The Lord and the Wayward Lady

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‘Nothing whatsoever—the best reason for giving a lady a present, I always think. Merely a set of enamelled buttons I saw this morning in Tessier’s. A pretty trifle.’

‘You spoil her.’

‘My godchildren interest me.’ Viscount Keddinton twirled the wine glass, admiring the colour against the light. ‘I like to keep in touch.’

‘That must take some effort, you have quite a few,’ Marcus observed.

‘I have been honoured by the confidence their parents place in me.’ Keddinton turned to the earl. ‘A practical joke, you say?’

‘Some friend of Hal’s, I have no doubt,’ the earl said easily. ‘Sent Marc a parcel which I opened—thought there was a snake inside! Gave me such a start my blasted heart was all over the place.’

‘And it was not a snake?’ Veryan set down his glass and fixed his full attention on the earl.

‘No. Merely a cord of sorts. How are Felicity and the family, Veryan?’

The conversation passed to family matters. Marcus sat letting the two older men talk, his mind on the puzzle of the rope. He would speak to his father about confiding in Veryan; the man knew all about the scandal of ninety-four. They had discussed it only that Christmas when Keddinton had visited in company with his new confidential secretary who expressed an informed, if tactless, interest in the case. Keddinton had long been at the centre of the shadowy world of secrets that surrounded the heart of government. He could be an excellent source of information and would bring a powerful brain to bear on the mystery.

‘Let me show you out, sir.’ When his father’s friend finally took his leave, Marcus strolled down the stairs beside him, restless with his own weakness from loss of blood and his inability to see clear to the heart of this strange threat.

‘There was no message with the parcel?’ Veryan asked abruptly.

‘No. As I say, a prank misfiring, that is all.’ He must speak to his father first before confiding in Veryan.

‘Of course. Please give my compliments to your mother. I am sorry to have missed her.’

Marcus stood staring at the hallstand and its gleaming card tray for a long moment after Wellow had closed the door behind Lord Keddinton.

‘Where is Miss Latham, Wellow?’ He had been putting off that confrontation all morning. Sleep had not only rested his hurts, it had also ensured that he faced the morning feeling rather more clear-headed than he had the night before. And one picture that was very clear indeed was of Nell clawing her way out of his embrace—if that was not too polite a word for how he had taken her. The fact that there had been an answering flash of desire in her eyes, just for one moment, did not excuse falling on a virgin like a starving man on a loaf.

She had not come down to breakfast; no doubt she wished to avoid him, he concluded ruefully. It would be easier to mistrust her if the wrongdoing were all on her side, he told himself with a grimace at his own thought processes.

‘Miss Latham is alone in the White Salon, my lord. Lady Verity having just gone shopping with Lady Narborough and Miss Price having accompanied Lady Honoria for a dress fitting; Miss Latham is reading, I believe.’

He should probably call his mother’s dresser to sit in the corner for propriety, Marcus thought, opening the door. But if he did, he could hardly discuss last night.

‘Miss Latham.’

She was sitting very upright at the table in the window, a book open in her hands, her bent head making a graceful curve of her neck above the simple leaf-brown bodice of her gown. As he spoke, she looked up and closed the book, keeping one finger inserted to mark her place.

‘My lord.’

There was little of the weary, frightened milliner about the woman in front of him, just a dignified young lady in a plain gown interrupted by a man when she thought she was alone. Then the colour flooded her cheeks and she stood up with more haste than grace, dispelling the illusion. No, Nell had not forgotten that damned kiss.

‘My lord.’ Nell bobbed a curtsy, all too conscious that she had behaved as though she were an equal by remaining in her seat like a guest, not the milliner that she was. She had allowed Miss Price to take care of her last night, to lend her night things. She had been sent up supper to her room, and now she had forgotten her place in the sheer comfort and luxury of it all.

My place might be to curtsy and defer, but I will not let him take advantage of me, not after last night. Nell had lost a great deal of sleep, lying wide-eyed in the darkness, wondering what on earth had come over her to let the viscount so much as touch her, let alone to have responded for that fatal moment.

‘Marcus,’ he said, smiling his cool smile. ‘I told you last night. You have no need to stand up for me, Nell. May I sit down?’

