How the Marquess Was Won (34 page)

Adorable!

Christ. He didn’t think he’d ever used that word to describe anything in his entire life. Perhaps he ought to rethink his stance on cats. This one had a belly like a . . . like a
cloud
. . . one just yearned to touch it. And the blue satin ribbon tied about its neck was irresistibly whimsical.

For God’s sake!

He crept toward it, very slowly, cautiously lest it do something cats were famous for, like bolt. It opened one eye and watched his progress, not so much with alarm as with a sort of dispassionate curiosity. Perhaps it was too drugged from the sun to startle easily. He saw its fat belly rise and fall with a great cat sigh.

And when he was near, within distance of touching it, he lowered himself slowly into a crouch, crooning nonsense sounds like a looby, happy his knees didn’t crack like gunshots and send the beast scrambling.

Slowly, slowly, painstakingly slowly, he extended a hand and—how could he resist?—he succumbed to temptation: he sank his hand gently into that soft fur.

“There, wee Charbydis. Why don’t we—”

The cat’s limbs snapped closed over his arm like a bear trap and it sunk its teeth into his hand, ears flattened evilly.

Jules screamed like a woman.

The cat seemed to like this. It clung harder. It kicked him like a rabbit with its hind legs.

Jules shot to his feet. Charybdis continued to cling with all four limbs and all twenty claws. The pain was ridiculous. The cat blinked his beautiful eyes at Jules and readjusted its hold on him with jaw, gripping harder with teeth and claw, apparently intending to settle in for a while.

His ears were so flat they looked like bat wings. He met the marquess’s eyes with something like equanimity.

This was when he became aware that his scream had brought a crowd of worthy good Samaritans, workmen in caps and heavy boots and aprons, dashing to cluster about him, proving that not all hope was lost for the souls of Londoners.

But they’d all come to abrupt halt at a wary distance. And now they were watching an aristocrat dance around with a cat stuck to his arm as though they’d actually paid to see it.

“Perhaps if you dinna scream, guv,” suggested a man wearing a brown cap and a dirty linen shirt. “I think it encourages him.”

“I know it encourages me wife!” one of them in big worn boots said.

Chortles rippled through the crowd. Which maintained a distance, as if they were indeed watching a ring match.

Panting through the burning pain, Jules got a grip on the cat’s nape with his other hand and gave a tug. Charybdis’s eyes went wide with indignation.

One of the cat arms magically loosened enough to take a wild swipe across his torso.

An impressed roar went up. “Gentleman Jackson has naught on that wee puss!”

The bloody animal had
striped him through his linen shirt
! It burned like mad. He could just imagine the blood welling.

“Ohhh! Get ’im, puss, puss!” someone shouted cheerfully.

Jules was indignant.

“I’ve another cat you can have, Yer Lordship. Willna fight back! I fear this one will best ye, wee bow and all!”

Inevitably, the wagering began.

“I’ve got a fiver on the guv!”

“My blunt’s on the wee puss!”

Much energetic shouting ensued. The cat’s eyes brightened. He adjusted his grip on the marquess, as though he’d only just begun to fight.

“Will . . . any . . . of . . . you . . .
help
?” The marquess supported the cat’s furry, pliable spine with one hand and hoisted him up a bit, as it hurt less when the beast wasn’t
hanging
. An extravagant plume of a tail swished violently, thumping him in the ribs.

It
was
very soft.

“Well, ye see, Yer Lordship, we’re not certain of your goal,” said the man in the cap.

“It . . . is . . . the . . . beloved pet of a lady and I . . .
gah
. . . wish to return it to her. Alive. I wish to extract it from my . . .
oh God
. . .” he hissed a breath “. . . flesh. Does that make it any clear . . . clearer?”

The blue satin ribbon had come undone and was dangling almost rakishly, like a cravat.

“Ye’ve no choice in the matter now, do ye? I think the wee beast is permanently attached to ye.”

“Oh, no lady should ’ave a pet like that, sir. I’ve a badger what’ll suit. We can put a wee bow on it, too.”

The comedy team of Cap and Boots had everyone laughing merrily again.

“On the contrary,” Jules said grimly. “It suits her perfectly. I’ll give pound to each of you if you help me extricate this beast from my skin without harming it.”

Money turned the conversation serious. Swift discussion regarding strategy and payment ensued, and Charybdis proved no match for three men, who managed to oh-so-carefully pry its claws from Jules’s arm. And when a kipper was produced from one man’s packed meal, Charybdis was finally persuaded to trade his bite of the marquess’s arm for fish. Fish had been the downfall of many a determined cat.

Bleeding and punctured with a variety of little holes, the Marquess now held the untenably fluffy, preternaturally strong cat in his arms like a spring lamb—firmly but without squishing it. Its limbs paddled futilely below his crossed arms, but his bare flesh was out of snapping reach of the feline’s jaw.

Charybdis finally seemed resigned to his fate and settled in more or less comfortably, almost agreeably, and ceased thrashing. One might have thought he was the picture of the content feline. Apart, that was, from an occasional unearthly malevolent yodel that seemed to begin in the depths of his body before it emerged from its mouth.

It had the men who’d helped him crossing themselves and backing away uneasily.

“Keep yer pound notes, guv, and best of luck to ye now. I suspect the young lady in question lives in Hades, as that thing is demon spawn in a bow. And as there’s hope for my salvation yet, so I willna be takin’ yer money.”

He bowed, and spun on his big boot heels, and hurried off as fast as his sturdy short legs could carry him.

But the others extended their palms. Which is how Jules gave away his available cash, and had none for a hack to get him to White’s, or to anyplace else, for that matter.

