The Rake to Redeem Her

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Will wasn’t about to assure the maid he’d send madame back—to Paris or her ‘Philippe’—until he’d finished with her. And resolved what had already flared between them.

Instead, he pulled out a coin. ‘Thank you, Clara. I appreciate—’

‘No need for that,’ the maid interrupted, waving the money away. ‘Use it to keep her safe. You will watch out for her, won’t you? I know if someone wished her ill, they could have moved against her any time this last year. But still … I worry. She’s such a gentle soul, too innocent for this world, perhaps.’

Will remembered the woman in the garden, quietly picking spent blooms from her flowers while a stranger decided whether or not to wring her neck. She was more resigned than gentle or innocent, he thought. As if life had treated her so harshly, she simply accepted evil and injustice, feeling there was little she could do to protect herself from it.

Since his earliest days on the streets, Will had faced down bullies and fought to right wrongs when he found them. Picturing that calm face bent over the blooms and the brutal hand St Arnaud had raised against it, Will felt a surge of protectiveness he didn’t want to feel.

No point getting all worked up over her little tragedy; if she’d ended up abused, she’d played her role with full knowledge of the possible consequences, he reminded himself. Unlike Max, who’d been lured in unawares and betrayed by his own nobility.

And of course the maid thought her a heroine. If she could take in Max, who was nobody’s fool, it would have been child’s play for her to win over a simple, barely educated girl who depended on her for employment.

Suppressing the last of his sympathy towards Madame Lefevre, he nodded a dismissal to her maid. ‘I’ll meet you at the inn in two days.’

Clara nodded. ‘The old man’s disguise—you’re sure you can carry it off?’

‘Can she carry off hers?’

‘She can do whatever she must. She already has. Good-night, sir.’ With an answering nod, the girl walked into the gathering night.

Will turned back towards the inn where he planned to procure dinner, mulling over what he’d learned from Clara.

According to the maid, madame had been brought, without other money or resources, to Vienna and forced to do St Arnaud’s bidding. She cared little about wealth or high position. Her sole ambition was to return to Paris … and ‘Philippe’.

She can do whatever she must, the maid had said. Apparently, betraying Max Ransleigh had been one of those things. Eluding Will and cheating Max of the vindication due him might be another.

She was surely counting on trying to escape him, if not on the road, then once they arrived in Paris. He’d need to remain vigilant to make sure she did not.

From the maid’s reactions, it seemed even she feared the watchers might not be pleased to have her mistress leave Vienna. Madame Lefevre might well have other enemies in addition to the angry cousin of the man she’d ruined.

Her masculine disguise, which he’d first accepted almost as a jest, now looked like a prudent precaution.

For a moment, he envisioned madame’s slender body encased in breeches that outlined her legs, curved over thigh and calf, displayed the turn of an ankle. His mouth watered and his body hardened.

But he couldn’t allow lustful thoughts to distract him—yet. His sole focus now must be on getting her safely to Paris. Because until they reached London, he meant to ensure no one else harmed her.

Chapter Six

Late in the afternoon two days later, garbed in the clothing of an old gentleman, wearing spectacles so thick she could hardly see and leaning heavily on a cane, Elodie let Clara help her into the taproom of a modest inn on the western outskirts of Vienna. As the innkeeper bustled over to welcome them, Will Ransleigh strode in.

‘Uncle Fritz, so glad you could join me! The trip from Linz was not too tiring, I trust?’

In a voice pitched as low as she could make it, Elodie replied, ‘Tolerable, my boy.’

‘Good. Herr Schultz,’ he addressed the innkeeper, ‘bring some refreshment to our room, please. Josephine, let’s help our uncle up.’

With Clara at one arm and Will Ransleigh at the other, Elodie slowly shuffled up the stairs.

Not until she’d entered the sitting room Ransleigh had hired and heard the door shut behind her did she breathe a sigh of relief. The first step of her escape had proceeded without a hitch. Exultation and a rising excitement sent her spirits soaring.

As she sank into a chair and pulled off the distorting spectacles, she looked up to see Will Ransleigh’s expression warm with a smile of genuine approval that gratified her even as her stomach fluttered in response. His expression serious, he was arresting, but with that smile—oh, my! How did any woman resist him?

‘Bravo, madame. I had grave doubts, but I have to admit, you made a wonderfully credible old man.’

‘You made a rather fine old gentleman yourself,’ she said, smiling back at him. ‘I wouldn’t have recognised you if you’d not arrived with Clara. You were a wizard with the blacking as well, going from white-powdered hair to brunette faster than I could don the clothing you provided. Now I see you’ve transformed yourself yet again.’

