by Mary Balogh
A young child darted out of the trees to her left and wailed at her, clinging to her evening gown as he did so. He was a thin, ragged, barefooted little urchin. Cora bent to listen to him, all frowning concern.
“Me bruvver,” he said with a gasp. “He’s stuck up a tree, missus. He’s too scared to come down. An’ we’ll be whipped for sure if we gets caught in ’ere.” Having delivered this pathetic speech without pause, he resumed the wailing, and the clinging turned to tugging.
Cora spared one fraction of a moment—no longer—to glance in Mr. Corsham’s direction. But he was still engaged in trying to detach the woman from his arm and apparently had not noticed the child. Yet somewhere to Cora’s left, among the dark trees, a child was caught in a tree and might fall out of it at any moment, and both boys would be in trouble if caught. Without a doubt they had sneaked into the pleasure gardens, hoping to observe all the splendor of the proceedings from the branches of a tree. Poor little mites.
Without even a word to Mr. Corsham, Cora grasped the child’s thin hand and sallied off with him into the darkness. It did not even enter her mind that it was a strange coincidence for both her escort and her to be accosted with woeful stories almost at the same moment.
“Do not be afraid,” she instructed the little boy in her most reassuringly maternal voice. “We will have your brother down from his tree in no time at all. I am an expert tree climber. The secret is never to look down—never. And as for being whipped, I shall see that no harm comes to either of you. Doubtless it was naughty of you to sneak in without paying, but everyone knows that boys will be boys.”
The child trotted and panted at her side.
“Now,” Cora said when they were deep along surely the narrowest, darkest path in Vauxhall, “where is he? I do not hear him crying. He must be a brave lad.” Or one so petrified by terror that he could not even utter a sound.
“ ’Ere, missus,” the child said, speaking quietly and tonelessly and coming to an abrupt halt.
Cora stopped too and peered upward. And felt an arm come about her waist from behind and another about her neck. And smelled the disgusting odor of onions and garlic and rotten teeth and sweat. A hand found its way over her mouth while she stood in mute surprise.
“Quiet, my luverly lydy,” a hoarse male voice advised her, “an’ nobody will come to no ’arm. Tyke ’er bracelet, Jemmie, an’ be quick about it. Oi’ll get this.”
Jemmie, the pathetic little urchin with the brother up a tree, set about trying to relieve Cora not only of her bracelet—an extremely expensive gift Edgar had given her for her last birthday—but also of her wrist. The male of the disgustingly bad breath and body odor raised the hand of the arm that was about her waist and grabbed the pearls that Papa had given her mother on their fifth wedding anniversary, only months before her death.
Cora bit his hand, stamped on his foot, and backhanded the boy simultaneously. It was an extremely unclean hand, and it was against her principles to strike a child. But she was very angry indeed. She had come into this dark thicket to risk her own safety and one of her favorite gowns in climbing a tree to rescue a petrified infant—and as a reward she was being manhandled and robbed.
It was marginally satisfying to hear the man yelp and the boy screech.
If she could only turn, she thought, she would be able to deliver her finest blow, the one Edgar had instructed her to deliver if ever she found herself in a tight corner—this corner felt about as tight as a corner could get. Edgar had actually blushed when teaching her, but he had been quite adamant about it.
The trouble was she could not turn.
But suddenly the child seemed to be levitated straight up into the air and then went flying through it to land sprawling several feet away—fortunately he released his hold on both Cora’s wrist and her bracelet before he began the flight. At the same moment the unwashed man released his hold on her person and her property, roaring as he did so.
Cora whirled about, making the instantaneous decision to use her right knee as her right leg was perhaps a little stronger than the left. But she had no chance to use either. She was forced to stand and watch like a helpless female as someone else grappled with the robber—someone who looked suspiciously in the darkness as if he might be wearing a lavender evening coat.
The boy fled quietly into the night.
Cora clasped both hands over her mouth. He would be slaughtered. Oh, the dear gallant man. He knew nothing about thugs and ruffians as did she, who had lived in Bristol for most of her childhood and had frequently been taken to the docks by her father.
He was going to be killed at the very least.
She waited for an opening to come to his assistance. It came quite soon, when the ruffian came staggering backward. Fortunately, he must have tripped over a tree root. Cora steadied him with both hands from behind for a moment and then allowed him to continue his fall. She kicked him in the side with her slippered foot when he was down, doing marvelous damage to her recently healed toes.
“There,” she said crossly, setting her hands firmly on her hips and glaring down at him, “take that!”
Obviously the thief knew when he had met his match. He pressed the heel of one hand against his jaw, grimacing and working it from side to side, and then scrambled in ungainly haste to his feet and disappeared into the darkness after his young accomplice.
“Well,” Cora said, peering after him, “we certainly taught him a lesson.”
But then she whirled about, in sudden mortal fear lest before his flight her assailant had murdered Lord Francis Kneller.
