Page 14 of A Much Maligned Miss

“We will put up at various coaching inns along the way.”

“And will the driver tell Lord Faris I accompanied you, do you think?” she asked in a voice that wobbled slightly.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Juggins is an old reprobate. I doubt he’d care much about your reputation, and besides, I’ve tipped him liberally over the years. Why should he turn tattletale?”

Miss Halperston swallowed, fiddling with the buttons on her glove. Was she imagining him in the role of a wicked seducer? How amusing, he thought, his eyes traveling over her averted face.

“Having second thoughts about accompanying me?” he asked. Maybe it would be better all around if he just set her down now and they forgot all about it.

“Oh no,” she said quickly. “No, I—I need to get out of Penarth quite desperately. You are doing me a great favor, my lord, by allowing me to tag along. I will never forget it. Indeed, I am in forever your debt.”

“Forever is a long time, Miss Halperston,” he said, regarding her from lowered eyelids. He should probably set her mind at rest by reassuring the wretched woman he had no designs on her virtue, but for some reason he did not.

Where would be the fun in that? The only thing that marked Miss Halperston out from the common crowd was the fact she was a persecuted damsel. It seemed only right to him that she should teeter on the brink of disaster at every turn.

It might alleviate the boredom of their four-day journey to see her twist and turn in the grip of nameless maidenly fears, wondering if he was to be her benefactor, or her ruination. A smile curved his lips, the notion pleasing him.

Besides, he was not entirely sure his motives were pure. In his experience they seldom were. In the cold light of day, she did not look particularly tempting but there had been moments the night before when she had not been altogether without appeal.

“Maybe I should travel under an assumed name,” she murmured, distracting him.

“An assumed name?” His ears pricked up with interest.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. She certainly had a flair for the dramatic under her solemn appearance. For a moment he remembered her pink-cheeked with her dark hair loose. I’m the biggest bitch in all the county. A smile crooked his lips. “It would need to be a suitably dramatic one.”

“Suitably dramatic?” she echoed.

“If you are going to the trouble of invention, you should make it worth the effort.”

She considered this. “What would you suggest?”

He thought about it. “How about Scarlet? Or Juliette.”

Miss Halperston blinked. “You think I could aspire to embody such a name?” she asked skeptically.

“Not right now,” he admitted. “Last night, however…” She shifted in her seat, discomforted. “You looked rather like a maenad,” Gervaise concluded. “Wild-eyed and wearing leaves in your hair. I picked out several while you were leaning over that balustrade.”

Some color crept into Caroline’s cheeks. “Yes, I brushed the last of them out this morning. It wasn’t from an ivy wreath though. I think I got them from sleeping under a tree.”

“Something you often indulge in?” he asked with polite interest.

“No, never. Well, maybe I’ve dozed off in the shade of one at the height of summer,” she admitted conscientiously.

“But never on a brisk day in March,” he concluded.

“Certainly not! I really don’t know what came over me,” she muttered, shame-faced.

He considered her thoughtfully. “Personally, I think you were drugged.”

“Drugged!”

He nodded. “Do you recall much of our conversation last night?”

“My recollections are disjointed,” she confessed, “rather like the dreams one has in the grip of a fever. Snatches come back to me, but I hardly know if I can trust them at this point.” Her eyes widened and she gave a little gasp. “Did we—? Did we perform a Viennese waltz on the terrace?” she asked. “Or am I raving?”

He smirked at her. “You were most insistent; I hardly liked to say no after the crushing disappointment you suffered at the Christmas party.”

“My crushing…?” She gazed at him in dismay.