An Escapade and an Engagement

by Annie Burrows

  She met Milly’s eye. What a stroke of luck! Milly did not know how to ride side-saddle, so the offer of a carriage ride to preserve the ladies’ clothing was a wonderful cover for her lack of that particular accomplishment. So far, things could not be going better.

  She felt more cheerful than she had for an age when she entered the stable block about an hour later. One of the things she had hated most about London was not being able to canter through the woods at Darvill Park in the misty dawn, or indulge in a breakneck gallop across open fields. In anticipation of just such a treat, when she had decided to come to this house party she had purchased a new riding habit. In honour of Lord Ledbury’s military service she had gone for a severely tailored midnight-blue jacket with silver frogging round the buttons and silver-lace epaulettes. The hat she wore with it was one of those so popular at the moment, which looked a bit like a soldier’s shako with a little white cockade.

  Lady Penrose walked across to the barouche in which Miss Twining’s chaperone was already sitting. The hood was pushed back, to allow them to get a good view of the estate, but it could be pulled up in the event of further rain.

  Lady Susan, Miss Twining and Miss Beresford were already making their selection from the line of horses being held by some grooms. She had no idea how keen they really were on riding, but since the older ladies in the carriage would be obliged to stick to the roads, no husband-hunter worth her salt would pass up such a golden opportunity to shake off her chaperone. On horseback, the girls could disappear into a copse, or over the brow of a hill, for minutes at a time without incurring too much disapproval.

  Lord Ledbury was lounging against the stable wall, his arms crossed, but when he saw her party he pushed himself upright and made towards them, his expression as forbidding as she had ever seen it.

  Milly detached herself from Lady Jayne’s side, made straight for the curricle in which Lord Halstead intended to drive himself and wasted no time in clambering up beside him.

  Lady Jayne could not blame her. It would take a very brave person indeed not to quail before the look in Lord Ledbury’s eyes as he stalked across the stable yard.

  ‘Allow me to help you choose your mount,’ he said through gritted teeth. When he crooked his arm, she dared do nothing but meekly take it and let him lead her across the yard to where the horses were lined up.

  The other ladies looked daggers at her to see her receiving such special attention from their quarry. She looked straight through them. She did not care how much they hated her so long as she could prevent any of them from getting their claws into Lord Ledbury.

  Since she was the last down to the stable yard there was little choice left. But the spirited-looking bay mare which Miss Twining had just rejected, after it had tossed its head and rolled its eyes when she reached out to pat its neck, looked as though it would suit her perfectly. The groom was having to hold its bridle with some determination to prevent it from skipping sideways across the cobbles. It was itching to get out and have some fun.

  Well, so was she!

  While she was making friends with the creature—whose name, the groom informed her with a meaningful look, was Mischief—Lord Ledbury strode away and, somewhat to her surprise, himself mounted up. True, the creature on which he was now sitting looked weary to the point of somnolence, but he was on horseback.

  She had never seen him ride before. In fact, from the way he’d talked about his injuries, she’d suspected he might spend the rest of his life as a semi-invalid.

  But he was fit enough to ride with them this morning. Which was absolutely wonderful.

  She mounted Mischief and spent some time rearranging her skirts to give herself time to get her feelings under control. Had there been nobody else about she thought she might have rushed over and hugged him. Or broken out into a loud cheer. Or…something. She did not know what.

  She had still not quite succeeded in regaining full control of her sheer delight by the time he positioned his beast beside hers as they began to exit the yard. In fact, she turned and beamed at him.

  ‘How do you have the nerve to smile at me like that?’ he snapped, dousing her joy at the sign of his return to health. ‘Do you know how long I waited for you outside in the cold this morning? And don’t tell me you never leave your room before breakfast. I know full well you can get up and dressed and go out to meet men when it suits you,’ he finished bitterly.

  There was nothing that would stop her from doing anything she put her mind to. He had seen her scramble up a tree like a monkey, having donned breeches under her dress, so that she could sneak out and dally with Lieutenant Kendell in the park at dawn.

  ‘I could not help it,’ she said, though she was not smiling any more. ‘Are you not pleased to be on horseback again, too?’

  He sighed. She had no idea how badly she had hurt him by not keeping their assignation. Well, it had taken him by surprise, too. Another proof, as if he needed any, that he was in love with her.

  Falling in love was a damnable business, he thought, scowling. A bit like being at sea. When he’d seen her sauntering towards him in that outfit, with that smile on her face, his heart had soared. Then as abruptly plunged to his boots when he realized she hadn’t chosen a military style for any reason that had anything to do with him. It was probably just the current fashion.

  Yes, just like being at sea. Whether his mood was on the crest of the wave, or plunging into a trough, he never stopped feeling sick at heart.

  Perhaps he ought to abandon this particular ship. He would certainly feel as if he’d got his feet back on firm ground if he stopped wondering whether he might ever induce Lady Jayne to marry him.

