by Laura Parker
Sabrina slowly shook her head. “Not in this, not where my brother is concerned.”
He stepped back, withdrawing from her not only his physical presence but also the spell of intimacy he had been weaving about them.
“From whence this sudden deep partiality for distant kin?” How scornful he sounded. “You have been content until now to entertain yourself in London with the likes of Countess Lovelace and her idle pack of gossiping gamesters.”
Sabrina’s eyes snapped open. “How could you know that?”
“Ask a magician how he accomplishes his arts.”
“You’ve been inquiring about me,” she said, unable to keep the smugness from her tone.
“I’ve done more than inquire. I’ve been watching you.” His voice dropped into a lower register. “I have been your shadow these last weeks, scarcely more than an arm’s length away.”
His words were like a caress that made her shiver. “Then why did you not show yourself before now?”
“How do you know I have not?” The tone of his voice had altered again to something more familiar. “Perhaps you were too willfully blind to see me?”
Was that possible? She bolted upright from her chair. That voice was so familiar, so like—
“Darlington!”
“Stir up the fire, mistress, and then look your fill.”
She reached for the poker then angrily jostled the logs until flames licked at the newly exposed surface of the wood. When she was done she swirled about, poker still in hand.
He stepped forward out of the shadow and everything she thought she knew about the last moments, and the last weeks, changed, utterly and forever.
He was dressed for riding in leather coat, suede weskit, and polished thigh-high boots with spurs. His golden hair gleamed—unmistakable—in the fire.
The sharp prick of disappointment brought new tears to her eyes but Sabrina fought them. “Scoundrel! I suppose it pleases you to make a jest of me.”
“No.” He said the word softly but so persuasively that she wished she could read the truth behind his expression. All she saw in it was the aloof indifference with which he most often faced the world.
“I thought it time that you knew the true nature of the man you dubbed Blackjack on the highway some weeks ago.”
“You cannot wish to make me believe that you—?”
“Precisely.” He came forward, looking now far too handsome and far too pleased with himself. “I stole your housekeeper’s pounds and pence.”
“I do not believe you.”
He paused within arm’s length of her, amusement curving his mobile mouth. “Shall I kiss you again? Perhaps it will remind you, though I will admit to the dent in my vanity that it has not jogged your memory ere this.”
Sabrina opened her mouth and then closed it, finally at a loss for the words. Could he be telling her the truth? Could Lord Darlington, a peer of the realm, have chosen to rob a coach, her coach, on the Western Road? “Why?”
“For the simple and expedient reason every man turns to robbery, Sabrina. I was in need of funds.”
“You are a viscount.” Her gaze was doubtful. “You are heir to vast lands.”
“Not so vast, nor so wealthy. ‘Struth, ’tis a sad and winsome tale. Your tender heart will approve of it,” he said pleasantly and she knew he was about to make mockery of what came next.
“Until a year ago I was the cast-off son of a madman. Abandoned and poor, I lived on an island whose sole source of diversion for a young man without funds was drunkenness and gambling. Then—you will approve of the fairy tale quality of this next chapter—I inherited my lunatic sire’s title. But old habits die hard and the madman’s money weighed rather heavily in my pockets. I made it my sole purpose to live as far beyond my new means as possible. Alas, I succeeded rather too well. Until the annual annuity fills my coffers again, I am as clipped for farthings as any pauper.”
Sabrina suspected a few painful truths lay beneath his disaffected words. “That was very foolish of you.”
“A lesson that bears no repetition,” he allowed with a small smile. “So, sweeting, now you know my secret.”
“You are Blackjack Law, the highwayman.”
He stared at her as if she had just grown a second head. “In all my life I’ve robbed exactly one coach. Yours.”
“But, if you are not he, then who resides in the Bath gaol?”
“No one, any longer. I set the poor wretch free, as you asked.”
“I did—” Sabrina found herself shocked by the news. “You set the real villain free?”
His brows rose imperiously. “ ’Twas by your direct charge.”
