Wagered to the Duke (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (6 page)

She shuddered at the thought of what she’d escaped, but she knew she wasn’t out of danger yet. Not until she reached London and saw her brother again. Surely Anthony would know what to do.

She sat back on the worn leather seat. “Now listen to me, if you don’t want to get coshed again. I want you to tell Mr. Fraser that I am indeed your sister, and that you mean to honor your debt. In fact, you are
determined
to honor your debt. Tell him if you can’t, then you’ll have to shoot yourself or something equally dire.”

“I rather feel like doing that now,” Freddy mumbled.

“Good. Then you’ll do it? Not shoot yourself, that is, but tell Mr. Fraser I’m your sister. You owe me a boon. I’ve spared your sister from a horrible fate.”

“Only what’s so horrible about being a duchess?”

“
Nothing that I know of, but rest assured
he has no plans to marry your sister.”

“Not now he doesn’t.” Bitterness seeped into his voice. “Obviously
you
have plans to marry him.”

“Perish the thought,” Kate said flatly. Something told her Mr. Fraser, or rather the Duke of Loring, would jettison her the first chance he got, but until then, she intended to remain in this carriage for as far as he would take her. She could only hope it would be as far as London.

“Tell me you’ll do it,” she prodded him.

“I’ll do it,” he agreed in a whiny voice.

Now there was nothing to do but wait until they reached the next village.

“I say, Bilby, did you hear something?” Nathan asked.

“I hear lots of things, Your Gra—I mean, Mr. Fraser. The clip-clop of the horses’ hooves. The creaking of the harness. The rumble of the wheels. The sound of my own voice.”

“No, I mean from inside the carriage.” A brief moment of silence followed as they both listened intently, and then Nathan heard it again.

A high-pitched scream.

“Oh, you mean
that
?”
Bilby glanced around at the rapidly darkening sky. “I thought it was a bird. Some of those game birds can make the most god-awful noises that carry for miles across these moors and make you want to—”

“Stop the carriage.”

Bilby obeyed. “It’s that wild popinjay ravishin’ the ladies, I’ll wager.”

Nathan jumped down from the box. “No, I suspect it’s just the wild popinjay.”

He didn’t even have time to open the carriage door, for it banged open and out flew Freddy Hathaway. Nathan wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the oaf had been bodily expelled by his harridan of a sister. She seemed quite capable of anything, and in this instance he wouldn’t have blamed her.

Hathaway nearly stumbled to the ground before regaining his balance. “Madwoman! She’s a madwoman, I tell you! I’ll walk the rest of the way to wherever we’re going.”

“Maybe you’d like to sit on the driver’s box for a while,” Nathan suggested.

“Not in his state,” Bilby protested. “He’ll spook the horses. I’d just as soon hitch him to the back of the carriage and let him try to keep up. The exercise will do him good.”

“How far to the next village?”

“Not far, Your—Mr. Fraser. I can barely see a church spire from here.”

Nathan jerked his thumb toward the carriage. “Get inside, Hathaway. I’ll ride with you and do what I can to protect you.”

Hathaway whimpered like a frightened puppy but climbed back into the carriage. Nathan followed, taking the seat next to him and across from Miss Hathaway and her maid, both of whom looked as innocent as two cherubs in a church fresco.

Being so tall, Nathan could fit easily into this carriage as long as he was the only occupant. But ensconced in the seat facing Miss Hathaway, he could not stretch out his legs so much as an inch. To make matters even more awkward, his knees neatly bracketed hers, while he felt her feet shuffling around as if trying to free them from the trap he’d inadvertently created with his own. He glanced at Freddy and the maid, neither of whom seemed to be experiencing the same problem. The maid’s cloak was wide open, revealing two large globes of pink flesh. If the carriage hit a bad enough rut in the road, Freddy might be jolted out of his seat and catapulted headfirst into her cleavage. Nathan looked back at Miss Hathaway, who looked as if she was trying to fathom a way to free her legs from his without offering a view up her skirt.

“Now let us have no more nonsense, children,” he said, his voice stern. “Soon we’ll be stopping for the night. I take it no one here has enough blunt to pay for a bed?”

