“Not nearly as kind as I would like to be, once you know me better,” the Duke murmured in a provocative tone that suggested in just what manner he would like to be kind…or perhaps it was only the heat, or her overheated imagination at work.
She waited, nearly breathless with anticipation, but was finally forced to give Deppity a speaking glance before, somewhat sulkily, he said, “Lady Ambleforth, may I present to you Derek Deveril, the Duke of Dashing? He is one of my chief investors.”
If Deppity seemed disturbed, the curate was clearly disapproving, while Lord Torquil looked as if the ‘D’ in his name must stand for ‘disgruntled.’
Meanwhile, the Duke cried, “You are Lady Ambleforth? I am more than charmed, my lady, I am astonished! ‘Tis a most wondrous coincidence, for my chief purpose in coming to the county, along with checking on the progress of Deppity’s mill, was to make your acquaintance. Your grandmother’s second cousin’s niece’s sister and my mother were presented at Court together. I have heard so much of your beauty, your talent, and the wonderful entertainments you and your late husband gave at Ambleforth, both from her and from my eleven bachelor cousins. They are all Dukes, too; perhaps you are acquainted? No? Ah, no matter. You grow prize roses, too, I understand.”
Araminta felt her flush deepening, flattered but flustered that a great Peer of the Land should know so much about her. And one with so many eligible cousins! Perhaps it was time for that London Season she’d never had.
“Your Grace, you make me sound such a paragon! How can I not disappoint?”
“Never,” he said simply. “You could never disappoint.” He gave her a full smile this time, the sun gleaming off his even white teeth.
“I believe we have been standing in this heat long enough,” Mr. Hodges said tersely, once again wiping his brow.
“Your Grace,” Deppity said, “May I also present Mr. Hodges, our curate, and Lord Torquil Silverthorne, who is the son of the Duke of—”
“Hodges, always good to meet a man of the cloth,” the Duke interrupted with a genial nod to the curate, “and yes, I know Silverthorne. Or know of him. I’d heard he’d gone rusticating in the country after…”
For a long silent moment, while Silverthorne looked increasingly uncomfortable and annoyed, the Duke’s lips twitched. Finally, he laughed out loud. “Forgive me, Silverthorne! But you have to admit, despite the outcome being social isolation, the incident itself was vastly amusing. Although, with a lady present, I shall say no more.”
“A small mercy,” Silverthorne muttered, looking very put-upon. Perhaps it should be ‘D’ for ‘dejected,’ Araminta thought.
“Would that I had a carriage instead of my stallion, so I might offer you a lift on so sultry a day, Lady Ambleforth,” the Duke said. “I would have brought my phaeton, but for emergencies, or rescuing damsels in distress, a destrier is much faster.”
“I am sure you rescue damsels most delightfully,” Araminta replied. “Though I have no need of rescue. Although there was an accident to my carriage.” Realizing she was blathering—indeed, if breathing normally in the proximity of a dangerous duke’s son was difficult, ‘twas nearly impossible to think in the presence of an even more darkly dangerous duke—she took a deep breath and said, “That is, ‘tis so lovely a day, I chose to walk. And these gentleman,” she indicated them with an impatient wave of her hand, “took it upon themselves to accompany me.”
“What, uninvited?” the Duke exclaimed. “How unchivalrous! But surely, lovely lady, you will allow me to escort you.”
How does one say “no” to a duke? Even if one wanted to, which she did not. “It would be my pleasure.”
“I sincerely hope so,” he murmured with another of those seductive glances. “And since I am the highest-ranking gentleman present, you must allow me the honor of taking your hand.”
Her heart beating faster, Araminta lay her gloved hand on the Duke’s immaculate sleeve. The feel of perfectly tailored wool and sleek male muscle under her fingertips sent a jolt of sensation through her, intoxicating and a bit alarming. The Duke might be Dashing, but she feared he was also devilish.
Meanwhile, glancing round at the others, the Duke frowned. “Indeed, Mr. Hodges, you look disturbingly red. Perhaps you should ride Defiant, lest you collapse from the heat.”
“Kind of you, Your Grace, but I shall be perfectly fine walking,” the curate said stiffly.