10
E HAD SEEN HER AS SOON AS SHE ARRIVED AT VAUXHALL, one of a party of ten, which included Greenwald and Lady Jane Munro and the mothers of the newly betrothed couple. They had taken a box quite close to the one he occupied with Lady Augusta and her party.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to have caught her eye and smiled and nodded. Indeed, several times he had felt her eyes on him. He could have strolled across to the other box to pay his respects. He need have stayed only a few moments. Instead, he had pretended not to notice her. He had ignored her altogether.
It had been a gauche and inexplicable thing to do. He could not understand why he had done it. It was not as if he had quarreled with the woman. Far from it. The last time they had been together they had laughed so hard that they had had to hold each other up. And it was not as if she had ever meant anything to him. Good Lord, he had not avoided even Samantha after she had announced her betrothal. He had been a guest at her wedding. It had been foolish to behave as he had tonight.
But the trouble was that with every minute that passed, it had become more difficult suddenly to notice that she was there at Vauxhall, in full view, a mere few yards from the box he occupied. He had even looked away from her when she danced. He had been very relieved when someone suggested a walk.
He would put matters right when they returned, he had decided. He would hand Lady Augusta back into the box and stroll across to Greenwald’s, pretending that he had just noticed them. Not that it would sound very convincing. Even the Duchess of Bridgwater and Lady Jane must be wondering why he had suddenly become so blind. Cora Downes must be feeling quite upset with him. Lord, he hoped she did not fancy herself in love with him.
But it had seemed that he would not have to wait until the return to the pavilion. He had walked the length of the main path with Lady Augusta and another couple, deftly turning aside the former’s hints that they explore one of the darker side paths. They had been strolling back again, enjoying the warmth of the evening, admiring the lanterns and the dancing colored lights they created on the path, nodding at acquaintances who passed them.
And then in the distance he had seen the unmistakable tall figure of Cora Downes approaching on Corsham’s arm. For some reason he could not fathom, Lord Francis had felt jittery and breathless at the prospect of meeting her. He had considered after all drawing Lady Augusta off the path. He had not done so be
cause he knew that the woman wanted to be kissed, and that after she was kissed she would as like as not expect him to call upon her papa tomorrow morning to discuss marriage settlements. He had become adept over the years at avoiding such situations.
Perhaps, he had thought fleetingly—but he had dismissed the thought as absurd—that was why he had attached himself to Samantha Newman’s court for so long. Samantha had never been in search of a husband. And though he had loved her and offered for her several times, he had never really expected her to have him. There had been deep shock in discovering that she would have someone else and in haste too. Shock and humiliation. And heartbreak.
What would he do? he had wondered now. Nod pleasantly to Cora Downes and walk on by? Stop to converse with her and Corsham? Normally he did not have to think consciously about such matters. Normally he acted from instinct. What would instinct have him do, then? Stop and talk, of course. It would be the polite thing to do.
But before he had been able to do it—before he had been anywhere close to doing it—he had seen Miss Downes and Corsham fall prey to one of the oldest tricks in the book of thieves. A woman had approached Corsham from his side of the path and caught at his arm. Doubtless she would be spinning him a tale of poverty and starving children. As soon as his attention was engaged, a pathetic little urchin had approached Miss Downes from her side of the path and clutched at her gown. His tale would be even more heartrending and of course it would be falling on the most fertile ears in London. She had disappeared with the child almost immediately. Corsham and the other couple with them had not even seen her go.
There would be one more in the trees, of course. A man, in all probability, someone strong enough to relieve her of her jewels and valuables. And perhaps too—though not likely in the presence of the lad and with the woman not far away—of her virtue and even her life.
“Pardon me,” Lord Francis had said hastily to Lady Augusta, who had had her head turned back over her shoulder while she addressed some remark to the couple who were strolling with them. “Someone to whom I must pay my respects.” And he had gone hurrying down the path in unseemly haste and crashing into the trees after Miss Downes and the boy—Corsham had still been demanding that the woman unhand him.
Lord Francis had lost a few moments trying to force a path among dark trees before he realized that a few steps to his left there was a ready-made path, albeit a narrow one. But he had been quite right. Even in the darkness he had been able to see that there were now three figures ahead of him, a man and a boy dealing with a struggling woman. Both the man and the boy had let out sounds of pain just before Lord Francis launched himself at them, mindless with fury.
The boy had been easy to deal with. Lord Francis had merely lifted him from the ground with one hand on the collar of his ragged coat, and flung him. At the same moment he had got his arm about the man’s neck, just as the man had his about Miss Downes’s. The element of surprise had been on Lord Francis’s side. The man had released his prey with a roar of mingled surprise and rage, and had spun about.
Lord Francis had not spent several mornings of each week for several years past at Jackson’s boxing saloon for nothing. He was fit and he was competent, even skilled, with his fists. Jackson had always told him that he could be one of his star pupils if only he had a little more desire. Desire tonight was no problem at all. A few preparatory punches gave him the opening he needed and he landed a right upper cut to the man’s chin with a satisfying crunching of bone and snapping of teeth. The villain reeled and in the natural course of things would have crashed to the ground within another second or two.
Nothing ever followed its natural course when Cora Downes was involved, of course. Somehow she had got herself behind the tottering rogue and reached out her hands to steady him. For one moment Lord Francis thought she was holding the man up so that he could deliver another blow. For the same moment he was terrified that she would be taken down with the man and squashed beneath him. But she stepped deftly aside, let him fall, and then kicked him in the side.
