by Amanda Scott
“Am I? I suppose we shall find that out in good time. Is it permitted that I ask why you have abducted me, sir?”
He glanced at her again, at a loss to understand her. “Why does any man abduct a female?”
“Do you mean to ravish me, then?”
“Good Lord, no! Whatever gave you such a cockeyed notion as that? Do I look like a ravisher?”
“I have already said that you do not even look like an abductor,” she reminded him. “It was you who implied that you were doing it for the usual reasons.”
“I meant for money,” he said harshly. “Your virtue is quite safe, Miss Bradbourne.”
“You relieve my mind considerably,” she said.
“Well, you don’t sound relieved,” he retorted. “I take leave to tell you, Miss Bradbourne, that I have known some odd females in my time—”
“I do not doubt you, sir.”
“—and,” he continued firmly, “even the oddest of them would either have treated me to a fit of the vapors or lost her temper with me the minute I’d said I was abducting her. Why, Carolyn Saint-Denis would have tried to scratch my eyes out, or worse, and my sister, Sybilla, would probably have taken her horsewhip to me. But you don’t turn a hair.”
Nell cocked her head a little to one side, watching him, her right hand still fiddling in an absent way with her reticule. “Perhaps ’tis because they know you better than I do, sir. I have no cause at this present to claw your eyes out and every reason while you attempt to control a mettlesome team in traffic not to do so. As to taking a whip to you, why, you hold the only whip within reach, you know, and I daresay you would not hand it over without some reluctance.”
“No, I wouldn’t hand it over at all.”
“How much is your wager?”
He flicked her another glance. “What makes you think there is a wager?”
“There must be. You said you would get money.”
He said in a grim tone, through his teeth, “One abducts an heiress in order to marry her, Miss Bradbourne, in order to control her fortune.”
Nell was silent.
“Tongue get trapped behind your teeth, ma’am?”
She looked directly at him then and discovered that his eyes were an unusual shade of greenish hazel, set deep beneath his brows. Suddenly more disconcerted than she wished him to know, she turned away again, lifted her chin, and said with forced calm, “I believe that abducting heiresses is an indiscretion upon which persons of refinement do not look lightly, sir. Perhaps it is still done in some circles, but surely here in Bath—”
“An indiscretion, Miss Bradbourne?” Again there was that note of near laughter in his voice. “You would label such an act as this a mere indiscretion?”
“I think you cannot have thought the matter out clearly,” she said. She was thinking rapidly, having dismissed her first inclination, which had been to inform him as quickly as possible that he had much mistaken the matter, that she was no heiress, and then to insist that he restore her to her great-aunt at once. She had barely opened her mouth, however, when she realized she could not so easily betray Lady Flavia. After all, she knew nothing about Mr. Manningford and certainly had no cause to trust him. She would have to deal with him in a less diplomatic way.
They had turned onto the London Road, and his attention was fully claimed at that moment by his team. She waited until he had passed a coach laden with passengers before saying calmly, “I regret that I cannot go any farther, Mr. Manningford. My aunt will begin to fret if I do not return to Laura Place soon, so I must request that you take me back there at once.”
“Request all you like,” he said cheerfully without taking his eyes from the road. The speed at which they were traveling made her grateful that he was not one of those young bucks who drove in a careless, neck-or-nothing fashion; nevertheless, she had no intention of allowing him to carry her another mile.
“Mr. Manningford, you are making a mistake.”
“It will not be the first time.”
“No doubt, but abduction is a serious offense, and I am not without protection, you know. You surely cannot believe you will succeed in forcing me to marry you.”
“Do you think I could not? I doubt your family would welcome the sort of scandal that would arise from trying to set such a marriage aside, and they certainly won’t prosecute once the knot is tied. No one would wish to raise that much dust.”
“Rein in your horses, Mr. Manningford.” Nell’s voice was ice cold, her words crystal clear.
