“Atherwall!” A stout man in an expensively embroidered coat flung open the door to the coach and clambered down before the footman could help him. “Put aside your guns, men, this man’s no thief. But damn my eyes, Atherwall, I’d no notion at all it was you, no notion at all!”
“Clearly,” said Harry as the guards uncocked their muskets. “That isn’t a carriage, Charleck, any more than you’re a sheriff. That’s a blasted man-o’-war, armed for battle with me as your enemy, just as you’re a jumped-up country squire who only comes up to London for a fortnight in the Season.”
“But I’d reasons, Atherwall,” protested the other man, “good reasons, and—”
“There’s not a single damned reason that I know for trying to kill me, Charleck,” said Harry sharply. “What if I did the same to you, by way of an example?”
“Oh, Harry, don’t,” whispered Sophie unhappily. The good news was that this man wasn’t the sheriff at all, but some gentleman that Harry had recognized by name. But the bad, bad news was that he’d made Harry angry, and an angry Harry was liable to do the reckless, impulsive things that a calm Harry would never consider.
“But my sister and I heard at the last inn there were thieves abroad on this road tonight,” Charleck was saying, his face shiny with anxious sweat. “The sheriff told us to hire these men as guards, to be safe.”
But Harry wasn’t listening, his arms folded across his chest. “Who the devil was supposed to keep me safe from you, then? Who would blame me if I’d fired first to protect the lady in my care?”
Not for me, Harry, not for my sake, and if this show is intended for my sake, I’m decidedly not impressed. I told you not to be a hero, I warned you not be gallant and foolhardy for me!
“You wouldn’t do that, Atherwall,” said Charleck uneasily. “You’d stop as soon as you saw me, same as I did with you. You’re a gentleman, and a peer.”
“But I’d do anything on a dare,” declared Harry with a slow, challenging smile. “You can try me, and see for yourself.”
But Sophie wasn’t about to let it come to that, and before he could make matters any worse, she clambered up the bank to join him.
“I know this highwayman you speak of, sir,” she said breathlessly, not daring to look at Harry just yet. “This very night, he stopped my carriage and if his lordship hadn’t come by when he did to rescue me, I do not know what ill might have happened.”
Charleck frowned, doubt making him suspicious. “The earl of Atherwall saved you from a highwayman, ma’am? You were riding by yourself on this road?”
“I was travelling by coach,” said Sophie quickly, wanting to stay as close to the truth as possible. “But the highwayman so frightened my driver that he abandoned me and drove away on his own.”
“Miss Potts was very brave,” said Harry beside her. “She didn’t faint or wail the way most ladies would, but was confronting the scoundrel outright when I came to her assistance.”
Sophie turned and smiled, relieved that the tension seemed to have slipped from his voice. With his dark hair tossing across his forehead and a conspiratorial glint in his eyes, his earlier antagonism now seemed so completely forgotten that she almost wondered if it had truly existed at all.
She liked being his conspirator again, almost as much as she’d liked kissing him. She liked it just fine and her smile widened.
And yet something still wasn’t quite right. Harry was studying her with a curious mixture of disbelief and amusement, as if a parrot were roosting on the top of her head. Uneasily she patted at her hair, smoothing back the few stray wisps, and glanced down at her clothes. She was rumpled and mussed from travelling, true, but everything seemed as it should be, all buttons fastened, and she knew her face was as perfectly composed as a good governess’s should be, the way she could do without even thinking of it. All that was missing was her bonnet, still in the grass beside the stream, but considering how Harry had lost his hat, too, that didn’t seem worth his notice.
“So his lordship rescued you, eh?” said Charleck slowly, likewise looking her up and down with the peculiar, narrow-eyed intensity that men used when they wished they could see through a woman’s clothing. “Doubtless you are most grateful to him.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Sophie warily. “I am indeed.”
“And no doubt ready to demonstrate that gratitude, too,” said Charleck slyly, and to Sophie’s amazement, he winked. “I say, Atherwall, you always do find the beauties, don’t you?”
Sophie drew aback with discouraging frostiness. The man must be addled to speak like that of her. “I beg your pardon, sir.”
