The reluctant cavalier (4 page)

She made a moue of discontent. "Oh, heavens, Parsifal, it was not anything to be concerned about!"

"Really? 'Your voice, the grace of your body, and your sweet lips are enough to make me your slave.' Oh, and wasn't he going to find out something about them?" He smiled mockingly. "I doubt he was going to dance with you."

Caroline turned a bright red. "You know nothing!"

"I know one thing, Caroline: You are going home this instant." He grasped her arm, but she pulled away.

"No! It is not even time for the unmasking yet! Only a few more minutes!"

Parsifal took her arm more firmly. "I think not," he said. "Our dear mother had me accompany you for a good reason—so that you would not compromise your reputation, which you would have done had I not been here."

"You have been spying on me!"

"Had I been spying on you, you would not have left the ballroom with your—admirer." He pulled her toward the door.

"How hateful you are!" she spat.

Angry heat flashed through him. Parsifal grasped Caroline's shoulders and stared into her eyes.

"Silence!" he hissed.

His sister stared at him, openmouthed. A strange feeling, almost like elation, flowed into him.

"You will leave now. I will order the carriage. You
will
get in it and go home. If you do as I say, I will not tell our mother how you almost compromised your reputation."

"You odious—"

"And if you don't..." he said, his voice turning low and hard.

Caroline's eyes grew wide. She laughed nervously. "I do not know why you are making such a fuss." She shrugged and put on a careless air. "It is nothing to me if we leave early, I am sure. I daresay I would have been bored anyway—especially if you are going to be so stuffy about it all."

"I am glad to hear it," Parsifal replied coolly, and pushed her out the door before him.

As he called for the carriage, he shook his head. He was surprised how easily Caroline had gone along with his insistence that she go home. He'd been prepared for arguments and hysterics, or at least loud protests, but while she grumbled as she stepped up into the carriage, Caroline did not throw any tantrums. He shut the carriage door.

"What? Are you not coming with me?" Caroline asked, looking at him in surprise.

"No," he said. "I would rather walk than listen to your complaints and grumbling."

"But—!"

"Be quiet!And if I hear you have been up to your tricks again, I shall make sure you suffer for them, believe me!"

Caroline cast him a subdued look from under her eyelashes and subsided into the coach. Parsifal signaled the groom to leave and watched them go down the road back home. He would ask tomorrow a horse from Lord Laughton—he knew Laughton's stable well, for he'd often talked with him about the merits of various horses they'd bought, and had borrowed each other's mounts as well. He liked to walk, but it was late, and he wanted to be up early in the morning for his usual swim in the lake as well as to attend to some estate matters he had taken on lately.

It was an easy matter to borrow a horse from Lord Laughton. His lordship, still costumed as a Turk, had retired to his library with a glass of brandy, his feet comfortably ensconced in a pair of slippers, and reading a book. He looked over his spectacles as Parsifal entered, then smiled when he pulled off his mask.

"Damn if you don't look just like your grandfather. Almost sent me into an apoplexy, looking at you." He grinned at Parsifal's grimace. "Stopped by for a chat, have you?"

"I fear not, sir," Parsifal said, shaking his head regretfully. "My sister got on my bad side this evening, so I sent her home early. I lost my temper, and did not want to go home with her, listening to her complaints."

Lord Laughton waved a dismissing hand. "You should have just gone down to the stables. Haller has known you since you were in short coats and knows better than to deny you a mount." He cocked a grizzled eyebrow at Parsifal. "Your sister got on your bad side? Didn't think you had one."

"I seemed to have developed one all of a sudden." Parsifal shrugged.

"Hmph. Just as well." Laughton closed his book and leaned back in his chair, gazing at Parsifal in a considering manner.

Parsifal gritted his teeth. "You too, my lord?"

"You know me better than that, my boy, so there's no need to get your feathers ruffled. But you've often told me how that sister of yours is too hot at hand and it won't make matters any better if you let her step all over you."

"I do not think it matters what I say or do," Parsifal replied lightly. "She does not listen to Geoffrey, either, or my mother much."

"Hmph," Lord Laughton said again. "For all that your brother has a sharp tongue oft him, your sister knows he doesn't give a damn for anything she does."

