Her Favorite Duke (The 1797 Club #2)(13)

“Oh God,” she groaned. “We’re going to have to go all the way around to Glassford Hill to circumvent the stream! It will add at least an hour to our journey.”

“No, it won’t,” Simon said, his tone firm and grim. “Because we’re not doing it.”

She gasped as she faced him again. “What are you talking about? If we don’t do it, we won’t get home.”

“That’s exactly right. We aren’t getting home. Not right now.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re shivering, and if we trod all around the estate in this downpour for the next two hours, you’re going to freeze. And honestly, so will I. But I have an idea of where to go.” He smiled, and she noted the expression didn’t reach his eyes.

“Where?” she asked.

He drew her forward and she trotted after him as he took them back where they’d come from, then veered them off the main path and through the wet and miserable woods.

“Simon, where are we going?” she asked again.

“The caretaker lodge,” he said.

She wrinkled her brow. “God, I haven’t even thought of that place in years. It’s been empty since…I think Father was still alive when our last caretaker lived there. How do you even know about it?”

Simon winked over his shoulder at her and she nearly lost her footing at the cheeky expression on his wet face. “I know a great many things.” He laughed, then said, “In truth, we used to come here when I’d visit. When your father was alive, James needed—”

“An escape,” she whispered, completing the sentence as memories flooded her. She winced at them. “I needed one too.”

Simon’s hand tightened around hers. “I wish we’d brought you. Though I doubt you would have been very interested in duke talk and fishing.”

“Fishing I would have been,” she said, noticing that his pace was increasing. It was exhausting, but at least moving kept her a bit warmer. “I loved to fish.”

“Well, next time we all run away from home, I’ll be sure to invite you,” he said.

She smiled, but said, “Next time you run away from home, Graham will be running away from me. I doubt he’ll approve of my joining you.”

At that Simon’s posture stiffened and he didn’t speak for the next five minutes that he dragged her through the woods. She was beginning to give up hope they’d find the place when they came through the canopy of trees, and there it was.

It wasn’t much. Just a basic two-room cottage that had housed their old caretaker for decades. He had died and their father had not replaced him right away. Once James had taken over the estate, he’d built a far nicer one much closer to the house, since the current caretaker was married to their housekeeper. This old place had been abandoned years ago, and its boarded-up windows and the rusty hinges on the doors spoke to that.

But right now it was better than the finest palace.

Simon released her hand at last, fumbling under a rock by the door. He came up with a folded piece of cloth, which he unwrapped to reveal a key. He grinned at her as he fitted it in the lock and managed to wrestle the rickety door open.

He motioned her inside and she rushed past him, more grateful to be out of the rain than she had ever been for anything in her life. She stood in the very dark room, her eyes slowly adjusting, as Simon entered and then fought to get the creaky hinges moving to shut the door behind them.

There was a big fireplace in the main room with a settee covered in a dusty cloth, set on a thick rug. A small cupboard was in the back corner on the opposite side of the room and a table with just one chair. The door on the back wall was closed, but she assumed it led to the bedroom.

Simon reached out and she jumped as his hand closed over her forearm. In the close and the dark, he suddenly felt so big next to her. His presence seemed to suck the air out of the room.

The room where they were alone. No one would be coming for them in this mess of weather.

“God, James must be beside himself,” she whispered.

Simon bent his head and his hand slipped from her arm. “I’m sure he is, but if he’s noticed that I’m gone, as well, I hope he knows I would not let any harm befall you if I could prevent it. At any rate, if the rain stops we’ll go back as soon as we can.”

She nodded as a great shiver racked her. Now that they were not moving, the cold seemed to permeate her entire being.

He frowned. “I’ll start a fire. I think I saw wood under the awning around the side of the house. It should be dry.” He crossed the room and bent to clear out some of the old ash collected in the long-neglected fireplace. “You go into the bedroom and look for all the blankets you can find. Then undress.”

She stared at him, unblinking, as shock washed over her. “Undress?” she repeated.

His gaze lifted and glittered in the dim light. “You’ll freeze if you don’t. We need to get your clothes dry, and they won’t dry with you in them. So find a few blankets, wrap yourself up as best you can and leave your clothes in the bedroom by the fireplace in there.”

She shifted. “But what about—”

He rose then, in one fluid movement, and reached out to catch her damp upper arms. That he touched her while he was talking to her about stripping out of her clothes made what he said all the more powerful. She caught her breath, her words screeching to a halt because she could no longer recall how to formulate them.