Lady Rogue

by Suzanne Enoch

  “As I said, I’ve been checking into your family history,” his mistress commented, strolling to the window and gazing with feigned interest at the roof of his carriage house. “You had no Aunt Marabelle. Therefore, you have no cousin Christian Riley.”

  A dozen swift responses coursed through his mind, and were just as swiftly rejected. Barbara would never have confronted him unless she was certain of her facts. “And?” he responded, deciding the wisest course would be to determine exactly how much his mistress did know about his houseguest. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her expectantly.

  “And,” Barbara repeated, turning to face him again, “so who is she?”

  He’d known all along, he told himself, that Christine Brantley was trouble. Worse than trouble. She was a virgin, dressed like a boy, swore like a sailor, cheated at games of chance, and was likely working in the service of Bonaparte or one of his followers. And she was easily the most beguiling woman he’d ever encountered. “No one you need concern yourself with,” he returned slowly, making the words a warning.

  “But I am concerned,” Lady Sinclair countered, not taking the hint. “I value your wealth, and your…companionship. I don’t wish to lose them to some skinny-legged whore in breeches.”

  Alex regarded his mistress for a moment. He’d known Barbara could be arrogant, but it was an unpleasant side of her character she generally reserved for social climbers and inept servants. With him she was for the most part pliable and pleasant, but as she had said, she needed him for something. It had now become a question of how far she was willing to go to keep hold of what she wanted.

  “Don’t look at me that way, Alex,” she continued when he said nothing. “You would do the same if someone stepped between you and something you wanted, and you know it.”

  “Yes, I would,” he replied. And Barbara had just stepped between himself and Christine Brantley. “My guest will not be in London long,” he said carefully, giving her as little information as he could. “Any arrangements between us are temporary. And so I suggest you tread carefully. I do not take kindly to cheap theatrics and threats.”

  Barbara looked at him from beneath her dark lashes. “So you want her kept a secret, do you?” she murmured, and took a step closer. She began to take another, but the chill in his gaze stopped her advance. “Very well, my lord. I can keep a secret, as well. If to do so is worth my while.”

  “Blackmail now? Harry would be so dismayed,” Alex chided, inwardly seething. If the secret had been his own, he wouldn’t have stood for any of this. The secret, however, was not his. Kit would be hurt and angry, and whatever sort of criminal she might be, he would not have Barbara Sinclair bandying her tale about for some petty revenge.

  “My late husband had little head for business,” she replied. “Hence my desire to keep company with you.”

  “What do you want, then?”

  She was surprised he’d capitulated; he could see it in her eyes. “Well. Only your…continued interest, for now, Alex,” she murmured, though she still came no closer. Less confident than she wanted him to believe, then. “Later perhaps we can discuss an additional arrangement.”

  He nodded. “I shall agree, for now,” he answered coolly. “But I suggest for your sake that you not make a misstep, Barbara. I won’t allow you more than one.”

  The last was said to keep her cautious, and to keep her silent. And it would work, so long as he kept his end of her little bargain. With a nod at him, she stepped from the room and quietly shut the door behind her. Alex strode to the window, threw it open, and breathed deeply of the cool May air. With but a handful of days left before Kit’s departure, he’d begun taking risks with her, and with himself, that he should not. Even so, he had not anticipated being found out.

  He slammed his fist against the sill. After last night, the game he and Kit had embarked on had become much more complicated. This morning the whole table had been flipped on its end. And for once in his life, he had no idea what to do, and little time to figure it out. “Damnation,” he muttered. If only he hadn’t become so involved in the chit’s machinations and schemes, and if only he hadn’t kissed her. If only he could do something, anything, other than think about kissing her again, about the graceful curve of her throat, about what her breasts looked like under her bedamned waistcoat, about peeling those tantalizing breeches down over her luscious hips and running his hands over her bare skin, about what it would be like to be inside her, to have her limbs entwined around his.

  A scratch came at his door. “My lord?”

