“I cannot hold her down much longer,” Blake shouted. “Stand back!”
“Poor baby,” Miss Carrington crooned idiotically in reply, reaching to pet the mare’s arched neck. “Poor baby, somebody hit you, didn’t they. Calm down, sweetikins, have a treat, and we will make it all better.”
Murmuring in that same senseless manner, she distracted the mare as much as Blake’s brute strength did. Maybe more.
“You’re risking your damned life!” he shouted at her, furious as hell, then bit back his temper as the mare shied from him. He wrapped the reins more firmly in his fist so the damned animal wouldn’t trample his almost fiancée.
“Oh, and you didn’t?” Miss Carrington inquired, casting him an amused but admiring glance as the horse whinnied and seemed to settle. “There is logic in only one of us being maimed and killed?”
“Women are frail and more likely to be injured,” he argued, insensibly apparently, since she’d survived. He hated having his logic disturbed.
“You have an injured toe and a game leg,” she countered. “And you still leaped to the rescue.” She flapped her ridiculously long lashes and beamed that vague smile he’d seen her use on her suitors. “I merely fed the poor thing carrots. You are above all gallant and brave, sir.”
Blake wanted to roar his fury as the charming woman he’d just kissed affected society’s facade of naïveté while a crowd gathered and the carriage’s driver pushed through the throng, shouting. But he resisted, turning his anger to the man who must have lashed his horse to have caused the welt along the animal’s flank.
But the driver did not carry a whip.
“Are you the owner, sir?” Miss Carrington called as the man pulled his cap and bowed to her. “She is such a lovely mare,” she cried fatuously. “I cannot understand why you would need to whip the sweet thing!”
Blake scowled. Despite her missish behavior, she had drawn the same conclusion he had. He would rather punch the man, but he waited with foreboding for the result of Miss Carrington’s less violent approach.
“My poor Molly has never known the sting of a lash,” the driver protested. “I left her with the postboy but half a moment while I fetched the lady’s boxes, and next I knew, she was off down the street!”
Miss Carrington continued to stroke the mare’s nose while Blake took a second look at the painful welt across its flanks. The horse had definitely been struck. “Does your postboy carry a stick?” he asked.
“Tom?” The driver looked enraged. “Tom wouldn’t raise a stick to a rabbit!”
“Someone must have pulled a prank,” Miss Carrington murmured, glancing up the street with a frown. “We’d best let them go before we cause more of a scene.”
Blake’s gaze followed hers, but he recognized no one in the crowd. He would prefer to get to the bottom of the incident, but they were blocking the street. As long as the animal wasn’t routinely mistreated, there was little more he could do here.
Except he’d just discovered there was far more to Miss Carrington than fluttering lashes and vacuous expressions. She was as suspicious of the incident as he, which ought to worry him. Instead, he was intrigued. Puzzles, after all, were his specialty.
In a flurry of gratitude for preventing the horse’s harm, the driver led his carrot-chomping mare away.
Blake glared down at the dainty female who was now taking his arm as if they hadn’t just courted death. “Do you generally defy common sense in dangerous situations?” he asked.
She patted his arm and offered him a devastating smile. “I do not generally encounter dangerous situations, sir,” she said with a trilling laugh, before stooping down to retrieve her kitten basket. “You are the one who seems to attract them.”
He frowned but did not take up that unpleasant observation. “Shall I drop my dangerous suit for the sake of your well-being, then?”
She laughed again, following his long strides without difficulty. “If I must marry to have a home, your ill humors and dangerous predilections are preferable to my other choices,” she said with what sounded like good cheer.
Blake slanted her a suspicious look. “I do not have ill humors.”
“You are a surly bear,” she countered. “But fortunately I like bears.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh at her complacent tone or argue with her sentiment. “Must I escort you to fetes and musicales before I dare ask for your hand?”
