Chapter 12

L atimer made it nearly two miles down the muddied, old Roman roads before that niggling feeling interrupted his ride. That same feeling that’d kept him from sleep last night.

Something was off.

Scowling, Latimer guided his mount to a slow halt and steered the creature back in the direction they’d just traveled.

There’d been something strange about that parting between he and Livian. When with her, he got himself all muddleheaded. That alone should be reason enough to not only turn Fortune in the opposite direction but set him to an all-out gallop.

Even as he made to do just that, Latimer found himself wheeling Fortune around.

She’d been evasive, but why? For what purpose?

Latimer didn’t know why the hell it should matter anyway, just that it did.

His frown deepened.

Perhaps, there’d been something more nefarious about the lady and her intentions, after all.

Perhaps it’d been guilt.

“Or perhaps, you’re just looking for a reason to go back,” he muttered into the early afternoon quiet.

Fortune tossed his big black mane back and whinnied noisily.

“Traitor,” Latimer groused. To soften his sullen rebuke of the loyal, but knowing creature, he leaned forward and rubbed Fortune’s neck.

The entire time, he searched his brain for what exactly it was that’d set off this wave of unease.

“I thought you’d have been gone by now, darlin’…”

“Yes. Well…”

There’d been no explanation. She’d not expounded further.

For that matter, given the chill of both the water and breakfast she’d brought to his rooms, she’d have been up long before him.

Latimer glanced over his shoulder and peered off in the distance.

“If you’ll excuse me…I must fetch my things. Mr. Dryver will be wondering where I am…”

There’d been something all too familiar about that parting; something reminiscent of when she’d given her room over to Latimer.

He frowned.

Furthermore, where the hell had Mr. Dryver been, anyway ?

His eyebrows snapped together.

She wasn’t leaving.

That’s why. Where was Mr. Dryver this morning? The same loyal Mr. Dryver, the driver who’d claimed a room for himself and slumbered peacefully without a worry for his beautiful, young, virginal mistress a number of doors down.

His mistress who’d also had a brutish stranger—granted, it’d been Latimer, but it could have been any other worse fellow—invade her rooms, and not only disarmed her but had her under him.

That, when those drunken men in the taproom would most likely not have managed restraint, because, well, all men thought with their nobs and weren’t to be trusted around any women—forget the spirited, golden, temptress, Livian Love—

“Fuck,” he snapped, sending startled willow tits flying from the trees overhead.

Not allowing himself to think back on his actions, Latimer set Fortune into a full gallop toward The St. George Inn.

The moment he reached the courtyard, an efficient Moira was already there to greet him.

“Back already, sir,” she cried happily, taking his reins the moment he swung down.

“Miss… Mrs … the woman I was speaking with earlier. Has she left?”

The girl shook her head. “No, sir.”

“No.”

“No,” Moira repeated.

Fuck.

He knew it.

Fury and frustration formed a pebble in his stomach. Through gritted teeth, he spoke as calmly as he could. “What of her driver?”

“The driver left some hours earlier, by horse,” Moira informed.

His entire mood blackening, Latimer slanted a furious look at the inn. He didn’t know if the delectable, proud Livian Lovelace was brave, stupid, or a combination of the two.

Growling, he headed to find the chit. By God, if she were sitting in the taproom with all those bloody men—

“Won’t find her there, Mr. Latimer,” Moira called after him.

Confused, he glanced over at the girl who now lovingly stroked Fortune’s neck.

“Went that way, she did.” With her spare hand that held the reins, Moira pointed west. “On foot.”

“On foot?”

She nodded.

What the hell was it about Livian Lovelace that had him repeating himself like a bloody stupid parrot?

“Right after you left, Mr. Latimer.”

Latimer suspected the young girl possessed more secrets and knowledge than all the London gossips combined. Moira’s however, proved far more helpful and valuable.

He gritted his teeth.

He scraped a hand through his hair and knocked his hat off. Bending down, he swiped it from the ground. “And—”

“She was alone, sir,” she answered, correctly anticipating his next question.

He fetched another purse from his pack and gave it to the little girl. “You’re going to have me bankrupt before I’m done in this corner of England, Moira.”

Her laughter following behind him, Latimer set out in pursuit of the infuriating minx.

At least, one of them found amusement this day.

While he stomped across the courtyard and headed after Livian, he went over that first, fateful exchange with the blasted chit.

