The Devil Who Tamed Her (10 page)

O
PHELIA WAS SO NERVOUS WONDERING
if she’d made good her escape that it was quite a while later before she noticed how cold it was in the coach. Finding nothing but cold ashes in the brazier wasn’t alarming, but after a quick search under the seats and even inside one that lifted up, she was definitely disturbed. Not a single chunk of coal to be found anywhere in the coach.

There was a lap robe. Small consolation but she quickly curled into it. Would that be enough? Not to make her comfortable, but it would have to do. The driver had even less warmth, she reminded herself, so she could withstand a little cold. And she didn’t need to tell him to hurry. She’d made it perfectly clear that haste was imperative.

She still couldn’t believe that she was actually on her way home! But the immense satisfaction and triumph she was feeling had nothing to do with going home, and everything to do with the simple fact that she’d outwitted Raphael!

She had come downstairs and heard the voices in the parlor. She’d almost entered the room, sure that it was Raphael’s sister’s voice she was hearing, not his aunt’s. A stroke of luck made her pause long enough to realize that if his sister was there, she had to have come in a coach, and that the coach might be right outside, still hitched to its horses, and providing her with a means of escape.

Getting past the open parlor door to find out wasn’t a chance she could take though. Nor could she leave as she was, wearing no more than her day dress. So she’d run back upstairs for her coat and reticule, then raced down the servants’ back staircase, hoping to find Sadie in the kitchen. No luck there and she had no idea where her maid might be at this time of day. Such a dilemma! Should she look for Sadie and risk losing the opportunity to leave, or leave without her, feeling reasonably certain that Raphael would make sure that Sadie got back to London.

There really was no choice to make. This was her only chance to get away from this place, and it wasn’t even a certainty yet that she could. She had to act at once, before the horses from the new coach were led away to the stable as the others had been.

She slipped through the kitchen and out the side door while the cook was busy rummaging about in the pantry. And just in time! The new coach was just now being driven across the side path toward the stable.

She hadn’t realized it was snowing again, but it was, lightly. The previous snow had been melting before the temperature dropped again, so there was now ice too to contend with, but not enough to change her mind.

“Wait up!” she’d called to the young man on the driver’s perch.

He heard her and stopped. He even hopped down to the ground as she hurried toward him, trying not to slip on any ice under the newly fallen snow. He would probably have doffed a cap if he’d been wearing one, instead of a bunch of woolen scarves under the hood of the extra cloak he had on. His expression was typical of most men who saw her face for the first time—dazzled and incredulous at what he was seeing.

And to keep him that way, she gave him her most brilliant smile. “I need someone to drive me back to London. Would you be able to help me?”

It took the young man nearly a full minute to recover from his bedazzlement. She only had to repeat herself once.

He finally frowned regretfully and said, “I don’t think I can do that, ma’am, not without Lord Locke’s permission. This here is his coach.”

“What’s your name?”

“Albert, ma’am.”

“Will twenty pounds change your mind, Albert?”

He winced. “That’s a lot o’ coins to a bloke like me, but it’s sure to get me fired or tossed in gaol if I take off with this coach.”

Her impatience was rising. She didn’t have time to cajole him. At any moment, Raphael might show up, and then she wouldn’t be going anywhere.

“You wouldn’t be arrested,” she assured the fellow. “I can promise you that.”

He was still frowning regretfully. “I brought his sister here. She’ll probably be returning home in a few days. She’s a nice lady. She’d let you join her for the ride, I’m sure.”

“That won’t do. I need to leave
immediately
. Fifty pounds!”

“I don’t like this job much,” he admitted. “Took it in the summer when it weren’t so bad. Now I find I’d rather be working indoors this time o’ year. But fifty pounds ain’t enough to get me tossed out on the street.”

The devil it wasn’t. That was more money than he was likely to see in two or three years. “One hundred pounds,” she said impatiently.

“Where did you want to go?” he asked, and immediately opened the coach door for her.

“London. With all speed. And I mean that. Haste is mandatory.”

“Don’t worry, ma’am. I’ll be racing to the nearest inn and a warm fire, since I won’t be getting warmed up here. We
can
stop at an inn, right?”

“Yes, certainly,” she said, guessing that’s why it had cost her so much. He simply wanted out of the cold. “I don’t expect you to drive at night.”

It was a good thing she’d already told him to make haste, she thought, her teeth chattering. The inside of the coach probably wasn’t getting any colder than it had been, yet it certainly seemed to be, now that she’d been sitting in it for several hours. The lap robe wasn’t really much help when her velvet coat was so thin. How long before they reached a town and a warm inn? Probably no more than another hour or so considering the reckless speed at which Albert was driving the team of horses.

