She put one forefinger on his chest. “I’m not distressed anymore. You’re quite foxed and you’re hiding a broken heart. You made me take off my dress just to get the key, didn’t you? That was very wicked of you.”
He took her fingers and touched them with his lips in a practiced gesture of gallant submission. Then he kissed her once more, lightly, on the mouth.
“But you are very beautiful, Lady Elizabeth. I would have enjoyed your shedding your gown even without an ulterior motive.”
He strode to the door and unlocked it, then tossed her the key and winked, a wink filled with seductive humor.
“Since, as it happens, I do not prefer boys.”
* * *
The footman intercepted Fitzroy as he made his way down the stairs. The man did not look surprised to find him there.
“My lord? There’s a message for you. If you would follow me?”
Fitzroy was not expecting it. He usually made the contact himself. Did Lord Grantley think the lovely Countess of Carhill was the one? If so, he was very plainly wrong. She was looking for nothing more than a new lover.
He strode rapidly after the footman and was let into a small room off the hallway, paneled in oak. Dressed in a long cloak, a woman was waiting at the fireplace. A small bag lay on the floor beside her.
As Fitzroy closed the door she spun about. Her fair skin was slightly flushed and beads of dampness lay along her dark hairline. Her face reflected his own strong bones. She also had something of the family’s cavalier grace. Yet she was obviously close to tears.
“Fitzroy! Oh, thank heavens! The most dreadful thing has happened. You must come away at once. There may just be time, if you act quickly enough.”
He walked up to her and laid his palm lightly on her forehead.
“I thought you were unwell, Mary. You still have some fever, you silly child. Why the devil have you come out alone like this? Isn’t someone with you?”
She caught at his coat sleeve. “Oh, I’m fine, really! It’s just a cold. I brought Smithers. I had him send to your house to get your phaeton for me. Listen. It’s urgent. Indeed, it’s a disaster.”
Fitzroy helped her to a chair. “Then it’s Quentin. What’s he done now? Ravished Cook in her rocking chair? Gamed away my best team to some card sharp from White’s? Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it. So don’t cry like a goose, I beg of you.”
“I am
not
crying. It’s just this silly cold.” Lady Mary wiped her eyes and looked ruefully up at him. “If only it were just that! No, Quentin has run away with a girl—stolen her out of school. And he was foolish enough to take one of Papa’s carriages. The ostler told my maid, and she finally found enough courage to tell me what was afoot. Oh, Fitzroy, what on earth are we going to do about our mad brother?”
Fitzroy wrung his hand through his hair. He was torn between genuine distress and laughter.
“Damn his eyes! To wish him posthaste to perdition would be a good start. But first, you will sit there, my dear sister, and compose yourself. I will get you a glass of wine, then you may tell me the whole. Quentin was no doubt foxed. He will wake up beside the poor wench in the morning and regret the whole thing. Then he will beg me to pay off her father and provide for the babe, so the Black Earl doesn’t find out. And for the sake of family honor, and as an alternative to blowing out his brains, I shall do it.”
Lady Mary blew her nose. She was trembling a little, but she allowed him to ring the bell and ask the footman to bring wine.
“This time it’s
serious
, Fitzroy.”
He kept his voice very gentle. “I don’t question it.” He stroked the hair back from her damp forehead and gave her his own clean handkerchief. “Most of the scapegrace things Quentin does are serious. Why else have I been trying to extricate him from them since he was born? Does Father know?”
“I don’t know. Oh, dear Lord, I hope not.”
“Then perhaps I can catch them before any harm is done, and return the foolish child to her convent.”
Mary wiped her eyes again and smiled suddenly. “She was at Miss Able’s Academy, where I went myself. It’s very select. Miss Able will die of chagrin.”
The door opened and the wine was delivered. As soon as the servant left, Fitzroy turned back to his sister.
“Tell me what you know, from the beginning.”
“This isn’t just a mad start, Fitzroy. And I don’t think money will suffice this time. Apparently he’s had it planned for weeks. He met the girl at a weekend house party given by some mutual friends. In spite of his reputation, it’s rare that he’s actually not received, of course. After all, Quentin is your brother.”
Fitzroy grinned at her. “I should think it counts a great deal more that he’s also a son of the Earl of Evenham. After all, am I so very respectable?”
