The Dangerous Viscount (17 page)

“Look, sir,” she said. “I’m very sorry but I don’t have much money with me. You are welcome to any of it. And my earrings. They are only garnets but I don’t wear my good jewelry when I travel.” As she bent her head to remove the earrings she found further inspiration. “I have jeweled buckles on my boots. They’re diamonds. Worth a fortune!” She assumed they would have long parted company by the time he discovered they were paste. She should have claimed the garnets were rubies.

She didn’t notice the approach of a horse up the road behind them, until it sped to a gallop. What followed was something of a blur.

Shouts.

“Stop, you rogue!”

More shouts.

Min screaming as she hit the ground. Two horses
thrashing about. Diana’s servants coming to life and joining the melee.

By the time Diana had a grasp on the situation, the highwayman had galloped off as though pursued by hellhounds and their savior had swung down from his own mount and was picking Minerva off the ground.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, brushing dirt off her clothing. “That was exciting.”

He turned to face Diana, a tall gentleman in a dust-covered multi-caped great coat. Her reticule dropped to the ground as he strode over and took her nerveless hand in one of his. The other held his own gun, pointing at the ground.

“It’s all right,” he said in a gentle voice. In the confusion, or perhaps during the final charge to the rescue, he’d lost his hat but his spectacles remained in place.

“Oh Sebastian,” Diana cried and flung her arms about his neck.

“Ouch,” he said. “What’s that?”

“Sorry,” she said and threw her scissors down before tightening her embrace. “Min might have been killed. You saved us!”

Over refreshments served in Markley Chase’s magnificent scarlet saloon, Minerva and Lady Esther cornered Sebastian on a sofa and pestered him with questions about his dramatic rescue.

“I suppose,” Juliana Chase whispered to Diana, “I have to be grateful now that Cain invited Lord Iverley to join our party.”

“I certainly am.”

“I’m so used to despising the man I find it inconvenient to change my stance.”

“I hope you will,” Diana said earnestly. “I believe he is a true hero.”

“Come with me.” Juliana led her to a glass-topped display table in the farthest corner of the room, away from Sebastian and his youthful admirers, and the other gentlemen who stood in front of the fireplace, half listening to the sofa group, occasionally exchanging desultory remarks.

“These are all Tudor miniatures,” she said, then lowered her voice. “Is it possible you are
interested
in Iverley?”

Juliana’s tone of incredulity made Diana smile. “I told you I was grateful to him.”

“Not more than that? When you all arrived together you clung to his arm as though he were your last hope. I thought I detected a bit more than just gratitude.”

Not wishing to give Juliana the wrong idea, Diana framed her response carefully. “I like Lord Iverley but I can’t make him out. You’ve known him longer than I. Perhaps you can throw some light on his character.”

“I’ve told you about the things he used to say to me when I was a bookseller. The man has absolutely no respect for women. He does appear to be changing, but it remains to be seen whether the transformation goes deeper than his wardrobe.”

“I’ve known men who fail to appreciate that ladies can be anything but ornamental broodmares, but with Sebastian the prejudice seems to go beyond that. Do you know why?”

Juliana raised an eyebrow at Diana’s unconscious use of the Christian name. “I’ve asked my husband that very question. Cain says Iverley doesn’t talk much about himself but he does seem to have had an unusual upbringing.”

Diana shifted sideways so she could glance at Sebastian, who was chatting to Minerva with some animation. “He’s a mystery,” she said, shaking her head.

“You’re looking at him again.”

“So what?”

“I’d expect you to look at Lord Blakeney that way. Now
he
looks jealous. Is that your aim?”

Diana realized she’d forgotten Blake was even in the room. “Maybe. Thank you again for inviting him. I realize neither you nor Lord Chase has much in common with him.”

“I quite like Blakeney. I think he’s more intelligent than he shows. It reminds me a little of how Cain used to be, playing the fool to disguise the truth about himself.”

“Why would Blake do that?”

“I have no idea, but if you’re going to marry him you’d better find out.”

Diana wished she felt more enthusiastic about the prospect. To her surprise she was more curious about Sebastian’s unknown past.

Sebastian was enjoying himself so much he forgot to feel even a twinge of guilt.

