Page 23 of Fortune Favors the Frivolous
Henry’s heart leaped. “You’ve seen them?”
“We may have.” Constance exchanged a meaningful look with a motherly woman holding a baby. “The question is, are you here to help or to harm?”
“To help,” Henry said earnestly. “To take them somewhere safe. My name is Henry.”
The motherly woman—Rosalind—stepped forward. “She spoke of you,” she said quietly. “Henry, eh? Said you were a hero, always doing the right thing.”
“She’s here?” Henry looked around desperately.
“Was,” Constance corrected. “We offered her work if she wanted to stay. But when she said she had to be back in London before she were missed, we helped her on her way after some unpleasant men came looking. But I’m afraid she may have fallen into other hands.”
They told him about the farmer who’d offered Caroline a ride towards London, their suspicions about the man’s true intentions which had filtered back to them, and the direction they’d headed.
Henry’s blood ran cold as he learned Caroline might have escaped one danger only to fall into another.
He thanked the theater company and rode off like a man possessed, following their directions towards the main road, his horse’s hooves thundering against the packed earth as he pushed both himself and his mount to their limits.
It was the sound that reached him first. A girl’s cry of distress carried on the wind, and he spurred his horse toward it.
He crested a hill and saw them: a farmer’s cart pulled to the side of the road, a young man pursuing a girl in colorful skirts who was running desperately across an open field. Even at this distance, there was something familiar about the way she moved, the set of her shoulders as she fled.
“Caroline,” he breathed, and then he was thundering down the hill, his only thought to reach her before her pursuer did.
The young man was gaining on her, his longer legs eating up the ground between them. Caroline stumbled on the uneven terrain, her borrowed skirts hampering her progress, and Henry saw her glance back in terror.
He launched himself from his horse while still at full gallop, tackling the young man with enough force to send them both rolling across the grass. They fought viciously, Henry’s gentleman’s boxing skills pitted against the other man’s brute strength and desperation.
“You’ll not touch her,” Henry snarled, landing a solid blow to the man’s jaw.
“She owes me,” the man spat back, wiping blood from his mouth.
Henry’s fist connected with the man’s solar plexus, doubling him over. “The lady owes you nothing.”
The man scrambled away, apparently deciding Caroline wasn’t worth a prolonged fight with an obviously superior opponent. Henry watched him retreat toward his cart, then turned to where Caroline stood watching, her chest heaving with exertion and relief.
“Caroline,” he breathed.
She pushed back the loose curls that had escaped her headscarf, golden strands catching the light. “Henry.” Her voice broke on his name, and he heard a world of emotion in that single word. Relief, gratitude, and something deeper that made his heart race.
“My dear girl, I’ve been searching everywhere for you,” he said, drinking in the sight of her. The colorful clothes suited her somehow, bringing out the wild, adventurous spirit he’d always loved about her. “Venetia told me what you’d done, how you’d risked everything to save her. Dear Lord, and to think I didn’t recognize you!”
“Venetia? Is she safe?” Caroline’s first thought was still for her friend, and Henry felt his love for her deepen even further.
“Safe and sound at the Rose and Crown,” he assured her. “Though she’s worried sick about you.”
Caroline’s impish smile appeared. “I gave the theater company your sovereign. Seemed a fair trade for the clothes and safe passage.”
The cart driver was shouting from the road, starting down the hill towards them with obvious hostile intent, so Henry whistled for his horse, which had stopped to graze nearby.
“We need to move,” he said, helping Caroline mount. The feel of her waist beneath his hands, the way she fitted perfectly against him after he swung up behind her, all felt so right, so natural, that he wondered how he’d been blind to his feelings for so long.
And blind to the fact that Flash was, in fact, Caroline, the night before.
They rode hard for the better part of an hour, putting distance between themselves and any possible pursuit. But they couldn’t make it to the Rose and Crown in one stint, so Henry found a small, respectable inn called the Fox and Fiddle, its thatched roof and welcoming windows promising safety and rest before they’d continue.
The innkeeper’s wife took one look at Caroline’s unconventional attire and Henry’s protective stance and drew her own conclusions. “Eloping, are we, dears?” she said with a maternal smile. “Well, you’ll find no judgment here. Love willfind a way, as they say. Come along, miss, let’s get you settled while your young man sees to the horses.”
Caroline’s cheeks flushed pink, but she didn’t correct the assumption. Henry found himself equally tongue-tied, watching her follow the woman inside. When had Caroline become this woman who made his pulse race and his hands tremble? Who made him want to gather her close and never let go?
