“No. He has to be taken up so he can cry rope on the man who paid him. Lord Duchamp assures me the magistrate’s office will cooperate fully, so I’ll get them to round him up.”
“And Signore Boyce?”
Wynn carefully placed his own sheathed knife in his boot. “Boyce has not been home in days. I checked. The duns are camped out there. It seems his valet left last week because he had not been paid for months.”
“Aha! Do you want me to hire this unemployed valet for you?”
“Hell, no. He let Boyce prance around in puce stripes. Besides, I am managing.”
With the aid of the laundress across town, the bootblack next door, and spotted kerchiefs, Wynn was getting by. He would not be going to any more balls, formal or fancy dress, not if he could avoid them. There was only one woman he wanted to dance with anyway. Right now he had to keep her safe, and nothing else mattered. “I’ll tell the Runners to arrest this Scarecrow. He’ll know where Boyce is, or where they were supposed to meet. Then we will be rid of the blackguard once and for all.”
Barrogi shook his head. “You think your English courts will hang a titled
bastardo!
One of their own? Me, I think he goes free.”
Wynn tucked his pistol in the back of his buckskins, beneath his coat. “Justice will be done.”
Before he left to make sure all the safeguards he had ordered for Duchamp House were in place, Wynn tossed an extra coin to Barrogi. “Here, take Rosie for another ice, will you, so she does not get lonely. Tell her I have not forgotten her. In fact, Duchamp has this footman, Henry, who might suit her for a husband. I’ll talk to him while I am there.”
Barrogi stopped brushing his own coat to catch the coin. “A lowly footman? For the
signora!
You don’t drink champagne with boiled cabbage, do you?”
Wynn did not eat boiled cabbage. “Well, tell her I am thinking about a solution to her dilemma.”
Barrogi smoothed the strands of hair across the front of his head and dabbed some of Wynn’s cologne on his weathered cheeks. “You do that,
padrone.
You keep thinking.”
* * * *
When Wynn reached the front door of Duchamp House, after commending the cordon of wounded and retired veterans Major Campe had deployed there, he expected the hall to be dark and quiet. He expected Lady Torrie to be wan and shaken, perhaps resting from her ordeal. He expected a warm welcome. Hah.
The entry was in a swivet, servants darting hither and yon, and Lady Torrie was tying her bonnet strings, preparing to go out. Her color was bright, her hand was steady, and the glare she cast his way could have withered the wings off a stone gargoyle. “Come, Ruthie,” she told her maid. “We must be on our way.”
Wynn crossed his arms over his broad chest and stood with his back to the door. Most of the servants disappeared. “And where do you think you are going, my lady? Not even you could be so harebrained as to go traipsing off to the shops after nearly being abducted. Or is a new bonnet more important than your life?”
“Not even? Harebrained? How dare you!”
He raised his eyebrow. If the shoe fit ... Besides, he’d dared worse—and been slapped for it. “I do not even see that footman, Henry, who was supposed to be with you at all times.”
“What, when there is an army of ragged soldiers camped on my doorstep? The neighbors must think Papa is forming his own militia in preparation for Bonaparte’s invasion or some such tomfoolery.”
“The men are there for your safety, as you well know, to make certain no one enters the house or grounds.”
“And are they also there to prevent me from leaving?”
“I believe I can handle that on my own.” He leaned back against the wide oak door as if he were prepared to spend the day there.
“There are other exits, you know.”
“Of course. And my men watching each of them.”
He looked down, but it was not Homer who was growling. He smiled at the lady, who only stamped her foot.
“Who gave you the right to order my life, then? Tell me that.”
Wynn’s lips stayed quirked up in a half smile. “Fate, I suppose. That’s what you said, anyway. You see, once a man saves a life, I have always been told, he is responsible for that person. As if he continues to hold the other’s welfare in his hands.”
“That is absurd.” So was the blush Torrie could not conceal at the thought of being held in his hands. The infuriating man was looking as much like a rogue as he had when dressed as a pirate. And he was smiling like a mischievous boy. She crossed her own arms in front of her chest, to show that neither his charm nor his air of command held sway with her. “Furthermore, my errand is none of your business. It is not dangerous, not far afield, and not anything a man could understand.”
Wynn did not budge. Torrie looked daggers at him. The butler discreetly disappeared. The maid whimpered. The dog wagged his tail.
