“I have come to view the sights, of course,” Fouché returned, also in French, evidently deciding that he didn’t wish to risk being overheard in English, either.
“Rather peculiar time for a holiday, wouldn’t you say?” Stewart commented, fiddling with the half-empty bottle before him and madly trying to figure out what in the world Fouché was doing there.
“You are not pleased to see me, I think,” the comte noted, with a slight pout that made him look younger than his thirty-three years. Fouché pulled the bottle from his companion’s fingers, examined the label, and poured himself a drink. “And after I went to such effort to find you.”
Stewart glanced at him. “You knew I would be here.”
“Yes,” Fouché agreed, “but when I learned you had taken young Kit away from Paris with you, I thought perhaps you did not intend to return.”
The thought had crossed his mind. “We are partners, Jean-Paul.”
“Yes,” Fouché agreed, “but you are also a traitor.”
Although he doubted anyone in the tavern spoke French, Stewart glanced about and leaned forward. “I am no such thing.”
“You provide weapons for soldiers of Napoleon,” Fouché pointed out.
“I am providing them to you. What you do with them is your affair.”
“Not simply mine, my friend.” The soft, cultured voice had dropped into a delicate murmur, but Stewart knew better than to be fooled. Despite his refined looks, the comte was cold as Yorkshire in winter, with no compunctions about killing when the whim struck him. Brantley had seen that on more than one occasion.
He took a breath, measuring his words. “You have nothing to worry about. I am already in contact with someone willing to sell me stockpiled weapons. And Kit is on the trail of the bastard who intercepted the last shipment.”
The comte leaned forward, finally interested. “You know who it is?”
“Not yet. But I will, very soon. And we won’t be interfered with again.”
“No, we won’t. You will, of course, inform me of your news.”
It was not a request. And, Stewart reflected, it would give Jean-Paul Mercier the sticky task of deciding what to do with their quarry once Kit had found him. Not that Stewart had any love for his former countrymen, but neither did he feel the need to resort to cold-blooded murder. The comte would think it sport. “Of course.”
Fouché nodded and sipped his port. “Where do you have dear Kit stashed?”
“In Mayfair,” Stewart answered, not wishing to be more specific.
“I do not wish to pry into your affairs, Brantley,” the comte commented smoothly. “I am only concerned at your daughter being on her own in London.”
It was quietly said, but Stewart Brantley sat bolt upright, whatever he’d been about to say forgotten. “My dau—”
“Do you think I am a complete fool? A very clever little game, but I’ve known for some time.”
Stewart resisted the urge to swallow. “I have had to take certain precautions to insure Kit’s safety in these times,” he countered. “It was not my intention to fool anyone.”
“Of course it was.” Fouché gave a slow smile. “And so interesting to discover.”
The look in his eyes made Stewart shift a little. “Please remember that you are referring to my child,” he said.
“Your daughter is a grown woman.” The smile faded. “And until you produce those weapons, you are in debt to me. For ten thousand pounds, Brantley.”
“I’ll not sell her to you,” Stewart growled. Fouché met his gaze with cool eyes, but he refused to look away.
“Perhaps you should reconsider,” the comte suggested after a moment, lifting his glass for another delicate sip. “My character is no worse than yours. Better even, perhaps. And I certainly live in more comfort.” He glanced about the dingy tavern, then shrugged, apparently reading Stewart’s expression and deciding for the moment not to press the issue. “There is no hurry. We will all be in London for another few days, will we not?”
Stewart Brantley stood and dropped a few coins on the table. “I will provide you with muskets, and with the name you requested. Nothing more.”
“We shall see.”
Kit turned this way and that in front of her dressing mirror for ten minutes after she finished donning her new attire. The gray day suit was the most marvelous thing she had ever possessed, and she sat and stood and bent and twisted to see how very well the thing fit. The clothes had arrived just in time. After the long night she’d spent last evening tracking Lord Hanshaw from one club to another, with absolutely nothing to prove him to be other than a popular drinking companion, her brown suit was fit to be burned. Finally she couldn’t contain herself any longer, and dashed down the hall to Everton’s bedchamber. English spy or not, he had a splendid tailor.
