Amanda Scott (7 page)

“I did. In point of fact, I said I’d be damned if I would do any such thing.”

“Very proper. So then, why?”

“Circumstances changed. I require a certain amount of money to see me through to quarter-day. I asked my esteemed father for it, but instead of complying with my request, he chose to treat me as though I were a marionette to which he held the strings, so here I am.”

“But you might ask someone else to lend you the money instead, might you not?”

“Is that an offer?” He grinned at her. “I thank you, but I have never in my life borrowed money from a woman, except of course from my sister, who does not count. I couldn’t.”

“I couldn’t, either,” Nell said, stifling a laugh, “but pray do not take offense, sir. I mean that precisely the way I said it. I cannot possibly. I have no money.”

“None? None at all?”

“Not a farthing. In fact, I came to Bath hoping to find some sort of respectable employment for myself.”

Manningford stared at her for a long moment, then his lips began to twitch and his eyes to twinkle. When he burst into laughter, Nell watched him doubtfully, not certain even yet that she had not fallen into the clutches of a Bedlamite.

W
HEN MANNINGFORD’S FIT OF
laughter showed signs of abating, Nell said coolly, “I do not find the situation humorous, sir, but perhaps I am taking too narrow a view of it.”

Instead of replying directly, he looked over his shoulder and lifted his whip to snap it high above his leaders’ heads. The pace he set was considerably slower than it had been, but that fact alone was not sufficient to keep Nell silent.

“You are going the wrong way,” she said, reaching under her skirt for the pistol.

“No, I am not,” he said, “and keep that pistol of yours hidden, if you please. We are approaching the Snow Hill turnpike, and I’d as lief the keeper didn’t see that thing.”

“Well, he will see it,” Nell said flatly. “I do not wish to go any farther. I thought I had made that plain.”

“You did, but the case is altered now that I know you are not really an heiress.”

“And what gave you any such notion as that?” she demanded, feeling warmth flood her cheeks. “I said only that I have no money, sir, not that I have no expectations.”

He shot her a sharp glance. “Keep a still tongue in your head through the turnpike, my girl, and I’ll tell you how I know. And don’t start ripping up at me now,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest. “There’s another pike at Grosvenor Place, less than a mile from here. You can make your stand there if you still have a desire to do so.”

They had slowed for the pike, and Nell gritted her teeth, leaving the pistol where it was, wondering what it was about the gentleman beside her that made her do as he had asked. Any sensible female, she told herself, would instantly demand assistance from the pike keeper, a burly fellow who looked as though he’d stand no nonsense from anyone.

“Good girl,” Manningford said when they had passed through.

“Yes, you may well think so, sir, but I think I am a fool. I should like to know how you thought you would get me through these turnpikes had I not been willing.”

He shrugged. “I really didn’t think about it, but there are ways to avoid the pikes altogether if one knows them. I do.”

“I suppose you do at that,” she said. “Why did you suggest that I am not an heiress?”

“It was not a suggestion. No heiress would speak so offhandedly about a need to seek employment.”

“She might if she had nothing to live on but her expectations.”

“Fustian. That great-aunt of yours, who is supposed to be the source of those expectations, would be preparing to take you about to all the parties she can find to launch you in style and find you a proper husband. Since she is apparently doing no such thing and expects you to find work—”

“Finding work is my own idea and one which my great-aunt strongly opposes,” Nell said, trying to maintain the calm dignity that had served her so well before. “It has no doubt escaped your notice, Mr. Manningford, that I am wearing half-mourning. My father died seven months ago.”

Manningford looked at her sharply, his countenance evincing brief confusion before his brow cleared and, to Nell’s chagrin, he muttered, “Bradbourne! I thought that name sounded familiar but assumed it was because of your being an heiress. Your father was Lord Bradbourne then, the gamester who brought an abbey to a grange before he killed hims—That is—” He broke off again, stricken. “Oh, look here, I never ought to have said that.”

“There is no need to apologize, Mr. Manningford,” Nell said coldly. “Nor is there need for you to risk being seen any longer in my company, though it is no more than you deserve for having subjected me to this nonsensical abduction of yours.”

“Risk? What are you talking about?”

