The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection (35 page)

“You are making a fuss for no purpose and will cause Iona a great deal more trouble than she has right now if you do not leave immediately.”

From past experience, he had trouble taking Lillian’s sisterly concern seriously. The silly girl was rarely concerned about anything unless it benefited herself in some way. “Stand aside, my lady, or I will move you myself.”

“No! I have the matter well in hand,” she said throwing her arms in the air. “Miss Amelia Harlow, a friend of mine and my summer houseguest, saw Iona leaving the ball with a gentleman—you, I suppose. She came straight to me and I went straight to Mama and told her that Iona went home with a headache.”

“You did?” he could barely believe his—and Iona’s—luck, or Lillian’s seemingly altruistic behavior.

“I’ve spent the last hour keeping my mother and father from sticking their concerned noses into Iona’s bedchamber while Miss Harlow sat at the parlor window and watched for Iona to return home.” She huffed. “You should have fetched her home sooner. I was beginning to worry that my fool sister had gotten herself abducted.”

“And Lady Iona understands that she needn’t confess why she disappeared from the ball?” He wasn’t planning on going anywhere until he was confident that her reputation was indeed safe.

“Of course she does.” Lillian rolled her pretty pale blue eyes. “Miss Harlow was busy explaining all of that to her as she bustled my sister up the back stairs to her bedchamber.”

“Good.” The tight bands of tension pulling on his shoulders loosened considerably. He very properly tipped his beaver hat. “Then I will bid you a good evening, my lady.”

“You still haven’t explained how you pressured Iona into creeping away with you into the Bath night. What manner of blackmail do you hold over her? What power could you possibly wield to sway an avowed prig as my sister to act so uncharacteristically?” she called after him.

Nathan walked away, shaking his head. Lillian was asking the absolute wrong question. What power did he hold over Iona?

Seemingly, very little.

Despite the coil they had gotten themselves into, Iona had remained firm. She’d called him a friend. Nothing more than a friend. And because of their friendship, she’d abjectly refused to let him march through the front door and demand to pay his formal addresses to her father.

Considering how Lillian had neatly covered up Iona’s failure to return to the ball, he was vastly relieved he hadn’t done just that. Doing so would have only further damaged his reputation, a reputation he specifically came to Bath to repair.

How had he gotten himself into such a sticky situation in the first place?

He glanced back at the Newbury townhouse and saw that the lights shining in the first floor windows were in the process of being doused as if this were a normal evening and nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

Of course nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, except for the Duke’s virginal daughter’s late-night dip in the King’s Bath while dressed in nothing but a white chemise and a pair of pink stockings. He glanced down at his own ruined suit, water still dripping from the hem of his waistcoat, and chuckled. This had been a most uncommon evening. One that nearly ended with a trip to the altar. He couldn’t have set up a situation riper for scandal even if he’d tried.

Perhaps scandal came to him so naturally now that he didn’t have to try anymore.

Instead of listening to his own instincts and sense of honor, he’d let Iona drag him into this madcap scheme and had let her countermand all of his honorable decisions.

Which begged the question, what power did Iona hold over him?

Mere friendship?

Good Lord, no. But if not friendship, then what?

Certainly not love…

* * * *

The next morning, Nathan prowled within his stuffy apartment feeling more and more cramped and uncomfortable with each step. And his ears were fast growing sore from listening to his valet fret and scold, all because Nathan had returned home late last night with his clothes and boots ruined.

He had told his valet to toss the damned garments out. It wasn’t as if he wanted to keep around reminders of having seen a nearly naked Lady Iona. Freddie had insisted he could salvage them. But not apparently without uttering a score of complaints first.

Which was sorely trying Nathan’s patience. Overnight, the weather had turned blaring hot and humid. With all this blasted heat and his sleepless night—thanks to his recalling only too well how perfectly Iona’s plump little breasts fit in the palm of his hands—his first inclination was to escape from these cramped rooms and go to the Pump Room, a popular morning social venue.

Many of the summer residents visited the Pump Room to drink the medicinal sulfur waters that bubbled out of an ornate marble vase, after being pumped in from one of the many hot springs located in and around the town. Others came to promenade within the handsome portico, listen to the musicians set up on the southern side of the room and socialize with friends.

