Lady Rogue (3 page)

“Nineteen,” she replied, her mouth full. “Twenty, next month.”

Apparently, in her eagerness to consume the complete contents of his kitchens, she had forgotten that she’d been halfway out his door five minutes earlier. He wasn’t inclined to remind her. “You look twelve.”

She nodded. “It’s the disguise. Because I don’t have whiskers, I look younger.” She paused for a moment. “Old enough for Napoleon’s army, though,” she added. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine. Thirty in September.”

“You look twenty-nine.” She drained the tea in her cup and poured herself another, not glancing about first, he noted, for a servant to perform the duty for her.

“It seems as though I should be grateful you didn’t devour one of my cattle this morning when you weren’t stealing from my stable.”

“I
am
a bit hungry,” she conceded unnecessarily. “So, is she your mistress?”

“Yes.” He placed one elbow on the table and leaned his chin on his palm to watch with some awe as she started on the platter of toast.

“At first I thought she might be your wife.”

“Not likely. Take off your hat, chit. Unless you’re some sort of jungle savage, in addition to being a female.”

Kit glanced at him, hesitated, then reached up to remove it. Her blond mop was too long for the current British male fashion, and daringly short for a female, but with it tied back, she no doubt cut a dashing figure. Kit looked at the hat, shrugged, and dropped the dirty thing on the floor beside her. “Better?”

“Slightly more civilized,” he returned after a moment. “If you’re so intent on being a boy, why don’t you cut that mess in a more appropriate fashion?” He waved his fingers at her honey-colored mane.

For the first time she looked offended. “It’s not a mess,” she protested, reaching up to touch her hair. “And it’s all the rage in Paris.” She grabbed for a peach and bit into it, not bothering to peel it, or even to slice it in two. “Why didn’t you give me up?”

“Because you amuse me,” he answered, watching the peach juice run down her dirty chin. She was handsome enough as a boy, and he imagined that, properly cleaned up, she could be outrageously beautiful. “Though now that you’ve got me related to the damned Irish, I’m not so certain it’s all that funny.”

“Riley is my mother’s maiden name,” she returned defiantly. “So I’m half damned Irish, and half insolent English.”

“Damned all around then, aren’t you?” Alex asked, amused again and rather charmed.

“And bloody proud of it.” She looked sideways at him. “Aren’t you shocked by my language?”

He laughed and she sat back, a fleeting grin lighting her face. At that sight, it took him a moment to remember what they’d been discussing. “No. As I said, you amuse me. You were less absurd earlier. Quite sober, actually.”

“I was angry because you weren’t going to let me stay.”

“I never said that,” he pointed out.

She looked straight at him, her serious gaze holding his. “I’m not a whore or a light-skirt,” she stated. “My father asked you to look after me in a proper and honorable manner, in keeping with the debt your family owes mine. If you won’t honor that, then I will leave.”

“Direct and to the point,” Alex replied slowly, impressed. “Well said.” Raised in France or not, her English was excellent, and she sounded quite well educated. She was certainly intelligent, and quick as a fox, and he wondered again why in the world her father had seen the need to send her here, of all places. Not that he minded. Not in the slightest.

“So do I stay, or go?”

“You would leave, wouldn’t you?” he asked quietly, studying her face.

She nodded.

He didn’t hesitate either. “Then stay. I believe I can resist you for a fortnight,” he said dryly, though he was less than certain it would be as easy as he made out. Perhaps she could be persuaded that there could be things much more interesting between them than a debt of honor. A fortnight was a great deal of time, after all, and if she gave in, it would hardly be his fault.

Kit paused with Alex’s last slice of ham halfway to her lips. “Thank you. That does save me the trouble of extorting your good word out of you.”

“Extortion?” he repeated, keenly interested. “And how would you have gone about that?”

She paused to consume the ham. “I could tell Lady Sinclair’s husband that she was here with you.”

Alex relaxed again, snorting at the minuscule threat. “She’s married to a very understanding tombstone, my dear.”

“I could tell her I’m a female. It would ruin things for you with her.”

He shook his head. “Just as well for you that I gave in. Barbara knows I’m less than faithful. Apparently you’ll have to wait to know me a little better before you can extort anything out of me, chit.”

