Valor's Reward

by Jean R. Ewing

  Lord Deyncourt gazed gravely down at her. “Then apart from your night rail and your cart, on which your ungrateful donkey seems to have expressed the most indecorous spleen, your arm is the only casualty of our interesting drama. And it will feel much better in the morning.”

  “When you will hand me over to that inflated judge?”

  His mouth quirked. “I thought I had explained that I intend to save you from the consequences of your rash behavior, Miss Whinburn. But then, what of my duty to the law? A delightful quandary! I should make a habit of shooting mysterious ladies.”

  He was smiling at her again with that ineffable charm—a smile that invited infinite trust and relaxation. Jessica balked immediately.

  “Good heavens, do you pride yourself on a reckless disregard for human life? No doubt you have a long and reprehensible history of duels.”

  There was the faintest fading of color beside his nostrils. “Only one, ma’am.”

  She turned away and pulled up the blanket, suddenly desperate to escape his unsettling presence.

  “Had you not distracted me, the man wouldn’t have managed to wield his blunderbuss, for I am a perfectly adequate shot and could have disarmed him. However, you were in too much haste to demonstrate your own skill. So you have left a trail of corpses behind you? I believe I would rather be put in jail than remain another moment under your care. Good night, Lord Deyncourt.”

  * * *

  Dover gawked openmouthed at the girl and then at Lord Deyncourt. To his knowledge his master had never been spoken to like that in his life. The earl’s expression did not change, however, and without a backward glance, he ushered his man from the room.

  When they had reached the safety of the corridor, Dover was further amazed when the fearsome and elegant Earl of Deyncourt stopped and gazed blankly out of the window for a moment.

  “My lord?” Dover said. “Are you all right?”

  Michael looked around and smiled sardonically at his servant.

  “‘What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties!’” he quoted lightly. “Do you think I am sold and contracted to the devil? I shot her down like a dog.”

  “As you know very well, my lord, if you had not fired first and knocked the chit over, the blunderbuss would have killed her and the donkey both. There wasn’t time for anything else. And, if I might say so, my lord, it was a damned good shot.”

  “And a devilishly efficient example of strategy. Yes, I know. Yet it was done like a bloody automaton and it was an unconscionable chance to take. I might have maimed—even killed—her. Damnation to all my nasty and efficient accomplishments!”

  Dover boldly laid his hand on his master’s sleeve. “Come now, my lord, the lass owes you her life. Don’t curse the skill that kept you all alive in the Peninsula. Devil Dagonet and the others do not, I’ll warrant.”

  But the earl had already regained his composure and his cool smile.

  “And I’ll guarantee that they do, sir—those that live.”

  * * *

  As soon as they had gone, Jessica sat up on the narrow bed. She had just come to a painfully obvious conclusion. Whether it had been deliberate or not, the earl’s shot had saved her from the deadly scatter of the blunderbuss.

  Although she had pointed her weapon at him and he’d had every right to shoot, she did not really believe he had tried to kill her. In which case, what truly extraordinary marksmanship!

  Damnation! Damnation! She owed him her life: a man so obviously used to his effect on women, a type she most despised—all that careless power and charm—his looks alone must fill him with conceit.

  To cap it all, he was a peer of the realm, with the infinite confidence given by his station.

  Any self-respecting earl ought to travel in a chaise and four with outriders and armed servants, not as simply as a traveling clerk—or as herself, she admitted ruefully. Yet her donkey cart had carried her all the way through Yorkshire and along the byways parallel to the Great North Road without mishap, while she stretched her small supply of coin.

  Why had this had to happen? What would the earl do with her?

  She didn’t have long to find out. The key turned in the lock and that very gentleman pushed open the door. He was carrying a tray with a wine bottle and glasses. The appetizing smell of hot soup flooded the room.

  “Now, Miss Whinburn, pray eat. Then you will be pleased to tell me who you are and where you are going.”

  Jessica ignored him and ate the soup. It made her feel a great deal better.

