London's Last True Scoundrel (6 page)

She had to leave. She simply must get out of this shameful situation. She’d give anything for a London season, but until Miss Tollington had arranged an introduction to Mrs. Farrington, her prospects of making a London debut had been zero.

She’d made friends at the academy when she’d been a boarder there, but all of her friends were married now, comfortably settled in the country, and disinclined to participate in the fashionable whirl of the season.

Why hadn’t she the sense to cultivate more useful friendships? She sighed. All of the more fashionable, aristocratic girls thought her a bore and a prude. Or else, they’d looked down their noses at her family.

She’d been content at the academy, but now that the promise of more had been dangled before her she couldn’t simply let her dream go. She would have to find another way to get to London this season.

She’d been
so close
to leaving all this behind. To enjoying the myriad delights of a London season—dancing and balls and dinners, trips to the theater, the opera. To finding a quiet, kind, gentlemanly husband who would never embarrass her or make her lose her temper. A man with whom she could live a contented life and bear sweet, contented children …

“More hot water, miss.” Trixie, the lone female servant in the house, lugged a bucket over to the tub and heaved.

A gush of steaming water poured down Hilary’s back. “Ahh, thank you, Trix.”

Warmth spread through her limbs. Her toes felt hot needles prick them to life.

She ducked her head under again.

“Has Lord Davenport left yet?” she asked the maid, who was busy unpacking Hilary’s meager wardrobe and putting it away.

“No, Miss Hilary. The master ordered a chamber to be made up for him.”

Hilary ground her teeth. She ought to have expected that.

Again, she wondered what on earth had come over her to launch herself at a man she hardly knew. Well, if it killed her, she would be civil to him for the remainder of his stay.

She would consider it a test of her will and determination. If she could manage not to lose her temper with Lord Davenport, she could accomplish anything London society had to throw at her.

But no, she was not going to London, was she?

The mere notion of remaining one more night at the Grange depressed her, but the rest of her life? Anything would be better than living in a house that was falling down around her ears, where orgies took place in broad daylight.

Remaining under the Grange’s leaky roof after the debacle that afternoon was likely to injure her reputation past redemption. If Mrs. Farrington spread word of the disgraceful scene she’d witnessed in the drawing room …

Hilary squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to think about it.

“Ever so handsome, he is,” Trixie was saying as she laid out a clean gown and underthings. She’d been rattling on in her usual way while Hilary was lost in thought.

“Who?” she asked, knowing full well.

“Lord Davenport, of course.” Trixie opened her eyes wide. “I wouldn’t mind some o’ that, I can tell you.”

Hilary forbore to chastise the maid for her ribaldry. It was almost impossible to persuade any female servants to remain in this house, so one had to take what one could get. She suspected Trixie spread her favors equally between Hilary’s brothers and any gentlemen who visited and took her fancy, but there was nothing Hilary could do about that, either.

Besides, Hilary found herself curious about precisely what “some o’ that” might entail.

In an airy voice of studied unconcern, she said, “How can you tell? He is covered in bruises. Do you think him handsome?”

“Aye, as handsome as he can stare. But that arse, miss, begging your pardon. Seldom seen a finer pair o’ buttocks on a gentleman.” Trixie cupped her hands as if to squeeze the body parts in question. “What I wouldn’t give for a feel o’ them beauties.”

The open look of relish on Trixie’s pretty features caused Hilary to submerge herself again.

Gracious! She’d noticed almost everything else about Lord Davenport, but his buttocks had been covered by the tails of his evening coat.

Which made her wonder how Trixie knew what they looked like.…

No, she would
not
think about Lord Davenport and his spectacular hindquarters.

“I wish you would not talk in such a vulgar fashion,” she said belatedly, and quite unreasonably, since she’d encouraged the maid to expand on the subject.

Living at the academy all her adult life with only brief sojourns home, Hilary was woefully ignorant of what went on between men and women.

She knew the sorts of advances she was
not
supposed to encourage. But she wasn’t terribly certain of what it was she was guarding so vigilantly against.