Though he’d kept his hair darkened with blacking, he’d changed from the modest working-man’s attire he’d worn the day he climbed up her balcony into gentleman’s garb, well cut and of quality material, but not so elegant or fashionable as to attract undue notice.

Still, the close-fitting jacket emphasised the breadth of shoulders and the snug pantaloons displayed muscled thighs. If he’d appeared powerfully, dangerously masculine in his drab clerk’s disguise, the effect was magnified several times over in dress that better revealed his strength and physique.

His potent masculine allure ambushed Elodie anew, intensifying the flutter in her stomach and igniting a heated tremor below. She found herself wondering how it would feel to run her fingers along those muscled arms and thighs, over the taut abdomen … and lower. While her lips explored his jaw and cheekbones, the line of brow over those vivid turquoise eyes …

Realising she was staring, she hastily turned her gaze away.

Not fast enough that he didn’t notice her preoccupation, though. A satisfied gleam in his eye, he said, ‘I hope you approve of the latest transformation.’

‘You’re looking very fine, sir, and don’t you know it,’ Clara interposed tartly. ‘Ah, mistress, didn’t you make a marvellous old gent! I believe we could have met Frau Gruener herself on the stairs without her being the wiser.’

‘It’s just as well we didn’t. I’m no Mrs Siddons,’ Elodie said, arching to stretch out a back cramped from bending over a cane during their long, dawdling transit.

‘What do you know of Mrs Siddons?’ Will asked, giving her a suspicious look.

Cursing her slip, Elodie said, ‘Only that she was much praised by the English during theatrical entertainments at the Congress, who claimed no Viennese actress could compare. With your expertise in disguises, I begin to believe you’ve trod the boards yourself. Is that how you found this moustache?’ Stripping off the length of fuzzy wool, she rubbed her lip. ‘It itched terribly, making me sneeze so hard, I feared it would fall off.’

‘My apologies for the deficiencies in your costume,’ he replied sardonically. ‘I shall try to do better next time.’

‘See that you do,’ she flashed back, relieved to have detoured him from any further probing about her familiarity with the English stage.

‘I don’t wonder your back is tired,’ Clara said. ‘I don’t know this quarter of Vienna and you could hardly see behind those spectacles. The transit seemed to take so long, once or twice I feared we might be lost.’

‘No danger of that; I shadowed you all the way and would have set you straight if you’d strayed,’ Ransleigh said. ‘I also wanted to make sure you were not followed.’

Reassured by his thoroughness, Elodie said, ‘We weren’t, were we?’

‘No. It was a good plan you came up with.’

Elodie felt a flush of warmth at his avowal and chastised herself. She wasn’t a giddy girl, to be gratified by a handsome man’s approval. She needed to remember the purpose for which he’d arranged this escape—that hadn’t been done for her benefit.

Despite that acknowledgment, some of the warmth remained.

A knock sounded at the door and Elodie turned away, averting her now moustache-less face until the servant bringing in the refreshments had deposited the tray and bowed himself back out.

‘Shall we dine?’ Ransleigh invited. ‘The inn is said to set a good table.’

Elodie shook her head wonderingly. ‘Just how do you manage to discover such things?’

He gave her an enigmatic smile. ‘I’m a man of many talents.’

‘So I am discovering.’ She wished she could resist being impressed by his mastery of detail, but fairness wouldn’t allow it.

‘Fraulein, will you join us before you leave?’

At the maid’s nod, they seated themselves around the table. Since their previous exchanges had been limited to threats on her life and plans for escaping Vienna, Elodie wondered whether—and about what—Ransleigh would talk during the meal.

Somewhat to her surprise, he kept up a flow of conversation, discussing the sights of Vienna and asking Clara about her experiences with the notables she’d encountered during the Congress.

Will Ransleigh truly was a man of many talents. He seemed as comfortable drawing out a lady’s maid as he might be entertaining a titled lady in his uncle the earl’s drawing room. If he did, in fact, frequent the earl’s drawing room.

He claimed he’d been born on the wrong side of the blanket, but his speech and manners were those of the aristocracy. Where was he in his true element? she wondered. Skulking around the modest neighbourhoods of a great city, chatting up maids and innkeepers, or dancing at balls among the wealthy and powerful?

Or in both?

He was still an enigma. And since she was forced to place her safety in his hands, at least until Paris, that troubled her.

Their meal concluded, Clara rose. ‘I’d best be getting home. It will be dark soon and I don’t know these streets.’

‘I’ll escort you,’ Ransleigh said.

‘I’d not put you to the trouble,’ Clara protested.

