The woman yelped and scrambled out of Edward’s lap onto the seat beside him as he drove down the road.
“Who are you?” She looked only slightly less frightened than before as she tried to straighten her jacket and skirt. She glanced at the ground as though contemplating a jump.
Edward reached out to hold her arm. “Miss, please, I’m trying to rescue you from that scoundrel.”
She stared at him a moment. “Thank you, sir.” As she turned, her eyes widened. “Oh no! He’s following us.”
Edward’s stomach clinched. He glanced back. Sure enough, the man had climbed onto the driver’s box and had set the horses into a trot. He was close enough that Edward could see the glower on the man’s face. Curses poured from the man’s mouth. The nobleman’s driver hung on to the seat beside him as the carriage headed directly toward Edward. The man had no intention of letting his comely piece escape.
Edward slapped the reins against the back of the gray. Thankfully, the animal responded. A moment later, the horse’s ears flicked back and he jumped into a faster gait. Faster was not good on the rutted road. Yet there was no gainsaying that the peer had every intention of running into them. Edward felt his light rig rise as the gray responded to the thunder of the racing carriage.
Though his gig was more lightweight than the carriage, it had seen much wear, while the carriage was well sprung with fresh, eager horses.
The young woman clung to the seat, her face stunned into silence and fear. “Save us, God. Please save us,” he heard her mutter, and he echoed the sentiment.
A moment later, they exploded into the main thoroughfare. Edward was able to maneuver into the traffic and away from the peer, who was cut off by a lumbering wagon. With a quick glance behind him, Edward turned down one street and then another.
Finally he pulled up the gray, who was blowing and wheezing. He found his own breath expelling in gulps and heaves. Catching his breath, he turned to the young woman beside him.
“I think you’re safe now, miss.”
Suddenly he sucked in a deep breath as he stared into the deep brown eyes he’d dreamed about since his reception at Lucashire Hall. “Betsy?” He felt the nervous tic in his left cheek. “I mean, Carrington, Miss Elizabeth Carrington... Oh dear, you know who you are.” If humiliation could open a hole, he’d gladly jump in. Instead, he simply fell embarrassingly silent.
Chapter 7
Betsy stared at the handsome man beside her who had gone out of his way to rescue her from that rake, that, that rakehell, that scapegrace. Oh, she ran out of nasty things to call the peer who thought she was some sort of lightskirt and tried to force her... And in front of the mission at that.
How dare he not listen when she told him she was not what he was looking for—a woman of pleasure? She felt her cheeks heat and covered them with her hands. Her body felt bruised all over. She tugged skirt, top and jacket back into some semblance of respectability.
Anger bubbled inside as well as myriad other emotions she could not properly name at the moment. She blushed just thinking about what might have happened had not the dark, serious man beside her stepped in.
She surveyed the man in a well-cut, if not quite in the latest fashion jacket. His worn boots were nonetheless polished to a high shine.
Her plans had gone very badly wrong and she knew, unless she could sneak home undetected, everyone from her mother to her cousin would ring a regular peal over her poor head. Betsy sighed.
The man beside her looked vaguely familiar and he certainly seemed to know her. Blast it anyway! Though not tall like her cousin, her rescuer was at least her height, thin, with wavy blond hair and startling blue eyes that stared back at her in stunned surprise. Was he ever going to speak again?
“You know who I am?” It was the best she could manage under the circumstances.
He nodded. “I do. Did. Uh.” A slight, crooked smile turned up his lips, taking the frown from his face and making him quite handsome. “I’m not usually so tongue-tied, but you there were a surprise.”
Betsy supplied. “Shock, more like.”
He swallowed, coughed. “Glad I could be of service.” He glanced around. “I think we lost him. When he sobers up, he might have little recall of the events of the last few minutes.”
“We can certainly hope so.” Betsy’s sentiment was more than a little hopeful. Anxiety clutched her insides. “What if he doesn’t and meets me elsewhere?”
“I doubt the man would wish to admit his activities in this part of town.” His lips turned up slightly. “Miss Carrington—it is Carrington, is it not? Miss Carrington, he is not going to recognize you at any society events, of that you can be certain.”
That smile. She’d seen that smile before. She wrinkled her forehead in thought. The shape of the face, the smile, a picture. Her thoughts, prayers...dreams. Oh my! Betsy almost fell off the rig as she recognized her rescuer. “Oh no! Edward? Edward Denning?”
He did as courtly a bow as their position allowed. “At your service, miss.”
“Betsy,” she told him. “Just Betsy.”
He gulped. Nodded. “B...Betsy.”
She sighed. “At least, I know I am safe enough in your care.”
He straightened. “I should hope so, but what were you doing—alone—down by that mission?”
Betsy squirmed in her seat. “Well, I...”
Horror flashed on Edward’s face. “Are you saying you deliberately went there alone?”
She could see how the very idea upset her rescuer.
Imagine, being rescued by the man she’d been dreaming about and praying for positively years. Maybe God was in this. She sent up a plea. God? Oh, but what a dilemma. He’d take her directly back to Alistair House and talk to her mother and cousin. Of course, maybe he did not know where his sister was.
