SLIGHTLY WICKED

by Mary Balogh

“There is a market town no more than three miles ahead, sir,” the coachman told him, pointing off along the road. A particularly inept coachman, Rannulf judged, to have so completely lost control of his coach on a muddy road and not to have thought of sending a postilion on one of the horses to fetch assistance. But then the man showed distinct signs of having been keeping himself fortified against the damp and the chill with the contents of the flask that was clearly visible inside a gaping pocket of his greatcoat.

  One of the passengers—a woman—had not joined the others in greeting him. She was bent over a muddy gentleman seated on a wooden crate, pressing some sort of makeshift bandage to his cheek. He took it from her even as Rannulf watched, and the woman straightened up and turned to look at him.

  She was young and tall. She was wearing a green cloak, slightly damp, even muddied at the hem. It fell open down the front to reveal a light muslin dress and a bosom that immediately increased Rannulf’s body heat by at least a couple of degrees. She was bareheaded. Her hair was disheveled and half down over her shoulders. It was a glorious shade of bright red-gold such as he had never before seen on a human head. The face beneath it was oval and flushed and bright-eyed—the eyes were green, he believed—and quite startlingly lovely. She returned his stare with apparent disdain. What did she expect him to do? Vault down into the mud and play hero?

  He grinned lazily and spoke without looking away from her.

  “I could, I suppose,” he said, “take one person up with me. One lady? Ma’am? How about you?”

  The other women passengers were having their say about his offer and his choice, but Rannulf ignored them. The redheaded beauty looked back at him, and he fully expected from the scorn on her face that she would reject his offer. He was certain of it when one of her fellow passengers, a thin, reedy, sharp-nosed individual who might have been a clerical gentleman, gave his opinion, uninvited.

  “Strumpet!” he said.

  “ ‘ere,” one of the other women said—a large, buxom woman with apple-red cheeks and a redder nose, “you watch ’o you are calling a strumpet, my man. Don’t think I ‘aven’t noticed the way you been eyeing ’er for the past ‘alf a day ’cos I ‘ave, you old lecher, squirming around in your seat so you could feel ’er up surreptitious like. And you with a prayer book in your ‘ands and all. You should be ashamed of yerself. You go with ’im, dearie. I would if ‘e arsked me, which ’e wouldn’t do on account of the fact I would dent ‘is ’orse in the middle.”

  The redhead smiled at Rannulf then, an expression that grew slowly even as the color deepened in her cheeks.

  “It would be my pleasure, sir,” she said in a voice that was warm and husky and crawled up his spine like a velvet-gloved hand.

  He rode over to the side of the road, toward her.

  He was nothing like the highwayman of her daydream. He was neither lithe nor dark nor handsome nor masked, and though he smiled, there was something mocking rather than carefree in the expression.

  This man was solid. Not fat by any means, but... solid. His hair beneath his hat was fair. It looked wavy and it was certainly overlong for fashion. His face was dark-complexioned, dark-browed, and big-nosed. His eyes were blue. He was not at all handsome. But there was something about him. Something compelling. Something undeniably attractive—though that did not seem quite a powerful enough word.

  Something slightly wicked.

  Those were the first thoughts that flashed through Judith’s head when she looked up at him. And of course he was no highwayman but merely a fellow traveler offering to ride on for assistance and to take someone with him.

  Her.

  Her second thought was one of shock, indignation, outrage. How dared he! Who did he think she was that he expected she would agree to mount a horse with a stranger and ride off alone with him? She was the daughter of the Reverend Jeremiah Law, whose expectations of strict propriety and morality from his flock were exceeded only by what he expected of his own daughters—especially her.

  Her third thought was that within a very short distance—the coachman had said three miles—there was a town and the comfort of an inn, and that perhaps both could be reached before the rain came tumbling down. If she availed herself of the stranger’s offer, that was.

