An Escapade and an Engagement

by Annie Burrows

  ‘Cruel?’ He was stunned by her reaction. ‘You think it is cruel to rescue you from a situation that is plainly causing you distress?’

  He steadfastly ignored the little voice that reminded him that he had been spoiling for a fight for ages. That this redcoat was just in the way when he happened to be in need of someone upon whom to vent his frustration. That if he had come across a young officer in the throes of a passionate clinch with a female as pretty as this one in Portugal he would have winked at the man, wished him luck and been on his way.

  Ah, but this was no sloe-eyed señorita, nor the willing wife of a local grandee, he argued back. This was a young English lady, and she had not appeared willing. On the contrary, she’d been struggling with the lout. She’d looked frightened.

  ‘I admit, I was a little taken aback by Harry’s ardour,’ said Lady Jayne. ‘For he has never really kissed me like that before. But mostly I was afraid somebody might come by and discover us.’

  ‘Do you really expect me to believe you were only trying to fight him off because you feared discovery?’

  Though now he came to think of it she must have come here of her own free will, even if she had taken fright at the last minute.

  ‘Yes!’ she cried, lifting her chin to glare at him defiantly. ‘Not that I expect a man like you to understand,’ she said with contempt. ‘But since my grandfather has forbidden Harry to approach me we can only meet in secret.’

  He had not thought he could get any angrier. But her words were so inflammatory. What did she mean, a man like you? Why could she not just express her gratitude that he was here to rescue her? And, most of all, why wouldn’t she get out of the way so he could just lay into this sneaking, slovenly excuse for a soldier?

  ‘Did it never occur to you that your grandfather might have your best interests at heart? That it would be better to stay away from him?’

  Lady Jayne was a great heiress. Her grandfather, so Berry had informed him, had no direct male heir, and it was common knowledge that he intended to bequeath to her the bulk of his fortune. Some penniless nobody was obviously not a suitable partner for a girl who would inherit so much. All this Harry had to recommend him, by the looks of it, was a handsome face, a pair of broad shoulders—and a ruthless streak.

  ‘So you mean to betray us?’ she said frostily.

  Harry moved to stand beside her. He took her hand in his and raised it to his chest, where he pressed it to his heart.

  ‘This is not the end. I shall not let it be. I swore that I would not let anything part us and I meant it. I still mean it.’

  ‘Oh, Harry,’ she said, turning to him with a woebegone face. ‘I shall never forgive myself if he has you flogged.’ She shot a glance of loathing in Lord Ledbury’s direction. ‘I knew I should never have agreed to this meeting.’

  And as they stood there, gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes, Lord Ledbury felt his irrational spurt of anger drain away.

  If she was in love with this man, no matter what his own opinion of him was, no wonder she had behaved the way she had done in that ballroom earlier. Lord, he knew just how she must have felt. Had not his own grandfather ripped him from all that he knew, all that he loved, and set his feet on another path—one that he would never willingly have trod?

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ he snapped, annoyed that he was now obliged to continue in the role of upholder of propriety or he was going to look a complete fool. Even though half of him wished he could walk away and leave them to it. ‘Stop acting like some heroine out of a bad melodrama and call your maid over. It is time you went home.’

  She made no such move—only hung her head, looking shamefaced.

  ‘Oh, Lord. Never say you came out without her?’

  She could not even raise her eyes to meet his when she nodded.

  This was getting worse and worse. He could not in all conscience leave her alone with a man who had no scruples about enticing a trusting young woman to meet him in secret, at dawn, without even the benefit of a maid to keep things within spitting distance of propriety.

  ‘I suppose I shall be obliged to escort you home, then,’ he snapped. ‘And we’ll have to hope nobody catches the pair of us—else we shall be the ones embroiled in scandal.’ Which would completely ruin his plans.

  He’d decided that since marrying was his inescapable destiny he would jolly well find a wife who would be such a superlative countess that generations to come would speak of her in awe. He wasn’t necessarily going to find her in Almack’s. He’d made a point of launching his campaign in the house of a man of little wealth, but sterling character, to demonstrate that attaching a woman of high rank was not his primary objective. He wanted the woman he married to have a certain…something that everyone would recognise.

  Even him, when he came across it.

  There was no way he was going to live down to his family’s low expectations by tumbling into a match with a girl he scarcely knew in a way that reeked of suppressed scandal.

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for, man?’ He turned the full force of his frustration on the hapless young soldier. ‘Get back to your barracks before I think better of covering for the pair of you. And pray that your absence has not been discovered.’

  They both turned to him, faces alight with hope.

  ‘You mean you have changed your mind?’

  ‘I can still change it back if you don’t remove yourself from the vicinity, double-quick,’ he growled at the soldier. ‘But first your name and rank.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘Lieutenant Kendell, sir.’ Then, pausing only to press one last kiss upon Lady Jayne’s hand, Harry made a run for it.

