Buch lesen: «Compromising The Duke's Daughter»

Chapter One

‘Get us from this infernal place at once, you stupid boy!’

‘Calm yourself, Aunt, and please don’t shout at Pip—it will only make matters worse. If he panics he might overset the coach, or trample somebody underfoot.’

‘I wish the horses would trample the savages to death!’ Dorothea warbled hysterically.

‘Hush!’ Joan slammed an unsteady finger to her soft mouth, hissing from behind it, ‘If we infuriate these people, heaven only knows what will become of us all!’

Lady Joan Morland was attempting to combat her fright as well as pacify her companion. Joan knew she was to blame for their terrifying predicament, but her aunt’s callous remark about running over their attackers had shocked and angered her. Just a short while ago Joan had been sitting in the same room as these folks’ youngsters and she’d not willingly orphan any child.

Joan had wanted to visit a ragged school in the eastern quarter of the metropolis to assist her friend the Reverend Walters teaching at his vicarage. Thus, she accepted that it was her fault that their novice driver had taken a wrong turning and ended up in the heart of a slum. Pip was into his apprenticeship and was now allowed to drive the smaller carriages, but this calamity had proved that he hadn’t the necessary experience to negotiate a detour about the London stews as his master would have done. The youth had plunged headlong into the midst of a crowd of spectators at a street fight. Their crested coach and team of fine chestnuts had drawn interest in the way bluebottles would swarm to a joint of prime beef.

‘Get away...you vile creature!’ Dorothea flapped her handkerchief at a bold urchin who’d clung to the side of the vehicle and was thrusting a grimy hand at her, palm up.

‘Come on, lady, give us summat or I’ll have them baubles off yer chest instead.’ The boy bared a set of brown teeth in a grin while his filthy fingers mimicked an approaching spider.

Dorothea squeaked in alarm, jamming a hand over the pearl mourning brooch pinned to her cloak.

‘Here...take this and please leave us be.’ Joan slid forward on the seat to throw the boy some coppers dug from her reticule. He caught them deftly and leapt down.

Had Joan thought more carefully about it she would have realised that her action was inflammatory rather than calming. Within seconds of the boy whooping with glee, his hand aloft displaying his treasure, a horde had clambered on to the running boards. Youthful and aged faces began competing for space at the windows, all with the same wide, avaricious grins stretching their mouths. Dorothea clung to her niece, shivering, as the vehicle swayed precariously from side to side with the weight of unwashed bodies hanging off the coachwork.

‘We are about to be murdered!’ the hysterical widow screeched before rolling sideways on to the seat in a dead faint.

Joan pressed herself back against the luxurious squabs of her father’s coach, her heart hammering in consternation beneath her breastbone. Although her aunt had been raving moments ago, Joan had preferred Dorothea being conscious. At least they might have both alighted from the vehicle and attempted some sort of escape. Now Joan knew she was hampered by the need to stay with her aunt’s comatose form because she couldn’t in all conscience abandon her relative to save herself.

‘Pip!’ Joan yelled above the noise of the baying crowd. ‘Can you hear me? Are you all right?’

‘Can’t move an inch forward or back, my lady. Hemmed in good and proper, we are,’ the youth wailed, sounding on the point of tears.

Joan glanced fearfully at the prominent face at the window. A man who appeared to be middle aged, but might have been considerably younger beneath the caked dirt, was lasciviously licking his lips while looking her over.

‘Reckon your daddy might pay more’n a handful of coins to get you back. You’re a sight fer sore eyes and no mistake.’ He dropped a crusty eyelid in a lewd wink.

‘Miss High ’n’ Mighty won’t be worth a farthing if you tumble her first,’ a rough female voice called out from behind and started off some raucous laughter.

Suddenly the lecher’s face disappeared as he was yanked backwards and the door was flung open.

Joan shot to the furthest corner of the coach, her fists raised in readiness to beat off an assailant. Although she was quaking with fright, there was a piercing sadness in her breast that she’d chalked letters with children who had no better future than this brutishness to look forward to.

‘What in damnation do you think you’re doing here?’ a cultured male voice barked. ‘You stupid little fool!’