The tale, which lost nothing in Minerva’s increasingly dramatic retellings, seemed a source of unending fascination to the ladies. The younger ones,
Minerva and Lady Esther, sat on either side of him on a sofa, pelting him with questions.

And Diana. After her initial heartfelt and delicious expression of gratitude, Diana let the others do most of the talking but she gazed at him with stars in her eyes. Really, the company of ladies, even in plural numbers, was tolerable when one was the object of their collective adoration.

As for Blakeney, he slouched against a caryatid that held up the gigantic marble mantelpiece, folded his arms, and scowled.

Sebastian felt ten feet tall.

The only shadow over his enjoyment of this moment of glory had been Lady Chase’s tiresome insistence that her husband summon a magistrate to take information leading to the arrest and execution of the malefactor. Her bloodthirsty enthusiasm for the gallows, which Sebastian thought excessive in a gently bred lady, made him nervous for the continuing health of his head groom. That useful servant had disposed of his mask and Sebastian’s old topcoat and was now lodged in the Markley Chase stable quarters.

And now Lady Chase had drawn Diana off to the other side of the room. From the glances the two of them sent his way, he gathered he was the topic of conversation. He hoped their hostess, whom he hadn’t yet had time to butter up, wasn’t turning Diana against him.

Sebastian also had to endure some cynical looks from Cain and Tarquin, the latter having been persuaded to join the party despite Gloucestershire’s unfortunately rural nature. He wasn’t surprised when
his friends, acting in tandem like a pair of Welsh sheepdogs, cut him away from the pack of women and herded him into the library.

“We’re safe from your cousin here,” Cain said. “But we’d better hurry or my wife will be in to see if I’m showing you our new books without her. And,” he continued with a glare, though Sebastian hadn’t said a word, “don’t forget you are here only on sufferance. You still have some serious groveling to do, and don’t think your so-called heroics have let you off.”

If Tarquin could have rolled his eyes further they’d have disappeared into his brains. “What a hero! Playing silly games with firearms. Someone could have been hurt.”

“Neither of the guns was loaded, my groom’s nor mine. There was no danger.”

“What about your poor groom?” Tarquin asked. “His weapon may not have been loaded but I wager the Fanshawe servants’ were.”

“I was lucky,” Sebastian admitted, “that the outriders remained with the other coach. I wasn’t sure I could manage the robbery until that happened. The whole business was harder to arrange than I anticipated.”

“Why arrange it at all?”

“You said I should hire footpads. I decided to take advantage of the journey and used a highwayman instead.”

“He actually said ‘stand and deliver.’ Couldn’t you have come up with something less hackneyed? The whole affair has a regrettably farcical quality.”

“To hell with that,” Cain said. “Poor Lady Fanshawe was terrified for her sister’s life. I have a sister.
I know what that would feel like. You were cruel to pull such a trick.”

Sebastian was astonished. “It was your idea!” he insisted.

“Sebastian,” Tarquin said patiently. “Can’t you understand a joke? I recall we made all sorts of ridiculous suggestions that day.”

Sebastian felt himself color. He had taken all of his friends’ suggestions in earnest. “I think it went splendidly,” he said defensively. “My grand gesture was just what you said it should be. I provided exactly what she needed at that moment. Her sister was threatened, I saved her.”

“Except,” said Tarquin, “that her sister wouldn’t have needed saving if you hadn’t created the threat.”

Cain shook his head in disgust. “You’d better pray she never finds out. I can promise you she will not be amused.”

“She won’t,” Sebastian said. “She’s never seen my groom and he was masked. She’d never recognize him. Besides, why should she suspect? I think your idea was brilliant.”

Escaping further criticism, Sebastian left the room, only to meet Diana in the passage just outside the door. Judging by her welcoming expression, she hadn’t overheard any part of the recent conversation.

“Lord Iverley. I was looking for you.”

Each time he saw her, however brief their separation, he was astonished anew by her beauty, as though in her absence he’d forgotten her. Just a glimpse and his chest tightened.

“Yes?” he said, resentful that she still affected him so deeply. Her smile faded to uncertainty and
he gentled his tone. “What can I do for you, Lady Fanshawe?”

