All the Pleasures of the Season (13 page)

And the debt had fallen to her.

 

C
HAPTER
T
WO

C
aptain Sinjon Rutherford watched until the last hoofbeats faded in the fog. He glanced down at the bloody sleeve of his tunic, now sporting a hole in the scarlet cloth big enough to put his finger through. The Frenchman's bullet had grazed the flesh, but the lady's warning had saved him from far worse.

Still, it was his sword arm, and he had a duel to fight, one he was late for, thanks to the unexpected encounter. He smiled grimly as he wiped his sword on the grass, cleaning away what he could of the Frenchman's blood.
He
would have a far more substantial souvenir than a scratched arm, likely an ugly scar that would keep him from accosting unescorted females in the future. The blood stuck to the deep engravings that covered the sword, but it hardly mattered. In a few minutes the blade would be stained with more.

English blood this time.

And very appropriate that would be, since the sword had been a gift of thanks for the rescue of another lady, one facing a similar fate to the woman in purple, and at the very hands of the man he was going to kill this morning.

“Gonfalon of Charlemagne,” he muttered, wondering what a Frenchman was doing in Hyde Park at dawn, bellowing about a French battle flag. He'd heard of it, of course. Legend had it that every time the French carried the gonfalon into battle, they won. But the gonfalon had disappeared and the French armies had begun to lose at last.

Sinjon frowned. Even if the stories about the flag were true, they were not tales a London lady was likely to know. He remembered the stark terror in her green eyes. If she'd known what her captor was talking about, she'd hidden it well.

Out of habit, Sinjon reached for his watch, then realized he'd pawned it days ago, on his arrival in London, to pay for food and lodging. His second would know the time. The man was probably looking at his own watch at that very moment, wondering if he was going to put in an appearance. He pictured the men waiting for him on the field of honor—Creighton, the two seconds, and of course there would be a surgeon on hand to tend the loser. Maybe he'd have the man look at the graze on his arm while the seconds were sending for an undertaker for Creighton.

He sheathed his sword and started walking.

“Captain Sinjon Rutherford?”

He spun, drawing his sword again, cursing the fog and the complacency that came from being in England. They wouldn't have crept up on him so easily in Spain. Five men appeared out of the mist. Four were big, hard fellows with pistols pointed at him, but the fifth man wore an elegant blue coat and was armed only with an icy stare that swept disdainfully over his ragged appearance.

Sinjon tensed. Footpads, perhaps? Odd that they'd know his name, but the park was full of unsavory characters this morning. Unfortunately, the mist was already lifting, and there was nowhere to run. Wits were his only option.

The toff's mouth tightened in speculation, as if he were reading Sinjon's thoughts and had wits of his own to bring to bear in the contest.

Sinjon held his sword loosely in his hand, letting the light flash on the blade as he regarded the gentleman with a look of cool amusement.

“Is this about the lady? She rode off that way, frightened but unharmed.” He pointed in the wrong direction, but no one bothered to look. Every eye was fixed on him, sober and wary.

The toff drew off his gloves and pointed the way she'd actually gone, his expression bland. “Her servant is waiting at the gate. She's quite safe now.”

Sinjon hadn't expected thanks for his good deed, and he saw that obviously he wasn't going to get any.

“Then if this is about my appointment with Lord Creighton, I assure you I'm merely late. I still intend to make good on my challenge.”

The gent's mouth quirked. It could have been disgust or humor. Sinjon couldn't tell. If he'd had another few minutes, he could figure out exactly what the gentleman was thinking and know how to play him, but the stranger renewed his unreadable expression.

“You aren't merely going to be late for your duel, Captain—which is, by the way, illegal in England. You aren't going at all.” Then he smiled a cold, superior little grin without any humor or warmth to it at all, and Sinjon felt his gut tighten.

“You're under arrest.”

W
as he caught already? He'd barely been back in England a week, hadn't found any trace of O'Neill. Sinjon knew that without O'Neill, he faced the hangman's noose and Creighton won. He felt the skin of his neck prickle as the toughs stepped forward to pin his arms. They were big men and there was little point in resisting. One took his pistol and another reached for the sword.

“Careful with that,” Sinjon warned.

“French, in't it?” the man asked, turning the blade in his thick hands, cautious as a plowman holding a lady.

“Yes. So's the blood on it.” It wouldn't do to have them think it was English blood, considering what the charges against him suggested.

“That will do, Mr. Gibbs,” the gentleman said calmly, and the man unbuckled the belt at Sinjon's hip, the sword sighing as it slid back into its scabbard.

Sinjon played his last card. “You could let me fight the duel,” he said to the toff. “I intend to force Creighton to admit the truth, and that would make arresting me quite unnecessary.”

He read a touch of admiration in the man's eyes, but it was gone in the same instant.

“Hardly. The duel is a trap. Creighton's men are waiting, and they have orders to kill you.” The gent's bland tone was at odds with the hard speculation in his eyes.

Shock leapt along Sinjon's limbs, and he tensed, clenching his fists. “Are you here to see it done, then?” he growled, trying to jerk out of his captors' grip, but they held him as if he were a kitten. “Go on. Try,” he said, keeping his eyes on the toff.

The man smiled, and tilted his head, genuinely amused. “I'm here to save your life, Captain, not end it.”

“What do you want?” Sinjon demanded.

“This is hardly the place for such a discussion. Have you breakfasted? No, I suppose you haven't. Soldiers probably don't eat before battle, and men don't dine before a duel, do they?” He didn't wait for an answer. “Bring him along,” he ordered, as if the thugs were children and Sinjon was a stray puppy they'd found in the dust. Willing or not, there was nothing to do but follow or be dragged to whatever fate—and the toff—had in store for him.

 

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

L
ECIA
C
ORNWALL
lives and writes in Calgary,
Canada amid the beautiful foothills of the Canadian Rockies, with two cats, two
teenagers, a crazy chocolate lab, and one very patient husband. She is hard at
work on her next book. Come visit Lecia at
www.leciacornwall.com
.

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ORNWALL

The Price of Temptation

Secrets of a Proper Countess

 

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C
OPYRIGHT

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Secrets of a Proper Countess
copyright © 2011 by Lecia Cotton Cornwall

The Price of Temptation
copyright © 2012 by Lecia Cotton Cornwall

ALL THE PLEASURES OF THE SEASON
. Copyright © 2011 by Lecia Cotton Cornwall. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition December 2011 ISBN: 9780062121417

Print Edition ISBN: 9780062133335

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