Page 18 of The Smuggler’s Escape

“You’re a vile, disgusting lecher.”

“Merely a jest, my sweet. I don’t want to shove anything up anyone’s behind, when there are other, cleaner, and more enticing orifices to choose from.”

“Fine, as long as they’re not mine.” Her voice faltered on that last word. Idiot!

Richard’s voice gentled. “Many words of love passed between us a few years ago, Noelle. I distinctly recall telling you I loved you, and you said the same to me. Was that another sham?”

She ducked under an overhanging branch, slamming her heart shut against the tenderness in his voice. She infused indifference into hers. “Perhaps we meant it at the time. We were young and foolish and consumed by lust.”

“No love at all?”

Her heart twisted at his plaintive tone. To think she had once adored that voice for its effect on her, and now that same effect threatened to destroy every shred of reason.

She hardened her own voice. “What difference does it make? The past is done and gone, but if the humiliation you inflicted on me this evening was prompted by love, then it’s hardly surprising if I do not wish more of the same.”

“I apologize for that, my sweet. My temper got the better of me. But what of the humiliation you caused me?”

She stopped Snowflake and skewed to gape at him. “What are you talking about?”

Richard pulled Charger to a halt beside her. “I don’t generally care what people think of me, but no man likes to play the cuckold.”

Unbelievable. “How can you be a cuckold? We’re not married. We’re not even really betrothed. You asked me to marry you and then left without a word. That’s not love.” Her traitorous voice quivered.

“Did you miss me?” The words might be plaintive, but the tone conveyed Richard’s triumph.

She would not succumb to such tactics. She huffed. “At first I did, but soon I realized my mistake in wanting to marry you in the first place.” She let Snowflake move forward again. “I am merely making the point that you have no claim on me and cannot possibly be a cuckold in any sense of the word.”

Richard sneaked up on her stirrup side and took hold of Snowflake’s rein. “There we disagree. I claimed you then, and I have never relinquished that claim.” He let go of her rein again, but his thigh brushed hers as they moved slowly along the path, side by side.

This was unbearable. She wanted to slap him. She also longed to throw herself into his arms. How foolish could she possibly be? She nudged Snowflake away from him toward the far side of the path.

He went on in that confident, seductive, rational voice. “Why are you so overset? You’re an intelligent woman. When you have calmed down enough to think clearly, you will realize that tonight I got us over heavy ground very lightly indeed. Your reputation is more or less intact, as is my dignity. They will all think you were flirting outrageously in the hope I would hear of it and return.”

Anger so black it terrified her rose up. She shoved it down with a derisive noise. “What about my dignity?”

Richard shrugged. “You don’t care about your reputation and I don’t care about your dignity. Between us, we can perhaps retain some portion of each.” He yawned as elaborately as Noelle had yawned at Lucretia a few hours earlier. “I wonder how much of the information Geoff Towne provided is accurate. It seems reasonable, but I haven’t smuggled in years.” His thigh brushed her leg again.

“You?” A distraction, she realized, but let herself be caught. “When?”

“In my feckless youth, long before you graced our shores, I helped unload a boat or two. A juvenile means of getting back at my overly strict father, I admit, but good fun all the same. Geoff knew if he didn’t tell me, I’d worm the information out of some childhood friend or other . . . Unfortunately, not all the goods have been accounted for yet. I wonder why Geoff didn’t list the kegs in the walls of your dovecote?”

Noelle gawked at him a second before replying. “He may have forgotten. They’re a remnant of the previous run. Lieutenant Hale has made it harder and harder for us to move the goods. We thought the dovecote was the least likely place for him to look, so we left the last several tubs there. How did you know? I thought they were hidden inside the wall.”

“They were and still are. You see, my sweet one, before your uncle bought that property and forced his abysmal presence upon us, it was owned by a fellow named Davison—Daniel Davison’s father, to be precise. Daniel and I spent our boyhood exploring together . . . My father gave Daniel the living when the old vicar died. I expect when the dovecote was constructed some two hundred years or more ago, it was with a view to the same nefarious purposes for which you are using it now.” His thigh brushed her gown and sent a tingle through her stocking to the skin beneath.

Noelle nudged Snowflake abruptly away. “That doesn’t explain what you were doing in there tonight.”

“True,” Richard said, “it doesn’t. Have you noticed, by any chance, that you’re almost in the ditch?”

“Stop bumping into me, then.” But if she moved ahead he’d catch her up, and if she slowed he would slow as well. The only defense against Richard was attack.

The second she shoved Snowflake against the roan, Richard’s arm came around her. He almost lifted her from the saddle. “That’s my Noelle,” he said, his breath hot in her ear, his male aroma bathing her senses. Charger came to a halt and Snowflake followed suit. Richard tightened his arm and lowered his mouth toward Noelle’s. Her lips parted and for a helpless moment she succumbed to his spell.

“No!” Noelle pushed hard away from him. “I’m not yours!”

With an exasperated huff he let go, settling her back on Snowflake before drawing away.

Noelle struggled to control her voice. To put some formality, some distance between them. “I’m sorry, Richard, but I can’t and won’t marry you. It was . . . kind of you to rescue me from Lieutenant Hale tonight, but although I am sensible of the—the very great honor you do me in requesting my hand, I find that I cannot accept.”