  And then she remembered her daydream again, the foolish, lovely fantasy of a dashing highwayman who had been about to carry her off on some unknown, glorious adventure, freeing her of all obligation to her family and her past, freeing her from Aunt Effingham and the dreary life of drudgery awaiting her at Harewood. A dream that had been shattered when the coach overturned.

  She had a chance now to experience a real adventure, even if it was just a tiny little one. For three miles and perhaps as long as an hour she could ride up before this attractive stranger. She could do something as scandalously improper as leaving the safety and propriety of numbers to be alone with a gentleman. Her papa would shut her into her room with bread and water and her Bible for a week if he ever heard of it, and Aunt Effingham might well decide that even a month was not long enough. But who would ever know? What harm could possibly come to her?

  And then the bony man called her a strumpet.

  Strangely she did not feel indignant. The accusation was so absurd that she almost laughed. Yet it acted like a challenge to her. And the plump woman was encouraging her. Could she be such a sorry creature that she would turn down this small chance of a lifetime?

  She smiled. “It would be my pleasure, sir,” she said, hearing with some surprise that she was not speaking with her own voice but with that of a fantasy woman who would dare do such a thing.

  He rode closer to her, holding her eyes with his own as he came, and leaned down from the saddle.

  “Take my hand and set your foot on my boot, then,” he instructed her.

  She did both and suddenly it was too late to change her mind. With a seemingly effortless strength that left her breathless rather than alarmed, he lifted her and turned her so that almost before she knew she had left the ground she was sitting sideways before him, his arms bracketing her and giving her the illusion of safety. There was noise all about them. Some people were laughing and encouraging her while others complained about being left behind and begged the stranger to hurry and send back help before the rain came down.

  “Is one of those portmanteaux yours, ma’am?” the stranger asked.

  “That one.” She pointed. “Oh, and the reticule beside it.” Although it contained only the very small amount of money Papa had been able to spare her for tea and perhaps some bread and butter during her one-day journey, she was horrified at her carelessness in almost leaving it behind.

  “Toss it up here, man,” the horseman instructed the coachman. “The lady’s portmanteau can be fetched with the others later.”

  He touched his whip to the brim of his hat after she had her reticule and nudged his horse into motion. Judith laughed. Her great, pathetically small adventure of a lifetime had begun. She willed the three miles to stretch to infinity.

  For a few moments she was preoccupied with the fact that she was far from the ground on horseback—she had never been much of a horsewoman—and that the ground itself was a sea of oozing mud. But it did not take her long to become more aware of the startling intimacy of her position. She could feel the warmth of the stranger’s body all down her left side. His legs—they looked very powerful encased in tight breeches and supple top boots—were on either side of her. Her knees touched one of them. She could feel the other brushing her buttocks. She could smell horse and leather and male cologne. The dangers of travel paled beside these other wholly unfamiliar sensations.

  She shivered.

  “It is rather chilly for a summer day,” the horseman said, and he wrapped one arm about her and drew her sideways until her shoulder and arm were leaning firmly against his chest and she had no choice but to let her head fall against his shoulder. It was shocking indeed—and undeniably thrilling. It also made her suddenly remember that s
he was not wearing her bonnet. Not only that—with a quick sideways swivel of her eyes she noticed that at least some of her hair was loose and untidy about her shoulders.

  What must she look like? What must he think of her?

  “Ralf Bed—ard at your service, ma’am,” he said.

  How could she announce herself as Judith Law? She was not behaving at all true to her upbringing. Perhaps she should pretend to be someone else entirely—a fantasy self.

  “Claire Campbell,” she said, slapping together the first names that came into her head. “How do you do, Mr. Bedard?”

  “Extremely well at the moment,” he said huskily and they both laughed.

  He was flirting with her, she thought. How scandalous! Papa would depress his impertinence with a few withering words—and then doubtless punish her for flaunting herself. And this time he would be justified. But she was not going to spoil her precious adventure by thinking of Papa.

