The Marquess

by Patricia Rice

Dillian had the nerve to give him a saucy grin. “You went back covered in bloody gashes and scared her to death. She deserved her bald-headed merchant.”

  He could correct her, but he didn’t. He liked this version better. He’d been a bastard, no doubt, but he’d been an honorable one. He just hadn’t thought his face that important at the time. He’d learned differently soon enough.

  “I suspect you need spectacles, Miss Whitnell, but I’ll be satisfied that you don’t run screaming from my presence.”

  Gavin unfastened the ribbon of her chemise and gazed with satisfaction on the portion of her breasts revealed. He pushed the soft material aside and caressed her nipple. He loved the way she arched instinctively into his palm for more.

  “I may not scream in horror, but I don’t promise not to scream in outrage,” she warned, but her hand made its way to his chest and tugged at the fastenings there.

  Enjoying the badinage, he pushed her bodice off her shoulder. “Outrage is acceptable.”

  He took her mouth again, drowning all the years of loneliness in her welcoming response. His soul craved her acceptance, her comfort, her understanding. His body craved the release she could give him. He only acknowledged the latter.

  Gavin scarcely heeded the scream of the horses as he trailed his kisses from Dillian’s mouth to her breast. Her moans provoked his senses and sent him to new heights of arousal. He had her gown eased up to her knees, and his hands climbed higher. He didn’t have time for screaming horses.

  Screaming horses. The carriage jerked to a halt, nearly tumbling them both from the seat. Gavin hastily shoved Dillian back on the bench and reached into the pocket of his cloak for his pistol. He kept a solid grip on his cane with the other hand. A flick of the wrist would release the deadly sword blade hidden there, but he preferred that method of fighting as a last line of defense. He leaned over and pushed the window shade aside.

  “Can you see anything?” Dillian whispered. He sensed her pulling her bodice back in place, and Gavin cursed. If Mac had just hit a tree stump, he’d have the driver’s head. His loins hadn’t stopped throbbing just because of this little delay.

  “Stand and deliver!” a masculine voice roared from the side of the road.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake.” Disgusted, Gavin gauged the distance between himself and the mounted figure at the edge of the woods. The pistol had a short range. He needed to be closer. “The bastard must be desperate to rob a carriage as pitiful as this one.”

  “You don’t think it’s one of Neville’s men looking for Blanche?”

  “I think it more likely a blockhead too foxed to see straight.” Grabbing his cane, Gavin staggered from the carriage door, pretending to fall to his knees as he climbed out. His hand found several small pebbles and a good-size rock. Under the concealment of his cloak, he deposited them in his coat pocket as he pushed himself drunkenly to his feet again. Aware Dillian had unraveled his cravat and unfastened his shirt, he figured he looked the drunken aristocrat well enough. He lurched a little closer to the mounted highwayman.

  “Whatta hell you want?” he slurred his voice as he staggered toward the side of the road.

  The highwayman had a musket aimed at Mac’s head. His hired man-of-all-trades didn’t have a lot in the brain box, but Gavin wouldn’t see the poor sap shot for his service. He steered his course between the two men.

  “Give me all your jewels,” the highwayman demanded, a trifle uncertainly.

  “Jewels!” Gavin roared, flinging one side of his cloak dramatically over his shoulder. “If I had jewels, did you think I’d ride about in this moth-eaten piece of tin?”

  The musket swerved uncertainly in his direction. With deadly precision, Gavin palmed the larger rock in his hidden hand, aimed, and sent it flying at the horse’s nose.

  The horse shrieked in fury and reared, flinging its unsuspecting and obviously incompetent rider to the ground. Gavin reached for his pistol with satisfaction—until he heard the decidedly feminine screech behind him.

  “Get your hands off me, you loathsome cowardly cur!”

  “Stop her clapper and get her out of there!” a man’s voice shouted from the far side of the road.

  With a roar of rage, Gavin leapt to the carriage step, hauled himself to the top, and launched himself at the shadowy figure on the other side daring to lay hands on Dillian. They went down in the road, scuffling, while another mounted man in the shrubbery reviled them with obscenities.

