Wild Pen Carrington (5 page)

But through the torrential rain, and above the noise and chaos of Hugo fighting for control of the bolting horses, Pen could hear the thunder of the pursuing team’s hooves. The sides of the road were high-banked, a ditch on one side, a hedge on the other. There were bends and twists in the road, which made the progress of their curricle treacherous, due to the speed at which Hugo was forced to negotiate it whilst his hired team were effectively out of control. It also served to hide and then reveal again, and again, the pursuing carriage from view.

Hugo was holding the crown of the road more by luck than by judgement. He was almost standing in his effort to control the horses, and whereas usually he would have feather-edged a corner, the best he could do at present was to stand half on his feet and use his full weight to haul on the mouths of the mismatched bays in a desperate attempt to get the animals fully under his control once more.

“Do you want to know how close he is?” Pen shouted at Hugo.

“Do you think it is going to help me?” Hugo bellowed back in response.

“No,” Pen admitted, her voice hoarse. ”But he is close. For God’s sake, try and steady them!”

Pen could see it was a sharp one, even through the thick curtain of rain, the width of the ditch making it perilously narrow. If only Hugo could manage to slow his horses before the next bend in the road.

There was a positive side, however, to the danger posed by such a treacherous thoroughfare. Surely there was no way that Arden would consider breaking his neck in order to pass them at this point.

 Then, to Pen’s absolute horror, a short blast on the horn announced Lord Arden’s intention to overtake them within the next few yards. Hugo glanced round, his lips set in a hard line of obstinacy and pride as he registered the arrival of his adversary. But there was not much he could do to delay the inevitable. The bolting horses were blowing badly, and their pace was really starting to slow. Their previously rich, brown flanks were now almost black, drenched as they were by the rain. Clouds of steam rose from their hot backs and sides as they were driven on.

Another short, compelling blast from a horn sounded from Arden’s curricle, and the impatience at Hugo’s tardiness in making way, despite his slowing horses, was clear. Then the road widened and straightened briefly, allowing Pen to see a little further ahead—ahead as far as a red gig being pulled by a small, grey horse.

Pen looked back wildly towards the thundering hooves of Arden’s rig, only to see the heads of his horses pull level with her position as they were urged past at full gallop to take the lead.

Arden only just made it through the gap between Hugo and the oncoming gig, with mere inches to spare. Most certainly the face on the driver of the red gig seemed to reflect this, the horror clear to see, as both carriages flashed past him at speed.

Pen was quick to realise that it was only Arden’s consummate horsemanship that meant he had avoided the gig and she only understood the full extent of his skill as Arden started to check his team’s headlong pace. Until that point she had remained convinced that Arden’s team had also bolted and that someone was almost certainly going to end up dead in that ditch at the side of the road. But as she watched, the viscount’s horses slowed from a gallop to a canter, as Arden consolidated his lead over them, and was either confident or arrogant enough to slow his pace with them still so close behind.

“Come on!” growled Hugo loudly, but his team were exhausted and no match for Arden’s prime cattle, which were easily increasing the gap between the two carriages despite their exertions and the weather conditions.

Pen pushed a dripping lock of hair from her forehead and took advantage of the slightly slower progress to rub her eyes and wipe her face. She felt exhausted, soaked to the skin and starving. Of course, the last sustenance she’d had was the cheese and ale at The Red Lion the day before, so it was little wonder that she was so preoccupied with the thought of food.

The mismatched bays laboured on, but it was by now obvious that any challenge posed by Hugo had been met, and overcome, as Lord Arden had long since disappeared from their line of sight and would be soon, no doubt, almost within striking distance of Purley .

Hugo drove on in angry silence. Pen knew him well enough to know that she should not attempt to say anything unless it was information directly useful to the task in hand, or in answer to a query from Hugo, should he open his mouth. But given the grim set to his jaw and the expression on his face, Pen chose to sit silently on her perch and watch for the next turnpike.