She gave him a quick glance, and he raised an eyebrow. For a heartbeat, there had been something almost calculating in her expression. The chit was definitely up to something, though whether it was being compromised, followed by a quick marriage, or something else entirely, he had no idea. Well, if it was a wedding she was after, she was in for a disappointment. And whatever her game was, it took two to begin it. Still, with an opponent like the one seated at his breakfast table, he looked forward to playing. And compromising her was fairly close to what he had in mind, anyway.

“If you’re unfaithful, why does she see you?” Kit asked, either admirably naive or pretending to be.

Alex smiled cynically. “Because I’m rich as Croesus.” He poured himself a mug of ale and took a swallow, deciding he might as well begin the first round. “But you know that, don’t you?”

She tilted her head at him. “I’d never even heard of the Earl of Everton until four days ago, and I thought he was the man in the painting.”

Chin still in hand, Alex tapped his fingers on his cheekbone while he studied her face. For the moment, she seemed to be telling the truth. “So your father truly abandoned you here.”

She jabbed her fork in his direction. “He did not abandon me. He left me in your care, for a fortnight. He’ll be back. He promised.”

“Has he ever done this before?”

“Sometimes. Usually he just leaves me in our rooms
in Saint-Marcel when he has business out of the city.” She favored Alex with a wolfish grin. “Not that I ever stay put. It’s far too dull.”

For the first time he was shocked. “You live in Saint-Marcel?” he repeated.

“Right now we do,” she answered, then looked over at the liquor decanters on the sideboard. “Do you have any brandy?”

“Not at nine in the morning, I don’t.” He leaned forward. “Your father is brother to the Duke of Furth. What in God’s name is he doing living in the worst part of Paris?”

“It’s not so bad,” she protested. “Besides, I can take care of myself. I can fool anyone into thinking I’m a boy.”

“You didn’t fool me,” Alex reminded her, grinning at her boast.

She scowled. “You weren’t supposed to have found out. Papa said it would make less trouble if I were a boy.”

Alex regarded her for a moment. In one sense, her father was correct. “It nearly didn’t matter what you were. I almost threw you two out from pure annoyance, last night.”

“Why didn’t you, then?” she asked.

“Because you intrigued me.”

“You thought I was a boy.”

He nodded. “I did.”

She gave a nasty grin. “Do you like boys, Everton?”

Evidently Kit Brantley was not plagued with a delicate nature. Alex scowled. “No. And that was rather the difficulty. I found myself quite relieved to discover your true gender.”

Kit chuckled, then reached out to run one finger around the rim of her teacup in an odd, dainty gesture that looked studied, as though she had seen some female do it at one time and was imitating it. “What about now?” she asked, looking at him from beneath long lashes. “Are you still relieved?”

Alex pursed his lips.
Intrigued
and
extremely curious
would have been much more accurate. “I believe so,” he answered. “It’s been a dull Season.”

She smiled. “I will make it more interesting.”

He raised his mug of ale, and she lifted her teacup in turn. “I trust you will, cousin.”

The Earl of Everton set a splendid breakfast table, and even an hour after eating, Kit felt positively bloated as she wallowed in the fine brass bathtub that had been carried into her bedchamber for her. After the journey from Paris and the rain, and then wrestling with Everton’s groom in the stable, she felt worse than filthy. And a hot bath, in the middle of the morning yet, with Alexander Cale and his lovely blue eyes just downstairs…

“Don’t fall asleep in there, miss, or you’ll drown,” the housekeeper said sternly from behind her.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hodges,” she answered, twisting to look at the plump, gray-haired woman and blinking the unexpected thought of Everton out of her mind. Dash it, she didn’t have time for such nonsense. “I do think you should call me Kit, though.”

Mrs. Hodges wrinkled her nose. “I could never.”

“Well, calling me ‘miss’ could cause all kinds of confusion,” she argued. Drat the woman for being so thick-headed. She hadn’t wished anyone’s assistance at all, but Everton had insisted on it. And considering that he already knew more about her than she had intended to reveal, she had thought it best not to argue.

“It’s just so peculiar, if you don’t mind my saying.”

Kit sighed. “Yes. I know.”

