Chapter 12

After traveling goodness knew how many miles, submitting herself to the probings of a doctor, being entrapped by her grand mother-in-law, and in rescued by her husband, Cordelia couldn’t believe that she was now the captive of said rescuer.

Hadn’t she come all this way to be free of him?

This morning, she’d been so certain that it was his grandmother that she had to be wary of but no. All this time, it had been he, her husband, who was the one she should have avoided at all costs.

The entire course down the mysterious Nile would not have been far enough to place herself from his company. Not with that gloriously pleased madness in his eyes.

And she, fool that she was had swung right into his literal grasp, believing he was happy to be rid of her. That he would send her merrily back to Egypt, her work, and freedom.

Freedom? As Gemma would say, Ha!

If one could call his cravat stuffed in her mouth freedom. Apparently, her screaming had disagreed with him and in a display of male dominance and irritatingly superior strength, he had torn off his cravat and tied it about her mouth rendering her silent.

This had not stopped her from attempting to pummel the daylights out of him. . . which had then led to her hands being tied behind her with one of the carriage curtain ropes.

In her entire life, she’d been in only one such similar predicament, and the sand bandit that had absconded with her had been remarkably more gallant. At present, she was fighting back silly tears of indignation.

Tears did one no good after all, and they were no doubt only the physical manifestation of her depleted reserves. It was her good fortune that about an hour ago, he had fallen asleep. Even she knew she could be quite the handful when she chose to be, and he had apparently had enough. . .

It had also helped that she’d played possum. . . a term she had learned from one of Kathryn’s scullery maids. Possum did seem to be a rather intelligent position to take. Apparently, he had been lulled by her eventual submission, no doubt believing his superior masculinity had won out.

Night had long since fallen and they had not paused to light the lanterns within the coach. So, she sat in relative darkness eyeing her husband.

Bloody Marvelous.

She was in the hands of a beautiful mad man and she was heading farther and farther away from escape with each turn of the coach wheels.

She chewed lightly on the silk cravat, wishing she had the teeth of a lion. Instead, her teeth meant more for the chewing of vegetables than silk, grew tired and she gave up the hope that she might be able to divest herself of her gag in such a fashion.

Still, never one to take things easily, she let her eyes wander over the coach in hopes of finding some aid in escape. After several long, fruitless moments, her eyes fell to the coach door itself. She stared at the handle than swung her gaze to his sleeping form.

He appeared to be as gone from this world as a wrapped mummy, sleeping eternally in seven different coffins. Perhaps. . .

Carefully, she shifted across the seat. The rumbling of the coach masked her movements and without letting herself think to forwardly about her actions, she leaned down, and pressed her chin against the cold brass handle.

To her utter delight, it snicked open and the door opened a crack. She peered out the window, spying far flung rolling fields on her side of the coach. In slow degrees, she lowered herself to her knees on the floor, just barely missing Jack’s polished, booted feet.

He made a muffled sound in his sleep and rolled to the right, stuffing his strong arm behind his head.

Her heart rammed up into her throat and she forced herself to draw in a measured breath. She might be about to break her own neck. . . but she was not about to stay with him, handsome or no. No one controlled her fate but herself, certainly not pouncing, arrogant dukes.

The slightly open coach door let in a surprisingly piercing cold draft of air. She braced herself against it before she threw all sensible thoughts aside. Nudging her shoulder against the silk padded door, she pushed until it swung silently open.

Fields passed quickly by as she let her mind go blank then rolled out of the coach.

Her body hit the earth and she gasped Pain splintered through her bones and for several searing moments, she was sure she would not be walking away from her impulsive decision. The earth was hard, packed down by the heavy coaches that had rumbled past before. She grimaced against her gag.

In inching movements, she wiggled onto her stomach and drew her knees up under herself. It was quite difficult given her tied hands, and after pressing her face into the dirt, she finally managed to pull herself into a kneeling position.

