of that cynical grin curving his mouth, he extended a hand to help her up. “After you, Miss Delafield.”
~ ~ ~
Like masts in a harbor, trees towered around them, tall and silent. Nicholas guessed that he and his newly quiet companion had been walking for another hour, perhaps more. He couldn’t be sure. He was losing track of time, his senses blunted by loss of blood, exhaustion, pain.
The bullet wound in his left shoulder throbbed and burned. He hoped he wasn’t getting blood poisoning, he thought with a flash of black humor. He didn’t want to die while he had a length of pretty lemon-colored silk stitched into his hide.
That was no way for a notorious ex-pirate to make his grand entrance into hell.
The entire forest seemed quieter as night approached. Or maybe it was just the incessant clanking of the accursed chain that made everything else seem muted by comparison. The dying sun cast lengthening shadows across the forest floor, the low light swathing everything in a smoky haze, including the slender figure walking a pace ahead of him.
Miss Delafield.
Nicholas stared at her back, not sure what bothered him most: the throbbing ache in his left shoulder, the clatter of the shackles as they trudged through the woods, the unwelcome feeling of weakness that made him want to drop to the ground and sleep...
Or the fact that he had let her keep the knife.
He couldn’t puzzle out
why
he had allowed her to keep it. He had no reason to indulge her. It didn’t make sense. Bad enough that she was impulsive and headstrong and nervous around him as a cat on a storm-tossed brig. Now she was armed as well.
Grimacing, he tried to tell himself there was no harm in it. Let her think she had outwitted him. Let her have some sense of security, however false. It might make her less argumentative, less troublesome, and he was all in favor of that.
He shifted his gaze away from her stiff back and squared shoulders, away from that tangle of flaxen hair that tickled generous, swaying hips.
One thing was clear, even to his muddled senses: this clever, high-born, fiercely independent lady thief was having a strange effect on him. One that no woman had ever had before. One he didn’t like.
It must be some form of physical desire, he decided, intensified by the enforced nearness and the fact that he had been so long without a woman. The mere touch of her hand on his bare skin had been enough to make his blood run hot. And when she had hovered over him, her breath warm against his shoulder, her lacy sleeve tickling his back, the desire that shot through him had tormented him as much as the bullet.
Even now, he couldn’t seem to keep his gaze from straying back to her... his mind from imagining what it would be like to pull her body against his, to feel handfuls of that tawny hair flowing through his fingers like molten gold, to kiss her lush, full lips and...
He blinked to clear the image from his vision, stunned as if one of the towering trees had fallen on him. Where the devil were these thoughts coming from? He couldn’t fathom it.
Even the name she had given earlier kept whispering through his mind in an undeniably alluring way.
Miss Delafield
. It suited her. Simple, elegant, graceful. And probably false.
So why did he feel glad that she had said
Miss
? Miss instead of Lady Delafield. Or Duchess Delafield. Or ordinary Mrs. Delafield. She could be lying about her unwedded status, but somehow he didn’t think so. What man would put up with her stubborn ways and sharp tongue long enough to marry her?
He forced his gaze to the ground and his attention back to the problem at hand. Escape. Move forward. One foot in front of the other. Whoever— whatever —she really was, it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Not her name, not her tempting golden curves, not the unsettling effect she seemed to have on him.
Because she had seen the brand on his chest. From the look on her face, she had clearly recognized what the mark
~ ~ ~
Like masts in a harbor, trees towered around them, tall and silent. Nicholas guessed that he and his newly quiet companion had been walking for another hour, perhaps more. He couldn’t be sure. He was losing track of time, his senses blunted by loss of blood, exhaustion, pain.
The bullet wound in his left shoulder throbbed and burned. He hoped he wasn’t getting blood poisoning, he thought with a flash of black humor. He didn’t want to die while he had a length of pretty lemon-colored silk stitched into his hide.
That was no way for a notorious ex-pirate to make his grand entrance into hell.
The entire forest seemed quieter as night approached. Or maybe it was just the incessant clanking of the accursed chain that made everything else seem muted by comparison. The dying sun cast lengthening shadows across the forest floor, the low light swathing everything in a smoky haze, including the slender figure walking a pace ahead of him.
Miss Delafield.
Nicholas stared at her back, not sure what bothered him most: the throbbing ache in his left shoulder, the clatter of the shackles as they trudged through the woods, the unwelcome feeling of weakness that made him want to drop to the ground and sleep...
Or the fact that he had let her keep the knife.
He couldn’t puzzle out
why
he had allowed her to keep it. He had no reason to indulge her. It didn’t make sense. Bad enough that she was impulsive and headstrong and nervous around him as a cat on a storm-tossed brig. Now she was armed as well.
Grimacing, he tried to tell himself there was no harm in it. Let her think she had outwitted him. Let her have some sense of security, however false. It might make her less argumentative, less troublesome, and he was all in favor of that.
He shifted his gaze away from her stiff back and squared shoulders, away from that tangle of flaxen hair that tickled generous, swaying hips.
One thing was clear, even to his muddled senses: this clever, high-born, fiercely independent lady thief was having a strange effect on him. One that no woman had ever had before. One he didn’t like.
It must be some form of physical desire, he decided, intensified by the enforced nearness and the fact that he had been so long without a woman. The mere touch of her hand on his bare skin had been enough to make his blood run hot. And when she had hovered over him, her breath warm against his shoulder, her lacy sleeve tickling his back, the desire that shot through him had tormented him as much as the bullet.
Even now, he couldn’t seem to keep his gaze from straying back to her... his mind from imagining what it would be like to pull her body against his, to feel handfuls of that tawny hair flowing through his fingers like molten gold, to kiss her lush, full lips and...
He blinked to clear the image from his vision, stunned as if one of the towering trees had fallen on him. Where the devil were these thoughts coming from? He couldn’t fathom it.
Even the name she had given earlier kept whispering through his mind in an undeniably alluring way.
Miss Delafield
. It suited her. Simple, elegant, graceful. And probably false.
So why did he feel glad that she had said
Miss
? Miss instead of Lady Delafield. Or Duchess Delafield. Or ordinary Mrs. Delafield. She could be lying about her unwedded status, but somehow he didn’t think so. What man would put up with her stubborn ways and sharp tongue long enough to marry her?
He forced his gaze to the ground and his attention back to the problem at hand. Escape. Move forward. One foot in front of the other. Whoever— whatever —she really was, it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Not her name, not her tempting golden curves, not the unsettling effect she seemed to have on him.
Because she had seen the brand on his chest. From the look on her face, she had clearly recognized what the mark
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