Captain Rakehell (8 page)

“Your pardon, my lord. A soldier’s habit.” Lesley bowed to hide the grin spreading across his face at the earl’s stricken expression. “Battlefields aren’t the tidiest of places. One must always look before one sits.”

“Oh, but—of course!” Lord Hampton fairly gushed.

After the hardships and deprivations of war the lad was doing things up just a bit too brown, that was all, which explained his shirt points, the froth in his cravat, and the multitude of fobs dangling from his vividly patterned waistcoat. Reassured, he came forward with the drinks, as Lesley, grimacing and leaning heavily upon his cane, sat down.

“Ahh, much better.” He again employed the lace handkerchief to mop his brow. “I’m fine once I’m up or down, but the in between plagues me still.”

“How bothersome,” Lord Hampton sympathized, and handed him the goblet of ratafia.

“It will pass with time, the surgeons say.” Lesley set his drink on a small table and shrugged, waiting until the earl had taken the chair next to his and had raised his snifter before adding, “They further assure me the injury will have no effect on my ability to produce an heir.”

The remark caught Lord Hampton in the act of swallowing. His eyes bulged, as did the tendons in his neck, but he managed to fight the brandy down before the coughing and spluttering overtook him. Solicitously, Lesley sprang to his feet to thump him on the back, forgetting to use his cane and thanking God Lord Hampton was too deeply in the throes of choking half to death to notice.

“Down the wrong pipe, eh, my lord?”

With a twinge of guilt, Lesley noted the poor man could only gasp and nod, his eyes streaming tears, and his face turning an alarming shade of purple.

“Just breathe deeply, my lord, and the spasm will pass.”

It did so at last, and when Lord Hampton could draw a steady breath, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, giving Lesley the moment he needed to nip into his chair.

“I beg pardon for my blunt speech,” he said, once Lord Hampton opened his watery eyes. “I thought merely to relieve any concerns you might have before Amanda joins us.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Lord Hampton replied weakly, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, and wondering if he’d acted too hastily in sending the notice of his daughter’s betrothal to
The Times
.

Chapter Eight

Standing dumbstruck with disbelief and as yet unseen in the parlor doorway, Amanda wished she, too, could weep. Surely the ridiculous fop seated with her father couldn’t be Lesley Earnshaw, for he bore no more resemblance to the rough and tumble boy she remembered than she did to the Baroness Blumfield.

 His blue superfine coat and buff pantaloons served well enough, but the pattern of his ruby waistcoat was better suited to a drapery, and she was certain if he turned his head too suddenly his incredible shirt points would lop off an ear. His cravat foamed with more lace than her petticoats, his dark hair with more curls than her own, and the gold tassels on his Hessians would look far better on the end of a bellpull.

“Ah, there you are, Amanda.” Lord Hampton took note of her in the doorway and rose from his chair. “Come here, pet.”

Yes, she’d swoon, and she wouldn’t have to pretend, Amanda decided, coming slowly forward at her father’s summons. Lord Earnshaw also came to his feet, levering himself up with an ebony walking stick while raising—oh, heaven help her!—a quizzing glass!

Which masked, Lesley fervently hoped, the incredulous leap his eyelids took. The glass also warped the image of the girl moving haltingly into the room, but her face had already been indelibly etched in his mind by firelight and moonglow. The realization that he’d schemed and shammed himself into one hell of a prickly fix chased through his head, but couldn’t dim the sheer delight he felt at discovering, in so unlikely a guise, the little minx who’d dropped into his life and his dreams two nights ago.

“Here we are.” Lord Hampton slipped one arm around his daughter’s shoulders as she stopped beside him.

“Good afternoon, Lord Earnshaw.” Amanda made the small, polite curtsey expected of her and offered her hand. “How kind of you to invite me to drive with you.”

There was no warmth in her eyes—the deep blue, near-violet eyes that had haunted his sleep—or in her fingertips as he bowed and drew them to his lips. Something is sorely amiss here, thought Lesley, abandoning the glass as he straightened to better gauge the depths of the ice in her gaze.

“Do call me Lesley,” he replied, keeping a loose hold on her fingers. “May I say, my dear Amanda, how very lovely you’ve grown up to be.”

“Only if I may say the same of you,” she retorted, biting the tip of her tongue to stifle the “Ouch!” that sprang to her lips as her father pinched her arm.