At least Raphael wouldn’t be able to stop her now before she reached civilization again. He’d made sure no one, himself included, could leave his Nest immediately when he’d had all the horses hidden away. She smirked at the thought, and how annoyed he was going to be when he discovered she’d escaped. He might find her before morning if they stayed at an inn, if he was persistent. But it wouldn’t do him any good. She’d be back among people who didn’t know him and wouldn’t tolerate his trying to force a screaming woman into a coach, and she would most definitely be screaming.

It was just annoying that she’d had to leave Sadie behind, as well as her own coach and her clothes. But Raphael would have no reason to stay at Alder’s Nest now, and he’d have to use her coach to get him and everyone else back to their respective homes. If he didn’t actually return the coach to her, well, she’d worry about that once she was home and was assured that she’d never have to deal with that devil again.

It was the last thought she had before she was bumped off her seat onto the floor. Briefly tangled in the lap robe, she barely noticed the coach oddly sliding to the side. But the floor was a good place to be as the coach bounced about on its way into a ditch.

She’d barely gotten to her knees when the door was thrown open and Albert, looking horrified, asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, barely bruised,” she assured him. “Just tell me that you didn’t really slide us off the road into the ditch, did you?”

His face turned quite red. “I didn’t see the bump, I swear I didn’t. If I wasn’t pushing the horses to top speed, I might’ve, then again, there’s new snow covering the old, so I might not have seen it either way.”

“And?”

“Coming off the bump, the wheel lost its traction and slid. The ditch didn’t look that close, but I guess it was. And then it broke.”

“What did?”

“The wheel,” he said, embarrassed. “Snapped right off as it landed in the ditch.”

“Are the horses all right?”

“They’re fine, ma’am.”

“Then they can pull the coach back on the road?”

“Yes, but it isn’t going anywhere with that broken wheel. Of all the bloody rotten luck!”

He could say that again, she thought with a sigh. In hindsight, it had been stupid of her to tell him to push the team in weather like this. But hindsight only helped to avoid future disasters, it did nothing a’tall for current ones.

“What would you normally do in a situation like this?” she asked.

“Get a new wheel.”

“Well, go and get one.”

“We’re not exactly close to town yet. It might be dark before I get back.”

Her first thought was she didn’t want to be left alone there on the side of the road, in the cold, especially after dark. But the alternative was to try to ride one of the horses herself, without a saddle, and more than likely fall off it repeatedly, get hurt, and be in even more dire straits. Or wait for the weather to improve and freeze in the meantime? Or wait for Raphael to show up and gloat that he’d found her? That was if he showed up. He might not bother to come after her. He might just as easily decide that he’d given it his best shot and wasn’t going to any further lengths to try to “help” someone who obviously didn’t want his help.

So she said, “Then don’t waste any more time.” And hoped she wasn’t making yet another mistake.

R
APHAEL COULD BARELY SEE TWENTY
feet in front of him, the snow was coming down so heavily now. It could have been called a blizzard if the wind were a little stronger, but thankfully, there was hardly any wind at all, just enough to make him
feel
just how cold it was—and make him think about giving up. After all, considering how long it had taken him to fetch a horse from Bartholomew’s home, get it saddled, and gather some coal, since he knew the brazier in the coach was empty, he didn’t really expect to catch up with Ophelia before she reached the nearest town. He merely wanted to find her before she got back to London, but he could have done that tomorrow, after the snow stopped—if it stopped.

He almost didn’t see the coach in the ditch. Covered in white, it blended in with the snow around it. It was the horses that drew his eyes in that direction. The snow wasn’t sticking to their warm, dark-coated bodies any more than it was to his own mount. Fear rushed through him as he took in the wreck. It was stronger than any he could ever recall feeling, but thankfully it was brief. As soon as he realized one of the four horses was missing and saw that the coach was upright, if tilted a bit, but not wrecked at all, he was sure no one had been hurt. Ophelia and his driver had obviously decided to share the one horse to continue on.

That was his only conclusion, so he almost didn’t go down in the ditch to check. But he knew he’d be kicking himself, wondering about it, if he didn’t, so he dismounted long enough to open the coach door for a quick look inside. Nothing left in it but a bundle of…
Why the deuce do you only have one lap robe in your coach?
his sister’s words came back to him with a shock. One lap robe wouldn’t make a pile that big.

“Good God,” he burst out. “He left you here to freeze? Where the hell did he go?”

Ophelia poked her head out from under the lap robe, not all of it, just enough for him to see her eyes and to notice that she wasn’t wearing her cap. Even her usual elegant coiffure was missing. She’d let her hair down? She was scrunched down on the seat so tightly into a little ball under the lap robe that she’d even had it covering her head.

“He went to fetch us a new wheel to replace the broken one.”

