Free Stolen Away: A Regency Novella by Shannon Donnelly Page A

fall asleep in this fashion. After all, while she had rested at his house, he had been busy arranging matters. He stirred again as the moonlight slanted into the coach. She glanced at it, her mouth pulled down. Rising and steadying herself against the sway of the coach by bracing one hand against the back seat, she reached across him to pull closed the curtain. The coach gave a lurch and she fell back into her seat, landing next to him so close that her breasts brushed his arm now.
    He stirred and she thought he might wake, but he only shifted, turning so that his head fell onto her shoulder and his hand fell onto her waist.
    Muscles tensed, she held herself still. What now? Wake him? Push him away?
    His breathing deepened back into steady, rhythmic pulls.
    Experimenting, she pulled one arm from his hold. She tried to sift his weight. He mumbling something, and he did shift, but only to snuggle closer, so that his face now rested low on her shoulder and just above the swell of her breast. With a contented sigh, he seemed to slip into deeper sleep.
    Desperate, heart thudding, she wet her lips and glanced about her. But no one was here to see her predicament. No one would know.
    Lifting one hand, she bit down on the tips of her glove and drew it off. She brushed her fingertips across his forehead. He did not move. Growing bold, she brushed her lips across the spot where her fingers had touched. He tasted warm and sweet. She pulled in a breath, intoxicated with him.
    Longing swept through her, sharp, fierce, bright as the summer sun. Now that she had him in her arms—solid and real, and no longer a recollected story from Chloe—she knew that she had lied to everyone, herself included.
    She never really had intended him for Chloe. No, she had used her cousin shamefully. She had lived through her cousin, counting each success of her cousin’s as her own. She had chosen Chloe’s gowns, and selected the events for Chloe to attend. She had guided Chloe into her engagement to Arncliffe, and had convinced herself that it was because it was such a perfect match. She had told Chloe what to say. She had even written Chloe’s notes to Arncliffe.
    And she had told herself it would be enough to see him happy with Chloe. To see him settled with such a beautiful woman—a woman he loved. She had thought she could live as the indulgent second cousin to their children.
    But the longing ache inside mocked such intentions with the truth—she loved him. And it was not enough to give him to Chloe and watch him marry her cousin. But it would have to be so. He had given his word. And he was a gentleman.
    Shifting herself, she settled her arms about him, making him and herself more comfortable. She laid her cheek against the softness of his hair.
    The carriage rocked as the horses galloped into the night. For another night, she would keep lying. She would imagine herself to be as pretty as Chloe, to be as rich, and to be eloping with the man she loved, a gentleman accustomed to beauty and to having the best of the world.
    Come the morrow, she would stop the deceit, and Arncliffe might well be happy to turn his back on the entire Colbert family. But she would be greedy tonight and keep him in her arms.
    * * *
     
    Fitzjoy woke with a stiff neck, shivering cold, and to find his heiress gone. Jumping up, he glanced around the barn, seeing only the gelding, placid in its stall, and a black velvet cloak on the ground. He took it up and her scent swirled around him—lavender and rose. With a muffled curse, he strode to the door. Now what would he do? And what did she think herself doing, jaunting around on her own where any sort of devilment might befall her?
    He scowled at that. Perhaps she thought the worst had already happened—but he had not touched her. No, he’d wait for a proper ring on her finger first and all the legalities tied up for them in Guernsey, where a man might marry with as few ties as could be had in Scotland.
    However, there was