St. Clare supposed Lionel’s statement was meant to put him on his guard. As if Louisa Steele was in possession of any of St. Clare’s secrets. During the past days, as he’d squired her about town, he’d done little but smile as she rattled on about herself in tiresome detail. All the compliments she’d received from men and all the ladies who were—inevitably—jealous of her.
It had been a small sacrifice to appease his grandfather, but a sacrifice nonetheless. Every minute spent with Miss Steele was one St. Clare might have spent with Maggie. And now, to know that Maggie had misunderstood him. That he might have hurt her in some way.
It wasn’t what he’d intended. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
More and more he was beginning to feel like one of those hapless street performers he’d seen in Venice as a lad. A juggler with too many balls in the air. It took all of one’s focus to keep the balls from dropping. A single fumble could mean catastrophe.
“I congratulate you, Cousin,” Lionel went on. “Miss Steele is a great beauty. The prize of the season, I understand, and that set on marrying a title. It would be too bad if she were disappointed in that regard.”
Too bad, indeed.
St. Clare’s mouth curled into a humorless smile as he crossed to the terrace doors. His shoulder narrowly clipped Lionel’s as he passed. “Do your worst.”
Inside the ballroom, the servants who had been eavesdropping scattered in his wake. St. Clare paid them no mind. He’d said nothing that couldn’t be repeated.
No. It was Lionel who had provided the gossip. An outright accusation that St. Clare wasn’t who he said he was. It was only a matter of time before that accusation made the scandal sheets. An unambiguous charge made from one member of the Beresford family against another.
His grandfather would want to know.
St. Clare didn’t look forward to the conversation. Not tonight. He had other things on his mind. Maggie and Frederick Burton-Smythe for one. He nevertheless descended the stairs leading down to the dining room. At the foot of them, he found George and Jane Trumble, their heads bent together, deep in whispered conversation.
Miss Trumble straightened at the sight of him. “Lord St. Clare. Good evening.”
Her brother inclined his head in a stiff greeting. “St. Clare.”
St. Clare looked between the two of them. A frisson of uneasiness went through him. “Is something amiss?”
“Not at all,” George replied.
“It’s Miss Honeywell,” Miss Trumble said at the same time.
St. Clare’s pulse leapt with something like alarm. He took a step forward. “What about Miss Honeywell?”
“Jane,” George whispered a warning.
“It’s all right,” Miss Trumble whispered back to him. “He’s Margaret’s friend.” She looked up at St. Clare. “Mr. Burton-Smythe insisted on taking her back to Green Street in his carriage.”
St. Clare’s alarm grew exponentially. “Alone?”
“No, no,” Miss Trumble answered quickly. “Nothing like that. My Aunt Harriet has gone with them as chaperone.”
The same elderly, enfeebled aunt who had been asleep on every occasion that St. Clare had chanced to meet her? What kind of chaperone was she? No chaperone at all, as far as he was concerned.
“We offered to take Miss Honeywell home ourselves,” George said, “but she wouldn’t allow us to suspend our pleasure on her account.”
“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Miss Trumble said. “She can look after herself. It’s only that…Mr. Burton-Smythe was in such a temper, and it’s such a long drive back to Green Street.”
It was fifteen miles, in fact. Fifteen long miles of dark, isolated road.
St. Clare’s chest tightened with apprehension. Maggie was, indeed, more than capable of taking care of herself. But Fred had been pushed to his limit. He’d grabbed her roughly on the terrace and crudely ordered her about. And that had been in full public view.
What might he do to her when the two of them were, effectively, alone in a darkened carriage?
St. Clare wasn’t going to wait to find out.
Maggie drew her wrap more firmly about her shoulders, mindful to conceal her gown’s low décolletage. Beside her in the carriage, Jane’s aunt Harriet snored softly. The motion of the coach, rolling steadily down the deserted road, had lulled her to sleep only moments after they’d set off from Chiswick.
