The Accidental Abduction (13 page)

“I daren't.”

“You dared a great deal last night.” For the first time his voice turned ever so slightly suspicious. “Why can't I even call on you in daylight?”

She smiled although she felt it might break her in two. “Because you make me feel anything but comfortable.”

He chuckled. She liked the sound of it. “Flatterer.”

“If you like.”

Whatever she did next, she would not take her leave of Harry Rayburn with a lie. Lying might have been kinder. It might even have been more intelligent, but it was not what she wanted. This once, she wanted to speak the truth to someone, anyone. More than that, though, she did not want Harry to think she regretted what they had done together.

“If it was just me, I'd go to Gretna with you, right now, as we are,” she told him. “But there's Genevieve, and I've a younger brother at home, and my father's not well. So you see, I can't just run away.”

He did not answer at once. He let her words sink into him.

“I do see.” He glanced down at his restless fingertips, and spoke to them instead of to her. “And I'm sorry.”

She'd meant to stop there, but it seemed her tongue was running ahead on its own. “I've always had to be responsible. I'm not the one who can act from her own desire.”

His smile at this was small and sad. “And I'm the stout fellow—solid, dependable, dull Harry.”

She was lifting her face, lifting her hand. She was straightening his rumpled cravat as she had wanted to do when he first appeared in the parlor. She was leaning forward and touching her lips to the corner of his mouth. He turned toward her just a little. His arms wrapped around her waist to support and hold her as they opened each to the other. The kiss was easy as breathing, as natural as sunrise and just as welcome.

“It's still madness,” she whispered against his mouth.

“So it is.” He pulled her closer. Her breasts crushed against his chest as he bent them both back. He kissed her mouth, her cheek, her throat.

“People like us shouldn't engage in madness.”

“Dull, responsible people.” He lowered his head to kiss the exquisitely sensitive skin of her throat.

“There's too much at stake,” she sighed. She remembered just in time she mustn't press her injured palms against him. Instead, she looped her arms and wrists over his broad shoulders. He lifted his mouth to hers so they could kiss once more. She opened wide for him, delighting in the sensation of his tongue sliding across hers.

“Besides,” he breathed as he moved his attentions to her cheek, her chin, and back down her throat. “We can't possibly elope with only one team of horses and no luggage. The thing's impossible.” He paused. He lifted his head, just a little, but he kept his hands against her hips. “Unless you think your uncle would agree to marry us instead?”

S
hock straightened Leannah up, straightened them up.

“Mr. Rayburn, I've asked you to stop joking about this.”

“And I've told you, I'm not joking.”

“But why would you want to marry me?”

She meant the question to push him away, but it seemed that Harry had his answer ready.

He kissed her again. Not gently this time, but hard, deeply, almost brutally. She opened to him, first in shock and then in delight at this wicked plundering of her mouth. He had hold of both her wrists and pinned them, not over her head this time, but behind her, as he leaned his whole broad, hard body against her.

“I'd marry you because I don't want to give this up,” he whispered. “I want to understand every part of this feeling, and of you.”

“Some things cannot be understood.”

“Maybe not in the mind, but in the heart.” He laid his palm over her breast. “In the heart, everything can be understood.”

He kissed her again, plunging his tongue deep inside her mouth. He was so hard. The length of his erection pressed insistently against her mound. The sensation was driving her to distraction. Her eyes closed and she gave herself over to his kiss, his body and her own growing need. She hated her clothing and despised his. She wanted him naked in her arms, and between her thighs. There was nothing else in all the world now, except this man, this kiss, and their need.

Except there was. With a sound like a sob, Leannah wrenched herself away. She stumbled up against the stable wall. The horses snorted, whether disconcerted or laughing at her, she couldn't tell. She pressed her hand against her mouth, against her belly. She was cold. No, she was on fire. She ached, and yet the pleasure she felt removed all possibility of pain.

“Leannah, don't leave me,” said Harry from behind her. “Don't forsake this before we have a chance to find out what it means.”

“And if it means nothing?” She couldn't turn around. She couldn't look at him. If she did, she'd run to him. Her weakness was too terrible, too complete.

“Then at least we'll know it,” he said. “We won't poison the rest of our lives with useless wondering and wishing.”

His words came perilously close to making sense, especially with her lips still wet and swollen from his kiss. She could feel fever's perspiration prickling between her thighs. Her mound throbbed, damp and hot from his attentions, and filled her with a longing for more.

I'd marry you because I don't want to give this up.
How easily she could have spoken those words to him.

