Amanda Scott (6 page)

“Aye, Ching Ho might appear to an elderly English lady to be something of a mystery, I suppose,” Manningford said, smiling.

He had a delightful smile. The thought startled her and she blurted, “It was not that precisely. Aunt Flavia was talking about Oriental poisons … that is to say, how to lay one’s hands upon them, and she thought—”

“Poisons!” Manningford threw his head back and laughed, inadvertently shaking his reins, giving his horses to understand that he desired them to go faster. But his hands were instantly quick and calming. “Here, lads, easy now,” he said, struggling to achieve the same control over his voice. “Ching Ho and poisons! That’s a good one. Easy, lads.”

Nell waited for him to regain control over the team before she said, “It sounds ridiculous, put that way, but she was merely saying that she didn’t believe in the mysterious Oriental poisons one reads about in romantical novels and—” She broke off when the laughter disappeared from his face, replaced at once by a grimace of disapproval. “Why, whatever have I said, sir? Oh, heed where we are!” she cried before he had had time to reply, for she had noted that they were passing the fountain in Laura Place, heading into Argyle Street. “That is her house there!”

In response he slowed, but she quickly realized that he did so only because Argyle Street was so much narrower than Great Pulteney Street and because there were other vehicles.

“Is Aunt Flavia not at home, then?” Nell demanded.

“That’s it,” he said brusquely. “Be still now while we go across the bridge. I cannot think what the designer was about to have made it so narrow. Even in those days, they must have wanted to drive vehicles across it in both directions at once, so why he had to put shops on both sides is a good question, don’t you agree? To believe anyone can actually have intended this bridge to be part of his main route to London must be lunacy.”

“Is that why Great Pulteney Street is so wide?” Nell asked, diverted. “I wondered about that, since it does not go anywhere in particular. There are all those odd side streets, too.”

“Aye, none longer than about fifty feet. The money ran out before the project could be completed. Good thing, too, if you ask me. This bridge would never have accommodated more traffic than there is now, and all those elegant houses in Laura Place and Sydney Place would have been sneered at by the very folk expected to purchase them, if they had thought they would have to put up with the racket of turnpike traffic all day. Let me concentrate now. It won’t do to lock wheels with someone else.”

She watched anxiously for a moment, not wanting an accident to delay her in reaching Lady Flavia, but she soon saw that there was no cause for misgiving. As her brother, Nigel, would have put the matter, Manningford drove to an inch. He seemed to do so effortlessly, too, so that she could not imagine why he had expressed concern about other vehicles.

On the other side, they rolled swiftly along Bridge Street and, turning away from the Abbey spires into North Gate Street, soon passed a tall church and a bustling market place without slowing any more than was necessary once or twice to avert disaster. When they had passed the Paragon Buildings, Nell said anxiously, “Are you certain you are going the right way, Mr. Manningford? My aunt said nothing to me about going out, you know, and while she might have stepped down the street or even so far as one of the shops on Pulteney Bridge without thinking to mention it, I cannot believe she would have come so far as this without telling me she meant to do so. Where are you taking me?”

He glanced at her in a measuring way before he turned his attention back to his horses and said casually, “Well, the fact of the matter is, Miss Bradbourne, that I am abducting you.”

Nell gazed at his excellent profile in silence for a long moment before she said calmly, “I see.” She shifted her reticule more securely into her lap, fiddling a little with the brightly colored strings that held it shut, saying nothing more.

He glanced at her again, clearly surprised by her calm. “I must say, I expected rather more of a reaction than that.”

“I am displeased, certainly,” Nell said in a matter-of-fact way, “but not so much as to have lost control of my temper, which is fortunate, since I have been told that one should remain calm in the presence of persons whose senses are clearly disordered.”

“I see.” To her surprise, there was amusement in his voice. “I am perfectly sane, Miss Bradbourne.”

“You will have to pardon me, sir, if I take leave to doubt that statement. I shall not scream, however.”

“Be a damned good thing if you don’t. That offside wheeler is a mite ticklish, and I’m having all I can do, as it is, to keep his mind on his business. If you scream, we’ll most likely have him plunging over the traces. And this sort of carriage, you know, is notoriously unstable.”

