Anita Mills (21 page)

“I think I shall wash my hands of the lot of you,” Lady Millhaven muttered. “Magistrates. Inns. Physicks. I vow I have never heard the like.”

“Now, I’d have you cry peace with Kit ere we leave.”

“Rollo—”

“No, Mama, m’mind’s settled.”

“But I shall miss you, Kitty!” Jessica wailed, throwing her arms around her cousin. “I wanted you there when I wedded Charles!”

“Nonsense. You shall be q-quite h-happy without me,” Kitty insisted, hugging her tightly.

“I ain’t listening to two of you. Stifle it, Jess,” Roland ordered. “Now, while breakfast is being cooked, I shall write Red Jack also. Only fitting as I am head of this family, after all.” He looked at Kitty. “Best pack what you can—that ain’t going to suffice all the way to Charleston, you know.”

She stood on tiptoe to embrace him. “Oh, Rollo, if I’d had a brother, I would have wished for you.”

“Proud of you, Kit—know why you did everything. Well, run on now—we got things to do.”

S
HE SAT IN THE
small private parlor Roland had bespoken at the inn, waiting for her cousin to return from purchasing her passage across the Atlantic with her mother’s brooch. Two days hence, she would be bound for Charleston and the home she’d left behind. She ought to be happy over that, for she’d been homesick much of the time she’d been in England. But as her departure approached, she discovered she was not.

Roland had been right, of course. She really had nothing to return home to anymore. Her papa was gone, the house she’d grown up in sold, and the business she loved belonged to others. She was not even certain that her papa’s partners would welcome her back.

It did not matter, she told herself forcefully. If all else failed, she would teach, for her knowledge of sums was exceedingly good. And she was accounted to write a fine hand also. But the thought of years of facing reluctant pupils was nonetheless daunting.

She stared into the empty fireplace, wondering if Red Jack had felt relief upon receipt of her letter. Surely he had, for she’d been nothing but trouble to him from the moment she’d leveled the pistol on him.

“You were perhaps thinking of going on your wedding trip without me?” he drawled almost lazily behind her.

“What—?” She spun around to face him guiltily, her heart rising in her throat. “Oh.”

He seemed to fill the room, looming over her. He wore the full dress uniform of a dragoon, its gold braid gleaming in the sun that filtered through the window. Only his hat was missing, for his dark red head was bared, its unruly locks brushed into the semblance of a Brutus. Despite his words, he watched her, his mouth quirked into a halfsmile, his beautiful hazel eyes betraying amusement.

“Uh—did you not get my letter?” she asked lamely. “I—uh—I wrote to you.”

“The one referring to the necessary regard to sustain a marriage?”

“Yes.”

He reached behind him to close the door, then advanced on her. Her palms were suddenly damp where she pressed them against the skirt of her twilled cotton traveling dress. She took a step backward, and nearly tripped over the raised hearth. Her heart beat wildly, reverberating even in her head.

“The one where you disparage dalliance outside marriage?”

“Yes.”

“The one where you call yourself romantical? The one where you express hopes of affection within the marital bond?”

“Uh—” She looked around her nervously. “Rollo—”

“Rollo is on his way back to Rose Farm, I believe. Yes, I am sure of that, in fact. He means to join Jess and your Aunt Bella there.”

“But—he’s booking my passage! He—”

He held out her mother’s sapphire brooch, its jewels winking in the palm of his hand. “I don’t think so.” Almost impersonally, he leaned to pin it above her breast. And then he leveled the pistol.

“And now, my romantical Miss Gordon—”

She stared into the barrel in disbelief. “You cannot—that is, why—?”

“The reason ought to be obvious, but as it isn’t, I take leave to inform you that this time, ’tis Red Jack who abducts you.”

“What?”

“An elopement, Miss Gordon.”

“You cannot be serious!”

“Never more serious in my life.”

“But—”

“We tarry overlong. You will go out before me, and get into the red and black lacquered carriage, just outside the door.”

“You cannot—”

“And I can do considerably better than hit a cider jar at twenty paces,” he added, straight-faced. “So do not be thinking of sounding a warning, Miss Gordon, for I shall be directly behind you.”

It was as though her own words had come back to haunt her. “Where are we going?”

“A great distance.”

She tried to keep her voice light as she stepped in front of him. “Am I to collect you do not mean to compromise me, sir?”

“Not at all. I intend to do so thoroughly.”

He was behind her so close that she could feel his breath above her head, and again she smelled the faint, pleasant scent of Hungary water. An odd, exhilarating thrill went through her. His hand closed on her arm, guiding her before him into the yard.

“Jem!”

“Morning, Miss Gordon.”

“Er—I thought to employ a driver with experience in such things,” Red Jack murmured.

“But how—?”

“While I was recovering at Blackstone Hall from our last encounter there, he returned to beg Charles for money,” he explained, reaching around her to open the carriage door.

“Somehow I felt responsible for his lack of a job.”

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered as he pushed her up into the coach. “You cannot wish to marry me.”

He swung up behind her, but instead of taking the seat opposite, he settled against the squabs beside her. “That, my love, is a lie.” Shifting his pistol to his left hand, he reached into his coat and drew out a folded paper. “Behold a Special License. By the time we reach Rose Farm, I should expect Rollo and Jessica and your aunt to be awaiting us.”

“But I am not the sort of female you should wish to marry!”

Laying aside the license, he reached to untie her bonnet. “No?” he asked conversationally. “And just what sort of a female should I choose, do you think?”

“But you can have an Incomparable—a-a Toast!”

“I think I have one.” He leaned closer. “I favor small women, you know. Romantical ones, too.”

“Not someone who is forever making mistakes! You were a mistake! You ought to have someone who thinks about what she does, and—”

“A deuced bore, I should think.” His fingertips traced a line lightly from the tip of her chin to her ear, sending a shiver of delight through her. “But go on.”

“You are the dashing Red Jack Rayne,” she protested feebly. “Every woman in London—”

The bonnet dropped to the floor in front of her, and his face was so close that she could not focus on it. His breath brushed softly against her face.

“There’s only one I’d have,” he whispered against her lips. “There’s only one I’d love.”

Her protest died in a thorough, lingering kiss that left her utterly, completely breathless. She clung to him, savoring the feel of his lips on hers, the warmth of him, the strength of him. It was, she decided happily, what she was made for.

Slowly, she became aware of the gun that lay between them, and she sat up in alarm. “Your pistol—”

For answer, he dropped it on top of her bonnet. “It isn’t loaded,” he murmured, reaching for her again. “I do hope that one of these days, you will cease referring to me as a mistake, my love,” he added as she snuggled against him. “It might confuse the children.”