A Wicked Pursuit

by Isabella Bradford

  Harry’s manservant, Tewkes, did his best to see that he was shaved and combed and handsomely dressed, and prepared his special restorative with beaten raw eggs. Harry had dutifully swallowed this concoction, swearing mightily at the foul taste—which was part of its potency. He patted his chest to make sure that the plush box with his mother’s betrothal ring was tucked deep into his waistcoat pocket, ready to be produced at the proper moment, and then two minutes later checked again to make sure it was still there. Finally he headed down the stairs through the still-sleeping house and out to the stables, his long-caped greatcoat billowing behind him.

  The driving rain that had made yesterday’s journey so unpleasant had stopped in the night, but puddles remained across the graveled stable yard, and water still dripped from the sodden eaves. Worse still, a thick fog had replaced the rain, a chill, wet mist that clung close to the ground, masking the tops of trees and the roofs of buildings.

  The fog seemed to echo the thickness in Harry’s head, and if Julia were not waiting as his prize, he would have gladly retreated to his bed. Instead he persevered, his polished boots sloshing through the puddles to the stable.

  And there, at last, like a golden fairy in the mists, was Julia—soon to be his Julia—warming her hands before a small brazier that the grooms had lit for that express purpose. She was dressed in a soft gray habit trimmed with a lavish amount of silver lace that sparkled in the light of the hot coals, and a charmingly foolish black cocked hat with a single curling feather. Though the habit covered her to her chin, the soft wool was so closely tailored to her body that her waist looked impossibly small and her breasts high and full, and he thought again of how perfect a wife she would be.

  “Good morning, my lord,” she said, making a quick curtsey and deftly managing to keep her skirts from the puddles. The grooms and stablemen faded away, back into the shadows, giving them privacy. “And a fine morn it is, too, isn’t it?”

  “It’s wretched,” Harry said, smiling as he held his gloved hands over the brazier to warm them. “Don’t pretend otherwise.”

  She laughed, and the warmth of her smile banished the remaining chill of the morning. It was cozy and intimate standing here with her, watching how her breath came out from her lips in little clouds. Her cheeks were rosy, and tiny blond wisps had escaped from beneath the foolish hat to dance around her face.

  “You are looking quite handsome this morning, my lord,” she said, eyeing him up and down, and from her smile she clearly approved of what she saw. “How fortunate I am to have such a manly squire to ride with me.”

  “I am entirely your servant, Miss Wetherby,” he said, feeling as if the very air between them crackled with desire. If she’d been any other woman, he would have seized this opportunity and kissed her, but because she was going to be his wife, he was determined to be respectful. It wasn’t going to be easy; he was much more accustomed to beautiful women obliging him however and whenever he wished. A future wife was different from a mistress, though, and he would force himself to wait until after she’d accepted his proposal, no matter how powerful a temptation she might be.

  Likely she knew it, too, from the seductive way she turned to glance out beyond the dripping eaves.

  “The weather’s not so very bad, my lord,” she said. “And it’s a proper morn for Norfolk.”

  “That does little to recommend Norfolk to me,” he said, resolving that, once they were wed, they’d never return to Norfolk again. “We don’t have to go riding, you know. I can speak to you just as easily in your father’s drawing room, and we’d both keep dry.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, my lord,” she said, adjusting her hat to dip a fraction lower over one eye. “You’ve told me yourself that you always begin your day by riding in the park, and I couldn’t possibly disrupt your ordinary morning routine.”

  He smiled, liking how she peeked coyly from beneath the hat’s brim. “Today is different, Miss Wetherby. There is nothing ordinary about it, because you are sharing it with me.”

  She smiled, too, and glanced over her shoulder to the grooms before she leaned forward over the brazier, lowering her voice to a husky whisper.

  “That is exactly why I wish to ride, my lord,” she confessed. “Because if this day is all I pray it shall be, then it must be perfection, and I don’t wish us to be disturbed by Papa, or some busy parlor maid.”

  “Not at all,” he murmured. So she did understand why he was here, the dear minx. God knows she should. Hadn’t she been leading him along through an entire London season of well-chaperoned dinners and balls and operas?

