by Connie Lane
It was clear that what had seemed so splendid a plan the night before paled in the light of day. Somerton gave Culpepper a blank look. “Well, I didn’t want her,” he said. “Not really. That is, I did not want Willie…er, that is, Miss Culpepper, specifically.” He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. “What I really mean is, what I really wanted, you see, was a virgin and—”
“What!” The reverend’s voice boomed through the narrow street like cannon shot, overpowering the outraged gasps of the people standing all around.
Willie coughed behind her hand, fighting to hide the smile that might betray her satisfaction. Things were progressing exactly as she’d hoped. Not pleasant, perhaps. And certainly not in an orderly fashion. But once the hue and cry of the scandal quieted and the gossips had their fill, she knew she would be forgotten as easily as last year’s fashions. By that time, her father and her brothers would be back in India and the Reverend Childress Smithe would, no doubt, already have his sights set on another unfortunate miss to turn into his even more unfortunate missus.
It all might have gone reasonably quickly and remarkably well if not for the fact that Somerton had a conscience.
Who would have suspected?
Somerton stepped forward and raised his voice. “Reverend Culpepper, you simply must listen. There’s no reason for you to be angry. Not at Willie. If you insist on pointing the finger of responsibility at someone, then point it squarely at me. And if you…any of you…” He glanced around. “If you insist on the black book for anyone in regards to this muddle, then it surely must be me. Name’s Pryce, by the way. Nicholas Pryce. I am the Viscount Somerton.”
The look of astonishment on her father’s face convinced Willie that he was not expecting anyone with so glib a tongue or so charming a manner.
He was certainly not expecting a viscount.
Too late, she noticed the sparkle that suddenly lit her father’s eyes.
“Viscount, eh?” Culpepper grinned. He reached around Willie and tilted the carriage door shut. As if the pattern of lions and squares and the spread of Latin words meant anything to him, he pursed his lips, studying the coat of arms painted on the door, then swung his gaze, sizing up the matched pair that pulled the carriage and the livery on the coachman. When he was done, he glanced at Willie and the look in his eyes spoke volumes. He was as surprised as the rest of his assembled congregation that a viscount had taken note of so ordinary a woman. But he was not so surprised as to let the opportunity pass him by.
Panic shot through Willie and she scrambled to save a situation that was quickly getting out of hand. “Viscount or not,” she told her father, “this gentleman is half mad by all accounts. He took me from the very steps of—”
“Willie!” Somerton shot her a sidelong look of warning. “He’s warming to the idea of me,” he said. “Keep your tongue and you’ll be safely back in your family’s arms before—”
“All night.” Willie stomped her foot, the more to add emphasis to the statement. “He kept me with him all night!”
It was a valiant attempt, but it seemed that Willie’s words could not be heard over the jingle of coins that filled her father’s head.
“You being a viscount, sir, and a gentleman and all…” The expression on Culpepper’s face was as close to a smile as it was ever likely to get. “You must truly understand, sir, how important a man’s daughter is to him.” He cleared his throat and lowered his voice so that the people standing around them could not hear. “What I mean, of course, is in a monetary sort of sense.”
“Monetary?” Somerton was clearly surprised. His shoulders shot back and his chin came up in much the same way Willie had seen the night before when he’d tossed the unfortunate Monteford out the window. He disguised his reaction behind a smile bright enough to charm the birds out of the trees.
“Are you telling me, sir, that we might easily settle this matter?”
Culpepper nodded. “That’s right. And with no muss and fuss. I understand, after all, that you do not want to keep the girl. What man would, I ask you? Her being as red-haired as a ginger cat and as fiery-tempered as any three Irishmen. But now that you’ve had her and are done with her, we can be civilized about it. Eh?”
“Are you telling me, sir, that you don’t want to poke me in the nose or call me out at dawn?”
