No Marriage of Convenience (10 page)

“Oh dear! Was that wrong of me?” Riley gasped.

“Country ways,” Cousin Felicity said in an aside to Lord Delander, shaking her head with a solemn, understanding nod.

The Viscount rallied to her defense. “Never fear, my dearest lady. Your reputation is safe with me. And whenever you wish to venture out, I would be honored to see to your escort personally.”

Beaming at the man, Riley said, “Oh, my lord, how kind you are. How gentlemanly. My guardian warned me to beware of the men in London, for they will take the most egregious advantage of innocent ladies before one can ever utter a word of protest.” She smiled at the Earl and hoped her words hit the mark, fair and true. “How refreshing to be in the company of someone who truly cares about a lady’s most sterling possession, her reputation.”

Certainly she was overplaying the scene, but she did like the way her speech was leaving Lord Ashlin shuddering like a veritable volcano.

With all that said, Cousin Felicity tried to take Riley in tow, toward the sanctuary of the house, but Lord Delander wasn’t about to give up yet.

He cleared his throat. “I never make mistakes when it comes to a charming face. And yours, Miss…” He paused again looking for either Lord Ashlin or Cousin Felicity to fill him in on her identity, but when both of them remained stubbornly silent, Lord Delander continued. “Well, yes, I say your face is remarkably familiar.” He peered intently at her until a light of recognition went
off in his eyes. “That’s it! Now I’ve put it together.” He caught her chin and tipped her face up. “Oh, yes, I see it now. You look exactly like that actress down there.” He let go of her and turned to Lord Ashlin. “What the devil is her name?” He snapped his fingers several times. “What I am asking you for? That would be like asking a Chinaman for directions to Carlton House. If you hadn’t been off hiding at Oxford all these years, you would know the things that are truly important. Oh, whatever is her name?”

“Madame Fontaine?” Cousin Felicity suggested, smiling at Lord Ashlin and Riley as if she had just helped the situation.

Lord Delander slapped his knee, a smile splitting his handsome face. “That’s it. Madame Fontaine! Your guest here is the spitting image of that actress.”

Riley glanced over at Lord Ashlin, who’d gone grayer than a two-day-old corpse. She felt compelled to salvage this disaster, even though a small wicked part of her liked watching the Earl twist a bit in a wind of his own making.

“An actress? You think I look like an actress?” She let her eyes widen in horror. Then, calling on what was described by the reviewer at the
Observer
as her “pithy and compelling use of emotion,” she let a small tear run down her cheek.

It stopped, as if on cue, halfway down.

Turning to Mason, she said, adding a sad little sniff to every other word, “I am so mortified that I…” Her bottom lip trembled as if she didn’t dare finish without dissolving into a fit of tears. “If you turn me out, Lord Ashlin, I’ll understand. I would be forever mortified if your other friends came to the same conclusion. Think of those dear
faultless
girls upstairs and what an association, even an erroneous one, would mean to their sterling, innocent reputations.”

She reached for Cousin Felicity to steady herself, holding out her hand for the handkerchief the lady always had at the ready. While Riley considered that she was probably laying it on a little thick, to the point where even Aggie would be cringing, she rather liked the way her speech now had Lord Ashlin nearly ready to erupt.

Served him right. Kissing her, indeed, and then having the audacity to dismiss her as if it had meant nothing. Well, it had meant something to her.

Even if it was the last thing she wanted.

Taking to her role as protector of their country relative’s virtue, Cousin Felicity glared at Lord Delander, and at the same time, patted Riley’s hand with all the sincere worry of a kindly aunt. “There, there, the Viscount never meant to slight your character.” The lady looked up. “A character above reproach, I might add.”

Riley glanced over at the lady and shot her a warning glance. There was overplaying a role, and then there was overplaying…

“Oh, well, I didn’t mean to imply…I just meant…” Lord Delander stammered. “Oh, bother. The resemblance isn’t that convincing. Just a bit around the edges. And I meant it as the veriest of compliments. Truly I did. Please, no more tears.”

Riley steadied her quivering lip and shot him a brave look. After a hesitant glance toward Cousin Felicity, she even dared a small, shy smile.

“So you accept my deepest apologies, Miss…?” he said, once again taking her hand and bringing her fingers to his lips.

“Yes, of course, my lord,” she offered demurely, while at the same time attempting to retrieve her hand with a practiced twist and yank.

The maneuver failed on such a well-studied rake as
Lord Delander. He held onto her gloved fingers with all the determination of a man fatally smitten. “Now you must tell me your name, and no more deceptions. And I will know where you are staying so I may call on you and your guardian,” he persisted.

“I’m…I’m…” Riley struggled for the right lines to redirect the man’s attentions, when Cousin Felicity came up with her own nonsensical solution to the problem.

