How a Lady Weds a Rogue (3 page)

“How intrepid of you.”

“Truly. I have done all sorts of wicked things in my life, things that made my governesses weep and pull out their hair, although not literally of course, except that once but really that was an accident. In any case, I have been troublesome, but I have never stolen anything. But she is my mother, and Papa will say nothing and frankly I am entitled to know something of her, don’t you agree?”

“You must wish it quite sincerely.”

“That was not an answer to my question, of course. I am not a hair-for-brains, Mr. Yale.”

“I would never say so.”

“And I didn’t actually steal the letters. I only read them.” Her slender brows cocked and a mischievous gleam flickered in the blue. “So I haven’t sinned. Really.”

The abrupt image of her actually sinning compelled him to reach for his glass again. “Where then is your mother?”

She set down her fork and a sweet smile slipped across her lips. “You are so refreshing to speak with, Mr. Yale. Papa never seems to know what I’m talking about and Mr. H allows me to go on and on without responding. But you are different. You seem to
know
.”

Yes. He knew it would be to his advantage to put this girl on a northbound coach and wipe his hands of her as soon as possible. The innkeeper appeared by their table, saving Wyn from being obliged to willfully remove his attention once again from her pretty neck.

“My best two chambers are ready upstairs for you and your sister, sir, when you wish. Will you be taking supper, then?”

“Bring him the roast. He will be in heaven.” She closed her berry lips around another forkful.

Wyn dragged his gaze away and stood. “My sister would like to retire directly. She is fatigued after the day’s travel.”

“But you really must eat some—”

“I will take supper in my room.” He gestured her toward the stairs.

Upon the landing the innkeeper proffered him two keys. “This is for the lady’s, sir, and this one is for yours there. I’ll have the maid pop in to assist the lady now, and I’ll send your supper up right straight.”

“Thank you.”

“Do thank your wife for her delicious roast and pudding, please, sir.” Her smile sparkled.

The innkeeper beamed. “I’ll do that, miss.”

She watched after him down the hall. “I suppose it was a good idea for you to tell him I am your sister. But anyone can see we look nothing like one another.” She met his gaze, her blue eyes clean and clear and without guile.

It was true. They were nothing alike, but far beyond the accidents of hair and features. She claimed to be wicked, but her face radiated honesty and goodwill. Her behavior mirrored it—taking the crying infant upon her lap for the afternoon’s journey, and offering liberal praise for a simple meal. How a mother could leave such a daughter upon the threshold of womanhood, he hadn’t an idea.

“Where is your mother, Miss Lucas?”

“Calais.”

Intrepid, indeed. “You intend to cross the Channel after her?”

“Yes. She seems to be living with a dozen or so young women. She would have my father believe they are Catholic nuns and that she needs money to help them do handicrafts to sell at the market, which is why she wrote to him. But I am not so naïve as all that. I think she is running a school.”

He measured his response. “A school?”

Her lips twisted. “No. I said that to see how you would react, and I am really quite impressed. Of course I shouldn’t know about such things, but Teresa Finch-Freeworth is very helpful.” She smiled, gently now. “But you would never reveal your shock over my impropriety. You are a true gentleman, Mr. Yale.”

“Why hasn’t your stepfather gone after her?”

“Because he does not care for her.” Her gaze skittered away.

It was inconvenient. She was inconvenient, a pretty bundle of good intentions and old hurt, the latter which he could see quite plainly in her wide eyes no matter what she claimed. And now she had this indignity to bear of her mother’s new profession, if it could be believed.

“Miss Lucas, I cannot allow you to continue on this journey.”

Her gaze shot to him. “What?”

“I cannot—”

“No, no, I heard what you said. I am merely flabbergasted.”

“I know not whether to be flattered or insulted by your surprise, ma’am.”

