Princess Charming (14 page)

He was concerned for her safety, Maura realized, hearing the hard edge in his voice. “In the first place, this is Mayfair, not the stews of St. Giles. And in the second, I am dressed as a lad and I am armed. I have a loaded pistol and a knife with me.”

“Don’t tell me … Gandy taught you how to shoot and wield a knife. But you are still taking a huge risk.”

“I am not afraid, Lord Beaufort, even if you did startle me half to death.”

He drew a long breath, as if striving for patience. “I am not questioning your courage, vixen, only your common sense. Even if you escape harm tonight, you could go to prison or worse. Horse thieves are usually hanged.”

Maura studied him warily. “Do you mean to try and stop me?”

“Do I stand a chance in hell of stopping you?”

Despite his withering sarcasm, his rejoinder suggested that he was resigned to her larceny. Relief flooded her, soothing the burning anxiety in her stomach. “Not unless you betray me to Deering.”

“I ought to,” Beaufort threatened, although with less heat than before. “Or better yet, throw you over my saddle and carry you home.”

That last was not an empty boast, Maura realized, recalling how easily he had manhandled her this morning in the park. But she didn’t believe he would actually follow through this time.

“I dare you to try it,” she said lightly. “I am armed, remember?”

“A pistol will be little protection if your theft is discovered.”

“Which is why I am doing my best to keep from being discovered.”

His gaze shifted to slide over the stallion. “I’ve been watching you these past five minutes, wondering what you were about. I see now that you’re attempting to disguise your splendid beast to avoid recognition.”

“Yes.”

Wiping her hand clean of mud in Emperor’s mane, Maura closed the pouch and stuffed it back into her knapsack. Then she bent to remove the cloth wrapping his hooves, since it would look strange if she rode into the livery on a horse with muffled feet.

“I have to give you credit,” Beaufort remarked grudgingly. “It was clever of you to think of the white markings.”

He was very clever himself to have deduced her intentions, she thought.

“How did you know what I planned?” she asked.

“You were too calm this morning after your tirade. The abrupt change made me suspect you were up to something, even before Katharine warned me that all was not quite right with you. She claims it is not like you to simply give up.”

“So you followed me?”

“No, I staked out Deering’s stables and lay in wait for you. It took you long enough.”

“I had to make certain the grooms were asleep.”

Another carriage rattled by just then, which recalled Maura to her surroundings. “I cannot stand here arguing with you, Lord Beaufort. I need to be on my way.”

“Don’t think this discussion is over, sweetheart.”

Regrettably, she knew it wasn’t. With a sigh, Maura draped the knapsack over her shoulder, untied the reins, grabbed a hunk of mane, and vaulted onto the stallion’s bare back.

Much to her exasperation and aggravation, Beaufort fell into step with her as she guided Emperor back to the street. “Where are you taking him?”

“I would rather not say.”

“But you plan on stealing him?”

She sent the marquis a sour glance. “I do not call it stealing. Emperor is my rightful property, and I am only reclaiming what is mine.”

“The law won’t see it that way.”

“I know,” Maura said bitterly. “So I will have to resort to bending the law. I can’t fight Deering by honest means.”

“You could if you would allow me to aid you. There is a better way to go about saving your horse.”

“Oh, and what might that be, your lordship? Your plan was to
think
about conceiving a plan. Mine actually has a chance of succeeding.”

The moonlight was too faint for her to see Beaufort’s jaw clench, but she could easily imagine it.

After a moment, he took a different tack. “You obviously have planned your scheme out meticulously, but you must have had help. I presume Gandy is abetting you, but there must be others.”

“Even if there were, I could never admit it. I don’t want anyone else blamed for what I must do.”

“You hope to keep your friends from hanging with you, you mean.”

“Exactly. That is why I didn’t tell Katharine about my plans—so she could deny any culpability.”

Just then they reached the livery, which was dimly lit by lanterns. Before turning into the yard, Maura whispered a precaution. “Please, will you keep your voice down? I don’t want to attract any undue attention.”

She rode directly to the corner of the yard where Frip waited. The two horses seemed glad to see each other, but she couldn’t afford to dally for their reunion. Sliding off the stallion’s back, she tethered him to the gig, then opened the boot and began drawing out the peddler’s rig.

After securing a harness to Emperor’s chest and back, she attached a pliant straw basket to each of his sides.

Beaufort sat watching as she began filling the baskets. “What the devil is all that?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“His costume,” she murmured back. “He needs a more ample disguise than just paint and boot blacking.”

She had loaded Frip down with a blanket roll and her saddlebags, including her clothing and food supplies. But she intended to fill Emperor’s baskets with the sort of items a peddler would normally sell.

To her surprise, Beaufort dismounted in order to help her. Together they loaded the goods—a few pots and pans, an assortment of knives and scissors and a grinder to sharpen the blades, bottles of elixirs, hair dye, trinkets, copper cups, some cheap jewelry.…

Not unexpectedly, the champion stallion objected to such treatment. At first, Emperor merely turned to peer at the strange contraption on his back and snorted
as if insulted. But when he began to dance nervously, Maura went to his head and tenderly rubbed his ears and sensitive poll between.

When she had his attention, she put her forehead against his and spoke quietly to him. “I am sorry, love. I understand how humiliating this is for you, being treated like a pack mule, but you must bear it for my sake.”

Thankfully, he calmed down enough that she could fasten the lids on the baskets.

“Where do you intend to take him?” Beaufort asked as she finished lashing the final straps.

She gave him a cautious look. “I am not sure I can trust you, even if you are Katharine’s brother.”