“I should not wish to court disaster,” she agreed. “Indeed, I shall even keep to myself my opinion of a man who would hitch an unsteady team to such a notoriously unstable carriage.”

“Wise of you.” He shot her an enigmatic look. “I am truly grateful. Particularly since this is not my team, and if even one of these damned brutes is injured, my brother-in-law will doubtless have my head served up to him on a platter the moment he returns from France. He’s a marquess, you see, so I don’t doubt he’d know instantly how to arrange it.”

“Am I to assume,” she asked reasonably, “that your brother-in-law would otherwise approve of the use to which you have put his team?”

She saw his lips twitch briefly before they tightened into a thin line, and he said, “You’re mighty cool for a wench who’s just been told she’s being abducted. I expected tears and recriminations at the very least. Most young ladies of my acquaintance would show rather more sensibility, I believe.”

Nell gave the matter some consideration before she said, “I daresay I am not, in general, a woman of great sensibility, sir, but on the other hand, I must tell you that you are not precisely my notion of an abductor either.”

His mobile eyebrows lifted comically. “I hope that does not mean you believe I shall set you down again before my purpose is fulfilled, ma’am, for you are bound to be disappointed.”

“Am I? I suppose we shall find that out in good time. Is it permitted that I ask why you have abducted me, sir?”

He glanced at her again, at a loss to understand her. “Why does any man abduct a female?”

“Do you mean to ravish me, then?”

“Good Lord, no! Whatever gave you such a cockeyed notion as that? Do I look like a ravisher?”

“I have already said that you do not even look like an abductor,” she reminded him. “It was you who implied that you were doing it for the usual reasons.”

“I meant for money,” he said harshly. “Your virtue is quite safe, Miss Bradbourne.”

“You relieve my mind considerably,” she said.

“Well, you don’t sound relieved,” he retorted. “I take leave to tell you, Miss Bradbourne, that I have known some odd females in my time—”

“I do not doubt you, sir.”

“—and,” he continued firmly, “even the oddest of them would either have treated me to a fit of the vapors or lost her temper with me the minute I’d said I was abducting her. Why, Carolyn Saint-Denis would have tried to scratch my eyes out, or worse, and my sister, Sybilla, would probably have taken her horsewhip to me. But you don’t turn a hair.”

Nell cocked her head a little to one side, watching him, her right hand still fiddling in an absent way with her reticule. “Perhaps ’tis because they know you better than I do, sir. I have no cause at this present to claw your eyes out and every reason while you attempt to control a mettlesome team in traffic not to do so. As to taking a whip to you, why, you hold the only whip within reach, you know, and I daresay you would not hand it over without some reluctance.”

“No, I wouldn’t hand it over at all.”

“How much is your wager?”

He flicked her another glance. “What makes you think there is a wager?”

“There must be. You said you would get money.”

He said in a grim tone, through his teeth, “One abducts an heiress in order to marry her, Miss Bradbourne, in order to control her fortune.”

Nell was silent.

“Tongue get trapped behind your teeth, ma’am?”

She looked directly at him then and discovered that his eyes were an unusual shade of greenish hazel, set deep beneath his brows. Suddenly more disconcerted than she wished him to know, she turned away again, lifted her chin, and said with forced calm, “I believe that abducting heiresses is an indiscretion upon which persons of refinement do not look lightly, sir. Perhaps it is still done in some circles, but surely here in Bath—”

“An indiscretion, Miss Bradbourne?” Again there was that note of near laughter in his voice. “You would label such an act as this a mere indiscretion?”

“I think you cannot have thought the matter out clearly,” she said. She was thinking rapidly, having dismissed her first inclination, which had been to inform him as quickly as possible that he had much mistaken the matter, that she was no heiress, and then to insist that he restore her to her great-aunt at once. She had barely opened her mouth, however, when she realized she could not so easily betray Lady Flavia. After all, she knew nothing about Mr. Manningford and certainly had no cause to trust him. She would have to deal with him in a less diplomatic way.

