The prospect of the warm fires burning behind those meager walls brought home her misery. She’d give anything to be sitting warm and snug in front of a fire, a book in her lap, a steaming cup of tea and plate of honeyed scones within reach.
A clanging carried over the storm, coming from the blacksmith’s barn at the edge of the village. They followed the noise, turning full force into the wind. The sharp air lashed at her, stabbing her face and throat. She couldn’t imagine how he must feel. He had carried her the distance without complaint, never breaking stride.
Her eyes smarted, tears seeping from the corners and streaming her cheeks, blending with the rain coating her face. She tucked her chin to her chest and averted her face, burying her nose against his chest, seeking his heat, the shelter of his body. Shivering, she burrowed deeper against his chest, pretending not to notice the hard body holding her so securely even as she sank against him, hungering for his warmth.
He carried her beneath a jutting portico. Still holding her in his arms, he stood still for a long moment as if he doubted whether she could stand and support herself.
“I can stand,” she murmured, moving her face away from his chest.
Nodding, he released her legs. Her body slid the length of his in agonizing slow degrees. The sensation of her breasts crushed to his hard chest sent a lick of heat curling low in her belly. Flustered at such an unfamiliar sensation she flushed and quickly stepped back.
Though sheltered from the worst of the wind and rain, she felt cold without his nearness, bereft. He kept one hand on her arm, their only remaining contact. From beneath her lashes, she studied the hard, shadowed line of his jaw and accepted what she had tried so hard to ignore. He was magnificent. Even covered in filth. The most attractive man she had seen outside of a ballroom.
He reeked raw, masculine power. From the unfashionably long hair clinging to his face and throat, to the intimidating breadth of his shoulders. If my family ever thrust a man like him at me, I might think twice before chasing him off. Following that unbidden thought came the desperate need for distance. No man was worth the shackles of matrimony. No matter how he made her body tingle.
Even yearning for the warmth of his hand, for the burning imprint of those long fingers, she pulled free, severing all contact. He glanced down at her, lifting a dark brow.
Lips compressed, she crossed her arms and forced her attention on the stocky, flat-nosed man stepping out of the building’s glowing core. He wiped grimy hands on a leather apron and nodded in greeting.
“Tom, the lady here is looking for her driver.”
The blacksmith shook his head, frowning. “Haven’t seen a soul since the storm blew in. Everyone’s got better sense than to be out in this.” His gaze raked them, his expression seeming to say, everyone except you two fools.
“My carriage is stuck in a ditch north of here—my maid’s still inside.” Probably snoring soundly, Portia thought as she lifted her reticule. “I need someone to retrieve both here. Naturally, I’ll pay you for your ser vices—”
“ ’Course, Miss.” The blacksmith turned and called to someone inside the barn. A young man garbed in a matching leather apron joined them. “My son and I will ride out and fetch them for you.”
Portia sighed, feeling some of the tension ease out of her shoulders and neck. “Thank you.”
The blacksmith gestured across the yard. “I’ll find you at the inn, then?”
“Yes,” she answered, already visualizing the dry taproom where she could wait and warm herself.
With a nod for the blacksmith, the man at her side took her arm and led her—cautiously, with care for her ankle—to the inn.
Once inside the nearly empty taproom, he settled her at one of the tables, the one nearest the large, crackling fireplace. Her belly rumbled at the tantalizing smells drifting from the kitchen.
She mentally counted the coins in her reticule and debated whether she could afford a hot meal. Grandmother had given her only what she deemed necessary for a journey to Yorkshire and back. Recovery and repair of a carriage had not been part of the calculation.
A few figures sat huddled over their tankards, waiting out the storm. One man lifted his head to shout in greeting, “Heath!”
Heath? Well, she had a name now. Whether she wished to or not, she would forever remember her darkly handsome rescuer by name.
“Clive,” Heath greeted.
Clive snatched a knife from the scarred wood tabletop. His thick fist waved it at Heath encouragingly. “Give us a show, eh?”
Heath shook his head. “Another time.”
