Patrica Rice (2 page)

Fear spiked through her at the horses’ neighing protests as the carriage rocked and the wooden brakes screeched. Had the bridge gone out? Had a wheel broken?

The instant the carriage came to a full halt, Daphne shoved open the door. Behind her, her awakened maid wailed a protest, but she wasn’t calmly sitting here and waiting for someone to inform her that they were about to fall off a precipice.

Memory sent a
frisson of
fear through her, but she refused to retreat in the face of her cowardice. The shouts outside sounded like several men. Had there been an accident?

The dark shadow of a horseman veered close to the Lansburys’ elegant landau. Cast in darkness outside the carriage lamps, he presented an otherworldly appearance. The specter made a gentlemanly bow and doffed his hat.

“What is happening? Has there been a mishap?” she asked before climbing down.

 “I have only come to relieve you of a few baubles, my lady, and any coins you might have in your reticule. Consider it a contribution to charity, if you will, and you will soon be on your way.”

Thieves! That was impossible in this day and age. Highwaymen had been long banished to ... The wilds away from London where there was little or no law—Daphne finished the thought belatedly. Still, she could not just give up her entire quarter’s income at his request. She leaned out to pull the door shut again.

At that moment, a shot rang out farther down the road, and a scream of warning vibrated through the cool night air. From a distance, someone shouted, “Soldiers!” and closer to hand, the mounted highwayman muttered, “Damnation, a trap!”

Before Daphne could jerk back out of reach, he leaned over, hooked his arm around her waist, and hauled her over his knees.

She screamed a terrified protest. Her maid wailed in a soprano crescendo that pierced the ears. The highwayman merely kicked his horse and sprinted off into the darkness, one hand holding Daphne safely in place.

“Cease the caterwauling and you’ll be safe,” he ordered as the horse leapt a small hedge and dashed through a clearing between the trees. “Continue, and you’ll live to regret it. I mean only to keep you hostage until the soldiers are gone.’’

Daphne fell silent, more from lack of breath than obedience. The horse’s rough gait jarred knees against ribs, and to her utter humiliation, she found herself clinging to a very masculine leg from a very intimate position. Still, she felt as if she would slide off at any moment.

She strained to detect any sound of pursuit, but her blood was throbbing in her ears and panic clouded her senses. Never in all her years had she been subjected to this kind of ill treatment, and to think, she had thought he sounded a gentleman!

They splashed across a river, soaking her woolen traveling gown at the hem and spraying water up the back of her heavy pelisse. She shivered as the icy water soaked through, and the horseman adjusted her more comfortably.

“Not far now. You’ll be fine.”

Daphne scarcely considered his promise reassuring. What did the highwayman consider to be fine? She was already soaked, cold, and humiliated to the marrow of her bones. She couldn’t wait until she had breath to release the outrage choking in her throat.

The smell of his boot leather filled her nostrils, and she became aware of other scents besides that of damp vegetation. The faint scent of bay rum mingling with masculine perspiration confused her. Did highwaymen wear bay rum? It was an odor that choked the ballrooms of London, but out here in the desolate countryside it had an almost pleasant scent. Perhaps it just reminded her of civilization.

The horse reared abruptly, and the thief chuckled as Daphne’s fingers dug into his leg and creased his trousers. A hard arm lifted her with casual ease and slid her to the ground as a shrill whistle in the distance cut the air in a vague resemblance to a bugle’s all-clear.

He released her in obvious response to the signal. “My men should be safely away by now. You’ll find a short walk down this path will lead you to a cottage where a very kindly widow and her servants live. If you’ll hand over your trinkets, I shall leave you alone.”

Now that her feet were back on solid ground and the breath was returning to her lungs, Daphne stared up at the immensity of man and beast and the old, familiar anger struck again. She had promised to control her temper, and she had honestly tried, but this was more than any one person should have to bear.

“You can’t do this! This is an outrage! How dare you desert me like this! You must take me back to my maid and carriage at once. You cannot leave me out here miles from civilization. What kind of gentleman do you purport to be to thus treat a lady?”

