Page 8 of Runaway Countess (Those Wild Whitbys #2)

Chapter Eight

W hen Uncle Fitz’s money first started coming in from the cotton manufactory, he bought himself a coach and four. It had padded seats and shiny blue panels. It was the finest carriage Jenny had ever been inside. She was rarely permitted to ride in it.

The enormous coach belonging to Lord Kendrick, pulled by six matched horses and painted with the golden Kendrick crest, could have fit Uncle Fitz’s entire coach inside it with room to spare. It was awe-inspiringly, ridiculously, terrifyingly huge.

Jenny was glad of that. Her anxiety over the prospect of getting into such an expensive carriage was a welcome distraction from her anxiety about getting away from Plymouth before she was caught, her anxiety about Uncle Fitz’s reaction should he catch her, and the stomach-roiling, knee-shivering terror she felt at the prospect of meeting her betrothed at last.

She pulled at the white bonnet covering her pinned-up hair, wishing it was a good deal bigger. Big enough, perhaps, to swallow up her entire face, and give the impression that Lord Beeston was being nursed by a mysterious masked fugitive, or a ball of curds wrapped in cheesecloth.

Sebastian gave a shrill whistle as the coachman pulled up outside Lord Beeston’s apartments. “Ho! Kendrick! You’re up early, for a nob.”

A young man with an expensive overcoat and tired eyes stuck his head out of the carriage window. When he spoke, it was with the same kind voice Jenny had overheard from beneath Sebastian’s bedsheets.

“Morning, Whitby. You’re remarkably clean, for a bilge rat.” Lord Kendrick swung down from the carriage and clasped Sebastian’s hand. Jenny, at Sebastian’s side, took a step back, putting the comforting barrier of Captain Whitby between herself and the viscount.

It was silly to think that Lord Kendrick would recognise her. He had no idea that Sebastian had not been alone in his rooms the previous day. All the same, it felt too risky to look him in the eye.

The middle-aged woman at Jenny’s side, in an identical white apron and bonnet, gave her a friendly wink. “Don’t worry, Mrs Hughes,” she murmured, using the false name Sebastian had come up with for Jenny. “Once you’ve been nursing as many years as I have, you’ll see there’s no call to quake in front of nobility. Everyone’s the same with their drawers down.”

Jenny’s eyes flared wide.

She had not even had time to consider what the realities of nursing Lord Beeston would be. Was she going to have to help him wash and dress? Wouldn’t his valet take care of that?

Did Sebastian’s plan for her escape really include her witnessing Lord Beeston in the nude ?

“These fine women must be the brave souls who will take care of our friend Beeston on his journey,” Lord Kendrick was saying – and now Jenny was blushing scarlet and trying to hold in a nervous laugh at the same time. “Don’t be a brute, Whitby. Introduce me.”

Nurse Thomas, despite her scathing words about nobility, curtseyed so deeply she practically sank through the cobbles as Sebastian made the introductions. It was not usual for a viscount to ask the acquaintance of a nurse.

Lord Kendrick gave them each a gracious nod. His manners were easy and unaffected, enough to ease Jenny’s nerves a little. She had no fear that he might do as Aunt Fanny suggested titled gentlemen would, and have her dragged off in disgrace should she make an error of etiquette.

Perhaps titled gentlemen were not the ogres her active imagination had conjured. Perhaps Beeston, like Kendrick, might be kind and unpretentious, and even though he did not have blue eyes nor a scent like salted apple cake, perhaps –

“ Go to the devil, you ignorant fool! ”

The voice smashed out of the upstairs window with such force that Jenny wondered the glass did not shatter.

Mrs Thomas squared her shoulders. Lord Kendrick sighed. Sebastian Whitby’s smile froze upon his face, and he avoided looking at Jenny altogether. “Poor chap,” he said, unconvincingly. “He’s in a great deal of pain. I’ll go and see what’s bothering him.”

