His Christmas Pleasure (12 page)

Abby’s sense that something was not right grew stronger.

The barón was standing toward the back of the library, reading a periodical he had open on the counter. He stood out. He was taller than most and, on top of his good looks, had a commanding presence.

He was dressed in a many-caped, gray greatcoat and wore a sporting man’s spurs on his boots. It was the fashion, but Abby knew he was prepared for travel.

Raising his head in her direction, he gave a small nod toward the back door.

That was how he wanted them to leave.

She smiled that she understood and started to make her way toward him, walking along the counter as she pretended to search for a particular book.

A clerk began following her. “Is there something I may take down for you, Miss Montross?” he asked eagerly.

The front doorbell jangled as she answered, “I’m just looking—”

“Why, Miss Montross,” Freddie Sherwin’s voice said.

Abby turned. Freddie was in the doorway, and he wasn’t alone.

“Cousin!” Corinne said happily and started walking toward her. “We saw your coach pulling away and feared you were gone.” She was a vision in blue velvet that played up her fair complexion and blonde hair. Freddie appeared positively dashing beside her.

But Abby had to concede that he was not as good-looking as the barón.

It was an odd notion. She’d never thought that way about Freddie before.

He’d always been the most important man in the room to her … but now he belonged to someone else.

Perhaps her feelings were changing because soon she would belong to someone else.

“Freddie assured me that often you had the coach drive around the square rather than wait for you,” Corinne continued happily. “I say, I like the green of your bonnet with your hair. Very fetching.”

“Thank you,” Abby murmured. “And congratulations on your betrothal.”

“See? I told you there were no hard feelings,” Freddie said to Corinne, not bothering to lower his voice. It carried through the library. “Abby’s not that way. She wants what is best for us.”

Abby felt her temper sizzle. Freddie talked about her to Corinne? What a complete bounder!

“Is that true, dear?” her cousin asked, but Abby couldn’t answer—because she suddenly had a new worry.

Through the glass windows, she recognized the man about to walk in: her father.

And he was moving with a purpose she knew too well.

She’d been found out. She didn’t know how … but this did explain Tabitha’s unusual behavior. The maid must have noticed the note, and now Abby’s father was about to grab her by the ear and take her home.

If she wanted her freedom, if she didn’t want to be the next Lady Villier, or to spend the rest of her life at family functions pretending Freddie was nothing more than a distant relative, she had only one choice.

She turned to the barón and shouted, “Run!”

Andres was annoyed. Here he was, ready to elope, and she was dawdling, jabbering with the buffoon, her Freddie, the man who wouldn’t speak for her.

But when she shouted for them to run and came at him as if the building had been on fire, Andres proved his annoyance didn’t interfere with his reflexes. If Abby Montross said “Run,” he already knew enough of her character to believe her.

He’d paid a clerk to let them use the building’s back entrance. He now reached for the door leading to the back storage room and opened it. Abby didn’t pause but charged right through it, tossing over her shoulder the chilling words, “My father.”

That’s all she had to say.

The bell over the front door jangled and Banker Montross marched into the circulating library like a fighter entering the ring. “Where’s my daughter?” he shouted before catching sight of Andres, who was already shutting the door behind himself.

Andres looked for a lock. There was none, so he scanned the back storage room, with its row of desks and chairs, for something he could use to block the door. Abby had reached the back entrance. She held the door open, urging him to hurry.

A clerk making entries in a ledger was sitting at the desk closest to Andres.

His desk was piled high with books. With one swift motion, Andres grabbed the heavy wooden desk and dragged it in front of the door, startling the poor clerk while papers, ledgers, and ink bottles went flying.

“I say,” the man yelped, but Andres wasn’t offering explanations. He ran to Abby even as a body rammed against the door. The desk rocked, but held.

However, it wouldn’t hold for much longer, especially if the clerk helped from this side.

Out on the back step, Andres grabbed Abby’s arm. “This way.”

