.
Jo woke up with an unexpected sense of warmth and contentment. For a moment, she simply drifted in the pleasure of it, not thinking about the past or the future, simply relishing how good it felt to be curled under a thick blanket with James’ arm over her waist.
Then she woke up a little further, her memories returned, and she remembered that nothing was easy or uncomplicated right now. Biting her lip, she slipped out from under James’ arm. He murmured something irritable at her, but when she touched his cheek gently with her fingers, he fell back into a deeper sleep.
Jo paused for a moment, looking at James more closely. Asleep, he looked younger, something sweet in the line of his mouth and the looseness of his jaw. She had noted that he was handsome the first time she met him, but over the last few days, she saw that it went beyond that. There was something about his looks, about the man himself, that simply made her happy when she looked at him.
God, as if this weren't complicated enough.
She dressed quietly, aware that it wasn't even quite dawn yet. The sky outside their window was light, but the sun might linger under the horizon for another twenty minutes or so.
She crept out of the room, past the people in the inn who were just rising for the day's work, and as she had so often in times of trouble, she made her way to the stable. Being around horses had always soothed her, and she sat on a small stall in the corner, just thinking.
Jo had never had the most conventional upbringing. After her mother died, her father let her mostly do as she pleased, too lost in his own grief to do anything else. When they discovered her love for horses, that had given them something to build on together. For the first time, Jo wondered if they would have been so close without it, if she had loved watercolors or embroidery instead. Sadly, she had to conclude they would never have gotten so close, and the truth of it stung.
No matter how unconventionally she had been raised, however, no one would condone what she was doing now. Last night, she had crawled into bed with James without a second thought. The barriers between them were dropping by the day, and it was too easy to remember that heat that always sprung up between them. Soon, it would be too hot to resist, and she couldn't even say whether he would be the one to break or if it would be her.
I'd be ruined, utterly ruined, in the eyes of my family, in the eyes of Society.
The thought worried her less than she’d thought it would. She had never liked the idea of marriage so very much, and she had never been a girl who craved a season in London, no matter what she was told about how beautiful it was.
"Would you be disappointed in me right now, Papa?" she whispered. "I know I'm doing what you would want me to do. It would break your heart to see Tempest going to strangers, but what would you think about how I was doing it?"
There was no answer, not that she had expected one. It occurred to her that she could hear her father's voice in her mind, her heart, most clearly when she was dealing with horses and their needs. When it came to her own needs, however, he was silent. It wasn't so very different from when he was alive, and a hot spark of rage flew across her heart.
No, I can't think of this right now. I need to get Tempest to the Earl of Leaford. After that, I'll deal with Uncle Francis. After that, I will figure things out. Hopefully, I'll still have a shred of a reputation to hang on to by then.
She fed Tempest and Gunner from the grain box at the far end of the stable, and she stroked both of their noses before going back into the inn. Gunner only looked for treats, but Tempest seemed especially restive, dancing back and forth in her stall and shaking her mane.
"What's the matter, sweet girl? Ready to be on the road?"
She reminded herself to make sure that Tempest got to stretch out her legs today. The mare was made for long overland stretches, but the steady pace they set on the road wasn't showing her off to her best advantage. Tempest was a runner at heart and denying it to her never led to good things.
Jo resolved to think no more of complicated things until she had dealt with Tempest's sale. The thought of selling her father's prized mare still sent a bolt of ice through her heart, but it was the best option open to her at this point. She was just walking out of the stable when some instinct or premonition made her look up. Coming up from the road were two men on cobby ponies. Normally, Jo wouldn't have given them a second look, but for some reason, they sent a chill of fear up her back. She realized as she looked at them that they were very much looking back, and then she recognized them.
They were the same men James had sent running with his pistol a few days ago, and the looks on their faces were grim. There was no fencing in the rear yard, nothing to keep them from simply riding to her, and Jo started to run for the safety of the inn.
Surely, they wouldn't try to kidnap me right from a public inn. Surely not...
Every step she took felt as if she were traveling through mud, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see them turn their ponies and drive them straight for her. She couldn't look at them. She focused on the inn door in front of her, where she would find safety and where she would find James. James would protect her. James wouldn't let these men take her. He wouldn't.
She was aware of the thundering of hooves, the cries of one man to the other, and then abruptly, one man rode in front of her, cutting her off. She dodged, tried to turn, but then the other man was there. Jo hesitated like a fox brought to bay and then she felt strong arms wrapped around her from behind and smelled the stink of an unwashed male body.
Finally, she found her voice, and as she raised it to curse out the men who held her, one of them stuffed a rag between her teeth. The other roped her hands together in front of her, and then, after heaving her over the withers of one of the sturdy ponies, lashed her ankles together as well.
"Hey, what are you doing there!"
The cry, high and female, came from the inn. The men cursed, and they mounted again, this time wheeling their ponies out toward the road and thundering away.
Jo had been on horseback nearly her entire life, and her current helplessness made her sick. The movement of the pony was familiar, but the man wasn't, and her view thrown over the pony's back certainly wasn't. With every bumpy stride, it felt as if the wind was getting knocked out of her, and if she fell, if she managed to wiggle free, with her hands and feet bound, there was no way for her to break her own fall.
As if to add insult to injury, she started to tear up.
James.