The Fortune Hunter Page 23

  “Oh, dear. But are we likely to overtake them on the road?”

  He shot her an amused glance. “I failed to bring my crystal ball. But I would say we stand a good chance of overtaking Lord Badesworth, at least. I’m a very good driver—or was. I may be out of practice.”

  They were forced to keep a sedate pace while still in the metropolis, but once they were past Westminster Bridge the traffic thinned and Lord Rival was able to test his skill. Olivia was pleased to discover that his expertise had not, after all, deserted him during his years without a carriage. The horses were hired and therefore strange to him, but he coaxed them effortlessly into a strong and lively pace that soon had them bowling along at an astonishing rate of speed. Olivia, unfamiliar with the attributes of sporting vehicles, marveled at how quickly Lord Rival’s curricle covered the ground.

  “I would not be surprised if we caught Ralph within the hour! Bessie, is this not delightful?” One hand on her hat, Olivia turned to direct her question at Bessie and saw, to her dismay, that her cousin’s expression was more strained than delighted. She was hanging on for dear life.

  “At any rate, the faster we go the sooner it will be over,” said Bessie stoically. Her voice chattered as the curricle rattled beneath her. “No, no, do not slacken the pace on my account,” she admonished, as Olivia seized Lord Rival’s arm in concern. “I shall do.”

  “But we are villains to make you so uncomfortable,” said Olivia remorsefully. “We should have hired a closed carriage after all.”

  “Rubbish,” scoffed Bessie. “No time for that. But I’ll tell you this, Ivy—I wouldn’t be a tiger for any salary you could name. Mercy! It seems a great distance to the ground from up here.”

  Once they were well and truly on the turnpike, they paused briefly at each tollgate and every likely posting house to describe, with as many details as Olivia and Bessie could recall, Lord Badesworth’s traveling coach. They could not inquire whether Edith had passed because they had no inkling how she might be traveling. Every inquiry was answered in the negative, however, until they reached Croydon. There, one of the ostlers at the King’s Head recalled a red-faced gentleman in a crested coach. He had caught the lad’s attention by abusing a waiter at the top of his lungs.

  This information so precisely described Lord Badesworth that it earned the ostler a handsome tip. Unfortunately, it was all the information they were able to obtain. The other ostlers, spying the largesse bestowed upon their compatriot as a reward for his feats of memory, gathered like a flock of hungry birds and chimed in with their own offerings when additional questions were asked. An argument broke out when the lads tried to recall exactly how long ago the incident had occurred. Nothing could be ascertained from their conflicting accounts of the time the earl had arrived, how long he had stopped, or the time he had departed. When the change of his own horses had been completed, therefore, Lord Rival elected to go forward rather than wait for the ostlers to sort it out.

  “After all, it might discourage us to learn how far behind we are,” remarked Lord Rival, giving his new team the office to start. “But we’ll make up time now that we needn’t stop in every hamlet. He won’t change horses again until Horley, I imagine.”

  Olivia had been half afraid, when their previous inquiries had met with no success, that they had somehow flown from the scent—or, worse yet, gotten ahead of Ralph. With this concern alleviated, she was able to relax a little and take note of her surroundings. It would have been a pleasant trip, had they not been worried and pressed for time. The scenery was interesting and varied, even beneath a bleak autumnal sky. Despite the coldness of the day and the anxiety of the moment, Olivia was secretly enjoying herself.

  A large part of this furtive enjoyment, she had to admit, derived from her forced proximity to Lord Rival. Even Bessie’s quelling presence could not alter that. The heat of his body warmed her, and the rocking of the carriage brought them into repeated contact. He sat very much at his ease beside her, his keen gaze fastened on the road ahead. George handled his team with a stunning display of nonchalance, but Olivia was not deceived. Driving unknown horses headlong down one of the busiest turnpikes in England must be both difficult and tiring. She could not help admiring his manifest skill and stamina, and found them more impressive the more indifferent he appeared. As the hours went by, he seemed not to tire at all.

