In Bed with the Duke (3 page)

Dammit, why hadn't he seen that coming? Women were never as defenceless as they looked.
Obviously
she was going to try and steal his horse and gig the moment he let down his guard.

And
why
had he let down his guard? All she'd had to do was shiver and look a bit pathetic and he'd promptly forgotten the way they'd met. All he'd been able to think of was shielding her. Just the way he'd wanted to shield her from that repulsive ostler.

Well, no longer. He surged to his feet on a wave of absolute fury. He might despise the bad-tempered nag harnessed to the ramshackle gig he normally wouldn't have permitted in any of his stables, let alone take out onto a public road, but it was currently his only means of transport. And he was
not
going to relinquish it to a slip of a girl! He'd climb back into the driver's seat and wrest the reins from her hands. And then—

And then nothing. Because she wasn't in the driver's seat, whipping the horse into a gallop and leaving him standing in the lane. On the contrary—she'd scrambled out of the gig while he'd been picking himself up and was currently running away as fast as she could.

Back towards Much Wapping.

Her accomplices must still be there. Hang it all, why hadn't he thought of that? She must have been loitering in the stable yard awaiting them.

Well, he wasn't going to let her get back to them and...and do whatever it was she was planning to do. He'd had enough of stumbling about in ignorance. Of being chivalrous, and merciful, and all the rest of it. He was going to drag her back and shake the truth out of her, if that was what it took. For only by discovering the truth would he stand any chance of regaining the upper hand.

* * *

Prudence ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Though her shoes chafed against her bare feet and her legs still didn't feel as though they quite belonged to her.

But she wasn't going to be fast enough. She could hear the man's feet pounding down the road behind her. Getting closer and closer.

She wasn't going to be able to outrun him. She had to find another way to stop him. But what?

Just then she stumbled and half fell to the ground, which was littered with large chunks of jagged rock. Chunks of rock which looked as though they had come away from the dry stone wall that flanked this side of the lane.

She grabbed one. Turned. Faced the big, angry man who was planning to... Well, she didn't know what he planned to do with her once he caught her, but from the look on his face it wasn't anything she'd like.

In a sort of wild desperation she flung the rock at him as hard as she could.

To her surprise—and his—it caught him on the forehead.

He went down like a... Well, like a stone. Prudence stood rooted to the spot. Stared in horror at the blood which was trickling down his face.

The ungainly sprawl of his limbs.

His total stillness.

What had she done? She'd only meant to show him she meant business. To stop him pursuing her.

Instead she'd...she'd
killed
him!

Chapter Three

S
he ran to where he lay, sprawled on his back in the dirt, blood streaming across his forehead and into his hair. She dropped to her knees beside him. She couldn't believe she'd felled him like that. With one little stone. Oh, very well then, with a large chunk of rock. She pressed her hands to her mouth. He was such a big man. So full of life and strength. It was unnatural to see him lying so still.

And then he groaned. She'd never heard such a welcome sound in her life.

‘Oh, thank God! You aren't dead.' She was almost sobbing.

He opened his eyes and shot her a cold, disbelieving look.

‘No thanks to you,' he growled, then raised one hand to the cut and winced. He drew his hand away and held his fingers before his eyes, as though he couldn't believe he really was bleeding without seeing the evidence as well as feeling it.

She reached into the pocket of her skirt for something to dab at the wound. But there was nothing. She had no handkerchief. Her chemise was of fine lawn, though. Its material would be as good. She hitched up her skirt and started tugging at her chemise.

‘What,' asked the man warily—which wasn't surprising since she'd well-nigh killed him, ‘are you doing?'

‘I'm trying to tear a piece from my chemise,' she said, still desperately trying to rip the fabric that was proving more resilient than she'd expected.

‘Why?' He looked baffled now, as well as wary.

‘To do something about that cut on your head,' she said.

‘The cut
you
caused by throwing a rock at me?'

‘That's the one.'

‘Wouldn't you rather get another rock and finish what you started?' he enquired mildly.

‘No! Oh, no—I never meant to hurt you. I didn't think my aim was that good. Actually...' She sat back on her heels. ‘My aim
wasn't
that good. Because I wasn't aiming at your head. I was just throwing the rock in your general direction, so you'd understand I wished you to leave me alone.'

‘Why?'

While she'd been attempting to explain he'd been fishing in his own pockets and found a large, pristine white silk square which he handed to her with a sort of flourish.

‘Thank you,' she said, taking it from him and applying it to the cut. ‘Why what?'

‘Why were you running away? Why didn't you just steal the gig? Or can you not drive?'

‘Yes, I can drive. Of course I can drive. It just never occurred to me to steal your gig. I'm not a thief!'

