He was sorry open warfare had broken out. But Lucas knew that now that the battle lines had been drawn, he could not give in and allow Victoria her own way or there would be hell to pay in the future.
Life had changed drastically for both of them. He had to make her understand that. They had future generations to think about now, not just their own lives. An estate such as Stonevale was meant to be held in trust for one’s descendants. It was an investment in the future, not just the present.
Those descendants would carry Victoria’s blood as well as his own, Lucas told himself. She had as large a stake in this land as he did. Neither of them could continue to go on in the rather reckless fashion they had indulged before the marriage.
Good God. He really was starting to sound quite priggish.
For all either of them knew, the next generation of Colebrooks might be on its way. The image of Victoria growing round and ripe with his babe sent a savage thrill of satisfaction through him.
Lucas scowled again, thinking of how she had pushed a very heavy object in front of her door. He could not allow her to do that sort of thing, not now when she might be pregnant. She belonged to him and he would take care of her whether she liked it or not.
But first he had to find a way to breach her bristling defenses. Lucas thought of the cacti in Lady Nettleship’s garden and smiled. Then he went to the wardrobe and took out a shirt and a pair of breeches.
Victoria saw him the moment he appeared on the ledge outside her window, a dark, dangerous, masculine shape against the silvered night. This was no nightmare image. This was Lucas. She knew now she had been waiting for him.
It was inconceivable that he would let a little thing like her dressing table lodged against the connecting door stop him. She sat up and hugged her knees as the dark figure on the ledge opened her window and stepped into her bedchamber. He was fully dressed.
“Ah, so it was the dressing table,” Lucas remarked calmly, glancing toward the connecting door. “You really should not be moving heavy objects about like that, my dear. Next time ask for assistance.”
“Will there be a next time?” she asked softly, aware of the challenge that hung between them.
“Probably.” He paced forward to stand at the foot of her bed. “I fear we are destined to quarrel occasionally, my sweet. Given your reckless ways and my lamentably dull, plodding ones, it is inevitable.”
“Dull and plodding is not how I would describe you, Lucas. I think the terms ‘arrogant, domineering, and stubborn’ suit you far better.”
“And priggish?”
“I regret to say it, but yes, priggish is beginning to suit you nicely.”
He wrapped a hand around the bedpost and smiled ruefully. “’Tis a relief, of course, to know you do not think so badly of me, after all.”
She tensed. “Lucas, if you believe for one moment that you can sneak in here in the dead of night and claim your husbandly privileges, you are wrong. If you try to get into this bed, I will scream the house down.”
“I doubt that. You would not want to humiliate either me or yourself in front of the servants. In any event you sadly misjudge me, madam, if you think I would be so foolish as to deal with your temper in such a fashion. But, then, I have warned you before that you have a habit of underestimating me.”
She eyed him warily. “What do you plan to do?”
He glanced away from her, looking back over his shoulder to where the open curtains rippled in the night air. “The night beckons, madam, and you have always been one to answer the summons. Have you ever gone riding at midnight?”
She stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“Never more so.”
“You would take me riding at this hour?”
“Yes.”
“This is a trick, is it not? You are trying to disarm me, trying to make me forget my anger at your high-handedness.”
“Yes.”
“You do not even deny it?”
He shrugged eloquently. “Why should I? ’Tis the truth.”
“Then I should refuse your offer.”
His wicked grin flashed in the shadows. “The question is not should you, but can you?”
He knew her far too well, she realized. She chewed thoughtfully on her lip. Going with him was no capitulation. She would merely be taking advantage of a glorious opportunity for adventure. Riding in the moonlight. It sounded wonderful. Besides, although her headache had disappeared several hours earlier, she had been unable to get to sleep.
“You will get the wrong notion if I choose to accompany you,” she said.
“Will I?”
She nodded grimly. “You will think I have forgiven you for your recent treatment of me.”
“I am not so foolish as to think you would forgive me so easily.”
“Good. Because I will not.”
“I understand,” he said gravely.
“You are not to view it as some sort of surrender.”
“You make yourself quite clear,” Lucas assured her.
Victoria hesitated a second longer and then leapt out of bed and dashed to the closet to find the breeches she had worn on their midnight adventures in London.
“Turn around,” she ordered as she tugged off her nightclothes.
“Why? I have seen you naked several times now.” He lounged against the bedpost, arms folded across his chest. “And I have been curious to see how you go about getting into a pair of men’s breeches.”
She glared at him and carried her clothing across the room to where the privacy screen stood. “You are no gentleman, Lucas,” she announced as she went behind the screen and began struggling into the breeches.
“You would be bored by a gentleman. Admit it, Vicky.”
“I admit nothing.”
Ten minutes later, wearing an amber scarf around her throat and a hooded cloak over her breeches and shirt, Victoria stood outside the stables with a bridle in her hand and watched as Lucas quickly saddled her mare and a sleepy-looking George.
“I only hope I do not live to regret this,” Lucas said as he handed her up onto her mount.
