Chapter 14

All this time, she had assumed her husband was the least reputable man in Christendom. She’d been mistaken. His brother certainly took the crack brained cake and given the circumstances, Jack was handling himself with remarkable aplomb.

Still, the very idea that she was imprisoned by not one but two Eversleigh brothers was more than there was to be born.

For perhaps the thousandth time, she lamented her unfortunate decision to leave behind her simple existence of categorizing mummies and scattered beads. England, so bucolic, and ruled by strictures as reliable as time itself, had appeared to have been an un-intimidating custard of a place compared with the wilds of Africa.

How mistaken she had been. And being mistaken was another state to which she was unaccustomed. In fact, in the last days she had been thrown into more unaccustomed states of being than she had in her entire existence.

“Take my hand,” her husband ordered, extending the strong appendage towards her.

She eyed it. “Whatever for?”

He let out a long-suffering sigh. “My good woman, must you question every thing?”

“As a general rule. . . Yes.”

“You are going to ride with me,” he said simply.

“I prefer to walk.”

“You could always ride with me,” contributed Charles as he untwisted the top of his silver flask.

“No!” she and her husband vetoed in unison.

“You cannot walk,” Jack said tightly. “We will be traveling a goodly distance and you are hardly wearing trekking boots.

“A practical point,” she conceded, feeling the rocks and clumps of dirt pushing up through the kid leather of her slippers to the pads of her feet. Not that her feet weren’t tough. Unlike London ladies, she could hie back to London without too much carnage to her toes.

“Will such a consideration induce your co-operation?”

She was about to reply with a firm, no, but from the distance, the rapid thudding of horse hooves intruded upon her ability to respond. Horse hooves indicated the possibly imminent presence of the ominous minions of the dowager duchess.

“Well I—”

Before she could even finish her reply, Jack grabbed her and hauled her upon the horse.

For the second time that day, Cordelia found herself being carried in Neanderthal fashion.

With a kick of his boots and a snap of reins, the stallion raced down the road. Cordelia stared at the dark road flying beneath her. Struggling seemed her first line of defense but she enjoyed the shape of her head and had no desire to fall beneath the steal shod hooves. So, with rising fury at his high handedness, she gripped Jack’s calf and forced her body to relax against the charging horse’s powerful body.

She had no idea how long they rode, but they didn’t cease for hours, her own body vibrating with each powerful thud of the horse’s gate.

Jack’s gloved hand, twisted into the back of her frock, kept her relatively stable, and her own familiarity with horses lent her some ease in the wild dash, but her stomach began to protest and the pressure in her head from its angle began to have the most upsetting effects on her equilibrium. “Stop!” she shouted.

He said nothing but kept on riding.

It was tempting to cast up her accounts on his leg, but even she didn’t wish to undergo that undignified occurrence. “Cease or I shall be sick upon you!”

That had its proper effect and the gate of the powerful animal slowed. With each loping step, she drew in slow breaths. When the animal finally came to a halt, she slid down off him. Her slippers hit the earth and her legs wobbled.

Only Jack’s firm hold on her shoulder kept her upright. The sound of his own boots hit the earth beside her.

“My apologies—”

She held up her hand, gulping in the cold air. When at last her stomach stilled and she felt herself again, she whipped towards him. “I should punch you.”

“No doubt.”

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded.

“I was afraid.”

“Of what,” she asked, her voice softening.

“That you weren’t going to come with me,” he said simply.

“I have been compelled.”

She narrowed her eyes. “To annoy your grandmother?”

There was a long pause in the dark night. “I have been compelled not to not let you go.”

Cordelia hesitated in her fury. “Why would you say such a thing?” she whispered.

Those dark eyes of his bore into her with honesty, “It is the truth.”

“It can’t be,” she protested, an alarming lump forming in her throat.

“Why?”

“Because you wanted nothing to do with me,” she whispered.