He quirked one eyebrow—the one that wasn't bleeding—as though in disbelief. ‘Not a thief?' he repeated dryly. ‘How fortunate I feel on receipt of that information.'

She put her hand around the back of his head to hold it still, so that she could press down hard on the cut. ‘Yes, you are fortunate,' she said tartly. ‘I could have left you lying in the road for the...the next gang of thieves to come along and finish you off!'

‘Well, that would have made more sense than this,' he said, making a vague gesture to his forehead.

She couldn't be sure if he meant her trying to stanch the flow of blood, or the fact she'd caused his injury in the first place.

‘You had no reason to run off,' he said, a touch petulantly for a man who looked so tough. ‘I told you I wouldn't harm you. But,' he said, drawing his brows down and narrowing his eyes with what looked like suspicion. ‘I suppose you were desperate to get back to Much Wapping to collect your fee.'

‘Fee?' She withdrew the handkerchief, noting with some relief that the bleeding was slowing already. ‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘It's no use playing the innocent with me. Hugo put you up to this, didn't he?'

‘Hugo? I don't know anyone by that name.'

‘A likely story. If you were not attempting to get back to Much Wapping and claiming your reward, why were you running away?'

‘You scared me,' she admitted. ‘When you started undressing.'

‘Undressing? I was not undressing.' He frowned. ‘Not precisely. That is, I
was
removing my coat, but only so that I could lend you my jacket. You looked cold.'

‘Your...your jacket?' She sat back on her heels. The handkerchief slid from the man's brow to the ground on which he was still lying, glaring up at her. ‘Because I looked cold? But... But...'

She pressed her hands to her mouth again for a moment. Looking back on his actions in the light of that explanation, it all looked very, very different.

‘I'm so sorry. I thought... I thought...'

‘Yes,' he said grimly. ‘I can see what you thought.'

‘Well,' she retorted, suddenly angered by the way he was managing to look down his nose at her even though he was flat on his back and she was kneeling over him. ‘What would
you
have thought? I woke up in bed naked, in a strange room, with no idea how I came to be there. Aunt Charity was screaming at me, you were wandering about the place naked, shouting at me, too, and then I went to my room and it was empty, and Aunt Charity had gone with all my things, and the landlady called me names and pushed me out into the yard, and that man...that man...' She shuddered.

‘I told you,' he said, reaching for the abandoned handkerchief and pressing it to his brow himself, ‘that I would keep you safe. Didn't you believe me?'

‘Of course I didn't believe you. I'm not an idiot. I only went with you because I was so desperate to get away from that dirty, greasy stable hand. And because at least
you
didn't seem...amorous. Even this morning, when we woke up together, you didn't seem amorous. Only angry. So I thought at least you'd spare me
that
. Except then you took me out into the middle of nowhere and started undressing. And I... I didn't know what to think. It's all like some kind of nightmare.' She felt her lower lip tremble. ‘None of this seems real.' Her eyes burned with tears that still wouldn't quite form.

‘No,' he said slowly. ‘None of this seems real.'

And then he sat up.

Her instinct was to flinch away. Only that would look terribly cowardly, wouldn't it? So she made herself sit completely still and look him right in the eyes as he gazed into hers, searchingly.

‘Your eyes look strange,' he said, reaching out to take hold of her chin. ‘I have never seen anyone with such tiny pupils.'

For such a large man his touch was remarkably gentle. Particularly since he had every right to be angry with her for throwing that rock. And actually hitting him with it.

‘My eyes
feel
strange,' she admitted in a shaky voice. The touch of his fingers on her chin felt strange, too. Strange in the sense that she would have thought, given all that had passed between them so far, she would want to recoil. But she didn't. Not in the slightest. Because for some strange reason his fingers felt pleasant. Comforting.

Which was absurd.

‘My head is full of fog. Nothing makes sense,' she said, giving her head a little shake in a vain attempt to clear it of all the nonsense and start thinking sensibly again. It shook his fingers clear of her chin. Which was a pity.

No, it wasn't!
She
didn't
want to take his hand and put it back on her face, against her cheek, so that she could lean into it. Not one bit.

‘It is the same for me,' he said huskily.

‘Is it?' That seemed very unlikely. But then so did everything else that had happened today.

‘Yes. From the moment I awoke I could not summon the words I needed.'

Words.
He was talking about words. Not wanting to put his hand back on her face.

‘They seem to flit away out of reach, leaving me floundering.'

‘It is my aunt and uncle who've flitted out of
my
reach,' she said bitterly. ‘Leaving me floundering. Literally. And my legs don't seem as if they've properly woken up yet today.'

‘And you really haven't heard of anyone called Hugo?'

Just as she shook her head in denial her stomach growled. Rather loudly.

