He laughed briefly. “Miss Ashton, you have a nasty, suspicious mind.” For once, she didn’t sense any hostility. The change only heightened her fear. When he was kind, he was at his most dangerous.
He began to unlace her half boots. She couldn’t rouse the will to flinch away. He’d easily catch her if she tried to run on legs stiff after a day’s unaccustomed riding.
His hands were cool on her bare legs. She’d rinsed her stockings, and they currently adorned a discreet hawthorn bush outside. She tensed. Perhaps she wasn’t quite as inured to her fate as she’d thought.
“Relax,” he murmured. “Or I might forget my good intentions.”
“As if you have any,” she muttered. “As if you have ever had…Ohhh!”
Whatever she meant to say faded in a long sigh of pleasure as those adept fingers began to mold the muscles in her calves.
“That’s enough,” she eventually forced herself to insist, although she thought that if he stopped touching her, she’d weep.
“In a minute,” he said, and she couldn’t summon further demurrals.
“Roll over,” he said after a blissful interval.
With no thought to protest, she turned onto her stomach and lay still as he raised her skirts to reveal her legs to the evening air. For a long time, the firelit cottage was silent except for the crackle of the flames and the sound of his hands working her flesh.
She’d floated off into a world of weary pleasure when she felt him reach beneath her to release the front of her dress. As his fingers brushed across her breasts, her instincts prodded her into hazy wariness.
“What are you doing?” she asked huskily.
He tugged her dress down, uncovering her shoulders—and effectively trapping her arms. “I’m sure your back is as sore as the rest of you,” he said neutrally.
Actually, her rump had taken the worst punishment during the hours on that iron-backed succubus. But despite her current state of exhausted stupidity, she knew better than to invite him to touch her buttocks. Even allowing him to rub her back was asking for trouble.
“You should…”
He began to knead her tight shoulders. She took a moment to remember what she meant to say. “You should stop now. I feel much better.”
Those fiendishly competent fingers didn’t pause. She tried to tell herself she wasn’t glad.
“You’ve got another day of riding tomorrow, Verity.”
“Oh.”
She supposed she’d known that. Of course this poor ruin was only another temporary camp. But her befuddled mind hadn’t actually gone so far as to register that more horseback-based misery awaited her so soon. She closed her eyes and let the duke’s healing hands continue.
What was the use resisting him? He always won in the end.
She’d drifted away into a sleepy daze when she felt him arrange her dress into respectability. Then a breath of air before a blanket settled over her.
“Sleep, Verity,” he said softly.
She snuggled into the warmth, luxuriating in the glorious looseness of her limbs. She was too lethargic to be surprised at his care.
“Thank you,” she whispered, but he’d already gone.
Only in the morning did she realize this was the first night during their endless purgatory of a journey that he hadn’t tied her up.
Late the next afternoon, they paused on a cliff. The duke turned back toward Verity.
“That’s where we’re heading.” His deep voice sounded even bleaker than usual.
Perhaps the journey was finally taking its toll on even his patience. Today, she’d seen little trace of last night’s Good Samaritan, with his undemanding kindness and gentle hands.
She was just as tired and ill-humored as she’d been yesterday after a day in the saddle. It was impossible to arouse any interest in where they stopped tonight. She swore to herself that she’d never, after this, take life’s more prosaic comforts for granted. Warm water. Clean clothes. A hot meal eaten at a table. She’d savor each of these humble luxuries and send thanks to her Maker for providing them.