For Love of the Earl by Jessie Clever

carriage.   He remembered going along with it because he was terrified that they would hurt Sarah if he didn't comply.   He remembered the rain, how it pierced his clothing as if he weren't wearing anything at all, how he had been numb within minutes, how he hadn't felt the bumps, hadn't felt how they tore his muscles in directions they did not want to go, after the first three or four.  
    He had watched the rain fall.   He had kept his eyes open as the drops pelted him.   He had been thinking.   Thinking about what was going on in the carriage below him.   Thinking about what he was going to do when they released him.   Which man he was going to kill first.   If he was going to simply kill them.   Killing them seemed too easy.   He wanted them to suffer.   Thinking of ways to make them suffer had kept his eyes open for hours.
    And he had been listening.   Listening for any sounds from the carriage below.   He had thought it likely that he could break his bonds if he had heard one noise from Sarah.   Just one noise and he would have shredded the ropes that bound him, taken out the driver, and commandeered the carriage.   But Sarah hadn't made any noises.   In fact he had suspected he had heard a laugh a time or too.   So he hadn't shredded his bindings in pure rage and taken over the carriage.   He needed to see where they were taking them, who was behind this and stop whoever that was.  
    So he had lain in the rain, his muscles pulling, straining, as the carriage raced through the dark.   He had frozen in layers.   First his skin had seemed to disappear.   Then his blood must have chilled because the iciness was spreading in waves through his body, transferring from organ to organ.   Then the cold had struck his bones, and the iciness spread in tremors, chills that wracked his body, made him buck against his restraints, pulling his muscles when the movement of the carriage demanded that he push.  
    And then blackness.  
    His brain knew he had had too much even if he didn't know and had turned off.   Only to turn on abruptly, suddenly alert and reeling to catch up with what was happening to his body, when his wife had herself pressed totally against him, her soft mouth on his numb lips.      
    But his body was way ahead of his brain and had simply reacted to the taste of Sarah on his lips, had reacted to her warm body pressed to his cold flesh.   And he had surged up toward that warmness, to that tart taste of her mouth. And when she had tried to pull away, his hand had caught her head and held her in place, desperate to keep her from leaving him.  
    What had she been saying right before he had grabbed her?  
    God, he wished he could remember.   But he didn't.   He only remembered her wrenching away from him, remembered following the movement of her body by rolling with her, covering her body with his so the contact wouldn't be severed.   He had thought she had made some noise, but it was such a muddled blur in his head, he really had no idea.  
    And then she had wrapped her legs around his hips.  
    That he remembered.   He remembered that quite well.   How could he have forgotten?   The woman he had loved for four years, the woman who had done everything except promulgate her hatred for him from the steps of Parliament, was beneath him and wrapping her legs around his hips, grasping at his shoulders, his neck, as if she wanted everything that he was giving her, wanted it so much that clinging to him was the only way to make sure she got enough.  
    He had said something then.   Probably something flip.   God, he hoped it was something flip, even if it wouldn't make Sarah laugh.   But then Sarah had choked on a scream so he either had done something right and she liked it, or what he had said had really made her mad.   He hoped it was the first and not the latter.
    It was at that point that he realized her breasts were in his hands.   Her uncovered breasts.   He had laughed.   He