* * *
The mare arrived at Lady Emilia’s stables the following morning, an elegant dappled gray, sensitive, gentle, perfect. Lord Deyncourt had picked out a mount for her. Jessica had not ridden such a horse since she had been forced to sell the stables at Whinburn.
As soon as her aunt agreed it was the correct hour, Jessica, followed by a groom, took out the mare. She had barely reached the Park when her attention was caught by a curricle drawn by a small pony. The curricle was jammed with young men. They had obviously been drinking. It was far too heavy a load for the pony, which stood, flanks heaving, between the shafts.
“The wager’s lost, Moore!” one of the dandies exclaimed. “This pony hasn’t another step in him.”
“By God, he has, sir!” the driver cried. “We’ll make it to St. James’s yet.”
With that he began to flog the pony with his whip.
Horrified, Jessica spun her mare in front of the curricle. “Stop that this instant!”
“What the devil do you mean, ma’am?” the whipster shouted. “You interfere in a private wager between gentlemen.”
“No gentleman worthy of the name would treat an animal so,” she replied indignantly.
“Maybe the lady’s right, Moore,” one of the passengers said. “Oh, devil take it! I concede the wager, and will stand the blunt for dinner tonight.”
“Never say so, sir! It won’t be a dinner earned unless this dratted beast makes it to the club.”
Jessica leaned down from her mare to grasp the pony’s bridle. “You shall not go a step farther.”
“Get out of the way!” the driver cried and he raised his whip.
The hooked end of a riding crop His wrist was caught him by the wristin the hooked end of a riding crop. Moore was jerked from the curricle to sprawl on the pavement. Lord Deyncourt sat above him them all on his bay.
Moore struggled to his feet. “By the devil, sir! I’ll call you out for this.”
“Shut up, Moore,” one of his friends hissed immediately. “It’s Deyncourt. No one could stand against him in a duel.”
“No need for such desperate measures, gentlemen,” the earl said, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve. “I apologize freely, Mr. Moore, if I have accidentally dirtied your coat. Terribly careless of me—ham--fisted with my whip. What do you say I stand dinner for you and your companions tonight, as a gesture of my repentance? I rather like the pony, too. I’ll give you a hundred guineas for him.”
“He’s got to get us to St. James’s,” Moore persisted doggedly. “It’s a matter of honor.”
“No honor, surely, sir,” Deyncourt replied with a cool smile, “if you displease a lady and cause harm to a dumb beast? One hundred guineas and a dinner?”
The young man grimaced as he was hustled away by his cronies. The earl gave directions to the tiger to take care of the pony, and rode up beside Jessica.
“You are unhurt?” he asked.
“Why did you apologize to that brute? Surely you were not afraid to face him with a pistol?”
His face went became rigid. For a single unguarded moment, the blue eyes revealed bleak dismay.“And if I was?”
“And if I was?”For a single unguarded moment, the blue eyes revealed only bleak dismay.
Jessica felt lost. “But he deserved a lesson,” she insisted.
He smiled and briefly touched her cheek. “Which you would no doubt have given him in your own inimitable style, Miss Whinburn. Our young bully has saved face for now before his friends, which prevented him from doing anything foolish. He may also boast in his club that he gulled the Earl of Deyncourt, connoisseur of horseflesh, into paying one hundred guineas for a five-pound pony. Meanwhile the beast is saved. When he is sober, Mr. Moore will receive a visit from me that will convince him to be more sensitive to his animals’ welfare in future. There was no need for a duel. Are you satisfied?”
Jessica glanced down and bit her lip. He had been prepared to humble himself to save an animal? Or was he in truth afraid to fight?
“Very well, you win.”
“No, you do. How do you like the mare?”
She gave him a genuine smile. “She’s perfect. Thank you for choosing her and for your assistance just now, of course. Not for my sake—since I assure you that I know very well how to handle the disasters of my life—but for the sake of the pony.”
