Justin turned slowly to face the irate man. "Allow? You cannot allow? Worse, you"re putting a crease in my jacket."
The major loosed his grip. "The devil with your jacket. Last night you looked like a man who was going to tell her about the threat to her life. Did you?"
"I allowed my mind to be changed on that head," Justin told him, taking the gloves and hat and riding crop Wigglesworth, who had materialized seemingly from out of nowhere, pressed into his hands. "Thank you, Wigglesworth. You remain, as always, a treasure."
"You"re welcome, my lord. I would have been here sooner, had you but told me you were about to depart. You will be careful, won"t you, sir?"
"Am I not always careful, Wigglesworth?" Justin asked, putting on his curly brimmed beaver and lightly tapping it into place.
"No, sir, you"re not." The servant turned to address the major. "He"s not, you know. But he always triumphs. If his lordship says that everything will be fine, then it will be fine, because he wouldn"t have it any other way. But perhaps not always immediately."
"I"m touched, Wigglesworth. Such d.a.m.ning praise." The ostler brought out the saddled horse. "And now, adieu. Major, please deliver my felicitations to the lady, and my promise to join her at Ashurst Hall within the week with, I most sincerely hope, news that will please her."
Along with information that will devastate her, Justin added silently as he put his booted foot in the stirrup and gracefully mounted the bay.
Once again Luka was proving meddlesome. He grabbed onto the bay"s bridle and stepped close. "If any harm comes to her, there will be no place safe for you to hide. Leaving her like this, knowing the danger? You"re nothing but an overdressed, pompous coward."
"And now I am desolated. Are you telling me you are not up to protecting the lady by yourself for two more days, after getting her safely halfway across Europe and onto these sh.o.r.es? Have I so badly misjudged my man?" Justin asked him quietly.
"No harm will come to her," Luka said firmly.
"Good." Justin smiled, even as his eyes remained hard, cold chips of green ice. "Because, my new friend, if any does, you"ll have left me no choice but to kill you."
The two men stared at each other for long moments until, as Justin had expected, the major released his grip on the bridle. Poor fellow; men who lived by the rules had so many problems to beset them. That"s why he"d given up on being bound by such pesky things a long time ago.
He was almost safely gone. But just as he was about to turn his mount and exit the yard, out of the corner of his eye he spied the Lady Alina in the doorway of the inn.
She had been an enchanting, provocative vision in her ermine-tipped cloak. She presented a heartbreakingly beautiful picture now, framed in the doorway, her midnight-blue traveling ensemble turning her exotic and yet still so very English-a mix of blood that had mingled to create a masterpiece.
Either he left right now, or he"d never find the strength to go.
He lifted his hat to her, bowed his head slightly, and without a word put his heels into his mount"s flanks, causing the obedient horse to break into an immediate gallop.
All the way to London, the vision that haunted the corners of his mind was not of Alina in her ermine-tipped cloak, nor of Alina in her dashing traveling ensemble and that silly shako hat tipped down over one eye.
No, the picture he could not get out of his head was of Alina in that disastrous and wildly appealing nightwear, her golden eyes wide and innocent as she proudly told him the name of her mother...and sent his soul crashing straight to h.e.l.l.
ALINA HAD NEVER SEEN Luka so angry as he"d been today and all of yesterday. Not that he"d paid her much attention, concentrating most of his time and effort on positioning the baron"s outriders ahead of and behind the coach, and then, when the Duke of Ashurst"s men joined them last night at the inn, giving each of them instructions on how he wished them to fit in with the existing ranks.
As if he expected the French to attack at any moment, or some such nonsense. He"d even donned his uniform once more, and he"d told her he wouldn"t be wearing it while he was in England, so as to not insult the English government in any way.
When she"d attempted to question him about why the baron had left them, and why they were being sent to this Ashurst Hall and this good friend, Luka had only muttered and said something about having to supervise tying down the luggage so that neither of the two coaches might overturn if there was a need for speed at any time during their journey.
As to his impressions of the baron himself, Luka said even less. But when he left her at the inn doorway and promptly spit into the dirt, she"d gotten a fairly good idea of what her friend thought of her intended husband.
Why, anyone would think it had been his betrothed who had gone racing out of the inn yard as if the hounds of h.e.l.l were after him.
"Her," she corrected herself. "As if the hounds of h.e.l.l were after her." She didn"t know much about marriage, a fact that had been brought home to her with disturbing clarity by Tatiana, but she did know that women married men, and men married women.
Otherwise, her terrible, base, unable-to-beat-down but logical mind told her, the pieces wouldn"t fit.
