Fifteen minutes later, breathing hard and with sweat trickling down his forehead, Simon glanced around in dismay. Still no sign of a hackney and Dev weighed what felt like a hundredweight. If he wasn’t actually carrying the marquess, this was as close as he ever wanted to get.
Since footpads and Mohawks plied their nefarious trade in the surrounding narrow streets, he didn’t dare leave his friend and go for help. The sort of criminals about at this time of night wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of a drunken toff laid out like a Sunday dinner.
He turned the corner and glanced up the lane that led to the mews behind Dev’s townhouse. The back entrance seemed a lot closer than the front door leading off the square.
Simon hoisted his burden higher on his aching shoulder and turned into the gloom of the stinking alley. They had traversed only half the distance to the rear gate when footsteps echoed behind him. He glanced back. Three shadowy figures closing in on them.
Simon narrowed his eyes. The scum would likely leg it at the first sign of a fight and right now he wouldn’t mind giving someone a good pummeling he was so angry at Dev. “Who’s there,” he called out. “Show yourselves.”
A burly shape moved closer. “That’s ’im,” a coarse voice muttered.
They carried weapons. Wooden clubs slapped into open palms with menace.
Finally, something was going his way this evening. Since his heart had lurched at the sight of the dark-haired Miss Yelverton waiting under the chandelier in his hall, nothing had gone right. Giving a bunch of villains a good trouncing was exactly what he needed.
Dev stumbled and almost brought Simon down. He had no choice but to let his friend fall onto the slimy cobbled ground. He straightened to face his assailants.
Three to one. Not bad odds, given the nature of these cowardly footpads. Two to three would be better, but Dev had passed out and, if Simon wasn’t mistaken, was now snoring loudly. Simon repressed the urge to laugh.
Focus. He poised himself on the balls of his feet. A deep and calming breath filled his lungs. Cleared his mind of all thought except awareness of the men who meant them harm.
They had weapons, true, but fists and feet were as effective as any club. He relaxed and waited to see what they would try. The narrow alley was in his favor. They would be forced to come at him one at a time.
A solid shape loomed out of the shadows. Simon tensed, listening. A scuffle, a foot slipping on cobbles, heavy breathing, all revealed his opponents’ movements. Simon dodged a swooshing rush of air thick with the smell of manure. A cudgel swept past his head.
He reached out, grabbed the man’s arm and wrenched it up behind his back. He swung a left hook. It failed to connect with the man’s jaw. Simon lurched forward twisted and kicked high. His boot jarred with a satisfying crunch against unprotected ribs.
The man swung again. A wide arc. Simon ducked and chopped him across the nape. Another shadow surged in. A wild jab made vicious contact with Simon’s shoulder. He staggered back, his breath rasping loudly.
“We’ve got ’im now,” one of them said.
This was no robbery. These men were out for blood. A red haze of rushing anger gripped him. He tamped it down. Rage dulled the senses. He concentrated on the sounds made by shifting shadows in the gloom.
“Simon.” Dev struggled to rise at Simon’s side. His hands clawed up the wall.
“Stay back,” Simon warned.
Momentarily distracted by fear for his friend, Simon almost didn’t sense the next blow aimed at his skull. He fended it off with his forearm. Hell! The shattering pain brought him to his knees. His eyes watered. He forced himself to close his mind to his body’s protest. He buried it deep inside, the way he had learned as a child.
Beleaguered lungs fighting for air, Simon staggered to his feet. He grabbed at the cudgel raised to finish him. Caught off-guard by Simon’s upward momentum, his opponent slipped on the greasy filth underfoot. Simon roared in feral triumph and pulled the weapon free.
The odds had changed. He was armed. He tested the weight of the rough, wooden club and prepared for battle.
“Simon. Here,” Dev called out.
A glitter of steel. Simon deftly caught the wicked-looking blade’s handle. Swinging the cudgel, he landed a blow to the downed ruffian’s head. The man grunted. A dark lump sagged on the ground before him. The other two crouched and came in low. Simon slashed at the one on his right. He missed. They struggled for the knife.