  “Where are you bound?” Mr. Bedard asked. “Pray do not tell me there is a husband waiting somewhere to lift you down from the coach. Or a sweetheart.”

  “Neither,” she told him, laughing again for no particular reason except that she felt lighthearted. She was going to enjoy her brief adventure to the very last moment. She was not going to waste time, energy, or opportunity in being shocked. “I am single and unattached—the way I like it.” Liar. Oh, liar.

  “You have restored my soul,” he assured her. “Who, then, is awaiting you at the end of your journey? Your family?”

  Inwardly she grimaced. She did not want to think about the end of her journey. But the good thing about adventures was that they were neither real nor lasting. For the remainder of this strange, brief one she could say and do—and be— whatever took her fancy. It was like having a dream and some reality all at the same time.

  “I have no family,” she told him. “None that would own me, anyway. I am an actress. I am on my way to York to play a new part. A leading role.”

  Poor Papa. He would have an apoplexy. And yet it had always been her wildest, most enduring dream.

  “An actress?” he said, his voice low and husky against her ear. “I might have known it as soon as I set eyes on you. Such vivid beauty as yours would shine brightly on any stage. Why have I never seen you in London? Can it be because I rarely attend the theater? I must certainly mend my ways.”

  “Oh, London,” she said with careless scorn. “I like to act, Mr. Bedard, not just be ogled. I like to choose the parts I wish to play. I prefer provincial theaters. I am well enough known in them, I believe.”

  She was, she realized, still talking in that voice she had used at the roadside. And, incredibly, he believed her story. It was evident in his words and in the look in his eyes— amused, appreciative, knowing. Branwell, after he had first gone away to university and into the great wide world, had once told his sisters—in the absence of Papa—that London actresses almost always supplemented their income by being mistresses to the rich and titled. She was wading in dangerous waters, Judith thought. But it was for only three miles, for only an hour.

  “I wish I could see you onstage,” Mr. Bedard said, and his arm tightened about her while the backs of his leather-gloved fingers raised her chin.

  He kissed her. On the mouth.

  It did not last long. He was, after all, riding a horse over treacherous roads with a passenger hampering both his own movements and those of his horse. He could ill afford the distraction of a lengthy embrace.

  But it lasted long enough. Quite long enough for a woman who had never been kissed before. His lips were parted, and Judith felt the moist heat of his mouth against her own. Seconds, or perhaps only a fraction of one second, before her brain could register either shock or outrage, every part of her body reacted. Her lips sizzled with a sensation that spread beyond them, through her mouth, into her throat, and up behind her nostrils. There was a tightening in her breasts, and a powerful ache down through her stomach and her womb and along the insides of her thighs.

  “Oh,” she said when it was over. But before she could express her indignation over such an insolent liberty, she remembered that she was Claire Campbell, famous provincial actress, and that actresses, even if not the mistresses of the rich and titled, were expected to know a thing or two about life. She looked into his eyes and smiled dreamily.

  Why not? she thought recklessly. Why not live out her fantasy for this short little spell to discover where it might lead? This first kiss, after all, would probably also be her last.

  Mr. Bedard smiled back at her with lazy, mocking eyes.

  “Oh, indeed,” he said.

  Chapter II

  What the devil was he doing getting involved—very involved—in a kiss while with every step it took Bucephalus was in danger of skidding and breaking a leg and tossing its two riders to a bumpy, muddy landing? Rannulf mentally shook his head.

  She was an actress who claimed to prefer acting worthy parts to being ogled in a fashionable theater. Yet she was displaying all that artfully disarranged hair, which—if his eyes did not deceive him—was her natural color, and showing no apparent reluctance to be pressing all those warm, voluptuous curves against his front. The flush of color in her cheeks was natural too. She had a way of partially lowering her dark-lashed eyelids over her remarkable eyes—they were green—in a look of pure invitation if ever he had seen one. And her voice still caressed him like a velvet-gloved hand.

