Stealing the Bride (15 page)

And when he stuck out his feet until they sat on the seat beside her, and closed his eyes, she knew he wasn’t in the mood to discuss the matter.

And so she let him brood in his dour silence, while she watched the countryside pass by.

There was more to this than Temple was letting on.

Could he be right that there were French agents chasing them?

She shook her head. It was utter nonsense. It had to be.

But then again…

“Ho there! I do say, ho there!”

The urgent cry brought Diana jolting awake.

Her hand lay on something firm and muscled, and she realized it was Temple’s thigh.

She’d been asleep on his lap, and he’d been holding her as she napped.

When she looked up at him, he looked like an alley cat cornered by a stray dog—all points and ready to fight to his last breath.

Some foppish Corinthian, indeed!

She scrambled out of his arms and into the seat opposite him. “Have we been discovered?”

Hoofbeats echoed in the road behind them. “I do say, Templeton, is that you? Hold up there.”

“Demmit,” Temple cursed.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Stewie.”

Diana cringed. Of all Temple’s London set, Lord Stewart Hodges, Stewie to his friends, was perhaps the most inquisitive and persistent of fellows. Confident that everyone found him fascinating, an unending source of gossip, he made his way through the
ton
, inviting himself everywhere and oblivious to the fact that everyone found his ingratiating attempts at charm and his overstated claims of personal glory utterly annoying.

Elton opened the trapdoor. “Do I stop, milord?”

“Aye, Elton, or else he’ll run that poor animal into the ground trying to catch us.”

Elton muttered something that Diana, despite her better manners, smiled at, and the carriage slowed to a stop.

“Can’t have Stewie seeing you,” Temple said, and he caught her by the arm and upended her onto the floor. Before she could protest, he tossed a blanket over her.

“Stay put and don’t breathe a word,” he warned. “If Stewie knows you are with me, mark my words, you’ll be Lady Nettlestone before nightfall.”

Diana bit back the protest rising in her throat. Temple certainly knew how to leave her mute as a fish.

Not to mention the fact that he was right. Stewie was more efficient in spreading gossip than the
Morning Post
.

Diana heard the door open and felt the carriage sway as Temple got down.

Though the idea of marrying Nettlestone was enough to keep her cowering beneath the blanket, she couldn’t resist taking a small peek.

“Stewie? Zounds, is that you?” Temple was saying, once again the London dandy. “Why, I’d all but given up seeing civilization today, and here you are to remind me that good taste is alive and well.”

Wherein most people when they went rusticating chose to wear their less than fashionable togs, Stewie eschewed such common sense. The gentleman wore a bright blue coat and an orange waistcoat, the color of which was so bright, Diana suspected it could be seen all the way in London on a dark night. Piled up around his neck was a cravat arranged in some extravagant display of silk and lace, while down below his boots glowed with a remarkable sheen. He might as well have been in Hyde Park making the afternoon rounds, rather than gallivanting about the countryside.

The foolish nit grinned at Temple, as if he’d just found some long-lost and well-to-do relative, jumping off his lathered horse, and greeting his friend with a great handshake, then a loud slap on the back.

The pair might have just bumped into each other at White’s instead of standing on a deserted country road.

“I thought that was your carriage going by, Temple,” Stewie said. “No one can drive like the devil is at his heels better than Elton.” He doffed his great hat in the man’s direction. “Ho there, Elton. Good to see you again.”

“And you, milord,” Elton said with a loud snort, then a spat of something.

Stewie leaned toward Temple. “You might consider getting a new driver, old man. I fear Elton isn’t only missing an eye, but his hearing is nigh gone. I was calling after you for the last mile and a half before he had the good sense to pull to a stop.”

Temple’s brow arched. “Shocking!”

“Yes, well, one can’t expect good manners from the lower classes. It ain’t in their breeding.”

Diana heard Elton muttering a rather descriptive oath about Stewie’s likely lineage.

Unaware of the way his forebears were being disparaged, the man continued on unabashedly. “So do tell, what are you doing out
here
?”

Diana closed her eyes. She could well imagine the choice tale Temple was about to spin.

“Lost, my good man,” he said. “Utterly and completely.”

Lost?
That was the best he could come up with? What kind of nobcock would believe that?

Then she remembered his audience.

Temple continued. “If you hadn’t happened upon us, I fear we would have been driving in circles all night.”

There was more grumbling from the driver’s seat.

