The Coachman's Daughter

by Gayle Eden

  Today, she had vowed over a plate of tarts, “I shall go mad, I tell you. Mother is seating us together, suggesting I show him the gardens, or fawn over him. I am sure she would never do over another of any bloody rank. It’s as if she has lost her mind.”

  Laughing, Haven chided, “It is only for a few days. The Duchess is kind and warm to everyone who comes to Wimberly; you are putting too much into normal things. Of course you should be polite to him.”

  “He won’t bother. Never speaks above civilities. Those eyes…” she shivered. “I tell you, Haven. I have never met a man so remote in my life.

  Haven soothed and assured, reminding Lisette that if she did not care for him; the Duchess would not force him upon her.

  “You are coming over this evening, aren’t you? Left with Mama, I will end up pretending to take to my sickbed—and you know how desperate I’d have to be to do that.”

  “Of course. I am here for you. I just urge you to not panic. It will be fine. Treat it as any other gathering the Duchess has had here.”

  Haven finished in the stables, bathed and dressed for going over to the manor house. Patrick was busy along with the grooms with preparations. There had been strain between them since he had waiting for her when she entered after that—tryst—with Deme.

  She had been emotional for once. Though she said little, she did not seem to need to. She had gone to her room after his asking flat out if she had been with the Marquis. Somewhere between muttering curses and weeping in her pillow, she realized her father likely heard them below.

  She was glad that Lady Juliette was coming to the party. She would be with Lisette. Haven needed time to solve her own problems and not panic herself. She discovered much about herself in that tiny office, and no matter what was said afterwards, she was still in something of a dream state. Until he touched her, kissed her, she could tell herself anything. She could assume how she might respond. Now she knew too much about the both of them. She knew what happened when they kissed or touched. It was the most intense thing she had ever experienced in her life.

  * * * *

  When Deme descended the stairs, preparing for his meeting with Patrick, he could hear his mother directing the servants back toward the small ballroom/music room. He knew his father was sneaking a nap in the study, and the brothers were at billiards. Lisette and Haven were in that sister’s chambers.

  Servants were going about duties, obviously preparing for the guests so he waved off the butler who stopped in the middle of wiping down the door and instead grabbed his broadcloth ankle-length coat and drew it on, letting himself out. His gloves were in the pocket, but he did not don them. His mind was far ahead as he strode to the coach house.

  Entering, he took the stairs and knocked on Mulhern’s door.

  It opened. The Coachman stepped back, obviously having just bathed and changed. He was butting his shirt.

  “Come in.” He finished the task and then as Deme divested himself of his coat, went over to the fireplace flanked by two chairs and a low table.

  Deme looked around the comfortable space that was divided by a smaller freestanding shelf from the kitchens. It was a combination parlor and study, but the sheer number of books and trophies, the ribbons on one wall, was impressive.

  He finally regarded Patrick as the man bent down, pouring two glasses of whiskey from a bottle. The amber glowed from the fire. Joining him, Deme accepted the one offered to him, while admitting, “His grace told me about Haven’s mother.”

  Patrick waved him to sit, though he stood by the mantle. His mature and weathered face handsome but showing the etching of tension—pain too. When Deme sat, the Coachman drank from his glass, his hand rested on the mantle shelf. He rocked the drink in his hand and stared broodingly at it, as if seeing the past.

  “I haven’t told Haven as yet, but I will.”

  “She should know.” Deme sipped the whiskey, a good year, mellow and welcome.

  Patrick took another sip before uttering, “I was born William Fitzpatrick. My father was of the Black Watch.”

  Deme was stunned at that. “Scottish aristocracy?”

  “Yes. He was stationed in Ireland. Had a wife and children.”

  Patrick took the other chair with the low table between them. His long legs slightly parted, he leaned forward resting elbows on his knees while he rolled the glass of whiskey in his palms.

