Lady Rogue (10 page)

“You bloody well should have said something, anyway.”

“Are you certain he’s a she?” Gerald put in mildly. “He curses rather well for a female.”

“Thank you,” Kit returned, her angry green eyes still on Alex.

“She’s the daughter of a family friend,” Alex said slowly, holding the girl’s gaze. “I’m keeping her safe for a few days. No one else must know.”

“Well, I’m to dance with Lydia Calloway now,” Kit said after a moment, her expression easing somewhat. “Unless there’s someone else to whom you wish to divulge my secrets?”

“May I claim a waltz with you later in the evening?” Ivy queried. “I should like to become better acquainted.”

Kit gave her a short nod. “If you wish.”

“Good God,” Gerald muttered when she was gone. “And you’ve no designs on her?”

“Other than wanting to strangle her every few mo
ments, none at all,” Everton lied, clenching his jaw as Augustus Devlin appeared from the doorway and draped his arm over Kit’s shoulder to greet her. She chuckled at something he said. He was drunk, again, and for the first time Alex found himself less than sympathetic. “I’m to keep her safe and pure. On my honor.”

“How does she clean up?” Gerald continued, looking after her.

Alex shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen her as a female.”

“Well, that’s a blessing, anyway,” Ivy murmured, turning away to greet another acquaintance and leaving Everton to wonder what, exactly, she might be implying.

It was past two-thirty in the morning when the coach came around to pick them up and deliver them back to Cale House. Kit sat back in the deep, cushioned seat and rolled Alex’s stolen cigar between her fingers before she lifted it to sniff the deep, rich scent. “I liked Ivy,” she stated.

“Yes, I’m rather fond of her myself,” he returned, settling himself opposite her. “And no, she’s not one of my mistresses.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.” Kit yawned. “I am dead on my feet.” She sighed, stretching her legs out beside his seat in the coach and flexing her toes inside her boots. “I don’t know how those chits can stand to be in those awful pointy-toed shoes for so long. I’d rather go barefooted.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have danced so much, then,” Alex suggested, his gaze on her feet beside his thigh. As the carriage passed under the gas lamps lining the street, his face was briefly illuminated and then disappeared into blackness again.

“I don’t see how you possibly could have noticed how many dances I participated in, when you were so busy partnering with every female in sight,” she countered. Barbara Sinclair had obviously spent most of the evening being annoyed at him before she had stalked off, but with every other woman, he had been charming
and gracious. Every other woman except for her. He had badgered her incessantly, reminding her to watch herself and not be so friendly with everyone, as though she hadn’t done this sort of thing since she was six. And she had two more leads now, nearly as promising as Reg Hanshaw and Everton. Both Sir Thadius Naring and Lord Lindley had recently received government appointments involving Bonaparte and France. She just didn’t know what, exactly, those appointments were—yet.

“I didn’t dance with Celeste Montgomery. I believe you stole her from me,” he commented from the darkness.

She wished she could see his expression, for his dry voice was exceedingly difficult to decipher. “Celeste prefers younger men,” she answered.

“Gads, Kit,” he returned, and this time she could hear the amusement in his tone. “You fooled all of them. It was quite spectacular.”

“Thank you, milord,” she drawled, sniffing the cigar again.

“Do you intend to smoke that?” he asked after a moment.

She shook her head. “I just like the smell.”

He chuckled at her answer, and an unexpected slow, shivering curl trailed down her spine at the low, masculine sound. Alex shifted a little in the dark, his thigh brushing her foot, and she found herself listening to the sound of his breathing. Her fingers shaking a little, she sat forward and held the cigar out to him. She felt his hesitation before he reached out and took it from her. Their fingers brushed, and the curl tightened deliciously.

“You don’t want it?” he murmured, lifting the cigar himself and breathing in its scent.

His low, soft voice seemed to resonate along her breastbone, her heartbeat speeding in response. “No, but may I borrow it again sometime?”

He tucked the smoke back into his pocket and chuckled again. “Of course.”

