The Marquess (29 page)

“
Did
you seduce his betrothed?” she asked
with interest, delaying the inevitable result of their rising ardor.

Gavin shrugged. “It worked a little both ways, I
suppose. She was young and lovely. He was a middle-aged, balding, paunchy
merchant. In those days, I didn’t deny any willing woman.”

“Stupid.”

He tweaked her breast, and she gasped. He covered her mouth
with his, and she drank him in hungrily. Yes, he’d been stupid.

Gavin threaded his fingers through her hair and tilted her
head back to see her eyes. “After the duel, her reputation was in shreds.
I went back to do the honorable thing and offer her marriage. She screamed in
horror at the sight of me and ran away. I heard later that she married the bald
merchant.”

Dillian had the nerve to give him a saucy grin. “You
went back covered in bloody gashes and scared her to death. She deserved her
bald-headed merchant.”

He could correct her, but he didn’t. He liked this
version better. He’d been a bastard, no doubt, but he’d been an
honorable one. He just hadn’t thought his face that important at the
time. He’d learned differently soon enough.

“I suspect you need spectacles, Miss Whitnell, but
I’ll be satisfied that you don’t run screaming from my presence.”

Gavin unfastened the ribbon of her chemise and gazed with
satisfaction on the portion of her breasts revealed. He pushed the soft
material aside and caressed her nipple. He loved the way she arched
instinctively into his palm for more.

“I may not scream in horror, but I don’t promise
not to scream in outrage,” she warned, but her hand made its way to his
chest and tugged at the fastenings there.

Enjoying the badinage, he pushed her bodice off her
shoulder. “Outrage is acceptable.”

He took her mouth again, drowning all the years of
loneliness in her welcoming response. His soul craved her acceptance, her
comfort, her understanding. His body craved the release she could give him. He
only acknowledged the latter.

Gavin scarcely heeded the scream of the horses as he trailed
his kisses from Dillian’s mouth to her breast. Her moans provoked his
senses and sent him to new heights of arousal. He had her gown eased up to her
knees, and his hands climbed higher. He didn’t have time for screaming
horses.

Screaming horses
. The carriage jerked to a halt,
nearly tumbling them both from the seat. Gavin hastily shoved Dillian back on
the bench and reached into the pocket of his cloak for his pistol. He kept a
solid grip on his cane with the other hand. A flick of the wrist would release
the deadly sword blade hidden there, but he preferred that method of fighting
as a last line of defense. He leaned over and pushed the window shade aside.

“Can you see anything?” Dillian whispered. He
sensed her pulling her bodice back in place, and Gavin cursed. If Mac had just
hit a tree stump, he’d have the driver’s head. His loins
hadn’t stopped throbbing just because of this little delay.

“Stand and deliver!” a masculine voice roared
from the side of the road.

“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Disgusted, Gavin
gauged the distance between himself and the mounted figure at the edge of the
woods. The pistol had a short range. He needed to be closer. “The bastard
must be desperate to rob a carriage as pitiful as this one.”

“You don’t think it’s one of
Neville’s men looking for Blanche?”

“I think it more likely a blockhead too foxed to see
straight.” Grabbing his cane, Gavin staggered from the carriage door,
pretending to fall to his knees as he climbed out. His hand found several small
pebbles and a good-size rock. Under the concealment of his cloak, he deposited
them in his coat pocket as he pushed himself drunkenly to his feet again. Aware
Dillian had unraveled his cravat and unfastened his shirt, he figured he looked
the drunken aristocrat well enough. He lurched a little closer to the mounted
highwayman.

“Whatta hell you want?” he slurred his voice as
he staggered toward the side of the road.

The highwayman had a musket aimed at Mac’s head. His
hired man-of-all-trades didn’t have a lot in the brain box, but Gavin
wouldn’t see the poor sap shot for his service. He steered his course
between the two men.

“Give me all your jewels,” the highwayman
demanded, a trifle uncertainly.

“Jewels!” Gavin roared, flinging one side of his
cloak dramatically over his shoulder. “If I had jewels, did you think
I’d ride about in this moth-eaten piece of tin?”

