by Anne Gracie
“Held in exchange for a pair of boots?” Maddy scoffed. “That’s ridiculous! Why on earth would I want a pair of man’s riding boots?”
“I have no idea,” he said coldly. “For all I knew you were a madwoman.” His tone implied the suspicion still lingered.
“Why did you not tell me who you were? Why pretend to be a lawyer?”
“Nash told me he was traveling incognito. Naturally, after such a request, I would not reveal his identity or mine.”
They both turned to Nash for an explanation. “Well?”
Nash stared at his brother. “Traveling incognito? Held prisoner by Miss Woodford in exchange for a pair of boots? What the devil are you talking about, Marcus?”
For answer, his brother pulled out a letter and handed it to him. Nash read over his hastily scrawled message and began to laugh. “I see the problem. I was writing in haste, you see.”
Marcus, was injured but am recovering. Give Miss Woodford whatever she wants. Am at her cottage incognito. Funny business going on. Boots slashed, send new ones urgently. Nash.
“Let me see that.” Maddy twitched the letter from his fingers and glanced at it. She saw his scrawl in the margins of her letter, and her jaw dropped. “But this is my letter. I sealed it myself. How did you manage to write this message in a sealed letter?”
“Ah,” Nash began. “It was when I’d got my memory back but before I told you who I—”
“You opened my letter,” she said fiercely. “You know how I feel about people who read other people’s letters!”
“But there was nothing personal in th—”
Her eyes flashed. “It doesn’t matter what the contents are! The very act is—”
“No, no, you are very right and I promise I will never do it to you again,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. Her amber eyes glittered. She took several deep, steadying breaths, trying to harness her ire. Her breasts rose and fell delectably.
Nash wished his brother and Lizzie would just go away. She was adorable like this, with her temper up, all rosy and flushed and lovely. Ripe for a tumbling.
“Oh, I see,” Marcus said suddenly.
They both looked at him.
“She’s your mistress. It all makes sense now.”
“I am not his mistress!” Maddy snapped. And then flushed, recalling that by the usual definitions, she, in fact, was.
“She’s not my mistress; she’s my affianced bride,” Nash told his brother.
“What?” Marcus’s normally flinty eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. “You are betrothed to this, this . . .”
“Lovely lady, yes,” Nash said smoothly, his own eyes gimlet hard and delivering a silent message to his brother.
“I knew you were in trouble,” said Marcus in a grim voice. “So she’s trapped you into—”
Nash grabbed his brother’s arm and pushed him toward the door. “I’ll just explain to my brother what’s going on,” he told Maddy. “Talk among yourselves.” He winked at Lizzie. “Cup of tea, Lizzie?” He thrust his brother outside and took him into the garden.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” he said. He took the boots from his brother’s grasp, sat on a bench, and began undoing the mourning ribbons from his ruined boot.
Marcus said stiffly, “You were in trouble.”
“I was, in a way—” He saw his brother staring at the sliced-open boot and explained, “She had to cut it off. My ankle was swollen and she thought it might be broken.”
“I will buy the jade off.”
“Jad—Oh, you mean Maddy, Miss Woodford? She’s no jade. I intend to marry her.” He pulled on the new boot and held his foot up for his brother to yank off the other one.
“There’s no need to. I’ll pay her off.” Marcus removed the boot and stood it neatly beside its ruined twin.
Nash stood up and stamped a few paces back and forth in the new boots. “Excellent, they fit perfectly. Thank you for bringing them. I don’t want you to buy her off.”
Marcus gave him a searching look. “But she has trapped you into marriage?”
“No.”
Marcus’s flinty gray eyes narrowed. “You can’t possibly be in love with her.”
“Of course not. Nevertheless, I will marry her.”
“Why?”
Nash hesitated, but there was no way around it. “I have compromised her so—”
“So she did entrap you.”
“She did not. It was wholly my own doing. There is no point arguing, Marcus, my mind is made up. I will marry Miss Woodford on Friday week. The arrangements are already in place.” Almost. A small matter of a license.
