The Society Catch (Harlequin Historical)

by Allen, Louise

  Giles, from years of military service when keeping one’s horse in prime condition was both a humane and a possibly life-saving priority, fell into an automatic marching step and applied his mind to strategy. In the big house behind him he was acutely aware that another mind was also setting itself to counter whatever plans he had. The sight of Giles’s grim smile might have given Joanna pause if she had chanced to observe it.

  Five in the morning dawned clear and chill. Joanna’s footsteps sounded hideously loud on the gravel as she hastened around to the old stable block, but she consoled herself that no one was about to hear her. In the quiet house Georgy was sleeping soundly, just as her doctor and doting husband ordered, without a thought that her errant friend was escaping yet again.

  She paused in the yard, her eyes flicking over the empty space, her ears alert for any sound, but it was silent with no sound from the new stables beyond to suggest an early-rising groom was about his business. The double door into the stables with the loose boxes was shut, although above it the door into the hayloft stood open. The interior was in deep shadow and the hoist beam jutted out from it. With its dangling hook and chain it had an unpleasant look of the gallows about it.

  Suddenly edgy, Joanna tugged back the bolts and set the door open, hesitating on the threshold at a sudden noise. But it was only the sound of Moonstone shifting round in her box to see who had arrived. The relief at seeing the alert head watching her was so great that the descent of a wisp of hay from above went unnoticed and it was not until a second fell, tickling her nose, that Joanna glanced upwards. And froze.

  Giles was looking down at her from the hayloft door overhead. He was sitting with his back against the door frame, one leg dangling over the edge. He appeared relaxed and mildly interested at seeing her. Joanna was not deceived in the slightest. ‘Good morning,’ he observed pleasantly. ‘Somewhat early for a ride, perhaps?’

  ‘I…I…what are you doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for you. I had every confidence that you would come.’ Giles got to his feet in a smooth motion that belied the fact that he had been sitting motionless in the cold dawn air since three o’clock. ‘No, do not run back to the house,’ he ordered sharply as Joanna gathered up the trailing skirts of her habit and turned back the way she had come. ‘I have no desire to have this conversation in Lady Brandon’s presence, but if you insist, we will.’

  With hope draining out of her, Joanna watched as Giles leaned out, caught the trailing chain and hook and swung himself down to the ground. Even in the midst of her mingled humiliation, anger and despair she could not but admire the grace with which he moved. ‘You must have been very uncomfortable,’ she ventured. He was certainly dusty and, knowing him as she did, she could see the tightness around his eyes from tiredness. But the grey gaze watching her was alert and watchful, not at all the gaze of a tired man.

  Giles shrugged. ‘One gets used to night watches. A roof over one’s head is a luxury.’ He glanced around. ‘Come, in here. I do not want an early stable boy to see us at this hour of the morning.’

  With a sigh Joanna allowed herself to be guided into the interior of the stables. A textured floor with a drain at its centre ran between two rows of large loose boxes, each surrounded by a high wooden partition topped with iron grilles and with double doors at the front. All of them were closed and apparently empty save for Moonstone’s stall at the back, where she still watched them over the half-door, and the box behind Giles, which appeared to be used as a store by the stable boys.

  Both its doors were open, a carelessly abandoned pitchfork was propped in the entrance and inside were piled boxes and bales. A sudden glimmer of a plan struck Joanna and she hastily dropped her eyes in case Giles should see either her change of mood or the direction of her interest.

  ‘Just what do you think you are about?’ he began, giving Joanna a very fair idea of how he might sound to a subaltern who had been out on the tiles to the neglect of his duty. ‘Setting out alone, into God knows what, on a tired horse…’

  ‘Oh, Giles!’ she said softly, not having to act in the slightest to produce the quavering note in her voice. She risked a glance upwards from under her lashes and willed the production of two large, glistening tears.

  Giles, who was quite used to this sort of outrageous play-acting from Suzanne, entirely failed to recognise it in Joanna. ‘Joanna…damn it, there is no need to cry…’

  ‘Oh, Giles,’ Joanna said again, on a falling note of despair. Quite unused to this sort of behaviour herself, she was at a loss as to what more to say, but her performance appeared to be working, for a second glance revealed that the Colonel’s harsh expression had softened.