“Deppity, would you be so good as to lead my stallion, so I may give my attention to Lady Ambleforth?” With a pointed smile, he added, “One shouldn’t discuss anything as vulgar as business before a lady, but I did wish to tell you I’m ready to put another 10,000 pounds into your venture.”
Looking irritated to be playing the groom, nonetheless, Sir Ed clamped his lips together and accepted the reins.
Finally, amusement lighting his face again, the Duke said, “And you, Silverthorne? Do you dwell nearby? Somewhere you can keep—” His shoulders shaking with suppressed mirth, the Duke broke off in mid-sentence.
Gracious, what had Silverthorne done to earn his disgrace? Araminta wondered, even more intrigued. Might the Duke tell her? Might he do other things to her? What was she to do with this gaggle of guardians when she reached Ambleforth?
CHAPTER SIX by Louise Allen
Three aristocrats, all in competition with each other, one highly-spirited stallion and a disapproving, red-faced clergyman jammed together in the tight confines of a rutted country lane did not make for the most comfortable of walks, Araminta discovered. An excess of masculinity might be exciting but one gentleman at a time—with the exception of poor Mr Hodges, of course—would be preferable.
Behind her she could almost feel the touch of Sir Ed’s smouldering regard fixed on her back. Or possibly lower. Araminta told herself it was impossible to walk over this rough ground without swaying her hips. Mr Hodges was sulkily trampling through the drifts of cow parsley that edged the lane like clouds of lace and covering himself in tiny white blossoms while he was at it.
Silverthorne, doggedly sticking to her right side, was far tenser than his indolent drawl suggested. His hand under her elbow was rigid, and whenever the duke said anything his grip became almost painful.
“Ouch!” She shook his hand off and rather obviously curled her left into Dashing’s crooked elbow. “You should not tease, Your Grace,” she murmured. “If Lord Torquil has some dreadful, devious, dastardly or disgraceful secret, you must share it with us.”
“He will do no such thing,” Silverthorne rapped out. “I’ll see to that.”
“You and whose army?” the duke enquired belligerently, promptly reducing the entire confrontation to schoolboy level. “You cannot expect to descend on some sleepy, unsophisticated country area—”
“We are not unsophisticated,” Araminta protested and was ignored. Derek and Torquil were standing toe to toe in front of her, glowering at each other. Her indignation was overcome by a positively shameful excitement. These two magnificent specimens of manhood were about to fight, and, if not over her, then surely the stimulus of jealousy was contributing to their antagonism.
“—and establish your ladybird, the most notorious actress in London, in a love nest and expect it to go unnoticed,” the duke continued, unintimidated. “It is the talk of the Town that—”
He got no further. Magnificent shoulders rippling, fists clenched, indolent elegance cast aside, Torquil bunched his right fist and hit him squarely on his rather too-pronounced chin. Derek Deveril landed on his ducal backside in a patch of thistles and let out a roar of pain and fury.
“Hold the horse.” Sir Ed pushed between Araminta and the curate and shoved the reins of the duke’s stallion into Mr Hodges’s pudgy hands. “Dashing! Silverthorne! There is a lady present!”
But it was too late for intervention, Araminta realised. The two men were rolling on the ground trading punches. She tried screaming in the faint hope that this would stop them, but she might as well have recited the works of the Poe
t Laureate for all the notice they took of her.
Sir Ed reached down, took hold of the duke’s collar and tried to drag him up. His reward was to receive Sir Torquil’s punch in the eye. With a bellow of rage he pitched into the fight, although quite who was attacking who now in the three-cornered conflict, Araminta had no idea.
“Mr Hodges, you must intervene,” she cried, but the stallion was rearing with the curate, no more effective than the skinniest stable boy despite his chubbiness, hanging onto the reins and shrieking in terror. “Men!” Araminta muttered, casting around fruitlessly for assistance. Mr. Probey the miller would be helpful. With his bulging muscles he could throw the lot of them into the mill stream and that would cool their ardor. But, of course, there was no help to be had.
“Let go!” she yelled at Mr Hodges, completely abandoning ladylike deportment. If the idiotic man did not release the reins he would be trampled. Thankfully he either heard her or was shaken loose, for he let go, tumbled into the ditch with a splash and the stallion raced off back the way they had come.