“May I come in?” she queried, pounding at the door.
“Please do,” came the response.
She threw the door open and pranced in to sweep an elegant bow. Alex sat shaving at his dressing table, Antoine beside him holding a towel. “What do you think?” she demanded.
“I think it’s seven o’clock in the morning,” the earl responded mildly, lowering his razor and turning to eye her.
“Oh, be quiet,” she chastised with a grin. “It is fantastique. I am absolutely top of the trees!” She spun about again, laughing.
“You are magnificent,” he agreed with a chuckle.
She stepped up to him and thrust her chin forward. “Feel my shirt,” she ordered. “It’s so soft.”
Lord Everton obligingly dried his hand on Antoine’s towel, and reached up to touch her collar. As he did so his fingers brushed the skin at the base of her throat, and Kit shut her eyes. After a moment it seemed that he wasn’t touching the shirt at all, and his thumb ran softly along the line of her jaw. Her pulse quickened, and she held completely still so he wouldn’t stop. His fingers were warm, and they made her shiver. He touched her cheek, and then the fingers jumped a little and swept back to tug at her collar, as though he were straightening it. She opened her eyes again, seeking his, but he turned away to pick up his razor again.
“It’s lawn, chit,” he said gruffly. “It’s supposed to be soft.”
Her skin seemed to tingle where he’d touched her. Taking a shaky breath, Kit watched him shave. She rarely paid any attention to her father’s morning ablutions, but the movement of the sharp razor across the earl’s lean face and the soft, scraping sound that accompanied it were rather mesmerizing. He tilted his head sideways, and she unconsciously imitated him as he contorted his face to stretch the skin of his upper lip. Abruptly there was a spot of red there, and he cursed and threw down the blade.
“Damnation!” he growled, turning to glare at her. “Stop hovering.”
“I was not hovering. I was studying.”
“Well, stop it. You don’t need to learn how to shave.”
“Ha, ha. I am slain by your wit.” Kit humphed and turned her back, folding her arms.
“You shouldn’t be in here, anyway,” he continued.
“Why? I thought you didn’t care about propriety.” She turned to look at him balefully. “And stop being so damned cross. It’s only a nick you got. I’m certain it won’t even leave a scar.”
His jaw twitched before he set his expression into a glare again. “I suppose you’d feel no remorse even if I’d cut off my ear.”
She studied the offending body part, and the curl of his dark hair around the line of his jaw. “It would be a shame if you’d lost an ear,” she admitted. “Is your wound truly so heinous?” Kit stepped slowly forward and reached out to touch the side of his face.
Alex grabbed her wrist before she could complete the action. She started to jerk her hand free, but then looked down and met his gaze. And froze. His eyes seemed to draw her in, stopping her breath. Kit found herself wanting to taste him, to kiss his half-amused lips and his lean, soapy cheek, and the lids that were half-lowered over glinting azure.
She took another quick breath, then scowled. “You sound as though you’re afraid of me.”
He snorted. “I am. I don’t want your father saying I’ve ruined you and have to marry you, or some other nightmare happenstance.”
He might only have been teasing, but it was still a mean thing to say. “Vous êtes une buse grande,” she said irritably as she stalked over to sit on the windowsill, well away from him. She tentatively put her fingers on her wrist where he had touched her, to see if the skin was as warm on the outside as it felt on the inside.
“Not that damned French again. Antoine?”
“You are a big buzzard, my lord,” the valet obligingly translated, stifling a grin as he dumped the remaining shaving soap into a bowl.
“Oh,” the earl said, returning to his shaving. “I suppose that means that you don’t wish to accompany me to the haberdasher’s this afternoon.”
