They were alive. They were also damp, dirty, exhausted, and homeless. “Enough,” Lord Gardiner declared. “Tuthill, harness up the carriage. It’s time we got out of here. It’s beyond foolish to survive a fire and perish of pneumonia. Besides, whoever set the deuced fire might still be about, getting up to who knows what other mischief.” He stood closer to Annalise, shielding her with his larger body while his eyes tried to pierce the shadows.
Annalise agreed. “I am certain one of Rob’s disreputable friends must own an inn or someplace with rooms to let. No respectable hotel would accept three such ragamuffins as we appear, nor Clyde, of course.”
“Gammon. You are all coming to Gardiner House in Grosvenor Square.”
“Now who is being a nodcock? You know you cannot take me to Grosvenor Square. I don’t even have any shoes!”
“What the devil have shoes got to do with anything? You’ll be safe there, that’s all that matters,” he insisted.
Annalise took his arm and pulled him away from Henny’s hearing. “Gard, you cannot take me to your house,” she hissed in his ear. “Your mother is there, isn’t she?”
“Of course she is, or else I’d take you to Cholly’s or Aunt Margaret’s.”
“Has all that smoke shriveled your brain, my lord?” Annie stomped her foot, then recalled she was barefoot and got even angrier that Gard was being so obtuse. “You cannot bring your mistress home to your mother, my lord earl.”
“Stop throwing the title in my teeth, little shrew. You are not my lover at all, or did I miss something between ‘Oh, Gard’ and ‘Fire’?” He put his finger to her lips when she would have protested that the intent was there, if not the deed. “I am not bringing my mistress. I am bringing my fiancée. Mother will be delighted.”
“Gard, you cannot tell your mother such a Banbury tale!”
“No such thing, my pet. It’s true, and always was. I have intended to make you my wife for ages now. That’s the best way to protect you permanently from fortune hunters, be they relatives or suitors, and to restore your reputation. My mother is one of the highest sticklers. No one will dare criticize her daughter-in-law.” And, he said to himself, she’ll make damned sure there will be nothing to criticize while we are under her roof. He determined to get a special license as soon as possible.
“No, Gard, I cannot let you do this. We can simply go to an inn. My reputation be hanged!”
“That’s very well for you to say, my dear, in your chameleon disguises, but what about me? A respectable wife is about the only thing that can salvage the micefeet you’ve made of my good name! We’re going to Gardiner House, and that’s all.”
*
Ross was right: His mother was thrilled to welcome the prospective Lady Gardiner and her servants even though the hour was late. An emergency, he explained, a fire having destroyed Miss Avery’s lodgings.
Miss Avery, the heiress? An earl could reach higher on the social ladder, but the gel was Arvenell’s granddaughter, and that counted for nearly as much as the fortune. Lady Stephania was liking the match better and better, as long as the chit wasn’t the moonling gossip was claiming. Gard was able to reassure her on that score, and that Miss Avery was respectably chaperoned by her old nanny.
The dowager floated down the stairs in a drift of chiffon, delighted with the news she could relate to her husband’s spirit. Maybe now the old fool would let her sleep in peace. She smiled as she let Ross lead her to the Adams drawing room, where Miss Avery was waiting.
The smile died a painful death when Lady Gardiner finally confronted her promised replacement. Annalise stood by the fireplace, her boyishly short hair in damp tendrils, her skin as soot-darkened as a blackamoor’s, her feet bare, and her body barely covered by a man’s oversize robe. And she was clutching a cage of rodents.
“Mice!” the countess shrieked, throwing herself into the nearest pair of arms, which happened to belong to Ingraham. The ancient valet had come to see if he could assist his master after the harrowing events, and to get a good look at his lordship’s intended. One look was enough to drain the blood from his head and send it to his feet. Being embraced by the countess was one shock too many. He collapsed onto the floor, taking the countess with him, where she remained screaming that the fifth earl was spinning in his grave, that, with a Bedlamite for a mother, the seventh earl was like to have two heads or think he was Nero, that if the rats were not destroyed immediately, she’d have the sixth earl drawn and quartered.
