The Nobody: Signet Regency Romance (InterMix) (8 page)

“No, I don’t think so,” he replied, with unimpaired calm. “For I do not generally take pleasure in others’ discomfiture. It is only
your
discomfiture, Miss Campbell, that I find so irresistible.”

At this, all her resolve vanished, and with it her composure. Impossible to behave with indifference! Impossible to pretend their first meeting never happened! Her eyes flashed and her voice shook.

“As you hardly know me, Lord Kilverton, I can only ascribe your intolerable manners, and the disgusting familiarity of your language, to a desire to rub my nose in an incident I wish with all my heart could be forgotten. Such unhandsome conduct does you no credit, believe me! A gentleman would never take such advantage of a lady unless he held her in the greatest contempt imaginable. But I have done nothing to earn your contempt! The liberties you took with me were—as you must know!—taken without my consent. I did not encourage you! I did not assist you! I did not welcome your advances! It is grossly unfair for you to—to
leer
at me in this insufferable fashion. To shame me, and press your advantage, when every advantage you have you took from me by force!” Her voice broke, and she angrily dashed tears from her eyes. “But it does not signify talking, after all.”

She would have walked away from him at this, but he caught her arm and addressed her in a completely altered tone. “No, do not run away from me!”

She jerked her arm out of his clasp with an angry little cry, but he caught it again. “Please, Miss Campbell, you must compose yourself. You do not wish to join the others in a state that will excite comment.”

She hesitated, irresolute. “Please,” he said again quietly, and she allowed him to lead her a little way off the path as if to admire the view. He then produced a handkerchief and would have dried her tears for her, but she snatched it out of his hand. He said nothing, but stood quietly by as she dabbed her eyes and gave a disconsolate sniff.

“Miss Campbell, I beg your pardon from the bottom of my heart. I never meant to make you cry.”

“I am not crying!” she announced, in a voice of loathing. “That is a weakness I despise! It is just that I am so angry!”

“You have every reason to be angry.”

“Your conduct toward me, Lord Kilverton, has been reprehensible from the instant you encountered me!”

“Yes, it has.”

“I cannot imagine what possessed you, to seize a stranger in the middle of the street and use her so.”

“Shocking!”

“And then when you encountered me again, to pursue your advantage so rudely! You should have pretended not to recognize me.”

“Very true! My conduct was most ungentlemanly. I am a monster.”

“Well,” she continued in a more mollified tone, “it may have been merely thoughtlessness on your part. I daresay you did not stop to consider what my feelings must be.”

“No, Miss Campbell, do not let me off so lightly—for I
should
have considered what your feelings must be! There is no acceptable excuse for my behavior. Let us agree I am the greatest beast in nature and you have suffered Turkish treatment at my hands for no reason whatsoever.”

He looked so contrite she was obliged to give a watery chuckle. She handed his handkerchief back to him. “Agreed, Lord Kilverton!”

“I am relieved,” he said gravely, accepting the handkerchief and offering his arm.

She took it, somewhat warily. “I do not see why you should feel relieved! I have expressed the lowest possible opinion of you.”

“Yes, but I am relieved to find us in such perfect accord,” he explained, leading her back to the path. She peeped up at hint uncertainly, but he appeared absolutely serious. This wrung an unwilling smile from her.

“You are the strangest creature!” she remarked.

He smiled at her. “What, for enjoying harmony? Or merely for acknowledging myself to be in the wrong?” His face hardened a little, and he glanced away. “After today’s experiences, it is greatly refreshing to find myself in agreement with a lady.”

She thought she understood, and felt a twinge of compassion for him. “Even at the price of disparaging yourself?” she inquired lightly.

He gave a short laugh. “At any price! But you misunderstand, Miss Campbell. It is one thing to be raked deservedly over the coals by someone you have genuinely wronged, and quite another to listen to several hours of uninterrupted hog-wash.”

He caught himself then, coloring slightly as he realized he had said too much, but her expression was so sympathetic he gave her a slightly twisted smile. “Do not heed me, Miss Campbell. I am talking a great deal of nonsense.”

“Now, how am I to take that?” she demanded in a rallying tone. “And after I very nearly accepted your apology!”

He laughed and disclaimed, but they were coming to the grove where he had left the rest of the party. Sir Egbert was seated with Lady Elizabeth, and Captain Talgarth and Emily were standing apart, conversing together with absorbed interest. Serena’s peace had ail-too obviously been quite cut up by this. She threw an anguished look at Caitlin and deserted Mr. Montague to run to her friend as she arrived.

