Page 12 of Outrageous

“You leave him alone,” Eva lisped, her tongue throbbing as she tried to turn her body in the narrow area between the seats, somehow managing to wedge herself more tightly in the process.

Visel didn’t even waste a glance on her. “You there,” he called to the postilions, both of whom had dismounted and were staring, eyes wide, mouths agape. “Come here and tie this man’s hands. You’ll find a length of rope inside the carriage.”

The taller of the two boys—for that was really what they were, just boys—looked hesitantly between Lord Visel, James, and Eva.

She shook her head. “Don’t do it.”

Visel gave the postilions a withering glare and gestured with the gun. “Do as I say.” He spoke with the confidence of one who expected to be obeyed: an officer, a peer, a man.

His commanding tone infuriated her.

“The pistol isn’t loaded—he fired the only shot,” she said, looking from the frowning earl to the wide-eyed young men. And then inspiration struck. “Please—you must help me. He is a pirate—a French pirate and I am Lady Eva de Courtney. He has kidnapped me and is taking me to his master, the pirate king Dirty Jean Ferrar.”

Visel gave a half laugh, half snort.

“You see how he is dressed,” she said, ignoring him and keeping her eyes on the postilions. “He is a vile minion of the pirate king, a villain, a man who aided Napoleon for years.” She squirmed to sit up, scraping her head against the carriage doorframe and knocking several pins from her hair. “Please, you must help me.” As if on cue, another pin plinked to the floor of the carriage and a thick rope of hair slid from its moorings and slowly unfurled until it curtained her shoulders. There. Now I look like a girl.

She fluttered her eyelashes for extra measure. “Please.”

Visel threw his head back and laughed. “I’d clap if I didn’t have this pistol in my hand. Your performance is a masterpiece.”

One of the postilions had already begun moving toward the box when Visel turned from Eva to her small audience. “Here then, where are you going, boy?” he demanded imperiously as the postilion disappeared around the side of the carriage.

“Please don’t let him sell me to pirates,” Eva wailed.

Visel whipped around, no longer amused. “You hush or I shall be forced to gag you, my lady.”

“’Ere then, you brute.” The voice came from the back of the chaise. It was the smaller of the two boys, and he held a very old pistol with badly shaking hands. “You leave ’er alone.”

Visel gaped. “Good God. You don’t actually believe that cock-and-bull story, do you?” He went on before the boy could answer, his expression hardening. “Listen to me, you pillock, I am Godric Fleming—heir to the Duke of Tyndale. Do I sound like a bloody Frenchman to you?”

The boy blinked at this logic.

“That’s why they sent him,” Eva said hurriedly. “Because he is so clever at disguising his voice, he can sound like anyone.”

Visel snorted. “I’m so clever I disguise my voice yet I failed to disguise my person as an Englishman?”

The boys took in his colorful cape.

There was a long pause, and then, “You toss that gun down and put your hands where we can see ’em.” It was the other postilion who spoke—the one who’d stood near the horses. He’d managed to get his hands on a second gun, which he must have had close at hand because he never stepped away from the leader harness he was holding.

Eva gave Visel a quick wink and then turned to her rescuer. “Oh, thank you,” she said, making her voice higher and more girlish than normal as she squirmed onto her side so that she could get her legs free and hop out. She looked at Visel’s furious face and held out her hand.

“Give me the gun, Captain Desjean. You will not be able to carry out your dastardly errand today.”

Visel’s nostrils flared and Eva had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. She waggled her fingers. “Come now, let’s have it. We need no unnecessary violence.”

“Go on then, Desjean,” the postilion behind her ordered. “Hand it over nice and slow, like. We didn’t whip the Frenchies so they could come onto English soil and steal our womenfolk.”

Eva smothered her laugh with a cough. “That’s right,” she said in a voice rough with suppressed laughter as she chided one of England’s most decorated war heroes. “Our brave men and boys fought to protect us from the likes of you.”

Visel shook his head minutely from side to side, his eyes never leaving her face as he flipped the pistol in his hand with the ease of a man comfortable with handling one, offering it to her, butt first.

She grinned. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

His lips twisted into a smile that did not bode well for her if he ever got free.

She glanced down at James, who was still sprawled under Visel’s boot. “James?” Her groom, whom she’d known all her life, was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before. “James, what is wrong with you?”