The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection (40 page)

With the help of her maid, who’d vowed an oath of silence, Iona had bound her breasts as tightly as possible and stuffed padding in all the appropriate places, including the legs and crotch areas of her black pantaloons, which helped a little.

An old-fashioned wig had been scavenged from the back of her father’s wardrobe. With a mixture she’d concocted from boot polish and tea, she had dyed the wig a burnished brown and then trimmed and combed it as best as she was able to resemble a gentleman’s modern-day style.

“My lady.” Her maid, her wide eyes as jumpy as a rabbit’s, appeared at the bedchamber door and announced, “A carriage has arrived.”

“Thank you, Gracie.” Iona took one last peek in the mirror, adjusted the beaver hat propped precariously on the top of her wig and wiggled her itchy nose.

Heaven’s, she should be sent directly to Bedlam. The men at Goldsmith’s were going to take one look at her and see straight through the disguise. In less than a day’s time, news of her mad attempt to pass herself off as a man would reach every parlor in Bath. It wouldn’t take long before she would turn into the
ton
’s latest joke and be dubbed as odd as Lady Caroline Lamb.

Lady Caroline, a married lady of considerable wealth, had done the most outrageous things—including wearing men’s clothing—while shamelessly forcing her attentions on that handsome poet, Lord Byron, a few seasons ago. She had so embarrassed her family that they’d banished her to their country estate in Ireland.

Iona’s family split their time between London and Bath, never spending more than a couple of weeks out of the year at the country estate. Being sent away to her father’s country estate would separate her from those she loved the most, her family. Was she really prepared to risk everything in exchange for her freedom?

She adjusted her hat and pinched her lips together, hoping to make herself look more like a man. But no matter how contorted her expression, it was still her own face that stared back at her in the glass.

“Ah well,” she muttered, remembering Nathan’s challenge in the park, “a true rogue wouldn’t give a fig about what her family or society thought of her, or the possible repercussions, no matter how dire.”

“My lady?” Gracie wrung her hands nervously. “Begging your pardon, but if you hope to pass yourself off as a lad, shouldn’t you make your voice a mite deeper?”

“Yes of course, Gracie. I will.” Iona cleared her throat and deepened her voice a full octave. “
I mean, I will
.”

Gracie shook her head and looked more worried than before. “Please be careful, my lady,” she called as Iona dashed down the stairs and darted out the front door before the rest of the household staff managed to take a close look at her.

A shabbily dressed coachman, with crooked yellowed teeth and great tufts of silver hair growing out of his ears, helped her into a battered old carriage where she settled onto a hard bench. Before she had any time to object, the carriage jerked into motion, leaving her sitting in the dark compartment—alone.

And at the mercy of this hired hack.

She’d never traveled alone before. Men did it all the time she supposed. It was natural, expected even. Being jostled about within such a poorly sprung contraption should be considered a bit of fun. There was no reason to panic.

Even if she had no idea where Nathan could be or why he would send a rather unsavory-looking stranger to deliver her to Goldsmith’s rather than come for her himself, there was absolutely no cause for panic. She simply needed to catch her breath.

No use worrying that someone other than Nathan might have sent the box of men’s clothing along with that cryptic and unsigned note. And there was no reason why her mouth should be turning dry or her stomach should be dancing with butterflies at the thought of spending more time alone with him. He was nothing more than a friend.

Of course she’d never been kissed so thoroughly by any of her other friends. But that was beside the point. It would be wrong to think of him in any other way.

Lillian was mistaken. Nathan was not the kind of gentleman who would trifle with a lady’s affections. And he certainly wasn’t a danger to a lady’s virtue as her mother had suggested.

No matter what others said about him, Iona considered him a very dear and close friend. Who also happened to have the ability to steal her breath with a mere brush of his lips and whose absence had made her absolutely miserable. Well, that certainly shouldn’t be happening.

Although…

Her heart had ached fiercely these past three days while she fretted over his absence. But that shouldn’t mean that she… No, she would not accept it.

She was not falling in love with Lord Nathan.

She simply couldn’t!

