Stealing the Bride (17 page)

But just as fast as she caught up to his frantic pace, he came to an abrupt halt, leaving her to slam into his back. She peered over his shoulder to find a man dressed as a colorful caliphate in their way.

Stewie!
No one else would have the sheer nerve to wear so many colors at once.

“Ah, Turpin. You rakish devil. The ladies can’t resist your charm, now can they? Why, I remember once at Lord—”

“Your robe,” Temple demanded, releasing Diana, and starting to rip the purple silk wrapper off the man’s shoulders. “Give me your robe.”

“I do say,” Stewie complained. “This is highly irregular. Friendship is one thing, but to steal a man’s clothes—”

Diana glanced back into the crowd and saw that their pursuers had had the misfortune of ruffling Lord Nettlestone’s feathers. The small, imperious man stood blocking their path and demanding satisfaction for their rudeness.

Surprisingly, Lord Harry had dropped his animosity toward his rival and stood at the baron’s shoulder, like a ready second.

Given Nettlestone’s inflated opinion of his rank and due regard, the French might find themselves blocked for the remainder of the evening.

“Stewie, I haven’t time for pleasantries, now give me your robe and be quick about it,” Temple told him.

Diana suspected she knew what he was about. “Please, my lord, you must help us,” she implored.

“Lady Diana?” Stewie ripped off his mask, his eyes bugged out wide.

“Aye,” she told him.

He looked her up and down and then shook his head. “Who would have known? Who would have ever suspected?” Then he glanced over at Temple and grinned. “You lucky devil. Should have known you’d be the one to uncover such a diamond.”

“Yes, quite,” Temple said. “Now will you help us?”

“Oh yes. Most delighted.” He shrugged off his robe and handed it to Temple. Then he took another speculative glance at Diana as if he still couldn’t quite reconcile that the creature before him was the same Lady Diana Fordham whom the rest of Society took for granted as that odd little spinster.

“Thank you, Lord Stewart,” Diana said.

“Stewie, please my dear. I’d be honored if you’d call me Stewie. All my friends do.”

“Thank you, Stewie,” Diana told him, somewhat flattered at the man’s tone of adulation. She had never made a conquest before, and she didn’t realize how gratifying it was to have a man gaze at her with such open adoration and for reasons other than her bountiful dowry.

Now if only Temple would do so…

“Stewie, I need more than your robe.” Temple was saying.

Stewie started to stammer out a protest, “Sir, I am barely decent as it is, would you have me as unclothed as some Cyprian?” He glanced again at Diana. “No insult intended, my lady.”

“None taken,” she replied.

Behind them, Nettlestone’s voice raised in protest. “Sir, I will have your apology or I will have satisfaction.”

“Out of my way, you dog,” said one of the men, rising up to his full height and towering over the baron.

Nettlestone, thickheaded as ever, hadn’t the sense to realize he was wading into dangerous waters.

“Dog, you say? You dare insult me again? Then it is satisfaction I demand.”

While Diana had to admit she was thankful for the diversion Nettlestone was unwittingly providing, she worried that the man was about to meet someone who truly wasn’t going to be bullied by a penniless baron.

The Frenchman let out an exasperated sigh and nodded quickly to his companions. Then in a flash, he cocked his fist and leveled it into Nettlestone’s stunned face.

The man keeled over like a stone. But if the Frenchman thought he had subdued the bothersome man, he didn’t know the mettle of a Nettlestone. The baron struggled to his knees, cursing and complaining and vowing vengeance that included the wrath of all his noble forebears.

The French were hardly impressed and began to step over his muttering form.

“Now see here,” Lord Harry said, stepping forward like an honorable second. “That was hardly sporting.” For all his worthy intentions, Penham landed in a heap atop his once sworn enemy.

With their path now clear, the men renewed their pursuit across the crowded and chaotic room.

“Temple,” Diana squeaked. “They’re coming.”

Temple took only a quick glance at the situation in hand and said to Stewie, “Create a diversion.”

“A diversion?” Stewie stammered. “I fear I’m not very good at playacting.”