“Then I am entirely disarmed by your courtesy, Miss Whinburn. So I trust you will know how to handle the approaching company—two hapless witnesses to that entire sorry episode.”
“Why, Deyncourt!” Lady Honoria Melton cried as she pulled up.
The Incomparable sat at the ribbons of a little cream-colored cart, picked out in gold, and drawn by matching cream ponies. Her blue gown formed shone in dazzling contrast to the white cushions and the ponies’ flaxen manes. Not a hair was out of place.
She gave Jessica a coolly appraising glance, then laughed with great charm.
“Have you been galloping like a hoyden, Miss Whinburn? You look windblown.” She turned to her companion and added, “Miss Whinburn has recently arrived in town from Northumbria.”
A rotund figure glowered beside Honoria in her carriage. His beady eyes were fixed on Jessica’s face, and he was steadily turning puce.
Desperately trying to avoid meeting his unpleasant stare, Jessica glanced up at the sky.
“Oh, I am always windblown,” she said, “even on a perfectly still day. It’s just my careless habit. Surely you do not think that I would do anything out of the ordinary while in Lord Deyncourt’s company?”
Honoria laughed again and smiled up at the earl. “You know my escort, of course.”
Deyncourt moved his horse slightly closer to Jessica, as if to protect her. For God’s sake, he couldn’t help himself, could he?
“And is Miss Whinburn not to be introduced, Lady Honoria?” he asked innocently. “Sir Gordon Cranby is usually very jealous of your company. Yet today you favor this gentleman with a seat in your carriage, and I don’t believe he and Miss Whinburn have met?”
There was no escape. Jessica smiled brightly at the newcomer as they were introduced.
It was Lord Clarence.
The hanging judge fixed her with his quizzing glass. “Miss Whinburn, Lord Clarence.”
“I could swear I have seen you before, Miss Whinburn,” he Clarence said. “How can that be possible, if you have just arrived in London?”
“Oh, I believe I must have a very common face, Lord Clarence. Several persons have remarked so since I arrived in London. Perhaps because I bear some resemblance to my great-aunt, Lady Emilia Shay?”
The judge glared at her, then nodded. “No doubt that is so, ma’am.”
“Lord Clarence has been telling me of a most shocking misadventure with a highwayman,” Honoria said.
“Oh, howHow very horrid!” Jessica exclaimed.
“Indeed, Miss Whinburn!” Clarence said. “The roads will not be safe until every such brigand is caught and hanged.”
“It was not a great hulking fellow with black hair, riding on a brown horse, was it, Lord Clarence?” Jessica added artlessly. “When I traveled down the Great North Road, there was nothing but talk of him at every inn. A most desperate and dangerous character, I heard.”
“And so he may have been, but this man was dressed as a female. It was very shocking.”
Lord Deyncourt coughed into his hand.
“Alas,” he said. “I had him in bonds at Tresham, but his friends sprung him from confinement. The most rigorous search turned up no sign of him.”
“Deyncourt put a bullet right through the fellow,” Clarence added with satisfaction. “So it may be that he soon died from his wounds.”
“And as you know,” the earl added, bowing to Honoria. “I could hardly have done other than give the rogue a fatal injury.”
“But I hear that your coachman thought the assailant might truly be female, Lord Clarence,” Honoria insisted. “Are you sure that was
n’t the case?”
Deyncourt gave her an amused smile. “Good Lord! Do you think I wouldn’t have noticed? I pulled off the creature’s shirt myself. There was nothing in the least feminine or enticing about what was revealed, and. W we must may be glad that he is dead.”
“Indeed,” Jessica said. “I should not feel safe were you gentlemen to believe him still alive.”
“Never fear, my dear,” Lord Clarence replied gallantly. “If he is not in an unmarked grave, after all, I’ll see that he is caught and hanged.”
“I trust you are entirely reassured, Miss Whinburn?” the earl asked politely.
She looked down to swallow her reaction, but not before she had caught him giving her a slow wink.
