Before the Scandal

by Suzanne Enoch

  She blushed. “Perhaps. I would have liked it more if they’d been able to attend tonight.”

  “Not while Bram’s in hiding. And remember, not a word to anyone.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then give me a waltz,” he said, deliberately choosing the second one of the evening. Richard had taken the first one with Alyse, which left the viscount unable to waltz with Beth. And that suited Beth’s brother quite well.

  “B…He,” she amended, “wouldn’t say how long they mean to stay.”

  “I suppose that depends on his father. Levonzy’s a bit notorious with that temper of his.” He stopped, the older brother in him warring against the soldier. “Beth, you know that Bram isn’t the best company for you to be keeping.”

  “Oh, I know. And I know that I’m too young for his taste.” She smiled coyly. “I do like to see him so skittish, however. It’s a great deal of fun.”

  He relaxed a little. Thank God Beth had some sense. And even if Bram was a mere distraction from Richard, that was precisely what she needed. “Good. Terrorize him all you like. Just don’t give him your heart.”

  “I would never be that foolish, Phin.” She stood up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “I like it when you forget that you’re supposed to be bad,” she murmured. “I only wish you would tell me why you’re doing this.”

  So much for fooling the infant. “I’ll tell you when I can.”

  “You’d better.”

  He needn’t have worried about keeping Donnelly’s cronies in sight; they trailed about after him all evening. If this was the extent of their skills at subterfuge, he’d overestimated them. Then again, perhaps they weren’t attempting to be subtle. He supposed they could be hoping to shake him, to cause him to make some mistake. Blurt out his identity, perhaps. He stifled a grin as he gestured for a glass of port. He didn’t have to drink; he only needed to look as though he were overindulging.

  Phineas spent the soiree dancing with women whom he’d once found fascinating, but whose names he now barely remembered. Even if the world knew he was in pursuit of Alyse he still wouldn’t have been able to claim more than a pair of dances with her, but he wanted them all. All with her.

  Approaching early to claim her for their country dance, Phineas had to content himself with glaring at the rotund young man twirling about her for the remainder of the preceding quadrille. Once the dance ended, he moved forward. “Shall we?”

  “Beg pardon, but we ain’t even left the dance floor yet,” the balding fellow drawled.

  Phin wasn’t in the mood. “Who are you?” he asked.

  The man blushed. “Henning. Francis Henning.”

  “Phin Bromley,” Phineas returned. “And now that we’re acquainted, you may step away from Miss Donnelly.”

  “Phin,” Alyse chastised, tugging her fingers free from Henning’s and placing them into his.

  He shook himself. Simply because he was primed for a coming battle didn’t mean he could attack everyone in sight. He nodded. “Apologies, Henning. Good evening.”

  “Ah. Good evening.”

  The country dance was torture. Donnelly, Smythe, and Ellerby all took the floor when he did, so any conversation, even banter, with Alyse verged on being impossible. Fingers touched and slid away again, when all he wanted was to sweep her into his arms and kiss her senseless. All he could do was keep repeating to himself that an evening’s frustration was a small price to pay for setting everything right again. As soon as the dance was over he snatched up a glass of whiskey.

  “Phin, is this truly necessary?” William asked, as Andrews rolled the chair up to him.

  “Yes, it’s necessary. Now go away. You’re angry with me, remember?”

  “Don’t you dare take additional chances in order to protect me. It’s my job to protect you.”

  As absurd as that should have sounded coming from a man denied the use of his own legs, coming from William it had both strength and dignity. “I won’t risk anything unnecessarily,” Phineas said. “But for God’s sake distance yourself from me tonight. Yell at me for drinking. Something.”

  William scowled. “Bah,” he summoned, and Andrews turned the chair back into the crowd.

  Well, not as fine as the performances he’d viewed on the stage, but it would do for this evening. It would have been simpler if he could talk to Alyse and determine how much of an act he needed to put on, but he could manage it on his own. In truth, his reasons for wanting to talk to Alyse had little to do with her cousin or with Quence.

