Jamie lifted Bliss slightly and thrust her forward, so that she was pressed against him. She made a soft whimpering sound as he kissed her at last, thoroughly and with all the passion of a husband about to lay claim to his rights. A trembling began in Bliss’s thighs and spread to her knees, which would barely support her. Jamie caught her as she sagged toward the floor, whisking her deftly up into his arms.

“It would serve you right, Duchess, if I made love to you right ’ere,” he vowed hoarsely.

Bliss was well beyond the point where she could protest. Wherever Jamie chose to take her, she knew she would submit. Gladly. “I th-thought you were in Dorrie’s room,” she said inanely as Jamie put out the lantern and then shifted her weight in his arms and started toward the door of the stables.

She saw his smile in the darkness and read a confidence there that would have annoyed her completely at any other time.

“That’s what I wanted you to think,” he replied. “Dorrie’s been me friend for a long time, love.”

Bliss felt a fleeting, hopeless sort of rage. “She told you everything!” she exclaimed.

Jamie nodded as they approached the front door of the inn, and Bliss, hitherto floating in a sea of physical and emotional sensation, suddenly came surging to the surface of rational thought. In another moment or so, Jamie would carry her through the public dining room, like pirate’s loot, and everyone would know what he meant to do.

“Stop!” she cried, kicking her feet.

Jamie didn’t so much as hesitate. He took the steps as though they were nothing and crossed the crude wooden porch. One of the boys from the stable accommodatingly opened the door from the inside and light spilled over the brigand and his captured bride.

Bliss buried her face in Jamie’s neck, humiliated beyond all bearing, when the diners laughed and called out the odd suggestion. She would have sworn she’d heard one or two of those voices in the robbers’ camp the night before, but even that disturbing thought could not distract Bliss from the mortification of what was happening.

It seemed to Bliss that an eternity passed before they’d reached their room again. Once the door was closed, Jamie released his bride, at the same time flinging her satchel onto the bed. Without taking his eyes from Bliss’s burning face, he took off his hat and tossed it aside, then shed his coat and gloves.

Bliss turned away before he could advance to his shirt or his trousers, and Jamie’s response was a gruff chuckle.

“Tell me, Duchess,” he asked, in a near whisper, his hands closing gently on Bliss’s rigid shoulders. “Were you so anxious to get away from me that you’d chance meetin’ your admirers again?”

Bliss thought of the men who’d captured her when she’d made her last bid for freedom and shuddered to think what they might have done to her if it hadn’t been for this man and the remarkable terror he inspired. “I don’t think anyone could be that unlucky,” she answered in a small voice. “Not even me.”