The Lady Risks All (18 page)

Then she drew him on.

On to the space by the foot of the bed. There, she halted and turned.

Into his arms, arms that were waiting to hold her, to, if she only knew, claim her. He was no saint; her words, her actions, had left him hard as iron, already aching, needing relief.

Knowing he was on the brink of setting aside all reserve—all questions, hesitations, and reservations—he forced himself to focus on her eyes, to forgo the temptation of her lips long enough to ask, “Are you sure?” A simple question, gravelly and low.

Her expression open, her gaze direct, she replied, “I’m twenty-nine. I may be a virgin, but I’m no ignorant young innocent.” Her chin firmed. “I’m sure.”

She studied his eyes as if gauging his acceptance, then reached up and with her fingers stroked back a lock of his hair.

Quelling his too-intense reaction to that simple yet devastatingly evocative touch, he still felt compelled—felt even more compelled—to ask, “Are you sure this—your wishes, your wants—isn’t simply a reaction to the danger, to the relief of escaping those men?”

He knew it could be so, that at least in part it would be so, that in the aftermath of danger came a compulsion to celebrate life.

Miranda focused on his eyes again, for the first time truly heard the underlying question—the same one he’d asked her several times. She’d answered once, yet he was still unsure . . . something inside her softened, and granted her the patience to evenly say, “I asked you before they arrived. Yes, our escaping them clarified my feelings, but our escape didn’t give rise to those feelings, it only made them clearer.”

And stronger.

Giving in to those feelings, letting the associated impulses guide her, she raised her arms, pleased she was tall enough to drape them about his neck, then she tilted her head, studied his shadowed face; she wished she could read his dark eyes. “If you want me to beg, I will.”

His hands had risen to slide beneath her cloak; at her words, his fingers gripped her waist.

“No. Don’t.” Roscoe hesitated for the barest instant, then drew her to him and bent his head. “That’s entirely unnecessary.” And might just tip him over the edge he, somewhat surprisingly, found himself walking.

That he wanted her so much, enough to turn his back on all caution, shook him.

So he sought her lips, covered them with his, and kissed her, then let her kiss him. Let her draw him back into their earlier exchange, let her lead him back into that first arena of simple pleasure.

Then he took the reins, took charge, and did as she’d asked.

He taught her.

Showed her.

Just how much pleasure could flow from a kiss.

How much thrill and delight from a single caress.

He was driven to show her so much more, to plunge into the sea of carnal pleasure with her, but she was a novice so he reined them in, held them both back, and took each step slowly.

He claimed her mouth, steadily, thoroughly; comprehensively snaring her senses, he held them in his hands, at his command, as he shifted focus and, inch by inch, claimed her body.

Every lush curve, the full mounds of her breasts, the graceful arch of her throat, the subtle indentation of her waist above the firm swell of her hips. She was shuddering beneath his hands before he undid the ties of her cloak and let it fall from her shoulders.

He undid her laces and she wordlessly urged him on.

A virgin she might be, but there was nothing hesitant in her commitment; she was open in her appreciation, in her desire, in her wanting.

In her wonder.

That last held him like a crystal cage, one he committed himself to never shatter. Her soft “oh’s” of surprised delight and her even softer “ah’s” of pleasure created a siren song that held him entranced, effortlessly enraptured.

She wasn’t the first virgin he’d bedded, but she was the most engaged, the most bold and, in her own special way, demanding.

Entirely unexpectedly, she made him smile, albeit inwardly.

Entirely unexpectedly, she captured him.

From the moment she’d drawn him into the room, Miranda had consciously set aside all restraint, had given herself permission to simply follow her instincts, wholeheartedly, openly, without guile.

Without any pretense of missish sensibility.

She wanted to learn and he was willing to teach her, and to her mind that gave her license to insist. To insist that, once he’d reduced her to nothing more than the short chemise she’d worn beneath her fine nightgown, that he should reciprocate. When he tried to catch her hands and prevent her from unbuttoning his shirt, she managed to gasp, “I need to know. . . .”

Pressing even closer, using her body in a catlike caress, she made him hiss in a breath and succeeded in distracting him enough to have her way.

The small victory encouraged her.

It spurred her on.

