The Accidental Abduction (3 page)

T
he problem, Harry reflected with bleary irritability as he stumped down the stairs of the club, was that he'd never gotten
comfortable
with her. He'd never been able to look at her without feeling like a bumbling schoolboy, or too big for the room, or both. A man couldn't be expected to charm the slippers off a girl when he was afraid of tripping over her.

How on earth did she manage it? Was it her eyes? The way she tipped her head and hid her pretty pink mouth behind her fan? Perhaps it was the sheer delicacy of her. That must be it. Harry wasn't used to delicate girls. Life at sea and on the docks did not accustom a man to the company of girls reared in the hothouse environments of the parlor and the ballroom. His sister's delicacy was mere physiological accident. The women he'd known in Madrid, Ceylon, and Constantinople were exotic, beautiful, intoxicating, but they were not delicate.

Delicacy was Agnes's primary characteristic. She'd been so timid, so in need of protection from everything bigger than her Maltese. She always declared herself in need of his arm, or of having this errand run, or that item fetched. She'd smiled so prettily when she thanked him that he'd always been glad to do whatever little thing she asked, and her laugh had gone straight to his head. Yes, he'd felt every inch the raw merchantman when around her, but at the same time, he'd fought for a chance to show her he was far more of a man than the dandies and puppies who sighed after her.

Harry started down the street, keeping to the walks to avoid the traffic. He wasn't drunk, exactly. Certainly not as drunk as he would have been if Nathaniel hadn't cajoled him into eating a decent supper and washing it down with strong coffee. Or if the whiskey decanter hadn't at some point been replaced by a bottle of wine. But he wasn't completely sober, either. No sense in ending this disastrous evening by stumbling in front of a carriage. Agnes might find it terribly romantic if her rejection culminated in his early, ugly death, but Mother would never forgive him.

The clock had struck two sometime back, and the stream of passing carriages had thinned down considerably. That just meant the ones that were still out rattled by too damn fast. In fact, he could hear the distinct rumble of some fool somewhere nearby driving his team too damn hard.

He'd been so full of plans. He'd pictured Agnes as the jewel of his home, and mother to a brood of beautiful children, the perfect blend of Featherington and Rayburn. He hadn't let himself dwell too much on the prospect of how those children were going to come into the world. It felt . . . indecent to be having carnal thoughts about such a young and frail creature. At the same time, he dreamed of teaching her to sail, of seeing her on the deck of a ship with all that golden hair being whipped by the wind. She loved Byron? Well, he'd take her to Greece, and to the Turkish coast, and a thousand other places; dress her in silk from China, rubies from India, feast her on tea and spices from all the islands. He'd show her the world.

Even now he could see Agnes standing on the deck of a ship, the wind blowing back her yellow hair. Harry blinked at the image, and leaned in, as if trying to take a closer look. Before when he'd conjured this vision, she'd always clung to his arm and laughed. Now, she clung to his arm all right, but she was bending over the rail being terribly ill.

Come to think of it, he'd never seen Agnes do anything more vigorous than walk through the panorama exhibit in Vauxhall Gardens. Even then, she hadn't wanted to stay because it made Percival the Maltese nervous. Harry had felt very gallant escorting her away. He had, hadn't he? Or had he just felt clumsy and bumbling for not having realized the grand scene was likely to be too much for Agnes?

What is that idiot doing to those horses?
Harry looked up and down the empty street.
The fool must be drunker than me.
Maybe he was trying to outrun his own broken heart. Well, if he wasn't careful he'd break the horses and the carriage and probably his neck, and serve him right.

Harry stepped into the street. He needed to get out of town himself. Go to Carlisle, maybe, or Barcelona, or Athens. It didn't matter much, as long as it was somewhere he wouldn't need quite so much whiskey to wash away the memory of Agnes Featherington.

Not Calais, though. Calais would be a very bad idea.

Harry scrubbed at his face and looked up at the soot-dimmed London moon. He cursed, slowly and thoroughly, in four different languages.

“Why?” he demanded. “What the hell is the matter with me?”

The moon didn't answer. Instead, a woman's voice erupted from the darkness.

