by Claudy Conn
When she awoke, stretched, and padded over to the window it was with a heart almost devoid of hope. A soft drizzle beat down the tall blades of overgrown grass, and wind was swishing a path through them with unwonted vigor.
A knock sounded at her door, and she looked its way with a spark of hope until her brother announced, “Come on, lazy … it’s me.”
She pulled her velvet wrap around herself and told him, “Come on then …”
Jimmy appeared, a sunny smile on his face, his eyes alight with anticipation. “Got through the night … what with Ryker taking the first shift to guard Lightning—”
“You mean, his lordship the marquis,” she stuck in roughly.
“Oh, aye … he told you then?” Jimmy sighed. “You are angry … I see that, but you know, you can’t blame the fellow.”
“Can’t blame the fellow? Sir James of Henshaw, what are you saying?” Her hands went to her hips.
“Oh, aye, see, you are in a fret. Here is the thing, sis. Being who he is … and although his mother is a dear, she is forever trying to find him a wife, and he was heartily sick of it.” He shrugged. “Thought he would only be here a day or two … so, he decided to take a backseat and let everyone fawn over his cousin.”
“Fawn over …?” Jewels seethed.
“Well, aye … but we didn’t do that … Lyla did, and maybe Aunt Dora a bit … but no one else, and then he was in a bind. He knew he should confess … but didn’t know how to go about it.”
“Honestly is how.”
“Yes, well, timing is everything,” he answered succinctly “Going into town, want to get something before we leave tomorrow … and, sis, you better make up your mind to treat the marquis decently. He has been a good friend to us.” He saw her expression and laughed right out loud, and as he left her he said at the doorway, “You know you more than like him …”
She threw a pillow at his head and grimaced ruefully. “Oh, out … puppy … out,” she said and folded her arms across her middle. She had to think!
*
No one was about at Henshaw; the marquis had made certain of that by sending Mrs. Debbs and Elizabeth to town on a makeshift errand. His cousin Robby he had given an important chore to busily accomplish, and he knew Jimmy was off to meet Arthur.
Thus, Ryker waited in the breakfast room, hopefully believing Jewelene would join him and they could be alone. Two cups of coffee later, and no Jewelene. He threw down his napkin on the table and with his mind well made up marched out of the sunny chamber, hurried up the stairs, and went directly to her bedroom.
He knocked on the door softly. “Jewels … sweetheart …”
The door was flung open, and a finger wagged in front of his chest as she lifted her angry and beautiful face to his. “Don’t sweetheart me, you—you cad!”
Aha, he thought, so she is still angry. He decided the best thing to do was to ignore it, so he moved towards her. She stepped away, and he walked her backwards into her room, closing the door with a flip of his booted foot. “Am I? Do you really believe that … a cad?” He clucked his tongue and reached for her. “Shall I show you how a cad is expected to behave?”
She stepped further away. “Stop …” she told him.
He moved in on her. “Stop? Are you sure …” He took her waist in both his hands and drew her to him.
Incensed, she pushed at his chest, but words at that moment failed her. He grabbed at the opportunity by wrapping his arms around her and holding her fast. “Do not scream at me, sweet love. Don’t make a fuss—listen for a change if you can. Just keep quiet—do, and allow me to explain.”
“I will not keep quiet, and how dare you tell me—”
“Hush, little Babette …” he said wickedly, effectively silencing her. She went rigid in his embrace as her lovely green eyes opened wide.
“You … you know?” she said in disbelief. “How long have you known?”
“Silly, lovely goose … my own true love. I have always known. Could I look into those bright green eyes of yours and not know the woman I love …?”
“Love? You love me?” she whispered.
“I adore you …” he said softly. “Shall I show you?” He was already leaning her into the bed he had maneuvered her against.
“You love me …?” she repeated as though holding onto the thought for dear life.
