The report of several pistols sounded behind the coach. There were shouts and the neighs of frightened horses. Honoria slid across the coach to the rear-facing seat and peered out the window.
Shite!
Behind the coach in which she rode came another coach. A man stood on top of that moving coach, a pistol in each hand, firing at the highwaymen. Her coach came to a sudden stop. Once more she was tossed to the floor. Men shouted. More guns fired. In that instant, Honoria found it all entirely too much to take. She began to laugh. All too quickly her laughter turned to tears. All she wanted was to spend the rest of her life with a man who would please her in bed and allow her to read naughty books. A man who would give her children and not expect her to be perfect. All she wanted was—
“Honoria! Honoria, are you here?” The coach door opened. Impossibly. Improbably. Her life had now become a naughty Gothic novel. Climbing into the coach and taking her in his arms, Leo kissed her. When she gasped for air, he kissed her again. She caressed his face and smoothed the windblow mane of his hair. She ran her hands over his shoulders and arms. He pulled back and gazed into her eyes.
“Marry me.”
She burst into tears. She sobbed and cried and could not seem to stop. Her hands dug into his biceps and still she wept.
“Think that’s ano, Captain. I owe the duke’s second footman half a crown.”
“Dickie?” she gasped. The boy peered around Leo and grinned.
“That’s my answer? Dickie?”
Honoria threw herself into Leo’s arms so forcefully she knocked him flat on his back onto the road. She kissed him soundly and sat up straddling him. “If you promise not to sell me to a pinchpenny Scot, or make me ride in a poorly sprung carriage, or have me kidnapped by highwaymen, and if you promise to shag me senseless at least once every day for the rest of our lives, then yes, I will marry you, Leonidas Atherton. Where’s the vicar?”
“I’d ’old out for twice a day, Captain.”
“Dickie!” Honoria shrieked and covered her face. She’d just saidshaggedin front of a child. Leo’s body shook with laughter beneath her.
“She needs to hold out for him to pay for all of her purchases atForbidden Pleasuresand the glovers if he keeps stealing hers.” Carrington-Bowles, a rifle in hand, stood over them and grinned. “Have a care with that trunk or I’ll turn the lot of you in to the magistrate.”
Two of the highwaymen lumbered by with her trunk and other meager possessions. She watched as they loaded them into the coach that had drawn up behind the duke’s sad conveyance.
“Did you say yes, my love?”
Honoria gazed down at Leo. “I knew you’d come for me. I don’t know how, but I knew.” She allowed Carrington-Bowles to help her up. “Yes, my love. We will be a horrible scandal.”
“For the rest of our lives,” he said as he swept her into his arms and carried her to the beautiful coach.
The duke’s coach and the highwaymen left in a hurry, headed north. In short order she was ensconced in a comfortable and luxurious travel coach wrapped in a warm blanket and Leo’s arms with a glass of wine in one hand and a ham sandwich in the other. Carrington-Bowles and Dickie sat in the rear-facing seat plundering a large hamper from Fortnum and Mason like two hungry pirates. She finished her food and drink and rested her head on Leo’s shoulder as the coach rumbled back towards London.
“I love you, by the way,” she said softly as their companions settled in to nap.
“Even if we have no money, no place to live, and must always travel in a borrowed coach?” he asked as he traced his forefinger over her face.
“Even then.”
“I love you too,” he murmured. “And if we were alone, I’d show you exactly how much, my Honoria.”
She placed her palm over his heart and leaned up to whisper in his ear. “If you tell me how you will show me very quietly, I’ll be more than ready when we arrive in London.”
“Youdolove a good wicked novel, don’t you, Honoria?”
“How wicked?”
“As wicked as you desire, my love. I am yours to command.”
THE END
EPILOGUE
April, 1830
Hyde Park
