Moon Dreams (4 page)

From this angle he could see a mounted man holding the
bridle of the lead coach horse. Another horseman held a blunderbuss pointed at
the driver, while a third had dismounted, pistol in hand, and approached the
coach. That didn’t require much problem-solving.

In the darkening twilight he could see only an expanse of bare
trees behind the highwaymen. They had found a barren, isolated spot to
perpetrate their crime.

Rory disturbed the spinster’s equilibrium by brushing her
skirts in climbing over her legs to unlatch the coach door. His seat mate only
made her delicate frame more compact to allow him to pass. He dropped to the
ground, blocking the coach door.

The highwayman pulled his tricorne over his brow and
gestured at Rory with his pistol. “Get the women down.” The kerchief masking
his jaw muffled his voice.

With three loaded weapons aimed in his direction, Rory
didn’t see an immediate alternative. Keeping his eyes on the pistol, he opened
the door and held out his hand. “Best listen to the man with the gun,” he
suggested.

The spinster screamed again, but she reluctantly obeyed Rory’s
whispered reassurances and took his hand to climb down. The fat one huffed and
complained and rolled out after her. The third one hesitated, and Rory had to
climb up on the step to urge her to hurry.

“They’re likely half-bosky and ready to show their prowess
at the slightest disobedience, ma’am. Giving them our coins is better than
surrendering our lives.”

Reluctantly, she took his rough hand and climbed down.

“’And over the val’bles, ladies and gent.” The highwayman
swept off his hat for them to deposit their coins in, revealing a swarthy face
and filthy hair.

“You bloomin’ hidget! We ain’t arfter the gold. Just get the
female and lets get outter ’ere.” The mounted horseman added a few succinct
curses as his companion began pocketing the coin purses he had taken.

“Which uv the wenches you meanin’ to take?” the bold thief
demanded irritably. “They don’t none uv ’em look like quality to me.”

Rory felt the slim woman beside him stiffen, and he rested a
reassuring hand on her shoulder while the highwaymen bickered among themselves
over the identity of the mysterious female they had been sent to abduct. Things
made a little more sense now.

Shoving his slovenly hat from his brow, Rory spat at the
ground and contemplated the gunman. “Don’ know who ye be lookin’ for or why,
but just to get rid of ’er wicked tongue and bony knees, I’d give you this ’un,
exceptin’ that’s my bun she’s got in the oven, and I reckon I’ll keep what’s
mine.” He felt the girl’s angry twitch, and aggravatingly, he hugged her
shoulder. Be deviled if she didn’t feel good squeezed against his side.

“That leaves ’em two.” Rory nodded helpfully toward his
other traveling companions. “If I was ye, I’d cast my lot on the young ’un. She’s
got a fine eye to ’er and a lady’s ways. She’ll be bringin’ you the best
billet, I reckon.”

The spinster sputtered, apparently not knowing whether to
scream in outrage or preen. Rory smothered a chuckle as the would-be kidnapper
grabbed her skinny elbow. The girl beside him tried to jerk from his hold, but
he kept a firm grip on her hood so no one could see her face. One look at her creamy
complexion and sooty lashes, and even a man without a brain would know she was
the one they wanted.

“Come on, miss, we ain’t got all day. We ain’t gonna ’urt
you none, just take you back where you belong. That’s all, miss.”

Those words coupled with the spinster’s screams caused the
girl to step back against Rory, and he wrapped a protective arm around her
waist. He felt her shudder, but whether it was him or fear that caused it, he couldn’t
ascertain.

With much ado and wails and shrieks of protest, the spinster
was carried off in the arms of the highwayman for the first and only adventure
of her dismal life. With the gunmen gone, the remaining passengers returned to
the coach to the tune of the driver’s curses.

The fat woman stared at Rory suspiciously. Muttering under
her breath something vaguely resembling “What’s this world comin’ to?” she
removed a hunk of cheese from among her voluminous clothes and began to munch.

Alyson sat on the edge of the seat, nervously clasping and
unclasping her hands, deliberately not looking at him. “What’s to become of
her?” she whispered.

