Page 13 of The Smuggler’s Escape

Hurt? He didn’t want to admit that even to himself.

“Of course not,” he drawled. “Just a friendly suggestion that he mind his manners.” He put out a hand to haul Tim to his feet. “Think you can keep your seat if I help you onto the horse?”

“No, he can’t possibly,” Noelle said. “He’ll never be able to manage that brute with a broken arm. He’ll fall and suffer an even worse injury.”

Judging by how Tim swayed while he clutched his broken arm to his chest, the siren was perfectly correct. “Do you have a useful suggestion?”

“Put me up before him,” Noelle said briskly. “He can lean against me and put his good arm around me. It’s only a short way to the alehouse.” Already, the little witch was hitching up her skirts like a farmwife. “Once he gets out of the ditch, Lord Harry can ride Snowflake. She was trained for both male and female riders.”

Richard stomped down a resurgence of rage. He took a flask of brandy from his pocket, held it to Tim’s lips, and took a swallow himself. “Want some?” He hoped his tone conveyed just the right hint of insult. Damn her. Damn her. He’d gone away through no fault of his own, and meanwhile she’d strewn kisses like dandelion seeds. Not only that, she was so far lost to propriety that she was prepared to ride into the innyard with Tim’s arm round her and her legs bared for the whole world to see.

She wrinkled her nose in the moonlight. “Brandy? No, thank you.”

Mildly, in control now, Richard said, “Harry won’t like the lady’s saddle.”

“Then he can walk. Lift me onto the horse, if you please.”

Richard shrugged himself into indifference and did as she asked. He withdrew his hands the second she was in place. By dint of lifting, shoving, and bolstering Tim with another belt of brandy, Richard got his friend onto Lord Harry’s irritable steed.

Noelle set forward at a walk. “Don’t be too hard on poor Harry,” she called back. “I encouraged him most improperly. It’s not his fault.”

“The devil it isn’t,” Richard muttered, wanting to keep the blame squarely on Harry, the lecherous, thieving, former friend he had proven to be.

Lord Harry Walsh pushed himself to his feet and eyed Richard warily. “Going to call me out, Dick?”

“If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.” Richard swung himself onto his mount.

“Didn’t see you, or I would have kept my mouth shut.” Harry staggered toward Snowflake, who sidled coyly away. “Another blasted female.” He reached for the mare’s bridle, missing by a mile, and tumbled to his knees. He vomited into the ditch.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Richard dismounted, wishing he could just go home, but now he was stuck with Noelle’s horse.

And Noelle, damn her eyes. Chivalry should be long dead by now, but it seemed he was stuck with that as well.

He strode over, handed his erstwhile friend a handkerchief to clean himself with, and stepped well away from the stench. When Harry had stopped groaning and tossed the crumpled fabric into the ditch, Richard returned with Snowflake, who knew better than to play the coquette with him.

If only her mistress had known better than to play with every eligible male in Sussex.

Harry stared vacantly at the horse’s rear until Richard, exasperated, directed him to the stirrup. Harry hauled himself onto Snowflake’s back. The mare snorted her displeasure. Unfortunately, she didn’t attempt to unseat the low, cheating bastard.

Richard’s mouth felt like lead. He remounted and told Harry, “Mademoiselle de Vallon has agreed to become my wife. In future, keep your foul remarks to yourself.” He set Charger forward at a walk, although every cell in his body urged him to hurry, to stop Noelle from riding up to the alehouse so shamefully exposed.

Let the wench suffer the consequences, he told himself, but the damned thing was the consequences affected him as much, if not more. He wanted to shake some sense into her. Some loyalty, damn her!

He didn’t want to see her again, not yet. He had to get himself under control.

Harry took his time to respond. “I say, Dick, are you sure that’s a good idea? She’s penniless. Makes her pin money selling drawings and teaching Lady Ariadne’s brats.”

“I don’t need a rich wife,” Richard said. He needed Noelle. Years he’d waited, hoping, counting on her, and now this!

“True, you don’t need to marry money.” Harry said nothing for a minute or two longer. “I hate to risk another clip on the chin, Dick, but you might want to rethink this match. Wouldn’t have been making that sort of bet if she hadn’t been giving us all reason to believe . . .” His voice trailed away. “Not saying she’s no longer a virgin or any such thing, but you haven’t been home in donkey’s years.”

“Not even two and a half years,” Richard said, his voice tight in spite of every attempt to sound like he didn’t particularly care. “That’s all it was, you treacherous bastard.”

“It’s plenty long enough, and by what I hear, Amsterdam is a dead bore. Don’t know how you managed to amuse yourself there.”

“It’s like any other place, not too bad.” Except that he hadn’t wanted to be there.

But he’d put his nose to the grindstone of espionage and done rather well at it. Useful work was rarely the lot of a young man of birth and fortune, but he found he quite liked it. Noelle’s ambition of living a productive life wasn’t as tedious as he’d assumed.