“Perhaps I came to apologize for that mistake.”
“Did you?” Joe demanded.
“No,” Selim admitted, driving forward with a series of attacks.
From nowhere, it seemed, a pair of horses galloped around the bend, pulling a carriage that looked vaguely familiar. As one, Joe and Selim bolted back to the ditch, and in a cloud of dust and dried mud, the carriage swept past them. At the window was the astonished face of old Mr. Atwood, the vicar.
Joe laughed and saluted him with the rapier, which he then had to bring down hard on Selim’s.
“I am driven to find the truth,” Selim said, breathless now with his exertions. “I could not live with the doubts that you rejected Nur because you were already engineering my downfall.”
Joe’s sword faltered and was still. Between the weapons, he met Selim’s dark gaze. “Is that truly what you thought?”
Selim pushed and broke free. “Wouldn’t you?”
“No.” Joe fought back, hard and furious once more. “Everything is not about you. I did not reject Nur. I simply stood aside for reasons that concern only her and me. In that decision, neither of us thought once about you.”
“Selfish donkeys,” Selim flung at him, and in spite of everything, Joe laughed. “You did not engineer my revolt, did you?”
“You know I didn’t.”
“You did not even betray me.”
Joe twisted their blades together, trying to disarm his opponent, who again broke free. “If it makes you feel better, blame me.”
The blades clashed again, but it felt like a gesture of despair, and Selim’s eyes were haunted.
“Why not?” Selim said harshly. “It’s better than taking responsibility.”
For an instant, Joe forgot he was playing a part. In fact, he could no longer see the point of keeping to it, but he had more immediate things to worry about. Selim’s sword was already wavering.
“Finish it,” Selim said desperately.
And Joe did, the only way he knew how. One more clash, a twist of his blade, and he sent Selim’s sword flying through the air. He thought Selim was about to drop to his knees, not so much in surrender as in abject misery, so he kicked out to give him a reason, catching him behind the knees. The prince fell.
At almost the same time, his sword landed on the road near Hazel. Barden started toward it. Hazel snapped something at him, and he froze.
Joe dropped to a crouch, the point of his blade at Selim’s throat. “You had better give me something.”
“There’s a purse in my pocket. And you should take the cane since you won it.”
Joe let a smile flicker across his face. “No, you get to keep the swords. You might need them escorting the treacherous Lord Barden to my house.”
Selim’s eyes widened. He looked stunned all over again. But Joe knew he understood.
There was no time for chatter. Another coach could be along at any time, and truly, the fewer people likely to see either Hazel or himself, the better. Even now, Atwood was probably summoning the law.
He leapt to his feet. Hazel, keeping hold of the pistol, urged the horse into motion. Joe dropped the sword beside Selim and ran after her. At the last moment, she lowered the pistol, dropping it into an already-open saddlebag, and reached down her hand.
With a surge of pure joy, Joe grasped her hand and vaulted up behind her. The mare let out a disgusted whinny at such added weight and exploded into a gallop. Joe’s hands closed over Hazel’s on the reins, setting the horse at the ditch. The mare jumped it and careened across the fields toward the woods beyond. Joe had never felt so free and so happy in his life.
Chapter Sixteen
Galloping across the fields with his hands over hers on the reins and his warm body pressed against her back, his breath on her hair, her cheek…
Whether it was his nearness or their sudden escape from danger, exhilaration flooded her. She felt as though she were bursting with happiness—until she realized his body was trembling behind her.
In abrupt fear for him, she twisted in the saddle, pulling one hand free to reach up to his face. He still wore the mask, although he’d pulled the kerchief down to his throat. “Oh, no! Joe, are you hurt? Are you wounded? Let me help.”
“I’m fine.” For an instant, his hand cradled hers to his rough cheek, and she realized he was shaking not with pain or blood loss but with laughter.
“Joe!”
His grin broadened. “Well, it is funny. In fact, I’ve rarely enjoyed anything in my life as much as galloping home with you after a fight.”
