Devil-May-Dare. Mary Nichols
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well, my lord?’ she asked.
He came out of a brown study to answer her. ‘Tolerably well.’
‘Then how much further is it to the posting inn?’
He smiled suddenly and his grim expression lightened so that she became aware of the humour behind his hazel eyes. ‘I am poor company, Miss Wenthorpe, I realise that, but be assured I am as anxious to arrive at my destination as you are.’
‘And what is your destination?’
‘Ultimately London, but for tonight a good bed and a change of horses.’
‘Have these already been bespoken, my lord?’
‘Indeed yes, my man came on ahead. And you?’
‘Arrangements were made before we left home, though I collect we were meant to go a little further before nightfall, but what with the bad roads and the accident…’ She paused for another look out of the window for her brother. ‘I do hope Tom has been able to find somewhere for us to stay while the carriage is fetched and repaired.’
‘Ah, your brother…’
The tone of his voice brought her up sharply. Surely he did not think she was travelling unescorted and had invented a brother? Or did he think Tom was not her brother, but her lover? If he thought that of her, what else was he thinking? Oh, how she wished she had braved the darkness and waited by the damaged coach. ‘I do hope he has not encountered some difficulty,’ she said, trying to remain calm.
‘You will soon see; we will be at the King’s Head in a matter of minutes.’
And if Tom is not there, she thought, what then? What would she do? What would the Marquis do? She glanced sideways at him beneath the brim of her silk-ruched bonnet while pretending to be looking out of the window. He looked decidedly uncomfortable trying to keep his long legs tucked out of the way of her skirts, but apart from that he seemed entirely composed. His well-fitting coat of blue superfine seemed not to need padding at the shoulders and his waist had no need of stays. She supposed him to be about thirty, though it was difficult to tell because his features were tanned and there were tiny lines running from the corners of his eyes, as if he had spent long hours out of doors screwing up his face against the sun, but he was certainly old enough to be married and have a brood of offspring. She fell to wondering what kind of a husband and father he made — probably very cool and distant, except when roused to anger. She did not think she would care for his anger, though perhaps it would not be any worse than his present indifference. He had resumed his thoughtful expression with his chin resting on the folds of his impeccable neckcloth between the points of his collar, almost as if he had forgotten she was there. What was he thinking of, apart from what a devilish inconvenience she was to him?
It was not so much the inconvenience of having unexpected passengers which had put Jack in a browse but the notion that fate had taken a hand in his affairs and was conspiring to prevent him reaching his destination. His own travelling carriage had overturned the first day out from home and, though his horses had not been injured, thank God, he had been obliged to buy this antiquated coach to continue his journey. And now to find himself not alone in this particular misfortune was the outside of enough. He only hoped the vehicle was sturdier than it looked and would convey them all safely to the next posting inn and even more sincerely trusted that his passenger was telling the truth and there really was a brother to take charge of her; he had enough on his hands as it was.
As Captain Jack Bellingham, he had returned from service with Wellington’s army at the end of the war, expecting some respite from continual fighting, only to be faced with another kind of conflict at home. In the six or seven years he had been out of the country his father had grown prematurely old and even more inclined than before to take refuge in the bottle. He had let the estate go to ruin. And his heir, Jack’s elder brother, far from helping to set matters to rights, had made them worse by drinking, womanising and gambling. His death on the hunting field when in his cups had left Jack, who had never regarded himself as a future duke, as heir not only to extensive land and property but to all the debts and problems as well.
One of these latter was a neighbour called Ernest Grimshaw who had taken advantage of the general neglect and encroached on woodland which most certainly belonged to the Longham domain. He had cut down any number of fine trees and sold the timber so that, where before the war there had been a fine stand of oaks, larch and elm, there was now nothing but an ugly scar of stumps and bracken, and, what was worse, the game had naturally disappeared with the trees. The man had had the temerity to show him some ancient map on which the wood was clearly marked but the devil of it was that it was not shown inside the Longham boundary. He had defied his lordship to turn him off or deprive him of the not inconsiderable revenue the timber provided. Jack was on his way to meet the lawyers, but he had a feeling in his bones that he was going to need all his wits about him to win through. It would have been easier and certainly a great deal cheaper to have let the fellow get away with it and concentrated on the rest of the estate, but that was not Jack’s way; he would be blowed if he would let some land-thieving cit get the better of him.
It was not that he was particularly in want of funds; his personal fortune, inherited on the distaff side, was more than adequate, even setting aside the fortune in gold and jewels he had brought out of France with him. It was plunder, of course, but, since he had found it in a French sergeant’s knapsack after the battle of Toulouse and it had obviously been plundered by him in the first place, the finding of its original owner, so his one-time batman and now his valet had told him, would be well-nigh impossible, even if he or she were still alive. He ought to be grateful to the unknown Johnny Blue-coat and lose no sleep over something which, in Tewkes’s opinion, was a stroke of good luck. Jack intended to make a push to discover the true owner of the cache, but that would have to wait upon the business with Grimshaw being satisfactorily concluded.
He had said nothing of it to his father, who would, he was sure, take the same view as Tewkes, that anything acquired on a battlefield was a fair prize and meant to be used. His father, who had never cared a straw for his younger son, was, now that he was the heir, insisting on him marrying and continuing the line. Jack had had little time and even less inclination to marry while he was a serving soldier; following the colours was not something he would subject any wife to and leaving her at home seemed to defeat the object of the exercise. He had seen too many marriages fail because of long separations to take the risk. He was home now and, while he owned he ought to be thinking about marriage, to do so simply to produce an heir went against the grain. He would not stand in line, fawning over eager débutantes, just to please his profligate father. He grinned as the old coach jolted over a particularly bad rut; arriving in town in this dilapidated conveyance would certainly not endear him to the fortune hunters. He smiled to himself; if he were to allow the gossipers to think his pockets were to let, he might gain the breathing space he needed.
He lifted his head to find Lydia surveying him with wide violet eyes and a tiny twitch to the corners of her mouth which might have been the beginnings of a smile. In his experience young ladies usually fell into a swoon or burst into floods of tears when confronted with a mishap of this magnitude; that she could smile made him feel a deal more comfortable. ‘We are slowing down,’ she said. ‘You will soon be rid of us.’
Chastised, he said, ‘I apologise, Miss Wenthorpe, I am afraid I am poor company. Please forgive me.’
‘Oh, it is I who need forgiving for the intrusion.’ They were pulling up in the yard of an inn and the driver was shouting to one of the ostlers who had run out to meet them. ‘If we can find my brother, I am sure he will add his thanks to mine.’
But Tom was nowhere to be seen. On enquiring after him, she was told that he had been there but as there were no spare horses or carriages of any sort he had gone to a farm along the road in the hope of borrowing a cart.
‘A cart?’ She could hardly believe it and she knew that the Marquis, who stood immediately behind her, was laughing at the picture thus created in his mind of her and her maid sitting atop their luggage on a farm cart! ‘Whatever was he thinking of?’
‘Better than walking,’ the innkeeper said, with a