Joan blinked in astonishment and her jaw sagged. Heat streaked into her complexion at the sight of a man, stripped to the waist, his muscled chest and solid broad shoulders glistening with sweat. And so were his features, beneath a tumble of matted silvery hair that clung to his bronzed forehead and cheeks. It was a face that seemed familiar, yet she couldn’t understand how that could be. Shock had rendered her speechless thus she was unable to demand he satisfy her curiosity by giving his name. And then he was gone.

But she could hear him shouting abusive commands at the mob and no more people leered in at her. A moment later the coach jerked one final time, then was set into motion. After a laboured start the vehicle picked up speed.

Stunned into inertia for some minutes by her ordeal, Joan shook herself into action and patted briskly at her aunt’s dropped jaw to try to bring her round. When that didn’t work she delved into Dorothea’s reticule for some smelling salts. Having unstoppered it, she thrust the bottle beneath her aunt’s nose, but the woman remained stubbornly unresponsive to her ministrations.

‘Oh, well done, Pip. Oh, very well done, indeed.’

Joan felt light-headed with relief. She slid across the hide seat to peer out of the window at cottages and carts and people going about their business. Thankfully, it seemed they had taken a turning out of that awful place.

‘I shall let my father know how excellently you are learning the ropes, Pip...’

But never must he know all the details of what has gone on today, Joan inwardly wailed. If the Duke of Thornley discovered what dangers his daughter had risked that afternoon, he’d have her under lock and key till Christmastide! Joan knew it would be hard to make her aunt button her lip. Dorothea was the world’s worst blabber and reported to her brother every little slip her niece made.

‘Pip...are we approaching safety yet? Where exactly are we?’

‘Cheapside...now settle down and be quiet,’ growled a rich baritone voice very unlike Pip’s.

Joan dropped the bottle of smelling salts and craned out of the window, looking up. But she couldn’t see any more of him than a long breeched leg and a single sinewy forearm terminating in grazed fingers entwined in the reins.

‘Stop the coach at once. Whoever you are you may pull over immediately! I didn’t give you permission to drive my father’s coach!’

He obeyed her order with such alacrity that Joan tipped off the seat on to her knees on the floor and Aunt Dorothea almost landed on top of her.

Joan was scrambling upright just as the door opened and without a by your leave an athletic figure vaulted in and sat down at the same time she did.

She gawped at him in alarm while obliquely aware of Dorothea stirring and muttering incoherently. Joan knew that once her aunt rejoined the land of the living, the woman was likely to swoon again at the sight of the dishevelled ruffian lounging opposite, even if he had now covered up his bare chest.

Yet he wasn’t a ruffian; of that Joan was certain. Oh, he might be dressed in clothes that had seen better days, but they were of good quality. He sported a stylish, if stained, lawn shirt, and his brawny legs were encased in buckskin breeches that had once been fawn, she guessed, but were now the hue of mud.

Her protracted inspection seemed to amuse him and he raised an arm, wiping blood from his cheek with a sleeve. ‘Well?’ he sardonically asked for her verdict.

‘Well what?’ Joan breathed and with an inner jolt suddenly realised to whom she spoke. ‘Well, am I disgusted by what you appear to have turned into, Mr Rockleigh? If that is what you require an answer to...then the answer is yes.’

‘So you remember me, do you? I’m flattered.’

‘There’s no need to be,’ Joan retorted hoarsely. ‘Nothing about you pleases me. Now remove yourself from my carriage and let us proceed towards home.’

‘No thanks from you, my lady? No offer to reward me for the service I have done you?’ he taunted. ‘At least on the last occasion that I saved you from yourself, you had the grace to apologise for the nuisance you’d been to me.’

‘I didn’t ask you to save me then or now!’ Joan snapped.

‘I’ll take you back to Ratcliffe Highway then, shall I?’ he suggested, lunging towards the door as though to again climb aboard the driver’s perch and carry out his threat.

Joan snatched at his arm. ‘You will not, you villain!’ Her fingers sprang away from him as though he’d scalded her, although his moist skin warming her palm had not felt unpleasant. But the muscle she’d gripped had flexed to iron at her feeble restraint. She knew if he wanted to appropriate their vehicle, or do any of them harm, she’d not be able to stop him. Neither would young Pip.

‘Remove yourself...please...before my aunt awakens and sees you,’ Joan uttered coolly.