“There’s something familiar about the man.” Seated across from Maggie, Fred’s face was lit by a single carriage lamp. It cast his ruddy complexion in a pattern of shifting shadows. “Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”
Maggie had blown out the candle in the other carriage lamp so as not to disturb Aunt Harriet’s slumber. It had seemed a courteous thing to do, initially. Now, however, alone in the semidarkness with Fred, she had cause to regret her decision. The shadowy interior of the carriage lent an intimacy to their discussion that she neither wanted nor welcomed.
“In what way familiar?” she asked.
“Something about his eyes. When I saw you dancing with him…” Fred’s mouth hardened into a disapproving line. “If you can call it dancing.”
She flicked a glance out the velvet-curtained carriage window. The starless midnight sky was black as pitch, and there was no full moon to light their way. Had they left the ball at the same time as the rest of the guests they might have benefited from the blaze of lamps swinging from the dozens of carriages returning to town. Now, however, there was no traffic at all. Nothing ahead or behind them save a long, lonely expanse of dark road. It was impossible to see a thing.
Perhaps it had been unwise to allow Fred to accompany her home early.
He’d insisted on doing so, and at the time, she’d thought it easier not to argue with him. He’d been in such a foul mood. On the verge of making a scene. Besides, she hadn’t relished the thought of remaining at the ball. Of seeing St. Clare dining with Miss Steele. Dancing with Miss Steele. Not after Maggie had danced with him herself.
But Fred’s anger hadn’t been assuaged by her compliance. Indeed, since she’d climbed into the carriage with him, his sullen mood had grown worse.
“It was the waltz, that’s all,” she said.
He snorted. “Not any waltz I’ve ever seen.”
“How could you have? You’ve never traveled outside of England. Whereas Lord St. Clare—”
“Beresford says he was born on the continent. In Italy, apparently.” Fred’s brow furrowed. “I wonder…”
Maggie didn’t like the look on his face. Not one little bit. Fred wasn’t a great thinker, and his memory was nothing to boast about, but unless she was very much mistaken, some part of him had recognized St. Clare, just as Maggie had recognized him that night in the library at Grosvenor Square.
It was the dancing. The way she and St. Clare had been looking at each other and laughing. Fred was a man who needed things spelled out for him, and tonight on the terrace, Maggie and St. Clare had unwittingly written the truth out in capital letters.
How long before Fred made the connection? He was struggling for it now. Straining his feeble wits to put the pieces together. At the moment, those pieces remained just out of his reach, but soon…
Soon he would realize that St. Clare bore a startling resemblance to Nicholas Seaton.
And then what?
Maggie regarded Fred from across the carriage. There was little she could do to protect St. Clare from Fred’s vindictiveness, save try to nip his laborious process of deduction in the bud. “You’re obsessed with him. That’s what it is.”
Fred’s nostril’s flared. “I am not.”
“You are. It’s excessively tedious. I’d sooner we changed the subject.”
“If I speak of him at all it’s only because you insist upon being in the man’s company. As your guardian—”
“You are not my guardian. Not in the way you presume. And if you won’t oblige me by changing the subject, then pray be quiet. You’re incessant harping is giving me a megrim.”
A muscle twitched in Fred’s cheek. “This isn’t a game. You’re my responsibility, like it or not. What do you suppose a man like that wants from you? I’ll tell you what—”
“Please, spare me the gruesome details of your wild imaginings.”
“He wants to bed you,” Fred blurted out. “To take his pleasure of you and leave you ruined.”
Maggie reflexively drew back in her seat. She was no sheltered child. She nevertheless felt a quiver of uneasiness at Fred’s bluntness.
Ladies hadn’t much to protect them in this world. Little else but the rules of polite behavior. It was those very rules that made gentlemen treat them respectfully—almost deferentially. Maggie had never valued such deference. Not when it was offered purely on account of her sex. But now…the absence of it left her feeling peculiarly vulnerable. As if Fred had issued an unspoken threat.