  He was playing the game, was he? Well, of course he was playing the game. Why else had he given her a false name? Why would he not, especially when it had offered itself so unexpectedly, at a time when he had been contemplating a chaste few weeks with his grandmother? He had lusty appetites and was not about to turn down an invitation such as she was clearly offering. But even so—kissing on horseback? On a dangerously muddy road?

  Rannulf chuckled inwardly. This was the stuff of fantasy. Delicious fantasy.

  “What is your destination?” she asked him. “Are you going home to a wife? Or a sweetheart?”

  “To neither,” he said. “I am single and unattached.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” she told him. “I would hate to think of your having to confess that kiss to someone.”

  He grinned at her. “I am on my way to spend a few weeks with friends,” he said. “Are those buildings I see up ahead? Or do my eyes deceive me?”

  She turned her head to look. “No,” she said. “I believe you are right.”

  It was going to start raining again any second. It would be good to get off the muddy road and inside a building. It was certainly necessary to report the wrecked carriage as soon as possible so that help could be dispatched. Nevertheless, Rannulf felt some regret that the town was coming upon them so soon. However, all might not be lost. It was going to be impossible for either of them to journey on today, close though he was to his own destination.

  “Within a few minutes, then,” he said, lowering his head until his mouth was close to her ear, “we should be safe at an inn and help will have been sent to those poor stranded passengers. You will be relaxing in one warm, dry room and I in another. Will you be glad?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said in a brisk voice that was unlike the one she had been using so far in their acquaintance.

  Ah. He had mistaken the signs, had he? A mild flirtation on horseback was one thing, but anything further was not in her plans? He lifted his head and concentrated upon guiding his horse the final few yards to what looked like a sizable posting inn on the edge of a small town.

  “No,” she said a few moments later, her voice low and throaty again. “No, I will not be glad.”

  Ah.

  It was warm and dry inside the inn, and for the first time in several hours Judith felt physically safe. But the inn was crowded. The yard outside had been bustling, and people were milling about inside, some of them at windows watching the sky, others clearly having decided to stop for the night.

  She had a problem. She did not have en
ough money to pay for a room. But when she had mentioned that fact to Mr. Bedard, he had merely smiled that mocking smile at her and said nothing. Now he was standing at the reception desk speaking with the innkeeper while she stood a few feet away. Was it possible that he intended to pay for her room? Would she allow it? How would she ever pay him back?

  She wished and wished that her brief, glorious adventure had not ended so soon. She wanted more. She would relive the past hour over and over in the coming days and weeks, she knew. She would relive that kiss perhaps forever. Poor forlorn spinster, she thought, giving herself a mental shake. But her spirits seemed to be flattened against the soles of her rather muddy half boots. She felt more depressed now than she had an hour ago, before he rode into her life.

  He was a tall man and solidly built. His hair, she could see now that he had removed his hat, was indeed wavy. It was also thick and fair and almost touched his shoulders. If one mentally added a beard and a horned helmet, one could imagine him standing at the prow of a Viking ship directing an attack on a hapless Saxon village. With herself as a brave, defiant villager ...

  He turned away from the desk and closed the distance between them. He stood rather close to her and spoke low.

  “A number of travelers have already taken refuge here,” he said. “And the passengers from the stagecoach are going to need rooms too. The inn will be overflowing tonight. There is, however, a smaller, quieter inn farther into the town, by the market green. It is used primarily on market days, but I have been assured that it is perfectly clean and comfortable. We could leave two rooms vacant here by removing there.”

  There was a look in his eyes that was not exactly amusement and not exactly mockery. She could not interpret it though it sent shivers down to her very toes so that she found herself curling them involuntarily inside her half boots. She licked her lips.

  “I have told you, Mr. Bedard,” she said, “that I do not have more than a few coins on me, having expected to journey straight through to York without stopping. I will remain here. I will sit in the dining room or in the window here until another stagecoach arrives to take me on my way.” Actually, she thought, she was probably not very far from Harewood Grange. They were in Leicestershire already, were they not?