“The injury to your head must be worse than you think. Have you forgotten Aunt Maude is searching the length and breadth of three kingdoms—”
“Only three? Not Wales, then? Or is she avoiding Ireland?”
“Don’t be flippant. She’s been scouring the country, sifting through every blue-blooded family in search of a bride for you—at your instigation—and now you say you are going to marry this, this—”
“Lady,” said Nash in a hard voice.
Marcus stiffened. “You are in love with her,” he said in a shocked voice.
“Nonsense! But she is in my care and will become my wife.” He locked eyes with his brother, and after a moment, Marcus gave a noncommittal half shrug.
“You’d better tell me all about it, then. Aunt Maude will not be happy.”
Nash glanced at the sky. “I don’t have time. I have to get Maddy to Harry and Nell’s before dark.” He nodded toward Marcus’s chaise. “When I saw that chaise, I had no idea it was yours. New is it?”
“Yes, it’s the latest desi—”
“Why isn’t your crest on it? And why the plain livery?”
“I like to travel incognito myself, from time to time.”
“Those bays look magnificent. Fast, are they?”
“Yes, they’re splendid goers and on an open road—No. You can’t have them, Nash.”
“I need them, Marcus,” Nash said coaxingly. “Just for one night.”
“I am not lending you my new chaise and the bays so you can take this woman—”
“She saved my life, Marcus.”
“So it’s gratitude?”
“No, it’s—” He didn’t know what it was. “I’m not going to discuss it. She’s in danger and I need to get her out of the area tonight, to keep her safe.”
Marcus frowned. “Danger? What danger?”
“She’s been harassed by a man dressing up as a ghost to frighten her. On several occasions, her cottage has been attacked and two nights ago her beehives were burned and her vegetable garden destroyed.” He gestured to the ruined garden with its wilted, newly replanted plants. “My actions may have made it worse, so I need to get her to safety.”
Marcus eyed him enigmatically. Nash stared him down. Marcus could be annoyingly stubborn. “It touches on my honor, Marcus.”
“Mmm.” Marcus pursed his lips.
“Will you help me, dammit, or must I beg the local vicar to lend me his carriage?”
Marcus gave a cool nod. “Very well, I have a fancy to visit Nell and Harry myself, see how my horses are doing—”
“No, sorry,” Nash interrupted. “I need you to stay here.”
“Here? You mean at Whitethorn Manor?”
“I mean here, in the cottage. I need someone here for when this villain attacks. Keep your groom with you just in case. I want to get to the bottom of this, catch the bastard and find out why he’s doing it.”
Marcus’s brow rose. “I see, you want me to lend you my new chaise and my favorite team, while you take that red-headed termagant—”
“She’s very sweet when you get to know her.”
“—termagant to Harry and Nell’s and in the meantime I’m to wait in this poky little cottage and expect to be attacked by person or persons unknown. Is that it?”
“In a nutshell.” Nash grinned. “You’re quite astut
e, you know, brother. So that’s a yes, then?”
His older brother gave him a long-suffering look. “And what am I to do while I’m waiting to be attacked? I can’t imagine this cottage stretches to a library.”
“I have just the thing.” From his saddlebag, Nash pulled out the bundle containing the charred estate books and handed it to Marcus. “The Whitethorn estate manager has been cooking the books—literally and metaphorically. The evidence will be in there. You know how much you enjoy accounts and puzzles.”
Marcus peered disdainfully into the bundle, sighed, and rewrapped it. “I don’t understand why anyone thinks you have talent at diplomacy. As far as I can see it’s nothing but sheer, unmitigated cheek. At least the cottage is warm.” He tucked the bundle under his arm.
“Ah,” Nash said in a tone that made Marcus look at him with foreboding. “Maddy keeps early hours so after about nine you must let the fire go out. And no candles or lanterns, either. I want the Bloody Abbot to think them all asleep—that’s when he usually strikes.”
“The bloody who?”
