done in the past few days, to be condemned for disliking spiders struck Nell as completely ridiculous.
“Most spiders are harmless,” the young man continued, peering into his hat as if the spider were a cherished pet. “I’m aware that they aren’t as beautiful as some insects can be, like butterflies, but they are as useful in their way as butterflies or bees.”
He raised his eyes and smiled, and she was immediately sure he never lacked for partners at a ball. “However you feel about spiders, you must allow me to introduce myself. I’m—”
With a loud crack, the coach flew up as if it were alive before coming down with a thunderous thud that sent Nell tumbling from her seat. Her companion reached for her, pulling her against his body, as horses shrieked and the driver shouted and the coach began to tip sideways.
It fell over, landing with another thud, and Nell found herself sprawled on top of the young gentleman and hemmed in by the seats.
He studied her in a way that sent the blood throbbing through her body as even the tipping coach had not. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t feel any pain, only an acute awareness of his body beneath her and his protective arms around her. “I think so. And you?”
“I believe I am undamaged. I suspect something went wrong with a wheel or an axle.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” she murmured. She could feel his chest rising and falling with quick breaths, as rapid and ragged as her heartbeat, even though the immediate danger had passed.
“I should investigate and ascertain what has happened.”
She nodded.
“Right away,” he added, his gaze locked onto hers and his handsome, sun-browned face so very close.
“At once,” she whispered, telling herself to move yet making no effort to do so.
“I may be of assistance.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I wonder…?”
“Yes?”
“If I should attempt an experiment.”
“Experiment?” she repeated quizzically, having some difficulty following his line of reasoning and, at that particular moment, not really sure what an experiment was.
With no further warning, without even knowing her name let alone being properly introduced, the young man raised his head.
And kissed her.
The pressure of his lips was as light and beguiling as the brush of a moth’s wing, as delicious and welcome as warm bread and hot tea on a cold day, and more arousing than anything she’d ever experienced—completely different from that other unexpected kiss only a few short days ago that had ruined her life.
As he was different from the arrogant, domineering Lord Sturmpole.
This was what a kiss should be like—warm, welcome, exciting, delightful…as he was.
Until, with a gasp like a drowning man, he broke the kiss and scrambled backward as far as he could go, so that his back was against what had been the floor of the coach.
“Good God, forgive me!” he cried as if utterly horrified. “I can’t think what came over me!”
She just as quickly scrambled backward between his legs, until her back was against the coach’s roof.
“Nor I,” she replied, flushing with embarrassment and shame, for she did know what had come over her—the most inconvenient, ill-timed lust.
This was hardly the way to travel unnoticed and unremarked!
“It must have been the shock of the accident,” he offered as he got to his feet, hunching over in the small space and blushing as if sincerely mortified. “If you’ll excuse me, I shall inquire as to our circumstances.”
He reached for the handle, which was now over his head and without any further ado shoved the door open and hoisted himself up and out as if he were part monkey.
Crouching on the pocket of the door in the side of the coach, Nell straightened her bonnet and took stock of the situation. She was in an overturned coach. She was unhurt. Her clothes were disheveled but not torn or muddy. Her bonnet was mostly unscathed, while the young gentleman’s hat had been crushed beneath them, along, no doubt, with the spider inside it.
She had also kissed a handsome stranger who seemed to feel genuine, heartfelt remorse for that action, despite her obvious—and incredibly foolish—response.
She must be jinxed, born under some kind of ill omen. What else could explain the difficulties that had beset her recently? Her employment as companion to Lady Sturmpole had seemed a stroke of good fortune, then turned into an unmitigated disaster. She had been relieved to catch this coach at the last minute, only to have it overturn. She had been glad she would have to share the journey with only one other traveller, and he was asleep—but look how that had turned out.
As abruptly as he’d departed, the young man’s head reappeared in the opening. “It seems the axle has broken. It will have to be fixed before the coach can be righted, so we shall have to find an alternate means of transportation. If you’ll raise your hands, I’ll pull you out.”
She nodded and obeyed. “I’m afraid your hat is ruined and the spider dead.”
“Ah,” he sighed as he reached down for her. “Poor creature. Perhaps if I had left it alone, it would have survived.”
Or perhaps not, she thought as she put her hands in his.
He pulled her up with unexpected ease, proving that he was stronger than he looked. It seemed his apparel, unlike many a fashionable young gentleman’s, was not padded to give the appearance of muscles he didn’t possess.
Once she was out of the coach, the soft light of the growing dawn illuminated the burly coachman, dressed in the customary coachman’s attire of green coat and crimson shawl. He was lying on the verge, a bloody gash in his forehead and his broad-brimmed brown hat a short distance away. His red coat splattered with mud, the guard held the reins of the four nervous horses that had already been unharnessed from the coach. He also held a rather ancient blunderbuss. One of the horses had clearly broken a leg, for its left rear hoof dangled sickeningly. Thankfully, no passengers rode atop the mail coach; if they had been in a crowded stagecoach, people might have been seriously injured or killed.
The young man climbed off the coach painted maroon on the lower half, black above, with a red undercarriage, and the Royal cipher brightly visible on the side, then reached up to help her down.
She had no choice but to put her hands on his shoulders and jump. He placed his hands around her waist to hold her, and again she felt that unaccustomed warmth, that inconvenient lust, invade her body.
He quickly let go of her the moment she was on the ground, suggesting he was no lascivious cad and had been truly distressed by his kiss in the coach.
“Since you’re not hurt, I should see to the driver,” he said, giving her a short bow that wouldn’t have been out of place at Almack’s, before going to the driver and kneeling beside him.
After the young gentleman removed his soiled gloves, he brushed back the driver’s gray hair and examined the wound in his scalp with a brisk, professional manner.
Perhaps he was a doctor.
“Am I dyin’?” the driver asked anxiously.
“I very much doubt it,” the young man replied with calm confidence. “Scalp wounds tend to bleed profusely with very little provocation. Have you any other injuries?”
“Me shoulder. Just about twisted off when I was trying to hold the horses.”
The young man nodded, then proceeded to test the area around the coachman’s shoulder, making him wince when he pressed one particular