Oh, she knew the theory and she’d caught glimpses of her brothers’ raucous goings-on here and there. But theory and glimpses didn’t begin to explain anything. And how would she know if she didn’t find out from Trixie? Hilary could hardly ask her brothers, and Miss Tollington would have been no help, even if she had been inclined to discuss such matters.

Trixie seemed to enjoy the act of procreation; that much was clear.

Would Hilary enjoy it? Would she long to squeeze her quiet, gentle husband’s buttocks? It seemed unlikely, but one never knew. The particulars of the marriage bed were a mystery she suspected she wouldn’t solve until the moment was upon her, so to speak.

Her experience of men thus far ought to have put her off the male of the species for life. And yet there was something compelling about the idea of having one of them for her very own. Surely there were nice gentlemen in the world. Men of taste and refinement and morals.

All of her dreams flooded her senses, luring her to follow them, no matter what the cost. How paltry of her to be so cast down at this one small setback. Mrs. Farrington might have seen the worst of her, but here was Davenport offering to take her to London.

He was neither so irresistible nor so persistent that she couldn’t hold him off for the duration of a day. They would not even be obliged to stay overnight somewhere if they left at dawn. They could take the old coach. Her brothers wouldn’t have any need of it.

That way, no one would see her traveling in Davenport’s company. And if it would be scandalous to go on her own with Davenport in a closed carriage, she could take Trixie with her, couldn’t she?

She sat up so quickly, water slopped over the sides of the tub. “Help me, Trix. I need to get dressed.”

*   *   *

“I mean to say, dear fellow, it isn’t done,” said Davenport confidentially to Tom deVere. “Even
I
know that. Must cherish one’s womenfolk, you know.”

He’d cleaned himself up as best he could with the assistance of a pert little maid named Trixie and returned to the scene of debauchery that had so shocked Honey and her companion.

Davenport regretted the devilish impulse that had made him confront Honey with the whores at his side. This was what got him into trouble more often than not—devilish impulse. She was a gently bred lady, despite her tendency to hit people.

He was now endeavoring to explain that fact to her brothers.

“If m’sister don’t like it, she can go back to that school she came from,” slurred Tom, giving his companion’s fleshy breast a hearty squeeze.

She shrieked, whether with pain or laughter Davenport couldn’t quite tell.

“She can’t go back; she’s been ’smissed,” said Benedict, the younger of the two. “We’re stuck with her. But we won’t be changing our ways for any naggy dab of a female. She’ll mind us or she can hire herself out as a guv’ness for all I care.”

“She is a lady,” said Davenport. “She is your sister. She deserves respect and consideration.”

“She’s a prune-faced little bitch,” said Benedict.

That did it. Despite Benedict’s bulk, he came easily out of his chair when Davenport bunched his fist in the fellow’s grubby shirt and hauled him up.

Nose to nose, Davenport spoke clearly. “Pay the girls off. Get rid of them. Now.”

“Who’s going to make me? You?” Benedict wheezed a laugh. The strength of his wine-soaked breath could have knocked a man down.

Davenport answered that question with his fist. He smashed it into Benedict’s face and watched him sprawl back against the armchair with blood streaming from his nose. Then he turned to shoot a glaring challenge at Tom.

Tom swung the tart off his lap and bore in. Davenport sidestepped, turned, and booted Tom’s backside, sending him sprawling.

He looked at the women. “You’ve been paid?”

Wide-eyed, they nodded.

“Then you can go,” he said, and turned to face both brothers.

That there were two of them evened the odds a little. He could easily dispatch one drunken bully, but two made the challenge more interesting.

Davenport’s body screamed in pain when a ham fist collided with the region of his kidney, but he didn’t suffer too many blows before he’d knocked both men down.

This time, they stayed down.

He was considering what to do with them when Honey burst in.

“What on earth is going on here?” she demanded, looking wildly from her brothers to Davenport. “What did you do to them?”

He inspected his knuckles. “Oh, just a friendly bout. Must keep my hand in, you know.”

“You floored both of them?” she squeaked, betraying a most unladylike knowledge of boxing cant. She ran to bend over Tom, patting his stubbled cheeks.

