“This is nothing less than blackmail,” Pierson told Miss Tempest, as he gritted his teeth and managed to climb up into his curricle. That he made it up and into the seat surprised him, almost as much as when he settled into place, in a spot he never thought he’d find himself again—driving a carriage.
Yet he wasn’t driving.
To his horror, Miss Tempest had wound the ribbons through her gloved hands and was giving them an experienced wag, sending the obedient horses down the street.
“What the devil are you doing?” he demanded.
“Since you’ve refused, I must. Drive, that is,” she told him. “Besides, you said my sister is in devilish company. You seemed in a great haste to go after Mr. Rowland when you thought it was me—” The little busybody had the nerve to pin a knowing glance on him.
“I was just . . .” He rather hated the fact that once again she had him in a tight corner.
“Be that as it may, your rescue is now of my sister.”
Yes, so it appeared. He glanced up and found that they were passing a young buck in a stylish-looking phaeton. The fellow gaped at Louisa before giving Pierson a pitying glance.
Oh, this will never do. He reached over and took the ribbons from her. “If we must rescue your sister, then I am driving.”
“As you wish,” she said quite willingly, settling into her seat. “Since it is most likely for the best.”
“I don’t know, you seem quite good at driving,” he admitted as he adjusted his hold.
“Thank you,” she said, nodding politely. “However, driving is always enhanced when one goes in the right direction . . . My lord, you just drove past the turn to the lending library.” She glanced over her shoulder and then back at the horses.
“The lending library? Is that where your sister said she was going?” Pierson couldn’t help himself, he laughed.
“I don’t see why that is amusing, especially when the lending library is back there,” she said, reaching over for the ribbons.
He batted her hand away.
“We should turn back,” she persisted.
“Your sister isn’t at the lending library.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Well, for one, I saw her get into a carriage with Tuck.”
“Mr. Rowland, indeed! I can’t imagine Lavinia going with him. No, you must have mistaken the matter. It is impossible.” She sat with her arms folded over her chest.
“And if such circumstances are, as you say, impossible, why are you insisting that we go rescue her?”
She took a glance at him. “Harrumph!”
“So I thought,” he said, feeling a momentary bit of control over the situation. Not that he expected to maintain it for very long. “Your sister is not at the lending library, because that is exactly the same lie Tuck and I would tell our tutor when we wanted to get out of our lessons. How long has she had this interest in the ‘library?’ ”
She glanced sideways at him, eyes narrowed. Apparently not the news she wanted to hear. “You must be mistaken. Lavinia would never—”
Yet she stopped short of completely denying the possibility.
“Tuck and I shared a tutor when we were young,” he explained. “Dry, horrible old fellow. And so when it was fair out and we hardly wanted to be inside, we would confess a desire to go to the lending library, and our tutor, who didn’t like walking so far, would grant us permission to go.”
“But you didn’t—”
He shook his head. “No, we didn’t. We’d gallivant about Town, finding mischief and generally doing what boys do when left to their own devices.” He laughed a bit at the memory. He hadn’t thought of old Dr. Smithson in a long time. “Once we got lost and had a devil of a time finding our way home. We knew we would be caught out, and by the time we returned, our absence had been noticed. But Tuck had a ready reply.”
“Which was?” she asked, though she didn’t look like she wanted to hear the answer.
“Oh, yes. He had some bang-up tale about how we’d found ourselves caught up reading Homer, The Odyssey, I think it was, and lost track of time.”
Miss Tempest scoffed at such a thing. “And that was believed?”
“I don’t know, but Lady Charleton spied us sneaking home, managed to get us inside without anyone else seeing—and when they did notice our return, she had a way about her that left everyone else inclined to be lenient.” He paused for a moment, thinking about his aunt. “I’m certain she knew we hadn’t been anywhere near the library, but made excuses for us anyway. She loved Tuck dearly—thought of him as a son, especially since it was obvious he was going to be Charleton’s heir. My aunt, your godmother, was a remarkable woman.”
“I never met her.”
