A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)(103)

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking out her skirts. “I told him to drive like the devil was on our heels. And I am a bit crisped at the edges, aren’t I?” She laughed. “It’s to be expected, I suppose. I spent my morning dueling a dragon. They haven’t called the election yet, have they?”

He shook his head no.

“Oh, good. Truly, I apologize for scaring you. I just had to speak with you right away.”

“Yes,” he said, still holding his hands up. “You, and several other people.”

He twisted his head from side to side, and for the first time since she’d driven into the square, Bel looked at something other than her husband.

Oh, my.

Here was her brother. And Lord Kendall. And a half-dozen men surrounding them all with guns. She took a startled step back, tripping over something that felt like a stick—not that she was going to look down to verify it.

“Toby?” she asked in a cautious voice. “What’s going on?”

“Well, you see—”

A big red-faced man poked Toby in the chest with the barrel of a musket. “What’s going on is that we have guns. And you’ll listen to us.”

“I don’t think so,” Bel said, turning to stare up at the man. “I’ve just traveled three hours by carriage at a thundering clip”—she turned to her husband—“and Toby, you know how I hate traveling by carriage.”

“Yes,” he said, flashing a gorgeous smile. “I know.”

She turned back to the man with a gun. “Anyhow, I’ve suffered through three hours of torment just to speak with my husband, and guns or no guns, he’s going to listen to me.”

“Bel,” Gray said in a low voice, “perhaps you should—”

“Dolly, please don’t take this the wrong way. But why are you even here?”

“I’ve been asking him the same thing,” Toby said.

“As have I,” Lord Kendall said dryly. “Perhaps we’d have received a more satisfactory answer if we called him Dolly.”

“Dolly?” A few of the men with guns began to snicker.

Bel clenched her hands into fists and dropped her gaze to the ground. Why was it that whenever she had something important to say, the people around her couldn’t stop laughing?

Her eyes caught on Toby’s walking stick, where it lay at her feet. That must have been what she’d tripped over earlier.

“Enough,” the red-faced man shouted.

The laughter ceased.

The man continued, “Beggin’ pardon, my lady, but Sir Toby doesn’t have time to listen to you just now. Sir Toby is going to make his way onto that hustings platform and make a little announcement. Or else.”

“Or else what?” Bel asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? Or else I’ll shoot him,” the man ground out, jabbing Toby again with the gun.

“Oh, please,” Bel said, rolling her eyes. “You’re not going to shoot anyone.”

“My lady,” he snarled, his face reddening further, “I suggest you go back to your—”

She never did hear that suggestion in its entirety. Bel crouched, grabbed Toby’s walking stick, and came up swinging. She smacked the oaf in the head with its blunt ivory knob, and he slumped to the ground with a thud, unconscious.

Bel yelled at him anyway. “I’m speaking to my husband, you … you … Oh, you’re not worth it.” She held the stick aloft and turned to Toby. “You were right. It does come in handy.”

“Yes.” A burst of laughter escaped him. “Yes, it does.”

She looked around at the other armed men, who had all lowered their weapons, seemingly bereft at the loss of their leader. Then she looked back down at the unconscious brute. “Did I truly just do that?”

“Yes, you did,” Toby said, coming forward wearing a smile handsome enough for the devil.

“And it was magnificent.” He took the walking stick from her hand and let it fall to the ground before folding her into his arms. “My God, Isabel, I—”

“No, wait!” She pushed away from him. “Toby, I came here to talk to you.”

“By all means,” he said, still smiling. “I’m listening.”

“I came here to say that I…”

He nodded encouragingly. “That you …?”

“That I’m so angry at you!”

His face shuttered. “Oh.” He shifted his weight, flicking a self-conscious gaze sideways.

“That’s what you’ve come all this way to say? That you’re angry at me?”

“Yes,” she said, her hands balling into fists. “Yes. You need to know. You need to see me for who I truly am. I”—she jabbed a finger in her chest—“am a woman who gets angry.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t. How could you? I didn’t see it until just today. I’m not selfless, Toby. I’m certainly no angel. And I can’t be mad. Didn’t you tell me, if you’re aware that you’re mad, you’re not mad?”

He nodded.

“Then I can’t be insane. What I am is angry. I get angry, all the time, in the most useless ways. I get angry at things I can’t hope to correct, like injustice and violence and oppression. I get angry at things years in the past—at my brothers for leaving me to grow up alone, at my poor dead father for being an intemperate lecher, and at my poor dead mother just for going mad. I get angry when people make fun of the old and infirm. I go positively livid when I see a maltreated child.”