Julia Justiss (19 page)

She was about to slip away when two men rode up and she heard Lord Blanchard’s voice, followed by his companion’s reply extolling the loveliness of Miss Darnell.

Despite Dickon’s frantic hand gestures signaling her to retreat, Helena couldn’t keep herself from approaching. When Blanchard’s friend swung down from the stirrups while Blanchard remained mounted, Helena scurried over. Pitching her voice to mimic the tones of a street urchin, she called, “’Old yer ’orse fer a penny, gov’ner!”

Scarcely gazing at her, the man tossed her a coin, handed her the reins and turned back to Lord Blanchard, who never even glanced in her direction.

“Don’t look daggers at me, Nathan,” the gentleman said. “If you’ve no real interest there, you can hardly object if other respectable gentlemen pursue her.”

Blanchard sighed. “I know. I only wish I
could
pursue my interest, but you know how I am situated. My family, my career, all require me to marry a woman of wealth. Even though I would rather wed an angel.”

The other gentleman laughed. “She is one, isn’t she? Since someone else must win her, it might as well be a fine fellow like me! Come join me and drink to my efforts.”

Blanchard smiled grimly. “Thank you, but no. I may wish you well, but I’m not saint enough to drink to the prospect of her wedding another.”

“You could drink to the prospect of finding your heiress. Perhaps Miss Darnell’s friend, Miss Lambarth?”

“Ah, Miss Lambarth.” Blanchard laughed. “The beautiful and unique! I give thanks for her daily, since her presence at Darnell House allows me to call there as often as I wish.”

The other gentleman shook his head. “She’s more than I’d want to handle, lovely and rich though she be. No, give me a sweet, quiet, biddable wife.”

“I pray you may find one—as long as she’s not Miss Darnell.” Tipping his hat to his friend, Blanchard wheeled his horse and trotted off.

Handing Blanchard’s friend back his reins—and accepting another coin—Helena paced slowly toward where Dickon waited, her mind churning. So Lord Blanchard
was
in love with Charis! Could her friend secretly love Blanchard, as well—but knowing his circumstances, have despaired of his making her an offer?

If so, Helena thought, excitement putting a skip in her step, she might just have a solution.

N
OT WISHING TO PROLONG
the rather strained evening he’d spent with his fiancée, Adam declined Priscilla’s invitation to come in and left her at her door. Deciding that a long walk in the cold air might help clear his mind, he sent his carriage home and set out for White’s.

All night he’d been plagued by recurring memories of his last encounter with Miss Lambarth in the library. He had seen little of her since that meeting, and always in company. Still, to his annoyance, several times at the ball tonight his pulse had raced when he glimpsed some dark-haired lady or heard a husky female voice. Which was ridiculous, since after Miss Lambarth’s panic at her first ball, he knew she would never attend another.

Much to his stepmother’s distress, Miss Lambarth had also continued to refuse to go to Almack’s or to any large gathering. Although Priscilla had privately warned him that Miss Lambarth’s spurning of the many invitations she received would lead to her being ostracized, quite the reverse was occurring. The novelty of a lady who refused the most exclusive of invitations had every hostess vying to devise parties that might lure the heiress to attend.

Certainly she had no lack of escort when she did go out. Dix, with whom Adam’s relations had remained cool since their exchange at the park, was quick to offer his arm and often Nathan joined the party. Indeed, every time Adam went to his club, gentlemen waylaid him, pleading to be presented to Miss Lambarth. Several presumptuous cawkers had even asked his permission to propose to her.

He’d dutifully presented the former and sent the latter packing, informing them that for now Miss Lambarth refused to entertain any offers. That fact was a source of both anxiety and a secret, guilty pleasure.

Though now that he’d shown himself again how quickly his supposed self-control around her could dis-integrate, it would be far better if Miss Lambarth married and removed herself from Adam’s life. Of late, he was tense and edgy around Priscilla, viewing her actions with a critical eye.

Was it because of the doubts he couldn’t quite shake that his fiancée seemed different to him, or had she truly changed since she’d accepted his suit? Was it only because he’d now observed Helena’s unique response to his world that Priscilla seemed almost stultifyingly conventional?

Before they’d left the Standish mansion last night, Priscilla had accepted her cloak from one footman, her fur muff from another, without seeming to see those servants at all. Her only thanks had been directed to the butler.

Thinking back, he could not remember her speaking to any of the Standish minions save her maid, the butler
and the housekeeper. He couldn’t imagine her descending to the kitchen or personally interviewing a servant.