“Lord Charleck, might I introduce Miss Potts,” drawled Harry, clearly enjoying himself more than Sophie thought he should. “Miss Potts, Lord Charleck.”
“My lord,” said Sophie, her voice still chilly. “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not one of his lordship’s ‘beauties.’ I am a governess, on my way to my new position, when my carriage was stopped by the highwayman.”
But Charleck was undeterred. “A governess,” he said with relish. “I say, Atherwall, are you schooling her proper?”
There was that conspiratorial mischief in Harry’s eyes again, meant for Sophie alone, as he shook his head and sighed. “Miss Potts is a very stern and proper governess. If there is any schooling to be done, she will be the one to do it, and I only her miserable pupil.”
Before Sophie could answer, an older lady’s face popped from the carriage window. “A governess?” exclaimed Charleck’s sister indignantly. “The villain waylaid a governess? Oh, poor dear, come, let me look at you!”
Relieved to have an excuse to leave Harry and Charleck, Sophie stepped closer to the carriage and gulped.
“I know you, miss,” announced the older woman triumphantly, her oversized wig bobbing around her face. “You’re Lady Wheeler’s governess at Iron Hill. Potts, isn’t it?”
“Mrs. Mallon, good day,” said Sophie, misery growing as she dipped a curtsey. Mrs. Mallon had been an old acquaintance of Lady Wheeler’s and a frequent visitor to Iron Hill. The older lady could be kind and generous to her friends, but she was also a notorious gossip, and Sophie’s heart sank at the cruel coincidence of meeting her on this particular night. She and Harry should have stayed at the Peacock after all; they certainly couldn’t have done any worse than coming here.
But if she kept herself properly meek the way she’d learned to be, her conversation deferential—and if she could forget again the outspoken, flirtatious banter that she’d been sharing with Harry—then perhaps she could talk her way free.
At least it would be worth trying.
“Yes, ma’am, I was governess to Lady Wheeler’s boys,” she explained demurely, keeping her head bowed. “But now that the youngest is finally going away to school with his brothers, I was no longer needed at Iron Hill, and thus have found another place with a family in Winchester.”
Mrs. Mallon nodded. “Lady Wheeler has such nice boys,” she said fondly, “and so very handsome they are, too. But they will grow, as all boys do, no matter how attached they are to their governess, and then off you must go to another set of children. That is your lot as a governess, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Sophie. The worst part of her lot was having to listen to ladies like Mrs. Mallon, speaking of her as if she weren’t quite human, but only a servant without any true emotions or feelings. Mrs. Mallon would neither know nor care that once Sophie had had the same dreams as other well-bred girls, to have a home and husband and children of her own. She’d become a governess from necessity, not choice. But as for the only man she’d ever loved—oh, that man would never want the same, and without thinking she glanced over to where Harry was still with Charleck.
“You might have done better to stay with the highwayman,” whispered Mrs. Mallon loudly, misreading Sophie’s thoughts. “All the world knows the earl of Atherwall is a dreadful rake. To be seen alone in his company is quite sufficient to ruin a lady’s reputation,
and as for a governess—why, you should most likely never find a place in a decent household again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Sophie, the only acceptable response as she swallowed back her protests. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Mallon severely. “But for Lady Wheeler’s sake, I am willing to help you salvage this…this indiscretion of yours.”
“What indiscretion, Mrs. Mallon?” asked Harry innocently—or his murky version of innocence, anyway—as he came to join their conversation near the coach, with Charleck following like a lonely puppy. “I rescued the lady with only moonlight to guide me, and surely there’s nothing more discreet than moonlight.”
“Not whilst shared with you, my lord,” said Mrs. Mallon with withering contempt.
“Ahh,” he said dryly. “You wound me, ma’am. But if I defend Miss Potts, it is not because she cannot defend herself against you. She could, of course, but chooses not to, being too well-bred to descend to your depths.”
“She does not speak because she is a governess,” said Mrs. Mallon scornfully. “She is not entitled to opinions. You, as a gentleman and a peer, must know that.”
