A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides (9 page)

“Oh, I
do
think.” He let go of her hand and smiled again. “In fact, I’m sure of it. In fact—” He turned back as if he had thought of a better idea, mischief dancing across his lips. “Why don’t you come with me? I could show you how to truly misbehave.”

Oh, Lord help her. He was nothing but beautiful, blue-eyed temptation. She had never in her life felt such a powerful urge to throw over the traces and run free, following wherever the wind might take her. To simply go.

Inside her chest, her heartbeat had begun an indelicate, impetuous thumping, pressing her pulse into the hollow of her throat at just the thought of what she might do if she accompanied him. Of the unimaginable adventure it might be to twine herself with him and go off into the night.

But what would happen after that? What would it be like to return to her home in complete and very real disgrace? Her family had come to Northfield in one of Lord Aldridge’s carriages. Might he withdraw the favor if she so publicly disgraced him, and leave Mama and Cassie to ride home in some farmer’s cart?

It was unthinkable. Cassandra would be disgraced, as well. Her sister’s face, and her quiet, almost silent desperation at being a different sort of pawn in her mother’s games, brought Antigone’s fanciful fantasy to a halt. If she indulged herself, and went, Cassie would be the one who suffered the most.

Antigone couldn’t allow herself to act so selfishly. So rashly. No matter how badly she wanted to. No matter how she was tempted to take this one, strange, perfectly alluring chance with this perfectly alluring man, whom she might never see again.

“I would like nothing more, Jellicoe. But I cannot.”

Jellicoe heard her indecision, her breathless uncertainty. “Are you sure?”

She shook her head, full to her brim of bittersweet regret. “Quite.” She put more resolution into her voice. “But I thank you all the same for the invitation. I am only sorry my … situation makes it necessary for you to make your escape like this.”

“I’m not. It’s all in good fun. No harm done.”

He let go of her hand—reluctantly, she thought—and bowed. Very correctly, as a gentleman of his caliber ought. “Thank you again, Preston. Are you sure you’ll be all right alone here? Wouldn’t it be better to brave the ballroom, and put on an untroubled, confident face?”

“Perhaps.” She rallied her defiant spirit. “But I find I’m just perverse enough not to want to do what I ought. And as soon as you are safely gone, I’ll just take myself quietly up the stairs to my chamber, and be done with the night.”

“Ah, you’re staying here.”

“Yes. Guests of Lady Barrington. An invitation that I’m sure won’t be extended again. I’d best have my cases packed, and be ready to leave at dawn.”

“Yes, perhaps you had best. And although it does not please me to leave you, I must follow my own advice, and escape while
I
can. Good night, my appalling friend. And godspeed.” And with that, he removed the chair jammed up against the knob, unlocked the door, and was gone, swallowed by the cavernous house, as if he had never really been there at all.

Chapter Six

Antigone couldn’t sleep. She was safe in her assigned guest chamber, next to Cassie’s and across the hall from Mama—who was still making the most of the ball, even at this late hour—but could find no relief. Her head was a whirling jumble of thoughts—nearly all of them involving Commander William Jellicoe.

Will, he had asked her to call him. Will.

Just the mention of his name made her restless—fidgety and stymied, and feeling as if she could not possibly get enough air in her lungs to survive. And in need of something to do. Something to look at besides the dark, shadowed walls of the room.

At home at Redhill she would have crawled out her window to sit on the sloping roof of the eaves to look at the stars if the weather were fine, or slid down the familiar arms of the ancient yew tree that reached up to her chamber, so she might visit her mare in the stables on the other side of the walled garden. But at Northfield there was no prospect of such an easy escape. The long rectangular stable courtyard that was set at a right angle to the west wing of the house was three floors below.

Somewhere down there in that comfortable hive of activity was Velocity. When Lord Aldridge had sent his carriage—a fashionable barouche box—he had also requested that Antigone bring her mare. Indeed he had sent an extra mounted groomsman to lead the horse behind the carriage.

To what purpose, Antigone did not know, but Lord Aldridge’s insistence continued to prey on her mind, until she knew she would get no relief sitting in her window wondering.

