“You want to what?” Daphne’s voice broke on a high note as she stared incredulously at the gentleman holding her hand. Only her awareness of the crowd behind him kept her nervous question from reaching a shriek.
“Marry you.” Albert’s cheeks reddened behind his military whiskers, but then, his normally ruddy color prevented anyone but a close observer from noticing.
“Marry me?” She sounded like a parrot despite herself, but she couldn’t disguise her disbelief.
Heads turned in the ballroom. This alcove certainly did not lend itself to an intimate setting.
Daphne read his uneasiness as he shifted his gaze from her face to the velvet draperies and then to the floor. He was thanking his stars he’d had the sense to propose in a crowded room. At that thought, Daphne took a deep breath and fought her soaring temper.
“Don’t be absurd,” she answered sharply, lowering her voice an octave.
His ruddy cheeks grew redder, but a stubborn line marred his mouth. “Absurd? What other offer have you?”
Control. One. Two. Three. Daphne squeezed her eyes shut to eliminate the staring crowd. Why did they always stare? She wasn’t her mother. She wasn’t. She chanted the familiar refrain to cool her ire. She was perfectly normal, and this absurd little man wouldn’t prove her wrong.
“We don’t even know each other,” she offered reasonably, although her legs felt as if they were shaking beneath her. She needed to sit down. It had been four years, but sometimes ... She shut out that thought along with the crowd.
“We’ve known each other forever,” he remonstrated.
“We’ve danced one dance at each occasion we’ve met since you came home from the Continent.”
She couldn’t believe this was happening. Just as she had made up her mind to leave London and set herself on the shelf, this abysmal little man had to come along and shake her newly won confidence.
He stared at her as she stood there with her hands clenched in fists, then glanced cautiously to the people behind him. They were staring. He coughed to gather his courage and tried again. “Surely that is sufficient to judge we suit?”
Daphne heard the meaning behind the words—her impeccable behavior these last weeks had been “sufficient” to believe she wouldn’t have hysterics in public as her mother had been apt to do.
Albert had been in Spain when Daphne first came to London. He hadn’t seen her stumble awkwardly across the dance floor, cursed by a lame leg that didn’t adequately support her. He hadn’t seen her fall attempting to enter a carriage.
Most of all, he hadn’t seen one of her rages when these things happened. But he’d heard, as he had heard about her mother. Instability ran in the family, it was whispered.
One had only to remember Daphne’s grandmother Pierce, who proclaimed pigs were superior to men in every way. And there was her Aunt Agatha, who lived the life of a recluse in the backwaters of Devon. And of course, there was always Daphne’s mother, her dashing, lovely, charming, and very dead mother.
No. It wouldn’t do. She had been right to decide to leave London, where her mother had left such an indelible impression upon society. Daphne had tried to eradicate that impression, but she had her own flaws to cope with; she couldn’t hope to cover her mother’s as well.
The memories of her mother’s dramatic departure from this world hadn’t faded from the petty minds of society, would never fade as long as Daphne was available to remind them. She had been young and foolish when she had come to town. She no longer had that excuse. They would never forget, and they would never let her forget.
Daphne opened her eyes and commanded her suitor’s attention. He shifted nervously from foot to foot. “No. I will not marry you,” she stated without the requisite murmurs of honor and flattery. His proposal had just barely been honorable and certainly not flattering.
Albert looked vaguely startled. “Of course you will. What other choice have you?”
It was really quite the last straw. She had forgotten that the hand he didn’t hold was occupied. Until now. Lifting the crystal cup of punch, Daphne poured it carefully over his thinning gray hairs.
Sweetly, she replied, “This is my choice.” She handed him the empty cup and limped away.
* * * *
Clutching her reticule in her lap, Daphne stared out at the growing darkness beyond the carriage window. It had been kind of Lord and Lady Lansbury to loan the use of their carriage to take her to her aunt’s. But then, everyone had been so kind and sympathetic—once she had announced she was leaving. And relieved. She shouldn’t forget how relieved they were at the departure of someone as unpredictable as Mad Maria’s daughter.
