To her utter astonishment, after that endless silence and the angry tint of red beneath his complexion, he burst out laughing. He laughed, in fact, until tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Ah, you are finally back, my lady,” he said when his mirth was under control. “I must admit I feared I had made a dreadful mistake in plighting my troth with you, but I see now that your docile behavior was only the lull before the storm. Thank the heavens for that.”
She glared at him. “Do not change the subject, my lord. Will you or will you not tell me what you are about in London?”
“Because you have pleaded so prettily,” he said indulgently, “I will tell you some of it. I am off, it seems, to catch a crook.”
With that tantalizing remark casually dropped, he bowed and left. Exactly as he had probably anticipated, Abby reacted first to his irritatingly tolerant tone. In fact, it was not until he was out the door of Briarcliff and riding hell-bent for London that she fully examined his explanation. Eyes shining with excitement, she turned her gaze on Lizzy.
“A crook,” she said. “How fascinating! I do so wish I could go along.”
“I cannot imagine it,” Lizzy protested worriedly. “It sounds dangerous.”
“All the more reason for me to be there,” Abby said decisively. “We have seen firsthand that the Earl of Wilton does not employ the use of logic very successfully. He is quite impulsive, in fact. That is precisely how we ended up betrothed.”
“But this engagement was your doing,” Lizzy reminded her. “You impulsively set out to cause a scandal.”
“No, no, no, you have it all wrong,” she protested. “Everything I did was quite logical. I reasoned out what would make the Earl of Drake call off the wedding and then set out quite carefully to make it happen. Surely you can see the difference.”
“Not entirely,” Lizzy admitted. “For all your logic and reasoning, you did not count on the Earl of Wilton reacting as he did and demanding that you marry him instead. If you had thought everything through as you claim, wouldn’t you have seen that as a possibility?”
“Lizzy, you will just have to trust me on this.” Abby tossed aside the fine linen she’d been embroidering, so that it landed in a heap. Thread pooled on top of it. She paid it scant attention as she made her plans for slipping away from Briarcliff and following Riley Walker to London. Surely if she proved helpful this once, he would finally have to concede her skill and daring and take advantage of them more often. “I am going to London at once.”
Lizzy was clearly horrified. “Abby, you mustn’t. I am quite sure the earl downplayed the danger for your peace of mind, but clearly this is no casual lark. What will your parents say when they find that you have gone chasing off after a man who is not yet your husband? Surely they will disinherit you.”
“Nonsense. They will be relieved that I am finally in the Earl of Wilton’s capable hands. My father assumes he will make short work of taming me.”
“After you are married!” Lizzy reminded her. “Abby, this is foolish. You could ruin everything. If Wilton throws you over because of this, your reputation may never recover.”
“Oh, fie on my reputation. It is his neck that must be saved. Do you truly believe he is any match for a most devious crook?”
“I quite believe the Earl of Wilton is a match for anyone,” Lizzy said firmly. Then, after a slight hesitation, she added, “Except perhaps for you.”
Abby gave her friend a reassuring hug. “Please, Lizzy, don’t distress yourself. I am going to have my adventure, after all.”
“Misadventure, more likely,” Lizzy said dolefully. “I cannot bear the thought of all the terrible things that could befall you.”
“You will not tell anyone what I am about, though, will you? Promise me, Lizzy.”
“I will have no need to tell. They will discover you gone and guess for themselves, and then I expect there will be hell to pay.”
It was the first thing Lizzy had said with which Abby found herself agreeing wholeheartedly. She expected there would be hell to pay...with Wilton himself leading the demands for payment.
But after all was said and done, once tempers had cooled, would he not be proud of her initiative? Would he not be forced to agree that her heart was every bit as brave as his? Would he not see that she was every bit his equal?
And if he could not see any of that, would she want to spend the rest of her life with him, anyway? Yes, she reassured herself as she slipped away from the house, saddled her mare and rode out toward London, it was far better to have this matter of their partnership resolved between them here and now. She could never be happy with a man who did not understand and respect her. It was time to test the Earl of Wilton’s mettle and discover once and for all if he was such a man.
CHAPTER SIX
When the phone in Abby’s hospital room rang at six in the morning, Riley snatched it up, instinctively reacting to keep it from disturbing Abby. As if anything would, he thought wearily. He doubted if a damned brass band playing at midnight would get through to her. He was just about convinced it was her own blasted stubbornness that was keeping her unconscious just to torture him.
“Yes, hello,” he said finally, after making certain the phone hadn’t accomplished what nothing else had.
“Is that you, Walker?”
He recognized the irritating, high-pitched voice at once. “Well, well, well. I’m surprised you finally got around to checking on your fianc;aaee, Martin. She’s only been in the hospital a week now.”
“Look, Walker, I don’t