With a surprised smile, Kit sprang to her feet again. Not only did that sound splendid, but she’d been looking for an excuse to get away and meet with her father, anyway. “I’m sorry, Alex,” she apologized. “I was only bamming you.”
“I thought so.”
“May I get a new greatcoat, as well?” she asked. “With my new clothes, the old one will look horrid. And I will need some new boots, I think.”
“Good Lord. You’re acting like a female, you know.”
Kit raised both eyebrows, hurt. “I am not,” she protested, pouting and then slowly looking at him from beneath lowered lashes to see whether she was having any effect on him.
His eyes on her face, Alex set the razor down again, and she thought for just a heartbeat that his fingers might have been shaking. “Oh, for God’s sake,” he growled. “Go down and get some breakfast before you make me cut my throat.”
Everton had actually intended to meet Barbara Sinclair for breakfast later in the morning, but at the last moment, following an impulse he didn’t care to delve into, he scribbled out a note with his apologies and headed instead to his own breakfast room.
The servants were surprised to be dismissed from their morning’s service, but with Kit currently admiring her reflection in a pair of case knives and clearly in high spirits, one of them was bound to make a slip. The fewer servants who knew the truth about his guest, the less the chance of the gossip getting out to the ton.
Alex smiled as she finally returned one of the knives to him and strolled over to the sideboard to begin piling breakfast on her plate. He had given women diamonds that had elicited less response than she had shown upon receiving a coat and pair of breeches, and the sparkle in her eyes was brighter than emeralds. Fleetingly he wondered when someone had last given her a gift.
“So what does this mean?” Kit asked, looking at him.
She had stopped loading her plate, though there wasn’t much room for anything else there, anyway. Her eyes were cool and sober, and she twirled her fork in her fingers with skilled ease. No doubt she could handle a knife, as well. Hopefully he would not have occasion to find that out firsthand.
“What does what mean?” he responded carefully, setting aside his tea and rising to select his own breakfast.
“You’ve bought me clothes, and now you’ve sent the servants away,” she replied evenly. “I was just wondering why.”
Several answers came to mind, but instead Alex grinned. “You think I mean to ravish you, chit?”
She shrugged, still eyeing him warily. “Why else would you give me a gift?”
He held her gaze. “That is usually how the game is played,” he admitted, beginning to realize just how wide was the gulf between Christine Brantley and every other female in Britain. Bribery and seduction was the order of the day, and there was no reason to question or comment. Unless, perhaps, one happened to be a French-raised chit in breeches. Or an earl who, for no explainable reason, didn’t wish to be seen in the same suspicious light in which she apparently regarded the rest of London’s inhabitants. “I, however, consider your wardrobe to be merely a defense.”
“Against what?”
“Everyone knows you as my cousin,” he elaborated. “And now that you’ve seen fit to introduce yourself to the ton, if I keep you locked up here, you’ll likely arouse more curiosity than if I show you about a little. And I certainly can’t do that with you in those rags. Very clever of you, chit.”
“I was only bored.” She smiled, apparently satisfied, but he raised a hand.
“I do wish you would stop making trouble for me, waif. I don’t appreciate it.”
Kit sat and stuffed a quarter of a peach into her mouth. “Yes, you do,” she said around the fruit.
“Beg pardon?”
She hurriedly chewed and swallowed. “You do appreciate it.”
He took his seat as well. “And what makes you think that?”
“Because you’re supposed to be ramshackle, but you’re not. Only one mistress, whom you’ve scarcely seen since I’ve been here, and you keep your own books. You’re the quietest, most organized rakehell I’ve ever encountered.”
