Lady Iona's Rebellion (7 page)

Her heart picked up an excited beat as they neared the Newbury residence. It was the only summer home she’d ever really known. Excitement rather than fear bubbled in her gut.

In a few moments, he would help her sneak in the back door. Soon she would be tucked safely in her bed and no one would be the wiser. And wasn’t that, after all, the allure of any adventure?

Danger—whether to her safety, her virtue, or of discovery—was an integral ingredient to the thrill she’d been experiencing. If it had been otherwise, her late-night swim in the King’s Bath wouldn’t have been any more exciting than a stroll through Sydney Gardens.

And it was this surge of danger she definitely wished to experience again—and soon. How and when would she get a chance to taste such a delicious thrill again? She would simply have to convince Lord Nathan that she needed another lesson.

But how?

Her racing heart slammed to an abrupt stop.

She was getting ahead of herself. Before planning any future escapades, she’d have to survive this night first. Iona blinked, unable to believe what she was seeing—or her rotten luck.

Two grooms were guiding her father’s ducal carriage into the rubble-stone coaching house.

“My parents came home early,” she whispered, a lump in her throat.

“So it appears,” Lord Nathan replied.

“Without me…”

The kernel of excitement she’d been relishing flared into a very real throb of panic.

“They returned home without me.” She turned in the seat just as he pulled the curricle to a stop at the gate. “Whatever shall I tell them?”

He heaved a deep sigh before setting the reins on the seat. Stepping over her, he jumped down. His boots sloshed as he landed on the ground. He then reached up to hand her down.

“You will tell them nothing. I shall come inside with you and speak to your father,” he said as his hands settled around her waist, “and do my best to explain.”

“And propose marriage?” she asked, resisting his attempts to help her down from his curricle.

“If necessary… Please, let’s not have this conversation with you shouting down at me. Let me help you to the ground.”

“No,” she said. “I am firm on my decision. I do not agree that you need to offer your hand in marriage over this. Nothing that shocking happened. Besides, despite your reputation, I consider you my friend…and nothing more.”

He winced at the wording but she plodded on. “You are simply a friend who has given me quite a lesson this evening. I’ll not reward you by looping the matrimonial noose around your neck.”

Again, she fended off his attempts to lift her down from his curricle. She’d rather tower over him while having this conversation. He was too tall and too headstrong for her to wage battle on equal footing.

And she hadn’t been shouting. In fact, she never shouted. A forced whisper, a little louder than necessary, was how she’d describe her tone.

“I could run away,” she suggested, lowering her voice even further. “Never return home.”

“Family banishment is never much of an option, Lady Iona.”

“No, I suppose not,” she said and chewed on the inside of her cheek. “You may as well lift me down now.”

Without another word, he lifted her down to the pavement and then led her through the neighboring garden and helped her climb over a small brick wall. Thanks to his keen eye, they made it to the back entrance without attracting any of the servants’ notice.

She supposed she should be pleased that he went along with her charade. She might still be able to pull the wool over her family’s eyes about her evening’s adventure. Yet, the likelihood of her actually doing so was dimming at an alarming speed.

Several lights glowed through the windows of the first floor rooms. Iona tried not to imagine what might be taking place in the parlor or her father’s study, both appeared to be brightly lit. Was her father pacing the study floor? Were his hands locked behind his back in a stance he often took when he wished to hide his emotions? Or was he venting a spurt of anger by upbraiding a hapless servant for some minor infraction?

And her mother, what would she be doing in the midst of this crisis? Iona didn’t have to tax her imagination in order to picture her mother collapsed on the parlor’s settee, howling with tears and on the verge of a full display of histrionics.

Simply imagining the stresses she must be putting her parents through made Iona want to curl up and hide in the nearest rain barrel. But she couldn’t. She was the Duke’s daughter and had been trained to behave accordingly. After bracing herself for the worst, she turned the knob and eased the wooden back door open.

Lord Nathan gave her hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry overmuch. I’ll be by your side throughout.”

That was her biggest worry. She didn’t want him by her side. The only silver lining in this debacle was the slight chance she might so shock her family with her behavior that her father would call off her upcoming engagement with her cousin.

And not give her hand to a different gentleman.

Before Lord Nathan could push his way inside the back foyer of the townhouse, she planted a quick, grateful kiss on his lips that sparked a flock of butterflies fluttering in her stomach and gave his chest a great shove.

“I thank you for everything,” she said in a rush. “You are a dear friend to offer to stand by me but this is my problem and something I must do alone.”

She swung the door closed on his surprised expression and drove the lock’s bolt home.

C
hapter Five

Nathan gaped at the door. She’d locked him out. He couldn’t believe it. Despite what most thought of him, he was capable of doing the right and honorable thing. But in order to do that, Lady Iona would have to let him inside the house.

He called her name several times and rattled the door handle. The door was indeed locked. He called her name again, louder this time. He was sure she could hear him. The wooden door didn’t appear to be that heavy.

“Please, just go away,” she whispered rather frantically through the keyhole.

Although a gentleman should abide by a lady’s wishes, this was one gentleman who had no intention of going anywhere. And it was more than simple honor that compelled him to protect her. He knew firsthand the crushing pain an ugly scandal could bring. He knew what it was like to have a mother look straight through him as if he no longer existed. A father who cursed vilely at the mere sight of him, wishing he had never been born. And an older brother who had no right to join in with the rest of his family in turning his back on him.

No matter what, he was determined to shield Iona from suffering any similar anguish from this fool’s outing. He even felt a great desire to soothe her throbbing temples.

