Along Came a Rogue (9 page)

Gaping in astonishment, Emily stared at him. She couldn't believe he'd done that!

Then a bubble of laughter escaped her. Her hands flew over her mouth to keep it back. But she was unable to stop it, and soon her shoulders shook with uncontrolled mirth.

She laughed with abandon. It felt good, oh so very good! All the fear and worry of the past five months lifted from her chest. Her body seemed to float with the emotional release, and all the relief made her absolutely giddy. For the first time in two years, she felt happy and free, and she dared to let herself hope that perhaps, just perhaps, the future wouldn't be so bleak after all.

“Brat,” he warned, his voice low and angry.

“I'm sorry—I didn't mean—” she choked out between laughs.

Her life was in danger, her future uncertain, and the man she'd adored since she was sixteen just physically rejected her—their situation was so ridiculous, so
ludicrous
that she simply couldn't help laughing! Even with Grey glaring at her from across the compartment.

“But you have to admit that we're quite a pair, aren't we?” She shook her head as her laughter faded into soft giggles. “You're a rake who won't touch me, while I've been longing to kiss you again since I was sixteen.”

“You're not sixteen anymore,” he snapped out.

“And you're not my brother. For God's sake, Grey! I know you want to kiss me…so let yourself kiss me. No harm can come of that.” She pressed the back of her hand against her lips as the last of the laughter died away, and she admitted quietly, “And it would be nice.”

He leaned toward her across the space between the two benches, his elbows resting on his knees. “You think I want to kiss you?”

She froze at the dangerous tone in his voice and the intense flicker deep in his eyes. The little hairs along her arms stood up in warning. Heavens, she was certainly playing with fire now! Yet she so desperately wanted to lose herself in his heat.

She swallowed. Hard. “I know you do.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Oh, brat,” he drawled in a husky voice that rumbled darkly through her like thunder. “I want to do so much more than just kiss you.”

She stared at him in the blue-gray light, her pulse pounding in her ears with every racing heartbeat.

“I want to splay you across my bed and lick every delectable inch of you until I've had my fill. I want to nibble at your throat and breasts until you shiver, stroke my hands between your thighs until you spread yourself open wide and beg to be taken. I want to taste the sweetness of your warmth as I plunge inside you and hear your cries when I've satisfied my hunger.” The gleam in his eyes was predatory. “And it certainly wouldn't be
nice
.”

With heat shamelessly flushing her cheeks, she momentarily forgot to breathe. She should have been shocked by his words, should have scolded him for saying those things, or slapped him, or…Yet it wasn't shock she felt, but pulsing arousal.

He looked undeniably masculine as he lounged on the bench, his waistcoat half-unbuttoned and his neck rakishly bare to his shirt collar, his long legs kicked out casually in front of him. Shivering even now from the hot need flaming inside her, she craved him. She wanted to perch on his lap again and lick her tongue down into the patch of chest revealed by his open collar, wanted to strip away his shirt and waistcoat completely and let her fingers explore the hard muscles beneath. And God help her, she wanted to offer herself to him just as he described, as a willing and wanton feast.

But she could never have him now. He'd arrived five months too late.

“I'm not a nice man, Emily,” he continued. “I use women for my own pleasure. I seduce them, take whatever enjoyment I can in them, and never give a thought to their feelings or needs. If they're satisfied, it's only because it brought me pleasure to make them so.”

She shook her head, staring at him defiantly. “I don't believe you.”

“You should.” He leaned forward to punctuate his words. “And you should know that you'd be no different. The perfect woman, in fact, since you're exactly the kind of woman I prefer…a beautiful society widow, one who would never consider being seen with a rogue like me in public let alone want to leg-shackle me. A woman who cannot complain publicly when I ignore her after I've grown bored of being inside her.” He sent her a disdainful look that she might ever think of him as anything more than he was. “Whatever delusions you've been clinging to about me, you need to get them out of your head right now.”

Her eyes burned, her vision growing blurry. “I have no delusions about you.”

