“Perhaps we should talk to her,” Freddy said, rubbing a weary hand over his face. “She is stubborn as a mule, but she’s dashed clever.” Truth be told, she was a better strategist than he was. He’d grown accustomed to having his way paved for him thanks to his charm and good looks, while as a lady, she had been forced to work out sometimes complicated paths to get what she wanted. It was a skill he found impressive when he wasn’t the obstacle she was trying to get around.
“Lead on,” Mainwaring said, drinking the remainder of his brandy and rising from the table. “I’m curious to see what she’ll come up with.”
Retrieving their greatcoats the two men left the club and headed for the Craven town house.
Unfortunately when they arrived, it was to discover that Miss Craven had gone out driving with her friend Lady Hermione Upperton.
“Upperton?” asked Mainwaring with a frown. “She’s not the one who’s tried and failed to get into all of the driving clubs in London, I hope. Your lady would be keeping some very unsuitable company if so.”
Freddy sighed. Of course Mainwaring, the worst driver in London, would find fault with a lady who drove better than the sum total of every driving club in London.
“Yes, it’s that Lady Hermione,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Let’s go see if we can find them. It’s time for grand promenade anyway. At least that will mean they won’t be moving very fast.”
Back in Freddy’s curricle he steered them in the direction of Hyde Park.
“How can you countenance Miss Craven riding in the carriage with a lady driver?” Mainwaring asked as they sped through Mayfair.
“They’ve been friends for years, Mainwaring,” Freddy said with a shrug. “I can hardly forbid Leonora to have contact with one of her dearest friends. What if she tried the same with me and forbade me to keep company with you?”
“That would be different,” Mainwaring replied readily. “You are the man in the relationship and your word is final.”
“Spoken like a man who has never been engaged,” said Freddy wryly. He feared that his friend had much to learn about relationships with women who were not mistresses. Especially one like Leonora who had opinions and wasn’t afraid to speak them aloud.
“I’ve had relationships with ladies, if that’s what you mean,” Mainwaring retorted. “And besides that, I thought your betrothal was all a hum anyway. You are naturally concerned about her because she’s a lady under your protection. But it’s hardly the same thing as a love match.
“And,” the earl added, as if he’d just discovered the point that would win him the game. “It’s your reputation on the line if she aligns herself with someone like Lady Hermione without your permission.”
“First of all, it might be a false betrothal now,” Freddy responded with frustration, “but I intend for it to become real by the time this investigation into Jonathan’s death is concluded. She might not wish that to happen just yet, but I plan to do my best to persuade her.
“Secondly,” he said before Mainwaring could respond, “if I wished to forbid Leonora from seeing her friends I would do it. There is no question of who is the leader in this match. But I simply don’t find Lady Hermione’s friendship with Leonora to be as threatening as you seem to.”
Mainwaring shrugged. “It’s up to you, I suppose. But women like Lady Hermione Upperton are dangerous to all men. They go about demanding to be included in activities that are not within the realm of a lady’s knowledge and they upset the natural balance of things. Let them join driving clubs and soon they’ll be demanding membership at White’s and will start wearing trousers. It’s absurd. Ladies are not meant to go about behaving like us.”
It wasn’t far off what most men felt about ladies who stepped outside their proper sphere, Freddy thought wryly. Unfortunately, Mainwaring’s acquaintance with actual ladies had been limited, he was quite certain. At least, those who were not afraid to speak their own minds like Leonora and her friends.
“I know you think you’re speaking sense, my friend,” Freddy told the other with a shake of his head. “But your words are going to get you into a great deal of trouble with one of these dangerous women, as you call them. Mark my words.”
They’d just turned onto Park Lane, which was thick with a line of carriages driving out of the park, when they both saw something go sailing through the air about three hundred yards ahead.
As they looked on, the bundle began to jerk and pop, and already surprised by the unexpected projectile, the horses nearest the explosion began to rear up. Then, as they watched, they bolted.
