And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(118)

“To rescue me,” she said, grinning at him. Her own knight-errant. Then she realized something else. “However do you intend to get me out?” She looked in horror at the rope hanging outside her window.

She rather preferred a rescue that involved the backstairs and a hasty retreat in a good carriage.

“I’m going to climb back out—”

Daphne was already shaking her head. “I can’t . . . I’ll never be able to—”

“You don’t have to. Roxley is going to come to the front door and insist you be released.”

“Whyever would Crispin release me just because the Earl of Roxley insists?”

“Once we are married, he’ll have no choice but to let my wife go.”

“Married?” she gasped.

“Yes, married,” he told her, his gaze searching her gaze for some sign of agreement. So to press his point—and also to reassure her he hadn’t gone stark raving mad—he opened up his coat and dug out a piece of paper. “I’ve a Special License. All you need to do is sign it and the vicar will marry us.”

Daphne wasn’t too sure she’d heard him correctly. Get married? “Henry, I haven’t a vicar handy.”

“Ah, but minx, I do.”

Daphne gazed up at him with disbelief in her eyes. He had to admit it was a madcap scheme, but surely she would appreciate that point.

“Well, I haven’t the vicar just yet. I will in about an hour,” Henry told her. “Didn’t know how long it would take to climb that wall, so Preston is waiting with the fellow just on the other side of the line and will be here at the top of the hour.” He nodded to the mantel clock.

“So we have some time to wait?” Daphne asked in a low, sultry voice that caught his attention like a lure.

“Um, yes,” he managed, his throat going dry. But as she came gliding into his arms, he found the words to murmur in her ear. “You wicked, tempting minx.”

“I’ve missed you,” was all she said before she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him. Claimed him.

“And I, you.”

Murmuring apologies and words of love, they fell into her bed, a tangle of limbs and kisses. The moment he touched her, he was lost—hard and delirious. His lips kissing her, claiming her. His hands stealing away her gown so she was naked beneath him.

Gloriously naked and his.

Her legs opened to him and she took him inside her with little prelude. It was a hot, fierce joining. A reunion and a promise. He thrust deeply and swiftly into her, as if he’d hungered for her for years instead of just days.

And beneath him, Daphne writhed with joy, her hips meeting his thrusts, her legs winding around him, holding him closer as she rocked against him.

When she began to cry out, forgetting even their perilous situation, he covered her mouth with another kiss that contained his own deep growl of possession as he came, filling her with his seed, thrusting and thrusting until he was spent.

It was hasty, hot and quick.

But neither of them minded. They had a wedding to see to. And the rest of their lives to make love.

Beneath Daphne’s window, Preston was waging another sort of battle.

“This is highly irregular, Your Grace,” the vicar complained as he looked up at the happy couple standing in the window. He was new to his posting and still fresh from his recent ordination. “The lady looks . . . well, she appears to be . . .”

“Tumbled, I’d say. And thoroughly,” Roxley said, filling in where the blushing vicar wouldn’t.

If the man of God wasn’t blushing before, he turned a deep shade of scarlet now.

“Then I’d say it is best we see them married in all due haste,” Preston pointed out.

“Yes, I suppose so, Your Grace,” the vicar said, looking up at the window and around the darkened yard.

Preston had to imagine no amount of divinity school had prepared the poor fellow for this.

Roxley leaned forward and added to the argument. “Might I emphasize the haste part. The Dales aren’t averse to letting their dogs loose. Rather large ones.”

The man squirmed at the dilemma before him, tugging at his collar. “Still, this is a rather difficult moral position, if I must say.”

Preston got to the point. “Do you find your living at Owle Park difficult, sir?”

The man gulped. “No, Your Grace. Not in the least. Why, it is quite comfortable and—”