******************
Night was fast approaching, stealing the last bit of light from the page and making the words run together in an inky blur. Simon glanced up from the scene where Christian and Hopeful prepare to cross the River of Death to find Catriona slumped in the seat across from him, sound asleep. He had been reading steadily since they’d stopped at an inn to change horses and eat supper two hours ago. A reluctant smile touched his lips as he gently closed the book, laid it aside, and drew off his spectacles.
With her bonnet listing to the left and a feather drooping over one eye, Catriona looked like a little girl who had borrowed her mother’s finery to parade around in. A glowing curl had escaped her neat chignon to trail around the ivory curve of her throat.
Given the shameless way he had behaved in her bed that morning, he was surprised she still trusted him enough to relax her guard. She had every right to fear that the minute she closed her eyes he would fall upon her like some sort of rutting stag with no control over his baser impulses.
He would swear before the bewigged members of Parliament itself that he had only intended to steal an innocent kiss from her parted lips. But her lips had been so soft…so warm…so inviting…
When she had breathed his name into his mouth with a hint of an enchanting Scottish lilt, he had been well and truly lost.
If Alice hadn’t barged into the bedchamber looking for her infernal hair ribbons, he would be atoning for an even greater sin than just stealing a kiss. He still couldn’t decide if it had been relief or regret that had overwhelmed him in that moment.
He would do well to remember that he was nothing but Catriona’s hired gun. It would be impossible for her to petition the church for an annulment based on his failure to perform his marital duties if she returned to London with his child already growing in her belly. He’d learned how to prevent such
mishaps
when he was little more than a lad, but this morning when he had heard her moan his name and felt her shudder with ecstasy beneath his fingertips, all thoughts of
coitus interruptus
and French letters had flown right out of his head, along with caution and common sense. All he had wanted in that moment was to push his way deep inside of her and make her his own.
Desperate to distract himself from the provocative images that thought invoked, he glanced at the portmanteau resting on the seat beside her. This might be his best opportunity to find out exactly what she was so eager to hide from his prying eyes. But some ghost of conscience stayed his hand. Or perhaps it was just the fear of being caught.
If she awoke to find him rummaging through her personal belongings like some Covent Garden footpad, she might never nap again.
The carriage jounced through a deep rut, bumping her head against the back of the seat.
She frowned, her delicate eyelids fluttering. Simon turned to gaze out the carriage window at the rising moon, testing his resolve. He was nothing but her hired man. Her comfort was none of his concern.
The next bump jarred his own teeth and wrung an unhappy little moan from Catriona’s throat. Blowing out a sigh, Simon reluctantly shifted himself to her seat. He scooped Robert the Bruce from her lap, hoping he wasn’t about to lose a finger or perhaps even a thumb. The cat simply hung there in his grasp, boneless yet ridiculously heavy. He gingerly settled it on the seat he’d just vacated. The beast gave him a cross look before curling into a sullen ball and closing its golden eyes.
Simon tugged off Catriona’s bonnet, then drew her into the circle of his arms so his chest could cushion her against the blows of the road. But it seemed the greedy little minx was not to be content with using his chest for her pillow. Before Simon could fully absorb what was happening, she had wiggled her rump across the seat and slid her head into his lap.
As she nestled her cheek against him, trying to find the most comfortable spot, he swore softly beneath his breath. If she kept rubbing him in that maddening manner, it wouldn’t be any different than resting her head on a rock.
She curled one hand around his upper thigh and went still, her rosebud lips curving into a contented smile. She had no way of knowing that her bliss was his agony. The caress of her warm breath through the thin doeskin of his trousers was a taste of both heaven and hell. He rolled his eyes toward the carriage’s roof. If this was his punishment for the morning’s transgression, then God had a far more wicked sense of humor than he had ever guessed.
As the carriage bounced through another rut, he was the one forced to clench his teeth against a moan. Despite his reputation, he’d never had any problem controlling his lust when it suited him. Perhaps he was simply suffering from the novelty of denying himself a woman he wanted.
He brushed a curl from the downy softness of her cheek. The silky tendril twined around his finger as if to ensnare him.
He realized in that moment exactly what he had to do if he was to escape this woman with his heart unscathed. She’d promised to split the dowry with him after they were wed. Once she did, it would be easy enough for him to steal away. She might despise him for the charlatan he was, but at least he would have escorted her as far as the Scottish border. She could use the rest of the dowry to get her to the Highlands and into her brother’s waiting arms.
As for him, he would forget all about his London debts and use the money to flee to the Continent, where some hot-blooded Italian countess or swarthy Greek beauty would welcome him into her arms and bed and make him forget all about Catriona Kincaid with her misty gray eyes and ridiculous freckles.
******************
Catriona drifted into wakefulness with a hand playing gently in her hair. She kept her eyes pressed firmly shut, luxuriating in the novel sensation. Her uncle’s family had prided themselves on their newly won English reserve. They rarely touched one another and—unless one could count Alice’s stinging pinches—they never touched her.
The hand tenderly sifting through her loosened curls stirred long-buried childhood memories. Memories of her father hefting her over his head as if she weighed no more than a feather. Memories of her brother rumpling her freshly braided hair just to make her squeal in protest. Memories of sitting before the fire in their cottage with her mother stroking a brush through her unruly curls until Catriona nodded off and her papa arrived to carry her off to bed.
She sighed and nestled deeper into her pillow, feeling cherished and secure for the first time since the English soldiers had come and wrenched away both her family and her future, leaving her with nothing but a hollow ache where they had been.
A man’s husky whisper brushed like velvet across her ear. “Wake up, sleeping beauty. It’s time to find you a proper bed.”