Wynn shifted his gaze from the militant blue of Torrie’s angry eyes to the maid’s tear-reddened ones. She seemed just a bit older than her mistress, and a great deal less confident. His voice softened. “Miss Cobb, is it?”
The maid stared at her shoes. “Ruthie Cobb, my lord. Cobb will do.”
“Well, Miss Ruthie Cobb, perhaps you would be kind enough to reveal your destination, since your mistress seems too pigheaded to do so.”
Torrie gasped, but before she could shush her abigail, Ruthie whispered, “Just across the square, to Lord Fraser’s house.”
Fraser was an old curmudgeon with an unsavory reputation. What the deuce could Torrie want with that dirty dish? “You don’t think Fraser was the man who tried to steal you away, do you?”
Torrie was amazed that he’d think such a thing. “Fraser? What in heaven would he want with me? He will not have a woman in his house, and that is the problem. Now, please move so we can go about our business.”
“Stand aside while you go calling on a loose fish you know will not receive you? When the visit would be highly improper if he did consent to an interview? Not on your life.”
“You might as well tell him, ma’am,” the maid conceded. “It’s not as if everyone won’t know soon enough anyways.”
Torrie sighed. “Very well. Poor Cobb here, Ruthie, finds herself in an awkward situation.” Instead of moving away from the door, the infuriating viscount simply raised that eyebrow and waited for her to continue. She sighed again. “Ruthie is breeding.”
“Good grief, Fraser?” That was not what the
on dits
said about the old shabster.
“Of course not. One of his footmen, Cyrus.”
“He promised to marry me, Cyrus did,” the maid told Wynn. “Or I never would have ... But now Lord Fraser won’t give us permission.”
“He won’t let his servants wed,” Torrie continued, “because, he says, he does not want any cuddling in the corners.”
“We wouldn’t!” Cobb swore.
Obviously they had.
“So what do you propose to do?” Wynn asked Torrie, even as he stepped back and opened the door for the two women to pass through.
Torrie did not bother commenting on the fact that Lord Ingall seemed intent on accompanying them, and his dog, too. Why complain about what one could not alter? “Why, I propose to change Lord Fraser’s mind, of course. Barring that, I shall try to convince Cyrus to hand in his notice. He should not be working for such a dreadful man anyway.”
Wynn gestured toward the soldiers in ragged uniforms who were taking up positions to guard the little cavalcade. “Work is not easy to come by these days. Do you intend to offer Cyrus a position in your household?”
Torrie had not gone that far. “I have not spoken to Father about it yet. I know he will not permit Ruthie to stay on as my maid, though. It will not look right, my having an abigail who is having a child.”
“I should say not, my lady!” Ruthie agreed.
“And Cyrus should have thought of that before he—” Torrie did not complete the sentence, but she did complete her thought: “Men. Hmph.”
“What about Miss Cobb? Did she have no say in the matter? No thoughts about the future?”
“I suppose she ought to have,” Torrie said, bringing a scarlet blush to Ruthie’s cheeks. “But now she is the one carrying a babe and soon to be out of a position.”
That was irrefutable. Homer lifted his leg on a bush, seeming to speak for all of the silent party.
As they reached the other side of the park, about to cross the street in front of Fraser House, Wynn said, “You know, I have had great luck as a matchmaker lately. I could give this mare’s nest a go.”
“You?” Torrie was incredulous.
“Yes, I have my sister-in-law’s cousin well-nigh buckled, and I don’t doubt Lady Lynbrook and my friend Campe will be calling the banns soon.”
Torrie had heard the talk. “You cannot take credit there. They say the two were childhood sweethearts
“Ah, but I paved the way,” he said, thinking of the money.
Torrie was thinking of the duel. Heavens, what if Wynn offered a challenge to old Lord Fraser? “I do not think we will need your assistance.”
They needed his shoulder to keep the door open when a grizzled old man with one clouded eye tried to shut it in their faces. “No women allowed. ‘Specially ones what come without an invite.”
Wynn could not help the superior smile he flashed Torrie’s way as he told the old man, “We have not come to see Lord Fraser, but an employee of his named Cyrus.”
“I be Cyrus,” the servant replied. Torrie gasped and Wynn would have, but the man went on, scowling at Ruthie. “I suppose you want my son, Young Cyrus. Though what you want with the lad now, I don’t know. Almost cost him his place already.”
