The Smithfield Bargain

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  “My request is simple, Romayne. You shall endeavor to do nothing to allow yourself to be in his company. If you have the misfortune to find yourself in Montcrief’s company, you shall excuse yourself immediately.”

  “No.”

  The duke’s steps were not slowed by age as he came to stand on the opposite side of the chair. He stabbed the air with the end of his cheroot. “Romayne, while you live in Westhampton Hall, you shall heed my injunctions.”

  “I cannot.” Could he not see he was breaking her heart with his want-witted demands? She did not want to have to choose between her grandfather and Bradley.

  “There shall be no more discussion of this. You have heard my order, and I trust that you will obey it. I trust as well that I shall not have to speak to Grange to be certain you obey it.”

  He sat in the chair and reached for one of the papers on the table. Staring at him, Romayne blinked back the tears that pricked her eyes. Her grandfather could not be so unfeeling. Never had he failed to listen when she spoke of the longings in her heart. Perhaps she had not impressed on him how desperately she wished to become Bradley’s wife.

  Softly she said, “Grandfather, Bradley wishes to marry me.”

  “That is impossible,” he answered without looking at her. “If marriage is what you wish and you decide you will not do the wise thing and wed George Newman, I promise I shall find you a suitable match on the Marriage Mart next Season.”

  “I don’t want the ‘suitable match’ you have selected for me. I want to marry the man I choose is suitable for me.”

  When he gave her one of his rusty laughs, she flinched. He dropped the page onto the table and raised his gaze to hers. “Romayne, I would agree, but choose another. Montcrief is not a suitable match for you.”

  “Why?”

  “The reasons are ones that I would not repeat in the presence of your delicate, feminine ears.”

  “Grandfather—”

  The duke’s lips tightened into a scowl. “I will listen to no more of this unbecoming pleading. I forbid you to see Montcrief again. Do you understand?”

  Tears battering against her eyelashes, she nodded. She understood that she had no choice but to meet Bradley that night to flee to Scotland to marry. Every hope of convincing her grandfather to comprehend her yearning to wed Bradley was dead.

  The Duke of Westhampton watched in silence as his granddaughter ran from the room, reminding him of the impetuous child she had been. While she was a child no longer, she remained his responsibility. The door slammed after her, and he winced. He rubbed his fingers across his forehead where pain scored his skin.

  Damn Montcrief for twisting her girlish heart with his well-practiced court-promises!

  Rising, he walked to the closest window. He cursed again under his breath. That worthless Montcrief had filled her head with his bangers, the most recent clearly his failure to tell Romayne that he had spoken to the Duke of Westhampton of his wish to call on Romayne.

  Blast that man! He was causing Romayne to consider a trivial fancy as something far more important. The young rakehell did not love his granddaughter, although he was beginning to suspect that Romayne might have an honest affection for her suitor. In the years since she had come to him an infant orphan, not once had Romayne battled him so bitterly.

  He glanced toward the painted ceiling. He did not see the cherubs floating on a dusky cloud between the rafters as he thought of how, in her chambers on the upper floor, Romayne would be crying. He could hear the resonance of her grief in his heart, but no tears filled his aged eyes. With that knowledge a prick of surprise taunted him. He once had been able to cry as she would be doing, able to rend his heart at the injustices he perceived and was unable to right, even if it had been to his detriment as Romayne’s obsession for Montcrief was to her. For a moment, he wondered if weeping would ease the familiar tightness cramping him. Then he knew this course of thoughts was useless.

  Once he could have cried, but no longer. Too many tragedies had passed through his life until every tear within him had evaporated. He would not share his granddaughter’s misery when she discovered that he was correct. Marrying Bradley Montcrief would destroy her life. He must prevent that, even if denying Romayne broke her heart.

  Chapter Two

  “It should not be long now.”

  The words, spoken in a beloved voice, intruded oddly on Romayne’s dreams. She did not want to wake, for she had been dreaming of the moment when she could speak her wedding vows with Bradley Montcrief. In a luscious dress of white silk, lace tippets dripping from its shoulders, she would put her hand in Bradley’s as he slipped a ring onto her finger. She sighed. The dream was gone … for now.