At first, Freddy was merely intent on getting to the runaway carriage for chivalric reasons. It was the right thing to do. It was what a gentleman would do.
That was before, however, he realized that the passenger in the carriage was Leonora.
Cursing, he maneuvered them around the crowd and set the curricle racing after the speeding landau.
“It’s Leonora and Lady Hermione,” he shouted as they sped down Park Lane.
Fortunately, the traces had broken only a half mile from where the landau had started out, so the horses continued their frightened escape but left the carriage itself behind.
Freddy pulled his own pair to a stop, and as soon as they slowed, he leaped from the curricle and ran as fast as his injuries would allow to the listing landau.
“Nora!” he shouted as he neared the wreck.
He rounded the carriage to find Leonora sitting with her head in her hands, which were shaking.
“Nora,” he said softly, not wanting to startle her. “Darling, are you hurt? Are you injured?”
When she looked up, their eyes met and Freddy climbed up onto the seat beside her, which had been vacated by Hermione, who was nowhere to be seen.
Pulling her into his arms, he breathed a sigh of relief into her hair. “My God, you gave me a fright. What happened? We saw the object sail toward the carriage, and heard the pop, but didn’t get a good enough look to identify it.”
“I don’t know,” she said against his shoulder. He was gratified to know that she was taking some comfort in his nearness. “There was some kind of explosion and the horses bolted. You know as much as I do.”
At that moment, Mainwaring stepped forward, a bundle of what looked like paper in his hands. “I think this was the culprit,” he said shortly. “It looks as if it was made by someone with a knowledge of flammables.”
“What is it?” Leonora asked, not moving from the circle of Frederick’s arms. “Was someone deliberately trying to frighten us?”
“I’d rather say that they were trying to frighten the horses,” Lady Hermione said breathlessly, as she walked up beside Mainwaring. Her hair had slipped from its pins and Freddy noted that she had a black smudge on her cheek. “And I very much doubt it was an accident.”
“What do you mean?” Freddy asked with deceptive calm.
“It’s a Chinese firecracker,” Hermione said grimly. “Someone threw this at my horses in order to make them bolt. They are sometimes skittish, but nothing I cannot control. In this case, however, they were provoked purposely. And are now God knows where, frightened out of their minds.”
A shaft of rage ran through Freddy. Leonora might have been killed, he fumed as he pulled her tighter.
“Let me go,” she said softly in protest. “We’re in the middle of the park, for goodness’ sake.”
Reluctantly he realized that she was right and let her go. And they’d drawn a bit of a crowd, he noticed as he scanned the area around them.
“You did rather well managing the horses,” Mainwaring said to Lady Hermione, with grudging respect, breaking into the awkward silence.
“I would thank you,” Lady Hermione replied with a scowl, “but you seem to be so surprised by my ability to control the carriage as to be insulting. Have you never seen a lady drive a coach and four, then?”
Members of the crowd jeered, causing Mainwaring to flush. Freddy was quite certain his friend had
not expected to receive a set-down in return for his compliment.
“No, frankly,” the earl responded heatedly. “I don’t think it’s appropriate behavior for a lady. But you do it quite well. I believe you saved not only Miss Craven’s life but those of these bystanders.”
Lady Hermione made a strangled sound and Leonora chose that moment to speak in a low voice. “Please, Hermione, not here. Let us leave before more gawkers come.”
At the strain in her friend’s voice Hermione nodded.
“Would you mind terribly seeing Lady Hermione home, Mainwaring?” Freddy asked his friend, who was still gaping at that lady as if she had two heads. “I will see Miss Craven home in my curricle.”
He saw the moment understanding dawned in the earl’s eyes. And he would have laughed if he weren’t so consumed with rage over the attack on Leonora.
Glancing at Lady Hermione, Mainwaring sighed. “I would be happy to escort you home, my lady.”