Charleck shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “Here, now, now, sister. You’re painting it all a bit broad for his lordship, aren’t you?”
Though Harry smiled still, the cheerfulness had abruptly left his face.
“I remember a great deal about Miss Potts,” he said softly, and with unquestionable conviction. “And most of all, I remember that she is without doubt a lady.”
“Not at all,” declared Mrs. Mallon imperiously, ignoring her brother’s warning as she beckoned to Sophie. “She is a governess, my lord, and whatever memories you may have of her cannot be any older than this night.”
“You are mistaken, ma’am,” said Harry, and as Sophie recognized that familiar gleam of challenge in his eye, she wondered if Mrs. Mallon had any notion of what she’d started. “I’ve known Miss Potts since, oh, the sweet days of Eden.”
Mrs. Mallon tipped her head back, the better to stare down her nose at Harry. “You are deluded, my lord.”
He bowed low over his riding boot, adding a curling, courtly flourish of his hand. “No more so than you, ma’am. And while I may be so damned deluded, I do not bare my fangs and hiss like a gorgon to frighten others, as you appear to do.”
Mrs. Mallon sucked in her breath, her mouth a wrinkled rosebud of disbelief. “You have the manners of a jackal, my lord,” she said tartly, “and I’ll not bear your company a moment longer. Come, Potts, here.”
“Ma’am?” said Sophie, not trusting herself to venture more. But while she did not enjoy being called to heel like a naughty dog, she very much did like Harry saying everything she couldn’t on her behalf. “Ma’am?”
“Don’t stand there posturing like a chalkware shepherdess on the mantelpiece, Potts,” said Mrs. Mallon sharply. “I shall see to it personally that you arrive in Winchester unharmed by this villain, or any of the others that are lying in wait along this road.”
“Sister, mind your tongue,” warned Charleck urgently. “Atherwall is an earl, not a villain.”
“Oh, hush,” his sister snapped. “I mean for Potts to ride in here with us, where no one shall think the worst of her.”
The footman unlatched the carriage door and flipped down the small folding step. But as the older woman beckoned for Sophie to join her, a tiny new spark of rebellion flared and glowed in Sophie’s breast.
Perhaps it was Mrs. Mallon’s condescending manner that was the tinder to that spark, or perhaps it had come from kissing Harry until she’d felt as if her feet had left the grass. Maybe it was simply the moonlight that was addling her wits, and making her wonder how she’d come to worry so much about other’s opinions of her, whether good, bad or even the worst.
Twice tonight Harry had come to the defense of that old Sophie who’d been so bold and outspoken and cared not a fig for any opinions but her own. There must have been some merit to that other version of her for him to do that. For her sake, he’d first stepped into the face of gunfire, and now with Mrs. Mallon he was confronting words that likewise had the power to wound and scar.
For her, Sophie Potts. He’d done it for her.
She turned to look at him again, and flushed as she realized he was already watching her. There must have been a half-dozen other people scattered around them—Mrs. Mallon, Lord Charleck, the guards, the driver and the footmen—yet when Harry looked at Sophie the way he was now, she felt as if the two of them were once again completely, wonderfully alone.
Which, Sophie sternly reminded herself, of course they weren’t. Nothing in her life ever came so easily, just as nothing like a carriage with a cross-tempered old woman, her brother and a host of others would be leaving her life with any ease, either.
“Come, Potts,” ordered Mrs. Mallon. “Stop your dawdling, and come directly. I cannot bear the draft from this open door upon my knees much longer.”
Yet still Sophie didn’t move. She’d always believed she’d made her own choices in life, hadn’t she? It had been her decision to put her dying father’s worries to rest by returning Harry’s letters unread, her decision to become a governess and support herself. Now she could choose a place in Mrs. Mallon’s carriage, Sir William’s children and safely boring respectability or she could choose Harry and…whatever it was Harry was offering.
These were her choices to make, weren’t they?
A fire in the grate and a sturdy roof over her head against the rain or stars and moonlight and dew wet on the grass beneath her feet.
The rest of her days running in the same worn path as these past ten years or one night of adventure and passion.
