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‘Miss Mallory, you cannot be intending to continue driving?’
‘As far as Newbury.’ She turned an impatient shoulder on him, watching the team being put to. It would take only a few minutes, now the horses had been agreed. ‘Jem, get the passengers.’
‘But wait, you’ve had a nasty shock.’ Max put out his hand and caught her by the right wrist, then dropped it as she went white and gasped in pain.
For a sickening moment the yard spun and Bree found herself caught up hard against Lord Penrith’s chest.
‘Let me go!’ The effect of being held by a strange man—no, by this strange man—was making her as dizzy as the pain. Reluctantly, it seemed, he opened his arms.
‘You are hurt. Let me see.’ What a nice voice he has, she thought irrelevantly. Deep, and gentle and compelling. She had no intention of doing as he asked, and yet, somehow, her hand was in his again and he was peeling back the cuff of the gauntlet to examine her wrist. ‘Has that just happened?’ She nodded. ‘Can you move your fingers?’
‘Yes. It isn’t broken,’ she added impatiently. His concern was weakening her; she had to tell herself it was nothing, that she could drive despite it.
‘Well, you aren’t driving a stage with that. You had best go inside and get it bound up.’
‘Yes, I am driving! I cannot abandon a coach full of passengers here, let alone the parcels we’re carrying. The Challenge Coach Company does not cancel coaches.’
‘There are entirely too many cs in that sentence,’ Lord Penrith remarked, ‘but it does at least prove that you haven’t been drinking if you can declaim it. The coach won’t be cancelled. I’ll drive it. Wait here.’
‘You…I…you’ll do no such thing!’ She found herself talking to his retreating back. He was already striding off towards the inn door to where the youth who had been driving the drag was waiting. There was a short conversation—more an issuing of orders, she decided, going by her short experience of his lordship’s manner, then he was coming back.
‘Right. Is there room for you inside, Miss Mallory?’
‘Certainly not. I am staying on the box.’ Bother the man, now he had tricked her into accepting that he was going to drive! ‘Are you any good, my lord?’
She knew who he was, of course—one glance at his card, and the cut of his own drag and team, told her that. But she was not going to give Max Dysart, Earl of Penrith, the satisfaction of acknowledging that he was one of the finest whips in the land. Piers would be mad with jealousy when he found out with whom she had virtually collided.
He turned, pausing in the act of climbing on to the box, one hand still resting on the wheel. ‘Any good? At driving?’ One eyebrow arched.
‘Yes, at driving,’ she snapped. If only he didn’t keep looking at me like that. As though he knew me, as though he owned me…
‘Certainly. Much better than my young cousin, I assure you, Miss Mallory. Then…I am quite good at most things.’
Furious at what she suspected was an innuendo that she didn’t understand, Bree marched round and got Jem to help her up on the other side of the box. She could have made it on her own, she told herself resentfully, but she wasn’t such an idiot as to strain her hurt wrist just to prove a point. Without thinking about it she flicked the tails of her coat into a makeshift cushion under her, and settled back. Jem swung up behind.
Lord Penrith already had the reins in hand. He certainly looked the part. ‘Have you ever driven a stage before?’ she demanded. It would not be surprising if he had—it was a craze amongst young bucks to bribe a coachman to let them take the ribbons. More often than not, the entire rig ended up in a ditch.
‘Let them go!’ He turned his head and grinned at her as the wheelers took the strain and began to move. ‘Now I am wounded. You think I’m the sort of fellow who gets drunk and overturns stages for kicks? No, I drive a drag and my own horses when I want a four in hand. This lot aren’t too bad.’
‘Stick to ten miles an hour,’ Bree cautioned. ‘No springing them.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said meekly as they got back on to the road and the leaders settled into their collars. ‘There’s a clean handkerchief in my left-hand pocket if you want to tie up your wrist.’
Gingerly Bree fished in the pocket and pulled out the square of white linen. She wrapped the makeshift bandage round her wrist, then tucked her hand back into the front of her coat. Just the knowledge that she did not have to drive another forty miles was bliss. Surreptitiously she rolled her aching shoulders.
‘Thank you, my lord.’
‘Max,’ he said absently, his eyes on the road ahead. ‘What sort of name is Bree?’
