Page 92 of Libby's London Merchant
Startled, he allowed the horses to break their stride. He slowed the animals to a walk and then stopped the curricle. She watched the flush spread up his face.
“Well, yes, I have. They were pleasant connections which, I need hardly add, have been severed. When we are married, you need never fear such an entanglement again.”
“Really? Suppose you tire of me? You seem to be somewhat fickle, my lord duke,” she said softly, twisting her hair about her finger, in command of her heart.
He took her hand and kissed it, grimacing at the smell of smoke about her. “Dearest, I am yours to command. I can give you anything.” He laughed, sure of himself. ‘‘Even Copley’s confections.”
She laughed too, because he expected it, and took another long look at him. He was disheveled and dirty now, as she was, but everything a lady would sigh for. Most ladies, anyway.
“Anything,” the duke repeated.
She shook her head. “No, you cannot give me anything I want, Nez. I received a much better offer on the Brighton Promenade from Dr. Cook, and I think I will take what he offered me.”
The duke looked at her in amazement and started to laugh. When she did not join in, he sobered. “I admire the doctor. I owe him so much, my dear. But what on earth can he possibly have to offer that I cannot give?”
“Only this, sir: His whole self.”
As he sat in stunned silence, she let herself down from the curricle, folded his jacket, and handed it to him. “It’s a flattering offer you have finally made me, Nez, but I still do not think we will suit.”
“I don’t understand.”
She smiled up at the duke. “You probably would never understand.”
“I realize Dr. Cook is an admirable human being,” the duke stammered, “but surely you cannot love him.”
She ducked under the fence that separated the Cook estate from Holyoke Green. “How odd this is,” she said. “I do love him, sir. I can only thank you for pointing this out to me. Good day, Nez. Pleasant journey.”
He called to her several more times, riding his curricle back and forth along the fence in mounting frustration before he snapped the whip over his horses and disappeared in a roar of gravel.
She leaned her arms on the fence and watched him go. Do be careful on that rough stretch in front of my home, she thought. I do not think Mama would tend you with my sure touch, and I will be too busy tomorrow.
She listened to the crack of his whip and the sound of horses trotting. She listened harder, even as she started to run. He was driving much too fast.
In another moment she heard it, the curricle sliding across gravel, the horses whinnying. Libby slid under the fence again and up the slope, standing still in surprise and then bursting into laughter at the sight below.
Nez sat cross-legged atop the curricle, which had slid onto its side and slightly into the ditch. The horses, ears laid back, struggled in the traces, but a quick glance suggested nothing was seriously wrong. She stood there in the road, hands on her hips, until the duke looked back and saw her.
When she did not run forward, he placed his hands elaborately on his chest, flopped backward, and slid off the curricle into the ditch.
In another moment, she heard him laughing. “Give me a hand at least, you heartless wench. I seem to have wedged myself into this ditch, Miss Ames. Miss Libby Ames, is it? I don’t want to get it wrong this time.”
She came around the curricle and he held up his hands to her. “This is the damnedest road, Miss Ames. I wonder that anyone has escaped with his life on it.”
“Anthony rides it all the time, day and night, rain and fog, and we know how clumsy he is.”
The duke fumbled with his waistcoat and raised his quizzing glass to his eye, staring her down. “He obviously has more lives than a cat, and more good fortune than he deserves, damn his carcass.”
The curricle was only tipped partway into the ditch. While Libby kept the horses company, the duke managed to push it onto the road again. He walked around the curricle several times, surveying the damage, shaking his head. He stopped in front of her finally.
“This was all I meant to do the first time,” he said. “Ah, well, I suppose I must take my name off the lists and retire from Kent. Do you really love him, Libby, I mean, really?”
“I do, Nez.”
“I think it will take a bit of coaxing to get him back, my dear,” he said, and his voice was apologetic. ‘‘We seem to have hit him when his resistance was low, and no wonder.”
“I can manage it,” she said, and held out her hand.
‘‘I don’t doubt that for a minute,” he replied softly. ‘‘Libby, I-”