"So good to see you smile, my lady, even if you"re only talking to yourself," Tatiana said from the facing seat in the coach. "So good to know somebody can bear these terrible English roads without wondering if she"s soon to see her luncheon for a second time."
"I told you, Tatiana. It"s silly for you to ride backward when there is certainly ample room next to me. Riding backward is sure to make you ill."
"We"re not at home anymore, my lady, where we can do what we want because it is what we want. Danica told me as much. We can only be happy that she knows her place is with the second coach and the luggage. G.o.d never takes but what He gives, I suppose."
"I suppose," Alina said, her mind already off the subject of traveling arrangements and back on to the subject of, well, traveling arrangements.
Why wasn"t his lordship-Justin; he"d asked her to address him as Justin, so she may as well begin thinking of him as Justin-why wasn"t he riding with them? Where had he gone, why had he gone, and would he really come back, or had he just said as much in order to get away without Luka shooting him or some such thing?
Had her night rail and dressing gown been that off-putting? And that kiss? Did innocence taste so terrible?
Or did he love someone, some sweet, biddable English miss with huge blue eyes and soft blond hair? Had he thought he could sacrifice himself for king and country, but one sight of Alina had been enough to make him feel the sacrifice was too much, even for a loyal subject?
Or it could have been something she"d said to him. What had she said? She"d told him the truth, she"d told him about Aunt Mimi and Count Eberharter"s yellow teeth. Had that been too honest? How had he answered her? Oh, yes. He"d never before been considered the lesser of two evils.
Had he been laughing at her? Of course he had. Count Eberharter"s teeth? Who said such things to one"s betrothed?
Oh, she was such a child! Clearly Justin Wilde was a man of the world, and just as clearly she was an ignorant infant who possessed the understanding of a gnat.
And it was all Aunt Mimi"s fault. Mama had gone to heaven while her daughter was still a child-more a child than she was now, at least-and Aunt Mimi had abdicated her responsibilities to her niece. There was more to education than learning the globe and her sums. There was also...those other things. The least, the very least the woman could have done was to instruct her niece to expand her selection of nightwear.
But Alina should have asked questions. Especially the one about being kissed and getting babies, because that had always seemed an incomplete answer to her. Not that she"d known what questions to ask in the first place, but also because no one could possibly ask questions that personal of a woman who always loved to look down her nose at you and snicker as if there were some Huge Secret she knew but wasn"t about to share with her annoying little niece.
Still, much as she wanted to lay any and all blame at her aunt"s feet, Alina knew she had only thought of this marriage from her own perspective. But now that she"d met the baron, and most especially since Tatiana"s lesson in the Way Of The World, it was impossible not to consider his part in the equation.
How selfish of her! To consider only herself, and not the man who would make up the other half of this arranged marriage. Men had feelings. She"d watched her father cry as her mother"s body had been carried off to the cemetery. Men loved.
As did women. Women loved.
But what was love? She understood the love of a child for her parents, but did she understand the love of parents for each other?
No.
She understood love of country. She"d loved the many pets she"d had over the years. She loved her ermine-tipped cloak, which was doubtless horribly shallow of her, but she did love it.
Alina winced, shivered. How many meanings to that single word: love.
She and Justin had not come together through love, but that hadn"t seemed important. According to Aunt Mimi, rarely did anyone of her station, her cla.s.s, marry for love. They married to meld fortunes, to join lands, to improve trade relations, to beget heirs.
But her parents had married for love. Alina was certain of that. Her mother had left her home country for her father. She"d told her only child several times that she had never regretted that decision. Never for a single moment. She"d spoken fondly of memories of her childhood at Birling, but that was all.
Oh, how much easier to marry for love!
And how humiliating to be kissed, however briefly, by her prospective husband, only to have the man then bolt and run at the first chance he got, leaving her without so much as bidding her farewell.
That had been rude of him. Exceedingly rude. Possibly bordering on boorish.
Why should she be feeling ashamed? She hadn"t taken one look at him and called for a horse and raced off into the countryside.
Alina, after nearly two full days spent rehashing the same things over and over again in her head, variously feeling frightened and sorry for herself, began to feel the first stirrings of real anger.
Yes, none of this could be easy for him. But how dare he think this was some whopping lovely large slice of plum pudding for her? Had he given her a moment"s thought before he"d climbed on his big bay horse and raced out of the inn yard, leaving instructions that she be shunted off to some complete strangers? Oh, no, she doubted that. She doubted that highly.