A harried-looking footman appeared at the front door just as Sebastian was ascending the steps. “Excuse me, Captain Whitby, but –”

“Yes, yes,” said Sebastian. “I am on my way.”

Lord Kendrick made a gesture to his coachman, who descended from the box to help the footman prepare the carriage to transport an invalid. Mrs Thomas gave Jenny a shrewd look up and down.

“The captain wasn’t telling falsehoods when he said you hadn’t much experience, eh?”

“I’ve almost none,” Jenny said. The older woman exuded a sense of no-nonsense practicality which, in that moment, Jenny envied enormously. For her own part, she felt as though she might be sick.

“I suspected as much. The stories I’ve heard of that gentleman’s behaviour have made the rounds, believe you me. We nurses do love a gossip. You’re lucky I happened to be between jobs and thicker-skinned than most. I’ll show you how to manage it all. With any luck, you’ll be glad of starting out on such a tricky job – even if His Lordship croaks, you’ll get yourself a fine character out of it.”

“Thank you,” said Jenny, trying to ignore the nonchalant suggestion that Lord Beeston might be about to die. “Please do instruct me however you wish. I will be glad to learn and to make myself useful.” It was no bad thing to have another set of skills to fall back on for her life as a spinster in Shepton Mallet. She had no intention of being a burden on Helen.

The footman emerged from the carriage, bowed to Lord Kendrick, and hurried into the house again.

“Here they come,” said Mrs Thomas, giving Jenny a little nudge of encouragement. “Remember, pet – none of them are anything to fear with their trousers down.”

Jenny thought Lord Kendrick must have overheard. He gave a little snort of laughter, which he covered with his hand and tried to make into a cough.

The front door opened again, smartly this time and out to its full width, and the footman ran down the steps to hold open the carriage door. A portly middle-aged man emerged – Lord Beeston’s valet – and then came Sebastian, walking as easily as though he were strolling through a park carrying a posy of wildflowers, when in fact he was carrying a gentleman with dark hair and a pale face, dressed in a long overcoat of fine black wool that trailed over Sebastian’s arm and concealed his lost leg from view. He was hollow-cheeked, with black eyebrows that only served to highlight the painful wasting of his face. His clothes were good quality, but too loose. His fist in its black glove was clenched into Sebastian’s greatcoat.

Jenny stared for a moment.

He looked nothing like his portrait.

“Good morning, Beeston,” said Lord Kendrick, giving the invalid a nod. “Pleasant day for a drive.” He stepped back out of Sebastian’s way.

“Set me down, Whitby,” Lord Beeston growled. His voice was no less harsh at close quarters than it had been ringing in anger from the upstairs window, though now Jenny could hear that not all its coarseness was malice. This was a voice that had scraped itself raw, through suffering, she supposed, as well as cursing his servants. It matched his raw-scraped features and the wild black curls of his hair. “I can get myself into a carriage, dammit.”

“Sorry, my lord. Doctor’s orders.” Sebastian carried on smoothly over the pavement and stooped a little, turning sideways to fit them both through the coach door. He moved with extraordinary speed and gentleness. Lord Beeston was delivered into the coach’s dark interior without a single jostle or bump.

Jenny let out a long, slow breath.

There were a few sharp words exchanged within the carriage, their exact nature impossible to discern. The footman poked his head inside and swiftly withdrew, followed by Sebastian, whose frozen smile was beginning to look decidedly unnatural.

“Mrs Thomas, you may have better luck,” he said to the nurse. “I can’t get him comfortable. The blighter says he’s settled in well enough, of course, but any fool can see he won’t manage, set up as he is.”

“Come along, Mrs Hughes,” said Mrs Thomas brusquely, rubbing her hands together. “We’ll soon have things set to rights.”

Jenny hesitated. Her face felt hot.

The same face which Lord Beeston had inspected, by way of her portrait, and had ordered up the way a man might order a steak dinner at his club.

He would know her. She was sure of it. He’d know her at once and then it would be either marriage or Uncle Fitz, and she didn’t know which she feared most.