There was defiance in the sharp glance she shot her parent, and a moment later, as her gaze raked Lesley from head to foot, pure revulsion. Oh, this is famous, he realized, she loathes me!

He realized, too, that Teddy had lied to him, that he’d donned this ridiculous rig for naught, but couldn’t muster himself to anger. Teddy deserved—and would receive—throttling for spinning this particular Banbury Tale, but at the moment, the situation was too ironic to be anything but hilarious.

Lightly, and in keeping with his character, Lesley laughed. “I do so admire a sense of humor.”

“Obviously, my lord.” Amanda withdrew her hand and again took stock of him, this time with a distastefully arched brow.

It was the look more than the comment that nicked Lesley’s ego. The little adder, he thought, torn between amusement and irritation. With such a tongue, no wonder she is still unwed. What was it the Runner, Fisk, had said to him? Appearances sometimes deceive, that was it. And didn’t they just, for he was no more the fop he now appeared than he was, in the guise of the gentleman in the black mask, a thief.

Perhaps, he thought, it was time Lady Amanda Gilbertson learned you cannot judge a man by the color of his waistcoat or the amount of lace on his cravat. And who better to teach her, he decided, than Captain Rakehell?

“With your permission, my lord,” Lesley said, inclining his chin to hide the wicked smile curving his mouth. “We don’t want to miss the height of the promenade.”

“Naturally not,” Lord Hampton agreed, somewhat pensively. “Do run along and enjoy yourselves.”

This is the perfect moment to swoon, Amanda decided, but got no farther than the thought. For when she did not instantly take his offered arm, Lesley firmly grasped her hand, tucked and held it through the curve of his elbow, and all but dragged her out of the parlor.

Startled, and surprised at the strength in his grip, Amanda failed to notice that Lord Earnshaw forgot to use his cane. He remembered it once he’d claimed his hat from the footman in the foyer, cursed himself under his breath, and slowed their pace to lean upon it as they downed the outside steps and crossed the flagway to his curricle.

The groom Tom, holding Lord Earnshaw’s splendid blacks, looked away at their approach to hide the grin on his face. Poor man, Amanda sympathized, he’s as mortified as I am at being seen in the company of such a popinjay. Wishing her hat had a veil, a very heavy veil, she allowed herself to be handed up onto the red leather seat, smoothed her skirts, and folded her gloved hands upon her reticule, but made no effort to hide the consternation on her face.

Amused as he was by her expression, Lesley wasn’t concerned about public ridicule. His curled beaver hid most of his overdone Titus, and the quick buttoning of his coat hid the dreadful waistcoat. He’d further taken the precaution of warning his most intimate cronies what he was up to, and intended to dawdle along the way to miss the zenith of the daily crush in Hyde Park.

Still ... Amanda looked so woebegone and so charming in her blue walking dress and matching hat cocked at a jaunty angle. Her hair was as lustrously rich and red as he remembered, now pinned in coils at the nape of her neck with curls at her ears that brushed her fur-trimmed collar.

Perhaps he was being too mean, Lesley considered, all but done in by the memory of her hair loosened and tangled with leaves. Climbing into the curricle beside her, he eased himself onto the cushion he’d affected along with his costume, took the ribbons from Tom, turned to Amanda with parted lips to confess his charade, but pressed them suddenly and firmly shut.

“You’re sitting on a pillow!” she gasped, her voice as horrified as her expression.

“Why yes,” he replied, all thoughts of mercy vanishing. “Leather is so chilly this time of year. Would you care to share it with me?”

“Thank you, no.” Amanda wrinkled her nose and moved primly to put the length of the seat between them.

“As you wish.” Lesley shrugged, did a bit of deliberate fumbling with the leathers, then raised his hands and clucked to his team.

He wouldn’t dare such a trick with any cattle but his blacks, gelded half-brothers to Lucifer and gentled to harness by Lesley himself. Confused by the signal, they laid back their ears and snorted. He gave the ribbons another shake and clucked again. The blacks snorted again, stamped their hooves and backed against their traces, but still refused to budge.

“You have the leads crossed,” Amanda said patronizingly, as if speaking to a child. “Your horses won’t move because you are telling them to turn into each other.”

