Brighton Road (19 page)

A sudden gleam sparked in Tom Quince's eye,
which the baron much misliked. The smuggler's mouth split in a
gap-toothed leer.

"If this be not Tom Quince's lucky day." The
burly man licked his lips. "What a prime bit o' goods. Just what
I've been hankerin' fer."

Ravenel saw his own dread mirrored in
Gwenda's terrified eyes. He shouted at Quince, "You lay one hand on
her, and by God, you'll regret it." He started toward Quince,
forgetting the weapon trained upon him.

"You! Stay where you are," Mordred said, the
pistol trembling in his hand.

"I allers wanted me a fancy coachin' dog like
that 'un." Quince hunkered down and proceeded to scratch Bert
behind his ear.

So certain had Ravenel been that Gwenda was
about to be ravished by this great brute, it took him several
seconds to realize it was the dog Quince desired and not her.

Gwenda smacked the smuggler's hand away from
Bert. Dragging the dog with her, she inched farther back into the
stall. "No. You leave Bertie alone."

"Quince, you damn fool," Mordred cried. "What
are you doing? Forget about that cur before you queer
everything,"

But Quince ignored him, continuing to advance
on Gwenda. "Now, little lady, don't raise a fuss. Old Tom ain't
goin' to hurt you. Just be a good gel and give me the nice
doggie."

"No!" Gwenda crouched back, her eyes turning
in desperate appeal to the baron.

There had been times during the past two days
when Ravenel thought he would have gladly surrendered Spotted Bert
to the devil himself and said good riddance. But he took one look
at the fear and despair in Gwenda's eyes and an unexpected rage
surged through him.

He plunged in between her and the smuggler,
driving his fist into Quince's stomach.

"Stop before I fire," Mordred warned, taking
aim.

Although Quince bent over and grunted,
Ravenel's blow hardly seemed to affect the large man. He neatly
blocked Ravenel's next punch, a toothy grin spreading over his
face. "Oho, would you look at this struttin' gamecock? So it's a
mill ye're after, laddie? Fine wit me. Ain't been no trouble wit
the excisemen of late. Gettin' a mite dull. Want to fight me for
the dog?"

"I'd be only too happy to oblige," Ravenel
grated.

"Are you mad, Quince?" Mordred stepped
forward with the pistol trying to take charge, but Quince jostled
him aside.

"Ah, shut yer bone box. I got to show this
fancy gent'mun here the proper way to throw a punch."

Before Gwenda's stunned senses could even
register what was happening, Ravenel had stormed from the stable
with Quince, Mordred trailing behind, still grumbling. Gwenda
settled her bleary-eyed dog back down into the straw and got to her
feet, scrambling after the men.

When she emerged through the stable doors,
she saw Quince in the middle of the yard, yanking off his coat. He
spit on both his palms and doubled up his fists. Ravenel quickly
rid himself of his brocade dressing gown, stripping down to his
breeches. Moonlight skated off the hard contours of his chest and
arms as he assumed the fighter's stance.

Gwenda could only gape at his lordship in
horrified astonishment. Merciful heavens! What the devil had gotten
into the man?

"Ravenel!" she shrieked. But her outcry
proved a mistake. By distracting his lordship, she enabled Quince
to land the first blow. He caught Ravenel square in the eye,
sending him flying backward into the mud.

Gwenda winced and started to run to him, but
Ravenel was already jerking to his feet. He charged forward and got
off a solid punch at his opponent's nose, succeeding in drawing
blood.

Quince gave a snort of surprise, then the
fight commenced in earnest, blows flying left and right, both of
them slipping and sliding in the mud. Gwenda stuffed her hand
against her mouth, fearful of crying out again and breaking the
baron's concentration. She sucked in her breath each time Quince's
meaty fist connected with Ravenel's flesh.

Completely forgetting they were on opposite
sides, Gwenda turned indignantly to Mordred. "Don't just stand
there. Make them stop."

"I would if I could get off a clear shot,"
Mordred blustered. "Don't know why they're fighting over that
vicious brute, anyway. Just look what he did to my leg."

But he got scant sympathy from Gwenda. She
wrung her hands and thought of rushing in between the two men, but
they were like a pair of raging bulls Never had she seen Ravenel
look so wild, a nigh savage light in his eyes, the sweat glistening
on his muscular chest. His breath was coming hard; his knuckles
were raw and bleeding. Yet Gwenda had the strangest notion that he
was somehow actually enjoying this horrid contest.

