“Are you telling me,” Helen roared, yanking off her bonnet, “that you’ve been pretending all this time? You’ve been parading around London, making us all believe you were a charming man with taste and refinement, and instead you’re… this?” She gestured at him wildly. “You’ve been lying the entire time?”
Helen in high dudgeon was a glorious sight, and he took a brief moment to appreciate that fact.
“Oh, don’t go casting aspersions you can’t prove,” he told her, snorting softly. “I don’t have to tell you anything about who I am, what I am, or what truth there was in anything I’ve said or done.”
“You most certainly do!” she retorted. “You’re under contract to my family.”
Jeremy threw his head back with a loud laugh. “Under contract? My dear Miss Dalton, I am no such thing. Your cousin doesn’t have any power over me, not for this venture or anything else. And even if that were the case, I’d be indebted to Marlowe, not to you. Him, I would answer. You, absolutely not.”
Her breath passed through her nose in loud, agitated bursts, and her chest heaved with the force of it.
“You just settle in for the rest of this trip, Miss Dalton,” Jeremy told her, his tone turning patronizing. “You won’t wish to tire yourself out with such towering fury when it is of no concern to you.”
“No concern,” she repeated, her voice tight and strained. “No concern.”
It occurred to him to tread carefully, but he ignored the idea. “Yes, Miss Dalton. No concern at all.”
“No concern?” she said again, her voice rising once more. “My cousin hired a man to see me safely to York, and not only is that man not who he pretended to be, but he’s supposedly a gentleman of high standing. And one that I know!”
“Supposedly?” he responded mildly.
“It very much concerns me!” Helen overrode, completely ignoring his interjection. “I am the person being escorted! It’s my person you are tasked with protecting!”
“And so I shall, should the need arise.” He made a face to indicate his rather nonchalant feelings on that score.
Helen shook her head quickly, her eyes widening. “I wouldn’t trust you to protect a bread pudding from a dog, nor do I think you capable of physically competing with the dog in question.”
That nettled him neatly, and he frowned at her. “Now wait one minute…”
“Protection.” Helen laughed in derision, her hands flailing slightly. “The idea of you protecting anyone or anything is perfectly laughable. I’d be better served having a dock worker escorting me.”
She obviously had no idea what sort of men worked on the docks, and the fact that he knew all too well provided several mental images he could have done without.
“Miss Dalton…” he growled.
She wasn’t listening to him and covered her face as she laughed further. “Literally, any man from the docks would be better than this. I’d only have to worry about my virtue in that circumstance, and that’s even assuming the man would be interested in it.”
Jeremy’s throat seemed to clench at that, and he fought to find the ability to swallow. “See here…”
“I should have insisted on Rafe,” Helen went on, lowering her hands a little, her eyes distant. “Margaret doesn’t have to be so possessive of him, he’d only be gone a week, perhaps less. She’s grown so emotional since her wedding, so dependent upon him and his presence… Surely his duty lies with me under the circumstances. Margaret ought to find a backbone and be alone for a moment.”
Irritation and resentment curled in his stomach, and he fought the desire to defend Gent and Margaret, to tell Helen just how sensible Margaret was for fearing her husband’s departure at a time like this… But he kept his mouth shut and settled for grinding his teeth almost painfully together.
Helen looked at him then, as if just realizing he was there with her. “Does Rafe know it’s you and not some hired hand taking me?”
Still grinding his teeth, Jeremy nodded once.
She threw up her hands with a loud scoffing sound. “Idiots! I thought Rafe was far more sensible than that, but no! He hired you of all people to take me home. You! Oh, he is in for a lashing of untold proportions when I have a pen and paper at my disposal.”
“I am perfectly capable of seeing a stubborn brat to her brother’s home,” Jeremy assured her bitterly, smiling for effect. “Particularly when she is so headstrong as to do so when her family in London has offered to keep her comfortably at little to no inconvenience.” He let his smile spread more bitterly. “Well, perhaps a moderate inconvenience, but what else is family loyalty for?”
