to inspect his horses, running a calming hand over them and talking to them in the special low voice he reserved for his animals.
“I was saving your ungrateful skin, is what I was doing,” Julia replied crisply, accustomed to the man’s rough way of talking. She turned and looked behind her. The street stretched emptily into darkness. They had left Lord Stonehaven far behind in the mad rush to escape.
“Sure, now, and it’s glad I am you did,” Nunnelly allowed. “But did ye have to spook the horses while ye were doin’ it? Here, Jasper!” He swung toward his hapless assistant. “Come make yourself useful and take their heads whilst I get up atop. It’s little enough you’ve done tonight so far.”
The young man bristled at the words. “I didn’t see you do aught better!”
“Hush, you two,” Julia sighed. “We all failed.”
“It’s right ye are about that, miss,” the coachman agreed glumly as he swung up into the seat beside her and took the reins. He nodded to Jasper, and the lad let go of the horses and ran to jump up on the step at the back of the carriage.
Nunnelly looked over at Julia in her lad’s trousers, rough shirt and cap. “Thank the Lord he didn’t make it up here, miss, or that would have been the end of all of us.”
“Stonehaven wouldn’t have recognized me,” Julia replied confidently. “He’s never seen me. That time he came to see Selby in the country was when Mama was so dreadfully sick, and I never ventured downstairs.”
“That may be, miss, but your disguise wouldn’t ha’ lasted ten seconds, and he’d ’a’ known ye were a colleen.” He shook his head. “’Tis too dangerous, yer comin’ with us like this.”
“Where would you two have been tonight if I hadn’t come?” Julia retorted. “Besides, it’s my plan. I have to be here.”
This was an argument they had had many times before, and Nunnelly knew he had no chance of winning it. Julia had always been the most headstrong person he’d ever known—man or woman—and she had been able to twist him around her little finger since she was a mere slip of a girl.
Nunnelly sighed and shook his head. “The truth of it is, Miss Julie, it don’t look to be workin’.”
Julia sighed. “I know, Nunnelly. You’re right.”
This was the third time they had attempted to seize Lord Stonehaven, and he had been too quick and too good for them every time.
“He’s a fighter, miss, and a good one. I’ve heard he works out with the Gentleman himself.” His voice deepened in awe as he mentioned the most renowned pugilist of the day, Gentleman Jackson. “It’s strong, he is, and quick. Some of the gentlemen can box, ye see, but in a real fight, they’re more useless than Jasper there. But this one—filthy poltroon though he is—he cuts a fine figure in a fight.” He paused, then added thoughtfully, “There are some men I could get to help. Even he couldn’t take on four or five of us and win.”
“No,” Julia responded quickly. “I don’t want too many people to know about this. You and Jasper are different.” Both Nunnelly and the groom had worked for her family for years. They couldn’t have been more loyal if they had been actual members of the family. “But strangers…it would never do for word of this to leak out.”
“No, miss,” the coachman agreed fervently. He was silent for a moment as they drove through the dark streets of London. They were almost home when he cast a speculative look at Julia and began tentatively, “Maybe we should forget it, miss….”
Julia whirled around, her eyes shooting fire. “What? Forget about Selby? Do you not care anymore about him? Do you not care if his name is cleared or if Gilbert has to live under the shadow of scandal all his life? Don’t you care about getting the man who did it to him? Or are you scared?”
Stung, the coachman replied, “There’s no man alive can call Mike Nunnelly a coward, miss, and get away with it. And there’s no call to be tellin’ me I don’t care about yer brother. It’s jist that I’m thinkin’ of you, Miss Julia. Maybe it’s time ye did something else, time ye got on with your life, thought of marrying and babies and such….”
A lesser man would have quailed before the fierce light in Julia’s eyes. “Marriage? Babies?” she replied scornfully. “Are you saying that I should tend to my knitting and let men do the work? Besides, how do you think I shall get a husband with the world thinking my brother was a…a thief!” Her eyes filled with angry tears.
“Now, don’t ye go tryin’ to change the subject on me. It’s this plan we’re talkin’ about, not your brother, God rest his soul.” The coachman crossed himself and continued. “The fact is, we did our best, miss, and it didn’t work. We’ve been here three weeks now, followin’ him around, watchin’ him go in and out, chasin’ women and playin’ cards and goin’ to that club of his. Why, it’s a miracle to catch the man alone. Always with friends or some fancy piece on his arms—which, beggin’ your pardon, miss, you shouldn’t even be seein’.”
“I know.” Julia’s expression turned thoughtful.
“Three times we’ve managed to take him by surprise and alone, and he’s got clean away, every one. If we don’t be usin’ more men, then what’re we to do? I ask you. It’s suspicious he is now—did ye hear what he said to me? He knows it was us before, maybe not the first time—but some stranger tryin’ to knock ye over the head three times, it can’t be jist bad luck. There’s no sneakin’ up on him again.”
“I realize that. You are right. Obviously this plan isn’t going to work. But I am not going to give up. Not after what he did to Selby.”
Three years earlier Julia’s brother, Selby, had been accused of stealing money from a trust fund of which he was a trustee. The man who had accused him, and who had proven to the world that Selby was guilty, was Deverel Grey, Lord Stonehaven. Though Selby had insisted he was innocent, public opinion had been hard against him. Indeed, the evidence had been compelling, convincing almost everyone except Selby’s wife and sister. In the end, Selby had shot himself while he was alone at his hunting box. People had called it suicide and taken it as further proof of his guilt. Even Phoebe, his wife, thought he had killed himself, driven to it by despair over his inability to make anyone believe him. Only Julia had clung to the belief that the shooting had been an accident, but she had placed the blame for his carelessness on the despair and frustration he had felt. The ultimate blame, she believed, lay with the man who had hounded Selby to his death, Lord Stonehaven.
Julia turned to Nunnelly, her chin jutting out in the stubborn way he knew so well. “We will simply have to come up with another plan.”
“Another plan?” The coachman frowned. “Have ye hatched another one, then?” The workings of Julia’s mind awed—and often alarmed—the stolid Irishman.
“Yes, one just came to me.”
“What is it, then?”
Julia glanced at the loyal servant. There was no way that she could tell him the truth. “Let’s wait and see.”
Nunnelly grumbled at her answer, but Julia ignored him, settling back in the high coachman’s seat and contemplating the dark houses around them. It was a daring plan. But it was, she thought with swelling hope, a plan that could work.
They
