Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3)

by Pearl Darling

Mrs. Hobbs raised her eyebrows and waved a bunch of flowers at her.

  Pressing a hand to her chest, Melissa pointed a trembling finger at a small table on the other side of the hearth. “I… yes… put them there.” A hot flush started to rise from the bottom of her neck.

  “Is this your friend from your holiday?” Mrs. Hobbs asked curiously, her eyes bulging, making no move to put the flowers down. “I can see why you stayed with him as long as you did. What a fine…”

  Mrs. Hobbs dropped the flowers on the floor with a crash as Hades turned towards her.

  The sound of Mr. Hobbs’ pounding feet echoed down the hallway. “What is it, Sally? What’s wrong?” he called.

  “That man…” Mrs. Hobbs pointed at Hades with a shaking finger. “He’s the one that passed us the note from Melissa. Where she said she was on holiday but we know she weren’t! There must be something wrong. She ain’t been happy since she came back.”

  Mr. Hobbs looked hard at Hades. “It must be his fault.”

  Melissa shook her head. “Note?”

  Mr. Hobbs nodded vigorously. “This man here delivered it himself. Said he was an earl and that you were safe, but we know that weren’t true. Now look at him dressed in a servant’s outfit.” Mr. Hobbs pranced forward, his shoulders back and his fists up. “You beat me that time before, but this time you won’t be able to…”

  “Enough!” Melissa moved in front of Hades, who unhelpfully stayed right where he was, forcing her to weld her back to his front as Mr. Hobbs’ fists weaved through the air. Gracious the house has never felt so warm. Putting up a protective hand Melissa closed her eyes. “He really is an earl, Mr. Hobbs, so there is no need for the fists, and he is in a servant’s outfit as I would imagine his house and mine are being watched by the Viper.” She opened one eye as Hades twitched behind her. Ah. So she had hit a nerve with that. He hadn’t told her about his house being watched but it was a logical thing to do. Especially as the Viper had already tried to poison her in the earl’s household.

  She opened her eyes fully as Mr. Hobbs reluctantly dropped his fists to his side. Edging in a small circle, she turned to face Hades, her body brushing against him in every conceivable way. She was sure that he had shivered as she moved. But then so had she. Taking a step to the side, she fumbled for her glasses on the table behind her and stood straight again.

  Hades stared at her, his hands clenched into tight fists.

  Calmly, she clasped her own hands in front of her. “Now then, Hades. Are you very sure that you have told me everything?”

  CHAPTER 17

  The gate squeaked as Hades pushed it open with an irritated kick of his boot. The damn woman had had the nerve to treat him like a schoolboy. Have you told me everything? Pah.

  Of course he hadn’t. If he told Melissa everything he would no longer have the upper hand. It had taken a good amount of effort to tell her he was watching over her, and yet she had taken it as if he had used her as bait. Of course she had been, but she still should have been grateful.

  And she still hadn’t told him everything herself. Hades took a deep breath and shut the front gate to the Bayswater house more softly behind him. She was a worthy adversary. He had to admire her cool. She hadn’t been so cool when he had kissed her, however. But then, neither had he.

  Hades twisted at one of the buttons on his uniform, the embossed lion in the pressed bronze alternately facing towards him snarling, then running away howling as he jerked at the threads. Melissa said that she hadn’t found the book that the Viper was hounding her for. It was up to him to draw the Viper’s attention away from Melissa and onto himself. At least he would know that she was safe.

  He stepped over a clump of mud and brought his booted foot hard to the floor and stopped, looking back at Melissa’s house. He was still within eyesight. His hard step to the ground had jogged his memory. In the small pamphlet by Sun Tzu he had pulled down from his bookshelves, there had been another strategy that had caught his attention as he had been thinking about the Viper—something about snakes. Hades looked at his feet. And grass, that was it—‘stomp the grass to scare the snake’.

  He brushed back a hank of hair that fluttered against his cheek. How had the strategy been laid out? Do something ‘unaimed’ but spectacular… ‘hitting the grass’, that was it, to provoke a response from the enemy, ‘startling the snake’. He had to do something unusual and strange to arouse the enemy’s suspicion and disrupt his thinking.