Rory smiled at the beauty of that musical lilt. Each piece
of this puzzle was better than the last. It almost made the journey worth it. “That’s
something I suspect you would know better than I.”

Alyson jumped nervously at this murmur so near her ear. She glanced
at the woman across from them, but she had leaned back and begun to snore
again. Guiltily Alyson looked at the empty place across from her. Apparently
the spinster had been traveling alone.

“I
don’t
know.”
This rather odious man had saved her, Alyson realized. She didn’t know how to
thank him.

That he had guessed she was the one the villains were after
did not puzzle her. She had long ago accepted that other people understood
things that she didn’t, while she saw things that made people look at her
strangely. That was the way her world was.

“He’ll be furious, but I shouldn’t think he would harm a
stranger,” she said more to herself than to her listener.

Her companion crossed his arms over his chest. “Who will be
furious? Who wanted you abducted?”

Alyson sighed and sat back against the seat. There was
little enough she could do now. The coach rattled and jerked faster to make up
lost time. Her words lurched with the horses’ gait. “My . . . cousin.
He meant . . . for us . . . to be married.”

Her filthy companion hummed but merely asked, “I don’t
suppose you would have a bite or two of something edible left in that basket,
would ye, lass? It looks as if we’ll not be makin’ the inn for supper.”

Startled, Alyson glanced at the stranger who had rescued
her, however ungallantly. In this dusk she could discern little, but her sight
was enhanced by the impressions she had received throughout the day. He was
taller than she, but not frighteningly so, not so tall as Alan or her cousin.
He seemed very sturdily built, certainly not the skinny scarecrow one would
expect beneath those rags. Remembering the muscular strength of the arm that
had restrained her, she stirred uneasily. He was not so big as Cranville,
perhaps, but he had to be as strong. That arm had been sheer iron.

His face was something of a problem. Covered in a week’s
growth of beard, it appeared formidable, as square and sturdily made as the
rest of him. His russet hair was tied in a queue, but since he kept it covered
with a hat, she could tell little more. She suspected she should be afraid of
him, but she had felt him as a congenial presence from the very first, more so
than the ladies, and she trusted her instincts.

She reached for the basket. “You certainly have many voices,
don’t you? Are you an actor?” The change from his ignorant accent with the
highwaymen to a hint of a Scots burr had not escaped her notice.

“‘All the world’s a stage, and men and women merely players . . .’”
he quoted mockingly. “I fancy you’re not quite what you seem either, milady.”

“Do you enjoy Shakespeare, Mr. . . .” She
glanced up in surprise, realizing she was conversing with a man whose name she
didn’t know.

“Rory Douglas Maclean, at your service, milady.” He swept
off his hat and made the half-bow the coach’s limited interior allowed him. “Might
I have the honor of yours, milady?”

The soft, lilting roll of his R’s enchanted her, and Alyson
smiled. “You sound just like my grandmother. I didn’t realize how much I’d
missed that accent until now.” She produced a linen napkin with a variety of
selections from the cook’s generous basket. “I hope some of these will suit
your appetite.”

She had not responded to his calling her
lady.
She had not offered him a name.
She had merely offered him all the food she carried.

Rory accepted the offering without looking at it, wondering
if he’d finally found the flaw in all this perfection. What a shame it would be
to have a witless angel. Their conversation seemed to be carried on two levels:
he would ask questions and she would talk about Shakespeare and accents and
grandmothers, which would be fine if that was what he had asked her.

But how many witless ladies could even read Shakespeare, let
alone recognize the quote? He didna ken, but he would.

Rory opened the napkin, and the scent of pickled salmon hit
him. With wonder he sampled the rest of the fare, each discovery bringing
another enraptured cry. “Bannocks! Ach, my bonny lassie, do ye not know what I
would give for fresh bannocks? And spelding! It’s been years . . .”
His ecstasy disappeared in the mouthful of bread and fish he deposited between
his grateful lips.

His companion giggled at his reaction to her food. “Alan
always turned up his nose at my favorite dishes. Even grandfather hated spelding.
I should have known the Maclean would like this fare. My name is Alyson
Hampton. Pleased to meet you.”

