Her Secret Fantasy (30 page)

“Is it just me or don’t they like anybody?”

“Oh, they’d probably like these pretty lasses,” he replied with a lusty glint in his eyes as he perused the ample-bosomed redhead who was sitting on the table, trying to entice them by slowly hitching up her skirts to show them the embroidery on her stockings.

“What about Bates?” Derek asked, with no sign of his true intentions. “What’s his story?”

Lundy gave a drunken wave of his hand. “Bates and me grew up in the same street since we were boys.”

“Loyal, then?”

“Like a brother.”

Derek nodded, lowering his bleary gaze and doing his best to hide his triumph at this information.

It was exactly what he had wanted to know—at last.

Thank God.

Though bloody foxed, Lundy was still enough on his guard to have shied away from any sneaky questions regarding the committee. But just as Derek had hoped, the man had not anticipated this line of attack nor realized what it signified when he began asking idly about the people Lundy kept around him.

His henchmen.

Since Lundy’s rough-looking driver, Bates, had signed for the hideous rooster brooch, Derek had reasoned that it was altogether possible that Bates had stolen the jewel from his employer and pawned it to pocket the money. But in affirming Bates’s loyalty, Lundy had just given him strong reason to suspect that Lundy himself had given Bates the order to hawk his mother’s jewelry. Which, in turn, suggested that Lundy’s loud and constant show of opulence might all be a lie to mask the opposite reality.

God’s bones, if Lundy was having financial troubles, it had serious implications for the missing army funds.

“You boys want another pitcher?” another sultry taproom angel interrupted, propping her hand on her waist. Her tightly laced bodice drew their admiration as she waited for their answer, swaying to the tune of the fife and drum from the rustic musicians in the corner and twitching her skirts in a flirtatious little dance.

She had her eye on Derek, who watched her in amusement, but Lundy waved a hand for her to bring it on. “Get us somethin’ to eat, as well!” he ordered. “Lord, I fancy a big round arse like that on a woman,” he added as she turned away. The barmaid squealed as Lundy slapped her rear end with hearty laughter to punctuate his point. He turned back to Derek, grinning.

Charming.

“More of a leg man, myself,” he said dryly, but of course his mind was still revolving on the possibility of Lundy being behind the army fund’s theft.

Perhaps he had skimmed the money and lost it, Derek mused. Or perhaps he had invested it in such a way that he was having problems liquidating it. In either case, he surely had to be scrambling to replace the borrowed funds, per Lord Sinclair’s demand and promise of anonymity, to keep his neck out of the traitor’s noose.

If his current suspicions were correct, then Lundy had obviously wasted Derek’s time and played him for a fool, sending him all over Town to find the embezzler when it was Lundy himself all along. Of course, in regards to Lily, Derek had played Lundy for a fool, as well. His thoughts kept coming back to her, and at the moment, not just because he was besotted.

Why
hadn’t
Lundy proposed to the delicious Miss Balfour yet?

Derek thought of all the times the obnoxious Bess Kingsley had intruded upon Lily’s time with Lundy. The worst example had been at the garden party when Miss Kingsley had led Lundy away after that dashed bluebird had so amusingly sprinkled its good luck on Lily. Derek recalled his own displeasure with the way Lundy had taken Bess’s side against poor Lily. What was that that her precious Edward had said?

“I have to go and talk to Mr. Kingsley. We’ve been workin’ on a deal.”

Suddenly a keen suspicion began taking shape in his head. A deal, eh?

If Lundy was indeed secretly embattled with financial problems of some kind, then perhaps the reason he hadn’t asked Lily to marry him yet was because he was keeping his options open, waiting to see if he might have to cast Lily aside and marry Bess Kingsley for her dowry.

Good God, what if Bess Kingsley was Lundy’s fallback plan?

There was only one way to find out.

“I am thinking of staying in England rather than going back to India,” he announced all of a sudden, keeping his tone oh-so-casual.

“Really?”

He nodded. “Reckon I’ve given the army enough of my blood and sweat. Time to settle down and marry a rich woman, what?”

“Aha, like the ravishing Fanny Coates?”

He snorted. “She’s too smart to wed the likes of me. No, I was thinking of easier prey. I was thinking of offering for…Miss Kingsley.”

“Bess?” Lundy cried, starting forward.

Derek nodded.

