My Lady Series Bundle (43 page)

"It is this weekend, Gabriella, and I will wager you ten pounds that I can guess who you are even masked."

Gabriella laughed. "You have a wager, Radford dear!"

Just then the butler entered the ballroom saying, "Your grace, the baby, young master Avon is awake. You asked to be notified."

"Oh yes, thank you, Jevers," Gabriella replied, turning to kiss Drummond on the cheek, before saying, "I will leave you gentlemen to your schemes, and go feed our son, Drummond."

Moments later found the three men sitting in Drummond's study as Radford posed his question to Drummond, and Drummond replied.

"Your sources are excellent, Radford. Better than mine in individual instances. I find it extraordinary that they cannot unearth a single speck of history on this woman." Drummond pursed his lips staring intently out the window. At times like this Radford could envision seeing the mechanisms and calculations of a brilliant mind churning beneath Drummond's exterior. "What does she look like? Describe her to me," Drummond asked abruptly.

Radford had expected this. He was not so far off his game as to completely have lost his cunning. "It was an intimate and clandestine meeting. I never saw the lady's features." Drummond turned his eagle gaze upon him. "Yes, Drummond, I find that suspect and disturbing."

"Your conclusions?" Drummond asked.

"We are back in England. The war is over and the Vienna Agreement for peace is long since implemented," Radford paused. "One would hope calmer times are upon us, yet we would all admit our great sovereign England is not without enemies still." Radford took a breath, thoughtfully rubbing his shadowed jaw with two fingers. "Unless you conclude otherwise, Drummond, the lady could be a spy. If I were not who I am though, I would certainly think otherwise."

"It is true, Drummond," Saxon said. "You have always said that the Russian count, Alexei Tropov, discovered at least some of our Archangels names. He then sold them in part to win his release from his country's assassination lists after he blundered in Spain and he failed his mission. Then we all knew for certain that he was a Russian spy."

Saxon looked to Radford. "I remember, Rad, you were playing a rather high undercover game with the United Irishmen Society in Dublin at the time, watching for any further evidence of their possibly going with Napoleon. Drummond pulled you off that right after Alexei left Spain."

This was exactly why he could not let it drop
, Radford thought. He had run all of these possibilities through his mind and some of the connections were too startling. He was a man that had always been ahead of everyone else in the movements and directions in life. Always one step ahead of any game. Except for now. Now he was without footing, not skipping ahead. He did not like it. He did not like it one bit. Yet, what he really desired was for it to all have been just a simple, yet rousingly complex assignation with a flirtatious woman.
Judas
, could it not simply be thrilling without nefarious inclinations, he lamented to himself silently?

"Yes," he answered simply, because all of their thoughts were combined. "But to what end really? I am out of the spying game for several years now."

"Napoleon lives," Drummond said, gazing at them. "Caged, but living and while he does he is always scheming. Or," Drummond paused. "Others scheming for him, to use his great propensity to embolden the masses. Although I have word, he is ill."

"She cannot be overlooked then," Radford said. "Lady Nia O'Shea must be placed. Given a name to start with."

"I will, of course, go through my channels to discover what I can," Drummond said, standing. "But it appears, Radford, the discovery and placing mission is solely upon your shoulders."

Radford nodded, standing with Saxonhurst following. "I understand," Radford said.

"I hope this does not interfere with the artifice of your sordid woman chasing, Radford," Drummond added with a shrewd twinkle in his gray eyes. "I am not certain if I should commend you for your audacity or give you a pocket full of French sheaths."

Radford allowed his only comment to be a superior smirk in Drummond's direction.

"Y
er a long legged cove, ain't ya there, Red?"

Nia looked down from under the brim of her hat at the barrel-chested man leering up at her with cockeyed smirking. The mare she sat on sensed her unease and shifted nervously beneath her. Nia wondered once again at the sanity of Lord Benny for hiring these two, ner-do-well thieves, to help in her next charade with Radford. But she knew enough from her middle class upbringing in Dublin's rougher streets not to let her nervousness show.

"And you had just better get to doing your
job
, bloke, if you want to see the rest of your payment."

