“You see how he is dressed,” she said, ignoring him and keeping her eyes on the postilions. “He is a vile minion of the pirate king, a villain, a man who aided Napoleon for years.” She squirmed to sit up, scraping her head against the carriage doorframe and knocking several pins from her hair. “Please, you must help me.” As if on cue, another pin plinked to the floor of the carriage and a thick rope of hair slid from its moorings and slowly unfurled until it curtained her shoulders. There. Now I look like a girl.
She fluttered her eyelashes for extra measure. “Please.”
Visel threw his head back and laughed. “I’d clap if I didn’t have this pistol in my hand. Your performance is a masterpiece.”
One of the postilions had already begun moving toward the box when Visel turned from Eva to her small audience. “Here then, where are you going, boy?” he demanded imperiously as the postilion disappeared around the side of the carriage.
“Please don’t let him sell me to pirates,” Eva wailed.
Visel whipped around, no longer amused. “You hush or I shall be forced to gag you, my lady.”
“’Ere then, you brute.” The voice came from the back of the chaise. It was the smaller of the two boys, and he held a very old pistol with badly shaking hands. “You leave ’er alone.”
Visel gaped. “Good God. You don’t actually believe that cock-and-bull story, do you?” He went on before the boy could answer, his expression hardening. “Listen to me, you pillock, I am Godric Fleming—heir to the Duke of Tyndale. Do I sound like a bloody Frenchman to you?”
The boy blinked at this logic.
“That’s why they sent him,” Eva said hurriedly. “Because he is so clever at disguising his voice, he can sound like anyone.”
Visel snorted. “I’m so clever I disguise my voice yet I failed to disguise my person as an Englishman?”
The boys took in his colorful cape.
There was a long pause, and then, “You toss that gun down and put your hands where we can see ’em.” It was the other postilion who spoke—the one who’d stood near the horses. He’d managed to get his hands on a second gun, which he must have had close at hand because he never stepped away from the leader harness he was holding.
Eva gave Visel a quick wink and then turned to her rescuer. “Oh, thank you,” she said, making her voice higher and more girlish than normal as she squirmed onto her side so that she could get her legs free and hop out. She looked at Visel’s furious face and held out her hand.
“Give me the gun, Captain Desjean. You will not be able to carry out your dastardly errand today.”
Visel’s nostrils flared and Eva had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. She waggled her fingers. “Come now, let’s have it. We need no unnecessary violence.”
“Go on then, Desjean,” the postilion behind her ordered. “Hand it over nice and slow, like. We didn’t whip the Frenchies so they could come onto English soil and steal our womenfolk.”
Eva smothered her laugh with a cough. “That’s right,” she said in a voice rough with suppressed laughter as she chided one of England’s most decorated war heroes. “Our brave men and boys fought to protect us from the likes of you.”
Visel shook his head minutely from side to side, his eyes never leaving her face as he flipped the pistol in his hand with the ease of a man comfortable with handling one, offering it to her, butt first.
She grinned. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
His lips twisted into a smile that did not bode well for her if he ever got free.
She glanced down at James, who was still sprawled under Visel’s boot. “James?” Her groom, whom she’d known all her life, was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before. “James, what is wrong with you?”
He shook his head, as if waking from a daze. Eva could see she would be in for another scold the moment they were alone together.
“Come, make haste, James. Tie Lor—er—tie Captain Desjean’s hands.”
Eva couldn’t have said which of the two men looked more disgusted: the earl or her servant.
Well, she didn’t care. “Put him in the carriage once you’ve secured him. I shall talk to our rescuers.”
The two young men were together now, both guns trained on the earl as James tied his hands behind his back.
Eva slowed her walk and swayed her hips more. In her mind’s eye she thought of The Kitten, a woman so beautiful and elegant and sought-after, it made Eva’s teeth hurt. She willed herself to be The Kitten and lowered her lids, regarding the two gaping men from beneath her lashes.
