A Most Unladylike Adventure (14 page)

‘It might. You refused to defend yourself when we all expected you to face up to whatever you had done when poor little Ariadne died, so your word as a gentleman that you didn’t kill your wife and brother might go a long way with your friends,’ the coward offered, as if he thought for one moment the rest of the world would accept Hugh’s say so that he didn’t do it, when a solid alibi apparently held no weight.

‘And you intend to prove yourself a friend by using some of the worst rogues in London to track my movements? With friends like you, I’ll soon be able to retire all my enemies, Rarebridge.’

‘Damn it, man, have you any idea what you’ve done to your unfortunate sister? Poor little creature doesn’t deserve the snubs and sneers she has to endure while she lives with the scandal you won’t stand and face.’

‘I’ve never thought of my sister as a poor little creature and I’ll be very surprised if she thinks of herself as such, and where was I to face down the gossip, Rory, the dock or the gutter?’ Hugh asked implacably and Louisa
nearly cheered aloud to hear him fight for himself at long last.

‘I don’t know, but you shouldn’t have disappeared like a fugitive,’ Lord Rarebridge argued sulkily, as if his bluster was draining away and leaving him wondering what it was all about himself.

‘I was too busy surviving to worry about how things looked to the rest of the world,’ Hugh said bleakly and Louisa willed him to admit why he’d left his home so finally that his sister was doubly bereft.

‘Where were you then, Hugo?’ his lordship asked more moderately.

‘At sea, in more ways than one,’ Hugh admitted with a shrug and a rueful smile for Louisa that made her step a little closer to offer her support. ‘I drank, gamed and fought my way round the less reputable taverns of London until I landed in that gutter. It took two strong men to carry me home and dry me out, then Mr Alstone and his good friend and business partner decided to put my seamanship to good use, instead of turning me back out to go to the devil as my so-called friends would have done. I have worked as a ship’s master ever since, Rory, and I hardly think
you and your kind would wish to associate with such men, nor we with you.’

‘Why didn’t you write to your sister, then?’ his lordship asked, leaving Hugh’s implied contempt for the likes of him unchallenged.

‘Because my father forbade it and I could hardly ask her to go behind his back—all that would have got her was more ranting and raving about undutiful daughters than she already had to endure.’

‘The devil,’ his lordship said and sank down on the marble bench. ‘It was all a lie, then,’ he muttered mysteriously and seemed utterly deflated.

‘What was a lie, my lord?’ Louisa asked as patiently as she could, for she scented the stamp of the real villain behind all this at last, instead of this idle and foolish young man, so bored with his life he was looking for trouble to fall into.

‘I received some letters,’ Lord Rarebridge admitted reluctantly.

‘From whom did these missives come then?’ Hugh demanded impatiently.

‘I don’t know,’ the viscount mumbled, evidently ashamed of himself for paying heed to such spiteful stuff now they’d shown up
what a shabby thing his wonderful crusade really was.

‘So you pursued an innocent man on the say so of a person who lacked the courage to own his name?’ she asked incredulously.

‘At first I tore them up or threw them in the fire,’ he said defensively.

‘But then…?’ she encouraged him.

‘Then he offered more detail that I couldn’t help but take notice of, told me things only a witness to what happened that night could ever know.’

‘Or perhaps the perpetrator of it all himself?’ she snapped furiously.

‘Good Gad, d’you really think so?’ he asked as he shot to his feet as if stung, which he would be if there was any justice, Louisa decided vengefully, by a very virulent and persistent gadfly, that lived for a very long time and loved the taste of stupid young aristocrat so much it kept biting and biting.

‘Hugo Kenton would never shoot a man in the back, let alone his own brother, so who else is there? If there were any true witnesses to those terrible crimes, they would have come forwards before now and I’m quite sure Sir Horace Kenton offered a large reward to encourage them to do so at the time.’

‘You know, I do believe you’re right.’

‘How amazing,’ she said acerbically and was even more astonished by him when he nodded solemnly, as if he’d just witnessed a rare phenomenon.

‘So where are the letters now, Rory?’ Hugh asked more gently, as if resigned to the dimness of this particular viscount and preparing to stand between him and his fiery fiancée for his protection.

‘Letters?’ he said, as if being asked where he’d left somebody’s pet elephant.

‘Yes, the unsigned letters that set you on my tail,’ Hugh explained patiently.

‘Oh, them,’ his lordship said glumly. ‘I lost them.’

Louisa locked her hands together in lieu of wrapping them round the noble idiot’s neck and squeezing hard and even Hugh seemed to hold back with an effort from seizing him and shaking some sense out of him.