  Opening her eyes, she found herself surrounded by dark and cold instead of the warmth of her comfortable bedchamber. Fatigue weighed her eyelashes. So easily she could have crawled into her tester bed in her large room in Westhampton Hall and slept until Grange pulled back the gold drapes with the morning light. When the cushions against her aching back bounced, she moaned as her head bumped into the wall.

  “Have you hurt yourself?”

  Focusing her bleary eyes on the shadowed form sitting beside her in the cramped space, Romayne frowned. What was Bradley doing with her unchaperoned, if her bleary eyes were revealing the truth, in the middle of the night?

  “Bradley, where are we?” Although she was eager for the day when she and Bradley could publicly announce the love in their hearts, she would be a widgeon to come to their wedding with her reputation tarnished by an unthinking ride alone.

  Wedding … The word stuck in her mind. Realization followed hastily, and she laughed nervously as she sat straighter. Her reputation was in no peril, for she and Bradley must have reached Coldstream on the far side of the River Tweed. When Bradley had suggested eloping to Scotland yesterday, she could have imagined nothing more romantic. The reality of the long, cold ride had destroyed such illusions.

  “Are you still certain that this is what you wish to do?” came Bradley’s whisper as if he could sense the course of her thoughts.

  “Very sure.” She heard joy singing in her answer. Exhaustion was a small price to pay in exchange for the happiness of becoming Bradley’s wife. “Are you?”

  “Very sure,” he murmured. He folded her kid-gloved hand between his and smiled. When she leaned her head on his shoulder, the thickness of his greatcoat, which he wore against the frigid night beyond the carriage, could not soften his bony ranginess. “Go back to sleep, my sweet. I shall wake you when we have reached our destination.”

  Closing her eyes, Romayne waited for sleep to return. Her happiness faded when she thought of her grandfather’s dismay at her rash decision to flee with Bradley, but the duke had put her into a position where she had had to choose. She did not wish to remain a spinster in Westhampton Hall until she was as thin and old as Grange. If Grandfather had not been so adamant about her not marrying Bradley, she would be home now planning the wedding she had wanted.

  Yet she loved her grandfather with every ounce of her being. That was why she had left a note for him.

  Glancing at Bradley from beneath the wide brim of her bonnet, she hoped he would not be vexed at her unwillingness to follow his command that she should leave no clue behind of their destination. She could not bring herself to leave without informing the household where she was going. Her grandfather possessed a weak heart, and she must not let her joy bring him pain. The note was hidden where her abigail would find it only after an extensive search of her rooms.

  “You are so quiet, my sweet,” Bradley whispered against her blue bonnet.

  Silk rustled in her ear as she lifted her head from his shoulder. Brushing her gloved fingers against the rough wool of her pelisse allowed her an excuse to avoid meeting his eyes. “My thoughts are full of the future.” She winced, hoping he would not guess that she was being false with him.

  When he chuckled, she discovered she had no need for anxiety. Bradley could not hide h
is unrestrained happiness. It was enough for both of them.

  “We are within ambs-ace of being married,” he said in the same whisper. “They called me an addle cove for daring to aspire to marry the beautiful granddaughter of the Duke of Westhampton. So many told me that no woman with your luscious hair and crystal blue eyes would give a man like me as much as a second look. Yet here we are, my sweet Romayne and me.”

  “Are we staying in Coldstream tonight? Is there an inn there?”

  He laughed. “You need not worry, my sweet. I shall be taking care of you from this night forward.”

  “I would like to know.”

  “Why?”

  Romayne was disconcerted by his question. Bradley usually enjoyed planning out their times together to the most trivial detail, and she had not suspected that he would balk at giving her an answer to a reasonable request. Then she felt a pang of guilt. He must be as exhausted as she was.

  “I am tired and cold and cramped from the long ride,” she said, noting that he frowned at the truth. Hearing him mutter something as he peered past the lowered curtain at the window, she asked, “Was I mistaken? I thought I heard the man in the village tell Scribner we should reach Coldstream before nightfall. That was hours ago.”

