Jo Beverley - [Rogue ] (54 page)

She turned blindly to the door, managing the words, "The answer is still no, Tom, so you can cancel the slave auction."

For all his size, Tom was quick on his feet. He reached the door ahead of her and thumped it shut in her face with a beefy hand. "You weren't asked, Serry. You were told." His eyes, closed in with rolls of fat, fixed her malevolently.

Serena wanted to hit him, to tear at his piggy eyes, but she was small and her brothers were big and brutal. "You can't do it!" she protested. "I'm not fifteen any more, Tom. I'm twenty-three and able to make my own choices."

"Don't be stupid."

"It is you who is being stupid! It's no longer possible to take a bride to the altar bound, and I'll go no other way."

"Don't be stupid," Tom repeated flatly. "If you give me any trouble, I'll sell you to a brothel. I'd get at least a monkey for you."

Serena swayed, knowing he spoke the plain truth.

He opened the door with a parody of courtesy. "I'll tell you when the bidding's done."

Serena walked numbly through and the heavy oak slammed shut behind. She heard her brothers laugh.

She fled to her room. Twitty, twitty, twitty. It rang in her head. She'd thought her eight years of marriage, years of slavery, years of horror, had at least taught her something, made her wiser. But here she was, a twit again.

She'd been so relieved, though, so incredulously elated when Tom had brought the news of her husband's death that she'd not stopped to think. She had simply packed her belongings and returned immediately with Tom to her family home. She hadn't given a thought to legal matters. It hadn't even distressed her when she'd learned that Matthew had gone through nearly all his vast fortune.

What did money matter?

She was free.

Matthew would never again descend on Stokeley Manor and demand she play the whore for him. He'd never again punish her for refusing some intolerable indignity.

She was free.

Now she paced her chilly room, wringing her hands, trying to decide what to do. She would not lose that freedom.

Samuel Seale. She closed her eyes in horror. Another like her husband. A big, coarse man, gone fifty and deep in depravity. And she suspected Seale had the pox. At least Matthew had not had the pox.

She stopped her pacing, gripping a bed-post to halt the pointless movement. She must do something.

What?

Flee.

Yes, she must go. Go somewhere.

Where?

Her mind scrabbled for a refuge and found none.

There were few relatives, and none she'd trust to protect her from her brothers. During her marriage, her husband had kept her a virtual prisoner at Stokeley in Lincolnshire. She'd not even been permitted to mix with the local gentry, though truth to tell, few would have been willing to socialize with anyone from Stokeley Manor. No, there was no help to be found there.

She went back in her mind, seeking a friend. Back to innocence. To her school days.

Miss Mallory.

Serena had attended Miss Mallory's School in Cheltenham. She had been taken straight from there to her wedding. That small school had been her last place of security and innocent pleasures. She remembered Miss Emma Mallory as a firm but kindly autocrat, and a staunch believer in women's rights. Surely Miss Mallory would help her.

If Serena could reach her.

It was a long way from Sussex to Gloucestershire.

Money. She needed money.

A search of her room turned up two pound notes, a guinea and a few smaller coins. Not enough. Where else could she find money?

Even when in debt, her careless brothers left coins about. She'd find them.

Clothes.

She had begun to pack a valise when she realized that it would be impossible to leave the house carrying anything without raising suspicions. She began to replace the garments in the clothes press. It was terrible to be fleeing with only the clothes on her back, but all in all, she would be pleased to abandon her wardrobe.

Every stitch she owned had been chosen by Matthew in London and sent to Stokeley as the whim took him. All the garments were of the finest quality, but all were cut to show, to revel in, her figure.

Serena looked in the cheval mirror and let her shawl drop. How could russet cloth, finely trimmed, look so.... so bold? But it did. The bodice exaggerated her full bosom, the skirt was cut rather narrowly and the soft cloth shaped to her hips. Worst, though, was the perfume.

All her clothes had been drenched in it before she received them, and her maid/jailer had repeated the applications. Serena didn't know its composition, but it had nothing to do with flowers. She knew it was a whore's perfume, and that it had amused Matthew to make his fastidious bride stink of it.

Since Matthew's death, Serena had managed to wash the smell out of her linen and muslins, but she could not wash it from her heavier clothes without ruining them. Until her brothers released her funds she could buy no others.....

Sickly, she realized there were no more funds.

She seriously thought of dressing in one of her sweet-smelling muslins for her flight, but at this time of year it would be insanity. She did fold some underwear and stuff it into her reticule. Surely carrying a reticule would not sound the alarm.

Her jewels! Matthew had given her many items of jewelry, though even then he had managed to make them part of his degrading games. She shuddered at the memory of those ornaments, but they could be sold and they were hers.

She clenched her fists in frustration when she realized that she didn't know where her jewels were. She hadn't wanted to know, but now they represented survival.

In Tom's room?

She was suddenly consumed with urgency, fearful that her brothers would come to drag her to her wedding, or at least realize that she would flee. She grabbed her luxurious cape—camelot cloth lined with sable—grateful that it was very warm.

Another memory: it had amused Matthew to take her walking in the garden, naked under the cape, the silky fur tickling her skin, her face red as he stood talking to an oblivious servant.

One of his more innocent diversions....

She shook herself free of these thoughts.

Her heaviest gloves. Her sturdiest half-boots. Her few coins in her pocket. She only had one bonnet, for Matthew had seen no point or amusement in bonnets, and it was very high with a big brim. She intended to use the hood of her cloak for concealment, and the hood would not cover it.

She went without.

