Miss Lucas glanced at him and her eyes sparkled.
“Mrs. . . . ?”
“Polley, sir. Married Mr. Polley in ’ninety-two and lost him to Old Boney in ’thirteen.”
“Mrs. Polley, might you be inclined to assist us now, and earn your journey back to London?”
“I would as long as the work’s honest, sir.” She looked between them, guardedly now.
“My sister requires a chaperone upon our journey yet sadly lacks one. We were forced to leave our previous residence in haste and hadn’t time to plan. So you see we are in need of a lady such as yourself.”
Her eyes slitted like cut melons. “Now see here, sir, I’ve not been living in a hole in the ground these past fifty-five years and I’ve a strong suspicion the two of you aren’t related.”
Miss Lucas laughed. “Oh, not at all. What’s more, I am intended for Mr. H, a much less handsome gentleman who admires me immensely and will make a very good life for me. But I have a task I must accomplish before then—to rescue my mother from a Den of Iniquity—and I’ve set out on the road to do so. It was only by accident that I happened upon Mr. Yale, who is a particular friend of my family, and he has kindly agreed to assist me.”
Mrs. Polley’s demeanor did not alter. “Have you now, sir?”
“I thought it best, under the circumstances.”
“So you see he is not kidnapping me or encouraging me to elope with him across the border or any such nonsense.”
“No nonsense whatsoever,” he murmured with that slight smile that made Diantha’s belly dance.
“Not only that, but he was insisting to me only a moment ago that I must have a chaperone, and here you are stranded and without a position. It seems serendipitous.”
Mrs. Polley did not now take her eyes off Mr. Yale. “Well I don’t know fancy words, miss, but it does seem like a pot of good fortune that we’ve come across each other.” She gave Diantha a careful look. “And you say this gentleman here is known to your kin?”
“Quite well known.”
Mrs. Polley seemed to chew on the inside of her cheek.
Diantha couldn’t wait. “Then we are all for Bristol together?”
Mrs. Polley shifted her attention to her. “Den of Iniquity, you say?”
“You needn’t remain in Miss Lucas’s service once we reach our destination if you do not wish to be associated with it, ma’am.”
Mrs. Polley stood, her double chin quite firm when brought to the height of perhaps four and a half feet. “I’ll remain as long as I see fit, sir, which will be as long as you’re trailing miss about the countryside here. She is a fine girl, this one.” She patted Diantha’s arm. “And I’ll not have any fellow who claims he’s friendly taking advantage of her. I’ll stay until I’m certain I’m needed no longer.”
“Excellent. Thank you, ma’am.” He bowed.
Diantha grinned. She cast him another quick glance as Mrs. Polley gathered her belongings, but he was looking at her with very sober eyes now. Her stomach did somersaults. When he looked at her like this, serious and still, it was again borne in upon her that she knew very little of him, and the notion came to her that the moment on the road when he’d looked dangerous might in fact have revealed the real man, the rest only a facade.
The traveling trunk was retrieved from the road and Mrs. Polley’s luggage gathered, and Wyn saw the ladies into the next southerly bound coach. But before departing he had a private conversation with a quiet lad delivering sacks of grain to the stable—a tall youth whose clothing hung on his frame and who stared at the bone the mongrel was chewing with the eyes of starvation.
With grim satisfaction, Wyn approached him. He’d been at this work for a decade. He knew well how to pick his man.
A coin and very few words later, the lad was nodding in assent.
“I’ll do it gladly, sir. Pa went off to fight the Frenchies and never came back, and me and Ma have been trying to keep my five brothers in shoes and porridge, without much luck. I’ll take this to her”—he gestured with his palm gripped around the coin—“and start off to Devonshire right away. Little Joe’s nearly as big as me now. He’ll take care of the others while I’m gone.”
“The contents of that pouch should be sufficient to hire a horse and pay for room and board along the road, William.”
“Don’t need but a stack of hay to sleep in, sir.”
“As you wish. You may keep whatever you do not use, and I will give you the fee we agreed upon when you return. But haste is essential. And a mum lip. The letter I have given you mustn’t be read by anyone but the baron, or Lord or Lady Savege, and you mustn’t tell a soul of your purpose.”
“Yessir. I understand, sir.”
“Good man.” Wyn left him then, reassured by the look of careful responsibility crossed with sheer relief in the youth’s eyes. What he offered William as payment would be a windfall for the poor family. The lad would make good time to Glenhaven Hall, home of the Baron of Carlyle, Miss Lucas’s stepfather. If the baron could not be found, William was to continue on to nearby Savege Park, the home of her stepsister, the Countess of Savege. If Wyn did not hear back from the baron or Serena and Alex Savege within the sennight, he would send another messenger, this time to Kitty and Leam Blackwood in London. Sister to the earl of Savege, Kitty was family to Miss Lucas too. If she were in town, she would come in an instant.
If he wrote to Constance, she would come, of course. But Wyn did not wish to see Constance before he completed his task, nor really Leam either, the man he’d spent six years of his life with wandering around the empire, working for the crown in secret.
Constance and Leam were the closest he had to family, and Jin Seton and Colin Gray to a degree. Rather, had been. With Leam’s retirement from the club four years earlier, the group had changed. Their secret ring of fellowship had been broken.
But in truth, the change had begun before that for Wyn, more than a year before that, in a rainy London alleyway when he looked into the bloodless face of a scarred girl and saw his own death. When he began to lie to the people he cared for most in the world.
And now, again, a girl was trusting him. A girl who came to him of her own accord and begged him for help.
God help Diantha Lucas for seeing a hero where none stood. But some girls, he supposed, were blind that way.
Diantha didn’t so much mind having been touched intimately by a gentleman. She minded not having been kissed first.
Teresa said men kissed ladies before they took greater liberties, and Diantha had given that some thought. Once before their wedding she’d seen her stepsister, Viola, and her betrothed, Mr. Seton, kiss each other quite enthusiastically when they thought no one else was looking, and her toes had positively curled in her slippers. Since Viola had come away from it with a dazed smile, and Mr. Seton with a remarkably satisfied look, Diantha supposed kissing was something to be desired rather than dreaded.
Her parents had never kissed. Her stepfather, a kind but limp and distracted sort of man, had barely ever come out of his study while her mother lived at Glenhaven Hall. Her real father had always been foxed. Like Mr. Yale in the stable. Which was perhaps why he had not kissed her before putting his hand on her behind.
He had released her swiftly, no doubt because he had not enjoyed touching her like that. How could he have enjoyed it? Just the memory of it made her squirm in shame. If she were like most girls, like the other girls at the academy, slim and delicate, perhaps he might have enjoyed it. Perhaps he would not have stopped. Perhaps he would have kissed her.
The coach rumbled over the rolling Shropshire countryside, Mrs. Polley asleep beside her. She was very amiable, although not particularly pleasant toward Mr. Yale. That couldn’t be wondered at. Like kissing. Elegant London ladies probably kissed gentlemen left and right, which was no doubt why Mrs. Polley did not trust Mr. Yale, for he was most certainly an elegant London gentleman.
Lying in bed fitfully the night before, Diantha had imagined kissing him, and her whole body got hot, like when he’d held her in the dark. It was wrong of her to feel hot like that, she suspected, but she was after all the wayward, wicked daughter of a wayward, wicked woman.
