A Dangerous Man (13 page)

He pressed his head between his palms for a instant before angrily snatching them away. He was craven, giving in to such despicable weakness. Especially now, he jeered, when he could least afford it. For God’s sake, these were nothing more than nameless phantasms.

He spun around and jerked his clothes from the tallboy. He hauled on his breeches, thrust his arms into the sleeves of a cambric shirt, and noosed his throat with a cravat. Grabbing his traveling coat
from atop his trunk, he headed out the door, knowing from the rhythm of his bootheels on the thick Aubusson carpet that he was running.

The sky was a featureless gray blanket. Fog slipped between rain-slicked tree trunks and nestled in the low places along the trail. Hart leaned over the withers of the green broke hunter, racing him forward, shredding the tranquil pools of mist. The gelding sawed at the bit, its breathing harsh and labored in the stillness, fighting Hart for control.

He fought back. He spurred the horse, pushing it until foam flecks from its open mouth splattered his jacket and sweat from its sides soaked his thighs. Only then, only when he felt its huge muscles trembling more than his own, did he relent, dropping his hands and allowing the beast to stumble into a walk. He groaned suddenly, sinking forward on the saddle and pressing his forehead against its great sodden neck.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

The horse blew gustily, tossing its head and rolling its eyes as it skittered on its rear legs.

“Evil creature,” Hart muttered. “I’ve half killed you and still you’d rather run yourself to death than be thought a simple pleasure mount.”

Grimly, he waited, staring at the dark line of trees ahead of him, steeling himself for the anxiety
to return. There was no running from demons that rode pillion.

And then, amid the silence of anticipation, as his heart thudded in a thick, stilted cadence, he heard a soft swishing sound. He peered forward.

A short distance away, just cresting the rise of the trail, a feminine figure limped toward him, slashing irritably at the grass with a naked branch. The first spangles of sunlight crept along her shoulders, backlighting her tumbled hair and turning it into a molten nimbus about her shadow-obscured features. He cocked his head, listening. A tuneless little hum wafted to him on the chill predawn breeze.

Mercy Coltrane.

She lifted her head and spied him. Humiliation drained the blood from his lean cheeks. Would that God had spared him this, at the very least. But God did not spare weaklings.

“Have you seen my horse?” she demanded, stepping forward. Immediately she stopped, wincing.

He sucked in a lungful of air, concern for her well-being harrying the gibbering phantoms that crowded his thoughts. “Why are you limping?” he asked hoarsely. “Are you hurt?”

“No, no,” she assured him. “I’m fine. Mostly. But these wretched riding boots were not made for walking. I am sure I will have blisters the size of guineas.
Have
you seen my horse?”

He relaxed visibly and she grimaced, a wry, puckish contortion of her lovely mouth and dark
straight brows. She looked so damned innocent, standing there with her head tilted and her hair loose on her shoulders, unaware of the demons that roiled beneath his surface calm, clamoring for voice. He ironed his face of all expression.

She tapped her foot, gazing at him in exasperation. He hadn’t exasperated anyone for a long time. Frightened sometimes, intimidated on occasion, antagonized perhaps … but not this simple exasperation. It was novel to be treated so casually. It was soul healing.

“Well? Cat got your tongue? Or have you seen so many riderless horses this morning you are trying to determine which one was mine?” She impudently cocked a brow.

And as he stared at her, saw the negligent manner with which she accepted his appearance—though he knew his hair was rumpled and his face stained with tension—every remnant of the boy Hart had been answered the siren call of her youth and ease, even as the man he was responded to her profound and uncontrived womanliness.

Why, he asked himself, why now must he admit to a desire that had grown from the first moment he’d seen her? Perhaps, he allowed with a sad inward smile, he was simply too exhausted to deny it anymore. What did it matter if he could no longer do himself the kindness of a lie? It changed nothing.

She was studying him, a touch of concern coloring her expression. Or was it wariness? Perhaps their isolation was just now occurring to her. The
thought scored him with bitter amusement.
Too late, Miss Coltrane
, he thought even as he asked, “What happened?”

Her consternation disappeared, replaced by chagrin. She sighed and tossed her branch away. “I wish I knew. I was …” She peeked up at him and drew a deep breath. “I lost my seat and fell off.”

He laughed, amazed not only that she’d wrung laughter from him—now, of all times—but that amusement could coexist with desire, not superseding it but instead augmenting it, adding piquancy to his carnal thoughts. And carnal they were.

His hooded gaze traveled over her, noting the jacket molding the swell of her breasts, the way her riding skirt cupped her pert bottom. Thank God, she could not know the course of his thoughts, or how his body tightened in response to her low, delicious laughter.

She grinned, pleased she’d made him laugh. So easily, he mocked himself, did she shred each tether of the self-control he’d plaited to tie himself to sanity.

“I don’t expect you’ll keep this a secret, will you?” she asked impishly.

He smiled lazily and dismounted. Impossible not to tease her.

“I didn’t think so.” She tossed her head and her hair rippled across her shoulder, thick and glossy.

He wanted to take a silken fistful and roll it in
his palm. He wanted to feather a flake of mud from her cheek and then trace the sweet curve of her throat with his finger.

He wanted to taste her.

His desire confounded him. He had never used sex as an analgesic. In North Africa, in New Mexico, in Texas, he had known men who celebrated their survival in the most elemental fashion. He’d never been one of them.

Death, whether served or avoided, left him feeling overwhelmingly empty, with nothing left in him to give and, more, nothing within him capable of receiving. But now, as he looked at Mercy Coltrane, desire surged through his body, splintering the still, cold center he’d kept such vigilant guard over.

