Penelope and Prince Charming (Nvengaria #1)(7)

He smelled of the outdoors and a bite of ale mixed with sharp, male scent. Strong arms encircled Penelope, holding her steady and making her heart pound. She was very aware that her hip pressed firmly into the spread of his thighs.

She had to clear her throat. “Half a mile by road.”

“Is it closer over the fields?” His voice rumbled against her body.

“I believe so,” Penelope answered, uncertain of anything at the moment.

“Excellent.”

That word again. The man put the horse into a canter and they plunged off the road. The beast soared over a ditch and landed hard, but the man’s arms kept Penelope solidly in the saddle.

“Do not worry,” he said when she let out a squeak of alarm. “I will never let you go.”

Penelope’s heart squeezed in sudden elation, though she knew he did not mean what the words implied. His English was not faultless; he only meant that he would hold her safely for the ride.

“Who are you?” Penelope cried over the horse’s pounding hoofbeats.

“Call me Damien,” he said, amusement in his voice. “It is easier.”

Easier than what?

Penelope had never been this close to a gentleman before. Even waltzing with Rueben when they were betrothed had not brought her into so much contact with a male body. Damien’s chest was hard against her back and he held the reins low, almost in Penelope’s lap, gloved hands unmoving. The gloves were fine, stretching over fingers of sinewy strength.

Damien’s skin was sun-darkened, as though he spent much time outdoors, but tiny white patches creased the corners of his eyes and fine lines brushed his skin there. He had a strong jaw and a square chin shaded with whiskers, as though he’d been in too much of a hurry to shave that morning. His smile was warm as toast, but he looked as though he could be fierce when necessary.

“I have given you my name,” he said as trees rushed by and they galloped into Holden’s Meadow. “What is yours?”

For one awful moment, Penelope could not remember. “Penelope.” I think.

“Penelope.” Damien repeated the word as though he liked the taste in his mouth. He sounded each syllable carefully. “Pe-ne-lop-e. Like Odysseus’ wife.”

“I suppose so. But I cannot weave.”

Damien laughed, his eyes crinkling, and Penelope’s blood rose to furnace temperatures.

“I should not have told you that,” she said hastily.

“That you cannot weave? Why should this trouble me?”

“I mean my Christian name. We have not been introduced. You should not even know my name, let alone speak it.”

Damien’s soft laugh vibrated through her. “But I am carrying you off. Why can I not speak your name?”

“Are you carrying me off?” Penelope asked, her heart hammering.

“Would you like me to? Where would you like to go, Penelope?”

Anywhere. To the far reaches of the earth. To a place where I can be free.

Penelope pushed the thoughts away. “You said you wished to find Ashborn Manor.”

“I do, but my purpose there is dreary. Perhaps I would like one more afternoon of happiness before I must attend to business.” Damien reined in the horse, who came out of a canter to a walk. The world slowed. They were far from the road, in a field of tall grass shielded by trees. “Would you like to make me happy, Penelope?”

Penelope’s breath quickened at the tone in his voice. “Are you flirting with me, sir?”

“No.” Damien’s smile deserted him and he looked down at her with quiet eyes. “I am—how do you say?—propositioning you.”

She gazed at him in stunned surprise. He should not speak of such things, not to Miss Penelope Trask, the unmarried daughter of a respectable baronet. She must stop him, explain to him that perhaps where he came from these things were done, but not in England.

But her skin prickled with sudden and forbidden delight and something within her stirred to life. A gentleman did not ride with Penelope and speak to her thus in a silken voice, with promise in his eyes.

She remembered Magnus, her second betrothed, and his drunken slurs that he wanted to grope her. She was going to be his wife after all—What ails you, gel?

This was not the same thing at all. Damien was not intoxicated—his eyes were steady, his dark blue gaze withholding something from her; she could not tell what. He smiled, but he was watchful.

“I believe you are not familiar with English ways, sir,” she managed.

Damien shrugged. “I have been to England before.”

He halted the horse. They rested in the silence of the meadow, the quiet broken only by the drone of bees, birds calling to one another in the sleepy heat.

“Penelope,” Damien said softly. “Since I have left my home, I have not seen anyone like you. You have given me a pain, here.” He touched his breastbone.

Penelope felt a fog drifting over her mind, as though he cast a spell, like the magicians in her stories. “How could I?” she asked in surprise. “I am nothing remarkable.”

“You are wrong.” Damien touched her cheek, his fingertips drawing fire. “All my life, I have existed inside a fairy tale. I have lived an empty life and done empty things. Now, everything is real, and I must face that.”

His eyes were not completely blue, as Penelope had thought, but flecked with black. They darkened further as he spoke, pressing back the flash of bleakness she’d glimpsed.