  Hades straightened his shoulders. He knew just the thing.

  Thrusting his hand into his cloak pocket, he pulled out his large, leather-bound diary. Nobody else he knew walked around with a large book in their pockets, but he was so apt to lose his memory as to where he should be at any given time, especially when he was immersed in his books, that it was good to keep it nearby.

  Slowly, he turned in a semi-circle, his eyes sweeping slowly over the small town houses, looking up and down with darting glances as if trying to see if anyone were watching him. Facing back to Melissa’s home, Hades returned his attention to the book and traced the gold inlaid ‘Diary’ inscribed on the cover. He looked around furtively again, opened the book and began to read.

  After ten minutes of reading the very boring and short list of his engagements, he stopped and looked around again. He took one final look at his diary. Oh bloody hell—he did not even have to feign a horrified expression. He was due for Tea with his mother in half an hour on the other side of Hyde Park, not in the back streets of Bayswater.

  Closing the book with a snap, he thrust it back into his pocket and without a last look at the Bayswater house, strode as fast as he could to the stable where he had left his horse. His mother would kill him if he turned up smelling of horses and cigars.

  As he walked, his determination deepened. The Viper wanted a book from Melissa. Now hopefully, the Viper would believe that Melissa had given Earl Harding’s butler the book instead, and that Hades would find out what was in the book. No matter what the Viper did now, he would need to retrieve the book from Hades, as well as threaten Hades’ existence again which would mean approaching him directly. Then Hades would turn the tables on him, all the while keeping Melissa out of harm’s way.

  Melissa. His fast paced strides slowed as he turned into a narrow cobbled lane where the smell of horses hung heavily on the air. He should have told her to go away for a few days. Hades glanced back to the end of the lane. Would she even listen to him after that?

  No.

  Sighing, he picked his way around pails of water and sacks of oats. He would have to send her a note, as quickly as possible.

  His horse was brushed and ready to go in the small and scruffy stables that adjoined the cobbled road. The ride back through Hyde Park was exhilarating, despite the disappointment of having to slow down as they reached the cobbles of Mount Street. Hades glanced at the large villas on the left—so ostentatious with their large porticos and Grecian columns. No wonder Victoria lived here with her white barouche and unlimited amounts of cake. He loosened his hands on the reins as his horse threw its head in the air and pranced to a stop. The large knocker on the door of Colchester Mansions was very evident. Victoria was still in residence. Rubbing his hair away from his face with his knuckle, he jerked on the reins again.

  He’d planned on going to Brambridge at Henry’s invitation, to see if the Viper or his men would follow him. It was just the place to expose the traitor, a small, wild and windswept place with no alleys or rookeries to hide in. But damn it… what if Victoria was there too? She was, after all, Henry’s sister. Oh Gods. She might be the epitome of haut ton, but after he had kissed her and she had seen through him she would be merciless. He nudged at the horse’s flank. Hades was the one being birdwitted. Nothing was going to come between him and the Viper.

  The shadowy figure of a man hopping from foot to foot greeted him as he turned his sweating horse into his stables behind his house.

  “What is it, Carter?” Hades swung a leg over the ho
rse’s flank and dropped heavily to the floor.

  “Your mother is already here, sir!” Carter trotted forward into the light and pushed a pile of clothes into Hades’ hands. “Um. And might I add… she is acting very strangely.”

  Hades frowned and threw the clothes over the side of the stable stall. Carter had seen all of his mother’s mercurial moods and had never expressed them as strange before.

  “Where’s my cravat?” he asked, shivering as he pulled off of Carter’s cloak and hat. Bending forward, he shucked off the butler’s uniform into the hay and quickly pulled on a pair of breeches and stockings. With a click of his teeth, Carter pulled Hades’ shirt off the stall partition and shook it out, producing a pristine cravat from his waistcoat pocket.

  “Is she alright, my lord?”