  “The storm has slowed us.” He pulled on the check-string, and the vehicle came to a stop. When it bounced as the coachman leapt from the box, Bradley raised the curtain and leaned his elbow out. The wind-driven snow lashed them as he called, “Scribner, how much farther to Coldstream?”

  The man hunched within his frozen cloak while he held up a lantern from the box. He stamped his feet as he answered, “I fear the numb-wit we asked for directions misdirected us badly, Mr. Montcrief. This road seems to be leading nowhere. We might be wiser to turn about and return to the main road north.”

  “Do so,” Bradley ordered. He cursed, then apologized hastily to Romayne. “Forgive my frustration, my sweet. When I am so close to having you for my own, it enrages me to be denied even a moment longer.”

  “We have waited so long for this day,” she said soothingly. “Think how much sweeter it shall be to speak our vows when the time finally comes.”

  He grinned, his expression macabre in the long shadows from the dim lantern as Scribner walked back toward the horses. “You make it so simple to love you, Romayne. Tell me that you love me, my dear.”

  She started to answer, raising her hands to his shoulders. Her words were swallowed by the coachman calling a warning.

  Bradley pushed her away as he looked out the carriage window. Snapping an order, he swore again. Romayne started to ask what was wrong, then she heard hoofbeats approaching at a rapid pace on the frozen road. The taut expression on her betrothed’s face warned her he too suspected the sound heralded trouble.

  “Get us out of here!” Bradley bellowed to his coachman.

  Romayne said, “Perhaps if you help Scribner—”

  “Be silent!”

  Romayne gasped at the venom in his voice. Never had he spoken like this to her. She put her hand on his arm, but he shrugged it off as he leaned out the window to call to his coachman.

  Shouts careened through the storm. The carriage jerked, tossing Romayne back against the seat as Scribner tried to turn the vehicle. The road was so narrow that he had to lead the horses in a crazy dance, moving them backward and forward at sharp angles as he tried to get the bulky carriage facing in the opposite direction.

  “Hurry, man! Get us out of here!” shouted Bradley as the coachman clambered back into the box. Folding his arms over his chest, he grumbled, “I should have turned him off years ago. The man is a lame-hand.”

  “He is doing his best, Bradley,” Romayne said, putting her hand over his.

  She gasped when he brushed it away and retorted, “I hope you think so when those high pads catch up with us.”

  Romayne pressed her hands to her mouth. Highwaymen! She had thought they would be free of that threat when the rain outside the carriage had changed into a late-winter snowstorm. Fear clamped its icy claws around her throat, and she clutched her pelisse when the carriage lurched forward as Scribner plied the whip to the horses. She wondered if they could possibly escape. The team hooked to the carriage were tired and pulling a heavy load. The highwaymen’s mounts might be fresh and eager for a run, even in the snow.

  The carriage came to a halt so suddenly that Romayne rocked forward. She winced as pain raced up her arms when she stopped herself with her hands against the front of the carriage. She cried, “Bradley, tell him to drive on! Drive on before—”

  A scream died in her throat as the barrel of a gun pushed aside the curtain in the window beside her. A battered face peered into the coach. She could see little beneath the floppy hat the high pad had pulled low to conceal himself. The cackle of triumphant laughter pinned her against the cushions, but her fingers inched toward Bradley’s. When she could not find his hand, she pulled her gaze from the highwayman’s to discover Bradley was raising his hands over his head in a pose of capitulation.

  “A right charmin’ lady,” cooed the bridle-cull, leaning through her window. Using the end of his gun to tip back her bonnet’s brim, he laughed again as she cringed away. “A right charmin’ lady. Yer wife, sir?”

  “Not yet,” Bradley said through clenched teeth. Romayne could see the strain along his jaw as he struggled not to throw curses into the highwayman’s teeth. She wanted to caution him to hold his temper. One misspoken word and they could be dead.

