Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01] (22 page)

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Authors: Desperately Seeking a Duke

BOOK: Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01]
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The servants walked away carrying one of the carriage lanterns, the glow growing indistinct in the shreds of fog yet remaining. Phoebe kept her gaze out the window, unable to look at Rafe.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she whispered. “I have been there before. I have lived in that place for years. There didn’t a day pass where I didn’t wonder at someone cutting their eyes at me when I walked by, or bending their heads together to talk, or why someone crossed the street when I approached. The fear that it had happened was so great that I would find myself unable to breathe.”
“You cannot live that way. You cannot be forever worrying that the ax will fall.”
“You’re right. I cannot. That is why I must marry Calder instead of you.” She looked stonily ahead, not meeting his eyes. “To be a duchess—a rich duchess yet—that is the only way I can ensure that I need never fear again.”
He drew back. “Do you so wish for fine gowns and jewels?”
She closed her eyes, her jaw unrelenting. “I care nothing for such things.”
“What then?”
“You pretend not to understand, when I know that you already do. If I marry you, I will be a living scandal—the
woman who threw aside a duke for a rake. It will persist, like a rot in my life, for as long as I live. And our children—do you not think of them? A story like that is good for generations of gossip!”
“I have been the source of gossip all my life,” he said. “It does not kill.”
“Oh, yes it does,” she whispered. “It strangles slowly, it bleeds your friends from you one by one. It takes a pound of flesh every day until you are nothing but bones and nerves. I fear it would leach my love until I had nothing but regrets. If that fear makes me weak, then so be it. I am every bit the coward you think me.”
He flinched at that and drew a sharp breath. “Is that true? Would Society truly have so much power over your feelings for me?”
“It isn’t that simple!”
“Yes, it is. It is as simple as breathing, as the beat of your heart. I am yours. You are mine. All else falls away and the truth of us shines like the brightest of suns. You are mine.
Forever.”
She averted her face, her fingers twisted tightly together. “Don’t.” She took a long shuddering breath. “Just …
don’t.
”
Rafe drew slowly back, his chest tightening with realization. “It isn’t that you don’t love me, is it? No, I can see now. It is that you
won’t
love me.”
She said nothing, letting her silence answer for her. He swallowed, the pain in his chest twisting the action into agony.
There was no storming this keep. There was no charming this objection away. Phoebe, so soft and warm, so sweet and smiling, was stronger than she seemed. Her iron will
not
to love him, for whatever reason—and he was the first to admit that she had many—was not susceptible to his pleas or blandishments.
The moment stretched on, the silence growing like an impenetrable wall between them. Rafe felt the chill radiating from the cold stones of her resolve. The force of her rejection drove him back against the tufted cushions in a slow surrender. “I see.”
He tried to inhale against the weight pressing into him. His chest ached. “I will importune you no more then. My apologies for the pain I have caused in my ignorance.” Was that his voice? He sounded like a man pinned beneath a great boulder.
He reached out to the door handle, preparing to exit and fetch the servants, when her shaking hand lit lightly on his arm. He gazed at that small hand, at the trembling fingers just barely touching the cloth of his sleeve. “Miss Millbury—”
“Rafe—” There was agony in her whisper, agony that matched his own. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” he said softly, never lifting his gaze from her gloved hand, white lambskin against black wool. “It is I who am sorry. I’m sorry that I spent my life avoiding respectability instead of earning it. I’m sorry that I didn’t strive sooner to be a man worthy of a woman like you. I’m sorry I didn’t beg for your hand that first night at the ball. I’m sorry that I came to you too late, with too little to offer.”
Her hand stroked down his arm to twine her fingers with his. “No. Too late, perhaps, but never too little. If I could only tell you …”
He groaned. “What is this, Phoebe? Why do you reject me, then tease me with your touch? Why do you push, then pull?”
She laughed, a damp and broken sound. “It is not I who—someday soon you will learn something about me. I will marry Calder and then he will become duke and you will learn something. When that day comes, please—please
realize that I had no choice. You will remember that I obeyed my father and that I was a coward—but you must also remember that I loved you dearly and well. The man you are isn’t the reason I refuse you. The man you are is the reason it is so difficult to do so.”
“You are not a coward.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “You are a woman of honor, who won’t break a promise to a good man. I couldn’t love you so if you weren’t. And Calder is a good man. He will never intentionally hurt you.”
Unlike me, who has already caused you so much pain with my persistence.
She couldn’t have heard his thought, but as always, she seemed to know. “And you’re a good man as well, Lord Raphael Marbrook. You may not think it, but I would not love you so if you weren’t.” Her voice shook and he felt the trembling of imminent tears in her fingers.
He reached for her, pulling her into his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin. “It will be all right, sweet Phoebe. You’ll have a brilliant life and I will visit someday and be a good black-sheep uncle to your children and give them sweets that make them ill and toys that make too much noise.”
She laughed into his waistcoat, but the chuckle transformed into a sob between one breath and the next. He held her tightly as she cried, feeling the heat of her tears through his waistcoat and shirt, like brands on his chest. There would be scars left there, though he’d be the only one who ever saw them.