“You’re joking!”

“Well, no! Not at all. Of course, she is a perfect nightmare, but I’m a younger son, Lundy. I’m not rich like you. Why shed my blood for fortune when seducing well-heeled members of the fair sex is such an easier and more pleasant way to make one’s fortune?” He took a drink. “I must be practical, and her dowry’s huge. Besides, it’s a simple matter of confining her to the country house while I have my fun in Town. With Fanny Coates,” he added with a rakish wink.

Lundy was staring at him in shock. “You don’t want Bess.”

“Why? You don’t have designs on her, do you? After all,” Derek continued smoothly, “you’ve got an understanding with Lily Balfour. Don’t you?”

“Aye, but—”

“But what?”

“Nothing.”

“You know, that’s really a fine and noble thing you’re doing, Lundy. Coming to her family’s rescue with all their debts and their falling-down manor house. Most men would shudder at the prospect of shouldering such a large financial burden for the sake of a lady, but not you. I know you admitted to me that you only want to marry her to enhance your own prestige, but even so, she’s lucky to have you.”

“Yes, well, that’s not the only reason.”

“No? How now, old man, you’re not in love?” Derek drawled.

“Hardly. I just want to get her in the sack,” Lundy said with a laugh.

“I see,” Derek answered coolly.

“Do you? Between you and me and the hole in the wall, I have always had a particular desire to roger a real lady, you know? Hard and fast, until she screamed out like a sailor’s whore. Little fantasy of mine, you might say. Doesn’t come much more blue-blooded than my haughty Lady Lily, and let’s face it, how else am I going to get a lass like that in my bed? Her poverty creates my opportunity.”

Derek stared at him in shock.

I think I may have to kill you for that,
he mused, remembering her innocence, her delicacy, her grace and her trust, and the reverence with which he himself had touched her. He was outraged, but he realized that if he let it show, his true reaction would blow his cover.

When he observed the harsh glint in Lundy’s eyes, it occurred to him that this could be the nabob’s way of paying him back for Derek’s fictitious designs on Bess Kingsley.

On the other hand, for Lundy to realize that that tactic would have any effect on him, he would’ve had to have noticed Derek’s attraction to Lily.

Determined to remain calm, he willed his wrath aside with a bland smile. “Really, old boy,” Derek said in a mild tone that belied the lethal rage that lay beneath it. “That’s no way to talk about one’s future wife.”

Lundy laughed at him.

“I’ll play a proper lady for you, Eddie,” the redhead posing on the table offered.

“I doubt it, my dumpling. You’ve too much of a randy sparkle in your eyes.”

“Have I?”

“Aye.” Lundy hooked a beefy finger under her ribbon garter and roused a tipsy laugh from her. “Give us a kiss, love.”

As he tugged the redhead lower to sample her wares, the brunette returned and suddenly fell into Derek’s lap.

“Hullo. My name’s Polly.”

“Er, hullo.” Derek paid her little mind as she began kissing his cheek and combing her fingers through his unbound hair, cooing her admiration in his ear.

“You’re so lovely, Major darlin,’ won’t you come upstairs and have a bit o’ fun?”

He could not manage to get her off his lap, but he made polite excuses in his state of distraction, still plagued by the question that lingered in his mind after Lundy’s ugly words about what he’d like to do to Lily.
Was he only saying that to infuriate me, or does he really intend to use her that way?

There was no way to be certain, but as he reached past Polly’s waist to toy with the bottle on the table before him, he realized it did not signify either way.

Because in that moment he made up his mind that there was definitely, absolutely, no bloody way in Hell that he was ever letting Lundy within a ten-mile radius of her. Under no circumstances would he allow the crude bastard to lay a finger on her.

She was not marrying Lundy, period.

There was a shout nearby as the redhead climbed onto Lundy’s lap, whereupon the pair tipped over their chair and went crashing onto the floor in a heap of drunken laughter, where they remained.

“Hell’s bells!” the girl on the floor exclaimed indignantly a moment later. “The oaf’s so drunk he’s passed out! Eddie! Wake up!”

His only answer was a loud snore.

A roar of laughter erupted from the girls, the innkeeper, and all the other drinkers in the pub, but Edward Lundy was oblivious, sprawled, sans dignity, half underneath the table. His ear-splitting snores filled the taproom.