The fact that he would win her hand in marriage in a most disgraceful manner, but nonetheless win her hand, was curiously the last thing on his mind.

He raised his fist to bang the door down if need be when the lock’s bolt clicked and the knob turned. The door opened just wide enough for Iona’s younger sister to slide through.

Lady Lillian was dressed in a high-waisted watered silk cream-colored gown with long, tapering sleeves. Her hair, a touch blonder than Lady Iona’s, was styled in a profusion of ringlets and creamy ribbons. She was unquestionably a diamond of the first water. She also had the most unpleasant disposition Nathan had ever encountered.

With a petulant pout, pursing her lips, she tossed her head and set her hands on her hips. “Lord Nathan Wynter,” she said in a withering voice. “What have you done to my sister?”

“I have done nothing to her,” he protested.

“Is that so? And you expect me to believe that my dreadfully proper sister willingly spirited herself away from this evening’s ball in order to spend time, sans chaperon, with a notorious rake like you? I would sooner believe your horse was the Prince Regent!”

“Believe what you wish, my lady,” he said as he tried to skirt around her. “I have no intention of explaining myself to you. That explanation is reserved for the Duke.”

Lillian gave a cry of alarm. She lunged for the door, slamming it closed before he could reach the handle and splayed herself, with her arms spread wide, across the expanse of the door. “Are you dicked in the nob? You will do no such thing!”

“I am quite sane, thank you very much, and you shouldn’t be using such coarse language, Lady Lillian.” He tugged on his soggy waistcoat. A stream of water dripped on the flagstone pavers. “I am doing my duty to your sister. Now step aside.”

“You are making a fuss for no purpose and will cause Iona a great deal more trouble than she has right now if you do not leave immediately.”

From past experience, he had trouble taking Lillian’s sisterly concern seriously. The silly girl was rarely concerned about anything unless it benefited herself in some way. “Stand aside, my lady, or I will move you myself.”

“No! I have the matter well in hand,” she said throwing her arms in the air. “Miss Amelia Harlow, a friend of mine and my summer houseguest, saw Iona leaving the ball with a gentleman—you, I suppose. She came straight to me and I went straight to Mama and told her that Iona went home with a headache.”

“You did?” he could barely believe his—and Iona’s—luck, or Lillian’s seemingly altruistic behavior.

“I’ve spent the last hour keeping my mother and father from sticking their concerned noses into Iona’s bedchamber while Miss Harlow sat at the parlor window and watched for Iona to return home.” She huffed. “You should have fetched her home sooner. I was beginning to worry that my fool sister had gotten herself abducted.”

“And Lady Iona understands that she needn’t confess why she disappeared from the ball?” He wasn’t planning on going anywhere until he was confident that her reputation was indeed safe.

“Of course she does.” Lillian rolled her pretty pale blue eyes. “Miss Harlow was busy explaining all of that to her as she bustled my sister up the back stairs to her bedchamber.”

“Good.” The tight bands of tension pulling on his shoulders loosened considerably. He very properly tipped his beaver hat. “Then I will bid you a good evening, my lady.”

“You still haven’t explained how you pressured Iona into creeping away with you into the Bath night. What manner of blackmail do you hold over her? What power could you possibly wield to sway an avowed prig as my sister to act so uncharacteristically?” she called after him.

Nathan walked away, shaking his head. Lillian was asking the absolute wrong question. What power did he hold over Iona?

Seemingly, very little.

Despite the coil they had gotten themselves into, Iona had remained firm. She’d called him a friend. Nothing more than a friend. And because of their friendship, she’d abjectly refused to let him march through the front door and demand to pay his formal addresses to her father.

Considering how Lillian had neatly covered up Iona’s failure to return to the ball, he was vastly relieved he hadn’t done just that. Doing so would have only further damaged his reputation, a reputation he specifically came to Bath to repair.

How had he gotten himself into such a sticky situation in the first place?

He glanced back at the Newbury townhouse and saw that the lights shining in the first floor windows were in the process of being doused as if this were a normal evening and nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

Of course nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, except for the Duke’s virginal daughter’s late-night dip in the King’s Bath while dressed in nothing but a white chemise and a pair of pink stockings. He glanced down at his own ruined suit, water still dripping from the hem of his waistcoat, and chuckled. This had been a most uncommon evening. One that nearly ended with a trip to the altar. He couldn’t have set up a situation riper for scandal even if he’d tried.

Perhaps scandal came to him so naturally now that he didn’t have to try anymore.

Instead of listening to his own instincts and sense of honor, he’d let Iona drag him into this madcap scheme and had let her countermand all of his honorable decisions.

Which begged the question, what power did Iona hold over him?

Mere friendship?

Good Lord, no. But if not friendship, then what?

Certainly not love…

* * * * *

The next morning, Nathan prowled within his stuffy apartment feeling more and more cramped and uncomfortable with each step. And his ears were fast growing sore from listening to his valet fret and scold, all because Nathan had returned home late last night with his clothes and boots ruined.

He had told his valet to toss the damned garments out. It wasn’t as if he wanted to keep around reminders of having seen a nearly naked Lady Iona. Freddie had insisted he could salvage them. But not apparently without uttering a score of complaints first.

Which was sorely trying Nathan’s patience. Overnight, the weather had turned blaring hot and humid. With all this blasted heat and his sleepless night—thanks to his recalling only too well how perfectly Iona’s plump little breasts fit in the palm of his hands—his first inclination was to escape from these cramped rooms and go to the Pump Room, a popular morning social venue.