“Yes, but that was when I thought …” She paused to untangle her own thoughts. “The man who robbed me was no true villain?”
Jack laughed. She had managed to surprise him. “I will admit to a certain flattery in your defense.”
It occurred to Sabrina that he might be lying. “Prove you are not the highwayman.”
“ ’Twas you who dubbed me Blackjack. I did not volunteer the name.”
“You did not deny it.”
“I was robbing you, sweeting. It did not benefit me to correct any misimpression.”
“Where is the real Blackjack?”
He leaned an arm against her chair back. “I haven’t the slightest idea. But the half-wit stripling they intended to hang in the real brigand’s place should now be safely beyond the bloodlust demands of his betters.”
Dismay informed her expression. “You mean the captive was not the real Blackjack either?”
“Alas, no. For a man whose reputation permeates the countryside, Black Jack has been oddly absent from the field.”
Sabrina sank back down into her chair. “If what you say be true, then all is lost.”
Jack came around and stood before her. How absurdly lovely she looked in her misery. From the moment he had spied her curled up asleep like a kitten in this chair he had been able to think of nothing else but how and when he would take her in his arms and make love to her. He reached out a finger to touch one dark curl. “What is lost, sweeting?”
Her expression was one of defeat. “I must find a new method by which to free my brother.”
He lifted his gaze from a contemplation of the row of brass buttons on her bodice that he longed to unfasten. “You were serious then?”
“I beg your indulgence owing to the late hour, Countess, but it is imperative that I speak with my niece and ward, Miss Sabrina Lyndsey.”
Lotte adjusted her sleepy gaze to include the two gentlemen who had risen to their feet with her entrance into her salon. Roused from her bed just as she had drifted to sleep, she allowed her dream-filled gaze to wander from the tall stranger in severe Calvinist style who had addressed her without waiting for permission from his companion. A more conventionally dressed member of the Beau Monde, the gentleman wore a heavily brocaded coat with deep sleeves, silver-buckled shoes, and enough lace to keep his laundress busy for a day and a half.
She continued to gaze vaguely in his direction for he, at least, was clearly her equal. One of Ran’s cronies, perhaps? His wig was the old-fashioned kind, long and thickly curling over his shoulders, all but hiding his features. Which was just as well, she decided as her eyes focused with more precision. His most distinguished feature was his nose. It was a large, red-veined, irregularly shaped protuberance that looked like a beet had been attached to the middle of his face. Clustered closely about it, his squinty eyes and sunken-prune mouth made small impression.
With the hauteur of which she was capable, Lotte lifted her chin and said disdainfully, “I do not recognize either of you fellows.”
The portly gentleman stepped forward and made her an awkward leg. “Do you not remember me, countess? I am Lord Merripace.”
“The louse bearer!” Lotte murmured under her breath. Like a splash of cold water, the news instantly awakened her wits, and her protecti
ve instincts. These men had come for Sabrina. Happily, she was not here. Yet she had no intention of volunteering even that much.
“I’ve a vague recollection of you, sir,” she said aloud. “If you here to inquire about my husband, you will not find him in town.”
“We’ve come—” the other man began impatiently only to be silenced by a glance from his noble companion.
“I am most anxious to see Miss Lyndsey,” Merripace said, his mouth working in a manner that revealed to Lotte that he had lost the better part of his teeth.
“I do not permit my companion to receive gentlemen callers after we have retired.”
“She has gentlemen callers?” the Calvinist inquired.
Lotte at last allowed her gaze to wander in his direction.
“And you are …?”
The man flushed more from anger than embarrassment, she suspected. “Robert McDonnell, my lady.” He made her the slightest bow, so stiff she wondered if there was an iron bar stuck up the back of his horribly designed coat. He would have made a fine officer in Cromwell’s Commonwealth army, she thought with a shiver of distaste. “I have come to fetch my ward from under your roof.”
“Have you, indeed? Why, may I inquire, should you wish to do that? We are of an accord which I do not wish disturbed.”
