A Worthy Wife (17 page)

Once Aurora explained who they were, and that they had come to inquire into her welfare, Nialla almost kissed her hand, then threw herself into Brianne’s arms, weeping. Still acting uncharacteristically unselfishly, Brianne held her hand out, for Aurora’s handkerchief for the girl.

“I…I have felt so alone, you see,” Nialla apologized, stepping back and wiping her eyes, “with no one to talk to except my cat. And to know that someone cares at last, strangers, at that, is overwhelming. But we are not truly strangers, are we?”

“We are practically in-laws,” Brianne said dryly, straightening her hat.

“But why did you pick this location if you have no friends here?” Aurora wanted to know, horrified that this delicate creature was on her own in this isolated spot.

“I had friends, or so I thought. They were all afraid of my father, though. Everyone for miles around depends on him for their livelihoods, you see. No one would take me in, or hire me, or even tell me what my jewels were worth, but I…I stayed nearby hoping my father would relent. And I had nowhere else to go.”

“That cad!” Brianne swore, inspecting the outside of the dilapidated cottage through her lorgnette.

“My father said he was ashamed, after boasting to all his cronies of the fine connections I was making. My presence only reminded him of the humiliation.”

“I didn’t mean your father, although Mr. Benton has a great deal to answer for. Our pigs live better than this. I meant Podell, that serpent, for taking such cruel advantage of such a sweet little lamb as yourself.”

Aurora couldn’t help thinking that she was no older than Nialla, yet Brianne had never expressed the least sympathy toward her.

“You are so good, Lady Brianne, a true angel of mercy,” Nialla said, starting to weep again. “And you too, Lady Windham, for bringing her.”

Brianne preened, as though coming here were entirely her idea, but she did give Aurora some credit. “Oh, she was in Podell’s sights, too, for some reason.”

Nialla said, “Most likely because she is so beautiful.”

Her remark had Aurora preening a bit herself. “Why, thank you.”

Brianne tapped her foot in the mud. “Hmph. Aurora made a lucky escape, though, and landed in clover, whilst the two of us suffer and scrape by.”

Some scrapings were more luxurious than others, Aurora reflected as she followed Brianne and Nialla into the two-room cottage. Brianne would never want for anything, while this Mrs. Podell did not have enough
wood for a fire. The interior was somewhat better than the outside of the cottage in that it was clean, but it was bare and cold. Brianne took the only comfortable chair, of course, leaving Aurora to sit on a wobbly wooden seat at the table. Nialla offered them refreshments, hard toast, thin jam, weak tea, which neither Aurora nor Brianne had trouble declining after the lavish repast at Mr. Benton’s. They both understood the food might be Nialla’s only meal that day. Enjoying her role as Lady Bountiful, Brianne even unwrapped the strawberry tart from her pocket and placed it on the tray, saying, “You might enjoy this later.”

Nialla took one look at the pastry and started crying again, her lip trembling. “It’s…it’s one of Mrs. O’Shea’s, isn’t it?”

If Mrs. O’Shea was the cook at Mr. Benton’s house, it was. While Brianne awkwardly patted the other girl’s back, Aurora was worrying. What were they supposed to do with this weepy little widgeon? She desperately wished her husband were here, for Kenyon would know what was best to do. He’d rescued her, and Lola, so she had every confidence he would not leave this damsel in such unconscionable distress. “There’s nothing for it,” she declared. “You’ll have to come with us.”

While Nialla sobbed, Brianne said, “Excuse us a moment, please,” then grabbed Aurora’s hand and dragged her outside. “Are your attics totally to let? We can’t take her home with us like some lost puppy! Her presence will stir up the very scandal Kenyon has been trying to stifle.”

“No, it won’t, not when we tell the same story we gave out at her father’s, that her dead Podell was a cousin to your dead Podell.”

“What, and they were both named Harland? That bird won’t fly.”

Aurora thought she was doing remarkably well for a woman who had never made up a single fib in her life before meeting Windham. “It could be a family name. Or her departed spouse could have been Harley. No matter, we shall not leave that poor girl here like this.”