“Caitlin, what am I to do?” she whispered, with an agonized look at Captain Talgarth. Her brother was uncomfortably reminded of certain criticisms expressed by Lady Elizabeth not an hour since.

“The best plan, I think, would be to stop making a cake of yourself,” he recommended under his breath, and walked away to join Elizabeth and his cousin.

Caitlin could not help thinking that was very good advice, but did not wish to ruffle Serena any more than Lord Kilverton had already done. She took Serena firmly by the arm. “Now, Serena, you are making a great piece of work about nothing,” she said bracingly. “If you are thrown into torment every time Captain Talgarth converses with another lady, your life will be a misery. Recollect that he has not declared himself to you. Until he does, you must not expose yourself in this fashion.”

Serena took a deep breath. “You are right,” she said with difficulty, and returned to Mr. Montague with a great show of gaiety. She surprised that gentleman a good deal by clinging affectionately to his arm all the way back to where the carriages were waiting, and allowing him to throw her up into her saddle. Unfortunately, her little charade was quite wasted on Captain Talgarth. She turned to discover him resting one arm on the barouche, animatedly describing some military ad venture to Emily. Emily was hanging breathlessly on the captain’s every word.

Serena found herself possessed by a very unladylike impulse to scratch Miss Emily Campbell’s eyes out. Fortunately she controlled this natural desire and maintained a rather forced air of unconcern. Mr. Montague, however, was not deceived. He leaned confidentially against her knee as she gathered the reins purposefully in her competent hands.

“Dished, Serena?” he murmured provocatively, his eyes twinkling. She flushed to the roots of her hair.

“I don’t know what you mean!” she snapped. Knowing he was all too ready to explain, she hastily urged Nellie into a trot and left him laughing softly behind her.

Caitlin and Sir Egbert slowly approached the barouche, she listening politely to his ponderous description of a topiary he had once seen, but when Kilverton’s groom brought the curricle round she was distracted. One of the high-stepping bays reached out his long neck as if inviting her to stroke his glossy face. “Oh, you beauty!” she cooed to him as he nibbled delicately on her glove. Lord Kilverton strolled up, raising an eyebrow.

“Admiring my cattle, Miss Campbell?” he inquired pleasantly.

“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed. “I never saw a pair of bays more beautifully matched, sir.”

“Very pretty! Very pretty indeed!” agreed Sir Egbert affably, “There are few sights so agreeable as a well-matched team of English horses.”

Kilverton wanted very much to ask what attributes Sir Egbert considered peculiar to English horses, but resisted the temptation. “Would you care to try their paces. Miss Campbell? I would be honored to take you up in my curricle.”

She turned to him, surprised. “I would like it above all things. But—do you mean now?”

“Why not?”

“Well, surely—Lady Elizabeth—”

“You need not consider Lady Elizabeth. She has ridden in my curricle any number of times. No one will object to your riding back to London with me.”

Sir Egbert goggled a little, and proved Kilverton wrong by expostulating feebly. “Richard, dear boy, you cannot have considered! I am persuaded Lady Elizabeth is expecting you to drive her. You do not wish to slight your fiancée!”

A shade of annoyance crossed Lord Kilverton’s face. Slighting his fiancée was, in fact, exactly what he wished to do. He hoped it might teach Lady Elizabeth a much-needed lesson.

“Lady Elizabeth has said she has the headache. I will be grateful to Miss Campbell if she gives up her seat in the barouche so my fiancée may ride home in greater comfort.”

“Oh, poor Lady Elizabeth!” cried Emily, overhearing. “Caitie, you must ride with Lord Kilverton in the curricle. You know you are never ill.”

Lady Elizabeth had come up by this time, and was furious to learn of the way she was being summarily disposed of Before she could command herself enough to protest, she was handed solicitously into the barouche by Captain Talgarth, who then pressed Emily’s hand in parting and swung into the saddle. It was fortunate Serena was no longer present to be hold Captain Talgarth’s unconscious gesture and the starry-eyed smile lighting Emily’s face at that moment. Sir Egbert climbed ponderously after Lady Elizabeth, still clucking and muttering, Mr. Montague took the place next to Emily, and before she knew it Caitlin was being lifted up into his lordship’s curricle. Kilverton took the reins, his groom sprang up behind, and they were off at a smart trot, passing the barouche with a salute and drawing well on ahead. Captain Talgarth, meanwhile, rode off at a canter in search of Lady Serena, and Caitlin soon found herself—but for the presence of an expressionless groom—completely alone with Lord Kilverton.