* * *
Two days later Lord Clarence’s open carriage passed Jessica as she was walking in the Park, one of Lady Emilia’s servants trailing behind. He The hanging judge signaled to his man, who drew up the horses.
“May I request the honor of your joining me in my carriage, Miss Whinburn?” Clarence He was once again very red in the face.
“You are most kind, Lord Clarence, but I’d rather walk.”
“Then perhaps I may join you?”
To Jessica’s her horror, with a great deal of panting and the aid of his groom, the hanging judgehe climbed from his seat. Jessica could do nothing else but take his proffered arm and allow him to escort her up the path.
“There’s something about you, ma’am. I can’t seem to get your face from my mind.”
“Indeed? Surely not!”
“Perhaps I have dreamed of you.” He looked at her intently. “Do you think we weare fated to meet?”
“I can hardly think so.”
He mumbled, almost to himself. “I could do worse. Indeed I could! Lady Emilia Shay’s great-niece.”
“Do worse, Lord Clarence?”
“Ah, I was thinking to myself, my dear. Mind was wandering. I’m on the hunt for a wife, don’t you know. How long have you been in town?”
“Four weeks,” Jessica said.
She had been in London for a month! A! And that was all that she’d promised Deyncourt, wasn’t it?
“I’m so sorry,” she said with no further warning. “I have the most unaccountable headache. I am goingmust return back to my aunt’s.”
She came in from the Park and threw her gloves into a chair. She couldn’t bear it! Would Lady Emilia think Lord Clarence a suitable match? And if not him, who? What if she met someone she could really love? Or if she accepted an offer from a man who thought he loved her? Nothing would be left them but shame and heartbreak. Far better to live in an attic and eat turnips!
She ran upstairs to her room and rummaged through her few belongings. At last, she found the letter from Bromley and Finch, publishers of the classics.
She frowned once again as she noticed how it was addressed. They couldn’t conceive, obviously, of a female who was proficient in the ancient languages.
Nevertheless, she sent a maid to order her horse saddled, changed into her habit, and jammed the missive into her pocket. Within half an hour she was riding her mare down the cobbled street, attempting to follow the directions her maid had given her.
She hadn’t gone very far when the groom who accompanied her rode up alongside.
“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am.”
“What is it, Parker?”
“Where was you planning to go, ma’am?”
“I am going to Hunting Lane. Isn’t this the way?”
“Well, you can’t go there, Miss Whinburn.”
Jessica halted her mare and looked at him. “Why not?”
“This is the way, right enough, ma’am, but a lady can’t go there.”
“What do you mean?”
The groom looked awkwardly at the ground. “I could accompany you to the Park, ma’am, but it’s not the done thing for a lady to travel about the city on horseback.”
“You mean that I may ride for empty pleasure, as long as it is the correct hour of the day and the correct destination, but not as a means of transportation?”
“Well, I suppose you could put it that way, sure enough.”
“Then how am I supposed to travel when I have business?”
He looked blankly at her face. “Business? Well, if you was to want to go shopping, we would gladly get out the carriage for you.”
“I do not want to go shopping,” Jessica said desperately. “I intend to go to Hunting Lane. If you will not accompany me, I shall go by myself.”
Parker turned white. “Lady Emilia would have me turned off, ma’am, if I was to allow it.”
Jessica felt like cursing, but the poor fellow was shocked enough already.
“Very well, then,” she said calmly. “Let us return and put up the horses, and you may ask Coachman to ready the carriage.”
“You still couldn’t go to Hunting Lane alone, ma’am.”
“I thought if I went in the carriage, I might meet the strictures of propriety?”
“Yes, well,” the man returned stubbornly. “If you was to go shopping, see. But there’s no shops on Hunting Lane. It’s a business area, ain’t it?”
Jessica could have wept with exasperation. If she went alone, no doubt Aunt Emilia would take it out on poor Parker, who should stop her doing anything so out of the ordinary.
