Page 46 of The Work of Art

“I think you very sweet.”

She blushed with self-conscious pleasure. To her amazement, Arthur reddened a little himself. Had he not, she might never have had the nerve, but the sight of his discomfiture so emboldened her, that without stopping to consider, she declared, “If I were sitting next to you, I would take your hand just as you took mine this morning.”

Arthur’s looked steadily back at her, an expression in his eyes that was hard to read. “Would you indeed?”

She sensed a hint of a challenge in his words. “Yes. I do believe I would.”

He cast a glance at the small space on the seat that existed between him and Jasper. “Regrettably, your dog has not left any room for you.”

“Oh, hasn’t he?” Driven more by impulse than sense, Philly rose from her seat. At that very moment, the coach shuddered heavily, and without warning, careened sharply to one side. Philly was hurled across the cabin.

Arthur reacted instantly, lunging forward to catch her around the waist before she fell. “Careful!”

Philly had instinctively clung to his neck as he caught her, and now, draped across his chest with her face only inches from his, she found herself in the rather singular position of being held, for the very first time, in Captain Arthur Heywood’s arms. “My goodness,” she breathed. “Did we break a wheel?”

“No. It was likely nothing but an uneven patch of road.” His voice was rough with concern. “Are you all right?”

“Perfectly all right.” She moved her hands to his shoulders, making an effort to right herself.

He helped to ease her off of his lap and down into the seat beside him. “Perhaps you shouldn’t get up again while the coach is moving?”

“I suppose not.”

Basil raised his head to see what had happened, and Fox’s ears twitched in annoyance, but as soon as the carriage was rolling along again on even ground they all resumed their former positions of drowsy indifference.

“The dogs don’t appear to have minded the upset at all.” Philly stole a sidelong glance at Arthur and saw that his eyes were still upon her. A wave of shyness assailed her. Her impulse to hold his hand seemed clumsy and childish now. The action of a young girl rather than a newly married woman.

She wondered what Lady Eliot would have done in the same situation. She was far too sophisticated to have lost her balance and fallen. But if she had, she wouldn’t have blushed and lowered her eyes when Arthur caught her in his embrace, nor would she have pulled away from him. No. Lady Eliot would have stayed in his arms and waited for him to kiss her.

Or she would have kissed him.

Had they kissed before? The thought struck Philly almost painfully. Arthur said he’d never loved Lady Eliot, but he must have felt something for her once in order to have proposed. And, as Philly had observed at the Worthings’ ball, Lady Eliot was an accomplished flirt with a string of lovers to her credit. She wasn’t the sort of lady to have shied away from kissing her own betrothed.

“Philly.”

Arthur’s quiet voice wrenched Philly from her rather disheartening reflections. She looked up at him. “Yes?”

He held out his hand to her.

Her heart leapt in her breast. She met his gaze for a moment, and then, before she could question the wisdom of such an action, she removed the glove on her left hand. Once she’d done so, she watched with a quickening pulse as Arthur stripped off his right glove.

When his hand was bare, he held it out to her again. In response to the invitation, she slid her hand slowly into his.

His fingers closed over hers.

Neither said a word, but in that moment, all thoughts of Lady Eliot were banished from Philly’s mind.

With the temperate weather and their well-sprung coach, they made remarkably good time on their journey out of London. Their stops thus far had all been brief ones, made only out of necessity. They never spoke of Philly being in danger from her uncle, or from the Duke of Moreland. Even so, Arthur couldn’t help but feel that, on some deep level, she understood the urgency in getting quickly and safely to Heywood House.

He didn’t believe Moreland or Townsend would send someone to recover her. What could possibly be achieved by such an act? She wasn’t some young girl who had been spirited away to Gretna Green. She was a woman grown who had been wed to him quite respectably by a vicar in the Earl of Gordon’s drawing room.

Their marriage couldn’t be undone. Townsend would have known that within two hours of her having run away, and the duke would likely have heard of it soon after.

No, if Moreland decided to send someone after them it wouldn’t be for the purpose of retrieving Philly. It would be for the purpose of vengeance.

But what sort of vengeance could the duke possibly hope to exact?

Philly may have been referred to as The Work of Art for a time, but she was no painting that could be slashed to ribbons by a highwayman. Besides which, though stories abounded of Moreland’s swift and brutal retaliation against those who denied him possession of an object he desired, none of those stories had ever been proven true. They were probably nothing more than sinister fictions perpetuated by gentlemen in their cups.