This was so much what she had just been feeling herself that she relaxed and laughed with him.
“Oh, yes, it is fun now, but not when they abducted me, and certainly not when you were fighting Selim! What will they do now? I’m sure Selim knows who you are!”
“He does. And I imagine he and Barden will drive back to Brightoaks via the road.”
“Why on earth would they do that?” she demanded.
“Because I invited Selim, and Barden never recognized the highwayman.”
“I nearly didn’t myself,” she said. “But when you were talking to Selim during the fight, your voice became much more normal. Not that we could hear the words. It just sounded like taunting and gibberish.”
“Mostly, it was,” Joe said ruefully. “Until the last few moments.”
She twisted around once more to see his face. “Then you trust him? Because when you walked into the road, I wasn’t sure which of you most wanted to kill the other.”
“Neither were we. I thought he was involved in your abduction.”
“No, I think he just happened to see it and imposed himself from sheer curiosity. He offered to buy me!” she added in lingering outrage.
“He didn’t mean it. It was to get you away from Barden.”
“Why? To save me? Or to hold something over you?”
“I don’t know,” Joe admitted. “I don’t think he does, either. But he suggested giving you the pistol.”
“I wondered if he meant me to shoot you.”
“Oh, no. He would never have let anyone else kill me.”
“And now you have defeated him.”
“He let me,” Joe murmured against her hair.
She pushed at his chin to see him better. “Why?” she asked helplessly. “After all that…”
“Because face to face, he knew he did not even want to kill me. And recognized that he was only blaming me to avoid responsibility for his own mistakes. It’s not an easy thing for a man who has grown up with his every whim indulged and his every decision applauded—until the one that truly mattered.”
“Then…you are friends?” she asked doubtfully.
He smiled into her hair. “We have always been friends.”
He slowed the mare to a canter as they closed on the woods and weaved among the trees to a path. He seemed to know where he was going.
“Brightoaks,” he said, as though she had asked. “Bart and Emma should have gone straight back.”
“But we can’t be seen like this!” Hazel exclaimed with a sudden jolt to reality.
“You mean a young lady without a bonnet or gloves riding astride with her limbs so delightfully exposed…” His hand swept down her arm to her thigh and lower. “On the same horse as a masked and extremely dirty highwayman…” He found her knee. “Who, if unmasked, would prove to be that unmitigated rake, Joe Sayle.”
His caressing fingers slid lower yet, finding her exposed stocking. She gasped, half-turning to forbid such familiarities, but her open mouth met his, and objections fled. There was only his kiss, his hard warmth, his wickedly caressing hand sliding up beneath her rucked skirts. Delicious weakness weighted her limbs. Fire burned deep in the pit of her stomach, and she kissed him back with eyes closed in utter surrender.
The mare, since they were paying her no attention, slowed and halted to munch some appetizing green leaves. Hazel’s trembling fingers stroked the corner of his mouth, his cheek,
and the mask still covering half his face.
He deepened the kiss, his hand reaching higher to the bare skin of her thigh, and she ached with bliss, with need. His fingers sweetly caressed in sensual little circles and then stilled. He groaned and slowly removed his hand before gently, firmly tugging her hem as low as it would go.
Only then did he break the amazing kiss. His quickened breath caressed her lips, and then her cheek as he reluctantly raised his head.
The mare dipped her head to get at the leaves and grass at her feet, causing Joe to pull her head back up and kick her into motion once more.
“I hope you’ll forgive such liberties,” he said lightly. In a sudden movement, he peeled off the mask and stuffed it into his pocket. “Especially in the present circumstances.”
“The circumstances of being alone with me in the woods?” she asked huskily.
His arms tightened. “Among others.” He swallowed determinedly. “Have I said this is a shortcut to Brightoaks? Where I will leave you hidden in the garden while I sneak indoors and send Emma or Roberta to you with whatever you need to look innocent.”
“But… but will no one wonder how we got home?”