“Oh. Of course. I beg your pardon, sir.” She seemed to recall herself, and rather swiftly at that. She studied him for a moment, then released a little sigh. But she had no air of crestfallen disappointment about her, a look Wyn had seen on the faces of females often enough in his work over the past ten years. This was no doubt a game to her more than anything else. Perhaps she’d wished only to have a brief adventure and even now secretly welcomed his intervention.

“I suppose you have learned which coach will return me to my friend’s house?” she asked quietly.

“It departs tomorrow at ten o’clock.”

“There will be time for breakfast then. I do so dislike traveling on an empty stomach.” Her voice had quieted.

“It is for the best, Miss Lucas.”

She seemed thoughtful for a moment. “The public coach is uncomfortable. I might not have been able to bear it all the way to Bristol, anyway.” She offered him a small sigh that lifted her breasts. “Well, then, good night, sir. Thank you for your assistance.” She held out her hand, he placed the key in it, and she went inside.

Wyn returned to the taproom and the remainder of the bottle of brandy.

D
iantha leaned up against the inside of her door, a peculiarly empty sensation in her stomach. Her gaze scanned the little bedchamber without interest. She had traveled so rarely, she should be charmed to bits over this turn of events: a night in a real posting house after the most scrumptious dinner possible, in the company of a true gentleman.

And now she knew where she had gone wrong again. Not her plan this time, but her notions of what a man could be.

A true gentleman could not be a hero. A true gentleman would, before all else, care for propriety and society’s standards and—most importantly,
devastatingly
—a lady’s welfare.

She was not a ninnyhammer, and only a ninnyhammer would fail to see that this journey was not in her welfare. She would be on the road for weeks without a proper chaperone and now not even a maid, and she would complete her travels at a French brothel. As a real gentleman, Mr. Yale had one recourse only: to escort her back to where she belonged. He could not be her hero. Not this time. On this occasion, gentleman and hero were incompatible.

She should descend to the taproom now and look about for another hero. There must be at least one among the crowd of farmers and villagers. Or she could take the next leg of her journey alone and hope to come across a hero along the road ahead.

The coach schedule affixed to the wall beside the front door had been easy enough to memorize while she was eating and explaining her quest to Mr. Yale. The Shrewsbury Coach would come through at quarter past five o’clock in the morning. She would be on it. She would find her mother and, finally, speak with her.

Diantha removed her outer garments and when the maid appeared she sent her away with a penny. Then she lay down on the soft little cot topped with the nicest quilt she’d seen and stared at the ceiling. The white paint was riddled with cracks, like her thinking on the matter of heroes.

The trouble was, it seemed to her that if any man could be a true hero, it would certainly be Mr. Yale. But perhaps there were no such paragons of epic honor and nobility in the present era. There was no such thing, after all, as the sort of love all those old stories described, the sort between a man and a woman who fell into the most sublime devotion and lived happily ever after. Both of her mother’s marriages proved that to be a myth, not to mention Lady Finch-Freeworth and Sir Terrence’s tepid alliance. It was true that her sister and stepsisters seemed content with their husbands, but there were a lot of money and carriages and houses involved. For pity’s sake, Serena was now a countess, so of course she was happy.

But their brother, Tracy, avoided marriage, and Diantha couldn’t doubt why. True love was a fiction of legends. And so too heroes must be.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the handsome man she would be leaving behind who was—however wonderful—only a man, after all.

Chapter 4

B
y eleven o’clock Wyn could nearly see the bottom of the bottle. This was not due to his excellent vision.

The taproom was still crowded, the inn the favorite local haunt of townsfolk and farm laborers celebrating the end of the harvest. Too much festivity for his tastes at present. Pushing the last of the brandy away, he pressed to his feet and wove his way through tables of boisterous men to the door to the mews. The horses must be checked. Bedding must be dry. The stall must be mucked—even by him, if need be. He’d done it plenty of times before he’d even had a horse of his own.

