Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,39

want to get home. I need to go there to.... get my things. So I can leave England. There won’t be anywhere in the country that’s safe for me now. Not with the law after me.”

“Well, Miss Delafield, I’m afraid that unless your room is in York, you’re once again out of luck.” He reached down to the table and picked up the candle. “I have a pressing matter of business there and I don’t have time for side trips.”

“York?” she sputtered. “But that’s the opposite direction from—” She stopped herself again. “I don’t want to go to York. And I have no guarantee that something won’t happen to me when we get there. Or long before.”

“You also have no choice,” he reminded her, moving his foot until the chain pulled taut between them. “And unless you want a rematch of our wrestle in the woods, you’ll accept that I’m in charge and follow my orders until I can get us safely to a blacksmith.”

Some part of him—damn him—hoped she would opt for another round of wrestling. Though it would be different this time.

The thought of just how different he would make it heated his blood.

But the fury emanating from her slender form was far hotter. “I do not care for the way you keep making all the decisions.”

“Too bad. Get used to it.” Taking the fishing creel and the candle, he walked over to the bed and set them down beside it. He slipped his pistol from his back, and laid it carefully on the floor close at hand. Then he sat on the mattress with a weary sigh. “Get some sleep, your ladyship. We have a lot of ground to cover on the morrow.”

She was silent for a moment.

But only for a moment, unfortunately.

“And where am I supposed to sleep?” she asked indignantly. “On the floor?”

Something small and mouselike scrabbled across the hearth, the sound of its claws terribly loud in the night.

“Wouldn’t recommend it,” he said dryly.

He could hear her breathing, rapid and shallow. “A gentleman would let me have the bed.”

“Unfortunately for you there’s not a gentleman to be found for—oh, I would wager, at least a hundred miles. I have no intention of giving up the bed. You can share it or take the floor.” Leaning down, he extinguished the candle wick between his thumb and forefinger, plunging them into darkness. “The choice, Miss Delafield, is yours.”

Chapter 9

Samantha lay on her side atop the covers, clinging to the very edge of the bed, her stomach in knots. All her senses had become unnaturally sharp. The cabin’s utter blackness rendered her blind, which intensified every sound, every scent, every second of time that dragged past.

Her breath came fast and shallow as she waited for the man next to her—just inches away—to fall asleep.

She could feel him watching her in the darkness. Could feel his emerald gaze tracing over her shoulders and back. Or was that only her imagination? Perhaps he was asleep. Perhaps he had slipped into unconsciousness some time ago.

Yet he hadn’t moved, not from the moment she had climbed into the bed, more than half an hour ago.

At least it felt like half an hour. Had it been only minutes? She could hear his breathing, as unsteady as hers. Every inhalation and exhalation sounded deafening in the stillness.

He shifted his weight, and she heard not only the creak of the bed ropes but the soft rustle of his garments against the rough blanket. She could feel the heat of his body radiating toward her. And his scent—a spicy, heavy muskiness mixed with the freshness of the rainwater he had splashed himself with earlier. He seemed to fill the very air she breathed.

She shut her eyes and tried to stop trembling. How was it that he managed to play on her nerves without even saying a word? Blast the man!

After everything she had endured this day—after being carted through the countryside, tossed down a hill, shot at, and run ragged by this scoundrel chained to her ankle—she should be dead to the world by now. Every bone, every muscle, every bruised and aching inch of her body cried out for the healing relief of sleep.

She tried to tell herself there was no reason to feel tense. He hadn’t made any move toward her. Hadn’t so much as touched a single hair on her head.

Still, her fingers tightened reflexively around the knife in her right hand. She had quietly slipped it from her skirt pocket before