“Out of the way!”

The thunder of hooves, the crack of a whip, and the bang, crash, and rattle of a carriage being driven at neck-or-nothing speed—it all toppled over Harry's miasma of heartbreak and whiskey. He whipped around just in time to see the horses bearing down on him. The team reared, and Harry stumbled back. Wind, and the edge of one flashing hoof, knocked his hat away. The woman screamed something and the horses whinnied high and sharp in outraged answer. They crashed down hard enough that their iron shoes struck sparks from the cobbles and lurched forward.

Runaway. Runaway team, with a woman on the box.

That was Harry's last clear thought. Because what he did next happened too fast for thought to keep up.

Harry jumped again, forward this time. His hands slapped against the carriage's stanchions and closed down, which was good, because he was instantly yanked off his feet.

I'm going to die.

But his scrabbling boot found the running board, and the absolute, overwhelming desire
not
to die gave Harry enough strength to heave himself over the edge of the open carriage's door and topple onto the seats. He bounced.

The team bolted around a corner. The carriage tipped up onto two wheels, and the woman cried out. Harry flailed about, but this time he failed to catch hold of anything and tumbled onto hands and knees. The wheels crashed down. The jolt slammed Harry's teeth together and he barely missed biting his tongue.

Harry forced himself up onto his knees and grabbed the edge of the seat in front of him. The carriage—an open-topped barouche—pitched and rolled like a ship in a storm. The woman on the box had somehow kept her seat as the panicked horses tore blindly ahead. They took another sharp corner and again the carriage tipped, but this time Harry braced himself and kept his place. If he'd still had his hat, though, he would have lost it against the corner of the stone house. Again they righted, and again the horses took on a fresh burst of speed, straight down the middle of the high street. Carriages, curricles, vans rose up around them. The woman shouted and she screamed, and she still kept her seat as they threaded the needle between the slower traffic again.

Harry found his balance, and his wits. He crawled up onto the seat and clung to its back right behind the driver's box. The carriage banked, going up onto its two wheels again. Again he braced himself. They were going to die. The carriage couldn't stand this, and the horses certainly couldn't. One of them would stumble. The carriage would overturn. They'd lose a pin on the wheel or break an axle. He was going to watch this woman thrown to the stones, to break her head and neck. As it was, the strain of holding the reins had bent her nearly double. God, what nerve she must have to even keep a hand on them at all. Probably saved them both doing it. He'd remember to thank her, after he got the carriage stopped.

Wind whistled past his ears. The traffic had cleared out. Moonlight and lantern light flashed just bright enough for him to make out the empty, macadamized road before them. They'd reached the highway, probably the Great North Road. Harry breathed a prayer of thanks. Not only would it be near empty this time of night, it was also smoother, so there was less chance of a horse breaking a leg or the carriage breaking a wheel than on cobbles.

Unfortunately, the horses also felt the change in the road under their hooves, and put on a fresh burst of speed.

Harry gritted his teeth, and didn't let himself think about what he was doing. With the carriage rocking at breakneck speed, the horses straining against rein, bit, and bridle, he clambered over the carriage seat trying to get to the driver's box. His hand slipped and his elbow buckled and he was staring at the rushing pavement, but he caught the edge of the box again, and pulled and swung himself around just so, and he was up beside the woman.

He slapped his hands down over hers; had just enough time to realize she wasn't wearing gloves and that they were skin to skin, before he pulled back hard.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

“Let go!” he shouted. “I've got them! They're slowing!”

“I don't want them slowed, you idiot!”

The butt of her whip caught him in the guts. The blow—aided by sheer and complete shock—toppled Harry backward, onto the seat, and then onto the boards.

“Get up! Get up, there!” The woman cracked the whip over the team's head. The horses charged forward.

Harry pushed himself to his knees again. Outrage cleared the last of the fog from his eyes. It also let him see the situation. The woman—bent low, lashing the space between her horses' ears—was not panicked. She was not trying to hold on to runaways. She was driving at the absolute limit of the horses' speed and the carriage's endurance.

“Stop!” Harry shouted.

“No!” she shouted back. “Sorry!” she added.