The night without was black, a single lamp illuminating the entrance to the stable. He crossed the pebbly drive, boots splashing, and slid open the door. He stepped inside and closed the panel, shutting out the muffled sounds of merriment in the inn and the light from the drive.

Not a yard away, a breath hitched in the darkness. A light sound, and high.

And then she cast herself at him.

She was perfectly curved where his hands met and clasped her waist, and quivering. Her breaths came fast against his chin.

Then he did what he would not have done if he had not consumed an inch shy of the contents of a bottle of brandy in the course of three hours, or if he had employed all his senses at that moment, not only his starved sense of touch—for instance, his sense of smell, which would have told him that he did not hold a barmaid in his hands: He pulled her against him. What else did a wench intend of a man deep in his cups when she threw herself at him in the dark so close upon midnight?

She gasped and stiffened. Then she pressed her cheek to his jaw and breathed,
“Help me.”

If not for the lurching crash that sounded down the row of stalls, and the rough curse from that direction, Wyn would have behaved quite differently at this moment as well, even deep in his cups.

He did not release Miss Lucas, though every corner of his muddled mind shouted at him to do so. Instead he turned to shield her with his body, pressed her back against the wall, and whispered into her ear, “Put your arms about me and be still.”

She obeyed. It took no effort to hold her and ready his stance at once. She was soft, and now that he had engaged all his senses—
God she smelled good—
and he was more accustomed to being at a ready stance than not. He drew up the hood of her cloak and his hand brushed curls silky as butter.

Heavy footsteps advanced.

“Where are you, my pretty poppy?” a thick voice slurred. “Come out like a good girl, or I’ll be none too happy when I find you.”

Miss Lucas’s body gave a little shudder. Wyn bent his head, hiding her more fully in case the man’s vision should be accustomed to the dark. He could confront him, but the tread suggested a large fellow, and Wyn was admittedly not at his best with a quart of brandy beneath his belt and no food for days.

The footsteps shuffled on the straw and came to a halt.

“What’s this?” A pause. “Oh, beg pardon, old chap. Just looking for my own bit of skirt, don’t you know.”

“Sod off, ‘old chap.’ ” Wyn had no trouble roughening his voice. The caress of her tender earlobe across his lips had rendered his throat a desert.

The man muttered and clomped to the door, slid it open, then threw it shut behind him.

She ejected a relieved sigh and her fingers loosened their grip on his back. But Wyn did not release his captive. The brandy in his veins would not allow it. Her soft breasts pressed into his chest and her scent tangled in his murky head. With the danger passed, now he felt the woman in his arms, her warm, slight body that yielded so easily to his, so naturally. He shifted his hands, slipping them down her back, the long, graceful sweep of her spine beneath his fingertips like the rounded rocks upon the floor of a brook, and he felt woman.
Woman
, young and soft and beautiful and alive, her pulse thrumming through her trembling body.

She sucked in breath again and shifted in his hold to push him away. But he was not finished. He held her firmly, the blood rushing in his ears like wind as he curved his palm over the arc of a perfect, feminine buttock.

“Mr.
Yale
,” she whispered upon a gasp. “You must
stop
.”

Because even a bottle of brandy could not topple what years of training had built, he put her off and stepped back. It was no less dim in the stable, but his eyes had accommodated the dark, and he saw her. He smelled her and heard her, her light, quick breaths amidst the shiftings and snorts of the animals.

It had become something of a challenge to stand; he leaned against a stall door.

“What, pray tell, Miss Lucas”—he formed the words carefully—“are you doing in this stable?”

“Hiding from him. But he found me. Just—Just as you did.” Her voice was thinner than earlier, and rushed.

“Forgive my ill manners, ma’am. At present I am somewhat—”

“Foxed.”

“—indisposed.”

“Teresa said men in their cups can be amorous even when they do not intend it.”

He had intended it. And he wished it still. Her warmth clung to the palms of his hands and his chest, the memory of her softness upon his lips tightening his breeches.

