Disciplining the Duchess (7 page)

She shook her head. “I am sick unto death of Danbury House. And this could be my one and only chance to go to the old Roman wall.”

“Go to the old Roman wall? Now? With whom?”

She’d already turned from him, sweeping toward the wagon and its sagging horse. He moved to grab her arm.

“Miss Barrett—”

She tugged away, freezing his words with her glare. “The driver will leave without me if you do not let me go. I had to bargain for some time to gain passage on his wagon.”

Court gaped. “Don’t tell me you have hired a ride north with that man? Miss Barrett—surely—you cannot mean to—”

“I’ve always wanted to see the old Roman wall,” she said slowly, as if she were explaining to a child. “My whole life, ever since I learned of it in geography and history books. When you joked about hiring a carriage in Sedgefield, I realized I actually might if I wished.”

Good God, so this was his fault. The tradesman shifted from foot to foot, clearly growing uncomfortable with the situation. It would suit Court fine if he would just run off. Otherwise he might need to resort to force to dissuade Miss Barrett from setting off on this journey. There would be struggling and drama, a full scene right here in the heart of town. The idea appalled him, but to step away and let her go was not an option. He would not have her ruination on his hands.

He made one last attempt at reason. “Surely, madam, you are not considering taking an hours-long journey north, unchaperoned, with a perfect stranger. A man,” he added with emphasis. “He is not a gentleman, and you’ve no lady to accompany you at any rate.”

“Your Grace, you must understand—”

“I understand one thing only. You are about to do a dangerous thing.”

She threw up her hands, then clasped them at her waist. “I have no choice, you see. I’ve asked Stephen to take me nearly every day since we arrived, but he is preoccupied with hunting and women. He has no care for history, for exploring the world.”

“Exploring the world? Dear girl, your place is back in the drawing room, beside the fire. Leave exploring to those who are suited to it.”

“I am suited to it,” she cried.

He drew himself up, fixing her with his most intimidating stare. “I will not allow this caper to proceed. I cannot.”

“You have no right to stop me. You have no power over me, Your Grace,” she added for good measure. That was twice in five minutes she had mouthed back to him. Preposterous.

“It’s unfortunate I don’t have any power over you,” he said when he recovered himself. “If I did, I could give you the sound spanking you so richly need and deserve.”

The words were out before he could stop them. She looked appropriately scandalized and turned away, toward the shifty man and his rickety cart. He had to grasp her hand to stop her. Grabbing at someone else’s person—him, the Duke of Courtland. He hadn’t done such a thing since his childhood, and he’d done it twice with Miss Barrett now.

“The wall you speak of is at least six hours’ journey from here,” he said. “Perhaps more.”

“But it’s days from London, and Stephen says we are going home this weekend. Which is why I must leave now. I can be there tonight and take the mail coach back tomorrow, and my brother will never know. When he is at cards and women, he stays out all night and never wakes before two the next afternoon.”

She was leaving. In three days. The thought upset him almost as much as her reckless plans. She yanked at his hand until he released her. “Why is it so important to see it?” he asked. “Will you risk your good name, your reputation?”

“I told you before, those things are meaningless to me now. I do not care.”

“You ought to. You ought to have a care for the safety of your person at least.” He shot a look at the driver, or tradesman or farmer, or whatever he was. “That man could take you somewhere and ra—” He bit off the word before he uttered it. “Bedevil you. How do you know he’s an honest person? Not only that, but his wagon and horse are both dilapidated.” He looked around at the curious townspeople beginning to gather. She was turning him from a refined peer to a public scold, damn her. “Miss Barrett, if you must continue on this ill-advised course, permit me to engage a more fitting conveyance for your trip, and hire a proper chaperone to ride along with you.”

She seemed, finally, ready to listen to reason. “Will you? How long will that take?” she asked, watching him carefully.

Long enough for you to regain your senses. Or at least long enough for me to force you into a carriage and get you home.
“It will not take long,” he assured her.

