in damnation do you think you’re doing here?’ a cultured male voice barked. ‘You stupid little fool!’
Joan blinked in astonishment and her jaw sagged. Heat streaked into her complexion at the sight of a man, stripped to the waist, his muscled chest and solid broad shoulders glistening with sweat. And so were his features, beneath a tumble of matted silvery hair that clung to his bronzed forehead and cheeks. It was a face that seemed familiar, yet she couldn’t understand how that could be. Shock had rendered her speechless thus she was unable to demand he satisfy her curiosity by giving his name. And then he was gone.
But she could hear him shouting abusive commands at the mob and no more people leered in at her. A moment later the coach jerked one final time, then was set into motion. After a laboured start the vehicle picked up speed.
Stunned into inertia for some minutes by her ordeal, Joan shook herself into action and patted briskly at her aunt’s dropped jaw to try to bring her round. When that didn’t work she delved into Dorothea’s reticule for some smelling salts. Having unstoppered it, she thrust the bottle beneath her aunt’s nose, but the woman remained stubbornly unresponsive to her ministrations.
‘Oh, well done, Pip. Oh, very well done, indeed.’
Joan felt light-headed with relief. She slid across the hide seat to peer out of the window at cottages and carts and people going about their business. Thankfully, it seemed they had taken a turning out of that awful place.
‘I shall let my father know how excellently you are learning the ropes, Pip...’
But never must he know all the details of what has gone on today, Joan inwardly wailed. If the Duke of Thornley discovered what dangers his daughter had risked that afternoon, he’d have her under lock and key till Christmastide! Joan knew it would be hard to make her aunt button her lip. Dorothea was the world’s worst blabber and reported to her brother every little slip her niece made.
‘Pip...are we approaching safety yet? Where exactly are we?’
‘Cheapside...now settle down and be quiet,’ growled a rich baritone voice very unlike Pip’s.
Joan dropped the bottle of smelling salts and craned out of the window, looking up. But she couldn’t see any more of him than a long breeched leg and a single sinewy forearm terminating in grazed fingers entwined in the reins.
‘Stop the coach at once. Whoever you are you may pull over immediately! I didn’t give you permission to drive my father’s coach!’
He obeyed her order with such alacrity that Joan tipped off the seat on to her knees on the floor and Aunt Dorothea almost landed on top of her.
Joan was scrambling upright just as the door opened and without a by your leave an athletic figure vaulted in and sat down at the same time she did.
She gawped at him in alarm while obliquely aware of Dorothea stirring and muttering incoherently. Joan knew that once her aunt rejoined the land of the living, the woman was likely to swoon again at the sight of the dishevelled ruffian lounging opposite, even if he had now covered up his bare chest.
Yet he wasn’t a ruffian; of that Joan was certain. Oh, he might be dressed in clothes that had seen better days, but they were of good quality. He sported a stylish, if stained, lawn shirt, and his brawny legs were encased in buckskin breeches that had once been fawn, she guessed, but were now the hue of mud.
Her protracted inspection seemed to amuse him and he raised an arm, wiping blood from his cheek with a sleeve. ‘Well?’ he sardonically asked for her verdict.
‘Well what?’ Joan breathed and with an inner jolt suddenly realised to whom she spoke. ‘Well, am I disgusted by what you appear to have turned into, Mr Rockleigh? If that is what you require an answer to...then the answer is yes.’
‘So you remember me, do you? I’m flattered.’
‘There’s no need to be,’ Joan retorted hoarsely. ‘Nothing about you pleases me. Now remove yourself from my carriage and let us proceed towards home.’
‘No thanks from you, my lady? No offer to reward me for the service I have done you?’ he taunted. ‘At least on the last occasion that I saved you from yourself, you had the grace to apologise for the nuisance you’d been to me.’
‘I didn’t ask you to save me then or now!’ Joan snapped.
‘I’ll take you back to Ratcliffe Highway then, shall I?’ he suggested, lunging towards the door as though to again climb aboard the driver’s perch and carry out his threat.
Joan snatched at his arm. ‘You will not, you villain!’ Her fingers sprang away from him as though he’d scalded her, although his moist skin warming her palm had not felt unpleasant. But the muscle she’d gripped had flexed to iron at her feeble restraint. She knew if he wanted to appropriate their vehicle, or do any of them harm, she’d not be able to stop him. Neither would young Pip.
‘Remove yourself...please...before my aunt awakens and sees you,’ Joan uttered coolly.
Rockleigh glanced at the woman sprawled on the seat, her eyelids fluttering. ‘I’ll go when you tell me what a duke’s daughter is doing driving around the slums of Wapping.’
‘I would have thought it quite obvious we were lost,’ Joan returned.
‘Is your father reduced to hiring such incompetents to steer his coaches?’
‘No, he is not!’ Joan spluttered indignantly. ‘Pip has only recently been allowed to drive and I chose to employ his services today.’
‘Ah...so you planned to keep your father in the dark about your trip, did you?’ He idly assessed the coach’s interior. ‘Nice, but I imagine the Duke of Thornley has several better conveyances for his daughter’s use. You might be older, my lady, but it seems you’re no wiser,’ he drawled, lazy amusement glinting in his hazel eyes.
‘A remark that I could certainly return to you, sir, had I any wish for this conversation to continue.’ Joan had blushed hotly at his astute interpretation of events. She had intentionally chosen to employ Pip and a plain carriage because their loss from service was unlikely to be noteworthy, should her father call for a vehicle to be brought round. The grooms would assume that the master’s daughter and her chaperon had simply gone shopping locally. ‘I recall you once had good connections and were friendly with my brother-in-law. But not any more, that’s clear to see.’
‘I’ve not fallen out with Luke Wolfson.’
‘But I imagine he avoids your company!’
‘I avoid his...’
‘Ah, so you’re ashamed of yourself, and I’m not surprised.’
‘I’m not ashamed of myself. I do honest work for honest pay.’
‘You were brawling in the street like a common criminal!’ Joan choked out. She recalled Fiona mentioning that Drew Rockleigh had suffered a run of bad luck, but her stepsister had not made much of it. Joan imagined that Fiona was ignorant of just how low her husband’s friend had sunk.
‘Fighting for purses pays my way. What’s your excuse for trawling through the squalor, my lady? Did you think it a novelty to come to see how poor wretches live and end up with
