Unless he was the highwayman, why was he the only one who refused to believe otherwise? The only one who accepted her word without question? She peered at him quizzically. “Why couldn’t everyone at Howland Hall be like you?”
But she thought she knew the answer to that. Everyone at Howland Hall wasn’t the highwayman. And she was all but convinced that Captain Jordan was.
He favored her with a crooked grin. “It’s odd you should ask such a thing, Miss Griffin. My uncle is always asking me why I can’t be like everyone else.”
She longed to know more about his family. He did say he was going to London to be with them, though his parents were apparently deceased if he’d been raised by his uncle—or maybe they were still alive, but perhaps because he had a brother they were willing to spare him. Or perhaps they didn’t approve of him, either, and had been only too eager to give him up. Felicity thought such treatment might be enough to drive anyone to the life of a highwayman.
He certainly couldn’t be going to London because—and then it hit her even more forcefully than Aunt Cordelia’s fan.
Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that Captain Jordan was leaving the same time as Felicity. Maybe he was forced to go because of his role as the highwayman…his role in her ruin.
Why not? To say he was leaving the house party before it had barely started to spend more time with a family that disapproved of him almost as much as her own did of her, was so much more innocuous, if not quite believable precisely because the house party had just started. Well, maybe it was a little bit believable because he’d just returned to England from the Peninsula, in which case, what was he even doing at Howland Hall in the first place?
She knew it would do no good to ask. Even if she flatly accused him of being the highwayman, he would very likely deny it, unless she had solid proof. Alas, she had none.
She peered at him. “Then you’re not leaving Howland Hall because of what you did?”
Without hesitation—as if he’d been expecting that question—he asked, “What did I do?”
Well, he could hardly have been expecting that question if he didn’t know what he did. Perhaps a bit of rephrasing was in order. “Of course you wouldn’t be sent away because of anything you did. You’re a man. But since you asked how I shall explain to the duke, I suppose I shall have to tell him that I was sent away from Howland Hall because of what you did.” If he wasn’t the highwayman, he would assume she referred to that forbidden kiss this morning.
His mouth fell open. He probably wasn’t trying to catch flies, but Felicity wasn’t about to kiss him, either. Not that she didn’t want to feel his lips on hers again, or his body against hers. What he’d done earlier today had awakened strange, wonderful sensations deep within her. But this was neither the time nor the place, especially as a horn blew from outside, heralding the arrival of the stage.
Captain Jordan grabbed his valise and picked up her portmanteau as if it weighed no more than her reticule. He did not say another word to her and kept his gaze averted as they went outside and across the muddy inn yard to the stage.
A man inside gave up his seat and moved topside to make room for her. Captain Jordan also rode on top.
No sooner did the coach depart than one of the other female passengers, a woman about the same age as Aunt Cordelia, peered at Felicity and, with a decided air of skepticism, said, “Surely you’re not traveling alone?”
“Of course not. Didn’t you see the gentleman in the gray cloak and scarlet regimentals who came out of the posting house with me? He’s a relation who just returned from the Peninsula.” No need to specify whose relation.
“And what are the two of you doing in Sussex?”
“Traveling to London.” Felicity bit her lip to avoid snapping, “Obviously!” Why couldn’t people mind their own business? She, for one, had utterly no interest in knowing what any of her fellow passengers were doing in Sussex, or where they were from, or where they were going, or who they knew, or anything else about their lives.
“It’s just that there have been rumors of a highwayman marauding through Sussex. A horrible rogue who just the other night waylaid a carriage full of ladies who had no menfolk to protect them, and one of the young ladies was—”
“Agnes,” chided the matron seated next to her. “Say no more. Clearly she’s an innocent.”
If only the woman knew. Nevertheless, that was the first compliment anyone had paid Felicity since—well, perhaps ever. Only where did they hear about the highwayman? She was forced to ask, “Where are you ladies traveling from?”
“Oh, we’re just returning from Brighton.”
Heaven help her. Word of the highwayman and the lady he’d allegedly ravished had flashed all the way to Brighton? How, unless he was working the road between here and there, in which case, he couldn’t be Captain Jordan? But even worse, if the story was being bandied about in Brighton, then it was likely legging it all over London. Her cousin the duke probably knew about it already, even without benefit of the express Aunt Cordelia had penned with her usual embellishments.
Felicity said no more. The other passengers continued chatting about highwaymen in general, talking themselves into such a frenzy of fear that every little jolt of the coach startled one passenger or another into exclaiming that they were about to be waylaid.
“We mustn’t frighten the young lady,” one of them said. “I’m afraid we’ve already scared her speechless.”
Felicity closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cold, grimy glass of the window.
“I fear we’ve done worse than that. She looks as if she’s just fainted!”
“Who has hartshorn?”
She promptly jerked upright and snapped her eyes open. “I’m fine. And I’m not frightened.”
“Well, you should be!” Agnes admonished.
Even though they were scheduled to reach London by nightfall, Felicity couldn’t help thinking this was going to be a long journey.
