by Jane Toombs
She had never been partial to fair men, she much preferred to daydream about the dark brooding sort in the gothic tales she read and yet there was something about Devon that intrigued her in spite of herself. The fact that in a very few minutes he would see her revealed as an impostor and thereby, if he lost the race, adding insult to his injury, discomfited her more than she cared to admit.
"Are the riders ready?” Willoughby asked.
"Ready,” Devon said.
At that moment Bonnie Prince Charlie, as though reacting to the excitement pulsing in the air, pranced a few feet across the line. Justine reined him around in a circle, being careful to ride away from Lord Devon and Invincible, until she returned to the starting line once more.
Willoughby raised his pistol and again asked if they were ready. Devon and Justine replied that they were. The gun barked and both riders urged their mounts forward at the same moment.
At first they raced side by side along the dirt roadway. Then, little by little, Devon guided Invincible into the lead, but Justine made no effort to spur the Prince on, having been told by Willoughby that the Prince often lagged until the final furlongs.
By the time they thundered past the banner marking the quarter mile, Invincible's lead had increased to three lengths. Flying dirt stung Justine's face; still she held her horse in check. At the half-mile banner, Invincible still led, but now by only the length of two horses. Slowly the gap narrowed to a single length, then to half a length. Lord Devon raised his whip, striking Invincible's flank once, twice, three times, and the black horse responded, increasing his lead to slightly more than a full length only to hold there, neither gaining nor losing ground.
With the turn at the three-quarter banner just ahead, Justine swung the Prince wide to the right, away from Invincible, intending to urge her mount into his drive to the finish after they veered to the left and entered what she judged to be the final furlong.
Ahead of the racing horses she saw a barouche and pair driving toward them along an intersecting side road. She gasped in alarm. A man ran toward the barouche, frantically waving his arms, and the two carriage horses slowed. One reared, neighing in fright. Justine glimpsed an older woman huddled in fear on the carriage seat while the driver stood to draw back on the ribbons. To no avail—the panicked horses broke into a wild gallop along a path parallel to the improvised race course.
When she glanced at Devon she found him staring straight ahead, oblivious to the runaway carriage, as he again resorted to the whip. If the careening carriage was to be stopped, she must stop it. Without hesitation, she swung the Prince from the race course and urged him in pursuit of the runaway barouche, now some fifty feet ahead and swaying alarmingly from side to side.
Slapping the Prince's flank, she gradually gained, at last drew even with the carriage, saw the gray-haired coachman clinging to his perch, felt her cap fly from her head, the pins loosening, allowing her hair to fall down over her shoulders. She came alongside the galloping horses, leaned far to her right to grasp the reins, failed and almost fell beneath the pounding hooves, reached far to her right again, seized the reins this time, then gradually slowed the Prince as she held tight to the reins until the carriage horses came to a reluctant halt, puffing and blowing.
Waiting until the two horses quieted, she swung Prince around and rode to the side of the barouche. The coachman had left his perch and was sitting in the open carriage wafting a vinaigrette under the nose of a plump white-haired woman. A gold-headed cane leaned against the seat at the woman's side.
"Are you hurt, madam?” Justine asked.
The veiled woman, dressed in black as though in deep mourning, seemed not to hear. The coachman turned, stared at Justine, then said, “Pray excuse Mrs. Baldwin, she's been dreadfully discomfited."
"Is there anything I can do to help you, Mrs. Baldwin?” Justine asked.
The dumpling of a woman looked up and shook her head, her hat wobbling precariously. “Dr. Glaspell recommended drives in the park for the betterment of my precarious health,” she said plaintively. “And you see what happened? Realizing how dreadfully crowded our London thoroughfares have become, I said to Rodgers, ‘I shall drive only early in the morning when no one is about and thus avoid any possibility of an accident while at the same time escaping the strong and harmful rays of the sun. I hardly expected to encounter whatever it was you were about. Are you and your friends conducting a race meeting of some sort here in the park?"
