“What the blazes?” Gard yelled, starting for the hall. Lilabette met him, coming down the stairs. She smacked him across the cheek, grabbed her fur from Annie, and flounced out of the door.
“What the blue blazes?” the earl repeated, rubbing his cheek, but Annie was already up the stairs before him. Following, he halted at the doorway to his chamber—his unused, unchristened chamber—to see Annie’s black-clad derriere sticking up from under the bed.
Bemused, he asked, “What the devil are you doing?”
“Mice” came back the muffled reply. “Maybe that’s what frightened her.”
So she slapped him? She must have hit him harder than he thought, for he was content for now to contemplate his housekeeper’s hind end.
Annalise meanwhile was staring at Mignon, but a Mignon she hardly recognized, with painted lips, rouged cheeks, frizzed hair, and a diaphanous nightgown. To her horror, this jezebel whispered, “I told her we’d share!”
Now Annie shrieked. The earl ran over, she jumped up, they bumped heads.
“What is it? What the deuce is going on? Mice, you say?”
“No, no. Just a spider. I was frightened when it ran over my hand, is all. I am sorry, my lord.” She looked around, making sure he noted that not a cover was out of place, everything was as it ought. “The lady must have seen it, too.”
So she slapped him?
*
After another excellent repast—this time he even got a syllabub for dessert—Lord Gardiner tried to relax on the sofa while Annie played. Relax? His body was as taut as a bow string! And all Annie was playing were jolly, lilting country songs. What the devil did she have to be so blasted cheerful about?
And by all that was holy, what in tarnation was happening to him? Once or twice in his later years he’d been disappointed in an assignation. Zeus, carriages broke down, women became ill. But every woman? Every night? Something was dreadfully, absurdly wrong. He’d get to the bottom of this tomorrow night or his name was not Ross Montclaire. If he didn’t, he’d likely slit his own throat shaving.
Gard was promised to his mother for Vauxhall Gardens the next evening. Surely he’d find a warm and willing companion down one of the dark walks there.
That comforting thought was all he had to take to bed with him that night, along with the refrain of Annie’s music.
Chapter Twenty-One
So, was his riding partner the missing heiress? Gard rather thought so. Rumors were starting to percolate around town, and while no one actually claimed to have seen Miss Avery, her description was on everyone’s lips. Tallish, a Diamond of the first water although recently ill, a superb horsewoman with golden hair and green eyes. The woman riding so handily next to him had silvery curls, from what he could see—perhaps bleached?—but that emerald habit had to have been created for a green-eyed wench. No one else suspected, it seemed, for once the Lady in Green was firmly established as his mistress, she was ignored by the ton.
The real coil was what he was going to do about it. The best solution, Ross told himself, was to marry the chit. Somehow the idea did not stick in his throat as it usually did. His mother was right, it was time for him to set up his nursery, especially after that last scare. And he’d never fall in love with any of the brainless twits his mother paraded past him with such regularity. At least this lady would not jabber his ear off, he considered, finding that he liked her quiet, reserved ways. Miss Avery’s breeding was not quite what an earl might consider, but the taint of a grandfather in trade was balanced by a grandfather who was a duke, albeit an unaccepting one. The merchant connection was also deceased, leaving Miss Avery a considerable fortune, both of which were frequent causes of memory lapses among society. The heiress might be his answer.
As for Miss Avery, her reputation would be restored and her deliverance guaranteed from whatever scheme that muckworm Thompson was plotting. And she’d be getting one of the premier bachelor catches of this and many a London Season. Yes, it would serve. Unless the woman at his side really was a Bedlamite, or had run away to join a lover, or was not the missing Miss Avery at all. The first thing to do was place the chit under his mother’s chaperonage, which would eliminate any chance of dalliance as well as calm the gossip. In truth, one did not wish one’s future countess considered fast.
“I am getting up a party for Vauxhall this evening, Miss Green,” he told her. “Many ladies there wear dominoes, even on non-masquerade nights. Might you consider attending with me?”
