Page 5 of Outrageous

Low laughter echoed around him. “Sit up and I shall give you some.” A small hand slid beneath his shoulder and pushed. “I can’t lift you; you’ll have to help.”

“If I sit up will you stop talking?” His voice sounded as if he’d been gargling nails.

More laughter. “Look who wakes up grumpy.”

Godric sucked in a breath, winced at the pain it caused, gritted his teeth, and pushed himself up.

Oh. God. His head sloshed, the sound remarkably like liquid in a ceramic jug.

“If you’re going to vomit again, do it into the bucket next to your feet.”

He shuddered, wrapped an arm around his midriff and reached blindly for the hand strap with the other. A small, gloved hand took his wrist and guided his fingers to the leather grip.

Godric clung to the strap like a child to its nanny and forced open his eyes. And saw her.

“You.” Even to his own ears his voice pulsed with loathing.

She grinned, flashing perfect white teeth between her full, shapely lips. “Me.”

“But . . . but—” Words were evading him.

“But . . . but . . .” She laughed. “You sound like a hen about to lay an egg.” She then gave a credible demonstration of a cackling hen—noisily—and laughed some more.

Godric squeezed his temples with his free hand. “Please. I beg of you.”

Another low chuckle.

“Why?” he said.

“Why did I kidnap you?”

He could only grunt, but it seemed to be enough.

“Why do you think I kidnapped you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “You were about to kidnap my dearest friend, who is also my brother’s wife, Lord Visel. Two people, I will remind you, who married only because you forced them to. But that wasn’t enough for you, was it?” She plowed onward, her ringing voice escalating. “No, you couldn’t stand to see them happy with each other, could you? So you were going to take her, and what? Shame her? Shame him? Make him fight and kill you?” Her voice was like ice picks in his ears.

She leaned across the seat and the buckskin of her breeches stretched taut across her thighs. Which was when Godric’s brain registered the fact she was dressed like a man.

“I took matters into my own hands and removed you from the picture entirely.” She gave him a dirty look, the expression hard on her beautiful features.

“You are wearing b-breeches.” It was not what he thought he’d say and her expression told him it wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear, either.

She sat back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest, her expression openly scathing. That was just as well, Godric decided, since her voice hurt his ears and he didn’t seem to be thinking or speaking straight. Instead he let his aching, dry, burning eyes roam over her person.

In addition to skintight leather breeches, she wore scuffed black top boots—the smallest pair he’d ever seen—whose white tops were so filthy they would have made Brummell weep. Her clawhammer coat appeared to be a dark blue and the waistcoat beneath it gold and white striped. Her cravat was arranged in some hideous fashion that must be of her own devising, and on the seat beside her was a black beaver hat. Her hair was rudely bunched on top of her head and held in place with a great number of pins that glittered and glinted, catching the light from outside and flashing quite painfully.

“Coffee.”

Her lips thinned but she reached into a leather satchel at her feet and pulled out the clay jug she must have waved beneath his nose.

“You’ll have to drink it from the jug.”

Godric let go of the strap, reached out a shaky hand, and began to slide off the seat.

“Well, bugger,” she snapped, putting her free hand on his chest, as if her puny little arm could stop him from falling. Godric fumbled with the strap and caught himself, but not before he drove her to her knees in the small space between them.

“Bloody hell,” she cursed, shaking the hand that had been holding the jug and sending glinting diamonds of coffee flying. She glared up at him while she sucked the skin between her thumb and forefinger. “You clumsy oaf, you made me spill.”

Godric felt his mouth pulling into a smile.