Did his response contain a hint of irony? His expression remained all polite interest. She decided to accept his comment at face value. “It’s been a terrible day.” At least that much was true. “Now all I wish is to reach my aunt’s house.”
“You’re a long way from Portsmouth.”
Didn’t she know it? She’d barely covered a few miles and already tested the edge of her endurance. She had no money to pay for a seat on a coach, and even if she had, she couldn’t risk someone seeing her and remembering her. Yet again, the insurmountable task she set herself struck her. Then she recalled what awaited back at Holcombe. “I’ll manage.”
“How?” he asked with the first trace of sharpness. “You’re dead on your feet.”
Hearing her own doubts voiced with such emphasis made her belly clench with sick despair. “Needs must.”
His lips flattened. Clearly he found her sullen answer as unimpressive as she did herself. “I offer you transport if you care to accept.”
Charis jerked back as if he tried to touch her. This seemed too good to be true. Transport to Portsmouth was a godsend. Her stepbrothers would already be on her trail. If she went with this stranger, she’d cover more ground. Not only that, her stepbrothers would ask after a girl traveling alone.
“I couldn’t inconvenience you so.” She intended the words to sound final, but her injuries slurred her speech.
“I’m traveling south anyway.” His expression became somber. “Chivalry forbids me to abandon a woman to the mercy of any blackguard she meets on the road.”
In spite of physical misery and encroaching fear, a grim laugh escaped Charis. She made a dismissive gesture with her good hand. “Chivalry is an unreliable quality at the best of times.”
“You have my word as a gentleman that your virtue is safe, Miss Watson.” He didn’t smile.
She’d heard so many lies recently, she just assumed anything a man said must be falsehood. But strangely, she believed him when he pledged his word.
Good Lord, if this man meant to rape her, surely he’d have made a move by now. Every scrap of sense prompted her to credit him as that most chimerical of creatures.
A genuine man of honor.
Or was she just dazzled by his remarkable looks? She was vulnerable and exhausted. Ceaseless pain turned her mind hazy. She was frightened for her life.
The pause extended, stretched into taut silence. If he’d tried to persuade her, she would have insisted on going on alone. But he let her make up her mind. Only the tension straightening the powerful shoulders under his superbly cut jacket indicated he awaited her answer with more than indifference.
Finally, she sighed. It was a sound of acquiescence. Fear clogged her veins, but desperation was stronger. Wondering if she cast her lot with the devil, she gave a brief nod. “Then I accept your help with gratitude.”
“First we’ll take you to a doctor.”
For an instant, her terror had faded to a distant thrum. The chance of escape had beckoned like a lifeboat to a drowning man. Now his words reminded her she’d found no sanctuary yet.
Perhaps ever, unless she was very clever and very lucky.
Any doctor in Winchester would recognize her immediately. She shook her head in swift denial, cradling her arm. “I don’t need a doctor. My injuries aren’t as bad as they look.”
She waited for argument. None came. “All right. No doctor.”
Relief made her sag, although she tried to mask her overwhelming reaction. Apparently she’d fallen in with the most credulous gentleman in the county. So far, he accepted her story without a moment’s doubt.
Odd, she wouldn’t have considered him a stupid man. Intelligence sizzled in those perceptive dark eyes.
Perhaps he was just naïve. More reason to go with him. Evading him in Portsmouth should present no trouble.
What she’d do then was a complete blank. She had no money and no friends. Or no friends she could put at risk of prosecution. Her stepbrothers had already terrified her one close relative, her great-aunt, into handing her over to them. She wore a gold locket and her mother’s pearl ring, neither of great value. Somehow she had to hide for three weeks. Her crushing dilemma made her shudder.
One step at a time. She chivied her flagging courage. Getting out of Winchester undetected was her first goal.
“Gideon.”
A man spoke from the stable doorway. Charis started, again testing her injuries, and felt the blood drain from her face. Her rescuer reached out but cut the gesture short of making contact. “Don’t worry. He’s a friend.”
