The Lady Most Likely...

by Julia Quinn

  He stared at her. “You wrote those letters?” he asked, though as soon as she’d said it, he’d recognized the truth. None of the Peyton lads were particularly articulate or sensitive, and especially early on he’d been impressed by the tenure of their missives. For good reason: They hadn’t been theirs. The evocative descriptions of the countryside and the detailed passing of the seasons, the droll anecdotes about various people they knew and the detailed references to the history they shared … They had all been Kate’s words that had transported him for those brief, essential respites from the battlefields of France to home in Burnewhinney.

  “Not in their entirety,” she answered lightly. “Just the interesting stuff.”

  This time he laughed, and the gray pranced in response. “Good Lord, Kate, why not simply write to me and sign your own name?”

  “Pride,” she said simply. “You may not have noticed, being occupied with a surplus of your own, but I am imbued with my own overlarge sense of self-worth.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do seem to recall a niggling sense that there might be another conceit as great as mine sharing the county. But I marked it down as delusion.”

  She laughed, and he joined her. It was so easy to laugh with her. There was no subtext to it, no fear of its being misunderstood, no reason it should be.

  “Your turn,” she said. “Why didn’t you simply write to me?”

  “I—”

  “And one attempt is hardly worth mentioning.”

  “Well, then, I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?” she echoed, startled.

  “Yes. I was afraid that if I wrote you again, you might write back and … and put a final end to our … friendship. Which I value.” He smiled.

  “Why?” She looked at him expectantly.

  He wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t. He had waited this long, and the house party was due to end in but a few days. Then he could complete the mission Tom had given him and present himself to her father and receive his permission to court her. He would do this properly, by God.

  So when he spoke it was in a light, droll tone. “It would be deuced unpleasant being neighbors with a family where one of its members wouldn’t speak to you. Besides, we are old friends, are we not? And one must keep one’s old friends.” He smiled. She did not. “So, I contented myself with asking your brother in each of the letters I wrote to share it with your family.”

  A shadow crossed her face. “I see. Well, thank heavens you never wrote me then and gave me a chance to dissolve our friendship, for where would I be now if I had?”

  “Kate?”

  “What with Tom haring off as he did and leaving me without a companion to countenance my stay? I suppose Lady Finchley would have filled the breach, but it isn’t exactly nice, is it? And one must have a care for appearances.” Her voice grew tighter and brighter as she continued.

  “Of course, some would say that a young captain who has no blood connection whatsoever to a lady is hardly a proper chaperone for said young lady, but then one must take into account that the captain is, as you so pointedly pointed out, simply an old family friend. So thank you, old friend, for helping aid me in my spouse-acquiring endeavors.”

  The pleasure he’d been having in their conversation abruptly ended at this reminder of the position, the only position, he currently occupied in her life. One he did not want.

  “I’m delighted to have your approval,” he said, keeping his eye firmly on the gray’s rump. “I shall strive to give satisfaction. Tell me, is there anyone in particular whom you favor?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said pertly.

  “Might I ask whom?” That I might make sure that he is suddenly compelled to leave the house party.

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. What if he doesn’t return my regard? Indeed, I do not know how I would survive the mortification”—her voice abruptly faded to little more than a whisper—“or the anguish.”

  Anguish? Was her affection already fixed then? Not on Briarly, surely. He didn’t know the earl, but he knew men, and Briarly’s manner toward Kate had lacked any tenor of exclusivity or evidence of a deeper regard. If he hurt Kate …

  Neill snapped the reins sharply, and the gray sprang into a lope, curtailing any further conversation by the jangle of the traces and the growl of the wheels. If only he could drive the rest of this damned house party to its end as quickly.

  For the next quarter hour Neill’s frustration kept pace with the growing coolness of Kate’s expression. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d done to rouse her ire, only that it had something to do with their being old friends … dear God!

  The chit couldn’t actually seriously think he was calling her old? But then, at twenty, she was hardly in the first flush of youth. Perhaps she felt her unwed state made her somehow less desirable. The little fool. He could attest that she was far more desirable now than she had been at sixteen, and he had no doubt that with the passing of each season, she would simply grow even more beguiling.

  And he had no intention of allowing any other man to be privy to such knowledge.

  But … damn it. Damn it! What if this mysterious would-be suitor came up to scratch before he had the opportunity to speak? Had he not been there as her chaperone, he might have declared himself, or if he’d arrived already having secured her father’s permission to speak, he would throw convention to the winds and declare himself. But he was, and he hadn’t. He’d raced from London in a lather to get to Finchley Manor because he’d heard she would be there, thinking, with the shrewd canniness of the seasoned campaigner, to gauge the lay of the land before sallying forth onto the field. Well, more fool him. He’d only effectively put himself on the sidelines while others strove for her hand. What others?

  “Oh!” Kate cried, as they crested the knoll that dropped into Parsley. “I’d forgotten the fair!”