Having no wish to discuss the matter an instant longer, she stared straight ahead, willing him to draw in to the side of the road again so she might take leave of him with at least a modicum of her dignity intact. But when, without a word, he did slow the team and, a moment afterward, drew up in a narrow side road, she had a sudden, quite inexplicable urge to burst into tears.

His voice was gentle. “Miss Bradbourne, I am profoundly sorry to have distressed you, although, since you deny that I had cause to apologize, I cannot think what I said exactly to have done so, and I cannot imagine, in any event, why you think that my being seen in your company will do me the least harm. ’Tis rather the other way ’round, as you must know perfectly well.”

“I did think so,” Nell said, “but that was before I knew that our dreadful scandal had flown beyond Trowbridge. If everyone in Bath already knows my appalling history, then I expect I shall have to leave, for I cannot subject Aunt Flavia to the burden of my company under such a circumstance.”

“It is not so bad as that,” he said. “I, too, associate with gamesters, you see, and I did not hear of it in Bath.”

“I think perhaps it is a pity, anyway,” she said with a sigh, “that your abducting me was not on account of a wager.”

He had been watching her narrowly, but his eyes widened now, and the note of amusement returned to his voice when he said, “Why is that, precisely?”

“Well, it has occurred to me that if such a wager were large enough, we might … that is …” Unable to finish the thought, she looked at him with a rueful twinkle in her eyes. “It was a dreadful notion, sir, and not one to which you would have agreed even had the circumstance been different. I cannot think what can have come over me. Pray, forget that I spoke.”

He chuckled. “Miss Bradbourne, I begin to believe you show promise. The fact that you could contemplate even for a moment the thought of defrauding Halstead of his four thousand pounds makes me think quite differently about you.”

“Halstead? Four thousand! I do not understand you, sir.”

“Well, I understood you well enough, and if I thought for a moment that we could carry off such a hoax, I should be delighted to divide the spoils with you, but I don’t suppose we could.”

“I am afraid that that is precisely what I was thinking, more shame to me.” When she remembered what else he had said, Nell sighed again. “There was a wager then. Four thousand?”

He grinned at her wistful tone. “You sound just like a friend of mine,” he said. “No doubt you will also agree with him that the wager was mad-brained from the start.”

Nell straightened, giving herself a shake. “All wagers are mad-brained, Mr. Manningford, as I have good reason to know, but in point of fact, I have heard of others a great deal more preposterous than abducting an heiress for four thousand pounds, albeit not necessarily more stupid or more dangerous.”

He ignored her last point, pinning his attention on an earlier one. “I don’t doubt you’ve heard some crazy ones. Is it true your father once staked a team of horses against a brewery that one flower in his garden would bloom before another?”

Nell smiled reminiscently. “That was one of his more absurd wagers with his uncle Reginald. He won that time, and Reginald had the Crosshill brewery dismantled, board by board and stone by stone, and rebuilt at Highgate. Two years later, it was all done again, when Papa put the brewery up against a brace of Reginald’s east-lawn peacocks and lost.”

“Peacocks! I take it this brewery didn’t make much money.”

“On the contrary, people for miles around purchased their ale and beer from us, so it turned an excellent profit.”

“Now, see here, Miss Bradbourne, I have a certain reputation of my own for making mad wagers, but I should never be so mad as to wager something of no worth against something of great worth.”

Nell smiled again. “You had to know them,” she said. “Half their fun lay in making their wagers ridiculous. You see, it had been a source of amusement for them since their childhood. That is why—” But here she stopped, smoothed a crease from her skirt with a conscious air, and focused her attention upon the post-and-rail fence at the side of the road where two blackbirds were playing tag with each other. When Manningford made no attempt to press her to finish her sentence, she said a moment later in a more cheerful way, “We must be getting back to Laura Place, sir, before my great-aunt has begun to fret about my long absence.”

“Very well,” he said, gathering the reins again, “but we ought perhaps to go to Grosvenor Place and collect that friend of mine first. I told him I would do so if it was at all possible, and he will be wondering what has become of me. Do you mind?”