Gradually darkness fell and their progress slowed more and more. The conditions of the road worsened due to the incessant rainfall and Hugo allowed the team to slow to a gentle trot and then a walk as night fell about them.

Hugo looked upwards as they made their way slowly along Croydon High Street, releasing a burst of humourless laughter on reaching The Greyhound, with its gallows sign.

“Better late than never,” he observed, turning the horses into the posting house courtyard, the team now capable of no more than a plodding walk. It was late, yet still ostlers and postboys came to attend the arriving vehicle, Hugo throwing them no instruction, only the reins, climbing down from the carriage as he did so.

He turned to Pen as she endeavoured to follow after him, her body chilled to the bone from the drenching she had received. She was tired beyond sensation, due to not only the physical exertion of hanging on like grim death during the race, but also the fact she not eaten in over a day.

“If I were you, I would run now,” Hugo said coolly, his eyes scanning the activity in the darkened yard. “Our mutual disgrace would be complete if Arden so much as gets a whiff of who you are.”

Pen’s heart sank at the prospect of spending even one minute more in her sodden, borrowed clothes.

But she knew Hugo was right.

Hugo reached into the pocket of his similarly soaked coat and pulled out a handful of silver and pushed it into her hand.

“Go now,” he snarled. “The other main posting house is the King’s Head in Market Street. There will be something from there to take you into town. Now just go, and for God’s sake forget that any of this ever happened. I consider all obligations towards you discharged.”

“Hugo.”

Pen made to catch his arm, to at least thank him for his help, as ungracious and as hellish as it had become. But he evaded her fingers with an angry grimace.

“Go away, Pen. You’ve brought me nothing but the foulest luck since you embroiled me in your ridiculous schemes. Go before I end up with a challenge and a bullet from your brother-in-law in me for my trouble.”

Burrows turned his back on Pen and stalked off towards the taproom, leaving her staring after him.

Pen took one faltering step as if to go after Hugo, but then felt the coins in her hand. There would be time enough in the future to resolve her differences with Hugo, but first she had to return to the mess that was her life as Penelope Carrington. So, spinning on her heel, she marched purposefully from The Greyhound’s yard, her eyes set firmly on the High Street ahead

 She almost didn’t see the figure in the shadows. That of a tall man shrouded in a many caped great coat.

A man who only caught her attention when he seized her arm in a vice-like grip and asked, “Going somewhere…Pen?”

Chapter Three

The Greyhound, Croydon, Surrey

A fire roared in the grate. It was a handsome, large fire that gave out a lot of heat. But it did not warm Pen. She felt cold, chilled to her bones and beyond. She clung to the sodden jacket, concerned that if she removed it, her sex would be all the more apparent.

The only way to stop her teeth chattering was for her to clamp her jaw shut, then try and hold it there. But all that seemed to do was to make her whole head shake.

No one asked her to sit. So she had not, aware of the fact that in her disguise as a very wet, young boy, the landlord’s upholstery might be given more consideration than her tired and aching body, although Pen had been given a pint of warmed mead when she had first arrived. As she shivered, she wondered if she dared ask for another. The only other person in the room was a very stern-faced agent of Arden, who sat in a chair by the fire and stared at her in such a way that it didn’t even seem worth trying to. So Pen stood, shivering and waiting.

She dragged her hands through her damp hair again and again, trying to comb her wild locks into some order that would make her look more like Mrs Pen Carrington than a mad woman.

Finally, the door to the private parlour burst open, and Arden walked in, accompanied by a very familiar gentleman—a gentleman who dealt Pen a hard stare as he followed Lord Arden into the salon.

Oh God, the expression on Sebastian’s face was all that she had expected it to be and more.

He is quite obviously furious

Pen peered past them, half expecting Hugo Burrows to walk through the doorway after them to complete her humiliation. He did not. Hugo Burrows was nowhere to be seen.

“So then…Pen.” Arden strode across the room and sat down. “Or, should I more properly address you as Mrs Penelope Carrington. Sit!”

Like a well-trained poodle, Pen dropped into the nearest chair with a nasty squelch, finding the tremors a little easier to control once she was off her feet.

