Patrica Rice Page 9

  Climbing into the coach behind Blanche, Michael wished he’d included a horse in his plans. The soft feminine scents of her sachet assailed him, and he closed his eyes to enjoy it.

  “Why Northumberland?” she inquired as soon as the driver sprang the horses. “I thought Fiona came from Ireland.”

  “And would we wish to let our pursuers know our direction?” Michael asked, opening his eyes in time to see Blanche remove her confining bonnet. She had pulled her hair into a prim knot at her nape, but baby-fine tendrils escaped in profusion around her ears and neck. He fought back a strong desire to stroke them.

  Her smile reflected her delight. “We will go north for a while under this guise, then switch directions under another one!”

  “Actually, we will go north to the lake country where I met her so we can trace Fiona’s steps. From her accent, I suspect she traveled from the area of Belfast to Scotland. I should think she took a fishing boat to one of the lochs off Scotland’s west coast.”

  “Scotland and Ireland! How lovely. I’ve never seen much of anything but southern England. Will the roads be safe for travel this time of year?”

  She seemed content pretending he was her brother and they did no more than travel for the pleasure of it. If she knew of his decidedly unbrotherly urges, she would stop the coach and run screaming in the other direction.

  Unsettled, Michael stared out the window. “The highwaymen are not so thick as they once were, but the roads can be impassable in bad weather. The inns are fraught with unsavory characters who may take a fancy to your pretty face. I’ve tried making certain we have a good driver, but I’m not infallible. And I can’t control fate. I’ve seen mail coaches turned over in ditches because some mutton-head couldn’t manage his cattle. So do not think we are on a little pleasure jaunt. Any time you want out, let me know. I’ll arrange for a place of safety for you until I return.”

  Blanche stuck out her tongue at him. For a wild, heated moment, Michael considered what he could do with that delicacy.

  “You’ll sound just like Neville if you continue. I’m not in the least missish, you know.” She opened her reticule and pulled out a small pistol. “And I borrowed this from Dillian. I’m quite prepared to slay anyone who stands in my way.”

  “Oh, gad.” Covering his eyes, Michael slumped back against the seat. “Put that thing away and don’t ever let me see it again. I’m in more danger from it than any highwayman.”

  “Good. Then you shall not have any fancy ideas as we travel,” she said with satisfaction.

  So much for innocence if her version of “fancy ideas” meant she’d guessed his lustful thoughts. Keeping his eyes closed, Michael pretended to sleep.

  * * *

  Blanche watched Michael’s face in repose. She seldom had opportunity to study a man in this proximity. Aside from Neville, she saw them only when they had tricked themselves out in all their finery, disguised themselves behind nosegays and snuffboxes, and acted the roles of smitten gallants.

  The cloudy day lent little light to the interior, but she could distinctly see the masculine cut of his jaw, the intelligence of his wide brow, and the boyish dishevelment of the hank of hair falling in his eyes. She thought she even saw the beginnings of dark bristles under his skin, although she supposed with his coloring, his beard would be more red than dark. His long legs stretched crosswise over the carriage floor, revealing the muscularity beneath tight buckskins. When her knee brushed close to his, the muscles in her midsection tightened.

  She wanted Michael to kiss her. She knew he was completely unsuitable as a suitor. Since she had no intention of marrying, it didn’t matter. She just wanted someone to kiss her. She tried not thinking beyond that. First, she must persuade him. In her experience, men liked touching her. Or at least pretended they did. It had taken tears to bring Michael to her side. What would it take to make him go a step further? A direct command? Not likely.

  She mulled it over as the shadows lengthened on the countryside. They would be fortunate to reach Oxford by nightfall. Chilly as it was, they could see snow by tomorrow. She shifted restlessly.

  Apparently the driver had been given thorough instructions. While Michael slept, the carriage surged on through the early darkness. He’d hired a footman as well as a driver, and the man lit the carriage lights when the sun dipped low, but the meager light did not ease her anxiety.