She glanced down the road and could just barely make out the coach hurtling along the rutted way, but there was thankfully no sign of it stopping.

A vengeful laugh rippled up her throat, muffled against Jack’s damp cravat. Think he could kidnap her, did he? Clearly, her husband had no idea what sort of woman he was dealing with. With a pleased huff, Cordy stumbled to her feet and faced the road stretching in the opposite direction of her witless captor.

Hmmmm.

The road slipped on and on into the moonlit night with no sign of life. Well, she’d been in worse predicaments.

As she began to stride down the rough road, a certain cooling eroded her determination to persevere. The air was astonishingly frigid. Oh, she knew cold. The deserts could plunge in temperature, yet this cold was something she had never quite experienced. It was damp and Gemma’s frock was about as much shield from the damp as striding about in one’s unmentionables. Though her breath was not visible, her skin prickled and tingled with a less than welcome sense that she was turning into a late summer ice.

Still, she marched on.

Step after step began to send her blood circling through her veins, warming her to a slight degree. Now, the only real question was her location. They could have taken any of the numerous roads from the city? She seemed to be heading in a southeasterly direction, one she hoped would lead her towards some sort of civilization.

The moon wavered overhead, its pallid glow a consolation in the silvery night. The silence of the darkness on the other hand was disconcerting and so she began the recitation of the Roman dynasties as best she might.

She’d made it entirely to the emperors after Julius Caesar, a particularly terrifying group of men, when the clopping of a horse’s hooves drummed through her recollection.

Her legs froze in mid-stride and her brain was torn immediately between the desire to launch her physical form into the ditch and the need to make contact with someone who might untie her unfortunate wrists.

Since indecision was not one of her general weaknesses, she came to the immediate conclusion that the freedom of her hands was essential as was the freeing of her mouth from the irksome cravat. Perhaps it was foolish, but she refused to go another step trussed up like a Christmas goose.

So, she stood her ground on the silent road awaiting her veritable fate.

In fact, her expectations had been for a farmer. The horse thundering out of the darkness was anything but a glue pot. It stood a good seventeen hands, its muscles evident under its silken russet coat, and its rider—

Cordelia blinked. . . Then blinked again. Clearly, she, like her husband, had gone mad.

She mumbled against her gag, swayed a bit and then with a most embarrassing moment, she did something exceptionally unfortunate, given her tied hands.

Cordelia Eversleigh nee Basingstoke, archeologist and adventurer extraordinaire, fainted.

***

She was not certain if it had been moments or hours, but given that she was lying upon unforgiving dirt she quickly deduced her brief departure from this world had only been a short one. Still, she appreciated the moments away for certainly they had restored her reason. Even so, she was hesitant to open her eyes, lest she find that she had indeed gone mad.

“Madam?” a dark voice intoned. . . A suspiciously familiar voice.

She groaned inwardly. Yes. Indeed. She had cracked. It was most disappointing for she had always considered herself to have a resolute character undaunted in the face of adversity.

A strong finger poked at her arm. “Madam?”

“Mmmmrphf,” she grumbled into her gag and the dirt, for as she opened her eyes, she realized the blasted idiot had left her face down.

“I do beg your pardon,” he began as he turned her onto her back.

She grimaced at the pain of her shoulders wrenching against her bonds.

Glaring up at her potential rescuer, she began to curse. . . ineffectually. “Uuuu.. . . Bassshhhhrrdddd. Fmmmm. Unnnnghtyyyyy mfffff.”

He gaped down at her, his face masked by the night.

“Unnnnnnghtyyyyyyyy mfffffff!” she tried again, hoping he would overcome his shock to do the gentlemanly thing.

A deep, rough laugh boomed through the night.

He was laughing at her. Laughing. A growl of fury twisted up from her throat and she attempted to lash out at him with her foot.

“My apologies,” he sniggered.

“Hmmmph!!’

“A moment. A moment.” And then he leaned down and Cordelia fell silent.

Yes. There it was. Proof that she was mad.