“No one questions me in my own household. Not even my mother—unless you look distressed, which I hope you are not.”
“I think I must be dazed. Joe?”
“Yes, my sweet?”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against his shoulder. “I like being with you.”
His lips brushed the top of her head. “Good,” he said hoarsely.
*
Their return to Brightoaks unfolded much as Joe planned. Avoiding people, whether those working in the fields or traveling on the paths, they occasionally had to take a slightly more roundabout route, but they still reached the hazel tree at the edge of the garden before teatime.
By then, Hazel’s stomach was rumbling, and they were both walking to allow the poor horse a rest.
“Sit and recover here,” Joe said. “I’ll take the mare up to the stables, then send one of my sisters to you with hairpins and a bonnet, and you can be seen walking up to the house in their company. You can pretend a neighbor brought us back and be vague about names and times. No one will press you.”
Certainly, it would have caused a great deal of talk to be seen like this, with Sir Joseph dressed in laborers’ clothes.
“What a lot of palaver to account for something that was not even our fault,” she said, frowning. “And what about Barden?”
“Hmm. My instinct is to have a quiet word and throw him out. We can easily make up some reason for his departure that does not include you. But I don’t want him saying he left because you were present. And it goes against the grain to let him walk away with no punishment and nothing but my threats to keep him from spilling more venom.”
He gazed down at her. “I should have fought Barden, not Selim.”
“They’d have hunted you down, and no one at the inn could stay silent in such circumstances.”
A smile flickered in his eyes. “You’ve thought of this already.”
“I thought you would kill Selim.”
“Well, I haven’t killed anyone. Yet.”
For a breathless moment, she thought he would take her in his arms, a perfect end to their idyllic journey home. But when he reached out, he merely took her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm. Her skin tingled.
“I shall see you soon, hopefully at tea.”
Her stomach rumbled again, and he laughed as he turned and strode up the side path to the stables, the mare trotting happily at his side as though she sensed a meal of her own.
When he was out of sight and she had checked that no one else was around, Hazel hastily reached under her gown and pulled down her caught-up chemise and petticoat, then brushed down her dress with her hands and tried to peer over her shoulder to inspect the back of her gown. Then she sniffed various parts of the fabric to see if she smelled too badly of horse. She would need to change before tea, so she hoped Emma would not be long. On the whole, although Joe appeared to trust his sisters equally in the matter, she hoped for the younger, who would almost certainly be less disapproving.
On the other hand, she would be more blatantly curious.
To save time, she raked out the pins from her hair and held them in one hand while she tried to comb her hair with her fingers. Then, she paused in horror.
Distant voices were coming closer, a male and a female. They were clearly guests, not servants, although Hazel could not recognize them. And they seemed to be heading directly toward her.
Drat, why did I take out all the pins? Now I look like a hussy rather than a merely tousled young lady who has walked too far!
She bolted behind the tree, and as the voices and footfalls were almost upon her, hastily bundled her hair into a roll at the back of her head. She was dementedly cramming in pins when the voices stopped.
She paused, a pin halfway in, and a good-looking young man stuck his head around the tree.
He grinned. “I knew I heard someone. Forgive the interruption.”
A young lady stepped beside him. A lady of perhaps Hazel’s own age but of unsurpassed elegance. She was not beautiful in the way that Agatha was, but intelligence shone in her fine eyes, and there was self-confidence in her every movement.
“Oh, dear,” the lady said, torn, apparently, between amusement and sympathy. “Have you had an accident?”
Hazel flushed hotly with embarrassment. “I lost a pin or two and decided to start again, though I wish now I had not.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t tell,” the gentleman assured her. “Perhaps you can help, Theresa?”
“I would love to, but I suspect I would make it worse,” the lady said. “Perhaps I could send your maid to you instead?”
“Or smuggle you up the servants’ stairs?” the gentleman suggested, clearly warming to the challenge.
