Virtuous Scoundrel (The Regency Romp Trilogy Book 2)

by Maggie Fenton

  “But why would anyone take Penny and nothing else?”

  “I have no idea, but they have left a ransom note,” she said, pulling an intricately folded piece of cheap paper from her pocket. It was all marked up in red ink.

  “Ransom note!” he cried, even more confounded. He took the note and read it. Or rather attempted to decipher it, very carefully.

  To the Marshiuness of M, RE: Bell Du Joor. We have yer bich, if you wont her back unarmed bring 1000 2000 quid to Hide Park sowth of the Serpinteen by the corpse of burch trees tomorroe at dawn, com alown no surprizes. Yers Truely, SOA—

  What?

  Sebastian read the note one more time just in case it improved upon acquaintance.

  It did not.

  There were so many things to address about the note that it was hard to know where to begin.

  “What the devil is a Bell du Joor?” he asked.

  Mongrel barked in response, as agitated as her humans, though he didn’t know why Mongrel should care. Penny had hardly treated her kindly. Her sympathy for her tormentor’s misfortune was yet another mark in her favor, he supposed. She really was the perfect dog. He patted her head soothingly, wishing he could do the same for Katherine, who paced the length of her drawing room, inconsolable.

  “I don’t know,” she cried. “But they must mean Penny. Why would anyone want to abduct her?”

  Why indeed. It was a mystery for the ages. Sebastian had been politely holding his tongue on the matter, but now that she’d brought it up . . .

  “Maybe it’s an escaped bedlamite?” he offered, since they seemed rather thick on the ground these days. “Who in their right mind would think extorting two thousand pounds for the little monster was a sound business venture? I’d not pay a . . .”

  He trailed off at the warning look Katherine was sending his way. Perhaps he had overshot the mark. A bit. He decided it was in his best interests to leave his thoughts on Penny’s dubious worth incomplete. He cleared his throat. “Then shall we be making a trip to the bank today, my dear?”

  She looked at him as if he were the one that belonged in Bedlam. “How are you so calm? The letter said unarmed. Tell me the author dropped an h, Sebastian.”

  Sebastian abandoned Mongrel and intercepted Katherine before she could tread a rut in her Aubusson carpet. He caught her gently by the shoulders and smiled at her with all of the confidence he did not feel. “The author dropped an h.”

  She let out a pent-up breath and banged her head against his shoulder. He caressed her back in what he hoped was an appropriately soothing manner.

  He could get used to this, being her bastion of strength in times of crisis. It was as if they were already married—but time enough later to sort that out.

  “And last time I checked, Penny was in the possession of four legs. Dogs don’t have arms, my dear,” he said as gently as he could, valiantly suppressing his smile.

  She punched him in the shoulder for that one but did not pull away. “She’s my baby, Sebastian. She’s as near to a child as I’ll ever know,” she sniffled.

  Well, damnation. Sebastian could feel his heart bleeding all over his insides at her pain. He was well and truly lost for this woman, who could love such a mean, selfish, unredeemable little shite like Penny. He hugged her close once more, kissing her gently on the top of her flaxen hair.

  “We’ll sort this out,” he whispered. He just hoped that this time there were no burning castles involved. Or pigs. That had been an adventure he had no desire to relive. “Given that the kidnapper . . . er, dognapper? . . . nearly signed his own name, and didn’t even bother to take any of the hundreds of valuables you have in plain sight when in the commission of his absurd crime, I doubt we are dealing with a hardened criminal.”

  She gave a little snort of grudging amusement, which he didn’t think was heart-meltingly adorable at all.

  “Honestly, my dear,” he said, with another kiss to her hair, “I’m more afraid for the poor soul who took her than I am for Penny. I have a feeling he shall soon regret his scheme, once he feels those incisors break his skin.”

  Katherine could not deny this.

  “Now let’s have tea and discuss our dawn appointment, my dear. I am something of an expert on the subject.”

