How to Romance a Rake (20 page)

Just in case it was not a dream, she decided to reply, but found that her voice had left her. So, she simply nodded, and the very next minute found herself being thoroughly kissed.

“Excellent,” he said, drawing back from her. Was it her imagination or was he not a little bit breathless? Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who would benefit from a match between them.

At least that is what she promised herself as she watched him stand, then go to the door to call for Winterson and Cecily.

He needn’t have bothered. They were standing just outside the door.

Cecily rushed forward and gave Juliet a fierce hug.

“Darling, I am so pleased for you!” she said, pulling back to gaze into her eyes. Whatever she saw there must have reassured her for she nodded in approval, then tugged Juliet to her feet and gestured for her to follow.

“We will go raid my closet so that you will have gowns enough for the trip.”

“What trip?” Juliet asked, balking. Alec had said nothing about a trip.

“You’ll have to go to Gretna, of course,” Cecily told her as if it were a mere detail. “You are not yet of age and there is no way your parents will consent for you to marry Lord Deveril now. Especially given tonight’s little episode.”

“It will be all right,” Alec told her, reaching out to squeeze her hand reassuringly. “And on the way back I think we can make a stop at the Mounthaven estate to speak with Mr. MacEwan about your Mrs. Turner.”

At the mention of her missing friend, Juliet felt a stab of guilt. Here she’d spent the entire evening worrying about her own troubles and she had not given any thought to Anna’s disappearance.

“But what about my things?” Juliet asked, thinking not only of her clothes, but also of all those things she would need to take care of her injured leg, like binding cloth and the special salve she used to reduce the worst of the chafing. And for that matter, how would she manage to keep the extent of her injuries hidden from Alec? “And my maid? I cannot travel without her.”

“There’s no time,” Alec said, though he seemed apologetic about it. “And we dare not return to your parents’ house to retrieve your things anyway. Perhaps Cecily can lend you some things to take with you. And I’m sure we can ask one of the maids where we stop for the night to serve you for a night or two.”

Suddenly it all felt incredibly complicated, and Juliet was swept with a sense of just how much this journey she was about to undertake would change the course of her life. She would leave London Miss Shelby and return the Viscountess Deveril. And in the meantime she would somehow have to tell Alec the truth about what had happened to her in Vienna. Could she marry him without doing so? She supposed she could, but the idea of keeping such a secret from him was unimaginable.

And, even so, what choice did she have? If she remained in London one day longer she would find herself married to Turlington, with his overeager smiles, and the gaze that made her feel contaminated in some way.

No, she would go with Alec and marry him. Perhaps he would be angry at her failure to reveal her secret beforehand, but she would do whatever it took to ensure their life together was a comfortable one. She had already made excellent progress in becoming more outgoing in social situations, so she would be able to attend to her duties in her capacity as the viscountess. And as far as she knew her leg injury had no effect on her effort to conceive or bear children, and that was what a titled gentleman needed most from a wife.

Wasn’t it?

*   *   *

It was a little less than two hours later that Alec finally climbed into the carriage with Juliet and rapped on the ceiling to signal the coachman to depart.

Though he was sanguine with his decision to marry her, Alec found himself at a loss for words now that he and Juliet were alone together. He hoped it was not an ill portent for their married years to come.

There had been a moment back in Winterson’s drawing room, when he had wondered if Juliet might not change her mind about the whole affair and return to her parents’ house. It might have only been a case of nerves, or perhaps she had some special belongings she feared would be destroyed by her mother if she did not retrieve them now. Whatever the reason had been, she must have realized the danger lurking for her if she did not leave London with him tonight, for she had consented the next moment to go along with the scheme.

She looked now out the carriage window, watching the great houses of Mayfair pass by them as they slowly made their way through London for the journey north. Her finely wrought features were limned in moonlight, giving her face an ethereal quality that reminded him just how close she had once come to leaving this world altogether. For one fierce moment, he allowed himself to imagine how that might have changed his own world, and was suddenly grateful to the foreign physicians who had saved her.

