The Perfect Princess (6 page)

With her pursuers hot on her heels, she went tearing over the cobblestones and dived into the crush. She was too frightened to care about the niceties. Pure animal instinct had taken over, and she shoved and elbowed people out of her way as though they were no more than scarecrows in a field of corn. When they snarled at her, she snarled back. And once in a while, she chanced a quick look over her shoulder to keep her enemies in sight.

They were gaining on her.

She plowed on blindly, and shoved once too often. Great beefy arms clamped around her. She’d been stopped by a man who had the brawny physique of her father’s blacksmith.

“Whoa,” he said, “you’re going the wrong way, little lady.”

Little lady
, he’d called her, and compared to him she was the pocket Venus she’d always wanted to be. But not
now, not when Maitland was almost upon her. She wanted to be the Amazon he’d taunted her with being, one of those legendary female warriors who could hold her own against any man.

But not this man. Those arms were like iron shackles.

“You’s been hurt,” he said. His voice was rough but not unkindly, and she stopped squirming. “Who did this to you, little lady?” He was looking at a cut on her arm that she hadn’t noticed until then.

She screwed her neck round and sucked in a breath when she saw how close Maitland had come. He was so close that she could see the laugh lines at the corner of his eyes, his cold blue eyes. She couldn’t imagine this man laughing. His jaw was tensed; his lips were flattened; his features looked as though they were carved from granite.

And he was still wearing his turnkey’s tunic.

Her brain worked like lightning. This was not the time to go into long explanations of who she was and why Maitland was after her. Her nice blacksmith obviously wanted to rescue her. She didn’t think he’d be so eager if he knew she was a duke’s daughter.

“That man is after me,” she sobbed. “He’s a militiaman and he was taking me to Newgate.”

Her words had the desired affect. “Militia!” roared the blacksmith. “What militiaman?”

She pointed with a trembling finger.

The blacksmith thrust her behind him and immediately began to shoulder his way toward Maitland. When he reached his quarry and fell on him with flying fists, Rosamund allowed herself a small sigh of relief.
One down and one to go
. She searched the sea of faces, but there was no sign of Maitland’s henchman. Praying that he’d met with a similar fate to Maitland’s, she pushed into the angry rioters and forged ahead.

When she burst into the inn’s stable yard, her lungs were burning; her legs were cramping. In the mêlée,
she’d lost her reticule, her bonnet, her shawl, and one of her shoes. She didn’t care. Her one thought was to reach her carriage and escape before another catastrophe overtook her.

The inn and stable yard were choked with people, rioters who—she gathered from the catcalls and comments flying back and forth—had decided to take a respite from their labors and fortify themselves with the inn’s beer and ale before returning to the fray. There were no angry faces here. Everyone seemed to be having a grand time. It was just like a party.

She frowned when she saw the ducal carriage. There were no postilions and no coachmen guarding it, only a stableboy holding the lead horses’ reins. She’d told her coachmen that she’d be back in an hour, but she hadn’t been gone that long. She didn’t have to search her mind too hard to come up with the answer to where her coachmen had taken themselves. Obviously, they’d joined the party and were probably in the inn’s taproom having a grand old time.

Newgate! The Old Bailey! And now her own coachmen! She must have done something terribly wrong somewhere to be punished like this.

Dodging ostlers and tipsy customers, she hobbled over to the boy at the horses’ heads. She was so out of breath that it took her a moment to find her voice. “My coachmen,” she finally managed, “fetch them for me at once.”

“Your
coachmen?” The stableboy made an insulting appraisal, from her ramshackle hair to her unshod toes, and he snickered. “Arsk me when yer sober,” he said.

Rosamund was about to annihilate him with a few polite, well-chosen words, when he snickered again, and her hand, with a will of its own, suddenly grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him to his toes. She was a lot taller than he. Lowering her face to within inches of his, she said in a voice that mimicked the duke’s voice exactly
when he went on the rampage, “Fetch my coachmen or I’ll see to it that you spend the rest of your misbegotten life rotting in Newgate Gaol.”

