Captain Rakehell (13 page)

Chapter Twelve

The sky was just beginning to lighten when a weary and worried Andrew returned to Hanover Square. That the house lay dark and still caused him to hope Amanda was safely home and his parents snugly abed. With the aid of his exhausted coachman, he negotiated the steps and placed his key in the lock, then dismissed the man and hobbled on his swollen ankle up the steps to his sister’s room.

The door was unlocked, and Andrew pushed it inward with a tiny squeak of the hinges. The first mauve streaks of dawn filtered through the balcony doors and showed him Amanda curled on her side in her bed. With a sigh of relief, Andrew limped into the room for a closer look.

She was asleep, her breathing deep and regular, her fingertips curved against her lips. There was a smile on her face, an oddly serene smile, thought Andrew, considering she’d been swooped up just hours ago and carried off on horseback by a masked man. But no matter. She was safe, hopefully unharmed, and apparently not at all overset by her ordeal.

He turned away from the bed then and hobbled off to his own chamber, his relief giving way to anger. Bright and early this day, Bow Street would hear from Viscount Welsey about Mr. Gerald Fisk. Odious little man. It went beyond the pale for a gentleman to be treated in such shabby fashion! Hours of questions put to him with only a single glass of sherry

Removing his coat, wilted neckcloth, and shoes, Andrew undid his waistcoat and the studs at his wrists and, already three parts asleep, tumbled into bed. It seemed to him that his head had no sooner touched the pillow than he was being shaken awake

“M’lord! M’lord, wake up!”

“Unnhhh,” Andrew groaned, dimly recognizing the voice as that of Simms, his valet.

“M’lord, quickly!” Water sprinkled across his whiskered cheek and made him flinch. “There’s a dreadful row downstairs, and his lordship is calling—nay,
bellowing
—for your attendance!”

“Whaaa—” Andrew groaned again, forcing himself upright, just as Lady Hampton’s all-too-familiar shriek reached his ears.

It was so familiar that he yawned and fell back on his side, until his father’s voice thundered, “
Andrew
!
Amanda
!”

He rolled, off the bed then and onto his feet, gasping as a jolt of pain shot from his ankle up his calf. Wincing and hissing, with Simms beside him trying to prop him up, Andrew limped to his chamber door and flung it open. He lurched into the corridor and nearly collided with Amanda, her elbow in Marie’s hand, her hair unbrushed and her wrapper untied.

“Mandy!”

“Oh, Andy!”

They hugged each other fiercely.

“Thank God you’re all right!”

“Where
were
you all night? I was awake an absolute
age
waiting for you!”

“You aren’t hurt or—or anything—are you?”

“Andrew Edward William Gilbertson!” Amanda said, planting a doubled fist in his chest and pushing him away. “I was brought home by a gentleman!”

“Who just happens to wear a black silk mask,” he retorted, rubbing his breastbone. “Who in God’s name is he?”

“I don’t know,” she replied truthfully, a ring of resolve in her voice. “All I know is I intend to marry him—if I can find him.”

“Amanda Elizabeth Wilhe—”

“Don’t even think to call me Wilhelmina!”

“An-
drew
!” Lord Hampton roared. “A-
manda
!”

“Oh, God, come on!”

Catching Amanda’s hand, Andrew towed her down the stairs to the landing, where they had to give way to a footman climbing toward them with their prostrate mother in his arms. Backed against the wall to give him clearance, they exchanged a look of wide-eyed trepidation as a glowering Lord Hampton appeared below them in the foyer, his hands folded behind him.

“My study,” he bit at them, “this instant!”

They were there in less, nipping into the chairs placed before his desk. Lord Hampton stood behind it.

“Explain how this came into the Baroness Blumfield’s possession.” He dropped one of Amanda’s slippers onto the blotter, a sapphire blue one that matched the gown she’d worn last night. “I’d ask your mother, but as you saw, she fell into a swoon when the baroness called a short while ago and presented this in lieu of her card.”

“I thought you’d put your slippers in your reticule!” Andrew flung accusingly at Amanda.

“I did!” she huffed. “It must’ve fallen out! Perhaps when I jumped over the terrace wall.”

“So that’s what tripped me! I’ve you to thank for nearly breaking my neck!”

“Enough!” Lord Hampton banged the slipper on the desk. “Why, miss, did you remove your shoes?”

“I don’t suppose,” Amanda asked haltingly, “you’d believe my feet were sore from dancing?”

“I would not.”

