“I may be foxed, but I am far from stupid. I know why you are not there now.”
“You know I went looking for another gentleman to assist me because you refused?”
“I know you even better, perhaps, than you know yourself.” Nine girls. In ten years he had found and rescued nine runaway girls. Also two infants, one amnesiac, a pair of children sold to the mines by a twisted guardian, one former solider who’d gone a bit mad and hadn’t realized he had abandoned his family, and one Scottish rebel who turned out not to be a rebel after all. But nine girls. They always assigned to him the girls. They even chuckled when they said he had a particularly good rapport with girls, as though they shared a marvelous joke. “Now go.” He pulled back the door.
She went, neither defiantly nor meekly. She simply went, cutting a silhouette in the glow of lamplight from the inn that Wyn consumed with his fogged gaze, the gentle swell of her hips, the graceful taper of her shoulders. He was drunk. Too drunk not to stare and not drunk enough to be unmoved by the sight of her.
In the morning he would offer her a proper apology for his wandering hands. But now he could not. He could never lie convincingly while under the influence of brandy, and Diantha Lucas was not a girl to be lied to. Even drunk he realized that.
A sliver of sunlight sliced across Wyn’s vision. Someone was scratching at the door, dragging him out of thick sleep.
He rubbed the slumber from his face and went to the door. The stable hand stood in the corridor, his brow a highway of ruts. He tugged his cap.
“Mornin’, sir.” His voice was far too agitated for Wyn’s unsteady nerves. A bottle would cure those. But he never drank before noon. Ever. The single rule he lived by. The single rule among the many others his great aunt had bequeathed him, one of which in a thoroughly unprecedented moment of weakness he had broken the night before, and for which he would have to make amends today. Miss Lucas did not strike him as the missish short, but she was a lady, a young one at that; she might be skittish. Curiously, he could not imagine her offended. But wary now—yes.
He pressed a hand to his brow. “What is the time?”
“Near eight o’clock, sir.”
Wyn’s stomach tightened over the perpetual pain. Eight o’clock was far too early to feel this unsettling instability in his limbs, especially given that he’d finished a bottle of brandy only nine hours earlier.
“Is something amiss with my horses?”
“I thought you’d be wantin’ to know, sir, the constable from over Winsford’s been around this mornin’.”
“Winsford?” His hedonistic host’s country. This was not good.
“Yessir.” The man nodded rapidly, his hat brim bobbing up and down. “He’s been askin’ after that bay filly of yours.”
Exceedingly not good. “Has he?”
“He wanted to go right in that stall with her and take a look at her. But I said as the black would take a hunk out of his behind if he tried.”
Despite circumstances, Wyn grinned. “He won’t, you know. Galahad is as placid as a plow horse.”
The fellow returned the grin. “I figured since the Lord gave me a tongue to say what I see fit, I use it as I might.”
“And what do you expect to gain from this particular use of it? I don’t suppose the constable is waiting at the bottom of the front stair and you will now be glad to show me the back stair for a price?”
The man’s back went poker straight. “Now, see here, sir. I wasn’t thinkin’ to hold out my palm. I only thought as if you was goin’ after the lady quick like so you can catch her, you’d better not find trouble with any nosey old constable from clean over five parishes. Why, after the way she took up that little spaniel that got its paw near chewed off at the smithy’s and limpin’ along like it does and she wouldn’t hear no from the coachman about takin’ it aboard, sayin’ all the time that she’d care for it till it got well, why I figure she’s the sort that needs a little carin’ for herself.” A flush spread across his cheeks and he pulled his cap lower. “I’ve a girl like that, likes to take care of everybody else and ain’t got no one takin’ care of her. ’Cept me now, sir, you see.”
“I do.” God, no. Damn foolishly nearsighted of him to underestimate her tenacity. Slipping, indeed. “Tell me quickly, in which coach did the lady depart and where is the constable now?”
The constable was in conference with the local law, consulting on the tricky matter of retrieving a horse stolen thirty miles away by a gentleman of means. Especially grateful on this occasion that Galahad’s indisputable quality gave him the appearance of being such a gentleman, and thus recommending caution to the law, Wyn dressed swiftly.
In the stable he pressed a guinea into the groom’s palm.
The man’s eyes went round. “No, sir! I didn’t do it on account o—”
“Take it,” he said sharply. “Buy something for your girl who cares for everyone else more than herself.”
He set a quick pace, considerably quicker than the Shrewsbury Coach would on the quagmired road.
The dog appeared first. Limping along the center of the road toward them, it waved its tail in uncertain greeting. Then it barked once, a high yap of pleasure. On three or so legs it leaped around, its black eyes the only discernable color in its matted coat, then turned about and raced back the way it had come.
Wyn urged his mount forward.
Veiled in misty rain, Miss Lucas stood at the side of the road beside a traveling trunk topped with a lady’s bandbox.
“Do not expect me to be thrilled that you of all people have happened along,” she said before he even pulled to a halt, the dog cavorting between them with little growls of pleasure.
“Good day, Miss Lucas. I hope I find you well.”
“Of course you don’t find me well.” Her brow was tight. “But I can only expect you are happy about that.”
“On the contrary, madam. I am far from happy.”
He did not look happy. Despite his measured tone he looked remarkably displeased and a little dangerous atop his ebony horse and wearing all black, with a shadow of whiskers upon his jaw and his cravat tied rather hastily it seemed. Diantha had never seen him out of perfect order, which could only mean that upon discovering her missing from the inn, he had hurried after her. Which, despite the resolve she’d made to herself the moment she saw him round the bend, made her belly feel tingly again. Even a little hot, the way his hand on her behind had made her feel in the stable.
“You may help me now, if you wish.” She frowned. “And I will appreciate it. But if you attempt to force me to return to my friend’s house or to go home I will refuse.”
“Miss Lucas, why are you standing here with your luggage?”
“Because it suits me.”
He tilted his head. “This sort of stasis is unlikely to bring you closer to Calais.”
“You are very clever, Mr. Yale. I’d thought before that I liked that a great deal about you. But I am coming to revise my opinion.”
“Thank you.” A glint shone in his gray eyes. “And I am coming to see to whom I might apply whenever I feel the need to not be complimented.”
Her lips—agents of betrayal her entire life—twitched. For a moment his gaze seemed to focus upon them, and the tingles inside her turned to decidedly vibrant sparks. Her cheek had accidentally brushed his chin the night before. His whiskers had felt hard and rough. Her skin was still tender there from the scratch.
“I could not leave the dog behind, you see,” she explained a bit unsteadily, though that was perfectly silly because of course a man’s jaw would feel rough if one touched it in the middle of the night so many hours after he had shaved. But she could not help wondering if she touched his jaw now would the whiskers be even rougher. She wanted to. “But several people inside the coach with me didn’t like its smell of the stable—”
“It cannot be wondered at.”
“—and it would not remain in my lap when I sat on the roof. I think it is afraid of heights. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous, a dog afraid of heights?”
“Preposterous, really.”
“You are quizzing me. But I could not strand it all alone on the road. So I was obliged to disembark prematurely. I am waiting here for the next coach.”
“You will be waiting until Thursday.”
