by Brenda Hiatt
“House?” she finally asked. “Which house?”
“The one you were watching earlier, of course. My house.”
Her shocked expression appeared genuine. “Yours?” she gasped, then visibly strove to collect herself. “I…I did not know you resided in Brook Street, my lord.”
“It is fortunate for you that I do, as that gives us both a handy refuge from this deluge. Shall we?”
For a moment he feared she would again attempt to run away from him, but after a moment of obviously anguished indecision she gingerly placed her fingertips on his outstretched elbow and allowed him to lead her back the way they’d come. The formality of her action struck him as vaguely absurd after the passionate kiss they had just shared, but he did not comment on it.
Instead he attempted to focus on what he—they—were to do next.
Chapter Fourteen
Violet sneaked a glance at Lord Rushford’s profile as they slogged through the driving rain, still trying to recover her bearings.
That kiss had been an amazing experience—a revelation, really. A glimpse of what delights intimacy with the right man might hold. Mr. Plunkett had stolen a few quick kisses over the two days they’d spent on the road to Gretna Green, but she’d since come to consider her first real kiss the one she herself had stolen in the stables at Ivy Lodge. This kiss, however, had been something else entirely.
But now Lord Rushford was again treating her as though they were mere acquaintances. Clearly, that kiss had not affected him as profoundly as it had her, or he could not have released her so quickly—and she would not have felt obliged to turn so prickly, to hide her confusion.
She had heard that men put less stock in such things than women. No doubt that was particularly true for a man like Lord Rushford. A celebrated Army officer, he had doubtless shared kisses, and more, with many women over the years, both in England and abroad.
Still, he had not seemed entirely unaffected while they were kissing…
They reached the gate into the back gardens and she was abruptly reminded of the other stunner of the evening—that Julian had intended to rob Lord Rushford’s house. Though she knew the two men held each other in dislike, she was dismayed to think something so petty could influence the noble Saint of Seven Dials in selecting a target.
“After you, madam.” Lord Rushford pushed open the gate.
His cold formality made her shiver. Glancing up at him uncertainly, she preceded him into the garden.
“I presume that you feel obliged to protect Bigsby because you believe him to be the Saint of Seven Dials,” he said almost conversationally as they walked toward the house. “In a moment I hope to prove that both your faith and your loyalty have been badly misplaced.”
So saying, he opened the back door to reveal a long hallway. “Hello?” he called out. “Have you got him?”
In answer, more than one set of footsteps hurried toward them.
“Got him?” echoed a man familiar to Violet, though she could not instantly recall his name. “Do you mean to say that you do not?”
The other man, somewhat similar in appearance to the first, regarded her with raised eyebrows. “And who is this?”
“Miss Violet Turpin,” Lord Rushford replied. “The lady to whom you lent that skewbald gelding.”
“Ah, yes. Sister to one of the members of your and Anthony’s fox hunting club.” Then, to Violet, “Lord Marcus Northrup, ma’am. This is my brother, Lord Peter.”
The man with slightly lighter hair nodded. “Yes, we met at the Jeller do a few nights since.” He then turned back to Lord Rushford. “Our quarry escaped out the back, by a window. We assumed—”
“That I would capture him, as that was my post,” Lord Rushford concluded. “So I should have, had I not been…detained.” He slanted an unreadable look Violet’s way.
Mounting anger replaced her urge to thank Lord Marcus. “Do I understand that you gentlemen laid a trap for the Saint of Seven Dials? How infamous! Do you not know—?”
“I’m sorry, Miss Turpin,” Lord Marcus interrupted, “but we must go in pursuit at once if we’re to have any chance at all of catching him. I’ll leave Rushford here to explain.”
So saying, the two men pelted down the hall and out the back door, leaving Violet alone with Lord Rushford.
“Well, this is awkward,” he said. “I recommend you wait in the library while I find something dry for you to wear.” He pointed to an open door.