Manningford glanced at her and froze. “Where the devil did that come from?” he demanded, staring at the serviceable little pistol she held pointed at him in a perfectly steady hand.
“All that need concern you,” Nell said, still in that calm, frost-bitten tone, “is that I know how to use it and have no qualms about doing so. Rein in your team.”
A low growl from the hound at her feet drew Manningford’s attention. “Good lad,” he said. “I will keep him from harming you, Miss Bradbourne, if you will hand that gun to me at once.”
The pistol moved in Nell’s hand, stopping his hand the instant he began shift his reins to reach for it. “The dog will not harm me, sir. Not, at all events, before I have put a hole in your shoulder or in your thigh. I have not decided which it is to be yet, though I am told that either can be very painful.”
“Yes, by God, it can,” he retorted. “I have had experience with gunshot wounds, and I have no desire to test your mettle, but how do you know the dog won’t harm you? I don’t even know that he won’t.”
“Dogs like me,” Nell said simply.
“He growled.”
“No doubt because you disturbed him when I startled you with my pistol. He has put his head down again, as you can see.”
Manningford sighed and began to rein his team to the side of the road. “Very well, but don’t wave that damned thing about. That stage we passed will most likely be along in a few moments, and I’d as lief not have to explain any of this to the driver or to his guard, if he’s got one.”
“You will take me back to Laura Place.”
The phaeton drew to a halt. “As to that,” he said, eyeing her pistol, “I should perhaps explain a thing or two to you.”
“Do not try to make me believe that I ought to go anywhere else with you, sir. I am not such a ninnyhammer.”
“I never said you were one,” he said, “but the fact is that I have not been precisely factual in my explanation. I am not a marrying man, I fear, nor did I intend to become one.”
“Goodness,” Nell said, watching him even more narrowly than he watched her, “then you did mean to ravish me.”
“No, I swear I did not.”
“Mr. Manningford, it is perfectly plain to me—no, sir, do not move—that my first estimation of your character was the correct one. Your senses are clearly disordered. No doubt your family has persons out scouring the countryside to find you, to place you under restraint. I will thus be doing them a favor by restoring you to their loving bosom, to be well cared for.”
“Well, there you’re out, my girl, there is no loving bosom. My siblings all have families of their own, and my father is a damned odd fellow whom I’ve only just met and don’t care if I never see again.”
“Only just met?” A memory stirred in her mind.
“Yes, but don’t let that distress you. And hide that popgun of yours. Here comes the stage.”
Obediently, Nell slipped the pistol under her skirt until the stage had passed, feeling no urge to draw the attention of passengers or driver. Manningford waved, then heaved a sigh of relief when no one showed any particular interest in them.
“Look,” he said when the dust had settled, “I ought never to have mentioned marriage. I never meant any such thing.”
“So now you would cry off, would you,” Nell said with a chuckle. But then, when he looked truly horrified, she added hastily, “What had my being an heiress to do with it then?”
He still watched
her narrowly. “Only that a friend of mine laid me a wager, saying I couldn’t abduct you.”
“I see. I must tell you, sir, that I do not approve of idiotish wagers. You ought to have told him you would not.”
“I did. In point of fact, I said I’d be damned if I would do any such thing.”
“Very proper. So then, why?”
“Circumstances changed. I require a certain amount of money to see me through to quarter-day. I asked my esteemed father for it, but instead of complying with my request, he chose to treat me as though I were a marionette to which he held the strings, so here I am.”
“But you might ask someone else to lend you the money instead, might you not?”
“Is that an offer?” He grinned at her. “I thank you, but I have never in my life borrowed money from a woman, except of course from my sister, who does not count. I couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t, either,” Nell said, stifling a laugh, “but pray do not take offense, sir. I mean that precisely the way I said it. I cannot possibly. I have no money.”
“None? None at all?”
“Not a farthing. In fact, I came to Bath hoping to find some sort of respectable employment for myself.”