  Deme rather thought he was only half-conscious of his presences. Certainly his expression was remote.

  “My Mother was a Mulhern. She was sixteen. Her parents had died when she was a child. She had found employment as governess in one of the manors. In any event, they had had an affair, which was obviously doomed from the start. He was sometime later killed in the colonies. By then, she had lost her position after becoming pregnant and the only folks to take her in were a vicar and his wife. She had to agree to give me up.”

  “I’m sorry.” Deme mentally cursed, knowing now what Patrick had to do with Haven years later.

  The man said, “It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It happened that the vicar’s brother, a man of minor gentry took a liking to me and sent me to school. When I was twelve, he got me a position at one of the manor houses, working with the groom; I quickly showed an aptitude at the whip. The Lord took note of it, and I was sent to one of the best coaching schools. I gained a reputation there and afterwards while employed; I was allowed to enter the races. Eventually—there was some dispute between us and I left that position. I had enough saved to buy my own coach and team, and at that point, I entered every sort of race, coaches, buggies, anywhere I could win prize or purse.”

  “And you met Haven’s mother.”

  “Yes, Lady Alienor.” The fire crackled and Deme saw the spasm of pain on Patrick’s face before the man finished the whiskey and poured another.

  His eyes touched Deme’s briefly, before he sat back and gazed at the fire. “Her brother was at the races. I knew of him because of the heavy wagering he did. It was some time before I met her sisters, Jane and Elizabeth. However, I will never forget the moment I was climbing up to my seat before a race and that haunting face caught my eye. Her hair was the deepest red, and those eyes, like jasper. Thinking back on it later, after everything was done, I do not know how she kept her spirits up. Her brother made their lives hell. They were in desperate straits.” He sighed. “You know the details.”

  Deme told him what the Duke had said, watching Patrick nod here and there.

  The coachman told him when he finished, “There’s no mother listed on the parish register of Haven’s birth.”

  Deciding not to probe the question of if he believed her mother died, Deme murmured, “Which sister contacted you?”

  “Jane. She wrote to me later too. How she found me, I do not know. Her brother died and Elizabeth shortly after. The estates were lost to creditors. Jane had fled shortly after Alienor wed, and married a Lord Weatherly. She lives in York. She bade me allow her to meet Haven someday.”

  Finishing his own glass of whiskey, Deme slid up and refilled it, and then got to his feet. He walked over to a bay window. A drizzle left runnels over the glass. Sipping, mulling over the tale, he said at length, “You should tell her, tonight.”

  “I have planned to.” Patrick sighed heavily.

  “I’ll take her to York.” Deme turned, meeting Patrick’s gaze when the man turned to at that announcement. “After the party, and the lads leave.”

  “Why?”

  “She’ll want to go. There will be no swaying her. I have an excuse to be escort since two of our holdings lay en route, and I have offered to oversee them. I’ll meet with the steward, look over the books.”

  The coachman’s gaze went over him. Deme knew what he was thinking. He decided to be as honest as possible because there was no use lying to a man who had just spilled his guts.

  “I want her. I will not insult you by pretending I do not. I am not a saint, and never shall be. I do not have some insight into the futur
e or some list of promises to you that I do not know if I can keep. She and I are at each other’s throats more often than not. Nevertheless, I can promise this, I will not use her vulnerability or anything else to get what I want. She’s strong and mature enough and knows me well enough, to decide what happens between us.”

  “You’ll take her there, because you want her.”

  Deme shrugged. “I trust myself with her more than without her. I’m hardly reformed.” He grinned dryly. “And she can handle me. It will be a novelty to actually ride in a coach with her instead of having her drive it, I am sure. Samuel can drive us and we’ll take the mounts.”

  “And you think two of you will get along during a trip to York.”