Helen’s jaw dropped, and she made a distressed sound he’d rather thought more attuned to a dog’s response than that of a young lady. “How dare you!”
That screech, of all things, jolted her companion from her sleep.
“What?” the lady cried, looking around with wide, bleary eyes. “Did you say something, Miss Dalton?”
Jeremy smiled kindly at her. “Oh, she said a great many things, but none of them worth repeating.”
“Don’t talk to her,” Helen snapped. “Millie is my servant, not yours.”
“Indeed.” He nodded once. “And both of you are under my care, which means I have authority. So, I will speak as I see fit to whom I see fit and when I see fit, Miss Dalton, and if you take issue with that, I invite you to walk the rest of the way to York. I shall provide you what coin I can so you might not be so inconvenienced as to be without funds.”
“I have my own funds!” she insisted. “I don’t need anything from you!”
“Except my knife and my strength,” he reminded her, “and my presence.”
“All of those are questionable!”
“Hmm,” Jeremy mused as the coach rolled to a stop. “Well, as we are stopping to change the horses, I invite you to relieve yourself and then either return to the coach or start to walk.”
He opened the door of the coach and disembarked, looked up at the sun, then back into the coach directly at Helen. “Start in that direction,” he told her, pointing down the road. “And just keep going.”
He bowed to her, then moved to the front of the coach where Skips’s man, Mullins, was already working on the harnesses.
“All right, there, Mr. Rook?” he asked as Jeremy approached.
To his own surprise, Jeremy was seething. “No, Mullins, I am not. If you’re all right with the horses, I’ll go see to their exchange. One can only hope Gent already made the arrangements. I’m in no mood to be convincing.”
Mullins grinned, his face wrinkling with the effort. “That’s when I find I do my best convincing, sir.”
Jeremy snorted softly and allowed himself a wry smirk. “Indeed. Pity I’m expected to be polite on this venture.”
“Most unfortunate, sir. But you see to it, and I’ll get us off as soon as we can.”
Jeremy nodded and turned down the road for the mews, grateful for the opportunity to stretch his legs, and could only hope that Mullins was a more pleasant travelling companion than Helen.
There was no way he was enduring another several hours of her company.
“He wasn’t serious, was he, Miss Dalton? We’re not walking to York, are we?”
Helen barely restrained the instinct to roll her eyes dramatically. “No, Millie, we are not. And he was not serious. He was only being spiteful.”
Millie hurried along beside her, dodging tables and chairs in the taproom. “But why should Mr. Perry be spiteful? I mean Mr. Pratt, of course, not Perry. Pratt. I thought... he was a gentleman.”
So did Helen. She’d always thought he was a perfect gentleman.
Well, perhaps not perfect, given the sharpness of their bantering and the wicked gleam in his eye when he was being particularly amusing, but perfect enough.
She’d never have expected this.
Why in the world would Rafe have arranged for her to be escorted to York by a gentleman? That was going to do more harm to her reput
ation than good.
If Jeremy Pratt was not the gentleman she had supposed him to be, in their more than a year of acquaintance, she didn’t know what to expect.
Why would he be spiteful?
“Because I was spiteful first,” she admitted softly as they exited the inn. “And he’s the sort to give as good as he gets.”
Millie frowned and huffed as she bobbed along beside her. “I find that to be quite shameful, Miss Dalton. You’re a lady, and he ought to be perfectly accommodating to that.”
Helen smiled a little. “Not that much of a lady, Millie. And I doubt Mr. Pratt is perfectly accommodating in anything at all.”
“I take great offense to that.”
She jerked her head up to look at Mr. Pratt, leaning against the coach, his posture too natural and easy for the man she had known.
But undeniably attractive for the man before her.
He’d done away with the nose, she was pleased to see, but the matted dark hair remained. His clothing, which she hadn’t taken a proper stock of before, having no interest at all in Mr. Perry, was perfectly common, almost threadbare. The linen shirt was far from pristine, the coat a worn shade of grey, and his billowing greatcoat a deep blue. He wore no waistcoat, but the kerchief around his neck imitated the cravat she had seen him wear, although the red fabric was filthy and carelessly knotted.
