by Anne Gracie
“Won’t Great-uncle Oswald help us?” Grace asked.
Prudence looked troubled. “He would try, I’m sure, darling. But he is entirely dependent on Grandpapa financially and he has been so kind to us, I don’t think we should ask him to risk his very livelihood.”
“And he is not so strong or as vicious as Grandpapa,” Hope stated bluntly. “Grandpapa would just knock him down and start on us.”
“He might not even believe us,” added Faith. “Nobody ever did before. Not until Dr. Gibson saw Grace with his own eyes.”
“Besides,” Charity added practically, “Great-uncle Oswald is away for the day and Grandpapa could arrive at any minute.”
“What’s going on, Prudence?” Gideon scanned her face worriedly. She looked so frightened, dammit! They all did. He wanted to snatch her back in his embrace but she was surrounded by sisters. He clenched his fists. What the devil was happening and why did they seem to think that flight was their only alternative? He glanced at Edward, who returned his look with a worried shrug.
“We have to leave—now,” Prudence said in a flat voice. “Thanks to Mrs. Burton we are forewarned, and by the time Grandpapa comes we shall be gone.”
“What do you mean?” Gideon tried to catch Prudence’s eye but her eyes were only for her sisters. Like a little mother hen she swept them all up the front steps into the entry hall.
“Quick girls, upstairs and pack a portmanteau, as fast as you can. Pack for me, too, if you can. Hope, will you fetch down my special box, please? I will make the other arrangements. And I’ll leave a note for Great-uncle Oswald, explaining everything. Now hurry, hurry! If he catches us, all will be lost!”
Before Gideon or the duke could say a word, Charity, Hope, and Faith raced up the stairs and disappeared.
“Grace, my love, all will be well if you just hurry,” Prudence urged.
Grace’s arms folded defensively, hunched into herself. “Oh Prue, what if—” The little girl looked, to Gideon’s eyes, suddenly a great deal smaller and younger. Pale and pinched and defenseless. He found his fists clenching harder.
Prudence gathered the child into her arms and hugged her tightly. “He shan’t find us, Graciela, I promise you. I will…I will kill him myself before I let him take us back. I will soon be one and twenty, and he cannot touch us then. Now run along and pack. We will leave as soon as I can find a carriage to take us out of London.” She gave her little sister a gentle push toward the stairs, and Grace hurried off.
Gideon grabbed Prudence and swung her around to face him. “What the devil is the matter? I gather your grandfather is coming to town but why do you fear him so?”
Prudence shrugged him off. “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to explain. We must get away from here. I have to get some money. And find a carriage. And write a letter.”
“But I want to know why—”
She flung off his hand, clearly distracted. “We have to get away! Please, just leave. I thank you for your concern, Lord Carradice, and your kindness, too, Your Grace, but we must—”
“Hang my concern, I’m not going anywhere!” snapped Gideon. “Do you imagine for one minute that I could leave you in such obvious distress? Whatever it is, I’m at your service. Now, what do you need me to do?”
Prudence could hardly believe her ears. She stared up at Lord Carradice a long painful moment. “Do…do you mean it?” she stammered. “Y-you will help us?
His face softened and he gently smoothed back a lock of hair from her face. “Foolish Imp. You don’t imagine I could see you so obviously facing trouble and just stroll out of here, do you?”
Prudence shrugged. Not since she was eleven had anyone seemed to care about her distress, and certainly nobody had simply offered to help. She bit her lip and stared at him dumbly, her eyelids prickling.
“Come, my love, don’t cry now. Plenty of time for that later, if you want. I’m with you all the way in whatever you want.” His smile was a touch rueful. “Will I help you? Try to stop me!”
“I, too, wish to offer my assistance,” added the duke.
Prudence’s face crumpled, but she managed to master herself. She fiercely blinked back tears, forcing herself to become businesslike. “Thank you. I would be extremely grateful if you could find us a carriage. We need to get away from here on the instant and Great-uncle Oswald has taken his to visit friends in Richmond.”
