"So you took to a life of crime?" Aurora asked in disbelief. "Risking your life seemed better than risking your brass in a game of cards?"
Brianne was hanging on the highwayman's every word. She glared at Aurora. "It's much more exciting."
Wesley winked at Brianne again, but addressed Aurora. "This was to be my first and last foray into felony. In fact, it was to be more in the nature of a loan. I fully intended to repay you for whatever I'd taken, my lady. I only wished to borrow a stake, you see, so I might establish myself as a gentleman in London. Bath or Brighton if the takings were not so high."
Wesley did not notice the thunderclouds forming on the ladies' brows, but he heard the ice in Brianne's voice when she asked, "And what then, sir, once you had set yourself up as a man of means?"
"Why, nothing that hasn't been done a thousand times before. In the age-old fashion of dispossessed dependents and under-the-hatches heirs, I would find me a wealthy widow or a rich man's daughter to wed. I could not afford to be fussy, naturally."
Brianne stood up from where she'd been kneeling at Wesley's side. "You you swine! You pig! You blot-on-the-earth bastard! You're just like every other lily-livered libertine who thinks to repair his own fortunes off some poor female's affections. How dare you hold up our coach, so you can then rob some woman of her dowry, her dignity, and her dreams?" In the midst of her tirade, Brianne began kicking at Wesley's legs. "You miserable, mangy cur! You"
"That's enough, Brianne," Aurora said, fearing her sister-in-law was about to start kicking the poor, bewildered man in the head. But Brianne was in a rant, and intent on trampling this latest traducer of women into the ground. Aurora tried to take her arm but, enraged, Brianne struck out at her, slapping Aurora's hand away the hand holding the pistol.
Chapter Eighteen
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"I've shot a man."
The horses reared in their traces, Oliver and Richard ran to their heads, Maisy started screeching again, Nialla passed out onto the carriage floor, and Brianne and Aurora looked at each other in horror. "I've shot a defenseless man," Aurora repeated, "while he was on the ground, tied hand and foot."
"He deserved it," Brianne told her, trying to lessen Aurora's guilt. "He was nothing but a wicked highwayman anyway. And not even a very good highwayman at that, getting captured on his first attempt." She dashed away the tears in her eyes. "We just saved the sheriff the price of hanging him, that's all. And now some poor woman is safe from his foul designs. He would have made a dreadful husband."
"I would have made a good husband. Meant to try, by George."
He wasn't dead, not yet at any rate! Aurora rolled him over and saw the bloodstain spreading from his shoulder. "His shoulder! I didn't kill him!" She tore open his coat and his shirt, to Brianne's exclamations of shock, or interest. The wretch had her lorgnette out. "Tear up your petticoats, Brianne. Hurry. We have to stop the bleeding."
"My petticoats? They're newand silk." She helped rip Maisy's petticoats instead.
When Wesley was bandaged, the horses calm enough for Oliver to trust them to Richard, Nialla stepped groggily out of the coach, crying that all their misfortunes were her fault, that if they hadn't been trying to help her, they'd never have found themselves in this position. The silly goose was weeping again, or still, but Aurora had no dry handkerchief to lend her, so she handed her Mr. Royce's flask, after swallowing a mouthful for her own nerves.
"Here, take a sip. It will make you feel more the thing. And if anyone is at fault, it is I, for not being more careful with the pistol."
Brianne didn't take any responsibility, but she did take the flask and drain it.
Wesley stared longingly at Lady Brianne, or the flask, and said, "I am the only one at blame. I deserve to die, as Heaven is my witness, for bringing such grief to such kind young ladies." He was holding his hand out. Since the flask was empty, he must be seeking forgiveness, so Brianne took it.
"You are not going to die until they hang you. I refuse to believe otherwise," Brianne insisted.
As usual, it looked as if Brianne was going to get her way, for the bleeding had stopped, and the wound looked to be a clean one, having passed straight through the man's shoulder. Aurora thought a surgeon should look at it, though. "Brianne, hold the horses while Oliver and Richard put him in the carriage. I I will be back in a moment."
She fled behind the coach. Nialla, holding the highwayman's head, looked toward Brianne, who shrugged. "She's just going to shoot the cat."
The cat now? Nialla fainted again.