The rings she wore on her left hand caught her eye, and she smiled grimly. There was a large emerald and a gold band, so much part of her that she'd forgotten them. Surely she could survive for some time on the value of those.

* * *

Pursued by her brothers, Serena ends up making her way down a country lane on foot.

* * *

A noise penetrated her tangled thoughts. Horses and wheels. Fearing pursuit, Serena whirled around.

A carriage!

No, a curricle.

A man.

No one she knew, she realized with sweeping relief.

All the same, her heart raced to be caught here alone by any man, but there was nowhere to hide. She turned forward and speeded her steps, though she knew she had no chance of outpacing the four-horse rig.

It drew closer. The large, steaming chestnuts pounded past but slowed, slowed until the curricle was alongside and matching her speed.

"May I take you up somewhere, ma'am?"

An educated voice, but he could be up to no good accosting a woman on the road. Serena just prayed he would drive on.

The curricle kept steady pace. "Ma'am?"

Oh, why would he not leave her alone? Serena turned slightly, staying huddled in the deep hood of her cloak. "I need nothing, thank you." She marched on.

The man didn't drive past. "Ma'am, it's at least two miles to the nearest hamlet that I'm aware of, it's cold, night's falling, and I suspect a storm is coming."

As if to prove his point, a few drops of icy water blew on a sharp gust of wind.

"I cannot leave you here," he said simply.

Serena saw it was hopeless that he go away, and stopped to turn and look at him. No tame wool-factor, this. A blood, she thought with despair, reeking of fashionable arrogance from his tilted beaver to his glossy boots. His lean, handsome face was touched by wry amusement. At her.

"I have no wish to alarm you, ma'am, but the weather threatens to worsen, and it hardly seems safe or proper for you to be alone out here. And consider my predicament," he added with a slight smile. "I've been very well trained in the gentlemanly arts, and am cursed with a kind heart. I cannot possibly abandon you. If you insist on walking, I will have to keep pace with you all the way."

Serena was seduced by good-humor and kindness. It had been such a rare ingredient in her life that she did not know how to refuse it. A knife-sharp gust of icy wind decided her. She was in desperate need of shelter.

Cautiously, she approached the curricle and raised her foot to the step. He stretched out a hand and helped her into the seat beside him.

The very feel of his hand around hers, gloved as they both were, sent a jolt through her. Lean and powerful. She was not accustomed to lean, strong young men. Her father, her brothers, and her husband were all strong men, but heavy, with hands like bunches of rough sausages.

Once, young and innocent, she had glimpsed such men as this, and giggled with her friends about them, wondering which one might be for her. Since her marriage, they had been no part of her existence. He frightened her.

He did nothing alarming, however, but urged the team up to a cracking pace again. "Where are you headed, ma'am? I'll take you to your door."

"Hursley," she said, looking firmly ahead and clutching the rail.

Now she was raised above the hedge, she could appreciate the man's concern. Bare fields stretched on one side and bleak hills on the other. There were no nearby houses. Heavy, threatening clouds were rolling in from the east and in the distance skeleton trees tossed in strong winds.

"I have to pass through Hursley," he said, "so there is no problem in taking you there. My name is Middlethorpe, by the way. Lord Middlethorpe."

She flicked a wary glance at him. She had met few lords, and none she liked. Matthew had been a mere baronet, and his friends all lower still. Wealthy, to be sure, but not of high rank. The few members of the nobility who had hung around Matthew had been the desperate dregs. Another of Matthew's complaints had been that the cream of the aristocracy would not succumb to the lure of his lavish generosity.

The lords Serena had met previously had been out-and-out libertines, and she was sure that honorable peers of the realm did not pick up chance travelers out of pure charity. She looked at the road racing beneath the wheels and wondered if she could throw herself from the carriage and live...

"May I not have your name, ma'am?" he asked.

"Serena Allbright." Then she realized she had given her maiden name.

Why?

Doubtless because she wanted to wipe away all trace of her marriage. And because she shuddered at the thought that this man of fashion might recognize the name Riverton, might know her to be Matthew Riverton's well-trained wife. How could she know how far her husband's drunken boasting had traveled?

At least Lord Middlethorpe intruded no further, but concentrated on steering his team with casual skill along the winding, rutted lane. Serena found her attention caught by his competent gloved hands, so subtly strong on the ribbons. Eventually, her gaze traveled up his caped greatcoat to his face.

He did not look debauched. His classical profile was quite beautiful, in fact. Since her own looks were flawed by a short nose and peculiarly tilted eyes, she had great admiration for pure lines.

Why, what an idiot she was!

Serena almost laughed out loud. She had been nervous of her rescuer's intentions when a short time before she had been planning a life of sin. Here, surely, was a candidate for protector. When—like the wool-factor and the half-pay captain—he tried to seduce her, all she had to do was succumb to his wiles and set her price.

Brought so close to it, however, her mind balked. This man might be handsome, but he was still a man. He would expect what Matthew had expected, do what Matthew had done....

But, asked her practical side, what choice do you have?

And this time, if it becomes truly intolerable, you can leave.

All the same....

Lord Middlethorpe must have detected her shudder. "Cold, ma'am?" he asked. "Shouldn't be long now. But the dashed wind's worsening."

He urged his horses to more speed. In moments, though, a rut caught a wheel and almost tipped them into the ditch. He threw himself over her to correct the balance as he hauled back hard on the ribbons.

 
"Sorry about that," he gasped when he had control again. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, thank you." Serena straightened, all too aware of the power of his body so briefly against hers.