Page 41 of The Mad Baron's Bride
As well as, possibly, a murderess.
Jack didn’t care. He would take the gamble of waking to a knife in his chest if he could be near Leda Wroth a while more. As long as she would let him.
“I want you.”
The words came out more roughly than he intended, and in an inappropriate place, the courtyard of the inn in Swindon where they disembarked. The horses led off, the luggage taken down again from its basket, he had not even let her enter the inn before he answered her question.
“I beg your pardon?”
It was full dark now, and the torches lighting the innyard suffused her face with a haunting glow.
“To come with me. To Norfolk. I want you.”
She paused, then drew in a short breath. “Let us discuss it inside. We must decide where we wish to arrange a room.”
In the end they settled on staying in the coaching inn, though it would be a noisy night with the horns blowing at every arrival, the shouts of the ostlers and the neighs of horses and the clamor of travelers on the night coach. The innkeeper had two rooms available, tucked side by side beneath the eaves of the second floor, and a private parlor where they could take a light supper. The maid had lit candles, stirred the fire against the chill of the spring evening, and laid a white cloth over a small table when Leda joined him.
She’d set aside her capote and shawl and had repinned her hair, once again anchoring the strands that persisted in sliding free. The traveling gloves had been exchanged for short cotton mittens. Leda Wroth was in no way conventional, yet Jack guessed he would never see her other than neatly dressed.
Unless he ever had the great good fortune to peel her smart attire from her and take her, naked, to his bed.
His body throbbed at the thought, the hectic heat banked beneath the surface of his skin. On the walk through the countryside, in the chaise, during dinner, other sights had pulled his attention away. But in this quiet, candlelit room, there was nowhere else to focus except upon her, and the way she made his senses come alive.
Her eyes were enormous when she met his gaze. Not afraid—he doubted he would ever see Leda Wroth afraid of anything. Not a woman who had survived the detestable horrors that he heard most madhouses were, with the suffering treated like animals, the food poor, the conditions deplorable, and the workers as well as doctors forgetting that their patients were yet creations of God, even if the sense that good Lord imparted to most his human creation had left them.
Sense was a fragile state anyway, as Jack well knew.
“You said you wanted me.” The words floated like a whisper, flickering like the candles in their seats.
Yes,he wanted her. Yes, again, and yes, for eternity hereafter. He simply nodded.
Her eyes widened. “You trust me with your daughter?”
Reality slithered in. Jack stood behind the wooden chair, holding its back. Should he tell her this scheme was madness itself, that he must be overcome by the sight of her? Ought he warn her that he held to restraint like a fragile thread and he might, at any moment, lose the leash that held him as a gentleman, abandon courtesy and pull her into his arms, claim her mouth with his, press that delectable body to every inch of him, plunge into her sweet depths and climb with her to the gates of heaven?—
The door opened without warning, and Leda tensed like a deer. She mastered herself in a moment, but Jack detected thatshe had responded like a wild creature, not sure whether to crouch or flee.
What had her husbanddoneto her?
Jack nodded to the entrant, the innkeeper’s wife, but a new wave of emotion rolled over him, the same tenderness he felt when he watched Muriel, uncertain and fearful, confront something new. He would not lose his head and ravish Leda, not without her full knowledge and enthusiastic participation. He would protect this woman with everything in him. He wanted the privilege of protecting her, guarding her, cherishing her, to the end of his life or hers.
He reeled at the sudden surety. He’d leapt from a near future with Leda in his arms to imagining lifetimes now?
As the roaring in his head receded, he realized Leda was chatting as calmly with the innkeeper’s wife as she did with everyone else.
“—a nice plump shoulder, my Will said we’d save it for someone fine, and here we are with a lord and baron in our house, and I hope you will find it as welcome a house as any you’ve been in, milady.” Their hostess flicked an inquiring glance at Leda, who promptly clarified the matter.
“I am Mrs. Wroth, a widow of Bath, and companion to his lordship’s aunt, Lady Plume. His lordship and I are truly grateful for your hospitality, and this splendid fare you have arranged for us at a moment’s notice.” She looked with appreciation as a pair of maids, following their mistress, laid the table with covered dishes and a pewter salt cellar. Jack knew that coaching inns typically left a hank of meat to toughen in a stew all day, and the rest of the food could be indifferent at best. But word had spread to the Crown’s kitchen that a lord had made his appearance—even if he was a baron, the lowest rank of peer—and the kitchens responded accordingly.
As the chatter continued, the maids stealing glances at him as they set out pearlware plate and pewter cutlery, Leda held out her hand and coaxed the mistress of the establishment into it, with just the right balance of command and friendliness, and a wink at women’s secret ways. The maids followed promptly, their admiring looks turning from Jack to include Leda as equally.
The matron shook her head. “And to be such a friend to the family, to travel with his lordship so you might personally arrange a governess for his poor daughter. Not many would be as kind, and put themselves to the inconvenience.”
Jack, guilty, tried to catch Leda’s eye. He was not typically forthcoming with tradesmen, but he’d needed some explanation, at the innkeep’s inquisition, for why he was traveling alone with a woman not his wife or immediate relation. The truth had sufficed, he hoped.
“And with not even a maid to tend ye?” the matron went on, looking Leda over. “You must feel right put out, I should think.”
Leda nodded. “Of course, if Lady Plume had been able to join us as intended, we should have had a maid and perhaps one of her footmen as well. But she was, alas, compelled to remain in Bath. She is very sorry not to meet her niece, but his lordship and I must struggle on. It would not do to leave Miss Burnham too long without the loving oversight of her father.”
