by Mary Balogh
When rationality began to return to Judith's mind, everyone seemed to be either screaming or shouting. She was not one of them—she was biting down on both lips instead. The six inside passengers, she discovered, were in a heap together against one side of the coach. Their curses, screams, and groans testified to the fact that most, if not all, of them were alive. Outside she could hear shouts and the whinnying of frightened horses. Two voices, more distinct than any others, were using the most shockingly profane language.
She was alive, Judith thought in some surprise. She was also—she tested the idea gingerly—unhurt, though she felt considerably shaken up. She tried moving, but even as she did so, the door above her opened and someone—the coachman himself—peered down at her.
“Give me your hand, then, miss,” he instructed her. “We will have you all out of there in a trice. Lord love us, stop that screeching, woman,” he told the talkative woman with a lamentable lack of sympathy considering the fact that he was the one who had overturned them.
Judith made no complaint. She had chosen to continue her journey even though she had heard the warning and might have waited for a later coach. She had no suggestions to make either. And she had no injuries. She was merely miserable and looked about her for something to take her mind off the fact that they were all stranded in the middle of nowhere and about to be rained upon. She began to tend those in distress, even though most of the hurts were more imaginary than real. Within minutes she had removed her bonnet, which was getting in her way, and tossed it into the still-overturned carriage. Her hair was coming down, but she did not stop to try to restore it to order. Most people, she found, really did behave rather badly in a crisis, though this one was nowhere near as disastrous as it might have been.
Her attention was diverted by a shout from one of the outside passengers, who was pointing off into the distance from which they had come just a few minutes before. A rider was approaching, a single man on horseback. Several of the passengers began hailing him, though he was still too far off to hear them. What they thought one man could do to improve their plight Judith could not imagine.
Although he was making a lengthy journey, Lord Rannulf Bedwyn was on horseback—he always avoided carriage travel whenever possible. His baggage coach, together with his valet, was trundling along somewhere behind him. His valet, being a cautious, timid soul, had probably decided to stop at the inn an hour or so back when warned of rain by an innkeeper intent on drumming up business.
He himself could turn back, he supposed. But it was against his nature to turn tail and flee any challenge, human or otherwise. He must stop at the next inn he came across, though. He might be careless of any danger to himself, but he must be considerate of his horse.
His thoughts were diverted suddenly by the appearance of a black dot ahead of him denser than the prevailing mud and hedgerows. At first he thought it was a building, but as he rode a little closer he realized that it was actually a collection of people and a large, stationary coach. An overturned coach, he soon realized, with a broken axle. The horses were out on the road as well as a few of the people. Many were shouting, waving, and gesticulating in his direction as if they expected him to dismount, set his shoulder to the ruined vehicle, heave it to the road again, magically repairing the axle in the process, and hand them all inside once more before riding off into the proverbial sunset.
It would be churlish, of course, to ride on by without stopping merely because he could not offer any practical assistance. He drew rein when he was close to the group and grinned when almost everyone tried to talk to him at once. He held up a staying hand and asked if anyone had been seriously hurt. No one, it seemed, had been.
“The best I can do for you all, then,” he said when the hubbub had subsided again, “is ride on with all the speed I can muster and send help back from the nearest village or town.”
“There is a market town no more than three miles ahead, sir,” the coachman told him, pointing off along the road.
One of the passengers—a woman—had not joined the others in greeting him. She was bent over a muddy gentleman seated on a wooden crate, pressing some sort of makeshift bandage to his cheek. He took it from her even as Rannulf watched, and the woman straightened up and turned to look at him.
She was young and tall. She was wearing a green cloak, slightly damp, even muddied at the hem. It fell open down the front to reveal a light muslin dress and a bosom that immediately increased Rannulf's body heat by at least a couple of degrees. She was bareheaded. Her hair was disheveled and half down over her shoulders. It was a glorious shade of bright red-gold such as he had never before seen on a human head. The face beneath it was oval and flushed and bright-eyed—the eyes were green, he believed—and quite startlingly lovely. She returned his stare with apparent disdain. What did she expect him to do? Vault down into the mud and play hero?
He grinned lazily and spoke without looking away from her.
“I could, I suppose,” he said, “take one person up with me. One lady? Ma'am? How about you?”
The redhead smiled at Rannulf then, an expression that grew slowly even as the color deepened in her cheeks.
“It would be my pleasure, sir,” she said in a voice that was warm and husky and crawled up his spine like a velvet-gloved hand.
He rode over to the side of the road, toward her.
HE WAS NOTHING LIKE THE HIGHWAYMAN OF HER daydream. He was neither lithe nor dark nor handsome nor masked, and though he smiled, there was something mocking rather than carefree in the expression.
This man was solid. Not fat by any means, but . . . solid. His hair beneath his hat was fair. It looked wavy and it was certainly over-long for fashion. His face was dark-complexioned, dark-browed, and big-nosed. His eyes were blue. He was not at all handsome. But there was something about him. Something compelling. Something undeniably attractive—though that did not seem quite a powerful enough word.