“Oh, pooh!” Lesley straightened the ribbons and turned on the seat to glare at Tom. “You promised to tell me the next time I got them crossed!”

“S-sorry, m’lord.” Tom cupped one hand over his mouth to muffle the laughter making his shoulders shake.

“Do I have them right now?” Lesley asked of Amanda.

Her reply was a quizzically arched brow. “I thought you were a cavalry officer, my lord.”

“Lesley,” he corrected her. “And yes, I was. What of it?”

“I don’t understand how you could confuse the leads.”

“Don’t you? When one rides there are only two to contend with. Presently, you’ll note, there are four.” He raised the leathers for emphasis, forcing a stiff tone into his voice. “Seems simple enough to me.”

“I can see how it would,” Amanda agreed, her eyebrow sliding upward another notch.

She was mocking him again, and rather expertly, too, the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth revealing her even teeth and the pink tip of her tongue. It wasn’t forked, but should be, thought Lesley, glowering as he signaled to the blacks through the ribbons and eased them away from the gutter.

The humor in the situation was rapidly fading, and with it, Lesley’s amusement. The pillow was the closest he’d come to knocking her off her pins, and even then she’d recovered herself with amazing quickness. He’d been right to think he’d have to lay it on very thick indeed with Lady Amanda Gilbertson. His forehead furrowed as he strove to connive a new strategy, but he realized suddenly, with a sharp intake of breath, that there was no need.

What in blazes was he thinking? This was no lisping, simpering deb, but the fiesty little vixen who’d hurled herself out of a tree and bruised his jaw! She had spirit and wit, eyes that turned his knees to pudding, and hair—oh, her glorious hair! A tongue like the lash of a whip, it was true, but he could break her of that, with kisses as searingly sweet as the one he’d stolen beneath the beech tree.

And she was, all but officially, already his. He would have to marry someday, especially if Charles didn’t, and on that score Lesley was inclined to agree with his mother. At the memory of Amanda’s slim body pressed beneath him, the delicate feel of her wrists trapped in his hands, he nearly turned the blacks toward Bond Street to thank his mother for threatening him into this betrothal.

At the moment Amanda despised him—or rather despised what she thought he was—which meant at the earliest possible moment he must make a clean breast of things with her. He’d tell her tomorrow night, he decided, slowing the blacks before the park entrance. When he came to fetch her for Lady Cottingham’s ball he’d be himself, in his best black evening dress, and sans the overdone Titus, which was beginning to itch beneath the band of his beaver hat.

But as the blacks made the turn into Hyde Park and Lesley drew them in to avoid running up the back of a phaeton with yellow wheels, the dapper figure of a slight man, dressed in gray and twirling a walking stick, caught his attention. With an all but imperceptible nod in Lesley’s direction, he touched the tip of his cane to the brim of his hat and melted away into the throng of people hurrying along the flagway.

It was Fisk! Damn and blast the man, he was following him!

In his elation, Lesley had forgotten about the pesky little Runner, but remembering him and his promise that the gentleman in the black mask would appear again at Lady Cottingham’s ball, cast his intention of revealing himself to Amanda in a new light. She knew about the thieves, just how, he wasn’t sure, but she’d referred to them by name. The one called Smythe had struck Andrew (and he was immensely pleased to realize she really had been with her brother in his mother’s garden), which raised a dozen burning questions Lesley longed to but didn’t dare ask, for fear of involving her further in what might well prove to be—despite Fisk’s assurances to the contrary—a nasty affair before it was finished.

Until his business with Fisk was concluded he must, to protect Amanda, maintain his charade and his silence. And the madly itching Titus, which was making his scalp prickle abominably. Relieving the worst of it with a quick scratch of the whip handle, Lesley turned on his pillow to face Amanda. The look on her face seemed pensive now rather than fretful.

“Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to Lady Cottingham’s ball tomorrow evening?”

Thinking she’d rather throw herself under the wheels of his curricle, Amanda nonetheless forced herself to smile as she shifted on the seat to face Lord Earnshaw.

“I would be pleased, but are you sure you’re up to it?”

“Up to it? What do you mean?”

“You can’t dance with a cane, my lord.”

“I’ve no intention of dancing with a cane,” Lesley replied, clenching his teeth to keep from shouting. “I intend to dance with you.”