*
Gard was not sure which was worse, the fire or his mother’s tantrum. He knew the latter left Annalise more shaken. For that reason, and others too base to consider, he did ask Henny to sleep on a pallet in the room assigned to Miss Avery.
“She’ll feel better having someone familiar nearby in a strange house,” he explained, “and there will be less bibble-babble about us arriving in the middle of the night if the servants know you slept with her.”
Henny was a bit intimidated by the grandeur around her, and the earl in his own surroundings was not the handsome lad who ate in her kitchen. He was a peer of the realm, all right, aristocratic down to his bare toes. She curtsied. “Yes, my lord. As long as you think it’s necessary.”
The night had been hell except, of course, for the few moments of euphoria with Annalise in his arms. Gard reflected that sending that Tuthill scoundrel off to find a bunk in the stable was nearly as enjoyable.
“So you ain’t above a few dirty tricks of your own, eh, gov’nor?” Rob muttered on his way to another hard, itchy, lonely bed in another cold, smelly stall. “You better not think it’s necessary for too long if you know what’s good for you.”
Lord Gardiner just grinned.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Annalise couldn’t stay. She couldn’t sleep, either, so she lay in bed, listening to Henny’s soft snores, counting all the reasons she had to leave Gardiner House and its owner, instead of counting sheep. The sheep would have looked back at her with their placid woolly faces as they marched across the landscape of her dreams. Instead, she saw Gard, with one dark, raised brow, an unruly curl hanging on his forehead, and that soft, one-sided smile.
She couldn’t accept his offer of marriage. Except the infuriating man had not actually offered, he had ordered their engagement the same way he ordered dinner or ale or a hot bath, without a by-your-leave for Annie. He was too used to having his own way, was my lord Gardiner, too arrogant and domineering for her taste, Annalise tried to convince herself. He was also kind and noble, with a deep-seated sense of honor that often collided awkwardly with his rakish, raffish ways. Like now, when he was planning to marry a girl who had agreed to become his mistress.
Annalise knew he was intending to marry her to keep her safe and to keep her name from the gutter. Oh, he liked her, too, and desired her, she was well aware, but, heavens, the man was a rake. He liked a different woman every day. He was infatuated with her now, but how long before the bonds of matrimony became a noose? How soon before he resented being forced to do the honorable thing, resented her? How long before he strayed? She did not think she could bear it when his eyes no longer gleamed when she entered a room, or he started to find pressing business elsewhere. If only he loved her…but that was a sheep of a different color.
And she’d never be accepted in his world, no matter what he claimed. Annalise saw the way the dowager responded. If his own mother could not welcome with equanimity a scandal-ridden hoyden, the rest of society was sure to be even less accepting of coal-king Bradshaw’s granddaughter. She’d be cut; he’d be ostracized from the life he enjoyed. Or else he would still be invited everywhere—without her.
All of that was assuming, of course, that they lived long enough to face the
ton
. Sir Vernon was not like to give up, not even if they married. He’d fight for the money, dragging the sordid case through public trials, or else he’d resort to more villainous efforts like the fire. Annalise had no doubt as to the blaze’s instigator, nor that he’d try again. If the baronet was never to see a groat of her fortune, he’d want to get even. Annalise was already responsible for the destruction of her aunt’s little house in Bloomsbury; jeopardizing this magnificent mansion was unthinkable. Besides, earls made large targets.
Gard could never be convinced to go into hiding, she saw that now; the earl was just fool enough to challenge Sir Vernon, or do something equally as nonsensical. Sir Vernon was not constrained by the rules of honor, so she’d never have a moment’s peace, worrying for Gard’s very life. Her friends were already in danger, especially Rob, whose past could not afford scrutiny, and every minute they remained with her magnified their peril. She had to leave.