“So why aren’t you with Barbara Sinclair right now?” she asked, then wished she hadn’t spoken.

Unexpectedly Alex wrapped both hands about her left ankle and shifted it across his thigh. His long-fingered hands began kneading her tired calf muscles through her boots and breeches. “She says I’m a boor. I imagine it will be more than a day before she forgives me.”

“Are you going to marry her?” She should be protesting against his intimate touch, but if she did, he might stop. And she did not want him to stop.

In the dark she felt more than saw him shake his head. “No.”

He tugged her leg toward him, and she slid down a little in the seat. Kit shut her eyes, concentrating on the feel of his hands moving slowly along her leg, and the little shivers running from her scalp all the way down her spine. She tilted her head back, feeling the accelerated beat of her heart. “Does she know that?” she breathed, having a difficult time keeping her voice steady.

“I believe she knows my views on marriage.” His hands kept up their rhythmic, circular kneading.

“Are you certain?” she pursued, to keep his thoughts elsewhere. She wanted to feel his fingers on her bare skin, his lips on hers again, and not in some kiss he could dismiss with a laugh. Her breasts tightened, scratching against the material that bound them so tightly. “You don’t prefer boys after all, do you?”

He chuckled. “No.” His fingers stilled. “But I did try it once,” he finally murmured, so quietly she nearly didn’t catch the words.

Kit took a ragged breath and pulled herself upright again. The fingers slowly released her leg, and she placed both feet firmly on the floor of the coach. “Boys?” she asked, grateful it was dark so he wouldn’t see the hot flush that colored her cheeks.

“Marriage.” In the fleeting lamplight, his face was turned to the window.

“You? What happened?” Christine felt the coach turn onto Park Lane, but she sat quietly, waiting for him to continue.

“She died,” he continued after another pause. “We’d
only been married a few months when she caught a fever. She was quite…delicate, even before that, and she died just a few days later.”

“What was her name?”

“Mary. Mary Devlin Cale.”

“Devlin?” Kit repeated slowly.

He nodded. “Augustus’s younger sister.”

“That’s what he meant then, when he said loaning me ten quid was all in the family.” She’d sensed that night that there was something between the two men, but had never imagined it would be Alex’s dead wife. “How long ago?”

“It’s been nearly three years now.”

“I can see why you didn’t want me in your home, Alex,” Kit offered. “It must be awful, to have me there to remind—”

Alex snorted. “Good Lord, Kit, I’m not some depraved hermit. I didn’t want you in the house because you’re a nuisance, and because you charmed every other female in sight and irked me so much this evening that I snapped at Barbara, and now I have to sleep alone tonight. Again.” He stood as the footman pulled open the door. “I didn’t expect, however, that I’d like your company. I’m going to the horse auctions tomorrow. If you want to come, be ready by nine.”

Kit smiled a little shakily as he stepped down from the carriage and entered the house. He’d actually offered to let her spend the day with him, without her having to beg him first. Kit chuckled as she stepped to the ground and skipped in a very unmasculine fashion for the door, the tiredness in both legs forgotten. It was only after she climbed into bed that she realized what a splendid opportunity the auctions would be to follow up on her leads.

“H
ow is it that you know of Gentleman Jackson’s, but you’ve never heard of Vauxhall Gardens?” Everton queried.

Members of the
ton
and
demi ton
thronged the horse auctions. Beside him Kit watched the collection of horse lovers, pigeons, hawks, and eccentrics with an acute interest, and Alex reflected that until he learned more of her reasons for being in London, he likely shouldn’t have asked her along. The chit had been dousing him with striking imitations of Yorkshire, Northumberland, and Cornwall accents all morning, but he had the impression that she was simply amusing him while her attention was on some other task entirely.

“Well, I know how to box,” she replied, climbing up onto the bottom rail of the pen, “but I’ve never had a garden. How long have you known Hanshaw and Devlin?”