  He followed her gaze. The small hamlet of Parsley spread out before them like a broken Christmas cracker, spilling fairgoers and revelers, merchants and their wares across the roads and into the surrounding fields. Booths decorated with ribbons and rosettes lined the main streets, their sharp-eyed attendants swatting at lads dashing in and out, snatching an apple here, a meat pie there. Hawkers with baskets tied round their necks dodged donkey carts laden with jugs of fresh milk and cider. Musicians and puppeteers set up impromptu stages wherever space allowed, vying for custom as they entertained with ribald songs and pantomimes. A small dog walked on its forelegs in front of an old man in a multicolored coat while a monkey cheekily begged coins from the circle gathered round.

  Kate’s eyes shone with delight, and her lips were parted, like a child’s. “Would you like to stay?” he asked.

  She hesitated but then shook her head. “No. No. Lady Finchley will wonder what has become of us if we miss luncheon.”

  And would someone else miss her as well? And she him? he wondered.

  “You recall where the draper’s is located?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He expertly guided the flustered gray through the throngs crowding the street, heading down the main thoroughfare. At the bottom of the street, he turned the cabriolet onto an equally crowded side street, where the draper’s stood across from the town’s stable. This road, too, was choked with pedestrians, mostly men, laborers from the looks of them, and many whom Neill recognized.

  He pulled the carriage to a stop in front of the draper’s, jumped down, and went round to the other side. Kate was waiting for him, already standing. He did not bother with the steps; he simply held his arms up and as easily and naturally as breathing, she leaned forward, bracing her hands on his shoulders while he spanned her narrow waist and lifted her to the ground. He looked down into her upturned face. For a second he held her there.

  “Kate …”

  “Yes?”

  No. “How long will you be?”

  She pushed away from him. “As long as necessary,” she snapped and, without looking back, sailed into the draper’s shop, her col
or high and her chin higher.

  He raked his hand though his hair, swearing viciously under his breath as he climbed back into the carriage. He was just about to sit down when from his vantage he spied two men enclosed by a rope in a small square of bare land in the stable’s side yard across the street. It must be the annual boxing championship and, by the looks of things, nearly at an end. One man lay prone on the ground while the other, a strapping blond youngster, raised one fist above his head as his companions clapped him heartily on the back.

  Neill’s gaze sharpened. By God, it was Tom, Kate’s brother.

  Neill jumped down from the carriage. All his frustration and anger came boiling up as he crossed the street, shoving his way through the ring of cheering men toward Tom Peyton, bloody Tom Peyton, the author of his current misery. Tom looked up, as the mob, sensing a dangerous newcomer in their midst, backed away from Neill.

  “Come to congratulate me, have you, Neill?” Tom said on spying Neill.

  “No.”

  “No? Well, there’s a bit of rot. I’ve just won the county title for the third year in a row, and me best friend can’t say ‘good oh’?” he said plaintively. “Then what are you here for, and looking as black-eyed as any scoundrel, too?”

  “I’m here to take the title from you,” Neill ground out.

  “Damned you say!” Tom exploded.

  “Too late!” one of the men beside Tom yelled. “He already won, fair and square.” He’d probably already collected a tidy sum betting on Tom to win and now feared he’d lose his winnings.

  “Ain’t too late!” shouted another. “Anyone can challenge anyone as long as there’s two men standing. Them’s the rules.”

  A chorus of shouts and hollers broke out, some for and some against Neill’s right to challenge Tom.

  “Look you here!” Neill thundered above the din. “If I win, I don’t want the purse, the title, or the bloody ribbon.”

  “Then what do you want?” Tom asked, already flexing his shoulder muscles.

  Neill told him.

  Chapter 15

  Kate had heard the loud catcalls and shouts and yelps of boys behaving badly too often to confuse it for anything else. Males, somewhere, were up to no good. She paid for the ribbon she didn’t want and hadn’t needed, the entire mission simply a device to spend some time alone with Neill—and how very well that had not gone—and went in search of the source.

  She found it right outside the door.

  A brawl was in progress. Two men faced each other amidst the tight circle of onlookers, both panting heavily, shirts sweat-soaked and half-undone. Kate stared in stunned disbelief. She knew them both. One was her older brother Tom and the other Neill Oakes.

  Of all the bloody—Her lips flattened to a tight line. She had had enough.

  Jerking her skirts high above slender ankles, she stepped off the raised walk and into the dusty street. Whether it was the obvious quality of her dress or the even more obvious danger in her dark blue eyes, the company of men parted before her like the proverbial Red Sea, closing tight in her wake as she waded into the fracas. She didn’t stop at the edge of the fight circle, either, but strode right up to the two men now grappling on the ground, seized her big blond brother by a hank of hair, and yanked. Hard.

  “Ow!” he howled, letting go of Neill and rolling on his back. He glowered up at her. “Bloody hell, Kate! That hurt!”

  “Good! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, brawling like a boy. And the rest of you, too.” Her lethal gaze swung around to encompass the group of increasingly uncomfortable-looking men.

  “Billy Eggs, does your wife know you’re here and, I’ll guess, betting on blood sports? I thought not. And Granger Tobey, you’re too old for this nonsense, and yet here you are, sporting a bloody nose. I would hope my brother did not give it to you since he’s a full two decades your junior, but I don’t have that much faith in his judgment.”

  “You shouldn’t be here, Kate,” a low male voice said.