“I had the most arduous evening and had to walk some distance in the rain…It was quite bad weath…The weather! I was going to mention the dreadful conditions. Given you also experienced first-hand the state of the weather, you know first-hand…How miserable it is…”

When nearly half a mile later, and he still hadn’t reached Livian, he found his ire shifting away from the bold beauty and turning inward.

While he made the long, slow, slog following her smaller footprints as he went, he considered the elements she’d faced last evening.

He’d all but jeered her over that revelation. He’d taken the lady’s definition of ‘some distance’ to mean she’d had to walk through the courtyard while her servant saw to the team.

But that wasn’t at all what she’d meant, and knowing her a single day now but having spent much of that time in close quarters, he should have taken a moment to realize what she’d, in fact, shared during their first meeting.

The heel of Latimer’s boot sank deep into a particularly muddy puddle. He wrestled his foot free and kept trudging on ahead.

Latimer took in the broken branches and twigs scattered about, and brushes ripped clear from the ground. His self-disgust grew, as did his admiration for Livian.

Any other woman would have sobbed over the conditions she’d endured late last evening. She’d not only survived an interminable walk through a raging tempest, while she’d slept, she’d found herself accosted by a stranger.

At long last, he reached her.

Livian maneuvered and carefully picked her way over an enormous tree trunk. That same fallen debris which had left the big, black barouche stopped and stranded.

He made to call out, but stopped himself, as—bastard, that he was—Livian tugged her skirts up and heaved herself up, so she straddled the big branch.

Oh, all Satan’s sinners.

His cock swelled and his pulse raced as Latimer hungrily drank in the sight of her.

She shifted and scooted to get herself over to the other side, but in his mind’s eye, he envisioned Livian riding him in that same, wanton way. Getting herself off, rubbing her sweet cunny against him.

He groaned.

That low, guttural utterance alerted the lady she was no longer alone.

Livian cried out, and promptly went tumbling over the felled branch.

Christ .

His erection flagging— some —Latimer bolted over to the lady.

“Don’t you know a lady on her own can land herself in any manner of trouble?” he snarled, like the beast the worry for this woman had transformed him into.

“I daresay,” Livian drawled. The lady used the fallen limb to leverage herself back up to standing. “If I hadn’t before , given the fact I was knocked square on my backside, I do now.”

Latimer sprinted the rest of the way, bounding over the tree branch to reach her.

“I’m not amused,” he said, his voice ragged and rough from both desire and exertions.

“Oh, you mean you do not find it hilarious that you startled me into falling into a patch of sticky, soupy mud.”

That gave him pause. “Soupy?”

“Like soup,” she elucidated. “Thickly wet.”

“Never heard the saying,” he said.

“Well, consider it something new you’ve learned this day, Lachlan.” Livian smiled; that daffily charming, absurdly ebullient smile that stretched her flushed cheeks and set off a queer sensation in his chest.

All too trusting, she reached for his hand.

Latimer ignored her fingers. Rattled, unnerved, and bloody angry for reasons he didn’t understand, his threadbare patience snapped. “At least, one of us learned something in our time together.”

He caught Livian quick about her hips. The minx emitted a startled little squeak as he set her forcefully on her feet.

Her smile fell.

“Oh, great wise one, do tell me what lesson you gleaned and what exactly is it you think I failed to gain from your esteemed presen—”

“ What I gleaned? ”

Latimer gnashed his teeth. Here he was, repeating himself, again . “I’ve learned when it comes to ensuring you don’t get yourself killed or from meeting some other worse fate, you don’t have the wisdom God gave a hen.”

“Have you ever had a chicken, Lachlan?”

That casually delivered question effectively stultified him.

Livian bent her arms at her elbows and made a pecking motion with her chin. “A chicken.”

“I know what a damned chicken is,” he snapped. “Of course I’ve had one.”

“ Not to eat.”

Oh.

This chit excelled in upending a fellow.

Latimer found his footing.

“Like as a pet?” he drawled.

Livian nodded solemnly.

The seriousness of that little bob at odds with the way she still maintained her chicken pose.

“Should I take your silence as a ‘no’, Lachlan?” she asked when he didn’t answer.

Was she trying to drive him mad? Or did the skill just come naturally to the feisty chit?

“No, I don’t have pet chickens,” he said, exasperated.

Livian gave him a pitying look. “I assumed as much.”