  It was selfish and shortsighted, but he wanted just to be around her. To talk with her, to listen to the sound of her voice, to touch her soft skin. And then he spotted her making her way toward one of the privacy alcoves off the main room.

  Swiftly he turned in the opposite direction, dodged through a doorway, and ducked out of sight of Donnelly’s associates. They might be proficient at shooting pheasants, but they knew nothing about hunting a trained soldier.

  “Alyse,” he murmured, catching her arm as she left the alcove.

  She pulled him back through the curtains with her. “What are you doing?” she whispered. “We already danced. And I thought you wanted to stay away fr—”

  “Shh,” he interrupted, and captured her mouth with his. He kissed her, then retreated, relishing in the way she pursued him, wrapping her arms around him and pulling her slim body hard against his.

  His cock ached. God, he wanted to peel her out of that silky green gown and run his hands along her skin, bury himself in her again.

  “I want you,” he murmured, tilting her head back to run his mouth along her throat. “No more country dances. Only waltzes.”

  “Phin. Phin, stop it,” she whispered huskily, still clutching her fingers into his shoulders. “If Richard finds us, he’ll shoot you right here.”

  He didn’t particularly care, but clearly she did. With a last rough kiss he broke away from her. “I know you would be safer if I kept my distance,” he murmured, running a finger along her lips, “but I can’t.”

  “Maybe staying away would have been safer when this first began,” she returned, “but at the moment I much prefer being where I am.”

  “Thank you for that.”

  She touched his cheek, then with a sigh twisted out of his arms and reached for the curtain. “I made Richard pay me for giving him the information. He gave me twenty-five hundred pounds, and I don’t think he intends to hand over any more than that.”

  “I want you out of that house tonight,” he returned. “If he’s willing to murder me, I won’t risk what he might do to you.”

  “He wouldn’t dare. He has an excuse for trying to stop The Frenchman. I would be much more difficult to explain.”

  Phineas sighed. “You are a very brave woman, Alyse.”

  “I’m not the one they are going to be shooting at.”

  He looked at her, just looked at her, for a long moment. “Let’s get this damned thing over with,” he muttered. “Offer to see William and Beth home, will you?”

  Alyse nodded. The way he’d gazed at her—she couldn’t even gather herself enough to speak. Silently Phin kissed her fingers and then slipped away again. She stayed where she was, concentrating on breathing and trying to cool the heat in her cheeks. And then she went to find Richard.

  Phin was already there, standing not quite steadily and facing his seated brother. “I told you,” he said to William in an overloud voice, “I have a head.”

  “Then go home,” William snapped.

  “I came here with you,” Phin said, sneering.

  The difference between the man who’d just been kissing her and the one who stood there now was remarkable. And thank goodness she knew it to be a ploy. “I’m certain we could see William and Beth home later,” she suggested. “Couldn’t we, Richard?”

  Her cousin pasted a smile on his face. “Yes, happily.”

  Phin made a show of hesitating, looking from his brother to her cousin. Then he nodded. “St
uffed shirts,” he muttered, then left the room, clumsily dodging the other guests as he went.

  Immediately after he left, Lord Charles and Lord Anthony appeared on either side of Richard. Whatever they were discussing, they didn’t look pleased about the developments. As she looked on, trying to appear confused and finding it rather easy, William checked his watch several times. After approximately ten minutes had passed, the viscount motioned to his valet and approached the trio of men.

  “I apologize,” he said, keeping his voice low, “but I hesitate to send my brother back to Quence without one of us there to…keep an eye on him. I hate to ask such a favor of you, Richard, but—”

  “Say no more,” her cousin interrupted. “Of course we’ll see you home. Charles, Anthony, will you ride with us? I have no desire to meet up with The Frenchman tonight.”

  Lord Charles and Lord Anthony had both ridden to the ball on horseback. That worried her; she hoped Phin had anticipated that possibility. The Frenchman rode that monstrous black horse, but even he couldn’t outrun an attack from three different directions. And he’d departed the soiree in a coach.

