Page 71 of How To Tempt A Bodyguard

"Ready?" He was beside the wagon now, holding out his hand to help her up.

She took it. His palm was rough and warm, his grip firm. For just a moment, his thumb brushed across her knuckles. A ghost of tenderness, there and gone.

Then he released her and climbed up beside her, taking the reins.

Chapter eighteen

Exposed

Florence

The rain had eased to a drizzle by midmorning, but the roads remained treacherous—rutted mud that sucked at the wagon wheels and slowed their pace to a crawl.

Florence huddled beneath her damp cloak and watched the grey green hills roll past. Matthew sat rigid beside her, eyes fixed on the road, his silence as impenetrable as ever.

A question had been forming in her mind since Jack's cottage. Since Nell's careful words about Matthew's past. Since learning he'd nearly hanged for killing Carrick's men.

"Why were you in hiding?" she asked. "Even before our organisation was involved?"

Matthew's hands tightened on the reins. He said nothing.

"You've known Nell for over a decade," Florence continued, "but she still called you Matthew Collins. You never changed your name after we rescued you."

The wagon wheels creaked through the mud. The horse plodded on. The silence stretched.

"I had a life before that," he said finally. "One I wanted no part of."

"What kind of life?"

His jaw worked. She could see him weighing how much to tell her.

"My father was a criminal. A nobleman, but a criminal, nonetheless. He ran gambling houses, smuggling operations, blackmail schemes." His voice was flat. Detached. "I was his muscle. His enforcer. His fist."

"You were a child."

"I was eighteen when I finally got out. Too ashamed to continue."

She absorbed this. The boy who'd been forced into brutality. The man who'd fled rather than become his father's weapon.

"Collins," she said slowly. "Your mother's name?"

"No. It was a random pick."

"Your real name then? The one you were born with?"

He was quiet for a long time. The wagon jolted through a rut, and she gripped the seat to steady herself.

"I'd like to know," she said softly. "The real name of the man I've been... intimate with."

Not lovemaking. She couldn't call it that, not when she didn't know if he felt anything beyond desire.

Matthew stared at the road ahead. His profile was hard as granite.

"Matthew Munro Carrick."

The air left her lungs. Her stomach dropped. She couldn’t breathe.

Carrick.