Page 15 of Road Trip With a Rogue
He seemed unoffended by her disdain, and merely settled more snugly into his seat.
“Feel free to closeyoureyes, though,” she added sweetly. “I promise not to stab you while you sleep.”
His muffled snort was her only reply.
Chapter Seven
Daisy sat up straighter as the lights of Hatfield came into view. Only sheer stubbornness had kept her awake. That, and spite. As soon as the carriage rocked to a halt she jumped down and went to speak to the two hostlers who’d ambled out of the Bell Inn to change the horses.
“Another coach, an hour ago?” The stable boy frowned. “Aye. We changed ’em.” His hair was sticking up at all angles, and Daisy felt a twinge of guilt for pulling him from his bed. “We don’t often ’avetwocome through this early.” He yawned. “Are you ’avin’ a race?”
“Something like that.” Daisy resisted the urge to kick the cobbles.
Damn.Violet and Peregrine had decided not to stop. She stomped crossly back to the carriage and Vaughan’s lips twitched as he saw her expression.
“On to Stevenage?”
“Yes.”
To his credit, he didn’t laugh.
Daisy squashed herself into the corner of the carriage and glared dolefully out of the window, resisting thetemptation to keep sneaking glances over at Vaughan as they set off again.
The excitement of the evening had ebbed, leaving her drained and desperate to sleep. She should have been back in London with the two runaways by now, not forced into sharing a carriage with the last man in England she’d have chosen as a companion.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t see her luck improving any time soon. Peregrine and Violet might only be an hour or so ahead, but it was going to be almost impossible to catch them.
It was unlikely that they planned to sleep in the carriage and push through to Gretna without a single stop, but even if they decided to spend a couple of nights at innsen route, how could she possibly guess which ones they’d choose? The larger towns all had multiple options, and it wouldn’t be feasible to visit each one in turn and ask if they were there.
And Peregrine surely wouldn’t be so foolish as to book a room under his own name either, which meant Daisy would have to rely on describing them. She’d only seen Violet a handful of times at social events; apart from a riot of golden ringlets and large blue eyes, she couldn’t recall much about her at all. The one time she’d met Peregrine, he’d reminded her of an enthusiastic spaniel.
Daisy sighed into the collar of her coat. The chances of her finding them before they reached Gretna were miniscule.
Shemightcome upon them if they broke down and were stranded, or if she happened to glimpse a golden lion on a carriage door while passing through a town, but she didn’t hold out much hope.
Still, the thought of having to admit defeat and returnto London with her tail between her legs was distinctly unappealing. Nobody could have predicted the night’s unlikely turn of events, but she’dhateto be responsible for disappointing her friends and ruining King & Company’s excellent track record.
Not to mention that Vaughan would be witness to her humiliation.
Not that she cared what he thought of her.
The landscape had been growing steadily lighter beyond the window for the past half hour, and the sun finally peeked above the horizon, spilling its rays inside the carriage. Daisy glanced at Vaughan and her heart did an odd little sputter in her chest as she got her first real look at him in daylight.
His eyes were closed, his arms folded across his chest, and she took the chance to catalogue the changes in him. Three years of war had taken its toll, not simply in his injured hand, but in the new lines that spread from the corner of his eyes. Annoyingly, the rugged maturity only served to make him even more attractive. His tanned jaw was darkened with just the hint of morning stubble, and she clenched her hand into a fist as she wondered what it would feel like beneath her palm.
He must be twenty-eight or twenty-nine now, the same age as her brother Devlin. Six years older than herself. When she’d been eighteen and stupid, that gap had seemed insurmountable, but she’d gained a world of experience since that night. Sometimes she felt decades older than her twenty-three years.
He stirred and she looked away, feigning interest in the countryside, and turned her thoughts back to her current dilemma.
She needed a new plan.
“You need a new plan.” Vaughan stretched his long limbs and rolled his shoulders. “Either that, or admit defeat. The odds of you managing to overtake them are—”
Daisy ground her teeth. “I’d arrived at that conclusion on my own, thank you very much.”
“There’s no shame in ceding the field. Even Wellington did it on occasion.”
His condescending tone made her want to pitch him out the window. He was a man crying out for defenestration. Sadly, the carriage windows were too high and too small to attempt it.