  As their coach rumbled down the road, she looked through the curtains at the dark outside. In the dim light of the coach lantern she could make out Lord Charles a few yards to their left. As she watched, he pulled a pistol from his pocket to hold across his thigh. If they had the chance, they would never capture Phin for the authorities. They would kill him. Tonight. Now.

  “Stand and deliver!”

  On the echo of that shout, a single shot rang out. Alyse had to work not to clench her hands over her heart. Please let him be well, she prayed silently to herself. Please let this go as he intends.

  “Oh, good heavens!” Aunt Ernesta squawked, grabbing at Richard’s arm. “I knew we should have stayed at home tonight!”

  “Hush, Mother.” He pulled a pistol, and then a second one, out from behind the seat cushions.

  “Is that necessary?” William asked. “I don’t want to risk Beth getting hurt in a skirmish.”

  Lord Anthony yanked the coach door open, making Alyse jump. “It’s not us,” he barked.

  “What?”

  “He’s stopped another coach just around the curve, the fool. Come on, and we’ll have him surrounded before he realizes it.”

  Richard stood. “Wait here,” he ordered the rest of the coach’s occupants, and hopped to the ground.

  Alyse stared at William. This was not what she had anticipated. Beth clung to her brother’s arm, her eyes wide, and Aunt Ernesta continued to bemoan her fate from the far corner. And she was supposed to sit there as well, hands folded, while three men attempted to kill Phin.

  She couldn’t do it. Alyse lurched to her feet and scrambled out the door before William could do more than try to grab her arm. “Alyse, wait here,” he muttered.

  “I can’t. I’ll be careful.”

  The sound of angry shouting drew her forward, her heart beating so hard she began to worry that she would faint dead away on the road. As she rounded the bend, she stopped in her tracks.

  Phin stood there, his fists raised, circling…The Frenchman? Blinking, wondering if she had fainted after all and was dreaming, Alyse gaped.

  How long she would have stood there, dazed, she didn’t know. At that moment she caught the glint of a pistol muzzle through the underbrush, and she rushed forward. “Richard!” she hissed, grabbing his arm. “Don’t you dare! You’ll hit Phin.”

  He shoved her away with his elbow. “What are they saying?” he demanded.

  Both men were speaking French. The highwayman’s partner still sat on horseback, his pistol aimed at the Quence coach’s driver but his gaze on the sparring men.

  “Alyse,” her cousin muttered tightly.

  She blinked. “Phin is ordering The Frenchman to surrender himself.”

  “And what’s the answer?”

  Alyse listened. It was something about Phin dancing in a pink dress. Her lips twitched. Whatever was transpiring, it seemed to be part of a plan. “He says that he’ll never surrender,” she improvised.

  Phin leapt onto the highwayman. The two men hit the ground, rolling half under the coach. Fists swinging, they grappled across the roadway and into the shrubbery, leaves and dirt and curses flying.

  It was mesmerizing. Even Richard seemed frozen, watching to see what might happen next. With difficulty she tore her gaze from the battling men to look at the second highwayman again. He was gone.

  His scruffy bay horse still stood, calm as anything, but the man himself had vanished. She quickly looked away again so Richard wouldn’t notice what had caught her attention. Abruptly her cousin stiffened.

  “Votre soeur est une guenuche,” came from directly behind him.

  “Alyse,” Richard whispered, his face going white as a pistol barrel rammed into his spine.

  Obviously she couldn’t tell him that his sister was a monkey. “He says to drop the pistol,” she decided.

  Her cousin’s fingers flew open and the pistol dropped to the ground. “For God’s sake, don’t shoot me.”

  The highwayman glanced in her direction, eyes twinkling behind his mask. “Go,” he said in accented English, prodding Richard forward. “Et vous,” he continued, giving her a half bow.

  She fell in beside Richard, and they stumbled into the clearing. “Dit à les outres idiots à nous joignez,” the second highwayman continued in a carrying voice.

  “He says to come out or he’ll shoot Richard,” she translated, very loosely. Calling Smythe and Ellerby idiots might make them a bit touchy.

  “Show yourselves!” her cousin squeaked.

  After a moment of muttered cursing, two pistols flew onto the road, hitting the soft ground one after the other. Then both Lord Charles and Lord Anthony came into view.