  He could set off back on his original course. The one which would lead him to make a practical union with a woman who would bring lustre to the family line.

  Only he’d lost any enthusiasm for going down that route. Oh, yes, he’d be on an even keel again. But he suspected it would be like slogging across a flat, barren, joyless landscape, with him frequently looking over his shoulder at what might have been.

  ‘Pleased to be on horseback?’ He turned his pessimistic mood on the poor unfortunate beast he’d just mounted. ‘I would hardly grace this animal upon which I am sitting with the appellation of horse. In fact I do not think I have ever sat a creature which more nearly resembles an armchair in all my life. Even as a boy the first pony I was put up on by my groom had the energy to break into a trot upon occasion.’

  Lady Jayne giggled. And it felt as though the sun had come out. It was the first time anything he had said had actually amused her. To hell with any thought of abandoning ship. This was progress. Real progress.

  ‘Well, I expect it will be some time before your leg is strong enough to warrant mounting anything with too much spirit,’ she observed, running her eyes along the length of his thigh.

  Dear God, how he wished it was her little hands making the journey. He had never met any creature with more spirit, or more worth mounting, than the deceptively dainty-looking Lady Jayne.

  To keep his mind off erotic images of Lady Jayne writhing beneath him with the kind of enthusiasm a man yearned for but very rarely found in his bed partner, he urged his recalcitrant mount into a forward motion.

  Lady Jayne, by contrast, appeared to be exerting all her strength in holding Mischief back.

  ‘Will it… I hope you do not mind me asking…. Will it mend completely, do you think? You do not limp as much as you used to. And you do not seem to need
your cane very often now, either.’

  ‘My leg wants only exercise to resume its former strength. Just like the rest of me.’

  From the corner of his eye he saw her frown pensively.

  ‘Yes, Milly told me you had a recurrent fever that laid you low throughout the winter.’

  Hmm… The girls talked about him, did they?

  ‘I cannot imagine a gently bred young lady being truly interested in hearing all the gory details of a protracted illness.’ Unless she was interested in the patient.

  ‘Oh, well…’ She couldn’t admit that she greedily devoured any tidbits Milly ever divulged about his past life. ‘Do you object?’

  Mischief shook her head irritably from side to side, indicating Lady Jayne’s grip on the reins must have confused her.

  ‘I suppose,’ she said in a rather contrite tone, ‘it must sound as though we have been gossiping about you. But, truly, neither of us meant any harm. It is just that sometimes, when we first met, you did not seem very well, and I did not quite dare ask you…’

  She looked mortified, but he was heartened by her admission that she was, indeed, interested in the patient.

  ‘When we first met,’ he said, ‘I was still far from well, it is true. Had I not felt it my clear duty to embark on the hunt for a wife I would not have attempted to take my place in Society at all this Season.’

  He didn’t look cross with her. So she plucked up the courage to add, ‘You often looked very pale.’

  ‘You noticed?’ Lady Jayne had finally managed to settle Mischief to a walking pace his own mount was capable of matching. As they left the shelter of the last of the stable buildings he felt emboldened to admit, ‘I thought I’d taken such good care to conceal my condition. I leaned on that cane and let people assume it was my leg that was the problem.’ He laughed, a little self-deprecatingly. ‘Rather that than risk my pride getting dented by passing out in the heat of a stuffy ballroom. But I don’t mind admitting the truth to you, Lady Jayne.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  The smile she darted at him put him in mind of a child who’d just been given an unexpected treat.

  ‘No. I want you to know the truth about me, Lady Jayne. I want you to know who I am. All of me.’ He frowned, as though choosing his next words carefully. ‘The life of a soldier is harsh, Lady Jayne. Far harsher than a sheltered lady like you can possibly imagine. In summer we burn like biscuits in the heat of the sun as we march. In winter, if we cannot get shelter overnight, our blankets stick fast to the ground with ice. If we progress too fast, and the supply trains cannot keep up with us, we starve. And then, when it rains, we live in sodden clothing for days on end. Illness runs rife through the ranks, killing far more men than battles do. Even before I got my leg broken at Orthez, my constitution was pretty worn down. And then suddenly I had to stroll into ballrooms, and behave as though I was some great lord. I had never felt less like a lord in my life.’

  No, she mused. He was far more like the corsair he’d dressed as the night of the masquerade. A man who helped damsels in distress to climb back in through their bedroom window rather than knock on the front door and hand them over in disgrace to their guardians.

  ‘Th-thank you for telling me all that,’ she said. He had paid her a very great compliment in confiding things to her that he deliberately concealed from everyone else. And his telling her about what it had been like to be a soldier helped her understand why he seemed so much more real than anyone she had ever met before. He had lived the kind of life most people only read about in books.

  No wonder he often betrayed impatience with the pampered, shallow creatures who inhabited her world.

