Danice Allen Read online

  The aunts gave a collective gasp.

  Henchpenny was beginning to look baffled and disapproving. “Er … may I tell Iris to pack for Miss Nancy and Miss Priscilla, then?”

  “No, you may not. I’m going alone.”

  “Amanda Jane, this is foolishness!” exclaimed Prissy.

  Nan pushed herself up from the sofa. “It’s too dangerous to go alone. If you insist on going, I’ll go with you.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of exposing you to such an arduous journey, Aunt. And, as the mission I’ll be on is of a rather delicate nature, the less people involved the better.” Amanda turned to Henchpenny. “I give permission to my aunts to explain to you where I’m going and why, but that’s as far as I wish the story to spread. I’m counting on all three of you to be very discreet. Of course I must confide in Theo, too, but no one else. When I return from Thorney Island, hopefully with someone with me, we’ll decide what the next best step should be. Does everyone understand?”

  By now, Henchpenny was looking thoroughly perplexed. “I shall strive to, miss,” he murmured.

  “Now hurry along, Henchpenny,” said Amanda as she breezed by him into the hall. “I want to leave before dark, and it’s already half past four. There’s a full moon tonight, and unless it rains, we’ll be able to drive quite long after sunset. I’ll stop at a roadside inn around midnight, then resume my journey on the morrow. And do get rid of that Friday face, Henchpenny. All will be well.”

  As Amanda’s quick footsteps echoed down the hall, Henchpenny turned to the aunts. “Pardon me, ladies, but what the devil has come over the mistress?”

  “You might well ask, Henchpenny,” said Nan with a raised brow. “See to the mistress’s traveling arrangements, and Miss Priscilla and I will be happy to explain.”

  Henchpenny stalked away, his heavy brow still furrowed in a deep frown. The aunts watched him go, then turned to each other and nodded their heads sagely.

  “I was wondering when some of our side of the family would show up in the chit,” said Nan. “I was beginning to fear that father of hers had completely ruined her, just as he ruined Clorinda.”

  “You know, Nan,” said Prissy, her eyes taking on a dreamy quality, “now that I’ve given it some thought, I think I shall like having a child about the house.”

  “Yes,” agreed Nan with a decided nod. “A child would be even better than a seaside holiday.”

  The tiny country pub called The Spotted Dog was filled with smoke and smelled of liquor, sweat, and cow manure. Jackson Montgomery, Viscount Durham, slumped in his chair and counted the empty tumblers on the table in front of him. It was becoming rather difficult to focus, and he greatly feared that he was counting some tumblers twice.

  “Tha’s one, tha’s two, tha’s three—”

  “Fifteen. Thirty-four. Ninety-nine. What does it matter how many you drink, Jack?” was the devil-may-care question posed by his traveling companion and best friend, Robert Hamilton. “I say, eat, drink, and be merry, old chap, because tomorrow you … marry.”

  “You’re so right,” said Jack, squinting across the table and seeing two of his friend instead of one … two heads of blond curls styled à la cherubim, two choirboy faces with blue eyes and long lashes. “But why don’t you join, me, ol’ chap. You’ve only had a couple, Robbie.”

  “I’m not getting married, Jack. You’re the lucky one.

  Jack frowned. “I do believe you’re hoaxin’ me, Rob.”

  “Drink up, Jack!” said Rob in a bracing tone. “Finish your brew and I’ll call the barkeep for another.”

  Obediently, Jack took another long drink from his tumbler of Blue Ruin, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Bad form to shtagger down the aisle, don’t ya know.”

  “Pooh, Jack,” said Rob, waving a hand—or was that two hands?—dismissively. “You’ve got Charlotte in your hip pocket, just like every other chit in London. She’ll be waiting for you at the altar whether you dance, march or fly down the aisle. Wish’t I had your way with the ladies,” he added with grudging good humor.

  Jack took another drink. “Charlotte likes you, Rob.”

  “Not as well as she likes you.”

  “Only wish’t I liked her as well as she likes me,” observed Jack morosely.

  “If you don’t love her, Jack, why don’t you leave her to me?”