  “No, no, no,” she said, licking her tongue daintily over her lower lip. “I have never been alone with a gentleman, my lord, but today, with you, I intend to do exactly—exactly—that. Ahh, here are the grooms with our horses now.”

  He didn’t give a damn about the horses, not after that. How could he? He knew an invitation when he heard one, especially from a lady.

  “This is my dear Tansey,” Julia was saying fondly, stroking the mare’s nose beneath her bridle while the groom held her. “Papa has offered you Hercules, my lord. Hercules is his own special favorite, you know, and Papa’s never trusted him with anyone else. Isn’t he a splendid beast?”

  “No question of that,” Harry said, noting how the big black gelding required two grooms, one on each side, to bring him into the yard. It wasn’t a good sign. The horse was obviously strong, restlessly pulling at the grooms who held his bridle. Depending on one’s perspective, the horse was either very spirited or simply ill trained, and neither possibility was encouraging. But if her stout old father could master Hercules, then Harry was certain he could as well.

  He followed Julia, the two horses, and the grooms out into the misty yard. He liked watching her walk. She had to pull her trailing skirts to one side to keep them from the puddles, and that tugged fabric gave her hips an enticing sway. She used the carriage steps to climb up onto her sidesaddle, letting him catch a glimpse of bright yellow stockings above her black riding boots. Still he watched as she arranged her skirts over the sidesaddle and across her legs. He’d seen her on horseback in Hyde Park, and knew she was an excellent rider, yet still he admired the effortless grace with which she sat on her mare, her breasts high and her back straight as any Amazon.

  Really, was there anything more he could wish for in a wife?

  “Forgive me for being impatient, my lord,” she teased, smiling down at him, “but I do believe Tansey is falling asleep beneath me while you dawdle.”

  “I wouldn’t make a wager on that, Miss Wetherby.” He seized the reins from the groom and swung himself up onto Hercules. “We’ll soon enough see who dawdles.”

  She laughed merrily and gave her horse a quick tap of her crop to urge her on. At once the little mare jumped forward and trotted through the yard’s gates. Harry gathered his reins and dug his heels into Hercules’s sides, urging him to follow. But the big horse wanted none of it, turning restive and skittering backward with decidedly unherculean cowardice.

  Chagrined, Harry tried to calm the nervous horse. He’d always prided himself on being able to ride any mount he was given, but usually that meant the most fiery of steeds, not this quivering equine milksop. By now Julia was out of sight, and he didn’t have to look to know the grooms were all smirking around him. It was not an auspicious beginning to his proposal.

  Swearing under his breath, he dug his heels into the horse’s sides. Hercules whinnied, then launched himself forward as if he’d been shot from a cannon. Startled as he was, Harry held on as the horse raced through the same gate where Julia had disappeared. This wasn’t what he’d expected from Hercules, but it was a sight better than moping about the stable yard. A spirited horse was much more to his taste, and one that would carry him closer to Julia, too.

  While he’d no notion of where she’d gone, her horse’s hoofprints in the wet, sandy soil showed her path as surely as a signboard. He realized now that she’d meant all this as a kin
d of game, that she’d wanted him to chase her all over creation before he finally proposed, and he had to admit he found the notion of hunting her down like a wily vixen more than a little exciting.

  Swiftly he followed her tracks along a drive, through an orchard, and across a mowed field; over a shallow creek and down into a small stand of trees. The fog had gathered here, betraying their nearness to the sea, and was so thick it completely hid the tops of the trees.

  Harry reined in the horse and began to pick his way through the trees and underbrush with more care. The last thing he wished was to crack his skull open on a low branch. It was more difficult to tell her path here, and he had to search carefully for the broken foliage and hoofprints that marked her way. Hercules didn’t like the slower pace—or perhaps it was the fog that unsettled him. He kept making anxious little huffs, his ears swiveling uneasily at the slightest chirping bird or cracking twig.

  “Miss Wetherby?” he called. He sensed she was nearby in the fog, watching him, and he’d chased her long enough. “Come, Miss Wetherby. Join me, please, so we may speak.”