Her behavior when they were alone together also troubled him. Where at first Priscilla had seemed as eager as he to slip off into the garden, he didn’t think it was just his imagination that she now seemed to avoid such opportunities. Just yesterday, perhaps to prove to himself that he found his fiancée as appealing as…another lady, he’d tried to entice Priscilla into some passionate kisses. Chastising him for disarranging her gown, she’d pushed him away, telling him her mother had recommended they limit themselves to chaste kisses until
after
the wedding.

Were Miss Lambarth in his arms, he didn’t think she would have dipped her head to take his lips on her forehead instead of her mouth.

Now that he thought about it, he’d seen little evidence since their engagement of the adventuresome little girl he remembered so fondly. The child who’d once delighted in escaping her mama’s supervision now seemed all too often to preface or end her speeches with “Mama said…”

When he’d half humorously taxed Priscilla about it after that rebuff in the garden, she’d quickly become defensive. “Mama reminded me that I am soon to be a married lady and must comport myself with more dignity. If I seem to quote her overmuch, ’tis just that I wish to be as excellent a manager of your household as she is of ours and seek to learn all I can from her.”

“Is there to be no spontaneity, then? No—” he kissed her fingertips “—disappearing into dark alcoves together?”

“Spontaneity, Mama says,” she replied, removing her fingers from his, “is usually ill-bred behavior someone is trying to pass off as innocence. I hope I am beyond that.”

There being nothing to object to in her observations, Adam was silent. Yet his feeling of disquiet remained.

Trying to rid himself of it, he’d sought out his fiancée for a third waltz tonight, only to have her send him on to her school friend, Lady Cordelia. Mama, she said, believed ’twas not seemly for them to dance together overmuch, as they would soon be married and ton couples did not spend every moment in each other’s pockets.

Would two people attached to each other, on fire for each other, not burn to claim one another as often as possible, particularly for the dance that was as close to intimacy as one might come in a ballroom?

Were Miss Lambarth his to claim, Adam didn’t think he would allow her to waltz with any man but him.

Suddenly the disinterested affection he’d previously thought most likely to promote lifelong marital happiness no longer seemed so appealing. What would life be without the boiling rush of desire, without irresistible passion, with…polite kisses on the forehead?

Lud! he thought, stomping his foot in disgust. He sounded like Charis reading one of her Minerva Press novels. He’d made his choice and could not now, in honor, go back on it—nor could he subject Priscilla to the ridicule of being jilted. So that was the end of it.

He was approaching White’s when he spied Nathan Blanchard on horseback, talking with another gentleman. Not in the mood for chat, Adam halted, waiting for the two men to finish their conversation.

As he stood there, his gaze idly scanning the street, something about the lad holding Blanchard’s companion’s horse caught his eye. He leaned forward, a shock rippling through him, then cursed under his breath.

He really was in need of strong brandy if he was now seeing Miss Lambarth even in the figure of a street urchin.

Nathan rode off, the other man reclaimed his horse, and the boy ambled back across the lane. Once again, in defiance of all logic, something about the strolling figure set all his senses stirring. He must be a candidate for Bedlam, because as vociferously as he argued with himself that such a thing was impossible, he found himself irresistibly compelled to cautiously approach the boy.

He’d almost convinced himself that even the intrepid Miss Lambarth would never have either the audacity to attempt, nor the ability to carry through, such a disguise when another boy emerged from the shadows. With the full glare of a streetlamp upon him, Adam had no trouble recognizing the lad—the ever-resourceful Dickon, Harrison’s pet and bane of the head groom’s existence.

So the boy was sneaking out to meet his mates—no great harm in that. Adam had just decided to dismiss his ridiculous suspicions and head back toward his club when Dickon’s whisper carried to him on the still night air.

“’Cor, you about seized up m’lungs, going right up to the toffs like that! What if one of ’em had recognized you?”

“But they didn’t,” came a low-pitched reply that froze Adam in midstride and made his heart stop. “In any event, I’m ready to depart. Let’s go to Covent Garden. I should like to find a lady I once saw in the park—the Divine Alice, I think they called her.”

While his heart stuttered and began beating again, he heard Dickon reply that they’d seen enough for one night and there weren’t no way they was going to visit a fancy woman. The two had proceeded down the street before Adam’s brain resumed working and feeling returned to his limbs.

Despite the logic that dictated Miss Lambarth couldn’t possibly be gadding around London dressed like a boy, he knew with absolute certainty that she was.

But what should he do about it?

Dismissing his first reaction, which was to run after them, seize her in his arms and haul her off, probably protesting, to a hackney, he scoured his mind for a more prudent response. On no account did he want to do anything that would draw the attention of the patrons at White’s to himself and the “lad” walking with Dickon.