It was going to kill him to let her go.
THE CARRIAGE SAT unmoving, parked on the side of the road, when Stickley and Wolfe caught up with it. They stayed across the road, hiding in the shadows. The brush on the side of the road was wet and clinging from the recent rain.
“What are they doing?” Stickley hissed. “I thought they were going to the opera?”
Wolfe brushed at his smudged and torn finery. “They had better not go now. I’ll never pass in the opera hall in this state.”
Stickley worried the buttons on his weskit. “We’d better call this off. It’s all wrong now. I don’t like this dark and quiet. There might be bandits or some such about.”
Wolfe grinned, his teeth flashing white in the darkness. “Ah, Stick, you’re a genius. Give me that pistol of yours.”
“I will not! I need it for when I make deposits at the bank. I am very careful with other people’s money, you know.”
Wolfe nodded. “Absolutely. I know that. And right now, I’m going to save Miss Millbury and her money from a murdering lord with a crumbling estate—if that’s all right with you, of course.”
Stickley drew back in horror. “You’re going to kill him?”
Wolfe closed his eyes and sighed.
Stickley frowned. “You’re the third person to make that noise at me this week.”
Wolfe raised a brow. “Can’t imagine why. Now, Stick, I’m not going to kill Brookhaven. I’m going to capture him, just as we’d planned. This is better than trying to grab him at the opera, for there was no one to deal with but a coachman and a footman.”
“And Miss Millbury. You won’t frighten her too badly, will you?”
Wolfe raised both hands. “I am here to save Miss Millbury, remember? We are the heroes in this piece, right?”
Stickley smiled tightly. “Right. Of course.” He handed the pistol over to Wolfe. “Be forceful, but not too violent. And don’t give away your identity!”
Wolfe pulled a blue silk handkerchief from his pocket.
“Does this look black in this light? Good enough, I suppose.” He used a sharp stick to poke eyeholes, then tied the silk about the upper half of his face like a mask. “There. Neither Brookhaven nor Miss Millbury has ever met me, so I’ll be safe enough. You stay back here.”
“But it’s my pistol. I want to be a hero as well.”
“Stickley, stay.” Wolfe turned toward him, his eyes suddenly sinister in the mask. “I mean that.”
Stickley subsided. “Very well.”
But Wolfe was gone, a shadow among shadows drifting toward the parked carriage.
Phoebe lifted her head from Rafe’s chest and brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Did you hear that?”
Rafe turned his distant gaze outside. “Hear what? Are the servants back?”
Phoebe frowned. “I could swear I heard someone calling out for ‘sand and liver.’”
Rafe made a noise. “Sand and—” He jerked upright and pressed her back into her seat. “Stay here!”
In one smooth motion, he opened the door on the wooded side of the carriage and slid out and down, out of her sight. Phoebe stayed where she was told, fear beginning to boil beneath her heart. When Rafe was gone, she got down onto all fours to peer out the windows on the road side.
“Stand and deliver, damn you!” The voice was hoarse and deep. A dark figure appeared in the moonlight, a man all in black with a mask over his eyes. One hand carried a pistol, aimed directly at her!
She ducked down, although she wasn’t at all sure that the walls of the sleek, lightweight carriage would stop a bullet. Should she follow Rafe out the other door? Should she stay put, to do as she was told?
If she were a highwayman, she’d check the carriage first.
So be it. She scuttled backward, cursing the full skirts of her opera gown. If she could rip them up the side for better motion she would, but the sound would ring through the night like an alarm bell. For the moment, she was just going to have to hike them high and hope no one could see her pantalets—oh, criminy, she’d not worn pantalets. All in the cause of seducing Calder.
All right, then, perhaps she wouldn’t hike the skirts quite so high.
The door had never truly closed, so it was a simple matter to push open the well-oiled hinges and slither, silk and all, into the mud beneath the carriage. Sheltered and dark, yet she could see danger coming. Hopefully, no one would think to look for a lady between the wheels.
The mud made her progress more difficult but blessedly silent as she slithered on her stomach to the other side. Her elbows planted deep in the mud, she pushed her hair out of her eyes with filthy hands and looked for the highwayman.
He still stood, alone in the center of the road, brandishing his pistol. “I know you’re in there, Br—guv’nor! Come out peacefully and I won’t harm the lady.”
Phoebe didn’t put much stock in the word of a bandit. He looked the proper brigand, tall and powerful, his gold buttons gleaming in the moon’s glow—gold buttons?
Thievery must pay better than she’d thought.
A hand, cold and slimy, closed over her ankle. Phoebe started violently but made no sound.
“I thought I told you to stay in the carriage.” Rafe’s whisper was nearly soundless, coming from just behind her.
Phoebe closed her eyes. He was going to pay for that—perhaps not now, but soon. “I didn’t like being a bird in a cage,” she whispered back.
Rafe slithered up beside her. “Then don’t get caught.” He peered out at the highwayman, who looked as though
he were losing his patience. “I don’t think this fellow has much experience.”
Phoebe nodded. “Yes, he does have the air of a beginner. Is that a good thing?”
“It might not be. An accomplished thief is in control of the situation and of himself. I don’t think this fellow is either.”