“Do for me? How could I ask for anything more? I wanted to again express my most profound thanks.”

Perversely he now felt uncomfortable at her misplaced gratitude. The words of his friends needled at his conscience. Besides, the false rescue had served its purpose and he’d just as soon not think about it anymore.

“Please don’t mention it again,” he said gruffly. “I am glad I happened along the road.”

“I shall never in my life forget that moment when you galloped up and drove off the villain. I was terrified for Minerva’s life and you saved her. I will never be able to thank you enough.”

She stood in the shadowy corridor, the blue of her gaze intensified by emotion. His heart leaped when she moved closer and placed a hand on his shoulder. His throat tightened. “It was nothing,” he rasped.

Her voice dropped. “I wanted to thank you while we were alone.” She raised a hand to touch his cheek with cool fingers, then rose on her toes to brush warm lips over the same spot. “Thank you, Sebastian,” she whispered then turned abruptly and left him.

He watched her walk away, the graceful sway of her hips reminding him of their afternoon spent exploring Mandeville. It was a lucky recollection since it brought back the source of his resentment. But the encounter disquieted him. For the first time a shade of unease tempered his anger.

“W
hat would anyone like to do today?” their host enquired.

“Minerva and I are going to the stables to see Octavo’s puppies,” Esther said.

“Octavo?” Diana asked.

“Octavo is Quarto’s wife,” Minerva explained. “She has—how many puppies?”

“Seven,” Esther said. “They are quite adorable. Here, Quarto. Do you want to come and see your children?”

Quarto, Juliana’s bulldog, was stretched out asleep in front of the fire. He opened a single uninterested eye then sank back into slumber.

“Apparently not. A typical fashionable father, I see,” remarked Tarquin Compton.

“I’m afraid he shows remarkably little interest in his offspring,” Juliana said.

“Or his ‘wife’ for that matter,” said Cain. “Except during that particular time, of course.”

Juliana glanced at the two girls and gave her husband a warning look.
“Pas devant les jeune filles,”
she said softly.

Not softly enough. “It’s all right, Lady Chase,”
Minerva said. “My mother breeds foxhounds so I understand about bitches in season. I also understand French, perfectly.”

“Why don’t you leave now, Minerva,” Diana suggested, before the gentlemen could erupt into unseemly mirth.

“Will you come with us?”

“No thanks. You know what Chantal’s like about dog hair.”

Juliana and Cain offered a visit to the library to see a collection of plays they’d recently acquired. Sebastian and Tarquin were, predictably, interested. Blakeney was not.

“Would you like to go for a ride, Diana?” he asked.

A week ago she would have been thrilled by such an opportunity for a tête-à-tête. “I think I’ll join the library party,” she said. “I’ve become quite interested in books.”

“In that case,” Blake said, “I shall take Chase up on his offer of some shooting.”

“My gamekeeper will be delighted,” Cain said. “He keeps trying to tempt me with tales of pheasant by the hundred but my interest in sports is limited. Come with me.”

Blake gave her a significant look as he followed their host from the room. She should be flattered by his very presence in Gloucestershire. Since he was barely acquainted with the Chases she must be the reason he accepted their invitation. While he’d pursued her in London, his courtship had been maddeningly slow, halfhearted even, with bursts of attention followed by days of neglect.

Now, unless she was very much mistaken, he would soon be making her an offer. Diana couldn’t understand her lack of enthusiasm. About to achieve the thing she’d dreamed of for years, she did everything to postpone the moment.

She looked at Sebastian out of the corner of her eye and discovered him looking back at her. The presence of his spectacles, which most of the time she no longer noticed, prevented her from reading his eyes. She still didn’t know what he thought of her. Or what she felt for him, for that matter, beyond gratitude for his rescue. Infuriating man to be so unpredictable!

Then she realized something strange: she cared a great deal about Sebastian’s opinion of her. When she thought of Blake, she wondered only if he would propose marriage. She was so used to her single-minded pursuit of Blake as a husband, she never questioned what he thought of her. Yet surely she ought to care if he loved her.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she said, pushing back her chair. “If you’ll excuse me, Juliana, I think I’ll see the library another time. I need a walk and I daresay it will rain later.” What she needed was some time alone to examine her feelings.