“Good. So don't ever tease me again about kissing you, brat. Because I won't stop with just a taste of you.” As he leaned back, his eyes gleamed wolfishly, and she shuddered at the unrepentant hunger she saw in their dark depths. “I'd devour you.”

Giving her a last hard look, he turned his face toward the window.

She bit her lip hard, fighting back the knot of wretchedness rising in her throat but unable to stop the trembling that gripped her. Her hands shook as she looked down at them in her lap, overwhelmed by the harshness of what he had just told her about himself and her own shameless arousal to it. He'd laid himself bare, telling her the most horrible things…but she knew from Thomas's letters that they were true.

Shame flooded through her that he was so brutally honest about himself while she still kept secrets that could endanger both their lives. “Grey,” she whispered before her courage could leave her, “I need to tell you…”

“What is it?” he growled but didn't look at her.

“The reason I can't—”

The carriage jerked again, and both of them grabbed for the handholds to keep their seats as the vehicle gave a loud creak and groan, then stopped. The wheels dropped, and the carriage settled to a leaning stop toward its side.

After a moment of stillness, Hedley flung open the door and peered inside, his face grim. “We're stuck,” he explained succinctly.

Sliding a sideways glance toward Emily, Grey muttered, “You have no idea.”

He pushed himself off the seat with a curse, then leaned out the door and peered around the side of the carriage toward the team and front wheels.

“Dalton, how bad is it?” he demanded, calling up to the newly hired driver, still perched on top of the rig.

“Too bad fer us t' push out, I'd say,” Dalton answered in a thick Yorkshire accent. “We'll be needin' a second team t' haul 'er out, seh.”

“How far to the next inn?”

“Jus' down th' way a bit, couple o' miles.”

Grey glanced down the road. “We can get there on foot?”

“Aye, seh. A' hour's walk o' two, most like.”

Grey nodded grimly and dropped to the muddy ground. “We'll walk from here, then.”

Emily peered out the door after him. A swamp had replaced the road. Mud came up past the horses' fetlocks, and the entire surface was so slippery that the carriage had slid toward the edge of the road and into a muddy hole that was impossible to drive through. The front left wheel lay buried to the axle.

He gestured for Hedley. “I'll need you to come with Mrs. Crenshaw and me. I want safety in numbers out on the road.”

“Aye, Major.”

He glanced up at the driver. “Dalton, you'll wait here with the carriage, and Hedley will come back with a second team to pull you out.”

The man nodded. “Aye, seh.”

“Let's go, then, Major.” Hedley glanced glumly at the gray-black sky as he tossed up a pistol to Dalton. “It ain't gettin' any sunnier.”

Thinking that Hedley's comment might be the grandest understatement she'd ever heard given the dark storm clouds gathering on the horizon and the increasingly cold wind, Emily took Grey's proffered hand and let him help her down from the leaning carriage.

When her feet touched the mud, she lost her footing and slipped. His hands instantly encircled her waist to catch her. He lifted her easily into his arms and carried her to the center of the peaked road where the mud was shallower. He released her to the ground, and she shivered as her breath clouded the cold air.

“Only an hour's walk,” he assured her. He shrugged out of his greatcoat and held it open for her.

She shook her head. “I don't need—”

“Put the damn thing on,” he growled.

Angrily, she shoved her hands into the sleeves. The coat covered her like a tent, from chin to toes.

“Thank you,” he muttered sarcastically. With a grimace of frustrated irritation, he buttoned up the coat, then dropped his hands away from her.

She swallowed down her frustration. Apparently, the gentleman had won after all, his restraint still firmly in place as the practical and protective hero set on saving her in spite of herself. Immediately, she missed the other Grey, the rake who'd looked at her as if he wanted to ravish her.

“Can you do this?” he demanded.

“Of course.” She jutted up her chin defiantly. She would
never
let this man think her weak, even if she had to crawl to the inn on her hands and knees.

“Come on, then.” He took her arm and led her down the road beside him, helping her find her unsteady way in the mud until she yanked her arm away from him and stomped on ahead by herself. He let her go. Driven on by mutual irritation and a desire to escape each other's company when they finally reached the inn, they made good time.