Sebastian Whitby made a soft sound in his throat. Jenny looked at him.

“Don’t worry, Mrs Hughes ,” he said, with a gentle nod of encouragement. “I won’t let his lordship cause you any harm.”

Which wasn’t true. It couldn’t possibly be true. Sebastian had no power to save her from anybody.

Except that Jenny’s heart settled to a steady beat in the warmth of that blue gaze, and she could not help but believe that maybe, somehow, he did.

She gave him a wry smile and climbed into the coach behind Mrs Thomas.

It was dark. The footman had drawn down all the window coverings. Lord Beeston – Jenny’s betrothed – was lying on a bed of plump goose-down cushions laid along the centre of the coach, between the two long stuffed benches which faced each other.

His hat was set neatly on the seat beside him. His greatcoat was wrapped over him, though it could not conceal the fact that from beneath it there emerged but one booted foot.

Jenny hesitated in the doorway. At least there, she would be no more than a dark silhouette against the bright daylight.

Lord Beeston cut his eyes to her. He had propped himself up on an elbow. He seemed to be gritting his teeth; his voice snapped out in a strained whisper from between them. “Don’t stand there with the door open letting every passer-by gawk in at me. Come in. Give me your name.”

Jenny eased her way into the coach. Despite its size, there was little space to manoeuvre with the floor entirely taken up by pillow and blankets and – and her fiancé.

“This is Mrs Hughes, my lord,” said Mrs Thomas, who was making a pile of pillows at the side of his missing leg. “She and I will soon have you set up very comfortably.”

“Hm.” Lord Beeston gave a mirthless smile. “How good of Whitby to find me a pair of miracle-workers –” He bit off his words mid-sentence, but made no sound, as Mrs Thomas propped the pillow firmly against his leg.

“That caused you some pain, my lord, did it not? Mrs Hughes, fetch me out the bottle of laudanum –”

“Do no such thing, Mrs Hughes, unless you intend to drink it yourself.”

Jenny froze with her hand on the black leather satchel, but Mrs Thomas responded with nothing but a tsk of disapproval. “The journey will aggravate the wound, my lord, no matter how much we pad you in.”

“I survived the voyage from the New World without your presumptions, madam, and I dare say I’ll survive much better doing without them now.”

Mrs Thomas shook out one of the blankets and laid it carefully over Lord Beeston’s lower body. “As you wish, my lord. I’m sure you know best.”

Jenny paused, then reached inside the bag anyway and searched around until her fingers found a smooth glass bottle. She drew it out and held it up to the light, as though she were often in the habit of dosing out medicines.

“Hughes,” Lord Beeston snapped, “are you deaf?”

“No, my lord.” That would not do. That was the squeak of a frightened young girl about to be married off and sent to Yorkshire, not the stern, practical response of a nurse.

Lord Beeston pushed himself up onto his elbow. “Are you a halfwit?”

Jenny swallowed and forced herself to look directly at him.

He was not, she reminded herself, either an ogre or a mundane monster like Uncle Fitz.

He was the kind of man who knew so little of kindness that he thought to buy himself a bride to order, pricing her out by the shilling. Even the rough kindness of Captain Whitby was as foreign to him as Mandarin.

She was not afraid of him. She felt sorry for him.

“My lord, is it your wish to suffer as much as possible?” She paused a moment, ignoring Nurse Thomas’s sharp look. “I had the impression that we were employed to ease your journey, but if I am mistaken, I can certainly endeavour to make you as uncomfortable as possible.”

Lord Beeston was still giving that hollow-eyed, mirthless grin. “You are rude, Hughes.”

“No, my lord, only eager to serve.”

He sank back into the pillows. “The laudanum is foul stuff. It clouds my thoughts and leaves me an aching head. I want no more of it.”

Mrs Thomas clicked her tongue. “A tot of brandy, then, my lord?”

He gave her a look of cool contempt. “If you think your wages can bear the expense of cleaning my vomit out of Lord Kendrick’s upholstery.”