He laughed. “We went to Cambridge together. And Vauxhall is more an amusement park than a garden, dear one. Music, fireworks, dancing, drinking, gambling, all the stuff of life.”

“You must take me, then,” she demanded, swinging one arm away from the fence to look at him.

Alex gazed at her steadily. “I’d like nothing better,” he returned, watching her mobile expression as she gauged his words to decide whether he was engaging in some sordid innuendo.

With her feet on the rail they were almost exactly the same height, her face close in front of his. “Libertine,” she charged, correctly guessing his meaning.

“Not according to you,” he pointed out. Her lips were favoring him with a slight, sensuous pout, and he wondered what he would have done with her if she’d come into his life five or six years ago, when his reputation for wildness had been edged with significantly more truth. He’d been considerably less wise then, and less given to considering the consequences of his actions, both to himself and to others. But he did know one thing. He would have dissolved the conditions of the debt of honor long before now, and would have used every bit of his much-touted skills in seduction to maneuver the tantalizing Kit Brantley into his bed.

“Are they political?”

He blinked. “Are who political?”

“Reg and Devlin, of course.”

She swung back to face the enclosure again, leaving him to look at her very attractive backside and to take a deep breath. This was beginning to become rather complicated. “About as political as I am,” he replied absently, then gave a slight frown. “I do hope you’re not thinking of bringing them into your little game,” he commented, disliking the idea of her sharing her secret with anyone else. He was becoming territorial, it seemed. “They’d not be as open-minded about this as I am.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” she retorted, glancing over her shoulder at him, a disgusted expression on her face. “I leave that to you.”

“Just remember that you must be careful,” he pursued. “If I guessed about you, someone else could, as well.”

“I
am
careful.”

“No, you’re clever,” he corrected. That caught her attention, and she swiveled to look at him again. “Don’t mistake one for the other.”

“You surprise me, Everton. Was that a compliment?” she asked, green eyes twinkling.

“Not entirely,” he said grudgingly. “A little one, perhaps.”

“Well, then, a mild thank you, my lord,” she said, granting him her fleeting grin.

It did not help his equilibrium. “Humph. So who taught you to box?”

“Father,” she returned. “He’s
fantastique
.”

“Ah,” Alex commented, amused again. “And you? How do you fare in the ring?”

“Oh, he’s never actually let me try,” Kit answered. From her expression, her father’s unwillingness had not sat well. “I did hand the Comte de Fouché a flusher once.”

“Wasn’t he the French rakehell you mentioned the other night?”

She nodded. “He wasn’t at all pleased, but he was being quite arrogant. Bonaparte this, and Bonaparte that. I apologized, but he gave me odd looks all evening. For a bit I thought he would call me out, but he never did.”

“Perhaps he realized your true nature,” Alex suggested, but she shook her head.

“I don’t see how he could have. I gave him a splendid shiner.”

Alex chuckled and leaned up against the fence next to her. She smelled faintly of soap, and he sidled a little closer, breathing in the clean scent of her. “So you share your father’s sentiments regarding Napoleon, then?”

She nodded. “They should have strung the bastard up, instead of setting him away like a toy soldier and expecting him to gather dust.”

Her words so very nearly echoed what he had expressed to a small group of friends just under a month ago that it gave him pause. The humor had left her eyes, and she was clearly serious. Or at least he thought she was. She was a good liar, and he knew her father had little love for Britain. She herself had been raised French. And with a war on, no Englishman would be caught expressing support for Bonaparte these days, anyway. “You simply exude patriotism, my dear,” he
drawled, eyeing with disinterest a bay gelding being led about the yard.

“If he were marching on Everton or Charing or whatever else you own, you’d take it more seriously,” she retorted, resting her chin on her crossed arms and pointedly not looking at him.

By God, she was lovely. “Heavens,” he gasped in mock horror, “you think Boney wants my barley crop and my pottery barns? I must plead with Prinny for assistance at once. Perhaps a squad of Royal Grenadiers will keep my sheep from being conscripted into the French army’s stomach.”