Pierson glanced over at her. “No?”
“No,” she said with a wistful note.
“That’s unfortunate.” And he meant it. He suspected that if Aunt Isobel had lived, she would never have allowed him to wallow about, or feel sorry for himself, or hide away in his darkened lair.
She would have done much as her goddaughter had done over the last fortnight—cajole him back into the world.
Speaking of which, Miss Tempest began prodding him again. It seemed she never missed an opportunity to meddle.
He was finding that he rather admired that about her. Her persistence.
“Lord Wakefield, if my sister is in Mr. Rowland’s company—”
“If? No. She is.”
There was a long sigh from his companion. Make that her demmed persistence.
“While I am still of the opinion that not even Lavinia would be so foolish as to keep company with Mr. Rowland, and if she isn’t at the lending library, where do you think she might be if she is in Mr. Rowland’s company? Where does a gentleman take a lady in the middle of the afternoon?” And after a moment’s pause, she added, “Do say something respectable.”
That was the problem. Being that this was Tuck, the situation was most likely anything but.
Pierson ground his teeth together. What the devil was Rowland thinking? Especially when the chit was staying in their uncle’s house. Under their uncle’s protection.
Which might have been something to consider before you found yourself alone in a carriage with the chit the other night, eh Pierson?
He ignored that ironic little voice of reason.
“Let us try the park,” he said, hoping that gave Tuck enough time to get the second Miss Tempest back to Charleton’s house.
That seemed to reassure her, for she sat back, her hands folded primly in front of her. But this silence and her stiff stance unnerved him a bit.
He thought back to the last time he’d been with her—in the carriage, holding her.
Well, more than holding her. And he supposed he owed her an apology. Should explain his actions. Perhaps starting with why he hadn’t come to call.
No. No. No. That would never do. Yes, well, I am so sorry, Miss Tempest, I’ve been indisposed.
Make that drunk as an emperor and trying my best to forget you, he corrected.
Oh, that was hardly the way to start such a conversation.
Nor did the silence weigh well on Miss Tempest, for she spoke up before he had a chance. “How long has it been since you were out driving?”
She made it sound like they were on some pleasant jaunt to the park.
“Not since—” He stopped right there.
But she wasn’t afraid to say it. “Since before you went to Spain.”
“Yes.”
“You appear to like it,” she pointed out, as he crossed through traffic with nary a blink.
“I do. Rather, I did,” he quickly corrected.
“You shouldn’t have stopped.”
He could hardly tell her the real reason—he hadn’t thought he could get up into a carriage—at least up and into the driver’s seat—without making a complete cake of himself.
But here he was.
She’d forced him into trying, what with her blackmail.
He glanced away, because it was just one more way she’d widened the cracks in his fortress walls.
Bothersome chit.
As they journeyed a bit farther, she sighed heavily.
“Whatever is wrong?” he asked. Oh, demmit, why had he done that? When was he going to learn not to make these sort of queries?
Because she always answered them.
“I find London so sad,” she said, her mouth setting in a serious line. “I had thought it would be all grand homes and gardens and beautiful spaces, but it isn’t.”
“Then I had best not take you to Seven Dials or Southwark if you find Mayfair not to your liking.”
“Oh, the houses are lovely, and grand, but it is the poor creatures on every corner that I did not expect. Why isn’t anything done about that?” She nodded toward a man leaning heavily against the corner of a building, one arm wound around a crutch.
One pant leg hung flapping in the breeze, where he’d lost a leg. Nor was there any mistaking his tattered jacket.
A Hussar.
Close by, a pair of children held out their caps, hoping to catch any coins that the poor soldier missed.
“That might have been Bitty and Bob—if you hadn’t taken them in,” she said as they passed. She glanced over her shoulder at the waifish imps, watching them most likely until they were out of sight.
“What would you have me do?” he asked. “Take every beggar in London into my service?”
“No, your house isn’t big enough,” she pointed out.
Practical minx. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t other means to meddle.
She sat up straight and gazed at him. One of her looks that pinned him in place, made him sit up and pay attention. “But you could help them.”