The result was a sensual tussle that landed them both on the bed in a tangle of limbs and a rush of smothered laughter.

Lying on her back, she dragged in a breath, then raised her head and looked down her body, past her heaving breasts barely concealed by her chemise, looked into his dark sapphire eyes. “Is this how it’s supposed to be? I didn’t realize . . .”

His eyes, faintly smiling, held hers. “There’s no one way. It’s different with different people, different circumstances . . .” He looked a trifle surprised, too.

Then he drew himself up the bed and propped on his elbow alongside her. He framed her face with one hand, looked into her eyes, then bent his head and kissed her.

And waltzed her, whirled her, back into heated pleasure.

Into the rising flames that swelled between them, that licked over her skin, and his, and made them burn.

Made them yearn.

She wasn’t overly modest; she was tall, had for years been gangly, but her body was now full, womanly, almost lush in its curves. And she was twenty-nine. And she’d made up her mind. She felt only the slightest quake of uncertainty when he finally drew her chemise away, but even as she caught her breath and glanced at him, that flare of self-consciousness was doused, erased by the look on his face.

Hard-edged, every angle finely honed, his features were locked, but his eyes burned. Blue-black fire caressed her curves, and desire thrummed almost tangibly between them. Then he set his hand to her skin, and she shuddered and closed her eyes.

Murmuring reassurances, gravelly and rough, he gentled her through the moments as he showed her, unstintingly patient, unwaveringly attentive, all she wished to see, to experience, to explore.

He showed her, openly, employing no more guile than she, how much her body fascinated him. Obsessed and satisfied him. Then he allowed her to sate her curiosity, to fill her senses with him, with the breadth of his chest, the heavy curves of his shoulders, the taut ridges of his abdomen.

At her insistence, he finally shed his trousers, let her explore the thick rod of his erection. Allowed her to, with sheer wonder, trace the heavy veins, the broad head.

Chest heaving, he finally caught her hands, drew them up and anchored them over her head, then he leaned over her and kissed her—and effortlessly, masterfully, reclaimed the reins.

And devoted himself to her pleasure, to fulfilling her wants and satisfying her needs . . .

Caring
.

The word resonated in her mind as, his body tense with a control she could all but touch, he cupped her softest flesh, stroked, explored, learned, traced until she was urgent and wanting, then his long fingers probed, and readied her.

Pleasured her.

Until she was so consumed by urgency her back arched, and with a desperate sound, she sank her nails into his arms.

He swore, soft and low, and shifted over her. With his thighs forced hers wide and settled his hips between. Covered her.

His naked body on hers was a sensual shock and a carnal delight.

The heavy weight, the oh-so-male hardness. Skin to fevered skin, raspy hair abrading sensitive areas rarely touched.

Her breath coming in pants, she writhed, urged, yet he wouldn’t let her rush, didn’t allow her to race but held her beneath him, kept her with him, forced her to see, to feel . . . to know.

The final intimacy, when it came, when, hot and hard, his body braced over hers, he thrust slowly, deeply, into her, forging his way into her softness, with barely a sting breaching the barrier that marked her a virgin, was so overwhelmingly powerful it made her cry out, made her cling.

Very nearly made her weep.

The sensation of him within her, hard and heavy, so alien, so male, at her core, was so much more than she’d imagined. So much more intense, more intimate.

More cataclysmically real.

Gasping, desperately panting, her wits flown, her senses rioting, she held him, moved with him, and quickly learned the knack, found the rhythm. Slick and hot, he filled her, and she urged him on, receiving and glorying in each powerful thrust, in every scintillating sensation.

When he lowered his head and nudged, she tipped up her face and let him kiss her, let him claim her mouth as together they whirled.

Into a conflagration of need, of greedy, raking passion.

Into a furnace where desire flared, rapacious and hungry, and filled them. Drove them.

Into a whirlpool of searing sensation that swept them up, up, until she shattered on a peak of coruscating pleasure, of ecstasy so sharp it seared her soul.

Even as she fell, she clutched him tighter, harder, desperately held him close.

On a long-drawn groan, unable to hold back, much less find the strength to withdraw as he’d planned, Roscoe thrust deep, and again, then, shuddering as his release claimed him, blinded by ecstasy, held tight within the sumptuous clasp of her body, he followed her over the soaring precipice and into the familiar void.

