Escape with A Rogue by Sharon Page

waist, he led her to the field on the opposite side of the road. Bushes gave him a place to draw her for privacy.
    Once they were there, screened by leaves, he did the unthinkable—he embraced her again. He ran his hands down her slender back, brushed kisses to the top of her veil.
    “Are you all right?” he asked, though it was a stupid question.
    She wriggled against him. Her full bosom rubbed against his chest, against his tattered shirt and tensed muscles. She took a shaky breath. “Now. Yes.” Her hand went up to his chin, and she stroked him. Her touch felt like a flame held against his skin.
    “Lady M.—” He’d bent to her, swiftly, not aware she had pushed up onto her toes. At the exact instant his head dipped, hers lifted. Their lips collided. One brush of her soft velvety lips was like being struck by lightning.
    Two years ago, he’d wanted to kiss her each time she’d come to the Eversleigh stables. During the years he had spent in prison, he would wake with his mouth physically tingling from hungry, imagined kisses. He’d woken up every morning hard as a brick after dreaming about Lady M.—the bewitching woman he couldn’t have.
    Now he had her in his arms. Her eyes had shut tight and her lips melted against his. Just the touch of her mouth made him feel like he’d jumped headlong into a wildfire.
    He had no right—
    But his hands were at her low back, pinning her to him. Her leg slid up and hooked around the backs of his knees, just like in his dream. She broke the kiss long enough to moan, “I want you.” Then she slanted her mouth over his and plunged her tongue into his mouth.
    She was like Juliette, Stephen’s wife, but Lady M. was searching for passion to overwhelm fear instead of hurt and loneliness. If he took her too far, he would be a scoundrel, taking advantage of a vulnerable woman. And they were being hunted by the militia—he should be listening for pursuers, not kissing her.
    He eased her back. “Enough.”
    She blinked. “No.”
    The ground crunched somewhere to the right of them, down the road and closer to the prison’s main gate. A man’s disgruntled baritone reached them, muffled by the fog. “Are ye certain ye heard a shot? Ye heard what the captain said. The convicts ran along the leat and made it to the Ockery. They’re going to be making for the Plymouth docks.”
    “I heard something. It had to be a shot,” argued a second man. “I’m sure of it.”
    Lady M. squeaked—with annoyance, he suspected, not fear.
    Jack pulled her behind him. The bushes were not enough of a screen to protect them if the guards prowled this far up the road. He had to hope that if he jumped out, they would ignore Lady M. and go in pursuit of him.
    But if he took a ball in the back that left him dead in the road, she would quickly be discovered. What he would have to do was surrender and go back willingly. That would distract them.
    He crouched and felt the ground. A rock dug into his palm. A risky solution, but the best he had.
    “I think you didn’t hear anything at all,” the first man argued.
    The other grunted. “Remember the last time them froggies ran from the work group? Blenchley almost shot Corporal Spencer in the head. The ball parted his hair, for Christ’s sake. No point in rushing down into a mess of frantic soldiers to get shot. We might as well search here.”
    Whipping his arm as hard as he could, Jack sent the small rock sailing high across the road. Fortune smiled down—the rock struck a boulder down in the field, making a soft thunk .
     “I was right,” crowed the second soldier. “There is someone in the field.”
    He could see their distinctive redcoats through the fog. One soldier swung cleanly over the farmer’s stone wall on the other side of the road. The second struggled, muttered a few expletives, then fell over.
    Jack had to bite back a tense laugh at the performance. Lady M. shuddered against him, and a glance down revealed she’d wanted to