The Reluctant Reformer

by Lynsay Sands

  Damn! The man was coming to investigate. Maggie's mind was suddenly crowded with possibilities. He could simply be a traveler on the road, curious about a woman dashing wildly about the woods. But then, he could also be Lord Ramsey's cohort in crime. Or, perhaps he was simply getting out to stretch his legs.

  Maggie snorted aloud at the last possibility and glanced wildly around, seeking escape. She had not managed to escape her prison only to be caught now! She considered her options. Running was one, but she had already experienced the difficulties of racing about the muddy woods with tree branches and bushes snagging at her skirts. That was out. Which left hiding. Dropping to her knees, she scuttled into a bush next to the tree.

  Chapter Four

  "Yoo-hoo! Hello? Are you in some distress?"

  Maggie scowled and pushed a bothersome branch away from her face as she listened to the man's calls from her cramped hiding space. Wonderful! A knight errant thinking to aid a damsel in distress. If only I could be sure that was all he is, she thought with a sigh, then wrinkled her nose. An unpleasant smell was wafting up to her. She wondered briefly at its source, but was then distracted by the sound of snapping branches and the crunch of dead leaves as her "rescuer" moved nearer.

  "Yoo-hoo! Can I be of some assistance?"

  The racket the man was making as he pushed his way through the bushes drew alongside her, then continued past. Maggie sagged in relief and released the breath she had been holding. It was when she inhaled again that she recalled the odor she'd noticed earlier. It appeared to be growing stronger. Dear God, what is it? she wondered and raised a hand to wave the smell away. The stink increased tenfold, and it was then that she noticed the muck on her hand. She stared at it, slowly coming to a realization.

  Horror rushing over her, she set her one hand back to hold her weight as she lifted the other. It, too, bore the stuff. Dear God, she had crawled right into, or through, a pile of animal droppings! Shudders rolled through her, and she suffered a sort of squirmy fit, her body twitching and jerking with disgust as she began frantically wiping first one hand, then the other, on the ground and surrounding branches and leaves in an effort to remove the squishy substance.

  "Er...excuse me. Hello?" The words, spoken directly behind her, made Maggie pause and turn her head. She peered back through the foliage, only then realizing that the bush wasn't wide enough to hide her. It ended at her hips. Her derriere--covered by the yellow gown she wore--was sticking out. No doubt it had been thrashing around like some ridiculously huge canary just now. Which must have been a sight for this man to come upon, Maggie thought wearily. This simply wasn't her day.

  "Are you in some distress?"

  Maggie almost laughed at his tentative question. Reassuring herself that the reaction wasn't one of hysteria but amusement, and that surely it was a good sign that her sense of humor was still intact, she answered politely. "Not at all, but thank you for asking."

  "I see. Might I ask what are you doing in there, then?"

  This had to be the most humiliating conversation she'd ever had, Maggie decided as she wracked her brain for an explanation that would both satisfy as well as get rid of the man. It was becoming unbearable to have him talk to her behind like this, trapped in the bush as she was.

  "Only you, Maggie!" Her brother's amused voice echoed in her memory, and she silently cursed. She did not deliberately get herself into these messes. They just sort of...happened.

  "I am bird-watching, and I fear your presence is scaring the birds away," she blurted.

  "Er...might you not have more success with your bird-watching by looking up?" he asked.

  Maggie promptly wished she could kick herself. It was obvious she did not think well under pressure. "Yes, of course. And I was. However, I..." She searched her mind for an acceptable excuse for her position, and was quite pleased when she came up with: "Dropped something. My...er...a hairpin!" she announced with triumph. "Ah, there it is. Thank you. Everything is fine now. You may go." She waited hopefully but was disappointed by the silence that followed. He wasn't leaving.

  "I should be happy to assist you back to your feet now that you have found your hairpin."

  Maggie sighed and considered her options. She didn't think he believed a word she'd said, and he obviously wasn't going to simply go away. Crawling backward out of the bush and facing the man was her only option. The very idea made her cringe, but taking a deep breath, she began to scramble out...only to stop as her hair caught on a branch.