Nia tried a sneer, but she thought it held little effect as the leering Jake just snorted, saying, "I'd pay that noble blighter back the same amount, just to see you in these britches. Ain't that right, Nat?"

Nia watched Jake look to the other thin-framed ruffian named Nat, who nodded as though an eager puppet to Jake's commands. Jake's hefty-lined face turned back to her with his hand landing on top of her thigh, as he said with his cockney accent thick in lewd suggestion, "I bet yer a feisty ride, Red."

There was nothing for it, Nia realized, she had to take control quickly. Damn Benny, she would be better off just doing it on her own, she thought, as she lashed her short riding crop down across Jake's hand. She stung herself in the process as Jake yelled, and she shouted.

"Touch me again and you will get worse, you ass!" The mare beneath her danced sideways and Nia brought her to a halt with the reins. "The likes of you are a penny a dozen, Jake. I will pay someone else for this job if you cannot follow instructions!" Jake glared up at her with his unkempt jawline squared in anger as he cradled his injured hand. "What's it to be, Jake?" Nia demanded, glaring down at him. "Convince me I should not go and find someone else!"

"We need the money!" Jake exclaimed. But his words entirely betrayed the retribution that she could see lurking in his dark gaze. He gave her one last challenging look, then he turned and marched to his horse saying, "We'll do what you say for the money." It was a declaration that she had little faith in, she thought, as she cautiously watched Jake turn to Nat and order, "Mount up!"

Nia nodded reluctantly to them, wishing that she did not feel that she had to follow Benny's directions so closely. Benny had hired the two ruffian thieves, yet she sorely wanted to just ride away and find a pair of her own blimey thieves. She consoled herself with the fact that she was on a swift mare and if any more shenanigans arose she would just gallop away. Besides that, she had been very careful to make sure neither man carried any weapons. And as per Benny's instructions on the matter, she carried the only pistol tucked into the waistband of her britches.

It was going to be, she, that was to rob Radford in his coach on the way to his country estate and Jake and Nat, were only along for realism and to help her stop the coach. It was intended to be another outrageous flirtation and attempted seduction encounter, where she would enter Radford's coach, holding him at a sword point for all variety of seductive mischief. A thrilling lark that promised to be sexually titillating for both of them. Except for Jake and Nat, Nia thought worriedly. But the course was set, and she determinedly tried to set aside her worries with the thought that she would finally gaze upon Radford's face. That alone, she thought, was worth any obstacles she might need to overcome. She would be able to see him, but he would not see her.

Resolutely, Nia adjusted the mask she wore, hiding her upper face, and then she flipped a lock of her loosely flowing red hair over her shoulder, before she exclaimed. "We ride then!"

"Nothing." Radford growled to himself as he leaned into a particularly deep swaying of his coach. Two days and neither he nor Drummond had learned anything further about Lady Nia O'Shea. It was only the upcoming events at his estate and the time-consuming details involved with those events that had kept him from further seeking Nia out. That and some perverse sense inside him that wanted the lady to once again come to him.
She would come to him
, he was certain, for whatever it was that she was after. He had to admit that her sexual antics thus far and whatever else might ensue next had him on the edges of anticipation. She was stalking him for amorous purposes. He hoped. He could not remember a time when he was so in the dark about the events that were transpiring. It raised his ire a bit, yet it also heightened his instincts.

"Nia," he murmured, lifting the fated riding glove that he held in his right hand up to his nostrils as he inhaled reflectively. He had her scent. Not a face. Yet, the feel of her on his hands. With a newly emerging primal instinct, he knew that he would recognize her anywhere and that deeply stirred the sensuality inside him.

Radford sighed with the musky and lilting smell of Nia so closely filling him, he began to relax, becoming lulled by the sounds and gentle rocking as the ruts and mounds were negotiated on the quiet wooded trail his coach traveled. He stared ahead, nearly unseeing and lost in his thoughts as his driver directed a pair of his matched thoroughbred horses. Occasionally, he could hear a snort from his stallion that trailed behind them, tethered to the coach itself.