Temple yanked the gauzy length of fabric from Diana’s shoulders spinning her like a top. He handed her Stewie’s robe, which she gratefully donned, ducking behind him to hide herself. Meanwhile Temple steered their friend in another direction. “We need a false bride.”

“A what?” Stewie asked.

He shoved the drapery into Stewie’s hands. “Toss this over that chit over there.” He nodded toward a lithesome young blond, dressed as Juliet, standing nearby. “Declare her Lady Diana, the missing heiress, and make sure everyone in the room hears you.
Everyone
, Stewie.” He glanced in the direction of Penham and Nettlestone, who were now rising like a pair of phoenixes.

Neither man looked ready to bear their insult any longer.

“But she isn’t Lady Diana,” Stewie protested, as Temple prodded him in that direction. “I fear it will be a horrible faux pas.”

Temple groaned, but Diana stepped in and came to his aid. “Stewie, don’t you see what a boon this is to you and the young lady? Why, you’ll both be famous. And it will give you such a fine tale for next Season. With your skills as a raconteur, you’ll be in great demand for years to come to tell your heroic part in our escape.”

Diana could see the wheels turning in Stewie’s mind. The social advantage of being Temple’s aide-de-camp, his Will Scarlet, the hero who aided true love, was too tempting, no matter the hot water it might land him in.

Besides, Diana knew Stewie saw the other side of the coin.

If Temple succeeded in carrying Diana across the border to Gretna first, his friend would be married to an heiress, his pockets once again plump.

A good friend to call upon in a pinch when his own wealthy wife held the purse strings a little too tightly.

In a flash, Stewie was off. He tossed the cloth over the unwitting girl’s shoulders and said in a voice that could have carried his battle cry across the fields at Hastings, “Lady Diana! I have found you! I do say, the missing bride! Whatever are you doing here?”

Diana didn’t get the chance to see what happened next, for Temple had her hand in his and yanked her through the crowd that now surged toward Stewie and his false bride.

Instead of going out the front door, they ducked out a side door, into the gardens.

Down a path and around the building they finally found themselves out on the crowded street before the Assembly Rooms.

Nearby, a lad stood beside two horses tied to a post.

“Whose cattle?” Temple asked, digging into his pockets.

Diana guessed he was searching for coins and pulled out a guinea she’d tucked into the hem of her chemise. She pressed it into his fingers. “Will that work?”

He glanced down. “I hope so.” He turned back to the boy. “Whose animals are these?”

“Some toff from town. Needlesome, Nettlesomething—” the boy said, scratching his head as he searched for the correct name.

“Nettlestone,” Diana and Temple said in unison.

“Aye, that’s it,” the boy said. “And the bay belongs to a younger fellow. Wasn’t much of a rider. He nearly fell off when he was trying to dismount.”

“Penham,” Temple said.

“Yes,” the boy agreed. “Them’s the two that own these horses.”

“Well, they’re mine now,” Temple said, catching the reins. He tossed the boy Diana’s bounty. “This should keep you well out of their reach until I repay them.”

“But sir…” the boy protested until he looked down and saw the gold in his hand. He’d probably never seen so much money at one time in his entire life.

“Do you know Lord Radcotte?” Temple asked.

The boy nodded. “Aye. He’s the magistrate around here. But I don’t think he’d be all happy about me giving away horses.”

“He won’t mind if you tell him this: Temple said it was a matter of some expediency.”

The boy frowned. “A matter of what?”

“Expediency.” Temple nodded to Diana to take the other set of reins.

She did so, but could see the boy still working the word over on his tongue, chewing it like old mutton. “Oh, botheration, just tell him Temple needed the demmed nags,” she said as she guided the animal, Penham’s docile bay, toward the mounting block.

“That I can do,” the boy said with a bob of his cap and his coin clenched in his hand.

Temple smiled back. “And tell him you haven’t been paid and that I promised he’d be most generous.”

Diana glanced over at him and tried to conceal her grin. The incorrigible devil. That was what he was. No wonder his grandfather despaired of his ever becoming a respectable member of the
ton
.

“Can you ride in that?” he asked, glancing again at her costume.