Dev launched himself at the feet of other. A crack of wood on bone and Dev’s grunt bounced off the stone walls.
But it was the help Simon had needed. He tore the knife free and thrust at the closest shape. The knife sank into soft flesh. A gurgling cry of pain rewarded his effort. He pulled back, ready to strike again.
With muttered oaths, the cowards broke. They grabbed their fallen comrade and with boots clattering and scraping on the slippery stones, they stumbled away.
Doubled over and desperately sucking in air, Simon saw them silhouetted against the street lamp, then they were gone, melting into the city’s underbelly.
At his feet, Dev groaned. Simon sank to his knees, beginning to know the pain of his battered body and fists.
“Dev? Ian?” Simon nudged him. “Are you all right?”
At the sound of his friend’s faint chuckle relief overwhelmed him.
“Can’t hurt a drunk, you know.”
“The devil you say. Can you stand? It’s only steps to your door. I don’t think I can lift you.” His left arm was numb, useless. Possibly broken. Simon watched Dev push to his knees, then get his feet under him. Using the wall as a prop he staggered to his gate and leaned against the wall, panting. Simon yanked on the bell, its urgent clang like a call to arms.
“Who goes there?” cried a quavering young voice.
“Damn it! It’s me, young Ben. Your goddamned master,” Dev shouted back.
“My lord?” The boy held a lantern high over the wall and gasped with horror as the flickering light spilled over them.
“For God’s sake, boy. Let us in,” Dev urged.
The gate swung back and the pair of them lurched over the threshold and collapsed on their knees on the path. “Close it,” Simon ordered.
The boy slammed it shut and dropped the bar.
“Fetch a couple of footmen,” Simon gasped disentangling himself from Dev and clutching at his arm
“Yes, my lord.” Ben dropped his lantern and fled.
Simon attempted to push himself to his feet and instead rolled overt onto his side. Footmen were never going to catch those fellows now. Damn it all. He really should go after them.
Dev sat back on his heels and began laughing.
“What the hell is funny?” Simon growled.
Dev choked off another burst of laugher. “Well that certainly got my attention. Haven’t had a good bout of fisticuffs since I don’t know when.”
Simon pushed up on one elbow. “They nigh on killed us.” He didn’t know whether to strangle his friend or give in to the urge to laugh with him. A chuckle burst from his lips.
And another.
Dev roard with laughter. “Did you see their expressions when they realized they were done for.” He hit the ground with the flat of his hand in paroxysm of hilarity.
“Idiot! I was too busy making sure they didn’t kill me to look at their faces.” Laughter bubbled up. Burst forth. He and Dev howled with laughter like a couple of schoolboys at a dirty joke.
While he still hurt all over, the tension from the last few minutes slowly drained away. The urge to hunt his attackers drained slowly away. Laughter. How often did he laugh?
Why did it make him feel so much better?
CHAPTER FIVE
The morning after Lady Corby’s ball, gray skies required candles to be lit in the cozy breakfast room. The sunny yellow curtains and upholstery did not brighten Victoria’s mood. She sipped her tea and watched the rain trickle down the tall window. She could not blame Travis for her
disturbed night. He’d not come home. Clearly it was her own stupidity that had kept her awake, waiting for his arrival.
The way she had waited for Michael’s stumbling, cursing progress after a night on the Town. Hearing nothing, she’d barely slept at all.
She sighed. She would never hear Michael again. Better not to think of about that, or about Travis’s night-time adventures. She stared out at the gray, miserable day, the restlessness inside her a tangible thing. Rain or no rain, she longed to stretch her legs. To put some distance between her and her thoughts.
She rang the bell and the butler appeared in moments. “I am going to Hookham’s this morning.” Before Maria arose and offered her company. There would be no possible way to meet Ogden with the chaperon in tow.
Stony-faced, the butler bowed. “I will order the carriage brought around, Miss Yelverton.”
“I prefer to walk. There is no sense asking people to get wet.”
“I don’t think his lordship would allow it, miss.”
The earl had stricter notions of propriety than her father or brother ever had.
