Captured by a Gentleman (Regency Unlaced 6) (4 page)

“If you will not take me to Scotland with you, then could you at least help me to get farther away from London?” That imploring look had returned to her dark gaze. “I am sure I will then be able to find a cottage to rent somewhere obscure, where my uncle will not be able to find me.”

“And what would you use for money?”

“I have money.” She held up her reticule. “Enough to last me for a few months, at least.”

“It is a preposterous idea.”

Her shoulders slumped. “It is the only one I have.”

“Damn it, I cannot take you with me without a chaperone. I do not even have the presence of my valet any longer, since he gave notice this morning and remained in London—”

“I could do that!” Darcy interrupted eagerly.

“Do what?” Ranulf was too agitated by this situation to be able to keep up with this woman’s lightning-quick change of subjects.

“Be your valet until we part ways,” she announced brightly. “Do you not see, it is the perfect solution? You are in need of a valet, and I am in need of safe passage away from London. It would be a fair exchange of labor and convenience.”

He grimaced his exasperation. “A woman cannot be a gentleman’s valet.”

“Why not?”

“It simply is not done for a single woman to…to help a gentleman with his morning toilet or organize his clothes.”

“Oh, poof to that,” she scoffed. “I often helped my papa to shave in the morning. He more than once complimented me on my steadiness of hand. See?” She held her hand up proudly, showing not a tremble in sight.

“I am not your papa,” Ranulf said dryly.

“But you are in need of a shave,” she observed unabashedly. “Oh please, Cousin Ranulf?” She looked at him imploringly. “Please say you will take me at least part of the way with you?”

Nothing, it seemed, succeeded in quelling for long this young woman’s determination.

Chapter 3

“Arranging a bedchamber for you at this inn does not mean I have decided to take you with me tomorrow,” Ranulf warned sharply in the face of Darcy’s beaming expression.

“It does not mean you have not either.” She crossed the bedchamber to sit on the side of the bed and bounce up and down on the mattress. “Hmm, surprisingly comfortable considering the other…more rustic amenities.” She smiled across the room at Ranulf as he remained near the open doorway. “This will do nicely, thank you.” She gave a sudden giggle. “Did you see the way the landlord and his wife looked at you when you requested this second bedchamber for your ward?”

Yes, Ranulf had seen. And he had not liked being on the receiving end of that knowing glance one little bit.

If—and it was still a very big if—he agreed to help Darcy travel farther away from London and Sugdon, was this how he could expect to be treated along the way? Thought of as some worthless rake, attempting to conceal his seduction of an innocent young woman, by claiming her as his ward and requesting a second bedchamber no one expected her to use except Ranulf and Darcy? It was an altogether intolerable situation, considering his aversion to becoming involved with any young woman. But most especially one connected to the Sugdon family, no matter how tenuously.

“I am glad one of us finds the situation amusing,” he snapped.

It was not so much that Darcy found the situation amusing, more that she was relieved at having escaped her uncle. To have been allowed to eat and drink. To now spend the night sleeping in a comfortable bed, rather than continuing to hide in Ranulf’s carriage, as she had expected to do. Without food or water, or the use of a chamber pot.

She really had not thought that part of her escape through properly! Not surprising, when her only thought had been to flee, rather than of her comfort during that escape.

“What time do you intend to rise in the morning?” she prompted.

Ranulf eyed her with suspicion. “Why?”

“So that I might order the hot water for your bath and shave—”

“I have already said you will not be assisting me with my bath.”

He really did look very handsome when he scowled in that dark and glowering manner. Not like a Mr. at all, but more an arrogant earl or a duke. Or perhaps one of those Grecian gods Darcy had discovered depicted in one of her father’s books in the library at home.

Her smile faded as she was reminded she would never see either of her parents or their home again.

In the past four months, Lord Sugdon had sold her parents’ London home, along with its contents. The same with the small estate near Cambridge, which had been her mother’s dowry. He assured her he had put her money from those sales in trust for her, part of it to be used as her own dowry, when or if she married.

