Kasey Michaels (39 page)

“Pink?” Simon’s stomach dropped to his toes. “Emery—are you saying that Mr. Plum is wearing a gown again? Why?”

The butler clapped his hands together a single time as if trying to capture an elusive thought, then intertwined his fingers, as if he was now contemplating falling to his knees in prayer. “I don’t know, my lord, truly I don’t. But he is, and Miss Callie is wearing her breeches, and Mr. Plum is carrying Her Ladyship’s muff, and smiling, and calling it a nice doggie, and—”

“Bones, fetch Emery a glass of claret, if you will,” Simon said, helping the butler to the closest chair and pushing him into it.

“That would be the price of one eel-fed horse you owe me, Simon,” Armand drawled as he took the glass from Bones and handed it to the butler. “I told you it would be impossible to make her into a demure little miss.”

“Shut up, Armand, will you? Just shut up,” Simon growled, then lowered his voice and asked Emery to please begin at the beginning and not leave anything out. Just what was Miss Callie doing, where was she now—she was upstairs, wasn’t she?—and what did he think she would do next?

The claret seemed to have a bracing effect on Emery, who drew back his shoulders and began his explanation again, this time starting at the beginning and leaving nothing out. “I was downstairs, my lord, in the foyer, checking on Roberts’s job of work polishing the door latches, when Miss Callie and Mr. Plum came down. Heading out for a walk they were, Miss Callie said. Only Miss Callie was dressed all in her breeches, and Mr. Plum was—well, you know how Mr. Plum looked, my lord. Silly.”

“They were going out?” Simon looked to Armand, who was no longer grinning. Nobody was grinning.

“Yes, my lord, they were. Miss Callie was happy enough at first, too, until Mr. Plum picked up that fur muff of the viscountess’s and set in to, well,
petting
it, my lord, and calling it a puppy. He was grinning and sort of
swaying
, and Miss Callie gave him a cuff on the shoulder and said she should have known better than to leave him alone with a wastebasket while she got dressed—that’s what she said, my lord, I don’t know why. And then she winked to me and said, ‘It worked once, Emery, it worked once,’ and the two of them went tripping out the door.”

“She’s bolted! Yoicks and away!” Justyn exclaimed with brotherly exuberance, starting for the doorway. “Loose the hounds, and we’ll see if they can pick up her scent.”

“But they didn’t go anywhere, my lord,” Emery protested, tugging on Simon’s sleeve as he went to follow after Justyn.

Simon was caught between a towering anger and a dizzying elevation of his sense of the ridiculous. “No? Then they’re back in the house?”

“Almost,” Emery squeaked, shaking his head again. “They, well, they simply haven’t gone, that’s all. They’re still outside, my lord, walking up and down on the flagway, Miss Callie with her hand under Mr. Plum’s elbow as he weaves back and forth, back and forth—like they’re
waiting
for someone, or
looking
for something, or something like that.” He looked at Simon imploringly. “They’re not doing any harm, not really, but I was right to tell you, wasn’t I, my lord?”

“I’ll throttle the brat!” Simon exploded, brushing past Armand on his way to the foyer. “I don’t know how she found out what we’re thinking—although I can imagine it—and now she’s out to see for herself if Filton is still skulking about. She thinks she’s saving me, you know. Oh yes, that’s what she’s thinking. Of all the harebrained, stupid, idiotic—Justyn, what is it?”

Justyn was standing in the open doorway, caught between racing toward Simon or bounding down the steps to the flagway, his mouth open, his hands balled into fists. “It’s the queerest thing. I opened the door just in time to see two men pulling Lester into Filton’s coach and driving off with him,” he declared, then turned on his heels and opted for running out onto the flagway.

“
Lester
? Why would anyone want to run off with Lester?” Bartholomew asked, although no one answered him.

“Callie?” Simon breathed, momentarily unable to move. “Callie!” he bellowed, breaking into a dead run that had him outside on the flagway in mere seconds, to see the love of his life mounting one of the horses that had just been brought round, as he had earlier requested. “Caledonia Johnston!” he bellowed again, pointing to the flagway at his feet and feeling much like an overburdened parent chastising a misbehaving child. “You get down here right
now
!”

“I can’t!” she called to him as the gelding reared up and wheeled about smartly. “Bones was wrong. He wasn’t going to shoot you. It’s me he’s after. The fools who snatched him must have thought Lester was me. Come on, Simon—I’ve got my pistol. We can catch them.”

“Ah, she’s got her pistol,” Armand drawled with a twinkling smile. “There is that, Simon. One could almost call that being prudent, if one chose to ignore the rest of it. No, I think not. The wager was for demure. You still owe me.”

Simon spared only a moment to glare at Armand before relieving a gape-mouthed groom of the reins of his horse, all the while helplessly watching the love of his life ride off up the street in the direction of the maze of construction and overgrown land that made up the north end of Portland Place.

He ground out a few unlovely words that had Armand giving out with a shout of laughter. He then mounted the horse in a single bound and took off after Callie, who had taken off after the coach—followed closely behind by Armand and Justyn and even Bones, who was holding on to the reins of the groom’s ancient mount with one hand, his hat with the other, and trying desperately to get his second foot in the stirrups.

To the casual observer out for an early-afternoon stroll, it must have been a rather bizarre scene—a closed coach, its window curtains drawn tightly shut, lumbering along at top speed, followed closely by five gentlemen riders—two of whom were yelling at each other, two of whom were laughing as they rode, and one who was trailing behind, looking rather bilious as he clomped along on a mount with a back as hard as a washboard and a mouth as tough as old shoe leather.