The butler’s serious face offered the faintest of smiles. “Young Wilson would be more than happy to oblige you with an umbrella. He’d sooner do anything than polish the silver.”
Victoria smiled back. Benton, beneath his austere exterior, was a rather nice man. “Wilson it is then.” She hurried upstairs to put on her coat and hat and was soon on her way.
The streets were less busy than usual. The liveried Wilson somehow managed to keep the large, black umbrella above her head yet not walk at her side as Victoria wove between the other pedestrians on Bond Street. She kept a wary eye out for the filthy waterfalls splashed up by passing carriages.
At Hookham’s, she left Wilson seated on the bench beneath the shelter of the eves and ducked inside. The lack of customers attested to the miserable weather. There was no sign of Ogden at the counters or in the area set aside for reading.
The smell of new leather and old dust pervaded the room. She glanced down the list of available titles and exclaimed in triumph when she located Miss Austen’s Emma. A work the author had dedicated to the Prince Regent. Victoria had wanted to read it ever since it came out. She signed for it and dipped into the first few pages as she stood beside the window, wondering how long she dare wait for Ogden.
Jostled from behind, her nose barely missed making contact with the book’s pages. It slid from her hands and landed on the floor with a soft thud.
She whirled around. “What....?” Her gaze fell upon the perfectly formed features of Miss Cassandra Eckford.
What terrible timing.
“Forgive me,” Miss Eckford said. “I do beg your pardon. I wasn’t looking. At least, I was looking, but the other way. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
Every instinct warned Victoria to leave immediately. “Not at all.”
“Please don’t leave on my account.” The soft tone held a note of pleading.
Victoria gazed into a pair of concerned, sky-blue eyes fringed by long, golden lashes exactly on a level with her own. She waived a deprecating hand. “Not at all. I was about to leave.”
She reached down to recover her book just as Miss Eckford stooped and snatched it up.
Frozen in a crouch, Victoria stared into the beautiful Miss Eckford’s apologetic face and watched as she blushed, a glorious pale-rose suffusing her dazzling white skin. No wonder she entranced the earl.
The thought left Victoria feeling strangely hollow. She stood. She accepted the book from Miss Eckford’s outstretched hand. “Thank you.” She turned away.
An odd shuffling noise drew her gaze back. Miss Eckford had installed herself tight against the side of the window and now peered out furtively.
“What are you doing, Miss Eckford?”
With a wide-eyed, startled expression, Miss Eckford put a finger to her lips. “Hiding from Mama.”
Victoria doubted her sanity. “She must know you are here.”
Miss Eckford shook her head. Her golden curls bounced beneath the brim of her ruched blue bonnet. “I told her I was going to Hatchard’s, then slipped in here instead. I always get them mixed up.” Her fair eyebrows drew together. “This is Hookham’s, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s no use. She’ll find me, and then I’ll miss him, and I’ll have to go with her to see the Elgin Marbles and I did so want to go on a picnic with Albert. I promised him I would.”
Victoria raised an eyebrow. “If you made a promise, you should keep it.”
“But I can’t.” The distraught tone held impending tears. “Mama has it on good authority that he is planning to be at the British Museum, and therefore it is there I must go.”
A strange stillness invaded Victoria. “He?”
“Travis, the Earl of,” Miss Eckford replied with a pout.
“Oh.” Who else would he be? “Quite. It has been exceedingly pleasant speaking with you, Miss Eckford, but I really must dash along, my footman is waiting outside.”
“Do I know you?”
Victoria hesitated, surprised.
Miss Eckford went on, “I mean, you know my name, but I don’t believe we’ve met, have we?” The wide, blue eyes demanded an answer.
“Yelverton, Victoria. I mean Victoria Yelverton.” She wanted to leave. Now.
“Yelverton? Didn’t you move into Travis’s house after he killed your brother?”
Shock froze Victoria to the spot. She had no idea people thought Travis had killed Michael. Her accusation had been nothing but temper. And grief. “It was an accident,” she blurted. “If you will excuse me, I really must be on my way.”
