The Reluctant Escort. Mary Nichols

      ‘Running from the law, I shouldn’t wonder, or your creditors. Using Stacey Manor as a bolt-hole…’

      ‘Grandmama…’

      ‘Enough. You are right—I do not want to know. But what about settling down? What about Molly?’ She laughed lightly. ‘Scapegrace and madcap, it might be the making of you both.’

      ‘You are surely not in earnest?’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘It’s out of the question. You said yourself, I am a rakeshame, always on the move, getting into one scrape after another…’

      ‘Precisely.’

      ‘I cannot change into a fan-carrier overnight. We should both be miserable. And what do you suppose Miss Martineau would think of the matter?’

      ‘She will be guided by her elders.’

      ‘Her mother! I hardly think she would provide wise guidance with three husbands already dead and buried.’

      ‘No, but as Harriet has left Molly in my care and Molly is an obedient girl she will listen to me…’

      ‘Then she would be lacking in spirit and that would not commend her to me. Besides, it would mean taking Harriet Benbright as a mother-in-law and I do not think I could stomach that. Such pretensions I never did see in a woman of no consequence.’

      ‘Harriet’s father was a baronet and I hardly think you are in a position to talk of consequence now, my boy.’

      ‘No, which is why Harriet would not entertain an offer from me for her daughter. I have nothing to commend me. And any children we had would have no prospects of inheriting the title. I could not go back on my word to Hugh. That alone would exclude me in Harriet’s eyes.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘Grandmama, I thank you for your concern, but I must continue to live my life in the way that suits me. I have a small pension from a grateful country and Hugh has been kind enough to make me an allowance from the income of the estate.’ He did not want her to think ill of his brother, nor intervene on his behalf, and so he told the lie.

      ‘So he should! It is yours, after all. Where are you off to tomorrow?’

      He smiled, concluding she had not been serious or she would not have capitulated so easily. ‘Wherever the fancy takes me.’

      ‘But I collect it must be done under cover of darkness.’

      ‘I am afraid so. I shall be gone long before you wake, so I will say my farewell now and retire.’

      She sighed. ‘Very well. But you know you are always welcome here, no matter what.’

      ‘Yes, I know, but I would be grateful if no one knew of my presence here tonight. In fact, I should deem it a favour if you were to say, if asked, that you were unaware that I had survived the second war and returned to England.’

      ‘That I will do, but I shall also pray that you come to your senses before you find yourself preaching at Tyburn Cross.’

      ‘Oh, I do not think it will come to that,’ he said lightly. ‘Hanging is certainly not part of my plan for the future.’

      ‘Then what is?’

      ‘I do not know. Not yet. But undoubtedly something will occur to me. Now, if you will excuse me.’ He bowed over her hand, putting it to his lips. ‘Goodnight and God bless you, Grandmother. Tell Molly…No, tell her nothing, for there is nothing good you could say of me.’

      He strode from the room and made his way upstairs to bed, though he did not intend to sleep for more than an hour or two. Long before dawn, he was up and creeping down to the back door, from where he crossed the cobbled yard to saddle his horse.

      Molly’s room overlooked the stables, and as she had stayed up reading Don Quixote by the light of a candle she heard him leave the house. Going to the window, she watched him enter the stables. He was escaping, getting away on that beautiful black horse of his, and she was sure he would have many fine adventures and his life would not be at all boring, as hers was.

      There was something a little mysterious about him; he had talked all through dinner without giving away a single thing about himself, not even why he had chosen to come to Stacey Manor in the first place, nor how he knew her mother. Until a few months ago, she had not heard of her mother’s Stacey connections. And she was curious as to why it was necessary to creep away in the dead of night.

      Without stopping to think of the consequences, she scrambled into her riding habit and hurried downstairs. She was in the kitchen, pulling on her boots, when she heard the quiet clop of a horse walking across the cobbles of the yard. By the time she had let herself out of the house, the sound of the horse was fading in the distance. She ran out to the stables to saddle her mare, Jenny. Lady Connaught had long since given up riding and there were only a couple of men’s saddles belonging to the groom, who rode pillion when her ladyship went out in the carriage. Molly had used the smaller of these on many occasions and had become proficient at riding astride.

      Two minutes later she was galloping after the enigmatic captain, without any idea of what she would say to him when she caught up with him. It was simply that she was wide awake and longing for something to give her life a little piquancy. She would follow him and solve the mystery of who he was and what he was about.

      It was a quiet night and she could hear the hooves of his horse ahead of her, cantering easily along the dry road. She would stay a little behind him until he stopped to rest his mount; she could catch up with him. Then he must either escort her back himself or share his adventure with her. Either way she would learn more about him.

      She suddenly became aware that the hoofbeats had stopped and she pulled up to listen and look about her. She had left the familiar heath behind and was on a road with open fields on one side and a copse of trees on the other. There was a village not too far way, for she heard a dog bark. Close by an owl hooted, startling her for a moment, but there was no sound of man or horse.

      Surely he could not have outrun her so completely? She began to walk her mare forward more slowly, straining to hear the slightest sound. Had he turned off? But she could see no other road or bridleway. Had he gone into one of the houses in the village? Could he have an assignation there? She ought to go back, but it would be so disappointing not to have her curiosity satisfied.

      A mile or two further on, she became aware of the sound of a horse behind her. She stopped and pulled her mount into the edge of the wood, concealing herself behind a bush, refusing to admit she was more than a little afraid. The other rider approached at a walk, singing quietly under his breath. He stopped when he came level with her hiding place.

      ‘Are we going to play hide-and-seek all night?’ he asked mildly.

      Recognising his voice, she gave a sigh of relief and emerged from her hiding place, ducking under the low branches of a tree. ‘How did you get behind me?’

      ‘I heard someone riding after me a long time ago, but when no one caught up with me I deduced I was being followed and that is something I do not like, so I hid in the trees to see who it might be. You are very lucky I didn’t take a pot shot at you.’

      He was annoyed; she could tell by the set of his jaw and the steely gleam of his eye in the darkness, and she supposed he had every right to be, but she was not one to back down from a confrontation. ‘And when you realised it was me, why did you not show yourself?’

      He chuckled, in spite of his annoyance. ‘The follower became the followed. I wanted to see how determined you were. If you thought you had lost me, you might have turned back.’

      ‘And now you know the answer to that, what are you going to do about it?’

      ‘Send you home, of course. I cannot for the life of me think why you set out after me.’ He paused as a new thought crossed his mind. ‘Lady Connaught did not send you, did she?’

      ‘Lady Connaught?’ she queried in surprise. ‘Why should she