Iona often accompanied her mother and sister to the Pump Room. And Nathan was most anxious to discover how her nerves were faring after last evening’s adventure. Not that it would be proper to approach her, considering how he’d so thoroughly fondled and kissed her. If he were any kind of gentleman, he would do well to stay far, far away from her.

She probably didn’t wish to see him again. He imagined that his plan to suitably frighten her back to her safe, albeit dull, lifestyle might have worked only too well. She was likely cursing his name and vowing to never again traipse off alone with a notorious rake.

But to never see Lady Iona again? A pit of dread sank into his stomach.
Never
? That wouldn’t suit his plans at all.

If he were going to use a prim and proper marriage to the paragon of grace and propriety to get back into his family’s good books, he would have to woo Iona in a very public and staid manner. So why wasn’t he rushing over to the Pump Room to do just that?

Because of his father, that’s why. The old goad would be marching around the marble interior, barking commands at the attendants while downing six glasses of the sulfur waters, instead of the recommended three, for good measure.

And his father would try to block Nathan’s interest in any respectable lady, fearing that Nathan might sully the Wynter family name yet again.

If Nathan had any hope of winning Iona’s hand and society’s nod of approval, he would be wise to act without his father’s knowledge. Which made visits to the Pump Room quite off-limits. Still, he couldn’t stay in this sweltering heat and listen to his valet’s complaints a moment longer.

“I believe I will take breakfast at Sydney Hotel this morning,” he said abruptly, interrupting Freddie’s grousing mid-sentence. He stopped his pacing, took a peek in the gilded mirror that hung beside the front door and adjusted the Gordian knot of his cravat.

Mercifully, Freddie remained silent long enough to help him don a snug-fitting olive-colored single-breasted frock on over a sky blue-and-white-striped waistcoat. The round little valet then stepped back and inspected his employer with a critical eye before diving back into his complaints, listing the amount of extra work Nathan had caused him, clucking on and on like an underfed hen, his voice trailing after Nathan as he escaped to the street and made his way toward the center of town.

Twenty minutes later, Nathan had settled at a small table that looked out onto the gardens on the ground floor of the Sydney Hotel. He’d finished eating a couple of Sally Lunn’s teacakes and was sipping on a coffee while reading a newspaper when two gentlemen with red-rimmed eyes crowded around his chair.

“You are a wretchedly difficult gent to find, Wynter,” Talbot said and dragged a chair over from another table and sat himself into it without invitation. “We were looking for you for over half the night. The stakes in Goldsmith’s back rooms were running fast and high. We had a smashing time of it, didn’t we, Harlow?”

Harlow, who looked as if he was suffering from a devil of a hangover, grunted.

“And where were you, Wynter? Off burying yourself in a pretty piece of fluff perhaps?” Talbot asked, nudging Nathan in the ribs.

“Nothing so glamorous, I’m afraid. After finishing off that bottle of whiskey yesterday afternoon, I spent the evening in my bed and frightfully alone.”

Harlow, who’d found himself a chair to lower himself into, propped his elbows on the table so he could cradle his head. “We visited your apartments,” he grumbled. “No one was about. Not even your chubby little valet.”

A wolfish gleam lit Talbot’s eyes as he waggled his brows. “Ah, we have caught our friend in a lie, Harlow. If I remember correctly, a Miss Rose Darly has newly arrived in Bath to play the part of Euphrasia in
The Grecian Daughter
at the Theatre Royal.”

Nathan rolled his eyes. He knew only too well where this conversation was going.

“Doesn’t the young lady hold a soft spot in your heart, Wynter?” Talbot pressed. “The kind that obliges you to pay her a generous monthly stipend? And shower her with pretty baubles?”

“I cannot image what you’re talking about,” Nathan said, gritting his teeth. The last thing he wanted to do was discuss the talented Miss Darly—not while sensual images of Iona were lingering in his mind.

“Come now,” Talbot said. “The lady travels with a young by-blow that bears an uncanny likeness to you.”

Nathan gave a wordless shrug, unable to deny the charge. The young tot did wear the distinctive Wynter stamp on his face.

