The Duke's Undoing (Three Rogues and Their Ladies) (32 page)

George’s elegant riding attire was now slimy with mud, as was her face. Worse, the horse seemed to have strained a fetlock. Seeing no alternative, she led him gently forward through the rain until it became only a heavy mist. She was frozen through. Elise hoped her normal good health would prevail and she would not develop an inflammation of the lungs. Fortunately, The Larches was in the south of Yorkshire. Elise kept repeating to herself this piece of good fortune, though she was so tired that her head pounded. She was also hungry. But she had no red-breasted tail.

The sight of a lantern ahead illuminating the sign of an inn—The Golden Ball—cheered her immensely. Taking the gelding around to the stable, she found no one, so she merely tied him to the post and stopped to gather her wet hair, plait it, and stuff it under George’s beaver top hat. Then Elise made her way inside the inn.

Congregated in the public parlor was a group of locals who seemed the worse off for drink. They were evidently engaged in a game of darts. She gathered there was a wager on. All the better. Less attention would be paid to her. It was close on midnight, but the host was happy to offer her a pasty and a bowl of hot rum punch. Females did not usually drink this brew, but she had a vague idea that she needed it, and indeed it warmed her clear through. Her next step was to find another horse.

“I must reach Whitcombe tonight, sir,” she told the innkeeper. “However, my horse has a strained fetlock. He threw me, as you can undoubtedly tell by my raiment. Have you any kind of steed that I can trade for him? He’s a nice gelding.”

The innkeeper looked at her suspiciously. She had forgotten to lower her voice and undoubtedly appeared as a very young fellow.

“You running away?” he asked, dubiously, scratching his beard.

“You guessed my secret. I have an evil guardian. He keeps me locked in my room, but I escaped. I must reach my aunt and uncle’s house tonight. They will protect me.”

“And I suspect you’re no youth but a maid,” the innkeeper said.

“You are a knowing one, sir. He is planning my marriage to his son, who is not right in the head, so he can have my fortune. He whips me every day.”

“There now. This is a terrible thing. If you pledge to bring him back, I have a gelding that might serve.”

“My uncle’s groom will ride him back and trade him for my gelding. I suspect that if you apply a fomentation to his front right fetlock, he will be right as rain in a day or two. I will leave my address, shall I? Then you can send me a note when he is ready to be collected.”

After the storm it was near freezing. The job horse managed a half-hearted trot. Elise thought that she might have fallen asleep in the saddle had she not been so uncomfortably cold in her wet garments. Her thighs were saddle sore, and she had begun to sniffle.

It was dawn by the time she arrived in the village of Whitcombe. She knew she must look very odd in men’s clothing with her long plait down her back. Taking a page from Sukey’s book, however, she lifted her chin, acting as though she were the queen of all she surveyed as she looked down her nose at what people were abroad at such an hour.

She was glad of the rising sun as she negotiated the series of back roads and lanes that she never could have found in the dark. When she finally arrived at The Larches, she rolled out of the saddle, well past exhaustion.

None of the pert remarks she had planned on making rose to her lips when Peter, duly astonished, met her at the door. Instead, she fell on his broad, welcome chest, and said, “I would have swum the channel to get to you, my love. It wouldn’t have been nearly so much trouble.”

OVER THE ANVIL

Ruisdell gathered Elise into his arms and felt her still-wet hair and clothing. The smell of wet wool mixed with the lemony scent that still clung to her, despite the rain she had ridden through. Though there were still many things unsaid between them, never had anyone or anything been more precious to him. He was tremendously moved by what she had endured to reach him. “My little love, how far have you ridden?”

“From Grantham. A Runner was following our carriage, so I had to slip away.”

“Am I mistaken, or have you muddied George’s best riding kit?”

He led her inside and back to the kitchen where Mrs. Dean was baking scones for his breakfast.

The stout woman blinked at the sight of Elise, shivering and muddy. “My dear girl! What has happened to you?”

She explained the bare details of her flight followed by a request for a hot bath, to be followed by breakfast, and a brace of hot water bottles in her bed for an extended nap. “Thank you very much for taking in my betrothed,” she said. “Why did you do it?”

“I remembered that he was very fond of you. Enough to break your door down. Anyone who is fond of you must have a good side to him. But I did warn him about keeping the house in one piece.”

Ruisdell contemplated his beloved with adoration, tempered by amusement. What a woman she was. Imagine riding, alone, through a thunderstorm all the way from Grantham, through the night. Surely, if he had needed proof of her love, here it was. In spades.

To Mrs. Dean’s surprise, he insisted on carrying the hot water cans up to his fiancée’s dressing room where her bathtub awaited her. He furnished her with his paisley dressing gown to put on after her bath, wondering if there were any shops in the village that sold female attire. Mrs. Dean told him that he would be able to buy a few things readymade but did not believe their style would suit his fiancée.

“At this point,” he told the housekeeper, “she is more concerned with covering her nakedness than with style.”

Mrs. Dean looked shocked. He rode off to town, chuckling.

When Elise woke from her nap at two o’clock in the afternoon, he was pleased to see her appear in the library in the royal blue Merino wool gown with the paisley wool shawl he had purchased. Yes, he had gauged her size perfectly.

“All right, my love, now we must talk. We cannot remain in close proximity for long, however, or I will ravish you thoroughly. And I am guessing that that would not suit you at the moment. You are bound be profoundly saddle sore.”