Jenny set out the bottle of laudanum and the dosing spoon beside Lord Beeston’s hat.

“Let us save Mrs Thomas’s wages, then, and leave it in your hands, my lord,” she said. “I do not know your pain, nor your preference, any more than does Mrs Thomas. If it pleases you, we will leave this – and the brandy – within your reach for you to use at your own discretion.”

Setting down the bottle had brought her much closer to his face, but his eyes had fluttered closed. “Oh, very well,” he said, though it was petulant rather than angry. “What an easy profession nursing must be, when you can cast off all your labour on the patient who pays for the privilege – Thomas, touch me again and you will be dropped in the first ditch we pass on the roadside !”

Mrs Thomas lifted her hands in the air. “As you wish, my lord.”

She had been using a cushion to prop up his injured leg, and the hollow lack of limb inside his trouser leg was now clearly visible where she had lifted it.

The coach door opened a crack. Sebastian’s voice cut through, full of false cheer. “Is everything to your satisfaction, my lord?”

Lord Beeston’s eyes cracked open. “Idiot question.”

Jenny straightened herself up. “Lord Beeston, it will hurt you to travel without being properly padded in. It will also hurt you to be padded. I am sorry for it, but there is no way to go about this without causing you pain. Will you kindly tell me which type of pain you prefer, so that Mrs Thomas and I can assist you?”

There was sweat beading on his pale brow. She took a handkerchief and wetted it with a little cool water from a flask. Lord Beeston stiffened as she did.

He thought, she realised, that she was going to dab his brow. She paused a moment, then pressed the handkerchief into his hand.

“I’ll curse and spit and growl at you,” he warned, squeezing the handkerchief so that droplets of water beaded against his black gloves.

“That doesn’t bother me a bit, my lord,” said Mrs Thomas brightly. “You go ahead and cuss.”

He gritted his teeth. “Go on.”

Mrs Thomas gestured Jenny over. “I’ll lift the leg, you pop the pillows under. Nice and quick.”

Jenny was glad of that division of labour. She did not want to touch Lord Beeston at all, if she could help it. Whether terrifying or pitiful, the thought still repelled her. She was no nurse, and what she really was to him, she had given up all right to. Even though he would never know the truth of who she was, she could not stomach the thought of humiliating him by causing him agony where she might have offered a wife’s loving embrace.

Lord Beeston made a low, dry hiss as Mrs Thomas lifted his leg, but Jenny worked quickly, and it was over in a moment. The portly valet opened the door and adjusted his spectacles as he peered about the gloomy interior. “Where shall I place myself, my lord?”

“Out the bloody window if you don’t shut that door!” Lord Beeston pressed the cool handkerchief to his forehead, then let out a snarl of disgust and reached for the bottle of brandy, uncorking it with his teeth and taking a swig.

The valet blinked and started to clamber up into the carriage, knocking over Mrs Thomas’s satchel as he did. He did not bother to stop and pick it up, only seated himself at the edge of the cushioned bench and set his own valise upon his knees with a disapproving little tsk . What he disapproved of was uncertain, as he made no move to acknowledge either Jenny or Mrs Thomas at all.

“It is very cramped in here.”

“Sit on the rumble seat if it’s not to your taste, Plum.”

Mr Plum evidently found that a dire threat indeed, for he swallowed heavily and folded his hands atop his valise with a little twitch of alarm.

“ I am too old for sitting up top,” declared Mrs Thomas. “Out you go, Mrs Hughes. Age before beauty.”

Jenny had never ridden on a rumble seat before,and while the prospect was faintly alarming, it was not nearly so alarming as the thought of staying at close quarters with Lord Beeston. She got out of the carriage, remembering to stop and give her best attempt at a curtsey as she went, and descended the steps just in time to hear Lord Kendrick saying, “Astonishing coincidence, Whitby, that the last nurse left in Devon happens to also be the prettiest.”

Jenny froze, her hand still on the carriage door handle, and her foot half off the step. She had half a mind to open up the door again and scramble back inside.