Rockleigh glanced at the woman sprawled on the seat, her eyelids fluttering. ‘I’ll go when you tell me what a duke’s daughter is doing driving around the slums of Wapping.’

‘I would have thought it quite obvious we were lost,’ Joan returned.

‘Is your father reduced to hiring such incompetents to steer his coaches?’

‘No, he is not!’ Joan spluttered indignantly. ‘Pip has only recently been allowed to drive and I chose to employ his services today.’

‘Ah...so you planned to keep your father in the dark about your trip, did you?’ He idly assessed the coach’s interior. ‘Nice, but I imagine the Duke of Thornley has several better conveyances for his daughter’s use. You might be older, my lady, but it seems you’re no wiser,’ he drawled, lazy amusement glinting in his hazel eyes.

‘A remark that I could certainly return to you, sir, had I any wish for this conversation to continue.’ Joan had blushed hotly at his astute interpretation of events. She had intentionally chosen to employ Pip and a plain carriage because their loss from service was unlikely to be noteworthy, should her father call for a vehicle to be brought round. The grooms would assume that the master’s daughter and her chaperon had simply gone shopping locally. ‘I recall you once had good connections and were friendly with my brother-in-law. But not any more, that’s clear to see.’

‘I’ve not fallen out with Luke Wolfson.’

‘But I imagine he avoids your company!’

‘I avoid his...’

‘Ah, so you’re ashamed of yourself, and I’m not surprised.’

‘I’m not ashamed of myself. I do honest work for honest pay.’

‘You were brawling in the street like a common criminal!’ Joan choked out. She recalled Fiona mentioning that Drew Rockleigh had suffered a run of bad luck, but her stepsister had not made much of it. Joan imagined that Fiona was ignorant of just how low her husband’s friend had sunk.

‘Fighting for purses pays my way. What’s your excuse for trawling through the squalor, my lady? Did you think it a novelty to come to see how poor wretches live and end up with more than you bargained for?’

‘No, I did not! I was helping a friend teach those poor wretches’ children to read...’ Joan clammed up, furious that she’d allowed him to push her into explaining herself.

A shrill scream made Joan almost start from her skin; it announced the fact that her widowed aunt had come fully awake.

Without another word, but with a lingering stare that sent a shiver through her, Rockleigh jumped from the carriage. Joan could hear him talking in a low, fluid tone to Pip.

‘Who was that?’ Dorothea gasped out, a hand pressed to her heaving bosom.

‘He...he did us a service and helped us find our way out of that slum,’ Joan swiftly explained, rubbing energetically at her aunt’s hand to soothe her.

Dorothea flopped back against the squabs. ‘Your father will flay you alive when he discovers what you have done this afternoon.’

‘There is no need for him to be apprised of it. All has ended well and no harm done to any of us.’

‘Only by lucky chance!’ Dorothea squeaked. ‘What is our Good Samaritan’s name? Your father will want to know it and reward him.’

‘I...I...he didn’t introduce himself,’ Joan stuttered quite truthfully, glad her aunt had not recognised the boxer as a fellow who, not so long ago, had graced society with his elegant presence.

Once, Rockleigh had owned a house in Mayfair and a hunting lodge in the West Country, close to her father’s ancestral seat. He had mingled with the cream of society although he’d rarely attend tame entertainments. Many a hostess keen to have such an eligible bachelor at her daughter’s debut ball had been disappointed by Rockleigh’s absence. But on one occasion when Joan had attended the opera with her father and stepmother she had spied Drew Rockleigh in a box opposite with a female companion. Her father had pretended not to know the identity of the pretty blonde when Joan enquired after her. She’d realised then that Rockleigh was out with his mistress. That sighting of him in Drury Lane had been about a year ago; Joan imagined that in the meantime he must have lost a great deal.

As the coach set off at a very sedate pace, Joan guessed that Pip was too scared to set the horses to more than a trot. She scoured the pavements for a tall muscular fellow with very fair hair, but there was no sign of him—no doubt he had slipped back into that stew of destitution. But for the snuffling of her aunt, and a musky male scent within the coach strengthening her rapidly beating pulse, Joan might have thought none of it had happened and she’d simply awakened from a nightmare.

But it was real. Her heartfelt wish to assist the Reverend Vincent Walters teach children to read and write at the St George’s in the East vicarage school would have very great repercussions. And none of it beneficial, Joan feared.