London's Last True Scoundrel (9 page)

He did not touch her, but he stood close enough that she felt him, all the same. She was hot from the blaze of the kitchen fire, but her body temperature rose again now, several degrees. She even felt a little light-headed.

“I—y-yes,” she stammered. “I learned from the cook at Miss Tollington’s.”

He reached over to nick a piece of bacon and pop it in his mouth, brushing her arm as he did so.

Hilary swallowed hard. It was all quite deliberate; she was sure of that.

She kept thinking of flagpoles. Tall ones, straight and hard.

No.

“Take care; this is hot,” she warned. Hilary turned with the sizzling skillet in her hands, so he was obliged to make room or be scalded.

She maneuvered past Davenport to slide the bacon onto their plates. Ordinarily, she would not have troubled to make such a breakfast for herself, but she wanted to fill her companion’s stomach so they wouldn’t have to stop too often for sustenance on the way to London.

They sat down to bacon, toast, and scrambled eggs. “Not your usual fare, I don’t doubt,” she said. “But I gave you a large serving.”

“Delicious,” he asserted. “Best breakfast I’ve ever tasted.”

She doubted that, but he ate every morsel and accepted a second helping.

Hilary felt absurdly pleased. It was only bacon and eggs, of course, but she enjoyed cooking and feeding people. Something most true ladies never turned their hands to, of course. Well, she wouldn’t have, either, but her brothers could never keep a decent cook for long. The choice had been to live on bread and cheese or learn to cook herself.

Davenport was a sensual creature, she thought now, watching him savor the simple meal. The easy domesticity of this scene suddenly struck her as amusing. She and the scandalous Earl of Davenport, sitting down to breakfast at a kitchen table.

Passing the last twenty-four hours under review, she marveled at what a transformation her life had undergone. All because of this man.

“What were you doing yesterday, riding about the countryside in your evening clothes?” she asked. A question that had occurred to her many times, only to be supplanted by shock at his next outrageous exploit.

He grimaced. “My cousins, bless them, thought I could benefit from some country air. They drugged me, bound me, and threw me in a farmer’s cart, then drove me out here and dumped me in a barn.”

She gasped. “But that’s terrible. These cousins of yours sound like brutes.”

“Oh, no,” he said cheerfully. “I daresay I deserved it.”

“Was that how you got those bruises?” Even now, the contusions had not faded but turned mottled purple and yellow. The lurid markings on his face ought to lessen his appeal.

They didn’t.

“Yes, I gave quite a good account of myself, as I recall, but there were two of them.” He shrugged. “I think they would have taken me as far as my estate near Peterborough, but I gave them too much trouble. Hence the barn.”

She regarded him doubtfully. “You seem to bear them no grudge.”

“I don’t.” He cut into the bacon. “If they hadn’t brought me to the middle of nowhere I wouldn’t have met you, Honey.”

A melting feeling in her insides threatened to overpower her good sense. Yet she couldn’t help but reflect that if his cousins had not served him such a turn, she might be on her way to a London season with Mrs. Farrington at this moment.

Well, perhaps not. Her brothers’ escapade would have been difficult to explain away. Still, without Davenport, she’d not have made that outrageous display of fury that was utterly foreign to her nature. Looking back, she couldn’t believe she’d behaved in such a disgraceful manner. He had the most maddening effect on her. She’d never met anyone quite like the Earl of Davenport.

She braced her shoulders as she cleared the plates. No use crying over spilled milk, was there? She’d simply have to make the best of the situation. At least, she would get away from the Grange.

“What is Lady Tregarth like?” she asked him.

“Rosamund? Oh, she’s the beauty of the family,” he said.

“How does she go on with her husband?” she asked. “I saw him once, years ago, and he terrified me.”

“Wraps him ’round her little finger,” said Davenport with a laugh. “But you’ll see for yourself.”

He drained his tankard of ale, then said, “Thank you. That was excellent. I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed a meal more.”

“You’re welcome.” She glanced at the clock. “We should make haste. Hodgins will be up soon.”

She frowned. “Where is that Trixie?”

He rose from the table, took his tankard over to the bench where she’d stacked the plates, and set it down. “I haven’t seen her.”