By running away, she had forgone any hopes of ever marrying or ever having access to that fortune.

“Now what have I said to stop you smiling?” Ranulf bit out his impatience. “Oh very well, you may not assist with my bath, but you may help me to shave in the morning— I believe I told you to keep your distance,” he added firmly as Darcy stood and would have crossed the room to do God knows what. Attempt to hug him about some part of his anatomy, probably.

Not a good idea, considering the interest his cock had already taken when she decided to bounce up and down on the bed to test its comfort. Darcy herself seemed completely unaware of the way her breasts jiggled up and down as she did so. Full and creamy breasts, visible above the rounded neckline of her gown.

A mourning gown, Ranulf reminded himself firmly. Also, as a single young woman, Darcy was in all likelihood still an innocent. She was also, temporarily, his responsibility, and still in mourning for the deaths of her parents.

“I was only going to hug you.” She looked hurt by his rejection. “It is so long since…since I have had anyone to hug, or for them to hug me.”

Oh dear God…

Ranulf was three and thirty, not three and seventy, and the throbbing of his cock told him his physical reaction to this woman was certainly not avuncular—

Considering the behavior of her uncle, perhaps it was?

Not that Ranulf considered his reaction to Darcy, unlike that of Cecil Sugdon’s, to be in the least inappropriate. Ranulf was a good twenty years younger than the other man, and he had not even known of Darcy’s existence until today. He certainly had not watched her grow from a child to burgeoning womanhood. As such, Ranulf considered his own physical response to her to merely be that of a healthy male to a beautiful woman.

“Perhaps it has been as long since you felt the comfort of a warm hug too?”

Ranulf tensed. “What the devil do you mean?”

Darcy wrinkled her nose. “Correct me if I am wrong, but the things you have said this evening… Despite appearances to the contrary on your wedding day, yours does not seem to have been a happy marriage.”

He gave a dismissive snort. “And on that basis, you have decided I have lacked for physical companionship these past eight months?”

“I said nothing about— Oh.” She fell silent as she obviously realized he was informing her he had several times enjoyed the “comfort of a warm hug” since the death of his wife.

His mouth thinned. “If you truly are a member of the Sugdon family, then you must know, as far as your cousin was concerned, our marriage was based on Millicent’s lies and ambitions. Ambitions to inherit Castle Montgomery that in no way matched my own.”

“I told you, my own family and Lord Sugdon’s did not mix socially.” She shrugged. “My father was Lord David Ambridge. My maternal grandparents the Duke and Duchess of Stowmont.”

A very decent pedigree, Ranulf acknowledged, having known David Ambridge as a nodding acquaintance at his London club. He had not known the late Duke and Duchess of Stowmont, but there was no doubting—

Lord, he sounded as if he were assessing horseflesh rather than a young woman!

A young woman who was constantly causing his cock to rise and harden uncomfortably. And in whose bedchamber he realized he was still standing. “You really know none of the details of my marriage or Millicent’s death?”

She shook her head. “Not unless you wish to share them with me.”

His jaw tightened. “If you have no knowledge of them, then I do not intend revealing any of those details to you now.”

Silky lashes lowered demurely over those dark brown eyes. “I apologize if I seemed overly inquisitive, Cousin Ranulf.”

“I am not your damned—” He broke off to draw in a deep and controlling breath, hands clenched at his sides. “We are not related, by marriage or anything else,” he insisted in a calmer voice.

“Then what am I to call you?”

Ranulf wished he could say she would not be around long enough to
call
him anything. But if Darcy’s reason for running away from London proved to be the truth—and he had no immediate way of proving it was not—then he could not, in all conscience, send her back to that fate. Perhaps, once he was back in Scotland, Fliss could advise what he was to do with Darcy—

Good God, he could not seriously be contemplating saddling himself with this hoyden all the way to the Scottish Highlands?

A young woman who had no maid accompanying her and felt no qualms whatsoever in hiding away in the carriage of a gentleman she barely knew? Or seemed to have no reservations whatsoever in offering to take the place of Ranulf’s valet and not only shave him but also help him with his bath?

