Tempted by Pamela Britton Page B

small arm wrapping around his waist, Alex surprised at how easily she took his weight.
    It seemed to take forever for them to reach the woods, Alex feeling like he played a childhood game of hop in a sack. Only this was worse. She forced him on until they both nearly fell, Alex cursing, Mrs. Callahan doing the same.
    “This is silly,” she said, dropping down to her knees after darting a glance at the village. Not a night shift, he realized, but a chemise with a white cotton robe thrown over it, one that allowed him a view of her voluptuous breasts. He swallowed. Bloody hell. He refused to have more lascivious thoughts about her. They were running for their lives—well, he was running for his. She was an innocent bystander who’d happened to get involved.
    Come to think of it, how
had
she gotten involved? He was about to ask her, but she stood suddenly, untying his hands next, and the feel of those nimble fingers on his flesh made him groan inwardly.
    Bloody hell.
He
was
having salacious thoughts. When she finished, she wadded up the rope and tossed it into the branches above where it caught on a bough.
    “What the devil are you doing?”
    “Evidence,” she said. “Don’t want them to know we came this way.”
    He almost pointed out their traipse through the grass was hardly invisible what with the grass having folded down where they trod. Snails couldn’t have left a better trail, but she was off and moving again before he could say a word. And, besides, it
was
a clever thing to do.
    “Do you have any notion where we are?”
    “How the bleedin’ hell should I know?” she asked, her robe catching on the bottom of the thick grass, wetting the fabric, and brushing the ends of the blades flat some more.
    “Then you have no idea where you are going?”
    She stopped. He bumped into her, automatically reaching out to steady her. She didn’t appear to notice for she turned, hands on hips. “I was under the bleedin’ tarp the whole way here—same as yourself—freezing me cooler off in the pouring rain, on a road that shouldn’t be travelled, if you don’t mind me saying. And I’m not pleased about that, m’lord. Not pleased about any of it. I rode in the back of that bleedin’ cart stuffed between two eternity boxes half afraid the carriage would shift and I’d be crushed flat like a run-over possum. So, no, I don’t know where we are.”
    And without another word, she turned again, running toward a stand of oak, their trail no longer obvious now that they trod atop last fall’s leaves. Gradually, the wood thickened, the village faded from view, and still Mary pushed on, darting glances behind them. And she likely would have kept going, too, if she hadn’t pulled up suddenly, her gasp of “Ouch,” bringing him to an abrupt halt.
    She wore no shoes.
    He felt his body buzz with the shock of it. She’d been running—No, they’d been charging over twigs and prickly oak leaves and the whole time she’d been—
    “Bloody hell, I’m bleedin’.”
    Bleeding?
    “Lord love a duck, this day just couldn’t get worse. Stuck in the country with some fancy bred swell with no shoes, no blunt, and no bleedin’ clothes. Someone should just shoot me and put me out of me misery now.”
    And her words made him feel an odd combination of pity and amusement mixed with…tenderness?
    “Here,” he said, “I’ll carry you.”
    “Not on your bleedin’ life,” she said, putting her foot down, turning and moving off again. But he noticed she didn’t put her heel all the way down, though she tried to make it look as if she walked normally.
    “Did you catch a glimpse of my kidnappers?” he found himself asking.
    “Only briefly.”
    “Is that how you became involved?”
    “Aye,” she said. “I saw a signal lantern from my window, and since I figured whoever was up to nonsense would likely not use the front door, I went to the servants’ entrance only to discover the nonsense was
you
, which reminds me, my