  Still there was no response. The fog made the woods eerily silent.

  “Miss Wetherby?” he called again, raising his voice. “Miss Wetherby! Where in blazes are you?”

  “I’m here before you, my lord,” Julia said, whooping and laughing with delight as she popped directly into his path from behind a thicket of bushes. She swept him a grand curtsey on the dry leaves, her mare’s reins in one hand. “Aren’t you surprised?”

  Harry was surprised, yes, but not nearly as surprised as Hercules. The horse took one look at Julia’s spread skirts and glittering silver lace and that twitching black plume on her hat, and jerked backward. His eyes rolled and his head thrashed and he snorted with distress, and the harder Harry tried to rein him back, the more the horse panicked. He danced backward two steps, and Harry thought he’d won back his control.

  But suddenly Hercules reared up, lashing out with his front hooves. Harry had a single glimpse of Julia’s terrified, upturned face before him as, with all his strength, he wrestled the horse’s head away from her. Hercules twisted and lurched, bucking backward. Harry felt himself thrown from the saddle, and for an instant that seemed at once fleeting and interminable he hurtled through the air. Then he hit the ground hard, the uncivil shock of landing the last thing he remembered.

  When he woke—was it after minutes or hours?—he was lying on his back in a pile of dried leaves and branches. Everything else was spinning crazily overhead, so fast that he quickly shut his eyes again. The spinning continued, as if his head weren’t connected to his body. Yet if that were so, then his head wouldn’t be so acutely aware of the driving pain in his left leg. He tried to move, hoping that might ease the pain, yet movement only increased it, so sharp that he could do nothing more than gasp and swear.

  “Oh, my lord, thank God you’re still alive!”

  He forced himself to open his eyes again, squinting upward. Julia’s face was in the center of the spinning trees as she leaned over him, or at least a version of her face with four eyes. She was crying, which was gratifying—perhaps the only gratifying thing about his present situation.

  Manfully he tried to sit upright, but only managed to push himself up on one elbow. That was enough—more than enough—both to worsen the spinning in his head and to send a fresh bolt of pain from his leg. To his mortification, he felt the last of Tewkes’s potion make a lurching, precipitous rise from his stomach, and he barely turned to his side before he vomited on the ground beside him.

  “Oh, heavens, my lord,” Julia exclaimed from somewhere nearby. Fortunately she wasn’t hovering over him any longer, or he would have puked on her, too. “I don’t suppose you can help me catch Hercules now, can you?”

  He sank back to the ground, his eyes closed. So much for being manful.

  “No,” he rasped. “I cannot.”

  “No, I suppose you can’t,” she said. “I had better go back to the house for help. I’ll return, I promise. And here—here is my handkerchief, my lord, if that will help.”

  She tucked her handkerchief into his fingers, fine linen with a profusion of lace and an even greater quantity of perfume. He smelled it even without lifting the handkerchief to his face, and a fresh wave of nausea roiled through him in protest.

  “Thank you,” he somehow said. “Thank you.”

  But Julia didn’t hear it. She’d already turned, climbed back onto Tansey, and ridden away. He tried not to feel abandoned. He hoped her haste showed her concern, and not that he was such vastly unpleasant company—which, of course, he was. She should realize that none of this was the way he’d wanted the day to go, either, and he was thinking that still as the combination of the pain in his leg and that in his head claimed him again, drawing him back into the relief of unconsciousness.

  The relief did not last, however, nor did his solitude.

  “My lord Hargreave,” the woman said. “Can you hear me?”

  It didn’t sound entirely like Julia. Not only was the timbre deeper, without her girlishness, but there was far more authority in this voice than Julia would ever be able to muster. Still, he dared hope it might be her, and he dragged his eyes open a fraction.

  His disappointment was severe. This was not his golden-haired goddess, but some plain-faced young servant, her brown hair scraped back beneath a linen cap and a rough wool shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She seemed familiar, and then he remembered that she’d been the one he’d sent to Julia when he’d first arrived last night. He was vaguely aware of other servants around him, too, the same stablemen he’d left behind earlier, but no sign of Julia.