He barked a laugh. Because as she’d noted, there was misery on every corner.
And London had a lot of corners.
“It would take a fortune,” he told her, not looking at the man curled up on the sidewalk, his dark green jacket flung over him like a blanket.
She reached out and put her hand on his sleeve. “You could gain them that fortune. You could be their voice.”
He didn’t quite see what she was suggesting. “Are you saying I should beg for them?”
“No. I’m saying you should take your place in the House of Lords and demand it.”
Pierson nearly choked. She didn’t ask for much. The fortune would be easier to manage.
“You could be their voice, my lord. Look at Bitty and Bob and imagine their fate if they hadn’t their aunt. Hadn’t you. Force those fusty old lords to help the men who have served. Make them remember not only the men who have lost limbs, their livelihoods, but their families as well.”
No, she didn’t ask for much at all. Save my sister from ruin. Save every limbless fellow and all the orphans.
But the worst part of all was that he knew she was right.
And demmit, if she hadn’t chosen to plant a seed exactly where it could grow.
Meddling bit of muslin. He glanced over at her and could see she was most likely beginning to map out his entire political campaign. But if there was one thing he had learned about her, she could be diverted.
“I bumped into a new maid as I was coming down the stairs—” he began.
Immediately, he had her attention. But not as he expected.
“Dear heavens! You didn’t frighten Caddy, did you? She’s a good girl and comes highly recommended, but I fear she’s terribly shy.” This scold was followed by an accusing glance.
He looked away, for now he was the one who was ruffled.
Frighten the gel? Whyever would Miss Tempest say such a thing? Did she think him a complete ogre?
Then he thought back to that encounter on the stairs and flinched. Well, the maid had looked a bit pale.
“You did, didn’t you?” Miss Tempest said, for nothing slipped past her sharp gaze.
“I might have given her a slight start,” he admitted. Recalling the girl’s gaping expression of horror, he supposed he’d rather traumatized this poor Caddy. But he wasn’t about to run up a white flag just yet. “Apparently I have a new footman as well,” he added. “Do I have your interference to thank for my new maid and footman?”
She glanced away, but not before he noticed the pretty blush rising on her cheeks. “Maids and footmen,” she corrected.
Maids and footmen. As in more than just this Caddy and Clarks. “So you’ve been meddling in my house again, haven’t you?”
She had the audacity to appear affronted. “How could I, when you’ve forbidden your staff to let me enter?”
“Hasn’t stopped them apparently,” he muttered under his breath.
“Mr. Tiploft asked my opinion on the matter,” she admitted, then rushed to add, “Since Caddy and her sister Betty are the daughters of Mrs. Petchell’s cousin, while the Clarkses are her nephews on her husband’s side. Mr. Tiploft wanted to ensure they were all suitable choices without offending Mrs. Petchell.”
Good heavens, considering what his cook had sent up for him today, he’d hate to see what she’d do when “offended.”
“Am I to employ all of Mrs. Petchell’s wayward relations?”
At this she sniffed. “Better that than the thief you had previously. You are lucky to have a single teaspoon left in your house.”
She had him there. Nearly.
“Since you are so intent on seeing me fully staffed, are you also paying all their salaries?”
That got her attention.
“Oh, dear me, no!” Her eyes grew round with alarm. “I just assumed . . . you would . . . That is if you can afford . . .” She paused for a second, then lowered her voice. “You can afford them, can’t you?”
He leaned over. “I can.”
Her relief welled out of her. “Thank heavens, because my pin money would barely cover Bitty and Bob.”
“From the amount Bob eats, your pin money must be most generous,” the viscount commented. “I am beginning to think a few missing teaspoons isn’t much to consider when faced with an empty larder.”
“You wouldn’t turn him out for eating too much, would you?”
Pierson laughed. “What sort of beast do you think I am? No, don’t tell me—that question was merely rhetorical and I suspect you would be more than willing to forgo good manners and give me a full accounting of my failings.”