The alley was narrow with just enough space for a cart to pass. Andres had left his phaeton, a light sporting vehicle made for fast travel, at the alley’s exit on Oxford Street. Men proved their mastery of the whip on such a vehicle. It lacked a coach’s security, but the truth was, Andres could drive his phaeton heeled on two wheels if he had to. Negotiating London traffic would be a challenge but not a problem, and the time they would save making their escape would be a godsend.

Abby tripped on her skirts even as her father burst through the alley door shouting her name.

Andres could see the lad holding his horses. He swept Abby up in his arms, throwing her unceremoniously over his shoulder, and raced the last few steps to his vehicle, almost knocking over two women who had the misfortune of crossing the alley at that moment.

The ladies screamed. Andres muttered, “So sorry, so sorry,” before barking for the lad with his horses to pay attention.

He swung Abby up into the perched seat of the phaeton. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Eloping,” he said, thinking it should be obvious.

Banker Montross was fast. He raced down the alley toward them like a hussar on the attack. There was no time for Andres to run around to the other side of the vehicle. He jumped up into the box, climbing over Abby—

even as she started to climb down.

Andres caught her arm. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t ride in this,” she said.

“Yes, you can,” Andres answered, picking up the reins while still holding her arm. With a snap, they were off.

“Sir! You promised me a guinea,” the lad shouted, chasing them.

Slipping his arm through Abby’s, Andres reached in his pocket and pulled out a coin. “Here,” he said to Abby, “give this to him.” He had to watch his driving. The traffic was heavy on Oxford Street. A man had to have his wits about him.

But Abby didn’t take the coin. She grabbed the far side of the seat with both hands. “I can’t ride in this. This is dangerous,” she announced.

Andres frowned and tossed the coin back to the lad, not bothering to look to see if it was picked up or not, because he could hear Banker Montross bellowing like an enraged bear that they had escaped. He was shouting at everyone to stop them. Andres found a hole in the oncoming traffic, picked up his whip, and, with a flick toward his team of horses, drove them right into it, passing a town coach smartly.

He swung the phaeton in front of the coach before the oncoming traffic ran them over.

Abby was making high-pitched noises. When they were out of danger, she whirled on him, her eyes alive with outrage. “That was so dangerous—”

“Then prepare yourself, for we are doing it again.”

And they did.

Abby gave out a shout and shut her eyes.

After seeing them in and out of the traffic, Andres had to say, “I don’t understand your fear. I am an excellent whip. I’ve raced these things and won every time.”

“Please don’t,” she returned. “This vehicle, it is nothing but a board on four very unsteady wheels. It’s dangerous. Vehicles like this should be outlawed.”

He laughed. The truth was, he enjoyed driving fast, and now he had a good excuse. “You don’t need to worry, Abby. I will take care of you.” Holburn’s team of matching grays was a sweet pair of goers. “We will be in Scotland before you know it.”

“We are going to take this flimsy cart all the way to Scotland?”

Andres pulled his attention away from the traffic to give her a frown. The ribbons of her bonnet had come loose and the hat was in danger of flying off.

Her curls sprung out every which way and her eyes were wide in her pale face.

“Yes, I think we shall,” he said, teasing because she looked so alarmed.

She groaned an answer.

But Andres was enjoying himself. He liked the challenge of the chase, and he liked to at last be doing something. He was taking action. The deed to Stonemoor was in his pocket and he had Abby by his side.

“You will not regret this, Abby,” he said, skillfully darting the phaeton around a brewer’s dray. He cut in front a bit too closely this time. The driver yelled and shook his fist. Andres laughed, knowing he had complete control.

“I already do regret it,” Abby said, sounding weak. “Please, Barón—”

“You should call me Andres,” he said. “We are to be man and wife, and that is what should be done.”

“If you don’t stop this vehicle, nothing will happen,” she informed him.

He scowled, not liking her threat—until he looked at her. Abby appeared ready to pass out.

“Hold on,” he said. “You are going to be sick, but you will feel better—”

“I can’t be sick here,” she worried. “Please, let me off this thing …”

Andres turned down a side road. The neighborhood was a bit seedy. It was just as well. The moment the vehicle stopped, Abby started to climb down, but she didn’t make it. She was very ill for a moment, right on the street.