The carriage lurched as it came to an abrupt stop. Before she had a chance to untangle her thoughts or straighten her suddenly dislodged beaver hat, the door swung open.

“What a funny-looking fellow you make,” Lord Nathan said, poking his head in the opening. The sparkling gleam in his eyes brightened the gloomy interior. The smile playing on his lips gave her heart a jolt. “Let’s see what we have to work with here.” He gave Iona a thorough look-over, starting from the tips of her toes and following all the way up to the top of her head.

“You don’t set a hat on your head in the same manner as you would a bonnet,” he said and jammed her hat down until the rim banged up against her ears, making them jut out at odd angles. “There,” he said, his smile widening enough to reveal a row of pearly white teeth, “now you look like a proper elf.”

“An elf?” she cried. “What do you mean an elf? I suffered all afternoon, tucking in here and padding there.”

“Oh dear,” he said, putting a hand to his brow, “you had to experience firsthand the torment gentlemen must go through every day in order to present their handsome best for the ladies in our lives.”

Iona rather liked how that sounded. Nathan spending extra time at his
toilette
, biting his lower lip as he concentrated on getting his cravat to flow with a waterfall’s grace was quite an endearing image. It made her wonder what it would feel like to become one of his beloved garments. To have his fingers lovingly fit her against the hard planes of his body.

His gaze brushed over her again, warming her cheeks. “Tonight, I think an elf is the best you can expect,” he declared. “Your gentle proportions and curvy shape hardly resemble a man’s form.” He took her hand to help her step down from the carriage.

“You shouldn’t treat me as you would a lady,” she reminded him and leapt down to the pavement without his assistance or the use of the steps. She immediately recognized her surroundings. The carriage had deposited her on Cheap Street in the middle of town. A few gentlemen were milling about. No one appeared to be interested in either her or Nathan.

Bolstered by this, she propped her hands on her hips and struck the manly pose she’d been practicing all afternoon. “I am Sir Percival Crumps,” she said, pitching her voice as low as she could manage, and then whispered, “He’s a cousin of mine who never leaves his tiny country shire. No one in Bath should know him personally.”

“Nice to meet you, Sir Percival,” Nathan said and gave her a bruising handshake. “And you only arrived in town this evening?”

“Did I?” She hadn’t thought to come up with a history for Sir Percival.

“You did,” he assured her. He took her shoulders and steered her toward a massive two-story stone building looming up at the corner of the street where a pair of Corinthian columns framed a tall, highly polished oak door. “Perhaps you should let me do all the talking once we are inside. You don’t sound very…um…male.”

She stopped at the edge of the walkway that led up to the building. A vine-enshrouded iron picket fence surrounded the building’s yard. Two menacing stone eagles stood as imposing guards perched above the entrance’s ornate canopy. “So this is Goldsmith’s?” she asked, striving to pitch her voice deeper still.

Two gentlemen with their eyes fixed on the ground brushed past them and hurried up the steps and inside.

“The one and only.” Nathan crossed his arms and looked content enough to stay where they were, standing a few steps away from the gaming hell’s front entrance.

Since he wasn’t in any rush, Iona supposed she didn’t need to be either. “Why did you send a carriage for me? Why didn’t you come for me yourself?” she asked, assuring herself mere curiosity drove her to ask the question. Not some numbing fear of breaching the walls of this very male establishment.

A range of burgundy shades from deep reds to blackish violets spread across the sky as the day gave way to early evening. Nathan leaned against the iron fence and smiled at her.

It was most distracting.

“I sent the carriage—and was kind enough to save you from the rigors of a sedan chair—because you have only just arrived in Bath while I have been here for several weeks and would know well enough that no one hires a carriage to convey them to Goldsmith’s,” he said. His hussar boots shimmered in the waning sunlight. The starched cravat hugging his neck had been tied into an intricate design Iona had never seen before. His shiny hat pitched at a daring angle.

Despite the flawlessness of his garments or the ease with which he wore them, it was the unruly curl of blond hair drooping on his brow that made her heart ache. She returned his smile with a somewhat surprised one of her own.