“Then in order to get to my destination, what am I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Find a gentleman who will escort you, Miss Whinburn,” a voice said.
* * *
Chapter 11
Lord Deyncourt smiled down at her from the seat of an extremely precarious high-perch phaeton. A pair of matched bays fretted at the injustice of having been asked to halt. The tiger standing behind leaped down to take their heads.
Relief swept over Parker’s features.
“Perhaps,” the earl continued, “I might take you?”
“I should much rather not impose upon you, Lord Deyncourt.”
“But if your journey is so important, you have little choice, do you? Parker is about to have apoplexy at the thought of losing his place. You could not be so cruel. Pray, allow me, Miss Whinburn.”
He jumped lightly from the phaeton and swung her down from the gray mare. In the next instant he had handed her up onto the fine leather seat of his carriage.
“Take the horses back, Parker, and rest easy. You may inform Lady Emilia that Miss Whinburn is under my care.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The groom pulled gratefully at his forelock and rode away up the street, leading Jessica’s mare by the bridle. Deyncourt’s tiger stepped away from the team’s heads and swung up onto his stand behind his master.
“Now, where was it that you were so eager to visit?” the earl inquired as the horses sprang forward.
“An apparently iniquitous street known as Hunting Lane.”
“Ah,” he said lightly. “The premises of Bromley and Finch, publishers, no doubt.”
Jessica whirled around. “However did you know?”
“I found out at Tresham.”
“You went through my things?”
“Not deliberately. But it was impossible for me to avoid seeing their letter when you fell asleep with the missive in your hand. I assume you are now thinking of doing a few Greek translations? It will greatly disappoint Lady Emilia if she finds out you are not trying to land an offer instead.”
Jessica bit her lip. “But there is a gentleman who seems to be developing an interest. I am giving his suit my most serious attention.”
He gave her a keen glance. “And that is?”
“Why, Lord Clarence, of course.”
His gloved hands expertly guided the team around a sharp corner.
“How could you hope to do better, Miss Whinburn?” he asked with a perfectly straight face. “I hear the hanging judge is very well heeled.”
“Indeed, Lord Deyncourt. Well-slippered, too! And I might hope that he would not hang his own wife, might I not?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that!” The earl laughed aloud, but then he turned to her, his eyes serious. “You do know that this journey to Bromley and Finch is a wild goose chase?”
“I know no such thing,” Jessica replied, bridling instantly. “But I would rather make my own living than marry for money and sell myself body and soul for bed and board. That is the compact, isn’t it, which is made in the wedding vows—an exchange of commodities?”
“But if you found the right man, dear Miss Whinburn, you might find that you would enjoy the bargain.”
He halted the carriage. A sign swung above the street: Bromley and Finch.
Within a few moments Jessica was face to face with Mr. Finch. He was an elderly gentleman with a monocle, which distorted one eye into a grotesque caricature of the other.
“My dear young lady,” he said in considerable distress, as soon as she introduced herself. “I’m afraid it is entirely out of the question.”
“My knowledge of the classical authors is as great as any male’s, sir.”
“No doubt, no doubt, ma’am! But it’s impossible. Our clerks are all gentlemen, of course, but not of the ton, if you would indulge me with your understanding. For a young lady to join our staff would be unthinkable.”
“Then perhaps you might sometimes have work that could be sent out to me, sir?”
“Quite out of the question. No, no, I’m afraid we have all labored under a dreadful misapprehension.”
It was no use. Angry enough to be close to tears, Jessica stormed out of the publisher’s offices.
Deyncourt turned at her approach. Genuine concern flashed over his features.
“You were quite right,” she said in unsteady tones. “My life consists of nothing but a string of petty humiliations. I may not ride when or where I like. I may not even shuffle a pack of cards. And I certainly may not make a living of my own. Fortunately, like an unwelcome guardian angel, you still shadow my steps. Otherwise I seem condemned to disgrace myself. I had better give Lord Clarence my consideration, after all.”
“No,” he said. “No one deserves this.”
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