Page 15 of The Smuggler & the Society Bride

Who had arranged the message that led her to Lord Barwick, knowing she would never have left the ballroom if she’d known who waited for her at the end of that dark, deserted path?

Another young lady, jealous of her place as reigning Belle of the Ton? Though Honoria believed another woman capable of such spite, she couldn’t credit any of the rivals to her beauty or position with possessing either the cunning or the means to create so intricate a plan.

A rejected suitor seemed more probable. Which left her quite a list. Might there be among them some arrogant man, more twisted in character than she’d ever guessed, who’d decided if he couldn’t possess her, he’d make sure no honest gentleman ever would?

She sighed. Except for satisfying her curiosity, discovering who had fashioned the trap no longer made any difference. The perpetrator had done his or her work well. Regardless of the excuse that had brought her to the arbour, as Marc acidly pointed out, only a fast young piece would have agreed to meet a man, even a fiancé, alone and unchaperoned in a midnight garden. To be discovered there by a party of gentlemen in the arms of a notorious womanizer, regardless of how fiercely she was struggling, only sealed her fate.

The architect of this scheme had been diabolically clever, using her reputation to trap her. For she had skirted the rules hemming in young ladies, earning the dubious distinction of being a dashing miss teetering on the edge of respectability, a reputation for which her brother, mother and chaperone had all chided her.

She’d never meant to become a byword. But she’d found the rules so silly and restrictive! Why such a fuss that she’d once escaped Miss Price’s care and slipped down Bond Street to get a view of White’s famous bow window? ’Twas morning, she’d explained when she rejoined Verity and her furious and chagrined chaperone, with no club members going in or out…though someone must have recognized her, Marcus later grimly informed her, for the news of her unauthorized visit had become the latest gossip in the men’s clubs by nightfall.

Nor had she foreseen the furore that would result from her agreeing to race her curricle in the park early one morning against a famous Corinthian who also happened to be a friend of Hal’s she’d known since childhood. So, they’d scattered a few ducks and attracted a following of amused gentlemen and excited urchins. What harm was there in that?

Frowning, one by one she ticked off the series of small misadventures which had led to exasperated remonstrances from Miss Price about the deleterious example she was setting for Verity and increasingly irritated lectures from Marc about compromising her respectability.

Taken all together, she could see how the sum had been enough to position her like an apple ripe for the falling when her unknown enemy had struck. After hearing her angrily declare before the ball that if Anthony didn’t care about pleasing her, she’d show him that other men did, Marcus wouldn’t believe she hadn’t knowingly gone to meet Lord Barwick in a foolish and disastrous attempt to inspire her fiancé with jealousy. And with Hal far away, only Marc had possessed the power and the means to track down the true mastermind behind the scheme.

Anthony’s scornful words about not taking to wife a woman other men now looked upon as a common doxy still made her skin crawl with humiliation—and bruised the heart that had believed in the affection he’d avowed.

Even during his angry tirade after the event, Marc had not threatened to banish her forever. But with her character ruined beyond redemption—for even if she eventually convinced her brother to prove her innocence, the Carlow family was powerful enough that there would always be those who’d whisper the earl had simply paid well to redeem his wild daughter’s reputation. No, Honoria had decided the day she quit London that whatever her future might hold, she would never return to London Society.

What would she do with herself? Helping the Methodist-leaning vicar with his school for girls might do for now—but what of the future? That unresolved question still filled her with a sickening uncertainty.

Quickly she squelched the now-familiar panicky feeling stirring in her breast, submerging it in the same dark place as her memories of that awful night. True, she still had no idea what she going to do, but she wouldn’t tease herself any further about it at the moment.

Perhaps in the same ‘later,’ when the whole episode no longer made her feel so humiliated and hopeless, a reviving anger would come, and with it a compulsion to finally discover who or what, beside her own naïveté and vanity, had brought her to this. For now, she pushed that speculation aside like the lump of glass in her pocket.

Like she should her curiosity about the man who, so soon after her disgrace, was already tempting her to forget that no man could be trusted.