He hadn’t meant to say that. This whole episode had taken off on tangents that didn’t fit his master plan. He’d thought her a fairly insensible young miss and meant to woo her with kittens and gallantry. He would prove he could be charming, escort her about town so everyone expected an announcement, speak with her solicitors and his parents, then ask to meet with whomever was responsible for her. That was the way it was supposed to be done.
But that was before she’d wooed a panicked mare with carrots, then laughed, calling forth in him another urge to kiss her. Or throttle her. Depending on the cause of the laughter, he supposed.
She shot him a smile so blindingly bright that Blake nearly staggered. He, who had stood courageously in three duels, four if the one with Bernie counted, floundered beneath a woman’s enticing smile. He was damned glad his friends weren’t here to notice.
“The choice of entertainment this time of year is limited,” she said pragmatically. “I do not have a father with whom you might discuss settlements, and I am of age, so my pig of a half brother knows nothing of my business. I suppose you might consult with Lady Belden and the solicitor who handles my inheritance, if you wish to be proper—when you are ready, of course.”
Viscount Carrington, as the head of her family, was a definite disadvantage that he must maneuver around. Guiltily, Blake wondered if he ought to tell her how he’d once shot Harold, but it would not reflect well on either of them. “Is there more I should know about the brother you call a pig?” he asked.
“Besides that he put my mother, my brother, and me out of our home as soon as he came into the estate? No, not particularly.”
“Why would he throw you out?” Blake asked.
Miss Carrington shrugged. “The reasons are many, I’m sure. I believe the last straw came the evening I insisted that we go through with my come-out as planned, and Richard got into a fight with my sister-in-law over the birds. Harold intervened, and my mother swatted him with a broom. We are not a tight-knit family,” she finished wryly.
“So you are estranged and that was not Harold I saw departing Lady Belden’s when I arrived?” he asked, hating to doubt her honesty.
“Oh, no doubt it was,” she said with a shrug. “He scarcely acknowledged my existence until I came into my inheritance and moved in with a marchioness. He’s been calling regularly since then. I daresay his wife is eager to cozy up to me now that I have funds and connections. I have had my revenge by giving them the cut direct and refusing to accept their calls.”
“Vicious little viper, aren’t you?” Blake said without thinking, rather enjoying her feminine idea of vengeance on a man he detested.
They were almost back at Lady Belden’s, and Blake was oddly reluctant to let Miss Carrington go. He supposed he would overcome that weakness with time. “The name Jocelyn is unusual. Is it a family name?”
“In a way,” she said dryly. “My mother is something of a historian. There was a knight named Jocelyn on the Byrd family tree somewhere back in the fourteenth century.”
He was amused by her chatter. And the blond wisp blowing against her cheek. She laughed, and the infectious sound pushed him over the edge and into the abyss. She had money and was beautiful. Did it matter if she was related to a treacherous bastard like Carrington? “So, Miss Jocelyn Byrd-Carrington, will becoming a Byrd-Montague suit?”
Blake couldn’t believe he’d said that while standing on the front step of Belden House, in full view of half a dozen carriages, a street sweeper, and two stout matrons. He’d resisted this moment for nearly thirty years—if one didn’t cou
nt their discussion at the house party—and now, a simple brush with death had reduced him to acting on impulse.
Perhaps it was better this way, rather like yanking an aching tooth immediately instead of suffering days of agony fretting about it.
Long lashes framed the tilt of her exotic eyes as she turned them upward to peruse his face. She wore a rose bonnet with pink ribbons that nearly concealed all her silken tresses. He had to resist brushing that one wisp from her cheek.
She actually looked intrigued by his question, as if they hadn’t been dancing around it this past half hour. “I hadn’t thought of being a Montague. I fear, in the past, I did not give much thought to the wedded state. But I do relish the thought of having my very own home. And you are the most interesting man to have asked me.”
He wanted to growl and inquire how many fools she had rejected, but his intellect overruled his impulse this time. She thought him interesting? He waited.