Those were the first thoughts that flashed through Judith's head when she looked up at him. And of course he was no highwayman but merely a fellow traveler offering to ride on for assistance and to take someone with him.
Her.
Her second thought was one of shock, indignation, outrage. How dared he! Who did he think she was that he expected she would agree to mount a horse with a stranger and ride off alone with him? She was the daughter of the Reverend Jeremiah Law, whose expectations of strict propriety and morality from his flock were exceeded only by those he expected of his own daughters—especially her.
Her third thought was that within a very short distance—the coachman had said three miles—there was a town and the comfort of an inn, and that perhaps both could be reached before the rain came tumbling down. If she availed herself of the stranger's offer, that was.
And then she remembered her daydream again, the foolish, lovely fantasy of a dashing highwayman who had been about to carry her off on some unknown, glorious adventure, freeing her of all obligation to her family and her past, freeing her from Aunt Effingham and the dreary life of drudgery awaiting her at Harewood. A dream that had been shattered when the coach overturned.
She had a chance now to experience a real adventure, even if it was just a tiny little one. For three miles and perhaps as long as an hour she could ride up before this attractive stranger. She could do something as scandalously improper as leaving the safety and propriety of numbers to be alone with a gentleman. Her papa would shut her into her room with bread and water and her Bible for a week if he ever heard of it, and Aunt Effingham might well decide that even a month was not long enough. But who would ever know? What harm could possibly come to her? Could she be such a sorry creature that she would turn down this small chance of a lifetime?
She smiled. “It would be my pleasure, sir,” she said, hearing with some surprise that she was not speaking with her own voice but with that of a fantasy woman who would dare do such a thing.
He rode closer to her, holding her eyes with his own as he came
, and leaned down from the saddle.
“Take my hand and set your foot on my boot, then,” he instructed her.
She did both and suddenly it was too late to change her mind. With a seemingly effortless strength that left her breathless rather than alarmed, he lifted her and turned her so that almost before she knew she had left the ground she was sitting sideways before him, his arms bracketing her and giving her the illusion of safety.
“Is one of those portmanteaux yours, ma'am?” the stranger asked.
“That one.” She pointed. “Oh, and the reticule beside it.” Although it contained only the very small amount of money Papa had been able to spare her for tea and perhaps some bread and butter during her one-day journey, she was horrified at her carelessness in almost leaving it behind.
“Toss it up here, man,” the horseman instructed the coachman. “The lady's portmanteau can be fetched with the others later.”
For a few moments she was preoccupied with the fact that she was far from the ground on horseback—she had never been much of a horsewoman—and that the ground itself was a sea of oozing mud. But it did not take her long to become more aware of the startling intimacy of her position. She could feel the warmth of the stranger's body all down her left side. His legs—they looked very powerful encased in tight breeches and supple topboots—were on either side of her. Her knees touched one of them. She could feel the other brushing her buttocks. She could smell horse and leather and male cologne. The dangers of travel paled beside these other wholly unfamiliar sensations.
She shivered.
“It is rather chilly for a summer day,” the horseman said, and he wrapped one arm around her and drew her sideways until her shoulder and arm were leaning firmly against his chest and she had not choice but to let her head fall against his shoulder. It was shocking indeed—and undeniably thrilling. It also made her suddenly remember that she was not wearing her bonnet. Not only that—with a quick sideways swivel of her eyes she noticed that at least some of her hair was loose and untidy about her shoulders.
What must she look like? What must he think of her?
“Ralf Bed—ard at your service, ma'am,” he said.
How could she announce herself as Judith Law?
“Claire Campbell,” she said, slapping together the first names that came into her head. “How do you do, Mr. Bedard?”
“Extremely well at the moment,” he said huskily and they both laughed.
He was flirting with her, she thought. How scandalous! Papa would depress his impertinence with a few withering words—and then doubtless punish her for flaunting herself. And this time he would be justified. But she was not going to spoil her precious adventure by thinking of Papa.
“Where are you bound?” Mr. Bedard asked. “Pray do not tell me there is a husband waiting somewhere to lift you down from the coach. Or a sweetheart.”
“Neither,” she told him, laughing again for no particular reason except that she felt lighthearted. She was going to enjoy her brief adventure to the very last moment. She was not going to waste time, energy, or opportunity in being shocked. “I am single and unattached—the way I like it.” Liar. Oh, liar.
“You have restored my soul,” he assured her. “Who, then, is awaiting you at the end of your journey? Your family?”
Inwardly she grimaced. She did not want to think about the end of her journey. But the good thing about adventures was that they were neither real nor lasting. For the remainder of this strange, brief one she could say and do—and be—whatever took her fancy. It was like having a dream and some reality all at the same time.
“I have no family,” she told him. “None that would own me, anyway. I am an actress. I am on my way to York to play a new part. A leading role.”
Poor Papa. He would have an apoplexy. And yet it had always been her wildest, most enduring dream.
“An actress?” he said, his voice low and husky against her ear. “I might have known it as soon as I set eyes on you. Such vivid beauty as yours would shine brightly on any stage. Why have I never seen you in London? Can it be because I rarely attend the theater? I must certainly mend my ways.”
