The Forbidden Lord (25 page)

“My wife and I want a private room, the best you have,” Jordan stated. “I want a substantial breakfast brought up as soon as possible. And make sure my coachman is fed as well.” He added another sovereign, then with a glance at Emily, murmured something else in the man’s ear.

The innkeeper’s head bobbed so furiously, Emily thought it would surely fly off at any moment. “I have the perfect room for you, milord! I’ve no doubt your lordship will be pleased. This way. Watch your step. There’s a loose board here…”

She took Jordan’s arm when he offered it, trying not to dwell on the pleasure it had given her to hear him refer to her as his wife. She could not, must not let that temptation sway her. Marriage to a man unable to love would be disaster, even if there weren’t all those other considerations.

As they followed the babbling innkeeper up rickety stairs to the second floor, she cast a quick glance around her. She’d be leaving in a hurry, and it wouldn’t do to get lost on the way out.

The innkeeper ushered them into a room with cheery curtains and surprisingly clean floors, though the place smelled of coal and fish, and the
simple furnishings were worn. “I’ll have breakfast brought to you presently, milord.”

It was only after the innkeeper left that she noticed the bed. She was still gaping at it when she heard Jordan lock the door. Whirling toward the sound, she fixed him with an accusing gaze. “This isn’t a dining room! It has a bed in it!”

His knowing smile curled her toes. “So it does. I thought we might…satisfy our appetites in more than one respect.”

She blushed. Dear heavens, he wanted to bed her again. The very thought of it made her hot and weak. And why not let him? After all, she’d be leaving him before the day was out. Then there’d be no more chances for lovemaking.

Could it hurt to have one more hour in his arms?

She shook herself. Of course it could! If she let him make love to her again, she would never be able to leave him. Besides, the more often they made love, the more likely that she’d find herself with child afterward.

He took a step toward her, and she backed away. “Now, Jordan, this isn’t the time for this. You said you wanted to make Leicester today.”

He stalked her, a grin spreading over his handsome features. “We’ll make Leicester, don’t you worry. Come now, it’ll be a while before they bring us breakfast. There’s plenty of time to indulge ourselves.”

When he approached too near, she darted away, putting the bed between them as she fumbled for some reason to put him off. “Do you really wish to have the innkeeper burst in upon us in the midst of…of…well, you know?”

As he edged around the bed, he laughed. “Lovemaking, darling. It’s called lovemaking. And the door’s locked, remember?”

She backed up, only to run squarely into the coarse wooden dressing table. Glancing back, she spotted the earthen water pitcher that stood beside the washbasin atop the table. An idea took shape in her mind.

Shifting so that her body blocked his view of her hands, she groped behind her for the pitcher. “I intend to eat as soon as the food arrives. We’re not married yet, you know. If you wish to exercise your husbandly rights before the wedding, you must at least feed me first.”

He lunged for her, catching her in his arms just as her fingertips touched the pitcher’s handle. “All right then. How about a little taste before the main meal?” He planted a light kiss on the end of her nose. “Something to get me through breakfast.”

Then his lips were on hers, coaxing and tender and oh, so tempting. For a moment she let herself enjoy the kiss, let him open her mouth with his tongue to plunge inside, hinting at what he wanted to do to her, what other parts of her body he wanted to possess. His hands swept up her ribs until the thumbs rested beneath her breasts.

But when he covered the soft flesh with expert fingers, she tore her lips away from him. What was she doing? Shifting a little in his arms, she grasped the pitcher’s handle, praying he wouldn’t notice.

He didn’t. His eyes glittered with unquenched desire, and his breath came in jerky gasps as he bent his head toward her mouth again.

“I’m sorry, Jordan,” she whispered just before he could kiss her.

Then she conked him on the head with the pitcher.

W
hen Jordan came to, he was lying in a puddle of water on the rough wooden floor. Staring up at the stained ceiling, he tried to figure out why he was wet and his head hurt like the dickens. He sat up with a groan and rubbed the knot on his head. How did he come to be lying in such a shabby room?