“Been that way myself a time or two,” Stewie confided. “Damned poor roads up here. That, and this wretched horse can never tell what direction I’m going. As it is, I was headed back to town. Least I thought I was. Buxton, you know. Wife wanted to try the waters, compare them to Bath and all, so we’ve taken a house for the month.”

Stewie paused long enough to draw a breath and continued on, barely missing a beat. “Now what brings you up to these parts? House party? Shooting? Say, you aren’t here to take the waters as well? Getting on in the years, you know, Templeton. Quite restorative, them waters. At least the wife claims they are. Not that I need them.” He slapped his ample belly and let out a great wheezy breath. “Fit as I was the day I married her,” he chuckled, then nudged Temple. “And her five thousand a year.”

Diana grimaced and held her tongue.

That well could be her name and fortune being bandied about in such a mercantile manner.

And given Stewie’s penchant for gossip, it soon was.

“Now hold on, just a minute,” the man exclaimed. “I know what you are about. Why, you sly dog!”

“Never have been one to keep anything from you, Stewie,” Temple said in that droll, bored London manner that made Diana shudder. “You’ve always possessed a remarkable mind.”

Remarkable was a word for Stewie, all right, Diana thought.

“Oh, you are a rare one,” Temple’s friend exclaimed. “Pretending to be lost, when all the time you are capering about like all the rest of them!”

“The rest of who?” Temple asked. “Pray tell, what exactly is it that I am about?”

“Why, the bride! Lamden’s chit. The entire countryside is looking for her. Pins and Needles were through just yesterday rabid to find her. Her and her eight thousand.”

He chuckled anew, and Diana pulled the blanket more tightly over her head so she didn’t have to hear it.

“I fear you’re mistaken,” Temple was saying. “
I’m not looking to be leg-shackled
.”

Diana couldn’t help wondering if he was saying that with so much emphasis for Stewie’s benefit or for hers.

For once in his life, Stewie wasn’t so easily misled. “There now, you can be as coy as you want with the others, eh, Temple. This is your good friend here. The chit is worth a fortune. And until your grandfather sticks his spoon in the wall, that kind of blunt would come in rather handy for a man like yourself. Can’t go on dodging the tailor and your landlady forever, now can you?” He sighed and elbowed Temple again. “Take it from a dab hand at these matters, a well-dowered wife is the best kind. Why, if you were to find the bride and get her over the border first, think of it, we could come up here to Buxton every summer together, you and your wife, and me and my Alice. The ladies could take the waters together and whatever else it is that they do during the day, and we could take the town by storm. Bit of riding, bit of gambling, bit of sport, if you know what I mean.”

Diana couldn’t help but crack the blanket a bit and peer out, if only to catch a glimpse of Temple going green at the prospect of such a future.

To her delight, Temple looked positively ready to throw himself under the wheels. Then again, perhaps Stewie was doing more harm to her plans than she could hope to repair.

“Now never fear about Penham, he’s too young to worry about. Why, what is Lady Diana? Thirty-four? Thirty-five?”

Now it was Temple’s turn to smile. She saw him shoot a quick grin in her direction before he answered. “I believe the lady is just thirty.”

Thirty?
How dare he? He knew damned well she was nine-and-twenty. And barely that, if one were truly interested.

Thirty-five, indeed!

And to make matters worse, she heard Elton chortling away from his perch.

Oh, botheration! The devil take all three of them. She crossed her arms over her chest and brooded, while Stewie continued his outrageous conjectures.

“Nettlesome’s your real worry. He’s determined to have her.”

“Nettlestone,” Temple corrected.

“Right you are there. Annoying man, really. Can’t see how anyone can tolerate him. Not like us, eh, Temple? Men of the world. Men about town.”

“Right as always, Stewie,” Temple replied.

“Now we’re getting somewhere. If you’ve a mind to steal the bride for yourself, rest assured I’ll never tell a soul. Your secret is safe with me. You have my word on it as a man of honor.”

Diana snorted.

Temple coughed to cover the sound and shot a glare in her direction.

She smirked at him, then put the blanket back in place. The only reason Stewie would hold his tongue was that there was probably no one in Buxton who cared to listen to his prattle.

Yet she soon found she was going to have to change her opinion of the unswayable man. For now that he’d stumbled onto what he assumed were Temple’s plans, he would move heaven and earth to see his friend succeed, never mind if Temple wanted his help or not.