She hesitated before she stood to receive the towel the housekeeper held open for her. It was perfectly proper, of course, but she was unused to anyone seeing her naked. She had never had a personal maid, and she barely remembered her mother, for Anne Riley Brantley had died just after Kit’s sixth birthday. Only a breath of time after that, her father had sold their small estate in Hampstead, and they had moved to Madrid, and then to Venice, and finally to Paris. And sometime during those travels she had become Kit Riley, either her father’s son
or his nephew, depending on the circumstances in which they found themselves.

Hurriedly she wrapped the soft cloth around herself, while the housekeeper stepped over to the cleaned pile of clothes a maid had brought up. “It’s all right, Mrs. Hodges, I’m used to dressing myself.”

The older woman picked up her cravat and examined it. “Just as well,” she said, scowling. “I don’t think I could, in good conscience, assist you with these things.”

Kit laughed at her prudishness and motioned her out of the room. The servants had cleaned off her dirty, rain-stained clothes as best they could, but it was fairly obvious that her French rags, as Lord Everton had called them, were becoming exactly that. They felt old and stiff, and the strip of cloth she wrapped tightly across her breasts scratched her.

She sighed and tried to straighten out the drooping brim of her beaver hat. “Damnation,” she muttered. Mrs. Hodges, or else Everton, had thought to provide her with a hairbrush and a strip of cloth with which to tie back her hair in its short tail, and she quickly finished what was left of her toilette.

Kit hesitated before she opened the chamber door to return downstairs. The scrutiny Everton had given her last night had been the most intense she’d ever weathered. That, though, had been nothing compared to this morning. Those eyes knew she was a female now, and they looked at her differently. He was a rakehell, her father had said, and with him knowing what he did about her, the next fortnight was going to be even more difficult than she had envisioned.

The housekeeper and Wenton, the butler, were waiting for her at the foot of the stairs as she descended. “Where’s the earl?” she queried, craning her head to gaze into the room on the left.

“He’s gone out, Mr. Riley,” Wenton said. If the butler thought it odd that Everton had asked Mrs. Hodges to attend his cousin, he said nothing about it.

“Out?” Kit repeated, dismayed to realize that she was disappointed. But after all, if he’d asked her to go with
him on his rounds, she would have been able to learn something of his acquaintances, which might have helped her task immeasurably.

“Yes, Mr. Riley. He said you were to, if I may, ‘explore all you like, but don’t go out, and don’t, ah, steal anything.’” He gave a small nod. “Sir.”

Kit sighed irritably. “Oh, very well.” All things considered, it was likely a wise idea that she become acquainted with her immediate surroundings, anyway.

“Luncheon is generally served at one o’clock, if that is acceptable,” the butler continued.

“Yes, that’s fine, Wenton,” she replied, disguising her surprise at being asked. Few meals in Saint-Marcel were planned for ahead of time, and luncheon generally consisted of scrounged bread, when it was eaten at all.

She declined a formal tour of the house, preferring to have the various rooms pointed out to her at the outset and then exploring them on her own. The butler seemed determined to lurk, but she decided to ignore him, and as she wandered from one magnificent room to another, Wenton’s presence receded into a barely noticed annoyance. She’d never seen such wealth outside the walls of the Palais Royale. In fact, if the plentiful gold and silver and crystal were any indication, the Earl of Everton was not her father’s traitorous noble. Alexander Cale had no need for the funds or the difficulties of a government appointment. She didn’t believe rakehells were given such positions of responsibility, anyway.

Just inside the door to the morning room, she paused. It was tucked into the front eastern corner of the house, and was bright and neat, with overstuffed pillows and throw blankets carefully placed to adorn the deep couch just so. Two well-padded chairs had been set close by the windows, but just far enough away that sunlight would never touch whoever was seated in them. It felt very feminine and delicate, unlike the other rooms in the mansion—perhaps a favorite of the late countess, Everton’s mother. With a self-conscious glance over her shoulder at the butler, she continued to the next door.

It was locked. “What’s in here?” she asked Wenton.

“The earl’s private study,” he returned, taking her question as an invitation to quit lurking and step up beside her.

“Why is it locked?” As far as she had seen, other than the silver closet, it was the only room shut off from her on the first two floors.