  She took a stumbling step forward and cast herself with considerable energy on Giles’s broad chest, catching him around the neck. Taken by surprise he took a step backwards for, whilst slender, Joanna was tall. Before his arms could close around her to steady her, she thrust out her right foot, catching it neatly between his ankles and threw her weight forward against him.

  Off balance, Giles took another unguarded backwards step, the pitchfork caught him behind the knees and he fell back into the loose box.

  Joanna was at the door in a second, dragging both top and bottom sections across, bolting them both to the door frame and to each other. Now she must saddle Moonstone up and be away before either Giles managed to scramble up and squeeze through the narrow gap between the top of the railings and the rafters, or his shouts attracted the attention of the grooms.

  It was ominously quiet: he must be assessing the best way to climb out. Her heart thudding so loud that it seemed to drown out any other sound, Joanna ran down the aisle and dragged the saddle and bridle off their stand outside Moonstone’s box.

  ‘Good girl, steady girl. Stand nicely for me,’ she pleaded as the grey sidled and stamped, alarmed by her haste and the urgency of her movements. It seemed to take an hour but, in fact, the horse was saddled in minutes and Joanna led her out into the yard with a scared glance at the box where Giles was imprisoned. There was still no sound: he must be building the boxes and bales into a heap to climb up. He would be so angry… Joanna clutched to herself the memory of that moment when she was in his arms, against his chest. Then she found the mounting block and was up and away, spurring the mare down the carriage drive with scant regard to the noise she made.

  It was an hour later when a bemused footman opened the front door to a thunderous knocking and found a large, coldly furious and bloodstained man on the step. A second, incredulous glance identified the gentleman who had called the evening before. ‘Sir?’

  Giles scrubbed at the trickle of blood that kept blurring the vision in his right eye and snapped, ‘Kindly inform Lady Brandon that Colonel Gregory requires urgent speech with her.’

  ‘But, sir…Colonel…it is quarter past six in the morning!’

  Giles simply stepped firmly into the doorway and shouldered him aside. At which moment, to the young man’s undying gratitude, Rooke appeared. The butler was not best pleased at having had to struggle into his tail coat in haste and had an uneasy suspicion that his neckcloth was well short of his usual standards. His tone as he addressed the importunate visitor was less than subservient.

  ‘Colonel! I really must ask you to withdraw, sir! I will naturally inform her ladyship that you called.’

  ‘When will you do so?’ Giles produced a large pocket handkerchief and attempted to staunch the flow of blood from the cut on his forehead. It did nothing to make his appearance any less villainous.

  ‘At her ladyship’s normal breakfast hour, naturally.’ He took in Giles’s expression and added, ‘At ten-thirty, sir.’

  Giles regarded him with an expression that had routed more strong-willed men than the butler. His voice, however, was pleasant as he remarked, ‘You will go to her ladyship now and you will inform her that either she receives me in the room of her choice in fifteen minutes or I will do myself the honour of calling upon her in her bedchamber. Do I make m
yself plain?’

  ‘Certainly, Colonel.’

  ‘Indeed. Then go and do it—and if you are considering scuttling down the backstairs and summoning support in the shape of a number of grooms or footmen, let me promise you that you will regret it. As they will,’ he added thoughtfully.

  Rooke eyed the large right fist that was flexing and unflexing and decided that discretion was the better option. ‘Philips! Get the Colonel some warm water and a bandage for his head and brush his coat. Her ladyship must not be discommoded—any more than is inevitable.’

  It was twenty minutes, not fifteen, before Georgy sent Rooke to say that she would receive Colonel Gregory and his expression as he strode into her boudoir was not conciliatory. Georgy gave a squeak of alarm and shrank back against her maid, but to her relief he merely bowed from the doorway and said, ‘My apologies for inconveniencing you at this hour, ma’am. If you will tell me where Miss Fulgrave has gone, I will remove myself immediately.’