“It’s a disguise the swine wears, pretending to be the ghost of some long-dead murdered abbot who’s famous hereabouts.”
“I see, so I am to sit in a poky little cottage in the cold and dark, waiting to be attacked by a desperate criminal dressed up as a ghostly monk, while you ride in the comfort of my chaise, accompanying Miss Woodford to Nell and Harry’s. How delightful. I don’t suppose I could convey her there in my own carriage while you sit in the dark. No? I didn’t think so.”
“The mood she’s in at the moment, I doubt she’d go to the end of the lane with you. I’ll ride back here after I’ve dropped Maddy and the children at Harry and Nell’s.”
“Children? What children? You’re marrying a woman with children? Who by? And how many?”
“It’s not what you think, they’re her orphaned half-siblings. Five of them, aged between four and twelve.”
Marcus’s brows shot up. “Five?”
Nash nodded.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed. “Machiavelli had nothing on you, little brother. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you didn’t mention this little detail until after I’d given you my word, so I’m warning you now: if one of those brats throws up in my chaise, you will buy me a new one. And it won’t be cheap—I had it specially built to my specifications.”
Nash laughed. “Done.”
Eighteen
“Are you packed?” Nash asked Maddy as he reentered the cottage with his brother. His brother indeed. Maddy was still annoyed with the earl, though much of her annoyance was now directed at herself.
She should have known. Seeing them standing side by side, the family resemblance was obvious. She shouldn’t have lost her temper so easily, should have asked more questions at the beginning.
But he’d swept in like a lord and spoken to her with such icy disdain, making threats in the same breath before he’d even introduced himself—he hadn’t introduced himself at all, just demanded to see his client and, in the same breath, threatened her with the magistrate. And all the while clutching those boots in his fist as if he might hit her with them.
She caught his eye. He gave her a curt nod, and a stiff, “I apologize for the misunderstanding, Miss Woodford.” His gray eyes were as cold as ever. Maddy was not deceived into thinking the apology was anything more than a polite form.
She inclined her head. At least he’d apologized. Many men could not, would not bring themselves to ever admit they were wrong.
Nash was wearing the boots the earl had brought.
Her lips twitched. Had the earl really believed she’d held his brother to ransom in exchange for boots? It was ridiculous. She felt a bubble of laughter rising and tried to squash it.
“What?” Nash asked.
“J-Just thinking that your ransom looks very s-smart. I must say, you’re a very cheap hostage.” A giggle escaped her.
The earl stiffened. Nash glanced down at his boots and gave a crack of laughter. “You must have thought you were rescuing me from a lunatic, Marcus.”
“Nothing new in that. You’ve spent your whole life falling into scrapes and usually talking your way out of them. I believe I am to wish you joy, Miss Woodford.” The coldness with which he said it contradicted his words. He was not reconciled to their marriage in the slightest. He thought her a scrape from which Nash hadn’t been able to talk his way out of.
Too bad, Maddy thought. Nash had made the offer of his own free will. She wasn’t going to renege on her promise simply because his brother thought she wasn’t good enough.
She’d show him.
Nash glanced at the bed. “I thought you would have finished packing by now.”
“Why? There’s no need for us to leave now.”
“But I told you to pack.”
“You told me to trust you, but you didn’t explain why, or where we’re going, or for how long. If you think I’m moving to Whitethorn Manor—”
“I want to get you and the children away from here, to safety. Tonight.”
“Why? We’re perfectly safe here.”
“That swine might come back—”
“I told you, he’s done nothing against the children or me. I’m certain his aim is to frighten us away, and I don’t intend to give him the satisfaction.”
“When he burned your beehives, he went a step further than merely frightening, so I want you out of here.”
“No.” Maddy folded her arms. “I won’t be frightened out of my home by a coward who dresses up in silly costumes and wails around the house to scare children at night.”
Nash gave her a frustrated look. “It is not a matter of running away. If it’s Harris, he’s my responsibility. I want to catch the fellow and find out what he’s up to.”
“Good, then you can catch him with me here.”