For a moment Alex just looked at her while she waited, daring him to contradict her. Upon discovering her secret, he had thought her an absurd, antic waif, but he was beginning to believe he was merely skimming the surface of her rather complicated character. If someone had taught her to be a lady instead of an ill-mannered boy, she would be dangerous. He had the feeling he’d best not forget that, for his own well-being. Especially if she intended on routinely barging into his bedchamber and breaking into his study. And that hadn’t been done to see if he kept his own books. “It’s been a slow Season,” he replied dryly. “And I’ve lately been hampered with an uninvited houseguest.”
“Is that why you haven’t had Lady Sinclair back over?”
“I don’t believe that’s any of your bloody affair, chit.” Kit Brantley was exactly the reason Barbara hadn’t been back over. He accepted the bowl of marmalade from her. “How many rakehells have you encountered, anyway?” he queried, spreading the jam on his toasted bread.
“Oh, several,” she responded, leaning forward to eye the pair of strawberries on his plate.
“Help yourself.” He sighed, and with a fleeting grin she stabbed one of them with her fork. “Continue,” he encouraged, curious to hear the extent of her experience.
She paused for a moment. “There was one, in Paris, the Comte de Fouché, who used to brag about the number of conquests he made. He had very mysterious eyes.”
“You found him attractive, then?” To his surprise, he found himself less than pleased at the notion that the sprite beside him would fall for a pretty fool who bedded a different female every night and then bragged about it in the morning. At least he didn’t brag. Not generally.
She squinted one eye. “I don’t know. I didn’t trust him. It’s difficult to like someone you don’t trust.”
The earl poured himself another cup of tea. “And do you trust me?”
It was an absurd question, and far too soon for him to be asking it, but she chuckled, and he looked up to see her favoring him with a grin. “I’ll trust you more if you buy me a greatcoat.”
He laughed. “Is that the entire reason for this pleasant conversation?”
Unexpectedly she sobered again. “I do sound greedy, don’t I?” she said quietly, looking down at her overloaded plate. “The last few months with Father, we…well, I know I said differently, but things aren’t so pleasant in Paris right now.”
The pale sunlight through the breakfast room window caught the high, delicate line of her cheekbone, and abruptly she looked quite feminine, and quite lovely. “So I’ve heard,” he said, picking absently at his toasted bread and gazing at her.
She nodded and gestured at her new clothes. “I’ve been wearing that awful brown rag for months, and fresh fruit is nearly a franc a mouthful, it seems sometimes.”
“Is that why your f
ather sent you here?”
She shook her head. “All I know is what he told you, that I’d be safer here for the next fortnight or so.”
“Even in breeches?”
Kit glanced up at him. “Especially in breeches.”
“Hm,” he murmured. “A pity. I would buy you a gown, if you wished it.”
She narrowed her beautiful eyes, suspicious again. “You’re still being quite nice. Are you certain you’re not trying to seduce me?”
He chuckled, wondering how in the world he would go about such a thing if he had been free to do so. Damn all debts of honor. She was astounding. “Believe me, chit, if I were seducing you, you would know it.” Everton sat back again and motioned for her to finish her breakfast. “As soon as you’ve completed devouring that monstrous mound, I’ll take you to Colton’s.”
“Who’s Colton?”
“My haberdasher. Who is conveniently located, I might add, directly across the avenue from a shop where they create not only driving gloves, but greatcoats and saddle pouches, as well. Though I doubt you’ve much need for those, unless you’ve decided to take up stage robbery.” It had occurred to him that the best way to keep an eye on the chit was to keep her close by. If that was simply an excuse to be with her, he wasn’t ready to admit it yet.
She smiled, showing no sign that his suggestion of thievery had hit close to the mark, and stood to walk over beside his chair. “Thank you, Alex.”
He felt her hesitation, and then she bent down and brushed her lips against his cheek. The touch was achingly soft and delicate, and he half closed his eyes. Slowly he turned to look up at her, and before she could pull away he leaned up and touched his lips to hers. It was a feather-stroke of a kiss, and it jolted his heart. Her own eyes had shut, and surprised, she straightened and opened them to gaze at him.
Lady Rogue Page 7