A Perfect Gentleman (13 page)

“You were presented at court?”

Ellianne bristled at the surprise in his voice. “Of course. Aunt Augusta insisted. After all, my father was knighted for service to the Crown, and my grandfather was a marquess. The queen was very gracious; the hoops and high feathers one had to wear were atrocious. Two days later I went home. So, you see, I have no one to call upon to seek invitations. I thought of attending the theater, but do not wish to encounter the kind of gentlemen who would approach me without an introduction.”

“Invitations are no difficulty.” Lud, once it was known that the heiress to the Kane kingdom was in Town, she would be deluged, introductions be damned. For that matter, her spindly looks and sometime lunacy were of no account, compared to her bank account. “My stepmama can host a small dinner in your honor,” he volunteered, “and make you known to enough ladies that you will have engagements aplenty. I shall, naturally, escort you to whichever you choose. But I do not see what good that will do. If no one recalls your sister, why would your presence refresh their memories?”

“Oh, did I not say? We look remarkably alike, my sister and I, despite the age difference. Isabelle is an inch or so shorter, but otherwise we might have been twins.”

Now that was a lot of help. Who was going to remember another nondescript young woman? The green eyes were nice enough, but nothing to stick in one's mind, especially when affixed to a stick of a figure. And if the sister kept her eyes lowered, like this one, or shielded by bonnets and lace, like Miss Kane, she would be no more memorable than the wallpaper. “I do not see—”

Ellianne went “Tsk” with her tongue. Then she looked to see that no one was near them except a nanny and a toddler. Even her maid seemed to be drowsing in the sun, paying no attention to Ellianne and the viscount. She stood up and untied the ribbons of her black bonnet. Then she lifted it off. Because she was simply going for a brief walk, then returning to wash her hair, Ellianne had not bothered with an intricate coiffure. She pulled out the two combs that held it piled on top of her head, letting her hair fall down, absolutely straight down, to below her waist.

The viscount's mouth was open. The foot that was resting on the bench dropped to the ground for better balance, so he did not fall over. “Great gods.”

“Impossible, isn't it?” Ellianne said with a blush, the kind of blush that only a porcelain-skinned redhead could generate. She hurried to gather the mass of lurid, almost lewd red hair back into a knot.

“Don't. That is, please don't.”

She let go, letting her hair fall back, then sat down and tilted her face up. To be without all that weight on her head, and the heavy bonnet, felt heavenly. So did the sun on her cheeks, especially since it was too weak to burn. The viscount still had not spoken, so she said, “I know it is thoroughly unfashionable, but people rarely forget the redheaded Kanes.”

That was not red. That was living fire. Bits of gold, slivers of orange, but mostly glorious, gleaming flame, smoother than satin, as sensuous as sin. Siren-colored, scarlet woman-colored—on Miss Ellianne Kane, the banker's spinster daughter. Stony could have cried. In fact, he felt a tear in his left eye now, but that was from not blinking so long. Lord, no one could ever forget a woman with hair that ignited the senses, stirred the loins, spun carnal dreams. Miss Kane, by Jupiter!

She was not half as old as he'd guessed, definitely under thirty. She was still thin, with prominent cheekbones and that pointed chin, but she was stunning, if not classically beautiful. Her nose was straight, but a bit too short, and her eyelashes were too gold to be the proper frame for those fine green eyes, which were shadowed by worry, he supposed, or lack of sleep. They were staring at him in consternation now. Miss Kane, by George. Who would have imagined?

“Your sister, she looks like you?” he finally managed to ask through dry lips.

She nodded, sending ripples through the glorious sunset shades.

Stony could not take his own eyes away, although he knew she was becoming concerned, as well she might. Lud, no wonder someone had carried Miss Isabelle off, and her dowry be damned. For a minute he considered handing back Miss Ellianne Kane's hundred pounds, for there was no way in hell he was going to be able to keep this sister safe from the jackals. Then too, if he was not in her employ, he could join the horde of lust-filled, leering predators.

But he was in her employ. He had accepted her check, and she did need his help. He swallowed and suggested she put her hat back on, since the park was starting to fill. Meanwhile, he tried to gather his wandering thoughts. Since that proved almost impossible, he started to gather her possessions, the scraps of torn paper, her fallen reticule.

“Zeus, the thing must weigh more than you do. What is in here?” he asked. “A cannon?”

“No, only a pistol,” she said, taking the reticule from him.

“You carry a pistol around with you?” The idea of a gun in any woman's hands was terrifying.

She nodded. “For protection. Especially now, not knowing what happened to Isabelle.”

“And you let it drop like that? Good gods, ma'am, don't you know those things are notoriously unreliable, hair trigger or not?” He knew he was ranting, more to cover his licentious thoughts than anything else. In a way he was thankful that Miss Kane had reverted to being rattle-brained, which he could manage far better than her being ravishing. Ravishable, ravish-meant, rats! “By heaven, it could have gone off when it hit the ground. Thunderation, you might have shot yourself, or me! Of all the cockle-headed, caperwitted ideas, that one wins the—”

“It was not loaded.”

He turned to look at her. It was safe now that her head was all covered in that crime against manhood. Of course, now he could not see her eyes or her expression. “Good grief, ma'am, how can an empty pistol be protection?”

“Oh, that is your job now,” she said as she took his arm to walk toward her maid and the park exit. “Isn't it?”

Chapter Ten

“You
could have hired a blasted bodyguard!”

“Yes, but he could not have helped find my sister.” As they neared the bench where her maid sat, Ellianne asked, “Do you have siblings, my lord?”

“No, to my regret. Not even a half brother or sister. I do have a handful of cousins scattered across the country, mostly on my mother's side. I have barely seen them since her passing.”