"No, only one very foolish horse race. If I could be of assistance...?"
"You, young lady, have done quite enough already. My nerves are frayed to the breaking point and so I expect I shall be confined to my bed for at least a fortnight. Dr. Glaspell, who is kindness and sympathy personified, has been treating my nerves with a variety of medications ever since dear Mr. Baldwin passed over, but even he has no conception how susceptible they are to the slightest upset."
Rodgers leaned toward his mistress and whispered a few words.
"A daring rescue, you say?” Mrs. Baldwin said. “An act of courage? That hardly signifies since she should have stopped the horses since she panicked them in the first place. Imagine, holding a race meeting in the park!"
Waving Rodgers back to his perch, Mrs. Baldwin straightened her hat, lifting her veil to reveal eyes of a startlingly bright blue set in a round, unwrinkled face.
"Yet I suppose Rodgers is right,” she admitted reluctantly to Justine, “when he says I should be grateful that you stopped the horses. I do thank you."
Justine reddened. Not from modesty but in anger. Her face glistened with perspiration, she was still breathing heavily, her shoulder ached from the wrench of grasping the reins of the carriage horses, and Mrs. Baldwin had to be persuaded to thank her, and doing it begrudgingly at that, for possibly saving her life.
"Why are you dressed as a boy?” Mrs. Baldwin demanded.
"Merely as a prank."
"A most unusual prank, I must say. And you should never ride astride, my dear, for the results are apt to be"—the older woman lowered her voice to a hushed whisper—"quite inimical to the physical well-being of a young lady such as yourself."
Justine felt her blush deepening to a vivid red.
"And what is your name?” Mrs. Baldwin asked.
"Miss Justine Riggs."
Mrs. Baldwin shook her head. “I am not acquainted with any family named Riggs."
"Mr. John Willoughby of Woodstock Street
is my cousin."
"Though I may have heard the name I have never met him, but if I ever do I shall tell him exactly what I think of anyone who allows a girl to cavort about Hyde Park at this time of day masquerading as a boy. What folly!” She picked up her cane and tapped it impatiently on the carriage floor. “Home, Rodgers."
The coachman nodded, raised his whip to the brim of his hat in a farewell salute to Justine, called to his horses and drove off. The last she saw of Mrs. Baldwin, the elderly woman was tilting her yellow parasol to ward off the rays of the sun.
Justine, both disheartened and exasperated, sighed. Swinging the Prince about, she came face to face with Lord Devon sitting astride a sweat-streaked Invincible. She was dimly aware of Willoughby and Lord Alton watching them from a distance, but the two men made no move to approach.
Devon scowled at her. Despite being taken unawares, she met his gaze. Reaching to his waistcoat where normally he would have kept his quizzing glass, he shook his head when he realized it was not there. He dropped his hand to his side, but continued to look down his nose at her as though, glass or no glass, he was quizzing an unwelcome and suspect intruder. After subjecting both her and her mount to a thorough and critical examination, his mouth curled downward as though finding them wanting in every respect.
She started to rein the Prince past him, but Devon swung his horse and blocked her way. “I observe that your friends were not content with a single deception,” he said with scorn. “Your supposedly Scottish mount is obviously as false as you a
re."
At first she failed to understand his meaning, but when she followed his gaze, she was surprised to see dark rivulets wending their way along both sides of the Prince's head to reveal a white blaze. Was it possible that John Willoughby had misrepresented the horse as well as the jockey? Recalling his slip of the tongue, she realized there could be little doubt he had.
"And all to absolutely no avail,” Devon went on. “As you must realize, Invincible and I had victory well in hand."
"That is not true! You went to the whip much too soon. The Prince would have overtaken you at the finish."
Devon made a sound she could only interpret as “Humpff.” How angry he made her!
"You may sniff and sneer as often as you wish, my lord, but you know I speak the truth."
"Not so. The truth of the matter is quite different. When you realized you had lost the race, you immediately deserted the agreed upon course to hare off in another direction. Ostensibly in pursuit of a runaway carriage, but actually to avoid certain defeat."
