Page 34 of Taken to the Grave
“I saw Greer in the driver’s box with Carrigan and marveled at my luck.”
“I don’t think her sole objective was to give us time alone,” Audrey said.
Greer and Carrigan spent their days off together, she knew, and this was another opportunity for them to sit and be together.
“Intentional or not, I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Using his teeth, Hugh tugged at the tips of one of his gloves, and then flung it to the floor. His bared fingers undid the first button of her spencer jacket. “This must go.”
She laughed again, even as he attempted to unbutton her spencer. “It cannot. We will be there within minutes.”
The advertisement in the newspaper for a parcel of land in Essex, being sold by Mr. Travis Comstock, Esq. for the amount of one hundred pounds, pointed to an address on Gower Streetnear the University of London. A ten-minute carriage drive, at the most.
Hugh gave up on her buttons but didn’t release her. “Then let us use those minutes to our best advantage.” Her leg prickled when his palm reached under her hem and settled on her ankle. With his hand warming her through her stocking, Audrey’s protests shriveled on her tongue.
She went to putty in his arms, sighing as his palm skimmed up her shin, to her knee, and then touched her skin where her stocking terminated. Her lips drifted over his forehead, her fingers raking into the dark, silky soft strands of his hair.
“I’m happy to hear about Sir,” she said, thinking it entirely possible his playful burst of energy was due to his sense of relief.
“You wish him to stay with us, don’t you?” Hugh asked, his finger hooking the lip of her stocking and brushing underneath. “Once we’re married?”
She pulled back a little to see him. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
“He was worried we wouldn’t want him around.”
Her heart squeezed. “You set him straight, I hope?”
“It’s what I seem to do on a regular basis,” he replied with wicked smirk. The rough pad of Hugh’s thumb brushed the weal of a scar on her thigh, compliments of a bullet grazing her leg last August. She shivered.
“The first chance I get, I am kissing this scar,” he whispered. The promise brought a delectable image to her mind.
Audrey pushed her hand under the lapel of his coat and pressed her fingers against his shoulder. “Don’t forget, I have one here too. That one will need the same attention.”
She’d meant to make him smile, but after a flex of his brow, his hand stilled.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
He pressed his palm against her thigh, then released her, bringing his hand back out from under her skirt. She barely resisted making a moan of discontent.
“You’ve been in mortal danger too many times,” he replied. “All in the name of an investigation. With me.”
Audrey stared at him, half wondering if Michael had somehow gotten to him this morning.
“You cannot blame yourself. I would have investigated those crimes with or without you.” He knew as much, too. He’d professed the need to join her, if only to try and keep her safe.
“I don’t blame myself,” he replied. “But I do blame my work. Take this case, for example. I’ve brought you into it.”
“I want to be here.”
“The trouble is, I want you here as well. You’re good at this.”
Audrey wanted to bask in the compliment, but sensed it was attached to something she wouldn’t like at all. “I don’t understand how that is troublesome.”
She was sitting rigidly on his lap now, and though he still had his arms around her, the heat of the moment had fizzled.
“Because you will soon be my wife. And, I hope, the mother of our children. I cannot lose you. I cannot risk that.”
He spoke softly, seriously. Audrey caressed his cheek, wishing she could take away his worry. Grant Thornton had lost his wife and infant years ago, and she knew his friend’s loss had affected Hugh. He’d seen up close the devastation.
“You won’t lose me,” she said, though she knew it was a promise she didn’t have complete control over. “However, I don’t want to be treated like I am suddenly fragile just because I have the title of wife. Or the title of mother.”