  “Then she must be yer convenient,” continued the man in his broad, Lowlands accent. “Ye both be right convenient fer us tonight. M’boys thought nobody would be out on such a night, but I told them some fat-pated Englishman would dare to come along Duffie’s road. Ye proved me right again.”

  “What do you want?” Bradley asked.

  “Cooperation, milord.” He pushed his hat back to reveal a nose that had been broken many times. A scar ran along his left cheek, pulling his lips up into a perpetual smirk. “From ye and yer lady.”

  “Leave Lady Romayne alone.”

  “Lady Romayne, is it? A fancy name for yer dasher, milord.”

  She flinched at the man’s insult. She was no Cyprian, and she had no wish to hear her name on his vulgar lips. How she would delight in telling him so, but she must guard her words as closely as Bradley must guard his temper.

  “Take what you wish and begone,” Bradley ordered.

  “Aye, that we will.”

  Romayne steeled herself for his demands. When the gun was withdrawn and the curtain fell back into place, she breathed a ragged sigh of relief. She strained to hear anything to tell her that they were not alone on the country road. If someone else was riding this way, the highwaymen might play least in sight before the law was called down upon their scraggly heads.

  Her hopes vanished when the door was jerked open. A filthy hand grabbed her arm. Horrified, she cried, “Bradley!”

  “Cooperate,” he snarled back.

  She stared at him in disbelief. Had Bradley gone queer in his attic? Slapping at the hand, she heard despicable laughter. The black-hearted collector grasped her arm and pulled her off the seat.

  Her cry for help went unanswered as he lifted her from the carriage and placed her at the edge of the light from the lanterns his men held. There were at least a half-dozen highwaymen, each holding a weapon. Several were trained on Scribner, who was raising his hands in surrender as Bradley had.

  Mud oozed over her low shoes, and icy snow scratched her face. She shivered as the wind taunted her with the odor from the highwaymen. They stank of too much horseflesh and too few baths. With her eyes focused on the pistol in her captor’s hand, she whispered Bradley’s name. How she longed for his arms around her to keep her safe from these thieves!

  “Step to the side,” her captor ordered.

  Romayne faltered, and he jabbed her with the sharp barrel of his pistol. She swallowed her scream as she took an uneasy step through the muck. Looking back, she
watched Bradley emerge from the carriage. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw snowflakes drifting before the guns which glittered in the flickering carriage lantern.

  Her captor, whom she guessed to be the leader of the highwaymen, motioned for Scribner to come down from the box. The nearly frozen coachman obeyed slowly. When a gun rose behind him, Romayne cried a warning. The sound became a gasp of horror as he was knocked to lie sprawled in the thickening snow. A trickle of blood edged along his cap.

  She searched the road in both directions, but it was as deserted as if they stood in the middle of the Highlands instead of on the English side of the River Tweed. Uneven stone walls contorted along the twisting road, then vanished into the night. Not even the lowing of a cow broke the moan of the wind careening through the bare trees which were stretching their spindly fingers over the road.

  Hearing Bradley’s raised voice, Romayne forced herself to suppress her panic so she could listen. His words were snatched away by the squall, but she saw fury in his stance. What could he promise these men when the squires of the pad could take whatever they wished?

  “Bradley—” The poke of a pistol in her back silenced her.

  When Bradley folded his arms against his greatcoat, the highwayman shrugged with insolent nonchalance, then laughed. Bradley clenched his fists.

  Fear cramped her stomach. If Bradley, in his determination to protect her, struck the land-pirate, the other men would attack him. When she took a step toward him, a gun jabbed at her as another man growled a warning.

  His voice must have reached his comrades, for the leader of the highwayman turned. He swaggered through the mud toward her. His laughter was as vicious as a slap when he splashed mire onto her. The dark stain inched along her pale blue coat, bringing icy coldness to climb up her legs.

  She wanted to stamp her feet to keep them warm, but she did not dare. He might see the motion as defiance. Surely Bradley had been right. They must cooperate, so they could escape with their lives. Looking past the highwayman, she frowned in puzzlement when she saw Bradley sitting on the step to the carriage. He looked as unruffled as if they were among bosom bows.