  Alex jumped. “Antoine. Come in.” He took a steadying breath and turned around. “Impeccable timing, as always. You’ve managed to miss most of the debacle.”

  The valet nodded. “Thank you, my lord.”

  “Hm.” Alex shrugged out of his dressing gown and breeches as Antoine fetched him a clean wardrobe. “Did you happen to notice whether my cousin destroyed any furniture or irreplaceable works of art on the way to the breakfast room?” He couldn’t tell her about Barbara’s little scheme, he realized. It would have Kit angry and suspicious of him all over again, and he’d have no time to regain her trust if he wished to stop her game and keep her from harm at the same time.

  “I may be mistaken, my lord, but I believe Mr. Riley has departed.”

  Alex turned so quickly, he pulled the cravat out of his valet’s hands. “What?”

  “I saw him in the front hallway with Wenton, my lord. I assumed he, your cousin, that is, was heading out for the day.”

  “Blast.” Alex quickly and carelessly knotted the tie around his neck as he strode out into the upstairs hallway. “Wenton!” he bellowed, leaning over the railing.

  “My lord?” The butler came into sight below.

  “Where did Kit go?”

  “My lord, Mr. Riley required that if you asked his whereabouts, I was to inform you that…” The butler trailed off.

  “Out with it, man,” Alex demanded impatiently, taking the stairs at a pace that made his head pound all over again.

  “Very good, my lord. I was to inform you that you and that…suckling-pig mistress of yours could fly to Jericho for all he cared, because he was going to Covent Garden, my lord.”

  Alex’s first impulse was to go charging out into the street and retrieve the chit before she got herself into trouble. His second reaction was to wonder whether she had slunk out to deliver intelligence to one of several Bonaparte spies he knew to be lurking in the area of Charing Cross and Covent Garden, and if he had by accident let something slip last night. He hadn’t exactly been at his sharpest. But he hadn’t exactly wanted to be. Finally, he decided she was willfully driving him mad, and that his head ached far too much for him to do anything until he had poured some coffee down his gullet.

  The butler was eyeing him expectantly, so he nodded and turned for the breakfast room. “Very well. Send Drake in when he arrives. And inform me at once if my cousin should return, or if you should hear of anything calamitous which you believe he may have been the cause of.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  He could convince himself he needed Kit’s trust in order to win the game, but deciding just which game the two of them were now playing was a more difficult task entirely.

  Chapter 9

  Kit wandered among the rows of fruit and vegetable stalls of the Covent Garden market and peeled a peach. She had actually started out along Bond Street looking for Hanshaw or Thadius Naring, but when Viscount Devlin had ridden by, looking so intent on something that he hadn’t even noticed her, despite her salutation, she had decided on the spur of the moment to follow him. It was better than returning to Cale House, better than thinking about what was going on there in her absence.

  Devlin was several stalls in front of her now, flirting with a woman who boasted a cheap, low-cut gown, ample breasts, and rouged lips. She didn’t recall that he dallied with light-skirts, but then he didn’t seem to be making any effort to exert himself. Unless Kit was in error, Augustus was d
istracted about something, a far cry from his single-minded intensity all the way to Covent Garden.

  Devlin half turned in her direction, and Kit smoothly stepped behind a cart and out of his line of sight. She counted slowly to ten, then moved out of cover to stroll over to a bread-maker’s stall. When she glanced back down the way, the viscount was gone. The woman, though, remained. With a frustrated frown, Kit approached the viscount’s would-be companion.

  “You happen to see a friend of mine just a moment ago?” she queried.

  “I’m your friend,” the woman replied saucily, in an accent a fishmonger would envy, and reached out to finger a button of Kit’s waistcoat.

  “And might this be your friend, as well?” Kit returned, holding a groat up in her fingers.

  The woman took it from her, examined it, and then placed it somewhere on her person. “What’s your friend look like?” she asked.

  “Tall, pale, and light-haired, coughs sometimes.” A female would have described him as handsome, and Kit was dismayed that for a moment she had nearly said it. Alex had her thinking like a chit, and it would get her into trouble.