She looked at Heath, a frown pulling her lips. He must have felt her stare. His gaze slid to hers and he shrugged. “It’s just a game I played as a lad.”
Portia arched an eyebrow at him, curious to see what kind of “show” the locals regarded so highly.
“C’mon,” Clive bellowed.
Sighing, Heath strode across the room and plucked the knife from Clive’s fist. She watched as he straddled the bench, splayed his large hand flat on the table, and proceeded to stab between each finger in a frenzied blur of movement. She jerked at each thud of the knife in the wood table, certain that he would cut his hand at any moment. Her shocked gaze lifted to his face, to the bored expression there.
What kind of boyhood had he led?
Finally, he stopped, and she remembered to breathe again. He rose and sent the knife slicing cleanly through the air. It landed square in the center of a faded and smoke-mottled painting above the hearth.
Clive chortled and slapped the table in approval.
“Do you have a death wish?” she demanded upon his return to their table. “Reckless riding, reckless”—she waved a hand at the table where he had conducted his perilous demonstration, groping for the appropriate words and arriving at—“knife play!”
He replied with aggravating equanimity, even as something furtive gleamed in his gaze, “ ‘The worst evil of all is to leave the ranks of the living before one dies.’ ”
She shook her head, frustrated—mystified—at the man before her who quoted Seneca.
“Ain’t nothing,” Clive called out. “You should see him climb Skidmoor with his bare hands. In winter, too.”
“Skidmoor,” she echoed.
“It’s just a hill,” Heath explained.
“A hill?” Clive guffawed, shaking his head. “Right. More like a mountain.”
He climbed mountains in the dead of winter?
“Heath,” a serving girl squealed from across the taproom.
Portia eyed the woman’s scandalously low bodice and instinctively drew her cloak tighter about her shoulders as if she could hide her lack of similar attributes.
“Mary, you’re looking well.” Heath grinned in a way that made him look suddenly young, boyish. Not nearly so intimidating as the stranger from the road.
Mary sashayed across the room, rolling her hips in what Portia felt certain to be a practiced walk. “Better now that you’re here,” she purred.
With no thought or regard to her presence, he grinned wickedly at the serving girl, his teeth a flash of white in his sun-browned face. How his skin managed to brown in this sunless country baffled her. No doubt further evidence that he was more devil than man.
The curvy serving girl lowered herself into his lap, tossed her plump arms around his neck and then, for all the world to see, planted an open-mouthed kiss on him.
Portia looked away, embarrassment stinging her cheeks. She studied her hands in her lap, ran her thumbs nervously over the backs, over the cold, puckered gooseflesh of her exposed wrists.
Unable to suppress her morbid curiosity, she sucked in a breath and lifted her eyes to observe the unseemly display.
Her gaze collided with his storm-gray eyes.
He watched her—Portia.
Heat flooded her face to be caught staring, as if she were interested, as if she cared who he kissed. His ravenous wolf ’s stare never wavered from her face. Amusement gl
eamed in the gray depths as he kissed the female atop his lap.
She wrenched her gaze away and twisted her fingers in her lap until they ached.
Do not watch. Do not watch. Do not grant him the satisfaction of knowing he fascinates you.
Unable to stop herself, she snuck another look, compelled, beckoned by the magnetic pull of his taunting gaze. His eyes gleamed wickedly, ensnaring her, whispering her name. She gawked as he trailed a hand over Mary’s plait, watched as his long, tapered fingers unraveled the rope of hair, twining the tendrils in his elegant, blunt-tipped fingers.
Her stomach clenched and knotted. Something hot and unfamiliar ignited in her blood as she watched him kiss the woman with slow thoroughness, all the while devouring her with his eyes.
Was she such a wanton? Her quickening pulse seemed answer enough. Blood rushed to her ears, blocking out the steady patting of rain on the thatched roof, the hiss and pop of the fire in the hearth, the sound of her own excited breath. She moistened her lips with a flick of her tongue and his gray eyes darkened, twin beads of jet as they followed the movement, scanning her face, then dropping to the rise and fall of her chest beneath her soaked clothes.