Water—just what she needed. Araminta dropped her parasol, tore off her bonnet and pushed through the wild flowers to the ditch.
“Lady Araminta, help me, please.” Mr Hodges splashed feebly on his back like a stranded porpoise.
“In a moment, sir. If you will only stop thrashing you will find you are in no danger of drowning, but those idiotic men must be stopped before they maim each other.” Nobly sacrificing a magnificent (and expensive) example of Madame Mirabelle’s Modish Millinery (as advertised in La Belle Assemblée) Araminta scooped up brackish water in the deep-crowned straw bonnet, ran back and threw it over the heads of the combatants.
It worked magnificently. They fell apart gasping, then collapsed onto their backs, shaking their heads like so many wet water spaniels.
“Let that be a lesson to you,” she began. But the response came not from the men at her feet but from a masked rider on a fine gelding that looked remarkably like Sir Ed’s missing mount.
“Stand and deliver,” he said and pointed a large pistol right at the group on the road. “Your money is safe—all I want is the lady.”
CHAPTER SEVEN by Louise Allen
“Never!” Araminta cried. A highwayman, here in their quiet country parish? She glared up defiantly at the tall but slender figure on the big horse. His face was covered by a mask, his hair by a slouch hat pulled low. His long legs…
She pulled herself together. She had seen rather too many pairs of magnificent legs today and she had no intention of coming any closer to these. “Begone before the magistrates hear of this”’ she said, hoping that she did not sound as alarmed as she felt. “And let that horse go—stealing such an animal will get you transported, if not hanged.”
“I merely borrow it, my lady.”
The man’s voice was light, yet masculine. He was disguising it, she could tell. And he knows who I am, or at least, that I am titled, she realised with a shock.
“Come here, my lady, and give me your hand.” He controlled the edgy gelding one-handed with ease.
“Certainly not.” She stayed firmly where she was. Behind her Mr Hodges’s gasps and cries had died away into silence, broken only by an occasional pathetic splash. At her feet the three gentlemen lay sprawled in the dust watching the highwaymen with lethal alertness for one mistake.
“Which of these would you like me to shoot, then?” the rogue enquired. “You don’t want Silverthorne. The man’s a rake and he’s far too engrossed with his buxom mistress to be serious in his attentions to any other woman just now. His Grace, the Duke of Dashing? Do you want to play second fiddle to your husband all your life? He’s a smug, manipulative type, if you ask me.”
“I did not ask you,” Araminta interjected indignantly. At her feet Derek was choking in indignation, and all Torquil could manage was a hiss of fury.
“Then there’s Ed Deppity. Damn silly name—do you want to be Lady Deppity?”
‘I’ll have you know it is an ancient name of great—”
“Idiocy,” the highwayman interrupted the affronted baronet. “So which shall I shoot, my lady? Rake, pompous smug duke or baronet with a name from a stage farce?”
“None of them.” To her horror Araminta discovered that she was finding this rather stimulating. She very much doubted that this scoundrel really meant murder, however much he was provoked. And the contemplation of his lithe body mastering that restless horse sent little shivers up and down her spine.
“Then come here.” He reached out again and she walked forward, skirting the prone, spluttering gentlemen to put her hand in his. Araminta found herself lifted up until her foot found his, then she was sitting on the saddle in front of him.
His thighs, hard with muscle, supported her in the most delightful manner although the pommel of the saddle was rather obtrusive. If it was the pommel…
“Unhand her!” With a sound like a hundred boots being wrenched from thick mud, Mr Hodges rose to his feet. Dripping with stagnant water, his hat gone, his hair full of brambles and cow parsley, he looked like an indignant rural god wakened from his slumbers and ready to smite whoever had disturbed him with something unpleasant. Cow pats, perhaps, Araminta mused, caught up in her own fantasy.
“Set down that lady immediately!” The curate had found the voice usually reserved for hell-fire sermons when the villagers had been particularly active at the ale house.
“Or?” the highwayman enquired politely.
The gelding sidled, and Araminta found herself clutching his coat to keep her balance. He smelled nice, she realised. Not like a sweaty, unwashed criminal. She breathed deeply: hay, plain soap, horse and warm man. Yum.
