Page 7 of The Duke's Stolen Heart
But none could be trusted. Havencrest shook his father’s voice away. The man had done enough damage.
“I caught you defiling a corpse. Please tell me you aren’t attempting to convince me of your respectability,” Malcolm’s words, clipped in frustration, were whipped away by a gust of wind.
“It was better than the fate than she’d have met at the hands of medical students,” Miss Lowry responded sharply. “At least, I’d have preferred the river to the alternative of being sliced open for curiosity’s sake,” she retorted. Her jaw snapped shut as if she’d said too much. Her expression went from stubborn to downright mulish. “I took a locket off the body. It’s not worth anything. Cheap metal, but there’s a word engraved on it. Idless. Have you ever heard of it?”
“No.” Havencrest responded in a cold puff of breath. This wasn’t supposed to be so difficult. Miss Lowry ought to be cowed by a duke, not leading him about by the bollocks. Not that she knew she was leading him about by the bollocks. How could she? It was all in his head, this ridiculous attraction he did not want and refused to indulge. He needed her for a single purpose, and after weeks of chasing he had one opportunity to win her to his side. He was blowing this on every level. “Yes. It’s in Cornwall, I think.”
Miss Lowry’s teeth began to chatter. Her body shivered incessantly. Cold wind ripped through them.
“May I offer you my jacket?”
“No. You may not.” Miss Lowry could scarcely speak with her teeth clattering. Stubborn woman.
“We cannot stand here indefinitely,” Malcolm ordered.
“Milord, if you fancy, I can fetch the coach—”
“Leave us,” Malcolm shot back sharply. The lad’s head bobbed. He had to do something before they were seen and forced to explain this wretched outing publicly. There was no possible reason for him, two footmen, and an unmarried woman to be on the docks after midnight. None. He’d be forced to marry Miss Lowry to preserve her honor—if thieves possessed any such niceties. Malcolm shuddered from more than the cold.
“Miss Lowry,” he ordered. Her eyes snapped up, fixated on him with an emotion he couldn’t read. Terror? Hatred? Either, or both. Anything it took to get them off this freezing dock.
“You must take my jacket,” he insisted.
“Sod your jacket.”
“Freeze, then.” Malcolm turned his back. His innards were knotted, tight, and tangled. His muscles had turned stiff with cold. He would be sore in the morning.
A scuffle and scrape made him whirl on his heel. “Damnit, woman. What are you thinking?”
Miss Lowry had untied a leaky dinghy and pushed off from the pier. Oars splashed as she grasped the rough wood of the oar handles and pulled out into the current. Malcolm leapt into the neighboring boat and cast off with flailing oars. It was a donkey of a vessel, requiring constant prods and the occasional carrot to move in the right direction. The effort of pulling the dinghy toward the shoreline made him overheat in his fine wool overcoat. “You’ll drown,” he called out. Miss Lowry flashed a grin. She loved escaping by the skin of her teeth. He’d show her. He’d catch her and hold her feet to the fire if it was the last thing he did.
Hauling the oars through heavy waves soon made him overheat. There was no time to abandon his great coat, however, for Miss Lowry was making better time. How the devil was she so strong?
Cold wetness lapped his ankles. “Fuck,” he swore. The boat was leaking.
“Miss Lowry,” he called out. “Unless you desire me to swim the river to catch you, I suggest you turn around.”
“Oh, are we a fish now?” she laughed, turning to look at him. In the moonlight he saw her expression change. “You’re sinking.”
“Afraid so.”
“Stay there,” she commanded. Despite his predicament, Malcolm smiled.
“As though I have a choice in the matter.”
Amazingly, her boat executed an excruciating slow turn. By the time her hull was pointed against the tide, Malcolm’s vessel had drifted close enough for him to grasp the side. With an awkward hop, he pulled himself into her boat. They sat there staring at one another like two cats meeting in an alleyway.
“Why did you rescue me?” he asked after a long, tense silence. The current had carried his dinghy some distance away. It rode alarmingly low in the water.
“Because I am not a murderer.” Miss Lowry grasped the oars and sliced him with a dark glare. “Yet.”
Malcolm laughed. His toes were icicles and his cheeks numb but he had never before encountered a woman quite like Antonia Lowry.
“Give me the oars.”
Antonia’s brows knit together beneath her hat. She pulled. Frowned. Pulled again. Her teeth chattered whenever she wasn’t working to pull wood against water. “Oh, fine, then.”
“Take my coat.”