So furious she could only shake her head, Justine felt the sting of gathering tears. No, she refused to cry. Lord Devon might infuriate her, but no matter how biting his words, she would never allow him the satisfaction of reducing her to tears.
"That is not so,” she said between clenched teeth.
"Where, I wonder, did they find such a marvel as yourself? A young lady adept at playing the part of a young man.” Devon leaned toward her. “Or does the deception run deeper than that? Are you actually a young man who is now playacting the role of a female?"
She gasped. How hateful he is! If only I had accepted the whip from John Willoughby, how I would enjoy slashing it across Lord Devon's arrogant face.
He raised an eyebrow and to her surprise held out his whip to her. “Is this what you want? Somehow I sense it is."
She grasped the lash end of his whip only to have him hold firmly to the stock and pull her toward him until they were face to face, mere inches apart. His eyes, she noticed, were green. He stared intently at her. Neither of them moved and, for a moment, beneath the anger written so clearly on his face, she detected another emotion altogether, something she had never seen before in all of her eighteen years, something that both stirred and puzzled her.
He released his hold on the whip. She looked down at it only to realize that, to her surprise, her sense of outrage had drained away. When he made no effort to take the whip, she let it fall to the ground, urging the Prince forward. This time he made no attempt to stop her. She started riding toward Willoughby only to veer away almost at once, knowing she needed to be alone.
Tears, so long held in check, streamed down her face, tears not so much of anger, tears coming from a sense of emptiness, a desolation she failed to understand.
* * * *
When Mrs. Prudence Baldwin arrived at her town house on Grosvenor Square
, she retired at once to the room that had once been her husband's library. After his death five years before, Mrs. Baldwin had brought her favorite chaise longue into the room but otherwise left it unchanged. Not that she intended the library to serve as a shrine dedicated to her husband's memory, but because she found the room restful. She could be at peace here, shielded from the outside world by the heavy velvet draperies and reassured by the familiar dark mahogany paneling, the deep arm chairs, the leather-bound books, and the lingering scent of her husband's tobacco.
She had no sooner finished a cup of chamomile tea and closed her eyes for a nap when there was a tapping at the door. How very unusual, she told herself as she sat up. “Yes?” She peered into the semi-darkness as the door opened to reveal her coachman.
"What is it, Rodgers?"
"Beg pardon, madam, but may I have a word with you?"
"You may.” How intriguing, she thought. Although Rodgers had been with the Baldwins for many, many years, having been hired by Mr. Baldwin, she had never before known him to intrude on her privacy in any way.
Stepping just inside the room, he said stiffly, “I wish a word in reference to the young lady we encountered in the park earlier this morning."
"The young lady?” For an instant Mrs. Baldwin blinked in confusion. Her mind, occupied with worry over her various ailments and their possible cures, had little space left for anything else. “Yes, yes, of course, I recall the young lady."
"She prevented, I believe, a most lamentable calamity by the dashing way she stopped our horses."
"She should have stopped them, since she caused them to bolt in the first place. As, I believe, I informed her."
"The fact is, however, madam,” Rodgers went on doggedly, “she risked injury to herself to help you. And in return, I regret to say and I apologize for saying, you were most ungracious."
Mrs. Baldwin was too startled by this unexpected rebuke to reply.
"Besides being intrepid,” Rodgers said, “the young lady appeared to me to be most amiable and attractive. Despite her rather bizarre costume."
"And what do you expect from me, Rodgers?"
"If I may take the liberty of offering a suggestion, madam, you should show your gratitude in some appropriate way. Not only do I believe so,” he added with a significant glance at the portrait of the late Eustace Baldwin hanging above the mantel, “I'm certain if Mr. Baldwin were alive today, he would wholeheartedly agree."
Mrs. Baldwin stared at her coachman, agape. “That will be all, Rodgers,” she said once she recovered from her shock at his outspokenness.