He couldn’t help himself. “And I trust you have?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, as though it were the most ludicrous thing in the world to imagine Lachlan himself hadn’t. “I only realized how great my father’s financial struggles were when he arrived with a pair of chickens for us to make meals of.”

That reminder of her stark childhood tempered his earlier annoyance and grounded him with fury and regret at the hardships she’d known.

Given her wide smile as she spoke, however? One would never gather she told anything other than the happiest tale.

“I cried at the thought of Blue Fairy dying.” She paused. “You didn’t ask why I named her Blue Fairy?”

“I trust she had blue feathers?” he drawled.

“A dorking fowl?” She snorted. “No. Blue Fairy had the customary, beautiful salmon breast and silver neck hackles. I named her Blue Fairy as I told my sister and Bertha she was a magical hen. I had the idea we keep her forever. She could be our pet and in exchange, Blue Fairy would provide us eggs, and I pointed out that would last us far longer than a single meal.”

“Clever, lass,” he murmured.

Livian gathered her dress on either side and dipped an exaggerated curtsy.

Fascinated, he didn’t know how they’d gotten to this particular story. What he did know, is she told a compelling yarn.

“And you had eggs then for years.”

She sighed. “Alas, I fear not. Blue Fairy produced but three eggs each week—on a good week. Given we weren’t able to provide her with a proper diet, she underperformed.”

Livian brightened. “But she was a lovely pet and member of the family.”

That sobering, sad turn, the expected reality for people like him and her, tugged at a corner of his chest that hadn’t ever been tugged before.

“In my time with Blue Fairy, Lachlan, I learned a great deal about chickens. They’re very self-aware, and excellent problem-solvers.”

“Problem solvers?”

This time, he didn’t even care he repeated himself.

Livian nodded vigorously.

“Whenever there was an obstacle in Blue Fairy’s path, she could find her way around it. Why, she could even manipulate objects that’d been put up to do so.”

The minx gave him a long, obvious stare, indicating she expected Latimer’s input.

He sighed. “And just what objects would she—?”

“The door! My sister was adamant Blue Fairy not sleep in our room, on account chickens are not the cleanest, but, Blue Fairy always found a way to reach me.”

His head spinning, Latimer struggled to get himself back to what the hell that’d led them down Livian’s garrulous path.

Then, with a pleased smile, Livian headed back down the muddied road.

Which brought Latimer right back to remembering: Livian. Livian pretending she’d had a driver for company and was leaving behind Latimer. Livian lying, and—

“You’re out here, alone, and we’re talking about bloody chickens,” he thundered.

Livian turned back and scowled at him. “Au contraire.”

At me? She’s angry with me?

Livian lifted a finger and wagged it his way. “You were learning about chickens. I, despite your earlier insistence, have learned nothing from you.” She paused. “That is, anything of use.”

Latimer saw red, bright, fiery crimson. Just thinking about all the harm that could’ve befallen her, had his temper flaring.

“You don’t have the benefit of a bloody servant,” he shouted, “a companion, or feral cat—”

She narrowed her eyes in warning. “Have a care, Mr. Latimer. Compare me to another animal one more time, and I won’t be so forgiving.”

Knowing the fiery termagant meant that, he took a steadying breath.

“Where is your driver?” He glanced about, almost hoping to see that fellow when he did. That way, he’d know the chit wasn’t as foolhardy as he feared.

“As you can see, this particular conveyance is stuck, and as such, he’s gone ahead to reach the other carriage. He’ll return shortly.”

Latimer closed his eyes.

“On what did you base that estimate, Livian?”

She smiled. “Optimism and hope.”

Optimism and hope?

The winsome radiance that rang in her musical voice proved as sexually potent as the lady’s virginal state.

She didn’t have a bit of necessary fear or mistrust in her bones.

Latimer opened his eyes and found her flitting about like a butterfly; a bright spot of bright upon an otherwise dreary landscape.

“There it is!” she cried out.

Heedless of the mud, grime, and sludge, Livian bolted back in his direction, and then veered sideways, where she—

He strangled on a swallow. “What the hell are you doing?” he barked, already bolting over to head her off.

“Never tell me you haven’t climbed a tree,” she rejoined in her always sunny tones.

Even with skirts and all, she’d already managed to make it several branches up before he reached her.

Actually, he hadn’t. That fact, however, would certainly only lead to an exchange, not on livestock this time, but tree-climbing.