  “Good God, no.” Deme snorted as he took a pull of whiskey. Afterwards adding. “But I’ll be a diversion for her and she me.” Taking his glass over, he set it down by the bottle and regarded the man who stood two inches over his own six foot. “She’s going to assume I find her acceptable because I know her parents both have blue blood, proved or not. She’s never going to make it easy for me to get what I want.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  Hearing the sarcasm in that, Deme grinned. “Does it comfort you knowing the truth—that I have never in my adult life, and I am speaking of after the worst mistake I made—cared about a woman enough to pursue anything with her.”

  “Not really.” Patrick returned bluntly. “But I trust her judgment. I know her. She is twenty and two, a grown woman. I don’t treat her like a child.”

  “I don’t either. She’s intelligent and strong, as you say.”

  “I won’t ask for your word or mention honor,” Patrick murmured, “But I will tell you this, you be certain of what you want, my lord, before you take it for granted.”

  Nodding, Deme supplied before taking his leave, “Escort her to the party—and make sure she wears a gown.”

  “I’d already been invited by the Duke,” Patrick said dryly.

  “Just make sure she doesn’t take off.” Getting his coat, he pulled it on and left.

  * * * *

  Later that night, he thought the whiskey he had consumed with Patrick should have let him sleep. Yet, he was awake, and in his bare feet and trousers, standing with his hands braced on the mantle and looking into the fire.

  He wondered how she was taking the words her father spoke to her, revealing things she’d likely asked him about for years. He had thought of little else. He asked himself if made a difference knowing her truths. In essence, it did not. The difference happened for him in that small office, when she was just pain-in-his-arse, Mulhern, a woman turning his blood molten and making him heady with the softest mouth, the wickedest tongue, and a lithe little body that he would see in his dreams every night.

  Even if his intent was motivated by something else at first, it was the taste of her, the scent of her, and the captivating expression in her tawny eyes when she was aroused that changed it. That she was a strong woman, one who never cared what his rank was when she had something to say, only made that sensual transformation all the more potent for him.

  He could still remember the slide of her tongue, the feel of her lips, the way she breathed. He remembered the sight of her shapely legs, the feel of her soft creamy thighs, and the red curls of her sex—the humid heat, the silken dampness.

  Cursing, he straightened and raked hands through his hair. His skin and muscle were tense as the memories aroused him. Firelight flickered over his skin, the defined shoulders, upper arms, and ridged stomach. He absently brushed a hand over his chest. His nipples were rigid. His cock was too. Deme went to his bed, lying there, calming his blood. He was not going to have some easy conquest with Haven Mulhern.

  Chapter Five

  Haven slept late for the first time in her life. She awoke and lay with a hand to her forehead after scraping her hair back, and with her mind reflecting on everything her father had told her when she came home from the manor.

  They had wept.

  She’d at first cried, “You should have told me!” However, when she realized he was crying and saw his wet cheeks, she’d fell to her to knees beside his chair and they had embraced each other, weeping like children though they were both adults...

  It was a sad story. Her birth. His loss of love. No matter how it turned out. Or, the advantages she had, thanks to the Duke and Duchess, it was still heart rending to think of what her father gone through. What her mother—one she would never know—went through.

  Haven shoved the covers down and sat up, scooting to the side of the bed. She smelled the hearth fire and coffee. Her father would have been out since dawn.

  She got herself up and went to the bathing room, lingering on her reflection once her wool gown was removed, seeing a petite woman’s body that wasn’t, in the way Lisette’s or the Duchess’s was. They had fuller breasts and rounder hips.

  She touched her neck, then her flat ribs and lower stomach. Looking back up, she studied her bone structure, with her face framed by her blunt cut chin length hair. Her eyes. He said she looked like her mother, and that pleased Haven. She chooses to think her mother wanted her, that she could not come see her. However, it was enough—all that her father had done, to keep her.

  Turning, she took her usual trousers and shirt off the hooks and pulled them on, later she was in her room donning her boots before she took her longer coat out of the wardrobe. Laying it aside in the parlor, she fixed herself coffee and ate a bit of the eggs her father had put aside for her.

