The earl’s plan was simple: beat the hell out of Repton and move the curricle from the lady’s path. Before he got near enough, she let loose a stream of invectives that stopped him in his tracks. Then, while he and the others were still absorbing her magnificent fury and vitriolic message, the woman pulled back on her reins, causing the mare to rear. The chestnut backed up, still on her hind legs only, until her tail was almost touching the phaeton behind. With the lightest of touches the lady brought the mare down to all fours and then, with a leap and a bound and burst of speed forward, the two sailed right over Repton’s curricle and away. If the old roué hadn’t ducked, they’d have taken his head with them. As it was, his hat went flying.
Lord Gardiner leaned down from his stallion and retrieved the hat while most of the other spectators were still staring at the cloud of dust kicked up by the lady’s departure. One or two started clapping. Ross turned back to them and sneered. “Would you have clapped so hard if she’d broken her neck trying that amazing jump? What if she’d lamed the animal, trying to get away from you?” Eyes shifted to study the ground. “And you call yourselves gentlemen. I am ashamed to be one of your number.”
“Come now, Gardiner, just a bit of fun. No harm done.” Repton was sitting up again, getting his color back. He held his hand out for his hat. “Since when has Earl en Garde developed such nice scruples when it comes to women anyway?”
Someone, Hastings, he thought, snickered. Lord Gardiner studied the hat in his hands. “Scruples?” he drawled. “Do you know, in all my years I never had to terrorize a single defenseless female into agreeing to warm my bed. I wouldn’t quite call that scruples. Not even common decency. I don’t suppose you’d recognize either, Repton. By the way, I don’t like your hat. It’s filthy and smells rank.” And he threw the offending article as far as he could, into the Serpentine. “If you have any complaints, I’ll be happy to oblige.”
Repton was not about to challenge the earl, not with Gardiner’s prowess with a sword. Cloth-headed gapeseeds who didn’t know an épée from an epergne, those he would challenge. They had to choose pistols. Of course, if Lord Gardiner challenged him… “Want her yourself, do you?” he taunted.
The earl did not take offense. “I might not be the beast the lady called you, Repton, but I am still a man.”
“Are you? I heard rumors…”
Gard clenched his fists. The muscles in his jaw worked so hard, they twitched. He’d kill the bastard. Then he’d strangle Moira Campbell. He started to dismount. “I won’t call you out, you muckworm. The field of honor is reserved for gentlemen. You’d make a mockery of it. I’m just going to beat you to a pulp.”
Repton did not need another invitation. He cracked his whip over his cattle and was gone before the earl’s foot touched the ground.
Gard turned to the other men. “Anybody else have any question about my manhood?”
No one answered. Ross Montclaire had challenged Oxford’s champion boxer while at school, and won. He still sparred with Gentleman Jackson himself. No one forgot that.
“Then let go of the lady’s escort before I forget that I am a gentleman.”
The man who was covering Clarence put his pistol away and stood back, but not far enough or quickly enough that Clarence’s heavy boot, didn’t catch him in the jaw, knocking him flat on the ground. The rowdies who had tackled Clarence’s partner hurried into the woods, some with spilled claret, some with daylights already darkening.
A spotty-faced sprig in yellow pantaloons brought the fellow’s horse. He coughed and stammered an apology.
Lord Gardiner nodded. “We all, and everyone who considers himself a gentleman, owe you an apology. And the lady, of course.” He directed his words to the two grooms, but spoke so all of the remaining members of Repton’s plot could hear. “Please convey our humblest regrets for this deplorable event. And please tell your mistress that she will be perfectly secure in the park from now on. ’Twould be a shame if such a spectacular horsewoman were denied her ride. Inform the lady that I, the Earl of Gardiner, guarantee her safety.” He looked around, frowning awfully, making sure the makebaits all understood that he would exact dire retribution on anyone who caused her more distress. The cowed expressions he read satisfied Gard. “The Lady in Green can ride as unmolested as my own mother. If she is still fearful, tell her that I stand ready to escort her, with no expectations or demands or disrespect. On my word of honor.”
