Captured by a Gentleman (Regency Unlaced 6) (7 page)

He frowned. “You think they may have been committed by two different parties?”

“I believe there has to be a reason why it was the carriage carrying your luggage, which was damaged,” she spoke cautiously. “And not the one in which you are traveling.”

Ranulf had not thought of it in quite those terms before now, but perhaps Darcy had a point—

“Ranulf!” Darcy cried in alarm, hands reaching out to grasp the side of the carriage as it tilted suddenly to one side.

A loud screeching noise followed. The carriage moved forward sluggishly for several feet more before toppling completely onto its side.

Darcy tried desperately to keep hold of the carriage, but to no avail, as she was tossed sideways, hitting her head on something hard before the whole world went black.

Chapter 5

“It was different.”

Ranulf frowned his concern as he sat forward on the chair he had placed beside the makeshift bed on which Darcy lay. Her eyes were still closed, but he was sure he had not imagined those softly spoken words.

Nor misunderstood the reasoning behind them.

All had been pandemonium after the carriage lost a back wheel and then tipped over. The sound still echoed in his mind of the horses screaming as they tried to escape the tangle of harness, dragging the felled landau for several feet before coming to a stop.

Ranulf had been thrown clear of the wrecked carriage.

Darcy lay unconscious on the road.

It was perhaps as well Darcy had remained unaware during the minutes that followed. Ranulf had seen to her comfort first, carrying her over to the grass verge and laying her down, her head supported on his superfine, before he turned his attention to calming and unharnessing the distressed horses.

Several minutes had passed by the time Ranulf tied them to some trees and was able to return to Darcy and the carriage. Darcy remained unconscious. The landau was minus a back wheel, and it was all Ranulf could do to push it to the side of the road where it would not prove a hazard to other carriages traveling this same road.

Close examination of the vehicle revealed what had caused the carriage to tip over. The back right-side wheel had come off completely, and not by accident either. It was obvious, even to an untrained eye, that the wooden axle had been half sawn through. But underneath, where it was not immediately visible. And enough so that it was weakened and would eventually succumb to the pressure of the journey, the wheel coming off, tipping the carriage and possibly killing the occupants.

It proved Darcy’s suggestion that there had been something different about the damage done to the town carriage last night. Clearly, that damaged wheel had been used as a decoy from where the real mischief lay.

Ranulf had made a close inspection of the area in case the attacker had followed them, perhaps with the idea of enjoying seeing their crash and possible death. Or finishing the job himself, if that should not prove to be the case.

There had been no indication that anyone had followed them or was now watching them. But Ranulf remained alert, in any case. If another attack came, then he wished to be ready for it.

He felt a little ashamed of his earlier teasing of Darcy, most especially so when he looked at her unconscious body and saw the lump on her forehead, along with a dark bruise already starting to appear beneath the ivory skin.

“The back axle of the landau had been tampered with, weakened,” he answered Darcy. “So that it would break while we were traveling.” Luckily for them both, Ranulf had slowed the horses to a gentle trot as he and Darcy conversed.

“Were you hurt?” Darcy now looked up at him with dark and pained eyes.

Ranulf smoothed back the red-gold curls at her left temple, well away from where a sizeable lump showed clearly on her brow. “Only badly shaken.”

She gave a half smile. “Well, at least my being in the carriage with you, and also risking being killed, means you must now accept I am not a viper.”

Of course Ranulf now accepted that.

As he must now, logically, also accept that everything Darcy had told him of Cecil Sugdon was the truth?

He believed so, yes.

Which meant he had treated Darcy badly these past twenty-four hours, with his accusations and distrust, for the simple reason she was related to Millicent and Cecil Sugdon. It was clear now Darcy could not have been involved in these attempts to harm him. As she said, she might have been killed herself earlier, rather than merely battered and bruised.

Ranulf’s jaw tensed. “I owe you an apology for my earlier suspicions.”

“It is of no consequence as long as you believe me now.”

“I do,” he assured her gravely.

She glanced at their surroundings. “How did I get here?”

“I carried you here. I then went back for our luggage and the picnic basket so that we should not starve.”

