Chapter One
Whitby, Yorkshire, England
The wind yanked at Beatrice’s cloak as she stepped outside the cottage on the outskirts of her father’s property.
It was the proverbial dark and stormy night, and the air was heavy with rain waiting to fall.
As she started down the lane, lightning streaked the sky, illuminating the ruins of Whitby’s famous abbey.
Clutching a lantern in one hand and holding her cloak closed with the other, Beatrice hurried between the hedgerows. She could not help but feel like the heroine of a Gothic novel.
How very trite.
But that didn’t matter right now. The only thing that mattered was that her sister, Agnes, needed help. And Beatrice was the only one who could provide it.
Her destination was another cottage, this one, three miles outside of town. The stroll along the seaside would normally be a pleasant one, just not at this time of night, or in this weather.
But Beatrice did not care a whit for her own comfort.
Her whole life, people had told her she was mulishly stubborn.
It had never been intended as a compliment, but Beatrice meant to take it as one tonight.
She would pit every ounce of stubbornness she possessed against this storm.
Just see if she didn’t. Because right now, her beloved sister, Agnes, lay bleeding in her childbed, alone and afraid.
And Beatrice would not fail her sister.
She had a bit of luck, because although the wind howled, her lantern did not gutter. And although lightning lit up the night sky, and the air was so thick with moisture, it felt heavy against her skin, the rain held off.
But her luck did not last.
She had been hurrying, given her sister’s condition. But in the darkness, she missed a stone in her path and felt her foot slip.
Time seemed to slow down as she tried, and failed, to regain her equilibrium. Her ankle rolled with a sickening crunch, and she cried out more in frustration than pain as she collapsed in the middle of the road.
Beatrice beat her fist against the packed dirt.
Curses! Her ankle was throbbing painfully.
What was she going to do now? Agnes needed her, and she doubted very much that her ankle could bear much weight.
To make matters worse, her lantern had gone out.
Feeling around in the darkness, her fingers encountered shards of glass.
Perfect. Even if she could manage to get it relit, there would be no keeping an exposed flame alive in this gale.
As she had feared, putting weight on her injured ankle hurt like the dickens.
Still, Beatrice did not give up. She crawled to the drystone wall and hauled herself to standing.
Leaning heavily against the barrier, she hobbled down the road in the direction of Mrs. Danby’s cottage.
It was slow and painful, picking her way along in the dark. But Beatrice kept going.
She had been hopping along at a snail’s pace for perhaps ten minutes when her eyes detected a flicker in the distance. She squinted into the darkness. More lightning?
But the light remained steady. In fact, there were two pinpricks, and they were growing brighter by the second.
A carriage. It was a carriage.
She was saved!
She waited impatiently until the vehicle, which proved to be a simple farm cart, was close enough that the driver might hear her. “Sir!” she called, waving one arm while clinging to the stone wall with the other. “Sir! I need your assistance.”
The cart drew to a halt. Oddly, the driver said nothing, nor did he climb down from his seat.
It was difficult to make him out through the glare of the carriage lanterns. Beatrice squinted into the darkness.
That was when she realized her error.
Because the figure sitting atop the wooden bench was missing his head.
*
Rumors of the headless driver had been on everyone’s lips for the past month.
There was an old story about a young man who had tried to elope with his lady love.
Her father, who had disapproved of the match, had drawn his sword.
In a melodramatic and not terribly realistic twist, the sword blow severed the young man’s head completely, and now his ghost allegedly drove across the moors by night, searching for his lost love.
The story had never been to Beatrice’s taste, but she especially despised it now. Given Agnes’s current predicament, tales of thwarted love were a little too on the nose.
But the most recent gossip held that the headless driver had returned in the flesh. Beatrice had dismissed the stories as nonsense.
She still thought they were nonsense.
Well…mostly. Perhaps there was some credence to the rumors.
But she was not so gullible as to fall for this…silly prank. Because that was what it had to be!
She was almost sure of it.
Beatrice shook herself. She wasn’t some defenseless damsel! She was known all throughout the North Riding for being a hellion of the first order. A trousers-wearing, fence-jumping, tree-climbing terror who could shoot an apple from atop a drystone wall at fifty paces.
