The Rambunctious Lady Royston (25 page)

Indeed, Royston thought. What do we do now? "I've not the foggiest idea, my good man," he drawled, as he tossed a coin in Rooker's direction. "But whatever it is, I'll take it from here myself. Good job, man. I thank you."

Rooker bit the coin—from habit only, for he knew he could trust this gentry cove—and hinted helpfully, "Best keep yer peepers open and yer fives at the ready, guv'nor. Her's a slippery piece of goods, beggin' yer worship's pardon."

Once Rooker was shown out (the servants' entrance of course, the successor to Carstairs being no less high in the instep when it came to matters of protocol), Royston sat himself down in order to do some serious thinking.

He trusted Samantha. Deep down inside, he knew she would never go behind his back with another man. No, if she were to fall in love with someone else she would come to Zachary directly and confront him with her dilemma. She would trust him to help her seek a suitable solution. Wouldn't she?

Yet her recent wanderings about town, if Rooker was to be believed, were not the aimless rambles she had indulged in during the past. These outings all had the same destination—the Conduit Street glover's shop or the tavern two doors down the street. Rooker said the customers in the shop varied, and Samantha hadn't been seen speaking to anyone in particular, other than the assistant glover. So who was this estimable and helpful Robert assisting her in meeting in the shop that she was so grateful for his assistance that she was planning to use some of her husband's blunt to set him up in his own establishment? If Rooker was right, and there was no man meeting her there each time she visited, then why did she keep returning there, time and after time? And why was her sister with her?

Just a minute! Royston sat bolt upright as he remembered an old joke he had heard at his club. It seemed there was this laborer working at a building site, or so the story went. Each night the man was seen leaving his job, pushing a wheelbarrow full of debris before him. The foreman checked through the debris to see if the laborer was concealing stolen building materials or tools, but never found any evidence of the laborer's guilt. It took the foreman two weeks to realize that the laborer was stealing wheelbarrows.

Of course! Samantha was not meeting someone at the glover's shop. Her business was with the glover himself. Royston already knew Samantha had struck up an acquaintance with Robert, the assistant at the shop, but he had thought she had done so only to secure the fellow's help in arranging her secret meetings.

St. John gave himself a punishing slap on the forehead. How could he have been so dense? Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees! The unknown Lothario was none other than the assistant glover himself!

He jumped up, ready to dash out to meet with the slimy creature who dared toy with his wife's tender heart—for he was certain the man had also enlisted Samantha's sympathies and aid in some wild scheme or other by dint of a sad tale of woe—before sitting back down with a thump when

He once again remembered Isabella had accompanied Samantha to the shop.

What on earth did Izzy (he did not for the moment realize he had slipped into Samantha's deplorable habit of gifting all and sundry with less than edifying nicknames) have to do with anything? Could she be the reason behind all this intrigue?

St. John sniffed at that thought disdainfully. Isabella guilty of deception? It was too ridiculous to believe. The girl hadn't the wit, not to mention the bottom, for it. No, it had to be something concerning Samantha.

In the end, Royston found himself astride his horse and heading purposefully toward Conduit Street, with full intentions of putting an end to Samantha's loose-screw adventure whatever it might be, shadowy notions of blowing a hole in the assistant glover, or—since he had neglected to bring a firearm with him—hitting him on and about the head and shoulders repeatedly.

Belatedly, even as he climbed the back stairs he'd found in the curiously empty glovers shop, it occurred to him that he still, for all his serious thinking, had not the haziest notion of what he was about to discover.

When the flimsy door at the head of the stairs above the glover's shop burst in noisily, the reactions of the people already in the room were as diverse as the people themselves.

"Heyday! What's this?" shouted a startled Jack Bratting as his wife shrieked in alarm.

Samantha, who had expected to see her father (if she had been expecting anyone at all, which in truth, she had not), could only stare at her red-faced husband in stupefaction.

Meanwhile, Isabella—who had a healthy respect for her brother-in-law's consequence already—wailed, "Oh, Gemini," before burying her head in Robert's shoulder.