Darcy attempted to sit up, only to fall back with a wince as the movement caused her pain. “What is this place?”

Ranulf gave a grimace as he looked at the single room. “I believe it is a hut where a woodcutter sleeps when he is felling trees in this part of the forest.” He turned back to Darcy. “It was the best shelter I could find for us in the area.”

“The horses?”

“All unharmed and tied up outside beneath a lean-to.”

“Are we safe here?”

“Safe?”

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “The person who damaged the other coach last night and is responsible for our accident today surely cannot be far away.”

Ranulf could have wished that Darcy was less intelligent than she was. But perhaps her narrow escape from Sugdon’s lecherous clutches had honed her senses more than most.

The fear they may have been followed, despite his having found no sign of it, was the reason he had brought Darcy and the horses into the woods. He had also thought to collect his pistol from his luggage and brought it with him. It was now within reach but out of sight beneath the cot on which Darcy lay, if he should have need of it.

Ranulf had no choice now but to accept that someone wanted him dead, and they did not care who else was injured or killed while they were about it.

Darcy drew in a deep breath, this time ignoring the nausea roiling through her bruised body, as she pulled herself up into a sitting position.

She appeared to be lying on what was a low and lumpy cot placed to one side of the room. The top two buttons of her gown were unfastened at the throat, with Ranulf’s superfine acting as a pillow beneath her head and his topcoat lying across her as a blanket.

The single room had a rough wooden floor, with only a primitive-looking table and a chair as furniture besides this cot. There were a couple of battered pots next to the fireplace, where Ranulf appeared to have lit a small fire, which was struggling to keep alight.

Ranulf himself looked less than his pristine self. His dark hair was disheveled and falling across his brow, dirt was smeared across one cheek, and he wore only his waistcoat, shirt, and pantaloons.

He had never appeared more handsome to her.

Nor had Darcy ever been more pleased to be alive. “Do you think this is an appropriate occasion upon which I might be allowed to ‘throw myself at a gentleman’?”

Ranulf’s expression softened. “I believe it is, yes.” He held out his arms.

Darcy felt not a moment’s hesitation as she moved gingerly into those waiting arms. Or from crawling completely into Ranulf’s lap. The chair protested at this extra weight as she buried her face against the solid safety of Ranulf’s chest and began to cry. “When the carriage tipped in that way, I felt sure we were both going to die,” she choked out between sobs.

His arms tightened about her. “You are safe now, Darcy. I will not allow any more harm to come to you.”

Darcy had a feeling Ranulf was promising to keep her safe from much more than the accidents befalling him.

Which made her cry all the harder. These past few months had been the worst of her life. Only Ranulf, seeing him again, being with him, had succeeded in bringing light into that darkness.

She now clung to him unabashedly, needing his warmth and comfort.

Which was why it took her several minutes to realize the hard and throbbing length of Ranulf’s arousal was pressing against her bottom…

Darcy felt none of the revulsion she had experienced when she became aware of Cecil Sugdon’s arousal in the same way two days ago.

Instead, an answering heat and pleasure suffused her body, causing her breasts to swell, and she could feel the tips tingle and harden as she slowly raised her head to look at Ranulf’s face.

His gaze was a deep dark green as it met hers, his cheeks flushed as his arms tightened about her waist. “Darcy…” Her name was an aching, questioning groan.

Darcy answered that question by lifting her arms up about his shoulders and placing her mouth against his. She needed the solid reassurance of him. To be as close to Ranulf as he would allow her to be.

He deepened the kiss as he turned her so that she now lay back against his arm, the rickety chair giving another protesting groan. His tongue slipped questioningly along the closed seam of her mouth before plundering the heat inside the moment Darcy parted her lips beneath his.

Heavenly.

A pleasure and heat Darcy wanted more of.

She offered no resistance as Ranulf unfastened several more of the buttons at the front of her gown, allowing the warmth of his hand to slip beneath that material to cup one of her breasts over the thin material of her chemise.

She arched up into that hand as it began to squeeze and knead her swollen flesh. Her fingers tangled in the hair at Ranulf’s nape as he pushed her chemise aside to grasp and roll her bared nipple between his fingers and thumb.

