Richard departed his house early, intending to begin his full day by scrutinizing the latest Stock Market reports at Threadneedle Street. Abnormally for him, neither the battle of wits needed for negotiations at the Exchange, nor the fiery discussion at the nearby coffee houses roused his enthusiasm. Heavy thoughts weighed on his mind, so much so that when he rendezvoused with his cousins, Brain and Tony, they regarded him with strange looks.
“Is something bothering you, Winchester?”
He scowled at Tony. “Nothing. Shall we box?”
For the next hour, he worked off some of his frustration with round after round in the ring at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Salon, even sparring with his cousins in a more aggressive manner than normal. Time after time, he challenged them alternately.
Finally, when the three of them dripped sweat and could barely stay upright, Brian held up a hand to him. “Winchester, we surrender. Whatever worm is eating at your brain today, we can only hope half beating us to a pulp has helped ease some of those demons.”
They walked to the benches at the wall and collapsed in a row, panting for air.
“However,” his brother said, wiping his brow on a length of linen and hauling in several deep breaths, “we’d at least like to know why we are being used as punching bags.”
He shook his head, his own chest heaving from the intensive bouts of exercise. More than his usual definitely. More than necessary. “I apologize. No need to drag you into my gloom.”
“We volunteered to become your means of escape from whatever bothered you when you arrived. The ferocious look on your face warned us our session would be hard. We accepted that. Now explain why.”
He raised his hands in a gesture of confusion, of indecision, of vulnerability. “A decision I’ve made is proving harder to follow that I imagined it would be. Difficult to keep telling myself my reasons are sound when–” Breaking off, he dropped his head to his hands and rested his elbows on his knees.
“Would this decision concern a woman?” Tony, always the most intuitive, could be depended upon to jump straight to the heart of the problem. “Or rather, a lady?”
He twisted his head towards Tony who sat on one side of him, peering down at his face. “You know?”
“Not hard to guess. All the signs have been there for several weeks.”
“What signs? What lady? Are we discussing the Countess?”
Brian, though a likeable man and a good friend, lacked his brother’s insight. It remained a family joke that Brian needed all aspects of relationships, and the nuances and emotions associated with them, pointed out to him in a direct manner. He continually failed to notice by himself.
Richard turned his head towards Brian. “This has nothing to do with the Countess. Our affair finished long ago and I have no intention of reigniting it.”
“The countess seems to hold a differing view on that,” Brian remarked dryly. “Unfortunately, she’s regaled her bosom friends—the closest hundred that she’s reconnoitered with accidentally, yet on purpose—with her view that it is only a matter of time until you come to your senses. No one refuses her, you see, so she assumes you shall be begging her to resume your relationship.”
“Damn all greedy, grasping women to hell.”
“Moreover…” Brian continued, giving him a wary eye.
He clenched his fists clenched, gritted his teeth, hoped the heat rising in face remained unnoticeable.
“…The entire London upper ten thousand now believes our infamous bachelor, the Earl of Winchester, angles after her favors, perhaps even the hand in marriage of the Countess. They assume that, as a renowned enticer of women, you’d be loath to acknowledge that you’d lowered yourself to crawling after any woman. Your lofty status, as one of the few eligible men in the City with the audacity and nerve to bed any woman he desires, would crumble in a week.”
“Not every woman I desire,” he muttered darkly, hiding his mounting wrath by fixedly staring at his feet.
“As we have departed the ring, I beg you to not start swinging punches again,” Tony said, “for obligation forces me to divulge this. Your devious past paramour set it about that your current distraction with another lady, a young chit, will prove to be a passing fancy. Your more experienced mistress–”
After a growled exclamation of annoyance, Richard emphasized, “Past mistress.”
“She declares the lady’s naïve attempts to hold your interest past the time of your temporary guardianship will never bear fruit. You’ll be sniffing around her more experienced skirts within days. No innocent can match her own skilled charms. In bed or out of it.”
When Richard glared and uttered another low growling noise, Tony held up his palm. “Or so your past lover has the City believing.”
“May the bragging bitch be struck down by lightning for spreading such lies amongst the ton’s gossips? How dare she smear any young lady’s name, or character, for no good reason and without a shred of proof?”