“Do you mean to tell me the duke didn’t give you an expense account?” she inquired. “Does he expect you to travel in his service but out of your own pocket? Mr. Fraser, there’s a word to describe a situation such as yours. It’s called slavery.”

Nathan found himself struggling to keep a straight face. “That’s not the word I would use to describe my situation at the moment, Miss Hathaway. And let me assure you the duke would never expect any of his retainers to travel out of their own pockets. Why, he’s generous and benevolent to a fault, taking pity on the most pitiful.” He thought the better of glancing at Freddy as he said that. “But I might remind you, His Grace was not expecting me to bring anyone back to London. Nonetheless, I shall bespeak a room for you and your maid. As for your brother…” Nathan paused to see whether either of them would deny the sibling relationship.

“Just put me on the mail to Leeds,” Freddy muttered. “That’s all I ask. I can find my own way home after that.”

“What about your sister here?”

“No one’s putting me on any mail coach,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Nathan assured her. “I’m sure there’s a stage coming through this way tomorrow that will take the two of you to Leeds, or even back to York, from whence you can find a stage to Leeds.”

“Tell him, Freddy,” she said.

Freddy glanced at her in befuddlement. “Tell him what?”

She leaned forward slightly, narrowing her eyes. “You know. About the debt.”

“The debt? Oh yes, the debt! Mr. Fraser, I insist on honoring my debt.” Spoken in the tone of a man with a pistol at the back of his head—or at least a lady’s reticule swinging over it.

Nathan sighed. “While I can certainly understand your desire to do so, Mr. Hathaway, I’m afraid that I cannot in all good conscience take your sister.”

“
Your
conscience?” she burst out.

“The
duke’s
conscience,” Nathan corrected himself. “I am just so loyal and dedicated to the service of His Grace that his beliefs are mine. Miss Hathaway, I should remind you that he sent me to the Blue Rooster for the sole purpose of forgiving your brother’s debt. I must do as the duke commands.”

“No, I must be allowed to honor the debt,” Freddy said. “I can’t be denied my own sense of honor. Would you be denied your own?”

Nathan had to admit that this time Freddy sounded a little more sincere. Still, “You would allow your sister to go with a perfect stranger?”

“Dukes aren’t strangers!” she interjected. “They’re dukes! Men of honor and nobility. Their names are known everywhere. What harm could a duke do?”

Nathan thought of his own half brother, the previous Duke of Loring, who was believed to have killed several people who weren’t even strangers to him, and he felt a cold qualm shudder through his insides. “But don’t you regard
me
as a stranger, Miss Hathaway?”

“Didn’t you just declare yourself so loyal and dedicated to the service of His Grace that your beliefs are his? Then you must be as honorable as he is.”

Nathan crossed his arms over his chest as once more he seriously contemplated telling her that he really was the duke. He was surprised her brother hadn’t told her already, but then Freddy was a lackwit.

“Mr. Fraser, don’t you know what men do when they can’t honor their debts?” she raved on. “They shoot themselves.”

It was all he could do not to burst into laughter. “Do they?”

“They do! Do they not, Freddy? Admit it. You’d rather shoot yourself than take me back home in such disgrace!”

“I think I’d rather shoot myself now,” Freddy mumbled as the carriage suddenly halted. Nathan peered out the window to ascertain that they’d arrived at a coaching inn.

As Bilby opened the carriage door, Nathan realized to his chagrin that this matter would not be resolved tonight. Surely, once the siblings had a chance to sleep off their mutual anger, they might be more amenable to accepting the duke’s forgiveness and going home to Leeds tomorrow.

He would simply refuse to leave the inn until they boarded a stage. And while he was willing to pay their fare to Leeds, he had no intention of paying their room and board for another night.

“Very well,” he said. “Now that we’re here, how shall we explain ourselves?”

“We needn’t explain ourselves to anyone,” Miss Hathaway replied. “Are you concerned because none of us in this carriage is kin to each other?”

Nathan cocked a brow. “Are you not kin to your brother here?”

She squirmed on the seat. “Well, you must admit, after the odious way he’s behaved, ’tis very difficult indeed to think of him as my own brother. After all, he left the Blue Rooster without even bidding a farewell! Without even making sure his sister was in safe hands!”