  Musing on his father, her grandfather—she reflected that love and desire did not always have a happy outcome. Now she understood all that pain and reluctance Patrick showed when she tried to get answers before. He had done everything he could to make her life better, and she told him honestly, she loved him even more for it.

  Haven left and went to the stables, staying in the back and out of the way when the guests starting arriving.

  The groom and lads interacted with them, but she was too much in her head as yet to do so. Aside from that, there was the last bit of their conversation—where her father told her Deme knew the story, and that he offered to take her to York. What was she to make of that, considering how their tryst had ended? It was not like him. He was a selfish rakehell who could give two figs about others. And her father? He had actually seemed fine with the offer—after seeming not fine the night before when discovering she’d had that tryst.

  What the bloody hell had changed, other than the fact she had a few drops of blue blood?

  She brushed down the black stallion, patting it when it snorted, hearing the mares on the other side. She had been ready to say she was leaving, and that it was a departure meant to start her life, finally. She had told herself she must. She must in order to avoid Deme. She did not say that to her father. She had merely promised to think about suggestion she go with the Marquis, rattling on about how practical it was.

  Now Deme had her completely confused. Why was he interested and what did he care? They would bloody well strangle each other on a trip that long.

  Sometime that afternoon, Haven got a bit of distraction from her thoughts. She was near the front when a crested coach rolled up, and seeing the plush look if it, she deduced it was Viscount Marston’s.

  The captain and young lieutenant who had been invited had arrived early, one of them brought his sister, as had four friends of Aiden and James’s arrived from nearby.

  While the grooms were busy, she cut across to the main lawn of the manor in time to see a tall raven-haired man in long ankle length coat speaking with the livered footmen, who were seeing to his baggage.

  Um. Lisette had some parts right. He was around six foot and four, swarthy with a kind of craggy face that was also unmistakably aristocratic. Hatless, he was pulling off his gloves and putting them into his pocket, looking up at the impressive façade of Wimberly hall.

  Wind mussed his nape length hair. Remote, possibly. Most assuredly, when he began to walk towa
rd the entry, there was a confidence and self-possession in that stride. She could not see his eyes, but he had a strong chin and jaw.

  Lisette may be in for something there, Haven smiled despite her own problems. He did not look like a man so easily ignored.

  She winced and headed back to the stables, no doubt Lisette would be sending one of the maids for her before evening was over.

  She did send for her. They met out in the gardens.

  “I’ve seen him,” Haven confessed. “He’s handsome, in a dark way.”

  “Handsome, he’s bloody sinister looking.”

  “Aloof perhaps, but not sinister.’ Haven laughed.

  “I suppose I shall have to suffer him, in any case.” Lisette threw up her hands. “Mama is gushing all over him.”

  “You’ll be fine. I must go. I’ve the stink of the stables on me.”

  Lisette took her hand a moment. “Pray for me.”

  Haven was still laughing as she headed home.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Haven told Lisette she was leaving after the party. She didn’t reveal any details save that it was a kinswoman of her father’s she was visiting, because given that Marston was there and there was a full house, there wasn’t time to have a real visit or talk.

  “Lady Juliette will be here for you.”

  “You said Deme is taking you?”

  “We’re sharing the same coach,” Haven evaded. “He’s seeing to some business and its better to take one coach than two.”

  Lisette wrinkled her nose. “That should be interesting. You are coming back aren’t you? There’s my birthday ball, coming up.”

  “Of course I am.” Haven heard noises outside in the hall and stood, “You’d best get ready for your ride. I’m going to slip in and see the Duchess.”

  Walking her to the door, Lisette muttered, “See if you can find me a mount with a loose shoe. Mama will doubtless pair me up with him.”

  “Maybe when he finds out you can ride better than him; he’ll be put off by it. I will saddle one of the stallions. You can out distance him.”