“That beastly man was too.” Her voice dipped. “He called me a
poppy
. Have you ever heard such an imbecilic thing? He looked like a gentleman, but he turned out to be
not
heroic in the least.”

Wyn shook his head, jarring a fragment of clarity into it. “Miss Lucas, return to your bedchamber, lock the door, and go to sleep.”

“Don’t you even want to know why I am not there now?”

“I may be foxed, but I am far from stupid. I know why you are not there now.”

“You know I went looking for another gentleman to assist me because you refused?”

“I know you even better, perhaps, than you know yourself.” Nine girls. In ten years he had found and rescued nine runaway girls. Also two infants, one amnesiac, a pair of children sold to the mines by a twisted guardian, one former solider who’d gone a bit mad and hadn’t realized he had abandoned his family, and one Scottish rebel who turned out not to be a rebel after all. But nine girls. They always assigned to him the girls. They even chuckled when they said he had a particularly good rapport with girls, as though they shared a marvelous joke. “Now go.” He pulled back the door.

She went, neither defiantly nor meekly. She simply went, cutting a silhouette in the glow of lamplight from the inn that Wyn consumed with his fogged gaze, the gentle swell of her hips, the graceful taper of her shoulders. He was drunk. Too drunk not to stare and not drunk enough to be unmoved by the sight of her.

In the morning he would offer her a proper apology for his wandering hands. But now he could not. He could never lie convincingly while under the influence of brandy, and Diantha Lucas was not a girl to be lied to. Even drunk he realized that.

A
sliver of sunlight sliced across Wyn’s vision. Someone was scratching at the door, dragging him out of thick sleep.

He rubbed the slumber from his face and went to the door. The stable hand stood in the corridor, his brow a highway of ruts. He tugged his cap.

“Mornin’, sir.” His voice was far too agitated for Wyn’s unsteady nerves. A bottle would cure those. But he never drank before noon. Ever. The single rule he lived by. The single rule among the many others his great aunt had bequeathed him, one of which in a thoroughly unprecedented moment of weakness he had broken the night before, and for which he would have to make amends today. Miss Lucas did not strike him as the missish short, but she was a lady, a young one at that; she might be skittish. Curiously, he could not imagine her offended. But wary now—yes.

He pressed a hand to his brow. “What is the time?”

“Near eight o’clock, sir.”

Wyn’s stomach tightened over the perpetual pain. Eight o’clock was far too early to feel this unsettling instability in his limbs, especially given that he’d finished a bottle of brandy only nine hours earlier.

“Is something amiss with my horses?”

“I thought you’d be wantin’ to know, sir, the constable from over Winsford’s been around this mornin’.”

“Winsford?” His hedonistic host’s country. This was not good.

“Yessir.” The man nodded rapidly, his hat brim bobbing up and down. “He’s been askin’ after that bay filly of yours.”

Exceedingly not good
. “Has he?”

“He wanted to go right in that stall with her and take a look at her. But I said as the black would take a hunk out of his behind if he tried.”

Despite circumstances, Wyn grinned. “He won’t, you know. Galahad is as placid as a plow horse.”

The fellow returned the grin. “I figured since the Lord gave me a tongue to say what I see fit, I use it as I might.”

“And what do you expect to gain from this particular use of it? I don’t suppose the constable is waiting at the bottom of the front stair and you will now be glad to show me the back stair for a price?”

The man’s back went poker straight. “Now, see here, sir. I wasn’t thinkin’ to hold out my palm. I only thought as if you was goin’ after the lady quick like so you can catch her, you’d better not find trouble with any nosey old constable from clean over five parishes. Why, after the way she took up that little spaniel that got its paw near chewed off at the smithy’s and limpin’ along like it does and she wouldn’t hear no from the coachman about takin’ it aboard, sayin’ all the time that she’d care for it till it got well, why I figure she’s the sort that needs a little carin’ for herself.” A flush spread across his cheeks and he pulled his cap lower. “I’ve a girl like that, likes to take care of everybody else and ain’t got no one takin’ care of her. ’Cept me now, sir, you see.”