“No, of course not,” Nell said, thinking at the same time that it was extremely odd to have been having such a conversation with a would-be abductor, and thinking at the same time that she must daft to be thinking that she would like to know him better. A moment later, back on the London Road, she kept her hands firmly folded in her lap and her eyes steadily on the road ahead, wondering what sort of friend Mr. Manningford had who would so patiently await his arrival with the young lady he had abducted.

They were held up briefly at the turnpike while Manningford persuaded the keeper that he intended to go no more than a few yards beyond to Grosvenor Place to pick up a friend who was awaiting him, and that they would then return. The rules regarding this sort of thing were quite clear, but the keeper was by no means prepared to accept the word of a young buck driving a carriage clearly intended to carry no more than two people, and a fast carriage at that. Only when Manningford pointed out that his friend was the gentleman dressed in the height of fashion now approaching them on the pavement directly opposite Grosvenor Place, did the keeper give way and allow them to pass, though he kept a sharp eye on them as he attended to the two vehicles following closely behind the phaeton.

Manningford drew up beside Mr. Lasenby, who had lifted his gold-rimmed quizzing glass to his right eye, the better to examine Miss Bradbourne. “Good morning, ma’am,” he said politely, letting the glass fall before casting an inquiring look at Manningford. “Going to introduce me, my lad?”

“Never mind doing the polite, Seppi,” Manningford told him. “Just hop up here, quick as you can, before that turnpike keeper begins to think we’re tipping him the double.”

“What, didn’t you get a proper ticket?” Mr. Lasenby demanded, climbing up to squeeze in beside Nell, who in shifting to make room for him, found herself sitting awkwardly on her pistol. “Dashed fool thing to forget,” he added. “And you such a knowing one! But you might introduce me to the lady all the same, you know, particularly if we’re going to be driving along the highroad squashed together like geese in a drove.”

“Geese in a flock, Sep; sheep in a drove.” Manningford smiled at Nell. “Mr. Lasenby, Miss Bradbourne, little though he recommends himself to you with his foolish chatter.”

“Well, I like that,” Mr. Lasenby said indignantly. “I am not the one who insisted upon driving to Reading in a dashed uncomfortable high-flyer, am I? Dashed right I’m not! And—Here, Bran, what are you doing turning full about in the middle of the London Road? You’ll have us over or in a tangle with another carriage. Watch that fellow on the right, will you!”

“Hold your nash, Seppi. I’ve never overturned you yet, have I?” Manningford waved thanks to the gentleman who had halted his own carriage in rather a hurry to allow him to turn his around. “We are taking Miss Bradbourne back to Laura Place.”

“Taking her back!” Mr. Lasenby looked from one to the other, then uttered a weak laugh. “I wonder what nonsense you can be speaking, Bran. Miss Bradbourne, I daresay you do not know what he is talking about. Pay him no heed, I beg you.”

Nell looked straight ahead, biting her lower lip to keep the bubble of laughter she felt rising in her throat from bursting forth, and grateful that her short stay in Bath made it unlikely that any of her great-aunt’s friends, or anyone else, would recognize her in her present position.

Manningford, shooting a glance at her, said nothing until he had negotiated the turnpike again, but once they were through, he said to Mr. Lasenby, “She knows the whole, Sep, and she objects to being abducted, so I am taking her home immediately.”

“She knows?” Mr. Lasenby tugged at his highly starched neckcloth, evidently finding it suddenly a trifle too tight. “I say, Miss Bradbourne, I hope Bran’s little indiscretion—”

But here he was interrupted by a crack of laughter from Manningford. “You sound just like her, Sep! Indiscretion is precisely the word she employed to describe what I tried to do. Oh, and Miss Bradbourne,” he added in lower voice, “if you have not already done so, I beg you will put that pistol back where you found it before we reach Laura Place and without waving it about, if you please, for all and sundry to see.”

“Pistol!” Mr. Lasenby choked the word out. “She’s got a pistol?” Watching in fascinated dismay as Nell gratefully removed it from beneath her hip and returned it to her reticule, he said as she did so, “Now, look here, Bran, I said the whole notion was mad-brained, and if you had not let your father get your temper up like you did, you’d have seen as much from the outset. For I’ll tell you to your head, my lad, you have not managed this business with a jot of your usual finesse, and that’s a fact.”