‘Can you recall their content, Rory?’ he asked calmly enough.

‘Probably, if you give me enough time to think.’

Louisa felt Hugh squeeze her tense fingers in warning and stood back to let him deal with this oddly naïve young man. It made
her wonder how old they both were, these former friends, and marvel at the differences between the pampered heir of an earldom and the battle-hardened second son of a baronet. Even without the trauma of the last few years, her Hugh would be twice the man his lordship could ever become and she wondered if Hugh’s sister felt anything but contempt for such a straw man. The viscount clearly admired Miss Kenton, and probably had half an eye on the fact that she would inherit everything if her brother was arraigned, then hung for murder, but she doubted he had the brains to actively pursue Hugo without some more deadly hand pulling his strings.

‘Come and see if you can put any of them down on paper for us then, Rory. It’s very important that we have every shred of evidence we can find if this man is ever to be apprehended. Will you do that for me, old friend?’

‘Course I will, Hugo, do anything for you, you know that.’

‘I do, Rory, I know exactly what you’d do for me now,’ Hugh told his one-time playmate and shrugged at Kit and Louisa as he silently acknowledged how true that remark was.

‘V
iscount Rarebridge and his ilk make you wonder how the aristocracy manage to keep such a determined grasp on both government and country,’ Kit said ruefully as they waited for Hugh to finish writing his lordship’s scattered memories in his pocket book and rejoin them.

‘Do you think that idiot will remember anything much of what was actually in those letters?’ Louisa asked anxiously.

‘Aye, he’s not got an awful lot in his head to distract him. It’s probably my duty to inform his father what he’s been up to so he’ll drag him off to the country out of harm’s way, so at least I’ll be his new worst enemy then instead of Hugh.’

‘Perhaps, but how do we get our hands on the true villain behind all this?’

‘
We
don’t, Lou, and don’t waste that wide-eyed innocent look on me.’

‘I’m involved; you can’t pretend it doesn’t matter to me and that I should stay at home and knit socks.’

‘Heaven forbid, I’ve seen your knitting.’

‘Don’t laugh at me, Kit,’ she demanded, knowing that if she let them, he and Hugh would cut her out of this whole business and she simply couldn’t sit about waiting to hear if they had been hurt or arrested.

‘I’m not, but do you really think it’s going to help Hugh’s sense of himself if you constantly fight his battles for him, little sister? Only an idiot would hide his past from his wife, but he must slay his own dragons, love.’

Louisa fumed in silence for a while, listening to the birds sing blithely and the distant sounds of children playing in the afternoon sun. The noises of the city were muted in this quiet corner of Mayfair and she reflected that only days ago she had been one of the chattering crowd in Rotten Row at the fashionable hour. How glad she was to be done with all that, although as Mrs Hugo Kenton, in town for a few weeks to enjoy the diversions of
fashionable life, she might enjoy herself far more than being scurried from one ball to another by her aunt.

She certainly hadn’t come across one man it would cost her a pang to leave behind when she wed Hugh. Some of her suitors had been handsome or fabulously rich or even both, and one or two were witty and keenly intelligent, but none of them had instantly held her attention as Hugh the pirate, or Hugh the poet, or whoever he truly was, could just by being in the same room. Marriage to Hugh could be an endless adventure if they got it right, so she supposed she would have to adapt her life to his if he was willing to reciprocate.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ she finally admitted.

‘That’s more of an admission than his lordship’s that a mere female might have come upon a fact by accident,’ he teased her and she chuckled reluctantly.

‘Am I a managing woman, Kit?’ she asked, heard the wistfulness in her own voice and wondered what on earth Hugh Darke had done to her. No, Hugo Kenton, she reminded herself, and wondered even more.

‘You might be, if you wed the wrong man.’

‘I wasn’t intending to wed one at all,’ she admitted.

‘Which is exactly why Hugo Kenton is the right man for you, little sister; he’s certainly the only one who’s ever caused you to swerve an inch from a course you’d set your mind on taking.’

‘You make me sound so formidable,’ she protested.

‘No. How could I be so crass?’ he teased her and she gave him an urchin grin and went back to listening to quiet sounds around them, not letting herself admit even in her head that she was listening for Hugh’s near-silent approach until she finally saw him pace lithely down the path to meet them.

‘Did you get anything more out of him?’ Kit asked once they were back in his neat town carriage and on their way home.

‘All he could recall, I’ll show you once we’re back in Chelsea,’ Hugh said tersely and they lapsed into silence.

‘Were we followed, Grimme?’ Hugh asked the new groom at journey’s end.