Manningford stared at her for a long moment, then his lips began to twitch and his eyes to twinkle. When he burst into laughter, Nell watched him doubtfully, not certain even yet that she had not fallen into the clutches of a Bedlamite.
IV
WHEN MANNINGFORD’S FIT OF laughter showed signs of abating, Nell said coolly, “I do not find the situation humorous, sir, but perhaps I am taking too narrow a view of it.”
Instead of replying directly, he looked over his shoulder and lifted his whip to snap it high above his leaders’ heads. The pace he set was considerably slower than it had been, but that fact alone was not sufficient to keep Nell silent.
“You are going the wrong way,” she said, reaching under her skirt for the pistol.
“No, I am not,” he said, “and keep that pistol of yours hidden, if you please. We are approaching the Snow Hill turnpike, and I’d as lief the keeper didn’t see that thing.”
“Well, he will see it,” Nell said flatly. “I do not wish to go any farther. I thought I had made that plain.”
“You did, but the case is altered now that I know you are not really an heiress.”
“And what gave you any such notion as that?” she demanded, feeling warmth flood her cheeks. “I said only that I have no money, sir, not that I have no expectations.”
He shot her a sharp glance. “Keep a still tongue in your head through the turnpike, my girl, and I’ll tell you how I know. And don’t start ripping up at me now,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest. “There’s another pike at Grosvenor Place, less than a mile from here. You can make your stand there if you still have a desire to do so.”
They had slowed for the pike, and Nell gritted her teeth, leaving the pistol where it was, wondering what it was about the gentleman beside her that made her do as he had asked. Any sensible female, she told herself, would instantly demand assistance from the pike keeper, a burly fellow who looked as though he’d stand no nonsense from anyone.
“Good girl,” Manningford said when they had passed through.
“Yes, you may well think so, sir, but I think I am a fool. I should like to know how you thought you would get me through these turnpikes had I not been willing.”
He shrugged. “I really didn’t think about it, but there are ways to avoid the pikes altogether if one knows them. I do.”
“I suppose you do at that,” she said. “Why did you suggest that I am not an heiress?”
“It was not a suggestion. No heiress would speak so offhandedly about a need to seek employment.”
“She might if she had nothing to live on but her expectations.”
“Fustian. That great-aunt of yours, who is supposed to be the source of those expectations, would be preparing to take you about to all the parties she can find to launch you in style and find you a proper husband. Since she is apparently doing no such thing and expects you to find work—”
“Finding work is my own idea and one which my great-aunt strongly opposes,” Nell said, trying to maintain the calm dignity that had served her so well before. “It has no doubt escaped your notice, Mr. Manningford, that I am wearing half-mourning. My father died seven months ago.”
Manningford looked at her sharply, his countenance evincing brief confusion before his brow cleared and, to Nell’s chagrin, he muttered, “Bradbourne! I thought that name sounded familiar but assumed it was because of your being an heiress. Your father was Lord Bradbourne then, the gamester who brought an abbey to a grange before he killed hims—That is—” He broke off again, stricken. “Oh, look here, I never ought to have said that.”
“There is no need to apologize, Mr. Manningford,” Nell said coldly. “Nor is there need for you to risk being seen any longer in my company, though it is no more than you deserve for having subjected me to this nonsensical abduction of yours.”
“Risk? What are you talking about?”
Having no wish to discuss the matter an instant longer, she stared straight ahead, willing him to draw in to the side of the road again so she might take leave of him with at least a modicum of her dignity intact. But when, without a word, he did slow the team and, a moment afterward, drew up in a narrow side road, she had a sudden, quite inexplicable urge to burst into tears.
His voice was gentle. “Miss Bradbourne, I am profoundly sorry to have distressed you, although, since you deny that I had cause to apologize, I cannot think what I said exactly to have done so, and I cannot imagine, in any event, why you think that my being seen in your company will do me the least harm. ’Tis rather the other way ’round, as you must know perfectly well.”
