Sara had decided she was his lordship’s valet, which meant she could keep her distance from the ostlers and grooms and, as she had predicted, it was her clothing that attracted the attention, not the feminine face beneath the turban.
* * *
It was almost four in the afternoon when they reached Bristol and saw the spire of St Mary Redcliffe church. Lucian reined in his tired pair in the yard of the Greyhound and climbed down.
‘How are we going to search?’ Sara joined him and looked around. ‘I have no idea how many posting inns there are in the city.’
‘We are not. We are going to eat something, because that packet of bacon sandwiches was a long time ago. And while we eat, the urchins of the city will search for us.’ He snapped his fingers at a hopeful-looking lad hanging around waiting for the chance to carry bags for a tip. ‘You see this?’ He held up two crowns and the boy’s eyes widened.
‘Cor, two troopers? Yes, guv’nor, I sees ’em.’
‘They’re yours if you and your mates can find out about a post-chaise that came through Bristol earlier today. It had a yellow body, four horses, two postilions. There were two passengers, a young lady and a man with a badly scarred face and an eyepatch. I want to know when they set out again, what road they took and if the carriage or number of horses has changed. Got that? I need the information within two hours. If you can do it in one, there’s another bull’s eye for you.’
‘Cove with a shutter on his ogle and a bloss in a yellow bounder with four tits. I got it, guv’nor.’ He took to his heels, whistling a shrill note, and a handful of urchins appeared as he ran out of the gate.
‘Two hours?’
‘They’ll have it in less than that,’ Lucian said confidently. ‘And now you and I are going to have a civilised meal.’
She looked down dubiously at her brocade coat. It was one thing pretending to be a valet in exotic dress, quite another eating with Lucian in one of Bristol’s smarter hostelries.
‘Don’t worry. This is a port city and you will not be the most exotic thing they have seen, not by a long chalk.’
Sara resisted the urge to put out her tongue at the broad back in its caped greatcoat as Lucian strode towards the entrance and discovered that she was amused and feeling quite in harmony with him. She doubted it would last.
His lordship’s title produced a private dining room, the landlord’s personal attention and the assurance of a meal equal to any they might enjoy in London.
‘What will you do when we find them?’ she asked when the soup tureen had been put on the table.
‘If Marguerite still wants him, then she must marry him, I suppose. If she has changed her mind, then I am most certainly not going to insist.’
It did not escape Sara that Lucian’s answer did not cover the first encounter with the errant pair. She wondered if she could hide the ammunition for the pistols, but there was a sword case as well and Lucian was doubtless as willing to run Gregory through as shoot him. Besides, if she did unload the guns then they would probably encounter a highwayman, Lucian would be wounded and it would all be her fault...
‘What are you brooding about?’ he asked as she ladled oxtail soup into bowls, lost in thought.
‘Highwaymen. I had wondered whether I should hide all your ammunition. But you have rapiers, don’t you? And it would be tempting fate too far to be careering about the country unarmed.’
Lucia took his bowl and regarded her much as if she had grown an extra head. ‘Have you any idea what I would do to you if I found you had hidden my ammunition?’
‘No.’ The soup was exceedingly good. Sara concentrated on it and not the fact that she was alone in a private room with this man, was travelling for goodness knew how long with him and that what she really wanted him to do was leave the eloping couple to their own devices and bespeak a private bedchamber here.
‘Neither do I. I suggest that we do not put it to the test.’
The soup was followed by a fricassee of chicken and baked fish in cheese sauce. They ate in edgy silence broken only by stiltedly polite requests for the bread or the salt.
Lucian cracked first. ‘Just what do you think I should have done when Farnsworth asked for Marguerite’s hand in marriage?’
‘Agreed to a private engagement if they would wait for eighteen months. If he is a decent young man, he would have agreed. You made them feel as though they had been backed into a corner, with no choice. They are young and everything is so immediate when you are Marguerite’s age. It was black and white to her and a dramatic flight with the man she loved was not only emotionally right but it also had all the glamour of a fairy-tale romance.’
‘Which just goes to prove my point that she was far too young.’
‘And you are so old and sensible? How old are you, my lord?’
‘Twenty-eight. Men grow up faster, are more worldly-wise.’
‘My mother says that all men are little boys and all little girls are women. Think about it—you did the equivalent of putting up your fists and saying, I’ll black your eye if you touch my toy soldiers. Marguerite calmly set about seducing Gregory.’
‘So you implied the other day. How, for goodness sake?’
‘I was not going to tell you, but I think I must. She took off her nightgown and crept into his bed when he was asleep. What do you think happened then when he woke up? In fact, he probably was beyond the point of no return by the time he was properly conscious. Can you really blame him for that?’
It was a struggle, she could see it in his face, but Lucian eventually shook his head. ‘No, I cannot. I suppose by the time he realised it was not some particularly vivid erotic dream things had gone too far. Hell.’ He threw her an apologetic glance for the language. ‘I really do not want to imagine it. This is my little sister we are talking about. Wherever did she get such ideas from?’
‘I do not know where men get the notion that young women are total innocents. It is no wonder that you prowl around looking ferocious, protecting us against shocks and surprises that are no surprise at all.’ Sara stabbed a knife into a blameless apple pie. ‘Unless a girl is dim-witted, completely unobservant and has neither friends nor access to books, then of course she knows about these things. The actual mechanics may well escape some of us until our wedding night if we have the sort of mother who mumbles worrying messages about duty and the compensations of children, of course.’
‘I suspect that was not your mother’s approach. And however comprehensive a young lady’s theoretical knowledge might be, that still does not protect her from some predatory rake with seduction or worse on his mind. Nor from the consequences of being compromised in the eyes of society. Do pass me that pie before you stab the unfortunate thing to death. I very much doubt it is male.’
‘I have nothing against men when you are behaving reasonably.’ Lucian narrowed his eyes at her, but made no comment. ‘As for Mata, well, she was raised in an Indian court and received the full theoretical erotic education expected for a well-educated woman.’ The slice of pie that Lucian had just cut fell off the knife with a soft splat. ‘Which, naturally, she passed on to me.’ She could have sworn he stifled a moan. ‘Are you in pain?’
‘Not at all. I bit into a clove. That is all.’
His eyes had lost focus for a moment, which was very gratifying. If she could only keep Lucian thinking about his own masculine frailties then perhaps he would be less inclined to murder Gregory for his.
Sara was contemplating how best to add fuel to the