Wouldn’t the other Distinguished Gentlemen of the Committee love to see this? Derek mused, but then Polly grew more demanding, draping one arm around his neck. Her other hand went a-roaming. “Major, love, let me give you one for free. You need it, I can tell. Besides, I think he likes me.”

Derek plucked her wandering hand from his crotch. “He, er, has a bit of a mind of his own. My dear Miss Polly—” He knew she was determined to persuade him, but Derek had Lily Balfour on the brain, and with Lundy passed out cold, there was little need to keep up the charade. “Perhaps you would go and fetch the landlord for me so I can see about getting a room for my unconscious friend.”

“What about a room for you and me?” she whispered.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m married,” he lied.

“Uh-oh, Major,” Polly murmured, nodding toward the door. “I think your wife just walked in.”

“What?” Derek looked over in question, then went motionless.

Lily was standing in the doorway, staring at him in disbelief.

“Good God,” Gabriel uttered beside her in the doorway, but Lily just stood there with the color draining from her face.

She could not believe her eyes.

Edward lay in a snoring heap on the floor, while Derek appeared to have been cavorting with the painted harlot on his lap. When he looked over and saw Lily and Gabriel, a stunned expression flashed across his face—but he could not have been more surprised than she was.

At the moment, her cavalry hero was the very sketch of lawless, rakish debauchery, his clothes rumpled, his shirt open. His black hair flowed over his shoulders, long and messy and wild. Two days’ unshaven scruff darkened his square jaw.

His silvery eyes were red and bleary with drink, but they widened in stunned remorse the instant he looked over and saw her. “Lily!” At once, he cast the tavern girl aside and swept to his feet, sending his chair clattering behind him with the violence of his motion. “What are you doing here?”

She shook her head at him, her relief that he was safe mingling with icy fury. “Obviously, wasting my time.”

With that, she pivoted on her heel and walked right back outside, flinging the tavern door angrily out of her way.

Marching back out to the pub’s surrounding yard, where they had spotted Edward’s big, black coach from the road, Lily’s mind was reeling.

But her heart—was crushed.

Mrs. Clearwell stuck her head anxiously out the window of her barouche. “Lily! Is he here? Is he safe?”

“He’s here. He’s safe. They’re both here,” she clipped out to assuage her fear. “They’re drunk.”

“Oh! Oh, dear…”

“Lily!” She heard his deep, drink-roughened baritone calling from behind her, but she did not turn around, striding toward the carriage. “Lily, wait! Would you just listen?”

She heard his swift, pounding footfalls as he ran after her, but when she felt his hand gently grasp her shoulder, she spun around and knocked it away.

“Don’t touch me!”

“I can explain—”

“Oh, but there’s really no need!” she cried, trying to sound nonchalant, failing because she was furious. “Please, don’t let me keep you from your amusements, Major!”

“This is not how it looks.”

“Keep your schoolboy lies to yourself,” she replied in a withering tone. “I’m going back to London.”

“Lily, would you just stop?”

“What for, you heartless bounder? What would be the point?” Tears flooded her eyes, and all of a sudden, she was so angry she could barely speak. “I have eyes. I can see that everything you said to me two days ago was only a game to you. Did you propose to her, too? Do you propose to different women every other day?”

He let out a frustrated exhalation and raked his hand through his hair. “Clearly, I am not at my best right now,” he said through gritted teeth, “but God’s truth, this isn’t anywhere near as bad as it looks.”

“Well, don’t bother explaining.” She shook her head at him. “I can’t believe I trusted you. Good-bye, Derek. I’ve let you muck up my plans long enough, and frankly, you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

Anger flooded his silvery-blue eyes as she started to turn away. His hand shot out and gripped her arm. “You listen to me. Your ‘plans’ are over.”

“You have no authority over me—”

“Lundy’s bankrupt.”

“What?”

“He’s broke. I’m fairly sure of it, and if I’m right, then he’s going to throw you over for Bess Kingsley any day now, for her dowry.”

“That’s impossible! How could Edward be bankrupt?”

“I don’t know
how
! He probably overspent trying to impress Society. The house, the stables, the horses, the jewels.” He furrowed his brow, searching her face, then he shook his head. “You wanted to know what I was up to when you stopped me in his house the other day. I lied to you—I had no choice. I was trying to get to his office so I could verify my suspicions by having a look at his files.”