“Indeed. These fabrications—if they’re lies about you resuming your liaison--”
Richard made his opinion of the stories clear, by a series of low angry noises and a fast nod of his head.
“These untruths, these rumors,” Tony said with a sigh, “may devastate the standing of the poor young woman involved.”
Brian scowled at one, then the other. “For goodness sake, tell me which lady.”
Richard and Tony ignored his question.
Tony asked another of his own. “So, dear cousin, why are you so afraid to commit yourself to a woman you so obviously care about? I can guess at what stops you, but still, if you wish to unburden yourself, we are your friends, Richard.”
“And your family,” Brian added, still looking confused by the conversation.
“Families. Ha! Therein lies the crux of my problem.”
He looked between his cousins. “You two know more than anyone how families can set a terrible example for anyone considering marrying. For years I’ve avoided marriage, as I saw my own father—your uncle—impregnate my mother on such a regular basis that she died from the number of miscarriages she suffered. One too many pregnancies. Why she never refused him her bed, I’ll never understand.”
Tony gave one of his philosophical shrugs. “Love conquers all.”
Of all the cousins, Tony thought and dwelled the most deeply over matters such as interactions between the families and the support each member should show for the others. Recently, Richard’s appreciation of this cousinly support and counsel had increased enormously.
With Sherwyn away, Brian and Tony took on the role of his close confidants. Perhaps unburdening himself to them would clarify his own mind, untangle his feelings, as their insights into marriages came from similar situations to his own. Peerage couples and their related families tended to carry on unusual relationships.
Most contracted initially for the sake of blending titles and wealth, some became cold, some distant, some degenerating into complete family feuds. Unions based on love appeared rarely and even when that happenstance occurred in the beginning, the false and formal lifestyle the genders were forced into often drove a wedge between couples.
“Surely my mother could not have wanted to risk pregnancy over and over in order to please my father.”
Brian leaned across to lay a consoling hand on his back. “I’m afraid, Richard, as we were all too young when your mother passed to understand the circumstances, we may never know the answers to those questions.” Brian’s thick brown brows arrowed together and his forehead gathered deep creases as he frowned, his habitual expression when concentrating hard. “Though, 'pon my word, I never heard a cross word between your pater and mater when we played together as children. As far as I recall, your parents acted as though they were besotted with each other all the time.”
“The majority of couples in our extended family’s history,” Tony said, “tended to love each other so much, and wished for such a large tribe of children, it endangered the women’s lives.”
“By the stories, the pairs that loathed each other were the minority,” Brian said, “Pairs such as our father and our now banished step-mother. I still shudder thinking about how much harm Julia tried to cause our brother, and all the Jamisons. Incredible that she teamed up with Lord Hetherington. We’ll never live down that embarrassment to our dying days.”
His brother nodded agreement. “Yes. Thank goodness society forgave us, the St. Martin men, for her misdemeanors. By trapping Lord Hetherington, we prevented hundreds of minor investors from losing their savings to that unscrupulous and manipulative consortium.”
“Trouble is,” Richard told them, “we’re now tackling the same problem all over again with Lord Hetherington’s insane wife. Until we can apprehend her, for the second time, and ensure she is institutionalized permanently, none of us is safe. She could have us all in her sights as targets to be killed. Murder didn’t disturb her before. I doubt that disposing of a few members of our family, or the Jamison family, would do much more than give her a few moments’ pleasure.”
“If we redouble our efforts, we may still have this mystery solved before our brother and his bride return. Sherwyn’s dealt with enough. Time we settled this once and for all.”
The three of them discussed the latest information they’d uncovered, shared snippets of gossip that might prove relevant, and agreed on their next plan of attack over the upcoming week. Brian, by recruiting more friends to the cause, could cover more ground around the lower class districts, the brothels and the gaming halls. Lady Hetherington’s money source was too full, too frequent, for it not to be supplemented primarily from one of the City’s vice areas.
