What exactly is your future fiancée’s cousin doing here instead of your unofficial fiancée?”
“Apparently, Miss Moran acts as companion to Miss Caulfield. She came ahead to prepare things for her cousin and Mrs. Caulfield.”
“Prepare things …? She sounds more like a servant than a companion.”
Royal took a drink of his brandy, felt the comforting burn. “I am not exactly sure what role she plays. I only know she is beautiful and gentle and if I am to be married, I should have been happy to take her to wife.”
“Ah, I think I am beginning to see.” Sheridan rose gracefully from the chair, walked over and poured himself a brandy. “After meeting the lady, you had begun to resign yourself to the inevitable. Now you are back where you started, uncertain what might lay ahead.”
“I suppose that’s about it.”
Sheridan slid the stopper back into the decanter, making the crystal ring. “Best to think positively. You were satisfied merely with the cousin. Perhaps your future bride will be far more beautiful and even more to your liking.”
But Royal didn’t think so. There was something about Lily Moran that had struck him from the moment he had laid eyes on her lying there in the snow. The feeling had grown stronger as he had witnessed her worry for the coachman and sensed her gentleness, a quality that would have complemented his more aggressive nature. And of course there was the powerful physical attraction he had felt the instant he lifted her into his arms.
He would have to subdue it. He would soon be betrothed to another. Miss Lily Moran was never meant to be his.
Royal lifted his glass and downed a goodly portion of his brandy.
“So what of the highwaymen?” Sherry asked. “That is the reason I am here. As soon as the coachman reached the village, word spread like a snowstorm. As there was also an incident last month, I thought perhaps we should discuss what might be done.”
Sheridan lived at Wellesley Hall, his country estate, lands that bordered Bransford to the east. Royal and his brothers had grown up with Sherry, who was Royal’s same age. They’d been chums at Oxford, both of them members of the school’s famous eight-man sculling team. Royal and Sherry and four others of the eight had remained close friends ever since. The other two team members had joined the military but still kept in touch as much as they could.
Sherry had even traveled to Barbados for an extended visit when he realized Royal did not intend a quick return home.
“I had hoped the first robbery might be an anomaly,” Royal said. “I hoped the men might take their ill-gotten gains and hie themselves off somewhere to spend it, never to be seen or heard from again.”
“Apparently that is not the case.”
“No, apparently not.”
“The sheriff has already been informed. He will probably wish to pay a call on your … excuse me, on Miss Moran.”
Royal glanced upward, as if he could see through the ceiling into her bedroom. “I’ll tell her. At the moment, she is still not feeling well enough for visitors.”
“And the robbers?”
“It’s been a month since their last attack. I doubt they will strike again anytime soon. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to organize some sort of nightly patrol.”
“Good idea. I’ll see to it myself. My men will take the first two weeks. If nothing happens, yours can take the next.”
Royal nodded. He felt better knowing the roads would be protected. He did, after all, still have a bride making her way to his house.
Royal swore softly and swallowed the last of his drink.
Lily slept the rest of the day and didn’t awaken until the following morning. She glanced toward the window to see a dense layer of clouds hanging low in a gray-purple sky and a spray of white flakes floating down to earth. Noticing she lay in a huge four-poster bed and the walls of the room were a soft pale green instead of the cream color of her room at Meadowbrook, her mind spun, trying to recall exactly where she was.
Then it all came tumbling back: the trip to the country, the highwaymen and the overturned carriage.
The Duke of Bransford coming to her rescue.
His image came sharply into focus and her heart began thrumming as she remembered her first sight of him. Kneeling beside her, against the white of the snow, he looked like a tall, golden angel come to earth. If her head hadn’t been pounding like the very devil, she might have believed she was dead.
Even now, if she closed her eyes, she could recall the way it felt to be held in his arms, remember his worry for her safety, his gentle care of her.
Lily shook her head to dislodge the memory, making her head throb again. The duke belonged to her cousin, a woman far more capable of dealing with a man of his power and social position.
Lily knew the duke needed money to rebuild his family holdings. It was the reason for the alliance being made between the Dewars and the Caulfields. Lily didn’t even have a dowry. And even were she wealthy as Croesus, her past would never allow her to enter into such a lofty union.
Which, of course, didn’t matter in the least.
Jocelyn would be arriving a few days hence and her cousin’s stunning beauty and voluptuous figure would snare the duke’s interest as it did most every male. One look at Jo would offset the brief flash of disappointment Lily had glimpsed in the duke’s tawny eyes when he had learned she was not his future betrothed.
If it hadn’t been entirely imagined.
Lily took a deep breath and reached for the silver bell the chambermaid had placed beside the bed. She rang it briefly and a few moments later the door swung open, admitting one of the young women who had attended her last night, Penelope, she recalled.
“Good morning, miss.” The red-haired girl made a very proper curtsy.
“Good morning, Penelope.”
“It’s just Penny, miss.”
“All right, then, Penny. Could you please help me get dressed? I am still a little weak.”
“Aye, miss. Your trunks were collected from the carriage. I’ll have them brought up to your room while I fetch tea and cakes for your breakfast.”
“Thank you, that would be lovely.”
It was less than an hour later that Lily was dressed and ready to face the day. Descending the stairs, careful to keep a hand on the banister in case she experienced a fresh round of dizziness, she went in search of the duke.
She looked much more presentable this morning, in another simple, remodeled version of one of Jocelyn’s gowns, a warm russet velvet with cream lace trailing from the sleeves and running in small rows down the front. The maid had drawn Lily’s silver-blond hair into a tight chignon at the nape of her neck and she had pinched her cheeks to add a bit of color.
At the bottom of the stairs, she encountered the butler, a thin, elderly man with milky blue eyes. “I am
