Bronwyn Scott's Sexy Regency Bundle (148 page)

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Notorious Rake, Innocent Lady

enjoying it. From what he'd heard of and

high-society ladies, they never enjoyed it.

'Really? What else? Tell me about it-their "affection", as it were.' The boss seemed over-eager for a detailed accounting of the couple's intimacies.

Sam did his best,

the request one of the

queerest requests ever made of him. 'I don't how

to describe it, sir. She leaned into him and he pulled her so close it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. They looked like they were in love, sir. That's why I didn't think there was a need to look into the woman's background further.'

'More's the fool you,' Oswalt sneered. He raised his bushy eyebrows.

actress? Are you sure about that?

Have you checked the playbills? What role does she have? What theatre does she work at?'

Sam Brown didn't like to be treated as an idiot. He was good at his job. Oswalt would never have hired him otherwise.

The boss was apoplectic by this point, his face red.

'Perhaps the woman wore a wig. Did you think of that?

I bet that's what the conniving bastard, did-passed her off as someone else beneath our noses!'

go back to the club and when they turn up again tonight. . . ' Sam began.

'Why wait until tonight? Find out where he lives and check his quarters,' Oswalt demanded. 'If he saw you make contact with anyone, or if the informant-this Beaton-was seen, your hand's been tipped.

With luck, you'll take him by surprise, maybe even
in

Scott

You'd better hope so, because if luck fails, it'll be a race to the Cotswolds.'

Sam was relieved to see some of the anger ebb from Oswalt's features. His boss calmed down considerably once the man started to plan. 'Why the Cotswolds, sir?'

Sam ventured to ask. He couldn't imagine why a man about town with one foot in the underworld and one arm around a gorgeous, willing actress would happily head to the bucolic Cotswolds.

'Because that's where his brother, the earl, lives. The family seat is in Dursley.' Oswalt's piggish eyes

'If we don't catch them on the road, there'll be no getting to them once they're under Dursley 's jurisdiction.'

'Seems like you know the family pretty well,' Sam hedged, wondering how his boss had come to know so much about a family of peers.

Oswalt leaned back in his chair, hands folded across his corpulent belly. 'You could say I've had dealings with them before.' His interest in the sirloin returned, the crisis had passed. He jabbed his fork into a fresh piece of meat. He waved it at Sam before taking a bite.

'Mind you, I won the first encounter and I'll win this one, too.' The gleam in his eye suggested he was looking forwards to the challenge laid down before him.

There were more questions Sam would like to ask, but didn't dare. There was a deeper game in play than Oswalt was letting on. The name,

had upset

his boss greatly, more so than his men's inability to unearth any useful information on his escaped betrothed. One thing was clear. His boss knew and disliked

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Paine

There was a bad past between them.

That much was obvious, although the reasons for it were not. Now there was bound to be a bad future, too, since the boss's coveted virgin bride had given him the slip and fallen right into Ramsden's hands. There was no denying Ramsden's attractiveness to the opposite sex. Sam Brown thought it highly likely that the boss's bride wasn't a virgin any more. Perhaps that was what had the boss worried.

Sam Brown turned gingerly on his heel, careful not to leave behind any more

on the carpet than

necessary, and careful not to think too much about why his boss wanted a virgin bride so badly. The men had talked about it, speculating that Oswalt had the pox, that his physician recommended a virgin to cure it.

Like many of the

surrounding Oswalt, that

one, too, was nothing more than drunken conjecture over ale in the

pubs. As such, Sam Brown

didn't have to regard it with any amount of seriousness.

There were many things in his dealings with Oswalt he was careful to treat in the same manner, for fear of looking too deeply into the issues that paid him a handsome salary.

After all, he was not paid to think, not in that vein, He was paid to act and, right now, he needed to round up a few of his trusted men to search out Ramsden's residence and if needed, track the man and his actress to the Cotswolds.

Chapter Ten

Julia dozed fitfully, her head bumping against the carriage wall. The coach was well equipped enough with its squabs and padding to minimise the constant jounce of the road, but she wasn't. Paine had encouraged her to sleep, but sleep was impossible. Her mind whirred with the unreality of it all.

Tomorrow was the fifth day. If she'd stayed in London with her aunt and uncle, she'd be facing Oswalt and his physician. The thought made her shudder. But was this any better? She'd run away in the hopes of simply losing her virginity to the one man of her meagre acquaintance immoral enough to take her maidenhead and not think twice. Her plan had succeeded in terms of achieving her goal, but her plan had been not

nearly enough to stop Oswalt if Paine was to be believed.

Apparently, she did believe him. That was what contributed most to her restless napping. In four days, she'd come to rely on Paine

a dark rake, as a man