“I would invite you to come and stay the night with us, but the house we took is fair to bursting at the seams as it is. The girls are with us, and they brought friends along, so I wouldn’t ask you to set foot inside. A veritable female den, it is.” Stewie shuddered.

“It’s too kind of you to even consider such an offer, but I fear I must be pushing on,” Temple said.

“Bah! You’ll stay the night, I insist. I’ll show Elton the way into town and see you well settled at the hotel. Fine place it is. And then tonight you can join me at the Assembly Rooms. We’ll come up with a strategy to find your bride before those other chaps get their greedy hands on her fortune. Besides, tonight is a masked ball. I love a good masquerade, don’t you? Perhaps your bride will show her face.” He laughed at his own bad joke.

Diana noted Temple didn’t find it the least amusing.

She knew, as well as he did, that Stewie wasn’t going to be naysaid. Now that he had devised their agenda, he wouldn’t relent until Temple acquiesced.

“The horses could use the rest, milord,” Elton called down. “Wouldn’t hurt to consider the gentleman’s kind offer.”

Diana wanted to laugh. That was probably his driver’s way of repaying Temple for making them stop in the first place.

“I don’t know—” he began.

“It’s settled then,” Stewie said, slapping Temple on the back once more and bringing his protests to a sputtering halt. “We’re off to Buxton. Ah, it will be a memorable night.”

Diana hoped so.

“A
ccording to Mr. Billingsworth, the waters of Buxton have been providing restorative cures since the time of the Romans.” Diana glanced up from where she sat in the middle of the bed reading.

Temple tried not to groan. He didn’t know what was worse, having to listen to that wretched Theonius T. Billingsworth or being trapped by Stewie into spending the night in Buxton.

True to his word, the dogged man had escorted Temple to the town’s famous hotel, where he averred to all that the Marquis of Templeton must be afforded every luxury. By the time Stewie had bored the manager into a glassy-eyed stupor with an unending recitation of all Temple’s lofty connections and social superiority, every gaze in the lobby was fixed in their direction.

Temple had little doubt that by nightfall there wouldn’t be a man, woman, or child in the surrounding population who would not know of his arrival and that he was to be Stewie’s personal guest at the Assembly Rooms that evening.

Including the local magistrate.

It would be only a matter of time before the officials in Geddington and Nottingham realized they hadn’t fled south to London, but rather turned and headed north.

Also adding to his troubles was the room Stewie insisted he be given. Not just any room, but an elegant suite placed at his disposal.

One he could ill-afford.

Diana, on the other hand, had taken their good fortune to heart. Elton had smuggled her in through the servants’ entrance and she was happily ensconced on his bed making the most of all the hotel had to offer, including a tray of fruit and cakes the manager had sent up.

“Perhaps,” Diana was saying, “you should consider taking the waters first thing in the morning. They may well rid you of whatever it is that is ailing you.” She studied the tray, then selected a plump strawberry, popping it into her mouth.

Temple glanced out from the dressing room, in which he was changing into his evening clothes. “Nothing is ailing me.”

Except being wanted for a murder I didn’t commit. And being chased by Boney’s top agent, who wants to kidnap an English spinster.

“I don’t know,” she said. “You look a bit choleric.”

Temple added one more item to his list: a spinster bent on bedeviling him into an early grave.

If he was choleric, she should look no further than the nearest mirror to see the source of his troubles.

Oh, why couldn’t Diana have possessed the good sense just to take the first man who offered for her and be happy for that small favor?

Because that man was you
.

He was still muttering under his breath when he glanced up and spied the skeptical arch of Diana’s fair brow. When he caught her staring at him, she went back to reading her travelogue…aloud.

“Oh, listen to this—”

“No!” he said, stumbling out of the dressing room. “No more from that wretched travelogue. It was probably written by some bluestocking who’s never left her lonely London attic.”

Diana sniffed, but thankfully closed the book and tossed it to one side.

Temple soon regretted having disparaged her reading material. At least it had kept her diverted from their previous discussion, the one to which Diana now returned.

“I don’t see why I can’t accompany you tonight.” She glanced at his state of undress and smiled. “You obviously need the help.”

He ducked back into the dressing room and yanked his breeches on. At least his shirttails were long enough to keep her from having something else upon which to express her opinion.

“Leaving me here alone is a bad idea,” she was saying. “I think you would be better off taking me with you so that you can be assured I’m in no danger from your nefarious French foes.” She chuckled, and he knew it was because she still regarded his tale of dangerous foreign adversaries as the worst sort of invention.