“Very well, then” she sighed resignedly. “I took them off and put them in my reticule so Smythe wouldn’t hear me creeping along behind him.”

“The thief, Smythe? The one who made free with you in the Duchess of Braxton’s garden?”

“No, Papa, that was the gentleman in the black mask,” she corrected, a faint blush staining her cheeks.

“And where were you?” their father demanded of Andrew.

“Creeping along behind Amanda,” he owned sheepishly.

“Obviously unaware,” Lord Hampton retorted scathingly, “that the Baroness Blumfield was creeping along behind you.”

Andrew cringed. “Obviously.”

“The baroness gave me to understand—before I showed her the door—that you were all night at Lady Cottingham’s answering questions put to you by a Mr. Fisk of Bow Street. Is that so?”

“Yes, sir. You see, Smythe tried to rob Lady Cottingham and I—”

“And where were you, miss?” Lord Hampton cut him off and wheeled on Amanda.

“I was here, Papa, asleep in my bed.”

“And who escorted you home?”

“Why, Lord Earnshaw, of course,” she replied, the lie falling as blithely from her lips as the truth.

“Indeed?” Lord Hampton withdrew a folded note from his coat, opened it, and read, “‘My dearest Amanda: Having given the matter of Smythe my gravest consideration, and being sufficiently recovered from my exertions of last evening, I shall call this morning upon Lord Cottingham and, if necessary, upon Bow Street, to see the scoundrel brought to justice. Again, my thanks to Welsey for seeing you safely home. Your Faithful Servant, L.E.’”

Groaning, Andrew wiped one hand over his face and sank lower in his chair. But Amanda, though she went alarmingly pale, sat straight and prim in her sleep-wrinkled night rail.

“‘Tis a sad commentary,” remarked Lord Hampton, as he let the rote fall beside the slipper, “that I must stoop to the Baroness Blumfield’s tricks to ascertain the truth from my own children.”

“I can explain, Papa,” said Amanda calmly.

“What you can do, miss,” he replied frostily, “is return to your room with your abigail and begin packing your cases. I am removing you to Hampton Hall until your marriage banns are posted and the ceremony arranged.”

“I won’t go!” Amanda stamped furiously to her feet. “And I will not marry Lesley Earnshaw! I cannot, for I love someone else!”

“You what?” Lord Hampton shrieked, the shrill in his voice uncannily like that of his countess.

“What she means, sir,” Andrew inserted, leaping to his feet and into the fray before Amanda botched it further, “is that she cannot marry Lord Earnshaw because he has played her false. I saw him with my own eyes forget himself and limp on his right foot.”

“Is that your only proof?” he demanded, one brow arching dubiously. “Do you think me a complete slowtop?”

“Of course not, sir,” Andrew assured him effusively, “but the day before he limped on his left.”

“And you saw that, too, with your own eyes?”

“Well, no, but Mandy assures me—”

“Exactly so,” Lord Hampton snapped, glowering thunderously at his daughter. “I fear Amanda would assure the devil himself, if she thought it would free her from the match. Wouldn’t you, pet?”

“I would!” Amanda declared vehemently. “And I—”

“—also overheard a conversation between two gentlemen,” Andrew cut in loudly, giving Amanda a quelling look, “one of them an acquaintance of Lord Earnshaw. They were speculating on precisely where he had been wounded.”

“Why—” Lord Hampton frowned thoughtfully. “I believe it was at Waterloo.”

“Yes, sir, but not that where—if you take my meaning—the other where.”

“Not that where but …” The earl went stiff as his shirt points. “Not in front of your sister!”

“Why not in front of me?” Amanda returned. “Lord Earnshaw sat on a pillow right beside me.”

Lord Hampton fell in a daze into the high-backed leather chair behind his desk. “Surely not at Lady Cottingham’s!”

“No, when he took me driving. He said leather was chilly this time of year, but it struck me odd.”

“To say the least.” Lord Hampton glowered again, this time at a spot somewhere above the heads of his children, as he reviewed his interview with Earnshaw and recalled the remark that had sent him into a choking fit.

He was not so distracted, however, that the smile Amanda flicked at Andrew and the squeeze she gave his fingers went unnoticed. But he misread her thanks and gratitude for triumph and congratulation.

“I believe I have the whole of it now,” he announced and came to his feet. “You’re bamming me. Or trying to.”

“Papa, no!” Amanda and Andrew cried in unison.