Hermione looked as if she would protest, but perhaps she realized that making a ruckus would only upset her friend. “I am grateful for your assistance,” she said formally. “But first, I should like to search for my horses.”
Closing his eyes as if he’d been given a fatal diagnosis, Mainwaring nodded. “Of course. Perhaps we will find they aren’t too far away.”
“Oh, I sincerely doubt it,” Hermione said as she turned to stalk down Park Lane in the direction she’d last seen her team. “They’re quite fast, you know.”
With one last baleful glance in Freddy’s direction, Mainwaring trudged after her.
Fifteen
“I do not normally drink strong spirits,” Leonora said as she lifted her glass. “But I think being nearly killed in a runaway carriage is emergency enough to warrant it.”
“Agreed,” Lady Hermione said as she drank hers in one gulp. Her eyes watering from the burning liquid, she continued in a hoarse voice. “Now, are we going to do something about Sir Gerard Fincher?”
Hermione and Mainwaring had found the missing horses sooner than Hermione had predicted. And after paying a couple of boys in the neighborhood to walk them back to the Upperton mews, she had insisted Mainwaring bring her not to her own house, but to Leonora’s. She’d send a pair of grooms to fetch the carriage later.
Leonora and Freddy had only been there for a few minutes before Greentree announced that Lady Hermione and the earl of Mainwaring had called.
“I’m very much afraid that firecracker was Sir Gerard’s doing,” Leonora said with a frown. “Clearly he is tired of discussing my brother’s death and wishes to swat me like a fly.”
The fact that she and Hermione had seen the man only a few minutes before the incident made her even more certain he was to blame.
“If that is the case,” Freddy said implacably, “then there is nothing for it but you must stop participating in our investigation. I suppose I’d been relying on my cousin’s sense of honor to keep him from physically harming you, but I can see now that was a delusion on my part.”
Mainwaring nodded. “I agree. This is much too dangerous now for a lady to be involved. I will assist Frederick and we will report our findings to you, Miss Craven. You have my word.”
But Leonora wasn’t to be swept aside so easily. “Of course I won’t just stop my role in the investigation,” she said sharply. “Or have you forgotten what I learned from Lady Darleigh?” Quickly she outlined what the other woman had told her at her salon. “If I hadn’t gone to the club’s soiree that evening at Sir Gerard’s home, Lady Darleigh might not have attended my salon and told me what she knew about Jonathan’s murder.”
“Be that as it may, Leonora,” Freddy said with a scowl, “things have changed. My cousin has shown that he has no respect for the fact that you are a lady under my protection. In fact, once I can prove he was the one who attacked you this afternoon, I intend to call him out.”
Leonora’s heart constricted. “You most certainly will not!” she said, her voice brittle with horror. “I will not allow you to risk your life for me. We are not even truly betrothed.”
“It’s not a question of allowing me, or of real or false betrothals,” Freddy said, his voice rising. “Even if we are not actually engaged, Gerard believes we are and I’m damned if I’ll let him thumb his nose at me like that and get away with it.”
“Oh, so this isn’t about safety at all, then,” Leonora said heatedly. “It’s about masculine pride. I might have known.”
“There is more to it than that,” Frederick said, his jaw set. “You know me better than to think that’s all there is to it.”
“Well, I am not able to look into your thoughts and divine them on my own, Frederick,” she said with a huff.
“I believe there might be another explanation for what happened,” Hermione interrupted. “You know how many of the London clubs I’ve approached for membership, Leonora.”
Leonora saw what her friend meant at once. “You think perhaps it was an attempt to dissuade you from your pursuit of a membership?”
Hermione shrugged slightly. “I have become rather notorious for my quest to join a driving club. Perhaps the explosion was an attempt on someone’s part to put me in my place.”
“It’s a possibility,” Mainwaring said to Frederick. “God knows there are some members of all male clubs who would commit murder rather than admit a lady into their ranks.”
“Like you?” Hermione asked sweetly.
