Claire Thornton - Runaway Lady

He bent to catch her around the waist and lift her out of the coach. She was trembling so badly her legs couldn’t support her. Harry’s arms closed around her, holding her up and holding her tight against him. She clutched his coat, pressing her face into his shoulder. She could smell the burnt powder from his pistols. He’d killed to protect them.

She’d been afraid when she’d overheard her aunt and Tancock plotting her murder in Cornwall. She’d been terrified when she’d fled from Tancock in London. But her panic on those occasions had been akin to the fear experienced in nightmares. Horrifying, but without the gut-wrenching intrusion of immediate, brutal violence. For several moments her teeth chattered so badly she couldn’t speak, even if she’d wanted to. She clung to Harry, taking comfort in the steadiness of his hard-muscled body. He was breathing a little faster than normal, but he wasn’t shaking. He’d responded to the highwaymen’s attack with speed and ruthless efficiency. For the first time in years she allowed herself to lean on someone else’s strength. Harry didn’t murmur any soothing words, nor did he give her any comforting caresses. But he continued to hold her close while she slowly regained her composure.

As her mind gradually cleared, she realised they weren’t standing still. Harry was supporting her weight in his arms as he kept moving slowly around so he could watch in all directions. The feel of his hard body against her was an illicit pleasure. As her shock receded she felt a different kind of excitement flow through her veins. It was so long since she’d been held in a man’s arms and been so directly aware of masculine strength. There was nothing lover-like about Harry’s behaviour, but his silent embrace was seducing her attention away from everything else that had just happened.

But it was a deceptive seduction. Even as she became aware of the intimacy of their position she felt a change in him. When he’d first lifted her from the coach he’d held her in an undemonstrative but comforting way. Now there was a rigid tension in the arms around her that felt humiliatingly like rejection. He was still holding her, but subtly easing her away from his body as if he’d had enough of her emotional outburst. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt that kind of silent rejection. No words spoken, but the unmistakable awareness that the man she was clinging to did not want her so close to him. Hurt and mortification burned through her, but experience had taught her how to hide her feelings and make light of such awkward moments.

She released her grip on Harry, but didn’t try to move away because his arms were still a steel band around her and she refused to embarrass herself by struggling. Instead she lifted her head and forced a jaunty note into her voice as she asked, ‘Will you drop me if a new danger appears?’

His jaw was locked rigid, his face so stiff she thought he must be fighting the urge to push her away, but to her surprise his expression seemed to soften slightly at her words.

‘It would depend on the nature of the threat,’ he said. He set her on her feet with precise carefulness and immediately stepped away from her. ‘If I see anyone else levelling a musket at us from the shelter of the trees—as I did earlier—I would take you down with me when I drop. But I doubt there will be another attack now.’

‘I hope not.’ Saskia rubbed her hand up and down her arm. Even though she knew he hadn’t welcomed their brief intimacy, she felt exposed and shaky without his steady strength to lean upon. She tried not to feel hurt that he didn’t want to be close to her. She’d hired him to get her safely to Cornwall, and so far he’d carried out that task very effectively. He had no obligation to like embracing her. ‘What are we going to do now?’

‘Take up the body and deliver it to the local constable,’ said Harry.

‘I don’t want him in the coach with me.’ Saskia gave an involuntary shudder at the prospect of travelling with the dead man.

‘If the coachman manages to catch both loose horses, you won’t have to.’

Saskia looked around and saw that so far he’d only caught Harry’s horse.

‘I’ll help him—’

‘No, you won’t,’ Harry said crisply, not looking up from where he was searching the dead highwayman’s pockets.

‘I’m good with horses,’ she said, irritated by his flat veto of her suggestion. She’d managed to take care of her horse all the way from Cornwall to London without any problems.

‘If you think I’m going to let you wander the open heath, chirping at a strange horse, you must have taken leave of your senses.’ Harry scanned their surroundings once more. ‘You hired me to protect you.’

‘I didn’t know we were going to get waylaid by highwaymen,’ said Saskia, torn between annoyance and an absurd feeling she should apologise to him for the inconvenience.

‘Hiring me was rather like building a roof to keep out the rain and discovering it does equally well to keep out hail and snow,’ said Harry, from his tone obviously not pleased about it.

‘I don’t see why you’re in such a bad mood,’ said Saskia, sitting on the floor of the coach with her feet dangling towards the ground. Surely he couldn’t still be grumpy because he’d had to hug her for a few moments? ‘I’m a novice at being shot at—in fact, this is my first time,’ she pointed out, ‘but you must be used to it.’

‘I’m used to sandflies, but that doesn’t mean I like them.’

‘We weren’t attacked by sandflies. In any case, you’ve clearly led a very adventurous life. I really don’t see how much difference there is between fending off highwaymen or—’

‘The henchmen of your lord’s jealous former mistress,’ Harry interrupted drily.

‘Ah…well…’ Until Harry’s comment Saskia had temporarily forgotten her excuse for needing his protection. She’d told him she wanted him to keep her alive, but he couldn’t really have supposed the jealous mistress meant to kill her. More likely he’d assumed the other woman just wanted Saskia to be physically humiliated. No wonder he wasn’t best pleased at finding himself attacked by pistol-bearing highwaymen.

She remembered her money pocket and reached back into the coach to retrieve it. ‘I was going to give it to them,’ she said, when she saw Harry looking at it.

He nodded. ‘I didn’t make my reputation by letting bandits steal the goods,’ he said, ‘but it was a wise choice. If a man demands your money or your life, always give him the money.’

Despite the warmth of the summer’s day, Saskia wrapped her arms around herself. ‘What if he can only get the money after you’re dead?’ she said.

Harry looked directly at her for the first time since he’d released her from his embrace. His expression was guarded, but his eyes searching. She wondered what he saw and whether she had revealed too much in that involuntary comment.

‘I could only catch your horse, sir,’ the coachman called.

Harry raised his hand in acknowledgement, but kept his gaze on Saskia. ‘You do everything in your power to remain alive until you can remove the threat,’ he said.

The highwayman’s horse had gone for good, so Harry put the dead man on to his horse and sat beside the coachman on the way to the next village. The coachman was still shaken and he wanted to talk about what had happened. It took all Harry’s self-discipline to tolerate the other man’s anxieties and questions. He was still experiencing the after-effects of violence himself. That surge of diamond-cold ferocity in response to danger had served him well on many occasions. He knew it always took time to shift from that split-second lethal intensity to his usual equilibrium. But today his fight to bring his body and emotions under his control was much harder. From the moment he’d seen the highwayman levelling the musket he’d been driven by deadly fury at the threat to Saskia. And when the immediate danger was over and he’d seen how shocked she was, he’d been compelled to take her into his arms. To comfort her. To assure himself that she was indeed unharmed…