“You mustn’t speak of such things to me,” she said. “It’s not decent.”
Fred continued undeterred. “You may not care one way or the other. You’ve made no secret how little score you set by your own reputation. But know this, I won’t wed a woman who’s been playing the light-skirt, nor will I support one.”
Heat rose in her face at his crass words. Her temper rose as well. “Is that what it will take to rid you of this ridiculous desire to marry me? If only I’d known sooner.”
“I mean it, Margaret. If you’re to be my wife, you’re to come to my bed untouched or not at all. And if I find out—”
“Untouched. There’s a word. It can mean so many things.” Maggie knew she was playing with fire but couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Am I never to have embraced another gentleman? Never to have kissed him? Or is it only the marital act that you object to?”
Fred’s face reddened in the dim light. He leaned forward in his seat. “Have you kissed him?”
“You’re not a feudal lord, Fred. You’re no lord at all. You’re not even a baronet. Not yet. And if you think you can dictate to me—”
“Have you kissed him?”
She lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I can’t recall. One kisses so many gentlemen.”
A predatory glint shone in Fred’s eyes. “You’ve never kissed me.”
Maggie didn’t register the danger until it was too late. One second Fred was sitting across from her, and the next he’d caught her by the arms and pulled her from her seat, straight into his lap. She gave a muffled yelp of surprise.
“Perhaps that’s the trouble,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
She shoved his chest. “Let go of me, you great oaf.”
“Just one kiss.” His grip on her arms tightened painfully. “It’s the least you owe me.”
“I don’t owe you anything.” She fought to break free of his bruising grasp. Her hand found his injured shoulder in the struggle. She pressed hard against his bullet wound.
Fred let out a hoarse yelp. For a split second she managed to get loose, but then he seized her again, more roughly than before. The delicate sleeve of her new ball gown tore in his hand.
“Oh!” she cried. “Now look what you’ve done!”
He didn’t seem to hear her. He was too intent on his purpose. “Hold still,” he muttered as his mouth sought hers. His breath was hot on her face. “You may enjoy it.”
At that very moment, the air was rent by a thunderous crack.
The horses screamed and the carriage veered sharply to the right. Maggie was flung from Fred’s lap straight into the door.
Aunt Harriet woke with a start. “Good gracious! Have we lost a wheel?”
Maggie struggled to her seat. Her hair had come loose from its pins during her tussle with Fred. She pushed it back from her face. “That wasn’t the wheel,” she said breathlessly. “It was a pistol shot.”
“Nonsense,” Fred said. “Something’s merely happened to the carriage.” He hammered on the ceiling. “Coachman? What the devil is going on?”
The coachman made no answer.
But someone did.
A deep masculine voice broke through the darkness. “Stand and deliver!”
Aunt Harriet’s rheumy eyes grew wide as saucers. “Heavens!” she cried. “It’s a highwayman!”
Fred dropped back into his seat. His face was ashen. “Stay calm, ladies. Leave this to me.”
Maggie’s heart pounded in her ears. She told herself that she wasn’t afraid. Not terribly so. Highwaymen didn’t kill ladies, not as a general rule. “It’s all right,” she said to Aunt Harriet. “He’ll only want our jewelry.”
Aunt Harriet’s blue-veined hand flew to the diamond necklace at her throat. “Can our outriders not protect us?”
Maggie shot a look at Fred. “We don’t have outriders. Only the coachman and a footman.”
“I said leave it to me,” Fred snapped. He reached for the carriage door. His hand had no sooner touched the handle than the door was wrenched from his grasp.
It flew open, revealing a sinister figure enveloped in a heavy black cloak. His face was covered by a mask, his eyes shadowed by a tricorne hat pulled low over his brow. In his hand he held a horse pistol of truly startling proportions. He leveled it straight at Fred.
“Evening, guv,” he said. “Mind stepping out of the carriage?”
“We don’t want any trouble,” Fred said. “We’ll do whatever you ask of us.”