Frowning, Edward repeated, “Tell me you did not go there alone.”
“All right, I took a cab to the mission. Yes.” She quailed under his glare and gulped. “Please let me explain. I—I had good reason. Oh, botheration! Mother and Winter were out and about and...” She stopped before saying anything about Angella. She shrugged. “No one else was about to escort me, so I took a hackney cab.” His silence unnerved her. “I—someone needed to be at the mission. There was no one else, you understand.” She grabbed the seat as the gray chose that moment of Edward’s inattention on the reins to shake his head and stretch out his nose.
Betsy gulped again, waiting for Edward’s response. She felt a frisson of anger building at his icy gaze. Her all-too-recent run-in with the peer, her rescue and her reasons for going to the mission whirled in her mind. She well knew the response she would receive once Angella, Spensor and Lord and Lady Alistair, not to mention her mother, discovered the truth of the matter. Her stomach churned as she waited for Edward to speak.
Edward put a light hand on the reins to halt the gray as the animal shifted and took a few steps forward. He glanced at her and away. He cleared his throat. When he focused his attention on her, she felt her throat close and swallowed. “What a noddycock thing to do. Have you windmills in your head?”
Whatever she expected, it was not that set-down. Betsy tensed and ground her teeth as her temper rose. Whoever did he think he was—her keeper? “I have not.” Her eyes flashed. “Mr., I mean, Reverend Edward Denning, you have no call to say such things to me, you...you... Oh, I don’t know what you are.”
Sarcasm twisted the man lips. “I, Miss Betsy Carrington, am the man, you might recall, who just rescued you from a most untenable position.” Edward shook his head, his eyes dark with concern.
Betsy bit her lip and lowered her gaze. She was in the wrong and she well knew it. What must Edward think of her after his rescue? Why, it was worthy of one of Mrs. Radcliff’s heroes. A smile touched her lips, but she forced it back.
The expression of horror on Edward’s face brought shame at her behavior. Her heart sank at his low, “If I had not come... Oh, Betsy...” He did not need to paint the picture any more clearly.
Betsy closed her eyes as she again smelled the liquor and felt the man’s arms about her. Shuddering, she forced away the image to focus on her reasons for going to the mission. She said no one was available to go to the mission with her, but had not Baron Fritton volunteered? Betsy frowned. Strange. She had not even remembered his offer at the time. That bore some consideration, but not here or now, not when Edward, still frowning, awaited a response.
Sucking in a deep breath, Betsy faced Edward. If there was an awkward moment, this was it. It was hardly the impression she’d hoped to make when he returned and she met him for the first time again after so many years. “I know and I am sorry. I did not use good judgment, I’ll allow that.”
She tucked the edges of her skirt under her legs as she tried to make herself look less like a mindless peagoose. “Understand, we help down at the mission all the time.”
“Not just you, though.”
Betsy shook her head as she worried her lip. “Never before just me. Spensor will be all out of countenance when he hears.”
“I should think so.” Edward steadied the horse that again shook its head, jingling the hardness. “So, what possessed you to do such a noddycock thing?”
Betsy felt her anger rise again, but forced herself to civility. After all, he did have a point, several really. By now she wished she’d stayed home or thought of Baron Fritton. “Everyone else in the house had plans. I remembered, too late, an appointment at the mission.”
“Surely, someone could have accompanied you.” Edward’s tone softened. “Betsy, you are much too lovely a woman to be unescorted even in safer areas of London. But down here?”
Betsy flushed with humiliation and pleasure. Edward thought her lovely? Oh my!
Her reasons sounded less and less sound. “The people in the neighborhood know me. I thought...I thought I’d be all right the few steps from the cab to the door.”
“Obviously not. Did not work out so well, did it?” It was not a question. Lowering her gaze, Betsy stared at her clutched hand, wishing she was any place but here.
“I did not realize. I mean, men like that. How could they... Oh my.” Betsy stuttered, unable to articulate further the horror of realization as she glanced up again. She knew Edward read it all in her face.
He sucked in a breath and glanced away. “Oh, Betsy, pretty women like you are always in danger from his sort.”
Pretty. Edward Denning called her lovely and now pretty. No one had ever called her either one, not with her rather long face and small nose that didn’t seem to quite fit her face. Pretty? Lovely! Did he truly see her that way? Only the marquis seemed to share his opinion. Did they not see? Still and all, the compliment silenced her, but only momentarily. “He was foxed.”
“I am convinced of it. Nevertheless, men like him have an eye for comely women.” Edward winced. “Unfortunately, his state made him unable or unwilling to realize the obvious.”
Betsy shook her head. “Obvious what?”
Edward let a smile lift his lips momentarily. Did she see a hint of longing in those blue eyes? Oh dear. She’d be heading to bedlam next if she did not take care. Botheration! The man was a missionary, not a peer hanging out for a wife. She repeated, “What’s so obvious?”
“That you are obviously a woman of quality. Though I wonder why he was near the mission.”
“The mission.” Betsy sat up, her eyes wide. “The mission. Oh dear!”
Edward glanced at her. “The mission, what about the mission?” A moment later, he slapped his forehead. “The mission.” They stared at each other.