  She swung around, expecting to find Neill still on the ground—he’d looked like he’d been getting the worst of Tom’s fists. Instead, she found herself having to look up. He was standing close behind her, his eyes glittering like ebon coals.

  “Neither should you, Neill Oakes.”

  “Go back into the shop and wait for me,” he said and, by God, if it didn’t sound like a command.

  “I most certainly will not. Of all the japes—”

  The rest of her words were cut off as, with a growl, Neill grabbed her wrist, jerked her forward, and slung her like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder.

  “Oh! Put me down! Unhand me at once!” she yelped, as the crowd of men erupted from silence into cheers.

  “That’s the way, Captain!”

  “Well done, Oakes m’lad!”

  “Show no mercy!”

  “Oh!” she squealed, kicking violently and battering his broad back with her fists, every vestige of hard-earned sophistication stripped away in a matter of seconds before this provocation. “Put me down, you blackguard!”

  In answer, he strode through the crowd with her slung over his shoulder, making for the stables.

  “I say, Neill,” Tom called out, sounding a little worried. “You aren’t going to—”

  “Shut up, Tom,” Neill spat out. “I’ll be back to finish what we started in a minute.”

  And with that, he kicked open the stable-office door. Inside, he kept ignoring Kate’s protests—and pummeling—as he made his way to the tack-room door. He stepped inside. The room was small, with only one small window high on the exterior wall allowing in a shaft of light. Dust motes danced woozily at their entrance, and a pigeon, roosting in the rafter overhead, fluttered away through the narrow window. Well-tended headsets and tack hung from hooks on the wall, and a single saddle, oiled and clean, rested on a hobbyhorse in the corner. On the far wall had been piled a stack of blankets.

  A raffish smile cleaved his dark, handsome face as Neill spied the blankets and, for just an instant, Kate’s heart pattered wildly in a combination of fear and anticipation. Then he tossed her on the blankets and, without a glance, turned and walked out, shutting the door behind her. Kate stared slack-jawed with disbelief as she heard the unmistakable sound of a bolt being driven home.

  He’d locked her in.

  Though only twenty minutes, it seemed to Kate hours before she heard one final swelling roar from the crowd outside and, a few minutes later, the sound of footsteps. She scrambled to her feet and set her hands on her hips, facing the door as she prepared to give whoever entered, Neill or Tom, the sharp side of her tongue.

  The door swung open, and the sudden bright light dazzled her eyes. She blinked at the tall, broad-shouldered figure outlined in the door.

  “Neill?” she whispered.

  He stepped inside, and she inhaled sharply at the sight of him. His black curls were damp and dusty, his chest working like a bellows beneath his ripped and sweat-soaked shirt. A bruise was already darkening one cheek.

  He didn’t say a word.

  The sight of him sent a ripple of trepidation running through her. But she was a brave girl and used to handling miscreant boys. She knew better than to show fear or hesitation.

  She marshaled her indignation. “Well, what have you to say for yourself?” she demanded. “Locking me up in here while you go and pummel my brother. I hope you left him still conscious? Although many would say, myself included, that consciousness in Tom is barely discernible from insensibility, as he doesn’t seem to think too often. But then neither do you, Neill Oakes. I thought you had changed, but you’re still the black sheep of my family, and how did that happen I should like to know since we don’t even share a single ancestor?”

  She was babbling, and she knew it. She always babbled when she was nervous. She made herself stop. She had already ruined her new image as a sophisticated young lady by acting a dervishine. She took a deep breath and exhaled, composing herself.

  “Well?�
� she said.

  “Are you quite done?” he asked, as poised as if they were conversing in Lady Finchley’s drawing room.

  She strove to match his aplomb. “Yes. I believe so.”

  “Good,” he said, and though he spoke quite pleasantly, Kate shivered. “Because I have a few things I would like to say, if I may?”

  She nodded, watching him warily.

  “Thank you. First off”—he took a step toward her—“I am not your brother.”

  “I know that. I—”

  He held up his hand, forestalling her. “Apparently you do not; otherwise, you would not be attempting to ride roughshod over me as you do that pack of reprobates with whom you live. So, let me make perfectly clear, I am not your brother. I have never had any brotherly feelings for you and, despite what you just said, I do not think you have ever had any sisterly feelings toward me. Am I correct?”

  He took another step forward. Kate held her ground. Barely.

  “Am I correct?” he insisted.

  He seemed to be holding his breath.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  He released his breath, his expression going even more intent as his gaze trapped hers. He moved closer, step by inexorable step. Her heart raced.

  “And I am not your uncle.” He was more than two-thirds of the way across the room now, and Kate’s courage, which had hitherto held, began to erode. She trembled.

  “Nor am I your trusty, musty old family friend.”

  She backed up; he stepped forward. Her shoulder banged against the wall. He reached up, tilting her chin, angling her face into the light.

  “And, praise God, I am not your chaperone.”

  “What?”

  “Your brother has just recently decided to return to the house party as your chaperone.” There was just a trace of a dark satisfaction in Neill’s voice.

  “He did?” Kate asked, amazed.

  “Yes,” Neill said. “So now I am free to follow my own agenda.”