Chapter Fourteen
Annalise was shaken. She didn’t know how she got home, by which route she made her way back to the livery stable, or what she told the men when they asked for Clarence and Mick. There were more insults along the way, she recalled, for a solitary woman with no escort who was galloping madly down the street as if all the hounds of hell were at her heels. They were, as far as she was concerned. Lord, was there no safe place for a woman in this whole city? If two reformed hedgebirds were not enough to protect her in the public park, she could never ride again. Now, when her looks were finally coming back so that she didn’t frighten herself in the mirror, she could never come out of her crone’s guise. It wasn’t that she was vain about her looks; she never considered herself a beauty or anything, though Barny had been wont to call her pretty. She simply hated being the antidote Annie Lee, from whose appearance grown men turned and little children hid behind their mothers’ skirts. Annalise hated being ugly. She hated being afraid. She mostly hated the feeling that she was a fox forced to go to ground, with the hunters waiting at every burrows’ end, day after day.
Rob had taken Henny on errands, luckily for him, for Miss Avery was damning every male alive. She wouldn’t even share her uneaten, crumpled roll with Clyde the dog.
*
The day got worse. As Annalise sat with trembling hands around a cup of steaming tea, looking fully as ugly as her mood, Lorna reported a man at the door.
“He’s nobbut a cheeky footman, I’d guess, passing hisself off as some nob’s secretary or something, all so’s he doesn’t have to use the back door. He’s asking for the mistress, and I ’spose that’s you, ma’am. I tried to send the fellow away, seeing as how you’re looking blue-deviled, but the coxcomb says he won’t leave a message or anything, and he’ll come back another time. Thinks a lot of hisself, this Stavely.”
Stavely was a moderately good-looking knave with slicked-back hair and padded shoulders. He was also the man who had called her name in the park yesterday—was it just yesterday? He was Sir Vernon’s man.
If she gave him short shrift, Annalise considered as she watched him preen in the hall mirror before he was aware of her presence, he’d be suspicious, wondering why his questions were going unanswered. A pretty fellow like this would be used to getting his own way among the serving girls. Also, even if housekeepers like Annie Lee were often autocratic, deeming theirs among the highest rungs on the servants’ ladder, it would never do for Annalise to come over as haughty or arrogant. She didn’t want this popinjay going back to her stepfather saying he was shown the door by a housekeeper who was putting on the airs of a lady. Sir Vernon was too clever. So Miss Avery gathered her shaken poise and gushed like a moonstruck tweeny as if her life depended on it. It most likely did.
“Come along, dearie. We can talk about your errand over a nice cup of tea. Or else maybe you’d fancy some of the stable man’s ale. I was just saying to myself, Mrs. Lee—I’m a widow, don’t you know—wouldn’t it be cheery to have some company on a chill morning like this? Handsome company, too.”
The footman gulped. His Adam’s apple bobbed above his necktie. There was a nice reward if he found any information for his employer, but no tip was worth cozying up to an old hunchback hag like this. “No, ma’am, thanks for the offer, but I can’t stay. On important business, don’t you know. I’m after news of a young miss what might of come your way.”
The witch cackled. “We get a lot of young misses hereabouts. A different one every day, or night. The master’s a regular billy goat, he is. Of course,
he’s not to home right now, so don’t feel obliged to stand out in the hall.” She made to take his tricorne with her emaciated fingers. He snatched it out of her reach. “What did you say your name was, ducks?”
“Ah, Stavely, just Stavely. Thing is, I’ve got a lot of places on my list to ask.”
“Oh, yes, your missing gel,” the housekeeper said with disappointment in her voice.
“I only wish,” he replied, equally as disappointed. “The wench is way above my touch. She’s a lady, a real lady.”
Annie sniffed. “No real lady would be caught dead here. There’s some as calls themselves ladies, but I ask you, would a fine, well-bred female come to bachelor quarters like this?”
“No, but this one’s a relation of some kind to Lady Rosalind Avery. She’s got nothing to do with the buck you’ve got sporting here now.”
“Ah, now, that’s a different kettle of fish. I’m right sorry I can’t help a likely looking lad such as yourself, Stavely, but I wasn’t in charge here until Lady Rosalind left. I had no call to pay attention to the comings and goings of the company.”