“Isabelle and Aunt Lally are all the family I have left now. I would do anything for my sister, pay any amount to have her returned. Or if she does not wish to come home, I would do anything in my power to see that she is safe and happy. Anything.”

“Even hiring a vagrant viscount to parade you through polite society, which can be anything but polite?” He smiled at his own self-deprecation.

“If that is what it takes, my lord, then yes.”

“I would feel more comfortable if you managed to forget the title part. Well, the vagrant part too, but I'd rather you called me by name. For both our sakes, we can give out that our families have some distant connection. No one needs to know that you had to hire yourself a gentleman escort.”

“Or that you have to squire misfit misses about Town to pay your bills.”

“Oh, I think everyone knows that by now,” Stony said, “but they will accept the pretense of a longstanding friendship.”

Ellianne had to laugh. “They cannot be such fools as to believe Ellis Kane and the former Viscount Wellstone were bosom bows.”

“No, but your aunt might have introduced us years ago, as a distant cousin to my mother.”

The notion of her penny-pinching Aunt Augusta introducing her to a profligate peer was almost as absurd as her egalitarian Aunt Lally making her known to a pockets-to-let lord. She laughed again, and Stony had to smile at the sound.

“So will you? Call me by name, that is. Nobody but Gwen addresses me as Aubrey, but Wellstone will do if you cannot bring yourself to call me Stony.”

“I will think about it.” The informality might raise other questions, fueling more gossip that she wished to avoid. She did not suggest that he call her by her given name, either.

By this time they had reached her maid. The attendant's presence a few steps behind them put an end to any personal, private exchanges, although they both knew their conversation was not concluded.

*

For Ellianne's part, she thought things had gone well so far, although Lord Wellstone was a bit more assertive than she might have liked. Ripping up her chart was certainly no act of a subservient employee, nor was shouting at her about the pistol. Alternatively, a docile, biddable man might not serve her purposes half as well. She simply had to be more forceful, so his lordship did not forget who was steering the ship, so to speak. Toward that end, she decided, she might stop using his honorifics, but she would not relinquish the dignity of Miss Kane. Let Lord—no, let plain Wellstone, although there was nothing plain about him, from his shining blond curls to his polished leather boots—remember that she was a woman of substance, of standing, of independence. Otherwise, she feared, he would be treating her like one of his silly protégées, or a pet pony on a leading string. Goodness, he'd be calling her Ellie next, or the dreaded Nell, or “my girl.”

His girl? Where had that idea come from? Perhaps the sun had been stronger than Ellianne thought, for her cheeks were growing warm. She erased any notion of such familiarity from her mind on the instant. He was her hireling, that was all.

It was too bad that she could not call him Stony, though. The name suited him, not that there was anything gray or harsh or forbidding about his countenance or personality. The casual shortening of his title seemed to match both his open friendliness and the solid strength of his character, though. For a moment Ellianne regretted that they could never be friends, that an ocean of differences flowed between them, that she had to maintain her authority.

Ellianne thought she had conducted herself in a manner befitting her age and consequence. Except for when she screeched at him for destroying her chart, or when she dropped the reticule with the loaded pistol. Of course it was loaded. She was not fool enough to carry a weapon she could not fire—or to argue a minor point with an angry, officious gentleman. Oh, and she was not proud of herself for becoming moonstruck in the morning, just because an attentive, handsome, virile man had leaned close enough to her that she could breathe the same air he did.

Other than those few lapses, Ellianne told herself, she had done well. She had not been permanently reduced to schoolgirlish imbecility over a practiced charmer, and she had acquired the perfect colleague for her quest. Together—but with her in charge—they would find Isabelle. Ellianne felt comforted by the thump of the heavy reticule against her right thigh, and the firmly muscled arm under her left hand.

*

Stony liked the fact that he did not have to shorten his stride to accommodate a petite female. He liked too that Miss Kane's wider skirts, while not precisely unfashionable, allowed her free movement. For once he did not have to walk at a woman's mincing pace. He also liked the fact that he was one of the few people, so far, who knew what was concealed behind the obscuring black coverings. Half of him couldn't wait to see the
ton's
reaction to the woman, sure to be dubbed an Original. Another half wanted to clasp her secret to himself like a precious jewel. A third half—he was that flummoxed—still wanted to clasp her, period.

He would not, of course. His job was to act as escort—and detective, it seemed—not seducer. With that check in his pocket, the woman was in his care, and out of bounds.

Of course, nothing in his personal code of honor said that he could not enjoy himself, or could not try to bring some pleasure to his client. He remembered her laugh, no titter, no giggle that grated on one's nerves, just a sound that had to make anyone near her smile in return. She should laugh more, and would, he swore, as soon as they found her sister.

He'd rather not examine why he should care so much about relieving her anxieties, but he thought any decent man would feel the same. The sister was in hugger-mugger up to her eyebrows, but his Miss Kane was innocent of anything more than devotion to her family, which he could understand and admire. As for understanding anything more of how the woman's muddled mind worked… Well, she was a female. There was no comprehending.

Contrary to his first impressions, Stony thought he might come to like her, when she came down off her high horse. Someone had to keep reminding her that she was a woman, an incredibly attractive one at that, not a financier. The gentlemen of her acquaintance must have made poor work of it, for the woman seemed oblivious to her allure. She thought her brilliant hair was impossible and unfashionable. Hah! When had glory been out of style? Stony thought he just might take on the job of proving that Miss Kane's worth did not lie in her wealth. Add that to the chore of finding the sister, and Stony was pleased with his new undertaking. Here was a far better challenge than choosing which waistcoat to wear, or which gentleman might make an acceptable dance partner for someone's spotty sister. He started to whistle a jaunty tune.