“There,” she said fiercely, planting both hands on her hips, “take that!”
She probably hurt her foot more than she hurt the thief’s side, Lord Francis thought. The man scrambled to his feet almost immediately and made off into the darkness. It was probably as well to let him go rather than try to confine him and take him into custody. Lord Francis made no move to pursue him. Miss Downes stood looking after him.
“Well,” she said, “we certainly taught him a lesson.”
Bless her heart, Lord Francis thought, relief beginning to replace his rage, she had restored the sanity of farce to a potentially nasty situation. He almost grinned at her when she spun around to face him.
“Lord Francis?” she said. “Oh, it is you. Did he hurt you? How foolish of you to come up on him like that. He might have killed you.” She took a couple of steps toward him.
“I suppose,” he said, trying to set his coat and sleeves to rights on his shoulders and arms, “you had the situation quite under control, Miss Downes?”
“No.” The confidence went from her voice and one of her hands crept up to clutch her pearls. “No, I was deceived. The child said he had a brother stuck up a tree. They had crept in here just to watch the festivities, he told me, and would be whipped if they were caught. But he had that—ruffian waiting here.”
“You are all right?” Lord Francis asked her, trying to see her expression in the darkness. “No real harm has been done? They picked a perfect victim, of course, although I am sure it was accidental on their part. You never could pass by anyone in trouble, could you?”
“I am all right,” she said. But he watched her shudder. “He was dirty. He smelled dirty. He touched me. He had a hand over my mouth. They were going to take Mama’s pearls and my bracelet from Edgar. I feel—I feel dirty too.”
The intrepid Miss Cora Downes was beginning to suffer from delayed shock. She was beginning to come to pieces. Lord Francis took a step toward her.
“They are gone now,” he said, making his voice as soothing as he was able. “You are quite safe. I will not allow them to come back and harm you.”
She closed the gap between them in sudden haste and grabbed for the lapels of his coat. Her face came burrowing into the folds of his neckcloth that had taken his valet half an hour to perfect a few hours before. But that appeared not to be close enough. She straightened up, hid her face against his shoulder, wrapped her arms tightly about his neck, and pressed her body against his from shoulders to knees. Lord Francis was given the distinct impression that she would have climbed right inside him if it had been possible to do so.
“Hold me,” she commanded him.
He held her. Tightly. And felt as if someone had moved the sun a few million miles closer to the earth and was beaming its heat directly at him. Good Lord—oh, devil take it! He furiously ignored his body’s interest—a euphemistic word if ever he had thought of one—and concentrated all the power of his mind on giving her comfort.
“Shh,” he told her softly, though she was making no noise. “I have you. You are quite safe, Cora.”
He wished her bosom would not heave against his chest as if she had just run a mile or more.
“Ah.” She sighed deeply into his shoulder. “You smell so good.” Perhaps she needed to say it again in case he had not heard it the first time. Perhaps she merely needed to look into his face to make sure that she really was with someone with whom she could feel safe. She lifted her head and looked into his eyes—their noses and mouths were almost touching. “You smell so very good.”
No one had ever before told him that he smelled good. Somehow Miss Cora Downes made the words sound quite blisteringly erotic. He tipped his head slightly to one side so that their noses would not collide, focused his eyes on her lips, muttered “Cora” from somewhere deep in his throat, and had his mouth perhaps a quarter of an inch from hers when hell broke loose.
“Well!”
That was
the start of it. The word was uttered in the shocked, outraged, haughty voice of Lady Augusta Haville.
She had brought a whole army with her—or so it seemed in the dark, close confines of the path. The couple they had been walking with was there, as was the couple Miss Downes had been with—as well as Greenwald and Lady Jane Munro and Corsham himself. There were a few other people too, people Lord Francis suspected he might know if only someone would come along with a branch of candles so that he could see better.
Apparently not one of the lot of them needed a branch of candles or even a single candle to know very well what he was up to. And of course they were very nearly right. Another quarter of a second and another quarter of an inch and he would have had no cause for outrage at all.
“Well, Kneller,” Mr. Corsham said stiffly, “it is plain to see that they were right all along.”
No one needed to be told who they were or what it was they had been right about all along.
“No sooner do I turn my back for the merest moment …” Mr. Corsham did not finish his sentence, but turned his back once more and stalked away.
“Cora,” Lady Jane said, sounding tearful.
“Come, my love,” her betrothed said. “This is none of our concern, I believe.”
Except that Miss Cora Downes was his invited guest and might have been robbed and ravished and murdered, Lord Francis thought.
“And I thought to give you the benefit of the doubt,” Lady Augusta said, a universe of scorn in her voice. She was presumably addressing herself to Lord Francis. “But you could not wait for the opportunity to rush to the arms of that slut.”
“Oh,” Cora Downes said, sounding more interested than shocked, “is that me she is talking about?”
“If the glove fits, wear it.” Lady Augusta spat out the triumphant cliché with an equally clichéd toss of the head and turned to march away, taking the other couple from her party with her.
