Megan Frampton (12 page)

She felt him stiffen and rise against her, and she made a panicked motion to get up. It felt too good, too dangerous, and she knew she was the only one here with enough sense not to continue something so wrong.

“No, no,” he objected, stroking her back. “Promised. Won’t do anything. Just—just stay,” he said in a pleading voice. “Just let me hold you. It helps,” he said in a wondering voice.

She sighed and bowed her head, resting it on his chest. His heartbeat had slowed, and his hands had stilled. Even though they were in the middle of the forest, she was calm, certain that whatever happened would be better than what might have happened if they had been caught.

She woke up to discover the twilight had turned to full darkness. He still slept underneath her, one hand on her waist, the other curled around her neck. His breathing was slow and regular, and she was relieved that his fever seemed to have abated.

She should get off him, go sleep somewhere else, if not for his comfort, then for her own. But as she was beginning to lift off him, he held her tighter and rolled to his side, still clutching her. She was encircled in his embrace, and felt the sharp contrast between the warmth of his body and the cold, damp earth.

She couldn’t see his face in the dark, but she could smell his rich, musky scent and feel the strength of his arms around her.

She let herself drift back to sleep, well aware that it was the most dangerous thing she had ever done.

***

“Good morning, love,” Alasdair said, stretching his arms to make the blood flow into them again. It felt as if he’d been frozen into the same position for hours. He didn’t remember anything but taking the opium he’d stolen from the doctor’s bag, then passing
out here. In the forest. With her.

She had opened her eyes and was staring at him, sleep still befuddling her gaze, the dark-blue depths shadowed by heavy-lidded eyes. If he hadn’t known any better, he’d say she looked like a woman who’d been pleasured completely the night before: satiated, content, relaxed.

Then she woke up more, and her eyebrows snapped together, a small furrow forming in the gap between them at the top of her nose. Definitely not the look of a well-loved woman. She pushed away from him and rolled onto her back, her hands clenching into fists. “Why am I here?” she asked, raising her voice to the sky so it echoed in the trees.

Alasdair propped his head up on his hand, regarding her. “Don’t you remember? I bought you.”

She glared at him and he saw her hands close even tighter. “Not that. I know that. But why am I here? Father always assured me there was a purpose to each and every person on earth, and I used to believe him, but now I don’t know.”

“Maybe you’re here to save me.”

Why had he said that? He’d had no intention of revealing anything—his strengths or his weaknesses—to his future bride. He’d make sure she was safe, and then he would disappear. That was all he’d intended.

But he’d responded to her simple plea with something that couldn’t be brushed away. Even now, she was staring at him, her eyes wide and curious, her mouth open as if to utter questions she hadn’t quite finished forming in her brain.

Alasdair rose to a sitting position, crossing his legs together on the ground.

She followed his lead, scrambling up to sit the same way, a mirror image opposite him. Only she wasn’t like him, was she? He knew that, just by seeing the emotions in her eyes; she was pure and good, and the people she loved didn’t all die.

“Why do you need saving?” she asked in a soft voice.

He shuttered his expression and shrugged, an insouciant aristocratic gesture he’d perfected in the ballrooms of London. Before Judith, before Anthony.

“I asked, why do you need saving?” she repeated, a little more forcefully this time. He felt his defenses crumble under her simple question.

He swallowed and looked down at the ground. His knees shook. Must be fatigue. He hadn’t ridden so much since the Army. “I—those pills I took last night. They’re opium.” He looked up. Her expression was confused.

“Opium is what is in laudanum,” he explained, “only I take opium pills. I can’t not take them. They give me dreams, they relax me, they … they help. And now I can’t stop.”

“Do you want to stop?”

“Yes.”
So I can make sure you are settled, and safe. And then I will take them until oblivion beckons
.

She nodded and reached toward his coat, tucking her fingers inside his pocket before he could react. She withdrew the vial of pills and regarded them, her expression solemn. “So we will make sure you stop,” she said, and dropped the vial onto the ground, and then got up and stepped on them, grinding the glass and the pills together into the earth.