“What? No! I must stop them!” She started after the two brothers, only to be barred by his lordship’s outstretched arm.
“Don’t be absurd. You’ll never catch them on foot. Not that they are likely to find Bigsby anyway, after so long a delay.”
A delay of her making—not that she was at all repentant. “I thought you a fellow admirer of the Saint of Seven Dials,” she said severely. “Why else would you and the others have named your hunt club after him?”
“So I am. So are we all. That is why we are determined to stop Bigsby, who is no true Saint.”
“You can’t know that,” she flared. “Why should you assume such a…such a thing?” She punctuated her final word with a violent sneeze.
With a muffled curse, he bundled her into the library and threw a lap rug over her shoulders. “We are both like to catch our deaths if we stand arguing in the hall while dripping wet. Sit you here by the fire while I go upstairs to change and fetch something dry for you.”
Before she could utter another protest, he disappeared. For a moment she was tempted to defy him and leave the house before he returned, but by now she was shivering with cold. Pulling the rug closer, she went to the fire to warm herself. She remained standing, however, unwilling to completely submit to his high-handedness.
In five minutes he was back, now clad in loose-fitting breeches and a rough-spun shirt open at the neckline to reveal a vee of tanned skin. She was spared a temptation to stare by the necessity of catching the garment he tossed to her. It proved to be a dark woolen dress several sizes too large for her.
“Sorry,” he said as she held it up. “It was my mother’s. All I could find on short notice, I’m afraid. I’ll leave you while you change out of your wet things.”
Violet watched him go, the irrelevant thought darting through her brain that at least he did not keep fancy gowns for a mistress at his house, as she’d heard some single gentlemen did. She was reluctant to disrobe in his library, but at another violent shiver, prudence overcame modesty.
Mindful that he could return at any moment, she shrugged off her sodden cloak and with numbed fingers fumbled for the hooks of her dress. Unfortunately, it fastened down the back—the reason she’d required Brigid’s help putting it on. In vain she attempted to undo the hooks herself, but could only reach the top three—not nearly enough to allow the frock to slip down over the shoulders.
Undaunted, she decided to take the deuced thing off over her head. After a few moments’ struggle, however, all she managed to do was to get hopelessly entangled in wet folds of fabric that seemed to take on a strangling life of their own.
“Blast it!” she exclaimed in frustration from within the dress.
To her horror, she heard the library door open. “Miss Turpin?” came Lord Rushford’s voice. “Do you require— What on earth are you doing?”
“I’m…I seem to be stuck,” she admitted in a small voice. “I forgot that this dress fastens in back and when I tried to… Oh, bother!”
“Here, let me help you.”
She was sure she could hear laughter behind the words—not that she blamed him, for she no doubt looked quite comical. Imagining what he must be seeing, she began giggling herself.
Giggling that abruptly stopped when she felt firm hands on her back, inexorably tugging the offending garment up and off. Though acutely embarrassed, she made no move to stop him, for it was clear she could not manage on her own.
He made short work of removing the sodden dress and an instant later nothing covered her
body but a chemise and light corset. Instinctively, she brought both hands up to cover her nearly-exposed breasts. Her struggle with the dress had warmed her somewhat but now her cheeks grew positively hot. An answering flame in his eyes heated her face—her whole body—further, until he quickly averted his gaze.
The sensations she had experienced during that scorching kiss in the alleyway returned full force, making her suddenly yearn for more. Heart pounding, she took a tentative step toward him.
“My lord? Rush?”
At the nickname, her first use of it aloud, he turned back to her. The heat, she was both pleased and alarmed to see, had not left his eyes. “Miss Turpin…Violet… I—”
Suddenly she was in his arms again, being kissed as thoroughly as before. More thoroughly, for now his hands roamed up and down her thinly-clad back, leaving a trail of fire where they touched her. A small moan of pleasure escaped her, into his hungry mouth, to be echoed by a similar groan from him.