“Or… or…” Mr Hodges stuttered to a halt.
“Good day to you, gentlemen.” The highwayman inclined his head with mocking courtesy, turned the horse and cantered off down the lane with Araminta clinging to the lapels of his coat, her face pressed against his chest and her heart thudding with mingled excitement and alarm.
It could not have been more than five minutes before her captor turned off the lane into a little copse. In the centre was a glade, open to the blue sky and spangled with wild flowers. He slid her gently to the ground, dismounted and threw the reins over a branch.
“And now, Lady Araminta…”
He did know her name - it was not just a guess at her title. “What do you want of me?” she asked. Standing in front of her, he was tall, lightly built with a muscled grace and, she guessed, a little younger than the gentlemen who had been enlivening her walk home.
“Just something I have been aching for these past two years,” he murmured as he took her by the shoulders and drew her close. “Just one kiss.”
Her hands closed on his forearms. He was so close now his breath was warm on her lips. She could see the vivid blue of his eyes, the arch of dark brows beneath the sweep of his hat brim. Those eyes! Did she recognise them? And then he bent his head and she had to decide. Stay or run…?
CHAPTER EIGHT by Barbara Monajem
As if she had a choice! If she tried to run, the masked man would catch her in a trice, and besides that, what woman would flee a man with such a glint in his eye?
Glints must be a characteristic of dangerous, handsome men. Not that she knew whether the masked man was handsome. She would have to take that on faith. With those eyes, eyebrows, lips and manly chin, this wasn’t difficult. Thrills chased themselves up and down her spine. Desire rampaged through her. She closed her eyes and parted her lips for his kiss…
What was the dratted man waiting for?
At last his lips touched hers. A wave of nostalgia swept over her as he deepened the kiss. Ah, passionate kisses like this had been the best thing about marriage. How she missed them!
The sound of galloping hooves penetrated the haze of desire. The highwayman broke the kiss, and regretfully, she opened her eyes. Oh! It was Lord Torquil D for Domineering, riding the Duke’s stallion.
“Ho
w did you get a hold of that horse?” Araminta demanded crossly. “It galloped the other direction a while ago.”
Lord Torquil sprang from the saddle. “I whistled for him. He was mine before the Duke of Dashing won him from me by cheating at piquet.” He glared at the masked man. “Kissing the lady was not part of your mission. Unhand her, you rogue!” This order was entirely unnecessary, seeing as the masked man had already stepped away from her with a muffled curse.
Araminta stamped her foot. “What business is it of yours if he kisses me?”
Lord Torquil gave her a supercilious stare. “My dear Lady Ambleforth, this is Cheat-gallows Jim. I cannot permit such a man to kiss you.”
A blush of excitement swooped up her cheeks. “The Terror of Penenden Heath? How thrilling!”
The highwayman grinned and blew her a kiss. Which was all very well, but she wanted another real kiss! She pouted.
Lord Torquil huffed. “He’s also Brandywine Bob, leader of the notorious Medway River and Estuary Smuggling Consortium.”
Araminta clasped her hands to her breast. “A smuggler, too? You are a very busy man, sir!” How dare Lord Torquil Dictatorial order her about? She would never get a chance to be kissed by a smuggler dash highwayman again.
“I’m never too busy to kiss a lovely lady,” the masked man murmured. “And those are only two of my aliases.”
More aliases? This man became more fascinating by the minute! “Tell me all about them,” she purred.
“Definitely not!” Lord Torquil said. “That would be, er, unsuitable for a lady’s ears.”
“Come now,” said Jim, or should she think of him as Bob? “Surely we can trust Lady Ambleforth. You’re a patriotic Englishwoman, aren’t you, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart? Now that was going too far. “Just because I allowed you to k—” Belatedly, it dawned on her what he had just said. “What has patriotism got to do with it?”
Lord Torquil drew himself up to his full height. His hair was disheveled from the fistfight, his breeches were muddy, and a sprig of cow parsley clung to his collar, all of which made him far less impressive than before. “This is for your ears only, Lady Ambleforth. I am in the service of England, and this fellow is my assistant. We are in pursuit of a dastardly French spy.”