Devil-May-Dare. Mary Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ road, leaving Betty wailing, ‘What about me?’

      She ran to where Scrivens lay in the ditch beside the road and knelt beside him in the wet mud. ‘Is he badly hurt?’

      ‘I don’t think so, Miss Lydia, he’s got a rare hard head on ’im,’ said the coachman, who was feeling over the inert body for broken bones. ‘See, he’s coming round.’ A groan and a fluttering of eyelids from the unfortunate servant seemed to bear this statement out. ‘Now, miss, if we was to help him up…’

      Betty, who had somehow managed to scramble out of the coach, came running across the road, trying to hold her skirts clear of the mud, which was more than her mistress had attempted to do. ‘Oh, is he hurt?’

      Scrivens, by this time, was in a sitting position and shaking his dazed head, but appeared not to be badly injured. Lydia left him in the care of her maid and returned to her brother, while Watkins set off across the field to catch the runaway horse. Tom had freed the remaining three and was looking down at the broken wheel and splintered axle of the coach, scratching his dark head.

      ‘What’s to be done?’ she asked him.

      He looked up at her. ‘I shall have to ride one of the horses to fetch help.’ Adjuring her to watch over their belongings, he flung himself on the postilion’s mount and set off for the nearest village, where he hoped to procure a conveyance to bring them on and to arrange lodgings, for assuredly the coach could not be mended before nightfall. Watkins returned leading the errant horse and Lydia and Betty began gathering up their belongings and pushing them back into the broken trunk.

      ‘They are ruined, that’s what they are,’ Betty grumbled, holding up a pair of frilly nether garments. ‘They’ll never come clean.’

      ‘At least no one was badly hurt,’ Lydia said, snatching them from her and bundling them in with the rest before the two men could see them. ‘We could have all been killed. I wonder how long Tom will be? It will be dusk soon and I do not fancy being set upon by highwaymen. I wish I had asked him for his pistol.’

      ‘Oh, miss, you don’t think…’ The sudden sound of an owl hooting in the trees beside the road made Betty fling herself behind her mistress with a cry of alarm.

      ‘Don’t be a little goose,’ Lydia said. ‘There’s no one there.’ She stopped speaking as the sound of horses and crunching wheels came to their ears, and this was followed by the sight of a travelling chaise coming round the bend behind them at a spanking pace. It was drawn by a perfectly matched pair of bays and Lydia stood and watched its approach with a gleam of admiration in an eye accustomed to evaluating horseflesh. When the equipage drew to a halt beside them, it became obvious that, although the horses were of the highest order, the coach was even older than their own and certainly more ramshackle. She was wondering what ninny could bear to harness such prime beasts to such a vehicle when its occupant flung open the door and jumped into the road. He was very tall indeed, something she almost always noticed first in a man, being so tall herself, and what with that and his long, aquiline nose it seemed as if he was looking down on them with a loftiness which was belied, however, by the twitch at the corners of his firm mouth. He swept off his tall beaver, revealing brown curls cut short in the latest style, and bowed over a leg encased in mustard-coloured pantaloons and polished hessians. ‘Your servant, ma’am.’ He looked about him for her escort, but, perceiving none but the servants, turned back to her. ‘May I offer you assistance?’

      Lydia hesitated, for what assistance could he offer except to take them up, and she was reluctant to agree to that, not knowing him from Adam. He might be a highwayman, a ne’er-do-well, a thatch-gallows of the worst sort — anything. ‘Sir…’ she began, uncomfortably aware of her muddied skirts and that her bonnet had slipped down her back on its ribbons and her hair had come unpinned. ‘Sir, I do not know you.’

      ‘As there is no one else to do it, let me introduce myself,’ he said, taking her right hand in his and raising it to his lips, without taking his glance from her face. To her consternation, she found herself looking straight into his eyes. They were nut-brown and had a depth which seemed to draw her down into them, like a whirlpool pulling a fallen leaf into its vortex, powerless to resist. They seemed to say, Here I am; escape me if you will. Disconcerted, she tried to pull her hand away, but he held it fast. Then he smiled and the extraordinary sensation faded. ‘I am Jack Bellingham,’ he said, releasing her. ‘Marquis of Longham, second son of the Duke of Sutton…’

      ‘How can you be a marquis if you are only a second son?’ she put in, still feeling weak.

      He gave a ghost of a smile. ‘Because, ma’am, my elder brother died a month back on the hunting field.’

      ‘Oh, I am sorry.’

      ‘And now you are assured of my credentials, will you allow me to help you?’

      ‘Assured?’ she queried, her common sense returning. ‘Just on your say-so, that is poor assurance. You could have said you were the Prince Regent and I none the wiser.’

      He laughed. ‘Have you ever met the heir to the throne?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Then I forgive you.’

      ‘For what?’

      ‘For the insult. His Highness is somewhat older and a great deal fatter than I.’ He paused to walk round their overturned coach and inspected the broken wheel, while she endeavoured to set her bonnet to rights and brush the mud from her clothing with a kid-gloved hand. ‘I doubt you will ride further in this vehicle this side of a se’enight, certainly not tonight…’

      ‘My brother, the Honourable Thomas Wenthorpe, has ridden one of the horses to fetch help,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘He will be back directly.’

      ‘How long since he left?’

      ‘Half an hour, perhaps a little longer.’

      ‘Then he cannot possibly be back before dark; the next village is ten miles away and I doubt he will be able to hire a conveyance immediately, certainly not one to take all that.’ And he pointed at the two large trunks, one of which would no longer shut and revealed rather more of her most intimate apparel than she liked. She felt herself colour, but he appeared not to notice and went on, ‘Of course, if you prefer to take the greater risk of being left by the roadside, I will continue on my way. I am in a great deal of haste.’

      ‘Then you had best go on, my lord. I have servants with me.’

      ‘Damn your scruples, girl,’ he said. ‘I cannot leave you. Get in and cease your protests.’

      She opened her mouth to tell him just what she thought of his top-lofty attitude but changed her mind when Betty seized her hand. ‘Please, Miss Lydia, don’t let him leave us here; it will be dark soon and I’m afeared…’

      ‘I fancy I am the lesser of two evils, Miss Wenthorpe,’ he said with a smile which infuriated her. ‘And I promise to keep my baser urges in check.’

      ‘I am afraid one of my servants has been hurt…’

      ‘Badly?’

      ‘I do not think so, my lord, but I do not like to leave him.’

      He looked across at Scrivens and, perceiving that he was now on his feet and dusting himself down, said, ‘He can ride with my driver. СКАЧАТЬ