“You'll crash us!”

“Watch me!”

Did he actually hear
pride
in her voice?

I'm being abducted,
Harry thought as he pushed himself back into a sitting position.
By a madwoman.

Except she wasn't a madwoman. She was handling the team like she'd been born on the box. She'd been in control that whole time they'd threaded the streets of London, and Westminster, and taken those daring, near deadly turns. Dear God, what kind of woman was she?

At this, absurdly, Harry laughed. Maybe it was the remainder of the whiskey burning through his blood, maybe it was just speed and danger addling his wits. But it occurred to him that he'd been wishing he could get out of town. Now he was doing exactly that, and at top speed. Admittedly, he hadn't considered abduction as a means of gaining distance from Agnes, but here he was, and there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it. Not unless he wanted to risk climbing back onto the box and trying to wrestle the ribbons away from his surprisingly strong and well-armed lady abductor. Abductress?

Harry laughed again. He clambered carefully onto the seat, gripped the rail, and settled back to see where this madwoman would take them both.

I
f Leannah had been able to spare a thought from driving, she might have used it to wonder how the night could possibly get worse. As it was, she needed every ounce of concentration, and all her strength, to keep Rumor and Gossip from overturning the carriage. The two mares were having the time of their high-strung lives. Their necks strained forward, and their ears pressed flat against their skulls. Gossip fought to get the bit between her teeth, and Rumor was picking up on the idea, making the reins twice as tricky to hold. They could feel her hands were tiring and her grip was weakening, and both were trying their best to try to outrun the annoying, rattling contraption they'd been harnessed to, again.

And now there was a man in the barouche. How'd he even gotten there? Had he actually managed to jump aboard? Leannah found herself impressed, although very much against her will. Such a feat made him either a hero or a lunatic, but she had no leisure to work out which it could be. They were coming up on the crossroads and the signposts, and the straight, white ribbon of the Great North Road. Leannah pulled on the reins, but the team resisted. She cracked the whip over Rumor's ear, catching the mare's attention and turning her head. She saw the open way now, and the chance to really run. The team swerved sharply to the right. Leannah had just enough strength left to rein them in and prevent the barouche from tipping up on two wheels yet again. She should slow them. She was risking the team, the carriage, her own neck, not to mention the neck of whoever it was riding behind her. But if she slowed too far, she'd never catch up with Genevieve and then . . . then . . .

The barouche jounced over a pothole, landing hard in a noise of straining axles and springs. Her last pin fell away and her hair tumbled in a great, heavy mass down her back. Wind stung Leannah's ears and cheeks and set her eyes watering. It caught in her hair, flinging it backward.

Leannah thought she heard a sound from her unwelcome passenger. It sounded almost like a laugh.

Is he a madman? Or simply drunk?

She'd just have to hope he wasn't drunk enough to do something even more stupid than try to take the reins—like jump out and break his neck in a ditch, because she didn't have time to go back for him. She had to catch up with Genevieve. She had to stop her sister from making the worst mistake of her life.

She should have known something was brewing. She should have smelled it in the way Genny hadn't made any trouble for the past two days. She hadn't complained at all about hearing Jeremy's lessons and had even taken him to the circulating library and the park. Leannah had let herself believe that, for once, someone in their family had come to her senses before a disaster rather than long afterward.

She should have known better. She should have listened when her friend Meredith Langley warned her that something might be in the wind. But with Father doing poorly and Jeremy at home, there had been so much to do that she hadn't been watching Genny as carefully as she should have. That, and she'd so wanted to believe everything would be all right.

They were well past the city walls now, in the land of scattered cottages and open fields where the city folk would retreat or retire when they'd earned enough. Clouds scudded thickly across the moon and the stinging wind that rushed through her hair brought the smell of rain. Smooth macadam shone in the carriage's lantern light. There were no other lanterns on the road ahead. They had the way to themselves, and at least two miles to the tollgate. Leannah eased up on the reins just a little. If the team wanted to run now, let them run.