He stepped back into the main room, and she flashed a smile at him—one he knew was meant to charm and entice him.

She scooted across the bed until her legs swung over the edge. “Take me with you, Temple. I promise to be on my best behavior.” Having kicked off her shoes, she wiggled her toes enticingly inside a pair of pink silk stockings. The toes gave way to a narrow foot that led to a curved, delicate ankle, which led up to her…

Temple shook his head.

“How can you just say no?” she said, misunderstanding the direction of his thoughts. “’Tis a masked ball. You heard Stewie say everyone would be wearing a costume. No one would even know I was there.”

Yes, that is true
, he wanted to tell her.
No one but me
. And that was the problem. He’d spend the better half of the evening distracted with the knowledge that she was somewhere nearby and probably attracting trouble.

For a spinster who was considered by most as well past her last prayers, Diana was certainly determined to cut one final scandalous swath through Society.

But there was no way Temple was letting her out of this room.

For if the tale Stewie had regaled him with, and for the most part the man’s long-winded accounts were usually true, half the countryside was hunting for Diana. Word had spread that her father would find most any man other than Cordell acceptable as a son-in-law.

Such rumors had flushed out every fortune hunter and would-be bridegroom in the race to find and steal the bride.

While Temple’s common sense should be telling him to hand her, along with Pymm’s special license, over to the first taker and be done with the entire situation, he couldn’t do that. Despite it being the most sensible and expedient solution.

Not as long as Marden remained a part of the puzzle. And Pymm’s involvement as well. Pymm never did a favor for anyone unless it aided Britain’s interests.

So how could the fate of Lady Diana Fordham have any bearing on England? Or France, for that matter?

None of it made sense, and until it did, he’d keep Diana well concealed.

“Please, Temple,” she pleaded. “Let me go with you.”

This time he shook his head in earnest. “Impossible. No one knows you are with me and I want to keep it that way. Besides, if you need anything, Elton will be close at hand.” He went over to a chair where his efficient servant had left his pressed neck cloth.

“But what if something happens to you?” she said, rising up from the bed, her balled hands resting on her hips. “What if someone tries to arrest you again?”

“I hardly think you need any more charges of impeding justice.”

She tossed her head, as if such an inconsequential concern really could matter.

“Diana, I won’t have you in any further danger. Don’t you see the harm that may befall you if you insist on accompanying me? If I am caught, who will see you safely away?”

She glanced up. A flicker of interest blazed in her eyes.

You care
, it said.
You care about me
.

Demmit, this wasn’t at all what he needed. He didn’t care.
He didn’t.
She needed to understand that.

He measured the silk in his hands and then began the intricate job of tying it around his neck.

Come to think of it, it might be of more use tying up the minx just to ensure she didn’t try to follow him.

His fingers fumbled, and the intricate and perfect silk folds shot out in different directions.

Temple glanced down at the rumpled mess around his neck and cursed.

Reaching for the tray on the bed, Diana popped another strawberry in her mouth before crossing the room in that easy, languid manner of hers. Standing before him, her eyes, so blue and pure, glittered with amusement.

“Let me,” she said softly, smoothing the wrinkles with her hands by pressing the cloth onto his chest.

He stared down at the top of her head, her blond hair shimmering in the candlelight. There was a slight stain of strawberries on one corner of her lips—one that could easily be wiped away with his handkerchief, or his finger, or better still, his lips.

Gut-wrenching desire, the same hot-blooded fire that had almost been his downfall the night before, raced through his veins.

Yet it wasn’t just her proximity that sent Temple’s senses reeling. Nor her perfume, so light and airy it teased him into remembering the day before as she’d picked roses from the hedges.

No, it was her touch, so sure and confident. So damned familiar, as if she’d done this for him for years. This intimate, personal ministration, her own way of soothing his ruffled nerves.

It left him shaken and hungry—longing for what he’d almost had the night before. Aching to catch her up in his arms, toss her into the downy confines of the room’s magnificent bed, and finish what he’d so honorably declined the night before.

“I can do this,” he said, trying to shoo her hands away.

“Yes, I know you can,” she said, standing firm and unwilling to relinquish the cloth. “So can I.”

To his amazement, she did. Her nimble fingers folded the cloth anew and then proceeded to secure it into a perfect mail coach knot.

