a duel, did you?”
“What, over Mrs. Hewitt?” asked Rob indignantly. “Faith, Jen, grant me more wit and judgment than that!”
Jenny shook her head, wiping the dirt from her fingers with her handkerchief. Although the name stitched on the linen was Corinthia, instead of her own—left from a highly profitable sojourn in Bath last winter when they’d posed as the Honorable Peter Beckham and his sister Miss Corinthia Beckham—she’d liked the Bruxelles lace edging too much to toss it away, even if it meant she’d kept the handkerchief far longer than she’d kept the name.
“So that is why we’re leaving now,” she said with a certain resignation, tucking the handkerchief back into her bodice. “So that you won’t have to defend your honor and Mrs. Hewitt’s virtue.”
None of this was, of course, anything new. Although Rob was twenty-five and clever as could be, he still had not one whit of sense regarding women, and if he continued to follow after their father, he never would. With his bright blue eyes and curling black hair, her handsome brother attracted the fair sex like flies to honeycomb. In that first glow of fliration he could always find some special feature or comely grace in every female he met, whether old, young or in-between. He was the most charming of rascals, for he honestly loved each new woman in turn, almost as much as they loved him.
Now Rob sniffed, wounded. “I’d always thought, Jenny, that you preferred to have me as a live coward, instead of an honorable corpse.”
“I do,” said Jenny quickly, patting her brother’s arm to reassure herself as much as him. “But I’d also rather you kept your breeches buttoned in the process. Now I’ll just have to pray that she didn’t pox you as a parting gift.”
“What could I do, Jen?” he asked forlornly. “The dear little widow played me false. If only she’d been true! You know I would have been as happy as the cows in that sweet clover near the inn if I could but spend the rest of my days with her in Bamfleigh.”
“You would not,” said Jenny matter-of-factly. “You’re just the way Father was. You like variety too much ever to be faithful. You’ll never stop your roaming.”
“For the right lady, I would,” he said confidently. “And you will, too, Jen, though with a gentleman, of course. You’re too young now, but I’ll wager five guineas that the first time you fall in love, you’ll be as moon-struck as every other Dell since Noah trundled down from the ark.”
“I’m nineteen, Rob, more than old enough to fall in love if I pleased,” she said wearily. This wasn’t a new conversation between them, either, nor was it one that Jenny particularly wished to revisit. “It’s more a matter of being sensible than too young. Just because I’m a Dell doesn’t mean I must be a ninny about men.”
Rob answered only with an incoherent grunt, and they fell into an uneasy silence that seemed to match the rocking haste of the chaise through the night. With a sigh, Jenny drew her shawl over her shoulders and propped her feet on the curved top of her trunk, letting both time and distance speed by in a leafy blur.
Rob would never understand her, or that she could want something different from life than he did himself. How could he know that the pastoral existence near the clover field that he’d described in jest was far more appealing to her than the charms of any mere lover could be? Her own snug cottage, a hearth that was hers without any fudging or dissembling: that would be her paradise. All her life she and Rob had spent roaming, first with her father and then by themselves, and wistfully she tried to imagine living in one place long enough to be able to call it home.
“I only hope, Jen,” said her brother at last, as if the conversation had been continuing all along, “that when you do fall in love, you have the decency to do it with some rich old codger who’ll put us both in his will.”
Jenny grumbled. “Oh, yes, so we’ll all three live happily ever after.”
“Don’t scoff, Jen,” said Rob easily, sorry proof that he’d been considering this all along. “It’s as easy to fall in love with a rich sweetheart as a poor one.”
“And don’t you scoff, either, Rob,” said Jenny sharply. She would flirt, and smile, and flatter, and beguile, yes, but she would not seduce, and though she’d yet even to attempt the last with any man, when she finally did, she wanted it to be because she loved him and not because her brother had told her he was rich. “I’ll play whatever role you wish, short of that. Didn’t we agree ages ago that I’d never be the bait for one of your codger schemes, not when I must—”
“Hush,” said Rob sharply, lowering his voice. He turned to look over his shoulder, his hair blowing back across his forehead. “Do you hear another horse behind us?”
“What, on the road at this hour?” She turned around, as well, holding on to the back of the seat as she peered into the night.
“It’s that infernal idiot grenadier, I know it, still looking for his satisfaction and my head.” He slapped the reins again, urging the horse into a faster pace. “Blast the man for being such a prideful idiot!”
“We must be close to the crossroads to London,” said Jenny, her heart racing as the chaise’s tall wheels rocked precariously over the rutted road. “Couldn’t we turn south, the way he wouldn’t expect us to go?”
“The devil knows what he’s expecting,” said Rob grimly. “But I don’t want him getting at you, too.”
“He’ll have to catch us first!”
“Which, given that he’s on horseback and we’re stuck in this ancient rattletrap with a hired nag, is entirely possible. Now, see that stand of trees beyond the next hill? I’m going to slow, and as soon as we’ve ducked below the hill, you’re going to jump out into the grass. You can hide in the trees and wait there, and I’ll come back and fetch you as soon as I’ve lost him.”
“I will not!” cried Jenny indignantly. “I’m staying with you, Rob, and I’m not about to go leaping like a frog from a running chaise!”
“And I say you will,” ordered Rob, concentrating on controlling the horse. “For your own good. You’d be a hindrance, pet. This idiot believes I have defiled his woman, and I don’t want to give him even the remotest chance to wreak his vengeance on you.”
Alas, Jenny understood. Most likely Rob could wriggle his way free more readily without her there in the middle. He’d done it before, and those other times, too, she’d been left or sent to wait elsewhere while he did it. She didn’t want to be a hindrance, nor, to be honest, did she wish to be defiled by an idiot grenadier, either.
“But what if he hurts you?” she protested. “What if you’re left bleeding somewhere? However will I find you again?”
“Because I always find you first, little sister.” He still smiled fondly. “Now come along, you’re only going to have the one chance. How different can it be from jumping out a window?”
“You’re a bully, Rob Dell,” she said, cautiously leaning over the side to gauge the drop to the ground.
“Only if you’re a coward, Jenny Dell,” he answered. “Which I know for a fact you’re not, being my sister.”
“What you should know, Rob, is that I’ll challenge you to a duel myself when this is done.” They were just cresting the hill, the chaise slowing as Rob had promised. She rose unsteadily in the swaying coach, slung her skirts over one arm, and bent just long enough to kiss Rob on the cheek. “God be with you, you ninny, and mind you keep yourself clear of that man’s pistols.”
Then, before she could be afraid, she jumped.
The ground came up harder than she’d expected, the waving grass not nearly as soft as it had looked in the moonlight. She stumbled forward and rolled twice from the force of her landing, then sat upright, gasping, to wave at her brother. Looking over his shoulder, he waved back, reassured, then snapped the reins. The chaise rattled off, over the next hill, and Jenny