Betsy helped her to her feet and took stock of her.
“Don’t you worry, miss. His lordship’ll catch the bastard and see him hanged for this.”
She let Betsy wrap her own shawl around Hannah’s shoulders, covering the bloodstain from the man’s broken nose, and they hobbled back to the pathway.
“You did real good, miss. We’ll get you sorted in no time.” In the sunlight, the little maid caught sight of Hannah’s fat lip, and her expression turned murderous. “I’ll kill him myself for laying a hand on you.”
Staff from the tea garden started arriving, and Hannah was whisked away to a private parlor and given a blanket and a bracing drink while she waited for Lord Courseclay to return with her assailant. Betsy guarded the doorway like a mother lion with a cub, refusing entry and doling out suspicious glares.
“What kind of place lets ladies of quality get snatched up in broad daylight?” the little maid muttered from her post.
“It’s not their fault, Betsy.”
“You don’t know that. Could be his lordship comes back with a groundskeeper or summat.”
In the end, Lord Courseclay came back empty-handed. The trail had let out onto an avenue, and he had been unable to track her assailant from there. It was decided that, under the circumstances, it would be best for her to accept Lord Courseclay’s offer of a ride home. In no time at all, she was bundled into his carriage and hurtling toward St. James’s Square.
“We’ll need to delay our plan for a few days. I don’t imagine I’ll be out and about much until my lip is back to normal,” she said into the silence of the carriage.
Rhone’s brother turned to her in disbelief. “I hardly think the plan signifies, under the circumstances. Ye’ve just been attacked.”
“I have, and it was awful, but it’s over now. Dwelling on it doesn’t seem very productive.”
He continued to stare at her before nodding respectfully. “As ye wish, Miss Howard.”
She leaned her head back against the upholstery and closed her eyes, anticipating the peaceful comfort of her town house.
* * *
Rhone had been watching for Hannah’s arrival ever since her carriage returned without her. The Bailey women had disembarked hours ago, the younger one looking a bit the worse for wear, but no alarm had been raised at Number Fourteen. Presumably, wherever she was, no one in her household was concerned. Which was all well and fine for them, but Gavan was concerned. She was undoubtedly still furious with him, and the woman could get into all manner of trouble when her temper was up.
A black coach bearing the Courseclay coat of arms pulled into the square, and Gavan cursed violently. He didn’t have time to play hide-and-seek with the Earl of Courseclay. What if Hannah returned while the man was lurking on his front steps? Hopefully Magnus would dispatch him in short order so Gavan could focus on the matter at hand. His half brother stepped out, looking as irritatingly pompous as ever, and turned back to hand someone down from inside.
At the first glimpse of Hannah’s hair, bent to clear the doorway of the coach, Gavan’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. It made a sickening sort of sense. Hannah’s attraction to him was undeniable, and everyone said the likeness between brothers was uncanny. Gavan doubted Courseclay would think any higher of her decision not to marry, but only an imbecile would turn down a woman like Hannah in whichever capacity she offered herself.
She stepped down with an unsteady lurch, and her mouth took on a tight smile. Her mouth. The swelling of her lip was visible, even from this distance. Gavan was through the entry and down the steps before it could register in his mind.
“You son of a bitch,” he growled, and he let fly his fist firmly into the bastard’s face.
“What in the—”
Gavan grabbed a handful of shirt and threw another left into Courseclay’s teeth. He slammed him backward, rocking the coach precariously, and delivered a solid blow to the villain’s gut. He couldn’t stop. If he stopped, he would have to think. Thinking would lead to knowing how much better off Hannah would have been if she had never met him. Instead, he rained punishment down on the worthless sack that had the audacity to strike her.
The red haze had him. When arms tried to grab him off, he struck out indiscriminately. They abated, only to return, and he was pulled back from his target. His surroundings returned to the realization that he was firmly, and painfully, immobilized by Magnus. Hannah was hunched over a profusely bleeding Courseclay, murmuring with concern. What on earth? He looked around, trying to make sense of that, and came in contact with the malicious glare of Ewan, also nursing a bloody lip.
Hannah turned and limped toward him. “What in the bloody hell is wrong with you?”
“Wrong with me? I was defending you.”
“By attacking the man who saved me from an assault an hour ago?”
Ahh. In retrospect, he probably should have realized Hannah wouldn’t meekly ride home with her assailant. “I thought—”
“Do not even attempt to claim thinking had anything to do with what just happened!”
Courseclay had attained his feet and moved closer, although he was still keeping a safe distance from Gavan. “It’s all right, Miss Howard.”
“It is far from all right!” The strain of the day’s events represented itself in her demeanor.
Gavan’s brother persisted. “It’s not the first time we’ve spilled blood, and for far weaker justification. I’d have done the same, in his position.”
“I don’t need your help, Courseclay.” Gavan struggled against Magnus’s hold.
“I know ye don’t, but ye have it all the same.”
Hannah stared them both into silence. “The fact that you’re both candidates for Bedlam is not, in fact, very comforting.”
