Discreet Young Gentleman (2 page)

He'll accept my story as the gospel truth."

His captive leaned forward, placing a warm and conciliatory hand on Dean's knee.

"Listen. When I said I thought you were someone else, I meant it. Obviously you thought I was a highwayman—I was playing the part of one. It was a sort of prank."

He gave the knee a pat and withdrew.

"A sort of prank." Dean's hazel eyes narrowed. Was it possible?

"Honestly. If I were really a hardened criminal, wouldn't I have loaded the pistol?"

The dark-haired man's smile was winsome.

The horses slowed, and the coachman rapped on the roof to signal that they were approaching the magistrate's house.

"And if I had been this other person, I would somehow have been amused by this?

Quickly now, you have about ten seconds before someone comes out to see why we're here."

"I swear to you. This was all arranged in advance, and the gentleman in question was expecting me. If you had been the Earl of Carwick—"

"Oh, you stupid fool," Dean said softly, banging on the coach roof. In response, the coachman hallooed the house, and almost instantly a voice called a reply. "Allow me to introduce myself. Dean Smith, Earl of Carwick, and I most definitely was not expecting to be robbed tonight, in fun or in earnest. Magistrate Lewis will hang you for this."

"Lewis? Oh, Christ. Please. Drive on." The highwayman's face was pale at last.

"We must discuss this—"

There were voices outside, approaching the carriage, and among them Dean recognized the deep rumble of his fiancées father. "It is too late. You know the name, so Lewis knows you. He knows you're a highwayman."

"No," the other man said. "He knows I'm a prostitute."

And then the door to the coach opened.

The interview that followed in the magistrate's office would stand among the most unpleasant experiences of Dean's life. Mr. Lewis, portly and prosperous, was not at all happy to find his future son-in-law alone in a coach with a male strumpet, both of them showing signs of obvious disorder. Neither of Dean's companions helped the issue. The highwayman rolled his eyes and fiddled with his torn shirt while Dean sputtered through his accusation. When pressed for his own story, the dark-haired man hesitated for a moment before confiding, "I feel somewhat at a disadvantage here. His lordship said you would accept whatever he told you as the gospel truth."

"Did he now?" Mr. Lewis's tones were icy. He beckoned to Dean's coachman, standing several paces back by the office door. "You there—come forward. Your version now, and be quick about it. What happened? And don't you carry a gun for protection against thieves?"

The coachman approached with reluctance, blinking worried brown eyes. "Mein Herr?"

"Erich doesn't like guns, and he doesn't speak English," Dean said impatiently.

"Just listen to me—"

"He's a witness." Lewis rose from his polished mahogany desk, its size designed to awe and intimidate. "Surely he can stumble through a basic explanation?"

"Oh, Christ. Erich, help me—er..." His German, though improving steadily over the past few months, had a tendency to fly from his head in times of stress. "Kannst du mir helfen? Erkläre dem...dem...magistrate—oh, hell, dem Mann auf Englisch—"

Erich stared at him blankly. "Hell and damnation. Mr. Lewis, I can translate for him."

"And what good would that do? Am I to rely on your version of his words?"

"It's the truth!" Dean shouted.

"The gospel truth?" Mr. Lewis glared, hands on his substantial hips.

"Why wouldn't you believe me?" Dean was just able to stop himself from grabbing one of the heavy volumes of Blackstone's Commentaries from the shelf and throwing it at someone. "Why on earth would I bring this man to you if he hadn't tried to rob me?"

The accused highwayman lowered his eyes. "Bit of a misunderstanding, Magistrate, about—about certain.. .expectations. Um...how shall I put this?"

Lewis held up one hand, grimacing. "Spare me the details— please. Listen, Rob, I've warned you before to stay out of Worcester. If you ever appear before me again, I will deport you to Van Diemen's Land, is that clear?"

The prostitute nodded, his pose contrite.

"Good," Lewis said. "You have until dawn to clear the county line." He turned back to Dean. "And you, Carwick. We will keep this quiet, of course. If your filthy vices become known, it won't be through me. But if you ever come near Minerva again, I swear I'll denounce you to the world for the vile, unnatural creature you are."

Dean's face flamed as red as his hair. "You can't—"

"Yes, I can." The magistrate's voice was cold, his face set. "Your engagement to my daughter is over. Now get out of my sight!" "Sir." Dean bowed stiffly. Through his tumult, he was vaguely aware of the dark-haired man—Rob, the magistrate had called him—holding the door for him and following him outside the house.

