LITMIR.BIZ

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but to Decima’s ears it sounded suggestively improper. It felt improper. She had never had more than a hand touched by a man who was not a close relative.

      ‘I am sorry. Only I don’t have anything to hold on to and I cannot keep my balance unless I shift my weight.’ His thighs must be numb by now, she thought, new embarrassment seizing her.

      ‘I see the problem.’ His breathing seemed to be coming rather short—she could see the puffs of warm breath on the cold air. ‘Look, if you undo my greatcoat and put your arms around me inside it, then my arms holding the reins will trap it around you. Just hang on and try and sit—still.’ The final word came out as a gasp as Decima twisted to get at the big mother-of-pearl buttons. After a tussle she managed to open the coat and wriggle enough to wrap her arms around the viscount’s body. The flaps of the coat closed with the pressure of his arms and she found herself in warm, man-scented semidarkness.

      It was very odd. Sounds from outside were muffled, but her ear, pressed against his chest, could hear the sound of his heartbeat, out of rhythm with hers. Her palms curled against his sides with her fingers curving into his back—goodness, but he was large.

      Certainly she didn’t need to shift to keep her balance any longer, but things felt somehow different than before when she’d sat further forward. Decima settled more comfortably, then her mind caught up with what her body was feeling. Oh, my heavens! She suddenly became very still. No wonder he hadn’t wanted her moving about. It seemed the cold had done nothing whatsoever to diminish his lordship’s male reflexes.

      Adam relaxed a little. Thank God she’d stopped wriggling. Now all he had to do was to breathe this blessedly freezing air deeply and think of completely unerotic things such as dying of exposure in a snowdrift or Fox breaking a leg in a concealed pothole and possibly, in about a week, his painful state of arousal might subside.

      Why a befreckled beanpole of a young lady—not so very young, now he came to think about it—should have this effect upon him he had no idea. Possibly it was a reflex reaction to his sister’s matchmaking; he felt immediately attracted to the first woman he saw who wasn’t thrust into his path by a relative. And she was hardly a conventional lady at that. He recalled her knowledgeable assessment of Fox’s attributes with a grin—Sal would faint dead away if she heard such a comment. Well, if one were to be marooned in a blizzard with a lady, then better an eccentric one than an hysterical young miss.

      He snuggled his arms tighter to hold the greatcoat close around her and tucked his chin down on the top of her head. It was much easier to guide Fox with her in this position. And warmer, and altogether more…erotic, damn it. Her hands were clasped tightly around him and he could feel her heart beating, the swell of her breasts, even through the thickness of his coat. Despite her obvious embarrassment about her height, she wasn’t particularly heavy as she rested on his thighs. He just hoped she hadn’t noticed—or did not understand—what else she was resting on.

      They rode in silence for what seemed like an hour. Adam twisted in the saddle as best he could and saw his groom was keeping up well. ‘Are you all right, Bates?’

      ‘Aye. I’d be doing better if I didn’t have to manage this here fubsy bloss.’ This observation was greeted by a hoot of outrage and the sound of a fist thumping against what Adam hoped was Bates’s chest and not some vital part of his anatomy. It was followed by a flurry of sneezes and the groom’s voice adding plaintively, ‘And I’ll have caught a streaming cold by the end of it, too.’

      ‘What did he call her?’ The voice was muffled under the greatcoat. Adam smiled.

      ‘A fubsy bloss. I think he was implying that your maid is a well-endowed…I mean, plump young woman.’

      There was a giggle. Really a very nice giggle. Adam was not normally taken by gigglers, but then usually they were batting their eyelashes at him on the dance floor and behaving as though his most banal remark was the acme of wit and intelligence. ‘Pru’s figure is usually much admired.’

      ‘I imagine it is—but possibly her admirers have not had to get their arms around it while balanced on a horse in a snowstorm. I can see a fingerpost, thank heavens.’ Provided it didn’t prove he’d been riding round in circles all this time. He and Bates were fit and the horses were strong, but he wasn’t sure how much more of this they could safely take. The snow was showing no signs of abating.

      Bates forged ahead to read the signpost. ‘We’re on the right road,’ he called back. ‘This is Honeypot Hill—a mile down there and we take the lane on the right, then it’s less than half a mile.’

      Along a deep lane with high hedges. Either it was going to be protected and clear or it would be impassably deep in drifts. Adam kept his thoughts to himself and led the way down the hill, his hands automatically guiding and checking the horse as it slid and pecked, his mind working on ways round.

      ‘It is getting worse, isn’t it?’ The voice from the region of his upper coat button jerked him back to the here and now. He could sense the edge of fear under Miss Ross’s calm question, but she wasn’t going to give way to it.

      ‘Yes.’ There was no point in lying to her, she only had to look for herself.

      ‘You will manage.’

      ‘You sound very confident.’

      ‘I would not have come with you if I hadn’t been,’ Miss Ross said prosaically. ‘I mean, I have had a lot of experience of men who are idiots, so it is quite easy to spot one who isn’t.’

      That was frank speaking indeed. ‘I hope that was a compliment, Miss Ross.’

      ‘Of course it was. Now my brother—or any of my numerous male cousins—would say that I should have stayed in the coach, so by now Pru and I would be well on our way to expiring of cold, my virtue indubitably protected. He would have prosed on for hours about the consequences of my having set forth on this journey at all without a male escort, so by now I would have strangled him and have ended up in the hands of the justices.’

      ‘Why would you have strangled your brother?’ They had reached the bottom of the hill now and the lane opened up, mercifully free of drifts. ‘The lane looks clearer.’

      ‘Good. Charlton? Oh, because he is patronising, authoritarian and insensitive, and he bullies my sister-in-law. He used to bully me, but not any more.’ She sounded smugly satisfied.

      Adam found himself grinning through cold-stiffened lips. ‘As a magistrate myself, I can tell you that sounds like perfectly justifiable homicide. But why no more?’

      ‘It’s my New Year’s resolution. One of them.’

      Adam was conscious of a deep fellow-feeling for the unfortunate Charlton. Miss Ross sounded very resolved indeed. ‘We’re here.’ He let out his breath with a whoosh, unaware until then just how tense he had become. It was one thing taking himself and Bates into danger, but risking two women was another matter altogether.

      Miss Ross wriggled distractingly, and peered out from the shelter of his greatcoat. ‘Are we? Where is it?’

      ‘Up ahead. There are no lights showing; they must have given us up for the day and all be in the kitchen.’

      The horses plodded up the driveway and round to the yard that served both stables and service areas. There was no light there, either. An unpleasant sinking feeling gripped Adam’s insides. What the hell? It could only be just past four o’clock at the latest; anyways, no one with any sense would be out in this.

      He edged Fox close to the porch that sheltered the kitchen door. ‘Can you slide down?’ He gripped Miss Ross round the waist, shifted her so that she was facing away from the horse, then let her slip. Under his hands layers of fabric shifted, slithered over each other and over skin. He felt a slender waist, the firmness of a ribcage confined in stays, the sudden, voluptuous, curve of the side of her breasts and then she was down. He had forgotten how tall she was.

      Behind them there was the sound of a much-less easy transfer taking place, but all Adam was conscious of was a pair

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