Annalise knew all about Vauxhall, thanks to Lorna and Mignon. How dare he ask such a thing of her after his promise of respect? She raised her chin in a gesture Lord Gardiner was coming to recognize as affronted dignity.
“With my mother, of course, as chaperone. No insult intended, ma’am.”
Annalise was astounded. “You would invite a stranger to sit with your mother?” she asked, trying to remember in her incredulity to lower her tone of voice. “What if I am not respectable?”
“I refuse to believe that. I think you must need some diversion, an evening of fun, no matter what hobble you are in.”
“Thank you. I should enjoy it, I think, but I must refuse. It would be too dangerous, and unfair to expose your mother and guests to possible unpleasantness.”
“Spoken like the true lady I know you to be,” he approved. “Perhaps you will reconsider when they hold a true masquerade there, just the two of us?”
She shook her head sharply no and tapped Seraphina lightly to pick up the pace. Gard stayed right beside her. “I do wish you would let me help you, my dear, whatever the problem is.”
“I cannot. But thank you. You have already given me a great deal of pleasure by accompanying me on my rides. I will understand if you wish to discontinue the association, however, since nothing can come of this. No other relationship is possible.”
“Deuce take it, I am not pressuring you into anything you dislike. I told you I would not. I am satisfied with your company, Miss Green.” For now, he told himself. “I am not a wild beast, you know, who needs a physical relationship with every female he meets.”
Annalise almost fell off her horse, which effectively cut the ride short.
Maybe she wasn’t the missing heiress after all, Gard thought.
*
Annalise rode home more frightened than she had been since leaving Sir Vernon’s house. Her reputation was already in shreds, no matter as a housekeeper in a rake’s house, or mistress in the same rake’s keeping. Everyone assumed the latter anyway, she knew, from the smiles she received when he was by her side and from the way the occasional lady out exercising her horse looked away when they passed. She had no future anywhere, except perhaps with Barnaby. There was nothing her aunt could do, either, especially not with Lady Ros’s own blotted copybook.
Her worst fear, though, was one that had kept her up all night and stood fair to muddle her dreams for many a night to come. She was sorely afraid that Mignon was correct, that besides losing all hope of happiness, she really had lost her heart to an unprincipled rogue.
*
Lord Gardiner did not have to seek a woman for the night among the frail sisterhood who haunted the Dark Walks of Vauxhall Gardens. One of his mother’s guests, the only female over eighteen in the box, was Mrs. Throckmorton, whose eyes smoldered into his over the arrack punch. Whose bare toes massaged his thigh under the table during the shaved ham. Whose hand—whose husband passed out before the fireworks.
Why wait to get to Bloomsbury? the earl conjectured. The small Greek pavilions were scattered about the place for just such occasions. Zeus knew, he’d used them often enough. But Mrs. Throckmorton professed that she was there to chaperone her niece, one of the beruffled belles his mother had in mind for Gard. Mrs. Throckmorton insisted on discretion, which was fairly impossible for his lordship at this juncture anyway unless he remained seated.
So he scribbled the Laurel Street address on a card and whispered that they should meet there as soon as he dropped his mother at
Grosvenor Square and she delivered her husband into his valet’s hands. “Oh, yes,” he added while another starburst went up. “Let me know if you notice anything peculiar about the place.”
*
Having arrived just moments earlier, Mrs. Throckmorton was taking sherry in the parlor, according to Annie, who took the earl’s cane and gloves, curtsied, and disappeared. For once she was acting the proper servant for the situation, Gard noted with relief, joining his guest.
The parlor was fine, too, he figured, eyeing the thick rug by the fire as Mrs. Throckmorton’s clever hands continued their explorations. But, “Why don’t you give me a minute or two before joining me upstairs?” she murmured to him, chuckling softly. “Hold the thought,” she cooed, “but not too tightly, mind.”
Those were perhaps the longest two minutes of his life, so he cheated. At the count of sixty Gard was up the stairs and on the landing outside the bedchamber, where Mrs. Throckmorton stood clutching her magenta dress together and screaming: “Peculiar? I’ll give you something peculiar, you unnatural animal!” And she kicked him.