“It is too late for second thoughts.” She picked up her reins, enjoying the rare freedom of riding astride. “And I like you best when you are going against your better judgment, Lucas. Let us be off.”
“Slowly,” he called after her as he swung up into the saddle. “It is the middle of the night, Vicky. Have a care where you guide your mare. Stick to the lane.”
“But I would like to ride through the woods,” she protested.
“I cannot be certain all the mantraps have been removed yet,” he told her. “So we will stay on the road.”
She was feeling too exhilarated to argue further. Just being out on horseback in the moonlight was ample adventure for now. She turned her horse toward the main drive and George fell good-naturedly into step beside her mare.
There was silence for several minutes as they walked the horses beneath the canopy of trees that lined the approach to Stonevale. Lucas spoke eventually.
“I have been talking to the vicar about planting some more trees. Oak or elm, perhaps. The timber would be an excellent investment for our children or our grandchildren.”
“Lucas, I do not wish to speak about investments of any kind tonight,” Victoria said rather forcefully.
“What about the future? Would you like to talk about that?”
Her hands tightened on the reins. “Not particularly.”
His voice gentled. “Has it occurred to you that you might even now be carrying my babe?”
“It is not something I want to think about.”
“Do you find the subject so terrifying, then? I am surprised at you, Vicky. You are no coward, of that I am certain.”
“Did you bring me out here to discuss your heir, my lord? Because, if so, we may as well turn back now.”
He was silent for a moment. “Do you hate me so much that you do not even want to bear my child?”
“I d
o not hate you,” she stormed, feeling pressed. “That is not the point.”
“I am greatly relieved to hear that.”
Victoria sighed. “I simply do not want to talk about your heir tonight or any other night until we have settled this matter that stands between us.”
“The only thing that stands between us is your pride and your fear of losing your independence. Does it make you feel any better to know that you are not the only one who is no longer free?”
She slid him a sidelong glance. “You are referring to yourself, sir?”
“Yes.”
“You seem free enough to me.”
“Look around you, Vicky. I lost whatever freedom I enjoyed the day I inherited Stonevale. I am tied to this land and my responsibilities to our descendants for the rest of my life.”
“And you are a man who will always fulfill your responsibilities, regardless of what comes.” She studied the road between her mare’s ears, thinking about her own words.
“I will do my best, Vicky, even when some of those responsibilities are not to your liking. But I would have you remember, even in the midst of our battles, that what I do, I do because I truly think it is best for us and for our future. I do not set myself against you lightly.” He smiled. “Believe me, it requires far too much effort to do battle with you for me to waste my time and energy on minor skirmishes. I much prefer to indulge you whenever possible.”
She was indignant. “Indulge me? You think you indulge me? You have a vastly overrated opinion of your own actions, my lord.”
He motioned toward their midnight surroundings. “Look around you, my dear. What other man of your acquaintance would drag himself out of a warm bed at this hour merely to entertain you?”
She felt a grin tug at her mouth. There was something about being out with Lucas at this hour of night that always had a euphoric effect on her senses. At the moment she could no longer even summon up the hot anger she had nursed all day. “Well, as to that, my lord, I am not precisely certain just what other men of my acquaintance would humor me so. I have not had a chance to do a proper survey, you see. Perhaps if I started asking about, I would turn up one or two other noble types who would indulge me in this minor fashion.”
“If I catch you doing such a survey, I will see to it that you do not sit a horse comfortably for a week.”
Her amusement faded at once. “So much for your indulgence, my lord.”
“I have limits, madam. And I fear you must learn to tolerate them.”
“I have a dressing table I can continue to push in front of my door every night,” Victoria warned.
Lucas smiled confidently. “The ledge that leads from my window to yours is wide enough to provide a safe path, even on moonless nights. But I warn you, madam, if you oblige me to use it in foul weather, I cannot guarantee to be in a particularly indulgent mood by the time I arrive at your window.”
“But you will, nevertheless, arrive at my window?”
“You may count on that, my sweet. It is as certain as sunrise.”
Victoria risked another sidelong glance and saw that he was watching her with eyes that reflected the moonlight. Her whole body responded to the irresistible power he held over her. He wanted her and he made no effort to hide it. It gave her a sense of her own power and it also made her light-headed with excitement.
At that moment her horse nickered softly.
“Lucas, I …”
“Hush.” He reined in his horse and reached across to halt her mare. His sensual flirtation had turned to acute alertness.
Instinctively she kept her voice low. “What is it?”
“It seems we are not alone out here,” he said. “Hurry. Into the trees.”
She did not argue. Obediently she followed his stallion into the woods at the side of the road. They sat watching the moonlit lane from the shelter of the trees.
“Who are we hiding from?” she asked very softly.
“I’m not yet certain, but I can think of only one other person who might have business at midnight on this road.”
“The highwayman.” Victoria was suddenly breathless. “He has not left the district, after all. Lucas, how exciting. I have never seen a real highwayman.”
“For which you should be very grateful, madam. I suppose I have no one but myself to blame for the fact that you might see one now.”