  “You might ask after my health, before badgering me with questions,” she said at last.

  “You feel considerably improved, but your arm pounds like a hammer,” he replied without blinking. “Now, why did you hold up Judge Clarence’s coach?”

  “I had absolutely no designs on his purse, though I doubt not that it’s a great deal fatter than mine. As it happens, I was incensed by his treatment of his horses. They couldn’t carry that much weight up the hill. They’d have been flogged to death.”

  “And you thought to intervene with a pistol?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Lord Clarence regrettably lacks the sensibility to understand your noble motives. He will be angry and humiliated, and will demand the utmost revenge of the law, which regrettable as it may seem, is hanging.”

  “But thanks to your fertile imagination and facile ability to lie, he’ll be looking for a boy, won’t he? Maxima debetur puero reverentia?”

  “The greatest reverence may be due to a boy,” he replied, “but it was your fairer sex that saved you. I must have absorbed some old-fashioned chivalry with my schooling, after all. Where the devil did you learn Latin?”

  “From my late father, Sir Shelby Whinburn, local squire, of Whinburn House in Northumberland. He made sure I was proficient in both Latin and Greek. He liked to lay wagers on it with his friends.”

  He raised a brow. “A slightly odd education for a lady, surely?”

  “Why?” Jessica said. “Do you think females too idle to enjoy the classics?”

  “Not at all, I was referring to the wagers.”

  She hesitated for barely a moment. “Nonsense! All gentlemen wager. It was nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “No doubt. Like the donkey cart.” He removed the empty soup bowl and poured two glasses of wine. “Such a very unique choice of conveyance, Miss Whinburn.”

  “I am going to London and could afford nothing better. Aren’t the streets there paved with gold?”

  “Rather with muck and with danger. And when you arrive at the fabled capital? I do not imagine you plan to scrub floors. Don’t tell me you are going for a governess?”

  He gave her a glass. Rich depths gleamed in the wine like dark pebbles in a pool. Jessica inhaled the opulent scent. It was very good wine. She hadn’t expected to taste such quality again.

  “Alas,” she said with a little laugh. “No, I cannot become an underpaid schoolmarm. I have none of the necessary accomplishments. I don’t paint in watercolors or know how to make elegant figurines out of butter. Since I lack both decorum and connections, I can’t become a lady’s companion either. Yet I plan to earn my keep.”

  “What of matrimony, Miss Whinburn? Most young ladies expect to secure their future through an advantageous match.”

  “I do not intend to marry.” She set the wineglass onto the table beside the bed. “I would rather make an honest living than sell myself into marriage.”

  “You are correct, of course. Matrimony is a mercenary arrangement these days.”

  “And it’s outrageous, don’t you think, that females should be allowed so little real employment that they must rely on marriage for their keep. If I were a man, the issue wouldn’t arise.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and set his wineglass beside hers. “Then you don’t think there are advantages to being female?”

  “I wish you could show me one of them,” she answered, glancing up at
him.

  “Good Lord, I can think of several,” he said quietly. “This, for instance?”

  He ran his thumb gently along her jaw and brushed it over the corner of her mouth. She looked at him steadily as heat spread through her bones, firing a deep longing for a man’s touch—this man’s touch.

  Without further hesitation he kissed her, the rich taste of the wine on his lips. It was seductively, entrancingly expert. Jessica’s nerves turned to water. But as she began to respond, redeeming anger welled up instead and she pulled away.

  “How very unoriginal! I think I might with reason expect you to behave like a gentleman.”

  “But you are not behaving like a lady, Miss Whinburn. Do you think to call on propriety? The demands of respectability didn’t seem to be in your mind when you threatened a judge with a pistol. It’s a little late for that now, don’t you think?”

  “Because you’re a rake?”

  He gazed at her thoughtfully for a moment. “I have a certain reputation and I have indeed enjoyed some discreet but charming friendships in the last six months. You would seem to be alone in the world. May I offer you my protection? Being my mistress would be both comfortable and lucrative, although I should have to insist on giving you dresses. Your present clothing is rather far from my taste.”