“London accommodates roughly one hundred and fifty thousand brothels,” Richard said, groaning at the enormity of the task ahead of them. “And we’ve checked into …how many? Not a fraction of that number. We’ll never locate Lady H. Not before the next share allotment is due for release, anyway, and if we miss that opportunity, she’ll likely buy up more than we can afford. Therefore, we may face a future with that crazy woman owning more of the new railway line than we do. I shudder to think what would happen them. What inane decisions she may make, or which government officials she may apply pressure to.”
“It seems likely that she is already applying pressure in high-up government circles. Possibly by blackmailing men holding mid-level posts in government offices.”
Richard moaned and shook his head again. “I fear in this instance, we may be defeated.” His two cousins stared at him, then displayed their confusion by glancing at each other and shrugging. “What silent communication just passed between you two?”
“We wondered why your normal cheery confidence–”
“Plus your everlasting and often exhausting zeal–”
“Not to mention your doggedness over completing every endeavor you commence. Well, we do wonder why those ingrained traits forsook you at this crucial point in our investigation. Especially,” Tony said with emphasis, “when a satisfactory completion of this situation means removing a certain young lady from danger. Ensuring her future safety allows your own consciousness to rest easier. It also, and by your displays in front of the family this is something for which you yearn, allows you to distance yourself from the aforesaid person for whom you hold responsibility–”
“Enough!” Brian scowled between his brother and his cousin. “I appreciate that I may be a little slow to evaluate the same nuances that my brother does when it concerns the female gender–”
“A little slow? Why just last evening Tessa Prendergast invited you to stroll in the conservatory with her, Brian, and you replied that it would be too risky as the damp atmosphere might make her curls go even more awry.”
“Simply trying to be helpful.”
Richard and Tony burst out laughing. Richard nudged his cousin in the arm.
“Tessa’s a known bed-hopper, Brian. That’s the customary lure she throws out to invite a new man to indulge in a fast and furious romp with her, while her husband remains occupied in the card room.” He burst into more gales of laughter. “By speaking of her unruly curls and not accepting her blatant offer, Tessa’s self-image may be so badly dented she’ll never recover her composure. I’d wager no man has ever refused her in quite such a way before.”
Brian looked at him and gestured in a vague way. “You mean…You’ve accompanied her to a conservatory.”
“Yes, although, in my case, it was the butler’s pantry during a dinner her husband hosted for his Parliamentary cronies.”
“Good Lord! During dinner? And you weren’t exposed by the serving staff?”
“I did say romps with Tessa tended to be hasty, didn’t I?”
“Mine with her took less than the time it takes to ask a lady to dance.”
Brian’s glance spun to his brother. “You too? My brother? And my younger one at that. Blather it! You two show me up as a complete slow-top when it comes to the fairer sex.” His brows met in the middle again, no doubt churning over his missed opportunity.
“Take heart, Brian. Nothing’s fair when it comes to Tessa. Positive man-eater. Don’t fret, she’ll not approach you again. Fish that got away, that sort of analogy. She’ll want to prove no man’s immune to her charms.”
‘Yes, well, cousin, if I have a man-eater after me, so do you. The Countess abhors your rejection of her, especially publicly. She’s determined to show her bon amiss she can reel you in anytime she wishes. Hook, line, and sinker.”
“May we dispense with the fishing metaphors and return to our more pressing problems, as luncheon calls. I’ve been invited to join Porch ester at White’s for a succulent slab of beef and a burgundy or two. His Lordship is one of the dozen gentleman who refused the advances, the most persistent advances, of a business man who approached them all at their weekly meeting of the Anthropological Society. This unidentified man-of-affairs claimed he represented an anonymous party, who held the rights to land a new railway would need to cross in order to extend the line approximately seven miles from Ravenglass to Dalegarth, near Boot. Several of the men, including Porchester, had already committed their next allotment of money to be speculated to you, Richard.”
Richard dipped his head in acknowledgement. “So those men said no straight away. Other declined for various other reasons. Apparently, the man then became agitated, swearing and claiming he’d be killed if he hadn’t filled his quota. They were clueless as to what this signified but, thankfully, Porchester thought to send me a message as he’d heard we were seeking just this sort of information.”
“Well done, Tony. This could be the link we’ve been missing. Some clue as to what sort of people Lady H is using and where and how they are being recruited.” Richard grinned. “I may recover my optimism today after all.” He slapped his younger cousin on the back.
