Barely A Bride by Rebecca Hagan Lee

Author:Rebecca Hagan Lee
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

“Needlepoint cushions in varying sizes and lap robes of cashmere or woven cotton make useful additions to any lady or gentleman’s traveling coach.”

—ALYSSA, LADY ABERNATHY, DIARY ENTRY, 04 MAY 1810

Alyssa jolted awake. She opened her eyes and discovered that she was lying on her side on the coach seat with her face comfortably pillowed against a firmly muscled thigh covered in buff-colored breeches. The thigh she was using as a pillow and the buff breeches covering it puzzled her. When she’d left her parents’ London town house, she’d been sitting across from Griffin, and he’d been wearing his wedding suit. The trousers were pale gray.

Alyssa stared down the length of the gentleman’s leg and noted the glossy black leather Hessian boot gloving his well-molded calf and his foot. Her heart thudded in her chest, and her blood roared in her ears. She struggled to sit up, but the rocking motion of the coach over rough terrain made it all but impossible.

“Sssh, Alyssa. If you need to sit up, I’ll help you, but you’re perfectly fine where you are.” His voice calmed her. It was warm and familiar and as soothing as the touch of his hand on her hair.

She relaxed, shifted her weight onto her back, and smiled. Looking up at him seemed the most natural thing in the world. “Where are we?”

Griff leaned forward and returned her smile. Feeling an almost overwhelming urge to kiss her, he bent close enough to feel the whisper of her breath against his mouth. He paused, waiting for some sign that she wanted him to continue. But she didn’t seem to notice his desire, so Griff sat back and answered her question with words instead of kisses. “About a mile past Shepherdston Hall. If you need to make a privacy stop, I’ll order Myrick to turn the coach around.”

Alyssa remembered Griffin mentioning that Shepherdston Hall was a little over halfway between London and Abernathy Manor and that he often stopped there to rest, refresh, and change horses. “Why didn’t we stop there?”

“We did stop.” He brushed her hair from her forehead and smiled indulgently as if she were a little girl. She’d managed several hours of sleep, but her eyes were still ringed by dark bluish circles that spoke of extreme exhaustion. “We changed horses, and I changed into more comfortable traveling clothes.”

She smothered a yawn and blinked up at him. That explained the change from trousers and black shoes to breeches and Hessian boots. It didn’t explain why he hadn’t awakened her. “You promised to wake me.”

“I did wake you,” he told her. “And you told me to go away and let you sleep.”

“You left me sleeping alone in a coach while you changed clothes?”

Griffin shrugged his shoulders. “It seemed the thing to do, short of bundling you in a lap robe and carrying you inside.”

“I could have walked inside,” Alyssa replied.

“Not unless you were awake and not in your current state of undress,” he said, eyes twinkling.

Alyssa glanced down, surprised

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