Page 10 of The Wrong Bride
He sighed. “Ye’ll not get your chance to experience my kisses today. The rain looks to get worse, and Samuel has orders to find shelter for the horses and join us inside.”
She folded her arms across her chest and looked away at last. He closed his eyes again, hoping for peace.
“No one is following us, are they?” she asked, her quiet voice touched with sadness.
He should be angry that she kept disturbing him, but, in some ways, he pitied her for the way her family treated her. “Men with horses would have caught us by now,” he said. “Your father has seen the wisdom in honoring the contract.”
“You mean my uncle has happily abandoned me in my cousin’s place. He means to wreck your precious contract, you know.”
He gave a loud sigh. “I will gag ye if I must.”
She was quiet for a few minutes, but soon she again interrupted the beginning of his doze.
“How did you know in which room to find me?”
He let out a long breath. “I bribed a kitchen boy.”
“They put me in Cat’s room, perhaps on purpose, to ruin the contract.”
He ignored that. “Your family did not share their plans for your marriage. Ye’ll not miss such people. After all, what kind of man abandons his clan?”
“Neither my uncle nor my father abandoned Clan Duff. They employ factors and tacksmen to oversee and care for the land and its tenants. They simply prefer the civilization here in England.”
“Such civilized men treated ye well, did they?”
She bit her lip, and it was her turn to remain quiet.
“I won’t pity ye. I see my people scraping a living off barren soil. I see cattle starving through bad winters. My father did the proper thing contracting marriage with the daughter of a powerful earl.”
“Are you trying to talk yourself into believing that?” she demanded. “People should be able to marry for love.”
He snorted. “Now I know ye’re lying to yourself. No woman of your station expects to marry for love, not even in England.”
They both felt the coach rumble over uneven ground, then come to a halt. The rain came down harder, drumming on the roof of the coach.
“Samuel has found shelter off the road. I’m going to help him with the horses. I will bar the door, since this conversation doesn’t inspire my trust in ye.”
“I don’t need you to trust me,” she shot back. “I need you to believe that I won’t marry you. Even in Scotland, I doubt a woman can be forced to marry against her will.”
“Ye’ll see the wisdom in marriage, my lady.”
“Go ahead and say it—you think Ihaveto marry you, because no man will have me now.”
“Nay, I think ye need to marry me to honor your family’s word. Regardless of your behavior, ye seem far more honorable and innocent than the rest of the Duffs.”
Bending low, he left the coach and firmly shut the door behind him. By the time he and Samuel returned from seeing to the horses, their clothes damp and rain running from their bonnets and into the collars of their coats, Riona was pale and emotionless once more. She blanched further when they stowed their pistols in the compartment beneath their bench.
She slid to the center of her bench. “You both can keep to one side. Gentlemen wouldn’t allow a lady’s garments to dampen.”
“So now we’re gentlemen and not savages,” Hugh said with sarcasm, even as he tossed his bonnet into the corner of her bench.
But he and Samuel squeezed side by side opposite her, and he saw the satisfaction she couldn’t hide. That satisfaction faded when she seemed to realize their legs took up a lot of room, forcing her into the center between them, where she tried to tuck her skirts around her legs to keep them from getting wet.
Both men folded their arms over their chests, and Samuel closed his eyes.
“We’re going to wait out the storm?” she asked. “Should we not go to an inn?”
“Ye’ve not proven yourself capable of restraint, lass,” Hugh said.