Tony glanced at his pocket watch and grimaced. “Drat it. I’ve only ten minutes before I must depart to dress for White’s, and Porchester is a stickler for time. “He fixed his intense and all-too-knowing stare on Richard. “So, care to share what bothers you so deeply about your latest dalliance?”
“There’s no dalliance!” As soon as he’d snapped out the answer, Richard regretted it.
His tone, if not the sour-sounding words, conveyed his anxiety. “I’ve never done anything so despicable as dally with an unmarried and gently-bred lady.” He rolled his eyes. “Most especially when I’ve made promises to her male relations to lay down my life and protect her from rogues such as myself.” He stared at his cousins with a jaundiced eye. “And you two.”
“Not fair to include me in that description. I can hardly be classified as a scoundrel, if I failed to notice the bait Tessa dangled under my nose last evening. A rogue would have obliged her and taken advantage of her advances.”
“By that description of a rogue, I am indeed one,” Richard said with a mournful sigh.
“Ah, I see,” Tony said with a huge grin.
“Luscious Laura has also thrown herself into your arms, unable to resist your well-noted charms, and by necessity you’ve refused her no doubt tempting offers. Dreadful dilemma.”
He ignored the scowl directed his way and grinned, before continuing in a teasing tone, “Stay strong, adhere to your morals, but wallow in so much misery that you’re compelled to box for hours at a time to relieve your rapidly increasing frustration. Your other alternative is to seduce the woman you’re obsessed with. Make her your mistress.”
“Tony, cousin or not, I’ll still plant my fist in your smug face.”
Tony laughed. “Idiot! Of course you can’t make her your mistress, even if you have already seduced her–” He broke off and looked at him questioningly. Richard shook his head, aware that his expression betrayed him nonetheless.
“So, you haven’t gone so far as to seduce her. Yet. Though, knowing how you feel about her, it’s only a matter of time.”
“Is this Lady Laura we’re discussing?”
Now it was Brian who stared at him with an accusatory look. Again he nodded.
“Am I to understand that you hold feelings for Luscious Laura?”
“I may do, and please cease from using that derogatory name to describe her.”
Both Brian and Tony laughed at him. “Might we remind you that it was you who coined that particular term to describe her ample assets?”
“At the time I didn’t realize we may be attributing it to my future wife.”
“Ah, the crux of your dilemma at last. To wed, or not to wed. That is the question.”
“Now see here,” Brian said, his face reddening. “Tis not gentlemanly of any of us to discuss such a lovely lady this way.”
“Brian, I realize you’ve always been slightly smitten with Lady Laura, but lately I’ve also come to the understanding that my own feeling for her are somewhat more than that.”
“Never say the Escaping Earl, the one who’s adroitly avoided any talk of love and romance with all his previous lovers, has now succumbed to what we call the more feminine emotions. Never say you’re in love.”
He frowned, the word jarring somehow. “No, no, no. I’ll freely admit to being in lust. Who wouldn’t when Laura truly is magnificent? Love? Never!”
“Then the only obstacle to your future happiness that I can foresee,” Tony said, leaning back and crossing his legs an adopting an unconcerned pose, “is if the lady in question has more good sense than to want to marry you. Perhaps it is one of us she prefers, after all.”
Tony’s smug grin made Richard’s fingers itch and his fist curl into a ball. His cousin judiciously slid a few inches further away along the wooden bench, although his grin didn’t decrease. It widened.
A sharp chortle of laughter was forced from between his clenched lips as he watched his cousins’ reactions to his news. “I suppose I may as well reveal all, as you’ll both badger me about it for days otherwise.”
“Wise decision.”
“My dreams have been haunted by Laura for weeks now. But just when I’d decided to offer her marriage, stubborn and contrary Laura–”
“I find those her more endearing traits,” Brian said, smiling at his brother. “Do you recall that evening, a year or so ago, when she slipped out of her home against her father’s wishes to attend a meeting of the Council on Education?” He looked at Richard. “Think you were still on the Continent. Villages, including the ones bordering the Jamison’s estate, argued that schoolmasters needed to be paid more than a carpenter or blacksmith.”
