Ripe for Scandal (9 page)

A
dangerous swirl of horses and men flying in all directions greeted them at Neville’s Cross. The busy yard had nearly a dozen
coaches loading and off-loading passengers and baggage and swapping teams. Beau stepped out of the coach, only to flatten
herself against it as the mail swept past, close enough that the wheel brushed her skirt.

“Damn it all,” Beau said more loudly than she intended.

“I told you to stay in the coach.” Gareth spun about and stepped over to brush ineffectively at the bits of mud—and worse—spattered
across her petticoats like a foul sprigging.

“I need to use the privy.”

Gareth glanced around the busy yard, eyes tracking the chaos. “Be quick about it and hurry back.”

Beau clenched her teeth and wove her way through the throng that seemed to have filled the inn’s courtyard to the bursting
point. She stepped into the taproom to ask
directions to the privy, and a harried-looking maid thrust a rough stoneware cup of tea into her hands.

Beau drank it without hesitation. Lord knew when Gareth would see fit to feed her next. He’d refused to stop to eat or sleep,
paying extra for a new team to push on through the night. They’d changed teams again just before dawn, but all she’d got was
a cup of ale and a stale muffin without so much as butter or jam.

She finished the tea, scalding her tongue in the process, and got directions to the inn’s privies from a group of female passengers.
Once the call of nature had been answered, Beau stepped out and hurried toward the back door of the busy inn. A harried woman
with a child in tow passed her, scolding the child under her breath.

The door of the privy snapped shut behind them, and Beau was suddenly hauled off her feet. Her scream was cut off by a large,
gloved hand covering her mouth. Beau wrenched her head to one side and bit down. The man cursed, wrapping his arm more securely
about her waist.

Beau flailed, catching him a glancing blow with her elbow and a more solid one with her heel. His grip slackened, and she
pulled loose. She threw a fleeting glance over her shoulder as she rushed inside. Nowlin. Not one of her brothers. Thank God.

Heart in her throat, Beau pushed through the crowd and into the busy yard. Sandison was impossible to miss, pale head shining
above the rest. His brows drew sharply together as he spotted her. Beau fought the tears that she could feel building behind
her eyes.

A groom ran past, leading a steaming bay, and she lost sight of Sandison for a moment. Beau forced herself
to stand calmly. To wait. Sandison was right there. With a flick of its tail, the horse was gone, and Sandison was striding
toward her.

He swept her across the yard, arm wrapped protectively about her. “I think one of your brothers has just arrived, so best
hurry. No one’s stepped out of the coach yet, but I swear that’s Sampson on the box.”

Beau’s stomach turned over, and her hands went cold. “Mr. Nowlin as well. He tried to grab me.”

“Here?” Sandison glanced hurriedly around. “Whatever happens, I promise you”—his voice dropped, the tone turning dark—“Mr.
Nowlin will be dealt with.” His grip tightened, the pressure welcome and reassuring. “Don’t you dare vomit on my boots, brat.
We’ll brush through this. Thankfully the yard is still overrun. We should be able to slip away if we’re quick about it.”

Beau held her breath and ducked her head. Please let it not be Leo. Please let it not be Leo. The single thought burned through
her like a prayer.

As Sandison thrust her into the coach, she heard her elder brother’s voice, loud and brusque. “Get the team changed. I’m going
inside to look for her.”

Sandison stepped in, the door closed, and he knocked hard against the roof to signal the coachman to set off. “Glennalmond,”
he said. “I don’t think he saw either of us.”

“He wouldn’t,” Beau replied. “Glennalmond’s looking for what he’s found before: a trail of wreckage, woe, and blood, leading
to a man who’s rapidly coming to the realization that he’s made a profound mistake.”

Lord Leonidas Vaughn stood rooted beside his horse, rage and betrayal crawling up this throat to choke him. Glennalmond had
missed Beau entirely. Leo had very nearly done so himself. It hadn’t been the woman in the ill-fitting gown who had caught
his eye. It had been the tall, familiar figure of his closest friend.

Sandison. The man he’d left in charge of keeping an eye on Beau. A man he’d trusted without question. His sister’s frightened
face peered back over Sandison’s shoulder as he shoved her into a somewhat battered coach. Leo swallowed hard. Nothing scared
Beau. Whatever Sandison had done to make her look like that, Leo was going to make sure that he regretted it.

Leo caught the arm of an ostler and shoved the reins of his hack into the man’s hands. “Saddle me a fresh horse. There’s a
crown in it for you if you’re done by the time I get back.”

With the man’s “Yes, sir” ringing in his ears, Leo waded through the crowd and into the taproom. He found his brother, cup
of ale in hand, surveying the room.

“No sign of her,” Glennalmond said.

Leo let his breath out in a sigh and tried desperately to keep his temper in check. “That’s because she just left.”

Glennalmond swallowed wrong and spat ale onto the floor as he coughed. Leo thumped him on the back, plucked the glass from
his hand, and finished the ale in one gulp.

“With Gareth Sandison,” Leo added. Just saying the name brought a rush of renewed anger that flooded through him until even
his fingertips throbbed with it.

“Sandison?” Glennalmond sounded as though he couldn’t quite grasp what Leo had said. “But she and he—”

“Don’t get on at all. I know. You should have seen her face. Stricken. Frightened. I’ve never seen Beau look like that. Not
even when she stole grandfather’s hunter and went on a cattle raid with Sean McDermid when she was ten.”

Glennalmond’s face turned beet red. “I’ll kill him. Earl’s son or not, I’ll strangle him with my bare hands.”