She laughed and glanced away—for most likely she’d begun to compile her reckoning—or worse, had done so already and been happily waiting for just such an opportunity.
“You needn’t worry,” he said hastily, because he certainly didn’t want to hear what she thought of him. “I will not turn out those two guttersnipes. I’ve grown far too fond of Mrs. Petchell’s cooking. And if I must have her entire clan beneath my roof if only to enjoy the delights of her roast beef, then so be it.”
Though today’s offering had been a bit of a shock, a harkening back to the days of Monsieur Begnoche. If Pierson had to guess, he suspected the old gal had served him up that dreadful liver stew on purpose.
She had cooked for the previous Lord Aveley, after all. And he had been known to have his fair share of infamous bouts.
Miss Tempest sat up a bit straighter and adjusted her bonnet. “I think you will find them all competent and excellent additions to your household. I was most impressed when I interviewed them.”
“Aha! So you admit to meddling in my life,” he pointed out.
“You call it meddling, I call it something to do,” she told him.
When he stole a sideways glance at her, he found her brows furrowed together. Oh, God help him, she was plotting again.
“What is it now?” he dared to ask.
“Can you afford a valet?”
Pierson coughed. “A wha-a-a-at?”
“A valet. While footmen and pot boys aren’t overly expensive, I suspect a good valet does not come cheaply.”
“No, they do not,” he informed her most solemnly. Then he thought about what she was really saying. “Why do you think I need a valet?”
The look she gave him—one that swept from his top hat to his boots—was most telling.
Still, that didn’t stop him from asking, “What?”
“It’s just—” Her fingers fluttered about as if they weren’t sure where to point first.
He glanced down at himself. Certainly he was no Beau Brummell, but he wasn’t completely unpresentable.
Well, mostly. “What?” he repeated. Demanded.
“You need tidying,” she said, her wide blue eyes all earnest and serious.
Tidying. Well, yes, he supposed he did. But that wasn’t exactly what she meant. Her words, her earnest glance held so much more.
Leave it to Miss Tempest to get to the heart of the matter.
His heart, to be exact. He knew exactly what she was saying. He didn’t need a valet (well, he probably did, but that was beside the point), he needed her.
Desperately.
And looking into her eyes again, she needed him as well. That was the part that frightened him. Down to his boots.
Miss Tempest needed him. Longed for him. Desired him.
That part terrified him.
Why couldn’t she be like everyone else in London and see how unworthy he was? It was as if, no matter how hard he tried to convince her otherwise, she refused to see anything else.
In her eyes, he saw reflected a man he didn’t completely recognize. There was some of the rake he’d been before. Before he’d bought his commission . . . before he’d needed tidying, as she so eloquently put it.
Yet there was also the man cast firmly in the darkness. The stranger who pulled at his soul to wade deeper and deeper into that mire. To hide in the shadows where no one could see his shame.
His secrets.
Except her.
Somehow, Miss Tempest saw him in his entirety. The rake. The damaged soldier. The rarely noble viscount.
They weren’t all pieces to her—like so many others saw him.
Society, who recoiled from his injuries with their furtive glances and pitying looks.
His mother, with her eyes filled with regrets.
Tiploft, who longed each day to see the lord and master of the manor arise and come forth.
Tuck, who saw . . . too much.
But not Miss Tempest. She was like a general on the hill. The one who saw the full scope of the battlefield. Had the power to lead him out from beneath the barrage of cannons and sniper fire under which he’d been hiding.
His silence must have been unnerving her, for she started to chatter on. “Take that jacket. It doesn’t fit. And your hair. It is ill-kempt. A valet would see to those things. Not allow them to go unattended.”
Pierson couldn’t help himself. “Like my linen closet?”
Those gorgeous eyes of hers widened—first with determination and then the realization of what he was really implying.
“Oh! This has nothing to do with your linen closet,” she told him, folding her gloved hands in her lap and staring demurely ahead.
