind. The sharp air lashed at her, stabbing her face and throat. She couldn’t imagine how he must feel. He had carried her the distance without complaint, never breaking stride.
Her eyes smarted, tears seeping from the corners and streaming her cheeks, blending with the rain coating her face. She tucked her chin to her chest and averted her face, burying her nose against his chest, seeking his heat, the shelter of his body. Shivering, she burrowed deeper against his chest, pretending not to notice the hard body holding her so securely even as she sank against him, hungering for his warmth.
He carried her beneath a jutting portico. Still holding her in his arms, he stood still for a long moment as if he doubted whether she could stand and support herself.
“I can stand,” she murmured, moving her face away from his chest.
Nodding, he released her legs. Her body slid the length of his in agonizing slow degrees. The sensation of her breasts crushed to his hard chest sent a lick of heat curling low in her belly.
Flustered at such an unfamiliar sensation she flushed and quickly stepped back.
Though sheltered from the worst of the wind and rain, she felt cold without his nearness, bereft.
He kept one hand on her arm, their only remaining contact. From beneath her lashes, she studied the hard, shadowed line of his jaw and accepted what she had tried so hard to ignore. He was magnificent. Even covered in filth. The most attractive man she had seen outside of a ballroom.
He reeked raw, masculine power. From the unfashionably long hair clinging to his face and throat, to the intimidating breadth of his shoulders. If my family ever thrust a man like him at me, I might think twice before chasing him off. Following that unbidden thought came the desperate need for distance. No man was worth the shackles of matrimony. No matter how he made her body tingle.
Even yearning for the warmth of his hand, for the burning imprint of those long fingers, she pulled free, severing all contact. He glanced down at her, lifting a dark brow.
Lips compressed, she crossed her arms and forced her attention on the stocky, flat-nosed man stepping out of the building’s glowing core. He wiped grimy hands on a leather apron and nodded in greeting.
“Tom, the lady here is looking for her driver.”
The blacksmith shook his head, frowning. “Haven’t seen a soul since the storm blew in.
Everyone’s got better sense than to be out in this.” His gaze raked them, his expression seeming to say, everyone except you two fools.
“My carriage is stuck in a ditch north of here—my maid’s still inside.” Probably snoring soundly, Portia thought as she lifted her reticule. “I need someone to retrieve both here.
Naturally, I’ll pay you for your ser vices—”
“‘Course, Miss.” The blacksmith turned and called to someone inside the barn. A young man garbed in a matching leather apron joined them. “My son and I will ride out and fetch them for you.”
Portia sighed, feeling some of the tension ease out of her shoulders and neck. “Thank you.”
The blacksmith gestured across the yard. “I’ll find you at the inn, then?”
“Yes,” she answered, already visualizing the dry taproom where she could wait and warm herself.
With a nod for the blacksmith, the man at her side took her arm and led her—cautiously, with care for her ankle—to the inn.
Once inside the nearly empty taproom, he settled her at one of the tables, the one nearest the large, crackling fireplace. Her belly rumbled at the tantalizing smells drifting from the kitchen.
She mentally counted the coins in her reticule and debated whether she could afford a hot meal.
Grandmother had given her only what she deemed necessary for a journey to Yorkshire and back. Recovery and repair of a carriage had not been part of the calculation.
A few figures sat huddled over their tankards, waiting out the storm. One man lifted his head to shout in greeting, “Heath!”
Heath? Well, she had a name now. Whether she wished to or not, she would forever remember her darkly handsome rescuer by name.
“Clive,” Heath greeted.
Clive snatched a knife from the scarred wood tabletop. His thick fist waved it at Heath encouragingly. “Give us a show, eh?”
Heath shook his head. “Another time.”
She looked at Heath, a frown pulling her lips. He must have felt her stare. His gaze slid to hers and he shrugged. “It’s just a game I played as a lad.”
Portia arched an eyebrow at him, curious to see what kind of “show” the locals regarded so highly.
“C’mon,” Clive bellowed.