At least he wouldn’t be wanting a woman for the next day or two, was his last coherent thought.
Annie stepped over the earl as he lay writhing and groaning on the wooden floor, with nary an ounce of pity for his plight. This time Mignon winked at her from inside the wardrobe, and bowed. Which was not inappropriate, since the grinning minx was wearing nankeen shorts, a schoolboy’s jacket, and a short, curly wig.
“Anything?” Ross managed to grit his teeth and ask when Annie stepped over him again on her way out.
“No, perhaps the colors clashed with her gown.”
* * *
One of Lord Gardiner’s more fervent prayers was answered the next morning. No, Annie did not get on her broomstick and fly away, and no, Miss Green did not send him a billet-doux begging for an assignation. Instead, it rained. It rained so heavily that there was no chance of a ride in the park, thus no need to try to explain why Lord Gardiner was not in the saddle. He stayed in bed.
By midday his dreams were of the emerald rider and the mare: the perfect conformation, the supple movements and muscular strength and stamina, the graceful neck. And he wouldn’t mind having the mare in his stable, either. Such dreams quickly gave rise to the conclusion that the good Lord obviously loved a sinner, for Gard suffered no permanent damage.
“Do we have an engagement for this evening?” he asked his mother over tea.
Hers must have had too much lemon in it, from the sour look the dowager gave her only son. “We were supposed to entertain Lady Barringdon and her granddaughter for dinner. The gel is a baroness in her own right, from one of those old landgrant titles that can pass through the female line, along with acres and acres in the Downs. They cried off for some silly reason.” She looked at him through her lorgnette. “You didn’t do anything to give ’em a disgust of you, did you?”
The earl couldn’t imagine what. “I’ve been a paragon of virtue. And I don’t even know the chit. Have we been introduced?”
The dowager struck him across the knuckles with her glass. “Scores of times, you clunch. A mother is always the last to know, but you must have done something terrible to keep Lady Barringdon from coming. The chit would have to be half dead before they’d give up a chance at a wealthy earl. Your father is not going to like this.”
Lord Gardiner was not listening, sucking his knuckles and already planning on how to spend his delightfully free evening. There was nothing he could do about the Avery business, but he could positively get to the bottom of the problem at Laurel Street. All he needed was a willing woman.
The first three courtesans he approached in the park turned him down. Two had prior engagements, one a permanent jealous protector. Felice, a one-time associate of Harriet Wilson’s, had an inflammation of the lungs. She cleared her throat a few times to prove it. At least the flower girl on the corner winked at him. How the mighty were fallen, he thought, considering the wench. She was pretty and reasonably clean, but he couldn’t do it. Instead, he bought all of her wares and had a boy deliver them to Felice with his get-well wishes.
Two of the actresses at Drury Lane slammed their dressing room doors in his face, and one of the chorus girls laughed at him for asking if she was busy. What was wrong? Had he suddenly lost his fortune and no one told him? He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a shop window as he walked down Bond Street. He still had all his hair and all his teeth. Had the world and all its females suddenly gone daft?
And speaking of females, where the devil was he supposed to find one for tonight at this late hour? A shopgirl, a tavern wench, a denizen of one of the finer bawdy houses? Was that what Lord Gardiner was reduced to? He was the one who was so fastidious, he had to invest in his own love nest! He was determined to have a bed warmer tonight at any cost, because he couldn’t think straight or keep his mind on the various intrigues that surrounded him. All he could hear was his own body’s insistent clamoring.
Then he noticed a woman, an attractive woman, staring into a millinery-shop window. She was dressed in the kick of fashion, and she was alone. She looked vaguely familiar, although Gard believed he’d last seen her wearing a ribbon around her middle—and nothing else—as she posed in his ballroom. The earl seldom forgot a pretty waist.
“Maudine, ma belle?” It was as easy as complimenting her taste in hats, assuring her no lady ever looked finer in that bird’s nest of a bonnet, and paying for same. As down payment, it was understood.