  His fingers lay possessively in her hair. They moved down to turn the torn collar away from her neck. The touch tantalized her skin and made her blood burn. His hand dropped to the front of her gown. Her buttons began to fall open one by one under his deft fingers.

  “Wool,” he said with a faintly mocking disapproval, as he ran his fingertip lightly over the hollow of her collarbone. “So very scratchy.”

  Jessica took a deep breath and tried to steady her racing pulse.

  “Don’t!” Her voice sounded desperate in her ears.

  His hand dropped instantly and he stood up to stride away from her.

  She gathered her courage, for that single word had been one of the most difficult she had ever spoken. Rapidly she buttoned her dress.

  “Am I supposed to melt into your arms because you kissed me? It is not my intention to become anyone’s mistress. My thoughts are more taken up with being hanged than being ravished at present.”

  “So you do not want to become a mistress? Or at least, not mine.” His tone was close to raillery. “What a dreadful blow to my pride! Especially when I was blessing Fate, certain you intended to become a Cyprian—and I am sadly lacking a mistress at the moment.”

  “Though not for want of offers, I assume,” she said. “Anyone would think you had never been refused before.”

  He glanced back at her. “I haven’t, but then I don’t usually kiss angry young ladies from Northumbrian manors. Perhaps you really are a thief, and this talk of a respectable father is a farrago of nonsense? Can you prove who you are?”

  “To your satisfaction? I doubt it.”

  With hands that still shook a little, she opened the bag that had not been damaged and tipped the contents onto the bed. It must surely be apparent that these were not the possessions of a highwayman or his accomplice. Among the clutter of clothes and personal effects, she had brought several books and a set of silver-backed hairbrushes.

  Jessica took up one of the brushes.

  “This brush was my mother’s,” she said. “I don’t remember her, because she died when I was little, but they were a wedding present from her aunt. It’s my only claim to blue blood—rather diluted, but mine just the same. That’s my great-aunt’s crest on the back. But unfortunately, I am the last Whinburn left alive, so I can prove nothing. When Judge Clarence hangs me, it won’t matter, I suppose, who I am.”

  The earl leaned forward and took the brush. He turned it in his long fingers, so that the back could be clearly seen in the light. A strange, sardonic pleasure crossed his features.

  “Oh, dear Lord,” he said, and to her surprise he began to laugh. “Life cannot surely be so delightfully absurd? Miss Whinburn, I believe we have landed in the most glorious coil. I shall be the one facing the hangman.”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  Irony lit his face. “Only that these are the Shay arms, and Lady Emilia Shay is a great friend of mine and a stickler for correct behavior. Now I learn she’s your great-aunt. Why on earth didn’t you make things clear at once?”

  Jessica stared at him in open astonishment. “My great-aunt is your friend?”

  “She and my late Aunt Sophy were inseparable. Why has Lady Emilia never mentioned your existence?”

  “She is still alive?”

  “Very much so, and every bit as formidable an antagonist as her termagant great-niece. She will not thank me for having shot and imprisoned a long-lost relative. If I turn you over to Judge Clarence in the morning, I very much fear that Lady Emilia will send me to Coventry, if not to perdition.”

  “Well, thank goodness I don’t have to compose a speech for the scaffold, after all! But you have done worse than deprive me of liberty. What will Lady Emilia think of your improper suggestions?”

  “And shameless behavior?” He stopped for a moment. “I suppose she would expect it of me,” he added at last. Though the tone was light, there was an undercurrent of something very close to pain. “Nevertheless, I most humbly entreat you to forget what has just passed between us, Miss Whinburn. Yet if you have a respectable purpose, I am still in ignorance of it.”

  Jessica looked down. So that charming, irresistible assault on her senses was simply to be forgotten. There was no reason not to tell him her real plans, but she felt a desperate need to retain some sense of privacy and independence.