* * * *
This was going to be a very long journey, Jack thought, unless he disembarked at the next stop and hired a mount that would get him back to London in a fraction of the time. Of course, that was only if he didn’t get bounced out of his seat and off the stage altogether, only to break his neck landing head first in a ditch. He berated himself for not borrowing a horse from Howland—perhaps the same one he’d ridden the night he played the highwayman.
Her last words to him still rang inside his spinning head. Then you’re not leaving Howland Hall because of what you did? I was sent away from Howland Hall because of what you did.
What in the name of God the Almighty had she meant by that?
If she suspected him of being the highwayman, then why hadn’t she come out and said so? She’d had no qualms about confronting Renton with her earlier suspicions, so Jack knew her failure to confront him with those same suspicions had nothing to do with qualms.
It didn’t make sense. He fancied himself just as charming as his roguish alter ego of the other night. He thought he’d dropped enough hints that someone as clever as she was should have caught immediately. But despite some of her provocative remarks, it seemed she remained blithely unaware of the truth.
He pondered what his uncle might say. Uncle Crispin would likely never approve of Miss Griffin, despite the fact that she was related to an earl and a pair of dukes, if only because she was widely believed to have jilted the man to whom she’d been betrothed since childhood.
Of course, Crispin had never approved of anything Jack did, if only because Jack refused to do anything to earn his uncle’s seemingly unwinnable approval. Rebelling against the pompous autocrat was one of the reasons Jack had fallen in with pranksters like Howland and Rollo.
And look where that had finally gotten him.
The coach entered a village and stopped in front of a posting house. The coachman announced they would be changing horses. Jack climbed down to walk around and stretch his legs, and thought again of hiring a moun
t. The women, meanwhile, fluttered out of the coach to do whatever women did when they left the coach while horses were changed. Miss Griffin was the last to emerge, probably because she was the youngest, and he couldn’t help chuckling at the sight of her. He could think of no word to describe her other than crushed—as if she’d been squashed and almost flattened in her seat by the older, plumper matrons. Her eyes were bloodshot and blinking, and Jack suspected it wasn’t because she’d been dozing, but because it was so gloomy inside that vehicle. She looked weary and cross, her face flushed, her clothes wrinkled, and the brim of her bonnet dented on one side.
He gestured to the doorway of the posting house. “The others went that way.”
Those reddened green eyes blazed at him. While in the army he’d heard the expression “you look like hell,” but never had it been more fitting than in this case. Or more dangerous to say.
“I know which way they went,” she said, “and I do believe I will wait a few minutes before following. I need a moment to draw some air into my lungs.” She took a deep breath. “To walk around for a spell to shake the numbness out of my limbs.” She commenced stumbling about like a freshly hatched chick. “And finally, to let my eyes drink in the daylight and my ears to empty themselves of all that incessant ringing.” She took another deep breath, lifting her head to the cloudy sky, and Jack fought a sudden urge to kiss her again. Her head was tilted back in just the right position for him to cover her lips with his, and untie the ribbons of her bonnet to expose her throat…unbutton her pelisse just to remove at least one layer from the gentle swell of her breasts.
As if she knew what he was thinking, she lowered her head to glower at him. “They know.”
Who knew what? That he’d kissed Felicity? Maybe that was all she’d been referring to when she jolted him with the accusation that she’d been sent away from Howland Hall because of what he did.
“They know,” she said again, as if she meant to torture him with sentences consisting only of vague pronouns and damning verbs but neither specific subjects nor helpful objects. “Those gabbling geese know there was a highwayman near Howland Hall the other night, and that he ruined a lady from a carriage he waylaid!”
“But he didn’t ruin her,” Jack said with enough indignation in his voice that she might as well have been referring to him.
Well, she was, wasn’t she?
“They’re traveling from Brighton, so how they found out I’ll never know,” she grumbled. “Unless Aunt Cordelia sent expresses to friends there, and they’re opening and reading them right away. But if they discover I’m the lady in question, I’ll be dumped at the roadside like so much rubbish, which might not be such a bad thing after hours of being crammed in that infernal chicken coop on wheels.” She reached for him as if she wanted to grab the cape on his gray cloak in desperation, but her hands froze only inches away from him. “Captain Jordan, may I please join you on top of the coach for the next leg of our journey?” Her eyes were not so much red now as pleading. “Surely it will be all right as long as you’re with me? Women do ride topside as long as they’re with a relation. And I did tell them you’re a relation. You are someone’s relation, even if you’re not mine, but they don’t have to know.”
Jack hesitated. He vacillated. He faltered.
“Think about it,” she said.
“Oh, I’m thinking.”
“Think of what it’s like to be sitting in gloom for hours on end with those fat old hens and their constant pecking and scratching.”
“I’d rather not think of that. I’m still thinking of what it’s like to ride topside, and it’s no place for a lady. Or, for that matter, me. Which is why I intend to hire a mount for the rest of the way to London.”
To her credit, she managed to keep her voice down to an enraged whisper. “Do you mean to leave me here?”
Hanging in the air between them were the unspoken words, “and after you kissed me?
“I’m not—” He abruptly paused, about to say that he wasn’t responsible for her being here, but, in fact, he was. “I’m not leaving you here. You’ll continue to London, but I intend to make my own, faster way. We are not traveling together, and as long you keep your own counsel, you should reach your destination without incident.”