Betsy broke the silence. “You were headed to the mission? Why?”
“To preach.”
“Oh my.” Betsy wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. “I was to be there to introduce the preacher sent to the mission.” Her laugh was weak at best.
Edward eyebrows rose as he glanced at her. His cheek twitched. “Is it too late?”
Betsy glanced at the watch hanging from her neck as a necklace. The chased gold exterior shimmered in the sunlight. “There is still time. I came early...as did you.”
“Praise the Lord for that. I am not used to London any longer and hoped to speak to the person in charge before the service.”
Betsy tried to quell a grin. “It appears you have done so.”
This time Edward shook his head. “So it appears. Though I do wish that individual took fewer chances with her person—even on my behalf.”
“To own the truth—” Betsy wiped her forehead before continuing “—I have had quite enough excitement for the day.”
“As for excitement...” Edward stared around at his surroundings. “I do fear I am hopelessly lost. Miss Carrington, would you be able to point me in the proper direction? I think the gray here has had enough time to rest and is as anxious to be off as you and me.”
Betsy also took in the surroundings, her gaze narrow as she assessed their direction. “That’s it. I know where we’re at.” She motioned the turns as they headed out. “There. Turn there.”
Edward followed her directions and before long they arrived back at the mission. She gulped as he lifted her from the rig and offered his arm. She glanced about for the would-be kidnapper and sighed with relief when the neighborhood remained amazingly quiet. Even the dogs that usually prowled about must have found better pickings elsewhere or been asleep.
“Come. Let me introduce you inside.”
Later she’d figure out what to do about getting home undetected.
* * *
Sitting in the abbreviated service after her ordeal, Betsy was mesmerized by the confident presence of the Reverend Edward Denning. Her heartbeat quickened every time he glanced her way, for when he did, he seemed to lose his place. Betsy had to remind herself Angella’s brother was a pastor, a minister, whose heart beat for sharing the gospel.
Who was she? The no-account daughter of a minor peer. Even if Edward complimented her looks, she knew the truth about herself, though her recent successes forced some reevaluation and growth in confidence. Still and all, she was hardly top drawer.
Betsy shook her head. Why ever was she even considering the man who seemed to grow in stature as he paced across the small platform? There were some well-intentioned ministers who agreed to speak, but who had no idea how to reach those who had already lost their last hope—if they ever had any.
Edward was certainly of a different stamp, and it warmed her heart. Glancing around, Betsy watched a young woman in a gown that was scarcely decent, leaning forward, while a young boy in a tattered coat listened without shifting, giggling or laughing. Reverend Denning spoke directly to their needs and seemed to understand their backgrounds as she never truly had. A blush touched her cheeks. As much as she tried to reach out, from watching and listening to Edward, Betsy realized how far she’d come short in actually understanding or in reaching hearts.
These were real people with real needs, needs that were not addressed simply with money or another change of clothes. Why had she not comprehended this before? She felt tears sting her eyes and wiped them away. How much more she could have done. How much more she could have given.
She almost felt as though the words were as much for her as for the dregs of lost humanity who sat on the hard benches. Edward stepped down from the high platform and talked directly to those in the pews. He took a hand here, gave a hug there. The smell did not appear to bother him, nor the grime on faces and clothes.
Even in the clean building the odor of unwashed bodies overpowered. Unlike Edward, Betsy shrank from the smell—always had. She gave smiles, an encouraging word, clothing and household goods—and lots of goo
d intentions. Was it all simply good intentions? Shame settled inside as well as a commitment to change and to see the people, not simply circumstances.
“Oh, Lord.” She bowed her head. Here she was, entertaining a future with Edward, and he was so above her touch in all that mattered. She wanted to groan. Such a godly man and she came up so short. “Forgive me, Lord.”
* * *
Edward could not help glancing toward Betsy from time to time. He tried not to. Every time he did, he lost his train of thought momentarily. It was lowering to realize how her presence set him in a spin. Taking himself firmly in hand, he focused on the audience. Their faces showed evidence of pain and despair. Some eyes sparked with hope, others with cynicism. These probably simply wanted a place to sit down and rest. Some wore clothes that had never seen better days. Others dressed in what he was sure were handouts. Some showed evidence of a lack of regular meals. So like India. So sad. He spoke of God’s love and care to a people who probably had no idea what that even meant. It all broke his heart.
Stepping down from the platform that made him someone above their touch, he mingled with those who needed more than words. They needed caring human touch. These people needed so much and he had so little. He reached into his pocket and surreptitiously passed out what little he had.
He found tears on Betsy’s face as she glanced up at him. He stuttered, wanting nothing more than to pull her into his arms. He shook his head, trying to stay focused. This was not the time or place to think of her.
And yet... He had compromised her by being alone with her. Though, as far as he knew, no one had seen them. But who knew who might have been in the carriages and other vehicles they drove by in the street? The last thing he wished to happen was for Betsy to become the latest on dits. As he finished, another thought stopped him. Betsy was his responsibility. He knew now what he must do. He frowned. He also needed to deal further with Betsy about that matter of coming here without an escort. That must stop immediately.
The Lady's Hero Page 8