The highwayman leaned over in the saddle to study her. He had been quite prepared for her to faint and weep and plead for mercy. This mixture of rage and haughtiness from one so delicate caught him by surprise, but the fury underlying her words held something else. If she were afraid of him, wouldn’t she use her anger to run? What kind of woman would demand that a thief linger to return her to her maid?

“The carriage is further than the cottage, miss. Did you enjoy our ride so that you wish to repeat it?”

The taunting mockery of his words drew blood into her cheeks, and Daphne had to clench her fingers to restore proper decorum.”I am not familiar with these woods, sir. I could be lost for days. If you will not return me to the carriage, you must take me to the cottage.”

She said it as firmly as she could manage through chattering teeth. The icy river water was responsible for only a small part of her chill, she feared.

Beginning to lose his patience, the highwayman leaned over to wrap his fingers around the gold locket at her throat. “Are you so rich you have forgotten how to walk? Then you won’t mind if I relieve you of this feeble trinket. I daresay Lansbury was too smart to bait a trap with real jewels.”

Daphne smacked at his gloved hand and stepped backward. Her foot slipped on the damp moss and her weak knee betrayed her. The aching cold of the river water had done its damage, as she’d feared.

She would have fallen had he not dropped to the ground and grabbed her. She righted herself and attempted to elude his grasp, but the thief’s fingers kept their grip on her shoulder.

“What has Lord Lansbury to do with this? Let me go.” Daphne tried to disguise her fear. Now that he stood before her, she knew her abductor to be very tall, and the broad shadow of his shoulders conveyed his strength, even if his grip had not already warned her.

Gentlemen were supposed to be languid and incapable of such violent swiftness of action. He could not be the gentleman her other senses said he must be. Yet she could not run from him even if he showed himself to be scoundrel.

The lady’s air of fear and defiance was puzzling, and instincts ever alert, the thief pursued his curiosity further. If she truly were Lansbury’s bait, then perhaps she did not know what he was talking about, but surely even Lansbury wouldn’t send a lady out to trap a highwayman without warning her.

That meant—despite her rounded tones— she could be a common trollop eager to earn a few coins in any way she could.

That thought lasted no longer than it took to breathe in the scent of his captive’s expensive French bath salts. The quality of the fine woven wool beneath his fingers and the delicacy of the bones beneath his grip put the lie to commonness. She had to know of the trap. His fingers tightened.

“Lady, I’m willing to be fair with you. Lansbury won’t miss these few baubles, and I’m certain he didn’t intend for you to risk yourself in this attempt. We weren’t pursued, so you cannot hope to be rescued. Had you paid any attention at all, you would have noticed the soldiers were on foot. They don’t send cavalry after thieves.”

“I know we’re not being pursued or I would have told you to be on your way.” Retreating behind the mask of dignity she donned when she betrayed her weakness, Daphne took the offensive.

She dusted down her gown and pelisse and took another step away from his overpowering presence. “I cannot imagine why a gentleman should resort to terrifying ladies, or what Lord Lansbury has to do with any of this since he is exceedingly occupied in the government right now and not inclined to worry about wayward gentlemen ...”

She stopped, trying to remember where this thought was supposed to lead. She was chattering like a nervous magpie, but this man’s presence had unnerved her as no other had.

She gathered her scattered wits and tried again. “I have no wish to do anything but reach Aunt Agatha’s safely, and I cannot do so if you desert me in the middle of the woods. And you can’t have the locket. It belonged to my mother and is worthless to anyone but me. I have a few coins in my pocket, you may have those. And this silly ring that Cousin Sally insisted I must wear.”

She pulled off the despised object and joined it with the coins she carried so that her footman and driver could enjoy the occasional draft of ale, thankful that the reticule with her allowance was still in the carriage. “Now, take me to the cottage, please, and you may be on your way.”

This was most extraordinary. He generally didn’t stop unaccompanied young ladies, but her pensive face in the window had lit a wicked bit of mischief in him. He hadn’t meant to do more than relieve her of a few coins and compliment her beauty. Lansbury was wealthy enough that he could afford to replace a few stolen coins.

