Riley's Sleeping Beauty

by Sherryl Woods

  The deliberate challenge, coupled with her earlier remark about his inattention to his shipping company, hung in the air. Lizzy’s eyes widened as she stared from Abby to the earl and back again. She looked uncertain, as if she could not decide between vanishing into thin air or staying for the fit of temper that was surely to come.

  Abby had to admit that she was rather uncertain herself whether it had been wise to speak her mind so plainly. Her taunts had been deliberately sharp edged, perhaps too much so. As tolerant as the earl appeared most of the time, he was a man, and men, she had been trained, would only take so much before retaliating. She imagined that he would be quite clever about exacting his revenge.

  The truth of it was, though, that she had grown weary of watching every word she uttered in his presence. Perhaps it was time that he see her precisely as she was, plain speaking and all. He had claimed to want that very thing, had he not?

  She lifted her chin and gazed directly into those sparkling green eyes, daring him to fall into a battle of words with her. Her blood raced in anticipation of a stirring argument.

  To her utter astonishment, after that endless silence and the angry tint of red beneath his complexion, he burst out laughing. He laughed, in fact, until tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Ah, you are finally back, my lady,” he said when his mirth was under control. “I must admit I feared I had made a dreadful mistake in plighting my troth with you, but I see now that your docile behavior was only the lull before the storm. Thank the heavens for that.”

  She glared at him. “Do not change the subject, my lord. Will you or will you not tell me what you are about in London?”

  “Because you have pleaded so prettily,” he said indulgently, “I will tell you some of it. I am off, it seems, to catch a crook.”

  With that tantalizing remark casually dropped, he bowed and left. Exactly as he had probably anticipated, Abby reacted first to his irritatingly tolerant tone. In fact, it was not until he was out the door of Briarcliff and riding hell-bent for London that she fully examined his explanation. Eyes shining with excitement, she turned her gaze on Lizzy.

  “A crook,” she said. “How fascinating! I do so wish I could go along.”

  “I cannot imagine it,” Lizzy protested worriedly. “It sounds dangerous.”

  “All the more reason for me to be there,” Abby said decisively. “We have seen firsthand that the Earl of Wilton does not employ the use of logic very successfully. He is quite impulsive, in fact. That is precisely how we ended up betrothed.”

  “But this engagement was your doing,” Lizzy reminded her. “You impulsively set out to cause a scandal.”

  “No, no, no, you have it all wrong,” she protested. “Everything I did was quite logical. I reasoned out what would make the Earl of Drake call off the wedding and then set out quite carefully to make it happen. Surely you can see the difference.”

  “Not entirely,” Lizzy admitted. “For all your logic and reasoning, you did not count on the Earl of Wilton reacting as he did and demanding that you marry him instead. If you had thought everything through as you claim, wouldn’t you have seen that as a possibility?”

  “Lizzy, you will just have to trust me on this.” Abby tossed aside the fine linen she’d been embroidering, so that it landed in a heap. Thread pooled on top of it. She paid it scant attention as she made her plans for slipping away from Briarcliff and following Riley Walker to London. Surely if she proved helpful this once, he would finally have to concede her skill and daring and take advantage of them more often. “I am going to London at once.”

  Lizzy was clearly horrified. “Abby, you mustn’t. I am quite sure the earl downplayed the danger for your peace of mind, but clearly this is no casual lark. What will your parents say when they find that you have gone chasing off after a man who is not yet your husband? Surely they will disinherit you.”

  “Nonsense. They will be relieved that I am finally in the Earl of Wilton’s capable hands. My father assumes he will make short work of taming me.”

  “After you are married!” Lizzy reminded her. “Abby, this is foolish. You could ruin everything. If Wilton throws you over because of this, your reputation may never recover.”

  “Oh, fie on my reputation. It is his neck that must be saved. Do you truly believe he is any match for a most devious crook?”

  “I quite believe the Earl of Wilton is a match for anyone,” Lizzy said firmly. Then, after a slight hesitation, she added, “Except perhaps for you.”