“Take off your jacket.”

Arden regarded her steadily for some time, his face showing no trace of emotion. His hard eyes looked her up and down, once, twice as she struggled to peel the sodden material from her arms.

The silent figure of Sebastian Carrington moved to the chair that had been occupied by Arden’s man, who had been dismissed upon their arrival. Without a word, Sebastian sat, the expression on his face stormy.

Pen raised her chin in a natural reaction to their intimidating presence. How dare they attempt to browbeat her by humiliating her in this way!

Surely Sebastian would be better to pass judgement on my behaviour in private?

Now Pen found herself to be the subject of both men’s scrutiny. Whether due to lack of food or just sheer tiredness, Pen’s head was feeling decidedly light.

“Has Mr Burrows left?” she asked eventually.

“Yes. Mr Burrows has left,” Arden stated quietly. “I believe he departed over an hour ago, bound for his rooms in London. No escape there, Pen.”

So it would seem that Hugo had indeed pushed a handful of change into her palm, then had considered his obligation at an end.

Pen snorted in disgusted half amusement.

“Sorry?” Arden asked. “Did you speak?”

She shut her eyes, attempting to quell the thundering sensation behind her eyes and to get some thoughts straight on how to extricate herself from this outrageous muddle. There were really only two options. The first was to tell Lord Arden the whole, rather involved, truth and to throw herself on his rather doubtful mercy. Pen grimaced. The second would be to throw herself at her brother-in-law’s feet, beg his forgiveness and hope that he would simply return her to the London house directly.

Pen shuddered.

The second option was never going to happen. But it was Arden who finally spoke, addressing the man sitting opposite him.

“So? Are my suspicions correct, then, do you think, Carrington?”

Sebastian Carrington was studying her. He was a slightly bigger man than Arden, but both of them had the athletic build typical of those gentlemen who participated in sporting pursuits as well as betting on them. Pen glanced at him only briefly. She knew the appearance of Carrington better than she knew herself, for she had spent a lot of their time together studying every line of his body, every lock of his hair, and for just such an occasion as this. The time when he decided to send her away for good.

Pen glanced from Arden, to Carrington, and back again. Arden had a slight frown on his face but looked remarkably fresh and composed for the man whose challenge had haunted her every waking moment since that fateful meeting in the yard of the Red Lion Inn. It seemed impossible that it was only yesterday that she had first encountered this man’s hard gaze, she realised, but nothing warm or pliable. No, a hard metallic grey, almost steel, maybe.

“So…”

Arden’s voice brought her back to her senses.

“Tell me, was that affecting little scene outside Hugo Burrows attempting to undermine his wager with me, or was it him giving his current mistress her
conge
?”

Pen’s mouth fell open. Even her tremors had stopped with the shock of Arden’s question. Words would not come as she absorbed the full import of what he had said. She just gulped for air like a stranded fish.

“No answer for me, Pen?” His voice carried cruelly on. Silky, seductive. The pale, grey eyes had become as hard as steel sharp as needles, acute.

“I… I do not know what you mean?” was all she could finally manage. She was shocked that anyone would even consider such a thing.

Indignant anger rose to swamp any previous thoughts of being intimidated.

“How could you even think that?” She could not stop the half laugh of disbelief that escaped her lips.

 Be sexually intimate with Hugo? What a thought. It was enough to make her want to laugh them out of the room.

Had they no idea the temptation the two of them posed to a damp, tired widow?

“Oh, come now!” Arden moved slowly to his feet, his frame, though well-muscled, lean and hard. He looked dangerous and he sounded angry. “Please do not insult me by thinking you can play the fool with me, Mrs Carrington!”

“I mean no disrespect, but that is a ridiculous suggestion. I mean, really, would you be indiscreet with Hugo Burrows?”

Sebastian swore, and Pen paled.

She hadn’t meant it like that, but now she’d said it she was more than prepared to stand by it.

Would you?
She made sure she stared at Sebastian with just that question in her eyes.