The musket swerved uncertainly in his direction. With deadly
precision, Gavin palmed the larger rock in his hidden hand, aimed, and sent it
flying at the horse’s nose.

The horse shrieked in fury and reared, flinging its
unsuspecting and obviously incompetent rider to the ground. Gavin reached for
his pistol with satisfaction—until he heard the decidedly feminine
screech behind him.

“Get your hands off me, you loathsome cowardly cur!”

“Stop her clapper and get her out of there!” a
man’s voice shouted from the far side of the road.

With a roar of rage, Gavin leapt to the carriage step,
hauled himself to the top, and launched himself at the shadowy figure on the
other side daring to lay hands on Dillian. They went down in the road,
scuffling, while another mounted man in the shrubbery reviled them with
obscenities.

Gavin had his hands full and couldn’t reach the pistol
in his cloak. He grabbed the other man’s neck cloth and tried throttling
him, but his assailant carried more weight. He broke Gavin’s hold and
flung him to the ground, pinning him down with his bulk. Gavin freed one arm
and aimed for the testicles. His punch swung wide, but struck a soft belly and
caused a howl.

As he dug his fingers into any soft spot he could find,
Gavin felt the swish of skirts beside his face and cursed mightily at the fool
woman who couldn’t stay where she belonged. He tried shouting at her to
get back, but the miscreant had him by the throat. He drove his knee upward and
unsettled the other’s man position, but he couldn’t get out from
under in time to grab Dillian.

With surprise, Gavin felt a tug at his cloak as he was
nearly smothered in skirts and petticoat. Since his assailant had both hands in
his lapels while pounding him into the ground, the action confused him. Perhaps
he’d banged his head one too many times. The wild boar riding him roared
some more in an incomprehensible tongue, but even as he released Gavin’s
coat to reach for feminine skirts, Dillian darted out of range.

Taking advantage of the other man’s distraction, Gavin
nipped him back over and slammed his fist into a fat jaw with the same motion.
The bulky figure beneath him collapsed. Before he could leap to his feet and
grab Dillian, he heard the roar of his pistol.

The third man screamed in agony. With complete astonishment Gavin
took in the sight of the lady in frail, old-fashioned skirts aiming a pistol
with professional expertise toward the edge of the highway where the mounted
thief had stood just moments before. As Gavin shook himself off and rose to his
feet, he heard galloping hooves disappearing into the woods in the distance.

“Damn good show,” he muttered before turning to
wrap his cravat around the downed highwayman’s wrists. “Mac! Have
you got the other one trussed?”

“Was I supposed to?” a plaintive voice cried
from the other side of the carriage. “He done rode away, and the devil be
with him is all I say.”

“I’ll second that notion,” Gavin muttered,
searching through the unconscious man’s pockets, finding nothing of
interest.

“I believe they were after me,” Dillian said
quietly from beside him.

Quietly. Dillian never did anything quietly. With a jerk
Gavin jumped up and caught her where she swayed. She grabbed his rumpled coat
and buried her head against his chest. A surge of protectiveness startled him
as he cradled her small form against his much taller one. Michael was the one
who defended the hurt and helpless. Gavin had never concerned himself with
anything except survival. But still, he held her, absorbing her tremors of
fear. It felt right somehow.

He kissed her curls and stroked her slender back. “I
believe you are right. This doesn’t bode well at all.”

Dillian looked up suddenly. The paleness of her face struck
him to the heart.

“Blanche! If they know I’m with you,
they’ll go after Blanche!”

He couldn’t disagree with that assessment, either.

Huddled in her shawl, Dillian sat beside the marquess on the
driver’s seat as he urged their one horse down the road. The other horse
carried Mac to the manor to warn Blanche and Michael of the attack.

Gavin’s focus seemed entirely on their decrepit horse,
but she sensed his awareness of every sound and motion around them. She felt
the same awareness. They couldn’t afford a repetition of the earlier attack,
and two of the highwaymen still roamed loose.

At the same time, though, Dillian’s awareness centered
on the man expertly guiding the carriage down the lane. He continually
surprised her. The swiftness of his attack had left her awestruck. How many men
would have been both quick-witted enough to stone a horse and strong enough to
strangle an assailant twice his size? With the pistol in his pocket, he could
have easily dispatched the third man had she not done it for him.