Sipping at her wine, she grinned back. “Barely, I suppose. But being our father’s heir is bound to give you an entrée everywhere, and Quentin benefits from that. He certainly uses it. Otherwise, there’s no comparison between you.”
“For I have the courtesy of being Viscount Tarrant, while Quentin must make do with being just plain Mister Mountfitchet. I wonder sometimes why he hasn’t shot me over it. So he met this schoolgirl and arranged an elopement? Who is the intended bride?”
Lady Mary set down her wine and looked up at him.
“That’s the worst of it, Fitzroy. It’s not just any schoolgirl. It’s Lady Joanna Acton, and she’s not even out.”
“Dear God!”
Fitzroy collapsed into a chair. Then he dropped his head to his knees to bury his face in his hands.
“It is very bad, isn’t it? If she’s ruined, Lord Acton will demand a match—”
He looked up, fighting back a desperate, wild laughter. At the look of open despair on her face, he let it loose.
“A wedding? Then Quentin’s cat
will
be out of the bag!”
Lady Mary’s eyes filled with indignation. “How can you laugh? She’s the Earl of Acton’s favorite daughter, Fitzroy.”
He sprawled back in his chair. “But that’s not really the worst of it, unfortunately.”
“What can be worse? Oh, Fitzroy, will you please go after them?”
“Of course.” He stood up and rang the bell. A footman appeared at the door. “Lord Evenham’s carriage for Lady Mary, and have my phaeton brought around. We are leaving. Tell Lady Carhill that I am regrettably indisposed. Her excellent wine and the heady intoxication of the company force me to retire early from her enchanting entertainment.”
The servant bowed and stepped out.
“I’ve brought you a change of clothes, Fitzroy.” Lady Mary indicated the bag. “And Smithers is already waiting with your phaeton. I just hope that unholy team of yours won’t overset you. I was terrified coming here, perched up there above those huge wheels like a crow in a tree.”
Fitzroy leaned down and kissed his sister with real tenderness.
“Bless you, my child, for your bravery, sense, and foresight. With my bays in harness, it’s the fastest thing on the turnpike.”
He opened the bag and pulled out a driving coat, buckskin breeches, and tall boots. While Lady Mary modestly averted her eyes, Fitzroy changed rapidly from his evening clothes and stuffed them into the bag.
“Oh, Fitzroy! What if her family finds out? Will one of her brothers call Quentin out?”
He pulled on the black boots. “Very likely, dear sister. And I have no doubt that it will be her brother Richard, which adds some considerable irony to the whole situation.”
“Why?”
“Like Montague and Capulet, ‘Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?’ I’m decent now. You may look up.”
She glanced into his face, alarmed. “What ancient quarrel?”
“Lady Joanna’s eldest brother is Captain Richard Acton—more correctly known now as Lord Lenwood—my erstwhile comrade in the Peninsula, who now resides, so I hear, in domestic bliss at Acton Mead. He has a wife I’ve never met and a baby daughter. And he has hated me ever since those last days in Spain.”
“Hated you? Good Lord! Why?”
His heart contracted a little, but his voice still held an undertone of raillery.
“Lord Lenwood has a regrettably old-fashioned idea of the gallantry due to the female sex. I had the misfortune to trample on his tender sensibilities.”
“What on earth do you mean? Oh, Fitzroy, what really happened in Spain?”
“Hush! That’s not our present problem. Just know that Lenwood has his reasons. And now, it seems, my rakehell brother has run away with his little sister, and probably ravished her under a hedge. Add this family mishap to my other transgressions, and Richard Acton, Viscount Lenwood, will doubtless shoot me on sight.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, the phaeton thundered north out of London. Once clear of the city streets, Fitzroy gave his team their unsteady heads. The horses lunged into the harness, excited at being allowed to gallop into the night. He was leaving behind all of his business in town. He hadn’t even made his report to Lord Grantley, a serious breach of both duty and manners.
Ruthlessly, Fitzroy thrust aside every other concern but the tyranny of this immediate crisis. Richard Acton’s little sister Joanna, for God’s sake, and his own prodigal brother, Quentin!
He supposed she must be a beauty. Quentin would never bother with a plain miss. Yet his usual entanglements were with opulent opera singers or bad but beautiful actresses.