“You should probably try to sleep while you can,” he told her, fighting the urge to invite her to pillow her head on his shoulder. He didn’t wish to rush his fences, after all. The journey was just starting.

“I will, thank you,” Juliet said, not turning from her position at the window. “Though I doubt I will be able to sleep. I am still too overset from the fracas with Mama and Lord Turlington, I think.”

He would not have thought so from her attitude at the time. Her calm had been one of the reasons he’d wondered whether or not she needed rescuing at all. He knew, of course, from their discussion the other evening that she had no wish to marry Turlington. And her mother could hardly be said to hold her daughter’s undying affection. Yet, tonight—or last night, he supposed—she had stood up for herself with a strength of mind he’d often wished to possess himself in his earlier interactions with his father.

There had been no tearful pleading, no histrionics, no dramatics. Those had come not from Juliet but from Lady Shelby herself. And all the while, Juliet had stated again and again that she would not do as her mother wished and consent to marry Turlington. He had been willing to let Juliet fight her own battle until Lady Shelby had crossed the line and threatened to give her daughter to Turlington without marriage. And then there had been the blow. That had been when he made his presence known and stepped in to offer her his support. Only then had Juliet seemed to break.

What sort of trauma must she have dealt with in her young life that it was an act of kindness that brought her to tears, rather than an act of aggression?

She gave a slight shudder as a gust of wind rattled the windows of the coach, and abandoning his earlier circumspection, he wordlessly transferred himself to sit beside her and gather her into the warmth of his greatcoat.

“Rest,” he told her, tucking her head into the crook of his neck.

At first she held herself away from him, only allowing her head and shoulders to touch him. But gradually she began to relax and before five minutes had passed she had let down her guard completely and drifted off to sleep.

Closing his own eyes, Alec tried not to consider just how right it felt to have her soft body pressed snugly against him. A more prudent man would have resisted the urge to offer her comfort, thus risking his own ability to remain emotionally untangled from her. But it was nearly three o’clock in the morning, it was cold, and he was damned if he’d make her sit alone, pillowing her head upon the carriage window, when he had a perfectly good shoulder to offer.

If he also reveled in the sweet, clean scent of rose water on her skin, and the way that her body seemed to fit perfectly against his? Well, he would set about making the terms of their relationship plain as soon as she was out of harm’s way. Until then, it would be best to ensure her comfort so that she did not risk going back to her mother and Turlington.

His head pressed against the soft silk of her hair, he slept.

*   *   *

They made the journey in six days’ time, stopping only to change horses and for meals. By the time they arrived in Longtown near the Scottish border, Juliet felt as if every bone in her body had been struck with a hammer. While the coach was fast and well sprung for its kind, it was still no substitute for the large, elegant traveling coaches she was accustomed to traveling in.

As the miles passed behind them, Juliet and Alec discussed any number of topics from music to literature (Juliet was a fan of poetry while Alec preferred histories). Their opinions upon the current political climate, and the state of the Continent now that Napoleon had been defeated, led to spirited arguments, and Juliet was pleased to note that he did not discount her opinions on such matters simply because she’d been born female.

What they did not talk about, however, was Alec’s childhood and Juliet’s life during and after her accident. Juliet told some amusing stories about her family’s travels abroad at her father’s various postings with the Foreign Office, but she was always careful not to brush upon that fateful day in Vienna that had changed her life forever. If Alec found her omission odd or particularly revealing, he didn’t say so. And as if by mutual consent, Juliet did not press him about what it had been like growing up as the only son of Devil Deveril.

She was relating the tale of the day she and her brother had smuggled a puppy into the nursery when the carriage came to an abrupt halt.

Frowning, Alec said, “You know where the pistol is. Take it out and wait for me to get back.”