“I did think so,” Nell said, “but that was before I knew that our dreadful scandal had flown beyond Trowbridge. If everyone in Bath already knows my appalling history, then I expect I shall have to leave, for I cannot subject Aunt Flavia to the burden of my company under such a circumstance.”
“It is not so bad as that,” he said. “I, too, associate with gamesters, you see, and I did not hear of it in Bath.”
“I think perhaps it is a pity, anyway,” she said with a sigh, “that your abducting me was not on account of a wager.”
He had been watching her narrowly, but his eyes widened now, and the note of amusement returned to his voice when he said, “Why is that, precisely?”
“Well, it has occurred to me that if such a wager were large enough, we might … that is …” Unable to finish the thought, she looked at him with a rueful twinkle in her eyes. “It was a dreadful notion, sir, and not one to which you would have agreed even had the circumstance been different. I cannot think what can have come over me. Pray, forget that I spoke.”
He chuckled. “Miss Bradbourne, I begin to believe you show promise. The fact that you could contemplate even for a moment the thought of defrauding Halstead of his four thousand pounds makes me think quite differently about you.”
“Halstead? Four thousand! I do not understand you, sir.”
“Well, I understood you well enough, and if I thought for a moment that we could carry off such a hoax, I should be delighted to divide the spoils with you, but I don’t suppose we could.”
“I am afraid that that is precisely what I was thinking, more shame to me.” When she remembered what else he had said, Nell sighed again. “There was a wager then. Four thousand?”
He grinned at her wistful tone. “You sound just like a friend of mine,” he said. “No doubt you will also agree with him that the wager was mad-brained from the start.”
Nell straightened, giving herself a shake. “All wagers are mad-brained, Mr. Manningford, as I have good reason to know, but in point of fact, I have heard of others a great deal more preposterous than abducting an heiress for four thousand pounds, albeit not necessarily more stupid or more dangerous.”
H
e ignored her last point, pinning his attention on an earlier one. “I don’t doubt you’ve heard some crazy ones. Is it true your father once staked a team of horses against a brewery that one flower in his garden would bloom before another?”
Nell smiled reminiscently. “That was one of his more absurd wagers with his uncle Reginald. He won that time, and Reginald had the Crosshill brewery dismantled, board by board and stone by stone, and rebuilt at Highgate. Two years later, it was all done again, when Papa put the brewery up against a brace of Reginald’s east-lawn peacocks and lost.”
“Peacocks! I take it this brewery didn’t make much money.”
“On the contrary, people for miles around purchased their ale and beer from us, so it turned an excellent profit.”
“Now, see here, Miss Bradbourne, I have a certain reputation of my own for making mad wagers, but I should never be so mad as to wager something of no worth against something of great worth.”
Nell smiled again. “You had to know them,” she said. “Half their fun lay in making their wagers ridiculous. You see, it had been a source of amusement for them since their childhood. That is why—” But here she stopped, smoothed a crease from her skirt with a conscious air, and focused her attention upon the post-and-rail fence at the side of the road where two blackbirds were playing tag with each other. When Manningford made no attempt to press her to finish her sentence, she said a moment later in a more cheerful way, “We must be getting back to Laura Place, sir, before my great-aunt has begun to fret about my long absence.”
“Very well,” he said, gathering the reins again, “but we ought perhaps to go to Grosvenor Place and collect that friend of mine first. I told him I would do so if it was at all possible, and he will be wondering what has become of me. Do you mind?”
“No, of course not,” Nell said, thinking at the same time that it was extremely odd to have been having such a conversation with a would-be abductor, and thinking at the same time that she must daft to be thinking that she would like to know him better. A moment later, back on the London Road, she kept her hands firmly folded in her lap and her eyes steadily on the road ahead, wondering what sort of friend Mr. Manningford had who would so patiently await his arrival with the young lady he had abducted.