To Pleasure a Duke (The Husband Hunters Club 3)

Lizzie closed her eyes and tried not to panic.

It had never been her intention to join Annabelle and Terry on their insane journey north. When she finally discovered what they were up to, it was too late to stop them. One moment she was standing beside Annabelle, arguing with her, begging her to see sense, and the next she was inside the coach with the pair of them.

It was a momentary madness, her decision to accompany them. At the time it made more sense to stay with her charge. At least then she could watch over and perhaps persuade her to turn back. Now she wondered what she could have been thinking. Would the duke commend her for such ramshackle behavior? More likely he would dismiss her without references and send her packing, if he didn’t send her to gaol instead!

What would her father say about that? This was no way for a vicar’s daughter to conduct herself. In every direction she looked Lizzie saw nothing but disgrace.

Perhaps that was the reason she didn’t want to open her eyes. What was the point in facing the situation she was in? No, she would keep them closed. Just a little longer. That way she could pretend she was still at Somerton, tucked up in bed, and everything else was a bad dream.

She reminded him of a cornered vixen, all huge green eyes and tangled curls, with her lips slightly parted. At any moment, he thought, she would take flight, escaping into the night. But she didn’t. Probably because she couldn’t.

“What are you doing here?” he said, his voice surprisingly calm.

She licked her lips like the wild and frightened creature he’d likened her to. He leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees, so that he could better see her in the gloom. She had a cloak on over the same dress she’d worn at the major’s house, but she looked windswept and her hem was muddied, as if she’d been running about the countryside. Perhaps she had. He wouldn’t put anything past her.

“Are you going to answer me, or will I stop the coach and throw you out?”

The threat worked. Her voice came in a breathless rush.

“Terry spoke to me about doing a bad deed for the sake of something good, for the sake of helping someone in need of help. I didn’t understand at the time. I should have. I see that now. I wish I had understood because I could have stopped him before this!”

“Yes,” he said grimly, preferring not to remember his own sense of guilt.

She bowed her head a moment as if she was accepting all the blame. “I want to come with you. I want to be there when you find them.”

Words failed him. He curled his lip.

“I know Terry has behaved foolishly but he doesn’t deserve to be . . . to be hurt.”

“Do you think I’ll hurt him?”

“I know you’re very angry with—with me. I don’t want you to take it out on him.”

“So because you have made a fool of me you expect me to revenge myself upon your brother?” he said. “What a pleasant opinion you have of me, Eugenie. Thank you very much.”

But she rushed ahead, refusing to apologize. “Whatever Terry’s done he’s still my brother, and he has not acted alone. He would never kidnap your sister against her will.”

Sinclair supposed she was right regarding his sister, although he preferred to imagine Annabelle as the injured party and Terry the villain. But if she imagined he was so lacking in self-control that he would take out his frustrations with her on her brother then she was . . . He paused. Well, perhaps she was partly right, but he wasn’t going to admit it to her. And he wouldn’t harm the boy, beyond perhaps a bloodied nose and a black eye, if it came to a punch-up when they were caught. Nothing like a bit of bare-knuckle fighting to clear the head.

“I’ll set you down in Torrisham and arrange for you to be taken home,” he said coolly.

She leaned forward until her face was only inches away from his, her eyes feverish and wild. “If you do then I’ll follow you. I’ll follow you all the way to Scotland if I have to. And I’ll tell everyone along the way what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Even as he said it he knew he wouldn’t put it past her to pursue him across the length and breadth of Britain.

“Wouldn’t I? You forget, I have my father’s ability to tell a good tale. By the time I’m finished the scandal will have spread from here to the border.”

He wanted to dismiss her words as bravado, but he remembered all too well the letter she wrote to her friends.

He had an insane urge to laugh. Last night at Major Banks’s supper he’d found himself drawn to her again, that insane need in him overcoming all that had happened between them. The intensity of his feelings had worried him. The last thing he wanted now was to be in her company day and night.

“What of your reputation, Eugenie? My sister’s is quite possibly tainted forever. Do you want to join her in ruination?”

Her green eyes gazed frankly into his. “My reputation did not concern you before. You were more than happy to lead me into ruination, as you call it. Why should you care now?”

“This is different,” he muttered grumpily, and threw himself back into his seat, feeling uncomfortable.

“Well, I don’t care about my reputation,” she said impatiently. “What matters is finding Terry and your sister and bringing them safely home. I want to help, Sinclair. You need not speak to me, if you prefer it. You can pretend I am not here. But I want to join you in this search. I could not bear to sit at home waiting—I am not that sort of girl.”