“Ha, he does admit it!” Harlow crowed. “Let’s discuss tonight.”

“Tonight?” Nathan asked, wondering why the blazes he was now considered a bosom friend to these young pests. He would have chosen a sound beating over getting foxed with them yesterday if he’d known how closely they’d attach themselves to him this morning.

“Yes, tonight,” Talbot said, leaning forward in his chair, that wolfish gleam still firmly intact and brightening his liquor-reddened eyes. “I need your help.”

“We both do,” Harlow added.

Nathan leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms against his chest and frowned. “With what?” he asked, though he already knew he didn’t want anything to do with whatever scheme they were plotting.

“Not what,” Harlow said, “but who.”

“The glacial Lady Iona, to be precise,” Talbot clarified. He sent Harlow a killing glare. “And
I
am the one who will be taking the first shot at thawing her.”

“We will have an equal shot,” Harlow argued and then groaned. Apparently he’d upset his aching temples with his own voice. His head landed in the cradle of his hands again. “You hold no prior claim, Talbot,” he whispered.

“Lady Iona?” Nathan raised a brow while trying his damnedest to look bored with the conversation when in truth his hands itched to punch something. If anyone was going to thaw Iona, it was going to be him, not Talbot or that whelp Harlow.

Not that she needed any thawing. Because she didn’t.

He’d burned, tossing in his lonely bed all night after being ignited by her inexperienced but all too honest kisses. Her searing passions had licked his body, leaving him aching and as temperamental as a rutting stallion.

“You have to agree, Wynter, that stubborn gel has been a virgin for far too long,” Talbot said, making himself a very tempting target for punching. “It isn’t healthy. Or fair to us men. You said it yourself yesterday, she needs to marry. A beauty the likes of hers shouldn’t be hoarded, except by her husband, of course. What she needs is a thorough seduction.”

“A seduction?” Nathan’s voice grew tighter.

“No one in all of England is more skilled at seducing the ladies than you. At least that is if we are to believe your reputation,” Harlow said.

“We do believe your reputation,” Talbot assured him as if Nathan cared what either man thought of him. “I’ve seen him in action with my own eyes, Harlow. He is quite skilled.”

“And what is it you want from me? Seduce the lady for you?”

“No! Nothing like that,” Talbot said, clearly shocked by such an outrageous idea. “What we need are lessons.”

“Lessons?” First Iona and now Talbot and Harlow? Good God, perhaps he needed to consider opening a school. An institute for the edification of aspiring adventuresses and hopelessly bungling lovers.

As amusing as the idea sounded, it wasn’t going to happen. Not now, not ever.

“No. Now go away.” He grabbed Talbot’s wrist suddenly and gave it a vicious squeeze. “And stay the blazes away from Lady Iona.”

He’d burn in hell before he’d help either man try and seduce
his
Lady Iona. Especially considering how she was firmly set in his own matrimonial sights.

Talbot, trying to twist away from Nathan’s crushing hold, doggedly offered to pay for such unusual schooling while Harlow pouted. The whole affair was on the verge of tipping over into the ridiculous when Freddie showed up at the table, huffing and wheezing and with a nervous twitch in his eye.

“I beg your pardon, m’lord,” he said as he struggled to catch his breath. His poor out-of-shape valet must have trotted the entire distance. “I don’t mean to disturb your breakfast, m’lord, but this just arrived by messenger. The lad said it was dreadfully urgent.”

Nathan released Talbot’s wrist and snatched the folded foolscap from Freddie’s stubby fingers just as his heart plummeted straight into his stomach. He stared at the flowery handwriting, frightened of what news the letter might give.

The circumstances suddenly felt too similar to that horrible night a little over a year ago when an urgent message had been rushed to him in the widow Sharpes’ bedroom.

His father
. Something was wrong with his father.

The old man had overtaxed himself. Nathan should have been more forceful with him, despite his father’s grumbling. He should have been more determined to coddle him, to protect him against growing ill from the exertion of his travels. The Marquess was still weak from his illness and had no business marching about after such a long trip. Nathan should have probably carried the old man into the Royal Crescent townhouse himself.