‘Twice over, sir, first cove very obvious, second as quiet as you like,’ Grimme answered and waited as if expecting an order to go after one or other.

‘Not tonight,’ Hugh finally decided. ‘I know who sent one and we’ll pick our ground before we take the other one on.’

‘Aye, sir,’ Grimme said and went off to attend to the horses.

*

‘Are you ever going to tell us, then?’ Louisa demanded the instant Hugh shut the door of Kit’s study behind him.

‘There’s not much to tell,’ he answered, gratefully accepting a brandy glass from his brother-in-law-to-be and raising it in a silent toast as he mouthed ‘three’ at Louisa to tell her he hadn’t forgotten that promise after all.

‘I should like some tea,’ she informed him majestically and he didn’t dare even think what he really wanted, not for another two days at any rate.

Kit confounded him by going off to order the tea tray from his housekeeper and Hugh eyed his own particular termagant with hungry patience.

‘He trusts us,’ he said at last.

‘I suspect he trusts you rather more than me, knowing how your gentlemanly instincts trump my ladylike ones,’ she said with a smile that admitted more than he’d dared hope for when she agreed to marry him for the sake of
a maybe-child, but not quite as much as he’d dreamt of in those heady dreams of her sweet and hot and in thrall to him in every way a woman can be to a man.

‘Stop trying to convince me and everyone else you’re not a lady, my dear,’ he advised her rather wearily and sat back in his chair to contemplate the fine cognac in his glass rather than the much more tempting sight of Miss Louisa Alstone, elegantly dressed and almost back to her Ice-Diamond perfection.

‘Do I grow tedious, Mr Kenton?’

‘No, only infuriating. Disappointed?’

‘Not really, just a little bit scared,’ she admitted and he resisted the temptation to snatch her out of her seat by the empty fire and into his arms, so he could offer comfort and chase the shadows from her eyes.

‘You? I thought nothing frightened, Louisa Alstone.’

‘Your family does, because I never planned to marry a gentleman; never bothered to study household economy so I could take over a great house one day, or learnt to love country life. I can’t even ride properly, Hugh,’ she ended, as if that was the greatest sin of all.

‘No need to sound so mournful about it, my Eloise. You’ll learn whatever you need to
and ignore what you don’t and if we end up at Gracemont Priory there will be a housekeeper and butler to manage the house and bailiffs and a land steward for each of the estates, so neither of us need take on too much to begin with. I’m not trained to it either, Louisa,’ he reassured her, kneeling on the hearthrug in front of her to take her chilled hands in his and warm them. ‘I’m the second son, remember? Nobody taught me to judge yields or breed livestock or price timber. I can ride well enough, but Marcus was the real horseman, and I’m more accustomed to a quarterdeck than an estate office. We’ll learn it all together, Louisa, and do well enough, I dare say; I don’t think there’s much you couldn’t do if you set your mind to it.’

‘Then I
am
a managing female,’ she said tragically, recalling her previous conversation with her brother.

‘So long as you don’t try managing me, you can exert your organising skills on my father’s houses and estates with my blessing,’ he told her, pulling her forwards so their gazes were level and she could see all the feeling he dared show in his eyes.

‘Houses? Estates?’ she questioned as he fought not to lose himself in the blue depths
of her eyes. ‘You mean there’s more than one?’ she added as if he’d confessed to some sort of family mania or ancient curse.

‘One or more, what difference does it make?’

‘I’m becoming more of a misalliance by the second for you, Hugh—whatever will your family say?’

‘My sister will love you, my ancient second cousin and heir will apparently approve of any woman I marry who isn’t a noble whore like the last one, and my father has no say in the matter if he wants me home playing the dutiful heir for the remainder of his life.’

‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ she said forlornly and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning forwards that extra inch to kiss her on her temptation of a mouth in order to stop her uncharacteristic attack of self-doubt.

‘Idiot,’ he chided as he ran a line of kisses along the lovely, giveaway fullness of her lower lip, then back to explore her upper one with just as much care and fascination. ‘This gives so much away,’ he told her on a groan and pulled back to fight the powerful urge to lay her down on Kit’s hearth rug and take her again in broad daylight.

For one thing, her brother would surely kill
him for it this time, and for another she deserved more respect, even if she didn’t seem to want it. Instead of giving in to the urge to ravish and pleasure and enjoy her as fast and urgently as his body and most of his instincts demanded, he ran his forefinger along the sensuous curve of her lips where his mouth had just travelled and let his need and frustration and tenderness for this wonder of a female show in his heavy-lidded gaze as he watched her react to his touch.

