“Don’t do this,” he warned. “If you push me right now, I’ll do something brash. Something you’d only regret.”
She stepped forward. “If you leave these stables without me, I will follow you. On foot. In the rain. Without a cloak. I’ll walk all the way to Southwark, if that’s what it takes.” She blinked away a raindrop caught in her lashes. “So if you’re concerned for my health and well-being, Rafe Brandon, you had better—”
Rafe never heard the rest of her impassioned threat. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her onto his gelding.
Then he mounted behind her, circling one arm about her middle and bracketing her hips with his thighs.
As he nudged the horse into a canter, he pulled her roughly to him. Holding her not like a lover, but like a captive. She’d asked for this. Tonight, she was in his keeping, for all the best and worst of what that could mean to them both.
And she was right on one score.
There could be no going back.
Clio was soaked to the skin and shivering in the dark. She had no idea where she was, or where Rafe might be taking her.
And she’d never been happier in her life.
Never mind the cold and the darkness. His body was warm. And her heart had enough joy inside it to blaze like a lantern. She could stay forever like this—tucked against his broad, strong chest and blanketed by his coat as the horse faithfully trudged through the rain and mud.
They stopped at the first inn they came across. Rafe ushered her inside, presenting some tale to the innkeeper about newlyweds and a broken carriage axle.
Clio tried not to make too much of the fact that he’d introduced her as his wife. He was only being protective, no doubt. Trying to deflect suspicion from the appearance of a man and woman traveling alone.
Still . . . When he uttered the phrase, “a room for my wife,” she leapt at the chance to nestle close to his side.
Once they’d been shown upstairs, he gave orders to the serving girls.
Well, not only to the serving girls.
“Stay on that side of the room,” he directed Clio. “I’m only here until you’re settled. Then I’ll go down for the night.”
“That’ll be a blow to your pride, I fear. We’re supposed to be newlyweds. They won’t think the honeymoon’s going well.”
He shrugged. “I’ll tell them you’re timid due to my prodigious size.”
She smiled, hugging herself to keep her teeth from chattering. Now that he’d released her, she was so cold. “About earlier. Rafe, I just want to say thank you. That was brilliant. All of it.”
“It was stupid. And loutish and impulsive.” He pushed his hands through his hair and blew out his breath. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. I shouldn’t have hit him.”
“I’m glad to be here. And I loved that you hit him. That was the best part.”
“He’s your brother-in-law.”
“Yes. But he’s insufferable.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I could have hit him harder. I wanted to hit him harder.”
“I know.”
“Bloody hell. I could have killed him.”
The back of her neck prickled. “You’d never do that.”
His dark gaze locked with hers. So intent, she felt it from across the room. “You don’t know what I’d do for you.”
Whomp. Her heart slammed against her rib cage with such strength, she lost her breath.
“Beggin’ pardon, sir.”
Rafe moved aside as three of the inn’s serving girls entered the room. One carried a washtub, and the others held great pitchers of steaming water. Clio and Rafe stood silent as they went about filling the bath. It took them longer than it ought, because all three of them kept stealing glances at Rafe.
Even after they left, he kept his sentinel post by the door. “It wasn’t supposed to go this way.”