  Abby gave her friend a reassuring hug. “Please, Lizzy, don’t distress yourself. I am going to have my adventure, after all.”

  “Misadventure, more likely,” Lizzy said dolefully. “I cannot bear the thought of all the terrible things that could befall you.”

  “You will not tell anyone what I am about, though, will you? Promise me, Lizzy.”

  “I will have no need to tell. They will discover you gone and guess for themselves, and then I expect there will be hell to pay.”

  It was the first thing Lizzy had said with which Abby found herself agreeing wholeheartedly. She expected there would be hell to pay...with Wilton himself leading the demands for payment.

  But after all was said and done, once tempers had cooled, would he not be proud of her initiative? Would he not be forced to agree that her heart was every bit as brave as his? Would he not see that she was every bit his equal?

  And if he could not see any of that, would she want to spend the rest of her life with him, anyway? Yes, she reassured herself as she slipped away from the house, saddled her mare and rode out toward London, it was far better to have this matter of their partnership resolved between them here and now. She could never be happy with a man who did not understand and respect her. It was time to test the Earl of Wilton’s mettle and discover once and for all if he was such a man.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When the phone in Abby’s hospital room rang at six in the morning, Riley snatched it up, instinctively reacting to keep it from disturbing Abby. As if anything would, he thought wearily. He doubted if a damned brass band playing at midnight would get through to her. He was just about convinced it was her own blasted stubbornness that was keeping her unconscious just to torture him.

  “Yes, hello,” he said finally, after making certain the phone hadn’t accomplished what nothing else had.

  “Is that you, Walker?”

  He recognized the irritating, high-pitched voice at once. “Well, well, well. I’m surprised you finally got around to checking on your fianc;aaee, Martin. She’s only been in the hospital a week now.”

  “Look, Walker, I don’t need any snide remarks from you. If it weren’t for you, Abigail wouldn’t be in there at all. Put her on.”

  “No can do,” he said, wondering exactly what the Dennisons had told Martin. Apparently not the whole truth, that was for sure. Maybe the man wasn’t entirely to blame for not showing up, if Abby’s parents had led him to believe she was just suffering from a few cuts and bruises. He decided—rather nobly, he thought—to keep an open mind.

  “I’m not asking, Walker. I am ordering you to put my fianc;aaee on the phone.”

  An order? From that legal twit? Open-mindedness flew out the window. Riley shrugged and held the phone to Abby’s ear. When he figured the silence on her end had gone on long enough, he took it back and said, “Did you get all that?”

  “What? She didn’t say a word.”

  “My point precisely. Abby’s unconscious,” he said bluntly, then regretted the cruelty. It probably wasn’t Martin’s fault he was such a pompous jerk. Or that he was uninformed, for that matter.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “Obviously the Dennisons didn’t explain things. Abby’s been unconscious ever since she was brought into the hospital.”

  “What the hell have you done to her?” Martin accused, his voice rising to an earsplitting level. “I’ll see that you pay for this, Walker. Make no mistake about that.”

  The last tiny, f
ragile thread of Riley’s patience snapped. “You planning to sue me? For what? I’m not a tour operator. There’s no negligence or liability here. Abby knew the risks. She begged to come along on this trip. Just ask her family. As for you, you have no standing in this matter at all.”

  “You could have told her no,” the other man said petulantly.

  Riley was beginning to think he could really dislike Martin Henry without even working at it. The man would bore Abby silly in a month. Maybe less.

  “I believe I used that word and just about every other negative command in my vocabulary,” he told Henry. “Her mind was made up. Maybe if you’d offered her a little more excitement, she wouldn’t have turned to me to get some thrills.”

  Riley winced as soon as the cheap shot was out of his mouth. Insulting Martin Henry wasn’t going to help Abby. She was engaged to the man. Obviously he must have some redeeming qualities, though at the moment they weren’t particularly evident. Perhaps he was being too hard on Martin. Perhaps the man was genuinely distraught and shouldn’t be held accountable for his stupid remarks.

