To his surprise, this impressive equipage slowed and moved further to the side of the road where it halted.One of the outriders and a coachman seemed to be having a conference through the coach window with their passengers.
Rather wiser than before his trip began, the duke approached with caution.The outrider appeared to be waiting civilly for him, but despite the outward respectability, he knew there were many tricks and flim-flams to be played on the unsuspecting.The outrider turned his mount to face Jack and tugged his hat.
“Sir, my mistress is concerned that you were held up on the road.”
Jack halted some feet from him and rather wished the highwayman had not taken his pistol.“What could have made her imagine such a thing?”
Before the outrider could answer, the coach door sprang open and a lady’s head appeared.It was an undeniably beautiful head of copper-red curls framing a face so lovely that he forgot to breathe.Large, hazel-green eyes, exquisite cheek bones, full-lipped, almost sulky mouth.
Languidly, she looked him up and down.
“It may,” she drawled in a low, charmingly husky voice, “have something to do with the fact that you are in riding dress without a horse, coupled with our own recent experience seeing off a ruffian withtwohorses, who tried to hold us up too.”
Isbourne bowed.“Then I congratulate you, ma’am.I confess I came off rather worse.”
“Well, we shall both have our revenge by reporting the villain at the next town.Did he take everything?”
Isbourne turned out his pockets out to show the linings.Not even a penny remained there.
“Dear me.May I offer you a seat in my carriage, since we appear to be traveling in the same direction?”
Isbourne regarded her lovely yet weary young face, the elegant hat adorning her perfectly coiffed auburn curls and knew there were several tricks of this order.And he had already proved himself to be an easy mark.Against this, he weighed up his empty pockets, her polite ennui, her fascinating eyes, veiled in feminine mystery yet frankly amused at his caution.He also took into consideration the clear disapproval of her scowling servants.And his own inclinations.To say nothing of the rain clouds above which threatened a severe soaking.
“If it would not be an imposition,” he said diffidently, “I should be very grateful to be taken as far as Cogglesworth.”
The lady inclined her head and vanished from his view.
“Mind how you go, sir,” the coachman said pleasantly, yet with a clear warning in his voice as Jack climbed into the carriage and sat down in the vacant seat with his back to the horses.
The lady sat opposite him, alone, without maid or chaperone.Her servant’s warning to him began to make more sense.Jack might have had no experience of Society, but he knew the rules of propriety and etiquette.
The coach began to rumble forward, while she eyed him with an expression he could not read.
He said seriously, “This is indeed an imposition.I beg your pardon.I had not realized you were alone.You will not like to be seen with me in a closed carriage.”
A gleam of mockery eased into her eyes.“My dear sir, I am a widow, not a debutante, and there is much worse gossip to my name.It isyourreputation that is liable to suffer.”
“Well, I shan’t tell if you don’t.”
That surprised a quick breath that might have been laughter.She settled back gracefully against the velvet squabs, watching him.“It strikes me, that for such a young man, you are taking your highway robbery very much in your stride.”
“Well, I have never been robbed before, so the mechanics of it were interesting, if quite inconvenient until you took me up.”
“I’m afraid there will be further inconveniences at Cogglesworth.I hope you have friends there?”
“Oh, no,” he said vaguely.“I will merely be passing through.”
“How?”she said at once.“You can have no means of buying another horse or paying your shot at the inn for the night.Yet you maintain a rather astonishing...insouciance.”
“Not quite so astonishing,” Jack said, crossing his left calf across his right knee and poking his fingers inside his mud-stained boot, while the lady watched him with some fascination.
When he fished out the roll of banknotes that had been wrapped around his leg, she laughed with genuine amusement that brought an involuntary smile to his own lips.
“Why, you are rather more than a pretty face,” she drawled.“I suppose you have a pistol in the other boot?”
“Sadly not.It made walking too hazardous.Perhaps you would tell me to whom I am indebted for my rescue?”
“Then you did not see the crest on the carriage door?”