"Well, if she knows he doesn't, why doesn't she keep Geoffrey's company instead of mine?"

Lord Laughton grinned widely. "Lord, boy, don't you know the girl's ways yet? If she pesters you to take her to all her parties and such, it's because she knows perfectly well that you
do
give a damn for what she does. Gives her leeway to do what she wants, because she knows you'll stop her before she gets in too deep. I daresay she'd be in the doldrums if she thought you were like Geoffrey."

Parsifal could not help feeling a little gratified at the thought. His influence over his sister was small, however, and the memory of Caroline's incessant taunts and trouble-making made him roll his eyes in exasperation.

"God save me from sisterly affection, then!" he said.

Lord Laughton gave a crack of laughter. "Eh, so you say! But I tell you, Parsifal, if you were my son, I'd be glad of your good sense and care for your sister. Dependable— that's what you are—and it's a damned sight better thing to be than some flighty rogue."

Parsifal felt his face grow warm at the compliment, then smiled slightly at his old friend. "I thank you, sir. I shall try to keep that in mind."

The clock struck the half hour, and Parsifal looked up at it, startled. If he wanted to leave before the unmasking, he should go soon.

"Need to catch up with your sister, eh?" Lord Laughton said. At Parsifal's nod, his lordship waved at him to go. "Take any of the horses—or no, not Thunder. Strained his hock the other day. Dancer's good, or Lightfoot."

"You are very good, sir."

Lord Laughton smiled widely. "Not at all. I've been meaning to try that new bay of yours for a sen'night now. I might just stop by tomorrow to take a look at him."

Parsifal grinned in return and gave a low bow. "By all means, my lord." He heard a last crack of laughter from Laughton as he left the room and donned his mask again.

His grin faded as he strode down to the stables. Dependable, Lord Laughton had called him. Dependable—and dull. Oh, his old friend would never say that, and probably did not think it, but Parsifal knew that dullness was only the other side of dependability. He need only look at his older brother to see that. His mother called Geoffrey a scapegrace, but Parsifal thought it an understatement. Perhaps it would have been different had their father been alive to guide him, but then Parsifal had heard his father's youth had not been much different. Geoffrey had more than one bastard child living near their estate, a well-known fact, but he was still considered a choice matrimonial prize, and invited to all social functions in Bath and in London.

Parsifal had not cared one way or another, for he'd been content with his duties, his gardening, and roaming about the estate. Yet now there was Annabella Smith, and he had kissed her. Really, it would be best if he tried to put her from his mind, but he could still feel the kiss he had taken from her on his lips, as if he'd done it only moments ago.

He grimaced. What an idiot he was to wish for something he'd not likely get.

He entered the stable and went up to Dancer, a gray mare, who nickered softly and nibbled at his pockets. He laughed and pushed her nose away. "Later, girl. I have no treats for you right now."

He saddled the mare himself, not wanting to waste time waking the undergroom to do it for him. Dancer chomped at the bit and moved her feet impatiently, and Parsifal smiled. The mare was as lively as her name, and though he knew Lord Laughton kept his cattle well exercised, she was always eager for more.

The night was clear, the moon full, and despite the late hour, Parsifal did not feel like catching up with his sister's carriage. He was sure she'd be safe, for his mother always insisted on an armed outrider even on short trips, and even though the roads around their home were fairly free of vagabonds and highwaymen. He'd arrive home in about an hour, he was sure, perhaps sooner, for Dancer was eager to go faster than the mere trot at which they were traveling.

Other than the crickets and one or two coaches, the night was silent, and it calmed him. Parsifal supposed it had been a rather upsetting evening—not upsetting, actually, but unsettling. He wondered again what made him act so impulsively tonight. Perhaps the problems he'd been having trying to drain the west field had put him in an irritable humor. He sighed. More likely, it was his preoccupation with Miss Smith. Certainly she had been on his mind—

A loud shot exploded from just around the bend in the road, and he heard shouts and the neighing of horses. Parsifal's hand tensed on the reins, and his throat tightened.

"Stand and deliver!"

For one moment Parsifal sat, frozen, as an odd calm came over him. He took in a long breath.