He did not send a message to alert the staff in Bloomsbury of his arrival; he did not send for Tuthill to fetch the lady. Gard handed her into his curricle, sent his tiger home, and drove across town himself, determined not to let the female out of his sight. Maudine sat stiffly, one hand nervously clenched around the seat rail, but she smiled gallantly at him and touched the feathers on her new bonnet when the earl reassured her they were not likely to overturn.
Annie was polite, to Gard’s surprise, despite the lack of notice of company. Dinner was undistinguished, mutton and kidney pie, served with a stony demeanor indicating this was the Tuthills’ own meal, and now Mrs. Tuthill was going to have to start over again. She’d most likely start with the ingredients purchased for his dinner, the earl surmised from her pursed lips. Let the staff eat lark’s tongues and pigeon’s feet, he didn’t care. Just let Maudine finish her raspberry trifle before he burst.
Just when she’d licked the last pink drop off her soft pink lips, just when he was about to lead her upstairs, Annie waylaid him with a message about a note being delivered. His mother came to mind immediately, right after Miss Avery. Gard followed Annie back to the door, where a small lad in short pants with brown curls and an oversize cap handed him a folded note in exchange for a coin. Gard started to open the message on his way to join Maudine then stopped with a curse. “Blast, this note is for a Lord Gortimer, not Lord Gardiner. You go on up, my dear, I’ll just bring this back to the housekeeper to get rid of.”
He met Maudine in the middle of the stairwell. He was going up, she was going down, fast. The wide-eyed look on her face made him pause. She raised her hand, he immediately took his off the stair rail to protect his privates. She put her hand to her mouth, gasping, “Don’t touch me!” The chit was petrified—of him! Gard automatically took a step backward. And toppled down the stairs.
He knew he was alive because he could feel the breeze where Maudine had left the front door open and because someone had placed a damp towel on his forehead. He didn’t bother getting to his feet in a hurry; there’d be nothing to see upstairs anyway.
So he missed watching Annie scurry around the bedroom stuffing whips and chains and manacles back into a cloth satchel.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You look like the devil. What happened, did the dowager light into you again for not coming up to scratch with one of her choices?”
“Cut line, Cholly,” the earl said as he carefully lowered himself into one of White’s
most comfortable chairs. “I do not wish to talk about it. I need a drink.”
“Ah, another rash,” his erstwhile friend concluded knowingly as they waited for the waiter to come take Gard’s order.
“No, I do not have another rash. I fell down the stairs in that blasted house you convinced me to let for the season.”
“What, Elphinstone’s little hideout? Mean to say the place is decrepit?”
“No, I mean to say the place is haunted!”
Cholly shook his head. “You’ve been getting some deuced odd notions lately, and daresay I’m not the only one to notice.” His round face cleared when the waiter brought a glass and two bottles. Cholly already had an empty one in front of him. “I bet the second bottle is a gift from Calthorpe, for winning his wager for him.”
Gard lifted his glass to the foppish Calthorpe, who bowed back from across the room in a flourish of lace. Gard wrinkled his aristocratic nose. “What wager might that be?”
“You needn’t put on that high-toned act with me, you know. It won’t wash. Thought we was friends, though. Least you could have done was let me have a hint.”
“Hell and damnation, Cholly, are you castaway so early in the night? What are you blathering about? I swear, I’m in no mood for anything to do with that queer nabs Calthorpe.”
“Devilish glad to hear it, old fellow, though I never believed half the—” He caught the earl’s lowered brows and changed tack. “Uh, the wager. You remember, I told you they were laying odds on the Incognita in the park.”
The brandy was not sitting well on Lord Gardiner’s stomach: “And?” he asked quietly, menacingly.
“And Calthorpe bet she was just some rich man’s exotic bird of paradise. He followed her back from the park yesterday when you were done with your ride. Seems she leaves her horse near Cavendish Square and gets in a hackney, which meanders around a bit. You’ll never guess where the hackney drops her, eh? You could have told me when I asked you, don’t you know. Pockets are always to let and all, I could have used the extra blunt. All you said was not yet! Fine friend, Gard, be damned if I let you have one of m’sisters after all. Not sure anyway, with all the stories flying ’round.”
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