For uncounted heartbeats they floated, him and her, wracked and limp, wrapped about each other, clinging.

Familiar . . . yet even as he sank beneath the golden waves of aftermath, even as he brushed her hair back from her face, then brushed a last, gentle kiss across her kiss-bruised lips, that part of his mind that still vaguely functioned registered that this, with her, had been something more.

Something else.

Something he’d never before felt.

Chapter Eight

T
hey quit the hotel after an early breakfast and headed out of Birmingham, not along the direct road to Lichfield but by an easterly, roundabout route. They’d agreed that, for the loss of half an hour and a few extra miles, it was preferable to avoid any chance encounter with Kempsey’s or Dole’s relatives.

From behind her screening veil, Miranda kept a sharp eye out for any pursuit or potential danger, and otherwise spent the minutes dwelling on the events of the previous night.

In detail. At length. Everything she could recall, which, to her surprise, was rather a lot, enough to make her exceedingly glad of her veil. Quite aside from any blush, it hid the silly, dreamy, far-too-revealing smile that curved her lips every time she relaxed her guard.

The truth was she felt energized, buoyed, on top of the world. Her world, at least. Until she’d met Roscoe, until they’d embarked on this unexpected adventure, she’d resigned herself to dying without ever having learned . . . even half of what he’d shown her last night.

She’d always been curious in an academic sort of way over what it was that so drew women to men. Especially to men like him. Now she’d felt the attraction, had fallen prey to it and had finally succumbed, she might not yet fully understand what it was, but she understood its compulsion.

When she’d woken that morning, he’d already left her room, but the sheets beside her had still held his warmth; he’d slept alongside her through the night. She’d vaguely recalled the feel of him spooning around her, his chest to her back, as she’d fallen into blissfully sated slumber.

She’d risen, washed, dressed, and repacked in a sunny, contented state. When she’d walked out of her room, he’d been coming out of his. Settling his coat sleeves, he’d arched a brow at her; she’d smiled serenely back, and that had been discussion enough for them both.

Subsequently, no awkwardness had arisen between them as they’d turned their minds to the increasingly urgent matter of locating Roderick. Over breakfast they’d studied a map and evaluated their options.

They’d rattled out of Birmingham shortly after eight o’clock. Now, less than two hours later, she consulted the map she held in her lap, then pointed at a conglomeration of roofs not far ahead. “That’s Lichfield.”

Unfortunately, there were several cottages scattered about the village, some in fields, others tucked into hollows or screened by trees. Given they no longer felt it wise to openly inquire after Kempsey and Dole, they had to, surreptitiously and covertly, check each cottage. Some were housing families and were quickly eliminated; at others they had to watch until they saw who was inside, and if no one was, they had to approach and knock on the door, then peer in to make sure Roderick wasn’t there.

It was midafternoon before, having left the curricle pulled into the side of a rutted cart track and crept over a low hill into the cover of a large copse, they finally located their quarry.

“That has to be Dole.” Roscoe watched the man with lank, dark hair and an even-from-this-distance pasty complexion who had come out of the rear door of the cottage nestled down slope of the copse. Lean and hungry-looking, moving slowly, the man gathered logs from a pile stacked against the cottage wall.

As the man retreated into the cottage, Miranda, crouched beside Roscoe, safely screened by the thick bushes beneath the trees, sucked in a breath. “He has a cauliflower ear—didn’t Gallagher mention that?”

“He did.” Roscoe glanced at her. “That settles it. We’ve found them.”

She met his eyes. “Now what?”

He looked back at the cottage. “First we watch and see if Kempsey’s in there, too.”

Ten minutes later, a large, heavyset man with thinning brown hair and a ruddy face paused on the other side of the small rear window.

“All right.” Roscoe shifted to face Miranda. “They’re both inside. Most likely Roderick’s there, but he’ll be lying down, and even if he’s not restrained we can’t expect him to help us.”

Lips compressed, one eye on the cottage, she nodded. “He might well be unconscious.”

“I can account for one of them at a time.” When she glanced at him, he shook his head. “Don’t ask how. But for that to work—to deal with one without alerting the other and allowing them to use Roderick as a hostage—we need to separate them.” He glanced at the cottage. “I need to get one of them far enough away so that he won’t be able to alert the other.”

