Most Eagerly Yours (15 page)

He leaned close, his warm breath like a streak of fire across her cheek. “Don’t.”

That was all he said—
don’t
—too low to be heard by anyone except her, but emphatic, razor sharp.

 

“Please unhand me, Lord Barensforth.” Despite the alarm etched on her face, the widow spoke with composure. Her lashes swept shadows over her flushed cheeks as her gaze lit on the hand he held clamped around her wrist. “You are hurting me.”

He barely heard her through the pounding in his ears. It was all too familiar, Rousseau with his tinctures and procedures and promises. Empty, perhaps even dangerous promises, all too reminiscent of his mother’s death, his father’s despair.

Laurel gave a tug that thrust him back to the present. The fingers wrapped about her wrist trembled with tension and anger. He released her, fisting the hand even as he muttered an apology.

Her lips tightened, likely from holding back the reprimand he deserved. She only said, “That is quite all right. Excuse me.”

She started to walk toward the dais, where the waiters continued to pass around Rousseau’s mystery elixir—a mystery because Aidan was not so naive as to believe the man had just divulged the secrets of his patented formula.

Ah, Rousseau was skillful, damn him. For all his humble and myopic appearance, he possessed a practiced flair for the dramatic. This rubbish about secret laboratories and ancient temples lent just the right aura of mysticism to delight the gullible.

Was Laurel one of them?

He reached out, tempted to catch her shoulder from behind, until he realized he’d exhibited enough inappropriate behavior for one day simply in seizing her wrist. It wasn’t as though they were alone on a night-darkened balcony. Here, people would talk.

“Laurel.” He hissed her name, and like an arrow the summons hit its mark. She halted and turned. “I’d still rather you didn’t.”

Her head tilted; the dimple beside her mouth flashed as her lips plumped. “Why?”

How should he answer? What proof did he have that Rousseau was attempting to swindle anyone, or that his elixir might not actually possess a benefit or two? As Wescott had said at the outset, medical advances were made in this manner.

But so were bankrupt estates and broken hearts. “It is too new. Who can say whether his formula might cause an adverse reaction?”

He half expected her to demand why he should care what she did. He demanded that of himself and didn’t like the answer: that after a single waltz beneath the stars, this perplexing woman had begun to matter to him. That he had begun to care about her.

“No one else seems unduly concerned.” Her gloved hand made a sweep of the line extending out from the dais. Aidan saw the familiar faces of Julian Stoddard, the recently arrived Lord and Lady Harcourt, even the doubtful Geoffrey Taft and Mrs. Whitfield, and a host of others awaiting their turn. “Frankly,” she said, “I do not see the harm.”

“Then you are as biddable as the rest of these bleating sheep.”

Her breath came sharply, but she held her ground. “That is rather harsh, don’t you think? Look there, Lady Fairmont and Lady Devonlea are about to enjoy a taste. I see Lord Munster up ahead as well.”

With that, she stalked away, and he let her, raking a hand through his hair and expelling an oath through his teeth. Yes, his friends and acquaintances were in line to ingest a hodgepodge of God only knew what. And the truth was, while he didn’t relish the thought of these people risking their health, he had not come here to stop them. He hadn’t come this morning intending to prevent anything, but rather to scrutinize the demonstration, search out inconsistencies, and sample the elixir himself. How else to determine the truth of its effects?

A sound plan. Yet what had he ended up observing? Laurel Sanderson. What had he sampled? The spark of her gutsy valor as she stood up to him time and again.

Was she the woman from Knightsbridge Street? He
knew
she was. Then why did she have him half disbelieving his own certainty?

Because she had somehow engaged his emotions in ways other women did not, leaving him open, susceptible, distracted—

His thoughts broke off. His mind went utterly still, then began sifting through everything he knew about flimflam artists.

They often had partners, planted among the potential targets to act as . . .

Distractions. To draw attention away from the trickery of the scheme, and to provide seemingly innocent encouragement to those clinging to their skepticism.

Is that why the lovely and engaging Mrs. Sanderson had suddenly appeared on Bath’s social scene? How convenient that she should arrive only days before Rousseau offered his elixir to the general public.

