Her Secret Fantasy (19 page)

“She’s certainly welcome to try,” he drawled, sliding Lily a grin.

“Derek!” his sister exclaimed, covering Matthew’s ears with her hands. “Not in front of the boy, with your roguery! For shame, I apologize for my brother, Miss Balfour. He has always fancied himself the jester of the family. Maybe the Court of St. James could use a new fool, hm?”

“I beg your pardon,” he protested, scowling, but Lily smiled sweetly, not about to be embarrassed by the rogue in front of his kin.

“Actually, my lady, I think you’re onto something. He would look perfect in a harlequin cap.” She sent a pointed smile in his direction, while his father and sister laughed heartily.

“You see what I have to put up with?” he exclaimed, feigning outrage. “And they wonder why I’m going back to India.”

Lily chuckled, shaking her head at him.

“Well,” Mrs. Clearwell concluded at length, “we really should be going.”

Lily nodded, for they did not wish to tire out their hostess.

“I’m leaving, too,” Derek announced. “I’ll walk down with you, ladies.” He bent and kissed his sister on the cheek, rumpled his nephew’s hair, took leave of his father and brother-in-law, then escorted Lily and her chaperone back downstairs. Once more passing through the vast, columned hall, they were soon back outside, where he went toward the street to hail a hackney.

When they asked why, he explained that he had come on foot, but Mrs. Clearwell insisted on giving him a lift.

“Where are you headed, Major?”

“Home. I live at the Althorpe.”

“Then you must let us drop you there.”

“I don’t wish to impose—”

“Not at all—Piccadilly, isn’t it? Just as I thought. It’s right on our way.”

“Oh! Well, then.” He agreed to the offer with cheerful thanks, and soon the barouche was under way again.

He pointed out Knight House on the far end of Green Park, a magnificent Town palace that nearly dwarfed Lord Griffith’s elegant home.

That, Derek said, was the official Knight family headquarters, where his cousin, the head of their clan, Robert Knight, the Duke of Hawkscliffe, resided, as had his father before him, and his father’s father, and so on for several generations.

Listening to his amiable discourse, Lily reflected on all the fun they’d had today and wondered when she might get to spend time with him again. For that matter, she wondered what she would tell Edward if word traveled back to him about her being seen around London today with his handsome new friend.

Nothing even close to improper had happened, but still, she didn’t think Edward would like it. Strangely, however, she felt not the slightest bit guilty.

Noticing that the barouche had begun to slow, Lily glanced down the road and saw that the intersection some fifty yards ahead was jammed with a row of carriages that had been forced to a halt.

The flow of traffic had come to a standstill. They tried to see what was happening.

“Someone’s carriage has probably broken down,” Derek murmured.

Lily shook her head in worry. “I hope there has not been an accident.”

“Well, it would be no surprise, the way some of these young rakehells drive their high-flyers through the streets,” Mrs. Clearwell said in disapproval. “Galloping around like madmen. One of them probably ran someone over, poor soul.”

Derek noted her words with a dark glance in her direction. His face hardened.

He stood up all of a sudden. “I’ll go and see if anyone’s been hurt. They may need help.”

“Help?” Lily echoed, startled.

“My dear ladies, if you knew how many hasty battlefield surgeries I’ve performed,” he muttered, but his words trailed off as he vaulted over the side of the barouche.

Striding swiftly toward the intersection, he disappeared into the crowd.

Lily turned to Mrs. Clearwell in astonishment.
“Surgeries?”

Her chaperone shrugged, looking equally amazed at the major’s hidden talents.

Of course, in hindsight, it made sense that he would have a certain amount of doctoring skills. No doubt there were more wounded men than army doctors after a battle.

This man has saved people’s lives,
she thought in dawning awe. Until now, she had only thought of him as taking them in his warrior role.

Her heart beat faster as the barouche began to move again in the next moment, for busy Londoners were not about to be detained by a traffic mishap.

If someone had been run over by a carriage, Lily was not sure she wanted to see it. The sight of blood usually made her queasy. On the other hand, she couldn’t wait to see Derek in action.

