society’s standards and—most importantly, devastatingly—a lady’s welfare.
She was not a ninnyhammer, and only a ninnyhammer would fail to see that this journey was not in her welfare. She would be on the road for weeks without a proper chaperone and now not even a maid, and she would complete her travels at a French brothel. As a real gentleman, Mr. Yale had one recourse only: to escort her back to where she belonged. He could not be her hero. Not this time. On this occasion, gentleman and hero were incompatible.
She should descend to the taproom now and look about for another hero. There must be at least one among the crowd of farmers and villagers. Or she could take the next leg of her journey alone and hope to come across a hero along the road ahead.
The coach schedule affixed to the wall beside the front door had been easy enough to memorize while she was eating and explaining her quest to Mr. Yale. The Shrewsbury Coach would come through at quarter past five o’clock in the morning. She would be on it. She would find her mother and, finally, speak with her.
Diantha removed her outer garments and when the maid appeared she sent her away with a penny. Then she lay down on the soft little cot topped with the nicest quilt she’d seen and stared at the ceiling. The white paint was riddled with cracks, like her thinking on the matter of heroes.
The trouble was, it seemed to her that if any man could be a true hero, it would certainly be Mr. Yale. But perhaps there were no such paragons of epic honor and nobility in the present era. There was no such thing, after all, as the sort of love all those old stories described, the sort between a man and a woman who fell into the most sublime devotion and lived happily ever after. Both of her mother’s marriages proved that to be a myth, not to mention Lady Finch-Freeworth and Sir Terrence’s tepid alliance. It was true that her sister and stepsisters seemed content with their husbands, but there were a lot of money and carriages and houses involved. For pity’s sake, Serena was now a countess, so of course she was happy.
But their brother, Tracy, avoided marriage, and Diantha couldn’t doubt why. True love was a fiction of legends. And so too heroes must be.
She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the handsome man she would be leaving behind who was —however wonderful—only a man, after all.
Chapter 4
By eleven o’clock Wyn could nearly see the bottom of the bottle. This was not due to his excellent vision.
The taproom was still crowded, the inn the favorite local haunt of townsfolk and farm laborers celebrating the end of the harvest. Too much festivity for his tastes at present. Pushing the last of the brandy away, he pressed to his feet and wove his way through tables of boisterous men to the door to the mews. The horses must be checked. Bedding must be dry. The stall must be mucked—even by him, if need be. He’d done it plenty of times before he’d even had a horse of his own.
The night without was black, a single lamp illuminating the entrance to the stable. He crossed the pebbly drive, boots splashing, and slid open the door. He stepped inside and closed the panel, shutting out the muffled sounds of merriment in the inn and the light from the drive.
Not a yard away, a breath hitched in the darkness. A light sound, and high.
And then she cast herself at him.
She was perfectly curved where his hands met and clasped her waist, and quivering. Her breaths came fast against his chin.
Then he did what he would not have done if he had not consumed an inch shy of the contents of a bottle of brandy in the course of three hours, or if he had employed all his senses at that moment, not only his starved sense of touch—for instance, his sense of smell, which would have told him that he did not hold a barmaid in his hands: He pulled her against him. What else did a wench intend of a man deep in his cups when she threw herself at him in the dark so close upon midnight?
She gasped and stiffened. Then she pressed her cheek to his jaw and breathed, “Help me.”
If not for the lurching crash that sounded down the row of stalls, and the rough curse from that direction, Wyn would have behaved quite differently at this moment as well, even deep in his cups.
He did not release Miss Lucas, though every corner of his muddled mind shouted at him to do so. Instead he turned to shield her with his body, pressed her back against the wall, and whispered into her ear, “Put your arms about me and be still.”
She obeyed. It took no effort to hold her and ready his stance at once. She was soft, and now that he had engaged all his senses—God she smelled good—and he was more accustomed to being at a ready stance than not. He drew up the hood of her cloak and his hand brushed curls silky as butter.
Heavy footsteps advanced.
“Where are you, my pretty poppy?” a thick voice slurred. “Come out like a good girl, or I’ll be none too happy when I find you.”
Miss Lucas’s body gave a little shudder. Wyn bent his head, hiding her more fully in case the man’s vision should be accustomed to the dark. He could confront him, but the tread suggested a large fellow, and Wyn was admittedly not at his best with a quart of brandy beneath his belt and no food for days.
The footsteps shuffled on the straw and came to a halt.
“What’s this?” A pause. “Oh, beg pardon, old chap. Just looking for my own bit of skirt, don’t you know.”
“Sod off, ‘old chap.’ ” Wyn had no trouble roughening his voice. The caress of her tender earlobe across his lips had rendered his throat a desert.
The man muttered and clomped to the door, slid it open, then threw it shut behind him.
She ejected a relieved sigh and her fingers loosened their grip on his back. But Wyn did not release his captive. The brandy in his veins would not allow it. Her soft breasts pressed into his chest and her scent tangled in his murky head. With the danger passed, now he felt the woman in his arms, her warm, slight body that yielded so easily to his, so naturally. He shifted his hands, slipping them down her back, the long, graceful sweep of her spine beneath his fingertips like the rounded rocks upon the floor of a brook, and he felt woman. Woman, young and soft and beautiful and alive, her pulse thrumming through her trembling body.
She sucked in breath again and shifted in his hold to push him away. But he was not finished. He held her firmly, the blood rushing in his ears like wind as he curved his palm over the arc of a perfect, feminine buttock.
“Mr. Yale,” she whispered upon a gasp. “You must stop.”
Because even a bottle of brandy could not topple what years of training had built, he put her off and stepped back. It was no less dim in the stable, but his eyes had accommodated the dark, and he saw her. He smelled her and heard her, her light, quick breaths amidst the shiftings and snorts of the animals.
It had become something of a challenge to stand; he leaned against a stall door.
“What, pray tell, Miss Lucas”—he formed the words carefully—“are you doing in this stable?”
“Hiding from him. But he found me. Just—Just as you did.” Her voice was thinner than earlier, and rushed.
“Forgive my ill manners, ma’am. At present I am somewhat—”
“Foxed.”
“—indisposed.”
“Teresa said men in their cups can be amorous even when they do not intend it.”
He had intended it. And he wished it still. Her warmth clung to the palms of his hands and his chest, the memory of her softness upon his lips tightening his breeches.
“That beastly man was too.” Her voice dipped. “He called me a poppy. Have you ever heard such an imbecilic thing? He looked like a gentleman, but he turned out to be not heroic in the least.”
Wyn shook his head, jarring a fragment of clarity into it. “Miss Lucas, return to your bedchamber, lock the door, and go to sleep.”
“Don’t you even want to know why I am not there now?”