  “Don’t think I’ll ever fall in love, Rob. Never have, ya know, and I was two-and-thirty last June.” He bit his lip, concentrating hard. “Or was that three-and-thirty? But never mind. Charlotte’s a good ’un, ain’t she, Rob?”

  “Rich, too,” grumbled Rob.

  “That don’t signify,” objected Jack.

  “Not to you.”

  “Fun to hug, she is. Plump in all the right places … if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, and plump in the purse, too.”

  “A man’d be an idiot, a shelfish brute, a … a … villian to want more, eh, Rob?”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” concurred his amiable friend, rising from his chair to stand over Jack. “Stay here, old man; I’m going to see if they’ve got any food in this godforsaken place. I’ll send the barkeep over to pour you another drink.”

  Jack didn’t bother to reply but finished off the dregs of his brew in anticipation of another full tumbler.

  “Milord? Are ye wantin’ another?”

  Jack carefully lifted his chin and peered at the blurred figure of a man standing by the table. He had to look up … and up … and up to finally fix on the man’s face. Eventually Jack’s head was resting on the back of the chair. There was only one of them, but the face was merely a fuzzy oval with two dark slashes for eyebrows and tiny dark holes for eyes. Those slashes and holes were vaguely familiar…. Ah, yes. The barkeep.

  “How kin’ of you t’wask, my good man,” said Jack, stretching his mouth into a friendly smile. “Rob sent you over, did he?”

  “He did, milord. Only I wonder if’n ye really need another drink,” he said doubtfully.

  “If Rob says I need a drink, I need a drink,” said Jack, sounding as firm as his slurred speech would allow. “He saved my life, ya know, in Oporto, fightin’ that bloody bastard, Napoléon.”

  “He’s got you as a friend fer life, then, don’t he, milord?”

  “Right as rain, my good fellow. Now pour the gin, pleash. I’m thirshty, y’know. So damned thirshty I could drink the North Sea.”

  The man’s shape shifted, the broad part of him bobbing up and down. There was a sound like an owl hooting, only in fast succession. Then he realized the barkeep was laughing. Jack was glad he’d said something amusing, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what.

  “Still thirsty, eh? Must have coated yer throat with dust good and proper on yer way up from Brighton,” said the barkeep, pouring more gin into another tumbler. “Well, I’ll give ye one more for the road. Ye’re in yer altitudes, milord, and bound t’ be shootin’ the cat soon. I wouldn’t let ye get so foxed if’n I didn’t depend on yer friend … what’s raidin’ my kitchen and chasin’ the scullery wench … t’ get ye safely back to London t’night.”

  “Safely to London,” repeated Jack, staring wide-eyed at the tumbler of gin. “Safely home to my blushing bride.”

  The barkeep whistled. The sound made Jack’s head buzz, and he shook it to clear out the infernal hive of bees that must have entered through one ear or the other. “Ye’re newly leg-shackled, men, milord?”

  Jack dragged the tumbler to his side of the table. Then with considerable effort he lifted his head again to look at the fuzzy oval that was the barkeep’s face. “No, my good man,” he said with deliberate pronunciation. “I’m not shackled yet.” He pointed to his chest with his forefinger. “Till tomorrow morning, I”—he poked his chest—“am”—another poke—”a free man.” Poke, poke, poke.

  “Ah, so’s that’s the reason we’re in our cups, milord? Can’t say I blame ye. Marriage is a drastic step for a chap.”

&nbs
p; “One drashtic step,” agreed Jack. And one he’d avoided for years. But he wanted an heir. Legally there was only one way to accomplish that, and he was prepared to make the sacrifice.

  “It’s not that she’s such a bad sort,” he mumbled into his mug.

  “What’s that, milord?”

  “My fansee—”

  “Yer fancy, milord?”

  Jack hiccupped, then furrowed his brow in serious concentration. “No. My fee-on-shay—”

  The barkeep bent near. “ ‘Fraid I don’t understand ye, milord,” he apologized.

  “My betrothed,” said Jack, abandoning the French word for one less difficult to pronounce.

  “Ah!”

  “She’s smart, pretty, and pleasant to kiss,” he said, praising his bride-to-be to this total stranger, much in the same way he’d praised her to Rob. He suspected he was only trying to convince himself, and not them, that he was doing the right thing. “What else could a man want?” He looked to the barkeep for corroboration.