“Why in hell are you climbing a tree now!”

He may as well have saved his breath. The way Livian furrowed her brow and scrunched her nose up in deep concentration, she’d ceased to see—or engage—him.

He gritted his teeth. She’s going to make me climb after her…

Bloody hell.

Latimer caught a branch a few feet above him. Using his upper arms, he hauled himself up, passing Livian as he went, and seated himself on an enormous perch.

He folded his arms.

Her eyes widened. “Brava,” she lauded, continuing her slower, more careful ascent. “You have climbed trees, Lachlan.”

“This was my first.”

Adorably breathless, she frowned up at him. “Braggart,” she muttered. Several curls fell across her brow.

She flattened her lips and blew. The loose tendrils fluttered and then fell promptly back into place.

Not giving her the satisfaction of a quarrel, he reached down, caught Livian under her shoulder, and hauled her onto the makeshift bench next to him.

She gasped. “Why—”

“I don’t need you breaking your neck, darlin’,” he said drolly.

“Why?”

He stared at her.

“It’s just…given we’re strangers,” she noted, pumping her legs gently like she sat atop a swing and not an ancient limb some ten feet from the ground. “I don’t suppose it should matter to you either way.”

Latimer frowned. No. It actually shouldn’t, and it…it…

His brain, however, wouldn’t, nay, couldn’t finish the rest of the lie.

“I’ve got enough blood on my hands,” he said roughly, “whereas I don’t need yours on them, too, sweetheart.”

The jaunty movement of her graceful limbs drew to a slow stop. “I’m sorry.”

Latimer curled his fingers sharply into the gnarled wood.

She is sorry? I’m a complete bastard.

A winter wind gusted. “How awful you should carry so much,” Livian murmured. “When surviving required that of you.”

He tensed. Just what she’d been apologizing for hit him.

Unnerved, Latimer grunted.

“My bonnet.”

He gave her a confused look. “What?”

Livian pointed, and he followed that gesture.

An enormous, wide-brimmed straw—and thoroughly soaked—hat dangled forlornly at the end of a branch a foot below them. Covered in leaves and brush as it was, he’d failed to see it until now.

A fast-familiar annoyance where this woman was concerned, flared to life. “ That’s why you’re out here on your own?” he gritted out. “For a bloody hat?”

“Au contraire,” she said again and lifted a finger and wagged it at him. “This is not just any bonnet. My nephew gave it to me as a birthday gift. Last night, I lost it in the storm. I had to retrieve it.”

“I’m sure your nephew would rather have his foolhardy aunt alive than lying on a muddy road with a broken neck she got trying to rescue that hat,” he said deadpan.

“Ah, yes, but I wasn’t fetching it for Alex, but because of what the gift means to me.”

That quiet admission froze him on the spot.

Would the woman you’re headed to meet and soon marry have ever had any sentimentality over a gift some child gave her?

Having met the duchess a handful of times, he could say with absolute certainty she wouldn’t have given two shites one way or the other. Nay, she’d have had a milliner make her a dozen more—and finer quality ones, at that.

“Lachlan?” Livian’s halting voice snapped him out of those irrelevant ruminations.

Latimer propelled himself down to the lower limb. In a handful of seconds, he’d managed to free an article so cherished she’d gone out on life and—figuratively and literally—limb.

Livian clapped happily. “Huzzah, Lachlan! You’ve done it!” She hopped up with a speed that sent his heart plummeting.

“Will you have a care, sweetheart?” he hissed.

Latimer gave the article a deft toss. He managed to land the coveted piece with accurate precision upon the top of the carriage.

Then, he reached up and hauled Livian down and into his arms. The instant her body melded to his, fire blazed to life within him. Battling back his desire, Latimer wrapped one arm about Livian’s waist, anchoring her against his chest.

With painstaking care, he eased them down the tree until, at last, their feet touched the ground.

Neither he nor Livian, however, made any attempt to move. They remained that way; she with her arms folded about his neck.

And for the hell of him, Latimer couldn’t take his gaze from her mouth or chase away the memory of the sweet taste of her upon his lips.

Livian’s lashes fluttered, and she edged her neck back.

Latimer smiled smugly. “Remembering my kiss, are you, darlin?” he asked, filled with all-pleased, male satisfaction.

“It wasn’t just yours,” she said, breathless. “It was our kiss.”