He put a hand up to feel his jaw as he accompanied her out of the kitchen. “Come to think of it, she promised me hot water and a shaving kit this morning, but it didn’t materialize. Perhaps she slept in.”

“No, she was up betimes this morning.” Raising the skirts of her plain cambric gown, Hilary mounted the narrow staircase to the upper floor.

After much searching, they went up to the attics to see if Trixie was in her room. A faint cry reached them as they came to the final set of stairs.

“Trixie!” Hilary rushed to the landing, where the maid sat all of a heap, whimpering with pain. “What happened? Did you fall down the stairs?”

“My ankle!” wailed Trixie, sticking out her left foot for Hilary’s inspection. “Ooh, but it hurts so much, miss. I was just getting me bags and I tumbled arse over—”

“Yes, I see that,” interrupted Hilary hastily. She took Trixie’s leg in her hands. “Let me look.”

“Ow! Ooh, it hurts,” sobbed Trixie, snatching the affected limb away from her hold. “Don’t touch it. I can’t bear you to touch it, miss.”

“I have plenty of experience with my brothers injuring themselves,” she assured the maid. “I’ll be able to tell if it’s broken or not.”

“Perhaps I might be of assistance here,” said Davenport from behind her. The suave note in his voice made Hilary frown, but Trixie’s face lit up like a candle.

“Oh, my lord,” she breathed, pain apparently forgotten for the moment.

Hilary suspected Davenport merely wanted to get his hands on a pretty ankle, but he made no move to crouch down to examine Trixie’s injury.

“Try to move your foot from side to side,” he instructed the maid. “Like this.”

He demonstrated with his own foot.

Cautiously, but with determination, Trixie did as he said. She winced. “It hurts, but I can move it.”

“Right,” said Davenport. “Try this.” He pointed his toe, then flexed his heel.

Trixie did the same, with a wince and a sharp cry of pain.

“It’s not broken, I don’t think,” Davenport said. “Perhaps a bad sprain. Do you think you could walk with my support?”

The maid’s face lifted to his like a flower lifted to the sun. “I—I’ll try,” she said bravely.

With his assistance, she hobbled a couple of steps on the landing, but the stairs proved too much for her. He swept her into his arms and carried her to her room, then laid her gently on her narrow cot.

In a low voice, Davenport said to Hilary, “It would be cruel to make her travel with us.”

“Oh, do you think so?” said Hilary anxiously.

“Do not be concerned for me, miss,” said Trixie, blinking back tears. “You must go to London without me.”

Guilt sliced through Hilary. “But I cannot leave you here with only Hodgins to care for you. You could die of starvation up here and no one would notice.”

“He’d notice fast enough if I weren’t at my duties, miss,” said Trixie with a sniff. “Besides, it will be better in a day or so, I expect.”

Hilary bit her lip. Could she spare a day or so? What other disasters might befall her if they waited that long?

“No,” she declared. “You must come with us.”

“
Eh?
” Davenport and Trixie chorused.

“I need you for propriety more than anything else, Trix,” said Hilary reasonably. “The journey is but a day. We can set you up nicely in the carriage with a cushion to rest your foot upon. It’s not as if you’ll be obliged to
walk
anywhere. His lordship will carry you where you need to go.”

She smiled at her companions. “You see? Problem solved. Now, we’d best be going or Hodgins is sure to give the game away. Will you take Trixie down to the carriage, please, my lord? I shall get our things, and then we can be gone.”

*   *   *

Davenport bent a stern gaze on Trixie, willing her to say nothing until Honey was out of earshot.

She held her tongue until her mistress’s footsteps died away. Then she collapsed into giggles.

He frowned at her. “This is not funny. Do you think she rumbled us?”

“Bless you, no,” said Trixie, wiping her eyes. “My lord, the look on your face! Hoo, I thought I’d split my sides, I did. Serve you right, sirrah, having such designs on a virtuous lady.”

The reproach glanced off his armor. “Let’s get moving, then. If she won’t be parted from you over a sprained ankle, I daresay I shall think of something else.”

He should have chosen a contagious fever. But he’d thought it likely Honey would insist on remaining behind to nurse the wench.

