The Perfect Princess (22 page)

“Harper?” he said.

“He tried to lead them away. There’s no time to explain! Get up behind me.”

He lifted his head when he heard something. She
wasn’t exaggerating. It sounded as though a troop of cavalry was galloping along the drive to the house.

Cursing softly, he got up behind her. “Make for the downs,” he said in her ear, then he held on tight as their mount leapt forward.

When they cleared the trees and came to a grassy knoll overlooking the house, he made her draw rein. There was little to see. The house was shrouded in mist. All they would see were shadows, but those shadows were moving.

“What happened?” asked Richard.

She was breathing hard. “We didn’t get farther than the village. It’s a pea-soup fog down there. I don’t really know what happened except that someone coming out of the inn bellowed Harper’s name. ‘Digby!’ Harper said, and told me to come here to warn you to get away. Then he took another route to try and lead them away from you.”

She wheeled the horse and anxiously searched for a chink in the white fluffy blanket that veiled the downs. There was none. She might as well be poised at the edge of a cliff.

“We can’t go on in this,” she said despairingly.

Richard spoke quietly in her ear. “There’s a shepherd’s bothy not far from here. We can take shelter there. Change places with me, and I’ll guide the horse.”

Dismounting was awkward and she fell on her rump as she slipped out of the saddle. The horse shied and cantered forward. Richard turned it, but kept his distance.

“Now listen to me, Rosamund,” he said. “I want you to go back to the house. You’ll be safe there. If you come with me, anything might happen when the shooting starts. It’s me they want, not you. Go back to the house. Do you hear me?”

Before she could get her breath, he turned the horse and disappeared into the mist.

She scrambled to her feet and went after him. “You bloody fool!” she yelled at the top of her voice. She was really, really angry. Angry and panicked. “I’m your best hope of escaping the gallows! You would have seen it before now if you hadn’t been so dense!” She was running now and screeching like a banshee. “You put a gun to my head, and tell them you’ll kill me if they try to take you, just like you did in Newgate!”

Tears were streaming down her face. In the last little while, she’d suffered agonies, fearing that he might be captured. He was in desperate straits. He couldn’t go far in this pea soup, and when his pursuers caught up to him, he wouldn’t stand a chance. He needed her if only to barter his way to freedom.

She went charging into the mist, shouting at the top of her lungs. “You can’t get rid of me! Where you go, I go. And you’ll be sorry when they mistake me for you in this beastly fog and shoot me dead. They won’t know I’m Romsey’s daughter. I’m dressed like a man, remember? Do you hear me, Richard? You’ll be sorry! You’ll go to the gallows with my death on—”

Her words were cut off when she stumbled over a rock and fell flat on her face. Though she was gasping for breath, she quickly pulled herself up to her knees. A hand dangled in front of her nose. She looked up. Richard was astride the horse.

“Thank you” was all she said as she grasped his hand.

Without saying a word, he hoisted her to her feet, then onto the horse’s back. His heels touched his mount’s flanks and they broke into a canter.

She was right about them not getting far, though it wasn’t the mist that caused the problem. Their mount stumbled and they both tumbled to the ground. She got
to her feet first and tried to catch the horse’s reins, but it trotted off into the mist. When she turned back, Richard was on his knees.

She was badly frightened by how weak he appeared to be. He hadn’t had a chance to recover from his injuries, and now this. She masked her fear and said, “Where is this bothy?”

“Not far.”

She looked back over her shoulder, searching the mist, straining to hear sounds of pursuit. She could see nothing, hear nothing. It was the mist that had saved them, but how long would it last?

Swallowing her fear, she said, “We’ll walk the rest of the way. Put your arm around my shoulders.”

He did as she said, and leaned against her for support. “I’ll be all right when we get to the bothy,” he said. “Then I want you to leave.”

She didn’t argue with him. She couldn’t leave him even if she wanted to. The mist was so dense, she wouldn’t know which way to go. It was uphill all the way, and they saved their breath for their exertions. Rosamund didn’t know how they could possibly find the bothy, but Richard seemed to know where he was going. A time or two, when the mist thinned a little, he stopped and looked this way and that. All she could see were shadows, but to him they appeared to be landmarks, and they went on.

She thought she was lending him her strength, but as time passed, it was she who began to give in to fatigue, and he who encouraged her.

“Not much farther,” he said. “Don’t give up. We’ll rest, then we’ll decide what to do.”

She didn’t know what they could do. Richard wasn’t fit to go on. But he was resourceful. He’d escaped from Newgate. He would escape from this, too.

They stumbled upon the bothy just as Rosamund made up her mind that she couldn’t take another step.
Its walls were made of stone, its roof was thatched, and the floor was cobbled, just like the streets of London. But it was so small that two people with fingers touching and their arms outstretched could reach the opposite walls.

“Who does the bothy belong to?” she asked.

“Everyone. No one. The shepherds use these bothies in emergencies, when they are caught on the downs in a sudden mist or snowstorm.”

There was a narrow bunk with a straw pallet, and a stool beside a blackened grate. On the other side of the grate was a basket of kindling and a pile of logs.

She barred the door and helped Richard to the bunk.

“We can’t light a fire,” he said. “The smell of the smoke will give us away.” He stopped, shook his head, and gave a dry laugh. “They’ll find us soon enough anyway. The mist is lifting. Light a fire if you want.”

