Chapter Five #2
He let the implication hang in the air. Prue spun around to look at him, aware of the time wasted while attempting to gauge if he really meant to take her up.
Was this a ruse? There was no question that he was a rake.
Why else would he have attended that drunken revelry?
A gentleman didn’t kiss a woman like that, even if he had mistaken her for one of the women there…
not unless he believed she wanted him to.
Had she? For just one tiny moment? The thought made her flush and bite her lip.
Was she unsure of herself with this devastatingly attractive man?
Would it be safer in his company than on the stagecoach?
Assuming a seat on it would be available.
What if it wasn’t? Where would she go? She thought of the expression: out of the frying pan and into the fire and dithered, wondering how much to tell him.
Would taking a chance on him be disastrous?
But with no other option available to her, for Roland would soon leave the inn and come here, Prue searched the viscount’s eyes, hoping to find a sign that he felt some sympathy for her predicament.
But he merely watched her unflinchingly, giving little away.
She ran her tongue over her dry lips. “Mr. Stanton intends to force me to marry him.”
His doubting gaze locked with hers. “Can he do so?”
“There are no family members to turn to except a distant cousin in Wales I’ve never met and my great-grandmama.”
“An elderly lady? It doesn’t sound hopeful, does it?”
Prue hated the skepticism in his voice. She edged around the corner to stare down the street again.
The black coach still remained with the groom walking the horses.
The stagecoach would soon arrive, and if she wasn’t on the waybill, they would leave her behind.
It would be impossible to arrange it without Roland seeing her.
Any moment now, he would return to the stables to ask about her horse and find her here.
“I seem to remember the Stanton name mentioned,” Lord Hereford said. “The family lived not far from us and attended our church. They moved away while I was still in the nursery.”
Prue turned to face him. “That would have been after my aunt passed away. My uncle then remarried.” She drew in a breath. “Oh, please, my lord. Won’t you help me?”
He studied her. “It would be sensible for both of us if I refused.” As he deliberated, Prue waited, her heart in her mouth. “I don’t have much time. Roland will be here soon.”
Lord Hereford gave a heavy sigh. “As you wish. It’s against my better judgment, but I’ll take you to your great-grandmother’s home.
Joseph, my groom, languishes in London with a bad cold, so we must make do.
You can continue wearing those clothes and hope no one sees through your disguise.
” His gaze wandered the length of her, pausing for a moment on her heaving chest. “You don’t make a very convincing male. ”
“I fooled you,” Prue said tartly, crossing her arms.
“It was dark. But I thought you an odd fellow.” A slight smile quirked his lips. “Your flowery scent troubled me, however.” His hand on her arm, he urged her toward the curricle. “Best to put some distance between you and Mr. Stanton for now. Until matters are straightened out.”
Prue grinned with relief. This was a chance she had to take. “That is very good of you, my lord.”
“It’s downright foolish of me,” he said, his tone sharp as he handed her up into the curricle. “No doubt I shall come to regret it sorely.”
She settled herself beside him and glanced at his handsome profile. “I trust you to behave like a gentleman.”
“Have no fear. In that getup, I don’t have the slightest interest in you.”
Prue wondered why that didn’t please her. Surely, she should have been relieved.
*
Jack had not told Lady Prudence the truth.
Dressing in men’s breeches revealed her long, shapely legs.
Something a man didn’t get to enjoy outside a bedchamber.
The perfection of her creamy skin, revealed by the open neck of her shirt, made him only too aware of how beguiling a woman she was.
And very much unattainable. He must have been attracted to trouble, he admitted ruefully, as he loosened the reins and let the horses go.
How else to explain why he would add complications to his already overburdened affairs?
The thoroughbreds increased their pace. The village, and hopefully, Stanton, because Jack itched to teach the bully a lesson, were soon left behind as they advanced down the road.
Lady Prudence sat silently beside him. Was it true that Stanton intended to force her to marry him?
Jack recalled how he’d witnessed the man chasing after her on horseback and forcing her back to the house.
But suppose something else lay behind it?
Had she spun him a fairy tale, and he’d fallen for it?
Was he so susceptible to a pretty woman?
There was something about Lady Prudence apart from the obvious, which drew him to her.
Not merely her beauty, or even his sympathy for the tragic murder of her father.
She had pluck, and it pleased him to help her, even if by this small act of depositing her safely with her great-grandmother.
Jack supposed he’d have the new earl accusing him of poking his nose into his business.
Involving himself in messy family matters was unwise, to say the least. A man could get caught up that way and find himself leg-shackled before he knew it.
And right now, he needed to focus. When the Home Office had been advised of a plot afoot by a group of radicals in London, Jack, along with others, had been engaged to investigate the matter.
The revelry at the house party had revealed nothing of use to either him or Lord Bain.
That some members of the government had been invited, and there were several who aroused suspicion, would let slip vital information while drunk, or while bedding one of the women carefully chosen to tease it from them, had proven a vain hope.
Jack was on his way to the Home Office in Whitehall to discuss the latest developments, or the frustrating lack of them.
It wasn’t too far out of his way to stop first in Richmond.
And it was still only eight o’clock. He’d left early so he could still arrive in Mayfair, change his clothes, and be at Lord Sidmouth’s office in Downing Street before nightfall.
But he’d forgone breakfast and was hungry, and he suspected Lady Prudence would be too.
The young woman had suffered such a lot in the last couple of days.
When he glanced at her, wrapped in the absurd coat that must be her father’s, hunched beside him as if she’d run out of her last ounce of strength, a rush of sympathy for her made him tamp down a sigh. She looked chilled to the marrow.
He should wrap his arm around her and pull her against him.
Merely to warm her and allow her to rest, he told himself.
But if he did, she’d likely shriek with horror.
It was clear she didn’t trust him. Not surprising, after the unfortunate kiss, which he should have regretted but didn’t because she was just so dashed appealing.
Lady Prudence was determined to get the better of Stanton, and he wished her well, although it seemed an impossible hope for a young woman who had only her great-grandmother to support her.
But this was not his fight, and he could ill afford to become any more involved than he was already.
He’d deposit her with her relative and leave. Put the matter to rest.
Lady Prudence suddenly slumped against him.
Jack smiled and transferred the reins to his right hand.
His arm around her, he pulled her gently closer.
She didn’t stir. He enjoyed having her warm, sweetly perfumed body leaning against him.
A fellow could get used to it if he wasn’t careful.
He shook his head at his whimsy. There was no place in his life for a gently bred young woman, even one prone to dressing as a man and whisking off into the night on an adventure, and he needed to remember that fact.