Chapter X

T
he first mile or more was traveled in silence save for the sound of two wheels crunching on the road, a pair of horses trotting, harness creaking, and bits jingling. Caitlin kept her gaze carefully turned to the left, her hat obscuring her face so the man sitting so closely on her right could not see her color fluctuating. Absurd! she scolded herself. As if I never sat beside a man before! She wondered with a kind of feverish confusion why she was so aware of the proximity of this particular man, why the occasional brush of his coat sleeve or brief contact with the edge of his knee sent fresh waves of color to her burning cheeks. She cast about wildly in her mind for some topic of conversation that would break the awkward silence, but could not still her whirling thoughts long enough to gather her wits. As Kilverton was experiencing a similar reaction to her nearness, and was even more astonished and perplexed by his reaction than Caitlin was by hers, the silence remained unbroken for some time. Eventually Kilverton spoke, with an effort.

“Are you comfortable, Miss Campbell?”

“Oh, yes indeed!” she assured him brightly, thinking she had seldom felt less comfortable in her life. He was not to know that, however. She thankfully pursued the line of small talk he had opened. “How very well sprung this curricle is. And—and your bays are indeed beautifully matched. I had thought they matched only in appearance, but—how strongly they pull together! One is scarcely aware of the speed at which we must be traveling.” She stopped abruptly, afraid she was chattering like a nervous schoolgirl.

“Thank you,” he said, “I rather fancy they are a well-matched pair.” His voice was strained. They had now exhausted the topic of his well-matched horses, he thought. Another pause ensued. Kilverton cleared his throat, painfully aware—as Miss Campbell could not be—of the probable emotions of Mullins, the groom riding behind them. Mullins had served the Earl of Selcroft’s household for nearly thirty years and had never known the Young Master to be tongue-tied in the presence of any lady. Mullins, of course, was far too well-trained to smile—but his wooden countenance did not deceive Lord Kilverton. Kilverton was fairly certain a grin would appear and Mullins’ comments would be forthcoming the instant Miss Campbell was set down at Lynwood House. That was the trouble with servants who had known one since one wore short coats, he thought wryly. They could never be induced to show a proper degree of respect!

His reflections were abruptly cut short by a loud report that seemed to come from the woods close on their right. The shot whistled directly over the horses’ heads. One of the horses gave a terrified scream and the animals jumped forward, trying to bolt. Kilverton reacted immediately, and would have succeeded in holding them had a second shot not sounded. The second shot catapulted the horses into headlong flight, galloping wildly down the road.

Caitlin clung to the seat as the curricle rocked and jolted and Mullins and Kilverton shouted unintelligibly to one another. Kilverton fought grimly to regain control, and even in her terror, part of her mind was grateful to have a man of his skill and strength at the reins. He was succeeding—the horses were still galloping, but clearly were responding to his mastery—the curricle was slowing—when suddenly it gave a peculiar lurch. Time slowed to a dreamy crawl as Caitlin saw the wheel beneath her disconnect from the vehicle and fantastically incredibly, spin away and roll toward the fields like a child’s hoop.

The carriage seemed to be tipping in slow motion, dipping her toward the ground. The road looked to her to be inexorably rising up to meet her, and simultaneously flying along beneath her at a dizzying rate. With a cry of fear and horror, Caitlin began to climb up the crazily tipping curricle, instinctively trying to shift her weight to the higher side.

Mullins’ strong arm reached down and grabbed her from the right, and Kilverton, still fighting with the reins, was reaching for her left hand when the now-wheelless left side of the curricle touched down. The carriage immediately spun sideways and began to drag. There was a sound of splintering wood, a hoarse shout from Kilverton, a despairing cry from Caitlin, and as Mullins’ hand slipped from her arm she felt herself flung from the carriage.

The force of the curricle’s sideways snap hurled her into the neat hedgerows bordering the road. The jar was sickening and she cried out in pain as the bushes broke beneath her, stabbing her in several places and badly tearing the delicate muslin of her gown. Her senses swam momentarily while she regained her breath. She was afraid to move. She heard the horses plunging to a standstill and watched dazedly as the broken curricle dragged to a halt not far from her.