“Cordelia,” he said, her name a soft caress. “I never knew you.”

She folded her arms, determined not to let his words break down her defensive. No matter how much she liked them. “And now that you know me, you are entitled to drag me across the country?”

“I am only giving us what we both so desire.”

“And that is?” she challenged.

Jack’s hand darted out and slid around her waist. The powerful splay of his palm pressed into the small of her back arching her towards him.

Desire and anger raced through her, a formidable combination. Fury at her traitorous hunger erupted inside her. She hauled back her palm and ready to crack it against his cheek but she didn’t. She hesitated, her gaze trailing to his soft lips. Lips so strong yet lush and full of promise. And in that hesitation, he acted.

Jack lifted her up onto her tiptoes and he bent down capturing her mouth in one swift hot kiss. The kiss was meant to devour and devour it did. All her resolve and anger sparked into a well of need. Her clenched hands relaxed and instead of shoving him away, she grabbed onto his broad shoulders opened her mouth to him.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that for her whole life she had had to forgo ultimate pleasure so that one day she could be free of him. . . and now? Now, that she was in his presence with him kissing her, it was the most perplexing thing to realize that she had desired no man as she now desired him.

For just a little longer. That was all she desired. Just a little longer and so she tilted her head back and drank in the sensation of her body melded against his.

Just as he should be, he was hard in all the places that she was soft. The plains of his chest were taut and even through layers of fabric she could feel the precise definition of his strength. She wanted to drown in it. To give herself up to pleasure.

The tips of his fingers traced over her back, then his palms slid up her sides until they were at her breasts ready to cup them.

Oh, how she ached for his hands to cover her breasts. But she couldn’t. Could she?

This was madness! She was throwing her future away for his touch!

Panting, she tore herself away. “I cannot do this.”

His own face was dazed with passion. “You want this,” he said and goodness, his voice was shaded with sin and the promise of all the forbidden things he would do to her.

“I want my freedom more.”

“You can have both.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“Give me a week. One week.”

“Why?”

“To pleasure you. In any way. . . In every way you wish and then if you wish it, I will find a way for you to be free. You will never have to see England or my family again with no ill effects. If that is what you wish.”

Good god, could she say yes?

* * *

Christ, he needed her to say yes. His sanity was riding upon her answer. Just the feel of her beneath his gloved fingers was the sort of temptation a boy feels on his first night with his first woman. He hadn’t felt this completely alive in a decade and he couldn’t relinquish that for anything.

Cordelia licked her lips and swayed. “If anyone ever knew.”

“They never will,” he assured her. Hell, at this point he’d say anything to get her damn frock off her body and free her for his touch, but luckily, his reasoning this time was based on the truth.

Her breasts rose and fell quickly, and her eyes were wary even if they were full of heat. “You will let me go. If I give you one week.”

His own desire twisted up into something else that felt suspiciously like regret. It sounded as if she were selling herself to him for her freedom. Perhaps that was what she was doing and it was in the end, what he was asking her to do. But in one week, he could rid himself of his hunger for her, couldn’t he? And she would get her freedom and a bit of pleasure in the bargain. . . That had to be the answer. “One week and then I will take you to the nearest port, and I will handle my grandmother.” He hesitated. He’d never gone against the old girl before. But he could. If he had to. And for Cordelia, he would. He wouldn’t let her be destroyed for him. “I am the Duke of Hunt after all.”

“Then I won’t say no,” she whispered. “I don’t even wish to say no. But you must understand, it is not you I desire, as difficult as it is to admit. I don’t even know you. It is your body. . . your abilities that I long for.”

He nodded, his own body humming with the knowledge that he was going to use every bit of carnal knowledge he had to win her over. It was ever the case. His body was a vehicle for a woman’s corruption and he would joyfully corrupt her. It was in his nature and at present, whether she wished to admit it or no, it was her primary desire. “One week,” he said softly.

It would have to be enough.