Young Cyrus was sent for, and the looks he and Ruthie shared could have melted even Lord Fraser’s heart, if he had one. Before Torrie could open her mouth, Wynn asked the maid: “Do you love him, Miss Cobb?”
“With all my heart, milord.”
“And you, Young Cyrus? Do you wish to marry Ruthie?”
“More’n life itself.”
“Very well. Do you know how to perform the services of a valet?”
Young Cyrus looked at Wynn, at the loosely knotted kerchief, the scuffed boots, the dog hairs on his sleeve. “Better’n the man you’ve got now, I figure.”
Torrie had to smile. In three seconds Wynn had changed a young man’s life for the better. All Young Cyrus could have hoped for as a footman was to rise to take his father’s place as butler, eventually. “But what about Ruthie?”
“She comes, too. If my sister-in-law ever relinquishes my town house, there will be a separate apartment for Ruthie and the babe. In the meantime, I am in desperate need of a housekeeper in Kensington. It will be close quarters, but the pay is good. And a valet earns far more than a footman. Some seem to earn more than the king. What do you say?”
Young Cyrus said he would go upstairs and pack.
“Ruthie?”
“I hate to leave Lady Torrie, but I know I cannot stay. So thank you, my lord. I accept.”
“Good. I’ll see about a special license this afternoon.” He smiled at the young woman. “We cannot have any illicit cuddling in my house, either, you know.” Then he turned to Torrie. “What say you, my lady?”
“I say you are a very nice man, Lord Ingall, for a rake.”
“You wound me.” Wynn put his hand over his heart in mock pain. But he really was hurt, that she could still think so poorly of him. Zeus, what would it take to make her trust him? Time, he supposed. Well, he had until Scarecrow and his employer were apprehended, for he did not intend to let Torrie out of his sight until he knew she was safe. He certainly could not trust
her
to keep out of trouble.
“No, I mean it,” she was saying as they walked back across the park, a glowing Ruthie following but out of listening range. “Many rich men make donations to charity, but you truly care about helping people, I heard what you are doing for your friend, the major. I do not know another man who would have done the same.”
“Troy would.” Embarrassed, Wynn tried to make light of his actions. He wanted her to like him, by Jupiter, not think of him as a benevolent uncle. “Besides, I would never hear the end of it from Bette if she had to do without the latest gimcrackery.”
“Do you mind?”
“About the money? Of course not. I have more than I can spend in nine lifetimes. And he deserves it, not just for the loan he made me, but for what he has given in the service to his country.”
“No, I mean do you mind about Bette, Lady Lynbrook? About her marrying your friend?”
“Lud, no. As you said, they were childhood sweethearts. I was never ... That is, we never ... She never cared for anyone but Troy, and I never looked upon her as anything but a friend.”
“Then why did you— No, it is none of my affair.”
Wynn wanted to tell her to make it her affair. She looked so pretty in a pink gown he wanted to have an affair. Lud, it was all he could do not to kiss her again, right in the park in broad daylight. She would most likely skewer him on the tip of her parasol. It would almost be worth it. Instead he asked, “The infamous duel?”
Torrie nodded. If she could understand the past, perhaps she could understand the present, how a man could be a rotten acorn one minute and a strong, straight oak the next. Then she could make a guess about the future.
So he told her, how Lynbrook was a rotter who regularly beat his servants, his wife, his mistress. When in his cups, which was most days, he would strike out at anyone who crossed him, sometimes at anyone who merely crossed his path. Troy and Bette thought of running away, but they did not have enough money to live on and nowhere to go. Lynbrook laughed at Troy and Wynn when they called him to account. They were mere boys, fresh out of university, with no power, no pressure to bring against him, no legal right to interfere. So they decided that Wynn would challenge him, since an illegal duel would destroy Troy’s career.
Lynbrook did not accept the challenge, so Wynn made blatant overtures to the baron’s wife, letting the gossips link their names. No self-respecting man could let such an insult go unpunished. Lynbrook could, he respected Wynn so little. It was not until Wynn stole Rosie away that he finally got Lynbrook’s attention.
“We meant to teach him a lesson, not kill the dastard. At the least, we hoped to send him to his bed for a fortnight to recover from a minor wound, leaving Bette alone. I aimed for his shoulder. I hit his shoulder. Somehow he died.”