The only thing she could see that possibly reminded her of Mr. Pratt, as she had known him, were the fine Hessian boots he wore. Although they, too, had been covered in dust and scuffed, so that from all appearances they might suit him.
Helen suspected those boots cost more than the coach they were riding in, unobtrusive and common though it was.
It would have been a crime had they not fit him so well, encasing his legs perfectly, the dark breeches doing nothing at all to hide the strength and power of him.
Perhaps he could protect her after all.
She swallowed once and forced herself to look into his green eyes, an undoubtedly safer target.
“Really?” Helen remarked, quirking a brow at him. “When, pray tell, are you accommodating?”
He shrugged, making a face. “When it suits me.”
“That is the least surprising thing you have ever said.”
He grinned, his perfect teeth glinting a bit in the light of day. “Again, you are mistaken.”
Helen sniffed once, her chest tightening. “Well, obviously I’m mistaken about a great many things, and a great many people.”
His smile vanished and a dark glower appeared. “Yes, it seems you were. Get in, both of you. We’ve got a long way to go.”
Mr. Pratt opened the door and gestured to it faintly before turning to the front of the coach.
Helen considered that in confusion. “Not riding with us?”
He didn’t even look at her as he swung up to the driver’s seat easily. “No, madam, I much prefer to ride up top at this point. Perhaps even drive.”
She snorted at that. “If you can drive a team of four and a loaded coach without running us into the ground, I will be most surprised.”
“Well, just tell me which side of the coach you’re sitting on, and I’ll be sure to crash us to the side opposite.” He looked down at her pointedly. “Get in or stay here.”
Helen looked at Millie, already situated inside the carriage, and she smirked a little as an errant thought took hold.
If Mr. Pratt thought he could escape her by riding atop or, heaven forbid, driving the coach, he was quite mistaken.
“Mr. Mullins,” Helen called up in her most pleasant voice.
“Aye, miss?” Mr. Mullins called back, thumbing back his cap to look at her, his smile hesitant.
She beamed at him. “Surely you have earned a rest as well as the horses. Come and take respite in the coach. I have a desperate need for fresh air.”
Before anybody could say anything against it, Helen moved to the footholds and hoisted herself up, waving Mr. Pratt over so she could sit beside him.
“Oh, hell no,” he protested, staring at her with wide eyes.
Mr. Mullins was wiser and jumped down from the seat with a laugh. “If you insist, miss. You just let me know when you’ve had enough, sir, and I’ll take over.”
Pratt scowled at him as he disappeared. “I’ve already had enough,” he muttered to himself. “I’ll have him hitched up with the horses next, so I can whip his flanks.”
“Such a pleasant man,” Helen sighed as she sat beside him, folding her hands primly in her lap. “Off we go, then, unless you wish to tarry longer.”
He glared at her a moment, then muttered something in a language she did not know, but it did not sound flattering.
“And the same to you, I’m sure,” she quipped, indicating he should start to drive.
He flicked the reins, still looking at her steadily.
Helen returned his gaze just as frankly. “Something to say, Mr. Pratt?”
“I believe I’ve already said it.” He exhaled sharply and looked forward at last. “You might as well call me Jeremy. There’s no need for everybody to know my real name.”
“Trying for anonymity, are we?” Helen quipped, wishing she felt any sort of flattery by his offering up that familiarity to her.
He nodded once, a muscle working in his jaw. “Trying. For both our sakes, Mr. Pratt cannot be taking you to York. Mr. Perry can.”
In the midst of all her offended airs, Helen hadn’t considered that, and it gave her pause.
Her reputation was the only one she had been thinking about, but he had a reputation to consider, as well. Perhaps he had a reason to protect his identity, disguising himself in some way, and keeping to more reserved behaviors.