  Olivia did not like to distract George from his concentration on the road, and Bessie was fully occupied in keeping her precarious seat, so conversation was desultory. As they wound across Eastwood Common, however, George did spare Olivia a glance and a smile. “Tell me, my pet. Why are we chasing Lord and Lady Badesworth? I don’t wish to seem vulgarly inquisitive, but if I should have to explain myself to a magistrate at some point in the not-too-distant future, I would like to have some ready answer for the chap.”

  Olivia slewed round to stare at him in amazement. “Don’t you know?”

  He coughed apologetically. “Well, no. I know that Lady Badesworth has run away, and I can understand her husband’s natural anxiety to recover her, but what you and I—and, for that matter, Miss Fairfax—have to do with the matter, I don’t quite see.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Do you mean to tell me that you have driven me halfway to Brighton at a moment’s notice without knowing the reason? I beg your pardon; this entire escapade must seem perfectly demented to you! Why did you agree to help us?”

  His eyes lit with laughter. “Because you asked me to.”

  Olivia was momentarily speechless. Bessie’s voice, warm with approval, chimed into the silence. “Very obliging of you, my lord, I am sure,” she said. “And if we bring matters to a tidy conclusion, I daresay none of us will be called before a magistrate.”

  “Thank you, Miss Fairfax. You relieve my mind.”

  Olivia knew she must have a very queer expression on her face. She hastily turned away from George and stared blindly at the horses, her emotions in a jumble. It had struck her like lightning that there was something rather wonderful about having a man in her life who would leap to her aid with no questions asked.

  “Well, I never!” she said at last, her voice quivering with laughter. “I’m very grateful to you, of course. But of all the rash, heedless, reckless starts—”

  “No such thing,” said Lord Rival, sounding injured. “Miss Fairfax assures me that I may not even be arrested.”

  Olivia choked. “If all goes well,” she reminded him.

  “If anything, my lord, we may prevent a crime,” added Bessie. “Ivy, dear, pray explain it to him.”

  She did, with some hesitancy. She watched George out of the corner of her eye as she described the unbridled rages she had witnessed in Ralph since childhood, and the state Edith was in when she arrived on Olivia’s doorstep last September. One never knew, with gentlemen. Many men felt that a husband’s legal right to discipline his wife extended to just such a beating as Ralph had inflicted upon his bride.

  As she carefully told the tale, glossing over some of the harsher details, she saw George’s expression harden into grimmer and grimmer lines. He said nothing. It was impossible to tell whether he disapproved of Ralph’s behavior, found the subject distasteful, or was simply angry that she had tricked him into involving himself in a domestic dispute that was none of his affair.

  Before she could probe George’s reaction they reached Horley. Olivia fell silent as George, still frowning abstractedly, steadied his nearly blown horses and negotiated the crowded approach to the Chequers at a trot. This inn was probably the most popular stop on the Brighton road, so they were not surprised to learn that none of the busy ostlers or beleaguered waiters recalled Lord Badesworth or his old-fashioned coach among the many vehicles they had attended in the past few hours.

  Bessie and Olivia alighted from the curricle and stretched their legs while a fresh team was brought out. Bessie was limping, and admitted that she had “stiffened a bit” during the journey, but she steadfastly refused to exchange places with Oli
via, even for one stage. “Think how ludicrous we would look!” she said, and, upon reflection, Olivia had to agree. The sight of elegant Lord Rival squiring a middle-aged dowd in an open carriage, with Olivia playing propriety in the tiger’s seat, might be ridiculous enough to draw unwelcome attention to their expedition. Olivia, however, was guiltily aware that the bone-jarring journey in an uncomfortable seat was much harder on her older cousin than it would be on herself. She insisted on purchasing a cushion for Bessie—at an exorbitant price—from the enterprising management of the Chequers. The inn had quite a supply of these; they had evidently encountered many a weary traveler whose seat had proven unexpectedly uncomfortable.

  The sun was low in the sky by the time they left Horley. Lord Rival had fallen into a brown study. His gaze fixed broodingly on the road, he seemed to move automatically as he drove, his mind busy elsewhere. Olivia felt a certain shyness about interrupting his thoughts despite the painful questions crowding her own. Nevertheless, she was plucking up her courage to ask him directly about his acquaintance with Edith when he muttered a soft exclamation. She looked inquiringly at him and saw that his gaze had sharpened and focused, as if something had startled him back to the here and now. Following the direction of his gaze, she saw a sleepy village ahead with a gabled posting inn beside the road. Beneath a spreading tree in the yard before it sat, unmistakably, Ralph’s traveling coach. Olivia and Bessie cried out almost simultaneously, and Olivia instinctively grasped George’s arm.

