Chapter 23

Quinton didn’t always wear smalls, but he was damn glad he’d done so this morning. Without them, his riding breeches would be indecently molded to his nether regions. They were still molded, but slightly less indecently.

Better to focus on the discomfort of his arse and cock than to make room for Lottie in his mind. She was safe and tucked away at Bluevale. The rain was already stopping. It had come fierce and fast, drowning the land in minutes, but letting up just as quickly, becoming merely a soft, consistent patter.

He’d had to divest himself of jacket and cravat ages ago to keep his range of movement and his breath. Wet linen became a noose, and the rain soaked him through. The cottages, on the other hand… Quinton stepped back to admire his work—they were dry. The architect had arrived yesterday, and while the cottages could not be replaced all at once and quickly enough to greet the next storm, things were moving forward. The local carpenter had been hired to shore up the old buildings until the new ones were done, and Quinton had identified, through the test of rain and wind, exactly where else they needed attention.

Not a complete disaster.

Except with Lottie. He’d thrown her at the coach, and he may as well have thrown her into a hell.

“We’re all done here,” he called out.

The other men slapped water off their shirt sleeves and peeled jackets from their arms.

“I’ll check on them tomorrow,” Mr. Rilston said. “The inhabitants—”

“Are taken care of. I’ll not have them in houses where the roofs might fall in.” He looked to Barnaby, who set his steps to Bluevale, where he likely expected to stay. Quinton wouldn’t keep him from his usual room, but they needed to have words first. “Barnaby,” he called, “walk with me.” They’d visit the pub, have a drink, then if Barnaby did not wish to stay at Bluevale, he would be near enough to the inn to take a room.

His old mentor, his father’s friend, trudged up, slapped him on the back. “Good work today, Quin. Mighty proud of you. Proved you know what it takes to carry such responsibility.”

Quinton let the words sit in the air a bit. He’d always wanted to make Barnaby proud and, in so doing, know he had the approval of his father as well. But Barnaby’s pride felt sour.

“Do you praise me because I sent my wife away?” Quinton asked.

“That’s part of it. Made the right choice.”

The mud squelched beneath Quinton’s boots, caking them. “I did not send her away because she would have been useless. She could have helped and well. She’s sharp. Strong.”

“Bah.”

“I sent her away because I was scared. The weakness is mine, Barnaby.”

“Bah, I say again. You’re not weak. You sent her away.”

“And may she have mercy on me.” But he had hope. She’d kissed him. He rubbed his lips with his thumb, warming up the memory of her lips on his.

“What’s happened there?”

Quinton stopped in the road, looked in the direction Barnaby pointed. “Hell. That’s Clearford’s coach.”

It had toppled half off the road, tilted, a wheel cracked and lying flat in the mud.

Quinton’s legs pumped without thought, bringing him to the coach. He flung the door open. Empty. His heart beating in his ears, he clutched his chest, sank against the frame. Empty. He ran around the coach, looking for bodies. None.

“They must have gone to the village,” Barnaby said, voice entirely calm, as if he were commenting on the nice plumpness of a pig.

Quinton ran, kicking mud up behind him, the misting rain coating his face. The town square, when he arrived, was empty. But for one whistling man.

“You!” Quinton cried, running up to him. “Have you seen them? The viscountess and her sisters?”

The man lurched away from Quinton. “Her sisters are about? Ain’t seen ‘em. Nor yer wife since the day she arrived.”

No good. He ran. With no real destination. Where to? The doctor. Yes. He knocked on the door, and it flew open before he’d finished pounding.

“My lord,” the bespectacled doctor said, blinking, “are you unwell?”

Quinton shook his head. “My wife. And her sisters. Are they here? Are they injured?”

“N-noooo.” The doctor looked over his shoulder at his wife sitting wide-eyed by the fire. She shook her head. “They’re not here, my lord.”

Quinton ran once more, once more at a loss for where to go. The pub. Everyone knew everything there. He threw the door open so hard it crashed against the wall. Light spilled over him from candlelight and fireside, and the hum of happy conversation died as he stepped inside. Barnaby at the bar with Rilston. Maids eyeing him warily. The pub owner, Mr. Lockheart, walking his way. Where were they? Where was she? Had highwaymen carried them off? He shook his hands out, trying to fling off the tension as easily as he flung off water droplets.

“My lord,” Mr. Lockheart said, closing the door behind Quinton, “are you—”

“There they are.” His heart stopped, twisted. Four sisters by the fire, damp but drying and wearing smiles. “Where’s Lottie? Where is she?” He forced heavy steps toward the fire, calling out, “Where’s Lottie?”

One of the twins—the one without a book peeking out of her pocket, so it must be Isabella—darted up the stairs at the back of the room. What did he care where she went, unless… she went to Lottie. He caught up with her.