  “There you are, my lord,” the young woman said. She had pale gray eyes the same color as the fog, eyes that now showed much concern for him. “You’re gravely hurt, I fear, but the fact that you’ve responded this much is a welcome sign. You’re doubtless quite thirsty. Here, let me give you a sip of this.”

  He was thirsty, far thirstier than he’d realized. Gently she raised his still-spinning head, cradling it in the crook of her arm as she tipped a spoonful of water to his lips.

  He’d never tasted anything so good. “More,” he whispered hoarsely. “Please.”

  “I can’t, my lord,” she said. “Not if there’s any risk of you falling unconscious again. I won’t have you choke while you’re in my care.”

  “I won’t,” he said, meaning that he didn’t intend to choke or lose consciousness again. He’d lost his memory of how exactly he’d come to this state, too, with little before being thrown from his horse. He’d already been weakling enough, and his determination must see him through this. “Please.”

  “No, my lord,” she said, smiling to soften her refusal. “I do not believe you are capable of making such assurances at present.”

  He grunted, from pain and irritation. Who was she to refuse him anything?

  “I’m sorry, my lord,” she said gently, hearing only the pain. “I fear things will grow worse before they’re better. We’re going to shift you onto a litter and carry you back to the house, where the surgeon will be waiting to tend to you properly.”

  “Send—send for Sir Randolph Peterson, in Harley Street,” he managed to say. “The surgeon.”

  “We will,” she said, her assurance comforting. He was vaguely aware of the men moving around him, making arrangements with the litter. He knew he could not lie here in the leaves forever, but he was not looking forward to being moved. The woman was right: as much pain as he felt now, he was sure to feel far more before he was done.

  “Miss Wetherby?” he asked. In a way he hoped she wasn’t there, and wouldn’t see him like this. What a fetching picture he must make, covered with dirt and leaves and vomit!

  “She’ll be waiting at the house, my lord,” the woman assured him. “The men are ready. They’ll be as gentle as they can.”

  They might have thought they were being gentle, but Harry felt every jostle and bump with excruciating sha
rpness. His leg hurt more than he’d ever thought possible, hurting so much that he couldn’t even swear. He was shaking with shock and clammy with sweat, and he could sense the dark cloud of unconsciousness coming to claim him again.

  “You’re a strong man, my lord,” the woman said, tucking a woolen blanket around him as if he were a swaddling babe. “A brave one, too. Here, take my hand, and squeeze it whenever you feel the pain’s too great to bear. I’ll be walking beside you, and I promise I won’t let go.”

  Her hand was surprisingly soft, her fingers warm and more comforting than he’d ever dreamed a woman’s could be. She wouldn’t let him go. He felt certain of that.

  She wouldn’t . . . let him . . . go . . .

  CHAPTER

  2

  In a straight-backed chair, Miss Augusta Wetherby sat beside Lord Hargreave’s bed, watching over the man who loved her sister.

  The curtains were drawn and the room was dark except for the light from the fire in the grate, the way the doctor had ordered. There was just enough light for Miss Augusta—or Gus, as she was known within the family—to see the earl’s pale, drawn face against the pillow, his eyes closed in the deep sleep that the laudanum had brought.

  Sleep, but clearly no peace. Suffering shadowed his closed eyes, and pain had carved its mark on his handsome features. A day’s growth of beard only emphasized his pallor, as did his dark hair tousled against the white linen. The counterpane covered his splinted and bandaged leg, raised and contained in a wood-and-leather contraption called a fracture-box. There was nothing more to be done for him now, and so Gus sat, her hands busy knitting a stocking as she tried not to think of the danger in which the earl so clearly remained.

  She had been here most all of yesterday and through last night, and now this morning as well. It was hardly expected of her, nor was it necessary, either. Dr. Leslie had brought a hired nurse with him from Norwich, a grim-faced woman in a starched apron named Mrs. Patton. His lordship’s distraught servant, Tewkes, was also more than willing to sit by his master’s bed, and it really would have been more proper for him to take that role instead of one of the unwed daughters of the house.