  "Is there something wrong?" came the man's concerned voice when she paused and gave an exclamation of pain. "Are you caught?"

  "Yes, I fear I am," she answered, leaning on one hand and using the other to try to untangle herself.

  "Perhaps I can help." She heard the words, then felt him grasp her hips. Maggie barely managed a startled gasp before he seemed to realize the impropriety of such a choice, and clasped her by the ankles instead. Which was not a better option, in her opinion. Her feet were pulled out from beneath her as he attempted to drag her out of the bush. She screeched in pain as her hair pulled free of the branch--or perhaps was yanked out of her head, she wasn't sure which. Then she was traveling backward, her skirt--apparently also caught on a branch--staying in place so that she came out of the foliage flat on her belly with her gown forming a sort of tent over her head.

  "Oh, dear!" Her feet were dropped and the man rushed to her side, pulling the material free for her as she struggled to get off her stomach. Dear God, it would be just her luck to have been dragged through the animal droppings! Maggie scrambled to her feet.

  Once upright, she raised her hand, intending to push her now wild hair out of her face. The sight made her pause.

  "Oh! You've mud on your hands." Retrieving a handkerchief, her "rescuer" began to clean her fingers.

  Maggie's mouth opened, then closed. What could she say? It was too late to stop his ruining the bit of cloth, so she remained silent as he tidied her hands. Her gaze moved over him. She had only caught a glimpse of him earlier, so really wasn't prepared for his attractiveness. Tall and lean with sandy-colored hair and a charming--if, at the moment, somewhat alarmed--smile. She would place him at the same age Gerald would have been were he still alive. Which was, perhaps, two or three years younger than the man who had kidnapped her.

  "I fear that is the best I can do," he announced apologetically, releasing her streaked hands and tucking the cloth back into his pocket. "Is there something wrong?"

  Tearing her alarmed gaze from his pocket, she tried not to feel guilty about his waistcoat now needing cleaning. She was rather amazed that the man wasn't aware of what he had just wiped off of her, but then she couldn't smell it now so supposed he couldn't either. Likely, she had scraped the worst off so that what remained merely looked like mud.

  Realizing that he was awaiting an answer to his question, Maggie shook her head. A clump of snarled hair immediately dropped into her eyes and reminded her of her ruined state. Having little choice, she pushed the tangled mess back from her face, then straightened with all the dignity she could muster.

  "Thank you," she offered, then turned on her heel and pushed back through the bushes and out of the trees.

  "Just a moment," he called, hurrying after her as she started up the road.

  Maggie had taken several steps in her chosen direction before she realized that she should have gone the other way. She was now heading in the same direction that the carriage was traveling. This man was likely too polite not to offer her a ride.

  "Might I assist you to where you are going? I should not like to be unchivalrous," he added as if he had somehow read her thoughts.

  "I thank you for the offer, kind sir. However, that is not necessary." Maggie didn't slow her step, but she did roll her eyes. Why were people so predictable? He would have done her a great favor had he been a rude boor and simply returned to his carriage and his journey. It would have been an even greater favor had he not stopped at all, she thought, glancing down at he
r hands with disgust. She really needed to find some water to clean up. A glance down showed that she had truly crawled right through the muck. The knees of her skirt were brown.

  Her mother--were she alive--would have been horrified. Maggie was horrified. Creeping about brothels, and crawling on her knees through the woods!

  She sighed miserably as she considered how low she had allowed herself to fall. I used to be such a proper lady, doing and saying the proper things--she mourned, then admitted--well, not always. She hadn't earned the refrain "Only you, Maggie!" by never setting a single step wrong. Still, she'd managed only mild mishaps in the past, and most of them due to clumsiness or inattention. Since Gerald's death, she had taken risks she knew she shouldn't have and--

  "You wouldn't be headed for the village, would you?"

  "Yes," Maggie answered distractedly, then clucked her tongue in irritation. She was sure she should have kept that to herself. She had no idea who this man was. He could be a bounder, or a--

  "Then, I fear you are headed in the wrong direction."

  That made her pause. She turned to face him.