  “Oh, him.” The woman scowled. “Aye. He didn’t have no time for me, but went off with some other fine gentleman, down that way.” She pointed behind her.

  Kit glanced down the alley she had indicated. Curious as the incident had her, she was not fool enough to go wandering down a deserted way by herself. She thanked the woman and handed her another groat, then strolled half a block away, took up a good spot against one wall, and settled in to wait.

  The Earl of Everton was becoming annoyed. At half past one he had finished meeting with his man of business. By five in the afternoon he had purchased two hay rakes and written out instructions to his estate agent at Everton, informing him that barley prices were increasing on the London market, and that he wished to change over twenty acres of oat fields in favor of the other crop. At six, tired of waiting about, he went out to an early dinner at Boodle’s.

  Reg and Francis had headed off to Barbara’s for dinner, but he begged off, still more inclined to strangle his mistress than to dance attendance on her, and arranged instead to meet them at the Worthington ball later. He returned to Cale House to change, only to learn from Wenton that Mr. Riley had not yet returned.

  “Damnation,” he muttered, slapping his gloves against his thigh. Covent Garden in the dark was less than savory—if she was there at all, and not in some tavern telling a Frenchman all the secrets of the English blockade. He dearly hoped she had instead gone off to one of his clubs, and was charging expensive bottles of liquor to his account and cheating some worthy out of his inheritance for a laugh. That, he wouldn’t mind.

  He waited about, kicking his heels and swearing, until nearly eleven. “Wenton,” he finally said, heading back downstairs, “I’m off to the Worthingtons’.” Antoine trailed down the stairs behind him, smoothing out any remaining wrinkles in the earl’s evening attire.

  “Very good, my lord.”

  “If my cousin should return, let him know where I am. If he decides to attend, inform him that I strongly suggest he dress soberly. Worthington’s a stuffy old buse.”

  “Buzzard, my lord,” Antoine translated, handing over Alex’s pocket watch.

  “S’ attendes à mon cousin, s’il vous plait,” the earl instructed his valet, feeling more comfortable with someone who knew Kit Riley’s true gender looking out for her, as well.

  “Certainement, my lord,” Antoine agreed.

  “Merci, Antoine.” Damn the chit for going off alone, when he’d told her not to. If she hadn’t returned by the end of the evening, he was going to have to go looking for her. At the moment, he refused to consider whether his concern was over letting a spy loose in London, or letting an obstinate young lady, of whom he was becoming absurdly fond, wander the streets alone.

  Wenton held out his greatcoat. “My lord?” he prompted after a moment.

  “Hm? Oh, yes. Well, I’m off,” Alex said unnecessarily, realizing he was stalling. He shrugged into the overcoat and stepped out into the darkness.

  He arrived at the rout late, actually a blessing considering how dull the evening looked to be. Lady Caroline and the Duchess of Furth arrived shortly after he did, and Caroline pointedly asked after the health of his cousin. At least Martin Brantley rarely spent the Season in London, for if Kit had cast up her accounts at the sight of the daughter, he could only imagine what her reaction would be if placed face-to-face with Furth himself. And he, too, hoped the duke remained in Wiltshire, for his life was as complicated as he ever wished it to become, without adding that into the mix. He turned to greet Hanshaw as he approached.

  “Alex.” The baron nodded, handing over a glass of brandy. “Any news?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve sent Hunt to Dover, and James north. They’ll let me know in a few days. I can’t think a thousand muskets could be that easy to hide.”

  “Even so, I do believe it’s got our glorious leader agitated.”

  Alex scowled. The last thing he needed was to bestir his sometime mentor over this mess. Apparently the complications were just beginning. “You wrote him?”

  Reg lifted an eyebrow. “You didn’t?”

  “I find it more pleasant to convey the message that we have recovered crates of weapons, than that we are searching for them,” Alex replied coolly.

  The baron grimaced. “Quite right. I have little wish to anger him at the moment, anyway.”