She gave a happy sigh and grinned at him. “You possess amazing healing powers. Any soreness began to pass from my body the moment you held me in your arms this morning.” As he sat in the desk chair, she hoisted herself easily onto the desk top and swung her legs as though she were a young girl still dressed in George’s breeches. For a few moments, they just looked at each other. To him, it felt as if they had been separated for months. He drank in the sight of her—her deep blue eyes, tender with love for him, her luscious mouth with its intriguing short upper lip, her long delectable neck. Beneath her lovely breasts he knew that her heart was beating a tattoo. He could see the pulse in her smooth, white throat, just under her chin. They were on fire for each other. He wanted to kiss her, to plunder her lusciousness, but there were things that must be said.

“Heaven knows you are a lot of trouble. I’ve known it ever since George made me aware of your history. Do you suppose you will manage to settle for one husband and no fiancés?”

“I never thought I’d love another man when Joshua died. He was my soulmate for so many years. I haven’t known you long, and most of what I’ve heard about you is thoroughly disreputable. Since you seem to have taken my egregious faults in stride, however, I can do no less for you.” She looked down at her hands that were suddenly busy pleating the cloth of her skirt. When she raised her head, there were tears in her eyes. “I know you did not cheat at cards, Peter. Once I came to London and saw you again that first time with the soldiers, I knew that Gregory had lied to me.” The tears fell. “But it was too late.” Launching herself off the desk, she curled up on his lap, looping her arms around his neck and hiding her face in his cravat. “The publishers refused to stop the presses. I thought I could get Gregory to buy all the copies, but of course he refused. He was the cheat, was he not?”

Ruisdell nodded, holding her tightly to his chest. “I thought it was the decent thing to cover it up. I didn’t think he fully realized the gravity of cheating at cards. But I came to know that he was a credible devil and cheating was a way of life to him.”

“The marquis told me what happened at the duel. Thank heavens he was not a better shot!”

“Thank heavens, indeed. Does it not bother you that I killed him?”

“No doubt it is very cold-hearted of me, but when I heard the full story of what he did to you and how he tried to kill you so unfairly, I felt he got what he deserved. I think you were divinely spared, my love. Providence knew that your death would be the one thing I could never live through. I don’t think you have any idea how much I love you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it sometimes, you little spitfire.”

Unleashing him, she took one of his hands in a tight grip. Raising it to her mouth, she gave it a passionate kiss. Then, looking up at him she asked, “Forgive me?”

In answer, he lowered his head to hers and let his pent up desire off its leash, kissing her with the fierceness and hunger that were the only things that had kept him from losing his mind during the events of the previous week. Her lips were eager and her breathing as heavy as his. Never in all these years had he desired a woman so much. Using control he had learned only on the battlefield, he ended the kiss.

“I not only forgive you but I would have died for you, Elise. It was your honor I was fighting for as well as my own. Despite everything, you have become my Sunshine.”

He finally told her the story of the disembodied voice. “Is it not wonderful?”

Her eyes teared up again. “It is like Joshua. How he must have admired you.”

They sat huddled together in silence while she sniffed. Finally, he offered her his handkerchief.

Once she had blown her nose, she said, “I am quite aware that you must leave the country and am very much in favor of a long trip on the Continent. How irksome it is that there is a war on.”

“I agree that Napoleon is inconvenient. But, my love, you have overlooked one little difficulty. Due to the press of matters in London, I failed to get a special license.”

She smiled at him mischievously, her eyes twinkling. “I have always wanted to fly to Gretna Green like my heroines and be married over the anvil. And we are reasonably close to Scotland here, are we not?”

He chuckled. “You think that would be romantic, do you?”

She kissed his neck with little pecks and then whispered, “Not nearly as romantic as what comes afterwards.”

Restraining himself with difficulty, he kissed her brow and the tip of her nose. “And what would you know about that?”

“Not as much as I’d like.”

Heated visions of holding her in his arms in their marriage bed, rolling over and over and over, tangling the sheets, almost robbed him of breath. “I love you, Elise. I love that you are a person in your own right. Not a woman in a hundred would have done what you did last night. I long to make you mine. I long for you to carry my seed, to make my children. I never want to be parted from you again.”

“Not a woman in a million would have roasted you so thoroughly in a novel and caused you to have to fight a duel in which you could have been killed.”

“There was never any danger of that. Your viscount was all talk. He couldn’t aim a gun literally to save his life. And, I think we can safely say that you have cured my
ennui
for good.”

She grinned. “Somerset is going to miss you terribly. I will have to find him a wife when we return to England.”

She was utterly adorable. Plundering her mouth again, he imagined once more what it would be like to partake of all her sweetness and had to pull himself up short.

“You must get off my lap, love. You are making things exceedingly difficult for me. I think I had better pack my portmanteaux, and we must go into town and buy you another gown or two. It is a pity that Paris is off limits, but perhaps we can have some suitable gowns made for you once we reach Denmark. In Italy, we will buy your trousseau.”

Depositing one more kiss on his temple, she leapt off his lap. “Shall we leave for Gretna in the morning?”

“I fear we must, or I shall either lose my wits or despoil you.”

*

The hairy, uncouth blacksmith had never married a duke before. Using his anvil as an altar, Elise and Peter held their hands across it while he married them in his thick, Scottish brogue. Peter’s heart soared as he looked into the face of his beloved. She was weeping with joy, letting the tears fall freely.

When the short service was complete, he carried her in his arms across the street to the inn conveniently supplied for newlyweds. And there, their separate roads, which had been nearly unendurably rocky, merged with the heat of their bodies. His love was unleashed upon her with a power he had never known. And her response to him was every bit as potent.

As he lay afterwards, holding her to him, stroking her thick curls down the silkiness of her back, he knew that never had he treasured a woman so. Never had this act of possession, of creation been so sacred. Peter was reborn. Now bonded with Elise in this most intimate of ways, life stretched ahead, full of glorious possibilities.

From this point on, he and his Sunshine would make their way together.