Tony laughed. “Yes, Laura was magnificent that evening. Like Joan of Arc. She demanded that the council increase teacher’s pay, so a better class of person could be enticed into the situation. The Council members, all male of course, took offense at what they termed a slip of a girl issuing them orders, and the meeting deteriorated into a riot.”
“Good Lord! I hadn’t heard that particular story of her exploits. Though several others are enough to turn my hair gray. If we marry--after we marry, I shall have to curtail her exploits.”
Tony rose and grinning widely, slapped his cousin on the back. “I wish you good luck with that, but I fear you’ll have as much chance as Sherwyn has of taming her elder sister.”
Sitting in silence for a few moments, he reflected on the excitement he felt when becoming embroiled in arguments with Laura. Quick to concede defeat if proved wrong, she also stubbornly stuck to her principles in disputes about women’s rights, the working conditions of children, or any other Chartist ideas she adopted.
He looked up at his cousin.
“In this case, she is being so contrary that she has declared herself willing, no, not just willing but eager to become my lover.”
Brian’s brows raised. Tony whistled.
Richard stood up and fixed them both with his sternest earl of several estate’s intimidating glare. “I trust no word of this will ever pass your lips.”
Brian appeared horrified. “Certainly not. I would never break a man’s confidence that way.”
Tony looked affronted yet his eyes twinkled with mischief. “Especially when it concerns a woman that our relative thinks he may someday be able to convince to marry him.”
“Your faith in my ability to win fair maiden’s hand is truly touching,” he said, clasping his hands to his heart and allowing them to see his sarcasm.
“More to the point, we’re all privy to Laura’s mind-set about marriage. Her brothers have shared all the details about these experiments she carries out. Sniffing everyone. Done it to me several times.”
“Really?” Richard raised a brow in query. “And what conclusion has she drawn after sniffing your person and, I assume, making those copious irritating observations in her ever-ready little notebooks?”
Brian smiled. “Oh, she’s told me often enough what good friends we are–”
He took a menacing step towards Brian. “How good a friend?” When Brian shrank back onto the bench and raised his hand to protect his face, he groaned and stepped back again. “Damnation. Sorry, didn’t mean to take another bite out of your hide.”
“Understand, old man. When bitten by jealousy–”
“I’m not jealous!”
Both Brian and Tony nodded affably, though it was glaringly obvious they didn’t believe a word of his denial. Not for an instant. Hell. Perhaps his feelings were written across his face, printed for all to read like a Fleet Street newspaper. He prayed only his close acquaintances had noticed the recent disturbance to his stability.
“Nevertheless, the problem remains that Laura will not cease with her observations, until she has found the perfect match for her criteria. A mate. Ridiculous idea. Like recording an animal’s behavior, and matching it with an animal of similar temperament. I’ve tried to explain to her that it will never work.”
“You mean she tackles it the way you do when putting that stallion of yours to mares. The way you fuss for weeks beforehand. You write letters to prospective owners of mares across the country. You study the horse parentages, and cross examine every groom over the characteristics and stamina of their sires and dames. You draw intricate charts of their pedigree and trace their ancestors back for generations to ensure a perfect coupling.”
He threw up his hands and put his hand to his hips, glaring at Tony. “Fine. I concede there is some merit in her theory. And, yes, Laura uses similar classifications as those I use to breed my horses. But I tell you right here and now, I will not agree to Laura’s demands and take the confusing minx to bed merely to satisfy her curiosity. Nor so she can cross another tested name off her ridiculously long list.”
Brian laughed. “Yes, she’s mentioned on several occasions that your scent is not quite right.” He did that beetled-brow thing again and tilted his head to one side to peer at Richard. “Which seems terribly contradictory, when one considers it. Why would Laura insist on testing your bedroom prowess if she’s already decided you’re not going to be a marriage match?”
“That is what I cannot decipher. As a gentleman, I dare not trifle with her affections, nor her virtue.”
“Michael and Jonathon will draw straws to see who challenges you to a duel.”
“Oh, it won’t come to that,” Tony said, grinning. “Our brother will have already gutted him with his knife long before it comes to that.”
“So reassuring! Thank you both for your assistance.”
Tony placed a hand on his shoulder.