She blew out her breath in a snort, sucking in her cheeks to keep from laughing at him. “Fresh fruit’s more to their liking than barely.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You have studied the dining habits of Bonaparte’s troops? How diligent of you.”

Kit glanced at him, something flashing in her eyes. It brought him to immediate alertness. “It’s easy to know,” she returned after a very slight hesitation. “Just look to see what’s most scarce on the streets of Paris.”

“Of course,” he said mildly, waiting for her to say something else, something that would explain why, for a moment, she had looked as though she regretted having spoken.

From the first he’d thought she might be a thief of some sort, sent by her father to rob him or the rest of the peerage. But no one from the soiree last night, or anywhere else she’d been, had so much as mentioned a missing watch fob.

She pointed her chin toward the yard. “Are you going to buy me a horse now, cousin?”

“I believe I’ve an adequate selection for you already,” he replied dryly, aware that she was changing the subject. “Gerald’s asked me to keep an eye out for a good pair for his coach.”

He looked into the enclosure again. As he did, he caught sight of a young woman watching them from across the pen. She was slim and blond and very attractive, and, he noted after a startled, slightly offended mo
ment, her admiring and speculative gaze was not on him. She was trying to catch Kit’s eye. With a curse he grabbed the chit by the coattails and pulled her off the railing.

“Damnation, Alex, you gave me a splinter,” she protested, staggering backward and looking completely astounded at his behavior.

Unmindful of her protest, he wrapped his fingers around her arm and yanked her toward his coach. “We’re going,” he snapped.

She pulled against him. “I don’t want to go.”

“I’m not giving you a choice.” He was ready to pick her up and carry her bodily to the carriage, but apparently realizing he was serious, she stopped struggling.

“What’s wrong with you?” she grumbled, looking sideways at him as he pulled her through the crowd. The disturbance garnered them a few looks, but by this time everyone had heard what a troublesome lad his cousin was, and they mostly received knowing nods and chuckles.

“Nothing at the moment,” he said brusquely, waving an arm at his coachman. “And I wish to keep it that way.”

“Well, stop dragging me about, then. I’m coming.”

Alex hesitated, then released his tight grip on her arm. “Apologies,” he grunted. She must think he’d lost his mind. “I didn’t intend to maim you.”

Kit lifted her hand to gaze at her finger. “It’s only a prick, but I believe I shall require a new pair of gloves.”

“Fair enough.” He smiled briefly, relaxing as they neared the coach.

“Everton!”

Alex jumped at the sound of Reg’s voice calling from the crowd, then grabbed on to Kit again when she slowed. “Come on,” he hissed.

“Alex!” the voice came again, and Lord Hanshaw emerged from the spectators. “And Kit! Splendid to see you here!”

“Hanshaw,” Kit acknowledged with a grin, yanking free of Alex’s grip and stopping.

Alex swore under his breath. If he had any sense, he would simply make his excuses and let the next few moments unfold in his absence. He apparently had none left at all, though, for he strolled back beside Kit to shake Reg’s hand.

“I nearly thought I’d missed you. Wanted you to meet someone, you know.” Hanshaw gestured behind him, and the beautiful young woman stepped toward them, her maid in tow. “Kit, Lady Caroline. My lady, you know Everton, and this is his cousin, Kit Riley. The one Barbara’s been pestering you about.”

“Lady Caroline. Honored.” Kit smiled, bending over the lady’s gloved hand and brushing Caroline’s knuckles with her lips. Alex waited for lightning to strike one of them dead. Instead, Caroline gave a pretty smile and retrieved her hand.

“I am pleased to finally make your acquaintance, Mr. Riley,” she said in her warm voice. “Everyone’s been raving about you for days.”

“Well, I’m certain most of it’s lies,” the chit answered with a charming smile, inclining her head.

Alex stepped forward to take Caroline’s hand, as well. “Oh, please,” he muttered in Kit’s direction. Immediately he regretted saying anything she might hear, because of course, it would only encourage her.