Lord Kendrick and Captain Whitby were standing together near the back of the carriage, where nothing could be seen of them but their boots on the other side of the tall gilt wheels.

“Don’t go blowing smoke where there’s no fire, Kendrick,” Sebastian was saying, unperturbed. “She’s a very capable woman, and that is my only concern.” His voice dropped a degree in temperature. “It had better be your only concern, too, no matter how pretty she is. You’ll answer to me if you touch her.”

“Sebastian Whitby!” Kendrick did not seem frightened by the threat – astonished, rather, and amused in a way that seemed almost bitter. “You have been roughed up by your time at sea, if you think I’m that sort of fellow.”

“You seem to think I am,” said Sebastian, not unreasonably. Kendrick paused.

“Forgive me. That’s not what I meant. There was only something about the way you introduced her, that made me think – but no matter.”

“You’ve something on your mind,” Sebastian surmised. “A woman?”

“I don’t wish to discuss it.” Kendrick stepped around the carriage. Jenny let go of the door handle as he appeared, trying to make it look as though she had only just got out.

“Mrs Hughes,” said Lord Kendrick, giving her a brief nod. “I wish you a pleasant journey. Whitby! I’m off. I must go and convince my mother that she will survive the journey back to Thistle Hall in the landau.”

Sebastian came around too and clasped Kendrick’s hand. “We’ll expect you at Whitby Manor in two days’ time.”

“Hmm.” Kendrick bowed and walked off up the road without giving any promise of his attendance. Sebastian frowned as he watched him go, but soon shook off his puzzlement.

“Well, well,” he said, offering Jenny his arm. “This is a rare honour – a countess to keep me company on the rumble seat!”

Jenny drew back, not taking his arm, and cast a glance of alarm back at the coachman and footman who were sitting on the box. “ Captain Whitby ,” she hissed.

Sebastian gave her a devilish grin in response. “Let me give you a hand up, Mrs Hughes.”

“Won’t you be sitting inside?” Jenny asked, following him to the back of the carriage. The rumble seat looked extremely high up and extremely precarious, for all the sturdy grandeur of Lord Kendrick’s coach.

“On a day like this? Not a chance!” His hand was outstretched, waiting for hers, and his blue eyes were as clear as the sky. “Nervous?”

She was being eaten up inside by nerves, or something of the same species. Ever since Sebastian had warned Lord Kendrick away from touching her, Jenny’s insides had been fizzing like shaken champagne.

She set her hand in his and mounted the slippery rungs that led up to the rumble seat. As she settled herself, Sebastian held her hand a moment longer than necessary.

“It’ll be breezy, but that’s part of the fun,” he said, looking up at her. “I’ll be right beside you. I won’t let you fall.” He let go of her hand and hopped up himself in one agile movement. “But do let me know if it’s all too much, milady, and we’ll introduce you to your beloved and have you settled inside in no time.”

“Oh, stop that.” There was not a great deal of space on the rumble seat. Jenny had nothing but air on one side and nothing but Sebastian Whitby on the other – tall, solid, unduly reassuring.

She leaned out as far as she dared into the air.

Sebastian gave a whistle, and the driver called to the horses. The coach lurched as it pulled away. Jenny gasped and clutched Sebastian’s arm.

Sebastian didn’t remark on it, but when she dared a look at him, he was grinning broadly. “Farewell, Plymouth,” he said, leaning back to gaze up at the sun breaking through the clouds in the sky. “Away we go.”

Safe to say that Jennifer Cartwright’s meeting with Lord Beeston had not been love at first sight.

Sebastian could not say that he minded. The wind was fresh on his face, the coach was rattling along at a decent clip, he was at last free of Plymouth and headed towards, if not a solution, then at least an explanation for his problems, and Miss Jennifer Cartwright’s small, warm hand was nestled in the crook of his arm.

That last part felt better, and commanded more of Sebastian’s attention, than all the other blessings combined.