“I suppose I am in your black book again,” he
commented, finally breaking the silence between them.

“Oh, certainly. I always disdain marquesses who can
fell two thieves at once. Very bad
ton
,” she answered airily.

“Good. I’ve always disliked ladies who can
shoot. That makes us even.”

“I told you I could shoot. I’m also an expert
marksman at archery, but I failed to bring my bow. I’m not quite so good
at fisticuffs, however,” she added regretfully.

“Don’t ask me to give you more lessons. I still
have bruises from the candlestick. I’m debating the wisdom of arming you
when we reach London. On one hand, I want you able to protect yourself from any
more such attacks, but on the other hand, I don’t want the blamed weapons
turned on me.”

“I never aim a pistol at the person who gives it to
me,” she said carelessly. “Unless provoked,” she added as an
afterthought.

Dillian thought the rusty rumble from his chest might be
laughter. She smiled a little. The attack had terrified her more than
she’d realized. The first strains of relief were just fighting their way
through. “What will O’Toole do when he receives your message? If
Blanche isn’t safe at Arinmede, where can he take her?”

The marquess stayed silent for a while. Gavin, she amended
to herself. She had every right to call him Gavin. She called Neville by his childhood
name as an insult, refusing to use his recent and unexpected title. But despite
all his eccentricities, the marquess struck her as a very noble marquess. She
had difficulty thinking of him as a person like herself.

“I’m not at all certain that they want her.
It’s a possibility, I suppose. They meant to kidnap a lady. They could be
a trifle confused as to which one. I just have the feeling that they knew who
you were.”

“That’s probably because the one you’ve
got trussed up yelled ‘She’s the one.’ The other man cursed
quite nicely after that. Shouldn’t we question him?”

“If we were back home, I’d have him nailed to a
tree. Unfortunately, as Michael continually points out to me, I’m a
bloody aristocrat here. I’m supposed to abide by the law. We’ll
find the magistrate in the next town and question him there.”

“Where do you call home? Is it near the sea? I
can’t imagine how you became a sailor.”

The horse whickered as a hare darted across the road, but
the animal didn’t have the energy to protest more than that. They
continued plodding down the dark lane. The marquess shrugged at her question.

“I grew up on the road. We never stayed in one place
long. My father had wandering feet, and my mother wouldn’t let him wander
without her. The wilderness of Kentucky appealed to me in my ill-spent youth,
but we didn’t linger.”

“Your accent isn’t quite American, but
it’s not English, either. I suppose that’s because you traveled so
much?”

“My father’s accent was distinctly British. He
used it to advantage, claiming to come from English aristocracy, inserting
himself into the best society when we had money enough to have his suit
cleaned.”

Gavin laughed. “I thought he’d made the tale up.
I didn’t realize he really was the grandson of a marquess. I suppose my
accent combines the worst of his and my mother’s. She came from Virginia.”

He abruptly cut short any further description of his
parents. Now that he’d finally opened up enough to talk, Dillian
didn’t want him stopping. “Is your mother still alive?” she
asked.

“No, she died when I was fifteen. My father died a few
years before. We made our own way after that.”

“We? You have brothers or sisters?”

He hesitated. Dillian hated it when he did that. She knew he
edited whatever he told her next to suit her ears. She considered punching him,
but they were getting along too well to disturb the peace over such an
innocuous question.

“Michael is five years younger. He went where I went.
It may not have been the smartest thing to do. I probably could have found a family
to take him in, but...” He shrugged. “Michael’s always been
an odd duck. I didn’t think he’d fit anywhere else. I don’t
know if I did him any favors, though.”

“He’s your brother?” she asked
incredulously. She couldn’t think of two people more unalike. Gavin was
tall, lean, and darkly handsome in a formidable way. Michael was slight,
auburn-haired, and charming, with a smile that could light candles if one
believed it. She preferred Gavin’s straightforward curtness.

He shrugged. “That’s a matter of opinion.
You’ll have to ask Michael. As I said, he’s an odd duck.”