Page 17 of A Lyon for Luck
“You don’t say! You do not say anything else… not another word from you unless it’s to tell us you heard their destination!” Pozenby shouted.
They’d overtaken the hired coach but the driver had been long gone and the coach itself had been empty. It was then that they knew their mad dash to Scotland was but a ruse. Now, at a less-than-hospitable inn near Sheffield, they were finding out the disastrous news that they were likely too late.
“Not where they was headed, but did hear ’em say to the driver they meant to walk for a bit. If’n that’s the case, couldn’t have been going far,” the man mused. “Mayhap he was a local gent and they didn’t need to go all the way to the border to get married. How old is your daughter, sir?”
Old enough. And that was the problem. She didn’t need his consent to marry. Even if they did manage to find her before the marriage was consummated, there was a very real likelihood that he would not have grounds to challenge it for an annulment. And whatever Pozenby said, the man was not well liked enough to command favors of the court. He was barely tolerated in society due to his malodorous presence. In truth, if the man weren’t ridiculously wealthy, he’d have been ostracized long ago.
“That is not your concern,” Pozenby snapped at the man before turning on his heel and walking away.
The stagecoach driver eyed Reginald for a moment. He made no effort to camouflage his disapproval. “If I had to choose which man for my own daughter to be tied to, I know which one I’d pick.”
“Well, then how fortunate it is that she is not your daughter. Good evening,” Reginald said, now equally put out with the man.
As he reached Pozenby, he heard the man yelling at the proprietor of the establishment to procure fresh horses for them. The proprietorwas attempting to explain why that was impossible. Lack of light. Freezing conditions. And with every protest from the proprietor, Pozenby’s face nearly purpled with rage.
Suddenly, and without any warning, Pozenby’s clutched at his chest. The man’s florid complexion went suddenly ashen, his pallor as gray as the polluted London sky. Then he collapsed to the floor. And no one, not Reginald nor the much-maligned proprietor, made any great hurry to aid him. In fact, almost everyone remained completely still and quiet while the smelly and bullish man breathed his last.
“The room is paid for?” Reginald asked of the proprietor as Pozenby’s remains were carted out by two locals who complained loudly of the task.
“It is, sir. Will you be keeping it then?”
“Yes,” Reginald said. “I’ll leave at first light.”
“And your companion, sir? What are we to do with his remains?”
“Cart him up and send him to his next of kin.”
The proprietor blinked. “Who would that be, sir?”
Reginald shrugged. “I do not know. He’s Lord Pozenby. Consult a copy ofDebrett’s Peerage. It should answer the question for you well enough.”
With that, Reginald left the innkeeper gaping after him and climbed the stairs to the room his late companion had paid for. And all he felt was relief. It would give him time to figure out some way to manage the debt. Perhaps if he could placate Daphne in some way, and her new husband—whomever he was—they might be inclined to generosity.
Fletcher had amultitude of regrets which would likely come back tohaunt him at some point in time. But for the moment, not a one of them was a deterrent to what was about to occur. Consummating his marriage to a woman whom, in a very short time he had come to both admire and to long for in a way that defied description, on the hard floor of the drawing room of a house that was rapidly falling into ruin around him was certainly one of them. Oh, not the consummating. He was quite eager for that. It was more that the location and amenities left quite a bit to be desired.
A bed. A bed would certainly have been a nice touch. And while there were bedchambers above, he wasn’t entirely certain of the soundness of the roof above them, nor of the cleanliness therein. The drawing room had at least been habitable and was where he’d stayed when last he’d been there. But it was not the time for regrets or doubts.
Daphne, naked and eager in his arms, was a gift that he meant to savor, whatever their surroundings might be. To that end, he put himself to work ensuring that she would receive as much pleasure from the encounter as he could possibly manage. He left her mouth, kissing along her jawline, down the slender column of her neck to the delicate slope of her shoulder, the arched line of her collarbone and lower still, to the upper swells of her breasts. Petite as she was, her figure was still delightfully curvaceous and so deliciously different from his own that every contrast was a study in pleasure.
As he maneuvered them toward the settee, he turned and eased himself down first, pulling her down with him so that she sat astride his thighs. It was an intentionally provocative pose, one that had a very predictable effect on him and one that she was incapable of missing.
“Do you have any idea what is about to happen?” he asked her, praying that someone, somewhere along the way, had spoken out of turn and not left her in complete ignorance.
She blushed so deeply that even in the firelight it was visible. “Very little… my mother told me a few things when I was only days from walking down the aisle with Viscount Lynley, but I rather think it was very poor information. If I had thought, I might have asked Ellis. I think she’d have been a far better source.”
“Likely,” he agreed. “I can’t tell you. I could, but I think in this instance we would likely be speaking different languages. But I can show you, Daphne, if you trust me.”
“I do,” she said. “More than you can possibly realize… or I’d never have had the courage to do… well, any of this!”
“If I do something you dislike, stop me. Tell me. It will not make me angry or upset. If I do something you do like, then do not hide that from me… Let me see what pleases you so that this is an experience both of us can enjoy,” he urged her. “Can you do that? Just let yourself feel and let me see what you’re feeling?”
“I think so,” she agreed. “But I won’t know what to say!”
He smiled then. “If I’m doing what I ought to, then you won’t have to tell me with words… I’ll know.”
And then they stopped speaking. He let his hands wander over satiny skin, touching her lightly, then more firmly. And with each pass of his hands over her bare flesh, he made note of her response. When she shivered, when she sighed, when she leaned into him or arched beneath his hands. Every single response was catalogued, memorized—and everything he did after built upon that, upon the revelation of what she responded to. And every response only fueled the fire burning inside him.
“This all feels very one-sided,” Daphne murmured, her voice thin and breathy. “Shouldn’t I be touching you, as well?”