“And endanger the children?”
“If you and your brother are here, they won’t be in danger. And the children will learn to stand up for themselves and not be intimidated by cowardly bullies.”
The earl seated himself at the table. “I can see this is going to take some time,” he said to nobody in particular. “Is that pot of tea still hot, by any chance?”
“I’ll fetch you a cup, my lord.” Lizzie jumped to it.
Nash and Maddy both glared at the earl, annoyed by the interruption.
“Don’t mind me,” he said, waving them on with a lordly air. “It’s quite entertaining.”
“In any case, it’s nothing to do with running away,” Nash told Maddy. “I’ve arranged for you to meet my family before the wedding. And since the wedding is on Friday week, it doesn’t give us much time.”
“Meet your family?” Maddy couldn’t believe her ears.
“Yes, you’ve met Marcus. My half brother, Harry Morant, and his wife, Nell—Lady Helen—are expecting us tonight, and since their home, Firmin Court, is at least twenty miles from here, we’ll be traveling in the dark unless you get a move on with the packing.”
“What? They’re expecting us tonight? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Nash made an apologetic gesture. “So much to do, it must have slipped my mind. If we don’t arrive at a reasonable hour, Nell will worry. But if you don’t want to go . . .”
“No,” Maddy said. “Of course, we must go, if she’s expecting us. I just wish you’d discussed it with me before you wrote to her.” She narrowed her eyes at Nash, who wore a suspiciously innocent look. “You did it deliberately, didn’t you? Arranged the visit to Firmin Court because you knew I’d want to stay here and confront the Bloody Abbot. And now I have no choice.”
“It’s a habit of his, to arrange things to his liking,” Marcus said dryly. “Annoying isn’t it?”
“Very,” Maddy agreed. But she wasn’t going to side with his brother against Nash. “But this time it can’t be helped. I wouldn’t want to cause Lady Helen needless anxiety.” She hoped Nash noted the “this time.”
“Can I come
with you, Miss Maddy?” Lizzie blurted as she plonked a cup of tea in front of the earl.
“What?” Nash looked at Lizzie in surprise. “Why should you—”
“Lizzie has agreed to become my maid, so if I’m going to Firmin Court, of course she will come with us,” Maddy declared. If she was going to be pitchforked with no warning into the bosom of his family—a family who she was sure would receive her with the same cozy warmth the earl was showing—she wanted an ally with her. Particularly one who could do her hair.
Nash made an indifferent gesture. “If you want Lizzie, of course she can come, though the chaise will be rather crowded. Still, the more the merrier.” He smiled. “Now, get packing.”
“I’ll run and get me bundle, miss,” Lizzie said. “Me uncle won’t mind me going off without any warning, not if you’re going to be married to Mr. Renfrew here. I’ll be back in a wink, see if I’m not.”
“Lizzie, tell your uncle not to tell anyone Maddy’s going away. I’m setting a trap for the Bloody Abbot.”
“Right you are, Mr. Renfrew, sir.” A sudden grin split Lizzie’s face. “I’ll have to miss the evening milking. That means I’ve milked me last-ever cow—Lord be praised!” She rushed off.
“I’ll fetch the children from the vicarage, shall I?” Nash suggested and strolled toward the door.
Nash’s brother, who had taken one sip of Maddy’s home-grown tea and put it down with a shudder, pushed back his chair and stood. “I’ll accompany you.”
“Oh, but I should tell the Mathesons—” Maddy began.
“I’ve told them. And you’ll be back before the wedding, in just over a week’s time. You can see them then.”
Maddy made a distracted gesture. “Oh, very well. Please convey my apologies to Mrs. Matheson. I really don’t know why it all has to be such a rush . . .”
“We don’t want to travel in the dark,” Nash said. Marcus gave him a sidelong look.
Maddy, her mind awhirl, nodded vaguely. “Go ahead. I’ll be ready when you return. Oh, I wish you’d told me about this earlier.” It went against the grain to flee from their mysterious persecutor, but her hand had been forced.