  “Look, shall I tell her you’re on your way?” he asked in an attempt to make peace with the other man for Abby’s sake. Not that he intended to hang around and witness the debacle of their marriage firsthand. No, he would be long gone before the vows were spoken. For now, though, he would have to tolerate the man. “When should we expect you?”

  “Don’t,” Martin said succinctly. “While I find your manners deplorable, there may be some truth to what you said. I may not be exciting enough for a woman who craves danger. I had thought Abigail would outgrow that absurd need to put her life in jeopardy, but apparently I was wrong. I believe Abigail made her choice before she ever left Arizona. I am willing to respect her wishes on this.”

  How bloody damned noble, Riley thought with disgust. Still, since Abby couldn’t speak for herself, he felt compelled to make at least a paltry attempt at salvaging the engagement in case it really was what Abby wanted.

  “Don’t go jumping to conclusions, man. She hadn’t broken the engagement, had she?”

  As Riley had intended, Martin hesitated. “No.” He sighed. “But I’m sure it was only a matter of time. Tell her she may return the ring at her convenience when she recovers.”

  Abby was unconscious and the stupid attorney was worried about a ring. Riley couldn’t believe that anyone could be so crass. He glanced down at Abby’s bare fingers. “Sorry, pal. No can do. I hope that ring didn’t have any sentimental value. Looks to me as if the bandits took it when they were pummeling the dickens out of her.”

  It wasn’t until he had hung up on the attorney that he realized he hadn’t seen Abby’s engagement ring since she set foot on the ground in Mexico. His gaze narrowed. “You never had any intention of going home to him, did you, Abby?”

  The little burst of elation that he felt at that realization didn’t bear too close a scrutiny.

  * * *

  She had certainly made a botch of things, Abby realized almost as soon as she left Briarcliff. The chances of her catching the Earl of Wilton on the road to London were practically nonexistent. She was a good rider and she was on a strong horse, but he had an even more powerful mount, and he was definitely the more experienced rider. He also had at least a two-hour head start on her. It had taken time to convince Lizzy that what she was doing wouldn’t ruin her forever, to slip into the kitchen undetected and steal some bread and a meat pie, then to sneak into the stable to retrieve her horse.

  Now, faced with the reality of a long, lonely ride, she was growing anxious. There was the problem of overnight accommodations, for one thing. For someone who’d preached the virtues of logic, she certainly hadn’t used very much when she’d set out from home. She couldn’t very well turn up at an inn without even a maid accompanying her. She would just have to press on until she reached whichever place the earl was in for the night and count on his indulgence. She feared there was not much logic in that plan, either. He was more likely to turn her over his knee than he was to welcome her with open arms.

  Well, there was nothing to be done about that at this late date. She would just have to brazen it out and trust that she could make it all right in the end. She could sleep in a stable if she had to, she thought staunchly. She was sure that a straw pallet for one single night would be better than eating crow at Wilton’s table, anyway.

  And once in London, she could go to her family’s town house. Cook wouldn’t be there, of course, nor any of the maids, but Papa left a butler in residence to see to any pressing matters that might come up and to keep the house at ready for any sudden visits he might make on business. That meant there would be a fire in the hearth and a supply of food in the kitchen. What more could she possibly need? Perhaps Wilton need not even discover that she was on the scene until she had worked out a precise scheme for helping him.

  With that plan in mind, she felt quite a bit better about things. At last she felt free to enjoy the pleasant summer breeze, the cloudless blue sky, the stirring of excitement that no amount of worry about the eventual outcome of this day’s work could dampen. She found a shady spot, paused and ate the food she’d brought, then pressed on.

  Astonishing, she thought after another hour had passed quite safely. She was well and truly on her own and it was delightfully exhilarating. It was no wonder men did not like to see their ladies indulge in such daring excursions. Women were quite likely to discover that there was nothing to equal it. They would be fleeing the country in droves.