As an answer he bent and kissed her. His tongue sweetly entwined and stroked her own as his hands worked her velvet wrap and exposed her naked body beneath. “Ah, Jewels … you are perfection … everything that I have ever wanted. You occupy all my thoughts, and I swear to you, I will spend the rest of my life attempting to make you happy if you will agree to be my wife.”
“But then why? Why did you pretend to …”
“By all that is holy, try and see it through my eyes. I am forever being courted for my title and my wealth. I have never until you found a woman who didn’t give a fig for those things … and I thought we would be here no more than a day or two … and wanted to shield myself from yet another grasping … but, you weren’t that … and suddenly I couldn’t walk away, and by then the game had gone on too long …”
“Oh Rye … it sounds like something I would have done had I been in your position. I do understand, I do …”
And hearing those words, he crushed her to him, and once more his lips commanded her own as his hands went to her butt and pulled her hard up against him.
She pressed against him and groaned with sudden, all-encompassing desire as his hand found her nipple and gently, erotically flicked it with his finger.
She worked the buttons of his breeches and released his hard, throbbing cock. She groaned before she whispered, “We will be caught …”
“No one about … all gone to town …” he said huskily and picked her up to put her on the bed.
“Then … yes, I am a compromised woman, so I suppose I must marry you …” She giggled and began to compromise herself some more.
Sixteen
“THIS IS NOT where we made that wrong turn last time, and well you know it!” Jimmy snapped.
“Don’t know anything of the sort. Wouldn’t have wondered about it if I did know, now would I? Don’t stand to reason,” Arthur answered reasonably.
Ignoring his friend’s logic, Jimmy looked around, “I wonder where Jewels has gone off to … thought she would have rejoined us by now?”
“Had to go into the woods … personal, she said …” Arthur cleared his throat. “Maybe we should just stop here and wait …?”
“Ah … here she is now.” Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief. “I don’t mind telling you, Arthur, taking Lightning to Derby has me sorely fretting …”
“Don’t see why—Jonas is leading him gently, what with the marquis and his cousin riding behind us and well armed, well, I would say we are covered.” Arthur frowned. “Although, how odd it all turned out.”
“How odd how what turned out?”
“The marquis being the other fellow, and the other fellow being the marquis …”
“Yes, yes …” Jimmy dismissed this and turned to his sister. “You had me worried.”
She smiled. “I took a minute to ride up on Ryker …”
“You are not supposed to do that. We don’t want anyone to know they are riding behind us. We are supposed to watch over you and Lightning and pretend that we are the whole of our party. You’ll ruin everything.”
“Oh, pooh … who would dare accost us when we have two sturdy men in the fore, and Jonas armed and ready with me riding behind Lightning?”
“Omsbury, that’s who,” Jimmy said testily. “Ryker says the man is desperate to have you and will stop at nothing. He says we are to expect anything and everything.”
“I tell you what …” Arthur stuck in suddenly. “Hungry. Indeed, very hungry—we should find a posting house and eat.”
Jimmy considered him and apparently thought this to be a reasonable request. “If I remember correctly, there is an inn not too far up
the road. We’ll stop there.”
Thus, the two men rode abreast, with Jewels hanging back to ride beside Jonas, who had the spirited stallion in tow.
*
Renkins sat at a corner table with his partner in crime at the back of the tavern. He was a tall, gaunt man who had no qualms about breaking the law for a bit of blunt, and his friend Jem had been his cohort from youth.
He took a long drink of his ale and sighed. How else was a man like himself going to survive? He wasn’t very good at being a stable hand. He didn’t like horses much and had not in all his years of trying acquired the references needed to work for an employer who would pay him a decent wage.
When Omsbury had found him in Yarmouth and suggested this plan, Renkins was well satisfied. He was already down on his luck and in desperate need of cash, and the sum Omsbury offered was enough that he would have killed man, woman, or child without compunction.
He didn’t trust anyone other than his partner Jem, and he didn’t like that Omsbury would not hand over the purse until the job was done. But he had a plan. He wouldn’t make the trade until the purse was in his hands, safe and sound.