“Nah!” Culpepper made to clap him on the shoulder, then thought better of taking such liberties with a viscount. “Can’t say I ever expected anything else from this baggage.” He tossed a look at Willie. “She’s a willful gel, she is. Stubborn and far more sure of herself than any woman should be. Too many o-pin-ions.” He shuddered. “And not enough sense in her head to keep her on the straight and narrow. I blame myself.” He shook his head sadly. “I should have taken a switch to her far more often. It would’a done her good.”
“Indeed.” Somerton’s hands curled into fists.
“Things will be different once we’re away from here.” The reverend nodded sagely. “Away from the temptations of the city. Away from the temptations of sin and of…” He weighed the wisdom of speaking further and decided a situation this potentially lucrative would not present itself again. “And of the temptations of viscounts, if you’ll pardon me for saying it, sir. I’ll keep her in line. And once we’re settled at our mission in India and the Reverend Mister Smithe joins us, he will take over and do the honors, so to speak. I daresay he wouldn’t be averse to taking the strap to her once in a while just to remind her of her place and her obligations.”
“Willie, get in the carriage. Now.” Somerton opened the carriage door. “I will not see your honor traded for a handful of guineas, or your person violated—”
“Violated?” Culpepper clutched Somerton’s sleeve. “If we’re to talk violated, sir, then we must talk about how I’ve been violated. A father’s trust. A father’s love—”
“A father who would ignore his daughter’s dishonor if he received payment in return?”
“It’s what’s fitting, sir. It’s what’s right.”
Somerton didn’t so much hand Willie into the coach as he bundled her into it. While she did her best to get her bearings, he turned to Culpepper and lowered his voice.
“It is heartless and it is ignorant. You, sir, are heartless and ignorant. And if your daughter was not here watching, I would beat that greedy smile off your face and use your arse to wipe the street.”
He swung into the carriage. “Barnum!” Somerton called and the horses took off.
“You can’t do this!” Culpepper trotted along beside the carriage. “You can’t just up and leave me with no daughter and no compensation. It ain’t fitting!”
The horses picked up speed. The Reverend Mister Culpepper did not.
The last they saw of him, he was standing in the middle of the street, shaking his fist and screaming after them, “If that’s the way it is to be then the sin is on your head. As of this day, the little Jezebel is all yours!”
5
All his.
It took a few minutes for Nick’s anger to abate and a few more after that before the words made their way past the furious pounding in his brain.
All his.
Quite suddenly, his head thumped harder than ever.
As the carriage plodded on toward home, he pulled in a breath and sank back against the plush seat, massaging his temples with the tips of his fingers.
It didn’t help, and mumbling a curse, Nick shifted in his seat and stared across the carriage to where Willie sat as silent and as indecipherable as the Sphinx, her lips compressed into a thin line and her jaw so tight, it looked as if it might snap.
Sooner or later, he knew the weighty meaning of her father’s pronouncement was bound to sink in but as the carriage neared Somerton House, sooner changed little by little to later and Willie still did not react. Nick decided that she must certainly be in shock. He had seen the signs enough times to know. He’d seen Hexam in such a state the day the poor man’s mistress announced she
was in a certain delicate condition. He’d seen Latimer suffer such a trauma when he learned that the sweet bit of muslin he’d had his eye on over at the Surrey was, beneath the paint and all those layers of costume, very much a young man.
Hell, he’d been in shock himself less than twenty-four hours earlier when he pressed Willie close against the church door and what had started out as an expedient way to keep her from escaping had turned into a moment of stunning and quite unexpected delight.
The thought crept up on him unawares and Nick tried his best to dash it from his mind. It was the claret, he told himself, just as he had the night before. It was the excitement of a lark the likes of which even the Dashers had never been harebrained enough to attempt. It was the lateness of the evening. The smell of spring in the air.
