Devil's Match (9 page)

P
atrick collided with Bascombe on his way out and exploded, “Bertie, she's bolted!”

“Bolted? I say, Pat, she ain't! No—can't have.” His friend was positive. “I mean, she ain't got nowhere to go!”

“Nonetheless, she's gone—fled without a trace.”

There was a disappointment in Patrick's voice that gave Bertie pause. “Thought you was marryin' her because you was obliged to, Pat. Seems to me that she's saving us a lot of trouble, if you was to ask me.” He caught the wrath that flashed in Patrick's eyes and drew back defensively. “Look, if she don't want you and she don't want me, I don't see what we can do about it.”

“Let me remind you, Bertie, that you brought her here—you are responsible if anything happens to her.”

“Me?
Patrick, it was a mistake! Thought you wanted her—I did! Now, if it ain't like that and she's gone, I say good riddance. You wasn't the one that had to listen to her coming over.”

“I've got to find her.”

“Why? If she's run away, seems to me we ain't got any obligation.”

“Call it a matter of honor—I cannot have her out there somewhere, alone and unprotected, in a foreign country.”

“A man'd think you was wantin' to marry her, Patrick.”

“Maybe I do.”

“For Charlie's wager.” Bertie nodded.

“No. We're wasting time. You go down to the wharves and ask about today's packets to England. I'm going to ask the ostlers if they saw anything.”

“Monsieur! Monsieur le vicomte!”
Crespin called out to them. “She left with DeVere!” Panting, the fat balding man caught up. “Jean saw her leave with DeVere.”

“DeVere?”

“A pig—a foul pig!”

“What does he mean?” Bertie asked when he couldn't follow the Frenchman's words.

“How did they leave?” Patrick demanded grimly of the landlord.

“Jean says they left for Paris in Monsieur DeVere's carriage but a few minutes ago.”

“Paris?” Bertie howled at the only word he recognized. “Why the devil would she do that? Pat, it's all a hum! Ten to one, she's booked passage back.”

“With what? I doubt she has any money,” Patrick retorted.

“Pat, if she prefers DeVere, I don't see—” For an instant, Bertie thought he was about to be struck. He recoiled defensively. “But if you are determined—”

“I am. Which coach did you hire?”

“That one, but …” Bertie's sentence died on his lips. Westover was already halfway across the innyard. “Patrick! Patrick! You ain't even got your coat! What the devil d'you think you can do? Oh, all right!” Bertie threw up his hands in disgust and took off at an undignified lope after him. “Patrick! Patrick! I say, you ain't driving, are you?” he yelled.

“The devil I'm not!” Patrick called down from the box.

“Oh, lud!” Bertie groaned. Catching sight of the astonished driver and coachman, he shook his head. “Better ride inside or else hang on, I can tell you.” Muttering, he heaved his slender body up into the hired carriage. When they climbed up on the box with his lordship, Bascombe just shook his head. “Fools.” Resigned to what could only be a wild ride, Bertie barely had time to settle in and get a firm grip on the pulls before the carriage took off. As the team of horses lunged forward, he held on for dear life. Patrick drove to an inch, he knew, but this was no road to Newmarket.

More than a mile ahead of them, Caroline was having her own doubts. A closer inspection of her traveling host proved to be somewhat unsettling. For several minutes, he'd stared speculatively at her with small deep-set eyes that she mistrusted. Finally she'd feigned sleep to escape his close scrutiny. To her horror, she felt him slide across to sit beside her. When his hand slid up the sleeve of her worn pelisse, her eyes flew open. He'd removed his coat and neckcloth.

“You will not find me ungenerous,
mademoiselle.”

Somehow, his words rang differently than Patrick Danvers' had. She stiffened like a stone statue and stared studiously out the carriage window, hoping that aloofness would be sufficient rebuff. It wasn't. A nasty little laugh assailed her ears as he moved closer.

“Come,
mademoiselle—
do not play the innocent with me.”

“You are mistaken, sir,” she retorted coldly. “I am not that sort of female.”

