Captive Bride (40 page)

But apparently now he spoke aloud when he did not intend it. He was, perhaps, finally slipping.
A shame.
Rational precision was all he had left, after all, and of course the damned fireball that lived in his midsection
.

“
Wha
’ races?”
The other guest sprawled on the divan, this one without a woman at present, perhaps due to his waistcoat soaked in wine.
Rule #3: Ladies expected a gentleman to maintain his accoutrements.
Even
demi
-reps.
Wyn’s
great-aunt had insisted on that.

“Who’s racing?” the slovenly gentleman slurred. “I’ll lay ten guineas on you over any
of’em
. Clever son of a—” 

“No race.” With deliberate steps
Wyn
moved to the sideboard and sloshed wine into a glass. Blinking hard to steady himself, he pivoted, carried the glass over, and curled the fellow’s hand around it. Warm.
Human sinew and flesh.
Strange that he should notice this. But it had been an age since he’d felt another human’s skin, touched another person.
“Merely seeing to my horse.”

The sot quaffed, dribbling wine from the corner of his mouth. “He’s a pretty
goer
. Sell
him?”   

“No.”
Wyn
had one loyal companion in addition to the burn in his gut: the sleek black thoroughbred in the stable that deserved a great deal better than him.

The man waved his hand, brushing away the refusal in that happy haze of alcohol saturation that
Wyn
himself had not experienced in years. Not happiness, no.

“
S’just
as well.
Wife’d
skin me alive if I spent that sort of blunt.”

“Far better to spend it on drink and whores, of course,”
Wyn
murmured, focusing on the door again. It tilted to one side, then the other.

“Din’
know
you had that sort of blunt either.”

“Not lately, old chap.” But he’d bought Galahad five years ago, before his funds ran dry.

The man slurped from the glass then again slumped into a snore.
Wyn
made his way over the prone bodies at the door and along the corridor. In the butler’s closet he sought his coat. Had he brought a coat?
The month?
September
.

He pulled his topcoat from a hook. Best to make certain it was his. He fished in the pocket for the one item he suspected only he would carry to a country bacchanalia. His fingers slipped around the knife’s sheath. His pistol, of course, was still in the saddlebag. No need for a firearm at this sort of friendly gathering of wastrels. He’d brought it for the road, and because to be without it was to be a great fool.

For all his sins, he was not a great fool. Not even a minor one.

He left the house and the men and women inside, locked in a revelry they all enjoyed because they knew nothing more satisfying, and made his way across the muddy drive. Within the stable all was damp straw and the musky warmth of horses. Galahad had his own stall because he deserved it, not because his temper did not allow for company; the thoroughbred was gelded, much like his master at this gathering—
temporarily
. No women while working. No drink usually either. But this assignment had called for it.
Thus the horse’s four eyes now.
And four nostrils, and four ears.

Wyn
reached for both of Galahad’s muzzles, each satin black marked with a blaze. He grasped either side of the animal’s face and the two heads became one. A quiet-natured fellow, Galahad did not protest.

“Can you bear her company, my friend?” Against the horse’s coat, his breath was heavy with brandy. “She is very pretty, after all.”

Galahad stared at him with eyes the color of earth and bumped his nose into his chest.

“You will do whatever is asked of you. We are a fine pair.” He closed his eyes. “But I will soon do what I have not been asked to do. Then they will take you from me. They will take everything, but”—he dipped his voice to a whisper—“you will be all I regret losing.” For a moment he stood still, the straw-littered floor bobbing beneath him. Then he set to saddling and bridling his horse.

Traveling bag slung across his haunches, Galahad followed him through the stable at his heels like a spaniel. They halted before another stall. The animal within shone like a jewel, from her tapered nose and intelligent eyes to powerful withers and silken brown coat.

Wyn
bowed. “My lady, your escort has arrived.” He opened the stall door.

Lady Priscilla, as prime a piece of horseflesh as could be bred, came without protest, young and light of hoof but biddable. Thus, no doubt, she had gone with
Wyn’s
host after he won her at cards from
Marquess
McFee
—unjustly, for she belonged to
McFee’s
uncle, the Duke of Yarmouth.

Now the duke wanted his prized young hunter back. Who better for the job than
Wyn
? The
crown knew that when it lifted its little finger to demand a service of Mr.
Wyn
Yale, penniless third son of a Welsh squire of little land and less wit, he would leap to it. And, of course, he did it because he enjoyed it. Rather, had enjoyed it. More lately he did it to keep himself in waistcoats and brandy.

But this job was different. He had not agreed to this humiliating task to please the anonymous director of the Falcon Club or the king. Not even for the sack of gold coins they would pay him. This assignment he had accepted to avenge a death.

A death for a death.
One sin to cancel out another.

This time, however, he could not hide the truth of his deed from his friends—
Leam
Blackwood, Jin Seton, Constance Read, Colin Gray—all once fellow agents in the Falcon Club, the greatest friends a man could have. This time they would all know. This time the world would know.

The rain
fell
mizzling
, sending mist up from the warm earth. But the sky was heavy and it would soon pour down. The filly’s blanket would keep her dry. He took another blanket from the tack room and affixed it over Galahad’s back.

“Now we are off to the races.
As it were.”