‘Gives what away?’ she muttered as if only half-interested in his answer, much more concerned with the feel of him exploring the very words on her lips.

‘The real Louisa,’ he murmured as he outlined her mouth again. The feel of it under the sensitive pad of his finger end was almost as seductive as the marvel of it softening into eagerness and passion under his kisses. ‘You’re not what you pretend, or even entirely what you think yourself to be, but no wonder you had to defend the vulnerability of this, the passion of it, the fierceness of your feelings,’ he told her as he ranged that fingertip along her fine creamy skin and up over her high cheekbones to drift it over her half-closed eyelids, her smooth, narrow brow and down along
her jaw-line and back to that so-fascinating mouth again.

‘Kiss me, Hugh,’ she demanded shakily against the finger she tried to catch in her mouth, even as he danced it away again and her eyes burned every bit as passionately, looked as vulnerable and fiercely wanting as they had in those wild dreams of his.

‘I dare not,’ he whispered, giving in to the temptation to stroke that one slight point of contact he did dare between them by exploring along one of her finely made earlobes and learning the intriguing curls and curves of it to so tenderly he felt her shiver with desire. ‘Once I started to, I couldn’t stop,’ he confessed and sat back on his heels to meet her gaze, waiting for her fierce accusations and the bite of her temper for half-seducing her, then drawing back, leaving her unsatisfied, restless and needy with the passion that ran between them like some untapped force of nature.

‘The day after tomorrow, we won’t have to stop,’ she whispered, looking him straight in the eye and letting him see that wait would be hard for her too.

‘Seems more like years, doesn’t it?’ he murmured ruefully, something greater than all his
scruples and self-doubts threatening the isolation he’d forced on his old self in order to survive, something that might have been his heart, if he still had one. He ached with the hugeness and threat of what promised between them and sprang to his feet in cowardly relief when Kit made a purposely noisy entrance to his own book-room, carrying the tea tray Louisa had demanded.

‘I assume you waited for me before looking for clues to your enemy’s identity?’ he asked as if he thought they’d been yards apart ever since he left.

‘What considerate folk we are,’ Hugh said blandly.

‘So what does it say that we don’t know already?’ his friend asked and laid the tea-tray on the table at Louisa’s side, leaving her to pour a cup with a look that said she probably needed it.

Hugh read through the sparsely covered page once more and stared into space for a moment, thinking about Rory and other one-time friends and neighbours and how they might fit into those terrible days he’d done his best to forget.

‘There’s something I can’t quite understand what happened. It’s there at the back of my
mind, but not quite there, if you see what I mean?’ he finally said, waving the paper as if it might incite the elusive memory into life.

‘Then why not let us read it while you try?’ Louisa demanded, forgetting all about those resolutions to be a little less forthright in her eagerness.

‘So what did I once see or hear or maybe even imagine?’ he mused, but absent-mindedly handed over his notebook for her to examine while he tried to pin down that annoying wisp of something not quite right.

Scanning through Lord Rarebridge’s sometimes random memories of the letter that had set him off, Louisa felt acutely disappointed and more than a little shocked by the terse malice of it, so she passed the book to Kit and drank her tea.

‘No more than a line or two at a time,’ Kit said. ‘The man’s cunning enough not to risk getting carried away and being identified.’

‘Which argues he has a talent for intrigue, or that Rory might know his normal handwriting,’ Hugh replied.

‘Did his lordship remember how the original letters arrived?’ Louisa asked, still marvelling that the man could take such vitriol as gospel, then set out to damn an old friend
on their say so. ‘He knew his victim, didn’t he?’ she suddenly realised. ‘He knew Lord Rarebridge was a credulous, bored fool with a
tendresse
for your sister and your father’s acres.’

‘Which argues that he’s one of the
ton
, don’t you think? A man who knows Rory and used those letters to produce the result he wanted.’

‘But why would he want you found and followed by one of the most ruthless gangs in London, Hugh?’ Kit asked, frowning at the pocketbook in his hand as if it would reform its letters and tell him the answer if he stared at it long enough.

‘Maybe their real orders didn’t come from Rarebridge, but the man himself. You know as well as I do that if you find the right gang master and pay him enough gold, he’ll arrange a murder and even give up one of his less-valued gang members to take the drop for it.’

‘And Rarebridge obviously thought he was giving the orders, but he’s not exactly a deep thinker, is he? If they had been paid to kill you, rather than merely track you down as that spineless lordling of yours thought, then your dim friend would have taken the blame for your murder when those hired bullies were caught,’ Kit replied grimly.