She wished she could enjoy the ride. It had been years since she'd driven like this. She'd pull them back in a few minutes, when she could be sure she really had gained on Genevieve, and that lecherous scoundrel Anthony Dickenson. She'd allow them just one more minute of speed, of flying free. This would be the last time, after all, before she had to sell them both. Before she had to take up her life with Mr. Valloy so she didn't have to sell anything else.

But that wasn't yet. Now there was the rush of the wind and the tension of the ribbons in her hands, and the giddy speed of driving, and no one to see or know or care that she was a woman driving herself.

No one, of course, except her passenger. Well, she'd dealt with everything up to now. She'd deal with him when she had to. But for just another minute, she and her team would run. Just one minute more . . .

The black, animal shape flashed across the white road. Gossip reared up, pulling Rumor with her. This time Leannah's hands did slip. Both horses came down short and hard, and she heard the ring as the shoe skittered free across the macadam. Gossip whinnied and the team stumbled to a halt.

“No!”

Leannah jumped down from the box and ran around to Gossip's flank. Both horses were blowing hard and working their bits. The sweat on their necks gleamed in the lantern light. Gossip pawed the ground, but showed no sign of pain.

But the shoe was gone. She'd heard it go. Had she wondered how things could get worse? They just had.

“Are you all right?” asked a deep voice behind her.

Leannah turned to face the man she had inadvertently abducted, and her breath caught in her throat.

She'd abducted a positive Adonis—a disheveled and thoroughly wind-blown Adonis to be sure, with some rather overdone sideburns, but he carried it magnificently. He was tall enough to look down on her, something Leannah seldom encountered. The moon came out briefly to mix with the lantern light and show him to be fair-haired, with dark brows and a square chin that would send any lady novelist into raptures. His shoulders were broad and the arms beneath his coat were well shaped. She remembered the strength of his hands as they clamped down over hers and hauled back on the ribbons, hard but evenly, to try to slow the team.

She'd yelled at him, and kidnapped him. Did she remember hitting him? Leannah knuckled her eyes. If it wasn't for Genevieve, it all might have been funny.

But there was Genny, now well on her way to Gretna Green, and they'd never catch her.
Stupid,
irresponsible child.

“Are you all right?” the stranger asked again.

“No. Yes. Oh. I'm so sorry, Mr. . . . Mr. . . . Oh,
God
, what a mess!” Leannah whirled away from him to face the highway, straining eyes and ears for some hint of a carriage. All the exhilaration of the drive and the thrill of her borrowed freedom were gone. “I'm going to murder that girl!”
I'm going to kill myself if Gossip is lamed, and how are we ever going to be able to afford the farrier's bill and what if I don't catch Genevieve . . . ?

Tears of anger and fear streamed down Leannah's cheeks. She wiped at them and the salt stung her raw palms. Two strong hands gripped her shoulders from behind. They didn't exactly shake her, but they did turn her irresistibly to face her disheveled Adonis. Leannah gulped air. She couldn't breathe. She could barely think. The man said nothing. He just held her still long enough for her to see that his eyes were set deep above sharp cheekbones, and that those eyes were kind, as well as sane and sober. His hands curled around her shoulders and she was highly conscious of their warmth seeping through her thin sleeves. He was not only strong, he understood how to control that strength. She was no one's fragile blossom, but if she struggled against him now, she wasn't sure she'd be able to break this grip.

Why am I even thinking of that?

She slowly became aware that the man was breathing in a deliberate fashion—one deep, slow breath in, and then one just as slow and just as deep out again. The rhythm of it was oddly steadying, and allowed Leannah to breathe more normally herself. A flush of warmth and embarrassment crept up her throat, because as her breathing steadied, Leannah also became aware she'd been behaving like an hysteric.

“Are you all right?” Adonis asked, his voice quite calm. “Can you tell me what's happening?”

“My sister.” Leannah took a deep breath and another and reined in her thoughts as firmly as she would a mettlesome team. She felt she should lie, or at least evade the question. This man, with his strong hands and magnificent eyes, was completely unknown to her. He might be anybody at all. He might be trouble.

He is trouble,
whispered a voice from deep inside her, because he hadn't let go of her yet, and she hadn't pulled away, which she should do. She should also lie.