‘Of course he will,’ Elodie interrupted, relieved by the offer and determined to have him honour it. ‘I’d like him to accompany you all the way home … and make sure there’s no unexpected company to welcome you,’ she added, voicing the uneasiness that had grown since she’d successfully escaped her lodgings.

‘Your mistress is right. Though I don’t think her flight has yet been discovered, we should take precautions,’ Ransleigh said. ‘Once whoever has set a guard realises she has left the city, they’ll probably come straight to you.’

Dismay flooded her. All her attention consumed by the magnificent prospect of returning to Paris, Elodie hadn’t imagined that possibility. Turning to Ransleigh, she said anxiously, ‘Should we take Clara with us, for her own safety?’

‘I don’t think she needs to leave, though she might well be questioned. If we’re lucky, not until we’re well away. She can then tell them truthfully that a certain Will Ransleigh urged you to accompany him to London and met you at this inn, but how or with whom you left it and in which direction, she has no idea. After all, if they want anyone, it’s you, not her.’

‘Are you sure? I’d thought my leaving, drawing after me whatever threat might still remain, would keep her safe. But what if I’m wrong?’ Elodie turned to Clara, still torn. ‘If anyone harmed you—’

‘Don’t distress yourself, madame,’ Ransleigh interrupted. ‘I’ve already engaged a man to watch over the fraulein until he’s sure she’s in no further danger. A solid lad, a former Austrian soldier I knew from the army. He’s waiting below to help me escort her home.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Clara dipped Ransleigh a curtsy—the first sign of respect she’d accorded him. ‘I never expected such a thing, but I can’t deny it makes me feel easier.’

Surprised, touched and humbled, Elodie felt like curtsying, too. She should have realised it was necessary to guarantee Clara’s safety after their departure. Instead, this man she’d viewed as concerned only with achieving his own purposes had had the forethought—and compassion—to arrange it.

In her experience, aristocrats such as St Arnaud viewed servants as objects put on earth to provide for their comfort, like horses or linens or furniture. Her cousin would never have seen Clara as a person, or concerned himself with her welfare.

Ransleigh had not only anticipated the possible danger, he’d arranged to protect Clara after their departure, when the maid was of no further use to him.

She couldn’t prevent her opinion of his character from rising a notch higher.

Still, she mustn’t let herself be lured into trusting in his thoroughness, competence and compassion—qualities that attracted her almost as much as his physical allure. They were still a long way from Paris.

Before Elodie could sort out her tangled thoughts, Clara had wrapped herself in her cloak. Elodie’s previous high spirits vanished as she faced parting for ever from the last, best friend she possessed.

‘I suppose this is farewell, madame,’ Clara said, a brave smile on her face. ‘I wish you a safe journey—and joy, when you get to Paris at last!’

Unable to summon words, Elodie hugged her. The maid hugged her back fiercely, blinking away tears when at last Elodie released her. ‘I’ll try to send word after I’m settled.’

‘Good. I’d like to know that you were home—and safe,’ she added, that last with a meaningful look at Ransleigh.

‘Shall we go, fraulein?’ Ransleigh asked.

Smiling, Clara gave her a curtsy. ‘Goodbye, madame. May the blessed angels watch over you.’

‘And you, my dear friend,’ Elodie replied.

‘After you, fraulein,’ Ransleigh prompted gently as they both stood there, frozen. ‘Your soldier awaits.’

Nodding agreement, Clara stepped towards the door, then halted to look at him searchingly. ‘Maybe I was wrong. Maybe madame should trust you.’

Much as she told herself that after a lifetime of partings and loss, she should be used to it, Elodie felt a painful squeezing in her chest as she listened to their footsteps echo on the stairs. When the last sound faded, she ran to the window.

Peeping around the curtain, so as to be hidden from the view of anyone who might look up from the street, she watched three figures emerge from the inn: Ransleigh, Clara and a burly man who looked like a prizefighter. As they set off through the darkness, the thought struck her that Ransleigh, moving with the fluid, powerful stride of a predator on the prowl, seemed the more dangerous of the two men.

Elodie’s spirits sagged even lower as she watched Clara disappear into the darkness. The maid had been her friend, companion and saviour for more than a year.

Now, she’d be alone with Ransleigh. For better or worse.

She got herself this far, she’d make it the rest of the way, she told herself bracingly. And at the end of this journey … was Philippe.

With that rallying thought, she settled in to wait for Ransleigh’s return.

Chapter Seven

The maid conveyed safely to her lodging where, fortunately, there had been no one waiting to intercept her, Will left Heinrich on watch and headed back to the inn. Their room above the entry was dark when he glanced up at the window before entering.