The foolish girl just didn’t seem to listen. She clutched at Victoria’s sleeve. “Oh, I am so sorry, Miss Yelverton. So very sorry. If I lost my brother like that, so young, it would be so very dreadful. Not that I have a brother, I have a younger sister. But I can imagine how I would feel. If I lost her, I mean, under such—..” she shrugged awkwardly “—such circumstances. Still at least you get to live with an earl.”
Astonishment held Victoria transfixed. How could Travis spend more than five minutes with this pea-brained goose without giving her one of his scathing set-downs? A cold hand fisted in her chest. He wouldn’t. Engrossed in Miss Eckford’s other attributes, he probably never listened to a word she said.
In the same nervous manner Victoria had noticed at Lady Corby’s ball, Miss Eckford twisted the ribbons of her bonnet and glanced over her shoulder.
Victoria frowned. “You don’t want to meet the Earl of Travis today?”
“I want to go on a picnic with Mr. Runcorn.”
“Mr. Runcorn?”
“Albert. He’s a friend of my grandmother’s. I’ve known him all my life.” Miss Eckford sounded defensive. “Mama doesn’t like him because he doesn’t have a title or a fortune. But Grandmamma approves of him. He lives close by her home near Worthing. He’s only in Town for a week, and he asked me to go on a picnic today. Mama promised I could, but now I have to bump into Travis at the museum and waste the afternoon looking at old stones.” Her lower lip trembled. Sweet heavens, she was going to cry.
“Don’t you like the earl?”
“Oh, yes. One must of course. He is one of the richest man in London, with a title, and he’s a bachelor.”
The matter-of-fact tone chilled Victoria. Travis had met his match in this beautiful woman with veins of ice. And yet Victoria couldn’t stem her curiosity. “You hope to marry him?”
Miss Eckford blushed again and peeped at Victoria from beneath her lashes. “Mama is hoping he will make a decent offer. If not, he’s sure to make me a very handsome arrangement. Please do not look so shocked, Miss Yelverton.”
Victoria closed her mouth.
Miss Eckford shook her head sorrowfully. “You see, we only have enough funds for one come-out. Grandmamma doesn’t like my half-sister Lucy and won’t help her at all. Mother says sometimes we have to sacrifice ourselves to help ou
r loved ones. So, if Lord Travis is prepared to...”
Victoria raised a hand. This was more information than she ever wanted to know. Pity for the worldly-wise, but somehow vulnerable, Miss Eckford swept away Victoria’s disgust. Between her mother and Lord Travis, Miss Eckford had been netted and caged like a wild linnet. A travesty whichever way one looked at the circumstance. “You really would prefer to go to the picnic with Mr. Runcorn than meet the earl?”
“Yes. You see, Albert wants to marry me, but Mama won’t agree. Not when there’s a possibility the earl might make me an offer. Think how much better off we will all be.” She sighed, and a big, fat tear rolled delicately down her cheek. “Grandmamma condoned the match with Albert, but Mama says—”
“Miss Eckford, as you know, I am presently staying with the earl. He is my guardian.” Victoria almost choked on the admission. “If you tell your mother I am going on this picnic with you and I am expecting the earl to accompany me, do you think she might change her mind?”
A small crease marred the perfection of Miss Eckford’s fair brow. “It wouldn’t be of any use at all. Albert doesn’t like the earl and Travis is sure to say something cutting.”
Not quite the fool then. Victoria smiled. “I didn’t mean he would really come with us.”
“Lie to Mama, you mean.” The rosy lips formed a shocked O and her eyes opened wider.
There really was no helping the girl, and Victoria had no idea why she had even tried. She edged away. Tears welled up in the confused blue eyes. Out of pity, Victoria made a final effort. “It’s not much different to from hiding and more likely to be successful. After all, while the earl might be expected to accompany me, expectations do not always materialize.”
“I see.” Miss Eckford smiled. Like the sunshine after rain, it made her beauty seem more extraordinary. “It’s in the realm of possibility, but unlikely. That’s something Grandmamma often says.”
At least someone in the family had a brain. Victoria nodded.
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