Daphne bit her lip and tried to retrieve her straying thoughts from the debacle that had capped her stay in London. She was almost at Aunt Agatha’s. There seemed no purpose in stopping for the night despite the driver’s protests. He could travel on to the Lansbury estate in the morning. The carriage had to come this way anyway. The Lansburys had merely been offering a minor kindness, after all.
Clutching her gloved fingers, Daphne wrestled with the twin devils of ingratitude and cynicism. She could have taken a post chaise like anyone else. She was lame, not helpless. She was not even incompetent and certainly not mad. She was actually quite intelligent. Not that anyone cared. Biting her lip, she watched the road to her voluntary exile go by.
In a society that demanded perfection, she lacked the essential requirement. She supposed she looked well enough. Friends and family had assured her that her brunette curls were just as they ought to be, that her features were quite well-formed, even to the point of prettiness and past.
They even claimed that her eyes were a most extraordinary green, and if they seemed a trifle hazy and mysterious at times, that was more to her account than not. The fact that they were her mother’s eyes created the problem. Part of the problem, she had to admit. The rest of the problem she created herself.
Daphne fought back tears and forced her chin up. She had been green enough at first not to realize why the young gentlemen passed her by for flighty, less presentable girls.
Oh, there was always someone’s kind relative to bow and ask if they might fetch her some punch or to exchange meaningless gossip through a dance set or two. She was never left to feel alone and neglected, but she was seldom asked for more than one dance, either. Once was daring enough. Twice would have been foolish. After all, what if she took leave of her senses in the middle of the dance floor?
Not that her mother had ever committed such a social solecism. She had been very polite about her madness. If her effervescence sometimes reached the heights of hysteria, or her dismals became black whorls of discontent, no one paid them any mind. That was just Maria. Charming, ever-maddening Maria.
Even her suicide had been committed with exquisite care to make it look an accident. It was only by pure, horrible chance that she had been discovered.
Daphne closed her eyes against that long-ago pain. She could remember her mother as sweet and smiling and ever gentle. Why could society not remember her that way, instead of as the lady who had suddenly driven her carriage off a cliff one dark night, in full view of her only daughter?
The period of mourning for her mother had long passed, but the ton continued to look at Daphne askance, waiting for her to show signs of her mother’s instabilities. They found them all too frequently in the sharp lash of Daphne’s temper, her cool withdrawal when anyone approached the subject dominating their minds, and in her inability to be one of me crowd.
The members of the ton would nod their heads sagely and give each other knowing glances, then treat her to saccharine smiles and insipid pleasantries until they could make their escape. After all, who wouldn’t be unstable after such an experience?
At times, Daphne felt as if the ton resented being reminded by her presence that the world outside their hallowed halls was not a perfect one. Perhaps if they knew how imperfect she was, they would turn their backs on her completely.
As it was, Daphne had persisted, refusing to believe all of society could be so shallow and thoughtless as to disregard her because of her mother’s tragedy. Besides, she had no where else to go, naught else to do unless she wished to play the part of sheltered invalid in her father’s house. And then she truly would go mad.
For four long years she had determinedly beat her head against society’s thick walls. Now, she had given up. She would not go back.
Gazing blankly out the uncovered carriage window, Daphne tried not to imagine what her future would bring. Like any other young girl, she had set out in society with the dream of finding a young man who would understand and care, someone she could share her thoughts and her life with.
She certainly hadn’t set any higher goals than that. Considering her lameness, it mattered little to her if the man of her dreams was perfect. She had a secure competence from her mother’s estate, not a wealthy one, but sufficient for a comfortable life. She didn’t require great wealth. She didn’t even need a title. Her father was only the younger son of a relatively obscure north country title. Titles meant nothing. But she had expected to be found pleasing by someone, somewhere. It was not as if she were a complete antidote.
But, as it turned out, apparently she was. After four years on the Marriage Mart, despite the kindness of all her relations, she had received only that one proposal, and it had been an insult.
Albert wasn’t the sort her very protective relations would normally allow near—another reason he’d asked for her hand while in public view. Bankrupt and twice her age, his offer had been made out of desperation. If that was the best she could do, she was better off unmarried. Society could pity her little more for her spinster state than it already did for her mother’s death.