She lifted her chin and tried to convey her contempt, her absolute disgust at their vulgar display—that she was a lady unmoved in the presence of such wickedness. Yet her breath betrayed her, falling fast and hard from her lips. Her cheeks felt aflame and she worried that color flooded her face.
“Mary,” bellowed a man, presumably the establishment’s proprietor. “Stop molesting the customers and get in the kitchen, girl.”
Mary ended the kiss, a cat’s satisfied smile on her face—as if she had just feasted on a bowl of cream. Wiping her lips with the back of her hand, she sent one last glance Heath’s way before departing.
Heath rose to his feet, eyes glittering like embers as he looked down at her. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, moist from the kiss of another woman. Her pulse leapt and she looked away, her gaze flitting about the room like a bird looking for a place to land. His boots slid over the dirt-packed floor, scraping to a stop in front of her. She trained her gaze on those soiled boots, not daring to look up at that face, his dark good looks, the heated gaze that for some reason made her squeeze her thighs together beneath her skirts.
He bent, his cheek nearly brushing hers. She jerked and pulled her shoulders back. She stared at him in alarm, feeling like prey trapped in his fixed stare.
A slow smile curved his lips. Then his head dipped. His cheek grazed hers, the stubble on his hard jaw scratchy, sparking a fire in her blood. She bit her lip to stop from crying out, determined that he not see how he affected her. The male musk of him filled her nostrils. Rain, wind, the scent of the moors—of gorse growing wild on rocky hills.
“Did you like that?” he breathed into her ear, his voice sliding over her skin like velvet, igniting a lick of heat low in her belly. “Care to try it?”
She drew a shuddering breath and shook her head fiercely. The image of her on his lap, his hand on her, flashed through her head, scandalizing her, horrifying her. Thrilling her.
He placed her lips next to his ear and she ceased to breathe. Gathering her composure tightly about her, she replied in her starchiest tone, “I’d rather kiss a pig.” She pulled back several inches to measure the effect of her words.
His lips curved in a lopsided grin.
Scowling, she added, “But then, that’s what you are, sir. A rutting pig.”
He chuckled, the sound deep and dangerous, spiraling through her body like warm sherry.
“Jealous?” His hot breath fanned against her sensitive ear, making her stomach somersault. He cupped the side of her face, his work-roughened palm firm against her cheek. With a forcefulness that stole her breath, he forced her face closer, his fingers sliding and curling around her nape.
Lips, surprisingly gentle, brushed the swirls of her ear as he talked. “You know, I imagined I was kissing your mouth, imagined your tongue tangling with mine.”
Ignoring the leap of her pulse, she snapped, “Words that no doubt seduced many a dim-witted maid.”
“Not so many,” he murmured, his thumb sliding over the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw, stopping at her mouth. “You’d be surprised.”
His feverish gaze fixed on her lips. As if testing its fullness, he stroked her bottom lip. Heat pooled low in her belly and her legs trembled. Somehow she found the strength to bring her hands up to his chest. Ignoring the breadth and firmness beneath the soaked fabric of his shirt, she shoved with all her might.
He didn’t budge. She could have been shoving at a boulder.
“Move,” she commanded.
He stared down at her for a long moment.
“Move,” she repeated, her jaw aching with tension.
“Of course.” He stepped back, hands aloft, a crooked smile on his lips.
She surged off the bench, every instinct demanding escape. Even if it meant heading back into the storm. Better than suffering the storm that raged here, between them. A hairsbreadth separated them, and from the heat in his eyes, he had no intention of granting her the space she desired.
“I know what you are,” she hissed.
That crooked smile deepened. “Do tell.”
“You’re a wicked man. A bounder, a—” she stopped, swallowed and continued in a more even tone. “You think to toy with me as though I were some besotted girl happy for the reward of your attentions.”
Still wearing that wicked grin, he ran a burning trail down her cheek with the tip of his finger. “An hour alone with me and I think I could turn you into a besotted girl happy for my attentions.”