Though the chill of dislike never left McDonnell’s face, his voice softened with cordiality. “We are arrived on the pleasantest of errands and with the happiest of news, my lady. Miss Lyndsey is to be wed.”
“No doubt. At some distant future time.”
“Immediately!” Merripace offered her a cavernous smile that confirmed her suspicion of his balding mouth. “I, myself, am the fortunate bridegroom.”
“How … remarkable.”
Embarrassment did not improve his complexion, she noted. Dear heaven! How could even the most hardhearted of guardians expect a lovely young creature like Sabrina to sacrifice herself in wedlock with this bloated, filthy, decaying ancient? Better she be ruined in Darlington’s embrace. The least she could do was throw them off the scent.
“In that case, I suppose it is safe to confide in you.” She smiled sweetly at the aged reprobate. “You may find your bride-to-be at Mrs. Noyes’. Sabrina left here earlier this evening, packed and determined to return to the bosom of her family.”
Merripace glanced uncertainly at McDonnell before addressing her. “Are you positive, Lady Charlotte?”
“Certainly, I am positive.” She now glanced at McDonnell with frigid formality. “I believe your missive was the spur.”
“Then she received my letter.” He looked very satisfied. But only for a moment. A banked look of rage immediately overtook his rather ordinary features, making them quite severe. Poor Sabrina, thought Lotte, if this were the guardian she faced each day while in London.
“She has bolted!”
“Unlikely,” Lotte replied, casting about in her mind for a method by which to put them off the mark. “I think you must be mistaken,” she hurried on when it seemed both men were about to make objection. “Perhaps you did not visit the right cottage. They are all alike near the East Gate, and so cramped and filthy. I, myself, was quite horrified by the conditions in Mrs. Noyes’ lane. You may have mistakenly visited the wrong abode.”
“I assure you, my lady, I would recognize my kin,” McDonnell answered stiffly. “She is my aunt.”
“Ah.” Lotte let the sound serve as dubious response.
“If she is not here and she most certainly is not with Mrs. Noyes,” McDonnell exclaimed in annoyance, “then where is the chit?”
Lotte’s eyes narrowed with intense dislike upon the man. “You make very free with my hospitality, Mr. McDonnell. I bid you both good night!”
She turned and swept into her hallway, feeling she had done as much to confound the pair as was possible without previous plan or strategy. “Sally, show the visitors out!” she directed as she swept past the sleepy maid who had roused her.
“Yes, Countess,” the girl in nightcap and blanketed shoulders answered with a curtsey.
“A moment, my lady. Please, I beg you.”
Lotte paused on the riser of the fourth stair and turned. McDonnell sounded genuinely distressed, yet she doubted the sincerity of the emotions behind it. “Yes, what is it?”
“If my niece be neither here nor there, where do you propose she could be found?”
“Found? You surmise she is lost?” Lotte cudgeled her brains and hit at once upon a brilliant retort. “How far could a young woman, traveling alone, get without attracting attention?”
“That is true,” Merripace mumbled.
“Yes, certainly,” Lotte concurred. “A young lady roaming the streets at night would be easy prey for all sorts of unscrupulous fellows.” She allowed her contemptuous gaze to linger on McDonnell. “If she is neither here nor there then you must assume she has been taken elsewhere.”
“Taken?” both men pronounced together.
“You do not suggest she may have been taken by thieves?” McDonnell questioned with open skepticism.
Lotte gnawed her lip, sorry she had sailed so close to Sabrina’s own plans for her brother. “I suggest nothing. Though I suppose she might be ripe for ransom. She is, after all, an heiress. Some highwayman may have run off with her.”
“Have ye then heard the news, my lady?” asked her maid from her place by the doorway.
Lotte frowned at the girl. “What news?”
“Jack Law is escaped this very night, my lady!”
“Ah,” Lotte murmured sagely. “Perhaps that explains Sabrina’s absence.”