So desperate was she that Gwenda began to
think of rushing back to the inn to retrieve her pistol and rouse
Jarvis, when she saw Quince waver slightly. Ravenel's next blow
dropped the big man to his knees. Although his own chest was
heaving, Ravenel yet held his pose waiting for Quince to get
up.

The man turned his head to one side and spit
out a tooth. He flung up on hand and gasped. "Enuff."

Gwenda expelled her breath in a tremulous
sigh, not quite trusting this capitulation. But the smuggler
staggered to his feet, his split lip twisting into a lopsided grin
as he held out one callused palm.

"Here. My hand on it. Never thought to see
the day one o' the gentry could match Tom Quince. A pity ye be a
lord, so it is. What ye might have done in the ring."

Gwenda watched in mute astonishment as the
baron slowly shook hands with the smuggler and then Quince was
pressing a flask of brandy upon him.

"Enough of this nonsense," Mordred shouted,
marching forward and waving his pistol at Ravenel. "I want him
locked up in the stable before he gets loose and fetches the
excisemen—"

"His Nibs would never do that. 'E's a
gent'mun. Somethin' you know nothin' about," Quince said loftily.
"Now give me that 'ere afore you hurt someone." With that, he
wrenched the pistol away from the abashed Mordred and tucked it
into his own belt.

The entire scene grew hazy before Gwenda's
eyes. As her disordered senses took in the fact that the fight was
indeed over and it seemed that Ravenel had won, she felt weak with
relief. She swayed on her feet, as close to fainting as she ever
had been in her life.

Then a strong hand closed upon her shoulder,
steadying her.

"Gwenda! Gwenda, are you all right?"
Ravenel's deep voice sounded close to her ear. Someone pressed a
flask to her lips, forcing a fiery liquid down her throat.

She sputtered and choked on the brandy, but
the light-headedness left her. Her world snapped back into focus.
Her gaze traveled up to Ravenel's face, His brow was furrowed with
concern.

His cheek was turning purple, one eye was
almost swollen shut, and he was asking her if she was all
right?

"Oh, R-Ravenel!" she said, her breath
catching on a sob.

Quince regarded her with pained surprise as
he recorked his brandy flask. "Here now, there be no need to start
a-sniffiling. Tom Quince allus honors his word. You get to keep
your dog. You can thank your man there for that. He certainly
strips to advantage."

"I know. I—I mean I—". At that moment, the
moon drifted from behind the clouds, illuminating Gwenda's
expression. Her gaze met Ravenel's, her eyes shining soft with
gratitude and admiration.

It was most strange, Ravenel thought, staring
back at her, suddenly conscious of being half-naked, his breeches
mud-stained, his face battered. But for the first time in his life,
Desmond Arthur Gordon Treverly could imagine what it was like to be
a dashing knight, garbed in a silver coat of mail shining bright as
the sun.

The late-afternoon sun charted a downward
course by the time Ravenel spotted the rooftops of what had once
been the sleepy fishing village of Brighthelmston, now a bustling
fashionable resort owing to the Prince Regent's patronage.

His lordship slapped down on the reins of the
hired tilbury, but the gray mare pulling the carriage set its own
pace regardless. He did not attempt to urge the horse again and
settled lazily back against the seat. He was not in a hurry for
once.

"Brighton, Miss Vickers," Ravenel said,
drawing in a deep breath, already scenting the salty tang of sea
air. "I do believe we might make it this time."

His remark coaxed only a brief smile from
Gwenda. She had been quiet and unusually solemn ever since they had
set out from the Nonesuch at noon. Ravenel dragged his gaze from
the road winding ahead and regarded her rather anxiously. He didn't
care at all for the deep shadows under her eyes. She appeared like
some pale waif garbed in that overlarge frock that belonged to
Mordred's wife. Although he had to admit the green shade was
becoming to her eyes, they seemed so lackluster. And he could wish
for a little more color in her cheeks.

The baron trusted that a good sleep would
restore her to her irrepressible self again. Goodness knows neither
of them had gotten much of that last night. The only one who seemed
unaffected by the previous evening's events was Bert. The dog
wedged himself in between Ravenel and Gwenda, making a nuisance of
himself by thrusting his head into Ravenel's line of vision and
barking to be let down for a run. He appeared none the worse for
the amount of brandy he had lapped up.