“Thank you, there is no need,” Hazel assured them. “I’m expecting assistance any moment.”
From her expression, the lady would have taken the hint and departed, but for some reason, her companion lingered.
“Allow me to make introductions, since there is no one else to do so. I’m Dowlton. This is my sister, Lady Theresa Thorne. And you are Miss…?”
“Hazel,” she said nervously, for she could no longer remember what name was best to use.
Fortunately, at this moment, Emma and Irene appeared, the latter dangling a bonnet from her fingers. Irene looked appalled to see other people with Hazel, but Emma carried it off with great aplomb.
“Here we are!” she said cheerfully. “Irene has picked all the foliage out of your bonnet and brushed it down as good as new! Ah, I see you have been found out! Never mind! I’m sure they understand perfectly how a lady might be preoccupied enough to walk into a tree branch!”
“Thank you,” Hazel managed, cramming her hair under the bonnet. “You’re both very good!”
“Come, we’d better hurry if you wish to change for tea.”
Hazel cast Lord Dowlton and his sister a quick smile and an awkward curtsey and let herself be hustled away.
Tea was clearly being arranged on the terrace, but Emma led Hazel and Irene around to a side door, where, she said, they were only likely to be seen from a distance.
“And from a distance, you look perfectly respectable,” Emma assured her. “Though I’m afraid you do smell just a little bit of horse!”
“I was afraid of that,” Hazel replied. “Who knows what that couple thinks of me?”
“They looked merely amused to me,” Emma said. “They are quite without malice, I believe.”
“Lady Theresa,” Hazel said, suddenly making the connection. Her heart began to sink. “Is she the Lady Theresa who is almost engaged to your brother?”
“No!” Emma scoffed. Then she sighed. “Well, there has been talk of it for some time, mainly among the families. But I doubt Joe will ever come up to scratch.”
�
�I don’t think that’s a ladylike term,” Hazel observed, trying not to be pleased by it.
“Probably not, but you know what I meant! Joe’s never shown any interest in marriage. But more to the point, Hazel, what happened in Great Finglebury?”
“Oh, I can’t tell you now, but it was all a big mistake,” Hazel said hastily. “Did Lord Barden come back?”
“Not yet.”
*
In many ways, Hazel hoped that Barden would not return, but she also knew he had no reason to stay away. He thought no one would believe whatever tale Hazel told, had no idea that his host had witnessed his crime and rescued Hazel.
Tea was taken at tables set up on the shaded terrace. Hazel sat with Emma and two other ladies. Dressed in her favorite day gown, with all vestiges of horse—she hoped—scrubbed from her skin and hair, she quietly wolfed bread and butter and ham, scones, and cake. She still felt the warm glow of her journey home with Joe, and she suspected she smiled too much.
It was a relaxed scene, with a few gentlemen seated among the ladies and others strolling between the tables. Lady Sayle was the perfect hostess for such an occasion, good-humored and apparently casual, while actually attentive to everyone’s needs. Joe, wandering between tables, was greeted everywhere as an old friend, inspiring clear pleasure in the ladies by his attentions and exchanging banter with the gentlemen.
Hazel’s only twinge of jealousy came when he sat down beside Lady Theresa Thorne and her mother. Joe’s manner to Lady Theresa seemed much the same as to everyone else, but Hazel could see the lady’s eyes light up. Her chatter became at once more animated, and she made Joe laugh more than once.
“Don’t worry,” Emma murmured in Hazel’s ear. “Someone told her she would make an excellent diplomat’s wife, and everyone knows Joe will be an important ambassador one day—and sooner rather than later.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Hazel muttered. “Though, of course, I wish him every success.” She was more immediately concerned with what she might have revealed of her own feelings for him, but as her gaze fell once more on Joe and Lady Theresa, it hurt to realize what a truly excellent wife she would make for Joe. Calm, attentive, good-natured, clever. Her beauty was of the understated, refined kind. They would make a very distinguished couple.
Pursued by the Rake Page 17
