Ripe for Pleasure (36 page)

Without a word, he jumped down and slammed the door shut behind him, the scraping sound of the lock enraging her further.
“They’ll have to kill you. You know that?” she yelled after him, giving the door a good kick for emphasis.

Beau crossed her arms and hugged herself. Nowlin might not be ready to let her go yet, but if he failed to see reason, she’d
see him cowering and bloody just like the others.

She was ruined already, and they both knew it. What he didn’t know was that her father would let her choose ruin and a quiet
life abroad, and she wouldn’t hesitate to embrace the option. Paris, Vienna, Florence… perhaps even St. Petersburg or Tangiers.

Hours later, the coach suddenly shimmied beneath her, shaking Beau out of a hazy nap. It bounced horribly, then sagged backward
as it came to a stop.

A chorus of cursing swirled about her. Beau smiled to herself. There was something wrong with one of the wheels. That would
slow them down. And if they had to stop for a repair, Nowlin would have to let her out of the carriage. She straightened her
clothing and finger-combed her hair, slipping the pins back into place.

Eventually, the coach resumed its progress, but with a rolling jolt and a scraping sound that spoke all too clearly of increasing
damage. After a painfully slow hour, they entered a small village, little more than an inn, a few shops, and a smattering
of houses along an otherwise desolate stretch of road.

The minutes stretched. Beau began to fear that Nowlin intended to keep her locked in the coach while the wheel
was seen to, but eventually the door opened and he appeared to lead her inside.

“Don’t bother telling tales to these kind people,” Nowlin announced loudly as he dragged her through the taproom. “I’ve told
them all about your little escapade.”

Beau glared at him. Martin had done that, too: poisoned the well so no one would help her. Nowlin pushed her into a private
parlor and kicked the door shut behind them.

“Wives who run off and abandon their husbands and bairns don’t sit too well with the common folk.”

“And I suppose you’re the forgiving husband come to fetch me home?”

“And I always will. Don’t believe anything different for a moment, my love. Have a seat and eat something.” He gestured to
the table, where a cold piece of steak and kidney pie sat waiting beside a tankard with a frothy head that promised ale. There
were no utensils on the table.

“I see you remembered about the fork.”

Nowlin laughed, his misleading dimples peeping out. “No forks, no knives, no candlesticks. I suppose you could hit me with
a chair, but if you do, you’ll eat the rest of your meals standing at the mantel.” He bowed and slipped out of the room.

Beau swallowed down her anger and sat. Her stomach had been growling since dawn. Starving herself wouldn’t help her situation
one jot. She pulled off her gloves, thrust them into her pocket, and sat.

When she had finished, she pushed the empty plate away and paced the room. A small commode was the room’s only other piece
of furniture. Beau rifled through
it. It held a chamber pot, a few glasses, and an assortment of half-used candles of dubious quality.

She hefted the chamber pot with one hand. It was heavy stoneware. Nothing like the porcelain ones she was used to, with their
fanciful flowers or pretty patterns of Oriental splendor. It was… she searched for the proper word: serviceable.

Clubbing Nowlin with it might not get her anywhere, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. If she could wound him, it might at least
slow them down, or delay them further.

She took up a position a safe distance behind the door and waited. He’d had fair warning, which was more than any woman owed
under such circumstances.

The door swung open a few minutes later, and Nowlin, in a fresh change of clothes and newly shaved, stepped through. His cologne
preceded him like a dog before its cart, the scent flooding the room.

Fury burst through her.
He
got a change of clothing and a wash, while she was still wearing the same gown he’d abducted her in and hadn’t been offered
so much as a basin of water to wash her hands in.

She raised the heavy chamber pot as high as the tight sleeves of her jacket would allow and swung hard, putting all her anger
and frustration behind it. Nowlin ducked, twisting about to face her, taking only a glancing blow to the head.

With a growl, he caught her wrists and squeezed. The chamber pot slipped from her grasp and hit the floor with the unmistakable
sound of pottery breaking.

Beau twisted her wrists, wrenching one free. Nowlin let go of the other and backhanded her across the face,
sending her sprawling. Beau hit the wall, tasting blood, pulse hammering through her like a military drum calling the troops
to war.