Sighing, Heath strode across the room and plucked the knife from Clive’s fist. She watched as he straddled the bench, splayed his large hand flat on the table, and proceeded to stab between each finger in a frenzied blur of movement. She jerked at each thud of the knife in the wood table, certain that he would cut his hand at any moment. Her shocked gaze lifted to his face, to the bored expression there.
What kind of boyhood had he led?
Finally, he stopped, and she remembered to breathe again. He rose and sent the knife slicing cleanly through the air. It landed square in the center of a faded and smoke-mottled painting above the hearth.
Clive chortled and slapped the table in approval.
“Do you have a death wish?” she demanded upon his return to their table. “Reckless riding, reckless”—she waved a hand at the table where he had conducted his perilous demonstration, groping for the appropriate words and arriving at—”knife play!”
He replied with aggravating equanimity, even as something furtive gleamed in his gaze, ” ‘The worst evil of all is to leave the ranks of the living before one dies.’ ”
She shook her head, frustrated—mystified—at the man before her who quoted Seneca.
“Ain’t nothing,” Clive called out. “You should see him climb Skidmoor with his bare hands. In winter, too.”
“Skidmoor,” she echoed.
“It’s just a hill,” Heath explained.
“A hill?” Clive guffawed, shaking his head. “Right. More like a mountain.”
He climbed mountains in the dead of winter?
“Heath,” a serving girl squealed from across the taproom.
Portia eyed the woman’s scandalously low bodice and instinctively drew her cloak tighter about her shoulders as if she could hide her lack of similar attributes.
“Mary, you’re looking well.” Heath grinned in a way that made him look suddenly young, boyish. Not nearly so intimidating as the stranger from the road.
Mary sashayed across the room, rolling her hips in what Portia felt certain to be a practiced walk.
“Better now that you’re here,” she purred.
With no thought or regard to her presence, he grinned wickedly at the serving girl, his teeth a flash of white in his sun-browned face. How his skin managed to brown in this sunless country baffled her. No doubt further evidence that he was more devil than man.
The curvy serving girl lowered herself into his lap, tossed her plump arms around his neck and then, for all the world to see, planted an open-mouthed kiss on him.
Portia looked away, embarrassment stinging her cheeks. She studied her hands in her lap, ran her thumbs nervously over the backs, over the cold, puckered gooseflesh of her exposed wrists.
Unable to suppress her morbid curiosity, she sucked in a breath and lifted her eyes to observe the unseemly display.
Her gaze collided with his storm-gray eyes.
He watched her—Portia.
Heat flooded her face to be caught staring, as if she were interested, as if she cared who he kissed. His ravenous wolf’s stare never wavered from her face. Amusement gleamed in the gray depths as he kissed the female atop his lap.
She wrenched her gaze away and twisted her fingers in her lap until they ached.
Do not watch. Do not watch. Do not grant him the satisfaction of knowing he fascinates you.
Unable to stop herself, she snuck another look, compelled, beckoned by the magnetic pull of his taunting gaze. His eyes gleamed wickedly, ensnaring her, whispering her name. She gawked as he trailed a hand over Mary’s plait, watched as his long, tapered fingers unraveled the rope of hair, twining the tendrils in his elegant, blunt-tipped fingers.
Her stomach clenched and knotted. Something hot and unfamiliar ignited in her blood as she watched him kiss the woman with slow thoroughness, all the while devouring her with his eyes.
Was she such a wanton? Her quickening pulse seemed answer enough. Blood rushed to her ears, blocking out the steady patting of rain on the thatched roof, the hiss and pop of the fire in the hearth, the sound of her own excited breath. She moistened her lips with a flick of her tongue and his gray eyes darkened, twin beads of jet as they followed the movement, scanning her face, then dropping to the rise and fall of her chest beneath her soaked clothes.
She lifted her chin and tried to convey her contempt, her absolute disgust at their vulgar display—that she was a lady unmoved in the presence of such wickedness. Yet her breath betrayed her, falling fast and hard from her lips. Her cheeks felt aflame and she worried that color flooded her face.