They had turned onto the London Road, and his attention was fully claimed at that moment by his team. She waited until he had passed a coach laden with passengers before saying calmly, “I regret that I cannot go any farther, Mr. Manningford. My aunt will begin to fret if I do not return to Laura Place soon, so I must request that you take me back there at once.”

“Request all you like,” he said cheerfully without taking his eyes from the road. The speed at which they were traveling made her grateful that he was not one of those young bucks who drove in a careless, neck-or-nothing fashion; nevertheless, she had no intention of allowing him to carry her another mile.

“Mr. Manningford, you are making a mistake.”

“It will not be the first time.”

“No doubt, but abduction is a serious offense, and I am not without protection, you know. You surely cannot believe you will succeed in forcing me to marry you.”

“Do you think I could not? I doubt your family would welcome the sort of scandal that would arise from trying to set such a marriage aside, and they certainly won’t prosecute once the knot is tied. No one would wish to raise that much dust.”

“Rein in your horses, Mr. Manningford.” Nell’s voice was ice cold, her words crystal clear.

Manningford glanced at her and froze. “Where the devil did that come from?” he demanded, staring at the serviceable little pistol she held pointed at him in a perfectly steady hand.

“All that need concern you,” Nell said, still in that calm, frost-bitten tone, “is that I know how to use it and have no qualms about doing so. Rein in your team.”

A low growl from the hound at her feet drew Manningford’s attention. “Good lad,” he said. “I will keep him from harming you, Miss Bradbourne, if you will hand that gun to me at once.”

The pistol moved in Nell’s hand, stopping his hand the instant he began shift his reins to reach for it. “The dog will not harm me, sir. Not, at all events, before I have put a hole in your shoulder or in your thigh. I have not decided which it is to be yet, though I am told that either can be very painful.”

“Yes, by God, it can,” he retorted. “I have had experience with gunshot wounds, and I have no desire to test your mettle, but how do you know the dog won’t harm you? I don’t even know that he won’t.”

“Dogs like me,” Nell said simply.

“He growled.”

“No doubt because you disturbed him when I startled you with my pistol. He has put his head down again, as you can see.”

Manningford sighed and began to rein his team to the side of the road. “Very well, but don’t wave that damned thing about. That stage we passed will most likely be along in a few moments, and I’d as lief not have to explain any of this to the driver or to his guard, if he’s got one.”

“You will take me back to Laura Place.”

The phaeton drew to a halt. “As to that,” he said, eyeing her pistol, “I should perhaps explain a thing or two to you.”

“Do not try to make me believe that I ought to go anywhere else with you, sir. I am not such a ninnyhammer.”

“I never said you were one,” he said, “but the fact is that I have not been precisely factual in my explanation. I am not a marrying man, I fear, nor did I intend to become one.”

“Goodness,” Nell said, watching him even more narrowly than he watched her, “then you did mean to ravish me.”

“No, I swear I did not.”

“Mr. Manningford, it is perfectly plain to me—no, sir, do not move—that my first estimation of your character was the correct one. Your senses are clearly disordered. No doubt your family has persons out scouring the countryside to find you, to place you under restraint. I will thus be doing them a favor by restoring you to their loving bosom, to be well cared for.”

“Well, there you’re out, my girl, there is no loving bosom. My siblings all have families of their own, and my father is a damned odd fellow whom I’ve only just met and don’t care if I never see again.”

“Only just met?” A memory stirred in her mind.

“Yes, but don’t let that distress you. And hide that popgun of yours. Here comes the stage.”

Obediently, Nell slipped the pistol under her skirt until the stage had passed, feeling no urge to draw the attention of passengers or driver. Manningford waved, then heaved a sigh of relief when no one showed any particular interest in them.

“Look,” he said when the dust had settled, “I ought never to have mentioned marriage. I never meant any such thing.”

“So now you would cry off, would you,” Nell said with a chuckle. But then, when he looked truly horrified, she added hastily, “What had my being an heiress to do with it then?”

He still watched her narrowly. “Only that a friend of mine laid me a wager, saying I couldn’t abduct you.”

“I see. I must tell you, sir, that I do not approve of idiotish wagers. You ought to have told him you would not.”