Her maid snored slightly, jolting Daphne back to the present. Aunt Agatha’s house couldn’t be far. They had just come through the village a little while ago. She had forgotten how steep this road was as it wound down to the riverbank. Or perhaps she had never known. She had probably been just as soundly asleep as her maid the summer she traveled here with her father.
The world outside seemed darker. Daphne looked up, trying to tell if clouds were covering the moon that had just risen. From the varying shades of darkness, she surmised the bank down to the river was overgrown with trees. The road appeared to travel along the river a little way before the bridge. She would have to ride here one day and investigate. It ought to be lovely on a sunny day.
If Aunt Agatha would allow her to ride. Dropping back against the seat in disappointment, Daphne had to consider that possibility.
With her brother’s reluctant assistance, she had escaped her father’s home because he had insisted on watching her every minute, forbidding her the stables, insisting that she be accompanied each time she ventured out of the house, all but ordering her to remain inside for fear she would be lost to him as her mother had been. She had been unable to tolerate the restrictions. If he had written Aunt Agatha with those same orders, would she obey?
Her mother’s relations in London had been more understanding, but that had been London. She had been accompanied everywhere by cousins and footmen and maids.
The size and sounds and smells of the city had intimidated her, and she had accepted the fact that a lady could not travel alone, so she had not protested the restrictions there.
But the country was different. She used to love solitary walks with nature, and she had learned to ride as soon as she could walk. She did not wish to abandon those pleasures to please her grief-stricken, anxious father.
For all that mattered, she didn’t see why she couldn’t learn to navigate the streets of London just as well as a garden path, if only people would leave her alone to walk at her own pace.
There had been so many exciting things around her, places she would have liked to linger, people she would like to know, but she was limited to those her family chose to visit. Now that she was older and more sure of herself, she had come to resent their constant vigilance. She was not likely to go berserk or collapse in the middle of a busy street if she stumbled.
But she would never have the opportunity to explore London now. If she and Aunt Agatha rubbed along well, she would in all likelihood spend the rest of her life in splendid isolation in the rugged wilds of Devon.
Relatively speaking, of course. She had heard of the mountains in Scotland and Wales, and learned of the magnificent scenery of Europe and America from her tutors, but unaccompanied, she wasn’t destined to see them. So she really ought to make the most of this rough bit of coast and moor. She and Aunt Agatha would just have to come to an understanding.
A shout outside the carriage shocked Daphne from her reverie. She grabbed the strap as the carriage swayed and pitched forward wildly. What on earth was the driver doing?
Fear spiked through her at the horses’ neighing protests as the carriage rocked and the wooden brakes screeched. Had the bridge gone out? Had a wheel broken?
The instant the carriage came to a full halt, Daphne shoved open the door. Behind her, her awakened maid wailed a protest, but she wasn’t calmly sitting here and waiting for someone to inform her that they were about to fall off a precipice.
Memory sent a frisson of fear through her, but she refused to retreat in the face of her cowardice. The shouts outside sounded like several men. Had there been an accident?
The dark shadow of a horseman veered close to the Lansburys’ elegant landau. Cast in darkness outside the carriage lamps, he presented an otherworldly appearance. The specter made a gentlemanly bow and doffed his hat.
“What is happening? Has there been a mishap?” she asked before climbing down.
“I have only come to relieve you of a few baubles, my lady, and any coins you might have in your reticule. Consider it a contribution to charity, if you will, and you will soon be on your way.”
Thieves! That was impossible in this day and age. Highwaymen had been long banished to ... The wilds away from London where there was little or no law—Daphne finished the thought belatedly. Still, she could not just give up her entire quarter’s income at his request. She leaned out to pull the door shut again.
At that moment, a shot rang out farther down the road, and a scream of warning vibrated through the cool night air. From a distance, someone shouted, “Soldiers!” and closer to hand, the mounted highwayman muttered, “Damnation, a trap!”
Before Daphne could jerk back out of reach, he leaned over, hooked his arm around her waist, and hauled her over his knees.