Her hair was still wet from her bath—and hadn’t he enjoyed a few fantasies about that activity? The golden tresses were darkened with damp, tied back in a thick braid. Unfortunate, that. He wanted to unbind it, run his hands through it, cloud it around that piquant little face.

She was calling her brothers’ names, to no avail. The combination of liquor and a Westruther right had done for them.

“Throw a bucket of water over them,” recommended Davenport. “That’ll wake them up. Though I daresay they wouldn’t thank you for it.”

She straightened, surveying him coldly. “You cause trouble wherever you go. I asked you to leave before. Why are you still here?”

“I thought you might need me,” he explained.

She gave an incredulous laugh. “The last thing I need is for you to brawl with my brothers.”

“That was not planned,” he admitted.

“Then why did it happen?”

“I told the lovely impures to leave. Your brothers took exception.” He thought it best not to mention the insult to Honey. No good could come of that.

She sighed and shook her head. “There’ll be more where they came from. And now that you’ve goaded my brothers, they’ll behave even worse tomorrow.”

She was probably right about that, but he didn’t regret punching Tom and Benedict deVere. The two of them needed a lesson.

“Honey,” he declared, “you cannot stay here.”

She stared up at him. “No,” she said. “That is just what I was thinking myself.”

Again, she surprised him. A speculative expression gathered in those lovely eyes of hers. “You offered to take me to London.”

Was it going to be this easy? He suppressed a wolfish grin. “Of course. It’s the least I can do.”

“Yes,” she said crisply. “It is.”

“Well, that settles it. We’ll be off, shall we? I daresay there’s a carriage in your stables we can borrow.”

“We cannot go now,” she said, glancing at the clock. “If we leave at first light, we can reach London before evening. That way, we shall not be obliged to put up at an inn overnight, which would be most improper.”

Not so much of a greenhorn as he’d like. Well, it wasn’t as if he’d never managed to be amorous in a carriage before. “All right. But you’ll have to protect me from your brothers until morning.”

Honey eyed them with a raised eyebrow. “I should have said you were capable of taking care of yourself.” She squared her shoulders. “There are conditions.”

“But of course.” He tilted his head, trying to appear interested.

“First, you must stop calling me Honey.”

“I’ll try. But the thing is, you see, that it keeps popping out of my mouth. Look at you. You’re all gold and cream, and that color of your eyes … I’ve never seen that color before. You make me think of honey. And then before I know it, out it pops again.”

She made a frustrated kitten sound, a cross between a “harrumph,” a choke, and a spurt of unwilling laughter.

He smiled at her.

She scowled back. “I am Miss deVere to you. I will not entertain any other appellation. Next. You will not brawl while in my company. I do not wish to draw attention to our journey. We must try to remain inconspicuous.”

Honey eyed him doubtfully. “Do you think you can manage that?”

He bowed. “I’ll do my poor best.”

She pointed a finger at him. “Do you promise you will not punch anyone?”

Briefly he thought of his shadow. But if the man hadn’t harmed him in the past few months, he wasn’t likely to do so now.

He held up one of the weapons in question in a gesture of taking an oath. “I promise.”

She nodded. “Third, and most importantly, is our destination. I have been thinking, and it seems to me that you and I have a mutual connection.”

Manfully he denied himself the opportunity to turn that statement into sly innuendo. “Indeed?”

“Yes, your cousin Lady Rosamund Westruther married my cousin Griffin deVere, Lord Tregarth. I have never met Lord Tregarth, but you could introduce us.”

His own plan had been vague about their destination. He’d just wanted to get her away from this place and keep her with him for as long as possible.

Rosamund … Yes, by Jove. It might very well be the answer.

“That is a very good plan,” he said. “Exactly what I was thinking myself.”

“Lady Tregarth might put me in the way of a family to whom I can be of service,” said Honey with a brave squaring of her shoulders. “I daresay with the season coming up, many young ladies require a final polish to set them on the right path.”

A governess? What a terrible waste that would be. But he didn’t argue. He simply nodded.

“Excellent.” He rubbed his hands together. “Any other conditions? If there are, I shall be obliged to write them down. Can’t keep more than a couple of things in my head at once, you know.”