He had no choice.

And so the Marquess Dryden walked to White’s with an intermittently yodeling cat in his arms.

Chapter 24

“H
ow . . . long ago?”

Phoebe’s limbs gave way, and she sank down onto a settee and stared blankly into the parlor. She’d returned from her exhilarating ride in The Row on a sunny day to . . . the end of life as she knew it.

Charybdis was gone.

“An hour ago or so. Right out the door he went after molesting the parrot.” Having delivered her news, Lady Charlotte drifted out of the room again, dog tucked under her arm.

“One of the maids likely left your chamber door open. We shall fire all of them,” Lady Marie assured Phoebe.

Good God.

“That won’t solve it,” Phoebe said dully.

“It might be amusing to do anyway,” Antoinette suggested to her sister. “It would certainly put the fear of God into the rest of the maids.”

Phoebe looked up at her, astounded and not entirely certain she was jesting.

“We’ll get you another pussycat.” Marie patted her knee.

Phoebe turned her head slowly, incredulously, toward Marie. It was her nightmare, to be stripped this vulnerable in front of these people. People who thought a cat was like a pelisse, and could be replaced by placing an order somewhere.

Her palms were ice. Her stomach a cauldron of misery.

“I have to go looking for him.” She stood up. Sat down. Stood up again.

She who fancied herself so
strong
felt cut off at the knees and panicky as a child. Who knew that all that remained between her and helpless devastation was a cat?

“He could be anywhere by now,” Marie soothed.

“You must be a joy at funerals, Marie,” Phoebe said tightly.

Antoinette frowned faintly at her sister. Then shrugged. It was clear that they hadn’t a notion what to do about this sudden interjection of a dreary minor chord into their gaiety.

Lisbeth drifted into the room and game to an abrupt halt, as though she’d noticed a stench. Clearly the atmosphere was funereal.

“What in God’s name happened?”

“Phoebe’s cat left,” Lady Marie explained.

Phoebe jerked her head up. “Left! For God’s sake, it wasn’t as though he boarded a hack bound for Drury Lane. He seems to have
escaped
from my room and run out the front door.”

Ah, she realized. And here it was. In fairy tales and myths, some terrible sacrifice is endured for wanting the forbidden, the out-of-reach.
Please not Charybdis. Please please please
.

“Someone must have left the door to your room open,” Lisbeth said mildly, searching out a reflective surface in the room to nervously admire her reflection. “A maid, most likely.”

Phoebe looked up at her slowly then.

And
knew
.

Lisbeth’s head inevitably drifted back around, drawn by the force of Phoebe’s stare.

They stared at each other so long that the Silverton sisters began to shift restlessly.

You have everything,
Phoebe thought.
And still you feel so powerless that you had to best me, somehow. You had to take my cat from me. You’ll have Jules in the end, and
still
.

“I hope someone finds your cat,” Lisbeth said very kindly, after a moment. Her stare very fixed.

“You’d best.” Phoebe still hadn’t blinked.

Gratifyingly, Lisbeth paled and dropped her eyes.

If nothing else, she wanted Lisbeth to worry about sleeping under the same roof with her.

Lisbeth cleared her throat. “Jules is late for our ride in The Row. I hope nothing befell him, too.”

Jules. Jules Jules Jules.
How Lisbeth loved to use his name.

Use it all you want. Marry him. He’ll never really be yours, and you’ll never know it.

Or maybe you will.

Lady Silverton drifted into the room again, Franz in her arms. He seemed happy to be safely back in the harbor of the woman’s arms and not down on the vast treacherous sea of marble.

“Oh, my dear Miss Redmond, I see that you’re dressed for riding. I neglected to tell you that the marquess was here momentarily, but he dashed out again. Is he afraid of dogs, by any chance? Because I fear Franz was barking when he arrived, and he turned around and ran right out the door.”

“It seems everyone is fleeing our town house today,” Lady Marie chirped.

T
wenty minutes later, striding past a series of wide-eyed crowds who crossed the street to avoid him, Jules arrived at White’s. Charybdis only stopped making noise when they entered the club. He in fact fell so abruptly silent the marquess glanced down to ensure he hadn’t expired from an excess of ill temper.

But no, the cat was looking around curiously with those big intelligent green eyes, for all the world like a prospective member who found the place wanting.

Jules ignored the footman who reached out for his coat and hat, then retracted his hands in shock, eyes bulging, when he saw Jules’s bundle.

And as he strode through the place, the cat’s fat tail continued switching, which helped clear the omnipresent layer of smoke.

The tail smacked right into Waterburn as he strolled past.

“What the
devil
—” The blond giant swiveled, looking ready to call someone out. His eyes widened.

“Handsome beast,” he said to the marquess, in his usual tone of reluctant admiration. “How much did you pay for it?”

“It’s surprising what can be had for no cost at all, Waterburn. Why don’t you pet it?”

Waterburn stretched out a hand.

“MeeeOWRReeeoooooo
wwwwwwrrrrrrrr
!”

Multisyllabic, operatic, blood-chilling. It was the sound of a hungry, angry, treed panther preparing to fling itself down onto unsuspecting humans.

Colonel Kefauver shot bolt upright, eyes wild. “Fetch me my blunderbuss at
ONCE
, Haji!” he bellowed. “That
demmed tiger ate those villagers
! We’ll get ’im this ti . . .”

He blinked a few times, then slumped and surrendered again to the arms of Morpheus.

It was safe to say that everyone in White’s had frozen in mid-motion. Had lowered newspapers. Had paused their drinks on the way to mouths. Even the steam seemed to cease curling from teacups.