  “Right ye are, milord,” the barkeep said readily. “What else could a man want?”

  What else indeed? thought Jack philosophically. A man could want to be truly in love for once in his life. But right now, after too many tumblers of gin to count, a man could want to relieve himself. He put both hands flat on the tabletop and pushed himself to his feet. Immediately his head began to spin.

  “Hell and damnation.”

  “Do ye need some help, milord?” The barkeep had somehow skirted the table without Jack noticing and was standing at his elbow. Jack had no desire to be helped outside for the private purpose he intended. It was unmanly. And it proved he was too drunk to take care of the most basic of human functions.

  “No thank you, my good man,” he said, lifting his chin proudly even though his head was already pounding like a kettledrum. “Just direct me to the nearesht door, if you pleash.”

  The barkeep pointed to a dark archway that looked to Jack about a mile away. “That’s the back entrance, milord.”

  “Exshellent,” said Jack, and he weaved himself in that direction.

  He got outside, wandered in a profusion of bushes for a while, took care of matters, then headed back toward the door of the pub. But after several minutes, he realized that he’d perhaps gone the wrong way. He stood still for a moment and looked around.

  The trees were tall and blocked out the moonlight. The vegetation surrounding him was thick and he could observe no evidence anywhere of a footpath parting the shrubbery, but it was dark and foggy, and everything was spinning. “Hell and damnation,” he said in salute to the wilds of the West Sussex countryside.

  He was beginning to question the wisdom of pulling over at such a secluded, bump-in-the-road pub to wet his whistle. They could have gone on a while longer and stopped somewhere more civilized. But they’d stopped at his command, then the gin and the miserable anticipation of his wedding on the morrow had overcome him.

  Jack strived to think. He must face facts; he was as fuddled as he’d ever been in his life and, judging by the ominous rumblings of his stomach, about to cast up his accounts. He staggered to what he hoped was a clearing in the brush and felt the cool rush of wind in his hair. For the first time since he’d left the pub, he noticed it was lightly raining. The cool water on his face was refreshing, so he stood there for a minute with his eyes closed as his stomach thankfully began to settle.

  A noise was intruding on his serenity, though. A distant thunderous sound. He felt vibrations through the soles of his boots. But his brain was so muddled by booze, he couldn’t remember where he’d heard that sound before.

  The sound was getting louder, coming closer. He opened his eyes and realized he was standing in the middle of a highway. Terror struck him as he suddenly recognized the sound and anticipated his fate. Coming round a bend in the road was a coach-and-four being driven at a spanking pace.

  As he lunged to the side in a desperate effort to avoid the imminent trampling of his sorry bones, he speculated wryly that death was certainly one way to avoid marriage but not the sort of escape he’d have willingly chosen. So awfully permanent, you know…

  Chapter 2

  The driver shouted a curse, the horses whinnied, and Amanda lurched forward as the coach rocked and shuddered to an abrupt stop.

  “Good heavens!” she exclaimed as she righted herself in the seat and pushed the rim of her bonnet out of her eyes. “We must have hit a cow!” But when she scrambled out of the coach, she found Theo kneeling beside the prone figure of a man, the two outriders standing over him with lanterns.

  Amanda’s stomach twisted with empathy and apprehension, and for a moment she was unable to move. The man’s long legs, clad in light gray breeches and tall black boots, were the only part of him she could see from where she stood; his face was entirely hidden from view behind Theo’s broad back. The man did not lie directly in the path of the agitated horses but was sprawled just off the road to the side. He was very still. Too still.

  “Good God, Theo, we haven’t killed him, have we?” she asked her coachman in a tremulous whisper.

  “We didn’t trample ’im, if’n that’s what ye’re wonderin’, miss,” answered Theo, turning to look at her. As he was crouched directly under the lantern glow, Amanda could see her coachman’s distraught expression quite clearly.

  “Then what happened, pray tell? You wouldn’t look so milk-faced if there was no reason for concern. Why does he lie so still?”

  “He was standin’ dazed-like in the middle of the road, miss. He got out th’ way just in time, but it appears he hit ’is head on a rock.”

  “Is he breathing?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Is he … bleeding?”

