Bronwyn Scott's Sexy Regency Bundle (145 page)

The young man waited out in the alley for him, clearly nervous. Good. It gave him a chance to assume the upper hand. 'All right, tell me what you know. I have a fifty pounds if your information is good.'

The young man brightened at the prospect of money.

Excellent. The buck could be bought.

'The girl was here a couple of nights ago. She wore an aquamarine silk dress and had reddish-brown hair.'

The boy blurted his information quickly. 'Can I have my money?'

He

his eyes. 'Not so fast. Why should I believe you? Perhaps you overheard me describing her.'

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Notorious Rake, Innocent Lady

The boy swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing.

'I saw her with my own eyes. I was sitting at a table, playing Commerce with

himself. He went to

the door and met the girl. Then he took her back to his office.

didn't

that evening or the next.'

He nodded. 'Very good.' He'd noted the hardness to the boy's voice when Ramsden's name was mentioned.

It explained much, like why the finely dressed young man was out in the alley talking to the likes of him. He turned friendly. 'Did

clean you out?'

'Yes.'

sigh followed. 'I didn't think I'd lose as much as I did, but

has the devil's own luck. If

the pater finds out I've lost my quarterly allowance already, I'm in the suds.'

He smiled in the dark. From the sound of it, this wasn't the first time this bucko had had a run of bad luck. 'How much do you owe Ramsden?'

'A hundred pounds,' the lad said dejectedly.

'Tell you what,

give you a hundred pounds-

fifty for your information tonight and there's another fifty in it for sticking around the club and letting me if the girl resurfaces.' He tossed a leather purse full of sovereigns at

'There's good money in infor-

mation,' he assured the lad.

'How shall I contact you?'

He clapped the boy on the shoulder with false bonhomie. 'Don't worry, I'll

you.'

From the hazard table, Paine covertly watched re-enter the club after a ten-minute

Scott

absence. It took all of his will power to refrain from dragging the boy outside

doling out the pummelling

he deserved. The boy was a poor loser and a stupid one at that. After losing at Commerce, followed with a losing streak at faro the other night, the boy hadn't learned his lesson about playing within his means. Paine knew the loss had cost him dearly. He'd hoped it would teach the boy to keep away from the tables.

The lesson hadn't taken and now the boy was bent on revenge, no doubt seeing Paine as the arbiter of his ill fortunes. Unfortunately, the boy wasn't all that good at skulking. Paine didn't have to ask John where the boy had gone. He'd tried too hard to slip out into the alley unnoticed by the back door.

Paine could guess, too, who he'd met out there.

Oswalt's man had been back. He'd had his eye on him all night. He'd watched the man chat to the barmaid. In spite of his best efforts to keep Julia's appearance at the club secret, it appeared the secret was starting to surface and his connection to Julia along with it. It was bad luck that

had been at the club the night Julia

had shown up and that he'd found the courage to share that information with Oswalt's henchman.

Paine grimaced at the consequences. By dawn, if not sooner, Oswalt would know he ran the club where Julia was last seen. Oswalt would correctly surmise that Julia was with him, knowing that he'd not let an innocent loose to be caught in Oswalt's clutches. The only secret that hadn't been exposed was that Julia was the dark-haired woman with him.

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Notorious Rake, Innocent Lady

The disguise of Eva St George had been a resounding success on all levels. At times, Paine had struggled to remember the woman beside him was the gently reared niece of a viscount. Julia's

de

was utterly

convincing. But it would not hold. The henchman might not have put two and two together, but Oswalt was clever.

He'd see through the disguise and the coincidence that two new women had shown up at the club within two nights of each other, especially after he searched the playbills of London and determined there was no actress named Eva St George currently treading the boards.

Paine shot a look at Julia, laughing as she tossed the dice. He didn't want to alarm her. She was having so much fun. The men around the table were utterly charmed. But he needed to call an end to the evening.

He only had a handful of hours to get Julia to safety, somewhere where she could be protected.

He was a loner, used to relying on himself. It was rather difficult to think of anyone or any place where he could take Julia. But one place did surface, as hard as he tried to fight it. He could take her home. Not to Jermyn Street or to the anonymous town house on Brook Street, but to his family home, the seat of the Earl of Dursley, deep in the sheep country of the Cotswolds.

He hadn't been there for twelve years, and he'd left in disgrace, but it was still the one place he thought of when he thought of being safe. Between the influence of the Earl and the thick sandstone walls of his home, Julia couldn't be safer, no matter what of reception he himself would receive from his brothers.