“Of course not,” Brianne surprisingly agreed. “But you could write her a check, for heaven’s sake; you don’t have to adopt her.”

“And when the check is gone? Here she has no chance for employment—if the little peagoose is capable of anything—or for marriage. What other options are there for her? With us, she can start anew.”

“But she has freckles and her people are in trade!” To Brianne, either condition was like being infected with the pox. One might sympathize, but one did not invite such an unfortunate into one’s home.

“Derby society is not like London. No one will question her ancestors if she is our guest.”

“She is
your
guest. Remember that when you try to explain her presence to Kenyon. He will be furious.”

He’d be more furious when he discovered how Aurora managed to redeem Nialla’s gems from the slimy, unscrupulous jeweler who had not paid her a fraction of their worth. Brianne knowledgeably declared that Nialla ought to have been able to live comfortably off their sale for years. Luckily, the chit had not sold them outright and still had a week left in which to reclaim them at the price she’d received, plus interest, of course. And of course Aurora did not have that much cash in her reticule. She did have a check, though, which the shopkeeper was reluctant to accept.

“Why should I? How do I rightly know you’re who you says you are?” He jerked one hairy, dirty thumb in Nialla’s direction. “Word is, she ain’t no Mrs. Podell, even. You mightn’t be no countess, and that one”—with another jerk toward Brianne, who huffed—“mightn’t be no lady a’tall.”

“Do you see that coach outside, sirrah?” she asked. “It has a crest that even I can see without my looking glass. And my sister-in-law has the Windham signet ring.”

She also had the Windham diamonds. Aurora left them as collateral, over Brianne’s hysterical clamor. “Oh, hush, it’s only for two days until Mr. Dawson can return to exchange them for the money.”

“Dawson? Dawson? You’re entrusting my diamonds to an—”

“He is not,” Aurora declared, shoving Brianne into the carriage. “And they are my diamonds anyway.”

Brianne howled the entire first leg of the journey home, but not so loudly as the cat in its basket.

Chapter Seventeen

Some expressions sound better between the pages of a novel than in real life. “Stand and deliver” was one such phrase. Hearing the words, and the gunshot that followed, was not thrilling, the way it was when one was at home, reading by the bedside candle. It was terrifying. Nialla started to scream. The shot, or her screams, frightened the horses, who tried to bolt. The driver cursed and shouted, fighting for control of the cattle. The guard would have fired back, or would have helped with the reins, but Maisy had thrown herself into his arms at the first sight of a pistol-waving, masked horseman in their path.

Brianne was leaning out the window, shouting encouragement to the driver. “Outrun the dastard, Oliver. Mow him down. Shoot him, for heaven’s sake!”

Since it was obvious that the driver, Oliver, could barely keep the horses from galloping off the road, Brianne was in danger not only from the highwayman but from falling out of the careening carriage altogether. Aurora tugged on Brianne’s skirts until her sister-in-law sat back down, clutching the overhead strap to keep from being tossed around the interior of the coach. “The bandit is going to overtake us in a minute,” she reported. “His horse is an enormous gray.”

All they could do was sit and wait, holding on to each other and Nialla, who was clutching her cat’s basket as if it were a life ring, and sobbing, of course.

“Well, at least he won’t get the Windham diamonds,” Brianne crowed.

“No, but what about the Benton jewels?”

Nialla sobbed louder.

Aurora was feeling around behind the cushions and under the seat, looking for somewhere to stash the velvet pouch they had rescued from the moneylender. A determined high toby man would search, she knew, but she could not tamely hand over Nialla’s fortune. Her searching fingers touched something hard, something deadly.

“A pistol? Excellent! Now we can give the muckworm a taste of his own medicine. Hand it over, Aurora.”

“What, give you the gun? You could barely see the highwayman’s horse!”

“But I wouldn’t be sitting with the thing on my lap, waiting to be ravished and robbed!”

“Ravished?” cried Nialla, falling off the carriage seat in a dead faint.