They both looked down at the cottage.

“I have a better idea,” Miranda said.

His instinctive response was no, but after her quick thinking at the hotel the previous night, he had to at least listen. Despite being someone who’d lived a sheltered life, her mind responded quickly and efficiently to problems, analyzing difficulties and coming up with solutions.

“What?” Despite his decision, the word wasn’t encouraging.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her lips twitch, but she evenly said, “Instead of luring one of them out so
you
can deal with him—leaving the second man with Roderick and therefore still a threat to him and us—what if
I
lure one of them out of the cottage and down the slope toward the lane, and while I distract him, you slip into the cottage through the back door and deal with the man left inside? Then when the man I distract returns, you’ll be waiting and can deal with him.”

I shouldn’t have listened.

Now that he had, he was left with no choice but to agree that her suggestion was . . . better than anything else he could think of. He couldn’t readily describe how that made him feel, but he knew he didn’t like it.

“All right.” That his agreement was grudging rang in his tone. “But first, how do you plan to lure the man out and distract him?”

She smiled and told him, slaying any hope that she hadn’t devised an excellent plan for that, too.

“Y
oo-hoo, the cottage! Is anyone there?” Clutching her reticule in one hand, Miranda took a few tentative steps up the rough drive that ran from the lane along the front boundary of the sloping field on which the cottage stood. Halting, she raised a hand to shade her eyes and looked up at the cottage. She’d left off her cloak and put back her veil the better to be identified as the lady she was. That was part of her plan.

Sighing heavily—allowing her shoulders to rise and slump, then sag with weariness—she turned and looked all around as if searching, then, facing the cottage once more, she lifted her black skirts and trudged on. Slowly.

They’d seen a large manor house a mile further along the lane, but it was hidden from the cottage by a hill and a stretch of woodland. Her story was that she was staying at the manor, had gone out walking and, overcome by somber thoughts, lost her way. Something a recently bereaved widow might do.

She’d hailed the cottage loudly enough for anyone inside to have heard, but if no one appeared, she would go closer and try again—

The cottage door opened. Halting, she looked up, making everything about the movement look hopeful.

Kempsey stepped out. Standing before the door, he peered down at her.

“Oh—I say!” She waved as if to attract his attention. “I’ve lost my way. Can you help?”

Kempsey studied her for a moment, then spoke over his shoulder, waited for a reply, then a slow smile broke across his face.

She was too far away to examine it, yet she felt certain that smile didn’t reach Kempsey’s eyes. It was the smile of a rabid mongrel assessing prey.

Kempsey spoke again, then started down the track toward her.

She held her position, smiling vacuously, and didn’t so much as bat an eyelash when Roscoe raced across from the boundary of the field on the blind side of the cottage and disappeared behind it; he’d hidden in the hedgerow so he would see one of the men leave to go down to her, but no one in the cottage would see him.

Kempsey, meanwhile, thinking her nothing more than potential prey, having no clue that she was, instead, bait, came lumbering down to join her.

First stage accomplished.
By now Roscoe would be inside the cottage, which meant the second stage of their plan was either in progress, or already accomplished, too.

As Kempsey drew nearer and no ruckus erupted from within the cottage, she concluded that stage two was indeed finished with.
Now for stage three.

She kept her smile in place—the smile of a gentle, sheltered lady who assumed the brute bearing down on her would, of course, assist her.

Kempsey halted in front of her. Beady eyes regarded her and her heavy reticule, then he dipped his close-shaved head. “Missus. What’s the problem?”

She fed self-deprecation into her smile. “Well, you see, I’m staying at the manor and I came out for a walk, but . . .” She bent her head, raised her gloved hand as if to wipe a tear from her eye. “I . . . got lost in my thoughts, and now . . .” Raising her head, her expression now bewildered, she waved and glanced around. “I don’t know where I am.”

Before Kempsey could reply, she sucked in a wheezy breath, clapped her hand to her upper chest, made a choking sound, then wheezed again.

Kempsey stepped nearer as if to catch her if she fell.

“Oh, dear me.” Straightening, she waved him off, but graciously. “Thank you, but I believe I’ll be all right. That is . . .” She glanced at the cottage. “Perhaps if I could have a glass of water?”

