Chapter 1

At crack of dawn the next day a coach sped away from Rothgar Abbey as fast as the overnight snow would allow. Inside, Damaris prayed that they'd not be caught in a drift. Briggs, her guardian's coachman, had dourly predicted that they'd not get far, and if they did it would snow again and stop the journey, but she'd poured out guineas until he agreed.

Being one of the richest women in England had to be useful for something.

What if she was pursued? The crunch of her coach wheels and the pounding of the horses' hooves blocked any sound of pursuit—or perhaps she was deafened by the pounding of her own frantic heart.

"It'll come to disaster; I know it will," Maisie prophesied, for perhaps the twentieth time. Twenty-five-year-old Maisie was plump, plain, and generally merry, but today every line of her round face curved downward. "How're we going to get all the way back home without being caught, miss?"

Damaris would have screamed at her except that Maisie could be the only friend she had left in the world. "I told you. We only need to reach the London road and buy tickets north. I'm twenty-one. The Mallorens can't drag me off a public stage."

Maisie's grim silence said, I wish I were sure of that.

Damaris felt the same doubt. The Mallorens seemed to be a law unto themselves, and her guardian, Lord Henry, was a tyrant.

Perhaps they wouldn't care. Perhaps they'd be glad to see the back of her.

The coach swayed as it turned out of the park of the abbey. It was probably irrational, but she felt relief at no longer being on Malloren property.

She began to look ahead. She would switch to a public coach at Farnham, then in London buy tickets north. Once back at Birch House…Her vision ended there. She had no idea what she'd do then. She'd probably be back in poverty, because her father's will allowed her guardian to withhold her money if she didn't live where he said and do as she was told. She would hate it, but she could survive with little. And it would be only until she was twenty-four—

Movement in the corner of her eye made her whirl to her right.

A rider thundered by her window. Fine horse. Fine rider. Wild blond hair flying in the wind.

Fitzroger?

No!

He cut off her coach. It shuddered to a halt and the coachman said, "Trouble, sir?"

The reply came in that crisp, cool voice that had tormented her for days. "I need a word with Miss Myddleton."

Maisie moaned. Damaris wanted to. Instead of a means of escape, the coach now felt like a trap.

Fitzroger rode to the window and looked in. He was always plainly dressed, but now he looked the very picture of a vagabond. His blond hair curled loose about his shoulders, his shirt lay open at the neck, and he wore no waistcoat beneath his plain blue jacket. He was as good as undressed!

His ice-blue eyes seemed…what? Exasperated? What right did Ashart's penniless friend have to be exasperated with her?

Damaris let down the window, but only to lean out and call, "Drive on, Briggs!" Cold air cut at her. Briggs, plague take him, didn't obey.

Fitzroger grasped the edge of the window frame with his bare hand. He couldn't hold back the coach by brute force, but that commanding hand unnerved her, preventing her from raising the glass between them.

Bare hand. Bare neck. Bare head.

Copyright © Jo Beverley Publications, Inc., 2005.