“I do.”
God, no
. Damn foolishly nearsighted of him to underestimate her tenacity. Slipping, indeed. “Tell me quickly, in which coach did the lady depart and where is the constable now?”

T
he constable was in conference with the local law, consulting on the tricky matter of retrieving a horse stolen thirty miles away by a gentleman of means. Especially grateful on this occasion that Galahad’s indisputable quality gave him the appearance of being such a gentleman, and thus recommending caution to the law, Wyn dressed swiftly.

In the stable he pressed a guinea into the groom’s palm.

The man’s eyes went round. “No, sir! I didn’t do it on account o—”

“Take it,” he said sharply. “Buy something for your girl who cares for everyone else more than herself.”

He set a quick pace, considerably quicker than the Shrewsbury Coach would on the quagmired road.

The dog appeared first. Limping along the center of the road toward them, it waved its tail in uncertain greeting. Then it barked once, a high yap of pleasure. On three or so legs it leaped around, its black eyes the only discernable color in its matted coat, then turned about and raced back the way it had come.

Wyn urged his mount forward.

Veiled in misty rain, Miss Lucas stood at the side of the road beside a traveling trunk topped with a lady’s bandbox.

“Do not expect me to be thrilled that you of all people have happened along,” she said before he even pulled to a halt, the dog cavorting between them with little growls of pleasure.

“Good day, Miss Lucas. I hope I find you well.”

“Of course you don’t find me well.” Her brow was tight. “But I can only expect you are happy about that.”

“On the contrary, madam. I am far from happy.”

He did not look happy. Despite his measured tone he looked remarkably displeased and a little dangerous atop his ebony horse and wearing all black, with a shadow of whiskers upon his jaw and his cravat tied rather hastily it seemed. Diantha had never seen him out of perfect order, which could only mean that upon discovering her missing from the inn, he had hurried after her. Which, despite the resolve she’d made to herself the moment she saw him round the bend, made her belly feel tingly again. Even a little hot, the way his hand on her behind had made her feel in the stable.

“You may help me now, if you wish.” She frowned. “And I will appreciate it. But if you attempt to force me to return to my friend’s house or to go home I will refuse.”

“Miss Lucas, why are you standing here with your luggage?”

“Because it suits me.”

He tilted his head. “This sort of stasis is unlikely to bring you closer to Calais.”

“You are very clever, Mr. Yale. I’d thought before that I liked that a great deal about you. But I am coming to revise my opinion.”

“Thank you.” A glint shone in his gray eyes. “And I am coming to see to whom I might apply whenever I feel the need to not be complimented.”

Her lips—agents of betrayal her entire life—twitched. For a moment his gaze seemed to focus upon them, and the tingles inside her turned to decidedly vibrant sparks. Her cheek had accidentally brushed his chin the night before. His whiskers had felt hard and rough. Her skin was still tender there from the scratch.

“I could not leave the dog behind, you see,” she explained a bit unsteadily, though that was perfectly silly because of course a man’s jaw would feel rough if one touched it in the middle of the night so many hours after he had shaved. But she could not help wondering if she touched his jaw
now
would the whiskers be even rougher. She wanted to. “But several people inside the coach with me didn’t like its smell of the stable—”

“It cannot be wondered at.”

“—and it would not remain in my lap when I sat on the roof. I think it is afraid of heights. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous, a dog afraid of heights?”

“Preposterous, really.”

“You are quizzing me. But I could not strand it all alone on the road. So I was obliged to disembark prematurely. I am waiting here for the next coach.”

“You will be waiting until Thursday.”

She rolled her eyes. “Obviously I read the schedule at the posting inn too. I only said that to—”

“To see my reaction.” A slight grin slipped across his mouth.