Man of My Dreams (11 page)

She thought about ripping off his domino. After all, she didn’t want to mistake this rake if she
did
ever see him again, which she sincerely hoped would never happen. To think she’d actually been disappointed earlier that she might not get to meet him tonight, and even more so only moments ago.

“Ah, there you are, Miss Penworthy. I believe this dance is mine.”

She turned with a start, feeling almost guilty for being caught alone with such a wicked man as she now knew Ambrose St. James to be. But it was the duke’s friend, Lord Frederick, to whom she had promised the next dance. Two of a kind? Possibly. More than likely, actually, so both were to be avoided henceforth.

“You, sir, keep detestable friends,” she told the marquis in her most chilling tone. “That one in particular.” And she pointed a stiff finger behind her.

“That one?” Lord Frederick asked.

His bewilderment made her frown, then turn to see why he hadn’t understood her perfectly.
But the reason was quite clear. The previously occupied perch on the terrace railing was now empty.

The odious Duke of Wrothston was gone, vanished, with not even a bush stirring on the other side of the railing to mark his passage. Too bad he hadn’t done so sooner, before she’d met him. No, it was better to know, and now she knew. As far as she was concerned, Ambrose St. James and his title could rot.

“Why haven’t you told me, ‘I told you so’?”

They were on the last leg of the journey home, the Robertses’ coach jostling along at a steady put-you-to-sleep pace. Tiffany’s mother was in fact dozing on the opposite seat, so the girls had had no conversation for a while.

Tiffany had been about to fall asleep herself, but that softly uttered question brought her wide awake. “I thought you weren’t brooding about that anymore.”

Megan had done nothing else but brood about her colossal foolishness. She’d just kept it to herself after their earlier discussion, when she’d related the entire humiliating encounter with Ambrose St. James.

“Why haven’t you?” Megan repeated. “I certainly deserve it.”

“No, you don’t,” Tiffany said loyally. “And I wouldn’t do that to you. Besides, it might not have seemed like it, but I was really hoping everything would work out just the way you wanted it to with St. James. So I guess I’m just as disappointed as you are that it didn’t.”

“I’m not disappointed,” Megan assured her. “At least not anymore. What I am is furious with myself for pinning all my hopes on a man we knew absolutely nothing about—which you tried to point out numerous times. I still can’t believe how stupid that was. But I’m also furious with him. I can’t seem to help it. You’d think a duke would have more integrity than to be a bounder, wouldn’t you?”

“Absolutely. The title probably corrupted in his case. It’s been known to happen.”

“There ought to be a law against it,” Megan grumbled.

Tiffany said nothing. She waited. After a moment the expected laughter came.

“I don’t believe I said that,” Megan said, still softly chuckling.

“I don’t either, though I happen to agree.”

Megan burst into another round of laughter. “Stop, or I’ll wake your mother.”

Tiffany got serious again. “It’s true, though. Great power and wealth do corrupt, and St. James has both in abundance. A pity. Maybe if he’d been an impoverished duke, he would have been a bit more honorable.”

“And desperate for an heiress, which I’m not.”

Tiffany sighed. “Well, it’s water under the bridge now, so are you ready to do things in their proper order?”

“You mean meet the man first?”

“That, too, but more importantly, fall in love first. That really is the way it’s being done these days, you know.”

“I know,” Megan replied. “That just doesn’t guarantee me the title.”

Tiffany wasn’t that surprised to hear this. Megan could be exceedingly stubborn and single-minded at times—most times, actually.

“So you
do
still want the title?”

Megan shrugged, her expression dispirited. “I don’t know—no, that’s not true. I’d still like to set Lady O on her ear, and I can’t very well do that without a titled husband, so I guess I would still prefer it. I’m just not going to count on it.”

Tiffany clicked her tongue. “Sounds like you’re giving up before the game begins.”

“Just being realistic from now on.”

“Realistic? You want to talk realistic? Are you forgetting that you actually did what you set out to do—well, at least half of it?”

Megan frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“The first part of your goal was to gain the amorous interest of the Duke of Wrothston. That you did, and then some. It’s not
your
fault that he turned out to be a lecherous rake with immoral propositions on his mind, rather than decent ones. You still caught his interest, Meg.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“So I wouldn’t worry about that title. There will be dozens more for you to choose from when you get to London. But this time you meet them first,
then
you decide which one you’re going to fall in love with and let it happen—unless you fall in love first and that decides it for you. There is always that possibility, you know, and frankly, I highly recommend it.”

“You would, but then there aren’t very many men as wonderful as your Tyler.”

“True, but you’re forgetting I fell in love with Tyler before I knew he was wonderful, the very day I met him, as it happens. I was just so fortunate that he
is
wonderful, but I don’t think it would have mattered very much if he’d had a few bad qualities. We have to take the good with the bad when the heart makes the choice.”

“That does
not
sound too encouraging, Tiff. In fact, it only supports my previous contention that I’d do well to choose the man first, then let love take its course.”

“Suit yourself, as long as you meet him first to determine that you won’t be wasting your time on another bounder—and as long as you’re in love before you agree to marry
him. You will agree to that at least, won’t you?”