Her husband stared down at her with a fresh expression of amusement at her expense. There was something slightly sinister about his appearance in the dark and she could have sworn he’d been wearing a white linen shirt not a black silk one, but her mind seemed to have trotted off.

He peered down at her as if he had never seen her in his life, a rather cruel and interesting ruse. Still, he reached around the back of her head and yanked the cravat free.

She stared at him, waiting for him to say something, anything really. Surely, he was displeased at her escape? Instead, he was gazing down at her as if the heavens had suddenly blessed him with some unholy present.

“You’re not particularly pretty,” he observed.

She arched a brow and pursed her abused lips. “Prettiness is over rated as any sort of accomplishment...”

“You’re quite nicely formed,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. “An attribute which in the end is far more desirable than an admirable face.”

Yes, he was her husband. . . even if he was acting most bizarrely.

Slowly, her husband brushed his black gloved fingers over her cheek and then down her neck. They trailed lightly, teasing over her chilled skin, edging along the neckline of her lacy bodice.

She kept waiting for her body to burst into treacherous fire as it always did at his touch. Yet, nothing happened. A feeling of sheer delight stole through her. At last, her mind had conquered her body. It was such a relief that she longed to jump up and do a whirling dervish. . . Alas, her hands were still tied behind her. “You, sir, are an ass.”

“How can you say that to your savior?” he quipped, his face a mask of amusement and that amusement took precedence over her discomfort.

She attempted to shift away from his gloved hand doing its dance very nearly upon her bosom, yet the pain in her shoulders made undue movement impossible. “I should rather be kicked in the head by a mule that risk your kind of saving.”

“Come now, I’m not that bad.” He smiled ever so slightly, a smile that was full of darkness rather than humor. “Most women adore me.”

She turned her head away from him, her only immediate means of protest. “I thought we had established that I am not most women.”

He paused in his bold stroking of her neck and breastbone. “Do forgive me, have me met?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. It is I who most likely hit my head as I left your coach, not you.” She whipped her head back towards him, intent on making her irritation plain. “Do not act the fool with me.”

He cocked his head to the side, his hair perfectly groomed away from his face. “My coach?”

Wasn’t his hair all boyishly mussed? Or at least it had been “Yes. . .”

His face paled and he rolled his eyes up to the heavens in dramatic supplication.

Cordy lifted her head from the ground trying to get a better look at his pained expression. “I say, are you quite alright?”

He whispered something inaudible then ran his eyes over her face again with far less passionate interest then groaned, “Cordelia, Duchess of Hunt, I presume?”

She snorted. “Don’t be an idiot.”

He brushed his gloves together, as if brushing her from him and allowed himself to plunk back onto the hard ground as if sitting in the middle of the road was the most common occurrence for a peer. “I concur, my brother is a fool, but you must not abase me in the same fashion.”

She twisted, her frock catching under her hips as she gaped. “Y-your—”

“Brother.”

“Yes, thank you. I was about to say that.”

He shrugged elegantly. “You seemed to be stuttering.”

A groan of her own grumbled past her lips. “It has been an eventful night.”

“So, I gathered from Grandmama.”

“The dowager?” she panted, all this wiggling about on the ground finally taking a toll.

“Mmmmm.” Her...dare she say it, brother-in-law...adjusted his hat so it sat back from his face. “I do believe all of London heard her rantings. She is not used to people going against her dictates.” He leaned back slightly. “I never expected to run into you on the road. Its rather opportune though.”

“I don’t follow.”

He stared at her for several long moments as if attempting to see deep within her and then after apparent failure in his quest he scowled. “Jack seems to have some sort of fascination with you.”

Her mouth opened then closed with undignified astonishment. “You do realize I am still tied up and lying upon the cold ground.”

“It had occurred to me, yes.”

“And?” Her voice was a touch over born and she gulped back her desire to bellow at him.

“I suppose you should like me to untie you.”

“Yes. That would be pleasant, thank you.”