I should have such a hard head, Ravenel
thought wryly. When he was obliged to shift over on the seat to
make more room for Bert, Ravenel winced. Damn! Was there any part
of his anatomy that was not bruised from Quince's fists?

His lips parted in a rather painful smile.
What a glorious fight it had been! The sparring he enjoyed at
Gentleman Jackson's seemed staid by comparison, he mused, yet
marveling at his own recent behavior.

In the early hours of the morning, he had
recounted every detail of the fight with almost boyish enthusiasm
to Jarvis. The old man ought to have been appalled to discover that
his master had been brawling in the mud with a smuggler, then
staying to tipple brandy with the rogue. But there had been a
certain indulgence in Jarvis's manner, merely adjuring Ravenel to
hold still as he had applied beefsteak to the swollen eye.

Not even as a lad had Ravenel ever so
forgotten himself as to engage in boisterous wrestling or bouts of
fisticuffs like his school fellows or cousins frequently did.
Always he had been conscious that such ungentlemanly conduct was
beneath the dignity of the Baron Ravenel.

Then what had become of his dignity in the
stableyard of the Nonesuch? Ravenel still didn't know. Some
ages-old constraint inside him seemed to have snapped, and he had
made up for all the mischief denied him in his lost boyhood in a
single night. Stranger still, he harbored no remorse, no
self-recriminations at his lapse of reason. If anything, he felt
amused recalling the episode with Tom Quince. When the man's wagon
had finally been unloaded, the baron had shaken the smuggler's hand
as though parting with an old friend.

And as for Mordred--- Ravenel chuckled to
himself at the memory, stopping abruptly at the twinge of pain in
his sore jaw. Mordred had fallen over himself to be obliging,
frightened that the baron might decide to hand him over to the
authorities. Besides turning up with the gown for Gwenda, the
innkeeper had offered his coach to convey Jarvis and the baggage to
Ravenel's lodgings in Brighton. By some magic the host had also
produced a tilbury for Ravenel to drive Gwenda home in, all this
without asking for a single shilling in payment. Always eager to
help a fellow creature in need, Mordred had crooned, and surely his
lordship was not the man to hold a grudge against a poor innkeeper?
So much for Gwenda's desperate, murderous villain. The baron
wondered what she would say if he told her that he had discovered
later that the man's pistol had not even been loaded.

He stole a speculative glance at his
companion but could scarce see her face. Her head drooped forward,
her bonnet and curls shading her eyes. She truly was exhausted, he
thought, wishing he could draw her head down onto his shoulder. She
had fallen asleep in such an awkward position.

But Gwenda was not asleep. She suffered not
so much from exhaustion as from a severe attack of guilt. She could
hardly bring herself to meet Ravenel's gaze all morning, astonished
that he appeared so cheerful, what with those shocking bruises on
his cheek, to say nothing of his poor eye.

It was all her fault. If she had listened to
him and returned to her room, not dragged him out into the night
looking for Bert, none of last night's escapade would ever have
occurred. She had expected Ravenel to deliver a lecture that would
last all the way to her parents' doorstep or at least to put on his
martyred look.

How utterly unfeeling of the man that he
chose to do neither! Here she was in the throes of remorse,
willing, nay eager, to listen to a scolding in noble silence, and
what must Ravenel do but sit there, looking so confoundedly
nonchalant.

With the exception of his shocking black eye,
he was rigged out in his usual manner, with stiff-starched cravat,
somber-colored waistcoat and breeches, his curly-brimmed beaver
perched upon waves of neatly combed ebony hair. But his behavior
was most unRavenel-like. The man acted as though he had not a care
in the world but to enjoy the drive, the brightness of the day
after last evening's storm. Why, at the moment, he was even softly
whistling some tuneless ditty.

Unfortunately, Gwenda could think of only one
way to account for his uplifted spirits. He had to be rejoicing in
the knowledge that he was soon to be rid of her. Not that she could
blame him, but the notion only added to her misery. Had she not
brought disaster to him, from the moment she had thrust herself
upon his notice at the White Hart, attempting to meddle in his
relations with Miss Carruthers and involving him with stolen
phaetons, chewed boots, coaching wrecks, treks through rainstorms
and smugglers? Everything Ravenel had ever said about her was
correct, Gwenda thought with a heavy sigh. Shatter-brained,
heedless, impractical. And to climax everything, he had been
obliged to engage in a vulgar brawl to save her dog. Gwenda was
certain that was an affront to his dignity that the baron would
never forget.