  “I see it,” he said curtly, and in a very few seconds he had drawn his curricle neatly to a halt beside the dusty berline. A boy ran out to take the horses’ heads and George jumped lightly down from the curricle.

  He turned to Olivia and took her hand, speaking to her in a low, urgent voice. “Forgive me, but I must leave you to be handed down by the staff.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s better that I enter the inn ahead of you. If Lord Badesworth has not recovered his temper—”

  He broke off suddenly and, before Olivia registered what was happening, George’s quick reflexes had taken him halfway to the door of the inn. She heard it, then—a muted scuffling sound coming from inside the building. Some sort of physical struggle was occurring in one of the rooms near the open doorway, and George was racing toward it.

  A stifled exclamation escaped her. Scarcely knowing what she did, Olivia slid from the curricle on her own and stumbled past the surprised servant who was holding out his hand to assist her. As she ran toward the inn she heard Bessie’s querulous voice behind her, scolding the lad for his slowness and demanding that he help her down at once, at once, for heaven’s sake!

  Just as she reached the entrance to the inn a tremendous crash sounded from a room to her left. She darted toward it and paused on the threshold, her hand unconsciously creeping to her throat. Her frantic gaze took everything in at a glance; before her was a small private parlor containing three persons. Lord Rival stood near the window, his feet planted wide apart and his hands curled into purposeful fists. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Edith was pressed tightly all along the length of his body as if seeking to hide herself among the folds of his greatcoat. Her face was buried in its lapels. George’s attention was entirely focused upon Ralph Fairfax, Lord Badesworth, who lay sprawled on the floor before him, insensible.

  She must have made some sort of sound. George’s head swung round to face her. The expression on his face almost caused her to take a step backward, so frightening was it. She had never seen such bleakness in a pair of human eyes, nor such blazing ferocity. But as his gaze fixed on her, his clouded vision seemed to clear, as if the sight of Olivia called back his sanity. He even managed a strained smile.

  “I beg your pardon, my dear,” he said, with a fair assumption of his usual aplomb. “It seems Lord Badesworth and I have made rather a mess of this room. Perhaps the ladies should be taken elsewhere.”

  She started forward in alarm. “Are you hurt?” she asked anxiously.

  His eyes suddenly twinkled at her. “What! No concern for your nearest and dearest?” Edith’s shivering body glued to his prevented him from actually moving, but he jerked his head toward Ralph’s prostrate form. “I fancy your brother received the worst of it.”

  She glanced down. The earl’s stocky body lay as if flung, sprawled across the hearth rug. He had apparently clutched at a tablecloth on his way down, since a wooden table was upended beside him and he lay amid a tumble of scattered pewter mugs and candlesticks. She made a little moue of distaste and stepped gingerly over his booted feet to stand beside George and Edith. “I daresay he’ll live.”

  “I trust he will. It was not my intent to murder him.” George paused. “Not that I wasn’t tempted, of course.”

  “Lord ha’ mercy!” Bessie’s astonished gasp drew George’s and Olivia’s eyes to her. She stood, slightly out of breath and with bonnet askew, in the entrance to the room, pressing her plump hand to her heart. “What has happened here?”

  Edith suddenly let go of George and, with a loud wail, flew to Bessie. Bessie folded the terrified countess protectively in her arms, glaring fiercely at George. “Lord Rival, I would be obliged to you if—hush, lambkin! You’re safe now, dearie. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

  Edith’s tearstained face emerged. “I won’t go back to Ralph! I won’t! I cannot!”

  Bessie patted and murmured soothingly, and Edith subsided back into her shoulder. She returned her gimlet gaze to George. “As I was saying, my lord, I would be obliged to you if you would furnish an explanation of what has transpired in this room, although it’s plain as a pikestaff that whatever occurred, it ended in fisticuffs. I do not approve of fisticuffs, my lord, and I take leave to tell you that such goings-on would send any gently nurtured female into hysterics! Lady Badesworth has had a very trying day—”

  “Oh, Bessie, pray—!” Edith lifted her head once more from her protector’s shoulder. “It was not Lord Rival’s fault. Everything happened so quickly—and, oh! When Lord Rival appeared, I was never so glad to see anyone in my life!”