"Thank you, madam.” Rodgers stepped back into the hall, quietly closing the door behind him.
How strange for Rodgers to take such an interest in that boyish young lady. She leaned forward, massaging her forehead with her fingers as she felt the first twinges of one of her dreaded megrims. She groaned, knowing that several days of the dismals were certain to follow the headache.
She shook her head. Life was entirely too complicated, what with one perplexity leading to another. For Rodgers was almost certainly right, Mrs. Baldwin thought as she looked up at the portrait of her husband. “Eustace, you would want me to help that young lady, I know you would.” She sighed. “And I shall."
When men decide to assist a young lady, their first inclination is to give her money or else gifts purchased with money. Women, being more farsighted as well as more practical, focus their attention on much more important matters.
That young lady should be properly married. Marriage will stop, once and for all, such hoydenish pranks as racing in the park; wild romps of that sort need to be curbed by a husband's firm rein.
Mrs. Baldwin frowned. Apparently Miss Riggs’ family had failed in their most important duty. How regrettable. “Eustace,” she promised, “I intend to come to her assistance as she came to mine. You shall see Miss Riggs wed before the year is out."
CHAPTER 3
"How can a man ever become sated with London when every turn in the street reveals a new and pleasant surprise?” Lord Devon asked as he and John Willoughby strolled along the Strand in the early afternoon. “Look, John, there we have an itinerant band; and here we have a barrel-organ with its sportive, dancing monkey."
"The band happens to be loud and out-of-tune."
"True enough. But to me it sounds not merely loud but wondrously loud and not only out-of-tune but delightfully out-of-tune."
"Upon my honor, Devon, how uncommonly cheerful you are this afternoon. On any other day you would point out that the bands, the Punch and Judys, and the white mice running in their twirling cages all serve to attract jostling throngs, and throngs are the perfect hunting grounds for pickpockets."
"Ah, but a pinch of danger adds spice to the feast that is our London."
"If you say so. What I say is that not only do Londoners risk having their pockets picked by roving thieves, but if they fail to exercise caution, they may well be fleeced by the mountebanks lurking on every other corner with their playing cards or some other game of chance, plausible charlatans ready to entrap the unsophistic
ated with their deceptions. Where does the pea lurk, Devon, beneath which of the three shells?"
Devon laughed. “At least I know the pea will never be discovered beneath the shell I select.” He frowned and, when he went on in a softer tone, it was almost as though he spoke to himself. “Are we, though, any wiser than the most gullible lad from the country, we of the ton who lose thousands on the turn of a card at White's, or on a wager made as the result of a whispered suggestion of a friend who claims to be an acquaintance of the uncle of the brother of a knowing trainer at Newmarket?"
"You exaggerate, my dear Devon."
"And how do you have the temerity, John, to denounce these petty deceptions after disguising that magnificent stallion Excalibur and renaming him Bonnie Prince Charlie?” Though Devon spoke in seeming jest, an undercurrent of vexation threaded through his voice.
"Not the same thing at all. The race in the Park was a prank, nothing more or less."
"And Alton's idea for the most part, I suspect. I can hear that nasal intonation of his now. ‘Our good friend Devon needs taking down a peg, by God.’”
John reddened at the accuracy of his friend's thrust. “We intended no harm,” he parried weakly.
"I must admit I found the girl disguised as a jockey to be a masterful touch.” Devon paused to watch a wagon loaded with huge stones creak past on its way to the site of the new Waterloo Bridge. “How Alton would have snickered—you must admit he does tend to snicker when amused—to see me outraced by some mere chit of a girl. Not that I was in any danger of losing the race to your Miss—what was her name? Briggs? Griggs?"
"Miss Justine Riggs,” John said.
"Just so. Riggs.” As, Devon admitted to himself, he had been perfectly well aware. He pretended to examine the engraved silver head of his walking stick as he recalled, with bemused surprise, how often in the last few days his thoughts had turned, unbidden, to Justine Riggs. “A young lady from the country, I believe. And related to you in some obscure way."