‘My sort. It was my father’s mother’s name.’
There was a flash of white as he grinned. ‘Tell me, Miss Mallory, how does a lady, who speaks with an accent that would not be out of place administering set-downs in Almack’s, come to be driving a stagecoach?’
‘I had an excellent education.’ Bother. She had been so shaken she had let her guard down. Both she and Piers were perfectly capable of switching their accents to suit their company, whether it was disputing the price of oats with the corn chandler or holding a stilted conversation with their half-brother. If she had been thinking, she would have let a strong overtone of London City creep into her vowels.
It was entirely possible that this man knew James, and if he discovered she was driving on the open road, and in men’s clothes, then the fat really would be in the fire. One more of James’s ponderous and endless lectures on propriety and she would probably say something entirely regrettable and cause a permanent family rift.
She shot an anxious glance over her shoulder, but the roof passengers were huddled up, scarves and mufflers round their ears, hunched in the misery of open-air, night-time travel. She could confess to robbing the Bank of England and they would not hear.
‘My parents were perfectly well to do. Just because we’re in trade does not mean elocution was neglected,’ she added starchily.
‘So how is it that you are driving?’ he persisted.
‘Because the driver broke his leg and there was no one else to send out, and the Challenge—’
‘Coach Company does not cancel coaches,’ he parroted. ‘Yes, I know. Do you drive often?’
‘I haven’t driven a stage for three years,’ Bree admitted. ‘And I’ve never driven one in service or at night. But Piers—my younger brother—is recovering from pneumonia. I couldn’t let him drive. It’s his company, his and my uncle’s. And I drive four in hand all the time.’ She didn’t add that she liked to drive the hay wagon up from the family farm near Aylesbury, or that she’d driven the dung cart before now when the need arose. Let him think she bowled round Hyde Park in a phaeton.
‘Your driving is superb. I don’t know how you held the stage out of the ditch when we overtook,’ he said.
Neither do I! Terror and desperation, probably. The compliment from such a master warmed her. ‘Why, thank you, my lord.’
‘Max.’
‘Max. It was sheer necessity. I doubt I could do it again. I was using both hands by that point, and I had abandoned my whip,’ Bree confessed. ‘The old coachmen in our yard would be shocked to the core.’
There was a chuckle from her companion, then he fell silent, intent on navigating the moonlit road.
It was curiously companionable, riding through the chilly darkness on the jolting, hard box beside this stranger. The team were trotting out strongly, then gathering themselves to canter when Max gave them the office on the better stretches. Her wrist throbbed painfully and her shoulders ached, but Bree realised she was enjoying herself. The man was a superlative whip.
‘You had better blow for the gate,’ Max remarked, jerking her out of her reverie. ‘The next toll bar’s coming up.’
‘I can’t. I’ve tried and tried to master the horn, but I can’t do it.’
‘Fine guard you are,’ Max grumbled. ‘Here, take the reins.’
He held his left hand towards her and she slid her own into it, fingers slipping down his wrist and over his palm until the ribbons lay between the correct fingers and he could pull his own free. The team pecked a little at the strange position, then settled.
Max lifted the horn and blew, the long notes echoing through the clear night. ‘Just in time,’ Bree said as the toll gate keeper stumbled out in his nightgown to drag open the wide gate.
‘We’re going to have to do this for every gate, you realise,’ Max commented, his big hand sliding into hers as he took back the reins. It brought them close together again and the fleeting memory of his arms around her in the inn yard made Bree catch her breath.
‘We could stop a moment and pass the horn back to Jem,’ Bree suggested reluctantly. It was the sensible thing to do, of course, but that had been rather fun.
‘And lose more time?’ Max flicked the whip close to the ear of the offside wheeler that seemed to have decided it didn’t want to share the work. ‘I’m sure the Challenge Coach Company is always punctual. Hmm, not enough cs. I shall have to think of a slogan.’ Bree chuckled. ‘Besides,’ he added, echoing her own thoughts, ‘it was rather fun.’
‘In what way, exactly?’ she enquired repressively. It might be very stimulating to be sitting here enjoying a master class in four-in-hand driving, but one had to recall that she was also alone, unchaperoned, with a man she was certain James would stigmatise as a rake. On the other hand, if James would disapprove, it made it all much more pleasurable.
