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He stood and walked from the room.
“William?”
He glanced over his shoulder. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted, the color high in her cheeks. How small and vulnerable she appeared. “Yes, Pippa?”
She drew in a quick, fortifying breath. “Thank you, my lord. There is no doubt I would still be outside in the ghastly weather if you had not found me.”
He curled his fingers in a fist at his side, for he had the urge to reach out and hold her against him. “Think nothing of it. I am damn glad I saw you.”
William opened the door and escaped into the small parlor, grateful to be breathing the air that did not smell like the tempting woman he left in the bedroom. He went out into the storm and made sure that Phoenix was unsaddled and rubbed down. He then set about piling hay in the lean-to shed where Phoenix would be staying, doing his damnedest to not think about Lady Pippa and that they were likely trapped together for a few days.
It would be torture. Yet…his gut told him it would also be something wonderful.
Bloody hell.
CHAPTEREIGHT
Pippa did not know if it was just a horrible coincidence or some sort of divine fate, but she was alone with the marquess in a cottage, clearly caught in a storm no one could have predicted. He had also rescued her, for on her ride across the beautiful woodlands she had realized how remote the duke and duchess’s estate and surrounding forests were. She could have been stranded for days, and no one would have found her.
But he had. Pippa still did not know what to make of it, but she was grateful. She looked around the bedroom with which he had seemed so intimately acquainted. Did it belong to a lover?
Moving carefully, she removed the breeches, hissing low beneath her breath at the awful pain it caused in her ankle. Her riding top habit was the next to go, and she tugged on his shirt, gasping to see that the hem only stopped at her knees. Surely she could not leave this bedroom so exposed. Pippa reached for one of the blankets, dried her hair as best as possible, and then wrapped the other around her like a toga. It worked well enough to cover her from chest to toes, and she hopped and hugged the walls until she left the bedroom.
He glanced up from where he emptied hot water into a sort of copper pail/pan. “Why didn’t you call me?”
Before she could reply, she was swept up into his powerful arms and lowered to sit in a chair. “Thank you.”
He made an irritated sound beneath his breath, and she bit back her smile. William went over to the stone counter of the small kitchen, took up a sack, opened it and poured some of the contents into the water in the pail. He brought that pail over to her and stooped.
“Place your foot in.”
She wrinkled her nose and peered cautiously down into the clear water. “What is it?”
“Heated water with salt.”
Pippa dragged the blanket up, baring her shin and tentatively placed her foot in the water. She hissed at the sting and jerked her foot.
“Do not take it out. Bear with the discomfort. I know you can.”
Pippa forced herself to bear the sting. “How do you know that I can?”
“You are one of the most indomitable ladies I’ve had the fortune to meet. How could you not bear this small discomfort?”
Pippa smiled, hating the warmth that seeped through her body which had retained the chill outside. The marquess rose and went over to the small mantle by the fire, where he plucked up a jar. He opened the lid and brought it to his nose. Whatever he scented seemed to meet his approval, for he nodded. The cottage had a welcoming lived-in feel, and she glanced around, curiosity biting at her. Faded print curtains fluttered in the two front windows, and the small sitting area held a table and two chairs. Atop the table sat a chessboard, and a game was in progress. “Do you…do you know who this cottage belongs to?”
Those golden eyes stared at her for a moment, assessing her in a way he had never before looked at her. Pippa tightened her fingers around the edges of the toga and shifted her foot in the water.
“It belonged to my grandparents, and now it belongs to me.”
“It is a lovely cottage,” she said with a tentative smile. That driving hunger to know this man before her once again swelled throughout her being. The intensity of it forced her to look away from him and outside. “The rain is very fierce.”
“The storm might last through the night and the next day.”
Good heavens. “Theo will be dreadfully worried once I’ve not returned to the estate.” Pippa closed her eyes in regret. “That is the last thing she needs considering how far gone she is in her pregnancy.”
“Perhaps the duchess will not realize that you’ve not returned.”
“I can hope for it,” Pippa said. “I do so hate the thought of worrying her.”