"I'm sorry," Rob said. "But if he'd believed you, he would have hanged me for a highwayman, and I'm not. Your engagement wasn't worth dying for."

Dean shook himself. "Not in your opinion. I'm ruined. Jesus Christ," he whispered as it sunk in. "It's true. I'm ruined."

"There are plenty of women in the world." The prostitute reached to lay a hand on Dean's arm, then dropped it as the other man stiffened. "You're an earl, and a fine-looking man at that. You'll find another."

Dean dismissed the compliment as an empty courtesy. Fine looking? With his unfortunate hair, eyes of an indeterminate color, and damned freckles all over his face and body? He cast a glance of pure loathing at Rob, whose unmarked skin shone luminous in the light of the rising three-quarter moon. "There are no other women. I need Minerva."

A wistful expression flitted across Rob's face. "You care for her very much?"

Dean looked away. "Of course I do."

"I'm sorry. Truly." There was an awkward silence. "Look, dawn comes early these days, and I doubt I'll find my horse again. Good luck to you, my lord." The man bowed and started down the road.

"Herr Graf?" Erich, never the most cheerful of souls, sounded more anxious than ever.

"What is it?" Dean replied in German, staring after the dark-haired stranger. None of this made any sense.

"That Straßenräuber—I didn't think he would hurt you," Erich said soberly in the same language.

In context, the unfamiliar word wasn't that difficult to figure out. Straße, he knew, meant street, or road. Road-robber. Highwayman. Erich was apologizing, in his own way, for not coming to his defense. And maybe he had a point: the man didn't seem like a violent criminal. There was so much he didn't understand—he had to know more. "Das ist schon in Ordnung, Erich," he said gently, taking a moment to search for the right words before continuing in the still-unfamiliar tongue. "But help me now. We have to catch him, all right?"

The coachman nodded, looking determined to make up for his earlier lapse. They took off in pursuit of the would-be robber, Erich skidding the horses to a stop just beyond him. Dean leapt from the coach. "Wait, damn you! Is there any truth to your story at all? Did someone hire you to play the highwayman with me?"

Rob met his gaze steadily. "Yes."

"I still don't quite— You're a—"

"Whore. Yes, I am. It was playacting—a fantasy come true. I was supposed to stop your coach, and then decide it wasn't your money I wanted. Undress you at gunpoint.

Overcome your token resistance. Take you into the coach and—"

Dean winced. "I get the picture." He ran a hand through his wiry curls. "Why the hell...? Oh, Christ, I'm slow tonight. Whoever it was knew that I wouldn't—that I'd fight back. And the spot where you stopped us is so close to Lewis's, it's only logical I would have taken you there. So I have to assume the whole purpose was to disrupt my engagement."

The other man shrugged. "He told me you just needed a good screw."

Dean could feel his face burn. "Who? Who told you that? Who hired you?" "I couldn't say." "Couldn't? Or wouldn't?"

"My lord, let it go." Rob looked down the road. "If you'll excuse me?"

"No. I can't. I have to know who did this to me."

"I'm sorry. I can't help you. Even if he mentioned his name, I couldn't tell you what it is now."

"What did he look like? Dress like? Smell like, for Christ's sake?" Dean felt his hands ball into fists of helpless fury. "Give me a clue, here!"

"All right, all right. Give me a moment, I only met the man when he gave me the commission." Rob's brow furrowed. "Medium height. Brown eyes."

"Like yours?"

"Well, perhaps not so..." Gorgeous, Dean thought in disgust, "...dark," the prostitute continued. "I suppose they could have been hazel. Medium-brown hair.

Well, brownish, anyway."

"Brownish hair, brownish eyes, medium height. That could be Erich, or Lewis, or half of England!"

"I'm sorry. I'm bloody awful with descriptions, aren't I? For what it's worth, I'd know him if I saw him." Rob paused. "He might have said something about Bath, if that helps."

"Bath?" At last, a glimmer of light pierced through the clouds of confusion. "God damn it! Minerva's there now, at her aunt's."

"So?"

"There's our motive, right there. Whoever he is, he's after Minerva for himself, and now that he's got me out of the way, he'll be wooing her."

The prostitute looked dubious. "I think you're making too much of this. It might have just been a joke, not a devious plan to spoil your engagement."