Until the first drops of freezing rain began to fall.

Grey kicked open the door of the White Stag Inn and carried Emily inside, her body cold and limp in his arms from the freezing rain and cutting wind of the howling storm. Too damned stubborn to admit that the cold was overwhelming her, she'd collapsed, her frozen legs and feet unable to walk, and he'd carried her the last mile in his arms. “A room—
now
!”

Across the crowded common room, travelers who had already sought refuge for the night looked up in startled curiosity from where they gathered around tables laden with steaming bowls of stew and tankards of ale. The innkeeper scowled at the puddle of mud Grey carried into the inn with him and at the driving wind and icy rain blowing through the doorway from the blackness of the storm outside.

The man waved his hand dismissively. “Go piss yourself—”

Hedley lunged across the bar and grabbed him by the throat. “Major Grey has requested a private room for th' daughter of the Duke o' Chatham,” he explained slowly in a frighteningly calm voice. “Now, which room will be the lass's?”

The innkeeper's eyes grew wide. “We're full—” he choked out. “The storm—”

“Which room?” Hedley demanded again, his hand tightening. “I'm certain ye saved one.”

Gurgling rose from the man's throat, and he pointed up the stairs. “Right side,” he gasped, “far end of th' hall.”

Hedley released him. The innkeeper jerked back, his hand going to his throat as his eyes narrowed murderously.

“Send up hot stew and ale.” Grey glanced down at Emily in his arms. She was so wet and cold that she'd actually stopped shivering. The freezing rain had soaked through to her skin, and she was nearly unconscious. His gut clenched hard with worry. “And buckets of hot water for a bath.”

“At this hour? You're fuckin' mad—”

“
Do it
,” he growled and rushed her toward the stairs.

Hedley reached into his pocket and slapped a coin onto the bar. “Food and a hot bath for the lady.” Then another one. “And a bottle o' whiskey for me.” One last coin. “If ye please.”

The innkeeper snatched the money into his fist and angrily shook it at him. “Well, you should've said so before!” He jerked his thumb toward three barmaids standing at the side of the bar, gaping in wide-mouthed wonder. “Go on! Get a bath and food upstairs now!”

As the women scurried into action, Grey carried Emily quickly through the inn. His own body was soaked and chilled, and so cold that his fingers barely moved as he shifted her in his arms. But all that mattered now was getting Emily warm. He reached for the door to the room and flung it open, brought her inside, and placed her gently on the bed.

“Grey,” she whispered painfully, so softly he could barely hear her. Her eyes were still closed against a face that was shockingly white. Tiny droplets of cold rain clung to her frozen lashes. “I…I need…to tell…”

“Shh, just rest, brat.” He leaned over and touched his lips to her forehead. Cold as ice. He tore himself away from her to hurry to the small fireplace.

As he piled up the wood and kindling, he pushed down the sickening guilt that he was to blame for not forcing her back to the carriage when the rain began. For believing her when she adamantly claimed despite chattering teeth that she was fine enough to carry on. For so desperately wanting to put distance between them after that carriage ride that he'd trudged on until the rain turned to sleet and the winds into a hurricane. Until she'd collapsed.

His numb fingers shook hard as he fumbled with the tinderbox. Finally, he struck a spark and set ablaze the pile of kindling. Then he tossed in log after log until the fire blazed.

When he returned to her, she was shaking again. He blew out a sigh of deep relief.
Thank God.
Shaking meant she was reviving, but he had to get her warm. And as long as she stayed in those wet clothes, the material would hold the cold close to her skin, and she would never warm up.

He lifted her into his arms and gently tugged her to her feet, holding on to her to make certain her legs didn't buckle beneath her. Then he unbuttoned the coat and peeled it down her arms and off, leaving her in the ruined satin of the dressing gown she'd been wearing when they fled Snowden Hall.

His still-shaking hands smoothed her wet hair away from her face. “Better?”