Folly's Reward (8 page)

The woman swooped Bobby up in her arms and carried him off to the kitchen.

As Prudence opened her mouth to object, Hal couldn’t restrain himself. Glazed with exhaustion, but luminous with laughter, he leaned down and kissed Prudence with a thoroughness that was obviously entirely unnecessary.

Warmth and sweet moisture invaded her senses again, leaving her weak at the knees, the blood hammering in her veins. It was so unfair. How could he?

“There you are, my dears,” the rotund man said. “Here are your marriage lines!”

“This is nonsense,” Prudence announced as soon as Hal released her. “We aren’t here to be married.”

“Man and wife, right and tight!” the man replied. “And for the sake of giving the wee lad a name, forget the shilling! I’ve had enough damned ale for one night.”

Thrusting a dirty piece of paper at Hal, the rotund gentleman slumped to the floor.

Hal burst out laughing and slipped the paper into his pocket, while Prudence pushed through the crowd after Bobby. She found him happily drinking warm milk in the kitchen.

“Hello, Miss Drake,” he said. “This is a very nice place, I think.”

“A famous enough place and that’s a fact!” the plump woman exclaimed. “All the English lads and lasses run away to marry here in Graitney. Gretna Green, they call it, though some can’t wait so long and marry right there in the toll booth on the high road, a half mile before they get here.”

“I did not come here to be married,” Prudence said quietly. “I would like somewhere private for myself and the child, please.”

The woman showed her to a bedchamber upstairs, and invited her to lie down while the road was being cleared, but Prudence could not relax. The absurd marriage she instantly dismissed. It was obviously not legal—there was no Mr. Silkiman, after all.

But who was he? A great deal now hinged on the answer.

Hal had entranced her so simply, so easily, and not only by assailing her body—though there was that too in the end—but also by enthralling her mind. Was he a rake? Did he make a practice of carelessly seducing women? And why her? A plain, straitlaced governess?

More important, was Hal a threat to more than her equilibrium? Was he a real danger to the child? Especially now that Bobby had announced that he was Lord Dunraven to a room full of strangers!

She was pacing the room while Bobby looked at a book by the light of a candle, when a sudden tumult of noise from the courtyard below brought them both to the window.

A crowd was pouring out of the inn with a great deal of shouting and gesticulating. A huge ox of a man strode at their head, roaring out threats to the night sky. Almost everyone seemed to be drunk.

Half-carried by the mob, then hoisted shoulder high, a dark-haired man sang some sailors’ ditty in a voice oddly musical and graceful. The crowd formed a circle and dropped him into its center.

A multitude of hands dragged off the man’s coat, then his shirt, leaving his lithe body naked to the night air from the waist up.

The young man’s only response seemed to be helpless laughter.

“What’s happening, Miss Drake?” Bobby cried, clutching her hand. “What are they going to do to Hal?”

Hal had let Prudence follow after Bobby without interference. Then he surveyed the public bar and weighed up his chances of mending his fortunes.

If he was to follow Miss Drake past Carlisle, he must parlay his few shillings into guineas. He had no idea what skills he might possess that would enable him to do so. He could shoot, of course, but he had no pistol and there was no one in this motley crowd who seemed likely to want to wager on a shooting match.

Perhaps he had skill at dice or cards, but he couldn’t risk his small purse while he found out. In the meantime it seemed that the only thing about to be tested was his head for hard liquor, for every man there seemed eager to buy him a drink.

Hal tossed back innumerable toasts, knowing that he would soon be forced to pay for their treat in turn. Was nothing to come out of this but a sore head and depleted pockets? He reluctantly downed another potent glass.

“And here’s the truth of it, then,” one of the drunks was shouting to the crowd. “That yon Sassenach are nae match for a Scots fighting man. It’s aye the Scots at the front of every battle.”

“There’s ne’er a lad south of the border can match ye, Jamie,” another replied soothingly. “Ye are the very de’il of a man in a fight and we all ken it fine.”

“Then wha’ll fight me the night?” Jamie insisted, his red-rimmed eyes sweeping the room. “O’ all yon English loons.” He waved a fist with the stubby forefinger pointing in menace, indicating several of the Englishmen there. “Wha’ll put up his fives, eh?”

