It Begins with a Kiss (3 page)

“There will be no more caning,” Alex promised, not able to face her. “I’m sorry, Pip. I should have come down. When we get back to the school, I will personally take care of it. For now, pay attention to the road. We can’t afford to miss your friend.” He cast Pip another quick glance. “And put on your glasses. You can’t see a thing without them.”

Pip pulled her spectacles from her pocket. “Thank you, Alex,” she said, fitting them to her ears. “I knew you’d help.” Looking like a little owlet, she shot him a blinding smile. “Well, once I actually got your attention, anyway.”

Sparing her a reluctant smile, Alex surveyed the road that swept across gently undulating farmland. The Kennet River paralleled them to the left, and Reading had been left behind some ten minutes earlier, which meant they had only about four miles to run Miss Ferguson to the ground before she disappeared in Newbury.

There were a few farm carts on the road, and a towheaded boy riding a plowhorse. No post chaise, though. Alex eased out the reins. Delighted at being given license, his matched Welsh grays lengthened their necks, laid their ears back, and ran.

“I was kind of hoping Beau would come along with you!” Pip called above the noise of the curricle, her focus on the road ahead. “You’re still friends, aren’t you?”

Alex knew exactly where this train of thought was going. Pip had been pestering poor Beau Drummond since she’d been in leading strings. “He has better things to do than chase after recalcitrant schoolgirls.”

“Fee is not recalcitrant,” Pip snapped, her humor gone. “She’s desperate. Have you ever met her sister, Mairead?”

“Of course not.”

“Once you do, I dare you to come back and tell me that this trip was unnecessary.”

Alex felt the crises pile up in his chest. “Beau is in London,” he said, instead of answering. “Helping kit out Henry.”

His distraction was successful. Pip’s head whipped around. “Henry got his colors?”

Alex nodded. “Hussars. He ships out for Portugal in a sennight.”

She looked back to the road and gave a little huff. “Well, he has wanted to wear that flashy blue uniform since he was six. Although I can’t believe Beau finally gave in and let him go.”

“Believe me. Beau can’t either.”

Alex spared her a glance. She and Henry had been inseparable as children. He had no idea how she would react to the news that Henry was finally going to war.

She sighed. “I wish I could go with him.”

Alex smothered a grin. Of course she did. Pip should have been a boy. As it was, she was forbidden the grand adventures and quests she’d sought ever since their mother had first read them the story of King Arthur.

Alex wished he didn’t have his hands full of reins. He wanted to ruff up her hair and give her a kiss.

“There!” Pip cried suddenly, releasing her bonnet long enough to point down the road.

He saw it now, an undistinguished black post chaise trundling along the empty road with two men up on the driver’s box. Good, he thought, urging his grays on. This won’t take as long as I feared. He paid no attention to his sister, who whooped with glee at the speed.

The coachman ahead of him kept to the center of the road, seemingly unaware of the approaching curricle. Alex could just see that a red band circled his odd top hat. Even better. That band was a very specific identifying mark, which told Alex that the men escorting Miss Tregallan home had been sent by Alex’s superior.

He yelled to get the man’s attention. When repeated efforts yielded no response, he collected the reins in one hand and grabbed a pistol from under the seat with the other.

Pip’s eyes went round. “What are you
doing
?”

Alex let off a shot in the air. “Getting their attention.”

His thinking had obviously been faulty. The coachman never even turned his head. He just flipped the reins hard and shouted. The horses bolted into action. The man next to him took too quick a peek to enable Alex to identify himself, and then bent down. Alex sincerely hoped that wasn’t a gun he was retrieving.

“Yes, I’d say you definitely got his attention,” Pip said with a grin. “He thinks you’re a bridle-cull.”

Alex cursed. “Slang is unbecoming in a young lady.”