He set off along the foggy drive on foot, a lead line in
either hand and
hundreds of guineas worth of horseflesh following docilely behind. The gray day was still young, the walk to the village where a bottle and the Mail Coach could be found only a few miles distant. By the time he reached Yarmouth’s castle two days hence, he would again be dry and suitably clad.
In the meantime, to be sodden both without as well as within seemed suitable enough.
Here in the middle of nowhere, in the company of none but beasts, for once he needn’t even mimic perfection. And, after all, a man on his way to murder a duke ought to be allowed to enjoy the journey in whatever manner he liked.

In theory, her plan worked splendidly well.

In
theory
.

Diantha
had not, of course, counted on the handsome farm boy. Thus she had not foreseen Annie’s desertion. Neither had she anticipated the rain that soaked the hem of her traveling dress, or the man with the sausage-like fingers sitting in the opposite corner seat of the Mail Coach. The squalling infant in its mother’s spindly arms was not an especial boon either. But at least the little bundle hadn’t caused
Diantha
any real trouble, only a megrim the size of Devonshire, which actually had its start at the posting house when Annie gave abrupt notice with a “Best of luck to you, Miss Lucas!” thrown over her shoulder. So in truth the babe could not be blamed.

Naturally, from the comfort of
Brennon
Manor,
Diantha
could not have anticipated any of this, especially Annie’s defection. Her best friend, Teresa Finch-
Freeworth
, adored her maid, and quite frankly
Diantha
had liked her too. Annie had seemed the ideal companion with whom to make her premature departure from Teresa’s home under cover of propriety.
Until Annie abandoned her.

Diantha
pressed fingertips to temples. The megrim was worsening, but babies would cry, and she liked them quite a lot under normal circumstances. She had always dreamed of having children of her own, and Mr. H liked them. But she didn’t have time to ponder that. Now she must find her mother and wrest her from the den of iniquity in which she was living.

Around the edge of her bonnet she darted a glance at Mr. Sausage Fingers. He scowled at the babe, jowls wiggling with the rough sway of the carriage.

“She is cutting her teeth, isn’t she?”
Diantha
whispered to the mother. “My sister, Faith,
cried buckets when her teeth were coming through.”

“She won’t stop, miss.” The woman groaned softly, rocking the babe against a breast far too narrow to serve as a pillow
.

“Poor dear.
My mother used to rub our gums with brandy. Sometimes whiskey if Papa had already drunk up all the brandy. It is very soothing.”

The woman looked skeptical and perhaps a bit scandalized. “Is it?”

“Oh, yes. Smugglers were so common on the
coast,
we’d no trouble finding brandy during the war.” She tucked a gloved finger into the baby’s hand. It latched on and the cries hiccupped. “At the next posting house, dip your finger into a cup of spirits and rub away. She will be asleep in no time.” The infant’s mouth opened again and out of it flew a banshee’s howl. “Then drink the remainder of the cup yourself,”
Diantha
said louder, to be heard over the din. She smiled and patted the woman’s arm.

The mother’s eyes softened. The babe wailed. Beneath the brim of his cap, Mr. Sausage Fingers was leering again. He had the look of a highwayman about him, if highwaymen had dirty fingernails and shifty eyes.

It was clear to
Diantha
now that Annie’s elopement was incidental to her troubles. Men like this would populate the road all the way to Bristol and then probably the boat to Calais. The world was made of men, and some were villainous.

She knew this only vaguely, having been introduced at a young age to a nasty man named Mr. Baker to whom her mother had intended to wed her beautiful sister, Charity.
Or some such thing.
No one had ever told her anything in those days because she was too young
and susceptible
, they said, which meant that she was likely to get into scrapes if given rein. Now everybody was gone, so there was no one to tell her anything even though she had turned nineteen, with one exception: Teresa, whose stories were scandalously titillating and who had devised the plan for her current mission, which mustn’t be thwarted even by a minor mishap like losing her traveling companion to a farm
lad
with large muscles in his arms. Annie had especially liked those muscles. She’d mentioned them before abandoning her, by way of justification it seemed.

Diantha
hadn’t any opinion of men’s arms or muscles, but now she saw her plan’s fatal flaw. She required a man. But not just any man. She needed a man of courage and honor who would assist her without question.

She needed a hero.

Diantha’s
stepsister, Serena, had often read to her stories of knights saving damsels in distress, and the Baron of Carlyle, her stepfather and a scholar, had assured her that these stories were not entirely fictional, rather based in historical fact. Heroes did exist. Now her mission was simply too perilous to undertake with only female assistance. A hero must be found.

In retrospect it all seemed quite obvious.
Of course
the plan Teresa devised had not included securing the assistance of a man. Teresa had never met a real hero. Her father barely ever looked at his women, and her brothers were most certainly not heroic; a fortnight ago all three of them had taken one look at
Diantha
and their eyes had gone positively feral. Since none of them had ever noticed her during her visits to
Brennon
Manor before, they could not be considered heroic.

Heroes cared for more than appearance. They cared about the heart.

The young mother shifted a bony hip, nudging
Diantha’s
against the portly gentleman to her left. Intent upon his journal, he seemed not to notice. She gave him a quick glance and released a little breath of disappointment.

Too old.
A hero ready to defend a lady from the likes of highwaymen must be in the prime
of his manhood. Otherwise he might not be able to wield a sword or pistol with sufficient vigor if necessary. This man had gray whiskers.

The carriage jolted. The baby bawled. The mother sobbed quietly.