“We’re not close.”
“We are the very definition of close.”
Good God. Did she have to point it out? They were altogether too close in this carriage, in a way that made him ache to be closer. His body was painfully aware of hers.
Gabe despised the aristocracy. He’d told himself he could never lust after a fine lady.
Apparently, he’d told himself lies.
“We are neighbors,” she said. “Our houses stand right beside each other. That makes us close.”
“It doesn’t make us friends.”
She turned her attention back to the parrot, resuming her singsong torture. “I love you. I loooove you.”
“Enough.” Gabe wrestled out of his coat—no small accomplishment in a carriage—and draped it over the birdcage. “The bird needs a rest.” I need a rest.
She pouted a bit, and he was unmoved.
Pretty girl, fancy a fuck, I love you, I love you, I love you …
The words were becoming a jumble in his mind—and his mind was a place where “fuck,” “love,” and one particular “pretty girl” must remain separate things.
“You can stop staring at me,” he said.
“Sorry. I was wondering if I could actually watch your whiskers grow. When we left London, you were clean-shaven. Now it’s not even noon, and you’re raspy already. It’s like weeds after a rain. Fascinating.” She shook herself. “Tell me where it is we’re going.”
“The country home of a gentleman I know. His son has been begging for a ferret.”
“Hubert isn’t a ferret! He’s an otter.”
“As far as this boy is concerned, he’s a ferret. Just follow my lead.”
“Surely you’re joking.”
“He’s five years old. He won’t know the difference.”
“He won’t stay five years old forever.”
“Yes, but by then it won’t matter. It’s like that children’s story with the swan’s egg in the duck’s nest. He’ll be The Ugly Ferret.”
“A five-year-old child can’t take proper care of an otter. Or a ferret for that matter.”
“So you’ll leave specific instructions.”
She shook her head. “You may as well turn the carriage around now. This is not in the terms of our agreement.”
“You wanted a loving home. He’ll be adored.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But not for himself. Not for the otter he truly is, deep down.”
Gabe pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’ve come this far. I’m not turning back now.”
“Waste the time if you like. I won’t leave him there.”
“I think you will. You can tell me you intend to refuse. But once we’re there, and you’re standing before a bright-eyed, hopeful boy? You won’t be able to say no. Your heart is too soft.”
Her body was too soft, too.
She leaned forward, holding the otter in one arm and reaching for a basket with the other—a pose which just happened to give him a view straight down her bodice. Her sweet, tempting breasts pushed across the muslin shelf of her bodice.
Gabe clenched his hands into fists at his sides.
Just when he’d managed to stop ogling her breasts—although he hadn’t yet managed to cease thinking of them—the carriage slammed to a halt.
Lady Penelope bounced off her seat, straight into his lap.
Breasts and all.
As landings went, Penny’s wasn’t a graceful one. When the carriage abruptly halted, she wished she could claim she’d made an elegant slide into his waiting, heroically muscled arms.
Sadly, the truth was quite different.
When the carriage lurched to a halt, she’d been leaning forward to retrieve a morsel for Hubert. The force launched her from her seat, propelling her toward Gabriel. She landed with her nose mashed against his chest and her breasts spilled across his lap.
Marvelous. Simply marvelous. What a lady she was.
He hooked his hands under her arms and lifted, peeling her face from his satin waistcoat. He settled her on his knee. “Good God. Tell me you’re not hurt.”
“I’m not hurt.”
“Can you move all your fingers? Your toes?”
“I think so.”
Apparently, he found these assurances unsatisfactory. He untied her bonnet and flung it aside. His eyes darkened with concern as he searched her face. Taking hold of her chin, he turned her head to either side, scanning her cheeks and temples for bruises. Then he skimmed his hands over her shoulders and down her arms. All the way to her fingertips, which he gave a firm squeeze.
Inspection complete, he laid a hand to her cheek. His thumb brushed her bottom lip. “You’re certain you’re not injured?”
She shook her head.
Injured? No.
Electrified? Possibly.
Most definitely breathless.
She was dizzied by his closeness, his touch, and above all, his unexpected tenderness. A shaft of sunlight pierced the carriage, dividing her between hot and cool. She felt the fierce pounding of a heartbeat. Hers, probably, but she couldn’t be certain.
Penny was so disoriented, in fact, that she did the unthinkable.
She completely forgot about the animals. For several seconds, at least. Perhaps a minute, or even two.
A squawk jolted her back to her senses.
“Delilah.” She scrambled to her feet and searched the carriage. “Hubert.”
Happily, she found both parrot and otter at her feet. By the way Delilah bounced and flapped about her upended cage, she was rattled but uninjured. Penny scooped Hubert into her arms, rolling him over to look for any wounds or bleeding.
Finding none, she exhaled with relief.
By now, Gabriel had alighted from the carriage, presumably to investigate the reason for their sudden stop. Within moments, he returned—looking every bit restored to his typically unpleasant self.
“These damned country roads. The carriage went into a rut, and now one of the wheels needs repair.”
He offered her his hand, and she accepted it, rearranging her disheveled frock as she alighted from the coach and her boots met the rutted dirt road.
“There’s a village we passed, a mile or two back. The coachman will walk there to find a smith or wheelwright.” He looked about them, taking in the sunny countryside. “I suppose this is as good a place as any to stop. The horses will be needing a rest and water, at any rate. Looks as though there’s a stream.” He nodded toward a line of trees and shrubs not far from the road.
“We may as well make the most of the delay.” Penny retrieved a hamper from inside the coach and looped it over one wrist, tucking Hubert under her other arm. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m always hungry.”
“I brought sandwiches. Assuming they weren’t completely smashed in the upheaval.”
She walked toward the creek and selected a spot that was sufficiently