Stolen Encounters With The Duchess. Julia Justiss

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Extract

       Copyright

Chapter One

      Setting off at a pace brisk enough to clear the wine fumes from his head, David Tanner Smith, Member of Parliament for Hazelwick, headed from the Mayfair town house where he’d dined with some Whig colleagues towards his rooms at Albany.

      The friends had urged him to stay for a few more rounds, but after a day of enduring the mostly irrelevant objections the opponents of the Reform Bill kept raising to delay bringing it to a vote, he was weary of political talk. He was also, he had to admit, somewhat out of spirits.

      His footsteps would echo loudly once he reached the solitary rooms of his chambers. Though he rejoiced that his best friend, Giles Hadley, had found happiness with Lady Margaret, he’d discovered that losing the companion with whom he’d shared rooms since their student days at Oxford had left him lonelier than he’d anticipated.

      Since the only woman he’d ever loved was far beyond the touch of a lowly farmer’s orphan, he didn’t expect he’d ever find wedded bliss himself. Being common-born, but sponsored by a baronet and a marquess, put him in an odd social limbo, not of the gentry, never acceptable to the haut ton, but as a rising politician in the Whigs, not a nonentity either.

      Rather a conundrum, which spared him attentions from marriage-minded mamas who couldn’t quite decide whether he would be a good match for their daughters or not, he thought with a wry grin.

      The smile faded as he recalled the stillness of Giles’s empty room back in Piccadilly. Who might he marry, if he were ever lonely enough? The daughter of a cit who valued his political aspirations? A politically minded aristocrat who would overlook the lack of birth in exchange for elbow room at the tables of power?

      He was rounding the dark corner from North Audley Street towards Oxford Street when the sounds of an altercation reached him. Slowing, he peered through the dimness ahead, where he could just make out the figures of two men and what appeared to be a young woman draped in an evening cloak.

      ‘You will release me at once, or I will call the watch,’ she declared.

      ‘Will ye, now?’ one of them mocked with a coarse laugh.

      The other, grasping the woman’s shoulder, said, ‘The only thing you’ll be doing is handing your necklace over to us—and the bracelet and earbobs, too, if you don’t want that pretty face marred. ‘

      ‘Aye, so pretty that maybe we’ll take you to a fancy house after,’ the other man added. ‘They’d pay a lot for a tender morsel like you, I reckon.’

      ‘Take your hands off me!’ the girl shrieked, kicking out and twisting in the first man’s grip, as the second pulled on the ties to her cape.

      Davie tightened his grip on his walking stick and ran towards them. ‘Let the woman go!’ he shouted, raising the stick menacingly. ‘Now—before I call the watch.’

      For an instant, seeing his imposing size, the men froze. Then, city blokes obviously having no idea of the damage a strong yeoman could do with a stout stave, they ignored him and resumed trying to subdue the struggling female.

      He’d warned them, Davie thought. After having to restrain himself around buffoons all day, the prospect of being able to deliver a few good whacks raised his spirits immensely.

      With a roar, he rushed them, catching the first man under his ear with the end of the stick and knocking him away. Rapidly reversing it, he delivered an uppercut to the chin of the second. The sharp crack of fracturing bone sounded before the second man, howling, released his hold. Wrenching free, the lass lifted her skirts and took to her heels.

      Davie halted a moment, panting. Much as he’d like to round the two up and deliver them to the nearest constable, he probably ought to follow the girl. Any female alone on the street at this time of night was likely to attract more trouble—at the very least, some other footpad looking for an easy mark, if not far worse.

      Decision made, he turned away from the attackers and ran after her. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you!’ he called out. ‘It’s not safe, walking alone in London at night. Let me escort you home.’

      The girl gave a quick glance over her shoulder, but apparently unconvinced, fled on. Hampered by her skirts, she wouldn’t have been able to outrun him for long, but before he could catch up to her, she tripped on something and stumbled. With a cry, she fell to her knees.

      Reaching her in a few strides, Davie halted at her side and offered a hand to help her to her feet. The girl took it, but then suddenly jerked away with such violence that, when Davie hung on instead of releasing her, the force of the ricochet slammed her back into Davie, chest to chest.

      Swearing under his breath, Davie held fast to the lass, who immediately began struggling again. ‘Stop it!’ he said sharply. ‘I told you, I don’t mean to hurt you.’ Lowering his voice, he continued, ‘We’ll sort this out, miss, but not on a public street. Let me take you somewhere safer, and you can tell me how to get you home to your family.’

      With a deep sigh, the girl ceased trying to pull away from him. ‘Please, Davie,’ she said softly, ‘won’t you just let me go?’

      The dearly familiar voice shocked him like the sharp edge of a razor slicing skin. ‘Faith?’ he said incredulously.

      * * *

      To his astonishment, as he turned the woman’s face up into the lamplight, Davie recognised that it was, in fact, Faith Wellingford Evers, Duchess of Ashedon, he had trapped against him.

      Before he could get his stunned tongue to utter another word, the lady pulled away. ‘Yes, it’s Faith,’ she admitted. ‘I was on my way to find a hackney to take me home. Couldn’t you pretend you hadn’t seen me, and let me go?’

      As the reality of her identity sank in, a second wave of shock, sharpened by horror over what might have happened to her, held him speechless for another moment. Then, swallowing a curse, Davie clamped a hand around her wrist and began walking her forward. ‘No, Duchess, I can’t let you—’

      ‘Faith, Davie. Please, let it be Faith. Can’t I escape, at least for a while, being the Duchess?’

      It shouldn’t have, but it warmed his heart that she would allow such familiarity to someone who’d not been a close friend for years. ‘Regardless, I can’t let you wander on your own, chasing down a carriage to get you back to Berkeley Square. The streets in Mayfair are better, but nowhere in London is truly safe after dark, for anyone alone. To say nothing of a woman!’

      ‘You were alone,’ she pointed out.

      ‘Yes, but I was also armed and able to defend myself,’ he retorted. ‘I was going to take the young lass I’d rescued to a tavern and discover how to help her, but I can’t do that with you. Not around here, where we are both known. You’d better let me summon the hackney and escort you safely home.’

      She slowed, resisting his forward motion. ‘You’re sure you can’t just let me go?’ After his sharp look of a reply, she said softly, ‘I didn’t set out to be foolish or irresponsible. I am sorry to have inadvertently got you involved.’

      She swallowed hard, and the tears he saw sparkling at the edge of her lashes hit him like a fist to the chest. How it still distressed him