Darcy craved that closeness. To be closer still.

She offered no resistance as Ranulf broke the kiss and his lips caressed a path down her throat to her now completely bared breasts, gasping as she felt the heat of his mouth envelope and then suckle deeply on one of her exposed nipples. A river of hot pleasure coursed through her body before settling, concentrating achingly, between her thighs.

“Please, Ranulf…” she groaned as that burning ache became unbearable. “I need… Oh please, I need!”

She felt the cooler air on her legs and the warmth of Ranulf’s hand against her skin as he slowly pushed her gown up. That hand gently parted her legs before his palm cupped the mound between her thighs, fingers seeking and then entering the slit in her drawers.

Darcy groaned softly as those fingers stroked along the swollen entrance to her channel, the slick juices wetting them, before they centered on that erect nubbin above.

Caressing.

Stroking.

Pressing.

Lightly squeezing.

The deeper and longer suckling of her nipple into Ranulf’s mouth.

His teeth abrasive against her engorged flesh.

The increasing rhythm and speed of that stroking between her thighs.

The pleasure was unimaginable.

Utterly consuming.

Darcy lifted her hips to meet each of those caresses, knowing herself poised on the edge of one of those pleasure/pain explosions she had experienced only once before in her life. While dreaming of Ranulf.

This was no dream.

Ranulf was here, tasting and touching her as intimately as he had in her dream.

“More,” she pleaded unashamedly as she rushed toward that explosive release. “Oh please, Ranulf!” she sobbed needily, her fingers clinging, digging into his shoulders. “Take me… Oh please, give me…
more.
” She broke off with a gasp as Ranulf’s teeth bit into her engorged nipple and his fingers pinched the swollen nubbin between her thighs, sending her hurtling into a maelstrom of sensations.

Darcy felt as if she were flying, her body shattering into a million pieces, before coming back together again, different from before. More alive. More sensitive. More
knowing
.

Minutes, hours later, she gazed up at Ranulf to see his face was flushed, his eyes glittered like emeralds, and his lips were slightly swollen.

The hard length of his arousal still pulsed and throbbed against her bottom, evidence his own desire remained unsatisfied.

She moistened her lips. “Is there anything I can do—”

“No,” Ranulf refused gruffly as he guessed what Darcy was about to say.

“Why not?” Darcy gazed at him with huge dark eyes.

She looked…debauched.

And utterly desirable.

Her hair was disheveled, eyes fever bright, cheeks flushed, lips plump from where she had chewed on them during the height of her release. Her gown gaped open at the top, revealing the fullness of her breasts and the engorged nipples, the skirt pushed up her legs to reveal his hand was still inside her drawers.

Ranulf carefully removed his hand, not looking at her as he straightened and refastened her gown before he stood with her held firmly in his arms. He placed her on top of the cot bed before sitting on the side of it. “I should not have… We should not have… I should have remembered you are injured and in need of rest, rather than… You need to rest,” he repeated firmly.

“You have needs too.”

He swallowed before answering. The throb of his cock demanded he accept what Darcy was offering. Good sense said he could not. “My needs are of no importance. As you pointed out earlier, we are still in danger,” he added harshly as she would have protested. “I cannot allow myself to be distracted by…by physical pleasure when someone is set on harming me. Harming us,” he corrected. “You are now in danger too, simply because you are with me.”

She gave a pained frown at the coldness of his rejection. “Who could be trying to harm you?”

“If I knew that, we would no longer be in danger.”

“Why not?”

Ranulf gave her a pointed glance.

The color left her cheeks. “You would kill them?”

“If I have to, yes.”

She swallowed. “We really are not safe here. We should leave. But how? We have the horses but no carriage. I doubt I could walk or ride very far feeling as I do now.”

Ranulf stood restlessly, needing to put some distance between himself and the lush allure of Darcy’s body. Except he could still taste and smell her, on his tongue and the hand still damp from having caressed her pussy so intimately. She felt like velvet between her thighs, silky and wet, the nubbin above erect and throbbing. Ranulf wanted nothing more than to plunge his cock inside that velvet-soft pussy and ride her. Ride her hard. Ride them
both
to completion.