She screamed a terrified protest. Her maid wailed in a soprano crescendo that pierced the ears. The highwayman merely kicked his horse and sprinted off into the darkness, one hand holding Daphne safely in place.
“Cease the caterwauling and you’ll be safe,” he ordered as the horse leapt a small hedge and dashed through a clearing between the trees. “Continue, and you’ll live to regret it. I mean only to keep you hostage until the soldiers are gone.’’
Daphne fell silent, more from lack of breath than obedience. The horse’s rough gait jarred knees against ribs, and to her utter humiliation, she found herself clinging to a very masculine leg from a very intimate position. Still, she felt as if she would slide off at any moment.
She strained to detect any sound of pursuit, but her blood was throbbing in her ears and panic clouded her senses. Never in all her years had she been subjected to this kind of ill treatment, and to think, she had thought he sounded a gentleman!
They splashed across a river, soaking her woolen traveling gown at the hem and spraying water up the back of her heavy pelisse. She shivered as the icy water soaked through, and the horseman adjusted her more comfortably.
“Not far now. You’ll be fine.”
Daphne scarcely considered his promise reassuring. What did the highwayman consider to be fine? She was already soaked, cold, and humiliated to the marrow of her bones. She couldn’t wait until she had breath to release the outrage choking in her throat.
The smell of his boot leather filled her nostrils, and she became aware of other scents besides that of damp vegetation. The faint scent of bay rum mingling with masculine perspiration confused her. Did highwaymen wear bay rum? It was an odor that choked the ballrooms of London, but out here in the desolate countryside it had an almost pleasant scent. Perhaps it just reminded her of civilization.
The horse reared abruptly, and the thief chuckled as Daphne’s fingers dug into his leg and creased his trousers. A hard arm lifted her with casual ease and slid her to the ground as a shrill whistle in the distance cut the air in a vague resemblance to a bugle’s all-clear.
He released her in obvious response to the signal. “My men should be safely away by now. You’ll find a short walk down this path will lead you to a cottage where a very kindly widow and her servants live. If you’ll hand over your trinkets, I shall leave you alone.”
Now that her feet were back on solid ground and the breath was returning to her lungs, Daphne stared up at the immensity of man and beast and the old, familiar anger struck again. She had promised to control her temper, and she had honestly tried, but this was more than any one person should have to bear.
“You can’t do this! This is an outrage! How dare you desert me like this! You must take me back to my maid and carriage at once. You cannot leave me out here miles from civilization. What kind of gentleman do you purport to be to thus treat a lady?”
The highwayman leaned over in the saddle to study her. He had been quite prepared for her to faint and weep and plead for mercy. This mixture of rage and haughtiness from one so delicate caught him by surprise, but the fury underlying her words held something else. If she were afraid of him, wouldn’t she use her anger to run? What kind of woman would demand that a thief linger to return her to her maid?
“The carriage is further than the cottage, miss. Did you enjoy our ride so that you wish to repeat it?”
The taunting mockery of his words drew blood into her cheeks, and Daphne had to clench her fingers to restore proper decorum.”I am not familiar with these woods, sir. I could be lost for days. If you will not return me to the carriage, you must take me to the cottage.”
She said it as firmly as she could manage through chattering teeth. The icy river water was responsible for only a small part of her chill, she feared.
Beginning to lose his patience, the highwayman leaned over to wrap his fingers around the gold locket at her throat. “Are you so rich you have forgotten how to walk? Then you won’t mind if I relieve you of this feeble trinket. I daresay Lansbury was too smart to bait a trap with real jewels.”
Daphne smacked at his gloved hand and stepped backward. Her foot slipped on the damp moss and her weak knee betrayed her. The aching cold of the river water had done its damage, as she’d feared.
She would have fallen had he not dropped to the ground and grabbed her. She righted herself and attempted to elude his grasp, but the thief’s fingers kept their grip on her shoulder.
“What has Lord Lansbury to do with this? Let me go.” Daphne tried to disguise her fear. Now that he stood before her, she knew her abductor to be very tall, and the broad shadow of his shoulders conveyed his strength, even if his grip had not already warned her.