"I think I shall be exceptionally cool to the baron when next we meet, Tatiana," she announced with rapidly rising conviction. "I was much too honest and open with him the other night. I should never have allowed him entry to my chamber, for one thing, and I never should have confided in him about-about anything at all. I did so well on the dock. Just as I"d planned it all, exactly as I had seen it all in my head. Truly, it was a thing of beauty, you"ll admit. But I have had no practice at conversation with gentlemen other than Luka and those few gentlemen Aunt Mimi allowed to dance with me at court, and they were all my father"s friends in any case. Lord Wilde is a wholly new experience for me."
The companion nodded. "Yes, I already supposed as much. I was waiting for you to stop worrying so much about the Englishman and realize you"ve been deserted. Will you also be out hunting for toads to put in his bed?"
Surprising herself, Alina bit her bottom lip in embarra.s.sment. "No, I think that my years of childish mischief are well and truly over. He called me pet, you know. I am not a pet. I am not a child. I have learned the ways of a woman now, and must prepare myself for my new...position in life. But I will find a way to punish him, most definitely. After all, he did say to begin as we plan to go on. And I will not go on being left in the middle of nowhere whenever some whim takes the man."
"About...what we spoke of the other night, my lady?"
"Yes, Tatiana?" Alina"s heart skipped in sudden trepidation. "Don"t tell me there"s more?"
Tatiana"s plump face screwed up in thought as she raised her eyes to the roof of the coach and considered the question. She made a few hand motions-one of them fairly disconcerting, as if she might be stuffing a handkerchief inside her clenched fist-before finally sighing audibly and saying, "No, I think I had the right of it, my lady. Having not personally experienced..."
"Yes, thank you, Tatiana. In any event, I was not at my best when the baron came to see me, but that will not happen again."
"Yes, my lady, that was what I was about to say. If he comes back."
Alina skewered the companion with those golden eyes of hers. "Luka said that the baron said that he will be joining us within the week. Luka doesn"t lie."
"Ah, but does the baron tell the truth?" Tatiana asked, and then, too late, realized she might have been better served to keep her thoughts to herself. "Which I am sure he does. Truly. And...and he is very pretty."
Alina rolled her eyes. "Yes, he mentioned that himself, I believe, on the off chance I hadn"t noticed on my own, I suppose. What a strange man. He seems to poke fun at himself so that n.o.body else has to go to the bother of doing it for him. I wonder why. Drat! Haven"t I had to learn enough these past few days? The last thing I want is to feel obliged to understand the man."
And then, thanks to both her rather precarious position on the cushioned seat and the quick sawing on the reins by the coachman, Alina found herself deposited on the floor, attempting to push the bulk of her companion off her with both hands as the coach lurched to a halt.
"This could be a trick. Eyes alert and weapons at the ready, men!" she heard Luka shout as Tatiana slowly boosted herself back onto her seat, the companion muttering a few words of her own, none of them complimentary to the mother of the coachman. "I"ll personally see to the lady."
Alina moved to open the door, to see what on earth was going on. But just as her hand settled on the latch, the door opened and Luka appeared, his stern face more immobile than usual.
"Nothing to worry about, my lady. Seems there"s a tree fallen across the roadway. The baron"s men are moving it now, and we"ll be on our way shortly."
"May I come out and watch?" she asked him, as she was more than ready to be out of the coach for a while.
"It"s nearly dark, my lady. Nothing to see."
"May I be the judge of that, please, Luka?" she asked, pushing the door open just as he was attempting to push it closed. "Honestly! Don"t you think you"re taking this business of being responsible for me just a little too- Luka!"
The shot had come from the greenery bordering the roadway. Alina knew that because she had seen the flash from the muzzle in the fading light. Luka looked at her strangely for a moment, surprise in his eyes, and then pitched headfirst onto her lap.
"Luka!"
There was suddenly ear-piercing screaming-courtesy of Tatiana-the sounds of more shots from both pistols and larger weapons, the shouts of men issuing orders, the nervous cries of horses, those locked in the traces and those being turned and wheeled to face some unseen enemy.
"My lady..."
She bent her head close to Luka, who was struggling to raise himself, although it seemed his right arm wasn"t cooperating. "Yes, I"m here. Don"t die."
"Not...not planning on it. Just get down...lie down on the seat where you will be safe."
"And what would that serve?" she asked him, already reaching into the pocket at the side of the cushioned seat, as an earlier inspection of the coach had unearthed the fact that the baron traveled with flasks of wine, lovely crystal gla.s.ses, a tin of sugar biscuits, and two braces of very pretty and also quite deadly pistols. Loaded pistols. "Somebody shot you, Luka," she said with typical Alina logic, "now I"m going to shoot him back!"
