ploy successful, deluding only himself. “I took the liberty to order the carriage horses ready, and told Saul to haul himself out of the common room and back up on the box, so we can be going now. Don’t even have to wait so much as a minute, Miss Morgan.”
Morgan didn’t have to turn around to know that Jacob had his free hand resting lightly on the pistol tucked into his waistband, the romantic fool. They’d practiced shooting pistols together over the years, and Jacob still would have to consider himself lucky if he could hit the Channel if he was already standing knee-deep in the water.
“Yes, thank you, Jacob. If you’d please lead Berengaria over to that mounting block?”
Ethan had been enjoying himself, watching varying emotions pass across Miss Morgan Becket’s expressive face, but now he was actually concerned. The chit was going to ride into London? And with that hotheaded halfling as her only protection? Not that he saw a second horse. No, the idiot thought he could guard her from his seat on the traveling carriage now being led out into the yard.
There was no more time for bantering, for relishing the situation. This was serious, and now that Ethan was in it, he knew he could not walk away. He didn’t want to walk away.
“Forgive me, Miss Becket, but I’m afraid that I, as a gentleman, cannot countenance what you seem to be planning.”
Morgan glared at him. “You cannot countenance?” And she’d thought the man handsome? Even intriguing? He was only any one of her tiresome brothers, looking at her as if she was being fractious on purpose.
Which, she knew, she usually was. And, over the years, she had become very, very accomplished at it. But that had nothing to do with the moment. She wanted to ride, and she would ride.
Before she could say anything else, Ethan stepped past her, leaving her to stew where she stood. “Jacob, is it? I am the Earl of Aylesford, although you may feel free to look upon me as your temporary savior. It is my understanding that Miss Becket’s maid—chaperone—has been dispatched home, leaving her under your, I’m convinced, well-intentioned protection. Is that correct?”
Jacob was rapidly reconsidering his ability to beat this man into a jelly. An earl? What was he supposed to do with an earl? “Um…”
“Yes, I thought I’d concluded correctly,” Ethan drawled as he took the lad’s arm and led him out of earshot. “You may not be aware, Jacob,” he continued quietly, “that such an arrangement is wholly unsuitable, or that I, as a good friend of Miss Becket’s brother in London, would be remiss indeed, even criminally so, if I did not step in and rescue both you and Miss Becket from what is only to be termed an untenable situation. I’m sure you’ll agree.”
Jacob held up one finger as if to lend emphasis to whatever he planned to say in response, but he didn’t say anything, as his brain had begun to cramp halfway through the earl’s statement. He simply stared…not at the earl, but past him, to Morgan. He looked positively petrified, which he was, because Morgan was staring at him as if he should be counting the remainder of his life in minutes. “Um…”
Ethan leaned closer, deliberately placing himself between the nervous groom and his view of his glowering mistress. “Women can be so headstrong, can’t they, Jacob? Leaving us men to either be brutes, or give in, hoping for the best. And, of course, then praying that the lady in question does not toss her reputation to the four winds with a single, unintentional mistake brought on by pure female bullheadedness. And all of it inevitably to end with some poor, well-intentioned fool forced to take the blame. In this case, my friend, that poor, well-intentioned fool taking the blame? Well, I’m very much afraid that would be you.”
Jacob frowned in confusion. “You say you know Mr. Chance Becket. But it sounds like you know Miss Morgan, too.”
Ah, a name. Jacob was proving quite helpful.
“We’re men, Jacob, you and I,” Ethan said, winking conspiratorially, purposely placing himself on the same side with the groom, the side that needed to find a way to make the contrary Miss Morgan Becket behave. “We all know women. We just don’t understand them, which, rather happily, accounts for much of their charm. Now, you help Miss Becket mount, and then order the coachman to follow us to Tanner’s Roost, where I will change into something more suited to town wear, and provide one of my maids to accompany Miss Becket to her brother. He still lives in—damn, I’ve quite forgotten his direction.”
“Upper Brook Street, my lord. Just on the right, three doors off Park Lane and Hyde Park. That’s what they told me. Told me his number, too, but I’m not so good with numbers. Three doors off Park Lane, on the right,” Jacob repeated helpfully, already more relaxed. Or at least he was, until Morgan Becket approached, her fists jammed on her hips.
“What do you two think you’re doing?” she asked, not caring that the lordship was a lordship and the groom was her good friend. Not caring about anything save that she had been summarily dismissed by both of them. Even Alejandro had ambled off to a nearby water trough. “Jacob—I want to mount Berengaria.”
Unspoken were the words, And if you don’t help me I’ll do it myself, damn your eyes, you traitor.
Ethan bowed to her. “I’ll be more than happy to assist you, Miss Becket, while Jacob attends to other matters. Jacob and I, and we do apologize for keeping a lady standing out here in the sun, have just been debating how best to handle the logistics of the thing.”
“What thing? There is no thing, my lord. And I don’t care a fig about standing in the sun. Now go away.”
Jacob made a short, strangled sound, handed Berengaria’s reins to Ethan, then hastily trotted off, to climb up on the traveling carriage.
Morgan, sudden confusion mixing with her anger, watched him go. “What does he think he’s doing?”
“He’s behaving with good common sense,” Ethan told her, taking her by the elbow and leading both her and the mare to the mounting block beside the stable yard fence. “Now come along. We’re a good two miles from Tanner’s Roost.”
“Tanner’s—what’s that?” Morgan asked, digging in her heels. “What did you say to Jacob?”
“Nothing I should have liked to have said,” Ethan told her, leading her forward once more, not terribly delighted in her reluctance, yet happy to know she wasn’t featherwitted enough to easily go off with just anybody.
After all, she had only his word that he was an earl. He could be an out-and-out rotter. In fact, there were many among his wide acquaintance who might consider him so. “If he’s the one who agreed to send your maid packing, I should have torn a strip off his hide, in fact.”
“You, my lord, have no right to say or do anything where I am concerned.”
“Oh, how wrong you are, Miss Becket. It would be my good friend Chance tearing a strip off my hide, if I were to wave you merrily on your way as you go riding off to be murdered—or worse.”
Well, that stopped her. At last.
“You know Chance?”
The lies unrolled like silk from Ethan’s tongue, even as he marveled that she had gone slightly pale at the mention of her brother’s name, and not the broad hint of murder, or worse. “Yes, of course. I didn’t make the connection at first. Becket. Chance Becket. Resides in Upper Brook Street, only a few steps from the Park. Good man.”
“Oh.”