  He coaxed her over to the settee and settled them on the cushions next to Seamus, keeping one arm around her shoulders while his free hand intertwined with her own in her lap. He was prepared to stay tangled up with her forever.

  He silently thanked Penny for getting herself abducted.

  Meanwhile, in the Chic Part of Soho . . .

  “AGADOR, YOU IMBECILE, wake up!” hissed an all-too-familiar voice in French. Agador groaned, turned away from the speaker, and tried to hide himself under the bedclothes. It was far too early to rise, and not even his uncle’s imprecations were going to change his mind on the matter. Or the man’s cane, which was currently prodding him in the ribs none too gently. His uncle, thankfully, seemed to draw the line at out-and-out beating him with it (so far), but Agador fumbled to cover his head with a pillow just in case.

  When the prodding stopped, Agador thought perhaps his uncle had given up and retreated to his lair. But he should have known better. The duc rarely disturbed him in his bedchamber, one of the few nods to privacy he allowed in the household, so it must mean his uncle was in the midst of a crisis of more than the usual magnitude.

  It was still not enough to motivate him to care.

  The pitcher of cold water poured over his head certainly was, however. He yelped and jumped clear of the bed, feet tangling in the sheets and sending him crashing to the floor. He glared up at his uncle as he mopped the water out of his eyes. The old bastard stood over him with the empty pitcher in one bony hand and his cane in the other. He looked quite smug beneath all of the lead powder and rouge.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t use the piss pot,” the duc continued in French. “Now get up, boy. We have a catastrophe on our hands!”

  Considering the fact that the duc had left his room before he could finish his toilette—his morning peruke was nowhere in sight—perhaps there was a catastrophe afoot after all. The duc’s vanity would have never allowed his naked scalp to be seen outside his boudoir on an ordinary day.

  Agador sighed and propped himself against his bed, wrapping a blanket around his damp shoulders and shivering.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Belle! She was abducted! I knew something bigger was afoot! I knew she would not simply run away like that.”

  Agador was suddenly more awake than he’d ever been. “Abducted!” he cried, jumping to his feet. That was certainly not part of the plan.

  “Yes, you idiot. Abducted. By who knows what sort of villain. A Jacobin, very likely, out for more royal blood, damn their vicious plebeian souls. And it’s all your fault. You shall never walk ma petit Belle again.”

  Well, that was hardly a punishment, was it? Agador tried to look contrite.

  “How do you know she’s been abducted?” he asked, hoping this was all just some sort of delusion the duc’s antediluvian mind had concocted.

  The duc eyed him as if he were an imbecile—nothing new there—and slammed the empty pitcher back down on the basin. He reached into his lapel and pulled out an intricately folded note. “It’s a ransom demand! The rogue wants two thousand pounds sterling!” The duc sniffed disdainfully. “As if Belle were worth such a paltry sum.”

  Agador snatched the note and scanned its contents, written in aggravatingly familiar red ink, that sinking feeling in his gut growing deeper by the second.

  To Monsoor Le Duck RE: Bell du joor, bring 2000 quid to Hide Park Sowth of the Serpentine near the corpse of burch trees at dawn tomorroe or else the bich goes in the stuw pot. Yers, ET AL. PS: Com alown. PSS: Do not bring Aggiedore. PSSS: I mean it about the stuw, shes a fat French sawsage I no shed be reel
tastey. Aw Revoor.

  The duc snatched the letter back. “Stop trying to translate it, boy. You’ll hurt your brain. I think half of it is in Greek anyway.”

  Damn Soames for a double-crossing fool! This was definitely not part of the plan. He had a feeling, in fact, that there was no plan anymore. No plan, at least, in which he profited.

  “And he called my baby fat, Agador. Fat! Belle is perfectly proportioned for her breed. She cannot help her bone structure. Dieu, what are we to do?”

  We?

  Agador wondered how long he had left before his uncle discovered his betrayal. He looked out the window into the late morning light and groaned inwardly. Probably almost exactly eighteen hours. Just enough time to catch the next boat to France. He shuddered at the thought of living with his mother again. She had shared the duc’s temper, but, alas, none of his occasional kindnesses.