“You probably shouldn’t smile,” he said softly. “It makes me want to kiss you. Lord knows what it will do to the other men inside.”

She blushed at that and bit the inside of her cheek to squelch the smile that only wanted to grow wider and brighter from his rather shocking compliment.

If she were forced to pick a husband out of all the gentlemen she had ever met, she would undoubtedly choose Nathan. Despite her lifelong expectation of marrying a duke or at least an heir to a dukedom, she found it impossible to imagine spending her life with anyone other than him.

But marriage wasn’t what she wanted for her future, not to Nathan or to anyone else. Ever since her forced engagement to her cousin Byron, her heart had become all the more hardened against the idea of binding herself and her future to a man. Even so, an image of her good-natured Nathan playing silly games with
their
children danced through her head.

She tugged at her cravat, which suddenly felt as if it were strangling her. “How can you stand to wear this blasted thing around your neck?”

He laughed at that. “You get used to it,
lad
. Shall we go inside?”

“In a moment.” She did really need to ask him about those horrid rumors.

But what if what Lillian and Mama had said about him was true? A hot flush rose up her chest as she struggled to find the right words.

How did a woman go about asking a man to explain such an intimate matter?

“Mama told me that you once seduced a young lady and ruined her reputation.” Those words, words that had been burning in her head all day, fell out of her mouth before she could think of a proper way to soften them. “And Lillian says you have recently taken a mistress. An actress. Is this true?”

Nathan drew back. “I’m surprised at the content of your family’s conversations. A young unmarried lady shouldn’t have knowledge that such things happen.”

“You forget, Wynter,” she drew her hand down her body clad in a suit coat and trousers, “I am not a lady this evening.”

“Of course,” he said somewhat stiffly, “you are an elf.”

She stomped her boot on the pavement just as a gaggle of young gentlemen passed them, heading straight up to Goldsmith’s large door.

“Are you going to answer my question?” she asked once they were relatively alone again.

“No,” came the short, stubborn answer.

A predatory gleam lit his eyes and his voice hardened. “Do you still wish to visit Goldsmith’s?” he asked. “Or would you rather I accompanied you home…where you belong?”

Iona swallowed down a bothersome lump that had decided to lodge in her throat. Unable to fathom why he would refuse to defend himself against those horrid rumors—unless they were true—she decided not to press him further.

A coward’s escape, she knew, but she truly didn’t want to believe there could be any truth to either of those stories.

He was
her
Lord Nathan, a safe, reliable friend and the same romantic gentleman who had joined forces with her while playing matchmaker for their friends. He had never ever done anything that would make her fear for her safety.

Of course she really didn’t know him that well, she reminded herself. He could be the devil himself. Except for the few stolen moments at the King’s Bath and the next day at Sydney Gardens, she hadn’t spent much time alone with him. And he hadn’t exactly acted the part of perfect gentleman either time…

With that not so comforting thought making its home in her head, Iona straightened her spine and reminded herself she was in search of another adventure, not a husband. With an extra swagger in her step, she marched toward the imposing Goldsmith’s entrance.

After a moment, Nathan followed, his gaze remaining fixed on her backside. “Not a man at all,” she heard him grumble, “but one damned sensual elf.”

Chapter Nine

This was not how Nathan had pictured escorting Iona to their first public appearance. He’d much rather be taking her to a respectable event such as one of Mrs. Poizzi’s concerts, they were lively affairs given that no one ever knew what the dear old woman or her Italian singer husband would do. Or perhaps accompany her and her family to an afternoon tea at Madame d’Arblay’s where he could introduce Iona as his fiancée. Instead he was bringing his future wife into a den of thieves. If his father were to discover his reckless behavior, Nathan would be forever banned from the Portfry household. If Iona’s father were to discover how he’d been helping his precious daughter in her crazy scheme, Nathan would be shot—if he were lucky.

Despite the danger to his body and his future with his family, he couldn’t seem to deny Iona. The spark of life that sprang to her eyes in face of this grand adventure of hers was enough to melt his cynical heart. And the sight of the rest of her—dressed in those men’s clothes—was doing a hell of a job of burning the rest of his body into cinders.