“I’d rather not go back into that box, except to collect eggs.”
“Then you’ll be all set for breakfast tomorrow.” He tipped his hat and bowed. “I hope we shall meet again, Miss Griffin, and soon.”
Not surprisingly, she looked as if she were trying to catch flies, or…Jack pivoted and marched away from her.
“Wait!” she cried.
He halted and turned back to face her.
“That’s it? That’s all?” To his dismay, she tottered toward him. “You’re just going to leave without—without—”
Déjà vu swept through Jack as he fought with all his might to keep his own mouth from dropping open again, and his eyes from widening.
“Without what?”
Her mouth snapped open and shut as she gawped at him. She didn’t seem to know the answer to that any more than she had the other night.
“Without saying farewell?” he suggested. “I did say I’ll see you in London, but if you want a farewell, I’ll give you one. Farewell, Miss Griffin.”
“But—”
Impatience rattled him. “Is that not what I’m leaving without? Then perhaps you’d like another kiss? Out here where others can see you and be scandalized enough to expel you from the coach so you’ll have to come with me?”
Visibly flustered, she said, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Of what? Of kissing me because you want me, Miss Griffin, or that doing so might force me to abandon the idea of a mount and let you ride topside with me, so those matrons won’t be sullied by your company?” When she didn’t respond, he taunted her with the same words he’d used as the highwayman that fateful night. “Well, it certainly can’t be because you’ve never been kissed before.”
His own voice, likewise lowered to a whisper, burned with anger and something else. Anger at her failure to realize who he really was. As for the something else…he suddenly realized it was desire for this fiery, fearless woman who was like no other he’d ever met. She was wild and reckless, in need of taming…and he longed to be the one to tame her. For he was the one who’d unleashed the wildness that must’ve been tamped deep inside her all those years she was betrothed to Renton, with no prospect, no hope of experiencing anything more exciting than eventual marriage to that popinjay.
Bloody hell, but Jack was sorely tempted to seize her and kiss her right now. Right here. He was about to do just that when she snarled, “Go, Captain Jordan. Be gone, before I scream.”
He couldn’t help smiling. “Is this another ploy to stall me until those matrons come back? Because I don’t believe you’ll scream right away, Miss Griffin.”
She fisted her hands as defiance flashed in her deep green eyes. “How do you know that?”
“I’m leaving. And I’m leaving without whatever it is you think I’m leaving without. Perhaps, when we meet again in London, you’ll know for certain.”
Again he marched away from her, senses on alert for that scream.
But this time, it never came.
And so he left her, without…what?
Chapter Ten
Upon reaching London, Jack went not to his uncle’s residence but to that of his newlywed sister Samantha, who was now the Countess of Ellsworth. He was more anxious to be reunited with her, anyway.
Samantha welcomed her older brother with open arms, and introduced him to her new husband Gabriel, the Earl of Ellsworth. “Both of you gentlemen have something in common.”
“Of course we do,” Gabriel agreed. “Both of us love you, my darling.” She blushed as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and planted an affectionate kiss on her cheek, though he looked very much as if he were restraining himself—as if he really wanted to kiss her deeply on the mouth
and twine both arms around her, holding her close against his body, but couldn’t because his new brother-in-law was looking on.
The way Jack had dared to kiss Miss Felicity Griffin in front of Howland Hall, when anyone could have seen them from any one of the crumbling manor’s windows.
Indeed, Samantha gasped a little laugh and murmured, “Not in front of my brother!”
“Don’t mind me.” Jack glanced away as he felt a strange tug at his heart, a yearning for someone special that he could take into his own arms. “I’m pleased my sister has found happiness and a man who loves her and will take good care of her.”
Her eyes sparkled. “What I really meant to say was that both of you were in the army and served on the Peninsula. I’m rather surprised the two of you never met.”
“My dear, I’ve told you before,” Gabriel reminded her. “There were tens of thousands of British soldiers across the Peninsula, which I daresay is bigger than Britain.”
“And in Britain there are likely hundreds of ladies your age, who just like you until you married Ellsworth here, also lived with relatives other than her own parents.” Jack, of course, was thinking of Miss Griffin, who must have lived with her aunt and screaming cousin for as long as he and Samantha had lived with two different uncles. He still wondered what had become of her father. One had to assume the gentleman was likewise deceased.
“The important thing is you’re finally home, Jack, safe and sound—and just in time, for we were about to dress for Lady Whitbourne’s masquerade. The whole ton will be there, but I don’t think anyone will miss Gabriel and me.”
Jack was quite sure his heart had just leaped. If “the whole ton” was at Lady Whitbourne’s this evening, then surely that meant Miss Griffin’s cousin, the Duke of Halstead, would be out this evening. “You needn’t cancel your plans for this evening just because I finally showed up. I insist you go. Besides, I’d like a chance to bathe and rest after my journey.”
Samantha eyed him askance, as if she rightly suspected there was more to it than that. “Wouldn’t you like something to eat, as well? You must be famished.”
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