Then he saw the cracked pitcher a few feet from him, and everything came back to him.

“Devil take her!” he growled as he lurched to his feet. Standing up made the throbbing in his head worse, but rage spurred him on.

The chit had actually run off! And after he’d begun to believe she’d resigned herself to their marriage! That’s what he got for underestimating Emily Fairchild.

Stumbling toward the door, he tried to open it,
but it was locked. Damn it! She’d locked him in. He pounded on the door, roaring at the top of his lungs for the innkeeper. He heard a flurry of voices in the hall, a woman’s and then a man’s raised in debate.

“She said he kidnapped her,” the woman’s voice muttered.

The second voice was almost assuredly the innkeeper’s. “Yes, but my dove, he’s an earl! We cannot keep an earl prisoner!”

“Open this door!” Jordan thundered, their discussion only enraging him further. “Open it or I swear I’ll have every magistrate in the county down on your head!”

There was a pause, but it was thankfully short. Then he heard the key turn in the lock, and the door swung open to reveal the innkeeper wringing his hands, accompanied by his scowling wife.

Ignoring them both, he hurried down the creaking stairs as quickly as his aching head would allow. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but it didn’t matter. He would find her. And when he did…

He burst into the dining room, but a cursory survey revealed she wasn’t there. He whirled upon the innkeeper, who’d followed him down the stairs babbling apologies.

“Where is she?” Jordan growled, taking a step toward the innkeeper.

“She…she…said that you kidnapped her against her will. She…she—”

“Where is my
wife
!” Jordan thundered.

The innkeeper gestured toward the door with one shaky finger.

Jordan hurried out into the inn yard, more in control of his faculties now. Thankfully, she hadn’t hit him hard enough to do any permanent damage.
At the other end of the crowded yard, he saw Watkins remonstrating with a burly man who was handing Emily into the driver’s seat of a small gig.

“Unhand my wife!” Jordan roared as he shoved his way through the throng.

Emily’s eyes widened at the sight of him. “Hurry up!” she urged her would-be rescuer. “Get in!”

When the man hesitated, his startled gaze fixed on the sight of a lord of the realm hurtling across the inn yard toward him, she took up the reins, but Watkins stepped forward, grabbing them away from her before she could do anything.

Glaring first at Watkins, then at Jordan, she stood up in the gig. “I’m going back to London, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

“Don’t count on that,” Jordan bit out as he stalked up to the gig.

The burly man stepped in his path. “The lady don’t want to go with you, guv’nor. And she paid me well to carry her back to the city.”

“Paid you—” He fumbled in his coat pocket for his purse, but it was gone. She’d not only hit him over the head with a pitcher and locked him in, she’d actually had the audacity to steal his money! “I assure you, your gallantry is misplaced. Whatever fool tale she might have told you, this woman
is
my wife, as my coachman can attest.”

Watkins nodded vigorously, more than ready to lie for his employer, but Jordan’s challenger would have none of it. “She said you’d say that. She said you been lying to people to keep her from escapin’. Well, I ain’t gonna let no bleedin’ swell with debauchery in his mind hurt no proper young lady.”

Jordan glared up at his challenger. Deuce take her, she’d chosen her protector well. The hulking brute outweighed him by five stone and was taller by a couple of inches, even though Jordan wasn’t
a small man himself. The man smelled of sweat and field labor, and probably hefted boulders for a living.

Which only enraged Jordan further. “Step aside, or I will make you,” he hissed in a low voice, conscious that half the inn now filled the yard behind him, watching the excitement unfold.

“Make me?” the man laughed. “Make me? Why, you impudent little—”

The man swung one of his beefy fists at Jordan’s head, but Jordan ducked it, countering with a swift blow to the man’s soft belly.

His challenger had just enough time to cast Jordan a look of complete bewilderment, as if shocked that an earl could pack a punch like that, before Jordan gave him a right uppercut to the chin.