“What sort of carriage?” asked Gideon.
Prudence looked at him blankly.
“Where are you planning to go?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Out of London. It depends…” It depended on how much money she had. She’d meant to sell some of her mother’s jewelery before this, but she’d put the moment off, hoping it would not be necessary, after all. And now, see where her procrastination had got her!
Gideon glanced at the duke. “What about your mother’s old traveling carriage? It’s a bit antiquated, but it’s solid enough and should fit five young ladies and their possessions. And if you order my phaeton, that should cover all eventualities.”
“An excellent notion,” agreed the duke. “I shall nip home immediately and see to it.”
“Oh, and Edward, tell your man and mine to throw a few things in a valise for us. And a roll or two of soft. Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
“Good idea.” The duke hurried out the door.
Gideon turned back to Prudence, explaining, “You see, Edward customarily drives a curricle, and the landau is too—” He broke off. She looked quite distracted, frowning with fierce concentration, completely unaware of his presence. Her hair had fallen out of its customary knot and loose tendrils were spiraling outward. The half-dozen freckles across the bridge of her nose stood out against her pallor like bread crumbs scattered over snow.
She looked small and worried and bedraggled and beautiful, and the forlorn expression in her eyes squeezed his heart in his chest.
“It’s all right. Tell me what needs to be done,” he said in a bracing tone. “I am yours to command.”
“We need to be gone from this place as soon as possible. While the girls pack and your cousin finds us a carriage, I’ll write the letter for Great-uncle Oswald, and you can…” She frowned. “Actually, there’s nothing you can do at the moment—unless you want to help with the packing?”
He sighed. “I’m not much use at packing feminine apparel, unless you don’t mind it all crushed, but I will fetch and carry bags.” He added with a glimmer of wry humor, “I was hoping for a little more scope for my chivalrous instincts. Porter was not exactly the role I had in mind. Are you sure you don’t need any dragons slain?”
He said it as a joke, but her face dimmed, as if a shadow had passed across her eyes. He couldn’t bear it. In two quick paces he had her wrapped in his arms. She clung to him briefly with ragged vehemence, then stepped back, as if to isolate herself from him.
Gideon stroked her cheek lightly with the back of one finger. “Tell me about the dragon, Prue,” he said softly. “Your grandfather. Why has he got you all in a pother? I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.”
She shook her head, not meeting his eyes, saying nothing.
“Grace seems terrified,” he said. “I always thought her a little Viking, afraid of nothing.”
She didn’t want to tell him, he could see. She was determined to deal with it on her own. Gideon was just as determined to find out what caused a happy flock of garrulous girls to become pinched and fearful and silent.
“What makes a child like Grace so frightened?” he persisted softly. “What would make my courageous little Miss ImPrudence flee in such anxiety?” The backs of his fingers caressed her skin with tender insistence.
Prudence shivered. She closed her eyes, a brief, almost defeated look. Then she swallowed and said simply, “Grandpapa is very harsh.”
“He beats us all,” Hope said from the doorway. “Violently, often, and for no good reason. He beats Faith just
for singing and me if I use my left hand. But he thrashes Prudence. And lately he has started on Grace in the same way. I hate him! Prue, here’s the box. And Faith wants to know if we can take our new Kashmir shawls.”
There was a moment of silence in the room. The very matter-of-fact way in which Hope had referred to the beatings chilled Gideon’s blood. He thrashes Prudence? For a moment he could not think.
Prudence stirred, pulled away from Gideon’s touch, became almost brisk again as she took a battered wooden box from Hope. “Thank you. Yes, take the shawls if you want. They are warm as well as fine, and you might need them in the carriage. But take only what you can fit in one portmanteau. We cannot carry any more. Now hurry!” Hope ran off.
Prudence sat down at the writing desk, picked up the pen, and began to write. She didn’t look at Lord Carradice, but she could see him from the corner of her eye.
He was very still. Hope’s words had shocked him, she could tell.