“Then do it.” The highwayman gestured with his pistol. “Out you come.”
“Ooh,” Aunt Harriet moaned.
The highwayman glanced at her. “Madam.” He touched his hat in a mock salute. And then he looked at Maggie. His large frame seemed to still for an instant.
And no wonder.
She knew how she must appear. Without her wrap, there was no hiding her disheveled state. The torn sleeve of her ball gown was plainly visible in the light from the carriage lamp, as was her loosened coiffure.
“It seems I’ve interrupted something.” Turning his attention back to Fred, the highwayman very deliberately cocked his pistol. “Step out, guv, before I haul you out myself.”
Fred hastily exited the carriage. “Have a care how you point that thing,” he said as the door slammed shut behind him. His voice was muffled. “If it’s money you want, I can give you—”
There was a heavy thud. It was followed by a grunt and the sound of a large person hitting the ground.
Maggie clasped Aunt Harriet’s hand. Her pulse was racing so she could hardly catch her breath.
“Do you suppose he’s killed him?” Aunt Harriet asked.
“I don’t think so. We’d have heard the pistol discharge.”
The carriage door opened again, framing the highwayman’s cloaked figure in the darkness.
“You can’t take my diamonds, sir,” Aunt Harriet said with a surprising degree of composure. “They’re a family heirloom.”
“Never fear, madam, I don’t steal from aged ladies. Nor from young ones.” His gaze caught Maggie’s. “But I’ve been known to take payment by other means.” He extended his hand to her. “Step out, love. Let me have a look at you.”
She stared at his gloved hand, and then back at his face—at his eyes. Some of the tightness in her chest eased. Slowly, she slipped her hand into his.
“Miss Honeywell!” Aunt Harriet objected.
“I’ll be fine,” Maggie said as the highwayman assisted her out. “He won’t hurt me.”
“So long as you stay where you are,” the highwayman warned Aunt Harriet. He shut the door of the carriage, leaving her alone inside.
Maggie blinked, trying to acclimate herself to the darkness. In the light of the lantern that swung from the coachman�
�s box, she could just make out Fred on the ground, his slumped figure half-propped against the carriage wheel. He didn’t appear to be dead. He wasn’t even unconscious.
The coachman himself remained on the box, the liveried footman immobile at his side. Maggie didn’t understand why they hadn’t put up a fight. Not until she saw that there was another masked man standing in the shadows pointing a pistol at them. He was a great deal smaller than the first highwayman, but no less effective.
“What do you want from her?” Fred demanded. “Margaret—”
“What I want’s a bit of privacy to claim my prize.” The highwayman ushered Maggie behind the carriage. “This way, my beauty.”
As soon as they were alone, Maggie reached to tug down the highwayman’s cloth mask. He permitted her to do it, putting up no fight at all. St. Clare’s handsome face was revealed by inches.
As if she’d had any doubt.
From the moment he’d reached for her, extending his hand in that age-old way, she’d known exactly who he was.
“Have you gone utterly mad?” she asked under her breath.
“Have you?” he replied in a sharp whisper. “Why did you leave the ball with him?”
“Because he was making a scene. It was easier to do as he asked than risk a scandal.” She paused, admitting, “I thought I could manage him.” Self-disgust coursed through her at her own naiveté. Fred wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man, and one she could obviously no longer control. “Is that why you came after me? Dressed like this?”
“There was little I could accomplish dressed as myself. I have no claim on you.” St. Clare’s fingers brushed over her torn sleeve. “Did he do this?”
“Yes. He was trying to kiss me, and when I fought with him—” She broke off, catching St. Clare by a fold of his cloak as he made to stride off. “Don’t you dare do anything rash!”
“I’m going to murder him.”
Her fingers tightened on his cloak. “Don’t be stupid. You’ve already done enough.”
“I’ve barely gotten started yet,” he said.
There was something in his voice that made the fine hairs lift on the back of her neck. Good lord. Was he so consumed with hatred? With vengeance?
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