Courseclay started to grin but stopped with a wince.
Hannah took a stabilizing breath. She narrowed her eyes, staring at Gavan as if she could see into his soul. “Lord Courseclay, if you are not critically injured, perhaps you should return to your home. Magnus, please release Rhone. I believe he will behave himself now.”
To Gavan’s great surprise, Magnus obeyed.
“Hannah, I’m—”
“Inside. Now,” she said, pointing toward her town house. “I think we’ve given the neighbors enough to gossip about already.”
Gavan wasn’t about to contradict her. Ewan fell into step behind him, poking at his lip gingerly.
“What happened to you?” Gavan asked his cousin.
“Yer boney bloody elbow happened to me, ye horse’s arse.”
Gavan smiled.
An earlier observation snapped to the front of his thoughts, and he turned around. Hannah had finished bossing the staff about and was slowly limping her way toward the door. She probably wouldn’t appreciate it, but he strode back and scooped her up anyway.
“Rhone!”
“You can scold me to your heart’s content once you’re inside.”
Gavan took the arms wrapped around his neck as compliance and carried her inside. He had always known she was tiny—the woman was the height of a large child—but he had never thought of her as fragile until that moment. Someone had attacked his hellcat. But for who knew how many variables, she could be lost to him right now. She shifted, and he realized he had tightened his hold on her.
“I’m safe now, Gavan.”
It was highly inconvenient that she could read his mind. A man needed to maintain some autonomy, else women would run roughshod over his entire life. He put her down on the settee and repaired to what he hoped was a distance less conducive to prescience.
The drawing room was soon overcrowded with Bailey women and household staff, all flurrying around Hannah with concern. When she was properly treated with cold compresses on her lip and injured ankle, which was now raised and resting on a pillow, she gently dispat
ched the staff.
“What on earth happened, dear?” Bailey’s aunt was perched on the arm of her niece’s chair, with a reassuring hand on the younger woman’s shoulder.
“If Courseclay didn’t strike you, then who did?” Gavan couldn’t look at her abused face without feeling rage rise up inside himself.
“No one struck me. I tripped over a root and smashed my face on a rock.”
That gave him a moment’s pause. How did one go about demanding satisfaction from a stone? “But you said Courseclay saved you from an attacker.”
“He did. A man grabbed me at the tea garden and tried to make off with me.”
Miss Bailey gasped, and the usually lighthearted Lady Hawthorne looked duly concerned.
“Right, then. Where is that man?” He communicated a look to Ewan, who had already set down his own cold compress and was preparing to depart.
“I don’t know.”
His diminishing patience must have been evident, because she continued with slightly more detail.
“He got away. Lord Courseclay was unable to track him once he attained normal thoroughfares.”
Of all the incompetent . . . “He laid hands on the man and managed to lose him?”
“Well, no. He never actually saw the attacker.”
Bedlam was beginning to sound preferable, compared to extracting relevant information from his fiancée.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning, dear,” Lady Hawthorne suggested.
After an extended recounting, full of meandering side commentary and very few helpful facts, Gavan had come to only one conclusion.
“So Courseclay didn’t save you. You saved yourself.”
“Nonsense. He called out and scared the man off.”
“Allegedly.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I find it highly convenient that he was gone just long enough for you to get nabbed, and the very sound of his voice was enough to send a hardened criminal fleeing empty-handed.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Lord Courseclay is an honorable man.”
“As if you can reasonably determine that. I’ve never met anyone with worse instincts for respectability.”
Oh Lord, he’d done it again. Hannah gaped at him with openmouthed fury. At least her injuries confined her to the settee.
Lady Hawthorne coughed discreetly and said, “Jane, Mr. Dalreoch, why don’t we go see if we can’t scare up a good reason to be . . . anywhere else.”
Their companions abandoned the field, leaving him alone to face off with his furious bride-to-be.
“There is nothing wrong with my instincts,” she hissed.
“Fundamentally, no. In terms of propriety, absolutely.”
“You are hardly the person to give me a lecture on propriety!”
“On the contrary,” he said, lifting a finger. “I know the exact location of the boundaries of respectability. I just choose to ignore them. That expertise makes me extremely qualified, whereas you do not seem to be able to identify their location at all.”
She searched the settee in vain for something to throw at him.
It was clearly time to get this conversation back on track. “Hannah, love, I do not wish to fight with you.”
“Do not call me ‘love.’ And you could have fooled me, with the way you’ve been slinging insults.”
Against his better judgment, he approached the settee. She immediately slapped him in the arm, repeating the gesture until she was flailing blows at him with both hands. When the tears came, he wrapped her up in his embrace and pulled her into his lap.
“You’re safe, love. You got away. Everything is all right.” He held her to his chest as the sobs shook her body. There was no one braver than Hannah. Gavan wanted to kill the man who had made her afraid.
After a long while, she sniffled. “Do you really think I have bad instincts?”
“Yes, but it’s part of what makes you so appealing.” He kissed the top of her head and fished a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket.
