wretches’ children to read...’ Joan clammed up, furious that she’d allowed him to push her into explaining herself.
A shrill scream made Joan almost start from her skin; it announced the fact that her widowed aunt had come fully awake.
Without another word, but with a lingering stare that sent a shiver through her, Rockleigh jumped from the carriage. Joan could hear him talking in a low, fluid tone to Pip.
‘Who was that?’ Dorothea gasped out, a hand pressed to her heaving bosom.
‘He...he did us a service and helped us find our way out of that slum,’ Joan swiftly explained, rubbing energetically at her aunt’s hand to soothe her.
Dorothea flopped back against the squabs. ‘Your father will flay you alive when he discovers what you have done this afternoon.’
‘There is no need for him to be apprised of it. All has ended well and no harm done to any of us.’
‘Only by lucky chance!’ Dorothea squeaked. ‘What is our Good Samaritan’s name? Your father will want to know it and reward him.’
‘I...I...he didn’t introduce himself,’ Joan stuttered quite truthfully, glad her aunt had not recognised the boxer as a fellow who, not so long ago, had graced society with his elegant presence.
Once, Rockleigh had owned a house in Mayfair and a hunting lodge in the West Country, close to her father’s ancestral seat. He had mingled with the cream of society although he’d rarely attend tame entertainments. Many a hostess keen to have such an eligible bachelor at her daughter’s debut ball had been disappointed by Rockleigh’s absence. But on one occasion when Joan had attended the opera with her father and stepmother she had spied Drew Rockleigh in a box opposite with a female companion. Her father had pretended not to know the identity of the pretty blonde when Joan enquired after her. She’d realised then that Rockleigh was out with his mistress. That sighting of him in Drury Lane had been about a year ago; Joan imagined that in the meantime he must have lost a great deal.
As the coach set off at a very sedate pace, Joan guessed that Pip was too scared to set the horses to more than a trot. She scoured the pavements for a tall muscular fellow with very fair hair, but there was no sign of him—no doubt he had slipped back into that stew of destitution. But for the snuffling of her aunt, and a musky male scent within the coach strengthening her rapidly beating pulse, Joan might have thought none of it had happened and she’d simply awakened from a nightmare.
But it was real. Her heartfelt wish to assist the Reverend Vincent Walters teach children to read and write at the St George’s in the East vicarage school would have very great repercussions. And none of it beneficial, Joan feared.
Joan massaged her temples to ease her headache, then rolled on to her stomach, pulling a plump feather pillow over her head in an attempt to block out the sound of raised voices.
She had been in the process of replying to a letter from her beloved Fiona when her father’s bellows threatened to blow the roof off his opulent Mayfair mansion. Unable to concentrate, she’d abandoned the parchment and pen on her desk and curled up on her bed. Joan realised that her aunt had, despite being asked not to, blabbed to the Duke of Thornley about their disastrous trip that afternoon.
As the noise reached a crescendo, Joan swung her stockinged feet to the floor and felt for her slippers with her toes.
At any minute she was expecting to be summoned by her irate father so brushed the creases from her skirt and tidied straggling tendrils of conker-coloured hair into their pins. She knew the Duke would be livid...with good reason...and she would sooner go downstairs of her own volition than remain on tenterhooks till a sympathetic-looking servant tapped on her door. She knew that she must protect her aunt and Pip—especially Pip—from her father’s wrath. In a way she didn’t pity Dorothea; she’d asked the woman to keep quiet about the incident, as no harm had been done to them in the end. But it seemed her aunt had not been able to simply rest in her chamber while recovering from her scare.
Joan guessed Dorothea had found her brother in the small library, as that was from where the cacophony seemed to be issuing. Sighing, Joan immediately set off to own up to her father and take her punishment.
‘Ah...there you are,’ his Grace barked as his daughter entered the room. ‘You have saved me the task of sending a servant to summon you, miss. Philip Rook is on his way, as I hear he drove you on this madcap excursion. While we wait for him to arrive let me have your version of this afternoon’s folly.’
‘There is no need for Pip, or for Aunt Dorothea for that matter, to give an account, Papa,’ Joan said. She gave her aunt a rather disappointed look. ‘I can tell you what occurred and that it was all my fault.’
‘Very noble,’ the Duke said scathingly before snapping a harsh stare on his grizzling sister. ‘You can turn off the waterworks, madam. You were brought here to chaperon my daughter in my wife’s absence...a task as I recall you avowed was well within your capabilities.’ Alfred Thornley strode to and fro in front of the ornate chimneypiece. ‘There have been other instances when I have had to reprimand you over your inability to control a situation.’
‘I do my best, Brother,’ Dorothea mewled from behind her lace hanky. ‘I tried to dissuade her from having anything to do with the vicar. He is not suitable company for a person of Joan’s station...and neither are the brutes with whom he associates.’
‘The Reverend is perfectly nice!’ Joan retorted. ‘And the fact that he dedicates much time to those far less fortunate does him credit.’
‘Has Vincent Walters asked you to stump up any funds to assist him in his good deeds?’ Alfred demanded to know, depressingly aware of how alluring was his daughter to fortune hunters.
‘He has not, Papa,’ Joan replied flatly. ‘It was my idea to offer to teach the children to learn to read. How else are the disadvantaged ever to better themselves if they are denied skills to make accessible to them shop or clerical positions?’
The Duke’s expression softened slightly. ‘Your sincere concern for these vagabonds is very worthy, Joan. But you will not correct society’s ills by placing yourself in mortal danger.’
‘Getting lost was foolish...I admit it. But we arrived home safely,’ Joan argued. ‘We have so much and take it all for granted. It is our duty to endeavour to brighten the bleak futures facing those youngsters.’
‘I cannot gainsay you on that, my dear, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I might have been arranging the funerals of my daughter and sister and a member of my staff had things turned bad for you all. The Ratcliffe Highway murders are fresh in my mind, if not yours. You were but a schoolgirl at the time of the heinous crimes, of course,’ the Duke pointed out, but less robustly than he might have minutes before.
He despaired of his daughter’s impetuousness, but he grudgingly admired her, too, for her independence and benevolence. But from what he’d heard from Dorothea, and he believed it to be the truth, his travelling coach had been almost overrun with beggars threatening robbery and violence. And as a responsible parent he must punish his daughter’s bad behaviour.
The door opened and the butler, looking stern, ushered Philip Rook into the room.
Joan guessed that poor Pip had felt the rough