  “I feel faint, Agador!” the duc said dramatically, falling strategically back against the only dry strip of bed left. “I shall swoon from the stress.”

  On second thought, perhaps he’d take his chances with his uncle. Besides, he’d be damned before he let Pete Soames claim that two thousand pounds without a fight.

  He patted his uncle’s bony hand. “I shall fetch the salts, Uncle.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  In Which the Marquess of Manwaring Betrays His Knowledge of Several Continents’ Obscure Marriage Laws

  SEBASTIAN’S VOW TO himself to avoid dawn appointments in Hyde Park had lasted all of a month. He could only be glad that this time pistols weren’t involved and Lady Manwaring—Katie—was. It was a shame they weren’t embarking on some romantic tryst instead, a plan of action he would have much preferred over rescuing the world’s worst pet.

  But such thoughts were best kept to himself, as he’d learned. If Katie loved the little beastie, then, damn it, so did he. And if being her pillar of support in this time of calamity was what it took to make her more amenable to his master plan (i.e., more lovemaking, piano duets, a dramatic elopement, more lovemaking), then he was more than happy to deliver two thousand pounds of his uncle’s inheritance to the poor villain who had been stupid enough to abduct Penny.

  They’d make it up to the fallen women of Aldwych somehow.

  As they neared their destination, however, Katherine reached under her seat and pulled out a pistol.

  So much for that. “Really, Katie? Do you think that necessary?”

  She glared at him. “Were all of your dawn appointments necessary?” she countered dryly.

  Ouch.

  “Touché,” he muttered.

  She huffed and pulled back the curtain to chart their progress through London. He sat back and enjoyed watching her handle a gun. It was unsettling and arousing all at once, and he couldn’t quite decide if he liked the mélange of feelings.

  She idly stroked the muzzle with one long, slender finger.

  He decided he liked it. Very much.

  But he did the noble thing and turned his attention to a more pressing matter before he liked it too much and tried to seduce her in the carriage. If pistols were to be involved after all, then maybe it was time to acknowledge the massive pink elephant riding alongside them before it was too late, even if he was the only one who seemed to have noticed it. He’d seen enough of the world to know that when a firearm was applied to a problem, even more trouble would probably follow.

  He cleared his throat and searched for just the right words.

  “My dear”—oh, he’d never tire of calling her that—“as you seem to be preparing for a bloody battle, I thought I might seize the opportunity to . . . well, in case one of us does not survive . . .”

  Not the eloquence he was going for, judging from her expression. She gazed at him as if he were the pink elephant.

  “Are you mad?” she demanded.

  He held up his scarred left hand for proof that he was, in fact, in possession of all of his wits. He’d hold up his violent war record too if he could. “Pistols are dangerous,” he declared.

  She held up the pistol. “It’s not even loaded,” she retorted with a roll of her eyes.

  That was a detail he should have noted, given his unfortunate familiarity with guns. But he thought the oversight entirely justified, given his manifold distractions.

  “Even still,” he continued, attempting to bolster his resolve. In for a penny and all that. “I thought we might discuss France. Paris. I’ve heard it’s delightful in the spring.”

  “I’ve heard it rains even more than here,” she said, her brow wrinkled with confusion at his line of conversation.

  “Lyon, then. Or Marseilles. The coast is beautiful this time of year. Warm. We could spend Christmas on the Mediterranean. Or what about America?” He crossed his fingers that she didn’t go for the latter option. The last thing he wanted to do was visit the Colonies. The horror. The Levant had been primitive enough.

  “America?” she asked, her brow wrinkling even more.

  “Too far?” Thank hell. But he was running out of options. “Scotland might do, but I’d have to look into the law there.”

  “What are you nattering on about, Sebastian?’ she demanded, looking adorably confused.