He looked down at it with a quirk to his lips that looked suspiciously like the start of a smile.

‘Oh, how unladylike!' She wrapped her arms around her middle.

‘You sound as hungry as I feel,' he said, placing his hands on his own stomach. ‘I didn't have any breakfast.'

‘Nor me. But until my stomach made that noise I hadn't thought about being hungry,' she found herself admitting. ‘I'm too thirsty.'

‘I'm thirsty, too. And foggy-headed. And I don't feel as though my limbs want to do my bidding, either. I'm generally held to be a good whip, but I'm having real trouble controlling that broken-down hack that's harnessed to the gig. And what's more...' He took a breath, as though coming to a decision. ‘I don't recall a thing about last night. Not after dinner anyway. Do you?'

She thought for a bit. Today had been so bizarre that she hadn't done anything more than try to work her way through it. And that had been hard enough, without trying to cast her mind back to the day before.

‘I went up to my room directly after dinner,' she said. ‘I remember starting to get ready for bed, and Aunt Charity bringing me some hot milk which she said would help me sleep...'

A coldness took root in her stomach.

‘After that,' she continued as a horrible suspicion began to form in her mind, ‘I don't remember anything until I woke up next to you.'

‘Then it seems clear what happened,' he said, getting to his feet and holding out his hand to her. ‘She drugged you and carried you to my room.'

‘No.
No.
' She shook her head as he pulled her to her feet. ‘Why would she do such a horrid thing?'

‘I wonder if
she
knows Hugo,' he mused. Then he fixed her with a stern look. ‘Because if Hugo
isn't
behind this...' he waved his free hand between the pair of them ‘...then we're going to have to find another explanation. You will have to have a serious think about it on the way.'

‘On the way where?'

He hadn't let go of her hand after helping her up, and she hadn't made any attempt to tug it free. So when he turned and began to stride back to the gig she simply trotted along beside him.

‘On the way to Tadburne,' he said, handing her up into the seat. ‘Where we are going to get something to eat in a respectable inn, in a private parlour, so that we can discuss what has happened and what we plan to do about it.'

She liked the sound of getting something to eat. And the discussing of plans. But not of the private parlour. Now that he'd let go of her hand she could remember that he was really a total stranger. A very disreputable-looking stranger, in whose bed she'd woken up naked that morning.

But what choice did she have? She was hungry, and cold, and she had not the means to do anything about either condition since Aunt Charity had vanished with all her possessions. She didn't even have the small amount of pin money she was allowed. It had been in her purse. Which was in her reticule. The reticule she'd last seen the night before, when she'd tucked it under her pillow for safekeeping.

Oh, why hadn't she thought to go to the bed in that empty room and see if her reticule was there? At least she'd have a few shillings with which to... But there her mind ran blank. What good would a few shillings be at a time like this?

But at least she would have had a clean handkerchief.

Though it wouldn't have been clean now anyway. She'd have had to use it to mop up the blood. And then, if she'd needed one for herself later, she'd have had to borrow one from him anyway.

Just as she was now having to borrow his jacket, which he'd stripped off and sort of thrust at her, grim-faced.

‘Thank you,' she said, with as much penitence as she could muster, and then pushed her arms gratefully into sleeves that were still warm from his body. Which reflection made her feel a bit peculiar. It was like having his arms around her again. The way they'd been before she'd woken up.

Fortunately he shot her a rather withering look, which brought her back to her senses, then bent to retrieve the coat that had fallen into the road when she'd pushed him off the seat just a short while since.

‘To think I was concerned about my
name
being dragged through the mud,' he muttered, giving it a shake. ‘You managed to pitch me into the only puddle for miles around.'

She felt a pang of guilt. Just a small one. Because now not only was his eye turning black around the swelling he'd already had the night before, but he also had a nasty gash from the stone she'd thrown, spatters of blood on his neckcloth, and a damp, muddy smear down one side of his coat.

She braced herself for a stream of recrimination as he clambered back into the driving seat. But he merely released the brake, took up the reins, and set the gig in motion.

His face was set in a fierce scowl, but he didn't take his foul mood out on her. At least she presumed he was in a foul mood. Any man who'd just been accused of indecency when he'd only been trying to see to a lady's comfort, and then been cut over what must already be a sore eye, was bound to be in a foul mood.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, after they'd been going for a bit. Because she felt that one of them ought to say something.

‘For what, exactly?'

Oh. So he was the sort of man who sulked when he was angry, then, rather than one who ranted.

‘For throwing the rock. For hitting you when normally I couldn't hit a barn door.'

‘You are in the habit of throwing rocks at barn doors?'

‘Of course not! I just meant... I was trying to apologise. Do you have to be so...so...?'

‘You cannot think of the word you want?'

‘No need to mock me.'