Robert—who had felt uneasy about the whole enterprise from the beginning, but had beaten down his doubts in his desire to marry the woman he loved—jumped up stiffly to place himself between Isabella and her would-be rescuer. He struck a "you'll have to go through me to get to her" pose, and closed his eyes so as not to flinch when his attacker took the first swing at his defiantly stuck-out chin.

The expected blow did not come. After stopping to take in the scene before him and seek out the likeliest target for his assault, St. John's eyes seemed to start from his head as the blood drained quickly from his face.

Staggering over to grab at the back of a nearby chair—his heart at first shocked into missing a beat, only to start in pounding as if it would burst within his chest—St. John rasped hoarsely, "Oh, my God!
Robin."

As a dramatic entrance, Zachary's arrival lacked nothing but a fanfare of trumpets to herald his advent into the room. But from that point on, the action degenerated into near mayhem.

While Jack Bratting blustered and his wife shrieked in alarm, Robert opened his eyes and stared blankly at St. John for a moment, then brought both hands to his head as if he were in some sort of pain. That done, he succeeded in unnerving everyone in the room by sinking quietly to the floor. Isabella immediately dropped to her knees beside him, calling to her sister hysterically, "Sammy, help me! I think he's dead!"

But Samantha was otherwise occupied just then, her concern for Zachary being uppermost on her list of priorities. She allowed herself only a moment to judge Robert to be in no great danger before deftly removing some wilting flowers from a nearby vase, dumping its liquid contents full down over the unfortunate youth's inert form (all the while admonishing Isabella to stop carrying on like a "brainless ninny"), and then racing hotfoot across the room to her husband's side.

"Zachary, my dearest," she begged fearfully. "Speak to me, please. Tell me you're all right!"

Indeed, Royston was fast recovering his composure. The shock of seeing his supposedly dead brother had almost been too much, even for him. But he was definitely too overjoyed at his discovery to indulge his astonishment overlong. Rising from the chair his suddenly weak knees had required him to seek, he hauled Samantha into his arms and gave her a resounding kiss on the lips—having seemingly decided to give her credit for finding Robin—and she wisely refrained from disabusing him of the idea just yet.

"My own sweet angel, how ever did you manage this miracle? I never dreamed, when I heard you were seeing some young man, that you were—but never mind, that's all beside the point. To give me back my brother—why, it's like, it's like giving me back a part of myself that I thought to be forever denied me." After whirling his wife about in a circle until they both were in danger of falling, he gave vent to a ear-splitting shout of unbridled joy and then stopped in his tracks to reward Samantha with yet another impassioned kiss.

It was probably a combination of both the dousing he had suffered at Samantha's hands and the noise of Zachary's warlike cry (that could no more be blocked out than could be the thundering roar of charging cavalry) that roused Robert. But the sight that greeted his bemused eyes nearly sent him posthaste into another faint.

The amnesia that had plagued his mind for over a year, only to be suddenly stripped away like so many cobwebs by the shock of seeing his brother again, was replaced by a confusion of another sort—brought on by the sight of this same brother soundly, and very conspicuously, kissing Mr. Samuel Smythe-Wright.

The strength of character that had seen Robert—now once again Robin—through the rigors of a terrible war remained undaunted, allowing him to deal calmly (for the moment, at least) with his elation at finally discovering his true identity. He merely patted Isabella's hand soothingly before drawling in amusement from his place on the floor. "I say, brother mine, have the manners of the ton so changed in my absence that a hearty handshake is no longer the accepted method of showing thanks to a man for favors rendered?"

Brought back to his senses by the sound of his brother's voice, Zachary abruptly released Samantha, nearly sending the girl sprawling as he deserted her and put out an eager hand to Robin to pull him to his feet. The brothers looked at each other for a long moment, and then—grinning widely like two mindless idiots—they fell to embracing each other with great emotion and much enthusiastic back-slapping.

Samantha rushed over to Isabella and, in her exuberance, hugged her sister fiercely to her chest. "Isn't it above all things wonderful, Izzy? Robert isn't a nobody without a name or background. He's Robin, Zachary's brother, who was lost in the war! That is to say, not any more, he's not." She then stepped back a pace, retaining a hold on her sister's shoulders and giving her an inquiring shake. "Izzy? Don't you think it's wonderful? Say something for goodness sake! You look like a statue!"