He tried to quell the flicker of disquiet that Kendrick’s words had sparked. His old friend had only spoken the plain facts, after all. Miss Cartwright was pretty. Pretty enough to purchase an earldom. Was Sebastian immune to her charms? No. Did that mean he was going to do anything foolish? Of course not.

Kendrick might not believe it, but Sebastian was no longer the reckless scapegrace he’d once been. He could admire a beautiful face, press a delicate hand, shelter a sweet and beleaguered woman beneath his arm, and still deliver her to her future husband at the end of it.

He was not the one who had been leaping out of upper storey windows. He was not the one making inexplicable choices.

As the carriage left the bustle of the town behind and began to make steady progress up the rolling country road towards the Forest of Dartmoor, Sebastian realised that Jenny’s hand was not clutching his arm merely for support should the coach lurch sideways over a pothole.

She was watching the last of Plymouth disappear behind a wooded hill with her large round eyes glassy and staring in a face that was paler than a lady’s life indoors could wholly account for.

Sebastian cast his mind back over the morning. She’d eaten very little at breakfast, but he’d forced a bread roll on her. She’d not complained of any pain or illness. Considering the enthusiasm with which she jumped out of windows, it could not be the blustery exposure of the rumble seat causing her discomfort.

She had nothing to fear out here, with Sebastian the only man within miles who knew her true identity. Her uncle certainly would never seek her out among Beeston’s servants. She ought to be buoyant, as Sebastian was, and to relish in the triumph of escaping the confines of the naval town, no matter how unearned that triumph might be.

He went to settle his hand over hers, but hesitated.

Her nurse’s costume meant she had left off those pretty, lacy gloves that had adorned the hands of the future Lady Beeston. One bare hand was hidden somewhere underneath a heavy woollen blanket, bundled in securely for warmth, but the other – the one which apparently found warmth enough in the crook of Sebastian’s arm – was ungloved, too.

This sort of problem did not feature overmuch in his life at sea, but Sebastian was reasonably certain that when a lady was, for some unfortunate reason, not in possession of her gloves, it was good etiquette for a gentleman to remove his own before taking her hand.

Jennifer Cartwright was a lady – Lady Beeston, more or less. Sebastian, he supposed, was a gentleman. Or at least, he wished to make the appearance of one in front of Miss Cartwright.

He pulled the glove from his hand and settled it over Jennifer’s.

He half-expected her to startle or pull away, but instead her fingers unfurled under his, as though they wanted to take all the warmth they could from his hand and feel as much of his touch as possible.

Sebastian straightened his back and kept his gaze firmly fixed on the road winding away behind them.

The last thing he needed was to put air in the bellows for this… this concern he had developed for Lady Beeston.

“Your first time riding up top, I think,” he said, as every particle of skin on his palm grew hot where it pressed against her hand. “Quite bracing, isn’t it?”

“I like it more than I thought I would,” she said.

Sebastian grinned, mostly in despair at himself. She was not the only person enjoying the ride more than they imagined was possible.

“And how did you find Beeston?” he asked. Beeston . That was the person he ought to be thinking of. Beeston, whose welfare was Sebastian’s duty. Beeston, who could bankrupt his father with a word. Beeston, who was going to marry Miss Cartwright. “He’s not at his best.”

She darted a quick, sly grin at him. “Is his best all that much better, Captain? More to the point, should I trust the answer you give me?”

Sebastian inclined his head. “I admit I could have been more honest with you before. Will you accept my apology if I give you my word I will never deceive you again?”

Jennifer did not answer. She turned her gaze back to the rolling road, though Plymouth was long out of sight. “I would not wish for you to make me promises you cannot keep. A little deception is not the worst of sins, after all. I know now how much depended on your bringing me to Lord Beeston. How much you’ve had to risk, to try to keep me from him. Your family’s financial security is at stake.” She offered him a faint little smile, the ghost of the grin she’d flashed him earlier. “What would be the worst possible outcome of your painting Lord Beeston as a lovestruck hero? Why, I’d have gone to my wedding with a little hope in my heart, that’s all. It isn’t as if you were the one to sell me off to him. It isn’t as if you have any control over the sort of marriage in store for me.”