Such was his natural authority, Charis curtailed her retreat, although her heart pounded like a hammer and cold sweat broke out on her skin.
“I’m here,” Gideon called, without taking his eyes off her.
Another man, as tall as her rescuer, slender, dark, obviously foreign for all his fine London tailoring, strolled into view. “What have you found?”
“Miss Watson, this is Akash. Akash, may I present Miss Sarah Watson? She’s been set upon by ruffians and requires aid.”
The newcomer’s liquid brown eyes rested upon Charis. She waited for him to question her threadbare tale. But after a pause, he merely quirked one elegant black eyebrow at Gideon.
“I’m guessing we’re not staying here tonight?” His voice was pure England, although he looked like he inhabited some Arabian fantasy.
“You know I’m in a hurry to get to Penrhyn.”
“Indeed,” he said neutrally.
“Yes, via Portsmouth.”
“I’ve always had a violent desire to visit Portsmouth.” Akash sounded perfectly undisturbed at the prospect of braving the cold to assist a stranger. Too undisturbed.
Suddenly, Charis didn’t feel safe after all. Putting herself into the care of two unfamiliar men was the height of foolishness. Their quick acceptance of her paper-thin story seemed suspicious rather than reassuring.
On trembling legs, she backed toward Khan, who whickered softly in her ear. “I can’t impose on your good natures. I shall make my own way to my aunt.”
“No man of honor would countenance such a plan, Miss Watson.” Gideon sounded immovable.
She could sound immovable too. “Nonetheless, it is what I must do.”
Gideon sent a quick smile to his companion. For one dazzling moment, amusement lit his face to brilliance. Glittering dark eyes, creases in his cheeks and around his eyes, a flash of straight white teeth.
Charis’s heart lurched to a halt, then broke into a wayward race. Foolishly, in spite of fear and pain and mistrust, she longed for nothing more than to see him smile again.
Smile at her.
“I believe you’ve terrified the chit, Akash.”
She ignored Akash’s soft laugh and frowned at Gideon. “Pray, sir, I’m no chit.”
“Would you feel happier if I gave you this?”
She looked down to see him extending a small dueling pistol. She hadn’t noticed him reaching into his jacket. Tiredness made her stupid. Tiredness and the effects of a vicious beating.
And most unwelcome admission of all, a man’s unguarded smile.
She stared at the gun as though she didn’t recognize what it was. The room receded in dark waves. The thunder in her ears rose to blanket all other sound.
“Akash!”
Gideon’s shout came from a long way off, then the world spun as strong arms swept her off her feet.
But not the strong arms she wanted to close around her. Even through her near faint, she recognized that bone-deep and mortifying fact.
Gideon stared at the half-unconscious girl Akash clutched to him. She was a tumble of slender arms and legs and frothy blue skirts. Her bright bronze hair trailed across Akash’s black sleeve like a flag. Her hem was torn and wet, and her pale blue half boots were caked in mud.
His hands fisted at his sides, and anger cannoned through him. Who the devil had abused her? Even before this last year, he’d abhorred cruelty. And some bastard had be
aten this girl to within an inch of her life.
Gideon was too familiar with violence to misjudge how badly she was hurt. Damn it, he wanted a doctor to look at her.
But the chit was so frightened. Gideon knew too what desperate fear looked like, and he couldn’t mistake it in the girl’s wide hazel eyes, lovely even in her ruined face. If he pushed her too far, she’d scarper and meet God knew what dangers.
What in Hades had happened to her? He’d immediately recognized her pathetic lies. He’d lay money no footpads had attacked her but, hell, someone had.
Futile rage, sickeningly familiar, flooded his mouth with a vile, rusty taste. He stepped back and breathed hard through his nose as he fought for composure. He needed to stay calm, or he’d frighten her.
The girl stirred in Akash’s grip, and her pale hand clenched in his coat. Gideon’s attention caught on an expensive, if old-fashioned pearl ring on one slender finger. Nor had he missed the pretty gold locket revealed under her tattered bodice. Whoever she was and whatever her current straitened circumstances, she came from money.