  “I cannot think that’s any concern of yours.”

  “But how do you come to be traveling alone? And in such a ramshackle fashion?”

  “It seemed a convenient way to reach London, for I don’t have a feather to fly with. Pray do not pester me for the sordid details, but within six months of my father’s death, I was forced to sell up everything at Whinburn to settle his debts—the horses, the paintings, the furniture, and finally the house. The donkey could survive on the lawn and the rough feed left in the stable. He wasn’t worth enough to go on the block and neither was my wicker cart.”

  “I’m sorry—for the loss of your father and for the sale of your home,” he said quietly.

  “No, don’t be. I was glad enough to leave. I hadn’t reckoned on being shot, of course.”

  “To travel as you did was foolish in the extreme. For God’s sake, I’m sure I would not have been the only man—” He broke off. “Why did you not write to Lady Emilia? She would have forwarded you the blunt for the journey without question.”

  “Do you think so? I very much doubt it. I met her only once as a girl. She came to visit at Whinburn, but she and my father quarreled. It was unforgettably splendid and she promised never to darken our doors again. But now that you know I have such respectable connections and was not trying to rob Lord Clarence, I pray you will let me continue my journey.”

  “I can’t. Clarence will have the Watch scour the countryside. You would be arrested before you had gone ten miles. Anyway, your donkey cart is beyond repair. No, the supposed boy who held up the judge’s coach will die of his wounds right now, and Miss Jessica Whinburn will become a guest of Peter’s mother, Lady Steal, who is an old friend of Lady Emilia. You will stay here at Tresham until the hue and cry is over. If you are accused of highway robbery, neither your great-aunt nor I can protect you.”

  There was, of course, sense in what he said, but Jessica wanted nothing more than to escape. Nevertheless, it was obvious, and for more reasons than those of which he was aware, that she would have to agree.

  “I see that, thanks to your gallant interference, I have no choice,” she said. “But if I am still to be your prisoner, do you think I might have a room with a fire? It is excessively cold in here.”

  He smiled again. No doubt it was a smile that would cause every young lady in London to drop her fan at his
feet and faint away.

  He took up the bottle to pour more wine.

  “Indeed, Miss Whinburn, I am in complete agreement. This place will never do. In fact, I think I had better lodge you in my own bedchamber.”

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  Jessica stared at his profile, cut clear as a cameo in the candlelight. The clean curve of his upper lip was alone enough to unsettle her.

  “Surely you don’t still propose to secure my future through your protection?”

  He turned, glass in hand, his tone teasing. “Alas, no! Though I am dreadfully disappointed, of course. I have always wanted to rescue a damsel in distress and sweep her away to my castle. I am suspected to be an unregenerate libertine, you know. You are missing an opportunity for which many ladies have willingly offered themselves.”

  She could not mistake the glint of laughter in his eye. Nor the fact that when he smiled like that his attraction went suddenly beyond good looks to the promise of some hidden brilliance.

  “However, there is Lady Emilia to consider. You are great-niece to a lady I hold in the highest respect and affection. I am likely to be deeply enough entrenched in her bad books as it is. If I add seduction to the list of insults I have already piled on your innocent head, she will doubtless hire a champion to call me out. In spite of anything you may imagine about me, Miss Whinburn, you will be quite safe.”

  “I think I was safer before I met you.”

  “For I just kissed you and offered you carte blanche. I apologize. You see me overcome with contrition, for in spite of my disgraceful behavior and careless assertions, I have no designs on your virtue.”

  “Then you have a very odd way of demonstrating it.”

  “My dear Miss Whinburn, I had no idea who you were.”

  It was the most splendid insult imaginable! If she had not had respectable connections, she would have been fair game? Jessica allowed her anger full rein.

  “And that should excuse you? Because your charm is empty, your gallantry is only for your own amusement, and your kiss is just a gesture of power. I think you are a man without scruple. I will not share a bedchamber with you. How should I trust your word?”