  Hades looked up sharply, fumbling with the knot on his cravat. Surely Carter didn’t mean his mother? He sighed—of course not. Carter’s face was softly rounded in the half light of the stable, a puppy dog tilt to his head. It was definitely as bad as Arturo’s behavior.

  “Yes, she is well,” he said simply. No need to describe how Melissa’s hips had felt below his hands, the taste of her neck… “Here, Carter, please do my cravat.” Hades disgustedly let the knot fall for a second time.

  Silently, Carter tied the silk scarf in an expert waterfall design. Kneeling on the straw of the stable floor, he helped Hades pull on his boots and, with a last beseeching look, preceded him into the house.

  “The earl, my lady,” Carter said, his eyes almost closed as he opened the door to the front room.

  Dowager Lady Harding sat in the plump, red armchair by a roaring fire. Her back was ramrod-straight and her eyes as flinty as rock. She sniffed.

  “At least you have been out riding,” she said, “and not stuck with your head in one of your books again. You really must get out more.”

  If only she knew. There hadn’t been much time for reading his books recently.

  Dowager Lady Harding looked at him expectantly. A cup of tea sat in front of her, as well as a plate of biscuits and cakes. From the trail of crumbs on the floor, Hades could tell that Arturo was also somewhere in the vicinity; the little dog adored his mother too.

  Hades coughed and reached for a slice of cake, jumping back with a howl as with a large thwack his mother drew down her hand and hit his fingers smartly with a closed fan.

  “Not until you tell me what her name is!” she said, pushing the fan back into the depths of the red chair.

  Hades stumbled over to a functional chair that sat on the other side of the fire. It wasn’t as comfortable as the green chair in his study, nor his old leather chair that Melissa had taken over.

  “I can see you smiling to yourself.” Lady Dowager Harding stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Didn’t you think that your mother wouldn’t be interested in hearing about her son’s interests?” She shook her head, her white curls bobbing around her ears. “When I heard that you hadn’t been seen around and about in the ton for three weeks I knew something was up. You had been prowling around like a tomcat all year, upsetting all the ladies and the debutantes.”

  Hades put out his hands. “I…”

  Lady Dowager Harding wasn’t finished. “Yes, yes, I know you can’t help yourself. Your father was the same. Women fell over him everywhere and he had no idea how he did it. I am sure that he never even noticed them.”

  Two warm spots gathered at the top of Hades’ ears and his shoulders hunched. He was becoming thirteen years old again, hectored by his mother for forever having his nose in a book. Consciously he straightened his back. Really, one minute she was worried that he was being too studious, the other that he was acting like a full blown Casanova.

  “The War Office has asked me to look into something for them.” Tentatively he risked reaching for the cake again. “I have been examining ways in which to deal with the problem.”

  His mother gave a ‘humph’ with so much force that she spilled her tea. “Gracious, is that what they call it nowadays?” she asked, raising one eyebrow and pushing her teacup onto the low table next to her. “Lady Colchester was quite sure you had fallen in love.”

  Hades swallowed. If only he’d had the foresight to miss this appointment with his mother after all. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Lady Colchester told me over tea that you had met someone and you were being very secretive about it.”

  “How interesting.”

  “When I heard, I ran through a list of all the debutantes and widows that I knew were around this season and I have talked to them one by one this week. None of them know anything about your activities.”

  Hades stood and swallowed twice as he rang for me tea. His throat had turned to sandpaper and he was sure his mother’s unwavering stare was about to set his ears on fire. She would have made a good addition to the War Office. Oh God! Interrogating every single debutante and widow as to his activities—that was the end.

  “Hades? Hades!” Lady Dowager Stanton prodded him in the back with her fan. “Are you sure it is love? After Elsa…”

  “Don’t talk to me about Elsa.” Hades turned slowly and sat down again. “She was a woman who was out for all she could get.”

  His mother sighed and her expression cleared. “Thank goodness for that. I thought you were going to pine after her thinking that she was an angel for years and years.”

  “No, but what it has taught me now is to never surrender to another woman every again.”

  She gasped. “Hades! Have you still not understood what I have tried to tell you all along? In a good woman you will find happiness. I provided that for your father, why can’t you allow yourself to receive that from a woman? This woman, if she will grant it to you.”

