A scholar he was not.
The view of the castle as he’d approached had been deceptive. The area was heavy with trees, and the turrets and towers seemed to twinkle in and out of sight as he moved through the foliage. It was only when he reached the end of the drive that it had come completely into view-massive and amazing. The stone was gray in color, with a hint of a yellow undertone, and although its angles were mostly squared off, there was nothing boring about the facade. It dipped and rose, jutted out and swept back in. No long Georgian wall of windows was this.
Jack couldn’t even imagine how long it would take a newcomer to find his way around inside. Or how long it would take to find the poor fellow once he got himself lost.
And so he stood and stared, trying to take it in. What would it have been like to grow up there? His father had done so, and by all accounts he’d been a nice enough fellow. Well, by one account, he supposed-his Aunt Mary was the only person he knew who’d known his father well enough to pass along a story or two.
Still, it was difficult to imagine a family living there. His own home in Ireland had not been small by any standards, but still, with four children it often felt as if they were constantly crashing into one another. You couldn’t go ten minutes or even ten steps without being swept into a conversation with a cousin or a brother or an aunt or even a dog. (He’d been a good dog, God rest his furry little soul. Better than most people.)
They had known each other, the Audleys. It was, Jack had long since decided, a very good-and very uncommon-thing.
After a few minutes there was a small flurry of movement at the front door, then three women emerged. Two were blond. It was too far away to see their faces, but he could tell by the way they moved that they were young, and probably quite pretty.
Pretty girls, he’d long since learned, moved differently than the plain ones. It did not matter if they were aware of their beauty or not. What they weren’t was aware of their plainness. Which the plain ones always were.
Jack quirked a half smile. He supposed he was a bit of a scholar of women. Which, he’d often tried to convince himself, was as noble a subject as any.
But it was the third girl-the last to emerge from the castle-who captured his breath and held him motionless, unable to look away.
It was the girl from the carriage the night before. He was sure of it. The hair was the right color-shiny and dark, but it wasn’t such a unique shade that it couldn’t be found elsewhere. He knew it was her because…because…
Because he did.
He remembered her. He remembered the way she moved, the way she felt pressed up against him. He remembered the soft breath of the air between their bodies when she’d moved away.
He’d liked her. He didn’t often get the chance to like or dislike the people he waylaid, but he’d been thinking to himself that there was something rather appealing about the flash of intelligence in her eyes when the old lady had shoved her at him, giving him permission to hold a gun to her head.
He’d not approved of that. But he’d appreciated it all the same, because touching her, holding her-it had been an unexpected pleasure. And when the old lady returned with the miniature, his only thought had been that it was a pity he didn’t have time to kiss her properly.
Jack held himself quietly as he watched her move in the drive, glancing over her shoulder, then leaning forward to say something to the other girls. One of the blondes linked arms with her and led her off to the side. They were friends, he realized with surprise, and he wondered if the girl-his girl, as he was now thinking of her-was something more than a companion. A poor relation, maybe? She was certainly not a daughter of the house, but it seemed she was not quite a servant.
She adjusted the straps of her bonnet, and then she (What was her name? He wanted to know her name) pointed to something in the distance. Jack found himself glancing the same way, but there were too many trees framing the drive for him to see whatever had captured her interest.
And then she turned.
Faced him.
Saw him.
She did not cry out, nor did she flinch, but he knew that she saw him in the way she…
In the way she simply was, he supposed, because he could not see her face from such a distance. But he knew.
His skin began to prickle with awareness, and it occurred to him that she’d recognized him, too. It was preposterous, because he was all the way down the drive, and not wearing his highwayman’s garb, but he knew that she knew she was staring at the man who had kissed her.
The moment-it could only have lasted seconds-stretched into eternity. And then somewhere behind him a bird cawed, snapping him from his trance, and one thought pounded through his head.
Time to go.
He never stayed in one spot for long, but here-this place-it was surely the most dangerous of all.
He gave it one last look. Not of longing; he did not long for this. And as for the girl from the carriage-he fought down something strange and acrid, burning in his throat-he would not long for her, either.
Some things were simply untenable.
“Who was that man?”
Grace heard Elizabeth speak, but she pretended not to. They were sitting in the Willoughbys’ comfortable carriage, but their happy threesome now numbered four.
The dowager had, upon rising from her bed, taken one look at Amelia’s sun-kissed cheeks (Grace did think that she and Thomas had taken quite a long walk together, all things considered), and gone into a barely intelligible tirade about the proper decorum of a future duchess. It was not every day one heard a speech containing dynasty, procreation, and sunspots-all in one sentence.
But the dowager had managed it, and now they were all miserable, Amelia most of all. The dowager had got it into her head that she needed to speak with Lady Crowland-most probably about the supposed blemishes on Amelia’s skin-and so she invited herself along for the ride, giving instructions to the Wyndham stables to ready a carriage and send it after them for the return journey.
Grace had come along, too. Because, quite frankly, she didn’t have any choice.
“Grace?” It was Elizabeth again.
Grace sucked in her lips and positively glued her eyes to a spot on the seat cushion just to the left of the dowager’s head.
“Who was it?” Elizabeth persisted.
“No one,” Grace said quickly. “Are we ready to depart?” She looked out the window, pretending to wonder why they were delayed on the drive. Any moment now they would leave for Burges Park, where the Willoughbys lived. She had been dreading the journey, short though it was.
And then she’d seen him.
The highwayman. Whose name wasn’t Cavendish.
But once was.
He had left before the dowager emerged from the castle, turning his mount in a display of horsemanship so expert that even she, who was no equestrienne, recognized his skill.
But he had seen her. And he had recognized her. She was certain of it.
She’d felt it.
Grace tapped her fingers impatiently against the side of her thigh. She thought of Thomas, and of the enormous portrait that had passed by the doorway of the sitting room. She thought of Amelia, who had been raised since birth to be the bride of a duke. And she thought of herself. Her world might not be quite what she wanted, but it was hers, and it was safe.
One man had the power to send it all crashing down.