“I certainly hope not. So might I assume that ‘linen closet’ is some new cant that I’ve missed picking up in my absence from society?” He did his best to keep his features schooled in all seriousness, even as he watched a mixture of chastisement and, though she’d never admit it, delight, wage war at her lips.
And then after a few moments, she turned toward him. “I’m sorry, my lord. But a linen closet is still a linen closet.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he told her.
“What is unfortunate is yours. It is still unfinished.”
“The closet or the kiss?” he dared, as he pulled the horses to a stop to wait for a break in traffic.
She straightened up. “I hardly think now is the time to discuss kissing.”
Liar. He could tell by the blush on her cheeks that she was considering the notion.
Besides, he knew Louisa Tempest. She didn’t like anything half finished.
Including a kiss.
Which he was tempted to steal right here and now, but from behind them, a driver shouted his annoyance. “Move along there. Haven’t got all day!”
“No, we haven’t,” she added, nodding toward the entrance to the park.
Of course, yes. The park. He gave the reins a wag and all too soon they were driving through the crush of society out on afternoon parade. He guided the horses into the flow and settled back.
But immediately, Pierson realized something wasn’t right. “I know I haven’t been out much in the last few years—”
“Rather not at all,” she corrected.
“Yes, thank you,” he noted. “As I was saying, even having not been out much, I don’t recall being snubbed everywhere I went.”
For indeed, every carriage they passed, every rider who trotted past, after a moment’s recognition, made a very deliberate effort to give them the cut direct.
“It isn’t you; it is me,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands, which were now knotted together in her lap.
Pierson glanced around at the hostile reception. “You?”
“I suppose you will find out eventually,” she said. “I’m no longer considered proper. Not since Almack’s.”
“Not proper? Of all the—” Then he stopped.
You did this. You ruined her the other night and then fled as if half of Boney’s army was chasing you.
He swung to face her. “I’m so sorry. This is all my—”
“Don’t,” she said, her gaze still fixed on her hands. “You had nothing to do with any of this. There are other . . . circumstances.”
Pierson looked up and around them, feeling the full weight of the scorn being heaped in their direction.
Whatever could cause such disdain? Then he stilled.
What had she said? Not since Almack’s.
Then he remembered, those ugly words haunting forward from that night.
Lady Tempest is dead . . . in Italy . . . with her paramour by her side . . . if she’s got her mother’s blood, she won’t be so clumsy when she’s lying on her back. . .
It wouldn’t have mattered how many marquesses he’d struck that night. Such damaging, scandal-ridden gossip—rife with adultery and lies—would trump any other mayhem.
He took another glance around and realized the full extent of her ruin by the misery in her eyes.
“That bastard!” he said without thinking.
At this, she reeled back, her mouth gaping open.
“Oh, good heavens!” she gasped. “So that is what Lord Ilford said to you. He told you about—” Yet she couldn’t finish the sentence.
He was of half a mind to deny it, but Miss Tempest was no fool. Instead he shrugged a bit. “I suppose my striking him didn’t help.”
“Unfortunately Lord Ilford and Lady Kipps have taken great delight in seeing that . . . everyone knows . . .”
Kipps? Not that pup that had always been loitering after Preston and Roxley.
Still, he had to ask. “Kipps got married?”
“Apparently,” she said. “I don’t think the lady is his mother.”
“And what has this Lady Kipps got to do with this?”
“She was in the middle of a dance floor when Mr. Rowland ruined my sister. If that was all this was, I daresay we could weather such a thing.”
Pierson blinked. Certainly he was a bit under the weather, but still he couldn’t have heard her correctly. “Tuck ruined your sister on the dance floor at Almack’s?”
Then that part of the evening came back to him. Louisa insisting that someone rescue her sister from the tumble on the dance floor. Tuck coming up to him just after he’d struck Ilford. What was it he’d said? Oh, yes.
Bit of trouble out there. Thought it best I make my bow and resort to a hasty exit.
Bit of trouble indeed! It had looked like a mail coach had toppled over and emptied all its passengers in the process.
That had been Tuck’s fault?
Then again, if anyone could manage such a debacle, Alaster Rowland was the man to do it.