The giant staggered back, but didn’t fall. Then he took Jordan by surprise with a blow to the eye that sent Jordan reeling back. Dimly, Jordan heard Emily cry out, begging them to stop, but stopping was out of the question.

The man had tried to steal Emily. And nobody was going to steal Emily. Quickly, Jordan shot his left fist into the man’s face, then put all his strength into smashing his right fist into the giant’s stomach, the man’s weakest area. That did the trick. Emily’s hapless Galahad crumpled to the ground, clutching his belly.

Not for nothing had Jordan spent time at the Lyceum studying pugilism for the past five years. One thing he’d learned—size didn’t matter nearly so much as the placement of one’s blows.

“Next time, don’t come between a ‘swell’ and his wife,” Jordan muttered as he stepped over the moaning form and headed to where Emily still stood in the gig, her mouth agape.

Before she could even protest, Jordan swung Em
ily down and into his arms. Ignoring her gasp, he carried her toward his coach.

“Put me down!” she cried, pounding on his chest. “Curse you, Jordan, I will not go with you!” When he merely threw her over his shoulder like a sack of wheat and nodded to Watkins to open the carriage door, she cried out, “Somebody stop him! Help me, please!”

Grimly, he tossed her into the coach, then faced the grumbling crowd. Thanks to Emily and his complete miscalculation of her determination not to marry him, he was now in a rather delicate situation. More than one face looked upon him with suspicion, and a knot of beefy laborers had tumbled out of a cart, armed with pitchforks and shovels.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he feigned a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “Please forgive my wife for any trouble she’s caused. She and I argued, and this is her way of punishing me.”

“You…you liar!” she protested through the open door to the coach. “You scoundrel, you—”

He shut it in her face, then leaned against it, glad that his coach was sturdy enough to muffle her voice. “As you can see, she’ll say anything to strike back at me.”

“She says you kidnapped her,” a belligerent voice called out from the crowd.

He snorted. “Come now, do you really think I need to kidnap a woman for companionship? Besides, I told the innkeeper she was my wife when we entered. She didn’t protest it then, and she had every opportunity to do so. But she wasn’t angry at me then.” He cast them a rueful look. “Or at least not as angry as she is now.”

His challenger stumbled to his feet, looking wary and stubborn all at the same time. “The lass said
you wanted to take advantage of her. That’s wot she tole
me
.”

“I must plead guilty to that.” He forced a smile to his face. “I quite often take advantage of my beautiful wife, but then, who wouldn’t?”

To his relief, there were a few titters in the crowd.

“Unfortunately,” he went on, “she detests leaving her fancy friends behind in London for a week at my estate, and she made her wishes quite plain a few moments ago.” He gave an exaggerated sigh. “But alas, business calls, and I do so like having my wife with me in the country where I can…take advantage of her.”

He could sense their sudden indecision. Their strong belief in the immorality of noblemen was being challenged by their equally strong belief in the frivolous whims of noblewomen. And the latter, coupled with his ability to trounce a man nearly twice his size, seemed to be winning, though he didn’t intend to stay here and find out for certain.

To further clinch the matter, he turned to his challenger. “You may keep the money my wife gave you. You deserve it.”

He made sure his look amplified his words, reminding the hulking brute that an earl was no one to trifle with, especially one whose “wife” had stolen his purse. When the man blanched and mumbled, “You ought to keep a tight leash on that one, guv’nor,” Jordan knew he’d won his point.

He turned to the innkeeper. “Thank you for your hospitality, but I’m afraid we must be on the road before my wife gets any other fool notions in her head.”

“Yes, milord, I understand.”

Jordan reached for the door handle, and the innkeeper cried, “Wait!”

He froze, wondering if he were about to be stoned by a mob after all. Turning to the innkeeper, he fixed him with as haughty a gaze as he could manage.

“You and your wife will be needing your breakfast,” the innkeeper stammered. He motioned to a servant girl who disappeared into the inn, then hurried back out with a gingham-covered basket. “I took the liberty of having this prepared.”