“I cannot thank you enough for your bravery,” she gushed in a breathy voice that was not her own. She stopped to the side of them, not wishing to insert herself between the armed young men and the earl—who’d turned toward them so she could see his derisive smile. Eva donned a smile of her own, thrusting out her chest the way The Kitten did. The men’s eyes dropped to her bosom and their brows furrowed, making her recall her clothing.
“He dressed me this way to hide me,” she explained, fluttering her eyelashes since a heaving bosom was no good for seduction if it was covered by a coat. She clasped her hands together, hoping to appear harmless, and leaned closer. “My father shall reward you both richly when we deliver this villain to him.”
The two men looked at each other uncertainly. “Your father, my lady?”
“Why yes, that is where we are headed. He has a country house in—” She stuttered for a moment. Why would Visel have kidnapped her and now be taking her to her father’s house?
“Taking you to your father’s house, was I?” the earl taunted, fully facing them now.
“’Ere, you,” the smaller of the two postilions said, waving his pistol in an anxiety-provoking manner. “When we needs to ’ear a peep out o’ you, we’ll tell you.”
Eva smirked. “Yes, just so—no peeping until you are ordered to do so,” she said to Visel before turning to the postilion, relieved to leave behind the subject of country houses. “Thank you, kind sir. What is your name?”
“Jemmy, my lady.” He bowed and doffed his hat, forgetting there was a pistol in his hand and delivering a loud clunk to his forehead.
It was not easy to keep a straight face.
“I don’t think we can do that, my lady,” the other boy said, his expression much sharper than his compatriot’s. Right now he’d fixed his gaze on Visel and his features had taken on a speculative cast. “He might be a Frenchie spy, but our employer tells us not to get mixed up in shenanigans.” His intelligent gray gaze moved from Visel to Eva. “And this feels like shenanigans.” His eyes swept her person and it was not only—or even largely—with appreciation. “We’ll take you to the next town—there’s a magistrate not far away. You can wait at the inn while word is sent.”
“Bravo,” Visel said, laughing. “That is a capital idea.”
Eva shot him a narrow-eyed look and glared at James, who hastily turned the earl and assisted him into the carriage.
“Oh, I say, Ollie,” Jemmy said before Eva could protest. “Can’t we just drop ’im off and take her ladyship to her father?”
Ollie shook his head. “No, we’ll let the magistrate sort this out, Jem, or it might be our jobs.” Eva could see that was a compelling argument to the other boy, who had been three-quarters besotted and her slave before his companion had scuppered it.
As if she’d spoken out loud, Ollie looked at her again. This time there was naked suspicion in his gaze. “How come your man there didn’t get you out of this?” he asked, gesturing toward James, who’d just put Visel inside and turned around.
James gave her an I told you so look.
Eva had been wondering from the beginning of her lie why James had docilely played along, so she was prepared with another lie.
“Captain Desjean has my younger sister, too. He said he would hurt her if we did not do as he said.”
A hoot of laughter came from inside the carriage and Eva gritted her teeth.
Ollie’s eyes flickered back and forth and he shook his head slowly from side to side. “We’re bringing you to the magistrate—all three of you. This ain’t for the likes of us to decide.” He motioned toward the carriage. “You ride in there with them,” he told James, pointing with the gun. Eva opened her mouth, but Ollie shook his head. “Please, my lady. I shouldn’t want to tie the two of you up like the Frenchie. But there is just something about this whole thing that don’t smell right. If everything you say is true, the magistrate will see that you get to your father.”
Eva was impressed by Ollie’s fortitude in the face of aristocratic displeasure but couldn’t help wishing he was more like his friend.
“Very well,” she said. “I’m sure the magistrate will see the truth of the matter.”
Yes, and then she would be in the very deepest of trouble.
* * *
Godric shifted into the corner so his bound hands weren’t pressing against the seat back.