Kit glanced at him, daring him to intervene, and spoke again to Caroline. “I have heard some very flattering things about you, my lady,” she continued, “though I see now that the arrows have all fallen quite short of their mark.”

Caroline chuckled. “Your cousin is a better flatterer even than you, Lord Everton.”

Kit glanced at Alex, and he could see the speculation there. She was wondering if he was courting Caroline, as well. Or something more intimate. Alex gave a smile that he hoped didn’t look too pained, and inclined his head to concede defeat and hopefully end a contest before it could begin.

“You see, my lady, I told you he was a charmer,” Hanshaw put in, apparently not minding that the woman
he was determined to marry was enjoying another’s flirtation.

“Yes, he is,” Alex seconded, stepping up to take Kit’s arm securely in his own. “And I offer my sincere apologies, but I’m frightfully late for an appointment. We must be going.” He caught Reg’s quick, curious look, but kept his face blank.

“Kit can stay here with us,” his friend said unhelpfully. “We’ll see he gets home.”

“Oh, that’s splendid,” Kit agreed gleefully. “You’re slap up to the echo, Hanshaw, really you are.”

“Sorry, Reg,” Alex put in even more firmly, not releasing his grip on Kit’s arm, despite her tugging to get away from him. “But I need my cousin with me. It concerns those papers your father sent with you, don’t you recall, Kit?”

Kit glanced at him sideways, obviously trying to decipher what he was trying to tell her. “Oh, dash it, Alex, all right,” she grumbled, turning to follow him. At the last moment she turned back again and tilted her hat. “Good day, Lady Caroline. I do hope we shall encounter one another again.”

Caroline smiled. “Perhaps we shall, Mr. Riley.”

Before Alex could give in to the urge to throttle his charge, the chit had turned back and climbed into the coach. He nodded at Hanshaw and Caroline, and stepped up after her. “Just drive,” he snapped at Waddle, and the coachman nodded. Alex pulled the door shut and sat as the carriage rocked forward.

Kit was chuckling. “Do you think I could steal her from Reg?” she queried, pulling off her glove to examine the hole in one soft kid finger. “She was lovely.”

“Too well mannered,” he replied, folding his arms and debating whether to tell the spitfire across from him exactly who Lady Caroline was.

“And her docility is the reason you looked as though you were having an attack of apoplexy, then?”

“If I were suffering from such a thing, you would be the cause of it. And it would be my own fault, because I’ve known all along what a damned lot of trouble you
are.” He sighed irritably. “And by the way, just what do you know of Lady Caroline?”

“Oh, heavens, Alex, stop being such a deuced bore. It’s not as though I intend to marry her.”

“I should hope not,” he returned after an astounded pause—no one had ever called him a bore before. “She’s Caroline Brantley. The Duke of Furth’s daughter. Your cousin, cousin.”

Christine’s face went white. She stared at him for a moment, then put one hand over her mouth. “Stop the coach,” she muttered, shutting her eyes.

Concerned, Alex sat forward and touched her knee. She was shaking. And he was a callous idiot. “Kit, I’m sor—”

“Stop the coach,” she repeated, doubling over her lap. “I’m going to be sick.”

“Kit…” He stopped his apology as she sagged further, her color alarmingly gray. “Waddle, stop! Now!” he bellowed.

The coach lurched to a halt, and he flung open the door. Kit flew out under his raised arm, and proceeded to vomit into the gutter. Alex stood where he was for a moment, then jumped down to stand beside her. They were not in the best part of London, and he glanced cautiously at the teeming avenue and the gaggle of curious spectators looking to see which peer was retching in the streets. He saw no one he was acquainted with, but with the Everton crest emblazoned on the side of the coach, he decided it would be unwise to put his arm around her or scoop her up to carry her back into the carriage, no matter what unexpected chivalrous thoughts were running through his brain. Good gossip always got out. If there was one constant in London society, it was that. So instead he sat beside her.

“Don’t do that,” she muttered miserably, straightening after a moment and wiping her mouth.