The job would require him to disable the stallion that was headed for Derby and abduct the woman Omsbury had described to him and said would be the only woman that was riding with the stallion.
He had agreed to take the job and believed the plan he had devised was fool proof. He knew the little family with their one groom traveled the open road with the stallion, but instead of following them and trying to get at them on the road, he did something else—something he hoped would be unexpected.
He went ahead to an inn—one they would be likely to pull into shortly to rest and water their horses and get a bit of food and drink. All he had to do was be patient and wait.
It wouldn’t take much for Jem, dumb as he was, to knock the groom out with the blunt of his gun from behind and then damage the horse. While a commotion was struck, Renkins would move in and snatch the girl. Aye then, one, two, three … and all his financial problems would be solved. When next he looked out the window, he grinned wickedly. From the looks of it, his plan was about to be put into motion, for here was the unsuspecting little group entering the posting house’s wide courtyard.
*
Jewels watched Jonas put the stallion in a stall. He turned to her and nodded as he nervously touched the handle of his gun in his belt. She could see he was uneasy.
“What is it? What’s wrong, Jonas?”
“Oi don’t know—but somethin’,” the head Henshaw groom answered.
Jewels moved away from him and went to the double-wide stable door to look about. Suddenly she heard a scuffle at her back. She turned to see where the noise was coming from, and when she looked back at Jonas, she let out a rip-roaring scream, calling for Jimmy as she saw Jonas go down.
And then she saw the knife. It glinted in the rays of the sun, and she looked at the man who held it. A stranger with cold eyes. He moved towards the stallion, and his purpose was obvious to her.
Jewels jumped into action, picking up a pitchfork and rushing him like a woman crazed. “You shall not hurt that horse … you beast!”
He turned, which gave her ample opportunity to place the pitchfork where it was most needed, pressed into his chest.
“Move and this will make a bloody mess of you. I don’t know if it will kill … but the infection you will suffer afterwards, that will hurt and torture and kill … so move, let me do to you what you were about to do to my horse … let me cut you.” Jewels threatened, and no one would have doubted her resolve to carry out that threat. Jem’s eyes opened wide.
Jewels again screamed for her brother and hoped Ryker would soon be arriving at the inn. When she heard someone at her back, she pressed the pitchfork into her captive’s chest and turned to look over her shoulder, but it was too late.
She saw his face just as he brought his doubled fist down on her head. Jewels fell to the floor unconscious.
“I’ve got the girl—you do the horse and meet me at the inn in Swindon. That’s where I’m making the exchange …” So saying, Renkins picked Jewels up, swung her lifeless form over her horse, and started to lead it out.
A stable boy appeared suddenly. His eyes opened wide, and with a yelp he ran screaming for help.
Jem looked around for his knife, as he had lost it in the straw during the scuffle, but even as his hand found the hilt, a foot came up and knocked him in the face, throwing him neatly backwards and putting him out of commission. “Hurt m’poor horse, will ye? Well, it would all be for naught, you bloody fool, because that stallion isn’t Lightning!” said Sir James, looking worriedly around for his sister.
*
Lightning was safely being led by the marquis and Robby, who entered the courtyard some ten minutes later to be met with the sounds of mayhem.
“Good God … what is towards …?”
The marquis threw the lead line of the stallion and his own horse’s reins to Robby and snapped, “Keep them close, ol’ boy …” Then he nimbly jumped down, made his way through the commotion of several stable boys all talking at the same time, and discovered Jimmy shaking a stout young man with Arthur holding a gun on him, shouting, “I’ve got him in my sights, Jimmy! I’ve got him …”
“Put the gun down, Art … we don’t need it … just trying to make this bloke talk. Something is wrong. Where is m’sister?” He shook the man again and demanded once more, “Where is she?”