His hands dropped the reins, he dug his heels into the Dancer's flanks, and the mare plunged into a thunderous gallop. As he came around the road's curve, he could see a coach and four in front of him, and a dark figure upon a horse. Moonlight glinted off the barrel of a gun in the highwayman's hand. Shouts and loud sobbing came from inside the coach.

Hot exhilaration burst in Parsifal's chest, and he laughed aloud. The highwayman's head jerked up. The wind whipped the hair from Parsifal's face, and he could feel his cloak flapping behind him. He rode faster, closer. He could smell fear in the air, see it in the man's rigid form. He laughed wildly again and pulled out his sword.

Only one flicker of astonishment passed through his mind before a ruthless joy consumed it. There was nothing, nothing better than this—the wildness and the pounding hooves beneath him, his heart pounding hard within his chest. He smiled savagely.

"Oh God, oh God!" moaned the highwayman, his voice hoarse with terror. He pointed the gun at Parsifal, and a loud shot rang out. It missed, missed by miles.

The wind whistled before him, and Parsifal's sword struck the gun from the man's hand. The man cried out and desperately tried to ride off, but Parsifal grasped his reins. A swift punch to the jaw, and the highwayman fell, senseless, to the ground.

"By God!"

Parsifal turned to see an elderly man almost tumble out of the coach. By the moonlight he could see it was Lord Bowerland. The man walked toward the unconscious highwayman and peered at him. Parsifal could still hear faint shrieks from inside the coach.

"Heh! I was hoping he was dead, but having him knocked out cold is almost as good." The old man squinted at Parsifal. "Do I know you, sir?"

The hot frenzy that had come over Parsifal faded, and a cold panic seized his throat. He could say nothing, but only stared at Lord Bowerland.

The old lord took a step back. "You ain't a ghost, are you?"

"No," Parsifal managed to say.

"Well, whoever you are, I am in your debt. And if you'll stop glowering at me and come down from your horse, I'll be glad to shake your hand."

His face heating with mortification at forgetting his manners, Parsifal dismounted from his horse. He hadn't meant to glower; he hoped that Lord Bowerland wouldn't hold it against him. He was known to be a testy man.

His lordship grasped Parsifal's hand and shook it briskly. "Damned glad you came around when you did. I nearly thought—"

"My savior!" shrieked a feminine voice, and a plump form threw itself in front of Parsifal's feet. "You
saved
us from a savage monster! You saved our
lives!"
 

"Now, now, Edna!" Lord Bowerland said testily. "There's no need to go into alt—"

To Parsifal's horror, the woman cast her arms around his knees and sobbed.

"I thought we were at the point of
death!
And my jewels! He would have taken my
jewels!"
 

A small, less appalled part of Parsifal's mind reflected that a few jewels taken from the bounteous mass of chains and pendants upon Lady Bowerland's bosom would have made little difference in decorative effect. But her renewed weeping and clutching at his knees wiped the thought from his mind and moved him to struggle valiantly from her grasp.

"Deuce take it, Edna! You're embarrassing the man!" Lord Bowerland said. Parsifal's face flamed hot at the mention of it, and he pulled harder away from her.

With a last tug he was finally free, and he quickly mounted his horse before Lady Bowerland could clutch his knees again. She knelt and put her clasped hands over her heart.

"Thank you! Thank you, oh noble sir!" she cried.

Parsifal thrust his heels against Dancer's side and galloped off as if fleeing the hounds of hell. The full force of what he'd done hit him, and he groaned. Had the highwayman's aim or gun been better, he could have died. What was worse, he would have deserved it, for he'd not thought at all that his actions might have put Lord and Lady Bowerland at risk—the highwayman could have shot
them
in his fear.

His face grew hot under his mask. God, how damnably stupid he was! He remembered how Lady Bowerland had clutched his legs in theatrical gratitude, and he groaned again in embarrassment. He wished to heaven he'd never stepped out of his house this night.

And then he remembered he'd agreed to come to the Bowerlands' card party the next day. Parsifal let out a despairing moan. Lady Bowerland was a terrible gossip. She'd speak of this incident, surely, and he'd have to listen to her speculations and those of her guests the whole evening. He would be fighting blushes and sweating hands just hearing it, and he was certain he would make one mistake after another at cards because of it.