Alasdair watched the heel of her shoe destroy his chance at forgetting, just for a while, everything in his life. Time stood still as he realized he was really going to try to do it himself, on his own, without help. Except from her.

It was agony. But he had to do it if he wanted to do one thing right. If he wanted to keep her safe.

When she was safe, he could return to his own self-destruction.

“We should eat something,” she said in her controlling voice.

She’d taken his salvation. His only solace.

Although her touch, the feel of her skin against his, had helped ease his pain. But he’d promised not to take her.

Fuck. Did that mean he’d have to choose between agony and honor? Again?

Perhaps he should just concentrate on the here and now. Eating. That’s what she said, wasn’t it?

The last thing he wanted to do was eat anything, but he knew he had to.

She walked to where he’d left the basket and picked it up with both hands. It was heavy, and it slapped against her calf as she walked back to him, leaning over to one side. “Hopefully the innkeeper’s wife is a better cook than he is an innkeeper,” she said,
dropping the basket on the ground between them.

She knelt down beside him and opened it. Her arm rested against his leg, and he could smell her scent rising up from her neck. He had an urge to bend down and lick her, right there on her nape, then reach around to pull her back into his chest, stroking her mouthwateringly lush breasts while he whispered just what he wanted to do to her into her ear.

Honor was definitely losing the battle at this moment.

Since Judith, he’d had—no one. And Judith had disliked her marital duties, at least with him; he’d tried to restrain himself, joining her in her bed very rarely. Even then, he’d felt guilty, knowing she’d rather be reading, or sewing, or sleeping. He knew it would be very different if she had gotten to marry Anthony.

Mary would take as much pleasure in it as he would. He could still remember her unschooled fumblings, her delicious response sending an immediate jolt to his groin. She might not know what she was doing yet, but she knew how it made them both feel. And, God help him, he did, too.

“Breast or leg?” she asked, reaching into the basket.

He raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” he drawled.

Her eyes flashed. “Of chicken,” she said, emphasizing the words. She sounded like a schoolteacher.

“Ah.” He leaned back on his elbows. “In that case, a leg, please.” He watched as she burrowed into the basket, withdrawing a wrapped piece of chicken.

She handed it to him, then pulled out another for herself. She frowned, glaring at the basket as if it had insulted her. “There are no linens with which to wipe our mouths.”

Alasdair grinned and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Teasing her brought him relief from his agony as well. And
that
he could do without risking his honor.

Her expression grew even more disapproving. “A gentleman does not use his sleeve as a napkin,” she proclaimed.

“Are you implying I am not a gentleman?” he asked, leaning forward slightly as though daring her to slap him.

Her mouth tightened, and she shook her head in a small motion.

He chuckled and began to eat, watching her as she unfolded the paper from her
food. Her movements were precise and efficient, and her hands moved dexterously, removing the wrapping without touching the food.

Her hands, though as small and delicate as any lady’s, showed signs of hard work. Her knuckles were red, and a few faint marks hinted at some past kitchen accidents. But he remembered the feel of her hands, all smooth and gentle, and he longed for her touch as much as he did the drugs.

The drugs, he remembered. She’d crushed all of them. None left. Nothing to drown out the clamoring pain in his head, the swirling of guilt and sorrow.

Just her.

Was that—a twinge of remorse for placing her in this situation?

He finished eating, wiping his mouth on his sleeve again, catching her eye as he did so. “We should be off soon. I’m guessing Hugh and your brother—half brother,” he corrected when he saw her mouth opening, “are concocting another plan to find us. The sooner we’re on our way and safely married, the better.”

She nodded and began repacking the basket.

“Leave it,” he said. “There’s food in Scotland, and we’ll be there in a few hours.”

“I thought we had very little money? Oh,” she exclaimed, putting her hand to her mouth, “you didn’t pay the innkeeper for your cousin’s room after all, did you?”

He’d been wondering when she would remember that. “No, I didn’t.”

She smiled, a wickedly delicious grin that caused him to exhale. She was delighted.
Delighted
.

Not an expected reaction, not from the daughter of a vicar. But then again, she wasn’t what he’d expected at all, not from the first time he saw her standing on that table.