‘It’s a form of trick driving in its way. And, of course, there’s the opportunity to hold hands with a pretty girl. Now, what have I said to make you snort?’
‘I do not snort. And if you find any female dressed as I am pretty, my lord, there is something wrong with you.’
‘I have exceptionally good eyesight.’
‘And a vivid imagination,’ she muttered. He probably was a rake, and flirting with anything female under the age of ninety was doubtless a prerequisite.
Max smiled, but all he said was, ‘We shall see.’
By the time they reached the last toll gate before Newbury Bree thought she had never been so stiff, nor so exhilarated, in her life. She seemed to have passed through some barrier of exhaustion and now, at almost four in the morning, she felt wide awake.
Probably because my bottom-bones are bruised black and blue, she concluded ruefully. The old coachman’s trick of making a cushion with her coat tails was not as effective as she had been led to believe, or perhaps she simply had less natural padding than they did.
It was time to sound the horn again. They had the rhythm of it now. Bree felt the warmth of Max’s large hand slide over hers, then she had the reins and he was blowing for the gate. But when they were through and he reached for her in his turn he did not slip his fingers across her palm; instead, he closed his hand around hers and held it lightly.
‘We’ll drive the last bit together,’ he said simply, and she wondered at the warm rush of pleasure the words and the action brought her.
I’m getting light-headed, Bree thought, flexing her fingers within Max’s grip and fighting the urge to lean into his body. It was deliciously like being drunk.
The sensation lasted as long as it took William Huggins, otherwise known as Bonebreaker Bill, to come striding out into the yard of the Plume of Feathers and see who was driving his coach through the arch.
‘Miss Bree! What do you think you are doing?’ He glowered up at the box of the coach, meaty fists on his bulky hips, booted feet apart.
‘We didn’t have a driver to send out, Bill,’ she said placatingly. Bill had known her since she was six and had proved a far stricter guardian than either of her parents ever had.
‘Who’s this flash cove, then?’ he demanded, swivelling his bloodshot eyes to Max. ‘Some break-o’day boy who’s cozened you into letting him take the ribbons for a thrill?’
‘This is Lord Penrith, Bill. My lord, allow me to introduce William Huggins, the finest coachman on this, or any other, road.’
Bill brushed aside the compliment, taking it as his due, but his eyes narrowed. ‘Penrith? From the Nonesuch Whips?’
‘For my sins.’ Sensibly, Max was staying on the box where he had the advantage of height. But the coachman had lost all his hostility.
‘Well, I’ll be damned! If half they say about you is true, my lord, then it’s a privilege to have you drive my coach, that it is! Why, you can take it all the way to Bath if you be so wishful.’
‘Thank you, but no, Mr Huggins.’ Max began to climb down. ‘This was a long enough stage for me—I had no idea those box seats were so hard.’
‘Hah! You should fold your coat tails under you, my lord. That’s the way to save your bum bones.’
‘It doesn’t work, Bill,’ Bree said, causing him to go scarlet. ‘I tried. Now, come and lift me down, please. I’m as stiff as a board.’
The ostlers, spurred on by the presence of their severest critic, completed the change in under two minutes and Bill took the coach out on to the highway with a roar of farewell and a flourish of his hat. Poor Jem, expected like all guards to work the whole distance, was back up on the box beside him.
‘There you are,’ Max said, fishing his pocket watch out. ‘Dead on time. The Challenge Coach Company never compromises with the clock,’ he added with satisfaction. ‘You may have it engraved on your stationery with my compliments.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Bree turned to him, tipping her head back to smile up into his face. It was one part of him, she realised, that she hadn’t been able to study during the last four hours. She knew the feel of his hands on hers, the range of his voice, and the height and breadth of his body had bulwarked hers like a rock all night.
It was difficult to make out colours in the lamplight, but his eyes were dark under dark brows, his cheekbones pronounced, his chin rather too decided for her taste, and his mouth—which was within a fraction of a smile as he watched her—was generous. It was a good face, she decided. A tough face, but in a good way. He made her feel safe.
‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘Goodbye, my lord.’
‘And just where do you think you are going now, Miss Mallory?’