  "It is back this way," he continued, gesturing in the direction from which he had come.

  Maggie peered up the lane, then sighed. She started in this new direction.

  He fell into step beside her. "I should probably introduce myself. Lord Mullin, at your service."

  She stopped again and faced him sharply. "Robert?" His eyebrows raised at the familiar address and Maggie flushed. "I apologize for the familiarity, my lord, but Gerald usually referred to you as Robert in his letters."

  "Gerald?"

  "My brother. Gerald Wentworth," she explained with reluctance.

  It was his turn to pause. "Maggie?" he finally gasped, then shook his head and corrected himself. "I mean Lady Margaret?" He grinned. "Gerald often spoke of you. He..." Lord Mullin paused and frowned up at the sky as it again began to rain. "Come."

  Before she quite knew what was happening, he had taken her arm and hustled her to his carriage. Ignoring her protests, he ushered her inside, then went to have a word with his driver. Extremely self-conscious about her less-than-pristine state, Maggie folded the sides of her skirt over the front, tucking just a bit of each side panel between her knees to keep the cloth there. The action hid a good deal of her soiled skirt, but did little to hide the smell.

  Groaning inwardly, she offered a nervous smile to Lord Mullin as he entered the carriage and pulled the door closed behind him. Settling on the opposite bench seat, he didn't seem to notice the smell. He was busy grinning. "Gerald's sister. I can hardly fathom it."

  Maggie offered him a pained smile. She wasn't surprised he could "hardly fathom it." She wasn't exactly at her best. That thought decided her to make an effort to repair at least some of the damage, and she set to work trying to return some semblance of normalcy to her hair. Unfortunately, it appeared that her lie of having lost a hairpin had become a reality. Several of her hairpins had been lost during her sojourn into the bushes.

  "Gerald, James, and I were in the same unit. Lord Ramsey," he added after a moment. "He is my neighbor. In fact, those were his woods you were mucking about in."

  Maggie stilled under his speculative gaze. This man and Lord Ramsey were neighbors? He had been on his way home from the village when he'd come across her, and from his reaction, he had not yet conferred with her abductor...Which meant her host's claims were likely true. Her kidnapper was indeed James Huttledon, Mullin's neighbor, and the Lord Ramsey her brother had mentioned so frequently. Recalling her brother's adulation of the man in his letters, she also supposed that Ramsey had been telling the truth regarding his reasons for kidnapping her. He probably had had the best of intentions.

  Not that any of them mattered, Maggie decided grimly. She had escaped those good intentions and intended to stay escaped. Banks and the rest of her staff must be quite upset by now. She had to get home and let them know she was all right. Besides, there was surely nothing Lord Ramsey could do. She had been over and over her situation. Carrying on with her journalistic career was the only acceptable way to make the money she needed.

  Of course, it didn't bode well for her escape that she had ended in the carriage of a friend of the man who had kidnapped her. That was rather deucedly bad luck. She was just beginning to ponder what it could mean to her plans when Lord Mullin spoke again.

  "What were you doing--"

  "You said Gerald spoke of me?" Maggie interrupted to distract him. It worked.

  "Spoke of you?" Robert chuckled. "Yes. He spoke of you often. He, James, and I were thick as thieves, and he used to read your letters aloud to us around the fire at night. In fact, between his talking about you and our sharing your letters, I feel as if I already know you. Gerald was very proud of you," he added with a sad smile.

  Maggie returned the expression. Her brother had always liked to talk. She had no doubt that he had regaled his friends with tales of their youth, and that he'd related them as vibrantly as he'd penned the articles for the Express. Gerald had always had a way with words. She hadn't been at all surprised to learn of his secret occupation; it had suited him.

  Her gaze returned to Lord Mullin, and she stiffened. There was a perplexed look on his face, and he was turning his head slowly, sniffing as if seeking the source of some smell.

  She flushed with embarrassment.

  "I apologize for taking you out of your way," she said, hoping to divert him.

  "Oh." He turned a distracted smile her way and shook his head. "Not at all. I am glad to have met you. I always hoped to. In fact, I have kept an eye out at the balls and routs, hoping to come across you."

