A Rag-mannered Rogue
Page 23
Nicholas relented.
“Step out with me, Tessie. I think I can hear Cal now.”
His ears, acute as always, had not misled him. It was Cal, with a widening grin when he noticed Tessie trailing the earl. His grin widened even farther when he heard a quick account of events.
“Orl right and tight, guv! I will whip off to the old sawbones quick as a trivet, then off on to Mr. Townsend wot is magistrate of these parts. Sure ye’ll not be comin’?” he offered generously.
Nick dryly remarked that he was perfectly certain. He had a great deal more important matter to bother with.
“What can be more important that securing a kidnapper and a Luddite charged with treason?”
“Step into this gentle night, Tessie, and I shall tell you.”
Nicholas’s tone was clipped, offering no immediate confidences. His hand negligently twisted Tessie’s curl. She had no idea how he had come by it.
They walked in silence, stopping only to untether Bess, who waited quietly but whinnied on seeing both his lordship and Tessie restored to her.
“Can you ride astride?”
Tessie was taken aback by the question. “Of course I can. Grandfather Hampstead . . .”
The earl grinned. “I might have known. Grandfather Hampstead. The fount of all wisdom! Hop on up. It will be quicker if we both mount.”
So Tessie, unwilling to disoblige Nick, and also rather pleased—in a thoroughly unmaidenly kind of way—to be so intimate with him, obediently mounted and put aside the fear that this would probably be the last moments of their great adventure. After that, she supposed, it would be off to Hampstead Oaks, to wait out the time before she came into her small inheritance. She would—could—think of none of that now. Her body was too close to Nick’s to permit any other thought. She closed her eyes, dreaming that this short moment would last forever.
It didn’t. She found herself in a clearing, close by the troublesome ditch. His lordship dismounted and bade her do the same.
“See that post? That scoundrel turned it so it pointed here, toward the ditch. Step in. I should like you to see something.”
Tessie, curious, dismounted with ease and trod gingerly over the grass. Nick was already in the ditch. Sitting, getting his town breeches dirtier yet. Mystifying. Tessie stepped closer, and felt a strong arm pull her toward him so that she tumbled, for the second time, into that long and deceptive grass. She was but inches away from Nick, and her traitorous heart started thudding quite ridiculously, for he had made his intentions perfectly plain. There was nothing between them now.
Then why was Nick looking at her like that, with his mouth so tantalizingly close? Why had he shifted his body so that it almost towered over hers? Why did he kiss her like he did, oh so excruciatingly slowly . . . ?
He stopped. “Tess.” The words were low and heart-stoppingly gentle.
“I love you. Can you hear me? I love you. I have ever since, I think, I saw you eat the strawberry trifle. Or maybe it was the cod’s eye. Your revulsion, I mean.” There was a peculiar, quirkish gleam in his eye, a bittersweet smile upon those masculine lips.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“Because I am a clothead! Or so my mother tells me, along with several other uncomplimentary terms! I thought you knew, Tessie. I was certain you felt the same attraction as I, the same passion, I could feel it. I naturally assumed you knew the other too. I couldn’t love you more, Tessie. Not if you were the most untroublesome creature in all of England.”
“Which I am not!” Tessie laughed. “Nicholas Cathgar, you have made me quite sick with misery!”
“Well, I shall now rectify that by making you quite the most dizzyingly happy young female. Yes, in all of the world. I can do that, you know.”
“Coxcomb!” But Tessie’s eyes were bright with happiness.
“Shrew! By the bye, how many gowns did you think you needed?”
Tessie gasped. “They were for me?”
“Of course. What other young lady is precisely the same measurements, height, tastes . . . oh, you must have known!”
“Not a thing, only that your bride had consumption.”
“Consumption?” Now it was Nick’s turn to stare.
“Yes. Consumption. Your mama, I am sorry to say, is a most undiscriminating liar!”
“But an extraordinarily bad one if that is all she could come up with! You look dreadfully woebegone, as usual, all covered in grime and hatless, but to say you are consumptive. . . well, now, that is the outside of enough! You are beautiful, a rarity, my brave little Tessie!”
“Could you possibly tell me the bit about loving me again?”
Nick grinned. “I suppose I shall have to get used to saying it a dozen times a day! If I don’t, Joseph shall leave my service, Mama will have my hide, and a brood of nosy sisters will pester on about it in countless letters that I have to frank—”
“Gracious! They didn’t!”
“They did indeed. Apparently, you have stolen many a heart, Miss Theresa Hampstead!”
“Only yours.”
“Stuff and nonsense! What about Christopher Lambert? What about poor Lord Alberkirky? He shall be our best man, by the way. Recommended to me a very interesting stable for sale. Had to forgive him, after that.”
Tessie’s eyes grew wide, “A stable?”
“Yes, close to the village of Greenford. Hampstead Oaks, you know.”