  Gavin had his hands full and couldn’t reach the pistol in his cloak. He grabbed the other man’s neck cloth and tried throttling him, but his assailant carried more weight. He broke Gavin’s hold and flung him to the ground, pinning him down with his bulk. Gavin freed one arm and aimed for the testicles. His punch swung wide, but struck a soft belly and caused a howl.

  As he dug his fingers into any soft spot he could find, Gavin felt the swish of skirts beside his face and cursed mightily at the fool woman who couldn’t stay where she belonged. He tried shouting at her to get back, but the miscreant had him by the throat. He drove his knee upward and unsettled the other’s man position, but he couldn’t get out from under in time to grab Dillian.

  With surprise, Gavin felt a tug at his cloak as he was nearly smothered in skirts and petticoat. Since his assailant had both hands in his lapels while pounding him into the ground, the action confused him. Perhaps he’d banged his head one too many times. The wild boar riding him roared some more in an incomprehensible tongue, but even as he released Gavin’s coat to reach for feminine skirts, Dillian darted out of range.

  Taking advantage of the other man’s distraction, Gavin nipped him back over and slammed his fist into a fat jaw with the same motion. The bulky figure beneath him collapsed. Before he could leap to his feet and grab Dillian, he heard the roar of his pistol.

  The third man screamed in agony. With complete astonishment Gavin took in the sight of the lady in frail, old-fashioned skirts aiming a pistol with professional expertise toward the edge of the highway where the mounted thief had stood just moments before. As Gavin shook himself off and rose to his feet, he heard galloping hooves disappearing into the woods in the distance.

  “Damn good show,” he muttered before turning to wrap his cravat around the downed highwayman’s wrists. “Mac! Have you got the other one trussed?”

  “Was I supposed to?” a plaintive voice cried from the other side of the carriage. “He done rode away, and the devil be with him is all I say.”

  “I’ll second that notion,” Gavin muttered, searching through the unconscious man’s pockets, finding nothing of interest.

  “I believe they were after me,” Dillian said quietly from beside him.

  Quietly. Dillian never did anything quietly. With a jerk Gavin jumped up and caught her where she swayed. She grabbed his rumpled coat and buried her head against his chest. A surge of protectiveness startled him as he cradled her small form against his much taller one. Michael was the one who defended the hurt and helpless. Gavin had never concerned himself with anything except survival. But still, he held her, absorbing her tremors of fear. It felt right somehow.

  He kissed her curls and stroked her slender back. “I believe you are right. This doesn’t bode well at all.”

  Dillian looked up suddenly. The paleness of her face struck him to the heart.

  “Blanche! If they know I’m with you, they’ll go after Blanche!”

  He couldn’t disagree with that assessment, either.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Huddled in her shawl, Dillian sat beside the marquess on the driver’s seat as he urged their one horse down the road. The other horse carried Mac to the manor to warn Blanche and Michael of the attack.

  Gavin’s focus seemed entirely on their decrepit horse, but she sensed his awareness of every sound and motion around them. She felt the same awareness. They couldn’t afford a repetition of the earlier attack, and two of the highwaymen still roamed loose.

  At the same time, though, Dillian’s a
wareness centered on the man expertly guiding the carriage down the lane. He continually surprised her. The swiftness of his attack had left her awestruck. How many men would have been both quick-witted enough to stone a horse and strong enough to strangle an assailant twice his size? With the pistol in his pocket, he could have easily dispatched the third man had she not done it for him.

  “I suppose I am in your black book again,” he commented, finally breaking the silence between them.

  “Oh, certainly. I always disdain marquesses who can fell two thieves at once. Very bad ton,” she answered airily.

  “Good. I’ve always disliked ladies who can shoot. That makes us even.”

  “I told you I could shoot. I’m also an expert marksman at archery, but I failed to bring my bow. I’m not quite so good at fisticuffs, however,” she added regretfully.

