Page 86 of The Forbidden Lord
“I’m sorry, Jordan,” she whispered just before he could kiss her.
Then she conked him on the head with the pitcher.
Chapter Seventeen
I hate the noise and hurry inseparable from great Estates and Titles, and look upon both as blessings that ought only to be given to fools, for ’tis only to them that they are blessings.”
— LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, LETTER, MARCH 28, 1710, TO HER HUSBAND
When 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 mywife!” 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, hesaw 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 womanismy 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 thoughJordan wasn’t a small man himself. The man smelled of sweat and field labor, and probably hefted boulders for a living.
