How to Capture a Duke(9)

"And the truth?"

The man sighed. "My cousin was doing something more dutiful. He fought  an officer on the imposing side. The man was charging at me on a horse,  waving a sword. It was my job to stop him. I was nearer, and yet my  cousin stepped in front. He was killed, and I was maimed."

"Oh." Fiona's heart stilled, and her throat dried. She understood the  pain of death. She wrapped her arms around her chest and murmured, "I'm  sorry. Truly."                       
       
           



       

The trees thinned, and the handsome man's gaze flickered over her. The  horses continued their plod over the road. Before them some wassailers  appeared. They were clad in simple clothes, and carried torches instead  of lanterns to guide them as they went from home to home, singing.

He slowed the coach, and Fiona's heart quickened. She redirected her knife at him. "Don't stop. Or I'll-I'll-"

"You'll stab me?" He raised his eyebrows. "I'll take my chances. You've got witnesses before you."

The horses slowed, and sweat prickled the back of Fiona's neck. A throng of wassailers peered up at them.

"Happy Christmas," a wassailer shouted.

"Happy Christmas to you," the handsome man answered.

She lowered her knife, her mind grappling for something, anything to prevent this man from asking them for help.

His gaze flickered to her lap, and he smirked.

"I'm being kidnapped," his voice boomed. "This woman has captured me. I need help."

The wassailers stopped their song, and Fiona's heart lurched. She forced  herself to laugh. though the sound felt unnatural in her throat.  "Darling, the things you say."

The handsome man frowned. "I'm serious. She's captured me! Help me! Please!"

"Sweetheart." Fiona forced herself to smile and she slid her arm into his. Heat surged through her as her arm nestled into his.

She might be twenty-two, but this was the pinnacle of her contact with  any man, and her heart galloped as she stared at the gathering of men  and women before her.

The handsome man sucked in his breath sharply.

A round-faced woman chuckled, and others joined her. "That's the most  romantic thing I've ever heard. My dear husband, why don't you say those  things about me?"

A man beside her gave a sheepish grin.

"No, I'm serious," the handsome man said. "I've been kidnapped."

"By Cupid's bow?" someone called out.

"No, no. By force!"

Laughter filled the air, and the scent of beer and cider wafted over the carriage.

"Perhaps we should sing you a song," the round-faced woman said.

"How did you get that mail coach?" someone shouted.

The handsome man's expression firmed. "Because-"

"Darling, let me drive." Fiona snatched the reins from him and urged the horses past the wassailers.

"You shouldn't have done that," he grumbled.

"I'll add it to the list of things you disapprove of." She fumbled for her knife and handed the reins back to him.

They continued in silence.

Lights shone off the side of the road, directing travelers to the public  houses. The man swiveled his head in the direction of an inn.

"Don't even think about it!" Fiona said.

His eyebrows darted up. "A mind like mine can't be dissuaded from  thinking, no matter how eager you are to force on it your lack of  education."

She stiffened. "I suppose you went to Oxford."

"No." He stared firmly ahead.

"Cambridge?" The smooth sound of his voice and his consistently rounded vowels spoke Oxbridge to her.

His voice that would make him suitable to pose as her fiancé, until she  saw fit to invent a suitable death for him. It was the voice of a man  whom she automatically distrusted.

He pressed his lips together. "Edinburgh."

"They do classics there, too?"

"I've got no patience for Latin, woman. Seems people already do enough  talking when they're just speaking their own language. Don't need to add  additional languages."

Fiona snorted. "How educated of you. I suppose you have a degree in ignorance and close-mindedness?"

His lips jutted upward. "Medicine."

Fiona's eyes widened. People didn't study medicine unless they were genuinely interested in it. "But you were an officer."

"My family thought it more worthwhile for me to kill people than heal them."

"I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "I gave up that dream a long time ago."

"Maybe now-" She paused, and her eyes fluttered to his leg.

"I'm rather occupied otherwise now. I . . . er . . . needed to take over my cousin's business after his death."

"You couldn't be a doctor at the same time?"

He grinned. "That would be highly unconventional with my cousin's business."

"Which you're not going to share with me?"

"No." He shook his head, and his lips arched upward again. "Besides,  doctors are rather supposed to be models of health. Not missing vital  body parts."                       
       
           



       

"I'm sure you didn't intentionally-"

"Lose a leg? No, any struggle I have with disorganization is not that great." A chuckle escaped from his lips.

Warmth filled Fiona, and she settled back into the carriage chair. For a  moment she might even imagine that the man was really her fiancé, and  that they weren't hauling a large, awkward coach, but were in a  curricle. The scent of pine would fill the air in just the same way, and  the rumble of the man's voice beside her would be a comfort to her  instead of a reminder she had to be on guard.

If the magistrate found she'd captured a man . . . Fiona didn't want to  contemplate the legal consequences. It was enough to imagine how the  action would fuel the ton‘s gossip, humiliate Grandmother, and confirm  all of Madeline's worst suspicions of her.

She'd thrown her reputation away. With one impulsive move, she'd hurried  this man, who bore scars from the war, into a carriage despite all his  protestations. She'd frightened his driver, and once that man managed to  secure help, she'd have the wrath of the royal mail to answer to.

Nice ladies didn't capture men. Nice ladies didn't pretend to be  ferocious highwaywomen. Even improper ladies didn't do this-at absolute  worst they might permit a rogue to bed them, an experience that did not  likely have the rogue cowering with fear.

Her fingers scrunched together, tightening further around the edge of  the blade. If this ever got out, and if they didn't get off the road  soon, some authority was likely to find them. Then she would never be  able to marry, never be able to have anything similar to a normal life.  Even her sister would be subject to the tittering of gossip-mongers.

And though she'd long told herself she had no intention of ever  marrying, the idea that she'd virtually guaranteed herself society's  contempt, that she might actually find herself ushered off to a prison  cell for a while, caused her heart to shudder.

The man had been brutally injured in the war. He didn't deserve this. No  one deserved this. And yet she couldn't do anything except continue to  drive forward. She couldn't go to the magistrate and confess. Not when  word might reach Grandmother of her actions. And not when being a  highwaywoman was a capital crime. Her chest tightened.

"And do you have a name?" she found herself asking.

"Not for you."

"Then I'll call you Percival."

He swung his head over to her, and his mouth gaped open.

"Your forename was on your valise." She faltered under the magnitude of  his startled gaze. "Though it speaks of an informality I'm uncomfortable  with."

"I think we left formalities behind a long time ago," he mused, but his voice sounded hoarser than before.





Chapter Seven




Percival clenched his fingers around the reins. She knew his name. By  Zeus, maybe she knew about the jewels. Maybe she knew he'd recently  inherited a bloody dukedom. Maybe this whole thing was planned in  advance, and he was merrily driving himself to some kidnapper's lair, to  the sound of jingling Christmas bells, where he'd wait until the  dowager duchess might wrangle up appropriate amounts of money to appease  the criminals.

He squeezed his fingers against the leather reins. The now-familiar pain  surged through him, and he fought the urge to massage the wound.

The carriage wheels clattered, and the lantern swerved ahead, throwing  dim light over the narrow lane. On occasion a fox scrambled from the  road toward the tall hedges that soared on either side. He wondered what  local gentry lived here and if he might guide the coach to a  destination that differed from the one of the highwaywoman's choice.

What desperation had driven her to this life?

He needed to make an escape. No one needed to know that the new Duke of  Alfriston was so incapable that he'd managed to get himself kidnapped  mere months after taking on the dukedom. But Zeus-she knew his name.