“I don’t know what you’re smiling at,” the little shrew snapped, giving him a look of pure loathing.
“I’m just imagining the tale you’ll tell the local magistrate when we reach Doncaster. Sir Bertram Woodville is in charge of that area, and he and I were chums at Eton.”
“How nice for you.”
“His younger brother was in my regiment.”
The young giant groaned and his head fell back with a thunk.
Lady Eva elbowed him hard in the side. “What is wrong with you, James?”
“It wasn’t right, my lady.”
“What wasn’t right?”
“Making mock of a war hero.”
Her eyes slid to Godric and he raised his eyebrows. She opened her mouth—no doubt to scold—but the boy wasn’t done.
“They’re going to clap me in leg irons and summon the marquess.” His head rolled from side to side. “And there is probably some special crime I’m guilty of for abducting a war hero.”
Lady Eva’s jaw worked, the gears in her pretty head grinding away while she fixed her remarkable blue-violet eyes on Godric.
“This is all your fault,” she said.
“Ha! I’m afraid I don’t see how that can be.”
“You forced me to do this because you wouldn’t leave Gabriel be. Why do you hate my brother? What has he ever done to you?”
Godric felt the amusement drain from his face. “That is men’s business and none of your affair, little girl.”
“I beg to differ. He is my brother and I love him. Thanks to you, he is married to my best friend, whom I also love. While I might be happy they’re married, their happiness was not your goal when you forced them to wed, was it? You only made sure they had to marry because you knew Gabriel had shown interest in The Kitten and you wanted to make him suffer.”
Godric shrugged, hoping the mortification he felt at her apt assessment did not show on his face.
Her mouth tightened and her expression became speculative. “I don’t think you even know what you are doing or why, do you? I think you’re suffering from some form of madness—something brought on by the war: the male hysteria.”
“My lady!” Her groom’s voice was sharp and his eyes bulged, his chastisement making the girl’s face flush.
Godric noticed all this through a red haze of fury and his hands shook and his heart pounded in his ears. “Well, you would know all about madness, wouldn’t you?”
Lady Eva’s nostrils flared and the boy’s chin pulled down, his brown eyes blazing just as fiercely as his mistress’s.
“That was ill done of you, my lord,” the groom said.
Godric could face the girl’s anger, but the boy’s disappointed, accusing eyes were something else. They spoke more loudly than words and their expression was damning. It made him see himself plainly. He was being a bully; what he’d said was wrong and ungentlemanly and cruel.
“I apologize.” He could barely grind out the words. “Your groom is correct: that was ill done of me.”
She shrugged, but her full lips had tightened and there were bright spots of color on her cheeks. “It doesn’t matter a whit to me what you say.”
Godric knew that for a lie, but he kept his mouth shut.
“What matters is that you cannot hurt my brother from where you sit right now. That,” she said, giving him a hard, chill look that should have been ludicrous on such a beautiful, youthful face but wasn’t, “is what matters now.”
Godric shifted in his seat, his arms aching and his shoulders sore. The physical discomfort added to his shame over his wretched behavior, making him even more irritable. Good God, but it was annoying to be wrong in front of such an infant. He seized on that annoyance, even though he knew he was only adding to the large pile of wrongs he’d already created. “I beg to differ, my lady. The issue of kidnapping is what will matter when we reach Doncaster and I speak to Sir Bertram.”
“There are two of us—James and I. Why should he believe anything you say? In fact”—her hard expression shifted to one of sly amusement—“what if James and I tell him you were taking me to the border—that you kidnapped me with the intention of marriage? Hmm? We hired this chaise under your name, after all. What then, my lord?”
Godric looked at her groom, who would not meet his gaze. “And would you make your servant lie to a magistrate for you?”
The boy looked at her and her jaw seemed to become tighter by the second, her expression one of mute unhappiness. She looked . . . young. Which she was, of course. A good decade younger than he, at least.