‘To bespeak a room, of course.’
‘With no maid, no luggage and at four in the morning?’
‘They will know who I am when I introduce myself.’
‘It is not the inn staff I am concerned about. Really, Miss Mallory, you cannot stay here—goodness knows who you might encounter. Think of your reputation.’
‘I do not have one!’ Really, he was as bad as James. ‘Not that sort of reputation. I am not in society, I am not in the marriage mart. I am in trade, my lord. Besides, what alternative do I have, other than to wait for the next stage back and be jolted for another five sleepless hours? I have, I regret to say, no convenient maiden aunt in Newbury.’
His mouth twitched. She could not tell, in this light, whether he was annoyed that she was arguing with him, or amused by the maiden aunt. ‘I was going to take a private parlour for you to rest in for a while and I will hire a chaise to take us back to London.’
‘A chaise? A closed carriage? For the two of us? All the way back to London? And just what will that do for my reputation, pray?’
‘Ruin it, I imagine,’ Max said amiably.
Chapter Three
Max watched the expressions chase across what little he could see of Bree’s face. Oh, to get that damned hat off her head. ‘At least, it would ruin you if you were the young society lady you speak of, with vouchers for Almack’s and a position in the marriage mart to defend. Then, if it should be known that you had spent five hours in a closed carriage with a man, it would be a disaster.
‘But you aren’t, are you? You are much safer being whisked home in comfort by me than you are sitting in a public house where you will be recognised by anyone who does business with your company, and at the mercy of any passing rakes and bucks who chose to prey on unprotected women.’
‘And you aren’t, I suppose? A rake, I mean.’ That lush mouth looked gorgeous even when it was thinned to a suspicious line.
‘No, I am not, if by that you imagine I will take the opportunity to ravish you. But I cannot prove it—you will have to make your own judgment on my character.’ He studied Bree’s face, expecting anything from anger to the vapours, and was taken aback when she laughed.
‘My lord, if you feel moved to ravish any woman looking as I do now, and after driving through the night, then I both pity your need and admire your stamina. I would appreciate the comfort of a chaise very much. Thank you.’
Enchanting. Oh, enchanting, he thought, returning the smile. ‘Let us find you a room for half an hour, for I am sure you would want to wash your hands, have a cup of tea and have your wrist better dressed. I will hire a chaise. Even stopping for breakfast along the way, we will be home for luncheon.’
When he tapped on her door she emerged promptly, discreetly wearing the voluminous greatcoat and with the low-crowned beaver down over her eyebrows. But as soon as the chaise turned out on to the highway she tossed the hat into the corner and shrugged off the weighty coat with a sigh of relief.
‘Max? What are you staring at?’ she asked, watching him with narrowed eyes in the light of the two spermaceti oil lamps that lit the interior.
‘I…I…your hair. I was not expecting it to be so long.’ God, I’m babbling like some green boy. Even Nevill would be showing more address.
Bree flipped the thick braid back over her shoulder. ‘I should have it cut, but it is easier to manage plaited.’
‘Don’t cut it,’ he said abruptly. It was a lovely, unusual, wheaten gold without any hint of red in it. Not brassy or silvery or any of the usual shades of blonde. Where it escaped from the severity of the braid tiny wisps curled at her temples and across her forehead, which was smooth and touched with just a hint of the sun. So unfashionable to have blonde hair. So unladylike to allow oneself to be caught by the sun. His gaze wandered down to arched brows, three shades darker than her hair, to deep blue eyes watching him back somewhat warily from the shelter of long lashes.
‘Do I have a smudge on my nose?’ Bree enquired, seemingly ignoring his comment about her hair.
‘No. I am just getting used to you without that hat.’ And without that greatcoat, and in breeches and boots, Heaven help me! Her legs were long and shapely, her figure, flattened by a waistcoat and shrouded by her coat, was more difficult to judge, but even the best efforts of men’s tailoring could not completely submerge womanly curves that had Max’s heart beating hard.
He wanted her, but not because she was beautiful, because she wasn’t exactly that, and he should know, he had kept some diamonds of the first water in his time. What is it about her? He struggled with it, trying to identify the elusive something that had shot an arrow straight under his skin in that first fleeting exchange of glances.