  Chapter Two

  Lady Jayne gazed up at him, a perplexed frown creasing her brow.

  ‘Why did you let him go?’

  He looked steadily back at her, wondering why she wasn’t asking a more pertinent question. Such as, how could Harry have just abandoned her without so much as asking his name? He could have been one of the most notorious seducers of womankind for all he knew.

  ‘I can always report him later, if you like,’ he replied scathingly. It was what he ought to do. He eyed the object of Lady Jayne’s affection with disdain as he scuttled away into the shadows. It was hard to believe a man could behave so dishonourably towards a woman with whom he was genuinely in love.

  ‘No, no! Please don’t!’ She seized his arm. ‘It is all my fault. I know it was very wrong of us to meet in secret, but he loves me so very much…’ Her little fingers kneaded at his sleeve as she plunged on. ‘And I know I should not have come here without bringing my maid. But you see the doors are all locked tight at night, and I could hardly expect Josie to climb out of a window, could I?’

  ‘You climbed out of a window?’ A sudden foreboding gripped him. ‘How do you plan to get back in?’ If he was going to have to knock upon her front door to return her to her guardians at this hour in the morning, the fat would be in the fire and no mistake.

  ‘Oh, the same way, of course. But never mind that. It is Josie that I am worried about. She did try to talk me out of coming. I promise you she did. But she is only a servant, after all. She has to do what I tell her.’

  ‘And you took ruthless advantage of the fact?’

  ‘I…I suppose I did, yes.’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth. ‘And now, if you tell anyone I was out here without her, when she is under such strict orders never to let me out of her sight, they wi
ll turn her off without a character. Which would be grossly unfair. Oh, no…’ Her eyes shimmered. ‘I could not bear it if she was to lose her job and Harry was to be cashiered out of the regiment just because I have not behaved as I ought.’

  To his astonishment, one single, enormous tear rolled down her cheek. And it struck him that everything about her behaviour at the ball earlier had been an act. And that Berry would never have said what he had about her if he’d seen this side of her. She might have appeared cold and haughty on the outside but inside she must have been counting the minutes until she could escape. It put him in mind of the way he’d been at that age, at stuffy dinners put on by the regiment to persuade local dignitaries they had nothing to fear from having them quartered nearby. All the junior officers had been under strict orders to be on their best behaviour. And later they’d made up for it by running out into the backstreets and behaving completely disgracefully as an antidote to all those hours of hypocritical posturing.

  Lady Jayne might have come out here without a thought for anyone but herself, but now that he’d made her see that her misdemeanour could wreak havoc on the lives of others she was genuinely contrite. Just as sorry as he’d been the day after that banquet when the locals hadn’t seen the funny side of finding that ugly statue in the middle of the river, bedecked in pondweed, but had regarded the desecration of their patron saint as an act of sacrilege.

  ‘Never mind all that for the moment,’ he said brusquely, to mask the fact that he was sorely tempted to promise her he would never breathe a word to anyone. And that wasn’t just because of her contrition. Even if she hadn’t cared a rap for the repercussions, he didn’t have any right to castigate anyone for climbing out of a window to escape the crushing sense of family expectation. Not when he had done more or less the same thing himself. The only difference between them was that he’d had the liberty to walk out of his own front door when he’d felt the walls of his own personal prison closing in on him.

  ‘What we have to do now is get you home without your escapade becoming common knowledge. Where do you live?’

  ‘Oh, then you mean to help us?’

  Her whole face lit up. She gave him such a dazzling smile that, in spite of that tear on her cheek, or perhaps because of it, he suddenly saw why her Harry had been unable to resist her. Any man with red blood flowing through his veins would risk the wrath of his commanding officer for a chance to hold such a divine creature in his arms. And for a kiss… What would he not risk for one kiss? The mere thought of bending to sip at that little rosebud of a mouth sent blood flowing hotly through his veins.

  He inhaled slowly, savouring the feeling of being a healthy male responding to the possibilities inherent in being alone in a dark, secluded place with a pretty female in an entirely natural way.

  To say that it was a relief was putting it mildly. He had assured his grandfather that medically there was nothing to prevent him from siring the next generation of Cathcarts. But the truth was he had not felt any interest in sex since he’d had his leg smashed at Orthez. All his energy had been spent on surviving—first the field hospital and then the foul transport back to England. And then one fever after another. And even though he’d been mobile enough to think about returning to active service some weeks ago, until his grandfather’s shocking revelation had put a stop to it, he’d had no inclination to resume any kind of sex life. No matter how temptingly the offers he’d received had been presented.