“And no young ladies have come looking for Lady Rosalind since she left?”
“Nary a female comes looking for anyone but Lord Gardiner. But I’ll keep a lookout for you, Stavely my boy. How old is this lady and how’d she come to be lost?”
“She’s twenty-one, used to be a real Diamond, they tell me, but maybe fallen off her looks. And she left her stepfather’s household ’cause she’s all about in the head.”
Mrs. Lee clutched her flat chest. “Lawks a-mercy, should I call the Watch, then, if I see her?”
“No!” George Stavely exclaimed. “That is, no, ma’am. She ain’t considered dangerous. The family wants her back, is all.”
“Seems to me they’re well rid of her if her attics are to let. What do they want her back for?”
“Sir Vernon says he wants to take care of her.” He put his finger alongside his nose and grinned. “Word below stairs is that she’s an heiress. Sir Vernon locks her away—for her own safety, don’t you know—and there’s no pesky husband to claim her dowry.”
“Ah, that’s a man after my own heart!”
“Here’s his card, if you hear anything. There’s a nice bit of silver in it for you if you find the chit.”
“Hmm, might be I’d claim my reward in other ways, eh, bucko?”
George left in a hurry.
* * *
Annalise didn’t bother with tea this time. She went straight for the Madeira. Near spasms, she decided she must have become another person with this disguise. In less than twenty-four hours she’d stopped a seduction, been the intended victim of a seduction, and simulated the seduction of a slimy footman. In her whole twenty-one years she’d never even contemplated such a thing. She hardly recognized herself at all! Four more years of such deception and she’d be depraved indeed.
Her friends told her she did well. Henny clucked her tongue and busied herself at the stove, but Rob thought she had a great future in the criminal world.
“Never seen a sweet young gal turn to cheatin’, lyin’, cussin’, and committin’ mayhem with such a flair. We sure could of used you in the old days. And just think, you get tired of hidin’ out here in Bloomsbury, you can make a career on the stage.”
“Don’t tease, Rob,” she said tearfully. “I know I’ve made a rare mull of things.”
Rob lit his pipe, since Henny refused to let him chew his tobacco in the kitchen. He could chew it, that is, but he’d have to swallow the stuff. She wouldn’t tolerate spitting in this fancy house. When he got the pipe going to his satisfaction, after much puffing and poking, he winked at Annalise. “Things is workin’ out for the best. They allus do.”
“For the best? You didn’t hear about the incident in the park. I’ll never be able to put off these blacks again. Poor Seraphina. No more rides for her, either.”
Henny put the bottle of wine back on its shelf and substituted a cup of coffee in front of Annalise. “That’s just the wine talking, missy. We’ll come about. You’ll see.”
“Oh, no, Henny. You weren’t there. Those men…”
“Ain’t goin’ to bother you again,” Rob told her, pulling on his pipe. “We had the story from Clarence. Pay it no never mind, chickie. You have a protector now.”
“A protector? Who in the world…?”
Rob slapped his knee and grinned. “Lord Gardiner, that’s who! Our very own rake is after protectin’ some unknown lady’s virtue. Yourn!”
Annalise just shook her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. How could Lord Gardiner protect me—and why?”
“Seems you left the park in a hurry. Missed the gov’nor tryin’ to come help you. By the time he got close, you’d already saved yourself and got away. He stayed to give them clodpates a regular beargarden jaw about honor and stuff. And he vowed to watch over you from now on.”
“Me?”
“That Lady in Green they’re all talkin’ about. Claimed you’d be safe as houses and dared any of them to say him nay. He nearly ate them alive if they blinked, says Clarence. All the milksops backed right down, he’s got such a reputation for a handy set of fives. So nary a one of them—and none of the other gents at the clubs—will dare touch a hair on your head.”
Annalise didn’t credit a word of Rob’s story. “Have you seen it, Rob? It’s finally growing back. My hair, that is. Except it’s silver, not blond anymore.”
“Pay attention, chickie. This here’s the answer to your problems.”
She sat up straighter. “What, I should become his lordship’s convenient? That would certainly save me the effort of scuttling his romantic interludes. And think how…convenient for him: a housekeeper by day, a bed partner at night. I could have been married to Barny. That’s all he wanted, besides the money.”
