“I don’t know. You’re the one driving backroads with a stranger. Again, I think you protest too much. It’s fine to be nervous. It’s lovely on a woman.”
She should focus on thelovelypart, but the condescending tone—that could have come from her father. “Fine. I’m stopping. I’m cold and I need to change.” Ester pulled to the side of the road. When the horses stopped, she flung the reins at Bex then jumped down.
He lit and held up the lantern. “Miss Croome, where are you going?”
She scooped up her bag and yanked out her carriage dress. “I’m going to put on this more sensible gown. It’s warmer, and I need a moment alone. You should understand that.”
“Oh… Well, don’t take too long or wander too far. Dawn is breaking, and your friend’s highwaymen could be about. We could be their last run before going to bed.”
Without a look back, Ester moved forward. She knew she was being ridiculous. She knew it, but the feeling that she could be marrying a man as patronizing as her father didn’t sit well.
In fact, it burned her inners. She went into the edge of the brush guided by the hints of orange from the rising sun. Mama would be arising soon, inspecting Nineteen Fournier for damage from her guests—a scuffed floor, a broken glass, a missing daughter.
Mama would be so hurt. Would this elopement cut her as badly as Papa’s love letters? When those notes had fallen from her mother’s fingers, there had been so much pain on her face.
The poor woman had expected a present, only to be gifted with the truth of her husband’s failures. If Ester had known what the letters said, she’d never have given them to Mama, never hurt her so bad.
But hadn’t Ester hurt her mother by eloping?
Ester stumbled over a root, her breath sputtering as she lunged against a trunk. Her irritation at Bex had been replaced with guilt about her own treachery.
She’d deprived Mama of a chance to fix things and the opportunity to throw a big wedding breakfast.
And she’d find out at full light with the scuffed floor, the broken glass, the horribly ungrateful missing daughter.
Ester was guilty.
She folded her arms to keep her heart inside. She loved Mama but couldn’t trust that she’d fix things. And if Papa hadn’t forced Ester’s hand with this betrothal to Jordan, she wouldn’t have had to elope. She and Bex could’ve courted normally.
But the elopement was Ester’s doing, not her parents. She’d chosen this path. She chose Bex. Whatever happened—getting caught, disgraced, or worse, a poor marriage betwixt strangers—the fault would be on her shoulders, hers alone.
Things would work out. Maybe Mama could offer a celebration once things calmed. More hopeful, Ester stretched then wiggled one button at her neck open, then a second, and a third of the lace caressing her neck. Satisfied, she slid off her shawl and laid it on a branch, then she began her dance again, wriggling to loosen the outer gown’s lacings. The pretty overgown fell but caught on a bush with thorns, a plant with spiky leathered leaves, emerald green like a hawthorn shrub, but taller. Ignoring the noises behind her, she picked her netting free, only being poked once. The bush found out she’d fight for what was hers.
Bex wasn’t hers but there was an attraction between them. At this point, the actor was all she had. And he was her choice, not Josiah Croome’s.
Scanning the trees behind her, she saw nothing and continued undressing. One shimmy and two shakes helped Ester climb out of the rest of her party gown. She was careful to save the brass pins that made the fit perfect. The pretty thing might make an excellent wedding gown, though she wondered how she’d ever get the pins in again without assistance. Bex wouldn’t help her into the gown but more so out of it, if she took his suggestive words seriously.
Standing in her chemise and corset in the middle of the lush woods, with the sunlight starting to spread, she felt naked. She wasn’t, but the richness of her garbs was armor, built by being Josiah Croome’s daughter. Would being Mrs. Bex offer the same protection?
Sighing, not crying, she slipped the carriage dress onto her shoulders, tugging until it fit properly at her bosom, covering it more discreetly than the sheer lace of the party gown.
Done. Warm, covered, and matronly in one of her old gowns from their life above the warehouse, when they’d had no servant to help dress. Collecting her things, she started to walk back to the phaeton, but stopped and covered her mouth to hide a scream.
Bex wasn’t alone. A man dressed in ebony held a gun to his head.
Chapter Ten
Highway Robbery
Arthur stared at the end of the gun. It wasn’t the first time his nose had been so close to the smell of gunpowder, the feel of the cold iron, but this wasn’t merely his safety at risk. Now he had Miss Croome to keep from danger. “I’ve no more gold,” he said to the fiend. “I’ve given you all my guineas.”
The bandit laughed. “There’s always more. Been trailing you since you stopped at the coaching inn. Your pace is too leisurely a speed for a poor man and the only man not in a hurry is a rich one.”
Miss Croome hadn’t come from the bushes. Surely, she saw the robbery and would stay in hiding. Perhaps the shyness he’d seen in her would surface and keep her from jeopardy.
Yet, something in his gut said that wouldn’t happen. He needed the fiend to flee before she took notice. “Look, you’ve taken what I had in my pockets. Be on your way. Surely, you’ve some other fool to rob.”
“Where’s the woman?”