He liked the unexpected. He liked it a lot.

She packed up the rest of their things, and he strapped them onto Primrose, then walked toward her with his hands outstretched.

“What are you doing?” she snapped, the tone of her voice at odds with the softness in her eyes. A dark-blue sea he could drown in.

“Assisting you back onto your steed, my lady,” he drawled, placing his hands around her waist. He could feel the swell of her hips just below his fingers and he couldn’t help himself, his little finger sneaked down and caressed her, very briefly. She
didn’t seem to notice, thank goodness.

Without waiting for her assent, he lifted her in his arms, placing her on Primrose’s back. “Wouldn’t it be better if I could ride astride?” she asked, scrutinizing the saddle. “Certainly more comfortable, and I am guessing we could go faster. That is the point,” she said, meeting his eyes, “going faster, is it not?”

She swung her leg over the pommel, then pulled her skirts up so she wasn’t bound by the fabric.

Alasdair’s eyes were riveted on her ankles, her shapely calves, and he couldn’t stop thinking about how her thighs were wrapped around the horse’s body. The same way he wished she would wrap them around him.

It was the drugs. It had to be. Even though the effect usually wore off long before now, his insatiable desire for her had to be something outside of himself.

He’d never felt this way before.

He wished he could behave as a normal man, a regular man, would, who found himself alone with an attractive woman: make her pant, and scream, and get that satisfied look on her face he’d seen when she first woke up.

And the benefits to him would be enormous as well—he’d be able to lose himself in her as he did the drugs.

But he wasn’t a normal man. He was a titled lord, a man with responsibilities and honor, for what it was worth now, and he couldn’t treat a woman like that, even if he was going to marry her. Which he was.

He sighed and mounted behind her, careful not to touch her too much, for his sake as much as hers. “Go on, Primrose,” he said, urging the horse into a slow trot.

“Why did you start taking the opium?” she asked after they’d been on the road for about half an hour. He cursed his earlier openness, and wished he could go through with his threat of stuffing her mouth with his cravat.

The last thing he wanted to do was explain himself.

“Why does anyone do anything?” he replied, waving his hand in an artless way just to annoy her.

She huffed in front of him, and he felt her spine stiffen. Then she lifted her right hand and began ticking reasons off on her fingers. “Money. Guilt. Kindness. Love.
Responsibility. Pick one.”

It felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “Hatred,” he said in a whisper.

“Of whom?” she snorted. “Your cousin? A loathsome man, certainly, but hardly worth developing a—a weakness like that.” She couldn’t say habit, much less addiction.

“Of myself.”

Her hands dropped to where he was holding the reins, and she rested them there, offering a passive comfort that soothed his heart. He wouldn’t have been able to take it if she pitied him.

She didn’t speak for another few minutes, and when she did, her voice was matter-of-fact. “My father used to talk about the damage self-hatred could do. He said that it was our duty to love ourselves, imperfect though we knew ourselves to be, because it meant we loved all mankind.”

“I don’t,” Alasdair said. “In fact,” he said, feeling his chest tighten, “I cannot love humanity when humans are so quick to destroy one another over arguments about land and who rules whom. Nor can I love myself when I know what I am capable of.”

It sounded like she was holding her breath. “And what are you capable of?”

Living, when everyone I care for dies
. “You should know that for yourself by now. Buying women at auction, breaking my promises, leaving my blood relatives without money, bound to a bed.” He laughed a laugh without humor. “And that’s only been in the past twenty-four hours.”

Her hand did tighten on his, finally. “You’re troubled, but you’re not evil,” she said in an earnest voice.

“Spoken like a true vicar’s daughter.” He hoped his derisive tone would shut her up, stop her from stirring up his thoughts, so he wouldn’t have to question just what he believed about himself.

Or what she might believe about him.

Mary’s heart hurt. She’d always been too soft, everyone said so, and she’d always thought other people were just too hard. They were right, she
was
too soft. She ached for him, ached to comfort him, to make him believe he belonged in the world as surely as anyone. But the finality of his tone, his utter hopelessness, made it hard to think she could help him.