Her last very satisfying glimpse of the two men standing below her was that of a pair of faces registering disaster.
Chapter Twenty
“Where are we going?” It was the third such demand Sabrina had made during the past hour. “Is the road not lonely enough for you yet?”
Her companion did not reply, just as he had not on the other occasions since they left the inn.
“Very well, be mysterious, my lord.” Her exasperation was absorbed into the woolen back of his overcoat. “What else could I expect from a gentleman willing to risk his life for tuppence!”
The goading remark did not draw so much as a snort from the man she hugged about the waist. Which was just as well, she supposed, since his remarks were seldom pleasant or flattering. At least he had agreed to see her safely out of Bath, if not all the way to Scotland. Best of all, she had escaped the machinations of Cousin Robert! What her guardian would do when he found out she was gone did not bear thinking about too closely. It was imperative that she find and rescue Kit before he guessed that Scotland would be the most likely place for her to go.
She had not ridden double on horseback since the days when her father had allowed her sit up before him. Then she had been a small girl with no thought but innocent pleasure while they crossed the moors. Riding up behind Lord Darlington was an altogether different experience. Exhilarating, to be sure, but also a tormenting exercise.
In order to sit comfortably astride behind him, she had had to abandon her double paniers. Without the whalebone cage that held out her skirts and provided a natural barrier between herself and all else, she had discovered that each long, loping stride pushed her hips forward so that her body rubbed with unprecedented familiarity against her companion’s. She was uncertain if he had noticed the repeated friction but it made her embarrassingly aware of their intimate proximity.
Hampered by the darkness and the unfamiliar road, the viscount’s horse was forced to maintain a slow, steady stride along the ribbon of road snaking its way through the countryside. Sure-footed for the most part, the animal misstepped as they entered a copse of trees.
The stumble jerked both riders forward and Sabrina’s chin collided with her companion’s back, making her bite her tongue. Her cry of pain startled the horse and it skittered sideways. With a curse of anger Darlington brought his moun
t instantly under control as Sabrina felt herself slipping sideways off the horse’s flanks.
“My lord!” she cried in alarm and clutched desperately at him. He reined in at once and then reached back with one hand and scooped his hand under her.
The shock of his hand gripping her buttocks through her shirts made her gasp. He pulled her up tight against him and held her until she had readjusted her grip about his waist and then released her, all without a word.
The encounter left the blood stinging through Sabrina’s cheeks. Yet, she mastered her abashment and her inclination to apologize for her clumsiness. Why should she, when it was obvious that the moment had in no way affected him?
Though she was determined this time to hold herself apart from him, she was again forced to steady herself by holding on to the sides of his heavy cloth redingote. Before they set out he had draped her long cloak about her shoulders and tucked it together with her skirts up under her legs so that the materials would not flap and frighten his horse. Yet now her cloak had partially escaped and flapped in the breeze. As the minutes passed she became increasingly cold. Her fingers began to ache where they gripped his coat and her toes inside her boots were cramping. Only where her front met his back was she warmed by the heat of his body.
Resigned to the comfort of his warmth, she slowly and begrudgingly released his coat to more fully embrace him about the waist so that their bodies met. Her bosom pressed to his back and her thighs cradled his buttocks. She held her breath for several seconds, waiting to see how he would react. If he made one tiny remark, spoke one syllable of sarcasm, she would release him immediately. To her surprise and relief, he said nothing.
After several minutes she allowed herself to admit there was a pleasure beyond the mere necessity of warmth in touching him, a pleasure she had never before known when in the company of any other man. With her arms wrapped about him she could feel every shift of muscle and bone in his torso. How hot and hard he was, as solid as oak but as warmly and humanly alive as she.
She wondered what Lotte Lovelace would say if she ever learned that Miss Sabrina Lyndsey had run away with “Blackjack” Law? No, Jack Darlington was not the highwayman, though he had robbed her coach—she must believe it—for the devil of it! Why had she not realized who he was before? Or was it only that she had not wanted to?