Nell lunged across the coach—and landed on the lap of the young man opposite, knocking his hat from his head.
“Steady!” he warned, his upper-class accent providing more proof he was from a well-to-do household.
Blushing even more, she immediately moved to sit beside him. “I—I beg your pardon,” she stammered, feeling hopelessly foolish, while noting that one stray lock of brown hair had tumbled over his forehead, making him look rather boyish and far less intimidating.
“There’s no need to be frightened,” her companion said. “It’s only a Tegenaria parietina. They’re quite harmless, I assure you.”
Now completely humiliated by her childish reaction, Nell didn’t know what to say. Instead, she smoothed out her skirts and glanced at the seat she had so abruptly vacated.
The spider was gone.
“Where is it?” she cried, gripping the seat and half rising regardless of the swaying motion of the coach. “Where’s the spider?”
The young man held up his hat. “In here.”
He had it in his hat?
He gave her an apologetic smile. “Spiders are of particular interest to me.”
However handsome he was, however gentlemanly, he was definitely eccentric and possibly deranged.
“Please keep it away from me,” she said, inching as far away from him and his hat as she could get. “I hate spiders.”
The young man heaved a heavy sigh, as if her common aversion was a very serious failing. “That’s a pity.”
Considering everything she’d 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