“Yes, exactly. If he hadn’t been there, Lady Kipps would never have ended up atop Lady Jersey.”
Oh, if his head wasn’t spinning before, it was now. But he tried to follow. “This Lady Kipps fell on Lady Jersey?”
“Yes, but only after Lord Pomfrey tumbled onto her.”
This was where his less-than-perfect faculties did not aid him. He closed his eyes and tried to line up all the players, and then set them in motion like a perfect column of dominos. “And Tuck did all this?”
Her snort rather confirmed that. “You can’t imagine—”
“I’m beginning to.”
“And it all began when Mr. Rowland let go of Lavinia to come to your aid—”
His aid? Oh, his pride couldn’t allow such a thing. “I was never in distress,” he pointed out. “You might recall, I wasn’t the one on the floor.”
Her glance implied she would have preferred that he had been—on the floor.
“As it was,” she said, continuing, but he noted, choosing her words a little more carefully, “Without Mr. Rowland’s hold on my sister, she tumbled into Lord Pomfrey—”
“Who fell into Lady Kipps—”
“Yes, and then the countess stumbled and fell—”
“Taking Lady Jersey with her.”
Miss Tempest sighed. “Unfortunately. There were others who ended up in the hodgepodge, but they are hardly of note.”
“How unfortunate your sister didn’t dance with Lord Ilford and you with Tuck,” he said, still trying to put that night’s events in order.
“I hardly think that would have changed the situation. At least not the other dilemma . . .”
Meaning her mother.
“Besides, I had no intention of dancing with Mr. Rowland, Lord Charleton’s heir or not,” she had continued. “He was bosky.”
“Bosky? Listen to you.” He laughed to hear the very proper Miss Tempest use such cant.
That was the real problem with her. One moment she was tied up in her stringent notions of organization and staffing, and the next, she was being utterly improper.
Then again, when she came close enough to him so he could smell her perfume, see the soft sheen in her hair, the tiny hint of freckles across her cheeks, it was easy to forget what proper meant.
And today she was definitely sited in the proper camp. “No reason to find that amusing. He was bosky, I say.” She glanced at him as if to challenge him to deny it.
How could he? “The only way to get Tuck into Almack’s, I imagine.” It was meant to lighten the mood, but it hardly worked.
“Excuse me?” Her brow winged up.
“Well, you wouldn’t expect Tuck to go there and not be drunk, would you?”
Her shoulders drew a taut line. “I would.”
Yes, she would.
And that was the problem. Miss Tempest in all her proper and tidy ways wouldn’t understand the very untidy and irrational notion of drinking oneself into a stupor.
Getting lost so in a kiss you forgot your manners, your honor.
Pierson gave his head a slight shake, then glanced over at her and wondered if she knew how he’d spent the last few days. He hoped not, but considering how meddling she was, she probably did.
And he was struck by how much he wished she didn’t.
Yet here she was—no matter what she thought of him. Asking him to help her find her sister.
Worse, if he was to hazard a wager, he’d have to say she thought him quite capable of saving the day.
Miss Tempest, I am no hero, he wanted to tell her.
Meanwhile, she’d continued her lament. “It isn’t all that bad that we must leave,” she was saying, glancing up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet. “Especially now that it is all over Town that we are . . .” Again her voice trailed off, but she plucked up her chin and finished the best she could manage, “ . . . not good ton.” She sighed. “ ’Tis better to go home than watch poor Lady Aveley despair that no one will acknowledge us or invite us anywhere.”
He hadn’t been listening as carefully as he ought, for he was still trying to think of some way to locate Tuck.
And the other Miss Tempest. That and get this Miss Tempest home, where she wouldn’t be subjected to the harsh censure of every member of the ton they passed.
Oh, that, and salvage all this mess. Put a smile on her strawberry-colored lips, put that light back in her eyes.
But it was then that her words sank in. Exactly what she was saying. And what it meant. To him.
“Go home? Leave London?” Pierson shook his head. “No, no, that will never do.”