A Scandalous Deception (14 page)

She opened the door, crawled past her maid
and stepped out onto the road. The pink and orange sky above cast a
warm glow upon the outside world. Blast it all, it would be dark
soon. And then the threat of highwaymen would be quite real.

On the side of the road, not far away, Fin’s
coachman rested against a tree, pain etched across his face and
what looked like a bone sticking out of his calf. Heavens!

“We’ll use this,” Fin called to the man,
tugging at his own cravat. She must have made some sort of sound,
because he glanced back over his shoulder and frowned. “Didn’t I
tell you to stay put?”

Lissy shrugged, closing the distance between
the lopsided carriage and injured driver. “And I believe I’ve told
you on more than one occasion that I don’t answer to you.” She
reached Fin’s side, standing over the driver and frowned herself.
The poor man’s leg did look bad. Blood pooled on the ground beneath
him. He was shaking just a bit, and his face was ghostly white. She
glanced up at Fin at her side and said softly, “If you’re trying to
bind his leg, Fin, you’ll need more than your cravat. But go ahead
and press it to the wound to stop the bleeding. I’ll get something
better to wrap it up.”

Fin gaped at her as though she was some sort
of foreign species he’d never encountered before. “You shouldn’t
have to see this, Lissy.”

Heavens. She’d seen worse than Chiver’s leg
before. She’d
suffered
worse than Chiver’s leg before. She
waved her hand in the air as she turned back to the coach and
called, “Worry about him, not me.” Then she opened the coach door
and smiled at Annie. “Doing all right?”

Annie shrugged. “Is the coachman hurt?”

Lissy nodded. “Looks like he was thrown and
broke his leg. Will you please hand me my valise?”

“Broken leg?” Annie winced as she slid the
valise on the coach floor towards Lissy.

“Oh! Oh! Ohhhh!” Chivers cried out in
pain.

Annie’s eyes widened in horror. “And the
coach is broken,” she whispered loud enough for only Lissy to
hear.

Lissy hadn’t even thought about the coach,
not after she’d seen Chiver’s leg. She stepped back from the
conveyance and damage was quite visible. “We’ll need another wheel,
it looks like.” The she gestured to the copse of trees where Fin
and his driver were located and said, “You might rather sit
outside, Annie. It’s going to be a long night.”

Without waiting for her maid to answer, Lissy
stepped away from the coach, placed her valise on the ground and
opened it up, hoping for something that could be of some use. An
apple, the third volume of Emma, a brush, some soap and her silk
nightrail. The nightrail it would have to be.

“Fin!” she called. “Do you have a knife?”

Bent on the ground over his driver’s leg, Fin
turned his attention to Lissy. “Chivers keeps one in his box.” Then
he rose from his spot and crossed the road until he was standing
beside her. “Your nightrail?” he asked softly.

“Have you any better ideas?” she asked.

He shook his head, his dark eyes boring into
hers. “I’ll get the knife.” He quickly climbed up into the
coachman’s box and returned a moment later, brandishing the
weapon.

Lissy took the blade from him and sliced
across the hem of her nightrail. Then she began cutting the silk in
a way to make it to one long strip. “We’re going to have to walk
for help, Fin. The wheel is broken, we can’t drive it another
inch.”

He nodded in agreement. “Chivers said there
was an inn about a mile and a half back. Once we wrap his leg, I’ll
start for it.”

Lissy made quick work with her nightrail and
when she was done, she knelt beside Chivers. “You’ll be just fine,”
she assured him with a smile. Then she gently slid one end of the
silk under his broken leg.

Fin watched Lissy in awe as she wrapped the
driver’s leg. She was gentle but thorough in her work. He would
have never imagined she could be such a skilled nursemaid. He
helped, of course, lifting Chivers’ leg since the coachman was
unable to do so, but all the while he couldn’t keep his eyes off
Lissy. She was amazing in every way, amazing in ways he hadn’t even
realized until now.

When she finished wrapping the driver’s leg,
Lissy glanced up at Fin, and he felt it all the way in the marrow
of his bones. Damn it all, he was lost to her. He knew it in that
instant as well as he knew his own name.

“Now we walk to the inn?” Lissy asked,
dusting her hands on her traveling gown.

We
. Fin heaved a sigh. Any girl with
sense would stay safely put with her maid and the driver. Any girl
with sense would realize walking a mile and a half in her kid
slippers upon the bumpy road wasn’t the best idea. And any girl
with sense wouldn’t spend the remaining light they did have arguing
the point. But as he would be arguing with Lissy and wasting the
remaining light they had, Fin decided against doing so.

He climbed back up into the coachman’s box
and retrieved the pair of pistols his driver kept there for
safety.

“Pistols?” Lissy asked after he dropped back
down to the road.

“No idea who inhabits these woods after
dark.” Fin then returned to Chivers and Annie, offering one of the
pistols to the pair. “Just in case,” he said.

His coachman took the pistol and laid it
across his lap. “I am sorry, my lord.”

Sorry for hitting a hole that couldn’t be
avoided and for breaking his leg? It was Fin’s fault for getting
such a late start that first day. They’d been trying to make up
time ever since. In fact, they probably should have stopped a few
miles back while they still had good light instead of trying to
make it to the Chase this evening. He shook his head. “Hardly your
fault. Just stay together, and we’ll be back as soon as we can with
help.”

