It was fifteen miles, in fact. Fifteen long miles of dark, isolated road.
St. Clare’s chest tightened with apprehension. Maggie was, indeed, more than capable of taking care of herself. But Fred had been pushed to his limit. He’d grabbed her roughly on the terrace and crudely ordered her about. And that had been in full public view.
What might he do to her when the two of them were, effectively, alone in a darkened carriage?
St. Clare wasn’t going to wait to find out.
Maggie drew her wrap more firmly about her shoulders, mindful to conceal her gown’s low décolletage. Beside her in the carriage, Jane’s aunt Harriet snored softly. The motion of the coach, rolling steadily down the deserted road, had lulled her to sleep only moments after they’d set off from Chiswick.
“There’s something familiar about the man.” Seated across from Maggie, Fred’s face was lit by a single carriage lamp. It cast his ruddy complexion in a pattern of shifting shadows. “Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”
Maggie had blown out the candle in the other carriage lamp so as not to disturb Aunt Harriet’s slumber. It had seemed a courteous thing to do, initially. Now, however, alone in the semidarkness with Fred, she had cause to regret her decision. The shadowy interior of the carriage lent an intimacy to their discussion that she neither wanted nor welcomed.
“In what way familiar?” she asked.
“Something about his eyes. When I saw you dancing with him…” Fred’s mouth hardened into a disapproving line. “If you can call it dancing.”
She flicked a glance out the velvet-curtained carriage window. The starless midnight sky was black as pitch, and there was no full moon to light their way. Had they left the ball at the same time as the rest of the guests they might have benefited from the blaze of lamps swinging from the dozens of carriages returning to town. Now, however, there was no traffic at all. Nothing ahead or behind them save a long, lonely expanse of dark road. It was impossible to see a thing.
Perhaps it had been unwise to allow Fred to accompany her home early.
He’d insisted on doing so, and at the time, she’d thought it easier not to argue with him. He’d been in such a foul mood. On the verge of making a scene. Besides, she hadn’t relished the thought of remaining at the ball. Of seeing St. Clare dining with Miss Steele. Dancing with Miss Steele. Not after Maggie had danced with him herself.
But Fred’s anger hadn’t been assuaged by her compliance. Indeed, since she’d climbed into the carriage with him, his sullen mood had grown worse.
“It was the waltz, that’s all,” she said.
He snorted. “Not any waltz I’ve ever seen.”
“How could you have? You’ve never traveled outside of England. Whereas Lord St. Clare—”
“Beresford says he was born on the continent. In Italy, apparently.” Fred’s brow furrowed. “I wonder…”
Maggie didn’t like the look on his face. Not one little bit. Fred wasn’t a great thinker, and his memory was nothing to boast about, but unless she was very much mistaken, some part of him had recognized St. Clare, just as Maggie had recognized him that night in the library at Grosvenor Square.
It was the dancing. The way she and St. Clare had been looking at each other and laughing. Fred was a man who needed things spelled out for him, and tonight on the terrace, Maggie and St. Clare had unwittingly written the truth out in capital letters.
How long before Fred made the connection? He was struggling for it now. Straining his feeble wits to put the pieces together. At the moment, those pieces remained just out of his reach, but soon…
Soon he would realize that St. Clare bore a startling resemblance to Nicholas Seaton.
And then what?
Maggie regarded Fred from across the carriage. There was little she could do to protect St. Clare from Fred’s vindictiveness, save try to nip his laborious process of deduction in the bud. “You’re obsessed with him. That’s what it is.”
Fred’s nostril’s flared. “I am not.”
“You are. It’s excessively tedious. I’d sooner we changed the subject.”
“If I speak of him at all it’s only because you insist upon being in the man’s company. As your guardian—”
“You are not my guardian. Not in the way you presume. And if you won’t oblige me by changing the subject, then pray be quiet. You’re incessant harping is giving me a megrim.”
A muscle twitched in Fred’s cheek. “This isn’t a game. You’re my responsibility, like it