She slid all the way to the floor, keeping the wall at her back. Nowlin stared at her as her hand closed around one of the
shards of the pot. The edge was rough, jagged. It would hurt when she slashed it across his handsome face.

“Put it down, my bonny lass, or I swear on St. Patrick’s staff, I’ll beat you silly.”

Beau tightened her grip and got a boot to the stomach for her defiance. She gasped and retched, her vision flickering as pain
roiled through her. He’d kicked her hard enough to break the wooden busk of her stays, and now they were gouging into her,
making it impossible to draw a free breath.

Nowlin stepped heavily onto her wrist, boot smearing her with mud, and wrenched the pottery shard out of her hand. He jerked
her up, fingers digging into the flesh of her arm.

“Would you really rather be dead? That’s not the plan, and I’d be hard-pressed to explain it, but you’re begging for a beating
the likes of which you’ve clearly never seen. We’re leaving now, and you’re going to behave yourself on the way to the coach
or I truly will make you regret it, lass. Do you understand?”

Beau met his gaze. He didn’t even look angry, just grimly determined. The taste of blood in her mouth made her stomach lurch
painfully against her broken busk. She turned her head and spat.

“I see that you do understand.” His smile returned in full force. “Good.”

•     •     •

The mist had thickened, not quite turning to rain but heavy enough to coat everything with a damp layer of droplets every
bit as cold and slippery. Gareth Sandison turned up the collar of his greatcoat and gave Mountebank his head. The gelding
picked up the pace, breaking into a trot, as eager as Gareth to reach a warm, dry inn.

A few miles on, clear signs of habitation began. He was nowhere near St. Neots and the Swan and Bell, but whatever village
this was would undoubtedly have an inn of some kind. He’d settle for a spot in the taproom at this point.

As Gareth entered the village proper, it wasn’t hard to spot the inn. A mail coach was just departing, and a somewhat battered
private carriage was drawn up outside, its groom in the process of checking the harness on what looked to be a fresh team.
Gareth reined in. Monty shook like a dog beneath him, flinging droplets of water in all directions.

“I know, boy. It’s high time we both found ourselves a…” His ability to speak deserted him.

A woman’s head of curls broke through the mist, her hair so dark it seemed to bleed right through the gray. Her head was uncharacteristically
bowed, but her height was unmistakable. A man ushered her along, hands familiarly at her arm and waist. Not her father. Not
either of her brothers. Certainly not one of the handful of men her family might accept as a suitor. Gareth knew them all.

Lady Boudicea Vaughn was eloping.

A red fog filled his head. His vision tunneled out. Monty gave an impatient crow hop, and Gareth forced himself to loosen
the reins and relax in the saddle.

The man bundled her into the coach and leapt in after her. The door shut, and the coach rolled into motion. Gareth watched
it go. Its wheels sprayed mud in their wake, and it disappeared into the heavy mist in moments.

Monty was cantering after them before Gareth even realized he’d made a decision.

The crack of a gunshot resounded like a clap of thunder. Beau scrambled for the door, only to be dragged back by her hair.
The coach skidded to a stop, sliding in the mud with a sickening, sideways lurch. A few shouts, muffled by the rain and the
walls of the coach, and then the door was wrenched open and the wide-eyed groom slid hurriedly out of the way.

“Out, everyone out.” The command came from some distance away, muffled but loud enough to be heard nonetheless.

Nowlin swore under his breath, let go of her hair, and stepped out. He attempted to keep Beau inside, but she squeezed out
past him. This might be her best chance. Her only chance. Highwaymen were, after all, seeking money. And if there was one
thing her family had in abundance, it was money.

Rain droplets splattered across her skin, large but infrequent. A man on a large, dappled horse held a gun pointed at them,
the barrel nearly the same smoky blue as the mist that swirled around their feet.

His mouth and nose were hidden in his cravat and the turned-up collar of his coat, but she’d know that horse anywhere. Lord
knew she’d ridden him often enough before her brother had sold him. She didn’t need the cor
roboration of Sandison’s silvery queue and narrowed blue eyes, but she was relieved to see them all the same.

Beau bit her lips and tried to keep from smiling. Nowlin wasn’t going to get a chance to follow through with any of his threats.
Not today. Not ever. He’d be lucky to continue drawing breath.

“Your purse, sir.”