She didn’t bother to respond, just shot him a dark glare, before she reached down and gave her chemise another good rip, this time splitting the gown up to her thighs. When she looked up, he was openmouthed with shock, so she knew she’d made her point.

Having ridden since she was a child, Diana climbed up and onto the horse and waited for Temple to do the same.

The crowd from the Assembly Rooms began spilling into the streets. Angry voices and calls for the constable shattered the peaceful night.

With a nod, Temple was off, and Diana dug in her heels and brought her mount around to follow him.

When she caught up she said, “What about Elton? We can’t just leave him.”

“He’ll be along,” Temple assured her.

“How will he know where we are?” They were moving through the city now at a fast clip, clattering through the streets and growing closer and closer to the outskirts of town.

“He’ll know.”

They continued to ride at a furious pace, and when they hit the wide, straight Roman road that headed out of town, Temple gave his horse its head, and the animal sprang to life.

Docile manners forgotten, Penham’s horse sensed a capable rider on its back, and happily took off in a wild gallop matching stride for stride with the other animal.

Diana wondered if Temple actually knew where they were going, for he left the road almost immediately and struck out cross-country.

Without her guidebook, without a map, she’d have been lost, but Temple rode with such a steadfast determination that she had to believe he knew exactly where they were headed.

Then again, with Temple leading her, she’d have followed him to the moon.

Temple knew he had to put as much distance between him and Marden as possible. Even the horses’ hooves seemed to be pounding out the refrain of the man’s words.

The bride, the bride, the bride
.

What the devil could Marden want with Diana? It was a question that would have to wait until they found a safe haven from which to solve this wretched puzzle.

They rode for as long as they dared push their mounts. To his amazement, Diana never complained, never begged to rest, just matched his course with a dogged look on her tired face.

Finally, he realized she’d topple off her mount before she’d ask him to stop, so he slowed their pace and a few minutes later pulled to a stop beside a hayrick.

“We’ll rest here,” he said, climbing down. He held out a hand to help her. The fingers that wound around his were like ice. “You’re freezing.”

“It’s not that bad,” she said, her teeth chattering over the words.

Temple shucked off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Wait here for just a minute.” He paused for a moment, listening, then grabbed the horses’ reins and led them to one side of the field. Sure enough, a small brook babbled along the edge of the grass. The horses drank, and then he led them to a nearby hedge and tied them loosely to the thorny branches.

When he got back, he dug into the freshly mown hay and made a nest for the two of them.

“Your chamber awaits you, my lady,” he said, bowing low before her.

She managed to smile and crawled into the bed he’d prepared. When he joined her, she didn’t protest or complain—not that he’d expected her to—rather, without hesitation she curled into his arms, laying her head on his chest. A long sigh slipped from her lips, and it felt as if the weight of her worries fled her tense and strained body.

“Temple?” she whispered a few minutes later.

“Yes, Diana?”

“Were those men at the Assembly Rooms your French agents?”

“Yes.”

She sighed again. “I fear I owe you an apology.”

He glanced down at her, and then put his finger to her lips. “Sssh. No apology necessary.”

Her hand caught his, and she brought it down to rest over her heart. “Whatever would they want with me?” She glanced up at him, her eyes full of questions he couldn’t answer.

The Temple of London would have spouted a glib reply or made some jest in hopes of easing her anxieties, but he could see her fear as plainly as he felt his own coiling in his gut. There was only one thing he could be with her. Honest.

“I don’t know,” he said.

They sat in silence for so long, Temple suspected she might have fallen asleep, but then came the quiet, pleading question that changed his life.

“You won’t let them capture me, will you?”

“Never, Diana. Never.” He kissed the top of her head, sealing his vow.

She nodded with a trust born from a love he’d disavowed so long ago, he wondered how he could deserve her unwavering confidence. And when she curled deeper into his arms and finally did succumb to the peace of sleep, Temple held her against him, afraid to move lest he wake her.

Afraid to move lest he ruin this incredible moment.

Instead, he turned his gaze heavenward, searching for the answers that eluded him like the mysterious secrets of the stars themselves.

“Oh, goddess, what am I to do with you?” he whispered, before he placed another kiss on her brow.