Never a Gentleman (48 page)

“Should we make it part of our vows?” he asked, holding on tightly. “That we’ll never allow another disguise between us as
long as we live?”

Her smile was incandescent. “I think we just did. I love you, Diccan.”

He kissed her. “I love you, Grace. Now, since nobody needs us to do it, let’s get married and live happily ever after, shall
we?”

It was just what they did.

I
f there was one thing that showed Kate Seaton’s life up for what it was, it was a wedding. Kate loved weddings, especially
if good friends were involved. She loved the flowers and thumping organ music, and the sloppy sentiments that brought out
handkerchiefs to be waved like white flags of surrender. She especially loved the smiles. Everyone should smile at weddings.
Everyone should have a wedding to smile about.

Which was why once she ate her surfeit of lobster patties and succumbed to the obligatory hug from the happy couple, she escaped
as fast as a thief purloining silver. After all, the sentiment expressed on such a nice day should never be envy or cynicism.

So it had been this time. She had attended the wedding of two very good friends, friends whose happiness she could hardly
resent, friends whose joy was hard-won and universally celebrated. Jack had looked handsome and stalwart as he’d said his
vows, Olivia lovely and honest-to-God glowing, as every bride should. Kate had joined wholeheartedly
in the celebration. And then, at the first opportunity, she had run.

At least, that was her excuse. She refused to think how she had abandoned her cousin Diccan and her friend Grace to their
problems. But maybe, she kept thinking, without her to smooth the way, they would learn to rely on each other and rebuild
their marriage.

Pulling on her gloves, Kate stepped out of the door of the Angel Inn and into the gray afternoon. Guildford was bustling,
as always, situated as it was on the main London-Portsmouth road. Of Guildford’s two coaching inns, Kate had always preferred
the smaller Angel on High Street with its cozy half-timbered facade and efficient staff. It never took longer than twenty
minutes to change out the horses—just enough time for her to down a cup of tea.

Today seemed to be different. When she stepped out into the cobbled yard, her coach was nowhere to be seen. A stage was being
unloaded, with much shouting and banging, and behind it a curricle waited. Kate tapped her feet, impatient to be away.

From her left came the sound of a muffled sob. She smiled. “Bea,” she gently chastised her companion, laying a hand on the
older woman’s arm. “It is perfectly bourgeois, to continue crying over a two-day-old wedding.”

If Kate enjoyed the pomp of weddings, Bea positively wallowed. She hadn’t stopped crying since they’d walked into the tiny
Norman church of St. Mary in Bury to find it bursting with friends and late summer flowers.

“Odysseus and Penelope,” her friend inexplicably answered, dabbing determinedly at her eyes with one of the aforementioned
flags of surrender, this one edged in the honeybees Bee so loved to embroider on things.

“Yes,” Kate answered, giving her a squeeze. “It was particularly satisfying to see Jack and Olivia married, after all the
years they’d been apart.”

“Devonshire,” Bea said, casting soulful eyes down at Kate.

This meaning Kate had to work for. “Devonshire? The duke? Was he invited?”

Bea glared, which on the elegantly silver-haired woman, was formidable. “Georgianna.”

Kate frowned, wondering what the late Duchess of Devonshire could have to do with the newly minted Earl and Countess of Gracechurch.
Georgianna had been married to a cold fish who’d kept his mistress and children in the house with his legitimate family. All
Jack had done was divorce his wife and take five years to rectify the mistake.

“Unfair?” Kate guessed.

Bea beamed.

“To whom?” Kate asked, now cognizant of the looks that passed among the various travelers and ostlers cluttering up the courtyard.
She had to admit, following Bea’s unique conversational style could indeed be distracting. “Jack and Olivia? How could it
be unfair that they’re finally happy?”

This time Bea gave Kate an impatient huff, and there was no mistaking her meaning.

Kate, who never got misty-eyed, nearly succumbed. “Oh, Bea,” she said, wishing she were tall enough to give her stately friend
a smacking kiss. “How can you think my life is unfair? What more could I want than money, freedom, and my very best friend
to share it with?”