The earl bristled. “While it is true that I am not a proponent of inviting ladies into all of my clubs, I am not yet so lost to morality that I would consider murder to stop it from happening. I should hope you could see that I am an honorable man, Lady Hermione, even if my behavior is not always in accordance with your wishes.”
“She could be right,” Leonora said to Freddy beneath the noise of the other couple’s bickering. “I can imagine any number of men who would attempt to dissuade Hermione by frightening her.”
Freddy massaged his temples, as if warding off an ache there. “Why does this keep getting more complex rather than less? Every time I think we’ve unraveled a bit of the snarl, the matter becomes knotted again.”
Before Leonora could reply, Mainwaring interjected, “Perhaps Lady Hermione and I should be going now. You clearly have much to discuss, and we are contributing nothing to the talk besides more complications.” Turning to that lady, he offered her his arm, which she reluctantly accepted.
“Are you agreeable with that, Leonora?” Hermione asked pointedly before allowing the earl to lead her away. “If not I’ll stay.”
Leonora rose and hugged her friend. “I apologize for our rudeness,” she told them both. “I fear my nerves are rattled after our incident.”
“Not at all, Miss Craven,” said Mainwaring with a smile. “Good afternoon.”
When they were gone, Leonora and Frederick stood staring at one another for a moment. Then wordlessly he opened his arms and she walked into them.
They stood there like that for several moments before he said, “I apologize for ripping up at you. If you only knew what it did to me to see you clinging to the side of that careening carriage. I never, ever, want to witness anything like that again.” He leaned forward and kissed her, his kiss gentle. As if he were afraid he might break her.
Leonora closed her eyes, grateful beyond measure for the safety of his arms. Wordlessly, Freddy slipped his hand in hers and led her to the sofa and pulled her onto his lap.
For a few minutes, they sat just holding one another. The memory of her fear in Hermione’s carriage hovered in the periphery of Leonora’s mind, threatening to consume her.
Desperate to blot out the memory, she lifted her head and kissed Freddy with all the fear and desperation she’d felt when she realized she might never see him again.
As if realizing what she needed, he slid his arms around her and opened his mouth under hers, taking the kiss deeper with every caress.
Leonora groaned against his mouth as Freddy cupped her
breast and stroked his thumb over the bud of her nipple. Restlessness coursing through her, Leonora slid her own hands around his head, holding his mouth to hers while she caressed the curls at the back of his neck.
Almost without realizing it, she’d loosened his cravat, revealing a vee of naked chest that demanded she put her lips there. She kissed her way down his jaw and over his chin until she reached the newly revealed spot and stroked her tongue over it.
“God, Nora,” Freddy hissed as his fingers worked the buttons on the back of her gown. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
Sliding her hand into the gaping neck of his shirt, she slid it down over his heart. “I think not, sir,” she said in a low voice that didn’t sound like her own. “Your heart is beating much too fast for that.”
“We’ll just have to make it beat a little faster, won’t we?” he said with a grin as he pulled first one then the other of her sleeves down, revealing her bare shoulders, but also trapping her arms at her sides. “There now,” he said with a grin, “I can do what I want with you.”
Leonora would not have imagined she’d find such love play erotic, but perhaps because she trusted Freddy, she found the game more exciting than alarming. Selfishly, she wanted only to feel. And he was allowing her to do just that.
He placed his mouth on the hollow at her collarbone and teased his tongue over it, drawing a mewl of desire from her. Then, he kissed down her chest and with one hand pulled the bodice of her gown down, exposing her breasts. The anticipation of his mouth on her was almost better than the real thing.
Almost.
But not quite.
She writhed as he took her nipple in his mouth and stroked his tongue over the sensitive tip. Then, with aching tenderness he suckled her, the pull sending a thread of desire from her peak to the heart of her. The ache between her legs was almost like pain, and with her arms pinned, she could do nothing but shift restlessly against him.
A Good Rake is Hard to Find Page 16