Within the wardrobe that held her small stock of gowns was also an old hatbox, in which she had surreptitiously stored a familiar bundle of clothing—the pair of loose-fitting breeches and the old redingote she often wore at home when she wanted to ride Velocity astride. And at Northfield, she reasoned, she would be a great deal less noticeable looking like a stable boy, than if she walked down to the stable in a gown or riding habit at this time of night. Better to fade into the woodwork. Nothing was so invisible or faceless to aristocrats as their ubiquitous servants.

And nothing could have been easier. With so many guests and extra servants in the house, it was no trick to stuff her hair carefully under a cap, put her head down, and follow the back staircase to the back vestibule, and from the back vestibule, take the long corridor to the colonnade that led to the stable yard.

The Northfield stable was as clean as Lady Barrington’s fastidious taste and conscientious stablemen could make it, but even the most diligent broom could not obliterate the comforting scents of warm animal and clean leather, dry hay and oat mash. Antigone waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior, before she moved along the row of stalls to the wide box where her mare stood waiting, ears pricked forward, listening in the dark to the unmistakable sounds of her mistress.

Oh, she was a smart one and a beauty, her finely made, pitch-black mare, Velocity. The solace of simply being near her, her soothing, familiar smell and solid warmth, eased most of Antigone’s cares. Just to lean against her soft, lustrous coat and feel the velvet rub of her muzzle was comforting.

Outside, away from the wing housing the riding horses, the yard was lit with lanterns on all sides as carriages of all sizes came and went, as they were needed to convey their owners from the ball. Coachmen and grooms, lads and footmen called to each other and to their teams. Wheels rumbled, harnesses jangled, and hooves echoed off the cobbles.

But away from the coach horses and carriages, all was quiet and peaceful. Velocity and her stable mates were dozing contentedly or munching idly on hay. Antigone checked the stall for water, and went to fill a bucket from the pump. She had just stepped back over the sill when a voice at Velocity’s stall echoed through the vaulted space.

“Well, what have we here? Hello.”

Lord Aldridge stood in the triangle of orange light spilling from the door to the courtyard.

Antigone couldn’t stop herself from ducking back, away from the light, even as she chastised herself for doing it. Here was a chance. A chance to show him that she was without the smallest shade of doubt the irreparable hoyden Mrs. Stubbs-Haye had named her. That she was reckless and heedless and entirely unsuited to becoming Lady Aldridge.

But it was one thing to decide to cast oneself beyond the pale, and another thing entirely to actually do it.

Antigone shifted the heavy bucket to steady herself. She would reveal herself now. She would tell him—

“I see you’re admiring my horse.”

His horse? Indignation sprang like acid up her throat, but Antigone held on to her temper, and instead pushed her voice deep as the soles of her boots. “Sir?”

Aldridge ambled another step or two closer to Velocity’s stall—which seemed strangely uncharacteristic of him, given that Antigone had never seen him do anything so desultory as amble. He always walked directly and purposefully. Perhaps he was drunk.

“Beautiful, is she not?” His voice held nothing of the frustrated exasperation of the library. His tone was kind, cajoling almost. As if he were secretly pleased with himself. As if he were happy. He must be drunk.

“Yes, sir.” She answered, because an answer seemed necessary. But she was careful of the distance between them.

“Mmm.” He even sounded drunk. Loosened up by a long night of nipping brandy, perhaps. But not the superior cognac. “I’ve put myself to a lot of trouble to have this mare. I have high hopes for her.”

Bloody Lord God. It was the proprietary tone, the open possessiveness, that stopped her. And terrified her. A cold clamminess settled over her skin as if she were walking through a cloying mist. “What do you mean?”

She shouldn’t have asked. Or she should have taken greater care to disguise both her voice and her fierce, indignant interest, because Lord Aldridge turned to look at her now, peering through the dark, trying to make her out.

“What’s your name, boy? I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

“Posting inn.” She gave the first plausible excuse that came to mind, and sidled a step closer to the door.

“Is it good work?” Aldridge reached out to pat the mare, but Velocity was as shy of strangers as Cassandra, and shied away, backing out of his reach.