Bea sniffed. “Half loaf.”

“Not at all, darling. Or is it you?” She leaned close and
whispered. “Do you long for an amour? Mayhap a young cicisbeo who would squire you about on his arm? General Willoughby would
snap you up in a minute, if you just let him.”

Bea’s laugh was more a snort, but Kate saw the pain behind the humor. Bea thought no one would want her, no matter her impeccable
lineage and bone-deep aristocratic beauty. Not only was Bea into her seventies, but a few years earlier, her brain had suffered
a terrible injury that left her speech so tortured that many days, Kate was the only one who understood her.

But Kate also knew that, like her, Bea couldn’t tolerate coddling. So, with brisk fingers she took Bea’s signature handkerchief
and dabbed away the last of the old woman’s tears. “Now, then, my girl, we need to be going. After all, you’re the one who
committed us to Lady Riordan’s memorial service tomorrow.”

Immediately Bea’s expression folded into pity. “Poor lambs.”

“At least Riordan has finally accepted the truth and declared her dead. Now maybe the children can move on.” Kate shuddered.
“I can think of few things I find less appealing than drowning. “

Just then, the coach clattered around the corner, the house of Murther crest shining against the black lacquered panels. The
horses were unfamiliar, but they were handsome bays that seemed to be pulling hard at the reins.

“Your Grace,” one of the postboys said, bowing low as he opened the door.

Kate smiled and let him hand her into the carriage.

She had just settled and turned to help Bea, when suddenly she heard a shout, and the coach lurched. She was
thrown back in her seat. The door slammed. The horses whinnied and took off, as if escaping a fire.

Furious, Kate tried to right herself without success. How dare they abuse the horses that way? How dare they leave Bea stranded
in the coaching yard, her hand out, her mouth open, still waiting to get into the coach?

Kate righted herself with some difficulty. The coach turned on two wheels and skidded through the archway. Kate could hear
the clatter of the horses’ hooves against the cobbles, the scrape of stone against the coach sides. She heard the urgent cries
of the coachman and thought, suddenly, that it didn’t sound like Bob Coachman.

She pounded on the roof to get his attention. No one responded. The coach didn’t slow; in fact, it sped up. It didn’t occur
to Kate to be frightened. She was still too angry, too anxious for Bea, who simply could not be left alone at a coaching inn.

“Blast you, stop!” she shouted, pushing at the trap. It was wedged shut. She pounded again on the roof. The coach sped on,
rocking from side to side and throwing her off balance. She already felt bruised. She couldn’t imagine what injuries she would
collect before the idiot driving her coach finally brought it to a halt.

That was the thought that finally gave her pause. What idiot? Brought it to a halt where? Why hadn’t anyone paid attention
to her? Why weren’t they so much as slowing through a busy town? She could hear shouting outside, and feared for nearby pedestrians.
She tried to pull open the window shades, but they wouldn’t budge. She heard a crash and more shouting and cringed.

“Are you mad?” she cried, rapping again against the roof. “Stop immediately!”

There was no response, except for the sound of the driver urging on the horses.

Kate began to feel unsettled. Whoever was driving her coach had no interest in listening to her. In fact, he seemed intent
on spiriting her away as fast as he could. Kidnapping? She was wealthy. But who in their right mind would think anyone would
pay to get her back? Certainly not her family. Her stepson loathed her as much as she did him. Her own family was even worse,
especially her brother.

Her brother.

Suddenly her mind shuddered to a halt. Oh, God. Edwin. He had been threatening to restrain what he considered to be her profligate
ways. According to him, she was an abomination, not fit to share the exalted Hilliard name with the Duke of Livingston. He
never tired of telling her that the only place for her was a lunatic asylum.

He wouldn’t.

He would.

Kate refused to be terrified. She categorically refused to believe that her brother had the power to incarcerate her for the
simple sin of escaping her family’s clutches. And when she saw him, she would tell him so.