Satisfied with what she read in his face, she gently lowered him and let him go. Eyes as round as bread plates, he touched his forelock and practically fell over himself as he went racing toward the inn. Rosamund absently took over his job of calming the horses, but she was thinking that never in her whole life had she addressed anyone in that tone of voice, especially someone who was not in a position to answer back. She had an inexhaustible supply of patience, or so she’d always thought. She’d left this very coach barely an hour ago, and she’d returned to it a changed woman. From this moment on, she promised herself, she would never more complain of all the checks her father imposed to keep her safe.

Just thinking of the last hour gave her the shudders. But she felt safe here in this crowded stable yard with her coachmen nearby, and now that her panic had lost its edge, she could think of Maitland without wanting to murder him. She didn’t wish him well, but she didn’t want him to hang either. If only he could be transported to the colonies, she would feel that justice had been served.

She’d set the blacksmith on him, but she didn’t think the blacksmith would do more than thrash him. Or perhaps break his leg. The thought was vastly comforting. At any rate, she’d bought herself some time.

Her thoughts were interrupted when someone shouted for silence. “Listen!” the voice cried out.

An uneasy tension held everyone in its grasp. A moment later, the unmistakable sound of rifle fire rippled through the silence. The word
militia
came from every side. There wasn’t a panic, but the party was over, and the yard quickly emptied as people took cover.

Then she saw him, Maitland, under the spreading branches of a horse chestnut tree. He was drinking from
a tankard of ale. He was still wearing his turnkey’s uniform, but he’d ripped off the frogging so that he looked like one of the rioters. There wasn’t a mark on him, no bloody nose or broken jaw, and no broken limbs. Evidently, her blacksmith had possessed more brawn than skill. The hope that Maitland would take her for one of the rioters—she knew she looked a fright—was dashed when he raised his tankard in mock salute.

Well, she wasn’t as defenseless as he thought she was. Her father had taught her what to do if ever she was waylaid by highwaymen, and she lost no time in putting his drill into practice. She lunged for the coach door, yanked it open, and hoisted herself inside. When the coach jerked as the lead horses stamped restlessly, she momentarily lost her balance, steadied herself, then she reached for the pistol that was always kept in the holster in the lining of the banquette. She knew how to shoot a pistol.

She crouched down in front of the coach window and peered out. Maitland was no longer under the horse chestnut tree, but this came as no surprise. He would be creeping up on her, maybe from the other side, hoping to take her off guard. Keeping her head well down, she inched toward the other door. That’s when he came in the far door and lunged for her. She brought her pistol up and, contrary to Papa’s strict instructions, aimed for his shoulder and not his heart. She simply did not possess the killer instinct. But he was too quick for her. His foot lashed out and connected with her pistol just as she pulled the trigger, and the bullet went wild. Someone on the roof of the coach let out a furious oath. Then Maitland fell on top of her, and for the third time in less than an hour, she cracked her head on something hard. The horses, maddened by the shot, reared in their traces and tried to make a bolt for it.

“Harper!” roared Maitland.

Harper! She knew that name! Harper was Maitland’s
bodyguard. She’d read about him in the papers. Some bodyguard! Whenever Maitland didn’t want his bodyguard around, he simply assigned him to other duties at Special Branch, and that’s where Sergeant Harper was when Lucy Rider was murdered.

A voice from above roared back. “I’ve got ’em. I’ve got ’em.”

Rosamund wanted to scream, but Maitland’s weight crushed the breath out of her. Her head ached, her wrist ached, and though she was dazed, she knew what was going on. Harper was in the box and he had taken over the reins. She gritted her teeth as the horses jolted forward, then she went rigid with fear as Maitland pressed the barrel of a gun to her temple.

“Stay down or I’ll blow your brains out,” he gritted. When she didn’t answer, he lost patience. “Did you hear me?”

She nodded vigorously.

Finally, he shifted, and she could breathe again, but not very easily because, as he raised himself to the banquette, he planted his booted foot right on her chest.

What was he waiting for? What was he watching for?

“Spring ’em,” he suddenly yelled, making her wince.

She heard the crack of the whip, and as the horses sprang forward, the coach lurched into motion.

They wouldn’t get far, she told herself. Papa’s horses were notoriously hard to handle. The postilion who rode the lead horse wasn’t there only to protect her, but to keep those high-strung horses from bolting the first chance they got. One man on the box would not control them for long. The horses would bolt, and the carriage would overturn, and it would be all over for Maitland and his lackey.