  “Like a faucet, miss.”

  “Then stem the flow!”

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, miss, but with what?”

  “Good heavens, Theo, use your imagination!” Amanda said, exasperated. She watched Theo cast his eyes about the wet, leaf-strewn ground in a helpless manner for no more than thirty seconds before she lifted her skirt and tore a flounce from her petticoat. Theo and the two young outriders averted their gazes.

  “Here, use this!” ordered Amanda, thrusting the length of muslin toward her embarrassed servant. “When a man’s life is in jeopardy, ’tis ridiculous and deadly, I daresay, to be a prude!”

  “Yes, miss,” mumbled Theo, taking the delicate ruffle with shaky fingers and wadding it into a ball.

  “No, Theo! Fold it!” admonished Amanda, advancing till she stood next to him. “Fold it several times, then press it to the wound!”

  Theo tried to do as he was instructed, but he was as ham-handed as possible, even dropping the fabric twice on the sodden ground. “What’s the matter with you, Theo?” Amanda demanded. “Your ability as a horse doctor is well known!”

  “But this ain’t no horse, miss,” Theo complained miserably. “This here’s a swell if ever I seen one! Nursin’ a nobleman ain’t no joke! What if he turns up ’is toes and they string me up fer murder?”

  “Nonsense!” scolded Amanda.

  “It could happen, miss,” Theo assured her. His round face, framed by muttonchop whiskers, was etched with worry.

  “Don’t be a peagoose, Theo! He’s not going to die … unless, of course, we let him bleed to death!” Amanda intensely disliked the sight of blood and was certainly not accustomed to touching strange gentlemen, but this was an emergency. She lifted her chin and demanded, “Step aside and let me have a go at ’im!”

  Theo more than willingly relinquished his responsibility for the swell into his employer’s only slightly steadier hands.

  As Amanda got down on her knees beside the man, she sternly told herself to be calm and efficient. Now was not the time for her to get swoonish over a bit of blood, or to let her shy reluctance to touch a member of the opposite sex get in the way of saving a man’s life.

  Without looking directly at the unconscious gentleman, and disregarding the mudd
y ground and the rain that spotted her velvet cloak, she hastily folded the muslin. “Hold the lantern closer, please,” she ordered.

  In the bright glow of the lantern, Amanda finally looked at her patient. For a moment she was so arrested by the man’s face, she froze. He was by far the handsomest man she’d clapped eyes on in an age. She winced when she saw the gash above his left brow, however, and immediately pressed the folded muslin against it for a couple of minutes, then dabbed away some of the blood.

  She was relieved to see that the laceration was not very deep, but he did have a rather alarming lump beneath it. She supposed the swelling accounted, in part, for his continued unconsciousness. But Amanda smelled the strong odor of liquor on the man’s person and concluded that he was inebriated, too. She wondered how much his unconsciousness could be attributed to his injury and how much was the result of too much brew-tipping!

  While her servants once again averted their gazes, Amanda tore another length of muslin from her petticoat, then wrapped it around the man’s head in a makeshift bandage. “There, that shall have to do till a physician can be consulted,” she said, briskly whisking her hands together. “We’d better get him off that cold ground and out of the rain immediately or else he might catch an inflammation of the lung to add to his troubles. Lift him into the carriage, gentlemen.”

  “Where are we takin’ ’im, miss?” was Theo’s most reasonable question.

  Amanda’s brows furrowed. “I don’t know.” She scanned the area, seeing nothing but thick shrubbery and trees shrouded in mist. “I can’t even imagine where he came from in the first place. I don’t see any lights or smoke from a chimney.”

  “According to the map, the closest village is ten miles west of here, miss,” said Theo. “They might have a doctor there to attend to the gent. And even if they don’t, I’m thinkin’ it’d be smart to rack up for the night at the first decent inn we see in town and take care of ’im as best we can.”

  “Yes, that would be the logical thing to do,” Amanda agreed. “I had been thinking it was time to stop even before this unfortunate accident. We’re nearer the coast here, and the fog is rolling in. Travel could become quite difficult. As for this gentleman, once he’s regained consciousness, he’ll be able to explain the whole incident and give us names and directions of relatives we can notify.”