Rory nearly choked on her ingenuous recognition of his Scots
title. He hadn’t introduced himself as laird, nor did he show any outward sign
of it. He wasn’t even certain why he had given his proper name after all these
years of hiding it. Maybe she wasn’t the one who was witless, but he.

She offered him a jug of cool, sweet water, and he took a
gulp, wishing it were something stronger. Angels and half-wits and kidnappers
all in a night strained credulity. Handing back the jug, he glanced at her bent
head as she nibbled on a scone. The hood had fallen back and he could see the
white sheen of her bare nape in the moonlight, delicately adorned with black
curls. She showed no apparent fear of him and seemed to have forgotten the
highwaymen entirely. Definitely mad.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Hampton. Should I recognize
your name, since you so obviously know mine?”

Frowning, she asked, “Do you think p’raps I ought to travel
incognito?”

Rory gulped and swallowed his last bite practically whole.
All that blessed loveliness, and every bit as mad as a Bedlamite. “Incognito?”
he questioned stupidly.

She didn’t appear to notice the inanity of his reply, but
began to repack her basket. She glanced to the snoring woman on the other seat,
then whispered, “If my cousin is so very desperate to have my money, he must
try again, mustn’t he? I thought I’d hidden myself very well, but perhaps that’s
not enough. Maybe I should change my name. What name do you think I should use?”

As long as he didn’t distract her with questions, she was making
some small amount of sense. Rory wiped his fingers on the damask napkin she had
given him and gave the matter some thought. How in hell could he ascertain her
predicament if he could not ask her questions?

“Perhaps you should tell me the whole story first,” he
suggested.

Miss Hampton curled up under her cloak and closed her eyes. Rory
listened as she related her tale without self-consciousness, explaining her
illegitimacy and her unexpected inheritance.

Rory could not believe his ears. As the musical voice
drifted on, unraveling the whole story for his amazement, he had the urge to
warn her not to talk to strangers. She had no business telling him all this. He
was absolutely the worst possible person for her to confide in—couldn’t she see
that?

But, of course, she could not. Angels knew nothing of guilty
minds and lesser beings. When she finally fell asleep and her head gravitated
toward his shoulder, Rory wrapped his arm around her and settled her against
his side. Here he was, a landless, dispossessed laird, a hardened criminal, and
holding probably one of the wealthiest, most innocent women in the realm in his
arms. God might as well have parted the clouds and dropped the kingdom of
heaven on him. He couldn’t be any more dazed.

Her breathing against his chest stirred gentle emotions, and
not all of them were base. Perhaps, just once in his life, he would do the
right thing.

London, February 1760

They switched transport somewhere during the night.

Alyson woke to the Maclean shouting and dragging some poor
man out of his bed, insisting they could not wait until morning in this
pestilential hellhole they called an inn. With the authority of an aristocrat,
he hired a chaise and driver and ordered food and hot water for washing. She
would never had been able to do all that. On her own, she would still be
sitting in that unsprung coach across from the snoring fat woman, wondering if
they would ever reach London.

And now they were nearly there. The country lanes had turned
to mud flats and the dismal hovels of squatters and scavengers on the outskirts
of the city. The sooty fog of thousands of chimneys hung in the distance, and
Alyson began to twist the strings of her reticule in nervousness.

“I’ll need to tell the driver your direction shortly,” Rory
prompted her.

Alyson returned her attention to the rough-hewn features of
the man who had befriended her. He had washed and shaved at the inn and looked
considerably more presentable than earlier, if one could consider an ostler
more presentable than a chimney sweep. Now that it was clean, his hair had
taken on a definite auburn hue she found attractive, particularly with those
deep, brandy-colored eyes of his. But in the bright light of day there was no
denying he was more rogue than gentleman.

“I will need to go to my solicitor’s office. I have the
address here somewhere.” She rummaged through her bag until she found the card
Mr. Farnley had given her.

Rory glanced at the address and handed it back to her. “Lass,
should you appear at Mr. Farnley’s in that gear and in the company of the likes
of me, he would have a failure of the heart. Why don’t I have the driver take
you to your grandfather’s house, where you can deck yourself out in finery and
purloin a maid and a groom to accompany you?”