  He couldn’t resist reaching out and gently, with one thumb, wiping away the tear that had reached the point of her chin. And as he felt the warmth of her skin against his own his body reacted as if he’d received a jolt of electricity.

  Her own breath hitched, as though the current of lust that had seared through him had arced across to her, too.

  It had been so long since he’d held a woman in his arms, so long since he’d wanted to, that for a moment he was tempted to tell her that if he might only kiss her…

  He cleared his throat and forced his eyes away from her mouth. What he ought to do was act the gentleman and take her straight home.

  At once.

  But the temptation to prolong this unexpectedly erotic encounter was too great to resist. He found himself saying the first thing—well, the first polite thing—that came into his head.

  ‘Perhaps if you could explain exactly how such a great heiress comes to be tangled up with a man of his station…’

  ‘You sound just like my grandfather!’

  Her scorn doused his ardour as effectively as a bucket of cold water. Did he really look so much older than her that she bracketed him with her grandfather? No wonder she’d flinched when he touched her. It was just as well he had not voiced his crazy idea that she could purchase his silence on the whole matter with a kiss. She probably already thought he was a brute for merely breaking up her tête-à-tête.

  ‘That is all he can think about,’ she grumbled, impervious to the errant thoughts skirmishing through his brain. ‘Rank and fortune. He never lets me meet anyone interesting or new! He was furious when he found out I had formed an attachment to Harry. As soon as he got wind of our friendship and learned that he has no title, no prospects at all, he forbade me to so much as speak to him. And banished me to London.’

  ‘That sounds like an eminently sensible measure,’ he said, loath though he was to take the side of anyone’s grandfather in the suppression of youthful desires. ‘You are far too trusting for your own good. A girl with more sense would know it really is not safe to meet men in the park, on her own, at daybreak.’

  Particularly not when that lush mouth of hers could have such a startling effect on a man’s libido.

  ‘It certainly is not!’ She looked furious. ‘Because who knows what kind of person one might come across…prowling around the place, spying on people…?’

  ‘I was not spying!’

  ‘Then what were you doing? Something underhanded, I have no doubt.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. I simply could not sleep, that’s all.’ At her look of scorn, he added, ‘My leg hurt like the very devil, and the damn London servants will insist on banking up the fire and keeping all the windows shut. I had to get outside and get some fresh air. Though why the d…deuce I’m telling you all this I cannot think.’

  She’d slipped under his guard, somehow. Taken him by surprise with her line of questioning.

  Nettled, he snapped, ‘That is all beside the point. I have no need to justify my actions…’

  ‘No. You are a man,’ she said bitterly. ‘Men can do whatever they want, no matter who they hurt in the process, and nobody ever calls them to account.’

  ‘You could not be more wrong. A man with any pride at all puts duty before his natural inclination. Duty to the Crown. Duty to his family…’ He pulled himself up.

  She’d done it again. Got him speaking his mind instead of saying what was appropriate to the occasion. Though God only knew what was appropriate to say on an occasion such as this. He would swear no etiquette book contained a chapter upon proper conversation in which to engage whilst escorting a woman home from a clandestine meeting with an ineligible suitor.

  He eyed her with misgiving.

  She clearly thought she was in love with her handsome young officer. But she could not really know much about him if they had only managed snatched moments together, like this. He wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find her feelings had more to do with the uniform than the man inside it. He’d learned from e
xperience that a scarlet jacket could have a powerful effect upon a susceptible female.

  ‘And speaking of family,’ he said, ruthlessly returning to the most pressing issue, ‘your grandfather probably thought you would get over what he hoped was just a girlish infatuation if he offered you other distractions.’

  Lady Jayne glowered at him before tossing her head and setting off briskly along a path that led in the opposite direction from the one he had used to enter the square. As he caught up with her, she said, ‘It was more than that. I overheard him giving Lady Penrose strict instructions to get me safely married off before the end of the Season.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Though how he expects her to accomplish that when he won’t allow her to take me anywhere but ton parties, where I mix with people I have known all my life, I have no idea. Ooh.’ She clenched her fists. ‘You cannot begin to imagine what my time in Town has been like. Boring, boring, boring! I was beginning to think I knew just what a canary bird feels like, shut up in a gilded cage, by the time Harry arrived in Town. That first note he sent me, begging me to meet him…’ Her fists uncurled as she trailed off.

  ‘He kept on sending notes to me through Josie. To let me know which events he could gain entry to. And we began to meet in the gardens, or in a quiet room of the house, while the balls were going on downstairs, with Lady Penrose never suspecting a thing!’

  He frowned down at her as they crossed the road and set off down Mount Street. He wished he had not already given his word not to tell anyone about this night’s assignation. The more he learned about Harry, the more untrustworthy he sounded. And if anything happened to Lady Jayne because he’d kept quiet about this night’s work he would feel responsible.