“Oi … oi … he’ll kill me if oi tells … oi don’t tells …” the man said, holding a hand to the bump on his face. His eye was already turning black and blue.
“You needn’t worry about him killing you, for you won’t get that far. I shall kill you here and now if you don’t tell me at once—where has your partner taken her?” The marquis stepped into the fray and put his hands around the man’s throat.
Jem started to cry. It was obvious he was terrified, but death looked to be immediate as the marquis began to throttle him, and he choked and begged, “Awright, awright, oi’ll tell ye …”
“Hurry up …”
“He be taking her to meet up with the minister and some lord at Swindon … at the Arms …”
Ryker was already on the move. Over his shoulder, he said, “I trust you to handle this one, Jimmy, and make certain your stallion is well guarded!”
“Yes, but I’m coming with you … she is my sister!” Jimmy called.
“You are needed here, and I promise you, she may be your sister, but she is my future bride, and I will have her safe and sound—and Omsbury dead.”
*
Jewels groaned as her eyes fluttered open. She was in a dimly lit room … where …? She put a hand to the bump on her head. Oh, but it hurt, and she had the makings of an awful headache. She could hear the sounds of a carriage moving past her window. It took some effort, but she got up from the hardwood chair she had been slumped in and went to the window, where she could see the courtyard of a posting inn—not the same one where they had stopped to eat.
Where? she asked herself again, and then the door opened and Lord Omsbury entered, a smooth, satisfied smile on his face.
“Not feeling too well, my dear? Here … I have put a bit of laudanum in your tea … it will help …”
“You can take the tea and the laudanum and make your way to hell at your own speed, for if Ryker gets to you, you’ll be getting there sooner than you will like!” she snapped. The headache pounded, and she swayed a bit and put a hand out to steady herself.
He was on her immediately and held her in a grip she couldn’t break free from. “There, there … one way or another, you will drink your tea while the minister fills out the paperwork that will make us legal man and wife!”
“Never—I will tell everyone it is a lie!”
“It will be too late. After a night with me … who would want you? Ryker? I assure you, he won’t take my leavings.”
“Pig, odious brute,” she said and shov
ed at him with all her might.
He forced her against the wall and there meant to take a kiss when the door was flung open, and Jewels saw him, standing like the knight in shining armor she had always dreamt would come for her. He filled the doorway; faith, she thought, he filled the room! He was a mountain of volcanic fury.
“Face me, Omsbury … and take on someone your own size …”
Omsbury put her in front of him, but she slammed her foot down on his and he jumped in pain. She ran to Ryker, who held her to him, kissed the top of her head, and put her at his side.
“You don’t want a scandal …” Omsbury said.
“No, you are quite right. I have what I came for …” Ryker led Jewels to the doorway and there whispered, “Can you stand, my love?”
She nodded, and he turned to take two long strides to Omsbury and in one fluid motion planted him on the floor. “Ah,” Ryker said, “that feels so much better …” He picked Omsbury up by his lapels and punched him once more. “As you say, I don’t want my future wife’s name bandied about, and so I shall not kill you today. However, I am not adverse to doing so in the future if you make mischief. Are we clear?”
Omsbury nodded and expected the marquis to leave him be. He started to get up, and Ryker helped him the remainder of the way, whereby he gave him one more blow because he could not help himself. He turned then to Jewels, steadying herself against the doorjamb. He went and put an arm around her. “My sweet life, my beauty … come.”
Epilogue
AS IT TURNED out, Lightning did, in fact, win his race. Omsbury, fearing scandal and reprisal (perhaps death), slinked off the Isle and returned to his social life in London.
Jewelene was relieved and oh so proud to discover that Ryker had followed Jimmy and Arthur to the jewelry shop in Portsmouth and bought back her father’s keepsakes. He then went and immediately paid off the moneylender without interest, threatening him with reprisals for dealing with a youngster not yet permitted to sign his loan contract. Jewelene couldn’t believe that here was her own modern-day knight with all the trimmings.