But Lady Prudence darted before him, placing a hand on his arm, pushing him back. “Lord Noble, Lottie is not feeling well. The coach—”

“I saw it. Where is she?” He was pleading, he knew it, could hear the despair in his voice. “Is she alive? Please. Let me go to her.”

“Alive?” Prudence squeezed his arm. “She’s only suffering a—”

“Quinton?”

The voice rippled life up his spine. He closed his eyes, licked his lips, turned to it as if she were the goddamn sun, and he’d not seen the sky for years.

“Quinton, I could hear you from upstairs.”

He opened his eyes. Lottie descended the stairs, her sister following. She was pale, and only curiosity relieved the pinched look of her expression. He moved. Who knew how. She drew him to her, likely, and when she reached the bottom step he waited there for her, trembling arms gathering her into an embrace she returned, arms wrapping around his neck as he curved around her.

He breathed her in. She smelled of rain and mint tea and… He raised his head just enough to study her face, to find that deep groove between her brows. “Has your megrim returned, Merriweather?”

She nodded, brushed her thumb over his cheekbone. “Are you crying, Chance?”

“What else is a man supposed to do when he thinks his beloved wife is dead?” He knew he scowled. He didn’t care.

She reached up, trying to smooth the scowl away. Standing on the first step of the stairs, him below her, she did not have to pop up on tiptoe to kiss him, so she placed her lips on his brow, smiling as she did so.

“Did you really think me—”

“Yes.” And what would he have done if it had been true? Lay down in the rain and prayed for well-placed lightning? He gathered her close, shivered as he inhaled, knew the wetness on his cheeks was not from the rain.

“Quit making a scene, Noble,” Barnaby hissed from behind him.

“Quit being a prick.” Quinton mumbled the insult into Lottie’s shoulder because he refused to release her.

Barnaby’s hand on his shoulder swung him around. “Men don’t cry. Especially not”—he looked around, shifting from foot to foot—“where people can see.”

“I cry, Barnaby, and I can assure you, I’m a man. Now, whether you remain a close acquaintance of mine is yet to be seen. What do you think, Lottie?”

“So far, I have found him tedious. He is terribly good at giving me headaches.”

“Can’t have that.” Quinton tsked.

Barnaby’s face fell, and the lines of age appeared, lines of worry, of weight and responsibility. “I’m only trying to do good by your father.”

Quinton sighed. “I know. But I am not my father. And I am not you. And Lottie is not my father’s first wife, and we will make mistakes but not the same ones as they.”

Lottie’s soft hand wrapped strongly around his shoulder, squeezed. He placed his hand atop it, pinning it, sheltering it, keeping it always.

“My father knew himself well, loved me enough to worry for me. But loving Lottie isn’t a weakness. She makes me stronger than I am.” He held her hands in his own. “You are my greatest strength. I should never have ordered you away, but I was scared. I—”

“I know. I have fears too. I understand. I don’t think our fears make us weak. Perhaps they make us stronger when we face them. When we help each other face them.” The corner of her mouth kicked into a grin.

So did his. “God, I’m glad you’re alive, Merriweather.” He sniffed, laughed, brushed another tear from his eye.

“Me as well.” She leaned into him, rubbing her temples.

“This won’t do. You’re in pain.”

“I’ve been resting. In a room.” She’d pressed her eyes closed. “Then you came bursting in, demanding my presence.”

“I thought you dead, Merriweather.”

“I am not, Chance.”

He kissed the top of her head and pulled her up the stairs under the wing of his arm. When they passed Isabella, she pointed to her eyes and then to him, as if to say she was watching him. Good. He liked that Lottie had champions. Just in case she needed one other than him. Then Isabella winked and bounced down the stairs to join her sisters.

“Which room?” he asked at the top of the stairs.

“Just there.” Lottie stumbled toward a door on their left, and he wrapped his arm around her, pulled her into the chamber’s dark interior.

He closed the door while she crawled gingerly onto the bed, and when the door was locked, he kicked off his boots and lay out beside her, pulling her back against his front.

“What does it feel like?” he asked as quietly as he could.

“More disorienting than painful. There’s…”

“Yes?”

She turned in his arms, placed her hands on his chest. “I’ve never told anyone this.”

“Whatever it is, tell me. I want to know.” So he could clobber it if possible.

She swallowed, nestled her head on his chest, spoke into the hot space between their bodies. “Before the pain, I have these… wiggles of light across my vision. I’m not mad, I promise. They aren’t… real. They are a… a harbinger. Sometimes that’s all there is to it—the dancing lines, dizziness, light hurts, but there’s no real pain. That’s when I’m lucky. Other times… it hurts.”