"A joke?" Dean stared. "Suppose I'd been carrying a pistol? You could be dead now. Suppose Lewis had been out, and I'd dragged you to another magistrate—one who did believe me? Suppose—" He couldn't finish the thought out loud: suppose Rob had been a little luckier in their fight, and mistook his struggles for 'token resistance.'

"Damned dangerous joke, if you ask me."

"Excuse me, my lord. I don't see how else I can help you, and I still have a long way to go. If you'll permit...?"

Dean folded his arms. "No. I will not permit. All we have to do is go to Bath, and see for ourselves who's hanging after Minerva."

"We?"

"Yes, damn it. I need you to identify the man who hired you to ruin me."

Rob lifted an expressive hand. "So what? You'll know your rival. What then?

Pistols at dawn? Very romantic, Lord Carwick, at least in theory. I understand that getting shot is actually quite painful and messy, and I'd prefer not to have anything to do with it."

"No, you idiot! A duel won't get me Minerva back. But what might is some sort of proof that I was set up tonight. If I can convince Mr. Lewis that things weren't as he imagined, then I have a chance."

"Oh, blast." The prostitute appeared to be considering it. "Would it kill you to say

'please'?"

"Look, Rob, if I can't get Minerva back— Oh, Christ, my life is over." Dean closed his eyes in misery, and felt a warm hand on his shoulder.

"She must be very special." Silence for a moment. "Listen. I'll tell you right out: I don't think you're going to get Miss Lewis back, even if she wishes it. Her father's taken against you, and he's known to be a stubborn bastard. But I could use a lark, so I'll come with you to Bath if you want me to. I'll do what I can to help you plead your case to the lady."

Dean rubbed his eyes. "Get in the coach, then. We'll stop for the night at Carwick, and leave for Bath first thing in the morning." He rapped on the door to get his coachman's attention. "Nach Hause, Erich!"

"All right." Rob climbed into the coach. "But I still think you should have said

'please.'"

Chapter Two

Dean was silent as they approached Carwick House, located in the countryside several miles to the southwest of Worcester. In the daytime, the old stone manor made an attractive picture, with the Malvern Hills rising beyond, and the Little Stream gurgling through a wooded park on its way to rejoin the River Teme. At night, though, Carwick House was dark and mysterious, barely glimpsed against the looming hills.

"Is that it?" Dean's passenger leaned out the coach window for a better view. The right front wheel chose that moment to hit a rut of unholy size, and the young man's head banged painfully against the top of the sill. Served him right for his curiosity.

"Ow." Rob grinned and rubbed his head. "The house looks dark, my lord."

If there was a question implied, Dean ignored it. Once they'd stopped, he descended from the carriage, addressing the coachman with a mixture of German and broad pantomime. "Abendessen, Erich. Haben wir...oh, hell." The word escaped him.

He took a small book from his jacket, Schade's New and Complete Pocket Dictionary of the English and German Languages, and consulted it. "Haben wir Koteletts, or something?"

The servant, a thin young man with brown hair and a faint scar on his upper lip, nodded soberly. "Ja, Herr Graf."

Rob watched the exchange with interest. "Can't your coachman speak any English?"

"No."

"Then why—?"

Dean remembered that he was the Earl of Carwick now and stiffened his back, the better to remind Rob that he was being impertinent. "Erich suits me. If it's any of your business."

"My apologies, my lord." Rob followed him onto the steps leading to the front door, lingering to look up at the facade. "The house looks old."

"The foundations date back to the 1300s, I'm told. But it's burned a few times, so I think most of the current building is Jacobean or something."

"Tudor, more likely," Rob said absently.

"Weren't Tudor buildings usually half-timbered?"

"Half-timbering was a money-saving device. Presumably, your ancestor could afford stone throughout. But the E-shape of the wings is typical Elizabethan construction. Meant as flattery to the queen, of course."

Dean scowled. "You must learn so much from your patrons."

The man didn't seem to take offense easily. "Not so much, my lord. I had an uncle who was interested in architecture, and enjoyed lecturing me about it."

"Come inside. Erich will cook us some chops for supper, and we can make plans."

Dean marched down a hallway of closed doors and shuttered windows, wondering what his guest made of its few pieces of furniture, draped in sheets. Their destination, a small sitting room, wasn't in too bad repair. Perhaps the velvet sofa his guest settled upon was a hundred years old, heavy and dark, but it was in fair shape. For its age.