“Yon English are all lubberly cowards and we all ken it. It’s a braw, bonny, fine figure of fighter ye are, lad. There’s nae Sassenach could stand one round against ye, Jamie.”

“And would you wager your blunt on that, sir?” someone said in a cultured London accent. “I’ll give a purse of ten guineas to any Englishman here that proves you wrong.”

Hal glanced at the speaker, a tall fellow with brown hair and a nose like a beak. His clothes spoke of wealth, his voice of an idle, cultivated boredom, ready for anything that would act as an entertaining distraction from the routines of life.

The crowd cheered as the gentleman pulled out a purse and counted out the prize money.

His brown eye rested speculatively for a moment on Hal. “Who will stand up for the honor of his country?”

“What a perfect, apposite, and absurd end to a splendid day! I’ll be happy to take the challenge,” Hal heard himself say in what seemed to be an inebriated show of bravado. “But for twenty guineas and a bonus, if I level Mr. James in one blow.”

“I’ll wager ye twa shillings that yon sleekit Englishman will nae stand up to one round with Braw Jamie.”

Hal was instantly deafened by an uproar of speculation.

So as the betting books filled, Hal found himself manhandled out into the courtyard, where under the flare of the flambeaux Jamie was stripping off his coat and shirt. The man was muscled like an ox.

Hal heard a faint echo of his own voice saying:
I feel as if I just took the worst from the knuckles of Gentleman Jackson
. He had no idea if that had been just an idle boast, or if he did indeed know how to box. Even if he did, would the half-drunk Jamie follow the gentleman’s code, or just start swinging like a savage?

Of course, Hal wasn’t quite as clear headed himself as he would like to have been, which added a certain piquancy to the event.

The mob rapidly divested him of his coat and shirt. Cold air washed over his back and chest like a rush of snowmelt running off a mountain. Feeling instantly more sober, Hal wrapped his knuckles in strips of cloth provided by the plump woman, and assessed his chances.

He had been driving all day. His shoulders and arms were still burning with the strain of it. The warm glow of whisky in his belly was wantonly weighing down his reactions. Hal glanced up at his opponent, who was flexing gigantic muscles to the admiration of the crowd, and tried without success to suppress an upwelling of laughter.

It wasn’t going to do Prudence any good at all, if he was beaten to a pulp before he even had her out of Scotland.

An anticipatory hush fell over the crowd. The sound of Jamie’s heavy panting almost drowned out Hal’s own quick breath, hard and sharp in his ears. He stepped forward and shook Jamie by his great paw of a hand. The man returned it in a grip designed to break every bone.

“Nae blows below the belt,” one of the Scotsmen said. The man seemed to have taken on the role of referee. “Nae kicks wi’ the feet, nor hidden weapons. Have at it, then, lads!”

The two men circled each other for a moment, then Jamie came in swinging his great hands like steam hammers.

* * *

Prudence watched from the room above, transfixed. She wanted to send Bobby to his bed, but the child clung fiercely to the windowsill and wouldn’t budge.

“Oh, dear Lord,” she breathed. “That man will kill him.”

“No, he won’t,” Bobby said. “Hal’s home is the sea and he’s the strongest man there is.”

Prudence hugged the child to her. She ought to force him away, forbid him to watch.

For Hal was obviously not the stronger. He was lean and hard, but lightly built, though mitered muscles ran clearly defined over his back and shoulders.

His opponent outweighed him by at least three stone. Jamie boasted huge slabs of brawn across his chest, and arms built like tree limbs.

Prudence flinched as a mammoth fist swung at the laughing face beneath the black hair, threatening to smash the fine bones into splinters. Yet Hal seemed perfectly relaxed. Without visible effort he ducked away from the blow, then almost casually landed one of his own against the side of the giant’s head.

The crowd roared.

* * *

Ah, so he did know how to box, after all!

Hal danced and spun, ducking and blocking as Jamie came flailing into the attack.

“Come, Jamie,” he said between breaths. “Take another stab, man! I might be annihilated just by the sheer wind of it as it goes past my ear.”

Several heavy blows rained about his head. Hal swirled away from the worst of them, but one great fist caught him hard in the shoulder. For too long his entire right arm was numb to the wrist, but he managed to raise it just enough to block the next incoming attack. With his left he landed another blow of his own.