Beatrice’s reputation was the reason that Agnes’s pregnancy had been so devastating to their high and mighty father.
Agnes had been his one great hope of elevating the family through marriage.
He had given up on Beatrice years ago. He hadn’t even bothered to take her to London for a Season, so certain was he that she would bring disgrace upon the family name with her tomboyish tendencies.
She shook her head. That didn’t matter right now. The point was, Beatrice wasn’t afraid of some local idiot masquerading as the headless driver!
And so, she lifted her chin. “Well? Are you going to answer me or not? I said that I need your assistance!”
The driver said nothing, but made a circular gesture toward his head, or rather, the lack thereof.
Beatrice squinted. She could just make out the flutter of black fabric in the wind. A cowl. He was concealing his face beneath a cowl. The “headless” driver wasn’t truly headless.
Which she had known all along!
Still, though the driver was not really headless, he could still be some variety of criminal. Why else would he be skulking along the roads at this hour, in disguise?
But she could hardly let Agnes bleed to death, alone and afraid, so Beatrice glared at him with more confidence than she felt.
“Stop wasting time! I am on an errand of the utmost urgency, and I’ve managed to go and wrench my ankle.
I need to reach my destination with all possible haste. And you are going to drive me there!”
Instead of answering, the driver crossed his arms.
That sparked Beatrice’s ire. “Now see here! I need to fetch Mrs. Danby. And if you won’t help me, then, as God as my witness, I’ll—”
“Mrs. Danby?” the man said suddenly. His voice was absurdly deep, and a shiver went down Beatrice’s spine that had nothing to do with the wind. “Someone is in labor?”
Beatrice noted that he must live nearby, as he was familiar with the name of the local midwife. “Yes. My sister.”
He had already climbed down from the cart. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“I just did,” she snapped. “Now hurry!”
Instead of hurrying, he paused before her. “You’re Beatrice Wheatley.”
He obviously knew her. Yet Beatrice had no idea who he was.
Now that he had stepped into the lantern light, she could see that he was exceptionally tall and broad of shoulder.
The only men in town with a similar frame were the blacksmith, Mr. Conner, and his two sons.
Yet Beatrice knew at once that this man was no blacksmith.
He spoke with the elongated vowels and crisp consonants of an educated gentleman.
She gave him a pointed look. “You have me at a disadvantage, sir.”
Ignoring her hint, he circled her like a predator. “If you’re Beatrice Wheatley, then you must be speaking of your sister, Agnes. I had not heard that she had married.”
His mention of her sister recalled her to the urgency of her task. “That is because she has not. Although that is neither here nor there. Right now, we need to—”
He interrupted her with a snort. “Your father must be thrilled.”
What little patience Beatrice had snapped.
“My sister’s water burst an hour ago! And, as you so kindly alluded, my father was not happy, and he cast her from the family home.
I am the only helpmeet she has right now, and I had no choice but to leave her to fetch the midwife!
She is alone, she is afraid, and if you won’t—Aieeee! ”
Beatrice squealed as the stranger scooped her up and lifted her high against his chest. For a hardened criminal, he smelled surprisingly fresh. She craned closer to his neck and sniffed, trying to identify the scent. Some sort of citrus…
He crossed to the cart in three brisk strides. “My apologies,” he said in that deep, sonorous voice.
He lifted her up onto the wooden bench seat easily, as if she weighed no more than a scarecrow.
Which she did not. Not that Beatrice was what you would call heavy.
But she was taller than average, and although her chest was almost as flat as a thirteen-year-old boy’s, her hips and thighs could fairly be described as ample.
In summary, she was not the sort of dainty girl a man could toss around like a ragdoll.
Unless one was… whoever this man might be.
He climbed up beside her and took up the reins. He clucked to his horse, and at last, they were off.
“So,” he said conversationally, “who is the father, and why hasn’t your sister married him?”
Beatrice gave him a sideways look. There had been almost as much gossip in recent months about her sister and her doomed affair with Thomas Hayward as there had been about the headless driver.
How was it possible that this man, who knew her, and who knew Mrs. Danby, had not heard it? “You still haven’t told me your name.”
“Nor will I.” He nudged her with his elbow. “You have some nerve, demanding the name of the scourge of the North Riding.”