It was the heady excitement of planning the abduction and the exhilaration of actually carrying it out. The allure of the dark and the danger of doing something no gentleman had a right to do. It was the romance of the wild adventure and the pure satisfaction of besting the Blades. It was the thrill that ran along his spine when he pictured himself spending Ravensfield’s money.
It certainly could not have anything to do with Willie.
Just to remind himself, Nick took another long look at her.
As rigid as the angel of his dream, Willie sat staring ahead of herself, her breaths coming in sharp succession, her eyes sparking a color that reminded him of lightning. It wouldn’t last. Nick knew that as surely as he knew his own name. The shock was bound to give way sometime or other.
He only hoped that when it did, she did not turn into a watering pot.
Nick braced himself against the inevitability.
“Frightful old blighter.” Though they were far from the church and Willie’s odious father, just thinking about the man made Nick’s arm muscles tense. “Can’t understand how a man as disagreeable as that can have a daughter as pleasant as you.”
Willie didn’t say a thing, and Nick’s strained smile faded.
He tried again, forcing a camaraderie he didn’t feel into his voice. “You’re better off, you know. India is no place for a girl like you. You’ll see. This whole disowning thing…it is a blessing in disguise. One of those silver linings every cloud is said to have.”
His cheerful observation was met with stony silence.
“What I mean is…” Nick hauled off his top hat and raked his fingers through his hair. A suggestion of genuine concern had somehow crept into his voice and if Willie was as surprised by it as he was, she at least had the good sense not to embarrass him by pointing it out.
“You do have somewhere you can go, don’t you? Friends?” Nick winced at the memory of the leering, self-satisfied looks on the faces of the people outside the church. “No. I suppose not. Well, I know a great many people. Good families. Good homes. There has to be someone who can help.” A thought struck and Nick sat up.
“The Earl of Malmsey needs a governess for his horde of offspring, or so I’ve heard. There are seven little ones to ride herd on and by all accounts, they are frightful, and of course, the earl himself is something of a lecher, but…” Carefully, he rubbed the spot on his nose that felt much as if it had met with a stone wall. “If the old boy gets too familiar, I daresay you could simply wallop him.”
Willie didn’t respond but he saw something flare in her eyes that looked nearly like interest. Sure he had her attention now, Nick warmed to the subject.
“If not Malmsey, then someone else perhaps. Last I lunched with the Countess of Ashbury, she did nothing but complain about how hard it is to find a competent lady’s maid. A suggestion only, of course,” he added, as if anticipating a protest that never came.
Eager for more of a reaction, Nick had the most idiotic urge to take Willie’s hand in his. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and it was only the memory of what had happened the last time he’d taken such a liberty that kept him from making the same mistake again. He wondered if he might feel all the same things he’d felt then: the quick flutter of surprise that made Willie tremble when his fingers closed over hers, the warmth of her hand, the answering warmth that had grown inside him at the very touch and blossomed when she chanced him a look.
The memories raced through him and Nick balled his hands into fists to keep them where they belonged.
“I never intended to disrupt your life,” he said, capturing her gaze and holding it. “Not like this. And I do take full responsibility.” He gave her time to disagree and when she did not, he raced on. “The Dashers may have been in agreement on the thing, but it was my idea from the start. It was the madness of the moment. Seemed damnably funny at the time. It isn’t nearly as amusing now, is it?”
Willie might have answered if the carriage had not pulled to a stop in front of Somerton House. She was out the door and onto the pavement before Nick had a chance to move. Pulling in a breath to steady himself, he followed.
And stopped in the doorway of the carriage, paralyzed by the sight of everything going on outside his home.
It was a duplicate of the kind of chaos that had reigned supreme back at the Church of Divine and Imperishable Justice. There were carts and coaches everywhere and people scurrying about carrying trunks and boxes. The broad stairway that led up to the house was filled with both people and parcels.
“Newbury?” When his butler passed hauling a bundle that looked to be filled with clothing, Nick climbed down from the carriage and stopped him, one hand on his sleeve. “Newbury, what is the meaning of this? What’s happening?” He glanced around, confirming his suspicions. “This is my staff. These are my servants. What the devil is going on here?”