Aidan shook his head at the unlikely stride his logic had taken. Yes, he believed she had lied about being in mourning and, yes, he believed she continued to hide . . . something. But being in collusion with a man who happened to be a respected member of his profession, who had never committed so much as a misdemeanor in all his years in this country?

When he thought of it that way, his suspicions seemed ridiculous. Yet suspicion continued to creep along his nerve endings, raising an irritable itch between his shoulders.

In the past few minutes, the line had grown considerably shorter while the chorus of voices praising the formula filled the room. Fitz reached to accept two glasses from a waiter. He handed one to Laurel. Nearby, Melinda and Beatrice were sipping theirs.

Aidan moved to the dais. “I say, can a bloke procure himself a dram?”

Laurel’s glass paused partway to her lips. “But you said . . .” She trailed off, eyebrows angling inward. “You were dead set against it,” she charged. “You implied there might be . . . danger.”

“Did I? How dramatic. Mrs. Sanderson, you must have misunderstood me. Odd how our perceptions can sometimes confound us.” He winked, wagering that she would have no trouble comprehending the gesture.

Her indignation held another instant, then dissolved into a moue of capitulation. She had read his meaning perfectly. If she said nothing more about his objections to Rousseau’s elixir, he would not bring up London again.

However much their individual intentions might conflict, for now it seemed the very act of harboring secrets had rendered them unwitting accomplices. The notion should not have made him grin, but grin he did as he clinked his glass against hers and prepared to take his first taste of Rousseau’s magical elixir.

 

Laurel wanted to shake the grin from Aidan Phillips’s lips and the glass from his hand. Why put up such a fuss about not sampling the formula if he had intended trying it all along? The man was impossible. Was he deliberately trying to exasperate her?

He was doing a first-rate job.

And his reference to “confounded perceptions” could not have been any plainer. Tit for tat. Blackmail, really. Either she stopped questioning his sudden change of mind, or he would harass her about the color of her dresses and whether she had nearly been trampled in a crowd last summer.

Blast the man and his inconvenient memories. Thank heaven Lord Munster had been too far away that day to have gotten a good look at her.

But the question remained: why
had
Aidan changed his mind after so vehement a protestation, and why did he not wish to discuss the matter in front of the others?

“Drink up, Mrs. Sanderson,” Lord Munster urged. “I g-guarantee you shall be impressed.”

Snapped out of her ruminations, Laurel started to comply when the clatter of shattering glass stopped her short. She spun around to discover Lady Fairmont holding a hand to her brow and looking as pale as the gloomy sky beyond the windows. Shards of glass glistened on the floor at her feet.

“My lady!” Hastily she placed her own sample on Rousseau’s demonstration table before hurrying over to the countess. “Are you ill?”

The broken glass crunched beneath her boots. Her concern escalated to full-scale alarm when the countess’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and her legs collapsed beneath her.

Lady Fairmont sank heavily, dragging Laurel down with her onto the hardwood floor. She managed to grasp Lady Fairmont’s shoulders, preventing the woman from hitting her head. Then she propped the insensible countess against her. Reaching for the fan attached by its cord to her reticule, she waved it over Lady Fairmont’s face.

“My lady? Lady Fairmont? Someone, please help us.”

A ring of concerned and shocked faces formed around them. Startled speculation whizzed like arrows over Laurel’s head.

“She’s fainted!”

“Do you think it was the elixir?”

“Is anyone else feeling ill?”

“Someone should summon a doctor.”

From beyond the circle, Lady Devonlea was calling Laurel’s name. As though she were suddenly conveyed through time to that summer day in Knightsbridge, she felt breathless, hemmed in, drowning in a sea of people. Her fear for Lady Fairmont mingled with a sudden if irrational dread of being trampled.

And then, just as on that day, a hand, broad and strong, appeared between the press of bodies, followed by a muscular arm, a solid shoulder, and finally Aidan’s handsome features.

He paused for a brief assessment of the situation and took charge.

“Fitz,” he called over his shoulder, “have the porter summon Dr. Bailey at once.”

Relief poured through Laurel as Aidan knelt at her side, bringing with him a sense that all would be well. “What happened?” he demanded.

“I don’t know exactly. It came on so suddenly.”