But she didn’t have time to reassure him. And besides, there was nothing to say. What’s done is done and no use repining. It was now that counted, not the unhappy past. And right now, she had to get this letter written to Great-uncle Oswald.
Poor Great-uncle Oswald. This morning he’d left a house full of girlish laughter; he would return to find it empty. He would read the tale of their lies and deception. And then he would have to face an enraged elder brother.
It was poor thanks for the kindness and generosity he had shown them. Prudence vowed to make it up to him one day.
She continued to write. Behind her and slightly to her left, Lord Carradice stood as if frozen. He remained still and silent for several long moments. Then she felt him moving toward her, felt his hands enclose her shoulders and gently turn her to face him.
“He thrashes you?” His voice was deep and soft, but it contained a note she had never heard in him before. She’d thought him only capable of pleasant nonsense and laughter.
She was wrong.
“Why does he thrash you?” he asked again, in that soft implacable voice. “And why has nobody stopped him?”
His anger was a little frightening, to tell the truth. Frightening, and yet comforting at the same time. Because although she didn’t understand such silent, cold rage, and had never experienced such a thing, she knew it was entirely on her behalf. She’d never experienced that, either. A rage that protected instead of attacked.
She had no idea how to deal with the feelings his response had engendered, had no idea how to respond. She could not look him in the eyes. She shrugged awkwardly, and tried to bend over her letter. “It is nothing, just some stupid prejudice he has about my hair,” she mumbled.
“What about it?”
“He thinks the color is a sign of the Devil in me. A sign that I am wanton and wicked…and evil.” She stared blindly at the letter she was writing. There was some truth in Grandpapa’s accusations. He had cause for his condemnation of her—oh, not about her hair, but about…other things.
She heard the quick, shocked intake of his breath and felt his palm curl around her nape, tenderly, possessively, comfortingly. His long, strong fingers slipped through her tumbled curls, loosening the final remnants of the knot, stroking and caressing as he murmured, “Your hair is beautiful, Prudence. It’s glorious. Like a sunset over an autumn forest. Like tendrils of molten copper, fresh from the forge. I’ve never seen more beautiful hair in my life “
The writing in front of Prudence shimmered and blurred. Of course, he was only saying it to comfort her, but still…he must admire it a little at least, else how would he think of such beautiful things to say…Tendrils of molten copper, fresh from the forge…A sunset over an autumn forest.
She treasured up his words in a small, secret corner of her heart.
He pressed a warm kiss on the nape of her neck, and she shivered with fleeting pleasure, awash with weakness in the wake of his tenderness. Oh, where was the flippant rake when you needed him? She could resist him…just.
But this Lord Carradice, with poetry and tenderness on his lips…and protective rage in his heart.
She still couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She didn’t know why she felt so ashamed that he knew part of her shabby little secret, but that was how she felt. She’d wanted nobody to know how viciously her grandfather beat her.
She felt…besmirched. She knew she should not, that Grandpapa had no moral right to continue beating her.
And yet…And yet…
She was not an innocent. Not like Grace and her sisters.
Four and a half years before, Prudence had, by her own actions, broken rules she knew Grandpapa had held sacred. Her actions had pushed him over the edge from habitual harshness to extreme and deliberate cruelty. Her physical punishment was, in some peculiar way, an expiation.
That was what made her most ashamed of all. As if there was some sort of vile complicity between them…
But then he’d started on Grace…and that she could not bear. That was when she’d started to fight back.
Lord Carradice moved around to stand beside her and waited for her to look up at him. Prudence bent over the letter, trying to disguise the fact that her eyes were full of un-shed tears.
“Prudence, my Prudence,” he said softly.
She closed her eyes a moment, forcing the tears back. He lowered himself, slowly, with fluid deliberation, until he was kneeling before her. He took her hands in both of his, warm, strong, filling her with his strength. His face was on a level with hers; she could tell by the faint stirring of his breath against her skin.
She took a deep, shaky breath and opened her eyes.
And found herself drowning in his dark, fathomless gaze. There was no lurking twinkle, no glimmer of mockery.