“You wish to be coy, perhaps?” he asked with a softness that sent chills down her spine. “Very well,
mademoiselle
—DeVere accepts the challenge.” His hand snaked out to grasp her chin and force it upward. “You are passably pretty, after all, and it's a long way to Paris.”

The smell of stale garlic and soured wine on his breath nauseated her, but she could not turn away. Her stomach felt like lead as his face blurred her vision with its closeness. The oddly detached thought that he had bad teeth crossed her mind a fraction of a second before she felt the crushing force of his lips on hers. She clenched her teeth against the outrage of his probing tongue and twisted her head in his grasp. His free hand slid up her back to press against her spine painfully. Her fingers crept to her chip-straw hat, found the decorative pin, and withdrew it. His teeth gnashed against hers for possession of her mouth. She struggled for a moment and then plunged the hatpin into his thigh with all the force she could muster.

He drew back, howling in pain. Infuriated now, he slapped her so hard across the face that her head snapped backward and her hat came untied. “You like these little amusements, English?” he panted as he gripped her shoulders painfully and shook her. “DeVere sets the rules here, I think.”

“Take your hands off me else I shall scream,” she threatened with a calm she did not feel.

“Scream,
mademoiselle
.” He shrugged. “My men are used to it.”

“I'll have you arrested for this.”

He fixed her with those nasty deep-set eyes. “Who's to know?” he asked with that chillingly soft voice of his before he lunged to pin her back against the corner of the coach seat with his body. “Do not come the innocent with me—I have heard about English women.”

“I assure you that … mmmmumph—”

Her protest was cut short as he took possession of her mouth, gagging her with his tongue. The chip-straw hat fell to the carriage floor. The grim reality of his intent mobilized every defense Caroline had. She clawed at his face with her fingernails, bucked and struggled beneath his weight, and felt along the seat for the hatpin. For answer, he imprisoned her arms at her sides and began trailing wet, slobbery kisses down her neck. She twisted and turned, flailing helplessly against the arm that held her. When he returned his attention to her mouth, she sank her teeth into the soft fullness of his lower lip and bit as hard as she could. He screamed and slapped her again. She grabbed a pullstrap and tried to swing across the seat away from him. His hand caught at her pelisse, ripping it literally off her back.

“You beast!” she seethed indignantly. “Look what you have done. You've—” Angry, impotent tears flooded her eyes. “ 'Tis my only—”

He flung the ruined coat onto the floor and lunged again to force her against the squabs. Bent on conquest rather than seduction, he explored her body roughly with his hands, squeezing her breasts painfully through the material of her dress. She kicked and flailed to no avail against his greater strength. When he found the buttons that lined her bodice a hindrance to his eager fingers, he caught at the neckline and pulled viciously until the fabric of both zona and dress tore away, exposing her white breasts. As he bent his mouth to bite, she clutched a handful of his hair and yanked him away. Abruptly the carriage jerked to a stop, sending Caroline and her tormentor to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.

Before she could right herself, Caroline saw the carriage door wrenched open and looked up into Patrick Danvers' hazel eyes. His gaze traveled over her bare breasts and then turned wrathfully to the now cowering DeVere.

“Get out!”

“
Monsieur
—”

“Thank God you are arrived,” Caroline breathed in relief as she tried to cover herself. “He … he …” She choked at Westover's expression.

“I am aware of what he attempted,” Patrick cut in harshly. “DeVere, defend yourself!”

“Monsieur
—” The Frenchman read danger in the other man's eyes.

“Out!”

“You find me unarmed!”

“You are as armed as Miss Ashley!” Patrick shot back.

DeVere shrank back against the floor. “
Mais non!”

“Aye,” Patrick growled as he reached to pull him up by the lapels of his coat. With a mixture of horror and fascination, Caroline stared as the Frenchman rose before her eyes and then disappeared through the open door. Patrick flung him to the ground below and stood over him with clenched fists.

“Pitié, s'il vous plait! Piti
é
!”
DeVere shielded his face against Patrick's grim stare.

“I'll show you what you would have shown her.”

“Non!”

“Exactly.”

“I will not fight!” DeVere shouted defiantly.