She’d remembered Gallagher’s warning that Kempsey was clever, yet he saw what she wanted him to see—someone very much weaker than he, a pigeon ripe for the plucking.

“Yes, of course.” Kempsey’s smile returned, oilier, wider, and even more predatory. “Let’s get you up to the cottage and you can have some water and a sit-down.”

He stepped closer, to her side, and she had to clamp down on an instinctive urge to move away. She definitely did not like this man—didn’t like him being near her at all. He and his friend had hurt Roderick; if she’d had a weapon, she would have used it on him.

Instead, she smiled artlessly, inwardly steeled herself, and let him take her arm, supposedly to solicitously help her up the sloping track.

Mimicking Gladys’s occasional wheezing attacks, she used her supposed weakness to put off any questioning. Kempsey had taken her right arm; she gripped her reticule tightly in her left. It didn’t qualify as a weapon, but the body was made of embroidered hessian and she’d had the thought to fill it with rocks. Now she’d seen Kempsey up close, the precaution was laughable—it would take more than a few rocks to dent his thick skull—but gripping the reticule reassured her, illusory though its protection might be.

As they neared the cottage, she strained her ears but heard nothing. This was the part of the plan she had to play extempore. She had to assume Roscoe lay in wait inside the cottage and—

“Hmm-mph!”

The inarticulate sound was followed by the crack of a chair crashing on flags.

Instinctively Kempsey released her and stepped back—then his eyes swung her way, his lip curled in a snarl, and he lunged for her.

She swung her weighted reticule and he wove back, then she whirled and raced for the cottage as if hellhounds were snapping at her heels.

The door swung open.

She glanced back, saw Kempsey, powering after her, glance at the door.

She looked back at the cottage as Roscoe emerged, a pistol in his hand.

Kempsey slid to a halt, then turned tail and fled.

Fast.

Halting, panting, beside Roscoe, Miranda turned to watch Kempsey tear down the slope toward the lane. “He’s getting away.”

Roscoe wanted to give chase, but he wouldn’t leave her alone with Dole, even if the man was tied and gagged, and was now definitely unconscious. “I know.” He shook his head, then slid his pistol back into his pocket. “But where can he go?” He waved her into the cottage. “And we need to deal with Roderick.”

She stepped over the threshold, paused as her eyes adjusted, then she gasped and rushed across the single room to the pallet at the far end. “Oh, my God! Roderick!” Falling to her knees beside the crude bed, she gently cradled her brother’s pallid face. “Roderick?”

Roscoe watched long enough to confirm that not even for his sister’s voice was Roderick going to stir, then he bent and grabbed hold of the now thoroughly unconscious Dole. “Careful,” he warned Miranda as he lugged the man and the broken chair he was tied to out of the way. “I think his collarbone’s broken as well.”

When she didn’t fall apart but after a moment lifted the rough blanket to take stock of Roderick’s injuries, he went on, “From the aging of his bruises, he fought when they ambushed him in Chichester Street. All the injuries look that old. Both his collarbone and his foot need to be set as soon as possible.” He was already considering where they might find an experienced doctor.

She pushed back from the bed and rose. “I’ll go and fetch my supplies. We can bind him up well enough to move him.” She turned to the back door.

He opened his mouth to tell her to wait until he could go with her—who knew what Kempsey might think to do?—when a distant noise from the front of the cottage had him glancing out of the front window and down toward the lane.

He swore. Virulently.

She didn’t seem to register the crudity but went quickly to the window—and saw what he had.

The men who’d come looking for them at the hotel had just arrived. Kempsey had run into their arms, and they were comparing notes.

She swung around, looked at him, then at Roderick. “What now?”

He was already striding to the pallet. “No time to bind him up. We go out of the back door and through the copse to the curricle.”

Reaching the bed, he hauled the blanket off Roderick. Taking his friend’s good arm, he drew him up, bent, and hoisted him over his shoulder. “Just as well he’s unconscious.”

Turning, he saw that his quick-witted partner had closed and was barring the cottage’s front door. “Good idea.”

Dropping the bar into place, she whirled and raced to the back door. Hauling it open, she held it while he angled Roderick out, then she followed and quietly closed the door behind her.