Her laughter peeled out merrily. They were coming to a wide spot in the road. The coachman, evidently expecting an attack, maintained the center. His companion did have a gun. Alex could see him turn to rest his arm against the top of the carriage, obviously to get a better sight. Worse, he wore no identifying red band around his hat. Suddenly Alex wasn’t convinced he was in control of the situation. He wasn’t even sure the coachie was who he thought he was.

He could hear the man yelling something. The coach rocked precariously. Bloody hell, Alex thought. This is going to end in disaster.

He passed Pip the pistol. “Load this.”

She stared at him. “You only have one gun?”

He answered by pulling out the second of the pair and setting it on the seat between them. Then he set his horses at a gallop. It said a lot for Pip that she was able to retrieve powder and shot and successfully load the gun as the curricle careened down the road. But then, Alex had taught her himself in the days they’d played highwayman with Beau and Henry.

There was a sharp turn coming up. Alex gauged how much room he had to draw alongside the other coach before being forced off the road. It would be damned tight.

Passing the reins again into his left hand, he raised his right high over his head. Bending his wrist until his hand was at right angles to his wrist, he made a fist and then spread his fingers twice. Paused. Did it again.

There was no change up ahead. Then again, there were no shots fired.

“What are you doing?” Pip asked.

“Sending a signal that I hope the coachie recognizes.”

“Are you sure you gave the right signal?” Pip retorted, never looking up from her task. “We need the one that means, ‘Please don’t shoot us.’”

Alex couldn’t help a quick grin. “That’s the one I’m sending, brat.”

He didn’t have much more time. Either he was going to be run off the road or end up with a bullet lodged between his eyes. “Turn around, you ass,” he muttered.

He’d neared to within a couple of coach lengths when a young woman leaned her head out the window. He got only a quick impression, but that was of strong features and dark red hair. Ian’s sister, he thought.

Her eyes widening at the sight of the approaching curricle, she turned and called up to the driver. Finally the man looked back. Alex huffed in relief. Once again he raised his right hand high over his head and gave the signal. This time the coach in front of them slowed.

Alex followed suit, easing his way up alongside the coach. The girls inside were waving to Pip, who was waving back.

“Theale coming up!” he called to the driver, who looked completely frazzled. “Pull into the Old Lamb!”

The coachman nodded and turned back to his horses, and Alex slipped in behind him, content to follow. Finally, he thought, progress.

And damn if Pip didn’t set him back by his heels. “Is he a spy, too?” she asked suddenly.

Alex almost ran the coach off the road. “Is he
what
?”

Pip pointed toward Alex’s hand. “You gave the coachman a signal. It wasn’t a coaching signal. There are no coaching signals. So to understand the signal, I assume he must work with you. Is he a spy, too? And why would he be driving Sarah’s coach?
She’s
not a spy. Is she?”

Alex couldn’t think of a thing to say. His brain was stuck on the sight of his sister, a pistol in her lap, a hand to her bonnet, head cocked and eyes devilishly bright.

“Well, why do you think I contacted you?” she demanded, finally looking a bit piqued. “I knew that if anyone had the resources to help Fiona track down her sister, it was you… well, you and Beau.”

He knew it was futile to try to challenge her, but he tried. “What makes you think we’re spies, for Christ’s sake?”

She grinned, and he felt his stomach sink to his boots. “I accidentally overheard the two of you once… well, several times, actually. It certainly sounded like spy talk to me.”

Alex cursed beneath his breath. “I sincerely hope you haven’t shared this fantasy with your friends,” he said, striving to sound bored.

She shot him a glare. “Don’t be silly.
I
would assume that if you were a spy, you wouldn’t want people to know.”

He sighed. “I am not a spy.”

“Agent, then. Investigator, intelligencer—”

He tried glaring at her. “Stop. I’m not sure what you heard, but I am not any of those things. I’m merely helping your friend, just as you asked. Can we please leave it at that?”

“If you’d like.” She flashed him a grin. “Better watch where you’re going.”