Raphael sat down next to her and glanced at the cold brazier. “Did he know he was leaving you here with no heat?”

“Probably not,” she said, then snapped, “And shut that bloody door!”

He reached back to pull the door shut. It didn’t help much. His every breath was releasing a cloud of steam in front of him.

She was unwinding, now that she had company. She put her feet back on the floor and sat up straight. The lap robe really was just a miniature blanket, only long and wide enough to reach from lap to feet. She spread it over her lap again. Her hands were bare. Her hair really was loose and longer than he could have imagined. A single lock of it curled by her hands in her lap. Her fingers were trembling with cold! A wave of anger that she’d put herself in danger like this washed over him.

“Where are your muff and cap?” he demanded.

“They weren’t with my coat. I didn’t have time to look for them.”

She said it so primly, it just annoyed him all the more. “I thought you had more sense than to pull a stunt like this,” he snapped as he removed his gloves, then grabbed her hands and rubbed them between his own.

She didn’t try to stop him. She simply said, “Desperation leads me to do stupid things. I thought you and I had already established that.”

“You weren’t desperate. You’re just afraid to face the woman that everyone else encounters when they meet you. And what happened to your hair?”

She took one hand back from him and pushed an errant lock behind her back. “I needed the extra warmth for my neck and ears.”

She was so cold she’d tried to warm herself with her own hair! That made him so furious he snarled, “I’m going to kill that idiot Albert for agreeing to this.”

“No, I promised him a hundred pounds.”

“That’s no excuse.” He grabbed both her hands again and blew his own hot breath on them.

“It is if you’ve never seen a hundred pounds.”

A good point, but still he narrowed his eyes on her. “You’re determined to take full blame, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am—no, I’m not.
You’re
to blame.”

He almost grinned. “I was wondering when we’d get around to that.”

“Well, you are. If you hadn’t been so ridiculously stubborn in keeping me prisoner, when you didn’t even have my parent’s permission yet, when you only
assumed
you’d have it—”

“I have it now. My sister was thoughtful enough to bring my correspondence with her.”

Ophelia slumped back. “How nice for you, exonerated on all counts.”

“Yes, quite nice, since we aren’t anywhere near finished raking you over the coals.”

He was teasing. She must have guessed as much, or she would have lost her temper over that remark. But the mention of coals reminded him that he had a sack of coal tied to his horse for the brazier.

“Speaking of which, I did bring some coal,” he added. “Let me fetch it.”

He left immediately and was back within moments. Nor did it take long to light the coal. But it was going to be quite a while before it actually heated the coach, he realized, and Ophelia was sitting there with her teeth still chattering, her lips nearly blue! He was going to have to try something else in the meantime….

“Actually,” he said, as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted, “we have made progress. You aren’t nearly as abrasive as you were to begin with, and I’ve personally seen no evidence of spite. Now don’t be alarmed, but I’m going to try something else to warm your hands, since that coal isn’t burning quickly enough.”

He opened his coat and pulled his shirttails out of his trousers, then placed both her hands under his shirt on his chest. She tried to pull her hands back, but he held fast to them despite the chill it gave him.

“That isn’t going to work either,” she said. “You aren’t exactly warm right now.”

“Let’s try this then.” He placed her fingers under his arms.

“Only marginally better, but that won’t last. This is merely making you cold too.”

“I was already cold, m’dear. It
is
snowing out there, you know. But you’re probably right. The only way we’re both going to warm up is with a little exertion. You know, get the blood flowing, work up a little sweat. It works every time.”

She gave him a doubtful look. “There isn’t exactly room in here to exercise, and no thank you, I’m not stepping outside to run about just to work up a sweat.” She added primly, “Besides, I don’t sweat. Ladies never do.”

He wasn’t going to laugh at that silly statement. If it killed him, he wasn’t. But it took a few moments to get the urge under control.

“I was thinking of a more pleasant form of exertion.” Her eyes flared wide, so he quickly added, “No, I draw the line at making love in a coach in the dead of winter—well, at least without a brazier burning more strongly than this one.”

He grinned to show her he was just teasing. He didn’t want to alarm her or outrage her maidenly sensibilities. But this was an opportunity he simply couldn’t pass up.

From the very beginning he’d restrained his natural inclinations with her because his motives had been pure. He’d brought her to Alder’s Nest to help her, not seduce her. But a little kissing wouldn’t hurt, and at the moment it would actually help to take her mind off the cold.

He’d been good. He’d been damned good. He honestly didn’t know how he’d managed to resist keeping his hands off her, as desirable as she was. His dislike of her had helped. But as soon as she’d started explaining some of her actions, his feelings had turned neutral. He didn’t exactly like her, she still had a lot to account for and to change about her behavior toward others, but he didn’t have to like her to want her, and good God, he did want her.