Newbury was dressed in a kind of traveling outfit, rough trousers and a sort of jaunty cape that made him look as if he were starting out on a fishing expedition to the Highlands. Though he stopped and set down his bundle, he firmly refused to meet his master’s eyes.
“We’re leaving, m’lord,” Newbury said.
“Leaving?” Nick’s voice came out a full octave above its usual pitch. He cleared his throat and held tight to his composure, glancing all around again, as if this time, the scene might be different and everything back to normal.
It wasn’t.
Nick dodged two footmen shouldering a trunk between them. “What do you mean, leaving? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you’re not leaving. Get your things back into the house where they belong.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that, m’lord.”
“We? What do you mean we? And where are you all going?”
“All of us, m’lord.” Newbury chose to answer the first question and ignore the second. “We’re all…” He looked up at the sky, then down at the tips of his boots. “We’re all leaving.”
Nick scoured his hands over his face. “I’m still dreaming,” he said, hoping to convince himself. But when he looked again, Willie was standing exactly where he’d left her, looking as confused as he felt. Newbury was no more than two feet away, still dressed in his ridiculous traveling costume. Nick’s words came out uncommonly calm, surprising even him. “I can see that you’re leaving,” he said, packing as much noblesse oblige as he could manage into the carefully measured words and hoping it was enough to disguise the cold dread he felt coursing through him. “What I don’t understand is where you’re all going. And why.”
This time, Newbury chose to answer the last question first. “The why of it is easy enough, m’lord, if you’ll pardon my saying it. And I may as well be the one to tell you, m’lord, as I’ve been with your family all these years and you should sooner hear it from me than from a stranger.” He glanced at Willie out of the corner of his eye and his cheeks darkened.
“It’s her, m’lord.” Newbury stood as straight as a pound of candles. “It’s the young lady.”
“Willie?” Nick looked from Newbury to Willie. “What’s wrong with Willie?” He sidestepped away from her. “I say, you haven’t gotten some tropical disease or something, have you
, Miss Culpepper? For surely, my servants are afraid you might contaminate them.”
He had to give her credit. She knew a jest when she heard one, even a poor one, and she sent him an acerbic look in response.
Newbury, apparently, didn’t have Willie’s sense of humor. “There’s nothing wrong with the young lady, m’lord. At least not as far as I can tell.” Newbury looked her up and down and his neck reddened. “She seems virtuous and honorable, if you’ll excuse me saying it, m’lord. And that, you see, is the crux of the problem.”
“It is?” Nick could not seem to make his way through the tangle of Newbury’s logic and he looked to Willie for help. It was some small comfort that she looked to be no more enlightened than he.
“You see, m’lord, we talked about it. All of us. All of this morning after you departed. It is one thing when you bring young ladies to Somerton House who are…”
Nick didn’t think it was possible for Newbury to get any redder. He did. This time, even the tips of his ears colored.
“Young ladies who are not quite ladies, if you catch my meaning, m’lord. It is one thing when you bring such as that home and it is your business, surely, and none of my own. As such, it is above my comment and my reproach. But when young ladies of good family and good reputation are involved in your revels, m’lord…” The repercussions were obviously too grievous for Newbury to vocalize.
But while Newbury may have been at a loss for words, Willie certainly was not. “Involved?” The single word echoed against the stately façade of Somerton House, each syllable ripe with outrage. Willie stepped forward to face Newbury. “How dare you accuse your master of impropriety,” she said, and when the rest of the staff stopped what they were doing and did their best to pretend they weren’t listening at the same time they strained to hear, she narrowed her eyes and shot them a look that was no less infuriated than her voice. “You’ve got it all wrong. All of you. It was not his idea that I spend the night, but mine and the fact that nothing happened—”