“It’s possible that we might suit, Mr. Montague, if you do not mind Richard or his birds. And possibly my mother, although she does not like being moved about.”
Her brother was of little consequence. In his experience, sisters were far more irritating. And mothers—but an invalid parent would keep to her room. He minded keeping the wretched bird, but not enough to take back his offer. Portugal, deciphering the French code, and saving England prevailed over a rude fowl.
“Percy will inhabit the conservatory,” he said dismissively. “I would not let a mere bird stand in the way of my acquiring the most beautiful woman in England.”
She gave an elegant little snort. “You need not gammon me, sir. I thought we were to have no illusions between us. I am feckless and irritating, but my lineage is as good as yours, and I can provide what you want, if you will provide what I want. It’s the other details that I have not thought of that worry me.”
“You are far from feckless, but if you will consider my suit, allow me to deal with the details that worry you. Husbands should be of some use.”
She blinked, apparently startled by the concept of a man being of use. Her expression was so endearing that Blake bent and planted a kiss upon the frown forming between her eyes. “Is that a yes, Miss Carrington?”
She nodded, her eyes almost round with wonder. “Yes, I do believe it is, Mr. Montague.”
10
Blake Montague single-handedly stopped a panicked horse! Jocelyn thought as she slipped upstairs. Most gentlemen would have preferred to keep their boots dust-free and leave the livestock to servants. They certainly wouldn’t have risked their lives for the safety of strangers. She had never known a man with so much courage. And foolhardiness, she must admit. He could have been crushed.
So could a lot of other people, plus the poor animal.
She pondered the possibility that she’d seen Harold walking away from the frightening scene with the runaway horse. It wouldn’t have been the first time her half brother’s temper had turned to retaliation, and she had insulted him by refusing to accept his calls. He could have followed her. One would think age might have mellowed him, though.
Lady Belden arrived in the doorway as soon as Jocelyn reached her chamber. “Well? Was Mr. Montague arrogant enough to bypass my consent and ask you directly?”
Jocelyn welcomed the distraction. Casually, she dropped her bonnet on the bed. “He is a man who plans ahead. If I do not mistake, first, he will consult with his father about the house. Then he will ask to speak to you and my solicitor about my inheritance. And then we will discuss the announcement. But yes, I do believe we have an understanding.”
Jocelyn patted her chest and tried to breathe again, as she had not been quite able to do since Mr. Montague had kissed her. Her head had been spinning even before the carriage incident. He’d kissed her. Deeply. Profoundly. She had not thought the stern Mr. Montague contained such passion. She, herself, had never experienced the like. It had been marvelous. She shook her head, trying not to let sentimentality interfere with her thinking, but the fact remained, Mr. Montague was overwhelming.
She was frightened that in marrying him, she might be doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.
But Mr. Montague was a tactician. He would ponder and study every possible detail before committing to this marriage. That was both reassuring and wholly terrifying. She had no reason to trust men, but she was trusting this one with her future.
Lady Belden tilted her head and regarded Jocelyn with curiosity. “You are not singing his praises? Dancing with eagerness? You have apparently just received a proposal of marriage, and you do no more than take off your hat? Is there no heart in your chest?”
Jocelyn beamed her happiness at her hostess. “You are a gem among women for allowing me the benefit of your sponsorship and for enduring my crotchets for as long as you have. I am eternally grateful and wish that there was some way in which I could return the favor. I have never been happier than I have been these past six months. Forgive me if I regret giving up that freedom to a man who will control my fortune and my future.”
Lady Belden nodded her acknowledgment. “I keep forgetting how much good sense you conceal beneath that blond artlessness. If Montague follows the proper course, as you say, and you are agreeable, then I will not stand in the way of the match. But I will see that he does not control all your fortune,” she said with a determination that did not bode well for Mr. Montague.
Jocelyn hoped a marchioness had the power to flout English law, which treated women as if they were little more than mindless pets. In the meantime, she must find some way to see what state Harold had left Carrington House in. The very thought of owning it again provoked dizzying happiness.