Luka didn"t protest, a.s.suredly not because he agreed with her plan, but because he seemed to once more have lapsed into unconsciousness as what sounded very much like a pitched battle continued outside on the roadway.
"My lady..."
"Tend to Luka, Tatiana. See the blood on his coat? He took a ball in the shoulder. We"re short one man, with Luka down, so I must help. Oh, and do please keep your head down, like he said."
With Tatiana grabbing at her skirt in an attempt to stop her, with a heavy pistol in each hand, and what with having to maneuver her way over Luka"s inert body, Alina"s exit from the coach turned into a near somersault, landing her ignominiously in a puddle caused by the earlier rain, her nose an inch deep into the muddy water. One of the pistols went flying out of her hand.
Not that anyone outside the coach noticed, as they all seemed to be occupied either in shooting wildly into the trees or attempting to tie a stout rope to the fallen tree trunk in order to shift it off the roadway.
Alina was struggling to get to her feet when she felt what seemed to be a band of iron clamp around her waist from behind, and she was ignominiously hauled upright-hauled a good foot or more off the ground, actually. Kicking her feet impotently, she was unceremoniously shoved back into the coach, where she landed on Luka"s back. The major, who was not dead, groaned at her added weight and muttered a word Alina had never before heard, but one she was fairly certain he shouldn"t have uttered in her presence.
She righted herself, aimed her feet toward the door as she began to struggle to exit the coach once more, only to be faced with a wall of solid Brutus, Justin"s so-called secretary. Justin"s mountain was more like it.
Wiping at her muddy face with her sleeve, Alina demanded she be allowed to pa.s.s.
The mountain only grunted.
"I am reluctant to shoot you, Brutus, but the highwaymen have shot my friend. They can"t be allowed to get away with that, now, can they?"
The mountain rolled his eyes at this clear impossibility.
"I mean it, Brutus," Alina said, pointing the un-c.o.c.ked pistol at him. "I know how to fight."
The mountain, using only two fingers, plucked the pistol from her as if picking a bit of lint from a jacket. The weapon looked small in his hamlike hand. She wouldn"t, in fact, have been surprised if he were now to bend the barrel in half, just to prove his point. Whatever his point-and she wasn"t at all certain she wanted to know what it was.
Another male face appeared, insinuating itself in the small amount of s.p.a.ce left over after Brutus had blocked the doorway. "We"re clear, Major Prochazka. We"re ready to move again. Two wounded, but they"re fit enough, and able to ride."
"Then let"s do that," Luka said, crawling out from under Alina, who was beginning to feel very much like a muddy cork being tossed about on a sea of unyielding angles and, ouch, it would seem that Luka was wearing spurs.
The looming Brutus stepped back, shut the door. Opened it again, tossed in Alina"s lovely shako hat-now covered with mud-and closed the door once more, before she could send it sailing back at him.
By this time Luka had managed to sit himself down on the cushions, and even to hold out a hand to Alina so that she could join him. "If you wish," he said, looking angry and amused at the same time. But mostly amused, which was not nice of him at all.
With the back of her hand she swiped at the tip of her nose because it tickled, catching a rivulet of muddy water just as it was about to drip and ruin her- Oh! Her new traveling costume! Look at it! It was ruined. "My outfit is nothing but mud!" she exclaimed before she could stop herself.
"The better to match your face, Lady Alina," Luka said, grabbing on to his right arm, which was hanging uselessly at his side. "What the devil did you think you were going to do out there?"
Alina accepted the handkerchief Tatiana handed her and began wiping at her face even as the coach moved forward once more, clearly sacrificing pa.s.senger comfort in favor of speed. "I tried to avenge your death-not that you"re dead, but you know what I mean-and this is the thanks I get?" she asked as they were all bracing themselves so not to be tossed around the interior of the coach. "Questions, and that face of yours, Luka? Oh, don"t try to hide it now. I saw your smile. Or did you think I would be content to simply cower here and have a fit of the vapors or something while highwaymen attacked us?"
"Highwaymen," the major said quietly, sobering. "Yes. It would appear that England is not quite so civilized as the English would like us to believe."
"Clearly not! Do you suppose they have followed us from Portsmouth? That they saw my trunks being unloaded, and my cloak? Oh, I should have been ruthless with anyone who dared to attempt to steal my cloak, let me tell you that!" She accepted another pristine linen square Tatiana had unearthed from the large bag at her feet and promptly ruined it by wiping it over her face and hands. The farther removed from the heat of battle she got, the more she regretted her impulsive action. But someone had shot Luka. And that had made her so angry!