At dawn Annalise rose, washed, and donned her riding habit and a pair of boots that had been placed in the dressing room for her. The boots were too big, but she stuffed some handkerchiefs from a drawer into the toes. When Henny went off with Rob to see if any of their possessions could be salvaged from the fire, Annalise sat down and wrote a note. She was going to Northumberland, she penned, where she should have gone all along. The duke was bound to accept her rather than see her go into service in his own neighborhood. She had enough money for the coach ride, and she’d be long gone before Sir Vernon stirred from his bed, so they were not to worry or try to follow. She sealed the note and marked “Henny” on the front.
No words came to fill the blank sheet she intended for Lord Gardiner. Her hand could not possibly form the letters to spell good-bye, and her tears would have smudged the ink anyway.
Shutting the bedroom door firmly behind her, Annalise went down the marble stairwell and asked the venerable butler standing at attention there the way to the stables.
Foggarty bowed and gave her the direction. Miss Avery
looked
a proper lady, he judged, which just went to show how deceptive appearances can be. Everyone knew you didn’t do anything to excite a madwoman to violence, though, so he did not comment that proper young ladies never left the door without an escort and they always waited for a horse to be brought around to them. She didn’t ask about the mice; he didn’t ask her destination. Having closed the door behind her, Foggarty wiped his brow. Ingraham was right: It was time they retired.
*
Annalise turned the corner for the Gardiner House stables and kept on going. She was familiar enough with London to know she could find a hackney stand at the next intersection; the jarvey was bound to know the coaching inns. She regretted having to leave Seraphina behind, but Rob was sure to take good care of the mare and Annalise would send for them all when it was safe. She regretted having to leave the earl even more. Who will take care of him? she wondered. Certainly not his high-strung mother or doddery retainers. Not a one of them was liable to tease him into laughter or make him lose that awesome dignity. Of course there was an entire continent full of women just waiting to smooth back his hair and erase the longing from his sky-blue eyes.
With tears in her green eyes, Annalise did not see the coach and four following her progress.
*
It wasn’t much of a struggle. Sir Vernon threw a blanket over her head from behind, then Stavely carried her to the carriage. The baronet held an ether-soaked cloth over her face until she stopped thrashing about.
When she woke up, her mouth was dry, her insides were in an uproar, and Sir Vernon was across the coach from her, reading a newspaper. “Good afternoon, Annalise,” he greeted her politely, setting down the paper and pouring her a glass of wine from a bottle by his side. “Here, have some of this. It will help settle your stomach. Unfortunate side effect of the stuff. Nasty, but effective. Oh, and thank you. That was very kind of you to keep to your early hours, especially after such an eventful evening.”
She took the glass and drank most of it down, hoping the spirits would clear the muddle in her head, too. The baronet refilled her glass and leaned back, smiling. It was not a smile to warm an abducted heiress’s heart.
“Where are you taking me?” Annalise demanded. “I won’t marry Barny no matter what you do!”
“I’m afraid that is no longer an option, my dear. Nor is my plan to keep you under lock and key. Your noble protector promises to put a spoke in that wheel, also. Too bad. Those were the more pleasant choices. No, my dear, you’ve been a bit too much trouble already. I thought first we might simply dispense with your company somewhere along the road, but that’s too chancy. So we are going to Dover right now, and then on to Vienna. My poor ailing stepdaughter needs a change of scenery, according to the doctors’ recommendations. Where better than the gaiety of the Peace Congress, where all of Europe is convened?”
“You are taking me to Aunt Rosalind?” Annalise asked optimistically.
“That is who you wanted to visit, isn’t it? Regrettably, somewhere between Calais and Vienna, my unfortunate, deluded ward, you shall run away with the footman Stavely, who is, incidentally, driving this carriage.”
Annalise made an unladylike noise. “I wouldn’t have Barny. What makes you think I’d wed that scum of a servant?”
“Oh, there needn’t be any wedding, although I am afraid Stavely might insist on his conjugal rights. No, I’ll go on to Vienna, mourning your loss but washing my hands of such a hopeless case. I
won’t have to give up your estate until you reach your majority, naturally, since you made such an unsuitable match and without my permission.”