But she didn't do that either. “My younger sister's run off to Gretna Green with a man named Anthony Dickenson.” Condescending, priggish, Anthony Dickenson, who spent half their conversations subtly reminding her that he was the one with money and that she should be grateful he even consented to be seen with Genevieve. “I thought I might be able to catch up with them, but now that's gone and she's out there alone with him and . . .
Oh, the little IDIOT!
”

All her hard-won calm shattered and Leannah clapped her hands to her face. She was shaking and the tears had started all over again. This was a scene, she realized dimly. She was making a pitiful, pointless scene, but she couldn't stop herself. She had worked so hard and so long to keep the family together; to give Genny and Jeremy a chance at some kind of life, and now her sister did . . . this . . .

Leannah felt herself being pulled forward. Sweet warmth enveloped her as the man wrapped his arms around her. He held her gently. She could step back at any time. But she didn't want to. She pressed her face against his shoulder and let him—this perfect stranger—hold her. He was once more breathing slowly and evenly, and she had the very keen sense of him controlling himself. It was grossly indecent to be out here in the dark of the highway in a stranger's embrace. Leannah found she did not care. Her palm rested against the hard plain of his chest. The worsted cloth stung her ungloved hand badly, but she didn't care about that either. She wanted to stay here just as she was. She wanted to relax her body against his, to tilt her face up, to look into his eyes, and then . . . and then . . .

Slowly, painfully, her hand curled into a fist where it rested against the man's chest.
No. I must stop this at once. I cannot be the thoughtless one. I do not have
time.

At least she had stopped crying. She had also regained enough control over her limbs to step away. Her stranger let her go, as she had known he would. But he was breathing fast now, and his face was entirely flushed. He also was looking down the road rather than at her.

“What kind of start does your sister have?” he asked.

“An hour, maybe two.” She'd have been on the road much sooner if she hadn't had to deal with all Mrs. Falwell's stammering evasions. Then there'd been all the delay of getting to the stables, and convincing the manager that this really was an emergency, not just an attempt to get the horses away without paying the bill, not to mention getting the horses brought out and harnessed.

Her—passenger? victim? Leannah had no idea what to call the man—unhooked the right-hand carriage lantern and held it up to peer into the darkness. He was still breathing far too quickly for a man who'd done nothing but stand still for the last few moments.

He's also putting distance between us,
murmured that treacherous, trivial part of her, the same part that had let her be held by this stranger.
He doesn't trust himself.

She had to think clearly. She could not, however much she wanted to, fall to pieces again, or waste time yearning after things she could not have, like another moment in this man's arms. Leannah made herself look past his back, a feat almost as difficult as stepping out of his arms had been. The highway was empty. The silent countryside spread out black and gray in the last shreds of moonlight still able to find a path through the gathering clouds.

“There's still every chance,” he said. “It's a dark night, and we're on the edge of rain. It's some three hundred miles to the border. They'll have to stop somewhere. If nothing else, they'll need to change horses frequently if they're to go at any kind of speed. We can ask at the gatehouse if they've been seen. We might even find them at the inn there.”

She couldn't help noticing the way he said “we.” Leannah opened her mouth to tell him she could manage very well, thank you, but at the last moment decided against it. She might not want him here, but here he was and she could hardly abandon him by the roadside, even if Gossip hadn't thrown her shoe. If he could be useful, she shouldn't discard his help out of hand.

“You're right. I'm sorry, Mr. . . . ?”

“Harry Rayburn.” He performed a credible bow. “At your service, I suppose, Miss . . . ? Or is it Lady?”

“Missus,” she answered. “Mrs. Wakefield.”

“
Mrs.
Wakefield.” The surprise and disappointment in his voice were positively flattering. Leannah wished she had time to enjoy them. The trained reflexes of courtesy made her hold out her hand. That, however, proved to be a mistake. When he took her hand so that he might bow over it, she winced. Mr. Rayburn, who could apparently number quick observation among his fine qualities, turned her hand over. The lantern light showed harsh lines along her palms where the leather reins had bitten into her skin. A dark smear of blood spread across her skin. Leannah pulled her hand away and hid it in her skirt.