Page 131 of Outrageous

James shifted his considerable bulk and angled his body so he could look around the side of the carriage.

“They’ve closed the curtains again.”

“Is that good, do you think?” Andrew grimaced. “Or did she close them to hide the body?”

James laughed as he sat back.

“I’m pleased you find it amusing, but it is my fault he’s in there with her.”

“It’s my fault she’s in there with him,” James countered.

“Yes, but she is not in any danger.”

James nodded. “Aye, reckon you’ve got a point there.”

“Listen again,” Andrew ordered.

“Why don’t you?”

Andrew narrowed his eyes and James laughed again, a deep, infectious sound that made Andrew feel inexplicably happy, regardless of their current situation.

“All right, all right,” James said, “I won’t make you release your grip on the guard. I don’t know how you sat up here for so long,” he mused as he shifted once again so that he could lay his ear against the roof of the chaise.

“I felt too guilty sitting inside,” Andrew admitted, and then lapsed into an anxious silence as he waited for the other man’s verdict.

Andrew didn’t want to say anything against James’s mistress—he liked Lady Eva, after all—but he feared for his employer’s health. He’d not even needed to lay his head against the glossy coach to hear her yelling earlier.

She was an exceptionally small woman, but she was fierce—the way some small animals could be ferocious and frightening well beyond their size. Like a weasel. He suspected she wouldn’t like that comparison. But still, it was apt.

Andrew believed that he would never forget, if he lived to a hundred, the way she’d taunted Flynn the day of the fight. She’d glared up at the huge highwayman—easily twice her size—and not backed down. If the robber had even twitched a hair, Andrew was certain she wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot him. Of course, that day her anger and fury had been used to protect Lord Visel, who’d been in no shape to protect himself. Today that anger was likely being used against the poor man. And although the earl was conscious this time, he was also bound hand and foot, which left him rather vulnerable, to say the least.

“Well?” he prodded James, unable to bear the suspense.

James cut him a sideways glance and then pulled away and sat back, shrugging his massive shoulders, the action rubbing against Andrew’s livery-clad body. “Nothin’. It’s quiet in there—well, except . . .”

“Except what? What?” Andrew pictured poor Lord Visel writhing on the floor at the spitfire’s booted feet.

James scratched his head. “I think I might have heard . . . laughin’, maybe?”

“Laughter? That could be good. Couldn’t it? I mean, depending on the laugh. Was it, er, happy laughter?” He swallowed. “Or was it of the maniacal variety?”

James shook his head. “I dunno. And it might not have been laughin’. Something, but not yellin’. That’s good, right?”

Andrew caught his lower lip in his teeth and worried it, his eyes locked with James’s.

“She wouldn’t hurt him too much? Not in a permanent way?” he finally asked.

James tilted his head and grimaced. “Permanently? No, likely not permanently.”

Andrew groaned.

James shifted on the bench which was clearly too small for his big frame.

“I don’t know how you managed to do this all the time,” Andrew said, shifting his own arse—much smaller and bonier—on the padded but narrow bench.

“Nah, not all the time. Not even much—just on that trip up north, mainly when I didn’t want to ride inside with the two of them.” He jerked his thumb back.

Andrew could certainly understand that.