Isabella looked up into her sister's dancing green eyes and, plainly bewildered, asked timidly, "Does this mean he's not married?"

Samantha shouted with laughter, "Oh, you poor, poor puss. You come with me." So saying, she grabbed her sister's hand and pulled her over to Robin, who was only just then disengaging himself from Zachary's affectionate grasp. Bowing deeply from the waist, Samantha addressed the young man. "Please, my lord, if I might intrude a moment on your reunion. I would like, you see, to present to you a most eligible young lady. Miss Isabella Marie Ardsley, may I introduce to you Robin St. John, Viscount Royston, a fine young man of impeccable reputation. Doubtless I have overlooked his several prestigious middle names and sundry lesser titles, but no matter, for these are but trifling things, don't you agree, Miss Ardsley?" Her facetious observance of the proprieties completed to her satisfaction, Samantha gave Isabella a discreet shove in Robin's direction and retreated to watch—grinning like the village idiot—as the pair fell into each other's arms.

Just how long Zachary and Samantha may have been privileged to view unnoticed the personal exchange of affection they were witnessing was not to be discovered, as Jack Bratting—thoroughly confused by all the rare goings-on in his front parlor—had at last regained his voice, if not his former bluster.

"Pardon me, my lord," he began meekly, tugging timidly on St. John's coat sleeve, "but am I to believe you know our Robert?" As a question it was not indicative of any great mental profundity, but it served to divert the

Earl's attention from his heretofore near-to-cannibalistic devouring of his brother by means of his sparkling black eyes.

Turning to grab up the glover's hand and pump it to within an inch of breaking all the poor man's fingers with his fervent two-handed grip, Royston delivered himself of a speech of thanks that left no doubt in Jack Bratting's mind that indeed Robert had at long last found his family.

A scant half-hour later, the little group was back in Portman Square, leaving behind a dazed Jack Bratting and his happily tearful wife, still overwhelmed by Royston's promise of a grand new glover shop of their very own—and in Bond Street, no less. Had the man been the grasping sort, he could conceivably have demanded and received half the Royston fortune, what with Zachary being so beside himself with gratitude. But then, if the man had been of a mercenary bent, he would never have had befriended the injured, penniless Robert in the first place, would he?

While Zachary was in his study—hastily scribbling off a note telling his grandmother of Robin's miraculous reappearance, to be dispatched immediately to her in Richmond—Samantha, Isabella, and Robin were getting reacquainted in the main salon. They had at last exhausted the subject of Samantha's alter ego, Samuel, and had moved on to other subjects.

"You know," Robin was saying, gazing about the familiar room with a look of some awe on his face, "I've been troubled with vague remembrances of silly things like platters of pork chops for breakfast and the feel of silken sheets on my bed. But the reality of what my life was before last year fair bids to overwhelm me. Jack and I always knew I was somebody, perhaps even a person of some means. We used to think, for a while at least, that someday someone would walk into the shop and recognize me, but — but this—" He spread his arms wide to encompass the tastefully decorated room. "This is almost too much, after spending the past year sleeping on the floor of Jack's shop. It may take me some time to get used to the difference."

He turned in his place beside Isabella on the satin sofa, and lifting her hand to his lips—told her, "When we're married you shall set a new style by never, ever being seen in any of those blasted gloves I have been forced to fit this last three months and more, since Jack agreed I finally was well enough to help out in the shop. What a painful penance those fittings are, for both customer and glover."

"But only think on it a moment, my dear," Isabella replied, feeling at ease again with her beloved. "If I were to succeed in turning the ladies of London against gloves, your friend Mr. Bratting would suffer greatly by their desertion. That would be a fine way of thanking him for all he has done for us."

Robin took possession of Isabella's other hand and pressed kisses in both her palms before bowing to this feminine logic. "Then I shall have to content myself with being the only husband of the
ton
to personally fit his wife with each and every pair of gloves she owns. No one else, my pet, must be allowed such intimacy with these beautiful fingers."