Page 44 of Lady, Behave
Gyles reached around her to grab the man, but she forced his arm down.
“She is to be my wife, you snail.”
The cur laughed. “I could’ve had ’er. You did. At the Carstairs’.”
“Never say it,” Gyles growled. “Never even breathe it. Mark my words, if you so much as hint at what has happened here today, I will hound you to the ends of the earth. I will tell it far and wide that you defiled your calling. That you abducted a young woman. You won’t be a curate. Or a rector. You’ll never get a living.”
“Now…now, see here,” the earl stuttered and shook a finger in Gyles’s face.
“Put that away, sir,” Gyles ordered him. “You know not to whom you speak. But rest assured, if you so much as look as if you are about to tell a sordid tale of abduction and capture or rape, you will hang as well as your son.”
The earl gulped and shrank backward.
“Come along, my darling.” Heath bent to lift her into his arms.
But she put up a hand to stall him. “One thing, Heath.”
“Heath?” asked the stableboy.
“Heath,” confirmed the earl.
The name of her rescuer’s identity caused many to exclaim and grumble.
“As you wish, my love.” Gyles raised both hands and let her walk toward the culprit who had so wronged her.
She stared at Fellowes for a long minute. “It is a pity that you have no ethics, sir. A crime you have no morals, either. Worse, I would suggest you find a new profession. It does not suit you. I will ensure it does not. Ever. In quiet little ways, you will remember me and what you did here, and at everything you try, you will fail. As you did here. As you will do everywhere you go.”
She took one step from him.
But on second thought turned to face him again.
She indulged herself. She did the one thing she’d learned from a kindly old pirate shipwrecked upon the Waterford shore.
She rounded on her attacker like a bare-knuckle boxer and punched John Fellowes smack in the nose. Better, she made him bleed.
The little man screamed and clutched his bulbous proboscis as red blood gushed through his fingers.
The four men gasped.
Gyles, murmuring his approval, took her arm and led her toward the private stables next door to that of the Davenports’. There, he hailed the grooms and asked if he might borrow the owners’ city coach for the afternoon. Off the two went to the house to ask if the Marquess of Heath might avail himself of the gentleman’s conveyance. The man agreed, and Gyles paid a handsome sum for the privilege.
“I will not have you ride a horse,” Gyles explained to her. “You need care, my dearest.”
Within minutes, he led her up into the welcome appointments of plush squabs, shades drawn, for a private ride home to Charles Street. His three friends saw them off, assuring Gyles they would see his stallion returned to his new house.
Inside, he curled his arms around her and brought her safe and secure to rest upon his lap.
She nestled against him, laughter tickling her that she’d been naughty to Fellowes at the end. “I had to hit him.”
“I do agree, my darling. A wonderful job you did of it, too.”
“I wanted to strike him on the jaw.”
“No matter. A fine jab.”
“Thank you. But he has such a little chin. Nothing to land on, you see. And he has such a blunderbuss of a nose.”
Gyles finally laughed, and sobering, he lifted her chin. “I’ve settled all my business in London.”
