his silvery eyes glimmered.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have not come for your jewels or billfolds,” he said in the most wonderfully deep and menacing voice Diantha had ever heard. His gaze fixed on her. “I only want the girl.”
Everything in her smiled—her mouth, her heart, her soul. He offered his hand and she reached for it.
Mildred grabbed her. “You cannot go with him! He will ravish you!”
Mrs. Polley beset Mildred with her bag. “Let a man do his ravishing if he likes.”
Diantha tugged free of the woman’s grasp, placed her hand in Wyn’s, and at his touch everything in her did more than smile; it laughed in joy. He drew her down the steps and a pace away from the carriage into the soft rain. She traced the strong line of his jaw and the beautiful curve of his mouth with her famished gaze then looked into his eyes, and what she saw there turned her knees to jelly.
“You have terrified all those people,” she managed to murmur. “One woman fainted.”
“She did not.” His voice was warm. “I saw her peeking.”
“Some ladies admire dangerous villains, I suppose.” She tilted up her nose. “I, of course, prefer gentlemen-heroes.”
“You have certainly said so.”
“All right, I will ask: why have you come when I have made it very clear I did not wish you to?”
“I came to tell you that I have decided to change my name to Highbottom.” The corner of his mouth tilted up. “Hinkle Highbottom. It has a fine ring to it, don’t you think?”
Diantha sucked in her breath. She was caught. She was rescued. And she was trembling quite uncontrollably. “I—I always have.”
He dipped his head and his gaze was wonderful. “Why did you invent him?”
“Because I did not think anyone else would ever have me.”
With everyone in the coach looking on, he pulled her to him and kissed her. He kissed her tenderly and then deeply, and she leaned into him and let herself be wrapped in his embrace.
He drew back. “I will have you. Not only that, I will have you without further foolish delay. I allowed you your way before—”
“No, you did not. You took me to your hideaway and held me there against my will.”
A gasp sounded from the carriage.
“I did,” he admitted. “But this time, minx, you will do as I wish, without trickery on either of our parts.”
She smiled and his gaze went to her cheeks, one then the other. But she had to be clear.
“You know, I am not precisely running away. I am going to Monmouthshire to care for children who work in the mines.”
“An admirable goal. But not today’s. Today you are riding north with me over the border.”
“North? To—To Scotland?”
He nodded, his slight smile turning her inside out.
But she frowned. “We will not arrive there in one day.”
“We will make stops along the way.”
“Does my family know of this plan? It is a plan, isn’t it? It isn’t simply a quick solution to me escaping you today?”
“They do not. Yes, it is. And, no, it is not, but that last should be obvious after the number of times I have begged your hand.”
“My family doesn’t know?”
“I aim to marry you, Diantha Lucas, whether anybody else approves of it or not. Over the border I need only the sanction of a blacksmith and the insurance of an anvil. And, of course, your consent.” He touched her chin and his gaze scanned her face. “Will you give it?”
Disbelieving happiness swept through her. “Yes. Yes. Yes.” She flattened her palm upon his chest, the sensation of his heart beating swift and strong lifting hers. “And then what?”
“And then I am taking you to Monmouthshire to save children, if that is what you wish.”
She could not speak, only gaze into his beautiful eyes and try to convince herself it was real.
But one thing was certainly real. She glanced at her fellow passengers, then up at the coachman on the box, who seemed remarkably sanguine about having been halted by a gunman. The coach boy appeared to be flipping through a stack of bank notes.
“You won’t be in terrible trouble for doing this?”
“I have friends in high places. Very high places. And I intend to tell you all about them as soon as we have a moment’s privacy.”
“All?”
“Every last sordid detail.”
“Sordid? Really?”
“Not for the most part.” He smiled. “But I know how you like drama on occasion and I wanted this day to be special for you.”
“Wyn,” she whispered. “I must ask you something.”
“Anything, minx.”
“Why did you stop drinking spirits after Knighton? It wasn’t entirely so you wouldn’t touch me, because you did of course, even after that.”
“I stopped because I did not want to spend another moment in your company less than thoroughly aware of every detail of you. I wanted to wake up from the nightmare and find you there. I wanted you and I wanted to be worthy of you.”
She caught her breath. “I already thought you were worthy.”
“And that is one of the many reasons—” He halted and his eyes grew especially silvery, like a stream at midday. “Diantha, I am in love with you. Beyond reason. Beyond anything I have known.”
“Ohh.”
“I loved you at the abbey. Days before that. And I loved you even more greatly yesterday morning when you refused me because you believed me unworthy of myself. I should have told you earlier. I should have told you immediately. I love you.”
“Even though I make you insane?”
“Because you make me insane.”
She could not manage words. She could not manage to make her lips cease trembling.
He circled his arm around her waist, drew her to him and stroked his hand along her cheek. “And you love me.”
She released a soft sigh, and Wyn wanted nothing but to hear her sigh like this in his arms for the remainder of his days.
“I suppose I shall have to admit to that,” she said.
“At your convenience.”
“What if my convenience does not come until we have been married thirty years?” Her dimples peeked out again. “Can you wait until then?”
“I shan’t have to.” He tightened his arms about her. “I shall simply refuse to marry you until you satisfy me in this.”
“That is singularly unchivalric of you.”
“I am the villain of this piece, pray recall.” He nodded toward the coach.
“Oh, well.” She rolled her blue, blue eyes up and sighed again, this time with a show of reluctant tolerance. “I suppose I do love you after all.”
“You suppose?”
“I suppose.” But her cheeks were pink and she ducked her head and began to fiddle with a button on his coat. “I suppose I may have loved you since you asked me to dance on that terrace, actually. I suppose I always dreamed of you loving me but I never thought love was real until I could not bear the notion of not spending every day with you. I suppose I love you more than I ever imagined a person could love another person, and that love inside fills me up and bubbles over and makes me want to share it with the world, which is really why I was going to Monmouthshire, because I simply could not contain it and you didn’t want it after all.”
“Diantha?” He whispered, and there was something in his voice that grabbed at her overflowing heart. She