‘Of course.’ How polite they were being. ‘I hope the fact that you are downstairs means that the wound is not troubling you too much this morning?’ That had been another waking nightmare: that he contracted a fever, the wound became infected, he died—and she became a murderer.

‘A trifle uncomfortable, that is all. There is no fever.’

She lowered herself to her seat cautiously, in time with him. ‘My lord, I cannot call you by your given name; it is not suitable. It would give the impression of an intimacy.’ She ran out of words.

‘And after a certain incident last night, intimacy is the last thing you wish to encourage?’ he asked, leaning back in his chair and studying her across the circumference of the table.

He was nothing if not direct! The colour left her face; she felt it as a chill on the skin. ‘Indeed.’

‘I apologise. I have no excuse for my loss of control. It will not happen again.’

Instinct told her not to believe him; men could not be trusted. But his eyes were wide and candid. Serious. Nell blew out a small, pent-up breath, her conscience pricking her. ‘I...it was not entirely your fault. For a moment I just wanted to be held.’

‘And then you changed your mind?’ She had fought him like a fury, that was what he meant, she acknowledged. Wounded and dazed as he had been, a good push would have been more than adequate to repel him, she was sure. There had been no need to struggle like a wild thing.

‘Er...yes,’ she said. There was speculation on his face for a moment, then it was gone. ‘My lord, I should go home.’

‘No.’ He said it flatly and for the first time she actually believed that he would keep her by force if necessary. ‘You are not very obedient, Nell, and I know you have more to tell me than has yet come out. You will call me Marcus when we are alone. Is Nell Latham your real name?’

‘Yes!’ It was. Or at least, it was one that long use entitled her to.

Marcus Carlow studied her with openly sceptical eyes, but he did not comment, only seemed to reach a decision. ‘This is how it will be. You will go this afternoon with Miss Price and me to your lodgings and we will collect whatever you need for a prolonged stay and make sure your valuables are secured—’

‘I cannot stay here for days! I have employment that will vanish if I am away. Today is Saturday, thank goodness, but on Monday—’

‘I will write to Madame Elizabeth informing her that the Countess of Narborough requires your presence,’ he continued as if she had not spoken. ‘It would take less than the very broad hint I will give her of future patronage, should she continue to employ you, for your post there to be secure.’

Lady Narborough and the Misses Carlow would not thank him for having their choice of milliner dictated! Or perhaps he would send his mistress there. Nell eyed him, her thoughts concealed behind a mask of composure, then could not resist a jab at his assumption of control.

‘Madame does good business providing for the convenients of rich city merchants, as well as their wives,’ she observed. ‘But perhaps the mistress of a viscount expects a milliner of the top flight?’

Lord Stanegate—Marcus —gave a snort of laughter, surprising her. She had expected one of his quelling looks. ‘You remind me of a small matter of business I must conclude. Convenients indeed, what a very mealy-mouthed euphemism, Nell.’

‘Birds of paradise, lightskirts, Cyprians, demi-reps?’ she countered. ‘Is that free-spoken enough for you, my...Marcus?’

He smiled again. What a very attractive smile he had, especially when his eyes held that wicked twinkle. He was not, she guessed, thinking about her. Not with that look. She felt a fleeting twinge of envy for the woman he was contemplating and a sensual frisson of recollection.

‘Where was I?’ he continued. ‘Ah, yes, we have dealt with your employer. On what terms do you settle with your landlord?’

‘Weekly, in advance. But—’

‘We will pay him for, let us say, a month to keep your room.’

‘A month! But that is ridiculous, I cannot—’

‘You say but and cannot too often for me, Nell.’

‘What am I to say, then? Yes, Marcus? Anything you say, Marcus? Whatever you say, Marcus, however ridiculous? You are too used to having your own way, my lord! I cannot, and will not, stay here a month, and that is that.’

‘We are not staying here, we are going into the country, to Stanegate Court, our family seat in Hertfordshire. There we can consider this puzzle in tranquillity, my father can rest—the local doctor is excellent—and the girls can stop dragging their mother around every shop in London.’

‘You do not need me for that. I know nothing more than I have told you.’

‘I do not believe you. You are a liar, Nell,’ he said, still smiling that smile she had thought so attractive just a moment before. ‘You know it and I know it. You have secrets you are not telling me.’