Chapter 14
This Season, ladies and lords, trouble is spelled with a capital H. The titillating Miss Howard is back in the spotlight. It was fisticuffs again in London’s most fashionable square, but this time Miss H. was not a combatant. A new arrival from the North, Lord Courseclay, was the unfortunate recipient of our beloved Rhone’s incensed fury. The incident occurred shortly after Miss Howard was seen exiting Lord Courseclay’s carriage. Could there be yet another vying for Miss Howard’s heart? If so, the love triangle we reported on earlier is beginning to look more like spokes on a wagon wheel, with the delicious Miss Howard at the center.
Hannah tossed the scandal sheet into the fire as she reread the letter that had accompanied it.
Dearest Hannah,
I am so sorry I won’t be able to meet for tea as we had planned. My uncle has taken a turn for the worse, and John and I are making all haste for our country estate to see to his comfort. I have so enjoyed your company, and I hope you will write me until we can resume our visits. In the meantime, I will take what amusement I can find in the exaggerations of your adventures that continue to find their way into print. I have enclosed the latest from two days ago, which was most diverting.
Yrs,
Catherine
That one she kept, slipping it into the pocket of her dressing gown.
“You should make a box,” Jane said from the doorway. “For mementos from your first Season.”
“That’s a wonderful idea.”
Since the day of the attack, things had been strained between them. The suggestion was the first real overture Jane had made that wasn’t directly related to Hannah’s welfare. Hannah searched for a response that would erase the tension of the milliner’s shop incident, but Betsy entered with the mask and gown for the evening’s entertainment, and the moment was lost.
“I’d best be getting ready myself,” Jane said.
Hannah wanted to stop her, but she still didn’t know what to say. Lacking any better option, she turned her focus to the dress.
She would never tire of Madame Baudette’s exquisite creations. In concept, the gown was simple, but the effect was stunning. Unbroken midnight blue silk made up the skirt and bodice. A thin, fine net of alternating silver and gold was laid over the top and trailing down the back, with diamonds sparkling from the intersections. Instead of making the sleeves out of silk, the Madame had crafted them solely out of the netting. Worn, it looked like cosmos against an inky backdrop, with untold galaxies trailing from her arms and train as she walked.
The mask was asymmetrical and loaded down with what must have been every sparkling white, gold, and silver gem in all of England. Madame Baudette had said it would be the shooting star, to streak across her night sky in a blaze of light. Hannah adored it. Its unapologetic vibrancy reminded her of the gig Rhone had given her for her first gift. She let Betsy pull her hair back, leaving dark curls loose around her face to further contrast the mask’s bright reflection.
Preparing for the Thornton masquerade was a bit intimidating, knowing Catherine wouldn’t be there to help her navigate the social pitfalls. She would have to rely on what she had learned and hope for the best. An added element of nerves came from the fact that Lord Courseclay would also be attending. Hannah was not entirely certain how Rhone would react when they came face-to-face, especially in light of his repeated insistence that Courseclay was behind her attack.
In the two days since the incident at the tea gardens, Hannah and Rhone had reached a cease-fire of sorts. He hadn’t taken back his hurtful claim that she had no instincts, and she doubted he had changed his opinion of her decision not to marry, but she realized it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to change her mind about marriage, and he couldn’t stop her making her own decisions. He was entitled to his opinions, but that
was all they were. He didn’t have the power to force them on her, and beyond vocalizing them, he hadn’t attempted to try.
What he did have the power to do was make her feel better. Hannah was hardly over the attack, but when she was with Rhone it didn’t seem nearly as frightening. It felt manageable, fixable. He held her, made her laugh, made her roll her eyes with his ridiculousness, and that was what she needed. It would be nice if he understood and supported her values, but, for the time being, she would settle for his company.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay home, miss?”
“And waste this gorgeous costume? Never.” Hannah’s words were more confident than she felt, and Betsy saw straight through them.
“If you mean to go, then at least take something to ease my mind, miss.” Betsy sat down on the edge of a chair and hauled one side of her skirts up. She loosened a thick ribbon tied around her thigh and came away with the knife and scabbard it had been threaded through.
“Betsy. It was just a desperate cutpurse. I sincerely doubt lightning will strike twice, and certainly not in the Thorntons’ ballroom.”
“Begging your pardon, miss, but I’ve heard about these masquerades. Might not be somebody trying to rob you, but better you have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”
“You’re sure you won’t need it?”
Betsy laughed. “I won’t need it, miss. You run a good house. Nobody tries nothing here.”
With the issue settled, they made quick work securing the blade where Hannah could reach it through the pocket slits in her gown. The unfamiliar weight was odd, but Hannah couldn’t deny that being armed had a certain comforting appeal.
“Well, then. I think I’m ready,” Hannah declared.
Betsy nodded her agreement. “Give ’em hell, miss.”
Hannah descended the stairs to find Rhone waiting for her at the bottom, and she laughed out loud. His own masquerade costume split down the middle, evenly devoted to gold and silver. “What on earth are you supposed to be?”
A Convenient Engagement Page 17