Victoria heard the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves in the distance. A moment later a dark figure riding what appeared to be a bulky-looking plow horse rounded the bend. The highwayman was dressed in a somewhat tattered-looking black cape. He had a scarf across the lower portion of his face.
As he came down the lane Victoria saw that he was impatiently kicking his horse’s rounded sides. The rider’s urgent voice carried clearly on the night air.
“Hurry it up, ye good-fer-nothin’ nag. Do ye think we’ve got all night? That carriage will be here any minute now. Move, damn your fat sides.”
The horse continued to plod stolidly along until the rider turned it and guided it into the woods on the opposite side of the road.
Victoria realized that she and Lucas were trapped on this side of the road. They could not move out onto the lane until the highwayman, or whoever he was, chose to leave the vicinity. Beside her, she thought she heard the softest of disgusted oaths from Lucas. But before she could catch his attention to see how he intended to get them out of this fix, the rattle of coach wheels shattered the stillness.
It seemed they were to be a witness to the local highwayman’s latest piece of business.
A few seconds later the coach, a staid old vehicle pulled by an equally elderly team, rounded the bend in the lane and rumbled forward at a stately pace.
The highwayman urged his horse out of the trees and into the middle of the road. He brandished a large pistol.
“Halt,” he yelled loudly. “Stand and deliver.”
There was a startled cry from the coachman, who immediately began sawing on the reins to pull the slowly cantering horses to a halt.
“Here now,” the coachman called uneasily. “What’s all this?”
“Ye heard me, man. Tell your passengers to stand and deliver or it’ll be the worse for all o’ ye.”
Lucas sighed. “Well, we cannot have this sort of nonsense going on around here. Stay right where you are, Vicky. Do not come out of these trees until I call you out. Understood?”
She realized he intended to halt the robbery. “I can help you.”
“You will do no such thing. Do not move from this spot. That’s an order, Vicky.”
Without waiting for her response, he removed a pistol from his pocket and rode out onto the lane behind the highwayman.
15
“That’ll be enough of that now. Hand over the pistol before someone gets hurt, lad.” Lucas’s voice was the amazingly calm and overwhelmingly commanding one he used only rarely but always to great effect. It was definitely a tone that compelled instant obedience. Victoria was impressed in spite of herself.
The highwayman whipped around in his saddle. “What the devil …? Damme, who are you? This is my coach. Go find yerself another one. I got no intention o’ sharin’ it with the likes o’ ye.”
“You misunderstand, lad. I don’t want the coach. I’m in another line of work myself. Now hand over the pistol.”
“Who be ye?” There was a quaver in the highwayman’s voice now. “Who be ye, mister? Ye cannot be the ghost they been sayin’ ‘as come back. Ye cannot be.”
“The pistol, if you please.” Lucas sharpened his tone just slightly and the pistol was instantly dropped into his outstretched palm. “Wise lad. Now let us see to the passengers.”
At that instant the coachman, no doubt under the impression he was suddenly facing two highwaymen instead of one, saw his chance and leapt from his box, sprinting for the bushes.
A piercing scream rose from the inside of the coach as one of the passengers apparently looked out the window and realized the coachman was abandonin
g his charges.
The team of horses started violently at the shriek of dismay and leapt forward, reins flapping wildly.
“Bloody hell.” Lucas made a futile grab for one of the horses as the coach surged past him.
In that instant the highwayman saw his opportunity and drove his heels violently into his plump mount. The animal bolted in fright and broke into a heavy canter down the road in the opposite direction in which the coach was going.
Another scream soared through the open window of the coach. Victoria saw Lucas turn his horse to chase after the coach and she wasted no more time. The vehicle was much closer to her than it was to Lucas now and the highwayman was clearly bent on escape.
She urged her mare quickly out onto the road. “I’ve got it, Lucas. Don’t let him get away.” She cantered her mare up alongside one of the elderly coach horses and reached down for the reins. The animal began to slow immediately as if vastly relieved to be back under human control.
“For God’s sake be careful,” Lucas yelled. But it was obvious the coach had already come to a safe halt. He spun his horse around in the other direction and went after the lumbering plow horse.
Victoria patted the sweating neck of the coach horse and glanced back in time to see that it was going to be no contest between Lucas’s blooded stallion and the farm horse. The highwayman did not stand a chance.
She collected the reins of the coach horses and pulled the hood of her cloak back up over her head so that her face was in deep shadow. “It is all right,” she called to the missing coachman. “You can come out now. You are in no danger. Take charge of your team, if you please, my good man.”
An elderly, diminutive woman wearing a turban stuck her head out the coach window. “Good heavens, you’re a female, ain’t you? Whatever is the world coming to allowing women to run around in the middle of the night in breeches? You should be ashamed of yourself, young woman.”
Victoria grinned. “Yes, ma’am,” she said in her demurest accents. “My husband holds much the same opinion as yourself.”
“And just where is your husband, pray tell?”
Victoria nodded down the road to where Lucas was leading a dejected-looking highwayman back toward the coach. “That’s him there, ma’am. He’s caught your highwayman for you.”