Aurora grabbed for the cat basket before Puss landed on her head. Moving as quickly as possible, she raised the basket’s lid and stuffed the velvet jewel pouch inside with the frantic cat, who clawed furrows in Aurora’s new gloves. Aurora moved even faster, shutting the lid. Then she tucked the pistol in her pocket, hoping the skirts of her carriage dress would hide the bulge.

“Is it loaded?” Brianne asked.

Aurora hadn’t thought to look. For that matter, she didn’t know how to look, or where. She’d never handled a pistol before in life. She just nodded. There was no reason to frighten Brianne more than necessary.

As the carriage was coming to a halt, they could hear the highwayman shouting to Richard, the guard, to throw down his weapon, or be killed. They heard the thud and Maisy’s cries. Then the would-be robber yelled, “You inside. Come out with your hands raised or I shoot your driver.”

Aurora nodded to Brianne, who opened the door and slowly stepped down. Aurora followed, her hands elevated, and stood close beside Brianne, so the pistol’s outline wouldn’t show. “Our friend has fainted,” she told the man who faced her, his gun now pointing straight at her chest. “But she has nothing for you anyway.”

The man was tall, but not so tall as Windham, nor so
broad in the shoulders. Between the mask over his eyes and the hat pulled low over his forehead, Aurora could not discern his coloring, but what showed of his complexion seemed fair and smooth-shaven. His clothes were dusty but well tailored, and his top boots were in the highest kick of fashion. Either he was truly one of the gentlemen of the road, or he was a very successful bandit, Aurora decided.

“My, my, my. This is my lucky day. Two beautiful young ladies out for a drive. I wish I could just steal kisses, my lovelies, but I do have to eat. It’s your reticules I’ll be having first, then.”

“Here, you varlet.” Brianne tossed hers at his feet. “Much good it will do you, being as empty as your brain box if you think you can get away with this. My brother is—
ooph
.”

Aurora had shoved Brianne from behind, before the gudgeon could reveal their identities and have them held for ransom. Not seeing the tree branch in her way, Brianne stumbled and would have fallen, except the highwayman caught her and held her against his own chest to steady her. Brianne raised her fist and struck him in the jaw. No ladylike slap, the blow sent his head reeling. “How dare you, sirrah! It’s bad enough that you accost innocent wayfarers during the daylight hours, but to prey on defenseless women is beneath contempt. I am sick unto death of men who take advantage of women and then leave them broken and bruised.”

“I only wanted to put some food in my belly, miss. And I had no way of knowing you were three females.”

Hearing laughter in his voice, Brianne was not mollified. First Podell, then Nialla’s heartless father, now a masked man trying to steal their last shillings, was all too much. “Shoot him, Aurora! Shoot the dastard before he bothers another female.”

The highwayman finally took his eyes off the magnificent auburn-haired beauty who was so bravely, so buffle-headedly raging at him. He looked up, into the muzzle of Aurora’s pistol.

“I wouldn’t do that, my lady. My own weapon is aimed right at this beauty’s heart, you see.” He held
Brianne’s arm in his free hand so she could not escape, though she did continue with her curses until he said, “What a tongue you have, my lady. You should put it to better use.” He pulled her closer and kissed her quickly, ending her harangue with a gasp. Then he told Aurora, “Yes, it would be a great waste to shoot your friend.”

“She is no friend of mine,” Aurora told him, thinking of what a public service he’d be doing to rid the world of Lady Brianne. “She’s my sister-in-law. And I think you are too much the gentleman to shoot a woman.”

“But I think you are too much the gentlewoman to shoot a man. Have you ever fired a pistol before?”

“Many times—with great accuracy.”

“Ah, those would be the times you released the safety catch, I suppose,” he said, laughing.

Now Brianne started raging again—at Aurora. “First you drag me off on your errand of mercy and lose my diamonds, and now you turn craven about shooting a criminal! You might as well hand him Nialla’s—”

“That will be enough, Brianne, or I swear I will let him shoot you!”

The highwayman was laughing again, enjoying himself enormously, it seemed, at their expense. “Nialla’s…what, my ladies?”