  “C’est une pitíe,” the apparent highwayman commented.

  The fellow’s disappointment at everyone’s cooperation notwithstanding, Alyse was grateful no one had yet been shot. “He says to sit down,” she offered, and he glanced at her again.

  Phin and The Frenchman tumbled past them, each commenting on the other’s lack of virility and poor taste in liquor. It sounded vicious, though, which she supposed was the point. Throwing his attacker off, Phin dove for the two discarded pistols and came up with them. He fired one of them straight at The Frenchman—and somehow missed.

  “Enough,” he snarled, panting and with blood trickling from a cut on his forehead. “You’ve lost, you French swine.”

  Still muttering in French, this time about Phin’s lack of hygiene, the fellow backed away a few steps. “You have won,” he said in a heavy French accent.

  “Then go back to France. We may meet again on the battlefield, where at least you can die with honor.”

  When The Frenchman started for his monstrous black horse, though, Phin stopped him. “I don’t think so, my friend. You’ve forfeited your mount to me. You can ride with your companion.”

  Handing his pistol to Phin, the second highwayman climbed onto his scraggly bay. With a last rude gesture, The Frenchman swung up behind him. “Adieu,” he said, glancing over at her, and then they rode off into the night.

  “Oh, heavens.”

  Alyse whipped around to see her aunt standing beside Beth as they clutched one another. And then Aunt Ernesta fainted dead away. Again.

  When she looked back at the scene of the almost-robbery, Phin was walking up to her. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She touched the cut on his head. “We were taking William and Beth home. Are you unhurt?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “I have to admit,” she offered, glancing at her cousin as he and his companions climbed back to their feet, “there were a few times when I thought you must be The Frenchman.”

  “Understandable, I suppose,” he returned, offering his arm to her, “since I hadn’t been stopped by him.”

  “I thought you were feeling ill,” Richard noted, not at all charitably.<
br />
  “A bit of whacking, and I feel much better,” Phin commented. “Why didn’t you lot shoot them when you had the chance?”

  “We didn’t want to hit you by mistake,” her cousin said flatly.

  “I’ll give you fifty quid for The Frenchman’s beast,” Lord Anthony said from the far side of the clearing, where he was running his hands along the black’s withers.

  “Thank you, no. I think I’ve earned the right to keep him,” Phin returned, touching a free finger to his cut head and still keeping Alyse close by. “Well done,” he murmured, as Richard finally went to see to his fallen mother.

  “Who were they?” she whispered back.

  “Later.” Finally releasing her, he walked over to help Beth to her feet. “How are you, Magpie?” he asked.

  She threw herself into his arms. “You were magnificent! I wish William could have seen it, but he said to let him stay behind with Andrews. I shall tell him all about your heroics.” Belatedly she looked past him to where Richard stood, his moaning mother in his arms. “And you did admirably, as well,” she said, then kissed Phin on the cheek.

  Richard didn’t look as though he would give himself the same halfhearted compliment. In fact, he looked furious. Alyse allowed herself a moment of satisfaction before worry took over again. Richard had been bested, and he wouldn’t like that. Not at all.

  But at least for tonight Phin was safe, and no one would suspect him of being a highwayman after this. Which only left saving Quence. And her, wondering how she would make do with twenty-five hundred pounds and the thought of him leaving again.

  Chapter 26

  “Where are you going?” Sullivan Waring asked as Phineas strode over to the breakfast sideboard for a wedge of cheese and then started back out the door.

  “I’m going out on my new horse, which I’ve decided to name Ajax, and see whether Alyse would care to go riding with me,” he answered.

  Bram stumbled through the door behind him and sagged into a chair. “Coffee,” he mumbled, dropping his head onto his crossed arms.

  “I didn’t hit you that hard, Bram.” Phineas stopped his retreat reluctantly; it seemed like days, rather than hours, since he’d last seen Alyse. He wanted to talk with her, to tell her what he hadn’t been able to previously about the plan to be rid of The Frenchman. And he wanted to make certain she realized that this could very well force Donnelly and his cronies to further action.