“There wasn’t no mention of any arrangement like that. In fact, the gov’nor swore he means to be your escort only, nothin’ more.”
“And King Arthur is asleep in a cave somewhere! Robbie, chivalry is long gone, and Lord Gardiner wouldn’t recognize it if Sir Lancelot bit him on the nose.”
“I’d bet his word is good. But don’t be so hasty either way. Think on this: After today your step-pa’s bound to hear about the dasher in the park, the one with the good seat and no connections. But he won’t think twice if he hears she’s in Earl en Garde’s keeping. No way that piece of easy virtue could have anything to do with a female who left her fiancé in a huff over his particulars. You’d be safe as the Bank of England.”
“But safe from Lord Gardiner?”
“I ain’t suggestin’ you accept a slip on the shoulder, chickie. He gave his word as a gentleman. I trust him.”
Suddenly Annalise felt better; things weren’t so bleak. For some ungodly reason, contrary to all the evidence and everything she believed, she trusted Lord Gardiner, too. Then she laughed out loud. Sir Vernon must be right: She was ready for Bedlam after all.
*
The topic of the conversation, meanwhile, was sitting in his book room with a sketchpad on his knees and a dreamy smile on his face. He was trying to capture the graceful, soaring flight of the woman and her mare as they leapt the curricle. Of course he had no face to put on the female’s form, but he recalled enough of her trim waist and rounded bosom to fire his imagination. Hell, if he had no face to depict, he might as well leave off the clothes, drawing just the female at one with her mount.
Zeus, he needed a woman!
Chapter Fifteen
The beau monde went on the strut in Hyde Park at four in the afternoon. So did the demimonde. The ton came to see and be seen; likewise the muslin trade. The ladies of fashion came to make plans to meet their gallants at the evening’s parties. The Fashionable Impure came to make sure their dance cards were also filled, so to speak.
Both groups of females gathered in little knots along the paths or sat in carriages under the trees. One group had more color to their faces a
nd gowns, fancier coaches, and no dowagers, dragons, or dogs-berries among them. They also had more of the young gentlemen surrounding them.
Lord Gardiner tooled his curricle along the roadway, studying the various delectables like boxes of bonbons set out in a sweet-shop window. He doffed his hat and bowed to his mother’s friends and their milk-and-water misses. He nodded and smiled at a few widows with waving hands and a few wives with wandering eyes. The curricle picked up speed.
There was no way the earl was going to dally with a lady. Not till his confidence was back, at any rate. He looked, though, with a connoisseur’s eye at this one’s swanlike neck, that one’s narrow waist.
If truth be told, Lord Gardiner was searching for the lady from the morning. He didn’t think she’d show herself here, not after her efforts at concealing her identity, but she might be playing some deep game after all. She might even be someone of his acquaintance, or soon-to-be acquaintance, if he had any say. There were females with erect postures and stylish ensembles, but none he could identify as the elegant horsewoman who rode through his mind. Gard followed a lady wearing a feathered bonnet over short-cropped curls that turned out to be brassy blond. He halted the curricle when he saw a flash of emerald green behind a hedge: the foppish Viscount Reutersham was relieving himself.
Finally the earl’s eyes lighted on a maiden sitting on a bench, twirling her parasol. She was nothing like that other female, being shorter and rounder and brunette. She was also entirely alone. Something about her appealed to Lord Gardiner, reminding him of another quest in the park that afternoon. Perhaps it was her ready smile mingled with the touch of wistfulness he saw about her eyes. Perhaps it was just that the sunlight playing on the folds of her lime-and-jonquil-striped muslin reminded him of spring, and sap rising. She’d look pleasing on canvas. She’d look pleasing on a bearskin rug.
The earl got down, handing the ribbons to his tiger. “Bonjour, mademoiselle, may I join you on your bench?”
It was not long before the earl had his belle de nuit and the female had hopes of her month’s rent being paid, although nothing as vulgar as money was mentioned. Addresses were exchanged, times were arranged, and both parties were eminently satisfied. Except the lady did not want to be confused with Haymarket ware.
Lady in Green Page 10