  “Don’t ask me to give you more lessons. I still have bruises from the candlestick. I’m debating the wisdom of arming you when we reach London. On one hand, I want you able to protect yourself from any more such attacks, but on the other hand, I don’t want the blamed weapons turned on me.”

  “I never aim a pistol at the person who gives it to me,” she said carelessly. “Unless provoked,” she added as an afterthought.

  Dillian thought the rusty rumble from his chest might be laughter. She smiled a little. The attack had terrified her more than she’d realized. The first strains of relief were just fighting their way through. “What will O’Toole do when he receives your message? If Blanche isn’t safe at Arinmede, where can he take her?”

  The marquess stayed silent for a while. Gavin, she amended to herself. She had every right to call him Gavin. She called Neville by his childhood name as an insult, refusing to use his recent and unexpected title. But despite all his eccentricities, the marquess struck her as a very noble marquess. She had difficulty thinking of him as a person like herself.

  “I’m not at all certain that they want her. It’s a possibility, I suppose. They meant to kidnap a lady. They could be a trifle confused as to which one. I just have the feeling that they knew who you were.”

  “That’s probably because the one you’ve got trussed up yelled ‘She’s the one.’ The other man cursed quite nicely after that. Shouldn’t we question him?”

  “If we were back home, I’d have him nailed to a tree. Unfortunately, as Michael continually points out to me, I’m a bloody aristocrat here. I’m supposed to abide by the law. We’ll find the magistrate in the next town and question him there.”

  “Where do you call home? Is it near the sea? I can’t imagine how you became a sailor.”

  The horse whickered as a hare darted across the road, but the animal didn’t have the energy to protest more than that. They continued plodding down the dark lane. The marquess shrugged at her question.

  “I grew up on the road. We never stayed in one place long. My father had wandering feet, and my mother wouldn’t let him wander without her. The wilderness of Kentucky appealed to me in my ill-spent youth, but we didn’t linger.”

  “Your accent isn’t quite American, but it’s not English, either. I suppose that’s because you traveled so much?”

  “My father’s accent was distinctly British. He used it to advantage, claiming to come from English aristocracy, inserting himself into the best society when we had money enough to have his suit cleaned.”

  Gavin laughed. “I thought he’d made the tale up. I didn’t realize he really was the grandson of a marquess. I suppose my accent combines the worst of his and my mother’s. She came from Virginia.”

  He abruptly cut short any further description of his parents. Now that he’d finally opened up enough to talk, Dillian didn’t want him stopping. “Is your mother still alive?” she asked.

  “No, she died when I was fifteen. My father died a few years before. We made our own way after that.”

  “We? You have brothers or sisters?”

  He hesitated. Dillian hated it when he did that. She knew he edited whatever he told her next to suit her ears. She considered punching him, but they were getting along too well to disturb the peace over such an innocuous question.

  “Michael is five years younger. He went where I went. It may not have been the smartest thing to do. I probably could have found a family to take him in, but...” He shrugged. “Michael’s always been an odd duck. I didn’t think he’d fit anywhere else. I don’t know if I did him any favors, though.”

  “He’s your brother?” she asked incredulously. She couldn’t think of two people more unalike. Gavin was tall, lean, and darkly handsome in a formidable way. Michael was slight, auburn-haired, and charming, with a smile that could light candles if one believed it. She preferred Gavin’s straightforward curtness.

  He shrugged. “That’s a matter of opinion. You’ll have to ask Michael. As I said, he’s an odd duck.”

  “He calls himself O’Toole,” she argued, puzzled. How could one not know if someone was a brother or not?

  “He calls himself a number of things. We stayed with a family named O’Toole several times. They had a passel of redheaded kids and spoke with a brogue wider than the sea. Michael rather fancied himself as one of them. The father was an Irish charmer. I’ve punched him more often than not for insinuating our mother would commit adultery, but the truth was, she and my father fought like cats and dogs. She followed him around the country, but they didn’t always live together. They left me behind often enough. She came home with Michael one of those times.”