On the other hand, it would probably be better all around if she didn’t have to face him at all. She needed to get back to
her friends, who could protect her against him. She needed to get back to Bea, who would be frantic without her. She needed
to get free before Edwin managed to wield his not inconsiderable power and have her locked away.

The coach was moving too fast, its balance precarious. She was holding onto the strap, and still being battered around. She
would probably kill herself if she leaped.

She laughed out loud. There were worse things than a split head, and this trip threatened her with most of them. She would
happily jump and take her chances.

She was still too furious to really be terrified. Which meant it was time to act. Pulling in a steadying breath, she crossed
herself like a Papist and reached for the door handle.

It didn’t move. She jiggled it. She yanked. She tried the other one. Nothing. Somehow they had secured the doors, preventing
her from escaping. She was truly imprisoned.

For the first time, she was beginning to realize how desperate her situation was. Damn Edwin to hell. She needed to get word
to Diccan. He would intercede. He could at least threaten Edwin with the kind of public disgrace her brother loathed.

Diccan was thirty miles away burying his father. Too far for a quick rescue. Much too overwhelmed to have any attention left
for Kate.

She sighed, hating the shaky sound of it. She hated being out of control. She had long since sworn that she would never again
be at the mercy of another human being. She would never again know the feeling of helplessness.

She should have known better. She’d never had that kind of luck before. Why should it start now?

“Please,” she whispered out loud, knowing it was a prayer that wouldn’t be heard.

Back at the inn, people were just beginning to realize that there was something wrong. The ostlers had certainly seen carriages
speed through the archway before. There was an entire generation of young bucks who refused to
leave any other way. The bystanders weren’t even particularly surprised to see the elderly lady standing flatfooted by the
door, her hand still out, her mouth open and emitting garbled noises that made no sense. Obviously the young lady she’d been
talking to had departed mid-conversation. Unsettling even for people who weren’t dicked in the nob, like the old gal seemed
to be.

A few people frowned when the old woman turned back and forth and cried out, “Sabine women!,” her hand still pointing toward
the departed carriage. A few more shook their heads, sorry to see such a pitiful thing right there in public.

But when she started to sing, everybody stopped and stared. It wasn’t that she was singing Cherry Ripe, which shouldn’t have
ever been heard on the tongue of such a dignified old lady. It wasn’t even that she was singing the wrong words. It was that
even with the wrong words in a tune she shouldn’t know, it was beautiful.

“Thrasher, come!” she sang, head back, hands out. “Thrasher, come! Lady Kate, follow the way! The carriage has her! Follow
the way, Thrasher come!”

And just as if she were making any kind of sense at all, suddenly a motley gaggle of men in blue and gold livery came thundering
around the corner from the stables and headed for the old woman.

“That way I say!” the old woman sang, waving toward the street where the carriage had just disappeared. “Four horses black,
a driver strange. Follow the way, Thrasher, go!”

And darned if one of them didn’t respond. A thin, sharp-featured boy, without even pausing in his tracks, waved at the old
girl and took off after that carriage like a hare at the sound of a gun. As for the old lady, she just stood there,
tears running down her cheeks as the other men circled her, her own mismatched army. She stopped singing, though. The people
who had stopped to listen shook their heads and went back to their business.

“Well now,” the head groom said, turning back to his stable. “Wasn’t that somethin’?”

Kate began to frantically search the coach. Not for escape; she knew the coach was too well-made to be easily pulled apart.
For weapons. It was almost impossible, and she knew she’d be bruised from head to toe from trying, but even as she was thrown
around, she rifled through the cushions and side compartments, ripping and tugging until the inside of the coach looked as
if a mad animal had been caught inside.

Not so different, she thought, feeling more frantic as she failed to secure so much as a rusty spring with which to defend
herself. She was left with a hat pin. Luckily, she had used hat pins to great effect on more than one occasion.

If only she could rip through enough of the coach to see daylight. The coach was beginning to close in on her, all the daylight
barricaded away, leaving only shadow and speed. Even throwing herself under the wheels seemed to be a better option than simply
surrendering herself to the dark.