Damn it, his cock had perked up again merely thinking about the possibility of the latter.

“You may call me Mr. Montgomery. Or simply Ranulf when we are in private,” he amended at her instantly disappointed expression, “if you insist on familiarity.”

“Oh, I do.” She beamed her pleasure at him. “Ranulf is such a nice name.”

He gave what he was sure was a pained God-give-me-strength frown. “Go to bed now,” he instructed gruffly.

“Yes, Ranulf.”

Ranulf left the bedchamber without saying another word, closing the door firmly behind him and drawing in several deep and steadying breaths before entering the bedchamber next door to this one. Which was when he dared to look down at the bulge tenting the front of his pantaloons.

Dear God, Darcy Ambridge may just be the death of me. From a permanent lack of blood flowing to my brain. On account of it all being centered in my cock!

Darcy woke to the early morning sun shining through the window of the bedchamber. She felt warm and comfortable in her bed after an untroubled night’s sleep. Something she had not been able to enjoy in the week previous to her leaving London. She had been too disturbed by her uncle’s increasingly familiar attentions and the promise of what was to happen on her birthday, now only four days away, to relax well enough to sleep securely.

But she would not think about that now. There was no need when she was no longer at her uncle’s home but safely ensconced in a roadside inn with Ranulf Montgomery.

Ranulf…

Away from that disturbing gentleman’s presence, she could freely admit to the romantic dreams she had woven a year ago in regard to her cousin’s new husband. A man so tall and handsome, it had set Darcy’s heart aflutter just to look at him dressed in his formal wedding wear, a full, knee-length kilt in the green and blue of the Montgomery tartan, a short black jacket and vest, white shirt, and black bowtie. He’d worn a dagger strapped about his calf, over black knee-high socks.

She had not been the only one to stare at him longingly. Darcy recalled several other young women also ogling him at the church and afterward. And, of course, Millicent had appeared to be totally besotted with her new husband.

Appeared. Because yesterday evening, Ranulf had given the clear impression the marriage had not been a success. Indeed, his expression turned positively dark and dangerous whenever Millicent’s name was mentioned.

A good enough reason for Darcy not to mention her cousin’s name again.

Although she could not help but wonder what had gone so terribly wrong in the marriage as to cause Ranulf’s temperament to become frosty every time he heard his wife’s name.

It further emphasized he was not the same easygoing man he had been a year ago. Instead, he was distrustful, as well as hard and cynical. Millicent must have done something bad, very bad indeed, to have caused these drastic changes in her husband.

If I had the good luck to acquire a husband as handsome as Ranulf, I would not have allowed anything, anything at all, to come between us.

Except Darcy did not have a husband. Nor was she ever likely to have one, now she had run away from her Uncle Sugdon and her personal fortune. She would, in all likelihood, spend the rest of her days as a spinster, living in a leaky cottage somewhere. And not happily either.

Darcy sighed as she threw back the bedclothes and climbed from the bed. Lying here feeling sorry for herself was not in the least productive or something she would normally have done.

Besides, she was hungry again.

“What the— Damn it, Darcy!” Ranulf had just thrown back the bedclothes, his intention to use the chamber pot behind the screen before seeing to organizing some hot water to be brought to his room.

Instead, he was forced to hastily pull the bedclothes back over his naked form as Darcy swept into the bedchamber after the briefest of knocks and once again wearing a gown of mourning black, a bowl of steaming water cradled in her hands.

She was immediately followed by two burly men carrying a bath between them, and two giggling maids toting the buckets containing the hot water obviously intended to go inside it.

Just as she had said she would—and against his specific instructions—Darcy had organized his morning bath.

Ranulf’s mouth thinned as he was left with no choice but to lie in the bed and watch as she set down the bowl she carried and began to direct the proceedings.

One of the young maids was instructed to light the fire in the hearth.

The men were ordered to place the bath down in front of the now-crackling flames.

Then the maids to pour the steaming hot water into it.

Before they were all ushered out of the bedchamber, and the door closed behind them.