“No one shall ever again harm so much as a hair on your head, my Prudence, nor that of your sisters, not while there is breath in my body to prevent it.”
It was a vow. Prudence felt like a medieval queen, with the knight of her heart declaring himself her vassal. She stared into the liquid heat of his gaze and saw there a refuge, and a haven, and love.
And the tears finally spilled from her eyes, for she was not entitled to his refuge or his love. She belonged to Phillip, was bound to him by the promise she had made in the churchyard, and by a later promise, even more sacred. His ring rested hard and heavy against her breast, reminding her of the weight of her oaths, even now.
“Oh dear, look what you’ve made me do,” she wailed, searching in vain for a handkerchief and dashing tears from her cheeks with embarrassment. “I almost never cry, and have no time to do so now, in any case. I need to be strong, for my sisters’ sake, as well as my own.”
He pulled out a pristine white handkerchief and gently mopped up her tears, while she tried to scrub them away with her hands.
“I know,” he said quietly. “And you are strong. But I don’t care who you think you are betrothed to. At this moment, you are mine to protect—and for the rest of my life, if you wish it.”
She shook her head distressfully and he tipped up her chin and smiled ruefully. “Don’t fret, love. I haven’t forgotten Ottershanks. I don’t mean to press you at this inopportune time. Just know that you are no longer alone in this, or any other difficulty.” And he lifted her hand and kissed it with the same formality—almost with reverence. Renewing and reaffirming his vow.
Prudence snuffled into his handkerchief, unbearably moved.
“Now…” He stood up and said in a very different voice, “You mustn’t disdain the protection of a frippery shag bag and a medium-sized duke with a tendency to stoutness. We can be formidable fellows when we try, you know.” He rubbed her back lightly and added in a soft voice, “Dry your eyes, Miss ImPrudence. We have letters to finish, bags to pack, dragons to rout!”
Prudence gave him a tremulous smile. Having a friend who was young and strong and independent of Grandpapa’s influence and willing to stand up for her was a new experience.
“I gather
Sir Oswald does not know the situation.”
Prudence shook her head and explained, a little shamefacedly, “No. We deceived him when we came here. I…I forged a letter in Grandpapa’s hand. Great-uncle Oswald welcomed us with open arms and showed us more kindness than my sisters have ever seen in their lives—since Mama and Papa died, that is.” She stopped a moment, unable to speak for the lump in her throat. “Grandpapa is our legal guardian, at least until I come of age—which is the week after next. Once I turn one and twenty, by my father’s will, I am entitled to become my sisters’ guardian.” She did not mention the need to support them as well.
“Then why not ask for Sir Oswald’s support until then?”
“I could not ask it of him. My sisters are right. Grandpapa would not hesitate to lay violent hands on Great-uncle Oswald—he nearly killed a groom once, for some mistake with a horse.”
“But—”
“And though Grandpapa is the elder brother, he is stronger and fitter, for he hunts regularly. Great-uncle Oswald lives a sedentary existence.”
“I would not allow him to harm your uncle.”
She smiled mistily and shook her head. “Thank you, but that is not all. As a younger son, Great-uncle Oswald is entirely dependent on Grandpapa’s good will for his income, you see. I could not bear it if he were thrust into poverty as a result of trying to help us.”
Lord Carradice did not look convinced, so she continued, “Great-uncle Oswald probably would defy Grandpapa, but with no income of his own, he could not support us, and though I shall have money from the sale of some jewels, I couldn’t possibly support Great-uncle Oswald in the style he currently enjoys. He is rather extravagant, you know.” She shook her head decisively. “No, far better that we simply take ourselves out of Grandpapa’s reach until I turn one and twenty. And if Charity and—” She broke off. Edward had not yet asked Charity to wed him. It could still come to naught. “Your cousin said he would help us. A duke is quite powerful in some ways, is he not?”
“Yes,” said Lord Carradice. “And so are the cousins of dukes.”
That brought a glimmer of a smile to her lips. Gideon continued, “So, we are to embark on a journey. And what is our destination to be?”