A hand splayed across her back as she did so, another one supporting her, and she heaved again and again. Once she’d finished, she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it to her mouth, just in case.
“It’s over,” he said in a jagged tone, this one bleak and resigned. “I need to get you out of here.”
She nodded, unable to do more than that. Her lungs rebelled. Her stomach revolted. Her legs had somehow disappeared.
Rather than help her up, Gareth scooped her into his arms, and plunged into the darkness of the garden corner. They escaped out a back gate and Felicity thought she heard him mutter about undone locks allowing the brigands inside.
Once in the street, Felicity clung to his neck as he identified three horses in the alley between one great house and the next. They were not the sort of beasts any nobleman would pay a penny to own.
No question as to whom they belonged.
Before she could contest, he’d tossed her upon the back of the tallest steed, and mounted behind her.
Clinging tenaciously to the saddle, Felicity shrank back against his chest as he spurred the horse into a lurching gallop over the cobbles. They rode thunderously into the London night, their way illuminated by pallid lamps and a smattering of carriages idling in wait to convey the revelers to bed.
Felicity wasn’t the horsewoman her sisters were. Despite receiving lessons from her intractable mother, she’d always had an uneasy relationship with the beasts. Prudence had once told her a horse could sense her fear, and it responded in kind.
Unable to suppress her fear, she’d decided horses were best appreciated from the ground.
Gareth, however, had no such compunctions. He rode expertly with one hand on the reins, and the other secured around her waist, cinching her to his body.
Anytime her life had been in danger, she’d obsessed over the worst outcomes, picturing herself over and over again the mangled casualty of a thousand fates.
Tonight, all she seemed to be able to focus on was the roll of his hips against her backside as they rode. The ridges and swells of his torso molded against her. It was like being buttressed by warm granite.
Her home wasn’t far, and when they dashed into the courtyard, Gareth leapt from the saddle before the horse had quite stopped, reaching up to pluck her down without a modicum of assistance from her.
Once her feet were planted on the earth, he stabilized her with one hand, while turning to give the beast a hearty slap on the flanks.
The horse snorted and started before trotting back out the archway and into the London night.
“Holy Moses,” she finally managed.
Propelling her toward the house, he wrenched open the door— this time unlocked— and roughly pulled her inside, slamming it behind him and throwing the latch.
“We— I— you…” She’d begun trembling in earnest now, unable to stop the deep tide of horror that threatened to tumble her beneath the waves. “We should summon someone— the police? What are you doing?”
His hands were on her, roughly turning her this way and that. “Did they hurt you? Did anything touch you?” He tested her joints and what he could see of her skin, inspecting her like some sort of rag doll.
“No,” she answered immediately, then took a moment to really examine her own body, to clench and unclench each muscle. “No. You never let them get close enough to touch me. But, Gareth… your head.”
Oh no, she felt another swoon come on… or perhaps worse.
She clapped a hand over her mouth.
Blood seeped down the brutal planes of his face from a gash near his hairline. He reached up to touch it and seemed surprised to find the wound.
“I’d forgotten,” he said by way of disgruntled explanation.
She whirled away from him, lurching in his grasp, grateful he didn’t let her go. A second hand joined the first over her mouth as dark spots crept into her vision.
“Miss Felicity?” Mr. Bartholomew and Mrs. Pickering rushed from below stairs, the plump housekeeper reaching for Felicity. “Dear God, child, what’s happened?”
She pointed back at Gareth, the tears streaming from her eyes because of her physical reaction to the blood rather than any sort of emotional distress. “He’s hurt,” she croaked, hoping they’d help him.
“Mr. Bartholomew, you must send for the carriage,” Gareth said as if she hadn’t spoken. “It’s still on Barclay Street and must be retrieved quickly. It is imperative that we appear to have left with the rest of