Predictability or ruin.
Security or Harry.
She raised her chin and drew back her shoulders and gazed squarely into the other woman’s eyes. “I am very sorry, Mrs. Mallon,” she said, her voice steady with her decision, “but I regret that I cannot accept your offer.”
Mrs. Mallon’s eyes narrowed beneath the stiffened curls of her wig. “Cannot, Potts, or will not?”
But it was Harry who answered for her. “Cannot, should not, will not, shall not and forget-me-not, too,” he said. “I ask you, ma’am, how much more clearly can the poor lass speak it?”
Slowly Sophie came to stand beside Harry. She didn’t stare soulfully into his eyes or take his hand or otherwise make a foolish show. Standing beside him was reassurance enough that he was there with her: once again partners, conspirators, lovers.
And for at least this night, until the moonlight faded with the dawn, she would not be alone, but with Harry.
“I thank you, Mrs. Mallon,” she said, “and you, too, Lord Charleck, but I have decided. I shall continue to place my trust in his lordship’s company, and travel with him.”
“Then you will travel straight to the devil, with that man as your guide,” predicted Mrs. Mallon with grim finality. “I am through with you, Potts, and so I shall tell Lady Wheeler. Come, brother, let us leave these two to their—their folly and wickedness.”
Yet Sophie did not answer beyond what she’d already said. Instead she stood as proudly silent as she could, her arms folded squarely over her chest as she watched Lord Charleck hurriedly mutter goodbye and then hoist himself into the carriage beside his outraged sister. The driver cracked his whip over the horses’ backs and the carriage lurched forward while the mounted guards followed, and in a matter of moments, the only sound once again came from the water running and dancing beneath the arched bridge and the sleepy birds in the branches overhead.
Her heart racing, Sophie finally turned toward Harry, only to find that, for the second time that night, he was already looking at her. His smile was so wide it was almost foolish, and so unguarded he seemed years younger.
“Damnation, Sophie, you stayed,” he said incredulously. “You did that for me.”
“Because of what you did for me, Harry.” Her chest felt tight and k
notted with not knowing what would happen next, yet she could not have looked away from him if her life had hung balanced on the edge of a sword—and maybe, in a way, it did. “That’s why I stayed. For this night. For you.”
“For you,” he repeated softly, echoing her truth with his own truth. “For you.”
Swiftly she looked away toward the grazing horses, unable to keep holding the intensity of his gaze. “But it wasn’t wicked, the way Mrs. Mallon said, and it’s not folly, any more than you shall lead me to the devil.”
“I mean to try,” he said. “Though you gave them every reason to believe I already had.”
“I did not!” she exclaimed indignantly. “The only scandalous thing I did was to refuse to ride in their silly carriage!”
“You didn’t have to say a word, pet.” His voice dropped lower, deeper, with enough of a rasp to it to make Sophie shiver. “Charleck and his sister had only to look at you to learn the truth.”
“What truth is that?” she scoffed skittishly. “Make sense, Harry.”
“I am,” he said, reaching out to touch her cheek. “You tried to play your governess role again, scraping your hair back and putting on that grim, grim face, but this time it didn’t work. This time you couldn’t make yourself proper. It was too late. The truth was writ clear across your face, my dear Sophie.”
He slipped his fingertips from her cheek to her mouth, rubbing his thumb across the swell of her lower lip, still sensitive from their kiss. “Here’s the truth, here for all the world to see. This mouth doesn’t belong to a respectable governess, but to a woman who’s just been caught with her lover.”
Her lover: no wonder her heart raced, because he was right. Why hadn’t she realized it herself? It hadn’t been a parrot on her head at all when Harry and Lord Charleck had looked at her so oddly. It had been Harry’s kiss lingering on her lips, boldly there for the entire world to see.
Yet wasn’t that what she’d chosen for this night, a lover’s kiss to be treasured and remembered? She pressed her lips against his thumb, kissing his finger the way she’d kissed his lips. For now, she wouldn’t be Miss Potts; she was only Sophie, Harry’s Sophie, and he was hers.
April Moon Page 22