She’d just turned from the harbour to set off for the vicarage when she heard the woman’s scream.

Chapter Eight

The cry resonated deep within her…an echo of the one she’d heard issuing from her own throat that infamous night. Praising the Lord it was still full daylight and certain there must be other people about, she looked around wildly, trying to find the source of the scream.

Hearing a second cry, she looked down the hill toward the port and spotted a girl outside a small stone hut, struggling in the grip of one man while another loomed close by. The girl, she realized suddenly, was Laurie Steavens, little Eva’s sister.

Honoria looked quickly up and down the street again, but found it deserted. She might run back into the draper’s shop, the closest dwelling to the spot where she now stood, but could she persuade the merchant to come with her to the girl’s aid before the man holding her, with the help of his accomplice, carried her off?

Honoria didn’t think so. All the pain and anguish of struggling vainly in a determined man’s grip flooded back, and she knew she couldn’t simply turn away and abandon Laurie.

Wishing herself back on the beach where she might find some wrecker’s driftwood, or back in wooded country, where some convenient nearby tree might offer up a limb she could use for a club, after a moment’s hesitation during which she debated whether or not to proceed with no weapon at hand, Honoria charged down the hill.

There were only two men, she thought as she hurried closer, and there must be sailors about somewhere in the port below. If she halted a safe distance away and added her screams to Laurie’s, surely they could rouse someone to come to her aide.

‘You, there,’ she yelled as she approached. ‘Release that girl immediately or I’ll have the magistrate on you!’

Though the man didn’t loosen his hold, he did turn toward her. ‘What’s it to you, wench, if we want a little sport?’ he called back in slurred voice. ‘Prepared to pay ’er for it, ain’t we, Hal?’

The fact that one of the reprobates bore her beloved brother’s name incensed Honoria even further. ‘Since she does not appear to be interested in accepting your offer, let her go.’

The man called Hal, tall and skinny, squinted at her appraisingly. ‘Golden-haired gel looks mighty fine, Davy. How’s about I take her ’n leave you this one?’

The second man sounded as bosky as the first. In fact, he swayed on his feet when he turned, almost falling over.

If they were both cast away, a good shove on this steep slope might be enough to dispatch them. With no help yet in sight, Honoria took the chance of coming closer. ‘It’s the two of you that will be leaving. Come, Laurie!’ She darted to the side of the girl away from the ruffian, grabbed her other hand, and jerked hard on it.

The first man held on with surprising strength, while Hal lurched in her direction. ‘You come along, too, sugar-tit. Ol’ Hal’ll make you happy.’

‘Miss, step away afore they grab you!’ Laurie cried.

But Honoria hadn’t grappled in impromptu wrestling matches with her older brother for naught—sessions which would have earned her a vociferous scolding if Mama or her governess had learned of them. She might not have Hal’s science, but he’d taught her to give a fair accounting of herself.

So when the ruffian Hal got close enough for her to smell his liquored breath, Honoria struck him a right uppercut with as much force as she could muster.

She must have hit bone, for her fist hurt like the devil, while the ruffian went down like a felled tree. Taking advantage of the other man’s surprise, she tried once again to pull Laurie free.

But the second man was stronger than his friend—or held his liquor better. After a moment’s surprise at the fate of his accomplice, he snarled, ‘Nay, you’ll not take my woman, bitch.’ Tightening his grip on Laurie, the man swung one ham-like fist at Honoria.

Resting her weight on the balls of her feet like her brother had taught her, she easily dodged the blow. But then her attention was reclaimed by Hal, who was struggling to his feet with a roar of rage.

Suddenly, Laurie’s attacker was seized from behind by a man who stripped his hand from Laurie with a blow from one fist, smashed his chin with a crosscut left from the other, then pushed him backward down the steep slope. Howling, the man rolled over and over, landing against a rock some twenty feet below them.

Pivoting to face the crouching Hal, he snarled, ‘Need ye my attention, too, mate?’

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