Why the devil had Quentin decided to elope with an English schoolgirl, for God’s sake, and an earl’s daughter to boot? And why the hell this particular earl’s daughter?
The last time Fitzroy had seen the chit’s brother, he had been known simply as Captain Richard Acton. Although the courtesy title, Lord Lenwood, was his then, he rarely used it. But he was a splendid soldier and a man of infinite integrity. He and Fitzroy had served together on more than one dangerous, dirty mission against Napoleon, and forged the kind of friendship that only shared combat could bring.
Yet on that last day in the camp outside Orthez, Captain Richard Acton had threatened to shoot down Captain Lord Tarrant if their paths ever crossed again—and for good cause.
If their roles had been reversed, Fitzroy doubted that he would have been as forbearing.
He concentrated on the flying manes of his horses and the singing cadence of their hooves. Acton and Mountfitchet. Montague and Capulet.
The devil was determined to pile difficulties onto his head. He didn’t have time for one of Quentin’s foolhardy escapades just now.
Yet Fitzroy hoped to God that word of this latest misadventure wouldn’t reach the ears of his father, the Black Earl. Lord Evenham had a short temper and very little patience with his sons reenacting the classics.
Let Helen but smile, and Trojans and Greeks war to the death.
With a slightly grim smile, Fitzroy thought about the lovely Lady Carhill, and how delectable she had looked in her shift. He hoped he had not made her into a permanent enemy.
Joanna sat in the parlor of the Swan Inn gazing distractedly into the fireplace. She was beginning to wish she had chosen someone other than Quentin Mountfitchet for this particular adventure. For now he was getting visibly drunk. He sat opposite her in a large wing-backed chair, his booted feet tossed onto a stool, and he was working his way steadily through several bottles of claret.
“We’re stuck here for the day,” he said. “Do you mind very much?”
His voice was not slurred, and he did not look in the least disheveled. Brown hair curled gaily over his handsome forehead. His cravat was still neatly tied in the
mathematical
. His green eyes were only faintly bloodshot, and there was just the slightest increase in his air of abandonment.
Obviously Mr. Mountfitchet could hold his liquor, even after a night without sleep. Nevertheless, it did not bode well for their early arrival at Harefell.
“Are you quite sure that the curricle cannot be repaired until tonight?” Joanna could not hide the exasperation in her voice. “Then, pray, why do we not take the public stage?”
It took him just a moment too long to reply.
“Lost all the blunt, Jo. I’m sorry. Rotten run of luck, don’t you know?”
Joanna stood up and flung down the gloves she had been holding. She was still wearing her pelisse, although the parlor was warm.
“Only my brothers call me ‘Jo’, sir. And I am perfectly well aware that while I sat in here and ate my breakfast alone, you indulged in a few rounds of whist with some other gentlemen in the common parlor. I am also aware that you lost very deeply. You told me so at least thirty minutes ago, when you first rejoined me in here.”
“I did?”
“Yes, yet you seem to be making no efforts to mend the situation, and I refuse to believe you do not have credit. It is clear dawn. We have been here for three hours. The sun is shining on a frosty world, bright with promise. The rooster cried out his possession of the midden some time ago. So why on earth are we still sitting in this parlor, Mr. Mountfitchet? Good heavens! If you don’t care to accompany me any farther, I shall travel on by myself.”
She picked up her gloves and began to walk toward the door.
In a few long strides, Quentin arrived there before her.
“Oh, no! That would be beyond the bounds of anything. You’re very pretty, Lady Joanna, and charmingly young. It would be dangerous for you to attempt to travel alone. I rather fancy sharing your company a little longer. After all, I brought you this far. Don’t you think you owe me something for that?”
She had no idea that he could move so fast. Quentin stood with his back pressed against the door and his arms folded very deliberately across his chest. He grinned at her and tossed back an errant lock of hair. The grin sent dimples into both cheeks.
Joanna looked back at him quite calmly.
“Yes, I know you admire my raven locks. You told me so at Fenton Stacey when we first met. And although I feel quite ragged for lack of sleep, you remain a perfect replica of a Greek coin. Your profile is flawless, and your cravat the very model of attractiveness. An entire night of debauchery has barely disarranged it. All that is quite beside the point.”