He shoved the pistol he held beneath the
waistband of his trousers, turned around to assess the road he was
about to travel, but his eyes landed on Lissy instead. His heart
pulsed a bit faster and he couldn’t help but wonder about what a
fool he’d been for so long. He lifted his hand out to her and said,
“My lady.”

Lissy smiled softy and then slid her arm
around Fin’s elbow. “This is hardly a walk down Rotten Row, you
know?” she teased once they were out of earshot of their
servants.

This was better than a walk down Rotten Row
with hundreds of sets of eyes on them. This, in the waning light
along the country road, was just the two of them. “Indeed, you
always wear better walking shoes in Hyde Park,” he said
instead.

“Well, I like to be comfortable when
traveling,” Lissy giggled. “I’m surprised you didn’t put up a fight
about my shoes, about me coming with you.”

“Would it have done any good?” He cast her a
sidelong glance.

She shook her head, making her flaxen curls
bounce about her delectable shoulders. “But that’s never stopped
you before.”

“We didn’t have time to argue, not with the
light almost gone.”

She nodded in agreement. “Always so
reasonable, Fin.”

Reasonable
. He felt the very furthest
thing from reasonable. Sebastian’s assertions echoed in Fin’s ears.
His cousin seemed to believe that Fin thrived on the madness that
swirled about Lissy. A reasonable man wouldn’t thrive on such
things, would he? A reasonable man wouldn’t fall in love with a
woman who drove him half-mad all the time, would he?

So bed her and get it over with
, his
cousin had suggested. More than once, actually. Fin had hardly been
able to think of anything else ever since hearing Sebastian’s
unsolicited advice all those many days ago. He’d lain awake each
night along this journey, knowing
she
was in the room next
door.

A reasonable man in Fin’s position, walking
along the darkened road to get assistance, would be thinking about
how to go about getting their carriage wheel fixed, hoping the
small village a mile back had a doctor who could attend Chivers’
broken leg, wondering if the inn had enough rooms to accommodate
them. “You gave up your nightrail,” he said instead. “What will you
sleep in tonight?”

Because that thought had flitted about his
mind ever since she’d removed her silk nightrail from her valise.
The idea of her lying in bed without a stitch on her would keep him
up one more night.

She looked up at him as though he was
half-mad. “I’ll manage. Besides, poor Chivers needed it more
urgently than I did.”

“I hate to think of you being cold,” he
replied. All she had to do was stay in his room that night and he’d
make sure she was warm. Fin gritted his teeth together, willing one
inappropriate thought after another from his mind. What in
damnation
had
come over him? He’d known her nearly all her
life, but now…

“I’m certain they’ll have blankets at—” Lissy
stumbled forward and dropped to the ground. The hem of her
traveling dress was up around her knees at the fall, and Fin
couldn’t help but be mesmerized. She did have pretty knees, and
he’d wager her thighs and—

“Ack! Blasted stone,” she complained,
interrupting the most inappropriate of his musings.

“More like blasted foolish slippers, I’d
wager,” Fin said as he arched one brow at her, attempting to rein
in his depraved thoughts. Then he sighed and lifted his hand down
to her. “Are you all right?”

“Am I all right?” She snorted. “One would
think a concerned gentleman would ask that question
before
mentioning my foolish slippers.”

He couldn’t help but laugh as he wiggled his
fingers in her direction, urging her to take his assistance in
finding her feet once more. “Come on, Lissy, let me help you.”

She smiled sweetly, which should have been
his first clue that something devious was going on in her mind, but
that thought came a moment too late as she reached for his hand and
tugged him down onto the ground beside her. “A shame you tumbled,
Fin,” she teased, turning towards him, giving him a rather nice
view of her charms. “You might want to wear better
boots
next time.”

“Or choose my traveling companions better.”
He brushed his thumb across her cheek as he couldn’t help but touch
her, not after he’d thought of little else with her pressed against
his side in the coach for days, not after he’d thought of little
else for quite some time.

Lissy’s pretty blue eyes rounded in surprise
at his caress. “Fin,” she began, her voice a mere whisper.

Before she could say anything else, before
she could protest and break the spell swirling around them, he
cupped her jaw with his hand and pressed his lips to hers.

Dear God, kissing Lissy was better than Fin
had imagined. Tingles rippled across his skin and a soft moan
escaped her lips, the sound of which brought his cock to full
attention.

Lissy’s lips opened for him, the most
delicious of invitations. Fin swept inside the haven of her mouth,
touching his tongue to hers. She tasted like heaven, like the
sweetest, purest heaven he’d ever experienced.

Kissing her seemed the most natural, most
right
thing he’d ever done in his life. But she began to
tremble slightly, so Fin pulled her closer to him with his free
arm, wanting to soothe her, to reassure her that everything was all
right, that everything was exactly how it should be.

She clutched his jacket in her hands, pulling
him even closer. She kissed him back, just as passionately as he
was kissing her. And for the first time in what felt like a
lifetime, Fin’s heart lifted. “Dear God, Lissy,” he rasped. Then he
kissed his way across her jaw.

He would have kissed her neck and the tops of
her creamy breasts, if the sound of an approaching carriage hadn’t
hit his ears. But as the sound
had
hit his ears, Fin pulled
slightly back from Lissy to look down upon her.