  She wished she knew why Fiona had left that note asking if parliament could be dismissed early. How early? Did Fiona have family in government who needed to come home? How foolish to think an urchin like that would have family in parliament, yet why else would it matter when they adjourned? And did any of this have aught to do with the exploding carriage?

  Instinct said it did, but she didn’t rely on instincts as Michael did. She wanted concrete facts, and she had none.

  The horses ran faster, as if they knew food and warmth waited ahead. She kicked Michael’s boots to wake him.

  She could feel him peering at her from beneath his hat, even if she couldn’t see him in the darkness. She wanted to kick him again for not speaking, but Michael was impervious to insult or injury.

  She produced a small pouch of coins and threw it across the carriage at him. He caught it deftly, as she knew he would. “You should carry some of these. It would look odd were I to pay all the tabs.”

  The purse disappeared into the depths of one of his pockets. “How can you be angry already when I haven’t done anything but sleep?”

  Damn his ability to discern every nuance of her voice. Gritting her teeth, Blanche didn’t honor his question with a reply. “Doesn’t it bother you to take a lady’s coins?” She could see the shrug of his silhouette in the darkness.

  “They’re just bits of metal. I have no fondness for them. I could earn what I needed in a few hours in the tavern, but I didn’t think it wise leaving you alone that long.”

  She could supply the words he did not speak. In essence, she paid for her own comfort and safety, not his. For some reason, that response irked her. “You were the one who wished to travel quickly.”

  Again, she could feel his grin more than see it. “And did you think I would travel slowly on my own? I need only borrow one of Montague’s remarkable steeds and I could travel all night.”

  “Then why did you bring me along if you don’t need me?” she asked irritably as the coach slowed for the inn ahead.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t need you. I merely said your coins are a convenience.” He glanced out the window. “I gambled by telling the driver to come here. I wanted to make a good start, and I thought you might like this place better than some others. But it’s late. The rooms may already be taken.”

  “Oh, thank you,” she answered huffily. “And what do we do then? Sleep in here?”

  “Bribe the proprietor with your coins,” he replied cheerfully as the carriage drew to a halt. “Wait here, and I shall see what we can do.”

  He opened the door and leapt down from the carriage without waiting for the footman to lay the steps. Whistling, he disappeared into the interior of the well-lighted inn as the first flakes of snow fell.

  Blanche glanced up at the clouded night sky and basked in the warmth of anticipation. She would show the blasted brash Irishman that she wasn’t completely helpless. Tonight, she would make him kiss her.

  And if she enjoyed that, tomorrow, she would venture even further.

  Thirteen

  The snow turned to rain after that first day, but Michael insisted on riding outside. Blanche thought she knew why. She had caught him by surprise that first night of their journey, turning abruptly and practically landing in his arms. He’d only had to lean over, and he could have kissed her. Instead, he’d caught her shoulders in a grip so hard it had caused bruises. He’d stared down at her as if debating strangling her or making mad love to her. And then he’d abruptly let her go and left the room.

  He’d left her dining alone ever since. Since then, Michael had averted every oppo
rtunity for seduction. Fuming, she watched him ride the horse he’d purchased with her money, while she sat bored and ready to kill inside the rocking carriage. Michael, the man with no scruples, apparently possessed a passionate degree of propriety when it applied to women.

  She thought she should know more of the pleasures of physical passion before retiring to spinsterhood, and the more Michael denied her, the more determined she became that he be the one to teach her.

  Blanche reached that decision on the outskirts of Manchester. The carriage slowed, and she pushed her nose against the window to see what delayed them. Michael generally rode alongside and made himself available to explain the sights, but she saw no sign of him now. Lifting the window, she stuck her head out to see ahead.