Shamelessly, Violet pressed her barely-covered breasts against the homespun of his shirt, inhaling the clean, masculine scent of him. Without the distraction of cold rain or the worry that they might be seen, she was eager to experience all the delights she could, for as long as he would provide them.
Alas, that proved not to be long at all. Mere seconds after she had mentally thrown caution to the winds, she felt the change that signaled his reason had again returned.
His hands on her back stilled, then withdrew, followed by his lips. Gently setting her away from him, he allowed his gaze to rove over her for one long moment, then turned away to noisily clear his throat.
“I…I must beg your pardon. That was inexcusable of me.” His voice thrummed with something she wanted to believe was passion but feared was more likely embarrassment and regret. “To take advantage of you under such circumstances…”
Snatching up the big woolen dress, she held it before her like a shield. “I was also at fault, my lord. I…I could have stopped you had I wished to. It seems the, ah, excitement of the evening temporarily overset my capacity for good judgment, as well as yours.”
She half expected him to point out that she had never demonstrated any such capacity, even while hoping he might deny that the effect was temporary. He did neither.
“Perhaps,” was all he said. Then, darting a swift glance her way, he gestured toward the dress she held. “Will you…require my assistance with that, as well?”
“Thank you, no.” Suddenly self-conscious, she turned her back, stepped into the outsized garment and drew it as closely about her as possible. Still feeling foolish, but far less vulnerable, she faced him again.
His lips twitched. “My mother was built on a rather larger scale than yourself, as you can see. One might say that she was a formidable woman in more ways than one.”
“I understand that the late countess did a great deal of good among the poor.” Violet spoke primly to hide her embarrassment.
“She did indeed. Her legacy is one that will not be soon forgotten. Now is hardly the time for reminiscences, however. We must instead discuss the future—in particular, the ramifications of this coil in which we find ourselves.”
In other words, the coil she had created. Not that she’d known the house Julian meant to rob was Lord Rushford’s. Her eyes were again drawn to that disturbing patch of bare flesh below his throat but she averted them before it could tempt her to further indiscretion.
“I, ah, suppose my best course is to take a hackney back to Cavendish Square,” she forced herself to say. “I can likely slip in the same way I slipped out, before anyone notices I am missing.”
“You…wish to pretend our encounter this evening never happened?”
Startled, she glanced at his face to find him frowning. “Don’t you?”
As the words left her lips, she finally acknowledged what she had secretly suspected for some time: far from overcoming her youthful tendre, she had fallen head over ears in love with this man. Or had she loved him all along and merely pretended otherwise?
“Perhaps you are forgetting that we have already been seen together by Lord Peter and Lord Marcus Northrup,” he pointed out. “Given that, the obvious thing—the honorable thing—would be for me to marry you, and as soon as possible.”
Simultaneously elated and appalled, her eyes flew wide. “Marry—!” The rigid set of his jaw effectively quenched the elation. “Surely no sacrifice so great is required,” she said, swallowing her disappointment. “Particularly as you are already promised to Mary Simpson.”
“No doubt she—or at least her mother—will be displeased, but I cannot help but feel that a situation such as this one takes precedence over an agreement made months ago that has yet to be formalized. Indeed, as a man of honor I see no viable alternative.”
He spoke of honor, but nary a word about love—or even liking her. Lifting her chin, she sternly ordered her lips to stop trembling.
“Of course there is an alternative,” she said. “The one I already suggested. I’m certain if you ask your friends to say nothing they will oblige you. Assuming I am able to sneak back into Lady Simpson’s house without being missed, we may…simply go on as before.”
“And if you are not?”
She bit her lip. “Even in that most unlikely event, there is no need for you to be implicated, my lord. If you can obtain a hackney for me, I will return at once. As my brother has likely told you, I have some, ah, experience at sneaking away and back undetected, so you need not worry that you will be required to sacrifice your future on my behalf.”