“Absolutely—only how long do you think it takes to fall in love my way?”

Tiffany rolled her eyes. “You’re asking me, who did it instantly? How should I know?”

Megan was surprised by how anxious she was to get home. And once she was home, she was frankly amazed that her urge was to go straight to the stable, rather than into the house to greet her father. She supposed she just missed her horse. She
had
missed her morning rides. But that shouldn’t account for such a compelling impulse, especially when she’d been away only four days.

And she had been away from home before. There had been that trip to Kent for her twelfth-birthday present
—why
couldn’t she have found out back then what an odious man the duke was?—and a few shopping expeditions to towns that offered more than Teadale. Her father had accompanied her those times—maybe that was the difference, but her
conscience told her otherwise.

Why don’t you be honest? You want to see that horse breeder
.

Absolutely not. If anything, he’s the last person I want to see
.

Sure he is
.

You’re forgetting his knowledge of St. James. He probably knew exactly what would happen at the ball, or guessed it would happen, while I was arrogantly informing him that I would be marrying the man. How can I face him after that?

With your usual charm…and arrogance
.

Very funny. But what if he asks what happened? Not what if; he will ask
.

You can lie
.

And when I don’t happen to marry St. James within the year, then what? Devlin will be good at gloating, you know he will. He probably wrote the book on it. I could have taken it from Tiffany, but an I-told-you-so from him—I’d probably shoot the man
.

You have to face him eventually, so admit it, you can’t wait
.

I can’t wait to be humiliated? When did I become a glutton for punishment?

When you noticed how handsome that man is
.

Very funny
.

Somehow, Megan managed to go to bed that first night home without giving in to the urge to see—her horse. But she was up at the first tinges of dawn the next morning, and on her way to the stable before the sun actually made it over the horizon. She was bubbling with
anticipation that she refused to acknowledge, so she was incredibly dumbfounded to find the stable doors not just closed for the night, but also locked. Locked? Since when and why?

Megan stood there for several minutes, prodded with impatience, disappointment, and a number of other unwelcome emotions. She wondered how much noise pounding on the doors would make. Too much, especially since only the horses slept in the front of the stable.

She was about to go back to the house to wait for her normal hour for riding when one of her emotions got the better of her, and she marched around to the back of the stable instead. Of the several windows at the back, only one was covered with curtains. She tapped lightly on it, then a bit harder when she got no immediate response. But then the curtains—she felt a moment’s amusement upon noting that they were pink—were yanked apart, and the window was opened more than the crack it had been.

She had to be grateful
—or not
, her conscience put in—that it still wasn’t light enough for her to see very clearly into his darkened room, because she could just barely discern that Devlin Jefferys was standing in front of his window quite naked. It was lighter where she stood, so he had less difficulty seeing who had disturbed his sleep.

“What the devil are you about, brat, at this ungodly hour?” he demanded with a great
deal of sleepy irritation before she could get her mouth open.

Megan bristled at the uncomplimentary name he persisted in calling her, but didn’t bring him to task for it. Her eyes were adjusting and getting a clearer image of him by the second, and, cognizant of his previous threats about staring, she felt it was more prudent to find something else to look at. So she turned slightly, facing the bare frame of the extension that was being added to the back of the stable—and suddenly realized there might have been another way in without having had to wake him.

That realization caused a certain amount of embarrassment, prompting her to apologize. “I’m sorry. I found the doors locked, but I’ve just noticed a back entrance. Go back to sleep, Mr.—”

“What back entrance?”

“Why, where the stable is being enlarged. Surely a door has been cut—”

“Why don’t you go have a closer look before you make assumptions, Megan? You’ll find that the extension is going up and will be nearly complete before an opening is cut to connect it. What’s the point of barring the doors out front if a bloody hole is left in the back?”

She detected the amusement that had slipped into his tone with that explanation, and that got her back to bristling. “Then the stable
is
completely locked?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“How dare you lock me out of my own stable? By what right—did my father tell you to lock it?”

“I don’t need your father’s permission to protect the horses,” he said with a degree of condescension. “That happens to be my responsibility.”

“Protect them from what?” she scoffed. “Open the doors, Jefferys.”

“Go back to bed, Megan. The doors will be opened at a decent hour.”

“I don’t choose to wait until a decent hour, I choose to go riding now. Open the bloody doors.”

“You insist?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?” She tossed his own words back at him.

“Very well, you asked for it.”

She glanced cautiously up at the window to find him gone. She bit her lip, frowning. He wouldn’t do what that “you asked for it” sounded like, would he?

He wouldn’t dare—but just to be sure, she called in through the window, “Don’t you dare open those doors with no clothes on, Devlin Jefferys. If you do, I’ll bloody well scream; then you can make your excuses to the servants who come running,
and
my father.”

With that warning, she marched to the front of the stable, confident that she had put a stop to what he had intended. And she must have, because he kept her waiting a good five minutes before the doors finally swung open.
But he hadn’t taken her warning completely to heart. The wait had been to light a lantern, since the inside of the stable was still pitch-dark. For clothes, Devlin had put on only his trousers and boots.