He whipped around to see that they were perilously close to the ditch. Rethreading the reins, he edged the coach over a bit. What else could he do, after all? Dust was threatening to choke him, he was still trying to shake off the epic bender he’d been on before this little adventure, and he’d abandoned his primary responsibilities in order to drag a rebellious girl back to school. And his sister had just announced that he was a spy. How much better could this day get?

Alex considered the glimpse he’d had of the redhead in the coach he followed. No question about it. If hair color and bone structure were any indication, the girl by the window was Ian Ferguson’s sister. He hoped to hell the girl wasn’t as stubborn as her brother, or he’d never be done with this day.

“You have no right to stop me,” she said the minute the door to the Old Lamb’s private parlor closed behind them.

The decor inside was basic but clean; whitewashed, half-timbered walls and wood floor with a worn hook rug, a fire laid, and a bottle of wilted flowers on a table by the window. There was barely enough room for him, the three girls, and Bart, his tiger, who guarded the door. The other driver had been left to see the horses changed.

Hands clenched around an abused reticule, dusty bonnet already in hand, Miss Ferguson faced Alex like a warrior bent on taking his head. She was almost as tall as a man, with statuesque proportions and an obstinate jaw that only accentuated the glory of the thick auburn hair that seemed incapable of containment. The bun she’d achieved was sagging, and several small locks had worked free to frame those determined blue eyes that looked so like her brother’s. The only thing that betrayed her youth was her ineffectual attempts to shove them back in place. Her hands shook.

Magnificent, he couldn’t help but think. And she didn’t even know it yet. One day she would have men dropping at her feet like stunned deer. Even now, her beauty still nascent, he could feel the definite thrum of attraction. How sad, he thought, that he wouldn’t be around to flirt with her when she discovered her power.

Behind Miss Ferguson, Pip and their other friend stood at attention like guardians. Those two hadn’t even bothered to remove their bonnets, assuming, he imagined, that they wouldn’t be here long enough for pleasantries.

“Oh, but I do have the right to stop you, Miss Ferguson,” he said, crossing his arms. “You
are
Miss Ferguson?”

Her nod was jerky. “I am. And you?”

Mimicking Alex’s pose, Pip crossed her own arms. “Fiona, may I introduce my stuffy, overbearing, humorless brother, the Honorable Alexander Knight. Alex, this is my friend Fiona, of whom you’ve heard so much.”

Miss Ferguson glared at him as if she would prefer to see him in irons.

Pip nodded to the third girl. “And my friend Sarah Tregallan.”

Courtesies were exchanged as if they stood in Almack’s instead of the parlor of a coaching inn.

“How old are you, Miss Ferguson?” Alex asked.

“Sixteen. What does it matter to you?”

He sighed. “It matters to me because I recently received a communication from your brother asking me to keep watch over you. He is… out of touch.”

Fiona Ferguson shared that same expression all younger siblings have for elder siblings. “Ian has been out of touch for three years now. Why would he suddenly choose to involve you?”

“Because I’m his friend. I am happy to share the responsibility.”

“You’re not that much older than I, surely.”

He wanted to smile at her bravado. “I am all of five and twenty, child, and already responsible for your friend Pip and our two siblings. One more won’t matter.”

“Thank you,” Miss Ferguson said, pulling herself to her full height, which put her damn near at eye level with him. “But I have no desire to be someone’s chore.”

Alex had met imperious women in his time. Miss Fiona Ferguson could match any of them, with her gimlet green eyes and iron-straight posture. She even spoke with the same perfect upper-class accent her brother used, her brogue peeking through only when she got agitated.

She would have made a hell of a Scottish queen, Alex thought. Better than the ones they’d had, certainly. In a few years, she would be formidable.

“You have no choice,” he said. “I’ve already been to the school. They’ve been informed that I am, if you will,
in loco parentis
.”

She didn’t so much as flinch. “Which will be pointless unless it is your decision to take me to Edinburgh to search for my sister, Mairead. I don’t suppose she’s on your plate, too.”