But they are secrets I hardly know myself and do not understand, she wanted to say, closing her lips tight on the words. ‘You cannot force me to leave London and to go into the country,’ she said at last, realising as she spoke that her very lack of denial increased his suspicions.

‘Of course I can. How are you going to stop me? Young women are kidnapped all the time, but rarely into comfort as a houseguest. Will you run to Bow Street and lay an information against Viscount Stanegate? Will you protest that I forced you into this house last night, that I forced you to converse and take tea with my sister and her companion?

‘And after that brutality you took supper and allowed one of our maids to tuck you up in bed without a murmur of protest? They will be appalled at such a tale.’

‘You chose to be sarcastic, my lord.’ Nell glared at him, trying to see a way out. ‘Well, now I realize how foolish I was to have stayed and will walk out of the front door. What will you do about that, pray?’

Marcus shrugged. ‘If you chose to try and escape, I will have you bundled into a locked carriage, transported to Stanegate, locked up in one of the estate cottages and guarded, but you won’t do anything that foolish, will you, Nell?’ All the amusement had gone out of his eyes.

‘It would certainly give you cause for complaint, if you found yourself in the presence of a magistrate eventually, but who would they believe, do you think? Or would you prefer to go home, unprotected, and see if your dark man has done with you, knowing that I am in the country, too far away to call upon?’

A tirade about the inequality of their positions was not going to help. ‘You think that this is more than a practical joke, don’t you?’ Nell said at last when she had her seething temper under control. ‘You believe Salterton means real harm in sending that rope—and it was not intended to scare Lord Narborough into thinking it was a snake, it has some other meaning. You suspect you know what lies behind this.’

It was Marcus’s turn to fall silent. Nell wondered if he meant to answer her at all. Then he said sombrely, ‘I may be wrong, but if I am correct it is an old story, a nightmare that should have been long forgotten. You know all about old nightmares, do you not? I can sense it.’

The shudder that ran through her must have been visible to him. He seemed suddenly focused, as though he would read her mind. The piercing grey eyes were hooded; he knew he had scored a hit. An old nightmare. Yes, that is exactly what I feel stirring. But it is coincidence, surely, that has brought me here? If it is not, if Salterton knows who I am—then he knows my real name. He knows more than I do about my past.

‘You are afraid.’ It was a statement.

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I dislike mysteries. I dislike insecurity. And that man makes me think of knives.’ And I am afraid of you and your family because Mama spoke your name with hate and yet you have all been kind to me, so now I do not know what to trust. But the man in front of her had not been kind. He had been autocratic, bad tempered, sexually domineering—and yet... ‘And I dislike not understanding you,’ she snapped, provoking another of his disconcerting laughs. ‘And I do not want to be kidnapped, you arrogant man.’

‘All you need to understand about me, Nell, is that I will keep you safe.’

From the dark man perhaps. Salterton. But from him? Marcus Carlow wanted her safe entirely for his own purposes and she was certain he had not told her them all.

‘Your definition of safe differs from mine, Marcus.’ How easily she had slipped into using his name. But the image of a great house in the country was powerfully seductive. Big, safe, warm, with people all around and strangers immediately obvious.

Nell tried to tell herself that it was only for a few weeks and then she would be back in her old world. But that was not warm, not safe, and she would be all alone again. What harm could it do to escape for just a little while? It could hardly make things worse. Could it?

‘Very well,’ she conceded.

‘Thank you. This afternoon, after Miss Price returns, we will go to your lodgings.’ There were sounds of a bustle from the hall, a young lady’s laughter. ‘In fact, I think that may be her returning now.’

The journey to Dorset Street was enlivened at the beginning by Miss Price sinking into the carriage cushions only to start up with a cry and produce a small pistol from under her skirts. ‘What on earth?’

‘Ah.’ Marcus reached across and took it, slipping it into his pocket. ‘The footpad’s weapon.’

‘A thief with a nice taste in ivory-handled ladies’ pistols,’ Miss Price remarked, settling herself again.

‘No doubt stolen from a previous victim,’ Marcus said. He and the companion chatted easily, with the air of two people who had known each other for a long time and who, even if they had little in common in terms of station or interests, were comfortable together.