“If I was you, I’d take the delectable Laura to bed. Teach her all you know. Make her so eager for more, that she will forget all her notions of experimenting with other men–”
“Ooh! Thank you of also reminding me of that part of her plan. Rest assured, no other man will come within six feet of laying a hand on her.”
“I should hurry then and secure her hand for yourself, because each time she is out in society, the crowd of worshipful admirers falling at her flirtatious feet thickens. Very soon, she’ll decide an odor, a tang, attracts her correctly, according to her research and legends, even close to acceptability, and she’ll sail forth with her plan to test that as yet unknown gentleman in her bed.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Oh, I’m sure Sherwyn could arrange that.”
With those parting words, Tony and Brian walked towards the door. Richard gathered his coat and hat and followed them, but as he reached the door behind them, a messenger rushed towards him.
“My Lord. An urgent message from the lady waiting in the carriage outside. She wishes you to join her. Immediately.”
Brian and Tony also halted as he asked the messenger, “Which lady?”
He bobbed his head. “Not rightly sure. 'er husband’s an Earl. Big crest on side of 'er blue carriage.”
“Ah, ha! It seems your determined previous mistress has tracked you to Gentleman Jackson’s. This should prove interesting.”
He scowled at Tony’s grin. “Didn’t you have a pressing appointment at White’s?”
“Damnation, yes. Must be off. Sorry to miss the fun, though. Brian, be sure to regale me with the entire sordid tale later.”
Winchester strode out of the boxing establishment, with Brian following, mentally comparing himself to an overworked steam engine. His anger rose, hot and humid, like a blast of compressed air tunneled through a pipe. How dared the woman? If it was that conniving Countess, her ears were about to receive a blistering blasting from him such as she’d never heard before.
Reaching the carriage, definitely hers, he grasped the door handle and threw open the door, intimidating the attending footman with the ferocity of his expression. He sprung inside and threw himself onto the seat opposite her.
“What is the meaning of this? And how did you know where I would be anyway?”
Seated with her the skirts of her fashionable gown spread wide, she gave him a look designed to portray innocence.
“I needed to see you, urgently, and I knew you always boxed here three morning a week. This is one of those mornings.”
“Your intimate knowledge of my daily routine is enough to make me squirm in my seat, but any guesses I may make at why you might need to see me, in an urgent way, brings a sweat to my brow.”
She trilled a laugh, a false, forced sound that twanged his taut nerves like the string of an over-tightened harp. “Oh, no! Please, you silly man.”
She reached across, placing a gloved hand on his coat sleeve. He flinched, despite his best efforts to show her the implacable calm of a marble statue.
“Let me set your mind at rest.”
Cold fingers, a sign of impending doom, sent shivers running up his spine. Her fingers tapping on his arm, though light, reminded him of a cat stalking a mouse and toying with it.
“Dispel any pressing concerns. The Earl hasn’t connected us in any romantic way. You’re not about to become a father.”
She gave her version of a girlish giggle, a high-pitched whine that also grated.
“That thought never crossed my mind. The extreme precautions I take ensure it will never eventuate.”
“Besides which, I’d never ruin my figure that way.” She waggled a finger near his nose. “No, no, no, my love. We’ve much more important issues to discuss.”
Here it came. The cat readying to pounce. Moving in for the kill.
“You and I, Richard, are alike. Two of a kind.” She purred.
“We’re nothing alike. Nothing. You’re a greedy manipulative bitch. I’m not.”
Her sucked-in breaths hissed and sizzled between them. “I suggest you play nicely with me, my lord, as I have something you’ll definitely want.” She smiled, a-mouser-anticipating-its-next-meal sort-of smug smile. “It concerns your newest lady-love, the overly-talkative one who sniffs at your skin like a bitch on heat.”
“As I already explained, the only bitch I’ve spoken to recently is you. And I’m about to end this conversation, and any lamentable association we may have had in the past, right now.”
He opened the carriage door and bent to leap out, anxious to be on the footpath where he could draw his first breath of clean air. Away from her suffocatingly sweet French perfume. Away from her clawing clutches. Away from her.