Once they were under way, Aurora decided to press for Windrush. She simply could not hand Mr. Royce over to some local law enforcer, not after shooting him. Kenyon would be home soon. He'd know what to do. He was a magistrate himself, after all. And Oliver assured her that the head groom could doctor the prisoner better than any sawbones. If his condition worsened, they could always fetch a surgeon from the next town.
Still holding Brianne's handfor whose comfort? Aurora wished to knowWesley begged a favor. "Please I cannot just go off leave Lucy and the babies to starve."
Brianne dropped his hand so fast it bounced off the window of the coach. "You are already married?"
"Not wed yet."
But there were babies? "Shoot him again, Aurora," Brianne said, "or I swear I will do it myself."
Following Wesley's hoarsely whispered directions, the coach, with his horse tied behind, made its way up a narrow path to an old woodsman's shack. Aurora and Richard, rifle finally in his hands, rapped on the door. Still muttering dire imprecations, Brianne held Wesley's own pistol on the half-conscious highwayman. Of course it was empty, but Aurora deemed it safer for all of them not to tell her sister-in-law that. The battered brigand had the audacity to smile at her, though.
No one answered her knock, so Aurora opened the door and called, "Lucy?" before stepping into the rude shelter. "You're Lucy?"
Lucy turned out to be a shaggy black-and-white mutt, with four tiny pups.
Kenyon would know what to do with those, too.
Heavens, Aurora thought as they made their crowded way home, she was expecting a great deal of the husband who didn't want to be. Here she'd been going to show him what an exemplary wife she'd make, not causing any gossip, not squandering his fortune, not abandoning his sister to the melancholy. Well, one out of three was something. Brianne certainly did not mourn Podell any longer. But instead of making his life easier and his house more comfortable. Aurora was burdening Kenyon with more problems, more potential scandals. Why, his new wife might even be charged with shooting a defenseless man. She could not think he would appreciate that, or that he'd come visit her in jail. He'd most likely use it as an excuse to divorce her if he couldn't get the marriage annulled.
Aurora did not want her marriage dissolved. Every day that passed by reinforced her belief that she could be very content with Kenyon, indeed. When she decided to bring Nialla home, it was because she knew he would be kind and capable. With Wesley, he'd be fair. She just knew he could not be cold and callous and uncaring. He was a good man. Moreover, he attracted her like no other, not even Podell. Why, looking at Wesley's handsome visage made her think that auburn hair was far more attractive than blond, and while Brianne almost swooned at the sight of the highwayman's bare chest, Aurora couldn't help comparing it to Kenyon's, with its soft downy covering. She missed him! Aurora couldn't imagine how that was possible after so short a time, but she did. She missed Kenyon's strength, and she missed his smile. She wondered if he'd ever smile at her again, after she brought her houseguests home.
What had the woman done to his house? Granted, it looked cleaner, smelling of lemon oil and beeswax, with flowers on all the tables. And the carriage path and the highway had been smooth, thankfully, for Christopher could not have taken much more jostling. The shrubs were pruned, the windows were washed, and the brass was polished, but Kenyon didn't recognize half the furnishings and less of the servants. And his wife was not there!
Dawson came to the hall and instantly took charge, deploying the multitudes of military-type footmen to settle Christopher in the room prepared for him, to escort the surgeon to his own apartment, to help the earl's valet with the trunks. And saying, "I shall notify the kitchens of Captain Warriner's arrival," he disappeared before Kenyon could ask where she was, his wife. Hell and thunderation, she'd gone away and left the management of his household in the hands of an embezzler. Kenyon touched the new vase on the hall table. Meissen, unless he missed his guess, so it didn't matter that his major-domo was an embezzler. There wouldn't be enough funds left to be worth stealing.
One of the new footmen directed him to the parlor, where Aunt Ellenette babbled about headstrong missesAurora or Brianne, he couldn't telland Frederick predicting trouble in the coach, which almost had Kenyon rushing for the stables. Then he reminded himself that Frederick was always foretelling doom, from spoiled food to the end of the world, so the earl decided to ignore Aunt Ellenette's prattling, but not her complaints that they never had fresh oranges anymore. He went on to the conservatory, with its fountains and forcing houses and flora from around the globe. His mother's pride and joy, it was maintained in her memory.