“No?” Patrick strode purposefully to his hired coach and took down the carriage whip. DeVere, sensing his intent, scrambled for the safety of his own coach. The whip cracked, catching him as his foot gained the step, and he screamed as he fell. “Unless you wish to be whipped to ribbons, you'll choose your weapon.” The leather whirred through the air to snap loudly again as it cut into DeVere's shirt. “Surely you carry a sword or a pistol, Monsieur DeVere.”

“Take her—she's nothing to me,” the Frenchman begged. “For God's sake—”

The whip cut like a knife again, turning words into a high-pitched scream of terror that trailed off into a pitiful whimper. DeVere rolled up into a huddled ball in the dirt. Patrick raised his arm and sent the lash cracking again and again until the back of the Frenchman's shirt was laced with red.

“Stop it!” Caroline clutched her torn pelisse against her chest and jumped down. “Stop it—you'll kill him!” Coming up behind Patrick, she caught at his right arm.

He looked down, first at her and then back to where DeVere lay babbling incoherently in the road. Shaking his arm free of her grasp, he walked to turn the Frenchman over with his booted toe. “By rights, I ought to kill you for what you would do to a defenseless female,” he growled.

“Defenseless? Defenseless?” DeVere screeched indignantly. “
Monsieur
, she is a tigress!”

Ignoring him, Patrick's eyes met Caroline's. “You are unhurt? If the bloody cur's harmed you, I'll kill him.”

DeVere cried out in alarm, but Caroline shook her head. “No, my lord, I am all right, but I cannot thank you sufficiently for—”

“Patrick,” he cut in.

For some unfathomable reason—maybe it was the way he was looking at her or maybe it was the relief of being delivered—but for some reason, Caroline felt the urge to cry. “Patrick.” She nodded through a mist of tears as he enfolded her comfortingly in his arms and cradled her head against his chest.

DeVere, sensing that he would not be missed, took the opportunity to edge on his hands and knees to his carriage. Once there, he scrambled up the step and slammed the door. His bemused driver and coachmen continued to stare at the wild English lord until their master tapped impatiently on the roof of the passenger compartment. Reluctantly the driver raised his whip over the team. Once the carriage began to roll forward, DeVere stuck his head out the window and yelled at Patrick, “I wish you joy of her, my lord!”

Patrick's eyes dropped to the torn pelisse Caroline held in front of her, and she colored as she followed his gaze downward. Without a word, he released her to unbutton his shirt. Shrugging out of it, he handed it to her.

Her eyes widened at the sight of his bared chest with its darkly curling hair, and then were averted. “I … I could not take your shirt, my … Patrick. 'Tis unseemly.”

“Unless you wish to provide Bertie with a rather fetching glimpse of the female person, Caroline, I think you had best take it. Come …” He reached for her hand and led her behind the rented coach. “There's none to see you here. I'll go on and roust Bertie while you cover yourself.”

She waited until the carriage obscured his vision and then dropped the pelisse. Surveying the damage to her dress, she came to the sad conclusion that it was hopelessly ruined and she now quite literally had nothing to wear. With a sigh, she drew on the white cotton shirt and buttoned it at the neck. It swallowed her up and the sleeves hung down over her hands, but his generosity was not lost on her. Feeling the warmth that still lingered from his body, she gathered the shirt closely about her and rolled the sleeves. He must surely feel as foolish as she if he meant to go back like that.

“I say, Pat—you ain't serious!” Bertie's plaintive whine floated back to her.

“I am. You'll have to ride on the box.”

“But why? I ain't—”

“Her dress is torn, and I doubt that my shirt will cover her enough.”

“But what's that to say? I mean, I ain't going to look—I swear.”

“Bertie—”

“Oh, all right! I wish we'd never heard of the chit! Females! Deuced nuisances, if you was to ask me!”

“I daresay she's no more fond of the association than you are, but there's no help for it.”

Caroline looked down at the shirt and was dismayed to find that the soft material did not completely hide her charms. There was a faint dark outline that hinted at what lay underneath. Her face flamed anew.

“Ready, my dear?” Patrick stepped back around the rear of the coach. “If 'tis any consolation, Caroline,” he told her sympathetically, “you are better covered than I. Besides, once we get back, Madame Crespin has located another gown for you.”