“What are you doing?” Danvers barked, glancing around with surprise when the rustle of material warned him she was moving. She was standing up when he looked and moving toward him by the time he tugged his pistol out. Suzette ignored it and turned her back to him, not terribly concerned that he would shoot her. She was the golden goose, after all. She was relatively safe—at least she was until they were wed—so dropped to sit on his lap.

“What the devil?” Jeremy gasped, sounding alarmed now and trying to remove her by pushing on her back. “Get off me and sit in your seat.”

Suzette braced her hands on the carriage walls to prevent his shifting her. “If I am going to be damp and uncomfortable because you are a rude bounder, then so shall you be,” she said calmly, and then added, “Bear with me, my lord, this should only take a minute.”

She could hear the gasping sound of his sucking in one horrified breath, and then he choked out, “You can not mean to—”

“Yes, actually,” she assured him calmly. “That is, of course, unless you’d care to stop so I might tend my needs in an alternate fashion . . . one that leaves us both dry.”

Suzette caught her father’s open alarmed eyes and winked. She then closed her eyes. Lord Madison got the message at once and closed his eyes again, feigning unconsciousness. The moment he did, she added, “Please make your decision quickly, my lord. I fear I cannot hold it much longer.”

“All right, dammit!” Giving up on trying to remove her, he banged on the carriage wall, yelling, “Stop the carriage, Thompson. Stop at once, I say.”

The moment the carriage began to slow, Danvers said, “There, we are stopping. Now get off me, woman.”

“With pleasure,” Suzette said dryly and moved to settle herself demurely back in her seat. A glance Danvers’s way showed him peering at her as if she were a madwoman or some unclean creature. She smiled sweetly in response. “I cannot wait until we are wed.”

When Danvers’s eyes dilated with a sort of horror, she chuckled softly, which brought a scowl to his face.

“Get out,” he snapped, waving the pistol toward the door the moment the carriage stopped.

Suzette got out, and glanced back to see him eyeing her father grimly. Apparently deciding it was safe enough to leave the seemingly unconscious man, he muttered under his breath and followed her out, and then scowled when he saw her waiting for him. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get to it.”

“Here in the middle of nowhere?” she asked with feigned surprise.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “Get to it or we shall continue and you can wet yourself, alone. I shall ride on the top . . . where I can shoot your father if the two of you should try to jump out,” he added dryly when she considered his words.