And if the horses didn’t bolt, they’d be hemmed in by the mob or the militia. Either way, it would be over. All she had to do was grit her teeth and wait.

She couldn’t see, but she could hear plenty as the
coach careened out of the stable yard—yells, curses, and the man on the box alternately cracking the whip and laughing like a maniac.

The coach tilted as it turned a corner, then it came down with a hard thud on the cobblestones, making her teeth rattle. At least the gun was no longer pressed against her temple. Maitland was looking out the window, his pistol cradled in the crook of one arm. Her own gun was somewhere on the floor, useless now, unless she could reload it, and that wasn’t going to happen as long as his foot was on her chest.

When his eyes suddenly narrowed on her, she sucked in a breath. “What,” he asked in a dangerously mild tone, “are you plotting to do to me now?”

Thoughts of boiling oil and thumbscrews danced in her head, but, under the circumstances, she decided to be diplomatic. “You’ve got the wrong idea about me,” she said. “There is no plot. It’s all in your imagination.”

Those thinned lips flattened even more. When he bent over her, she edged away. “It’s all in my imagination,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And I suppose I imagined that you tried to kill me when I entered your carriage?”

“You were pursuing me! And anyway, I aimed for your shoulder.”

In the same deadly tone, he went on, “How does a duke’s daughter come to be so handy with a gun?”

“Because,” she said, “my mother’s coach was attacked by highwaymen once, and she barely escaped with her life. After that, my father insisted that I learn how to defend myself.”

“That’s how to get yourself killed!”

“And that’s exactly what I’m going to tell my father once you let me go.”

He didn’t take the hint. His dark brows rose, then he looked away so that she could not read his eyes. She had
the oddest sensation that he was laughing at her, and the lump of fear in her throat dissolved. Laughing at
her
! A
Devere!
Whose ancestors were as heroic as the heroes of the Trojan war: Caspar Devere, who’d fought with the Black Prince at Poitiers and who’d blown kisses to the ladies, years later, just before the executioner chopped off his head when those upstart Lancastrians came to power; Lady Margaret Devere, who’d defended her husband’s castle against Cromwell’s Roundheads, then chased them off at the head of her own army; her own father, another Caspar Devere, who’d rescued dozens of French aristocrats during the Revolution; and her own mother, Elizabeth Devere, who’d thrown herself at a highwayman who’d pointed his gun at her son. Her family tree was weighed down with heroes.

Then what was she doing, cowering on the coach floor like this, allowing a no-good, detestable thug, who probably didn’t have any ancestors, lord it over her with his boot planted firmly against her breasts?

The coach hit a pothole; her teeth and bones chattered like castanets, and that was the last straw.

“Get off me, you . . . you scoundrel!” she snapped.

She swiped at the offending boot with her balled fist, and much to her surprise, he did as she asked.

He pointed his pistol straight at her. “Stay on the floor,” he commanded.

There wasn’t a hint of a smile in his eyes or voice. She’d been mistaken to think that he was laughing at her. This man didn’t have a sense of humor, and the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes weren’t laugh lines at all. They were squint lines from narrowing his eyes in that unpleasant way of his to strike terror into the hearts of his victims.

And it was working.

She used her hands to push herself to a sitting position, but mindful of the gun, she didn’t disobey his order to stay on the floor.

He chewed on his bottom lip. Finally, he said, “Begin at the beginning and tell me exactly what brought you to Newgate.”

She delayed answering, as though she were putting her thoughts in order, but she was straining to hear sounds of pursuit. The streets of London were supposed to be swarming with militia. Then why hadn’t they stopped the duke’s carriage with the distinctive Devere coat of arms emblazoned on its side? And why hadn’t Papa’s high-strung horses bolted when there was only one man controlling the reins? And why—

“I’m waiting, Lady Rosamund.”

Her eyes jerked up to meet his. “There’s nothing sinister about my going to Newgate,” she began. “My friend, Mrs. Tracey, invited me to accompany her. She felt sorry for you. You see, she believes you are innocent. All she wanted was to tell you so and give you a basket of small luxuries to brighten your last hours of life.”