“Papa, yes! Don’t think I’ve forgotten how, when you were children you would defend each other, confess to the other’s sins, switch the parts back and forth till I scarce knew my name! And you thought it would work again, did you? Well, have another think!” Lord Hampton banged the slipper on the desk again. “While you’re packing your cases for Hampton Hall! Marie!”

“M’lord?” The study door swung inward, so suddenly that the knob, which clearly Marie had already taken hold of before the earl shouted her name, nearly slipped out of her hand and spilled her onto the carpet.

“See that Lady Amanda’s trunks are packed. She’s leaving for Hampton Hall on the morrow.” Lord Hampton fished a key out of his waistcoat pocket and came around the desk to hand it to her. “When you’ve done, lock her in her chamber and post yourself outside the door.”

“Yes, m’lord.” She slipped the key in her apron pocket and bobbed a curtsy.

Amanda opened her mouth to howl a protest, but Andrew stilled her with a quick shake of his head and a fingertip touched to his lips. Trusting him, as she always had, she lowered her chin docilely and moved toward the door, quite missing the wink exchanged by her brother and her abigail.

“You should thank your lucky stars you’ve reached your majority!” Lord Hampton seethed, once the door had shut behind Amanda and Marie. “Else I’d pack you off to my regiment this very minute!”

“Sir, if we could but discuss this calmly, as two gentlemen—”

“Oh, indeed, we shall discuss it!” His father snapped peevishly, tucking Lord Earnshaw’s note in his pocket and moving toward the door. “But I doubt calmly, and not just now. I must see to your mother.”

Looking flushed and harried, Lord Hampton quit the room, slamming the door behind him with such force that Andrew winced. Only once before had he seen his father this distraught, when Amanda had tumbled off her first pony and it was thought her arm might be broken. Though unlike, the situations were similar, for the emotions that had impelled Lord Hampton then—fear, worry, and a deep abiding love for his daughter—were impelling him now.

So late we grow so wise, Andrew reflected ruefully, as he limped upstairs to his rooms. He decided, while Simms made him presentable and wrapped his ankle in clean linen strips to support it, that reason must somehow be made to prevail. To that end, he went downstairs again and arrived in the foyer in time to see, through the door being shut by the butler, Lord and Lady Hampton ascending their carriage.

“Randall?” He inquired, as the coach rolled away from the gutter. “Do you know my parents’ direction?”

“Bond Street, m’lord.”

Not a good omen, thought Andrew, turning to balefully regard the two flights of stairs he’d just descended. He cursed every one of them as he climbed them again and knocked at Amanda’s chamber. The door inched open, a brown eye beheld him through the crack, then Marie stepped back to admit him.

Portmanteaus stood open but empty on the floor, and Amanda, gowned in blue sprigged muslin with her hair brushed and held back in waves by a riband, sat glumly on her bed, her knees drawn up within the circle of her arms. Seeing him, she sprang to her feet with a hopeful smile.

“I thought you’d never come! What did Papa say? Am I still a prisoner?”

“For the moment.” Andrew sighed gratefully onto the bed and propped his ankle on the chest that sat at the foot. “He and Mama have gone to the duchess.”

“Oh.” It was more a groan as she sank down beside him still and pensive for a moment, until her fists balled in her lap. “Then I shall run away.”

“With all this luggage?” Andrew returned, waving a hand at the trunks.

Amanda flung him a defiant glare. “I will not marry Lesley Earnshaw!”

“Of course you won’t. I have a plan.”

“Andy,” she said deprecatingly, “it’s plans and schemes that have landed me in this coil. I think I’ve had done with them for a while.”

“But this one could save you,” he wheedled, in a singsong voice.

Hesitating, she bit her lip, sighed, and flounced around on the bed to face him. “What must I do?”

“Play the obedient daughter, pack your cases, and let me handle the rest.”

“What rest? You won’t tell me?”

“I’m about to. It came to me when Papa accused us of plotting against him, which, of course, we weren’t, but because he thinks we are, we might as well have a go. So I’m off to Mayfair to tell Lord Earnshaw you’ve a tendre for someone else and to ask him to do the gentlemanly thing.”

“Oh, Andy, you’re brilliant!” Amanda shot up on her knees, hugged him tightly to her bosom, then sat back on her heels and clasped his hands in her lap. “And you’ll adore him, I know! He’s so strong and gentle and—”

“Who?” Andrew blurted.

“Why—” Amanda cocked her head at him puzzledly “—my dearest darling.”