Court offered her his arm, which she refused, but she followed. “I would lend you my coach but my mother is using it to call on acquaintances,” he said. “I’ll hire one at the inn.”

“What if you can’t?” came her small voice.

“There are very few things I can’t do.”

His tone of authoritative control worked to silence her. He walked quickly along Sedgefield’s narrow streets in the mid-afternoon sun. He was angry, yet he felt some sympathy for her, some grudging admiration. Miss Chaos was willing to risk her life to visit Hadrian’s ancient pile of rocks—it was not merely some passing fancy to her. Any other woman of her set would see the wall as nothing more than a background to pose against and look pretty, but Miss Barrett was not of that ilk. She refused to languish in the drawing room, even though, as a woman, that was her fate.

Ah, but he could not entertain sympathetic feelings for her. His pace quickened along with his temper, and he left it to her to keep up. After all, this was her fault. If he had not come across her by chance, what might have become of her? What would her brother do when he found out about her attempted flight north? Court remembered with some distaste Barrett’s rough handling when she’d refused to dance with Lord Monmouth, and this was a considerably worse offense.

Well, it wasn’t his concern to put down sibling squabbles, but to get her safely home. As soon as they arrived at the inn, he’d put her into the first carriage he saw, along with a maid, and send her back to Danbury House. What a load of trouble to take up his afternoon.

“The innkeeper surely has a lady’s maid to spare,” he lied over his shoulder. “It should be no great thing to hire a girl to take a couple days away. This is not, after all, a busy town like Harrogate. But Miss Barrett, it would be better to abandon this adventure entirely if you can bring yourself to do it. There are Roman antiquities to see in London.” He paused and thought a moment. “I will take you to visit them someday, perhaps, with your brother’s permission. And a chaperone, of course.”

He turned to receive her response, only to find a village girl stepping along behind him with a covered basket. With great anger, he realized Miss Barrett had not been following at all, but stolen away at some point, probably while he was still going on about the carriage. The girl passed by him, dropping a curtsy. She must have thought him daft, prattling on to himself. Cold fury washed over him, and something else. Shock. No one, no mortal being of his acquaintance had ever made him feel hapless and furious and
powerless
like this. He stood for long moments, fists clenched, face flushed with anger, and considered his choices.

He could wash his hands of the whole affair, let Miss Barrett journey to the Roman wall alone, unprotected, across the moors. No, that was out of the question.

He could go in search of her brother. He might catch the gentlemen on their hunt, but he might not. He could wait at Danbury House for her brother to return and then notify him of his sister’s situation, but by that time, Miss Barrett could be in some peril. The thought of that peril, the dangers a lady like Miss Barrett faced alone in the world, was what finally made him turn and continue to walk with great frustration toward the inn.

He would have to go after her himself. It was as reckless and dangerous a choice as Miss Barrett’s, but what alternative did he have? By the time he found her and fetched her home, they would have been out and about together for some hours without a chaperone. Disaster.

Perhaps he could still catch her in time to return with her to Danbury House unnoticed. They could part at the gate. She could lie and say she’d been out walking and gotten lost, while he slipped in some back door unnoticed. Dissemblance never sat well with him, but the alternative…

He could not consider that now, or he would become too paralyzed to act.

It seemed an eternity before he reached the inn. He hired the most comfortable coach they had and waited impatiently for it to be prepared. By the time they were on the road to Newcastle, he’d lost almost two hours in his pursuit. He sat forward on the cushions, his gaze fixed on the way before them. The smartly-turned-out driver assured him this was the most traveled route to the wall, and Court had no choice but to believe him. He watched expectantly for an hour and a half or so, and then he began to worry.

If he found Miss Barrett, she was going to endure the full wrath of his temper. Here he was riding north, no valet, no clothes to change into should he become dusty or dampened. He hadn’t eaten in hours, bringing a headache to go with the great storm of worry roiling around in his brain. They ought to have caught the wagon by now. What if she hadn’t gone back to the driver she’d hired? What if she’d returned to Danbury House? Or hired a different driver? What if the driver had pulled off the road and was even now doing unspeakable things to Miss Barrett with rough, grasping hands?