He stroked his fingers up and down her spine. “I wish I could take it away.”

She laughed, winced. “You try to, don’t you? Thieving my wine and bringing me tea.” She tilted her head back and kissed the tip of his chin. “Thank you. I have been hiding away for reasons other than megrims.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “I have been trying so hard for you to see me as strong, your equal, worthy of your passion and your trust, but my body wants to bring me low, show you only weakness. My fears, my headaches… you say that I am strong, but I am not always. My sisters do not know about the visual oddities of my headaches. I’ve been terrified to tell them. They may think me mad, flawed. And they do not know that I am scared of coaches. I will not worry them with my ridiculous fears.” She’d grown still as stone in his arms.

He kissed her, soft as the darkness cradling them. “Sometimes you are vulnerable, Lady Noble. So, too, sometimes am I. Did you see those tears cutting down my cheeks?”

She laughed, hid her face in his chest once more. He could not hold her tight enough. Never would he be able to hold her tight enough. But he would try.

“Your sisters will love you if they know. Just as I love you.” He brushed hair away from her forehead, found a lovely spot to kiss. Really, any spot was lovely. “Let us make a pact, Merriweather.”

Carefully, she lifted her head until he could see her eyes. “What sort?”

He stroked his fingertips over her ribs, up and down. His, his, his, each and every one. “You allow me to care for you when you are sick or scared, and I’ll allow you to care for me when I’m too passionate for sense or too emotional to seem properly lordly.”

“I could never hope to do so good a job as Barnaby.”

A joke. Excellent progress. “Of course not. His distaste for emotion in general makes him a true expert, but I trust you.”

“Does that mean that when I ask about things like cottages, you will not toss my inquiries aside as so much refuse, but respond?”

He nodded. “As long as you allow me in the room when you’re hurting instead of locking me out.”

“I would like that,” she said softly with her warm breath against his still damp shirt.

Still damp. Hell. He hopped off the bed. “I’m soaked.”

She came to her knees. “I noticed. I can help you with that particular problem.”

“You’re in pain! Absolutely not.”

“No pain. And the lines have disappeared. I’m not feeling perfect, but—”

“You are perfect.” His hands on her waist, drawing her closer to the edge of the bed, unable to not touch her.

“But I think I’m well enough to—” She bit her bottom lip, gathered his sodden shirt where it was tucked into his breeches, and tugged it, freed it. “Don’t tell me no.” She did not say please, but the sound of it shaped her words, nonetheless.

He could deny her nothing, and soon his shirt became a puddle, damp and bright, on the chamber floor. He pulled her off the bed to stand before him and spun her, untied the first tab of her gown, and placed a kiss on the revealed skin. Then another tie loosed and dangling and another kiss. Her gown slipped down her shoulders, then plunged to the floor, and her stays fell beneath his fingertips. He made quick work, and when only her shift remained, she faced him, her attention falling to his riding breeches. His body was heavy and tight with need, and her hands on him wound that need into an impossible ache. Then they were free of wet clothing and weak muslin barriers. Her skin everywhere rosy and smooth, making each curve a temptation. He needed to touch her everywhere but could not all at once, and in his consuming attempt to do so, they toppled to the bed.

She kissed his neck and traced the lines of his face, and he nestled her on the pillows, tending to her comfort in every way he could imagine. That golden hair unbound and easy. Her arms resting over her belly, her knees bent and lilting to the side as she studied him with lust-heavy eyes.

He eased down beside her, drawing a line between her breast, circling her navel, flattening his palm on her inner thigh. She arched against his hand, wanting him someplace else, close to her thigh, so close.

Her wish was his only desire, and he cupped her. Hell, she was the best, the only sensation in the world, so full of life and determination and heart. She smoothed her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, hooking them behind his neck and tugging until he rolled on top of her.

Slowly, they kissed, lips meeting lips as heart met heart and slipped into a forever rhythm together. Gently, they touched, everywhere, as if they were making up time, as if they had all of time to make it up. Insatiably, they tasted, licks to necks, nipples, and bellies, teeth dragging across sensitive spots as they learned each other’s sounds, what made the other moan and laugh and swear. When he thrust inside her finally, his hand cupping her breast, his mouth worshiping her nipple, she arched up to meet him, their years of wary circling melting into a dance where they both led, both followed.

She shattered first, crying out, clutching him to her so strongly, her fingernails pierced the skin of his back. He hissed with more pleasure than pain. The inn would hear. Who cared? Who cared if the entire world knew he adored his viscountess, knew he counted pleasing her as one of his sacred duties. She opened her eyes, and what he saw there drove him over the edge—trust, joy, challenge, love. He buried his face in her neck, her hair, as he came.

And as he gathered her into his buzzing, exhausted arms, he buried his fears.