Pink-cheeked that he had obeyed her only in part, Megan swept past him and went straight to Sir Ambrose’s stall. It was too much to hope that Devlin would simply go back to bed now and leave her in peace. He didn’t.

“Someone ought to teach you a little common decency, courtesy,
and
sense.”

Reprimanded by a horse breeder. His gall was utterly astounding.

“What does common sense have to do with it?” she asked without turning to look at him, allowing that she might be a little out of line on the decency and courtesy parts. “I wanted to ride. You had no right to keep me from doing so.”

“I still might keep you from doing so,” he growled at her back. “You don’t wake a man from a sound sleep and berate him for doing his job. Common sense would have told you that you won’t get away with it unscathed.”

She stilled in the process of reaching for Sir Ambrose’s saddle blanket. Her heart, on the other hand, was off to the races.

“You’d better keep your distance from me, Devlin.” They both realized, at the same moment, that she’d just used his first name for the first time. “I meant, Mr. Jefferys,” she corrected herself quite properly.

“Formality is a bit misplaced by now, don’t you think?” he asked, amusement present in his tone again.

Megan continued readying Sir Ambrose for her ride. “No, I don’t.”

There was a moment of silence before he said, “Even after I’ve stood naked in your sight?”

She gasped, swinging around to glare at him. “I didn’t look!”

“You wanted to.”

She didn’t answer that, again going back to what she was doing. He chuckled at her silence and the blush that accompanied it.

“I’m sorry I had to disturb you, but you can return to your bed now.”

It was the stiffness in her tone which put the disgruntlement back in his. “Which is where you ought to be—in your own bed, that is. You’ve got no business riding out this early.”

“When I ride is none of
your
business, Mr. Jefferys,” she pointed out.

“It is when you wake me to do it.” And then he sighed. “If you’re going to insist on this foolishness, I’ll go with you.”

That gave her pause and she glanced at him with raised brows. “Whatever for?”

“There’s a highwayman working these parts, or has no one told you?”

“I’m not carrying a purse.”

He grinned at that bit of lopsided logic. “You don’t think he’d find something on you to take? I know I would.”

She didn’t like the sound of that insinuation. “The hour might be early, but the sun will be up by the time I ride out of here.”

“Just barely.”

She ignored that. “If I were taking one of my midnight rides, I might worry, but not in—”

“Midnight rides?” he cut in incredulously. “Good God, have you got no sense a’tall, to risk your neck like that, not to mention your bloody virtue?”

Megan was determined not to lose her temper, so she said calmly, “This is a very quiet parish.”

“Don’t I know it,” he replied in disgust.

“It’s perfectly safe for me to ride at night when the mood takes me, or it was, before this highwayman chose our area for his robberies. But I haven’t ridden at night since he showed up, because, contrary to your belief, I’m not stupid—and why the devil am I explaining myself to you, anyway? You aren’t my keeper, Mr. Jefferys.”

“Thank God for that.”

Her eyes narrowed. Keeping her temper around this man was next to impossible. She didn’t know why she’d bothered to try.

“For all I know,” she said scathingly, “
you
might be the highwayman. His arrival in this area does coincide with your own, after all.”

“I was wondering when you’d get around to making that accusation.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?” He suddenly laughed. “Are you expecting me to deny it?”

“If you’re innocent, then yes, of course I expect you to deny it.”

“And if I were guilty, I’d also deny it, so what’s the point of my answering either way? Or were you hoping for a confession?”

His amusement was infuriating her. “I was hoping you’d go away,” she bit out caustically. “Since you haven’t, I will,
on
my horse, and without you along to further annoy me.
I do not need a keeper!
”

“Is that your final word on it?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, here’s mine,” he said, and his expression was now implacable. “I’ve decided not to give you a choice. A spoiled brat like you most definitely does need a keeper. So don’t leave this stable until I return with Caesar, Megan. If you do, I’ll ride after you, but you won’t like what will happen when I catch up, I promise you.”

Since he’d glanced down at the area of her derriere as he made that promise, Megan was left with a clear understanding of what it was he was promising to do to her. The last time he’d made that particular threat, he’d managed to intimidate her. Not this time. This time her temper didn’t cool, it was brushed to full heat. In fact, she was so furious she was rendered speechless, so he managed to walk away without hearing what she thought of his “promise.”

He was bluffing, of course. He was a servant. He might not act like one, but he was, and a servant wouldn’t dare lay an abusive hand on his employer’s daughter. She could have him arrested, for God’s sake, if he so much as tried to spank her. The very idea.

Fortified with her bristling indignation, Megan made quick work of securing Sir Ambrose’s saddle and led her horse over to the mounting block. Angrily she mounted and gathered the reins, and angrily she walked Sir Ambrose out of the stable. But, cautiously, she went no farther than to the side of the doors, so she couldn’t be seen from inside. And a few minutes later when Devlin, on Caesar’s back, came tearing out of the stable to give chase, she let out a trill of laughter that brought him up short and nearly unseated him when Caesar objected to such an abrupt halting.

Seeing that was much better than calling Devlin’s bluff. Indeed it was, and Megan rode off grinning, despite the fact that Devlin was swearing a blue streak at her back—or because of it.