In the lantern light, she could see his expression grow annoyed. “Do you even have a destination in mind?”

“Yes.”

Since she was certain Deering would hunt for her untiringly, she’d thought long and hard about where to seek refuge for the stallion. There were scores of livery stables all over London, but she couldn’t hope to hide a peerless racehorse among common carriage hacks for long. So obviously she would have to spirit him away from London. She didn’t think it wise to tell Beaufort where she meant to go, however.

When her silence dragged out, he muttered a low oath. “I’ll be damned if I want to see you hanged.”

“I have no intention of being hanged,” she assured him quietly. “If I were to be caught, there would be no one to protect Emperor from Lord Deering. Now, I need to be on my way, my lord.”

He let her close the gig’s boot but then grasped her
arm. “No. It is too dangerous for you to set out alone.”

“I cannot let that stop me.”

“Maura …” His tone was still low, but became more urgent. “You need to think carefully about what you are doing. If you run now, there could be no turning back. This decision could change your life irrevocably.”

The deep concern in his voice made a strange emotion twist in her chest. He was right, Maura thought, staring up into his eyes. She was at a major crossroads in her life. Yet she had to do this.

“You don’t understand,” she replied, her voice unexpectedly quavering with emotion. “I could not save my father from that cursed man, but by heaven, I will save my horse.”

To her dismay, she felt her throat suddenly close with tears.

It wasn’t like her to be so missish, Maura told herself. No doubt the stress of the past days and hours had frayed her nerves. But she had cried in front of Beaufort once today, and she wouldn’t do so again.

Swallowing the aching lump in her throat, Maura resolutely pulled her arm from his grasp and stepped back from him.

Whatever he saw in her face must have convinced him of her unwavering determination, for he held up his hands in a show of defeat and exhaled a sigh. “Very well, then. If you won’t abandon your idiotic scheme, I have no choice but to accompany you.”

Maura had started to turn away, but froze in her tracks. “That is out of the question.”

He went on as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “At least
I can give you my protection. If I am with you, perhaps I can save you from prison. In my position, I can get away with endeavors that you cannot.”

“I told you, I cannot involve anyone else. I must do this alone. You could be implicated in my crimes, and I don’t want that guilt on my conscience.”

Beaufort took a step closer. “Let me put it this way,” he said slowly, as if explaining to a dimwitted child. “There is no bloody way in hell I am letting you set out alone. I am coming with you, vixen.”

She gave him a long, frustrated look. “You realize you are only interfering where you are unwanted?”

“No doubt. But I promised Katharine I would look after you. How do you expect she will react if I return empty-handed? She would hie after you herself.”

“Well, you will just have to stop her.”

In reply, he reached up to cup Maura’s face with both of his hands. His gentle touch caught her off guard and held her immobile, as did the quiet, earnest sound of his voice. “Answer me one question honestly. Do you really want to face this ordeal all alone? A fugitive from your family, your friends?”

The question startled her as much as the answer that instantly sprang to mind: No, she didn’t want to be all alone, fleeing in the dark of night, abandoning everyone she knew, a hunted fugitive for God only knew how long—perhaps for the rest of her days.

Maura swallowed again. She had no choice but to risk becoming a fugitive, but she did not have to endure it all by herself.

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Then it’s settled,” he said curtly, turning to tend to his horse.

Nothing at all was settled, Maura knew, but she didn’t have the willpower to argue. And in any event, protesting would be pointless. The Marquis of Beaufort was accustomed to getting his own way, and he was a Wilde to boot, meaning that he arranged the world to his own liking and expected everyone else to fall in line.

Letting Beaufort accompany
her was a dreadful idea, Maura told herself, yet she didn’t know how she could have stopped him.

They watered the horses in silence, then quietly left the livery. Only when they were on the road did he speak. “Now tell me where we are we going.”

“To Scotland,” Maura answered. “The Highlands, to be exact.”

Beaufort gave her a sharp glance. “That is quite a distance.”

“I know, but Gandy has friends there who will hide Emperor and care for him.” When Beaufort didn’t reply, Maura explained her plan. “Deering will likely search the main thoroughfares first, so we will need to reach Scotland by a circuitous route, traveling cross-country. I thought to head west toward Reading tonight and then veer north to Oxford. And for the first few days at least, I planned to ride at night and hide out during the day.”

“Do you have a fixed destination in mind for tonight?”

“Yes. A country farm, which we should reach before dawn. But after that, I have no other resting stops in mind.”

“So you will have to improvise,” Beaufort said in resignation.

“Yes. But I did not count on your escort. How will I explain your presence?” Maura asked, surveying his elegant attire. His superbly tailored coat and waistcoat, spotless white cravat, buckskin breeches, shining Hessian boots, and tall beaver hat fairly shouted wealth and refinement. “If I am supposed to be a peddler, what am I doing in the company of a fancy toff like you?”

Beaufort thought for a moment before offering an impressive array of ideas. “There are any number of excuses we could give out. We could say I’m an eccentric and that I followed you on a lark. Or that when you recently received word that your poor dear papa kicked the bucket, I took pity on you and decided to escort you home. Or possibly I won a wager and claimed your store of worldly goods for myself, and I am making you cart them to my country estate. Or you could even be my groom.” His gaze swept down her own attire. “You do resemble a lad in that getup. What have you done to your breasts?”

In the darkness, Maura felt herself flush at his brazen query. “I bound them, if you must know.”

“That must be uncomfortable.”

“Not much more uncomfortable than wearing corsets,” she said, although that was a lie. The length of linen she had wrapped around her chest was already chafing her skin in several places.