But she hesitated too long, caught between real fears and impossible hopes. “I'm sorry,” Harry whispered. “I've gone too far. I apologize.”

Leannah closed her eyes once more. She did not turn.

“I'll go. Good luck, Mrs. Wakefield, and God be with you.”

She heard his boots rustling the straw.
Let him go
, she told herself.
Let him go.
It would be easiest, it would be best. Lack of heart, yes, and lack of nerve, and too much duty all made it wisest and best to let this man go his way.

But in that moment, it felt cowardly, and Leannah had never been a coward. She made herself look, not back, but forward. She made herself see her future. In that future, she was standing in the parlor with Father as Genevieve accepted a man very much like Mr. Dickenson because there was no other way to make ends meet. Jeremy was there, home from the boarding school he hated, waiting to come into full possession of a property none of them really understood how to manage.

She saw herself standing in front of Uncle Clarence and holding Mr. Valloy's cold, thin hand.

“Harry!” Leannah whirled around. For one terrible instant, all she saw was the open door and the empty yard. A sob tore from her throat and she pressed her fist against her mouth to stifle it. She was too late. Too late.

“Leannah! It's all right. It's all right. I'm here.”

He was. He must have been just around the corner, but now he was in her arms, raining kisses down on her brow, her cheek, her mouth. She answered every one frantically.

“I'm here,” he kept saying. “I'm here, Leannah.”

“Don't leave.” She grasped his face in both her hands, forgetting her bandages, forgetting everything. “Please. I can't . . . I can't . . .”

He pressed his fingers across her mouth, silencing her. “I will stay,” he told her, “as long as you let me stay.”

“Did you mean what you said?”

He nodded. “Every word. Will you marry me?”

It was all up to her now. She could act from sense, or she could act from need. She could agree to an affair, or to absolute separation, or this other way.

“I will marry you. But it must be now. If I stop to think, I might lose my nerve again.”

He stopped her words with another heady kiss. She was drunk on this man, on his eyes and his smile and his touch. Any more of him and she would faint dead away.

“You could never lose your nerve once you made up your mind. And if you did, I'd be right there for you.”

She laughed, giddy as a schoolgirl as he seized her wrist. Harry was grinning wildly and dragged her across the yard, right past Martin who gaped to see them, and through a flock of chickens that clucked insults as they scattered.

Breathless, they reached the inn door to find the mail coach had arrived without either of them hearing it. The yard now was filled to bursting with passengers, baggage, and boxes. Even this inconvenience seemed unbearably funny. Leannah giggled and Harry laughed out loud.

“Do you want me to come in when you to speak to your uncle?”

Leannah struggled to marshal her wits. It was very difficult with Harry holding her wrist and smiling at her. “No, you'd better not. He mustn't think you've coerced me. And . . .”

“And what?”

“I'll have to say a great many things to convince him to do this.” A thousand realities threatened to overwhelm her. She bit her lip and laid her wrist on his shoulder, as if she could draw fresh strength directly from his touch. “Listen to me, Harry. My family is in bad circumstances. Our money has all been lost. My father . . .”

“Is not well. You've said as much.”

“It's a disorder of the nerves. He may never get better. Genevieve, well you've seen her, and my brother Jeremy's just twelve.”
And then there are the whispers about me. I need to tell you about those.

Harry crooked his finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. “I'm the son of a goods importer. I learned how to brawl on the docks before I'd mastered my letters. I've been around the world, and I can drink, swear, gamble, and whore as hard as any sailor when I'm at sea. When I'm at home, I'm devoted to my mother and sister, and look forward to little more than inheriting my father's business ledger. I've already been turned down as too boring to be endured. I hate to waltz. My whiskers are entirely overgrown and somewhat ridiculous looking, and I'm told I snore.”

Leannah blinked. “You snore?”

“I'm told I do.”

She smiled. “So do I.”

“Well, you see? It's fate.” He kissed her lightly, playfully. “Go speak with your uncle. I'll wait in the public room. With everybody else.” He eyed the crowd of new arrivals with such exaggerated ruefulness Leannah had no choice but to laugh. She kissed him once more for luck and strength and hurried inside. All the way she felt Harry's gaze on her and heard his voice inside her mind.

I will stay, as long as you let me stay.

*   *   *

When Leannah ducked inside the parlor, she found Genevieve pacing, and Uncle Clarence admonishing.

“. . . I understand your sentiments, Genevieve, but if you could be persuaded to see that patience will serve you much better than any dramatic and hasty union. The Lord will provide, my dear.”