Surely, once she married, Harold would not bother her again.
As was her experience, Jocelyn’s happiness lasted only a short while, until that evening at the theater. While Lady Belden lingered to gossip in the corridor with her cronies at intermission, Jocelyn curtsied to a gentleman who had provided her with lemonade and brushed aside the curtain in order to enter Lady Belden’s box and regain her seat.
Harold, Viscount Carrington, and his pestilent nuisance of a French wife awaited her on the other side. At forty, Harold hid his receding hairline beneath his hat, but even a good girdle could not conceal his expanding waistline, and no amount of neckcloth could conceal his jowls. Antoinette, on the other hand, retained her slender, childless figure, luxurious dark locks, and taut jaw—made more so by her forced grimace of a smile.
Jocelyn glanced about for her maid, but they’d apparently sent the silly twit on an errand. Most maids did not know to fear brothers. Or sisters-in-law, even if they were sleek, sharp-edged, and very French. And smirking unpleasantly.
Resenting that the pair must once more force themselves into her life, Jocelyn smiled vapidly and fluttered her fan. She had learned that it served her well to let the enemy underestimate her, but now that she had come into her independence, she was having difficulty pretending she was still a foolish child. “Why, Harold, how vastly entertaining that you must seek me out instead of the other way around!”
“We are family,” he said stiffly. “We should look out for one another.”
She tittered and batted her fan against his cheek. “And how very well you have done that, too! I suppose, in return for all the thoughtful care you have provided over the years, you have come to ask for a favor.”
In her heavily accented English, Antoinette replied for him. “You and your useless family drained the estate until it was little more than a fraction of what Harold should have inherited. You owe us.”
Jocelyn covered her mouth as if in astonishment at her thoughtlessness. “Oh, my, yes, I’m sure. Why did I not think of that? Papa simply wasted fortunes in feeding us, did he not? Such a shame. And clothing! Why, Mama must have spent all of forty pounds on her round gowns over the years. But surely Harold regained that amount when he sold Percy.” She added spitefully, “I have retrieved him, you know.”
She didn’
t know why she’d taunted them with that bit of news, but she enjoyed watching the pair grow pale with rage. She didn’t like the way Antoinette’s eyes narrowed, but she couldn’t seem to stop her malicious chatter. “Perhaps you thought I should repay the forty pounds for Mama’s gowns?” she asked mockingly.
“Let us say four hundred, and we will call it even for now,” Harold retorted.
Jocelyn blinked. After paying for her wardrobe and Richard’s caretaker, that was almost all she had left of this year’s funds. What on earth was going through the maggot’s head that he dared believe she’d give him such a sum?
Direct confrontation had never worked for her, though. Rather than push him over the balcony, she offered a blank expression. “I cannot imagine why you think I’d call that fair.”
“Because without it, I won’t sign over Richard’s guardianship papers to you. Our brothers-in-law have petitioned me to take him off their hands. If I do, he can rot in an attic or break his neck on the stairs for all I care, and you won’t be able to do a damned thing about it.”
They shoved past her and walked out, not giving her time to think, much less argue.
“You did not tell me you’d sold the bird! I thought you said the duke promised torture and punishment if anything happened to it,” a man’s voice murmured angrily in the alley beside the theater.
Waiting for his carriage, Quentin remained in the shadows and strained to hear more. Sometimes knowing what was flowing through the currents of London could make his pockets richer. Sometimes knowledge just made life more amusing. He had reason to recognize Viscount Carrington’s furious voice and was prepared to be amused.
“She stole it! Your blamed idiot sister stole the bird! And the duke thinks I ought to marry the thieving tart!”
Quentin had no difficulty identifying this speaker as Ogilvie, the Duke of Fortham’s not-so-charming lump of an heir. If the duke thought Miss Carrington was nod-cock enough to marry Ogilvie, His Grace seriously underestimated the lady.
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