Making progress again, though at a snail’s pace, the carriages ahead of theirs were simply snaking around the stopped vehicle. The cause of the commotion now became apparent: an overloaded stagecoach with red wheels on bottom and a mountain of luggage and yelling passengers on top. Angry heads craned out of the stage windows as impatient passengers complained to the driver.

“Come on! Let’s go!”

“Get your nag to move!”

Lily’s eyes widened as she spotted Derek standing next to one of the stagecoach horses. The thin, broken-down sorrel was in a pitiful state; either hurt or sick, it was in no condition for its normal duties. Trapped helplessly in the harness, the horse was trembling and wild-eyed with fear, cowering next to Derek as though it could sense that, at last, one kind soul had finally come to its rescue.

The horse’s red coat was darkened with sweat, and its back was bleeding from the brutal lashes it had taken from the coachman’s whip.

“Get out of the way!” the burly driver was shouting at Derek from up on his box.

Something about the thick-featured bruiser reminded Lily instantly of Edward, but the man obviously had no idea whom he was dealing with. When Derek looked over, his face was livid.

He pinned the man in a menacing stare and pointed at him. “So help me, if you strike this animal one more time, I’m going to show you what it’s like to take a beating.”

“Don’t you threaten me! Get away from my horse!”

“I’m taking her out of the harness. This horse can’t pull today.”

“The hell you are! You think you’re going to steal my property? I’ll see you hanged for a horse thief!”

Traffic slowed once more as onlookers took interest in the altercation brewing. Pedestrians had wandered into the intersection to gawk at the goings-on. Mrs. Clearwell’s driver, Gerald, pulled the barouche over to the opposite side of the street to let the few carriages behind them squeeze past.

“I’ll buy her from you, then,” Derek told the coachman.

His voice had taken on an ominous tone that Lily had never before heard him use.

“She ain’t for sale! I’m warning you, mister, get the hell out of my way!” The driver hooked an angry thumb over his shoulder at his clamoring passengers. “I’ve got a schedule to keep!”

“Well, you’re going to be late,” Derek bit back, calmly reaching for the buckles on the leather traces in order to free the animal.

“Damn you!” the coachman bellowed.

Lily gasped as he brought up his whip to strike again, but Derek reached up one leather-gauntleted hand and grabbed the whip out of the air. Yanking it with a mighty heave, he brought the coachman tumbling out of the driver’s box.

He marched toward him as the man fell in a heap beside the stationary front wheel.

At once, the stage’s groom and mail-guard both jumped down from their seats atop the vehicle and ran toward Derek, cursing.

The whole intersection broke out in chaos like a crowd at a prizefight, watching as the major looked at them with an air of cool unconcern.

Armed guards were assigned to protect the mails aboard each stagecoach, but this one, thank God, had the sense not to fire his musket into a crowded street. Instead, he used his gun as a club and swung it at Derek’s head.

Derek blocked the blow with his left arm, flattened the hefty guard with one explosive punch from his right, and moved on to the groom. Backing away slowly, but seemingly loath to run like a coward in front of such a large audience, the wiry young man tried to kick out Derek’s knee.

Derek scoffed, grabbed the man’s heel, and yanked him off his feet.

The groom yelped as he fell flat on his back on the cobblestones, much to the crowd’s hilarity; he opted not to get up, even if he could.

Lily didn’t blame him. If this were a real battle, that clever trick would probably have been followed by impalement on Derek’s sword, she thought worriedly, but the major’s manner was so relaxed against these foes that he reminded her of a cat that toyed with its captive mouse before casually biting its head off.

The crowd was enjoying the spectacle lustily, cheering Derek on, but he spared his second victim further punishment and turned his attention back to the coachman, who had recovered from his spill.

He’s really going to do it,
Lily thought, furrowing her brow, her pulse pounding.
He’s going to thrash him.

The cruel driver was slowly climbing to his feet with the look of a wrathful bull.

“Go on, get up!” Derek taunted as he sauntered toward the man. “On your feet! Faster!”

Her eyes widened as he pulled back his wrist and struck the burly coachman with his own whip.

The man bellowed at the sting, dropping back against the wheel again, though Derek had not hit the ogre hard enough to tear his clothes.