“Thank you.” At least one person knew on which side his bread was buttered. Jordan’s smile was genuine this time. “Perhaps this will take the edge off my wife’s anger long enough for me to take advantage of her.”

Amid a more general laughter this time, he opened the coach door and climbed in.

Emily sat stonily on the seat, facing forward. Setting the basket on the other seat, he collapsed next to her and ordered Watkins to drive on.

As they rumbled out of the inn yard, he fought to compose himself. He wanted to throttle her and feared that if he looked at her, he might do so. But in his heart, he couldn’t blame her. He
was
kidnapping her, after all, even if it were for her own good.

He blamed himself more than anything. He should have realized when she’d acted so skittish at the inn that she wasn’t as resigned to the marriage as she’d pretended.

When he could trust himself to speak civilly, he said, “I hope you don’t intend to repeat this farce at every inn where we stop.”

“Would it do me any good?”

He glanced at her, but she was staring ahead as if in a trance. “I doubt it.”

A slight tremor in her face belied the seeming
calm of her voice. He looked down to see that her hands were clenched into fists in her lap.

“I told the truth,” she said bitterly, “but they believed you. All you had to do was speak a few glib tales, and they were quite eager to let me be carried off.”

Her tone was so hurt he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. It made him angry. “Did you really expect them to risk their livelihoods for you? Despite all those poets extolling the idea of the noble savage, the lower classes are no different than you and I. Survival is their first priority. Ideals like chivalry and generosity fall a far second.”

“What a cynic you are.”

She said it without rancor, as if merely making an observation, but it struck him to the heart. He wasn’t a cynic, but a realist. A cynic took a dim view of everything, whereas a realist merely viewed the world in practical terms. Couldn’t she see that?

No. Right now, she probably considered him second only to Satan Incarnate. And all because he was doing the right thing by her.

She ought to be grateful! This wasn’t how a woman should react when a man proposed marriage after ruining her! Here he was, breaking all his rules for the first time in his life, and she didn’t even appreciate it!

He’d never proposed marriage to anyone, and he’d certainly never expected to propose marriage to some wide-eyed innocent. Strange how natural it had felt to proclaim her his wife in that inn yard. The words should have tasted like ashes in his mouth. But during his confrontation with that laborer, he’d never thought of her in any other terms. As far as he was concerned, she was already his
wife. They lacked only a piece of paper to sanctify it.

If he could get that far. “Tell me something, Emily,” he said, unable to keep silent any longer. “Why are you so reluctant to marry me that you would proclaim me a kidnapper to escape it? Do you find the idea of marriage to me that repellent?”

He held his breath for her answer, marveling that it should mean so much to him. When she didn’t answer at once, a hollow anxiety settled in the region of his heart that was more disquieting than her answer could possibly be. “Never mind,” he said tightly. “It doesn’t matter.”

She glanced at him, then sighed. “Of course I don’t find the idea of marriage to you repellent. Under other circumstances—”

“What other circumstances?”

Her gaze dropped to her hands. “The kind of circumstances most people marry under. You seem to forget I’m one of those foolish virgins you keep harping on.” She paused, as if afraid to say more. “I…I want love, Jordan. I know you think it’s silly, but it’s what I want all the same.”

It didn’t surprise him to hear her say it, but he found himself incapable of giving her the response she wanted. The thought of saying he loved her terrified him. And it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Besides, she hadn’t said a word about loving him.

The realization disturbed him more than he liked.

It was several moments before he could manage to speak at all. “And you don’t care that not marrying me would mean your ruin?”

“Marrying only to save one’s honor is ludicrous. You know too well that it leads to disaster. Your parents—”

“My parents? What do you know of my parents?”

She gave an uneasy shrug. “Lord St. Clair told me they were forced to marry. He said they were dreadfully unhappy together.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” Devil take Ian. If Jordan had wanted her to know all that, then he deuced well would have told her himself.

“I don’t want you thinking that I tried to trap you into marriage the way your mother did your father. I couldn’t bear to be in a marriage where you blamed me for ruining your life.”

“I don’t blame any of this on you,” he bit out.