Sebastian felt sick. “I am quite a callous wretch, by your account.”

“Not at all. False hope is better than none.”

They lapsed into silence for a moment, while Sebastian tried to muster the nerve to ask his next question. A hard thing to do, with her hand still so warm under his.

“You have no hope left, then, now that you have met him?”

A little crinkle appeared at the centre of Jennifer’s brow. “He is not quite what I thought he would be. He isn’t cruel, I believe.”

Sebastian could not stop his eyebrows from shooting skywards. She gave him another sly glance, as though she anticipated his response, and shook her head with a smile. “He is hurt, and he is angry, but he is not cruel. I had the impression that a great many things have been done to him of late – things over which he had no control. For a man like him, that must have seemed a cruel punishment.”

“He has always loved to be in control,” Sebastian agreed, with a nod. “You’ve heard of running a tight ship , no doubt? Beeston kept his in a chokehold.”

“That strikes me as far from the worst quality in a naval captain.”

Sebastian’s tongue lodged itself between his teeth, the better not to speak his mind. “He has had a very successful career,” he said, finally.

“There.” Jennifer squeezed his hand, looking up at him with a gaze so sweet and innocent Sebastian wished he had shut himself in with the miserable Beeston after all. Anything was better than sitting here hand in hand with Jennifer Cart– with Lady Beeston , and letting his admiration for her and disgust with himself deepen by the minute. “You have managed to be both truthful and kind.”

“Don’t imagine you’re having an improving effect on me,” he answered dryly. “I was born rather deficient in most moral qualities, and sweetness and patience are chief among them.”

“Do you imagine I sprang out of the cradle determined to think the best of everyone?” she asked, amused. “It takes a great deal of practice to be this meek and feeble, I assure you.”

“Feeble?” Sebastian laughed aloud, but stopped quickly when he saw the hurt flare in Jennifer’s eyes, only to be stamped down the moment it appeared. Impulsively, he raised her hand and pressed it in both of his. “My lady, feeble is the last word I would choose to describe you. Believe me, the very notion of concealing my own true feelings is so far beyond my capabilities that a hundred years of practice would not be enough for me. I wish I had your meekness – your strength of character, rather. I dare say I’d be a sight less jealous of Beeston and all his blasted successes if I managed to stop sabotaging myself at every turn.”

She stared up at him, and how he wished her eyes were not so large and round and clear, because their azure-and-amber clarity seemed larger to him than the whole sky. “You wish… You wish you were more like me?”

No. He wished he could kiss her. Thank the lord she had not understood the true depraved depths of his nature.

There were no other carriages on the road behind them. Nobody to see. Just as nobody would ever discover that she had spent a night in his tawdry dockside lodgings, nobody would ever know that he had been the first man to take what was Lord Beeston’s by right. She was no pirate ship on the Spanish Main nor an enemy vessel to be boarded and won and sold to the Admiralty for a handsome prize – she was a woman, daring and capable and clear in her own mind, and she did not want Beeston . If he abandoned all hope of redemption for his blackened soul, that lay open the possibility that she might, somehow, want him .

Sebastian let go of her hand, sickened with himself. “I may be wrong, but I have the impression that your patience has been hard-won, my lady.”

“You are sorely trying it now, since you insist on using neither my proper name nor the false one you gave me,” she answered tartly.

“Forgive me, Mrs Hughes.” He shook out his hand, letting the heat of her touch dissipate in the fresh breeze, and rammed it back into his glove. “And forgive me for what I am about to suggest, but I do not believe your life with Mr Smythe can have been pleasant at all, if it has left you so practiced at pleasantry that you can even speak well of Lord Beeston.”

She was silent. Had he offended her?

He ought to be glad of it. The last thing he wanted was to let this unlooked-for intimacy between them grow any deeper.