Mullins had also apparently fallen from the curricle, for she saw him scrambling to his feet in the road. To her helpless horror, Mullins swayed for a moment in the center of the road, then collapsed back down into the dust. She saw Kilverton sprawled across the top of the curricle—what had been its right side panel—still clutching the reins and hanging on somehow by gripping with his knees. The instant the curricle stopped moving he twisted to look behind him, slid off the side, abandoned the horses, and hastened back to Mullins and Miss Campbell. It was clear the horses were unlikely to go anywhere whether their heads were held or not. Caitlin struggled to free herself so she could also run to Mullins but cried out as the bushes stabbed her anew, and Kilverton, with a cursory glance at the prostrate groom, ran to her.

“Do not move, Miss Campbell!” he ordered, his voice sharp with anxiety. She obeyed him and he bent over her, still gasping from his exertions and his face white with strain. “Are you badly hurt?”

“I think not,” she replied uncertainly. “But I cannot get out of these bushes.” Kilverton disengaged the worst of the brambles, pulled her free, and helped her stand. There was a wrenching pain in her left wrist where she had tried to break her fall, and there scarcely seemed to be an inch of her that was not scratched or bruised, but she knew there were no bones broken and she had somehow escaped serious injury. Had she been thrown onto the surface of the road, or if this portion of the road had been walled with stone rather than lined with greenery, she supposed she might have been killed. The thought made her feel rather sick.

Their first concern was to discover what had happened to Mullins. They limped to where Mullins lay and found he was unconscious, with a dreadful pallor that struck fear into Caitlin’s heart.

“Oh, the poor man!” she cried. “Ought we to move him, do you think? Would it hurt him?” She shaded her eyes with her hand—her hat had disappeared—and looked frantically about them for help. Not a soul was to be seen; beyond the hedgerows the fields and woods stretched peacefully in every direction.

Kilverton’s look of strain deepened. “We cannot leave him in the road,” he replied. He knelt beside the inert groom and examined him with deft fingers. “I cannot find a head injury, but as I am not a surgeon that means little,” he said finally. “He has certainly injured his right leg and perhaps—I cannot tell—his left arm.”

“Oh!” whispered Caitlin remorsefully. “He was pulling me with his left arm!”

“Do not distress yourself, Miss Campbell,” said Kilverton quickly. “If there is blame to be assigned here, it is mine. I was driving.” He struggled to his feet and Caitlin noticed for the first time a red stain spreading on his left shoulder.

“You are hurt!” she exclaimed. He glanced briefly down and frowned with annoyance.

“It’s nothing,” he said shortly. “But the devil of it is, I shan’t be able to move Mullins without assistance.”

“I will move him,” said Caitlin stoutly. He looked her over doubtfully, and a reluctant grin momentarily dispelled the grimness of his expression. Miss Campbell had lost her hat, her parasol, and one shoe, and stood before him in a torn and dusty gown. She was bleeding from a dozen scratches and her bright hair, tangled with leaves and twigs, was tumbling in a heap around her dirty face. Despite the determination blazing in her eyes, hers was a pale and woebegone figure. One had to admire her spunk, but she did not present the appearance of one who was capable of moving a cat, let alone a well-grown man, to the side of the road.

“Unnecessary!” he told her. “If no other travelers pass us, the barouche will arrive in a few minutes. I only hope Mullins remains unconscious until he can be moved. I am sure it will hurt him very much to be lifted. His leg is swelling fast. If it is not broken, it is very badly sprained.” Kilverton loosened Mullins’ neckcloth as he spoke, and tried to dispose his limbs more comfortably.

“Do you think we should remove his boot?” asked Caitlin.

“I think not, unless we can find something to use as a splint.”

“Then if there is nothing further we can do for him, we ought to do something for that shoulder of yours.”

“Nonsense! Stay here a moment with Mullins. I am going to look at my horses,” stated Kilverton. She stopped him by the simple expedient of catching his left sleeve, which caused him to halt in his tracks, wincing with pain.

“Your horses can wait, sir,” she said quietly. “If the blood has seeped through your driving coat, your injury is bleeding very freely. It must be looked at and bandaged as best we can.” The look of impatient dismissal on his face caused her to lift her chin at him. “If you do not wish to oblige me in this, I hope you mean to stretch out next to Mullins! I cannot be expected to tend two insensible men lying at opposite ends of the road.”