Her voice was thick with distress. “Please…please put me down. I can walk. Really.”
Gideon’s rage faded, replaced by piercing compassion. His anger couldn’t help her. She was small, defenseless, heartbreakingly brave. And young. Impossible to tell exactly how old she was under the patchwork of bruising, but he’d guess not much more than her early twenties.
Add to her courage a pride that cut Gideon to the heart. Oh, he understood how she felt, all right. He guessed pride was all she had left.
Pride and two strangers who would see her safe, whether she trusted them or not.
He couldn’t abandon her to her fate. He was too bitterly aware what it was like to stand against powerful foes with no hope of prevailing.
“Guvnor, is there a problem with the nag?”
Gideon turned toward the door with a surge of irritation. Akash had come out to check on him, although if challenged he’d never admit it. Now here was Tulliver, asking after his charge’s health like a gruff and grizzled nursemaid.
The yearning for freedom was a crashing wave inside him. He’d give up his hope of heaven for one moment without eyes observing his every move. Fresh air in his face. A good mount beneath him. Nothing but clear open country.
And no people for a hundred bloody miles.
“Sir Gideon?”
The wild and glorious dream faded. How could he blame his companions for their concern? They were good men, both. He’d spent so long alone, it still struck him as remarkable that they pledged him their loyalty.
Surely they must recognize he was completely unworthy of the honor.
“We’re not staying, Tulliver,” he said to the brawny ex-soldier he’d hired as his servant after the fellow’s untiring service on the ship from India. “We’ll need a carriage, food for the journey. And a driver, I expect.”
“No need, sir. I can handle a rig.”
Tulliver, Gideon had learned, could handle almost anything, from a man out of his head with pain and shame right up to a duchess’s comfort. The East India Company had lost a treasure when Tulliver resigned.
Tulliver’s eyes flickered impassively over the woman in Akash’s arms, but he asked no questions. He never did. Yet somehow he managed to know everything. He bowed and headed outside again.
“Please, sir,” the girl said in a shaking voice.
Silently, Akash set her upon her feet. She staggered, and Gideon reached out before he remembered and snatched his hand back. The girl raised her chin and stared him down as if he’d made an improper remark at a debutante ball.
Again, her pride touched something deep within him. Something pure and fresh like a tender green shoot after the first snows melted. He was astounded any untainted feeling could survive what he’d endured.
“I put you to some inconvenience.” Her attention still on Gideon, she stepped away from Akash. She held one arm awkwardly against her. “While I’m grateful, I can’t allow you to discommode yourself on my account.”
She spoke like a damned octogenarian duchess. A confounded haughty one, at that. In spite of the moment’s seriousness, Gideon felt his lips twitch.
Of course she didn’t miss it. “You’re laughing at me.”
He didn’t deny it. Instead, he let an element of steel enter his tone. “Miss Watson, you need our help. I can’t bundle you in the carriage and force you to come with me.”
A lie. Of course he could. He would if he had to.
“I’d scream if you did,” she said defiantly, even as her shoulders drooped under the weight of his coat. And the weight of her despair and fear, he guessed.
Why was he so determined on rescuing this prickly-tempered waif? She stood before him, trembling with pain, panic, and weariness. Her dark bronze hair was a tangle around her pale face. Her gown was ripped and stained. Bruising hid any beauty she possessed.
He bit back a caustic grunt of laughter.
Even if she was a beauty, what use was that beauty to him?
He quashed the acrid question and shot her a straight look. “It’s February. It’s cold. You’re in no fit state to go on alone.”
Tulliver appeared in the doorway. “I’ve arranged the carriage, guvnor. The landlord is chasing up the grooms.”
Gideon watched terror flood the girl’s eyes. She was definitely eager for nobody to see her. He needed to know why. “Go back into the stall, Miss Watson. Khan won’t hurt you.”
“I’m not frightened of your horse,” she retorted. She tugged the coat around her slender body and withdrew into the darkness.
The staff at Winchester’s largest inn were used to arranging transport for patrons. The small closed carriage was ready for departure within minutes.