  “Neither do I,” Alex returned feelingly. Francis Henning approached from the stairs, and he flicked his eyes at Reg, warning him, then grinned. “That’s quite a bauble you’ve acquired,” he noted, pulling Francis’s arm up to eye the ring he had jammed on one finger. “Whomever did you steal it from?”

  Francis laughed. “I won it from Lindley. Said he got it straight off the boat from India.”

  “What were they using it for, ballast?” Reg asked, leaning over to examine the deep red stone.

  “It’s priceless, I’m certain,” Francis replied indignantly.

  “It’s glass, I’ll wager,” Hanshaw countered.

  Francis scowled and waggled his finger again in Alex’s direction. “What is it, then, Everton?”

  Alex gave a brief grin. “Sorry, Francis.” He glanced toward the door, then clenched his jaw as Barbara Sinclair entered and was announced. Best to get it over with, before Kit made her own appearance and left him with adversaries on both sides. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, and strolled over to greet his mistress.

  “Everton.” She smiled, and swept a graceful curtsy. Her eyes, though, were wary, as though she expected him to cut her.

  There was nothing he would rather do, and Alex had to remind himself that this was for Kit’s sake. He could be pleasant to Lady Sinclair until this game ended, one way or another. “Barbara.” He nodded, taking her fingers. “May I have this waltz?”

  “Of course,” she said graciously. They stepped out onto the floor and into the dance. “I don’t see your cousin,” she commented after a moment. “I’d hoped that he would be here this evening.”

  “Don’t push me, Barbara,” Alex murmured with a smile. “You have a reputation to think of, as well.”

  “And so we dance,” Lady Sinclair whispered.

  “And so we dance,” he agreed.

  When Kit returned to Cale House at half past eight the next morning, Wenton informed her that his lordship had returned home only a short while earlier, and was currently in the breakfast room.

  “Does he want to see me?” she asked wearily, handing over her outer garments and wishing for the soft bed upstairs.

  “He did not say, Mr. Riley.”

  “Oh.” She wasn’t certain whether she wanted to see him, either. He’d slammed a door in her face yesterday morning, and then apparently spent the night with his mistress. And evidently all of his close acquaintances were tied into smuggling and government appointments and Napoleon. Why Augustus Devlin, the on
e dying of consumption, had been left to meet with several suspicious-looking individuals in a Covent Garden alley until sometime well after midnight, she didn’t know. It didn’t seem very intelligent of them, and if Alexander Cale was anything, it wasn’t stupid. Even odder was the way Devlin had returned home, slipping through his garden gate and in by the servants’ entrance, as if he didn’t want his own staff to know what time he had arrived back at Devlin House. Of course, she might have done the same thing on her return to Cale House, if she hadn’t fallen asleep behind his brick wall waiting to see if he would exit again.

  She started toward the stairs, then stopped beside the breakfast room door. There were six days left. If she allowed Alex to suspect that she knew what he was up to, there was no telling what might happen. Neither, though, was she ready to forgive him for his exceeding rudeness. With an aggravated sigh, she pushed open the door.

  Everton was seated at his customary place beneath the garden window. He glanced up over the edge of the morning paper and raised his cup of tea to his lips.

  “Good morning,” he said, and resumed reading.

  “Good morning,” she returned shortly, and dropped into the seat at the opposite end of the table, hoping he would notice the cut. A footman poured her a cup of tea, while another brought her a plate laden with fruit and toast. As soon as they were finished, Everton motioned with one hand, and they left the room.

  “For purposes of etiquette,” his mild voice came from behind the paper a moment later, “that is generally considered to be the chair of the lady of the house.”

  “So she can be as far from her husband as possible, no doubt,” she grumbled. He might have apologized for yesterday, instead of pretending that nothing had ever happened. “Stupid English custom.”

  There was a short delay while the earl’s teacup vanished behind the paper and then reappeared. “Well, as we’re apparently being blunt today, might I ask where the devil you’ve been since yesterday morning?”

  “None of your bloody affair,” she answered the newspaper.