A fresh surge of blood rushed to his shaft and sent Latimer into a full, agonizingly painful, cock-stand.

God, with her feisty spirit, strength, and confidence, she was breathtaking, and Latimer found himself compelled by Livian Lovelace. He hungered for her, this slip of an innocent woman, in ways that were nothing less than perilous—to his sanity, body, and most important of all, to the business he had planned with the Dynevor and the duchess.

Disconcerted, Latimer set Livian away from him and hitched himself onto the base of the carriage door. He fetched her hat.

Latimer whipped the article at her and she caught it adroitly against her chest.

“I’m not always going to be around to play nursemaid for you, darlin’,” he jeered. “That’ll be your husband’s job.”

Only, that intended jibe sent a savage fury roaring to life within Latimer.

Her eyes flashed fire. “How dare you?”

“Easily,” he said, with a tight smile.

Livian gasped. “You are incorrigible.”

Why the hell should he care either way about this vexatious beauty belonging to another. Because you want to fuck her. That’s all there is to it …and the idea of some other man laying claim to her body first, set off a primitive response within.

“Need I remind you, I’m a grown woman.”

Aye, she was pure, desirable, scorching hot beauty begging to become a woman in every sense of the word.

Oh, he didn’t need a reminder on that. His body’s hungering for her kept him all too aware.

Hunger sent his nostrils into a full flare.

Dismissing him outright, Livian headed to the log blocking the road, as pure as they came.

There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that while he stood lusting after her, she remained wholly—and infuriatingly—immune.

Make no doubt, if Livian were aware of the churlish thoughts churning in his head, and all the debauched things he’d like to do to her here and now, she’d have never turned her back.

No, instead, the lady found herself wrestling with the end of a thin, but unrelentingly strong, branch from the fallen tree limb.

Latimer swiped a hand over his face. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Bertha used to say, trees are sanctuaries,” she explained, without ever pausing in her efforts. “The yew is the oldest of them all, a sacred part of the winter solstice. If you know how to speak to them, you must also listen and learn the truth from them, too.”

Latimer waited for her to finish.

It soon became apparent she’d found that response a suitable explanation for whatever latest madness this was. “ And ?”

She took a break to briefly explain. “It’s branches burrow into the ground. Over there, it sprouted new trees. See.”

He found himself looking to the area she was motioning to.

“The old tree, the original tree lives inside.” Livian went back to work. “It is revered by the Celtic because the yew represents death and rebirth and it falling, Lachlan,” she said, breathless from both her efforts and the passion with which she spoke. “It bringing me to stop here, at this point in my journey, happened for a reason.”

“And what reason is that?” he couldn’t keep himself from asking.

She shrugged. “I’m not yet certain. That’s one of the reasons I’m taking it with me.” She paused. “Or part of it. This tree is more than a thousand years old; this fallen branch, at least hundreds and hundreds, and it fell at this moment, and in this time, in my path, means something,” she said wistfully. “Soon the villagers will likely come and chop it up, burn it for firewood, and it will be lost forever.”

Livian finally managed to wrest free the branch. She gave a triumphant little shout and spun, holding that piece, aloft. “At least, I have this.” Humming softly to herself, she bent the piece neatly and tucked it inside her jacket.

Women craved riches. They wanted to be draped in the most luxuriant silks and satins and velvets and dripping in diamonds and jewels.

Except this woman.

This woman? She sought to preserve…kindling? Furthermore, she thought nothing of putting herself in harm’s way to do so.

“A grown woman,” he muttered under his breath. “You don’t have the sense God gave a child, Livian Lovelace.”

“Why are you being so rude?”

Indignation would have been better, preferable, than the actual hurt bleeding from her eyes.

Why? Latimer gnashed his teeth. Why? Something about her drove him stark, raving, mad.

His patience snapped.

“You go running around like a damned child without a brain in your pretty head, sweetheart,” Latimer blasted. “You’re a romantic. A dreamer, and with the careless way in which you go about life, it’s a wonder you’ve lived this long.”

Would some fancy nob have the strength or capability of seeing her safe? Latimer would wager his fucking life the bloke wouldn’t. His rage spiraled.

“You need to spend more time thinking with your damned head,” he jabbed a finger into his forehead several times. “And not your foolish heart.”

No, the lady required a lesson, and it was one Latimer would be all too happy to provide.