“I have never spoken ill of my uncle,” she said softly. “Nor shall I. He offered me a safe and comfortable home after my parents passed away. That is more than I should have had without him.”

“You are so good ,” Sebastian groaned. Didn’t she know the effect all that unflinching sweetness had on a fellow? It was torture.

She tucked her hand back underneath the blanket. He thought of that scratchy wool on her soft skin, and wished he had thought to find her some working women’s outdoor gloves. “I try to be,” she said. “And I am too proud to let somebody else’s unpleasantness get in my way. Or at least, I thought I was.” She bit her lip, another of those secret smiles threatening to sneak past her guard. “It turns out I am not proud enough of my own virtues to avoid running away with a naval officer instead of marrying Lord Beeston.”

There was a sharp rapping on the roof of the carriage from the inside. The coachman pulled up the horses.

Sebastian jumped down from the rumble seat, glad of the relief from his closeness to Miss Cartwright.

Nurse Thomas’s head emerged from the coach door. “We must halt a while, Captain Whitby. His lordship is suffering a great deal.”

“Let me help you, Mrs Thomas,” said Jennifer. “You must rest, too, while you have the opportunity.” Sebastian turned around, meaning to give her a hand down from the seat. He had not forgotten to help her as much as he had run away from the prospect of taking her hand again.

For the betterment of his rascal soul, though, she was climbing down well enough herself.

Mrs Thomas darted a suspicious glance at Sebastian and beckoned Jennifer aside. “A word, Mrs Hughes, if you will. We ought to discuss his lordship’s comfort together.”

The inside of the coach was ominously quiet. Sebastian did not risk glancing inside. Beeston had a valet now, after all. The last thing he needed was the solicitation of a jealousy-riddled traitor like Sebastian.

He thrust his hand into his coat pocket, where his fingers brushed the cool surface of the pebble, and walked around to scratch the horses’ noses.

He did not walk far enough that he was wholly out of earshot of Mrs Thomas and Jennifer, and, damn his hide, he made no move to stop himself from overhearing the scraps of conversation that the wind brought to his ears.

“– by rights should be inside, not travelling like a servant,” Nurse Thomas was saying. The horse nearest Sebastian gave a snort and pawed the ground. He nodded to the coachman, who tossed him a sugar lump to feed it.

“Nothing of the sort,” Miss Cartwright was saying, her voice easier to catch than Nurse Thomas’s, because she was – for some reason – indignant. “He has been the perfect gentleman. I’m sure he would never –”

“Nonetheless,” Nurse Thomas replied grimly, and Sebastian soon understood all he needed to of the meat of their debate, for when the shrewd woman deemed that Lord Beeston had had sufficient rest, it was she and not Miss Cartwright who came marching back to the rumble seat.

“Mrs Hughes will take over inside,” she announced, waiting with her skirts hoicked up for Sebastian to offer her his hand. “I hope you do not mind the company of an old biddy such as myself, Captain Whitby.” She puffed a little as he gave her his arm, and stuffed the blanket down about herself as though she did not trust it not to fly away and leave her to the mercy of the wind. “Or do you now prefer to travel inside, sir?”

“Not a bit of it, ma’am,” he said, swinging himself up beside her. “My preference is always for the fresh air.”

She gave him a shrewd once-over, but, finding nothing solid on which to lay her suspicions, settled back against the seat. “Glad to hear it. All this wind ought to do a body good.”

Sebastian’s body could have done with a fair bit more wind, at that. An icy deluge of rain would not have gone amiss.

He has been the perfect gentleman . Had he, now? Jennifer Cartwright was surely the first woman on earth to describe him so.

I’m sure he would never –

But he almost had. He oh-so-nearly had. Even now, he was wishing he’d been that last bit more unforgivable, taken that one step further into the abyss.

The very fact that Jennifer had defended him so vigorously was only further proof that he never, ever, could.

She believed him a gentleman. She deserved a gentleman.

Sebastian Whitby, curse his errant heart, was nothing of the kind.