  “But he’s at least your half-brother, and your mother was married to your father at the time. He has every right to call himself a Lawrence. There are certainly enough families in London where every child has a different father, but the married name sticks.”

  Gavin gave another laugh. “You haven’t seen the Lawrences. We all look alike. The family traits are very distinctive. That, more than anything, has convinced Michael he’s not our father’s child. The fact that my mother claimed to have found him under a cabbage leaf and denied giving birth to him didn’t help matters any. My father called him our little orphan. Of course, both my parents were liars extraordinaire. They were perfectly capable of denying his birth so they could deny adultery. He’s my brother as far as I’m concerned. Michael’s opinion is another question altogether.”

  Dillian lapsed into silence. She hadn’t meant to unbury so many secrets. She’d led an unpleasant childhood, but at least she’d had a mother who loved her until she died and a home to call her own until her father died.

  She’d resented her father’s preoccupation with soldiering. His companions had raised her as much as her father had. He’d left her destitute and homeless at his death because he’d never cared enough to provide for her should he not live forever, as he’d apparently expected to do. But she didn’t think her father had ever lied to her or denied her existence.

  “Sometimes, our lives seem to be some celestial joke, don’t they?” she mused aloud.

  She heard amusement in his reply. “Celestial? Or satanic?”

  “Well, considering where we’re likely to go when we die, I suppose the devil is in charge now. But that doesn’t explain our childhoods.”

  He gave her a quick glance as the carriage rumbled into the darkened streets of a small village. “You’ll not go to the devil for a little carnal pleasure, I assure you, or most of mankind would inherit hell.”

  Dillian liked the way he said that. His voice took on a velvet timbre that licked along her spine and made her feel his words in the bottom of her stomach. She didn’t dare look at him. His thoughts would follow too close to her own. She’d never thought she would anticipate the pleasure of lying naked in a bed with a man, but she did. She wanted Gavin touching her.

  Instead, he halted the horse outside an inn where one room still shone brightly and the sounds of merriment echoed from within.

  Gavin swung down from the driver’s seat, then held his hands out to catch Dillian as she picked her way down from the hig
h perch. He held her waist briefly, but put her aside as soon as her feet touched the ground. She wanted more, but she couldn’t expect it. He already slogged through the swampy morass of a courtyard toward the inn, leaving her to follow as she would.

  Cursing ungallant Yankees and their one-track minds, she hurried after him. She didn’t deceive herself into thinking the arrogant marquess would take a room at this lowly inn and enjoy her company for the night. No, the damned man had decided to find a magistrate, and magistrate he would have, whether he had to raise one from the dead or a warm bed to do it.

  When she caught up with him, he already conversed with the innkeeper. Absently, he circled her waist and held her by his side as if she belonged there. She wanted to smack him, but the innkeeper must think her his wife or his doxie. She preferred the former, and wives didn’t generally smack their husbands.

  The innkeeper nodded his head toward the tavern, and giving a respectful tug of his forelock to Dillian, he lumbered toward the light streaming from the attached room. Gavin remained where he was, proving himself too proud to enter a common tavern. She supposed he adopted the pose on purpose, but she didn’t like it much, not any more than she liked the hood with which he concealed his face.

  “Let go of me,” she hissed when the innkeeper disappeared into the other room.

  Gavin hugged her tighter, and raised his hand to caress the lower curve of her breast. “Not likely. If it weren’t for our friend out there, I’d have you upstairs and in bed so fast you wouldn’t know what hit you until I came inside you. Prepare yourself, woman. I’ll have you before this night’s over.”

  “You’re a disgusting, immoral, perfectly obnoxious lecher with no sense of decency, propriety...”

  The innkeeper reappeared trailing a disheveled, slightly drunken man of middle age. His rotund figure spoke of many nights in this tavern, but his eyes twinkled with interest rather than drunkenness as they perused the odd couple at the inn’s entrance. Only then did Dillian realize how her ancient gown and Gavin’s hooded cloak must appear to others. Damn and blast the man, he had her dressing as archaically as he did.