The man moved, approaching the carriage. “Shh!” Rafe pushed her down, hiding her face in his shoulder—his wet, muddy shoulder. Phoebe pulled away to breathe and spit out a taste of mud.
Rafe pressed his mouth to her ear. “When I give the signal, slip out the back and hide in the woods. I’ll come find you.”
Phoebe nodded, the fear turning hard and spiky within her. This was real, the bandit was real, and his pistol was very, very real. “Be careful,” she breathed.
Rafe dropped his head to press a quick kiss to her lips then stopped a half-inch away. The kiss ended up on her cheekbone. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I’ll be there to dance at your wedding. Now …
go.
”
Phoebe pushed herself back as Rafe sprang from the concealing darkness, a silent and lethal leap at the armed man. Slithering backward until she was free of the carriage, hiking up her leaden, muddy skirts with both hands, turning to run, she listened every second. She heard a shout of surprise, grunts, and the sound of scuffling. She took a few steps into the wooded copse, stepping over a fallen branch, one hand before her as she left the revealing glow of the moon.
A cry of pain sounded from the scuffle—Rafe!
To hell with obedience.
Phoebe turned and reached for the branch on the ground. Heavy, but not too much so for a country girl. She wrapped both hands about it and raised it high, then took a
deep breath and rounded the carriage screaming like a banshee.
There were two highwaymen now, pulling at Rafe’s still form on the road. Phoebe’s screech became a howl of rage as the two men looked up just in time to catch the branch across their faces.
They scrambled backward, out of range, cursing—one voice high, one deep. She could see them clearly, but the masks had held—except the slighter man seemed to have made his mask from a sleeve of a shirt. The cuff flapped behind his head with every motion.
Bloody beginners.
She planted a foot on either side of Rafe’s still form and brandished her weapon with a snarl. “Get out of here, you goat-rutting bastards!”
The slight man gasped. “Language!”
The larger man pushed his companion back with one big hand to his chest. “Shut it, St—Stone.”
“What?” The smaller man slipped in the mud, then recovered. “Oh. Right …
Fox
.”
The big man snarled at his companion, then turned back on Phoebe. “Now, miss … there’s no need for you to get so upset. We have a bit of business with this gentleman, but we’ve no intention of harming you.”
Phoebe bared her teeth. “That’s too bad, for I’ve every intention of harming you.”
She took a mighty swing, making the branch whistle in the night air. Both men jumped back, staggering in the quagmire they’d created in their struggles with Rafe. She cocked the branch back again, braced like a cricket player.
The big man held up both hands. His smile beneath the mask was white. “There’s no call for that, miss.” His deep voice was smooth and cajoling. “You’re much too pretty to be so violent.”
Phoebe faltered, letting the branch sag slightly. “I—I am?”
Encouraged, the fellow took another step. “You certainly are. A fine figure of a woman, if I may be so bold. Why, this fellow isn’t man enough for the likes of you!”
Phoebe looked down at Rafe, facedown in the mud. “He isn’t?” She let the branch rest on her shoulder as she thought about it. Then she looked back up at the man in black. “Are you?”
He chuckled and took one more step toward her.
One more step had been all she needed. She swung with all her might, snapping the branch up and across his jaw. She heard teeth shut hard and a deep grunt of pain as the impact sent shocks reverberating up the branch to her hands. The big man seemed to float backward for a long moment before hitting the road hard, his big body sliding in the mud.
“Wo—Fox!” The slighter man ran forward and dropped to his knees beside his companion. “Fox! Can you hear me?”
The big man groaned. “Bloody Paris can hear you, St—Stone!” He pushed the other man aside and rose, one hand feeling gingerly at his jaw.
In his other hand, he held the pistol, pointed directly at her heart.
Oh, damn. She’d forgotten about the pistol.
The smaller man gasped. “What are you doing? You can’t shoot a lady!”
The big man growled. “Oh, yes I can. She hit me!”
Stone backed away a step. “You’ll do nothing of the sort.” His voice seemed different, authoritative and sharp. “Kindly remember who you are, sir.”
Fox seemed to have trouble remembering that, whoever that was. Phoebe waited, her breath coming short, her hands shaking, her rage fading under the onslaught of her terror. Then the big man let the pistol drop.
“Another day, then,” he said wryly. He tipped the pistol at her like a hat. “Miss.”
Then the highwayman raised his pistol and fired over the heads of the Brookhaven carriage horses. The animals started and lunged and fled off into the night, their bunched haunches carrying away themselves and the carriage and any hope Phoebe had of an easy course to rescue.
“Oh, dear,” Stone said softly.
Fox smiled meanly. “Have a nice walk, my dear. I do hope his lordship isn’t too heavy.”
Then the two melted into the shadows—well, sort of. She heard a great deal of crashing and cursing before their voices faded away completely.
Only then did she dare toss her weapon aside and kneel beside Rafe. She rolled him over and wiped the mud from his face, peering at him closely in the moonlight. “Rafe? Rafe, my darling, can you hear me?” Heavens, did everyone say that when someone was unconscious? “Rafe, please wake up! We must get away from here!”

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