Page 31 of Contracted as His Countess

There was some pushing and shoving, then the volume of noise dropped and she was aware of another figure, domino swirling about him, beside them.

‘I say, Jack, that’s a bit drastic. I find they usually come quite willingly if I ask nicely, but then I suppose some females go for the swashbuckling approach. You should have worn a Viking costume.’

‘Shut up, Charlie. It was this or drag her kicking and screaming. Go and find the carriage, will you?’

Now they were out of the tent and away from the crowd she could try to get free. But kicking and struggling would be useless and undignified and besides, even if Jack did let her go, how was she going to get home? She could hardly go back to Lady Hitchin and explain that she had just been carried off the dance floor by her betrothed, not without starting a shocking scandal. Madelyn went limp and concentrated on being as heavy and awkward as possible. She heard the sound of carriage wheels and a horse snorted.

‘What are you doing up there?’ Jack said.

‘Thought you’d want a bit of pri

vacy.’ The other man’s voice came from above them. Presumably he was on the box with the driver.

Madelyn was bundled into a carriage, struggled to sit up as the door closed and succeeded just as it lurched off. ‘You—’

‘What the blazes did you think you were doing in there?’ Jack demanded, throwing himself down on the seat opposite her and dragging off his mask. The carriage had no internal lamp so she could not see his face, but he sounded furious.

‘I was enjoying myself.’

Until Richard appeared and then I was startled and happy, and now I am worried.

Was Richard all right? He had never been someone for getting into fights, and Jack had clearly both outweighed him and had the skill he lacked. That blow had been a hard one. He had said he was with friends—someone would look after him, she reassured herself.

‘Unchaperoned, unprotected—’

‘I was with a party and, no, I am not going to tell you who or you will be unpleasant to them, as well.’ She couldn’t imagine what Jack would say if he realised just what company she had been in and the fact that he would have every reason to be annoyed was no help at all.

‘Unpleasant? It was the Hitchin woman, I assume, I heard her cackling. I find my betrothed at a vulgar masquerade with the raff and scruff of the town, cavorting with some buck who says you were his—what do you expect me to be? Pleased?’

‘Well, you cannot talk.’ Madelyn made a futile attempt to control her hair. All the pins seemed to have been lost and it was spilling over her face. ‘You were brawling like someone in a common alehouse and struck my friend.’

‘I was trying to get to you and some drunken buck took exception to letting me past. He hit me first.’

‘So that makes it all perfectly all right, of course. Then you hit Richard.’

‘I’ll tear his bl—his confounded head off if he tries to interfere with you again. Who is he?’

‘An old friend who is just returned from India.’

‘He’s more than that,’ Jack said grimly. ‘What was Louisa thinking of, allowing you to come here?’

‘I employ Lady Fairfield to give me advice. She is not my keeper—unless you are paying her in addition to be my jailer. She is in bed with a bad cold.’

There was a fulminating silence as the carriage turned sharply left and reached a rather better surface than the cart track.

‘You asked me to trust you. You told me you were not going to do anything scandalous.’

‘And I have not. I am masked, there was no one there who recognised me—’

‘Other than your lover.’

‘He is not and never has been my lover,’ Madelyn retorted.

Oh, but there was a time when I wished he was, so much.

‘I am trying to find out about London life, seeing it for myself. Learning. If you had not started a brawl, no one other than Richard would have known who I was—’ She broke off. But that was not quite true. ‘How did you recognise me?’

For a long moment she thought Jack was not going to answer her. ‘Your height and the way you moved in that long cloak. You moved like that when I first met you wearing that medieval gown. You walk like a queen.’

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