Catriona’s eyes flew open in horror as she realized the hand deftly tucking a wayward curl behind her ear belonged to Simon and the pillow beneath her cheek wasn’t a pillow at all but his muscular thigh.
No matter how tempting the prospect had seemed earlier, she couldn’t believe she had been so foolish as to crawl into his lap. What if she had murmured something both idiotic and incriminating in her sleep—something like,
Kiss me, darling
, or
I think I might
love you
?
She sat up so fast she bumped her head on his chin hard enough to make her see stars.
“Ow!” Rubbing his jaw, he eyed her warily. “I haven’t taken a shot to the jaw like that since the last time I boxed at Gentleman Jackson’s.”
“I’m terribly sorry.” Desperate to escape him, she lurched away and fumbled around on the shadow-draped seats in search of her bonnet. When her hands seized upon something soft, an offended “Mrrwwww” warned her that she had found the cat instead.
“Looking for this?”
She straightened to find Simon dangling the bonnet from one long, elegant finger.
“Thank you very much,” she said stiffly, seizing the hat and clapping it on her head.
“Shall I make arrangements for our lodgings?” he offered, reaching over and turning the bonnet around so that its saucy little velvet-trimmed brim would be facing forward instead of backward.
She brushed his hands away. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll take care of everything while you arrange for our bags to be brought in.”
He shrugged, retreating behind a shield of indifference. “Suit yourself. After all, you are the boss.”
Without waiting for the coachman or one of the inn’s grooms to assist her, she wrenched open the carriage door and scrambled out of the vehicle so fast she got her feet tangled up in her skirts and nearly fell. Regaining her footing, if not her dignity, she started across the courtyard. She was halfway to the door of the inn when she executed an abrupt about-face and marched back to the carriage.
She reached through the door and jerked out her portmanteau. After a moment’s thought, she reached back in and hauled Robert the Bruce into her arms as well. As she marched back across the courtyard, she could almost feel Simon’s arch gaze boring into her back. She lifted her chin, reminding herself sternly that any refuge she found in his arms was nothing but a dangerous illusion.
******************
A short while later, Simon found himself following his betrothed up a narrow, winding staircase. The feathers in her bonnet might be drooping, but the saucy swish of her rump was as fresh as ever.
She turned right at the top of the corridor, counting beneath her breath as she led them past a handful of narrow oak doors. She stopped at the last door and slipped the beribboned key in her hand into the keyhole. The door swung open to reveal a bedstead of whitewashed iron.
Simon nearly groaned with longing. After so many grueling hours spent bouncing around the interior of the carriage, the thin mattress with its understuffed pillows and faded patchwork quilt looked as inviting as a celestial cloud.
He started forward, but Catriona turned in the doorway, blocking his path. She blinked up at him, her dewy gray eyes as innocent as a babe’s. “I’m sorry. Did I neglect to tell you that I’d arranged for separate accommodations? Since we won’t be officially wed until the morrow, it would hardly be proper for us to share a room.” She pointed down the corridor before offering him a second key. “You’ll find your bed right down the hall—the last door on the left.”
Simon slowly took the key, then nodded toward the cat cradled in her arms. “I suppose you have no qualms about letting that rascal share your bed.”
“Of course not. Unlike you, I can count on him to be the perfect gentleman.” With those words, she gently closed the door in his face, leaving him standing all alone in the corridor.
******************
The wedding day Catriona had dreamed about for five years dawned with an ominous rumble of thunder and the steady patter of rain on the inn’s roof. By the time she and Simon had dressed and broken their fast with chunks of stale bread and lukewarm bowls of porridge, they were forced to wade through chill puddles to reach their waiting carriage. The coachman huddled atop his bench, rain streaming steadily from the brim of his top hat and the voluminous shoulder capes of his greatcoat. He looked even more miserable than Catriona felt as she dragged the sodden hem of her cloak and a yowling Robert the Bruce into the carriage.
As they resumed their journey on the Great North Road, the promise of spring slowly disappeared, leaving the hedgerows and tree branches bare of buds and the landscape bleak and wintry. At least Catriona didn’t have to worry about crawling back into Simon’s lap. With her nerves strung as taut as pianoforte wires, she was far too tense to sleep.
The man sitting across from her wasn’t some fairy-tale prince who would be content with a chaste kiss from her trembling lips. He was flesh and blood, with a man’s needs and a man’s hungers. Hungers she had foolishly promised to satisfy.
They crossed the Scottish border and rolled into the sleepy little village of Gretna Green just as the bleak day was fading into an even bleaker dusk. Catriona wondered how many brides had traveled this road before her—some giddy with joy, some still stinging from the scandals they had left behind, others being pursued by frantic parents and jilted lovers desperate to halt their elopements before they could be consummated in one of the seedy inns that had sprung up for just that purpose. As she took the hand Simon offered her and descended from the carriage, she realized that there was no one to rescue her from her folly.
She was about to marry the man of her dreams, yet she felt as if she were slogging through a nightmare of her own making. Instead of standing before the altar in a candlelit church and giving her his heart, Simon would take her money and her innocence. He would share her bed, but not her life.
They were directed to a smoky barn lit by the hellish glow of a forge. In lieu of a clergyman, a hulking blacksmith in a soot-stained apron strode forward to perform the ceremony. For all he knew, she could be an abducted heiress only minutes away from being ravished by her greedy groom. As long as his grimy paw was crossed with silver, he would gladly deliver her into the hands of the devil himself.
She stole a look at Simon’s profile. He bore little resemblance to the charming young officer who had fueled her innocent fantasies since the day she’d caught him making love to her cousin. This man with the sinister scar on his brow and the cynical quirk to his lips suddenly seemed like a stranger to her—forbidding and dangerous. She flinched as the sweaty blacksmith slammed his hammer down on an anvil and pronounced her and Simon man and wife.