Gentlemen were supposed to be languid and incapable of such violent swiftness of action. He could not be the gentleman her other senses said he must be. Yet she could not run from him even if he showed himself to be scoundrel.
The lady’s air of fear and defiance was puzzling, and instincts ever alert, the thief pursued his curiosity further. If she truly were Lansbury’s bait, then perhaps she did not know what he was talking about, but surely even Lansbury wouldn’t send a lady out to trap a highwayman without warning her.
That meant—despite her rounded tones— she could be a common trollop eager to earn a few coins in any way she could.
That thought lasted no longer than it took to breathe in the scent of his captive’s expensive French bath salts. The quality of the fine woven wool beneath his fingers and the delicacy of the bones beneath his grip put the lie to commonness. She had to know of the trap. His fingers tightened.
“Lady, I’m willing to be fair with you. Lansbury won’t miss these few baubles, and I’m certain he didn’t intend for you to risk yourself in this attempt. We weren’t pursued, so you cannot hope to be rescued. Had you paid any attention at all, you would have noticed the soldiers were on foot. They don’t send cavalry after thieves.”
“I know we’re not being pursued or I would have told you to be on your way.” Retreating behind the mask of dignity she donned when she betrayed her weakness, Daphne took the offensive.
She dusted down her gown and pelisse and took another step away from his overpowering presence. “I cannot imagine why a gentleman should resort to terrifying ladies, or what Lord Lansbury has to do with any of this since he is exceedingly occupied in the government right now and not inclined to worry about wayward gentlemen ...”
She stopped, trying to remember where this thought was supposed to lead. She was chattering like a nervous magpie, but this man’s presence had unnerved her as no other had.
She gathered her scattered wits and tried again. “I have no wish to do anything but reach Aunt Agatha’s safely, and I cannot do so if you desert me in the middle of the woods. And you can’t have the locket. It belonged to my mother and is worthless to anyone but me. I have a few coins in my pocket, you may have those. And this silly ring that Cousin Sally insisted I must wear.”
She pulled off the despised object and joined it with the coins she carried so that her footman and driver could enjoy the occasional draft of ale, thankful that the reticule with her allowance was still in the carriage. “Now, take me to the cottage, please, and you may be on your way.”
This was most extraordinary. He generally didn’t stop unaccompanied young ladies, but her pensive face in the window had lit a wicked bit of mischief in him. He hadn’t meant to do more than relieve her of a few coins and compliment her beauty. Lansbury was wealthy enough that he could afford to replace a few stolen coins.
But in the few months since he had taken up this life of crime, he had never met so self-possessed a victim, even if she were as barmy as a Bedlamite. He almost felt inclined to obey her commands. Almost.
He pocketed the trinkets and reached for his horse. “The cottage is straight ahead. You cannot miss it. Good night.”
Fury overcame dignity at this certain desertion. Daphne had been scarcely left alone for a moment these last five years, and certainly never in a strange place. Her knee throbbed with pain and threatened to give out under her, no doubt plunging her into a raging river.
Refusing to admit to anything so telling as terror, Daphne stamped her foot and grabbed the thief’s coat sleeve. “I’ll not be left alone like this, without even a lantern to light my way. I will not, do you hear? Show me to this cottage if it is so close by.”
Astonished at her behavior, the highwayman took his boot from the stirrup and returned it to the ground. No one had ever spoken to him in such a manner. Obviously, she was badly spoiled. Or was she? She did not strike him as the shrewish type. The memory of her lovely face in the window worried at him. He caught her chin in his fingers and raised her face to study it.
“And if I don’t?”
She had been leading a sheltered life much too long. She had faced down other fears; it was time to conquer still one more. Closing her eyes to control her temper, Daphne summoned her flagging courage. “Were I still in London, I would have my groom flog you. Since I must now adapt myself to country ways, I suppose I shall have to hunt you down myself and shoot you.”
A hint of amusement laced his voice.”You are quite mad, you know.”