He laid a gentle hand on Lady Fairmont’s bloodless cheek. “Melinda? Can you hear me? It is Aidan.”

“We must get her off this chilly floor,” Laurel said. “Can you lift her?”

“Easily.”

He slipped an arm around the countess’s back, and for a heart-stopping second that arm also lay across the front of Laurel’s jacket. The world seemed to begin and end at that small place of contact just above her breasts; her nipples tightened in response, and all her awareness converged on the heat infused by his forearm, so that the room and the people filling it might not have existed.

It was over in a moment, leaving her unnerved and bewildered that her reaction to him could be so powerful. He eased Lady Fairmont away, gathering her securely in his arms before pushing to his feet.

The countess stirred; her eyelids fluttered.

Laurel stood and reached to grasp her hand. “Lady Fairmont, can you hear me?”

“Mrs. Sanderson?”

“Yes, my lady. You fainted. No, do not try to move. Not just yet.”

“Who has got me . . . ? Oh, Aidan, it is you.” Blinking, she gripped his coat sleeve. Looking up into his face, she produced a saucy grin, albeit an unsteady one.

“Ah, if only I were twenty years younger and not your godmother.”

“If I weren’t your godson, I shouldn’t care about those twenty years.” The hearty declaration had a warming effect on Laurel’s heart and made her smile. Aidan gently lowered the countess’s feet to the floor, but he kept a steady arm around her. “Do you think you can walk? If not, I shall carry you out and set you before me on my horse.”

The countess laughed weakly. “You will do no such thing. The loan of this formidable arm shall suffice.”

“You’re a stubborn old she-goat,” he murmured with a shake of his head. His arm tightened when she swayed slightly. “Steady, now.”

Lady Devonlea pressed through the crowd to reach them. “Lady Fairmont, thank heavens you are on your feet again. Such a fright you gave us.”

“Yes, how tiresome of me. I simply cannot fathom what came over me.”

Aidan’s warnings about the elixir sent a chill through Laurel. Yet no one else appeared to be experiencing ill effects. She glanced over her shoulder; Rousseau was no longer behind the dais. The man was nowhere to be seen.

She eased closer to Aidan and the countess so she would not be overheard. “How much of the elixir did you drink, my lady?”

“Hardly a drop. The glass slid from my grasp before I’d taken more than a sip.” With a rueful shake of her head, Lady Fairmont regarded the glass shards littering the floor.

“Too little breakfast, perhaps.” A handsome young man, whom Lady Devonlea had introduced to Laurel last evening as Lord Julian Stoddard, limped forward with the help of a cane.

With wheat blond hair and aquamarine eyes that contrasted brightly against his tanned complexion, his were just the sort of looks over which Willow would have sighed and mooned. Despite his walking stick, Laurel perceived a cavalier swagger in his stance, making him seem like a younger, lighter-haired version of Aidan.

“Yes, Julian, now that you mention it, I did set out this morning without a proper breakfast.” The countess lifted a hand to her brow. With the other she clung to Aidan’s arm. “Yes . . . that must be it.”

“Lord Barensforth,” Laurel said quietly, “perhaps it would be best to bring Lady Fairmont home now.”

He nodded. “Stoddard, be a good lad and ask a porter to secure us a hansom.”

The younger man hesitated, regarding Aidan with a sardonic tilt to his lips before setting off. Laurel supposed he didn’t appreciate being called a “lad.” Or perhaps his injured ankle made the task an arduous one.

Lady Fairmont took a faltering step at Aidan’s side and then stopped, extending a hand. “Mrs. Sanderson, you’ll come, too, won’t you?”

“Of course, my lady, if you wish me to.”

Laurel bade good day to Lady Devonlea and thanked her for the ride there earlier. Darting a glance at Aidan’s and Lady Fairmont’s receding backs, the viscountess whispered, “Remember what I said earlier. Aidan is on the prowl, and you, my dear, are the prey he covets. If I were you, I would be on my guard.”

“
O
h, do stop this infernal fussing, all of of you.” Propped on pillows whose linen cases rivaled the ashen tone of her skin, Lady Fairmont scowled at the servants bustling in and out of her elegantly appointed bedchamber.