  "I haven't been attending many balls of late," Maggie said quietly.

  "Ah, yes, of course. I should have realized." Mullin pulled his sullied kerchief from his pocket and raised it toward his face.

  "Oh--" Maggie began, but it was too late. She knew that it had probably been a pleasantly scented kerchief when he'd left home that day, and that he'd likely hoped to use it to filter the stink presently invading his carriage. Instead, he got a noseful of the very scent he was trying to escape.

  "Agh!"

  She watched in alarm as he began gagging violently and tore the kerchief away. His horrified gaze shot to her hands, then to her innocent expression, then back to her hands. "Your...you...eh..."

  "Yes, my lord?" Maggie wasn't surprised when he sank helplessly back in his seat without comment. It simply wasn't polite to tell a lady that her hands were covered with animal excrement. Which was rather silly. If such rules were made to prevent embarrassment, they didn't at all work, Maggie thought; they simply made it so that people suffered their embarrassment in shared silence.

  She peered at Lord Mullin's face. At first alarmed at the growing ruddiness of it, she quickly realized that he was turning red because he was holding his breath.

  It is a terribly unpleasant stench, she thought and she promptly began to fan herself. "Is it growing warm in here?"

  Lord Mullin was not slow-witted. Looking relieved, he sprang up on his seat and quickly set to work opening the carriage window, inhaling deeply of the fresh air that swept in when he succeeded.

  Not immune to the stench, Maggie slid along her seat to enjoy the fresh air as well, exchanging a wry look with her host as she did. She knew that was as close as they were going to come to acknowledging any difficulty.

  They were both extremely relieved when the village came into sight. By that time the rain had stopped, and she and Lord Mullin were half-hanging out the window in companionable silence. The aroma now permeated the carriage, and seemed to grow stronger and more overpowering with each passing moment.

  The situation had been beneficial in at least one respect, Maggie decided. Forced to hang out of the carriage to avoid the stink, with the wind slapping their faces, ready to snatch any words they might say, conversation between she and Lord Mullin had been impossible. She had been saved from the possibility of any awkward qu
estions regarding her tramping about Lord Ramsey's woods.

  Unfortunately, now that they were entering the village, they were forced to settle back into their seats.

  "Gerald was a good man," Mullin murmured into the silence as they faced each other across the carriage.

  "Yes, he was," Maggie agreed. A sadness settled over her. Gerald had been a good man. A good brother. A good friend. A good employer to his servants. Why did it always seem that the good were taken from the earth while the rotten sorts were left behind to trouble others? As she wondered that, she stiffened; her gaze had dropped to the bench seat she occupied. Her face flushed with guilt and embarrassment once again, for she saw that Lord Mullin's carriage would not just need an airing. Some of the muck from her skirts had transferred to the seat.

  Mullin cleared his throat, drawing Maggie's attention away from her crime. One look at the determined set of the man's shoulders hinted that he was going to ask one of those annoyingly uncomfortable questions like, "What were you doing in the woods?" that Maggie was not eager to answer. There was the risk that if Lord Mullin discovered she was escaping his friend, he might well take her back. Which would be most inconvenient.

  She briefly considered lying herself silly, claiming that she had been traveling to Clarendon, the seat of the family's title, when her carriage broke down, but there were a couple problems with that lie. The first was that she had no idea where Ramsey manor lay in England, and whether it was in a position to be on her way to Clarendon. The second was that this Robert might insist on gathering her things from her imaginary carriage.

  Maggie was saved from prevarication and the risk associated when Lord Mullin's carriage began to slow, distracting both occupants and delaying the man's interrogation. She and he nearly bumped heads trying to peer out the window at the same moment, exchanged a slight smile, then glanced out in turns to see that they had arrived in the village.

  "We are here," her host announced unnecessarily, then looked at her in question. "Where did you wish to go?"

  "This will do," Maggie announced abruptly. Unwilling to give him the opportunity to ask those questions she could see swimming in his eyes, she pushed the carriage door open then rushed clumsily out.