Sara was contemplating how best to add fuel to the flames when there was a tap at the door heralding the innkeeper.
‘There’s a scrubby lad asking for you, my lord. I saw you talking to him earlier or I would have sent him on his way with a flea in his ear.’
‘Bring him in, would you?’
The urchin was escorted in, one ear firmly held between the man’s finger and thumb. ‘A proper limb of Satan, this one, my lord. Do you want me to stay and keep an eye on him?’
‘No, thank you. We have a business agreement.’ The landlord went out, his expression a silent comment on the strange ways of the Quality. ‘Well? It is an hour and a half.’
‘Sorry, guv’nor. Only it was the Black Swan they changed at and that’s right off on the outskirts of town to the east. But they hitched up three bays and a black to the same yellow bounder and they’re headed for Gloucester. They left nigh on two.’
‘Not going to London, then. You did well.’ Lucian tossed three crowns to the boy who snatched them out of the air and ran before the nob could think better of his generosity. ‘This makes it easier—if they vanished into London they’d be the devil to find and there’s always the chance Marguerite would be recognised. Are you ready to go? This is where we drive hard and fast and begin to reel them in.’ He drew on his driving gloves and jammed his hat on his head, his expression grim.
He’s hunting, she thought with a shiver, then saw that Lucian had ordered a team to be harnessed in place of the pair they had used on the country roads. Now they would be driving over turnpiked highways for miles and, despite the anxiety about Marguerite and the anticipation of an uncomfortable journey, there was the secret thrill of speed with a real whipster holding the ribbons.
*
‘Worcester.’
Lucian’s voice jerked Sara out of a troubled sleep into darkness lit only by the glow of the carriage lamps on the hedgerows and a twinkling mass of light ahead. Her head bounced painfully on something hard and she realised she was slumped against his side, her temple on the point of his shoulder.
‘Oh, I am sorry—have I been asleep long?’
‘Only since the last change.’
They pulled into an inn yard as a nearby church clock struck midnight. Sara hurried off in search of the privy and came back to find the horses already hitched and Lucian draining a tankard.
He passed her another. ‘We are gaining. They came through four hours ago and the ostler told me that they had to settle for a second-rate team. The ones we have got, which do look like quality, were not rested enough to send out then, in his opinion. That and night driving means we’ll pull them back long before they reach the Border.’
‘Let me drive.’
To her amazement Lucian did not immediately refuse. ‘You can drive a team?’
‘Yes. I have driven both my father’s and Ashe’s teams and they both keep only blood horses. And I have driven at night.’ Only in India, though, and at a walk, but she was not going to tell him that. Lucian seemed tireless, but he wasn’t made of iron. Even if he did no more than catnap it would do him good to rest his arms and shoulders.
‘Very well.’
His ready acceptance shocked Sara into immobility. She hadn’t expected him to agree, not really. Her father and brother would never have let her take the ribbons with a strange team and at night. She couldn’t decide whether he had a flattering belief in her ability or was simply applying common sense and snatching some rest.
‘Well, come along.’ Lucian was waiting to give her a helping hand into the driver’s seat.
Sara climbed up, collected up the reins and took her time sorting them carefully in her left hand. She would not be pushed into haste by a desire to impress him. When Lucian was settled beside her she took a firm grip on the whip, made herself relax her wrist and ordered, ‘Let them go!’
She kept the team at a collected trot, learning them as they passed through the streets which were, however irregularly, at least lit. ‘Go to sleep,’ she said without turning her head to look at the man beside her.
‘In a minute or two,’ he said as a dog rushed out of an alleyway, barking hysterically at the leaders. They jibbed and she collected them up and drove them on. Lucian kept his hands where they were and, she realised, he hadn’t so much as made a twitch to take the reins from her.
‘Thank you for trusting me.’
‘You have the confidence and the steadiness that is required and now I see you can keep your head and are strong enough to hold them together. Wake me if I snore.’
‘I will be sure to.’ Not that he would fall asleep immediately, she was certain, however relaxed the big body against hers was. It would take more than witnessing her deal with a minor incident before he would trust her entirely, she knew, but the show of confidence was as welcome as it was unexpected.
Have I misjudged him? Sara wondered as they left the town and her eyes adjusted to the moonlight. The road stretched on, pale against the darker verges. They were fortunate that the moon was full and that it had been dry so that the dusty road was not dark with rain. The team were well balanced and responsive and she let them extend their trot. Was Lucian not the domineering male she had categorised him as, or was he a pragmatic man aware that he could not keep going all the way to the Border without rest?
There was a heavy pressure against her side as he relaxed into sleep and she felt her mood soften even further into something perilously like tenderness. Surely she was not falling for this man? Desire was one thing, but developing a tendre for a powerful, opinionated man with traditional views on honour and the independence of women was quite another. An affaire could be ended in a civilised manner when it had run its course, she assumed—not that she had any experience of that kind of thing—but unrequited feelings
could be nothing but painful. And she was not going to let herself explore exactly what those feelings might mean.