He blinked. “I walked from Staunton House.”
“I was hoping you had a curricle or some other conveyance you could drive yourself,” she confided.
“I suppose I could steal—er…borrow Robert’s.”
And suddenly, it was just like being children again, up to mischief, and she could pretend the adult fear of a ruined reputation didn’t matter. She couldn’t help smiling as she jumped to her feet and impulsively threw out her hand to him.
“Then let us be off before my parents notice!”
He held her gaze for a moment. She had no idea what he was thinking. Then, slowly, he reached up, took her hand, and rose to his feet. His fingers felt rough and strong, no longer a boy’s. Strange and unfamiliar, like the man himself.
But this was Harry, and she knew now all would be well.
Chapter Two
Captain Lord Henry de Vere, known as Harry to most of his acquaintances—including his men, although only behind his back—hurried along the street with a mysterious veiled lady on his arm.
He wanted to laugh because his heart had beat like a schoolboy’s as he had approached her house. And yet, within moments, he was embroiled in her mischief once more.
“Your parents will worry,” he said abruptly.
“No, they won’t. I left a note to say you were escorting me to Calvert Court, and they should give out that I had gone there yesterday.”
“You were so sure of me?”
“Actually, no. The note is to stop them worrying, and obviously, it is much more comfortable to travel with you, but I would have gone anyway. Someone is hailing you from across the street.”
“I can’t see them,” he said, keeping his gaze on her veiled face. “I suppose if we change horses on the road, we can be there before nightfall. But what is to stop the duke from simply following you there and continuing with his plan to marry you off?”
“Well, he can’t do that while frightening the proprietor of that dreadful rag, can he? And by the time he comes, he will see that we have already saved my reputation. And oh, if mine is saved, then surely the stories about the others will be doubted, too.”
“I see,” Harry said.
“I’m sorry to inconvenience you,” she offered.
“Well, I was getting bored at home with nothing to do,” he said truthfully. The Duchess of Dearham’s unexpected summons this morning had been a welcome distraction, her mention of Meg the catalyst for a positive flood of memories. He had taught himself long ago not to think of her, but it seemed his heart remembered.
She hadn’t changed, he thought in some amusement. Unafraid and unhemmed by convention, she would find her way out of trouble. And he was glad to come along for her protection.
It was not far to Staunton House, halfway down South Audley Street.
“We’ll wait inside,” Harry said, turning toward the front steps.
She held back. “Oh, no. Then Lady Staunton will know, or think I am your ladybird! And—”
A choke of laughter escaped Harry. “Ladybird? What do you know of such matters?”
“Johnny is my brother,” she said dryly.
“Yes, but I doubt he discusses his ladybirds with his sister,” Harry said. “Don’t hang about the steps, Meg. Alicia is out, and it will only take five minutes.”
Inside, he immediately sent for his brother’s curricle to be brought around from the mews, and, leaving Meg sitting stiffly in the reception room, he ran upstairs to throw a few things in his overnight bag and collect enough money for the journey. He hesitated over leaving a note for Robert but eventually decided not to bother.
Instead, sweeping Meg up on his way to the front door, he said to the butler, “Tell his lordship I’ll be back in a couple of days.”
Robert’s team was fresh and spirited, and they were giving the groom some trouble to hold them. Harry handed Meg up into the seat and climbed up beside her rather awkwardly, due to his still-healing wound.
He gathered the reins. “Let them go!” And they were off.
For a while, he had to concentrate too hard to make conversation. The horses were too eager, and though the streets were not as busy as during the Season, there was still plenty of traffic to negotiate and pedestrians to avoid. Eventually, after the Hyde Park tollgate, on a clearer stretch of road, he let the horses go, and they bowled along much more easily.
Only then did he realize she was watching him. And that they sat so close together that with the faintest movement, he would brush against her shoulder, her thigh… Severely, he dragged himself back to driving the horses.
“What?” he asked. “So, I’m out of practice.”
“Perhaps, but you were always an excellent whip.” Her lovely, dark eyes moved beneath the veil as though she were searching his face. “How are you, Harry?”
He knew what she meant. “Alive and well, which is more than I can say of many.”
She nodded. She might even have leaned just a little into his shoulder in an echo of her old, childish nudge of sympathy. But she stopped herself after the barest instant and said only, “What will you do now that the war is over? Will you sell out?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet. There’s always a war somewhere.” He glanced at the veil, sensing a faint awkwardness in her, as if she, too, was adjusting to what her old friend had become. “What will you do? Once you have made your appearance at Calvert Court. Will you live with Martha?”
“Oh, dear, no, I couldn’t! I mean to find a way to live by myself, even if just in a cottage. I shall become some village’s mad old spinster.”
“Like Miss Carmichael, with her dozens of cats.”
She laughed with delight at the memory of the elderly and somewhat eccentric lady who had lived on the Dearham estate—an old family governess long ago absorbed into village life. Meg’s mirth was infectious, and he smiled involuntarily. He had missed her.
“Well, perhaps not quite like Miss Carmichael,” she said.
“You never know. You have fifty or sixty years to cultivate the effect. What would you do in your cottage?”
“That is a good question,” she said with unexpected seriousness. “I thought I might write a book.”
He blinked. “I never thought of you as a bluestocking.”
“Oh, not some learned treatise!” she assured him. “I wouldn’t know where to start. But I would like to write a novel—a kind of comedy of manners, but rather less subtle than the author of Pride and Prejudice.”
He cast her a glance. “Using your experience at the Princess of Wales’s court?”
“Amongst other things.”
“Did you like Her Highness?” he asked curiously.
“Very much. She has her faults, of course, and she can be quite vulgar, but more importantly, she is kind and good-natured and brave, and it is, frankly, criminal the way she has been treated. I wish her joy in her new life away from England.” She sighed. “Though to be sure, I had hoped to go with her and see something of the world.”
“Is it the princess’s situation which turned you against marriage?” he asked.
She considered. “It probably helped. But in truth, I think I would always chafe at the oppressive bonds of matrimony. I would hate to be subjugated to a husband.”