“You’re disgusting,” she spat, fighting the full-body tremble his words produced.
The brute was uncivilized, an absolute primitive. No man had ever spoken to her so coarsely, so vulgarly. Is this how a man addressed a woman he desired? The thought made her feel both hot and cold, both frightened and titillated.
Heath straightened, and with one final soul-blistering look moved off to talk to the innkeeper.
Portia stripped off her soiled gloves and held shaking hands out to the fire, trying to slow her racing heart. Still, she couldn’t stop from watching him beneath lowered lids. At the sound of his heavy tread, she looked up.
“They’re preparing a room for you,” his voice rumbled through the air, warming her as the fire seemed unable to do. “I explained your circumstances to the innkeeper. He’ll send up your maid and things when they arrive.”
Her heart jumped, panicked at the expense of a room. The few coins in her reticule wouldn’t cover both lodging and the fees due the blacksmith. Annoyance flashed through her. Who was he to make arrangements on her behalf?
“No.” The single word fell hard from her mouth. “That’s not necessary. I need to move on this evening—”
“Impossible.” He frowned and shook his head, dismissing the possibility. “You need a change of clothes before you catch a chill. A warm meal would probably do you some good, too.”
Portia shook her head, slapping at the drooping brim of her bonnet. “Really, I—”
“Wet and cold are not a good combination,” he said as if he were speaking to a half-wit. “Yorkshire winters aren’t for the fainthearted.”
Portia stiffened her spine, unsure what offended her more. His overbearing manner or his estimation of her as faint of heart. She’d have him know she had never fainted in her life, not like so many ladies she knew who never strayed far from their smelling salts.
“It’s March,” she retorted. “Spring.”
“Not here.”
The rim of her bonnet sagged again, obscuring her vision. With a growl of frustration, she yanked it off her head, uncaring that she exposed her horribly mussed hair. She was done with people telling her what to do. Family, she had to endure. This man—a stranger—she did not. No matter how handsome. No matter how her body tingled in his presence.
“I appreciate all you?
??ve done, but I no longer need your assistance.”
His face hardened and the intimidating stranger from the road returned. “Very well, then. I’ll bid farewell.” Turning, he strode swiftly away.
Guilt stabbed at her…and something else she couldn’t identify. Her chest tightened as she watched his retreating back. Before she could reconsider, she surged to her feet.
He was halfway across the taproom before she caught up with him. Her hand clamped down on his arm. The muscles in his arm tensed under her fingers. He twisted around to look down at her, those deeply set eyes dark, unreadable. She stared up at him, groping for words, unclear why she had pursued him.
“Yes?” he asked.
Portia stood still as stone, frozen for an interminable moment, feeling an utter fool. They were strangers. He had deposited her safely at the inn. They were done. They had no business interacting further.
“T-thank you,” she whispered, pausing to swallow, fighting the impulse to look away, to hide from his watchful gaze. “For your help. I did not mean to sound…ungrateful.”
Portia bit her lip. Her brother would say good manners weren’t required from her. That this man’s assistance was her due as a Derring. But she couldn’t let him go without some kind of acknowledgment.
Opening her mouth, she thought to explain the true reason she could not stay overnight at the inn, then stopped herself. Or rather, pride stopped her. Her explanation stuck in her throat.
A strange light entered his eyes, making her heart pound. Those gray eyes darkened—polished onyx, gliding over her, looking at her in such a way that her blood burned in her veins. He took his time eyeing her muddied person and disheveled hair before returning to her face with a smoldering intensity.
He touched her face then. Warm fingers landed on her cheek with surprising gentleness. She couldn’t shrink away. Not as she should have. Not as her mind willed her to. No. Instead she found herself leaning into his hand, turning her cheek fully into the heat of his palm.
Closing her eyes, she forgot herself and let her lips brush his skin. The texture of his palm felt velvet rough against her lips. Her tongue darted out. A quick flick just to taste him. His gasp forced her eyes wide open.