A moment before, she’d been ready to drop, but the thought of the mist lifting sent her flying to the window. “It looks the same to me,” she said anxiously.

She turned to look at him just as he sank onto the pallet. “Come here,” he said, and he held his hands out to her.

She knelt in front of him and put her hands in his. Her eyes searched his. “Do you have a fever?”

“No.”

“Is your wound troubling you?”

“No. Listen to me, Rosamund. There’s nothing wrong with me but fatigue. I spent an uneasy night, wondering what to do about you.”

“And,” she said reproachfully, “you decided to send me away without seeing me again.”

He looked down at her hands, then raised them to his lips and pressed a kiss to one, then to the other. “I thought it was for the best.”

Her heart clenched in fear. He must have given up all hope if he was letting his guard down like this. She
couldn’t get words past the lump in her throat. When he smiled into her eyes, her fear turned to dread.

“For my sake, you must be brave,” he said. “As soon as we hear them approaching, you’re to go outside and let them know who you are. They’ll come in here to get me, but no matter what you hear, you have to stay outside. Don’t look back. Go home to your family and forget all about me.”

She said tremulously, “And what if I don’t? What if I stay by your side? Richard, they won’t dare touch you with me here.”

He spoke slowly and patiently, as though he were explaining things to a child. “Then they’ll take me back to Newgate and hang me. Is that what you want? Rosamund, I want to die a soldier’s death. Let me die with some dignity.”

The moan started in her chest. Her mouth opened, but all that came out was a feeble whimper. Tears drowned her eyes. “I can’t . . . I won’t . . .”

“Rosamund, Rosamund.”

He drew her to him, and wrapped her in his arms. He kissed her gently, then not so gently as she responded. Her arms crept around his neck. When he drew away slightly, it was only to draw back the edges of her coat, then his. Then he wrapped her in his arms again.

She spoke against the hollow of his throat. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been kissed.”

He raised his head to look at her. “I find that hard to believe.”

She managed, barely, to return his smile. “That’s what comes of being a duke’s daughter. Men are afraid to approach me. Or perhaps it’s me. Perhaps they find me unappealing. It’s what you said, don’t you remember, in the cottage in Chelsea?”

He threaded his fingers through her hair and brought her face close to his. His voice was husky. “I lied. You are,
without doubt, the loveliest and most desirable woman I have ever met.”

Even as the words warmed her, the cold finger of fear touched her heart. He wouldn’t be saying these things if he thought he could get out of here alive. This, then, was all that they would ever have.

Then she would not spoil it with tears and regrets.

Banishing her fears and anguish, she said with a smile, “If only I had been an ordinary girl, instead of a duke’s daughter . . .”

“Yes,” he said gravely. “If only you had been an ordinary girl.”

She blinked at him through a blur of tears. “If only . . .” she began, but her voice cracked and she couldn’t go on.

“Hush.” He kissed her again. “Don’t torment yourself like this.”

She wished there was more light in that small room, because she was sketching his portrait in her mind and heart so that she would remember him till her dying day. But there was more to a man than his looks. She would never forget Richard Maitland.

“You are,” she said softly, “the noblest gentleman that I have ever met.”

He smiled at this. “Tell me about yourself, Rosamund. I know so little.”

He really was interested in hearing about her life, but at the same time, he wanted to relieve some of the tension that gripped her; in short, distract her from counting the seconds until they were discovered.

“Where shall I begin?” she asked.

“At the beginning, of course. What were you like as a child? Happy? Sad? I really want to know.”

“I was happy,” she said at once, “but not so happy after my mother died.”

She began to talk, haltingly at first, then more fluently as memories crowded her mind. Though her mother
had died when Rosamund was only five, there was no doubt in Richard’s mind that Her Grace had been a powerful influence in her daughter’s life, and still was. A picture formed in his mind of a woman who enjoyed her children and enjoyed life, an unconventional woman who had no patience with the restrictions that society tried to place upon her. And the duke, who doted on his duchess, was an indulgent husband.

“When she was gone,” said Rosamund wistfully at one point, “all the color in the world seemed to go with her.” She added quickly, “You mustn’t think that my father neglected me or anything like that. In fact, he did just the opposite. It was the manner of my mother’s death, you understand, that made him so protective. He blamed himself for allowing her too many liberties.”

When she paused, he said, “And he made certain that his only daughter stayed close to home?”

“Yes,” she said, and sighed.

As she continued to speak, Richard began to adjust impressions he’d taken of Rosamund and stored in his mind. He saw now that she’d never been haughty or cold, but only unsure of herself. And who could blame her? The people who loved her best, and whom she un-doubtably loved, had gently but ruthlessly quashed every attempt she’d made to establish herself as her own person. Governesses, horses, and chess—that had been the sum of Rosamund’s life as she grew to womanhood. But at least her father had had the sense to supply her with a friend. Callie.

She gave him an arch look. “It was Callie’s idea to visit you in Newgate. I think she hero worships you, and that’s saying something for Callie. She has an acid tongue. But you captured her imagination. No one could say anything wrong about Richard Maitland in Callie’s hearing.”

“I’m obliged to the lady.”

Her smile flashed.