Nowlin glared and tossed his wallet onto the ground at the horse’s feet. Monty took a step back, clearly not happy about having
things tossed at him in such a fashion.

Sandison’s eyes met hers and narrowed, as though he were accessing the situation still. Beau lifted her chin and stared right
back. What was he waiting for?

“If the lady would be so kind as to retrieve it for me?”

Beau stepped toward him, but Nowlin blocked her with his arm, doing quite the impression of a man bravely guarding his own.
“Get it yourself, roadbird.”

“Ah-ah-ah. You were so hasty as to toss it to the ground. And I’m not fool enough to dismount. The lady seems the safest choice.”

When Nowlin didn’t remove his arm, Sandison trained the gun directly at him. “I suppose I could simply shoot you and then
retrieve it myself. In fact, if you persist in this nonsense, I might take pleasure in doing just that.”

Nowlin’s arm sagged away from her, and Beau stepped around him, trying desperately not to appear too eager. Why didn’t Sandison
just shoot him? He had a clear shot. Was he choosing this moment in life to become squeamish?

She picked her way through the mud and bent carefully to pick up the wallet, hissing as her stays dug deeper into her flesh.
She thrust the wallet into her pocket as
Monty pivoted, swinging his hindquarters about, putting himself between her, Nowlin, and the coach.

Nowlin’s shout of protest was lost in the loud report of the pistol and the splintering of wood. Beau grabbed Sandison’s arm,
fingers gouging into the wet wool of his coat. He swung her up, and Monty sprang away, long legs eating up ground at a thunderous
pace.

Gareth wrapped one arm around Lady Boudicea and gave Mountebank his head. The gelding flew through the trees. Small branches
snatched at Gareth’s hair. One struck his cheek hard enough that he was sure to have a welt.

Beau clutched at his coat, and he tightened his grip. He’d been lucky to get hold of her at all. Retaining her would prove
difficult if she fought him. He didn’t ever want to explain that he’d had to hurt Leo’s sister in any way, for any reason.

“Did you shoot him?” Her question rattled through him, bringing a twinge of conscience in its wake. Lord knew he’d wanted
to in the moment, but he understood what might prompt a man to go to such lengths.

If he hadn’t been friends with her brother, he might have done the same himself. Now that she was shivering in his arms, the
urge to keep her for himself was nearly irresistible. It burned beneath his skin, alive and hot and wicked.

“No, I’ll leave that to your brothers. Rescuing you from yourself is effort enough for me.”

She moved impatiently in his arms. “Can we stop for a moment?”

Gareth grinned. That was the Beau he knew. Get him to stop: give her swain a chance to catch up, give her a chance to slip
away and run back to him. Cunning, conniving, and unstoppable. “Not just yet, brat. I’d like a bit more distance between us
and them before I do.”

“Agreed, but my busk broke when he kicked me, and it hurts like the devil. Monty’s jostling is killing me.”

He straightened in the saddle, stiffening his seat, and Monty planted his hooves and skidded to a halt. “He what?”

Gareth swung his leg over Monty’s neck and took them both down to the ground in a single motion. This didn’t sound like one
of her tricks, and the thought of it brought the red haze back to the edge of his vision.

“What do you mean he kicked you?”

Beau swayed unsteadily as she got her feet beneath her. Gareth gripped her shoulders and looked her over. Her hair was a tumbled
riot, and there was what looked like a bruise waxing across one cheekbone. She looked exhausted: the hollows beneath her eyes
deep and shadowed, the skin almost papery.

“He didn’t take it at all kindly when I hit him with a chamber pot.” Her fingers popped the hooks that held her jacket closed.
“Now help me, please.”

Gareth sucked in a breath and did as directed. That might have been the first
please
he’d ever had from her. He tugged off her jacket, stripping the damp silk from her with difficulty. She dragged her trailing
hair over one shoulder, and he jerked loose the knot that held her stays laced tightly shut.

“Are you telling me I should have shot him?”

“Yes!”

The venom in that single word took him aback. “My apologies, Bantling. Next time I’ll try to do better.”

He took a deep breath and whipped the cord free with sharp, deliberate movements, trying not to think about the fact that
Lady Boudicea Vaughn was about to stand before him one damp layer from naked. Trying not to compare the reality of it to the
daydreams he so often used to while away the time.