She patted it into place. “That should do.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, almost afraid to say anything. He’d never had anyone help him with such care. He’d always managed to fend for himself.

Until now.

“Temple?”

“Yes?”

“Do you ever grow weary of your life?”

The truth slipped from his lips before he could stop himself. “Aye, goddess, I do.”

“I could help.” Her soft assurance rocked his precarious grip on common sense almost as much as her touch.

“Diana, if I am to make an appearance, then I must be going.” He tried to leave. He failed completely. Her hand on his sleeve was all it took. It and the tremble that ran to his spine.

“Temple, I don’t want you to go. I’m afraid for you.”

“Contrary to what you believe, I am capable of taking care of myself.” He adjusted his jacket and faced her.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she whispered, reaching up to cup his face with her warm, tender fingers.

He should never have let her get that close, for the moment she touched him, his resolve started to crumble.

Visions of her naked beneath him in that magnificent bed danced before his eyes.

“Take me with you,” she pleaded.

But all he heard was the first part.
Take me
.

“Diana,” he said, lowering his mouth to hers. “You are a goddess meant to tempt the hearts of men.”

She sighed and leaned closer, but just before their lips touched, there came a great pounding at the door.

“The magistrate?” Diana whispered.

The answer came in a voice calling from the other side of the locked door.

“Hey ho, there! Templeton, ’tis me, Stewie!”

“Worse,” Temple told her as he propelled her into the dressing room. “Stay put,” he warned her before he shut her in.

Diana waited until Lord Stewart and Temple had left before she willfully disobeyed him.

She was hardly going to allow him to endanger himself for her sake.

Not when all this was her doing.

Creeping from the wardrobe, she’d just opened the door and started out into the empty hall when Elton stepped from the shadows.

“Now, milady, where do you think you are going?”

“Where do you think, Elton? I am going after his lordship.”

Elton shook his head. “You do as his nibs says, and stay put.”

“Don’t you start as well, Elton.” She pasted on her sweetest smile. “We’ve come this far together, haven’t we? Don’t tell me you’re going to renege now?”

“Well…”

“What about our agreement? Retirement? A fine farm? A stable of horses?” Diana could see her enticement was once again working to whittle down his defenses. She knew Elton cared as much as she did for Temple. The older man loved him like a son. “Elton, what if his lordship knew about Mrs. Foston?”

Elton cringed. “That’s hardly fair to go and be dragging Letty into this pot of soup.”

“Perhaps you should have told him that you married my companion last year.”

“Now, milady…”

Diana sighed. “And Mrs. Foston is so fond of the countryside. Why, just the other day she was saying—”

“I don’t need you telling me what my Letty likes. I know she’s fond of them flowery things and hedges and pretty gardens. She’s told me often enough.” He sighed.

“And might I remind you, she only agreed to this plan on the grounds that you would be here with me, to aid me in any way possible.”

Elton huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m worried about her, I am.”

“I am too.” Diana knew it had torn Elton’s heart in two to leave his Letty behind. “But she’s resourceful, and a dab hand with that cane of hers. From the sounds of it, she’d set those men on their heels.”

He snorted and then smiled, but his fond regard for his wife wasn’t in question.

It was her insistence on disobeying Temple’s order to stay put.

And from the deep crease running across his brow, Diana knew he wasn’t going to give in easily. She pressed her point further.

“This isn’t just for you and Mrs. Foston, Elton, but for Temple. You know it as well as I do. Please, let me go.”

He shook his head. “On this I think you should listen to his lordship. He’s of the opinion that you are in some sort of danger, and he’s as likely as not to be right about it.”

“In danger? Botheration, Elton! Temple’s half mad. You said it yourself when you came back with him from Paris in February.”

“Well, I didn’t mean—”

“Oh yes, you did. You’ve seen him of late. You know him. He’s taking too many risks. He’ll get himself killed if he continues.” Her hands were once again on her hips. “I will not let that happen. Will you?”

Elton’s jaw worked back and forth, as if chewing on her words.

She knew Temple’s loyal servant agreed with her. If he hadn’t, he would never have agreed to his starring part in her runaway engagement farce.

“So will you let me go?” she asked.

“I don’t think Letty would approve of you going out unescorted. She made me promise you wouldn’t come to no harm if we got separated from her.”

“And I won’t. You can see me to the Assembly Rooms, and once inside, I will go directly to Temple’s side.” She saw him starting to capitulate. “I promise, Elton. No harm will come to me.”