Authors: Kathryn Caskie
"When you were in the balloon, I heard you urging the pilot into the trees. What were you doing up there?" He said nothing more, but instead remained quiet and awaited her answer.
"W-what?" As Meredith readied a plausible excuse on her tongue, the rake reached beneath his coat and withdrew her brass lens. The minute the sun glinted on it, the blood inside her veins stopped flowing and for an instant, she was sure she really would faint from the shocking evidence.
"This telescope was beside you. Where you perhaps
spying
!
"
"C-certain
l
y not! I was .. . bird-watching. Yes, and I thought I saw a very rare species in the trees."
His lip twitched upward. "Really, I have done a bit of
bi
r
d
-
watching in my day. What species do you mean?"
Heat pulsed in Meredith's earlobes. "The, u
m
... the scarlet rogue . . . finch." Hesitantly, she glanced up at him and caught the last remnants of a grin.
"I can't say that I am familiar with the
rogue finch
.
"
Meredith diverted her gaze and instead studied, with utmost fascination, a narrow row house they were passing. "Well, as I said, it is quite rare."
Criminy.
Did she just see Lady Ashton peering through her parlor window at them? Why, if she had not already had her reputation all but ruined, this would certainly do it.
As the massive horse trotted into Hanover Square, Meredith at last felt a modicum of relief, which height-
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ened the moment the rake stopped before number 17, and leapt from the horse.
That is until she realized she'd been left atop the great beast,
alone.
Her fingers scrabbled for the saddle's pommel and there she sat, trembling even as Alexander Lamont raised his broad hands to her.
"Allow me to assist, Miss Merriweather. Just let go of
the saddle."
Her eyes went wide in her head. "
I
...
I
... cannot," she stammered. The horse was going to bolt
,
she just knew it.
Suddenly, she felt his warm hands encircle her waist.
"I've got you now. Just relax your fingers."
But Meredith could not reply. She shook so violently that her teeth were chattering inside her head.
Just then the front door opened and her two great aunts,
the
ladies Letitia and Viola Featherton, stepped outside.
"Good heavens, gel!" her turnip-shaped aunt Letitia quipped. "What are you doing atop that huge horse, Meredith? Come down at once!"
Still Meredith could not manage a single word in reply. Instead she stared mutely back at her aunts and clacked her teeth at them.
"Sister, look at her fingers. They're as white as frost. The poor child is frozen with fear."
"I can see that, Viola. Which is why I wish for her to dismount." Then her aunt Letitia caught the rake in her sights. "You, sir. You're a big fellow. Will you pull her from the saddle? Just give her a good hard yank. We've seen her like this before. I fear there will be no talking her down."
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Alexander La
m
ont gave her aunt a curt nod then looked
£t
Meredith. "Are you prepared?"
Meredith's teeth played castanets in response.
Lud, how mortifying!
"Very well then, off you go." His fingers tightened around her waist and with one clean jerk, Meredith's grip on the saddle broke.
An instant later, she was standing on her own two feet on the flag way before her aunts' fashionable May-fair townhouse.
In perfect rakish form, Alexander Lamont offered Meredith his arm, which she had no desire but little choice to take. Then, appearing the most well-mannered of gentlemen, he escorted her up the few steps to her aunts.
"My ladies, allow me please to introduce myself. I am Alexander Lamont." He bowed before the two old women, and they each bobbed a quick curtsy in response. "I believe you are acquainted with my father, the Earl of Lansing."
"But of course. I vow, it has been several years since our paths have crossed." Aunt Letitia turned to her sister. "Viola, of course you remember young Lord Lansing here."
"I do indeed. And I daresay, you are the mirror image of your father in his youth." Viola smiled brightly. "How do you do, my lord?"
"I fear that my visit this day is not a pleasant one. You
r
—" He nodded toward Meredith then.
"Our
grandniece
.
"
The snowy-haired pair replied together.
"Of course. Your grandniece suffered a tremendous fall less than thirty minutes past, and I am convinced
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she did sustain some degree of injury." With great boldness, he reached out a hand and laid it, comfortingly, upon Viola's bony arm.
"You see, she fell from a hot air balloon, through an oak tree."
Both aunts snapped their heads around to Meredith.
"Are you injured, dear?" Aunt Viola asked.
Meredith opened her lips and, to her great relief, her teeth were no longer marching. "No, Auntie. I am perfectly well. This gentleman cushioned my fall with his body."
"Oh, how gallant you are, Lord Lansing!" Her aunt Letitia exclaimed. But then, she took note of the man's earth-marred coat and grimaced. "I do hope young Meredith did not cause you any distress, my lord. I daresay, she is a spirited gel and is always getting up to some mischief or another."
Meredith softly groaned her displeasure, but quieted when her aunt Viola gave her a hard, covert pinch.
"Why after all you've been through, my lord," her twig-thin aunt Viola began, "you must come inside and join us for a restorative."
"As much as I would enjoy joining you, madam, I am afraid that another pressing matter requires my attention."
No doubt,
Meredith mused. Pressing a certain French courtesan to a mattress would be her guess. Oh, she knew his sort all too well. No matter, Giselle would tell her all about it the next morn.
Then, Alexander La
m
ont pulled a visiting card from a concealed pocket in his dirt-encrusted coat and pressed it into Meredith's hand.
"Should you have further need of my services, Miss
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Merriweather, please do not hesitate to send for me." He flashed her a brilliant, knee-
w
eakening smile.
With a nod to her and to each of her aunts, Lord Lansing the rake bid them all farewell, leapt upon his massive horse and galloped from the square.
Her elderly aunts released pleased sighs.
Aunt Letitia caught Meredith's shoulder and hobbled along beside her toward the door. "My, he is a handsome devil, isn't he?"
"Indeed he is," Meredith murmured. "But then, they always are."
"Still, I feel I must caution you against forming any sort of connection with the gentleman, for I have heard rumors that in truth he is no gentleman at all."
Aunt Viola wrapped her thin fingers around Meredith's upper arm, but as they entered the house and turned into the parlor it was her sister she addressed. "What a thing to say, Letitia. You must have heard, Lord Lansing has reformed. And you know what the ladies say ... a reformed rake makes the very best husband."
"Nonsense!" Meredith exhaled her breath. "I for one do not believe it for a moment."
Aunt Letitia widened her faded blue eyes then shook her head at her sister, who winced when she took her meaning.
"Of course a good, sensible gentleman, like your Mr. Chillton, dear Meredith, should always be a lady's first choice." A wisp of a giggle slipped through her lips then. "I only meant that a reformed rake, might know how ... wel
l
... to please his wife."
Aunt Letitia chuckled heartily at that
,
until she toppled back against the settee beside her sister and gasped for breath.
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Finally, as the two elderly ladies quieted, Meredith crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin proudly.
"That may be, Auntie, but I am afraid no woman will ever know for certain because there is no such thing as a
reformed
rake."
Aunt Letitia lifted her thick white brows. "You seem quite sure of that, my dear."
"I am." Meredith gave herself a secret little smile.
"And with Alexander La
m
ont as my subject, I intend to prove it, to the satisfaction of all, before the season ends."
Her aunts' widened eyes met nervously and their lips moved in shocked unison.
"Oh, dear."