  “It might be a little late for that now.” Hades shivered; the frosty silence and distrust on Melissa’s face as he had left through the front door of the house would have been enough to bring winter early. She had seen right through his machinations, and very probably, right through him.

  “So she does exist,” his mother crowed, flipping open the fan to waft herself in excitement. “I knew it. What is her name?”

  “Mother.” Hades ducked as the fan that had already hit him twice, threatened to do so again. “Please would you stop waving that fan around? You are making me nervous.”

  Lady Dowager Harding stopped wriggling in her seat and snapped the fan shut. “No matter,” she murmured. “I will find out by other means.” She stood and strode to the door leaving Hades open-mouthed by the fire.

  Carter opened the door with a tea tray piled high with a new teapot and some more scones.

  “I’m just leaving, Carter.” Lady Dowager Harding dropped her fan onto the heavy tea tray. “Kindly show me out.”

  In a slow jig, Carter danced round Hades’ mother and dropped the tea tray onto a low table with a crash. Hades winced as Carter rushed back to the hallway to open the front door.

  Lady Dowager Stanton stopped in the hallway and, with little regard for propriety, shouted back into the front room. “Are you sure you love her?”

  Hades buried his head in his hands as Carter gasped loudly in the hallway. He had no words with which to respond. As she sailed by outside the front room window, Hades shrank back down in his seat. A large unladylike grin was plastered all over his mother’s elegant face.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Melissa! Miss Sumner!” The shout across the park was unmistakable, and uncharacteristic for the normally demure Victoria.

  Little does the ton know. Melissa turned and gave the carriage that bore down on her a large smile. She had come to Hyde Park to clear her head, and to get away from the confines of the dark Bayswater house. Even the garden was beginning to wear her down. Everywhere she looked, she saw more tasks that needed to be undertaken.

  The white, showy, open carriage drew up to Melissa with a flourish, the two white mares that led it nodding their heads vigorously. She took a step back as the horses sidestepped towa
rds her.

  Victoria peered over the side. “Don’t just stand there like a goose. Get in!”

  The tiger that was balanced on the back of the elegant barouche nimbly jumped down and opened the door to the carriage to unfold a small set of steps.

  With only a small pause, Melissa ascended the steps; after all, what had she to lose? Victoria’s maid moved over slightly to allow her room to sit and gave her a shy smile.

  “I never normally come over this side of the park,” Victoria said with a flash of her perfect teeth. “But I am tired of being on show to the ton. They chatter so.” A dark look crossed Victoria’s normally unlined complexion. Her maid shifted uncomfortably on the cream leather seats. “Oh drive on, Oswald,” Victoria tapped her coachman irritably on the shoulder with a small hand.

  “This is lovely,” Melissa shouted as the wind streamed through her hair. Oswald had set the mares off at a blistering clip.

  “Isn’t it just!” The dark look on Victoria’s face cleared. She sat back, clinging on to the armrest as the seat bounced slightly on the well-sprung carriage suspension. “How are you, Melissa? Have you recovered from the events of last summer? I didn’t have time to ask you when you appeared so suddenly last week. You seemed so well, pressed.”

  “Things have been a little fraught recently.” Melissa looked forward and grimaced slightly. That was an understatement.

  “Is it your mother? Sorry—the woman who was not your mother! Has she found some way of coming back?”

  Melissa turned back to Victoria in surprise. “No. Not that I’ve heard. Hopefully she is rotting in a hot hell somewhere on the other side of the world.”

  “Hmm, that would be too good for her.” Victoria gripped on to the side of the carriage. “Oswald, slow down if you please. I can’t hear my friend speak over the clopping of the hooves!”

  Friend. Melissa hugged that to herself. It was good to have a friend.

  “I was meaning to invite you down to Brambridge.” Victoria gave a sigh of obvious relief as the horses slowed. “My brother is holding a house party and it would be lovely if you could come. None of us have seen you since last summer when Edgar died and we all know that business with Lord Stanton wasn’t your fault. You acted heroically, if you ask me.”