“You think anyone will know you out here?” she asked, losing all form of pretense. “Or in York?”
He smiled a rather mirthless smile. “I’m afraid people know me everywhere, Miss Dalton.”
“Helen.”
Jeremy jerked to look at her, eyes wide. “What?” he asked, his voice low.
Helen smiled a little, not even managing the embarrassment to blush. “My name is Helen.”
“I know that,” he said, still looking somewhat thunderstruck.
She laughed once. “I know you know that, but I want you to call me Helen.”
He didn’t smile back. “Why?”
“Why?” she echoed. “Because you told me to call you Jeremy, so it only follows that you call me Helen in return.”
“That’s not a good reason,” he insisted. “I’m protecting my identity. You need not worry about yours.”
“Perhaps not,” she allowed with a sigh, tilting her face back to feel the sun more. “But I’m a firm believer in equality, and, as you said, you’ve not been hired to see to my care, so there is no need for the distance of station. If you’re Jeremy, I’m Helen, and that is that.”
He was silent for a long moment, and she imagined him to be staring at her in disbelief. Then she heard him shift a little, and grunt softly, which she took to be an acceptance of her statement.
Odd how that seemed a rather thrilling victory.
“You can ride up here if you like,” he finally said.
“Oh, thank you very much,” Helen offered, snorting softly.
“But,” he continued, “once we get close to the next coaching station, you go back within, and I am the man tasked with your protection, nothing more. Is that understood?”
Helen sighed for effect and nodded. “Eminently.”
“Good.”
He said nothing else for a time, and Helen cracked an eye open to look at him.
It was difficult to reconcile the man before her with the man she knew, yet it made an odd amount of sense. The same features, obviously, but settled in a completely different manner. Jeremy was intense and focused, harder than he appeared, and yet more mysterious. Mr. Pratt was carefree and playful, charming without excessive flattery, and the slightest bit ridiculous.
Yet Mr. Pratt was there in Jerem
y, she could see it. Perhaps not so finely dressed nor so keen to laugh, but the same mischief dwelt in the eyes. Mr. Pratt teased and bantered, mixing compliments with jabs so fluidly they were indistinguishable from each other.
Jeremy was merely insolent.
And yet…
“I’m sorry, Jeremy.”
She was sorry? Sorry for what? She frowned at herself, but realized her mouth had more sense than her head.
“For what?” he asked, looking over at her.
Helen gave him a look. “Kicking you. Screeching at you. Calling you a liar. Take your pick.”
Slowly, his mouth curved, and her stomach clenched at the sight. “How many do I get to pick?”
She stared at him, then laughed helplessly. “Lord, Jeremy, I don’t know. As many as you like. Whatever I should apologize for, I do.”
He chuckled easily, and some of the tension seemed to leave him. “Very well, I accept your apology and offer one of my own. I had my reasons for the deception, as did Marlowe, but I apologize for the sharpness that followed its revelation.”
“What reasons?” Helen murmured, wondering at the turn of phrase. “Why not truly hire a man for the purpose, rather than have you take it on?”
Jeremy shook his head slowly. “Marlowe entrusted me with his reasons, and I cannot break his confidence.”
She had rather expected that, but it was disappointing to have so little by way of reply. “Why take this on if you are not receiving compensation for it? It’s a ridiculous scheme.”
“I know,” he said with a grin. “I told him so.”
“Then why?” she asked, throwing her hands up. “You’re a gentleman, Jeremy. This is beneath you.”
He met her eyes steadily. “Because he asked me to.”
“Asked?” she repeated. “Not ordered? Not insisted? Not demanded?”
Jeremy shook his head once. “Asked. Very politely, in fact.”
“And you agreed?”
His eyes became teasing, as did his smirk. “Clearly, or I wouldn’t be driving a coach beside you.”
“Why, though?”
She had to know, had to understand even a little, why the man who was her chief reason for leaving London would agree to escort her out of it.
By Hook or By Rook (London League, Book 4) Page 5