  She did wish, though, that the earl had been somewhat more forthcoming about this business with a crook at Wilton Shipping. She could have put her mind to work on the problem during the trip. She was quite certain she could have come up with a reasonable solution by the time they reached London. Surely there were plans that did not involve excessive danger or too many opportunities for mishap.

  Even without any solid information, she could give the matter some thought. What sort of crooks might there be at a shipping company, for instance? A bookkeeper, possibly? He could juggle the figures in such a way that income could vanish without anyone being the wiser. She had heard of such things, particularly if the owner of the company was not as watchful as he should have been, which was certainly true in the case of the Earl of Wilton. Catching a bookkeeper fiddling with company figures, however, did not really stir much excitement, to Abby’s way of thinking. Unless, perhaps, there were very large sums involved.

  Perhaps someone was making off with the cargo, forcing the earl to pay off on the missing goods. Certainly that would diminish the company’s profits and cause him to go dashing off to London. The challenge of catching such a thief would prove far more intriguing. She rather hoped that was the problem.

  Right now, however, with daylight rapidly coming to an end, the prospect of riding much further was not nearly so pleasing. If she recalled correctly, there was an inn no more than a mile or two further on. Perhaps if she asked for the innkeeper’s wife at the kitchen door, the woman would agree to slip her quietly upstairs with no one else on the premises being the wiser. Abby would gladly give her an extra coin or two for her trouble and her silence.

  By the time the inn finally came into view at least five miles later, Abby realized that her stamina was not nearly as great as she had assumed. She was exhausted and ready for a long night’s sleep in a warm bed.

  Unfortunately, her carefully worked out plan quickly fell into a muddle. First, the glances she drew from the stable help when she turned over her mare for the night disconcerted her. Then the cook, an unpleasant harridan, regarded her with suspicion when she asked for the innkeeper’s wife. She informed Abby with a certain amount of questionable satisfaction that the woman had died a year or more ago.

  “And we don’t allow no lightskirts in here,” the round-faced woman said bluntly. “This is a respectable place. You might’s well be on your way.”

  Abby drew herself up and bestowed her haughtiest glare on the
woman. “I am Lady Abigail of Briarcliff.”

  “And I’m the bloody Queen of England,” the woman snapped right back, slamming the door in her face.

  Thoroughly shocked by the rudeness, Abby could only stare at the closed door for several minutes before fury set her to pounding on it. It popped open.

  “Quiet!” the cook ordered. “Or I will call the bailiff on ye.”

  Abby saw that there was no reasoning with the woman. Perhaps by going to the kitchen door like a common beggar she had made the tiniest miscalculation. “Please, could you not fetch the innkeeper?”

  “He will only throw you out on your ear,” the woman said, her double chin set stubbornly.

  “I will speak to him,” Abby said just as stubbornly and pushed her way past. The aroma of food nearly felled her. She realized then that she was practically starved. The small amount of food she’d stolen from the pantry at home might have been enough to sustain her on a brief outing, but she had been riding hard for hours now. Only determination and the furious glint in the cook’s eyes kept her from lingering over the steak and kidney pies.

  When the cook snatched up a butcher knife capable of carving a side of beef with a single blow, Abby let out a scream that could probably be heard all the way back at Briarcliff. She raced for the door leading to the inn’s dining room, the irate cook hard on her heels.

  Naturally, given her ignominious entrance, the first person she encountered was the Earl of Wilton himself. After one startled gaze into her eyes, he pushed her behind him and stared down the menacing cook, who stood her ground. “What is this?” Riley demanded. “Do you always chase ladies away with a butcher knife? What kind of hospitality is that? I will see this establishment closed down at once, if you do not put that weapon away.”

  “She ain’t no lady,” the cook said, scowling fiercely. She continued to wave the knife in a most threatening manner. The innkeeper hurried up at last and took it from her.

  “I suppose that is a matter to be disputed, if one is considering propriety,” Riley said dryly. “But the truth is that this is Lady Abigail of Briarcliff.” He gave a forced smile, then added, “My wife.”