“The Lord has not provided very much up to this point.”

“Genevieve!” cried Leannah, closing the door tight behind her.

Genny threw up her hands. “All right, all right, I'm a wicked girl, and I'm upsetting everybody and I'm sorry. Are you come to tell me it's time to go home, Leannah?”

Leannah felt herself smile. “Actually, I need to speak with Uncle Clarence a moment. Will you excuse us?”

Genevieve's eyes narrowed. “About what?”

“You'll know shortly.”

Genevieve was clearly reluctant, but in the end, she did leave, out through the door to the public room. Leannah found herself hoping briefly that she would not frighten Mr. Rayburn away. But she smiled at this. Among his many other amazing qualities, it was easy to see that Harry was more than a match for Genevieve. Which in and of itself might be enough to make this insanity right.

“What is it Leannah?” asked Uncle Clarence anxiously. “How can I help?”

Leannah hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. Truly, there was no way to do this, save to dive in head first. “Uncle, I wish to be married to Mr. Rayburn.”

“
What?
” The force of his shout pulled the mild little man to his feet.

Leannah did not so much as flinch. “You have a license with you?”

“Yes, of course I do, but that was for Genevieve and her Mr. Dickenson.”

“Well, as Mr. Dickenson has left, he and Genny cannot now marry. So, I propose we make use of that license and your presence to marry me to Harold Rayburn instead.”

Uncle Clarence paced in a tight circle in front of the hearth, rubbing his hand repeatedly across his mottled scalp. Leannah folded her hands and waited.

“Leannah, you're not talking sense,” he said finally.

“It is unexpected, I know. But it is also our best course of action. Once Genevieve's elopement is discovered, she will become a scandal. The only way to avoid that is to divert attention as far as is possible. I am already a scandal, and we all know it. At least I will be a married scandal, and those tend to be much less interesting to society at large.”

Uncle Clarence passed his hand several more times across his scalp and then ran his fingers through his fringe of white hair, as if he might pluck out an answer.

“No.” He wagged his head. “I cannot in conscience do this thing.”

“Someone must return married from this escapade, otherwise Genevieve's chance at a new future is gone.” She hesitated again. “Uncle, Genny only did this because she wanted to secure us the money her marriage to Mr. Dickenson would bring. If I marry Mr. Rayburn, we are taken care of, and she's free to make a different choice, a better choice.”

“No,” Uncle Clarence said again. He took her hands and gazed up earnestly into her eyes. “I do know the money is a concern, Leannah, but you need not stay in London. You can all return to the country. I've often felt a quiet life would better suit the entire family.”

“A quiet life. Yes, for a family supporting not one but two spinsters, and Jeremy left with a rundown inheritance he has no way to manage, and no education or connections.” They were cold words, hard words. Leannah felt guilty about having to level them against her charitable uncle, who had never done anything but try to help.

Think on Harry Rayburn,
she told herself.
Think about that touch and that smile. Think about for once not having to end a dream at dawn.
Warmth suffused her body as she did think about this, and she felt the color beginning to rise to her cheeks. It was a wicked and impossible dream, except it was not so impossible after all, if only she held firm.

“Leannah,” said Uncle Clarence gently. “I understand you've been driven to an extreme, but this . . . hasty and imprudent marriage . . . is not the answer.”

“Then what is?”

“You're Jeremy's guardian. You can properly arrange for a mortgage of some of the land to meet the expenses of his education.”

She shook her head. “
Father
is Jeremy's legal guardian. I might be able to help arrange the mortgage, but any money would ultimately fall under Father's control, and we don't know what will happen then.”
Except we do know. He will invest it, all of it, and the disasters will all begin again.

“He's changed, Leannah.”

“I want to believe it, Uncle. But the land Elias left Jeremy is all we have. If it is mortgaged and Father lapses, we'll lose our last hope.” Her voice turned hard. “What happens then? What if I cannot care for us all? Will Genny and I go for governesses? Can you take us onto the parish roles? Or will Jeremy leave school and go to work or into the navy? Uncle,
think.
Jeremy's a boy, and neither Genny nor I are fit or educated for work. We were supposed to be accomplished and pretty, with our father to care for us until we are passed to husbands who would take up the chore. That has collapsed. This is what's left to us.”

The words fell from her like a shower of stones. Hearing herself speak the truth so coldly frightened her. If she married Harry for desire, that made her giddy and impulsive and perhaps even ridiculous. But if she married him for money, what did that make her?