Not that Callie cared a hoot what Mr. and Mrs. Citizen might be thinking. Oh no. She was much too busy cursing herself for a fool and trying to shout down Simon, who kept telling her to turn her horse and head back to Number Forty-nine.

Why had she insisted Lester accompany her? She could have walked the flagway twice as easily without him at her side, the two of them pretending they were out for a casual stroll while she scanned the street and alleyways for any sign of a skulking Filton intent on shooting her beloved, thickheaded Simon.

And once she’d realized that Lester had gobbled down the laudanum-laced tart while she’d stepped behind the screen to change into her breeches? Well, she most certainly should have altered her plan then, when Lester had begun to giggle and sway, and generally act as silly as she’d ever seen him.

But, no. She had to be stubborn. She had to do things her way. She had to strip a near-boneless Lester of his coat and shirt and pull that ridiculous gown over his head, then tie her best straw bonnet beneath his chin. She had to steer him out the door and directly into danger.

How could she be so stupid!

How could Filton have been so stupid? How could the men he’d hired to snatch Miss Caledonia Johnston have mistaken poor Lester for her? And what were they thinking now, now that they had Lester inside the coach? Surely they would have discovered their mistake by now? Not that snatching Lester was their only mistake—they had already passed by Devonshire, the last possible turnoff from Portland Place, and were heading straight for the construction at the end of the street, cutting off their own avenue of escape.

“They’re slowing down,” Simon called to her as his mount came abreast of hers near the end of Portland Place and the beginning of the muddle of half-completed buildings and muddy lanes that bordered on the newly named Regent’s Park. She looked to him as he pointed to a mansion that was under construction and said, “They’re stopping—there! Give me your pistol.”

Reigning in her mount to a walk, Callie obediently reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the long-barreled pistol. She then passed it over to Simon with an apologetic smile. “He wasn’t going to shoot you, Simon. It was me he wanted, after all. I did tell you I’d impressed him with my attraction to him, didn’t I?”

“Yes, he was after you all right, and it was Lester that he got,” Simon bit out angrily as he took hold of the reins of Callie’s horse and pulled it to a complete stop as the other three riders gathered around them. “I think he’s realized that, brat, and that’s why he stopped—to toss Lester back to us like a fish not large enough to keep.”

“Filton won’t hurt him?” Callie asked, truly worried for her friend as she stared at the back of the stopped coach.

“Not unless there’s a profit in it for him. I’m about to explain to him that there won’t be,” Simon bit out, passing her reins back to her and slipping the pistol into his pocket. “Now stay here so that I know where I can find you and kill you.” He then urged his mount forward once more as the off door of the coach opened and Noel Kinsey stepped out, probably in hopes of negotiating some sort of settlement in exchange for Lester’s safe return.

Callie pulled back on the reins, keeping her horse from following after Simon’s, and turned to Justyn, who was grinning at her as if having a jolly good time. “You heard? He didn’t mean that, Justyn. Simon loves me. He does.”

“He might love you, brat, but that don’t mean he still doesn’t want to kill you. Lord knows I’ve felt the same myself, time and again. Let’s just hope Lester’s all right.”

“It is rather silly, isn’t it?” she said quietly, caught between tears and a smile. “I mean—
Lester
?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He makes quite an armful of woman,” Justyn said, winking at her. “Look, Callie—they’ve pushed him out of the coach. Either that, or he’s fallen out. God—he’s staggering about like a drunk and likely to fall into that whopping great hole. Come on, Callie, let’s go get him out of harm’s way.”

Callie looked at Lester, to see her friend weaving drunkenly—knees bent, arms flailing—toward a large excavation ditch near the side of the partially completed mansion.
Honestly
, she thought, rolling her eyes. The man might be able to down a whole chicken in a single sitting, but he certainly couldn’t hold his laudanum! “Get him? I don’t know, Justyn, Simon said—”

“Simon has his hands full enough with Filton, not that I can’t help mentioning that you picked a dashed silly time to start listening to the man when he asks you to do something. Armand, Bones—lend Simon a hand while Callie and I do a little trick we learned at a gypsy fair a few summers ago. Callie, do you remember it?”

Lester had seen them and was waving to them now, Callie’s bonnet hanging down his back, dangling from its tied strings. He grinned vacantly as he careened wildly, tripping over stones and walking almost sideways, heading straight (well, not precisely
straight
) for the edge of the deep ditch. “I remember,” Callie said, pushing her heels into the gelding’s flanks, urging the horse into an immediate gallop.

It took only seconds, from beginning to happy ending, but it felt like hours.

They rode down the cobblestones side by side, as they had often ridden the fields in Dorset, hell-bent for leather, laughing into the wind, brother and sister off on a spree. The horses’ hooves struck sparks on the stones, then made dull clumping sounds as they ran out of street and hit against the packed dirt of the construction area where Lester now stood rocking in place, a broad, oblivious smile on his face as he lifted his hand in a drunken wave, calling out; “Yoo-hoo!
Yoo
-hoo!”

Callie spared a moment to look to the other side of the coach, watching as three men scrambled off to disappear into the rubble—obviously not having been paid generously enough to stay and fight for their employer. And she smiled, and gave out with an encouraging shout, as she saw Simon, her dear, wonderful Simon, level Noel Kinsey with a single punch, sending that odious man clear off his feet, to land rump first in a huge mud puddle.

“Lester!” Simon called out then, the coach horses having taken exception to being left without a driver and moving off on their own, so that now Simon also had an unobstructed view of Lester’s imminent peril.

“We’ve got him!” Justyn called out as Callie bent to her left and Justyn—bravely putting his mount squarely at the narrow expanse of ground between Lester and the edge of the hole—leaned to his right and, together, they reached down and grabbed Lester under his arms, lifting him from the ground and carrying him safely away from danger.