“Oh, London,” she said with careless scorn. “I like to act, Mr. Bedard, not just be ogled. I like to choose the parts I wish to play. I prefer provincial theaters. I am well enough known in them, I believe.”
She was, she realized, still talking in that voice she had used at the roadside. And incredibly he believed her story. It was evident in his words and in the look in his eyes—amused, appreciative, knowing. She was wading in dangerous waters, Judith thought. But it was only for three miles, for only an hour.
“I wish I could see you on stage,” Mr. Bedard said, and his arm tightened about her while the backs of his leather-gloved fingers raised her chin.
He kissed her. On the mouth.
It did not last long. He was, after all, riding a horse over treacherous roads with a passenger hampering both his own movements and those of his horse. He could ill afford the distraction of a lengthy embrace.
But it lasted long enough. Quite long enough for a woman who had never been kissed before. His lips were parted, and Judith felt the moist heat of his mouth against her own. Seconds, or perhaps only a fraction of one second, before her brain could register either shock or outrage, every part of her body reacted. Her lips sizzled with a sensation that spread beyond them, through her mouth, into her throat, and up behind her nostrils. There was a tightening in her breasts, and a powerful ache down through her stomach and her womb and along the insides of her thighs.
“Oh,” she said when it was over. But seconds, or perhaps only a fraction of a second before she could express her outrage at such an insolent liberty, she remembered that she was Claire Campbell, famous provincial actress, and that actresses were expected to know a thing or two about life. She looked into his eyes and smiled dreamily.
Why not? she thought recklessly. Why not live out her fantasy for this short little spell to discover where it might lead? This first kiss, after all, would probably also be her last.
Mr. Bedard smiled back at her with lazy, mocking eyes.
“Oh, indeed,” he said.
SLIGHTLY SCANDALOUS
BY THE TIME SHE WENT TO BED, LADY FREYJA BEDWYN was in about as bad a mood as it was possible to be in.
She dismissed her maid though a truckle bed had been set up in her room and the girl had been preparing to sleep on it. But Alice snored, and Freyja had no wish to sleep with a pillow wrapped about her head and pressed to both ears merely so that the proprieties might be observed.
“But his grace gave specific instructions, my lady,” the girl reminded her timidly.
“In whose service are you employed?” Freyja asked, her tone quelling. “The Duke of Bewcastle's or mine?”
Alice looked at her anxiously as if she suspected that it was a trick question—as well she might. Although she was Freyja's maid, it was the Duke of Bewcastle, Freyja's eldest brother, who paid her salary.
“Yours, my lady,” Alice said.
“Then leave.” Freyja pointed at the door.
Alice looked at it dubiously. “There is no lock on it, my lady,” she said.
“And if there are intruders during the night, you are going to protect me from harm?” Freyja asked scornfully. “It would more likely be the other way around.”
Alice looked pained, but she had no choice but to leave.
And so Freyja was left in sole possession of a second-rate room in a second-rate inn with no servant in attendance—and no lock on the door. And in possession too of a thoroughly bad temper.
Bath was not a destination to inspire excited anticipation in her bosom. It was a fine spa and had once attracted the crème de la crème of English society. But no longer. It was now the genteel gathering place of the elderly and infirm and those with no better place to go—like her. Under ordinary circumstances Freyja would have politely declined the invitation.
These were not ordinary cir
cumstances.
She had just been in Leicestershire, visiting her ailing grandmother at Grandmaison Park and attending the wedding there of her brother Rannulf to Judith Law. She was to have returned home to Linsey Hall in Hampshire with Wulfric—the duke—and Alleyne and Morgan, her younger brother and sister. But the prospect of being there at this particular time had proved quite intolerable to her and so she had seized upon the only excuse that had presented itself not to return home quite yet.
Last year Wulfric and the Earl of Redfield, their neighbor at Alvesley Park, had arranged a match between Lady Freyja Bedwyn and Kit Butler, Viscount Ravensberg, the earl's son. The two of them had known each other all their lives and had fallen passionately in love four years ago during a summer when Kit was home on leave from his regiment in the Peninsula. But Freyja had been all but betrothed to his elder brother, Jerome, at the time and she had allowed herself to be persuaded into doing the proper and dutiful thing—she had let Wulfric announce her engagement to Jerome. Kit had returned to the Peninsula in a royal rage. Jerome had died before the nuptials could take place.
Jerome's death had made Kit the elder son and heir of the Earl of Redfield, and suddenly a marriage between him and Freyja had been both eligible and desirable. Or so everyone in both families had thought—including Freyja.
But not, apparently, including Kit.
It had not occurred to Freyja that he might be bound upon revenge. But he had been. When he had arrived home for what everyone expected to be their betrothal celebrations, he had brought a fiancée with him—the oh-so-proper, oh-so-lovely, oh-so-dull Lauren Edgeworth. And after Freyja had boldly called his bluff, he had married Lauren.
Now the new Lady Ravensberg was about to give birth to their first child. Like the dull, dutiful wife she was, she would undoubtedly produce a son. The earl and countess would be ecstatic. The whole neighborhood would doubtless erupt into wild jubilation.