But in the few months since he had taken up this life of crime, he had never met so self-possessed a victim, even if she were as barmy as a Bedlamite. He almost felt inclined to obey her commands. Almost.

He pocketed the trinkets and reached for his horse. “The cottage is straight ahead. You cannot miss it. Good night.”

Fury overcame dignity at this certain desertion. Daphne had been scarcely left alone for a moment these last five years, and certainly never in a strange place. Her knee throbbed with pain and threatened to give out under her, no doubt plunging her into a raging river.

Refusing to admit to anything so telling as terror, Daphne stamped her foot and grabbed the thief’s coat sleeve. “I’ll not be left alone like this, without even a lantern to light my way. I will not, do you hear? Show me to this cottage if it is so close by.”

Astonished at her behavior, the highwayman took his boot from the stirrup and returned it to the ground. No one had ever spoken to him in such a manner. Obviously, she was badly spoiled. Or was she? She did not strike him as the shrewish type. The memory of her lovely face in the window worried at him. He caught her chin in his fingers and raised her face to study it.

“And if I don’t?”

She had been leading a sheltered life much too long. She had faced down other fears; it was time to conquer still one more. Closing her eyes to control her temper, Daphne summoned her flagging courage. “Were I still in London, I would have my groom flog you. Since I must now adapt myself to country ways, I suppose I shall have to hunt you down myself and shoot you.”

A hint of amusement laced his voice.”You are quite mad, you know.”

Daphne heard none of the amusement or admiration in his voice. She heard only the word “mad” and her temper soared beyond the boundaries of reason again. Ignoring her crippled knee, she swung from the thief s grip and struck off blindly in the direction he had indicated earlier.

No one had ever spoken to her as had this wretched thief, confronting her with her worst fears. They had whispered about her mother and voiced their suspicions behind her back, but never had she been forced to face their accusations directly.

“Look at the eyes,” they’d say. “Just like her mother’s.” That epithet was the one that terrified her the most.

Perhaps she was mad. Perhaps her mother’s madness had started this way, with fears she could not control. Daphne tried not to think it, but the stranger’s words cut through all pretense. She would rather risk falling in the river than plead with him again.

Watching her limp as she walked away, the thief cursed. He was as mad as she, but he could not leave a lady in distress. Stepping forward, he caught her hand and placed it on his arm. “I am sorry. I had not realized I injured you in my haste.”

Daphne grasped this support with a shudder of relief. The pain had been sufficient to cool her temper. In a little while, it would go away, but she was too terrified to turn away a helping hand. At the concern in his voice, she answered honestly, “‘Twas not your fault but the water’s. And the cold. Just call it an old war wound, if you will.”

At the pain in his victim’s voice, the highwayman let her comment go by unquestioned. Old war wound? His gaze surveyed her slender figure consideringly, wondering what to make of that.

“You are come to stay in these parts?” he questioned randomly, leading her a little farther down the path, watching carefully as she limped beside him.

“With my aunt, Lady Agatha Templeton. I can only be thankful she will not worry when I do not arrive tonight. She does not expect me until tomorrow.”

It was very probable that the carriage had gone on to Lady Agatha’s by now, and the entire household would be in an uproar, but he did not tell her of that. He was beginning to feel very ashamed of himself for frightening a mere woman and a harmless old lady for the sake of a coin and a pretty-face. A hell of a highwayman he made.

“I will take you to the widow’s light. I dare not go too close to the cottage, for the widow’s sake as well as my own. If the soldiers are still about, they may think her an accomplice.”

Daphne grasped the strength of his arm. “It is absurd to thank you after the harm you have done, but I do know you could have left me. I am a coward when left alone.” That was an understatement, but she didn’t enlarge upon it. “I will thank you for this small kindness.”

He could have done a great deal worse than leave her alone, but such topics did not come easily to a lady’s mind, and he certainly wasn’t one to introduce them.

It had been months since he had escorted a delicate female about, and he was rather enjoying the moment. She smelled delightful, although anything clean would smell delightful after months of living with unbathed villains.