Daphne heard none of the amusement or admiration in his voice. She heard only the word “mad” and her temper soared beyond the boundaries of reason again. Ignoring her crippled knee, she swung from the thief s grip and struck off blindly in the direction he had indicated earlier.
No one had ever spoken to her as had this wretched thief, confronting her with her worst fears. They had whispered about her mother and voiced their suspicions behind her back, but never had she been forced to face their accusations directly.
“Look at the eyes,” they’d say. “Just like her mother’s.” That epithet was the one that terrified her the most.
Perhaps she was mad. Perhaps her mother’s madness had started this way, with fears she could not control. Daphne tried not to think it, but the stranger’s words cut through all pretense. She would rather risk falling in the river than plead with him again.
Watching her limp as she walked away, the thief cursed. He was as mad as she, but he could not leave a lady in distress. Stepping forward, he caught her hand and placed it on his arm. “I am sorry. I had not realized I injured you in my haste.”
Daphne grasped this support with a shudder of relief. The pain had been sufficient to cool her temper. In a little while, it would go away, but she was too terrified to turn away a helping hand. At the concern in his voice, she answered honestly, “‘Twas not your fault but the water’s. And the cold. Just call it an old war wound, if you will.”
At the pain in his victim’s voice, the highwayman let her comment go by unquestioned. Old war wound? His gaze surveyed her slender figure consideringly, wondering what to make of that.
“You are come to stay in these parts?” he questioned randomly, leading her a little farther down the path, watching carefully as she limped beside him.
“With my aunt, Lady Agatha Templeton. I can only be thankful she will not worry when I do not arrive tonight. She does not expect me until tomorrow.”
It was very probable that the carriage had gone on to Lady Agatha’s by now, and the entire household would be in an uproar, but he did not tell her of that. He was beginning to feel very ashamed of himself for frightening a mere woman and a harmless old lady for the sake of a coin and a pretty-face. A hell of a highwayman he made.
“I will take you to the widow’s light. I dare not go too close to the cottage, for the widow’s sake as well as my own. If the soldiers are still about, they may think her an accomplice.”
Daphne grasped the strength of his arm. “It is absurd to thank you after the harm you have done, but I do know you could have left me. I am a coward when left alone.” That was an understatement, but she didn’t enlarge upon it. “I will thank you for this small kindness.”
He could have done a great deal worse than leave her alone, but such topics did not come easily to a lady’s mind, and he certainly wasn’t one to introduce them.
It had been months since he had escorted a delicate female about, and he was rather enjoying the moment. She smelled delightful, although anything clean would smell delightful after months of living with unbathed villains.
Now that she had his arm, she moved gracefully and with some assurance, despite her limp. He could almost believe he was calmly walking down Bond Street with a beautiful companion for all she showed any fear of the situation.
“Shouldn’t you be afraid of me?” he asked out of curiosity.
She tilted her head to look up at him. “Utterly terrified,’’ she assured him.
“You’re roasting me.”
His reply was so decisive and so much the gallant chatter of London that Daphne smiled. “My word, sir, how you do go on. Do you doubt my sincerity?”
He chuckled at the mimicry. She sounded just like one of the lovely Toasts of the Season he had briefly flirted with a lifetime ago. London hadn’t changed much then.
“I shall try not to doubt you in the future. I fear I would lose any battle of wits with you. Can you see the light now?”
The welcoming gleam glittered not too far off. Daphne sighed in relief and released his arm. She preferred company against the night terrors, but even she wasn’t mad enough to believe this man was safer than the light ahead. “There are no surprises between here and there?”
“Just lawn. I wish I dared lead you closer....”
Daphne waved a hand in dismissal. “I shall be fine. This is all very adventurous. I think I shall enjoy the country more than I suspected.’’ She offered her best imitation of courage. “Shall we say good night, then?”
It was utterly preposterous, but he bent over her hand as if he had just escorted her to her townhouse and delivered her safely into the hands of her servants. He felt a light squeeze, then she stepped onto the lawn, tentatively testing the uneven expanse of ground before proceeding haltingly toward the cottage.
The highwayman stepped back into the shadows, wishing he could at least have had her name.