“You bought my stables?”
“Indeed. A wedding gift to you. Pebbles is already safely installed at my London residence. I infer your silence is happiness, not outrage?”
Tessie laughed. “How could it be? When it is the most thoughtful, glorious gift ever! I could hardly bear thinking of losing those horses. It has been a sad time.”
“It shall not be anymore. You shall have your presentation at Carlton House, and I have been meddling, I am afraid.”
“Meddling?”
“That is why I took so long to chase after you, my little baggage. I have been meddling in your affairs. Hampstead Oaks should be restored to its former glory by the summer. I met most of your tenants and dismissed Lawson, your land agent. I cannot swear he was stealing your profits but I suspect it. He was also consuming far too liberally of your grandfather’s best burgundy when I came upon him.”
“I hope you grabbed a couple of bottles for yourself, then. Excellent stuff!”
“You may gift them to me. I do not grab, Miss Hampstead.”
What a pity, thought Tessie as she batted her lashes like a hopeless little hoyden. Nicholas’s eyes sparkled, but he said nothing, merely pushing her back gently into the soil.
“My ensemble must be quite a sight!”
“It always is, Miss Hampstead! Thank God Mama did not stint on your wardrobe. The future Countess Cathgar must be impeccable, you know.”
Tessie groaned. “Oh, my God, it will take me a century to finish those clothes! I have lost more blood pricking myself with pins than I ever did out hunting, or shooting, or fishing, even, with Grandfather!”
Nicholas laughed, then kissed her nose, which she found very pleasant indeed.
“That shall naturally have to be remedied, of course.”
“How?” Tessie was curious but not particularly worried. The only thing that worried her just then was that Nick’s arm was free rather than cradling the nape of her neck. She rectified this situation boldly, which caused the earl to grin rather wickedly. She liked that grin—it suited his scar.
“How?” Nicholas echoed her. He traced his fingers over her lips. “How very elementary, my dear Theresa! We shall consign the whole goddamn lot to Madame Fanchon!”
To which Miss Tessie made no further comment other than to mention accessories like bonnets.
“Milliners,” murmured Nick.
“Gloves.”
“God, I don’t know! Miss Peeples of Bond Street! Now let me kiss you quiet, for heaven’s sake, and don’t you dare mention fans, lace, clocked stockings, or corsetr
y to me again. You shall have them all.”
Nick punctuated this remark with a gesture that Tessie found quite extraordinarily pleasant, though she was sure it was one Finchie—dear old Finchie, who was now Mrs. Moreton—would disapprove.
She mentioned this, between sighs of bliss, to her betrothed.
Nicholas nodded. “She is very right. It gets wickeder yet, I am afraid. You need a chaperone.”
“No, I don’t!”
“Yes, you do!”
“I do not, I tell you!”
Lord Nicholas Cathgar attempted something very salacious indeed. Tessie gasped, then blushed furiously. Nick, his breathing somewhat harder, looked smug.
“I am right, am I not?”
“Damn you, yes, but only until I am safely wed, and only because you are, you are . . .”
“A rag-mannered rogue?”
“I was going to say too devastatingly magnificent for your own good, but rag-mannered will do me fine.”
Nick laughed. “Let me help you out of this ditch. I have a better idea.”
“Better than a chaperone?”
“Much better.”
“You are not going to be all horribly . . . chivalrous, are you?”
“Certainly not! I have not waited all this time in direst agony to be chaste, my dear Miss Tessie!”
“What, then?”
“We are going straight back to the huntsman’s cottage.”
“To the villain?”
“No, to Cal.”
“To Cal?”
Tessie could do nothing more but echo the earl dumbly. She had no notion whatsoever about what he was on about.
“Yes. He should be arriving back soon. With the magistrate.”
And still Miss Hampstead, renowned for her quick wit, eyed her love blankly.
“What a goose you are, Tessie! It is taking you an age to figure out what I figured in just a minute!”
“If you do not stop talking in riddles, my lord, I shall not answer for the consequences.”
“Ah, that hot little temper of yours. I must learn to mind it. The point, my love, is that Cal is returning with Mr. Townsend.”
“Yes?”
“I do not believe he will think it amiss, my love, to marry us. After all, you are ruined again. You are out with a gentleman—and might I say, a notorious rake—past dark. There is hardly even a moon to redeem you.”
“How humbling. You say he will marry us?”
“I do not see why not. I posted the banns the day I paid you your wretched ten thousand pounds.”
Tessie gasped. “Nicholas Cathgar, you are the outside of enough!”
But Nicholas only laughed. He had grown used, he thought, to Tessie’s scolding. Fortunately, he thought he knew quite precisely how to silence her. He tested out his theory almost at once.
The silence grew wonderfully, scandalously long. Nicholas Cathgar, as always, had been perfectly right.
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