Jamie staggered back with a look of open, comic surprise on his red face.

“‘He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, / He swam the Eske river where ford there was none,’” Hal quoted. “‘For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, / Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.’”

It seemed appropriate only because the River Eske lay so close. Unfortunately, Jamie seemed to think the verses an insult. He roared like a lion and enthusiastically swung back into the mill.

“‘Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide,’” Hal added. “‘So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.’”

Then he had no more breath left for poetry.

For although Jamie was very drunk—more foxed than Hal was, and making more mistakes—the man was a vicious fighter. Hal managed to land several more blows to the man’s chin and chest. But his punches would never knock down this monster, and simple, unforgiving fatigue was taking its toll. Hal’s shoulders had begun a fierce burn, and every reaction came more slowly.

He began to fall back, the crowd surging away behind him, as Jamie came in for the final annihilation. The blows came too quickly now to dodge them all.

“‘And save his good broadsword, he weapon had none.’”

Hal gasped as a fist skimmed past his ear, grazing his cheek, while another landed square in his belly, forcing the air from his lungs in a sickening rush.

He began to fight for his life.

* * *

Prudence hated it. She hated the sense of stupid, animal ferocity, and the dark bruises blossoming like evil flowers on the men’s bodies. She hated the rapacious faces of the crowd, wagering their money on other men’s pain.

Yet against her will she was enthralled. Fascinated by the grace of Hal’s movements, and his cavalier, laughing disregard for the fact that sooner or later the big man would beat him down and destroy him. Fascinated by the strange beauty of his body, dancing in the torchlight. Fascinated by his wide, hard-ridged shoulders and strong, slim waist, flexing and twisting in deadly combat.

Her heart sang at the sheer loveliness of a fit young man, as her soul yearned for his courage in the face of such overwhelming odds.

Before she could quite fathom that it was over, Jamie began to fall.

Hal spun out of his way as the man dropped to his knees. Jamie swung his head back and forth for a moment, like a bull blinded by dust, then thudded to the ground.

The onlookers surged forward, but the giant lay staring vacantly up at the sky.

Hal’s voice floated up to her above the roar of the crowd, ragged with his disordered breathing, but still clear and deadly.

“Alas!” he said. “What sport is this? ‘“She is won! We are gone! Over bank, bush, and scaur; / They’ll have fleet steeds that follow,” quoth young Lochinvar.’”

Still laughing, and glazed with exhaustion, Hal allowed the gentleman with the beaked nose to wrap his shirt around his shoulders and press something into his hand.

Prudence pulled Bobby from the window and sat with him on the bed for several long minutes as she stared out at the night sky.

She felt like weeping and yet she was very angry. Damnation to the beautiful, mysterious Hal!

“You see,” Bobby said. “I said Hal was the stronger. And now will he drive us to Carlisle?”

“With pleasure,” a voice said from the doorway. “The road will soon be cleared. Our nags are rested. We can still arrive in Carlisle before tomorrow.”

“Are you mad?” Prudence whirled around. “What on earth was that about?”

“No, no, angel,” Hal replied, coming into the room. “I have taken enough blows already. Pray do not add to them!”

He had obviously sluiced himself with water. The black hair was damp, and ruffled as if rapidly dried in a towel. A great rent marked one seam of his jacket. He looked like a gypsy—wild and untamed.

Bobby ran up to him. Without visibly wincing, Hal swung the child up into his arms.

“Bed for you, sir!” Hal carried the boy into a small adjoining bedroom and tucked him between the covers.

When he returned, Prudence stood and faced him. She was shaking.

“You must be a wastrel. Or a lunatic. Or a scoundrel.”

“I have wondered as much,” Hal said seriously. A bruise was beginning to color his cheek. “I have no idea, of course. I might be just a man-about-town, who fills his idle hours with pugilism.”

“Is that what you wished to find out?”

He looked straight into her eyes. Prudence saw how carefully his emotions were guarded, emotions that he covered with flippancy and with sarcasm.

“And earlier it seemed as if I must be a rake, didn’t it? Of course, boxing and flirtation are both pursuits of the idle Corinthian as much as of the rogue. So I still might be just a respectable man with a competence.”