He was behaving like a bully—again. “I will make you an offer, Lady Eva. If you untie my hands and apologize for your actions, I might have a different story to tell old Bertie.” He didn’t tell her that the story would have the same ending.
The boy’s expression was one of fearful hope, until he saw her face, and then it fell.
“Never,” she said, her eyes slits and her voice oddly menacing, like the hiss of a snake. “I will never apologize for kidnapping you. I only wish I really had knocked you on the head and dropped you in a hole, or sold you to some nasty band of sailors so you could spend the rest of your days chained to an oar.”
The boy sucked in an audible gasp. “My lady.”
Godric chuckled, amused by her fire, which made her magnificent eyes flash and put color into her pale, sculpted cheeks. She was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful women in England. It was a damned shame she was going to have to marry a man who’d never be able to love her, when she clearly had so much emotional need.
He turned to the groom. “Perhaps you and I might strike a deal—James, is it?”
That was the wrong thing to say.
The boy’s face shut down as surely as the portcullis of a castle, and he turned to Lady Eva. “What do you want to do?” he asked his mistress.
Her expression, which had been as dark as a thundercloud, began to clear. She reached down into her leather bag of tricks and pulled out a grubby neckcloth. “I have an idea.”
* * *
Eva could not wait to get away from Lord Visel. He was as cunning as a snake.
She held up the dirty neckcloth. “We gag him with this and then jump from the carriage. When they open the door at Doncaster, all they will find is him.”
James’s eyes became as round as guineas. “That is your idea?”
“What is wrong with it?” she demanded, more than a little affronted by his tone.
“Jumping from a moving carriage will hurt, my lady. It is possible one or both of us will be too injured to walk. What then?”
Eva saw she would have to resort to goading or shaming, both of which usually worked. “What a poor creature you are, James. Have you no spirit of adventure? I’ve fallen from my horse at far greater speeds and in more dangerous conditions. Recall that hunt two years ago when the—”
“Yes, yes, of course I do—and I also recall you almost died.”
Eva ground her teeth, wishing she’d chosen another example to illus
trate her indestructibility. “What about the time when—”
“What will we do once we jump?”
She was glad to leave the other subject behind. “We can get a ride with some farmer if necessary. We only need to get as far as a posting house. You must still have that money I gave you?”
“I believe some of that money is mine,” Visel said.
Eva shot the earl a glare but otherwise ignored him. “James?” she said.
“Aye, I’ve got it.”
“There is enough there to purchase seats for us on a mail coach five times over. We could even engage our own chaise at an inn.”
He chewed his lip.
“I think you must know this is a dreadful idea,” Lord Visel said.
She whirled on him. “Why don’t you mind your own business, you—you interfering cad. This is none of your affair. You can get out of the carriage a free man in Doncaster and you and your dreadful school chum can do what you do best.”
His lips curved into a grin that made Eva wish she’d shot him when she’d had the chance. “Oh, and what would that be, my lady?”
“Drinking, gaming, cocking, and whoring, just like any other degenerate fop.”
He laughed. “How well you know me. It is almost as if we are man and wife already.” He turned to James and his smile drained away. “You must know how this will all end, boy—even if you refuse to admit it to your mistress.”
Eva was so angry her eyeballs were hot. “Stop. Talking.”
“If you jump out of the carriage and make it back to Exley, his lordship will only have to bring her back to me. She will have to marry me and all three of us know that.” He paused and then added, “And what do you think the marquess will say when he learns you helped his daughter kidnap a peer and then leap out of a moving carriage?”
“Don’t listen to him, James. He is demented. He doesn’t know anything about me or us or my family or my father and what he will do.” She caught one of James’s huge hands, which was clenched into a fist on his knee. “Please,” she said when he turned to her, his brown eyes agonized. “Please.”
James pursed his mouth in a deeply disappointed frown but nodded: he would do it. Eva acted swiftly, before he had a chance to change his mind.
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