Clearly, his skills at the game of seduction were a little rusty. He needed to hone his strategy if he was going to lure the virtuous Miss deVere to his bed.

So close …
Ah, he could still feel the heady rush of having her beneath him on that damnably uncomfortable bed this morning. He hadn’t been fully awake or he’d have handled that encounter with more finesse.

He shook his head. He needed to keep his wits about him, stop allowing her the advantage. She was attracted to him; he could smell it on her, the sweet scent of desire. When he’d kissed her, she’d responded with a helpless, innocent passion that was like a revelation, the mere taste of an addictive drug.

But the mere taste was all it had taken to get him intoxicated to make him crave more.

And now his hopes of having her to himself in a closed carriage had been dashed. Not by any awareness on her part of just how dastardly he could be, but by her laudable compassion for her maid.

Well, there would be many opportunities in Town. He’d make sure of that.

He began to stalk off when Trixie spoke. “My lord?”

“Yes, what is it?” He turned impatiently.

She pouted and lifted her dimpled arms. “Aren’t you going to carry me down?”

*   *   *

They were finally ready to leave as dawn got a good orange glow on the landscape. Having deposited Trixie in the coach with slightly less gentleness than her invalid status warranted, Davenport eyed the equipage critically.

“Is this the best you could do?” he said to Honey, who stepped away from her conversation with the pimply-faced youth on the box.

“Sadly, yes. Billy assures me it is serviceable, but I can’t be certain. No one has used it since my parents were alive.”

She regarded him. “Thank you for taking such good care of Trixie.”

“My pleasure,” he lied. “Are you certain she is better off with us than here? I cannot help thinking it is cruel to subject her to such a journey.”

Honey’s brow furrowed. “It would be callous in the extreme to leave her behind. No one would care for her. You don’t think we should stay until she gets better?”

No, that he certainly did not. “If I have to sleep one more night in that house, I’ll murder someone. Preferably, your brothers.”

“Not if I get to them first,” she said, grim faced.

With a mental sigh of resignation, he offered his arm, “Shall we?”

On a last look at the life she left behind, Honey nodded and let him hand her into the coach.

CHAPTER SEVEN

As he helped Honey up, Davenport sent a swift glance around. A glint of light caught his attention. It came from the stand of trees that grew in wild disorder beside the rutted drive.

Honey must have felt him tense beneath her hand, for she turned back and studied him curiously. “Is something wrong?”

He resisted the urge to bundle her into the coach, willy-nilly.

“Not a thing in the world,” he said, climbing up after her.

His shadow had found him. Or, more accurately, his shadow had never lost sight of him, even though he’d been smuggled out of London in the dead of night, then arrived at the Grange by circuitous means.

Someone was extremely persistent.

Davenport seated himself beside Honey on the lumpy, threadbare banquette opposite the maid and stretched his legs as far as they’d go. Once, the squabs had been royal blue velvet, but they weren’t anymore. Damn, but it must be depressing to live amid all this decay.

His irritation with the deVere brothers flared anew.

Davenport slid a sidelong glance at the enchanting profile of his companion, so delicately drawn, culminating in the prettiest mouth he’d ever seen. He experienced a powerful urge to shower her with every imaginable luxury. She should bathe in champagne, wear diamonds in her hair, silk on her body.

Nothing at all when she lay there in his bed, ready and waiting for him.

He wondered what she looked like naked.

As if aware of his regard, she blushed prettily and turned away, staring unseeing out the window. He repressed the impulse to lean past her to pull down the shade. If someone was out there waiting to put a bullet through him, so be it, but he’d die before he’d let Honey be hurt.

Common sense told him that whoever followed him didn’t mean to kill him or he’d already be dead. He couldn’t remain vigilant every moment of the day, and they—whoever they were—had been following him around London for the better part of six months.

He hadn’t taken much more than a cursory interest until now. He hadn’t taken more than a cursory interest in anything besides women and liquor since he’d returned to Town.

So. What did they want?

If they followed him because they expected him to resume his former path of scientific inquiry, they’d be doomed to disappointment. He was done with all that.

Someone kept track of his every move. Someone who was damned good at hunting men.

“Can’t this thing go any faster?” he said.