animal gently towards it, wondering if his assistance was needed after all. But the sound of a whip and a coachman’s yell brought the idle vehicle to life, and it barreled down the road—straight towards him. He moved
Brutus to the side but was astonished when the coach veered again in his direction. Was the coachman buffle-headed?
He spurred the animal’s sides and maneuvered off the road and up a steep incline, and then turned to watch the vehicle. Unbelievably, it was still coming crazily at him, its lamplights brighter now, blazing like evil eyes. And closing in. This wasn’t poor driving—the coach was trying to hit him! As it bowled towards him, the coachman’s face materialised out of the haze, his eyes opened wide in terror. A fence prevented St. John from vanishing into the trees that fronted his property, but just as the coach and four would have bowled into him, he shouted at Brutus, snapped his spurs, and cracked the reins—they missed a collision by inches as the sturdy animal lunged out of harm’s way. The coach’s horses hit the fence, whinnying.
Turning Brutus around, St. John patted his neck while surveying the vehicle as it came to a rollicking stop, balanced precariously on the incline. The messenger boy, he saw now, must have fallen from the coach, and was on his backside in the wet brush.
Taking a deep breath at the close call, St. John quietly reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a pistol. Good thing he rarely rode in the evenings without one. Good thing, too, that he was an excellent horseman or that insane coachman might have caused his demise. Brutus nickered nervously, so he patted his mane. “Good job, old boy,” he said, never moving his eyes from the sleek black coach, silent and mysterious, but whose horses stamped impatiently. He cautiously approached. There was no sound as he made his way past the closed door, but he found the coachman huddled on his perch.
“How the devil do you explain your driving? Are you hocused?” he asked, thinking the man was in his cups.
“Nay, guv’nor. Followin’ me orders, that’s what.”
“Orders from whom?” St. John demanded. “Who do you have in there?”
“T’mistress an’ ʼer sister,” he answered sullenly.
St. John’s heart sank—two women—if the driver could be trusted. “And you drove like a madman with women aboard!” The man shifted uneasily on his perch but muttered, “I follows me orders, guv’nor.”
“And what were your orders, precisely?” he asked in a scathing tone.
Again the man shifted uneasily. “Ask t’mistress.”
“Who is your mistress?”
The coachman gave him a guarded look. “Ask t’mistress,” he repeated.
St. John turned away in disgust and urged his horse nearer the window of the equipage. He peered cautiously inside but saw only darkness. Dismounting, he kept the reins in one hand.
“Hello?” No answer. He readied his pistol. “If you do not answer, I warn you—I am armed.” When still no sound came forth, he reached for the latch and turned it, eliciting a gentle click. Holding the pistol out, he swung the door open, and peered inside. “Hello,” he said again, wishing the clouds weren’t obstructing the moon so well.
He heard some movement and tensed. A muffled sob came from the far side of the coach. He shoved his pistol in a pocket—heavens, it was a woman—and was about to jump in when a female laugh, very close to his head, rang out, clear and distinct.
“Oh, Margaret,” the voice scolded. “You’ve spoilt it! You needn’t blubber; we are unharmed, are we not? And you can see St. John is equally unscathed.”
Julian forced himself to take a deep breath before he spoke. “What the devil have you done?” he hissed at the speaker, who now pushed her face forward from the shadows, where the coach lamp illumined the lovely features of Clarissa Andrews in all her wicked, seductive beauty.
She smiled at him, turning her head demurely, only it wasn’t an honest movement, for there was nothing demure about Miss Andrews. She was a vixen, a minx, a she-devil, and she’d been trying to get St. John beneath her power since the start of the season. She knew, as did all of London, that St. John, after thirty-four years of bachelorhood, was in need of a wife. Heʼd made an oath to the Marquess of Worleydon, his former guardian, and he meant to keep it.
“Allow me to congratulate you, Julian, on the excellent handling of your horse,” she purred. “I am infinitely relieved you have kept yourself