He laughed unwillingly. “All right, ma’am, we shall see what needs to be done.” They sat on a grassy space at the side of the road and she helped him to gingerly remove his driving coat and the morning coat beneath it, exposing a blood-soaked shirt. Worried, she discarded her ruined gloves and tore with frantic fingers at his beautifully tied cravat.

“Here! What are you doing?” he demanded indignantly.

“Sir, we must remove your shirt from this shoulder! It is the strangest thing, for there is no tear whatsoever in the shirt and yet your flesh is torn beneath it. What can it mean?”

“It only means that I have reinjured a wound I thought was healing nicely.” He sighed, reluctantly helping her to unwrap the cravat and open his shirt. “I am not surprised. I had expected it to ache a bit after such a long drive, but I own I did not allow for the additional stresses involved in fighting a runaway team, ditching my curricle, and pulling my companion out of a shrubbery.”

When Caitlin saw the gash she was appalled. “My lord you must sit perfectly still,” she urged. “I don’t know what you were about, to run all over the road and offer assistance to me. Why, my hurts are nothing to this!”

She picked up and discarded his mangled cravat as too dirty, then hunted swiftly through the pockets of his morning coat for a handkerchief. The only one she found was the one she had used to dry her tears at Richmond Park. How long ago that seemed! When she saw there was no other clean cloth anywhere to hand, she unhesitatingly lifted the torn flounce of her gown and began to tear her gauze petticoat into strips. Kilverton was touched, but protested.

“Miss Campbell! You really must not! Stop that at once!” he ordered, trying to struggle upright. She placed her hand firmly on his chest.

“I must and shall. If you are not to bleed to death before my eyes, we must staunch the blood somehow.”

“But you will ruin your petticoat!”

Caitlin shot him a look of exasperation, then returned to her task. “If you have a better suggestion I will be glad to hear it! If you do not, pray do not hinder me.”

He did not have a better suggestion, so reluctantly surrendered. She ripped and tore at her expensive petticoat in a very businesslike manner, evidently not stopping to think how she was exposing her shapely ankles to his interested gaze. With some difficulty, for she could not turn her left wrist, she packed the wound with the clean gauze and bound it firmly with his handkerchief. He watched her, a strange little half smile on his face. The sunlight behind her made a nimbus of her hair. She was so beautiful, he thought, she would have looked like a vision from heaven—had it not been for the smudges on her face, and the look of fierce concentration that clenched her soft mouth into a thin line and drew her brows straightly over her worried eyes.

“You are a heroine, Miss Campbell,” he murmured ruefully. “Now let us tear up something of mine, to fashion a sling for that wrist of yours.”

She laughed a little, pushing the hair back from her brow. “We will do no such thing.” She stood and walked back to where Mullins still lay. “Thank God!” she cried eagerly. “His color is returning.”

“Unlucky for Mullins,” observed Kilverton. “The poor fellow must be coming round.”

As if to prove this, Mullins gave a soft groan and his brows contracted in pain. Caitlin moved swiftly to shield his face from the sun, and bent softly over him. She spoke with a note of gentle authority.

“You must not try to move, Mr. Mullins. There has been an accident with the curricle. You have only to lie quietly for a few minutes and not trouble yourself.”

“What happened?” he inquired dazedly.

Kilverton rose and came to him, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and Caitlin’s minatory frown. “Some fool of a hunter let off a shot too near the road,” he said cheerfully. “The horses bolted, and a wheel came off. That is all.”

For the first time, it occurred to Caitlin to wonder what did, in fact, happen. She felt a faint prickle of fear as she remembered there were not one, but two shots. Her troubled gaze met Kilverton’s, but he shook his head warningly at her and returned his attention to his groom. Clearly their task at the moment was to bring Mullins whatever ease they could.

“The horses?” Mullins said faintly.

“Strained fetlock. Nothing serious,” Kilverton assured him. Caitlin knew he had not had an opportunity to examine the horses, but held her tongue when she saw some of the worry leave Mullins’ face.

The sound of an approaching carnage heralded the barouche’s arrival and Caitlin turned eagerly to greet its appearance around the last bend in the road. It was coming on as fast as the coachman dared drive it, and all the occupants were leaning anxiously forward, Emily half standing and clinging to the side in her apprehension. Some way back they had come upon Caitlin’s parasol lying in the dust and Kilverton’s curly-brimmed beaver rolling along the side of the road, and for the past half mile they had been fearing a hideous sight round every bend.