What he’d enjoyed about her—apart from the glaringly obvious thing of a willing female body thrust into his hands—he couldn’t now fathom. Even on the occasions when she’d enticed him between her silken sheets and between her satiny thighs, he’d known. Deep down, he’d recognized the obsessive way she’d kept him there, clutched him, tethered him with guilt and tears and embroidered stories of her unhappy marriage. So why?
Because he’d understood that a woman so shallow, so false, could never affect him emotionally, never touch his heart, so giving in to her erotic demands was an easy option. Far easy than giving in to the deeper, more sensuous entanglement he faced with Laura.
If he surrendered. If he gave in to her. Or rather, to himself, and his own ever-growing desire for her. If he committed himself to Laura–
If. If. If.
If he did, it would be a body-and-soul, unswerving, faithful-to-the-day-he-died type of devotion. The idea scared the living hell out of him.
Trying to calm himself, he drew in another lungful of air. Ironic that the City’s heavy, coal-dust ridden air seemed to him far more pure than the choking atmosphere in the carriage he’d left. He opened his eyes and directly in front of him stood Brian, an anxious expression on his face as he peered over Richard’s shoulder at the carriage.
Damnation! He realized the cause of Brian’s distress. The carriage lingered, an enlarged version of the dangerous feline seated inside. A jungle panther, sleek, slate black and stationary on the steel rutted roadway behind him. He eased in an edifying breath, before turning to face the still-open door of her elaborate equipage. The satisfied smile on the Countess’s countenance, as she leaned out the window, warned him in advance. She beckoned to him with a crooked finger.
Without shifting, he said to Brian, “I fear the Countess failed to comprehend my last message.”
“What did she want?” Brian murmured the question close to his ear.
“Me!”
“Bloody hell!”
“Exactly.”
Steeling himself to not cause a disturbance in this busy area where many of his peers came and went on a constant basis from their own bouts of exercise, he took one step closer to the window. Dodging the rolled fabric blind, he pushed his head into her space and forced her to shift backwards on her seat, sliding a little more into the interior of the carriage.
Better! Much safer. No need for onlookers to glimpse her appearance, perhaps recognize her, nor, he hoped, for them to attach any importance to a conversation the Earl of Winchester held in the street with an anonymous figure in a coach.
“Was there something delaying your departure?”
“Oh, yes, my elusive love. You may think you can best me in this, but I hold the upper hand. A full house in this case.”
She giggled again.
Out of the blue, he recalled why the noise ground on his nerves. It reminded him of the young girl who’d drowned on his estate two years previously, while running away from a group of lads who’d inadvertently frightened her. Poor demented child. After a dreadful birthing, her mother had died and the babe barely survived, and then, as the years passed, it became obvious that the child would never lead a normal life.
Still, her father and brothers doted on her for seven years and ignored her high-pitched giggles, screeches and other inappropriate noises, as did the entire village. Nobody held a forever-child responsible for her frequent outbursts or sometimes outrageous behavior. She was incapable of controlling her emotions in situations that overexcited her. Incapable of knowing right from wrong and good from bad.
How peculiar that the giggle from the Countess sounded much the same, an uncontainable outburst of inappropriate sentiment. Those blasted cold finger tickled his spine again. Blessed enhanced intuition, something that ran in his family, was fast becoming a nuisance.
“I love gamblers’ vocabulary, don’t you? But of course you do. As a constant speculator on the Stock Exchange, you gamble every day. So you understand that holding a full house puts me in the position of power.”
“Is there a point to this diatribe?”
“As you’ve been so reticent to discuss this civilly here, this morning, I’ve changed my mind. If you wish to acquire the information I hold about your precious little flirt, you now need to visit me at my home.”
“Out of the question!”
“Your choice, though possibly a dangerous one for the lady involved.”
“How do I know you’re not bluffing, to use another of your gambling terms?”
“To call my bluff and see my hands spread out, in all their naked glory–”
He frowned at her. “Are we still discussing information, or something else?”
Another of those irritating sniggers. She snapped her fan hard on his arm and he jerked backwards. “Naughty, naughty man. You’ll need to call at my house at three sharp to unravel that little mystery.”