  He heard her sigh, and saw her eyes filled with a look he found hard to interpret. Damn! He hoped he had not made her feel sorry for him. He had just wanted her to know him and…love him for himself? His mouth twisted in self-mockery. He was a lost cause. What was he doing, thinking he could win a prize like Lady Jayne with tales of warfare and injury? He wanted his head examining.

  ‘I began to move in Society before I was ready, it is true,’ he said. ‘When I first went to Town doing hardly anything at all exhausted me to the point where I often went light-headed. But I have not needed that damn cane for the past couple of weeks.’

  Now she came to think of it, that cane had been conspicuous by its absence on the night of the masquerade.

  ‘The fact that you see me up on horseback, even though it is such a slug, is testament to my convalescence. The more exercise I can take, the quicker my weakened muscles will regain their full strength, I am sure.’

  His full strength? What was that she had been on the receiving end of at the masquerade, then? When he’d picked her up and carried her into the conservatory it had felt as though she was wrestling with something very like a walking oak tree.

  And yet he didn’t consider himself to be back to his full strength?

  Gracious.

  And then, with a wrench—and because if she didn’t get back to the matter at hand she might spend the rest of the ride gazing in fascination at the muscles of his thighs, or remembering the feel of his arms clamping round her as he’d lifted her effortlessly off her feet—she said, ‘M-Milly said that during last winter you were so poorly she sometimes despaired…’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently, the mention of Milly’s name reminding him of the danger Lady Jayne was courting. ‘You don’t need to remind me how much I owe Milly. But that does not alter the fact that you should not have brought her here. Which was why I wanted to talk to you alone this morning.’

  His expression turned so grim Lady Jayne’s courage deserted her. She loved the way he’d opened up to her. It made her feel as though she was special to him. It would make his censure even harder to bear.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, slackening her grip on the reins. ‘I do not think I can…’

  Mischief, sensing freedom, flung her head up and down, curvetted, then shot away at breakneck speed.

  She aimed her towards a long, slow rise, crested by a belt of woodland into which she intended to disappear, trusting that the horse Lord Ledbury was riding would have neither the inclination nor the stamina to follow.

  The dash up the hill took the edge off Mischief’s pent-up energy, just as she’d known it would, and they entered the woodland at a steady canter. Even so, she had to bend low over Mischief’s neck to preserve her hat from overhanging branches.

  Since Mischief knew the terrain, Lady Jayne did not attempt to guide the creature too strictly, and was soon rewarded by her faith in the animal’s instincts when they emerged into a clearing on the far side of which was just such a broad ride as she had hoped to find.

  But, instead of finding herself completely alone, she heard hoofbeats thundering up behind her. When she looked over her shoulder, to her complete astonishment she saw Lord Ledbury was only a few yards away. She could not believe he had managed to get that sluggish creature to keep up with Mischief!

  Though she knew why he had done so. He was determined to give her a scold. Not only for bringing Milly into his home but also for letting him think she would meet him in the shrubbery and then cravenly staying away.

  She wheeled Mischief round to face him.

  ‘I know. I am sorry. I should have let you know I was not going to meet with you this morning,’ she blurted, before he had the chance to reprove her. ‘I know you must be furious with me. But think, my lord. You cannot possibly want to be caught in a co
mpromising position with me.’

  She meant, he thought moodily, that it was the last thing she wanted. She had not been so pernickety about getting caught out with Kendell.

  ‘As if you care a rap for propriety!’

  She flinched at his condemnation of her behaviour.

  ‘Well, I do, actually,’ she replied earnestly. ‘Especially when it comes to you,’ she admitted, blushing. ‘I would never do anything to embarrass or hurt you.’

  He allowed his horse to shudder to a standstill. It dropped its head to the ground, its flanks heaving wheezily.

  ‘Are you telling me you had no intention of punishing me for the way I issued you with orders to meet me?’

  ‘No! It was not like that. I did resent the way you spoke to me, but I had no deliberate intent to punish you. I suppose it cannot have been very pleasant for you, waiting outside for me.’ She glanced at his leg, then at his face. ‘I did not think.’

  She looked so contrite that he could not doubt she spoke the truth. Though she was often impulsive and thoughtless, in all the time he had known her he had never seen her be deliberately unkind to anyone.

  ‘Very well. I acquit you of attempting to punish me.’ When her face lit up he almost forgot why he had been so determined to get her alone. It took him quite an effort to say, ‘But that does not mean I am not still very angry with you for bringing Milly here, when it is the last place I ever wanted to see her.’

  ‘No!’ She looked shocked. ‘You cannot mean that.’

  ‘Of course I mean it!’

  ‘Oh, but Richard, can’t you see that once your grandfather has seen with his own eyes how lovely Milly is he can surely have no further objection to you marrying her?’

  ‘What?’

  Lady Jayne thought he wanted to marry Milly? And that his grandfather objected? How the hell had she reached such a staggeringly inaccurate conclusion?