Free Vanity by Jane Feather Page A

and distempered freaks, and I must confess I begin to find them irritating, not to mention insulting in the present instance. Whoever said anything about buying you?”
    “You want the phaeton, Nick?” Ben called before Octavia could reply to Lord Rupert’s exasperated question. “Freddy’ll ’ave it ready in a trice.”
    “My thanks, Ben.”
    “So they
do
have a carriage,” Octavia exclaimed. “I knew it.”
    “As it happens, it’s not for hire,” his lordship said. “It belongs to me, you see.”
    “You own your own carriage?” Incredulous, she forgot her earlier distress. “A common highwayman owning a carriage!”
    “Ah, but you see, Miss Morgan, I am no more a common highwayman than you are a common pickpocket. I thought we’d established that.”
    He drew an enameled snuffbox from his waistcoat pocket and flicked the lid. Taking her hand, he turned her wrist upward and delicately dropped a pinch of snuff onto the blue-veined skin. Raising her wrist, he took the snuff,his eyes smiling at her as he did so. “The scent of a lady’s skin enhances the delicacy most powerfully.”
    Octavia was again at a loss. She had the conviction that no lady would permit a gentleman such a liberty, and yet she wanted to meet his smile with her own.
    She was saved from having to respond by Freddy, who appeared from one of the stable buildings leading a pair of chestnut geldings harnessed tandem between the shafts of an elegant phaeton.
    “’Ere y’are, Lord Nick. Shiny in’t they? I groomed ’em for an hour last even.” The lad beamed proudly as the horses clopped over the cobbles. “Fresh they are, too,” he added.
    “They haven’t been out for several days,” Lord Rupert agreed, running a flat palm down the nose of the leader before going to the side of the carriage. “Miss Morgan, permit me to hand you up.” He held out his hand.
    Octavia could see no sensible alternative, although pride was a hard nut to swallow. She climbed into the phaeton, disdaining the proffered assistance.
    Lord Rupert followed her with an agile leap. “Let go their heads, Freddy.” The lad obeyed, and the chestnuts leaped forward toward the entrance to the stable.
    Octavia huddled into her cloak, covertly watching her companion’s profile as he steadied the horses and took them neatly through the narrow gates. She was disinclined for conversation, and, fortunately, Lord Rupert seemed content with his own thoughts until they’d crossed London Bridge and were once more in the town streets familiar to her.
    Her companion spoke as they drove up Gracechurch Street. “You must help me now, Miss Morgan. We came over London Bridge because I remembered Shoreditch, but I’m at a loss to know which direction to take from here.”
    “If you would take me to the Aldgate, sir, I can find my own way from there,” Octavia said. Regardless of the intimacies they’d shared in her strange trance, regardless of the knowledge that he too pursued a crooked course in the world, she didn’t want him to see the poverty of her dwelling.The highwayman’s life seemed far removed from the grim realities of her own daily struggles; indeed, he appeared to lead a life of luxury and authority in whatever guise he chose to present himself, and the contrast with her own circumstances was too mortifying.
    “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I believe I will take you to your door.”
    “And if I choose not to direct you, sir?”
    He cut her a sidelong look that to her chagrin was brimful of amusement. “Then I should be obliged to take such steps as to ensure your compliance, my dear.”
    Octavia wondered vaguely what such steps would entail. Whatever it was, she didn’t think she would enjoy it. She told herself firmly that she had no reason to be ashamed of her circumstances; the man was a highwayman, a common felon. She sat up with an air of determination. “Very well. But you won’t object to stopping first at the pawnshop on Quaker Street,