  An angry mob gathered outside a tall desolate building set in a field by itself. Ragged men and women wrapped in wool scarves and old coats spilled across the road, blocking travel. They shook their fists and raged at something or someone beyond her field of vision. It did not seem very likely that the carriage could get through the milling crowd, so she ordered the driver to halt, opened the door, and jumped down to the rutted road.

  Dismounted, Michael hastened back through the throng, pushing his way until he reached her side. “Get back in. I’ll order the driver to turn around and find another route.”

  Blanche looked at the narrow, rutted road, up at the wide coach, and back to Michael with incredulity. “Unless you lift the carriage and horses in the air and turn them yourself, I don’t think that’s likely. What is happening?”

  Michael scowled, most likely because she was right and not because of her question. “The mill owner insisted the workers extend their day to sixteen hours for an order he needs immediately. They refused to do it without extra pay. When he said he’d turn off anyone who wouldn’t stay, they all walked out. The situation is growing ugly. I better put you on the horse and get you out of here.”

  “You found all that out in these few minutes?” Blanche replied in admiration.

  Michael shrugged. “They are not exactly hiding their complaints. The owner stands to make a large profit if he can get those orders out on time. They saw no reason why they should suffer and not share in those profits. But if he closes the mill, they will all be out of work. Most of these people are the sole support of their families. They’ll starve.”

  “But if he closes the mill, he won’t get out the orders, and nobody profits.”

  “It would seem that way, but I suspect the real owners of the mill also own other manufactories that could supply the order. It would just mean putting aside their current projects to produce this one. It will only take a week without wages to drive these people begging back again. I’ve seen it happen.”

  An angry shout rose into a wave of terrifying screams rippling backward from near the mill. People at the front of the crowd broke away and sprinted across the field, with others close behind. Some fell, and others trampled over them. Blanche heard glass breaking and the sharp report of what sounded like firecrackers. More people screamed and ran.

  “Damn and blast it, you need to leave, now!” He grabbed her by the waist and threw her up on his horse. Blanche grabbed the reins as the mob surged around them, tilting the carriage and driving its horses to rearing panic.

  From her vantage point atop the horse, she could see over the heads of the mob, and she gave a gasp of horror. “Militia! They’ve called the militia. They’re shooting, Michael. We have to stop them. There are children in this crush! They’ll all be killed.”

  Without waiting for Michael’s reply, Blanche grabbed the horse’s reins and kicked with her soft boot. She had no side saddle to grab with her knee, so her sideways position was shaky, but she’d grown up on the back of a horse. She could hold on.

  She nearly fell when Michael leaped up behind her, cursing fluently under his breath. He kneed the horse into the crowd, and she could only hang on.

  The firing had stopped now that the mob fled across the fields, but the damage had already been done. Ill-clothed bodies of every shape and size lay strewn across the trampled grass and mud, whether victims of the fleeing mob or gunfire, Blanche couldn’t determine. A woman’s sobs caught her ear, but Michael kept the horse at a steady gallop toward town, away from the fleeing mob and the soldiers.

  Blanche screamed in rage when she understood his purpose. She didn’t want to go toward town. She wanted to run down those soldiers and shoot the owner of that wretched mill. She needed to help the wounded. She wanted to tear out the throats of whoever was responsible for this catastrophe. She certainly had no intention of running for safety.

  She pounded Michael’s hands on the reins with her fists. “Stop this instant, you blasted beast! Let me off!” She beat upon his thigh when he didn’t rein in.

  He caught her wrists with one hand and gripped the reins in the other. “We’re not going anywhere near those soldiers. They won’t know you from the rest of the mob. We’re running to safety before the mob returns and tears the mill down.”

  “You’d stop if it were just you!” she accused him tearfully, struggling against his imprisoning hold. “I’ll buy the damned mill! Just let me down from here.”

  With a muttered imprecation at her contrariness, Michael reined the horse through a broken gate some distance past the carnage. He couldn’t hold on to a kicking, screaming female for long, not and keep his grip on the horse too. Sooner or later she would slide off, and probably fall beneath the horse’s hooves.