He tore his gaze from her quizzical gold-green eyes. He would touch her if he looked any longer. He would do more. He did not need to test his control. He was tested enough as it was. Though, he realized with astonishment, the gibbering panic had receded. It was no more than a low thrum of anxiety now. He looked about, anywhere but at her, and finally realized what he saw.

“What about your groom?” he asked. “Where is he?”

“What groom?” she mumbled, averting her eyes.

“What—?” He frowned. “Are you without an escort?”

“I go riding every morning.” She spoke defiantly—to the ground. “Without a groom. I couldn’t
stand to have someone shadow my every move.” She glanced up and immediately waved an ungloved hand at him, forestalling his protest. Her fingers looked raw. They would be cold. “Lady Acton knows, so you needn’t look so disapproving. She’s accepted it as part of my American eccentricity.”

He must have made some disapproving sound, lost in contemplation of her hands, for she sniffed. “I have been discreet. I slip out a bit early so I’ll be back, safely decked out in a morning gown, by the time your exalted friends awake.”

“A bit early?”
Hart demanded, angry that she had so little care for her person, let alone her reputation. “It’s not yet six o’clock. If I hadn’t chanced upon you, you would be walking for hours yet. Though this may not be Texas, there are still dangers awaiting foolish, impulsive, and unattended young women.”

“This was an unfortunate accident. If you think I shall stay in my room, trembling over potential harm that might come my way as soon as I pop my nose out the door, you can think again. The only danger facing me now is the danger that these blisters may render me incapable of dancing at Acton’s ball,” she said. “Besides, why should one waste a perfectly nice morning lying in bed just because something unpleasant
might
happen? Apparently you haven’t.”

Her words struck too close to home. “Are you really interested in what would keep me in bed?”
he asked in a low voice. She flushed and looked away.

“That was unnecessary,” he said, cursing himself for treating her so unfairly. “Forgive me. We need to get back. Here, I’ll toss you up.”

“Onto your horse?”

“That was the idea, yes.”

She eyed the fidgeting gelding dubiously. “And then what?”

“I’ll lead you back to the house.”

“If you say so.”

She hobbled toward the horse and grabbed the saddle’s lip. He bent and held his hand out for her foot. As soon as she lifted her hem, the gelding shied, snorting and dancing, its ears flattening against its elegant head.

“I don’t think he likes women any more than his rider does,” Mercy mumbled, dropping her skirt and backing away.

“Why ever would you say that?” Hart asked in genuine surprise, snapping the reins to settle the evil-minded brute.

“Nothing. Just an impression. Forget I said it.”

“I like women very well.”

“If you say so.”

“I
dislike
that phrase. Particularly coming from you. It reeks of insincerity.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend you. Perhaps it’s just
me
you—and your horse—don’t like.”

“You haven’t offended me,” he said. “You are simply wrong. I admire women. I admire you. I just—”

“You do?” Her incredible eyes widened. They shone with unfeigned pleasure. Pleasure that he’d said he admired her? What an extraordinary notion. Sleep must have deprived him of his wits.

“Certainly,” he said, leading the horse back to her side. “You’re honest. You’re intelligent. And your concern for your brother—even if misplaced—is very laudable.”

“Oh.” Disappointment permeated the utterance.

What did she want to hear? That he had sat at that damned party last night straining to hear what she might next say? That he had waited for her to look at him so he might drink of her regard like a moonstruck lad?

She had turned away from him, her head bowed as she fussed with the saddle. The back of her neck looked downy and vulnerable. He cleared his throat. “Shall we try once more?”

They ended trying not once but half a dozen more times, and each time the fractious gelding shied away from her. Finally she turned around, hands on her hips, chin angled purposefully. “You will have to take me up with you. I simply cannot walk and he will simply not be ridden by a woman.”

“All right,” Hart agreed as the gelding bared its teeth and feinted once more at Mercy. He swung into the saddle and held his hand out. She hesitated an instant before taking it. He’d been right, her skin was rough and cold. She sprang upward
as he lifted. He caught her about the waist and settled her sideways to him in the cradle of his lap.

Her bottom snuggled intimately against him. The subtle scent of rain and ferns, underscored by soap, filled his nostrils. She was warm and sweetly curved.

Thus when he nudged the gelding forward, preparing himself for a very long ride, he found a very different brand of panic playing havoc with his body than the one that had chased him from his room.

“How did you lose your horse?” he asked finally, breaking the silence after several miles. They were within sight of the house now and yet he could not endure another moment of this focused intimacy.

He had to distract himself from the feel of her, each step rocking her bottom softly into the juncture of his thighs, the delicate strength of her shoulder blades pressing into his chest, the scent of her. It did not matter that she was enveloped in blameless wool worsted. He reacted as if naked flesh were on his lap.

And more important, it was obvious that she was as uncomfortable in his arms as he was in holding her—though the reasons for their distress could not be more dissimilar; hers having been born of modesty, his of lust. But still he wanted to relieve her distress and found in that desire proof of his own hypocrisy. For though he’d questioned her lack of caution in her relations with men, he
himself needed to erase that caution when she exercised it against him.

“Mercy?” he prompted, a hint of desperation in his tone. “What happened?”

She glanced at him sidelong. “I think it was a poacher,” she murmured.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“There was a shot. My horse bolted and I fell off. I”—she peeked at him from beneath the sable fringe of her lashes—“I really wasn’t attending where I was going.”

“No one came to see what had happened?”

She shook her head and her cool, satiny hair brushed his lips. “I called but no one answered. I expect once they realized I was all right, they ran off.”

“Perhaps,” he murmured, considering her words. Poachers? Except for the birds and game Acton released himself, the countryside this close to London was hunted out.