He looked as though he wanted to argue further, but after regarding her narrowly for a long moment, he shrugged and again walked out of the room. When he returned, it was to inform her that a hackney carriage was at the curb.
Telling herself she was relieved, she threw her still-wet cloak over the ill-fitting dress and accompanied him to the front door.
“You must send me word at once if you are unsuccessful,” he said as he handed her into the waiting coach. “I have already paid the shot to Cavendish Square. Good night…Violet.”
“Good night…my lord.” She caught herself before calling him “Rush” again. That way lay certain heartache.
With a nod, he shut her into the hackney and the driver whipped up his horse. Looking over her shoulder, Violet saw him walking toward the house without a backward glance.
Tears of disappointment pricked her eyes but she blinked them away. Surely she could not wish him to insist on marriage if he did not love her? Given her own feelings for him, she could think of nothing more painful…or humiliating. Undesirable as a loveless match might be, a match where only one partner was in love would be infinitely worse.
If she were caught sneaking back into the Simpson house, she was even more resolved than before to make no mention of Lord Rushford.
Rush firmly resisted the temptation to watch the hackney carrying Violet out of sight. That temptation was strong, for tonight had made crystal clear what he’d denied for the past month: regardless of how unsuitable a countess she might make, he was thoroughly in love with Violet Turpin.
He’d hoped, from the way she responded to his kisses, that she felt the same. Apparently not, judging by her reaction to his suggestion that they marry. Slowly reentering the house, he wondered what his next move should be.
He had only a few moments to contemplate his options before the two Northrup brothers returned with the news that the false Saint had indeed eluded them.
“Had too big a lead on us.” Lord Marcus ruefully shook his head. “Had we but realized—”
“Yes, about that. I take it Miss Turpin is gone?” Peter asked. Rush nodded. “Then perhaps now you can explain what she was doing here and how she prevented you nabbing our imposter.”
With no time to invent an alternative story, Rush simply told the truth. “Though she denied it, I believe she was acting as lookout for Bigsby. I followed her in hopes of learning who was working with him. Of course, I had no id
ea it was she until I caught up with her.”
“Without our man, we’ve nothing to give the authorities,” Peter pointed out. “Think you can persuade her to stand witness against Bigsby?”
Rush doubted it. “Not while she still believes him to be the true Saint. I will of course try to convince her otherwise, but…” He shrugged.
“Perhaps he left something incriminating behind that we can use?” Lord Marcus suggested.
Lacking a better idea, Rush lit every lamp and candle and they searched the library, though Peter insisted the intruder had spent only a few minutes there before fleeing. They then retraced his path of escape to the open ground floor window.
“Ah!” Peter plucked a scrap of cloth from the window frame. “It seems the fellow tore his jacket on his way out.”
Rush peered at the bit of fabric. “If this can be matched to a coat of Bigsby’s, we’ll have something, at least.”
Lord Marcus looked skeptical. “If he’s at all clever, he’ll dispose of it at first opportunity. Without more to go on, we don’t dare break into his lodgings to search. We’d risk arrest ourselves.”
“He’s right,” Peter regretfully admitted. “Persuading Miss Turpin to reveal what she knows is a far better option. Still, I’ll hang on to this.” He pocketed the scrap of torn cloth. “It may yet come in useful as evidence at some point.”
The brothers then took their leave, Rush promising to do what he could to secure Violet’s help.
In bed a short time later, Rush found sleeping difficult. Every time he nodded off, he was tormented by the memory of Violet Turpin’s scorching kisses…and by fantasies of what might have followed had he behaved less honorably.
But that way lay madness.
* * *
The next day, as previously agreed upon, Rush and Killer called at the Simpson house to escort the young ladies for another Sunday ride in Hyde Park. Rush felt some trepidation as they were announced, wondering what sort of reception to expect. Had Violet been caught returning? If so, had she held to her promise to avoid mentioning his name, or would he be called upon to…?