His gaze turned momentarily out the coach's window as they passed a thick corpus of trees and it was then that he heard a new set of hooves. Thinking that a fellow rider was about to pass, he leaned out the opened coach window to hale a friendly greeting. But the first thing he saw rounding the bend was a lovely galloping mare, mounted by what appeared to be a masked young man.

Long skeins of red russet hair waved behind the youngster as he rode up upon the coach, shouting, "Halt!" It was a decidedly sonorous voice.

"Halt or be shot!" This shout came from the other side of his coach and it was a heavy masculine voice.

Radford realized that his coach was effectively surrounded by the thieves and he rapped loudly on the roof of the coach with his knuckles. "Driver, stop the carriage," he called. "It appears that we are being detained."

The carriage stopped at a small clearing as the horses and three riders, Radford now ascertained, pulled along the side. He instantly jerked back into his seat as a light sword poked through the open coach window and nicked his throat, nearly drawing blood.

"I suggest that you ask your driver to remain still, your grace." The Irish accent in the voice was noticeable, even though the young robber was trying to employ a deeper voice.

Radford was suddenly and wholly amazed. So much so that he nearly laughed out loud while the suspect young robber, continued to say, "Should you move, you will feel slightly more than just the tip of this blade." At that, the young robber's hands shook slightly, then steadied.

"You better shake, little minx, for when I get my hands
on
you," Radford hissed lowly. "For this you deserve a spanking!"

"Oh!"

"Ouch,"
Radford exclaimed at the startled prick he had received by the tip of the blade.

"Oh, I did not mean to!"

"Nia!" Radford exclaimed angrily.

"Get out of the coach now or yer driver is gutted!"

Radford winced at the shout that came from one of the men on the other side of his carriage. Damn and blast, he would nearly be laughing at this latest audacious escapade of the lovely Nia's. However, the two other thugs in the crime had him extremely wary. He was uncertain whether it might be a true kidnapping, or the possible attempted murder of him for having been an English spy, or just another lady's brazen charade. All the possibilities had merit in the stunning turn of events and with what he did not know about Lady Nia O'Shea, the last was the less likely to be true. His deeply felt attraction did not wish to believe the worst, yet his entire nature could not stand to be in a manipulated and under-dogged position any longer. He was the master manipulator that normally only a cunning few could rival, and being otherwise, was seriously beginning to anger him. Therefore it might have been wiser to employ a few more moments of patience to try and understand where the events were leading. However, his entire countenance demanded, without his normal calculated logic, to take the upper hand immediately.

Alas, when all things came to their conclusions, he was but a man with all the powerful masculine tendencies that involved, despite his wiser intelligence. He had several fencing swords on the seat before him and the ever present pistol in his right boot. Providence had the swords in front of him. It was a sad occurrence, because he was taking them to his estate to retire them. Actually, to banish them from his apparently faltering one-eyed gaze. To use one of the swords was preferable, because he was less likely to fatally harm someone with a sword. If a man picked up a pistol it was his belief that man had best be prepared to use it, and he did not care for the idea of a pistol around Nia at all.

All of these thoughts flashed through his mind in mere seconds as he covertly pulled the pistol from his boot. However, none of his fleeting thoughts mattered in the end, because in the short seconds from thought to actions, his self-preservation overrode any logic. He was vulnerable now, as he had never been before losing his eye. So by instinct alone he reacted, cocking the pistol as he pushed open the door to the coach, trying to illicit surprise by jumping out the door on the opposite side from Nia. He would learn to regret his new found cowardice.

"He has a pistol!"

"Stand down!" Radford shouted at the same moment the stoutest robber shouted his warning. Events appear in a person's mind to move slower than they are at dangerous times. It had happened to him a hundred times or more and still caused to amaze him each time. He saw clearly that as he was raising his arm to point his pistol at the stout robber, the robber was in motion with a pistol of his own.

A high-pitched feminine screech of anger and alarm came from his left, on the other side of the carriage, along with the beginning sounds of pistol reports.
Three?
Even as he fell to his side from a lashing sting across his temple, Radford wondered at the sound of three pistol shots.