“What, you don’t like that?” he mocked him with increasing savagery. “Maybe I didn’t do it properly!” He struck him again, harder. “Get up, puff-guts! Let’s see how you fare against somebody who can fight back!”

“Derek!” Lily cried.

Her shocked call seemed to draw him back from a dark place within where he was all too much at home. When he glanced over at her, his face was flush with violence, and his pale, wolflike eyes flickered with cold rage.

They were the eyes of a stranger.

The look on his face reminded her of that hard, bleak darkness she had glimpsed in him last night when they had stood beside the river.

It had unsettled her then; it bewildered her now.

Perhaps he saw his own savagery reflected in her appalled stare, for he seemed to regain control of his fury in the next heartbeat. Veiling his gaze to mask his true feelings, he passed a contemptuous look over the driver. “He deserves it.”

He left off terrifying the coachman then, but he coiled up the horsewhip, stepped back, and threw it skyward, hard. It unfurled like a snake in midair as it flew upward, high over the row of buildings, and landed on one of the roofs.

Derek dusted off his hands, gave the driver another scornful glance, and then calmly returned to his task of freeing the sorrel mare.

This was quickly accomplished. Leaving her place in the harness empty, he laid a gentle hand on the mare’s neck, talking softly to her. Taking hold of her grubby leather bridle, he began to lead the limping animal away.

The crowd’s mood had turned strangely somber now that their attention was drawn back to the horse’s suffering.

Quietly, they parted to let the pair pass.

But before Derek left the scene, he faltered almost imperceptibly. He paused just long enough to send Lily a look of apology over his shoulder.

She shook her head at him tenderly.

He lowered his chin and then walked on.

Within moments, the sea of people had closed up behind him once more; the cavalry hero and his equine damsel in distress disappeared into the crowd.

It was only then that three constables came charging somewhat belatedly into the crowd, but the coachman wasted no time in setting them after Derek.

“Stop, thief! Stop him! Murderer!” Scrambling to his feet from where Derek had left him cowering beside the wagon wheel, the driver began hollering for all he was worth, pointing eagerly in the direction that Derek had gone. “Officers, he went that way! Some maniac just attacked us and walked off with one of my horses! Big fellow, long black hair. What are you waiting for? He’s getting away—and he’s taken my horse with him! See?” He held up the empty leather straps where the mare had been.

“Is this true?” the first constable demanded, glancing around at the scene of the fray.

“Yes, sir!” the groom seconded his master. The wiry lad was still on the ground. He lay on his side, gingerly rubbing his rear end. “He threw me down and now I’ve broke me bum!”

A few feet away from him, the mail-guard was not in much better shape, shaking his head dazedly as he struggled back to full consciousness. He wiped off a trickle of blood from one of his nostrils.

The policeman’s face hardened. “Right.” He looked at his men. “Boys, you know what to do. After him!”

Lily’s eyes widened as they dashed off to arrest Derek, gripping their nightsticks.

She and Mrs. Clearwell exchanged a fearful look, knowing that he and his “stolen” horse could not have gotten far, given the animal’s limping gait. She could only pray that Derek’s basic respect for authority would hold him back from giving the constables the kind of beating he’d have liked to have given the coachman.

Perhaps with his charm, he could talk his way out of it—but her hopes were dashed in the next moment when someone in the crowd hollered, “They’re putting him under arrest!”

That does it.

Unable to contain herself, Lily jumped out of the barouche, lifted the hem of her skirts in both hands to avoid tripping on them, and ran toward the constable.

“Officer, wait!”

The policeman turned to her. “Miss? What is the matter?”

“This man’s claims are rubbish!”

“Oh? It would appear that
someone
assaulted these men.”

“I assure you, they deserved it—especially him!” she flung out, pointing at the coachman.

The crowd seconded her defense with numerous “ayes” and “hear, hears.”

“The man they accuse is a noted cavalry officer. He wasn’t trying to steal this fool’s horse—that’s a ridiculous charge, and he knows it! Why would anyone want to steal that poor, pathetic bag of bones? The major only did it to
save
the animal from this man’s cruelty.”

“
My
cruelty?” the coachman barked. “He’s the one who tried to kill us all! That man’s dangerous! He ought to be locked up!”