“Not if I beat you to it,” Leo said.

CHAPTER 10

B
eau hugged herself, trying to rub away the prickle of gooseflesh that wouldn’t abate. That had been close. Too close. On every
front. If Nowlin had held on, she’d be Lord only knew where by now, and if Glennalmond had caught up to them already, Leo
and her father couldn’t be far behind.

“Can we go to ground somewhere?” she said, horrified by how pathetic and frightened she sounded. “Just disappear until they
all give up looking?”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Sandison replied, his tone as grim as his expression. “You’re not to leave my sight.
Your Irish suitor will have to go through me if he’s to lay so much as a finger on you ever again. As for your family, we
could attempt to lose ourselves in Leeds. Put up in one of the smaller inns for a week or so. They couldn’t possibly search
them all.”

“Or we could leave the main road,” Beau said, twisting her petticoat in both hands. “We could turn off at Wakefield and go
west. Or head east to Scarborough and follow the coastal road north.” Anything. They could do
anything and that would have to be better than following the prescribed path.

A look of disgust seemed to have settled permanently onto Sandison’s brow. Beau’s eyes burned, and she furiously blinked away
the onset of tears. Was he starting to reconsider their plan? To regret it?

Beau bit her lip. “If you’ve changed your mind, you could leave me at the next posting inn. Glennalmond will find me, and
no one need ever know…” She let the statement trail off.

His head snapped up, blue eyes piercing her. “Have you?”

Beau shook her head. No. She hadn’t, but guilt rather than blood seemed to be pumping through her veins. She was selfishly
ruining his friendship with her brother. Perhaps forever.

One side of Sandison’s mouth curled into a smile. Beau’s pulse steadied. She relaxed her hands, startled to find how tightly
they’d been clenched. She knew that smile. It was the one he wore when teasing her, or torturing one of his friends with some
prank.

Thank God.

“Then we’ll turn at Wakefield and head west,” he said, still smiling. “We can pick the road to Gretna back up at Manchester.
Hopefully everyone else will continue north toward Newcastle Upon Tyne before cutting over.”

Beau felt the tension drain out of her. Whatever happened, she trusted Sandison to keep her safe. Foolish as many would consider
such conviction, it was true all the same. Though Leo would never forgive him, Sandison would do it for his sake as much as
for hers.

“Abducting heiresses is a great deal of trouble,” she said, poking Sandison in the shin with her toe.

“Being abducted by them seems every bit as much work to me,” he replied with perfect seriousness, though this smile had grown
into a full-fledged grin.

“I did
not
abduct you.”

“Didn’t you?” His dark brows rose in the center, mocking her.

Beau narrowed her eyes at him, knowing that he’d still see the smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. When you came right
down to it, she had, hadn’t she? And she’d do it again.

“I rescued you,” he continued, “but here we are fleeing your brothers and running toward the border. One of us
must
have abducted the other. And since it most certainly wasn’t I…”

“And it is my family after all which has the reputation for outrageousness?”

“It is, isn’t it?” He sounded almost cheerful at the thought.

“As well you know, sir. Fine, I give in.
I
abducted
you
. What are you going to do about it?”

Sandison stretched out his legs and propped his booted feet up on the seat. “Sit quietly and pray for deliverance?”

Sandison leapt down from the coach, but before he could turn to assist Beau out, he was thrown back inside. Beau cracked her
head against the far wall. Sandison’s weight crushed her into the floor, her petticoats indecorously high about her knees.

Backlit by a rising moon, her brother Leo stood framed
in the small doorway. Beau froze, heart squeezed into a tiny, nonfunctional ball. Leo reached in, took hold of Sandison’s
coat, and hauled him out. Beau tumbled out after them, tripping on her skirts and landing in a crumpled pile.

She hadn’t seen Leo this angry since the night he’d found her at a courtesan’s masquerade at Vauxhall. “No, Leo!” She scrambled
up and grabbed her brother’s arm, clinging to it like a terrier with a rat when he tried to shake her off. “It isn’t what
you think.”

Leo stared down at her, eyes blazing. Beau rapidly reassessed her opinion. She’d never seen him this angry. Never.

“Go inside, Beau.”

Beau squeezed tighter onto his arm. “Leo, I swear to you—”

“Inside!” He peeled her fingers off his coat sleeve and shoved her toward the small inn. “Now, Beau!”

Beau took a step back and glared at him. He had to understand—had to be made to understand. Sandison was holding his jaw,
waggling it back and forth, as though testing to see if it were still in one piece.

Leo glared back. “Glennalmond will be along in the carriage soon enough. Until then, wait inside. I’ve a parlor already hired
for your use.”

“Do as he says, Beau,” Sandison said, the sound of his voice breaking the silent detente between Beau and her brother.

Without a word, Leo launched himself at his friend. Sandison blocked the first blow, but the second rocked his head back,
and the third doubled him over. He wasn’t going to fight back. Wasn’t even going to try to defend himself.

Stupid man. Honor didn’t demand that he allow Leo to beat him senseless. Or if it did, she wasn’t about to stand by and watch.

Beau waded in and pulled her brother out by the skirts of his coat. Sandison pushed himself upright, wiping blood from his
chin.

Leo spun toward her, yanked his coat from her grasp, and took one awful step toward her. Beau could feel her temper eating
away at her self-control. She and he were very much alike when it came to that. Very much like their mother. But if she gave
in and hit him, he might just be angry enough to hit her back.