  By this time, George had entirely recovered his customary poise. He bowed gracefully in the direction of the ladies. “Miss Fairfax is quite right, Lady Badesworth. I ought to have asked your husband to step outside with me before—ah—expressing my opinion of his behavior in so decided a fashion. Decking a gentleman in the presence of his wife is very bad ton. My only defense is that the provocation was”—his face hardened—“extreme.”

  “Do not apologize,” said Olivia roundly. “I am already persuaded that whatever treatment you handed my brother was well-deserved.”

  A deep groan sounded from the prostrate earl. George raised one eyebrow. “At any rate, Lord Badesworth is regaining consciousness,” he remarked. “If he comes to his senses in a figurative sense as well, I shall refrain from further demonstrations of—what did Miss Fairfax call it? Fisticuffs. But as we can place no dependence upon his lordship’s self-control, I repeat my suggestion that the ladies be escorted to another room. You, there”—he nodded toward a cluster of figures huddled, openmouthed, in the hall just outside the door—“if this inn has another private parlor—”

  Ralph muttered a foul expletive into the hearth rug. Olivia skipped instinctively backward at the murderous note in his voice, as if expecting the hem of her skirt to be stained by the language spilling from her brother’s lips. George’s arm shot out to steady her and she clutched it gratefully.

  “Just so,” said George pleasantly, a most unpleasant smile curling his mouth. “You are in the presence of ladies, Lord Badesworth. Kindly contain yourself for a few moments more. I shall then be entirely at your disposal.”

  A harassed-looking individual in an apron was shepherding Bessie and the still-shivering Edith out the door. Olivia stood her ground, her eyes flashing, only dimly aware that she still clung tightly to George. “I won’t go,” she announced. “I won’t sit tamely in a coffee room somewhere while my detestable brothe
r tries to do you an injury.”

  George looked down at her, laughter lurking in the dark depths of his eyes. “Thank you. Believe it or not, I am fully capable of protecting myself.”

  “You don’t know him,” said Olivia stubbornly. “He cheats.”

  “Yes. I gathered as much during our brief, but illuminating, interaction a few moments ago.”

  Ralph emitted another groan and rolled, with difficulty, onto his side. He seized his head as if trying to hold on to consciousness by physical force. “You dog,” he muttered thickly. “I’ll teach you. Unhand my wife.”

  “Your wife is long gone, Lord Badesworth,” said George crisply. “Do you recall where you are?”

  “Yes, damn you. Inn. Road to Brighton.” He struggled and swore and managed to sit up, still holding his head. “I’ll kill you for this, Rival. I’ll kill you.”

  “I think not,” said Lord Rival dryly. “But you are welcome to try. Are you always this fond of hyperbole? What a nuisance your family must find it.” He reached gracefully down to assist Lord Badesworth to rise, but the earl only glowered at him, panting. George shrugged and straightened. “Suit yourself. We can have this conversation as easily with you seated on the floor, I suppose.”

  “What conversation?” Ralph’s bleary eyes focused on Olivia. “Confound it, Ivy, what the devil are you doing here?”

  “Lord Rival brought me.”

  The earl’s features, never handsome in the best of conditions, twisted into a hideous sneer. “Well, I’ll be damned. I knew Edith was a lightskirt at heart, but I never thought my dried-up sister would turn whore.”

  Olivia was still holding George’s arm, and felt his muscles jump and bunch beneath her fingers almost before the ugly words left Ralph’s mouth. She could feel the effort it cost him to keep from hitting Ralph again.

  “I can’t strike you while you’re down,” he said between his teeth. “But I can tell you to shut your filthy mouth. Your sister asked me to bring her here because she feared you would do your wife an injury. And you were on the point of doing so, my hotheaded friend, when I arrived and caught you in the act. Under the circumstances, I suggest you keep a civil tongue in your head. You’ve done enough damage for one day.”