Blessing his experience as a dispatch carrier for Wellington on the Peninsula, when on several occasions he’d had to practice stealth to avoid alerting French pickets, Adam surreptitiously began following them.

Fortunately, Miss Lambarth and her escort made no
attempt at concealment. Keeping in the shadows, Adam was able to trail them at a distance. They headed toward Picadilly, by their gestures still arguing, Miss Lambarth apparently reluctant to end the evening and Dickon anxious to return to St. James Square, in which direction he continued to point.

Adam let them round the next corner ahead of him, debating whether he should hang back to see if Dickon won the argument or catch up to them and, as quietly as possible, convey Miss Lambarth home.

His heart skipped a beat again when he reached the corner and did not see them, then kicked back into rhythm when he spied them walking down a side alley—thankfully in the direction of home. But before he could rejoice that Dickon had convinced her to return, from the back of a tavern, a large man stumbled out into the alley.

Fear speeding his steps, Adam closed the distance separating them. He was still fifty paces away when the man approaching Miss Lambarth from behind caught her arm.

“Hey, there, m’fine young gent,” he said, looking her up and down. “Ain’t you the pretty one? I likes pretty boys, better ’n most anything. Fer a copper, I’ll show ya just how much.”

A murderous rage filled Adam, the likes of which he’d not felt since Waterloo, when a French dragoon had slashed the squadron mate beside him out of his saddle. Teeth gritted, a growl in his throat, he fisted his hands to attack.

But before he could take a step, in the flickering
light from the torches beside the stable entrance, Adam saw a flash of silver. In the next instant, Miss Lambarth had a slim, curve-bladed knife pressed against the throat of the beefy man who’d accosted her.

“You’d best leave ‘pretty boys’ alone, sirrah…lest I render you incapable of offering your services to boys or girls,” she said in a low, menacing voice.

Eyes bugging out as he stared down at the knife, the man let go her arm. “No need to stick me, now! Didn’t mean ye no harm!”

When Miss Lambarth lifted the blade away, the man scrambled backward. Eyes still on her and Dickon, who paced after the fellow, a large rock in his hands, the man stumbled over the cobblestones, then turned and scuttled back into the tavern’s stable yard.

For a few moments afterward, Adam heard only the sound of his own gusty breathing. Then Dickon’s voice broke the silence. “R-reckon it’s time to go home,” he said shakily.

His heart still hammering against his ribs, Adam sprang back and flattened himself against the building behind him. Light-headed now that the fury had left him, he watched them continue down the lane.

After they had drawn far enough ahead, he resumed following at a discreet distance, letting out a sigh of relief when at last they reached Darnell House and slipped into the garden by a side gate he had forgotten existed.

He stared at the closed gate, bracing his suddenly shaking hands against the garden wall. That momentary weakness was quickly succeeded by another wave
of fury—directed this time at Miss Lambarth. How could she be so reckless, so heedless, so blithely unconcerned about the hideous scandal that would result had someone discovered her—or the terrible danger she’d courted, skulking about London at night with only an idiot boy for protection?

At the same time, he had to acknowledge the ingenuity she’d displayed in contriving so unique a means of escaping the restrictions Society placed upon young maidens—and her cool, quick-witted courage when confronted by a potential attacker. He couldn’t imagine any other woman possessing either her daring or her resourcefulness.

Now that she was safe, he hoped that grudging admiration would help him get through the lecture he intended to deliver without strangling her.

Or—her wildness and his fear for her unleashing a need he was finding difficult to control—without hauling her into his arms and kissing her as senseless as he’d felt upon recognizing her outside White’s.

Trying to crush that primitive impulse, as he had before numerous battles, Adam stood motionless for several minutes, focusing only on drawing in and exhaling slow, deep breaths.

By the time he had his emotions back under control, he figured Miss Lambarth should have been in the house long enough to have changed out of her disguise and returned to her usual late-night reading in the library.

Adam set off around the corner. Their imminent confrontation was a battle he must win. Trotting up the
front steps of Darnell House, he scarcely acknowledged the greetings of the sleepy footman who opened the door, his concentration already focused on the maddening, exhilarating woman who awaited him in the library.

But when, after a brief knock, Adam paced into that room, he found it deserted. Apparently after reaching the safety of her chamber, with a sudden return of prudence, Miss Lambarth had remained there.

For a moment Adam stood irresolute before the cold hearth. Much as he longed to charge up the stairs and pursue her, even at this late hour he could hardly do so without some servant remarking upon it, nor for the same reason could he ask one to summon her. He no more wanted to raise a ruckus here that would require explanation to Lady Darnell than he’d wanted to draw attention to the diabolical girl by accosting her in front of White’s.