She reached across and rapped hard on the open doorway of the coach, and the liveried footman standing at attention on the footpath sprang forward to fasten the door. The nasty-looking footman called to the coachman, who readied his horses with coarse shouts and slaps of leather reins. Left with no alternative, Richard and Brian moved quickly away, before the large coach lumbered into a swaying motion as he maneuvered into the stream of traffic on the crowded street. The surly sounding coachman continued to hurl abusive comments at anyone brave enough to cross his path.
“The immoral employer seems to keep equally nasty servants around her,” Brian remarked, that pondering frown telling Richard that his cousin dwelt on something of importance. “One wonders why she carries so much force on her town coach.”
Brian pointed to the back of the departing coach where another brute of a footman balanced on the back board, his scowling gaze riveted on them.
“Hum, now you mention it, an interesting situation. I’m certain she never carried such a show of brute strength with her before.”
“So what did she want this second time?”
“Me.”
“Bloody hell!”
Richard snorted. “You’re repeating yourself. But once again, I agree with your summation of the situation.”
“You’d not be idiotic enough to take her up on her proposition a second time.” He looked him in the eye. “My brothers would never forgive me if I let you consider something so mindless without issuing you a severe warning.”
“Don’t fret, my friend. Mixing with the Countess may possibly have been the most foolish thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’d never dive into that cesspool again. Though I do wonder about those protectors of hers. Was it to impress me? To call me to heel?”
“More likely she is frightened of something. Or someone. Perhaps one of her other past lovers is threatening to reveal all to her husband. Though hard to imagine what he’d gain.”
“In my opinion, nothing. The Earl is only too happy to have his wife taken off his hands. Leaves him in the clear to pursue his own rather peculiar little foibles.”
“Oh, not another high-titled peer with strange bedroom habits.”
“From what I understand, yes. The Earl frequents those bawdy houses that cater to a specific type of patron. Probably the reason he’s never sired children with the Countess.”
Brian sighed. “Seriously, I start to believe they should extend the number of padded rooms in Bedlam. Lock away the entire upper ten thousand.”
Richard laughed. “It’s all the inbreeding from previous centuries. Never works well with horse-breeding for many generations either. Can’t see why it would prove any better with humans.”
“Perhaps we should all refrain from siring any children.”
A sudden picture of a brood of red-cheeked and dark-haired children playing around his feet flashed before his eyes. Another babe sucking from the breast of their mother. The woman looked up at him, her dark eyes glowing and giving a loving smile to him.
Laura’s eyes, Laura’s smile.
Of course it would be. He couldn’t escape it, no matter how far he ran. He heaved in a deep breath. No other woman could fill the role of mother to his heir and his other children. Why not accept it and start making it a reality, instead of producing one feeble reason after another to avoid it?
“…Nevertheless,” Brain was saying, “you must avoid the Countess entirely.”
“I wish that were possible. The conniving woman dangled Laura’s safety as bait in front of my nose, knowing I’d do anything to secure it.”
“What are you talking about? What did she say about Lady Laura?”
“If I’m to discover something she knows, something concerning Laura, I must visit the Countess one last time. Today. At her home.”
Brian shook his head. “Oh, no, no, no. Not a good idea. You have no idea what her plan is for you once she has you there.”
“I must go. She knows that. Anything that involves Laura, involves me.”
“Oh, hell. You’re in deep, aren’t you? You’re in love with Laura.”
Richard glared at him. “We’ve had this discussion. At present, I’m her friend. But I want to be her lover, her only lover. And I’ve decided to become her husband. And soon. As for love, I’ll leave sentiments of that sort to those of a more poetic bent.”
“Utter rot!” Brian grinned. “Deny it all you want. But you’re already up to your ears in love with our Lovely Laura.” His smile was replaced by a serious frown. He shook his head, his detested cowlick flopping across his forehead. “This visit this afternoon, it truly doesn’t bode well. I should accompany you.”
Richard laid his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “I appreciate your concern, but it’s better I confront the Countess alone. If you’re with me, she may not speak freely. Although, I do have a way you can assist me without actually entering the house.”
He grinned at his cousin. “Are you and Tony any good at sweeping streets?”
As they walked away from Gentleman Jackson’s, Richard outlined his new plan to Brian.