Opening the carriage door, he jumped down and Juliet, her heart pounding, felt her heart rise in her throat. So far there had been no hint that her parents had discovered her destination, but she knew her mother would not like being thwarted. The thought of what she might do to retaliate for Juliet’s defection gave her a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

She and Alec had been careful to introduce themselves as Mr. Thomas Gidney, solicitor, and his sister, Miss Annabel Gidney, at each of the inns where they had stopped along the way. As such, they slept in separate chambers, much to Juliet’s relief.

There had been more than enough opportunities to reveal the true nature of her injury to him, but the more time passed the more difficult it became to broach the subject. Though she did not care to admit such a thing to herself, a small part of her greatly feared that should Alec learn that she was not only crippled, but maimed as well, he would find some way to escape marrying her. Nothing he had said or done up to this point had led her to believe that he would be so cruel, but knowing as she did that there were very few options for her now if she did not marry him, she kept silent. Careful not to reveal her leg to the maids who assisted her at the inns where they stopped for the night, she also refused for Alec to tuck hot bricks beneath her feet, even though the coach grew colder and colder as they moved farther north. Telling him that the heat pained her injured leg, she did warm her hands when she could, and managed to keep her secret.

After that first night, when she had fallen asleep on his shoulder, whenever he sensed that she was growing tired, Alec reached for her, and though she had never thought herself a particularly touch-friendly person, she found herself becoming more and more addicted to hearing his steady heartbeat beneath her ear while she slept. So much so that she had difficulty falling asleep once she was tucked into her solitary bed when they reached the inn.

Now, hoping that a slight mishap was what had caused the carriage to stop so abruptly, she listened carefully for sounds of shouting or any sort of fracas that might explain why it was taking Alec so long to return. All was quiet, however, and she was just about to retrieve the volume of Shelley’s poetry she’d been reading before the stop when the carriage door wrenched open and she was staring into Turlington’s watery blue eyes. She gave a little cry of dismay.

“Well, well, well,” he said, his gaze raking over her with a possessiveness that made her skin crawl. “If it isn’t the little bird who flew from the nest. Come, pet, it’s time to come home.”

Gone was the civilized veneer that marked Turlington as a leading member of the
ton.
His usual sangfroid had been replaced by the dirt and dishevelment of days filled with hard travel and too little sleep. And the intensity of his gaze frightened her.

Shrinking back against the squabs, Juliet fought to hide her fear, knowing instinctively that Turlington would enjoy it. “There is absolutely no inducement that will make me go with you willingly, my lord. If you want me, you’ll have to take me by force.”

She realized her mistake at once. A man like him would enjoy her protests. “I will,” Turlington said with a leer, “have no fear of that. But there is the matter of dispatching your young Galahad before we go. It was really quite convenient that we caught up to you so close to Gretna. We can be married this evening and enjoy our wedding night in one of the elegant little inns that populate the town. God knows there are enough of them.”

Thinking to lull him into a false sense of security, Juliet schooled her features to hide her disgust and real fear for Alec’s safety. “I knew you would find us,” she said, careful to sound defeated. “I should have known escape was too much to hope for.”

“Well, you were up against myself and your mama.” Turlington preened, patting her on the cheek. Juliet fought hard not to flinch.“Your young Deveril is hardly cunning enough to thwart us. The good news for you is that you need have no fear of bumping into him in town. Where we’re sending him he will be gone for a long, long time.”

Juliet blanched, trying to determine if Turlington was merely trying to frighten her, or if he told the truth. Ultimately, she decided, the man could not be trusted and she would not be at all surprised if he hid the truth about Alec’s whereabouts. So, biding her time, she made a great show of appearing to acquiesce and then secretly planned her escape.

Eleven

Alec knew something was not right as soon as he stepped out of the carriage. For one thing it was too quiet on the road and there was no sign of his coachman or outriders. For another, an unfamiliar coach was stopped in the middle of the thruway, blocking the road.