It strengthened her, the mare’s small, instinctive show of defiance and indifference to his will—Velocity was
her
horse, and came to her hand, and her hand alone.

But Lord Aldridge, as always, took her silence as his opportunity. “You look to be a strong lad. I could give you work. I’m going to be starting a racing and breeding program with this mare. There’s a stallion I have my eye on acquiring that should do well by her.” He turned from the mare to look at Antigone again, and take a slow step toward her. “Would you like to work at a racing stable? I’m always looking for good boys at Thornhill Park.”

This was why he wanted to marry her. It had nothing to do with her as a person, as a wife or mother to that heir he was supposed to want. He was only offering for her because he thought it would get him the mare.

“No, sir. I have to go.” She took another step away, though she hated, hated to leave her mare in the presence of this greedy, possessive man. “I have work to do.” And she abandoned all pretense, and walked away as fast as her legs could carry her, until she was laying her shoulder into the big hanging door and sliding it open.

“Remember what I said. Come to Thornhill. Whenever you like. I’ll be waiting.”

And then she was running hard across the cobbles of the yard, and streaking through the gate as if the devil were catching at her heels. She ran so hard her lungs felt blistered with fire. By the time she came around to the back of the building she had to lean her back against the solid stone wall to gasp in lungfuls of the icy clean night air to catch her breath.

He wanted her mare. He wanted to take her and breed her and use her without any regard for what Antigone might want or think or advise. He was acting as if Velocity were already his, as if Antigone would simply hand her over upon their marriage, and let him do as he pleased.

And so he would, if she married him, have the right to do so.

But she wasn’t going to marry him. Because he saw her in exactly the same way he saw Velocity—as a brood mare to be bred without any regard for what she might want or think or advise. The two of them would simply be his to do with as he pleased. To show off to his friends and the occasional errant stable boy. To impress them with the fineness of his acquisition.

If she had felt clammy and chilled before, she felt positively ill now. She bent down, propping her hands on the top of her knees, and trying to draw in long, calming breaths. To quell the nausea that rose in her throat at the thought of Lord Aldridge putting his papery hands on either of them.

Velocity wouldn’t suffer his touch. And neither would she.

But there was still the pretense of the engagement to suffer through until Cassie, or even—heaven help them—Mama, could find someone to help keep the roof over their heads. Indeed, Lord Aldridge would have been better off engaging himself to Mama. She, at the very least, admired him.

A rumble of wheels made her turn her head to watch a beautiful crested carriage, drawn by two superbly matched pairs of grays, roll through the stable gates, and around the gravel drive to stop in front of the house. Lights blazed as footmen came swiftly out with lanterns to light the way.

As if she were watching a play she had dreamed up from her fantasies, Antigone watched the handsome young man who had first danced with Cassie—Viscount Jeffrey—assist an older woman who must be his mother into the vehicle.

Antigone moved closer to the wrought-iron stable gate, and continued to watch as an elegantly dressed, beautiful girl who must be his sister followed in the wake of her mother and alighted the steps. A family together with nothing but smiles for each other.

Then, there he was, unfolding his tall form through Northfield’s front door. Antigone’s heart thumped and jostled for room in her chest. Even at such a distance there was no mistaking Will Jellicoe. He had his hat tucked under his free arm, and the torches held by the footmen illuminated the rich golden color of his sandy hair, making him look gilded and even more handsome, if such a thing were possible.

Of course. Will Jellicoe was the brother of James, Viscount Jeffrey, and son to the Earl Sanderson. How could she not have realized? She had read his name in the
Naval Chronicle.
Papa had mentioned that the boy, as he had called him, was from a nearby district. But she had been too enthralled by the enchantment of making a new friend to think about anything more than that.

Antigone pressed herself against the wrought-iron bars of the gate, trying to catch their words, but all she could hear was a laugh before his brother, the Viscount Jeffrey, ushered him into the waiting carriage.

The crested coach and four soon bowled out of the drive at a stately pace, and headed west, and without letting herself stop to think, Antigone raced back into the barn to steal away her horse, and set the speedy mare to follow.