With each “without” she lifted her swaying reticule just a little bit higher, as if readying it for another strike.

“I suppose you have a point,” he agreed. “But on the other hand, have I not taken care of you as a good brother might?”

“Well, except for that little debacle in the inn yard when you fired your pistol in the air—though now that I think about it, that’s just the sort of foolish thing Freddy might do.”

Nathan nodded and smiled. “So if anyone asks, Miss Hathaway, you’re my sister.”

“Your sister?”

“Would you rather be my niece?”

“You don’t look old enough to be my uncle. Besides, I thought I was Freddy’s sister. That is, I’m
already
Freddy’s sister.”

“Why can’t you be my sister, too? Just for tonight?”

For the first time since he’d met her, she smiled, and Nathan found himself wishing there was more light inside the carriage to better see that smile. Was that a dimple on her left cheek?

“As long as it’s just for tonight,” she said sweetly.

“I can assure you it will be just for tonight,” he said firmly, determined to see her and her wastrel brother on the northbound stage tomorrow.

“I say, does anyone plan to disembark, or should I get back on the box and keep driving?” Bilby inquired. “Though I should warn you, it’s now past twilight and we have only the carriage lamps to light the way. I really do recommend—”

“Thank you, Bilby.” Nathan finally emerged from the carriage and turned around to hold out his hand. “Ladies, if you’ll come with me, please?”

As he handed Miss Hathaway out of the carriage, she said, “If we’re to be siblings, then perhaps we should take care to call each other by our first names. The innkeeper will surely become suspicious if either of my brothers happens to address me as Miss Hathaway.”

“That’s a very good point. In which case, you may call me Nathan.” He glanced back into the carriage. “I say, Mr. Hathaway? Shall I call you Freddy?”

Freddy’s only response was a loud snort from his nose as he slumped over to one side.

“Bilby, I’m afraid you’ll have to rouse Mr. Hathaway. Or maybe we should just leave him in there for now.” He turned to Miss Hathaway. “What does your family call you?”

“They call me Kate.”

Like everything else about her, that thoroughly perplexed him, for he knew from the marker her brother had signed at the card table in Northumberland that her proper name was Margaret. “Kate? I thought that was derived from Katherine, not Margaret.”

She gazed up at him as if there was nothing the least bit odd about her assertion. “If you’re to address me by first name—Nathan—then I wish you would call me Kate.”

He sighed. “Very well. Now kindly say no more. Let me do all the talking.” He continued striding toward the half-timbered inn, wondering if he was making this more complicated than it should have been. Truly, there was no need for her to say a word.

Unfortunately, he had the sinking feeling that “Kate” would have plenty of words to say regardless, and if anyone was going to make this unnecessarily complicated, it would be she.

As he neared the doorstep, he noticed faces pressed against the other side of a mullioned window, peering out at him and the two women trailing behind. Upon entering the inn, the two faces left the window to confront the new arrivals.

“So you’ve decided to stop here for the night, after all? The missus and I were wondering how long you were going to stand out there arguing. And if you are arguing, then you can just move on to the next village. I run a respectable house and won’t tolerate any brawling.”

“Thank you for the warm welcome, but we weren’t arguing,” Nathan replied. “It’s dark enough outside now that you can’t be at all certain of what you saw. Now I shall need four rooms, one for myself, one for my brother, another for our manservant, and the third for my sister and her maid.”

The innkeeper and his wife scrutinized their prospective guests as if searching for something amiss, and it didn’t take long. “Where is your brother?”

“He’s still out in the carriage.”

The innkeeper planted his fists on his hips. “’Tis our experience that usually when someone remains out in the carriage while rooms are bespoken, it’s because something isn’t quite right with that someone. Something that might make him an undesirable guest.”

Nathan darted a quick warning glance at Miss Hathaway, or rather Kate, who only smiled back at him.

“Is he foxed?” the innkeeper queried.

“Are you suggesting that if my brother was foxed, you’d deny him a room?” she piped up. “If you denied a room to everyone who imbibed too much, I daresay you’d be out of business.”