“But you see,” he leaned forward, those black eyes of his, so similar to her husband’s, wandered over her face, found nothing there and descended in a most impertinent fashion to her breasts and hips. “I should like to discover what it is about you that would cause my brother to act in such an odd fashion. He doesn’t usually take such interest in women.”

“Are you saying he prefers men?”

“Good God no,” he burst out quickly. “Not that some of the men in my family—” He cut himself off and his brows furrowed slightly whether in disdain or curiosity it was hard to measure. “What a mind you do have. I’m shocked you even know anything about such goings on. You see, my brother and I usually enjoy women, sometimes even the same one at the same time, but more as one might enjoy a nice piece of linen which after one uses—”

“One discards?” she said, disheartened. It didn’t surprise her. Of course, it didn’t. She knew his reputation and the temperament of most men in general. Men would never hold equal to women in terms of admirable qualities, yet she found herself deeply disappointed that even his brother held such a confirmation of Jack’s dissipation.

“Yes, exactly. How astute for a woman you are.”

“Thank you,” she drawled.

“I’m glad you can appreciate the delicacy of the situation.”

“I’d appreciate it more if my hands were untied.”

“Learning to live with disappointment is the most important key to happiness.”

“And have you achieved such blessed happiness?”

“Ah. No. But then again, it is a far more suitable trait for females then men.”

“Of course.” And with that she knew she had no other recourse than to put the blighter in his place. As swiftly as she was able, she drew her knee up, blasting it into the side of his face.

Whether by shock or force, he twisted to the right, landing beside her. Without hesitating, she vaulted up and threw her leg over his middle, a compromising but necessary position, she leaned back and with her tied hands grabbed his most important asset. . . Unpleasant as it was she gripped his shaft until a rather un-masculine sound whistled out of his lips.

“Untie me,” she demanded coolly.

“Release me,” he countered, his voice considerably higher than a moment before.

“No.”

“I begin to understand my brother’s perplexity,” he rasped. “I should just throttle you.”

“You can of course try, but I have a good hold upon your nether regions, and if you were to attack me, I promise I shall take your manhood with me.”

He panted slightly and for a moment she was horrified by the possibility that he might be enjoying this so she squeezed with a considerably harder degree.

A yap of pain escaped his lips as he gritted, “Women are not meant to be violent.”

“Women are exceedingly violent when unencumbered by society. Some tribal societies even encourage a woman’s violence. . . For instance many of the native tribes of North America leave torture to the women.”

His hands came up and he held them in supplication. “Now, I am going to reach around and untie you. Shall you trust me?”

“Trust is hardly a word that shall ever be in my list of feelings with regards to you, my lord, but in this instance, I shall have to hold on with dear life, and allow your hands freedom to do what is necessary.

He merely shook his head at her verbosity then began to work at her bindings. When he’d got the first part of the binding loosed, he said, “I shall recall your warning and keep myself to ladies entrenched in society.”

“How very boring for you.” The braided rope eased from her wrists and though she was tempted to whip her hands forward, she continued to grip his continually hard and rather large cock lest he win the upper hand.

“Boring as it may be, I am rather fond of my cock and should like to keep it where it is.”

“Do you promise to leave me be when I unhand you?” She had no desire to have to fend him off again, once she released him.

“Madam, no man in his right mind could leave you be. You are a veritable fortress to be climbed and overcome.”

She squeezed a little harder and he yelped again. “Yes! Yes. I swear.”

“Why should I believe you?”

His hands came up to her shoulders and gripped with their own determination. “Because you have me quite literally by the balls.”

“I do, don’t I?”

“Mmmm.”

She glowered at him, weighing the dangers of her predicament. It was clear that Jack’s brother was no gentleman and yet, they couldn’t sit thusly like some Sisyphus, watching the sun go up and down and she stuck to her task of keeping him at bay. “So be it.”

And she began to loose her hands, but not before the pointed crack of a pistol echoed through the air.