Gideon stepped into the stall. The girl huddled behind Khan. He tried to quell his automatic reaction to the crowded space and the darkness. But the gloved hand he placed on the rough wooden divider was unsteady.
Thank God the gloom hid his reaction. What confidence could she have in a rescuer who trembled like a willow at the merest shadow?
“We’re ready.”
She straightened and wrapped the coat around her like a cape. He supposed she couldn’t bear to force her injured arm into a sleeve. As she looked up, he caught the shine of her eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
He shrugged, trying to appear as if aiding stray maidens was his everyday activity. “You need help.”
“It doesn’t seem enough when I see the trouble you’ve taken.”
“It will earn me points in heaven,” he said with a lightness he didn’t feel. He extended the bundle he held. “I thought you might like this.”
She didn’t immediately take it. “What is it?”
“A shawl. The night is cold.” And she’d need to cover that distinctive hair when she entered the carriage. Although if he told her that, she’d know he tagged her tale as a pack of lies.
“Where did you get it?” Her voice dripped suspicion.
He hid a smile. She was so wary, so defensive. Yet if he wanted, he could render her unconscious in the blink of an eye. That possibility had occurred to him, but he’d dismissed it. She’d had enough violence done to her.
“Tulliver bought it from a lady at the inn.”
Good thick wool—he thought with a moment’s regret of the shimmering, gorgeous fabrics he’d seen in India. He lifted the brown shawl briefly to his nose and sniffed. “It smells of pug, but you’ll welcome its warmth.”
To his surprise, she gave a short huff of laughter. “I’ve been sleeping in a stable. A whiff of eau de chien won’t unsettle me in the least.”
The chit had backbone. He’d always admired courage, and this girl had more than was good for her. Something tired and rusty and long unfamiliar stirred in his heart. He stifled the unwelcome sensation and offered the shawl once more. “Miss Watson?”
“Thank you.”
As he’d known she would, she wrapped it around her
head and shoulders. In his enveloping greatcoat and with her head covered, she looked almost anonymous. He couldn’t miss how she favored her right arm. Was it broken? Again, he wished she’d let him take her to a sawbones.
“And take this, just in case.” He passed her the pistol and watched her slip it into the coat’s voluminous pockets. “Do you know how to use it?”
He already knew the answer. She handled the gun with an ease that indicated familiarity.
“Yes. My father was a marksman. He taught me to shoot.”
Gideon shadowed her when they crossed the yard to the waiting carriage. Akash was already up on his temperamental gray.
As Gideon opened the door for Miss Watson, he caught his friend’s eye. He wondered what Akash made of the night’s events and the new addition to their party. He’d find out, he knew. Just because Akash had said nothing yet didn’t mean he had nothing to say.
The girl paused, as if expecting Gideon to hand her up. Yet another clue to a privileged life, if she but knew it. When Gideon didn’t respond, she climbed into the carriage.
Tulliver followed, leading his sturdy mount and Khan, and tied both horses to the back of the coach. Gideon cast a last look around the windswept yard. Ostensibly, nobody paid them any attention.
On a frosty night like this, anyone who didn’t have to be outside sought what warmth they could. The few servants crossing the open area seemed to mind their own business. Still, old habits died hard, and Gideon took note of the scene’s every detail.
Tulliver came up to his side. “All set, guvnor?”
“Yes.” One last glance to make sure, but nobody appeared unduly interested in their little party. “Let’s get under way.”
“Very good.”
Tulliver climbed into the driver’s seat. Gideon entered the vehicle where the mysterious Miss Watson, with her sharp tongue and terrified eyes, awaited.
As he surveyed her unkempt figure perched stiffly on the leather-covered bench, he was suddenly aware that for the first time in a long while, he felt something other than weary self-disgust. She made him curious; she made him concerned; she made him care.
Miss Watson was an unlikely miracle worker. He’d lived with wretchedness so long, even this much emotion felt like spring thaw after endless winter.
Captive of Sin Page 2