  And she was right. If it were not for her, he’d be storming through that field prepared to rip someone apart. The idea of buying the mill and firing the management suited his sense of justice. He wondered if she really could do that. He didn’t know, but between them, perhaps they could equalize the situation.

  Checking the scene behind them for danger, Michael turned the horse toward the mill.

  The untrained militia stood uncertainly on the front steps, their muskets aimed at the road. As a few women crawled through the scene of battle, searching out the bodies scattered there, the soldiers waited for further orders, unwilling to shoot directly at women or the injured. Michael suspected some were already prepared to lay down their guns and retreat with disgust, but soldiers with weapons often possessed a thirst for power. He couldn’t trust appearances.

  “Stand back!” one shouted as Michael rode boldly toward the mill’s front door.

  He released Blanche’s waist. Reining in the horse, he groaned as she immediately slid to the ground and ran to a fallen child. So much for buying a mill. She would be sending for the carriage and hauling bodies off to her townhouse, where she might mother and nurse an entire mob to her heart’s content.

  Michael focused on the frock-coated gentleman appearing in the mill doorway. “You’ll have to post guards around the clock,” Michael remarked when the gentleman’s gaze turned in his direction. “They’ll come back and tear the place apart elsewise.”

  The man scowled and diverted his gaze to Blanche, who now consulted with another woman over the child’s unconscious form. “Who’s that, and what the hell’s she doing?”

  Michael had known it was impossible to disguise Blanche’s air of privilege. Even though she wore the dowdy clothes of a squire’s daughter, she carried herself with grace and dignity.

  “Under the circumstances, I don’t believe revealing her true identity wise. Just suffice it to say, she can make a great deal of trouble for whomever is responsible for this carnage. Are you the owner or the manager?”

  “None of your damned business.” The man muttered a few curt orders to the militia, and they set out across the mill yard, their firearms across their chests.

  Blanche looked up. “Michael, send for the carriage. These people need transport to the hospital. I think they’re all alive, but I don’t know for how much longer.”

  Her bonnet had fallen back, revealing a cascade of flaxen hair. Her lovely oval face with the burn scars marring her cheeks and forehead gleamed i
n the dismal gray light of the cloudy day. The man standing on the doorstep paled at the sight, Michael noted with interest.

  “I warned you,” Michael said, gambling that this man at least suspected Blanche’s identity. “Women detest violence. She’ll have the man responsible for this by the short hairs as soon as she takes those people to town.”

  “I had my orders!” the man replied nervously. “I just do what I’m told. I’m to get that order out or close the mill. I can’t let a mob dictate how I run the business. Where would we be if those barbarians started doing things their way? They’d arrive when they felt like it, leave when they’d the notion, and demand enough money to keep them drunk on gin around the clock. They can work as told or find work elsewhere.”

  Returning to Michael’s side, Blanche apparently overheard this self-serving speech. “I demand to speak with the owner,” she ordered.

  “The owner isn’t here,” the manager responded nastily. “You didn’t really think he’d stay in this godforsaken hole, did you? He’s in London, with all the other swells.”

  “Truly? Then I’ll be certain to meet him when I return. I’ll have his name, please.”

  Blanche’s slender fingers dug into Michael’s arm. Instinct warned him not to pursue the subject of ownership. “My lady, I think it best if we call the carriage...”

  Blanche glanced at the approaching vehicle. “I sent one of the women for it. We’ll take your horse into town. There won’t be room left. That child has a broken leg.” She glared at the man in the doorway. “And it’s all your fault. He’ll most likely be crippled for life. There are others out there who might die from gunshot wounds. I’ll have your name and the owner’s name immediately, or I shall go to the magistrate and request them.”

  “Don’t know the owner’s name,” the manager snarled. “I just deal with his man of business. Barnaby is the name, and good luck to you if you find him. He’ll scale the hide off any interfering female. It’s none of your damned concern what we do.”