Andres rubbed her back. “You will feel better now.”

She looked around at him with an offended expression. “I’ve never done such a thing in my life. Not ever.”

“It’s the motion. It has not set well with you.” She nodded, her eyes troubled.

“You will be better,” he promised.

“I need to climb to the ground,” she claimed. She would have done so, but he put his arm around her waist. She had a trim waist, but one couldn’t always tell with the style of dresses, and she looked a bit heftier than he last remembered.

“We must go on,” he said.

“I can’t. The motion.” She shook her head in distress.

“I hired a coach. It’s waiting for us at the Rose and Lion, an inn outside Edgeware.”

“Is that far?” she asked, misery in her eyes.

“Not too far,” he hedged.

Abby sighed her relief. “I was so afraid you were going to drive me all the way to Scotland like this.”

“We could not do that,” he assured her. “The drive is a good two days, traveling without stop. I can’t stay awake that long.”

Her eyes took on an arrested expression. “I’d wondered about how long it would take to reach the border, but I hadn’t worried about it,” she said half to herself.

“But I did,” Andres hurried to say. “Trust me, Abby. What you are doing is a very good thing for me. I will not let you down. I will always take care of you.”

She studied him a moment as if uncertain whether or not to believe him.

The color was returning to her complexion, and he knew part of her concern was embarrassment.

“You have never been on your own, have you?” he asked.

“No.”

“You will like it,” he promised. “I know this isn’t a good start, but you have an adventurous spirit.”

“Why do you say that?” she wondered.

“It is your hair,” he remarked, smiling. He reached out and touched one of her silky, springy curls. “A woman with hair like this cannot be shy about life. Here, let me help you with your bonnet.”

In all the commotion, the ribbons on her bonnet had come free, and the hat was about to fall to the ground. He secured the horses’ reins, then turned back to her to find that she had set the wide-brimmed hat in place so it framed her face. Her hands were shaking, whether from being ill or just the tension of the situation itself. Gently, he moved her hands away from the ribbons and tied them into a bow himself, taking a second to fluff it up properly.

“Thank you,” she murmured, watching him, as if surprised that he would do such a thing.

He smiled at her. She was going to be his wife.

“It is my role to take care of you,” he said.

She lowered her head as if digesting this and then nodded. “We take care of each other,” she murmured.

“Man and wife,” he said—and those words made him feel good.

They imbued him with a sense of rightness, of power.

She must have felt something of the same, because slowly, her lips curved into a smile. He smiled back … and almost kissed her. It would be so easy to just lean down and place a kiss right there on the tip of her nose. A silly kiss.

A familiar one.

Andres hadn’t thought of a kiss that way. There had always been the intent of seduction, and he wouldn’t mind seducing Abby. In fact, he planned to—

it was just that at that very moment, he discovered he was the one being seduced, and in a way he’d not experienced before—

Startled, he broke the moment, leaning back.

She noticed the gesture, looked away.

Feeling clumsy, another emotion not common to him, Andres picked up the reins. “We must be going.”

Abby nodded.

“Your stomach? It will be fine?”

“I hope so,” she answered with her usual candor, and Andres couldn’t help but laugh.

The laughter broke the tension between them. Abby wasn’t afraid to laugh at herself. He thought it good. Too many women were deadly serious about themselves, and he realized Abby pleased him.

He wasn’t daffy in love with her the way he’d been with Gillian, but he felt comfortable around her.

Andres began the task of turning the phaeton around in the narrow street.

He knew how to make the turn, and the horses were well trained enough to understand what needed to be done.

However, Abby stopped him by clamping her hand on his arm. “Barón, halt.” She stared toward Oxford Street. “My father.”

Andres whipped his head around just in time to see a town coach drive past the intersecting street. Banker Montross stood in the boot, frowning at the road ahead as he strained in search for them. He didn’t look down the side street.