  ‘But I have no idea! Surely she is in her chamber?’

  ‘I can assure you, ma’am, that at half past five this morning she was riding away from this house. Are you telling me that you had no idea of what she was planning?’

  ‘No! None at all,’ Georgy protested indignantly, pushing back her lace nightcap, which threatened to slip over one eye. ‘She was cross with me last night when I promised you I would let her go with you tomorrow, and she was disappointed when I explained that I would not be travelling abroad for some months.’

  ‘Then where will she have gone?’

  ‘I do not know, she has no acquaintance in the area—all I can think of is that she will try and reach her sister, Lady Willington, in Lincoln.’ She looked distractedly at Giles, then appeared to notice for the first time the rough bandage around his temples. ‘Are you hurt, Colonel? Will you not sit down?’

  ‘Thank you, no, ma’am. A cut and a bruise merely, but head cuts bleed like the dev…very badly. Have you heard of an aunt of Joanna’s? A Mrs Faversham?’

  ‘Faversham? No…but how did you come to cut your head, Colonel? And if you knew what Joanna was about at five o’clock, why did you not stop her then?’

  ‘Because,’ Giles said grimly, ‘she tripped me up with a trick I would have expected—and might have suspected—from a street urchin and locked me in one of your loose boxes. To be fair, I think she had no idea she had knocked me out.’

  ‘Oh, how clever of Jo!’ Georgy clapped her hands in delighted admiration, then broke off, biting her lip at his expression. ‘I wonder where she learned to do that?’

  ‘I shudder to think. Lady Brandon, I am going to gamble on Joanna attempting to reach her aunt in Norwich. May I ask you to write to Squire and Mrs Gedding—I will give you their direction—reassuring them that she reached you safely and that I am still on her trail? And can I ask you to return Squire Gedding’s hunter to him? It is too tired to go on at the pace I must set.’

  ‘Of course. But you cannot waste time hiring another horse in Spalding,’ Georgy said. ‘Rooke! I know you are out there! Send to the stables and have them saddle up his lordship’s best hunter—that new one he justified to me by saying it would go all day.’ She turned her brilliant smile on Giles. ‘He won’t mind, and in any case he is not due back for two weeks.’

  By the time Lady Brandon had seen her husband’s black stallion vanish through the gates and swing southeast, it was half past seven. Joanna was already realising that there was all the difference in the world between setting out on a fresh horse on a comparatively short journey, well armed with maps and taking off into the unknown with only the haziest idea of the distance and direction and with a tired horse under her.

  By nine she was weary, hungry and beginning to doubt her recollection of simple navigation that her military reading had given her. The sun rose in the east, she knew that. Norwich was to the east of Spalding, so she had to travel towards the sun. But the sun moved. And none of the milestones yet showed Norwich on their carved faces. Soon she was going to have to ask, and she suspected that it was no use asking a yokel who had never travelled beyond his nearest market town. It would have to be someone of more sophistication—a yeoman farmer, perhaps—and someone of that sort would be very suspicious indeed of a young lady out by herself asking such a question.

  Then Moonstone pecked and stumbled. Joanna reined her in and gazed around. Was there anywhere she might safely rest for a while? At least Giles would have no idea where she was going and would probably assume she would be trying to reach Grace in Lincoln.

  An open gate slumped on its hinges and gave easy access to a flower-spangled meadow. The tempting expanse of grass sloped to a line of willows, giving the promise of water at their feet. Joanna turned the mare’s head into the mead and at the water’s edge slipped off her back. It was a perfect spot: the grass was lush and soft, the brook sparkled hardly an inch deep over bright pebbles and the willows cast a welcome shade.

  She loosened Moonstone’s girths, let her drink then hooked her reins over a branch and left her standing in the shade while she wandered through the long grass to where an old stump made a welcoming seat. An hour would rest Moonstone and give her a chance to think of what she would say to her Aunt Caroline. Would she help her? What would Joanna do if she did not? However uncomfortable, those thoughts were better than the alternative, which was to think about Giles, recall that strong, lithe body swinging down from the hay loft, the anger in his eyes, the feel of his chest under her flattened palms as she fell against him…

  Worn out, Joanna dozed where she sat in the meadow, undisturbed by the buzzing bees, bird song and the ripple and plash of the stream as it hastened across the pebbles. Moonstone grazed placidly until the distant sound of hoofbeats made her raise her head.

