kind of fallen woman, even if she was somehow able to remain chaste.
So rather than leave her fate up to chance, Lucy had quietly slipped out of the inn while the innkeeper's back was turned and took the first road to the right that she'd seen, one a mere half a mile, or there abouts, from the inn. That road, she knew, based on her uncle's discussions with his coachman, led to Fairhaven. And that was where she would go.
Adam saw the small, slender figure trudging up the winding drive to Fairhaven before either Simmonds or Harry did, and he was out the door before either of the other men could react, heedless of the driving rain which was rapidly changing to snow. After his short, but rather bloody, conversation with the man, whose name Adam had learned was Ezekiel McTavish, or just Mac for short, who had come to collect the "package" from Archibald, Adam knew to expect a woman. A lady. The daughter of a peer.
Damn it all to bloody hell.
A well-placed fist to the nose had assured Adam of Mac's cooperation, especially when Simmonds and Harry had held the man down as Adam prepared to pound the flesh from his body a bit more. There was a reason Adam was called the "Devil Duke," and it wasn't entirely because of his way with the ladies.
Adam had grown up quickly after his father, the previous duke, had died when Adam was a scant nine years old. As the eldest, he'd learned early that strength, both physical and mental, was essential for a peer of his stature. Too many people, even family members, were out to take what they didn't earn, and that included other members of the aristocracy, especially those who thought they could prey upon the insecurities of a young, green noble suddenly thrust into power. By the time Adam had reached the ripe old age of fourteen, the ton had learned that no one tangled with the young Duke of Enwright and escaped without some type of injury, be it mental, physical or financial.
It was, Adam reflected, too bad that Archibald hadn't learned that lesson as well.
Now, he was once more left to clean up his brother's mess. This time, however, the woman was still an innocent, or at least he assumed she was. That was more than could be said for the last one.
As Adam ran through the rain to intercept the woman, he was quick to note several things. First, she was tall, much taller than any of the London chits he'd been introduced to previously, though there was a slightly familiar air about the way she walked, slow as she was moving at the moment. The second was that she was blessed with a woman's curves, which, given the way her soaked clothes clung to her wasn't too difficult to see. Last, and certainly not least, was that she was thinner than her fame suggested she should be, indicating that she would most likely be prone to illness if kept out in this weather much longer.
He could tell the moment she caught sight of him because her steps faltered for a moment and she stumbled a bit, though she did manage to catch herself on one of the trees the lined the drive. He also saw her eyes widen, probably in fear, as most women did when they first saw him. There was, unfortunately, no help for that. His looks were what they were and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about them - not that he normally wanted to. Still, it would have been nice if every woman of his acquaintance didn't flinch in fear when she saw him.
Adam St. Vincent was not a small man. In fact, he towered over just about every other Englishman he'd ever met, owing, he always figured to his Italian heritage. His mother had been from Genoa, a scandal of the highest order in his father's time, and while the taint of "foreign blood" had eased over time, one look at Adam made it clear that his bloodlines were not completely English. In the rainy darkness, with his clothes plastered to his body and his dark eyes unreadable, he imagined he looked rather worse than normal. His assumption was