For another half hour Court stared out of the carriage, stomach clenching with anxiety. Miss Barrett could be in great distress at this moment due to his ineptitude at controlling her. But people behaved around him, deuce take it. From the age of fourteen, since he’d inherited his dukedom, people had deferred to him, respected him. They had not argued or shouted, or pulled away or disappeared without permission from his side. Even before then he’d been a marquess, first son of a powerful man, and people had treated him with proper deference. He had lived an ordered life, observing conventions and doing those duties his title required, earning, in effect, the respect that
most
people showed him.

Most people, but not her.

He scrubbed a hand over his face and growled. Why was the esteemed Duke of Courtland crossing the moors of northern England to fetch an ill-behaved woman who was not his kin or even his social equal? Again his mind turned to thoughts of retribution. When he got his hands on Miss Barrett, he’d give her a tongue lashing she’d remember for the rest of her life. He’d give her that spanking he’d told her she deserved. She
did
deserve it. He’d punish her until she begged forgiveness for her behavior, her manners, her strangeness which had no place in polite society. And then— And then—

And then, out the window, he saw her pale gray frock, her bonnet perched atop her blonde curls as she stomped down the side of the road, and all he could think was,
thank you. Dear God, thank you.

“Stop!” he called to the driver. Court was out of the door before the vehicle completely slowed. Once he assured himself it really was her, it penetrated his brain that she was crying. Not just crying—she was choking with sobs. “What happened?” he asked. “What has befallen you?” He took her shoulders and searched her person in a panic, fearing the worst. But it was not terror in those tears. She was whole and well. It was anger.

“He left me,” she cried. “He promised to take me the whole way, but when we reached the crossroads a while back he said he must be off to some other place. He shrugged and said I must get down. I reminded him that I paid him for his services, but he claimed he only promised to take me this far!”

She appeared so injured, so distraught, that Court couldn’t find the words to scold her. To say,
you should have known better. This is what you deserve.
He thought wildly of finding that man, of combing the countryside all around and bringing him before the law, but it would only delay him in fetching her back. “Miss Barrett,” he sputtered instead. “Hell and the bloody devil. You frightened me.”

She gave him a sideways glance as he fished in a pocket for his handkerchief. Once he handed it over, she ripped off her bonnet and swabbed at her tears. For a moment she seemed to him some unworldly thing, some mythological goddess who might shoot lightning from her fingertips or turn men to stone with her gaze. “Do not look at me that way!” she shrilled in a breaking voice.

Court blinked and spread his hands. “What way?”

“With that reproach and…and pity. I know you think I’m awful, that my behavior is impetuous and foolish, but I truly wished to see the wall, to see where the Romans walked so many centuries ago. If you do not enjoy history, you cannot understand! You cannot understand the way I feel right now.” She wept still, even through her fervent speech. Not the pretty, polite tears of a well-reared young lady, but torrents of sorrow.

Court stepped closer as she mopped at her face. “Nor do you seem capable of understanding how I feel,” he said. “If I had not found you— For God’s sake—”

“That driver promised to take me. He lied.” More heartrending, bitter tears. “He is probably somewhere now laughing at me. This is my life’s work, I suppose—amusing others. I am sick of it. You cannot understand.”

Court studied her, his anger tempered by alarm. He’d thought her manners at Danbury House outlandish, but they were nothing compared to this fit of passion. It could be called nothing else but a
fit
. “Miss Barrett,” he said. “Was it his lie that has distressed you so, or your disappointment in not getting to see the Roman wall?”

“I am going to see it,” she bawled. “I am going to walk.”

Court rubbed his upper lip, finding his own emotions in surprising upheaval. Before he could think what to say she was off again, trudging down the road in her dusty gown, her bonnet dangling from one hand.

“You must return home and give this up,” he pleaded. “It grows late.”

“I do not care.”

“You cannot walk all that way,” he said to her back. “It is not possible for a lady of your constitution. Even I could not do it.”