  Joanna smiled in her sleep, for Giles had come and was striding across the field towards her, his arms held out to embrace her, a look of tenderness on his face that made her start to her feet…

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jerked awake, and finding herself half-slipping from her perch, Joanna blinked in the sunlight, unsure where she was. ‘Giles?’ He had seemed so real, so close. Moonstone stamped her hoof and Joanna saw that her head was up, her ears pricked and she was watching the far side of the field.

  A tall black horse appeared in the gateway, passing at the canter, then it was reined in and the rider pulled its head round to urge it into the field. The horse was unfamiliar, but the tall figure on its back was not. Suddenly filled with unreasoning panic, Joanna picked up the skirts of her habit and began to run, stumbling towards her mare. She glanced back over her shoulder; Giles had spurred the horse into a canter and it was gaining on her. He was riding one-handed, leaning sideways over the pommel, obviously intent on scooping her up as she ran.

  Mindlessly, panting with exertion, Joanna dodged to the right, but the great hooves hardly broke stride as he turned the black after her. She twisted round, held up her hands in a futile effort to fend him off and was caught around the waist, dragged off her feet and up against Giles’s leg as he fought to bring the animal to a halt.

  There was a confused sense of plunging chaos as the horse, resenting the sudden kicking, struggling creature who had seemingly attached itself to its side, fought back against its rider. Giles dragged one-handed on the reins until it stood, then swore as Joanna wriggled out of his grasp and fell to the ground.

  Sobbing, she took to her heels again, only to be brought down by a flying body that sent her headlong into the lush grass and landed painfully half on her back, knocking the breath out of her.

  Unable to move, unable to do more than fight to regain her breath, Joanna realised that she was pinned down by Giles’s body lying along her right flank. His left arm was thrown over her shoulders and his breath was hot on her nape. As rational thought returned to her, she wondered if he had knocked himself out, then realised that the sound she could hear was him swearing, very quietly, under his breath.

  ‘Giles?’ she ventur
ed after several seconds when it seemed he was going to make no effort to move. ‘Giles!’

  ‘I am trying to decide whether to put you over my knee and give you a well-deserved thrashing and then strangle you,’ he remarked conversationally, ‘or whether simply to strangle you.’

  ‘Giles!’

  Abruptly she found herself turned so that she was on her back and he was over her, pinning her even more effectively than before. His body was hard and heavy and, from where his legs straddled her to the pressure of his elbows, pinioning her own arms as he raised himself to look down at her, she was aware of his every muscle, every breath.

  ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ he demanded and she realised that he was furiously angry. His eyes seemed almost black as he glared down at her, his breath, for all his control, was short and his mouth was clamped into a hard line.

  ‘I couldn’t let you take me back, Giles. I…I will not tell you where I was going, but I did have a plan.’

  ‘You had a plan,’ he repeated flatly. ‘So you take off into the wide blue yonder all by yourself. Have you forgotten what happened to you before, damn it? Have you forgotten the Thoroughgoods?’

  ‘No, of course not, how could I? But you told me that very few people were like that, that I shouldn’t—’

  ‘Give me strength!’ He closed his eyes for a moment, and released from their dominance Joanna noticed the stained bandage around his head and the dried trickle of blood on his temple.

  ‘Are you hurt—?’ she began, only to be cut off by the glare of those angry dark eyes as they snapped open again.

  ‘Be quiet and listen to me and try, just try, to behave like the sensible young woman I know you to be. You are unlikely ever to come across anyone like the Thoroughgoods again in your life; agents for specialist breaking-houses are thankfully very rare indeed. But men who would insult, assault or very probably rape some undefended, innocent, empty-headed chit of a girl, wandering around the countryside without the slightest idea of where she was going or how she was going to get there—now I would say that men like that are to be found in every town and many a village.’