  “If you aren’t keen on travel, I could, if I must, apply to the archbishop. I know it is done all the time despite the letter of the law, but I fear we would not get by in this country without a special dispensation, considering our station and notoriety. Which is entirely my fault, I know. There’d be a scandal any way you look at it, but we’re used to that by now, are we not? And it is not as if we are actually blood relations, so I don’t see what all of the fuss is about, really . . .”

  “Sebastian!” she said gently, her lips twitching at the edges as if containing a smile. “You’re babbling.”

  “I can’t help it. I’m nervous. I’ve never asked a lady to marry me, much less my former aunt. I am quite unsure of the etiquette involved,” he said haughtily.

  She was painfully silent for so long in the wake of his admission that Sebastian was afraid his heart would explode to bits inside of him from the suspense.

  “You’ve researched marriage laws?” she asked softly, a rosy heat tingeing her alabaster cheeks.

  He released the breath he’d been holding. “Yes?” he answered tentatively.

  “In three countries?”

  “Yes?”

  “Because you want to marry me?”

  “Yes,” he said a bit more firmly. He paused. “That is what I would prefer. Or I can be your cicisbeo, which I hear is all the rage on the Continent. Or your secret . . . er, paramour? I would quite happily live in sin with you, Katie, if you would prefer. Perhaps set us up in a cozy little love nest in Soho just to be especially scandalous.”

  Her cheeks were wonderfully scarlet by now, though she was still managing to contain her smile. “You already have a love nest in Soho.”

  “Katie!” he tsked. “Hardly a love nest. At least not until two nights ago. You know you were my first chère-amie.”

  “Well, I’d better be your last,” she groused.

  And then she smiled, just a small, timid tilting of her lips, as if she were unsure of his response. It was like the sun shining through the dreary winter gloom, Christmas morning, and that first perfect sip of whiskey at the end of a long day all rolled into one. Lovely. His veins were practically sizzling with anticipation now.

  “Does this mean you’ll marry me?”

  She shook her head in mock exasperation. “I don’t know whether you are the most romantic or the most ridiculous man in the world.”

  “I am the most handsome,” he rejoined dryly. “And I’ve been to enough dawn appointments, madame, to know when to hedge my bets.”

  “Ridiculous,” she decided. Then she leaned across the carriage and planted a firm kiss against his lips, catching him
completely off guard. He chased her lips with his own for more, but nearly fell out of his seat as the carriage drew to an abrupt stop.

  Her small smile transformed into a big one as she saw the pout forming on his lips. “We’re here,” she said, tucking her pistol into her waistband and unlatching the door.

  A moment later, Sebastian followed her toward the copse of birch trees mentioned in the ransom note with as much dignity as he could muster, given his discombobulation. He was so addled by that single aborted half kiss (dear Lord, what would a proper kiss do to his wits at this point?) that it wasn’t until they’d come face-to-face with a ghost of the Bourbon court that he realized she’d not given him a straight answer to his proposal.

  The sly minx.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Monsoor Le Duck and the Salamander Affair

  THE GHOST WORE a short, pale-pink periwig tied up in a queue that Astrid’s Aunt Anabel would have given the rest of her real teeth for, and a silver brocade jacket, knee breeches, and clocked silk stockings festooned in pink fleur-de-lis that would have been the height of elegance thirty years ago. In France. Katherine sighed at the spectacle before her. What the devil was going on now?

  The ghost—who was really just an alarmingly old man—teetered forward in his bejeweled high-heeled shoes, his long spindly legs trembling from the exertion. He brandished a gold-tipped cane in their direction, the lead powder and arsenic rouge on his withered cheeks—also staples of Aunt Anabel’s toilette—crackling along the fault lines of his scowl.

  “You there!” the old man called out to them querulously. “Villains! Voleurs! What have you done with ma petit carlin?”

  Somehow, Katherine wasn’t surprised to discover the man was indeed as French as his attire had suggested.

  The old chevalier slipped in the dew, limbs flailing, bones creaking, and a more soberly dressed, middle-aged man, whom she’d not noticed before, steadied him before he could collapse entirely. The man was soon batted away with the cane for his troubles, however.