And added an entirely new dimension to it.

“Why she is staying with us,” the lady said.

“With you?” Lord Delander turned slightly, shooting Lord Ashlin a questioning glance.

“Oh, yes,” Cousin Felicity continued in her own bubbling fashion. “Staying with us. Where else would
family
stay?”

“Family?” At this Lord Delander grinned. “Another cousin, I presume?”

Riley glanced at the Earl, who appeared too stunned even to speak. Why didn’t he do something—like silence his errant cousin before she made matters worse?

“Yes, yes, our dear Cousin…” the lady hestitated.

“Cousin…?” Lord Delander asked.

“Riley,” she told him, realizing there was no other way than to toss him a bit of a line to chew on.

Lord Ashlin glanced over at her. “Riley?”

“Yes, Riley,” she told him, knowing now why the traveling companies always said to avoid Oxford. These professors hadn’t a bit of improvisation in their soul.

Well, perhaps in kissing…

“Yes,” Lord Ashlin said, finishing the introduction as if he were announcing a hanging. “Miss Riley St. Clair.”

Lord Delander didn’t look all that convinced, but he was too much of a gentleman to make an issue of it. “Delighted to meet you,
Cousin Riley
,” he teased, finally re
leasing her hand. “And your esteemed guardian? Is he staying at Ashlin House as well?”

“Still in the country!” Cousin Felicity interjected. “And our poor cousin without any other living relatives to look after her
interests
.”

Her
interests?

Even Riley, with all her training and years of practice, felt her mouth drop open and her jaw gape at this outrageous lie.

Cousin Felicity made her sound like some sort of heiress—a conclusion Lord Delander had obviously reached from the knowing glance he shot in Lord Ashlin’s direction.

“How commendable of you, old boy,” Lord Delander commented. “A regular saint, to take in another
poor
relation.”

The man grinned at Riley like she stood before him holding a dowry of Spanish treasure, while Lord Ashlin gazed heavenward—probably praying to be struck down.

Which wasn’t so far from the truth.

She let Cousin Felicity lead her up the stairs only too happy to flee from the Earl and his friend before the bird-witted lady decided to invent a family history to go along with her newfound fortune.

If Mason had thought for a moment that a powder keg of disaster could be averted when Del and Madame Fontaine had arrived at that same time, Cousin Felicity had seen to bringing not only the fuse, but a lighted torch as well.

And all his plans would continue to go up in smoke if he didn’t separate his rakish friend from his newfound “cousin.”

Damnation, could his life become any more entangled?

“Come now, Del,” he said. “Our ride?”

“Ah, yes, our ride,” the Viscount replied, gazing at Riley’s departing figure. They mounted up and turned their horses away from the house. “Your cousin, you say.”

“Yes.” Mason wondered if he could legally lock Cousin Felicity away as mad.

Del straightened in his saddle. “So are you thinking of courting her?”

“Courting who?”

“Your Cousin Riley, of course.”

“Certainly not!” Mason told him. Gads, all he needed now was a rumor about town that he was about to marry his cousin. Not when he needed to find a real bride.

Del shrugged. “No need to get into a state. Here I’ve been worried sick over all the rumors about you being rolled up, and now I find you’ve got an heiress tucked under your roof. Doesn’t take a degree from Oxford to put two and two together.”

“There are no twos to put together. My country cousin is neither rich nor in the market for a husband,” Mason told him.

Laughing, Del turned toward the park. “There isn’t a single woman in London who isn’t in search of a husband.”

“I assure you, my cousin is not.”

“I think you doth protest too much,” Del said, waving his hand with a dismissive gesture. “I can see very clearly you mean to steer me away, but it won’t work. You’ve let the devil out of the bottle now. And I have every intention of uncovering exactly what it is you don’t want me to find out about her.”

Mason sighed. “Del, you’re making a big mistake.”

“How so? Felicity said quite clearly the girl has
interests
. We both know what that means.”

“Cousin Felicity? You’re staking your future on Cousin
Felicity’s blithering? In all the years you’ve been acquainted with her, has she ever known what she is talking about?”

“Well, not especially,” Del conceded. “But remember, you are speaking to someone who has known
you
all your life, oh sainted one. And I have to assume your cousin must be scandalously rich for you to be so protective.”

“Del—Riley is not rich. Quite the contrary. And I’m warning you…” Mason should have known better than to fend Del off with a reproach, for the words of caution only served to fuel his friend’s unwitting resolve.

“Harangue me all you like, for I’ve no mind to ruin the girl or get into any mischief. You may not believe this, but the moment I saw your cousin, I felt something very special.”

“Oh, I believe that,” Mason muttered. He felt only too much around his new cousin.

“Her air of innocence, her beauty, that wealth of gently bred qualities have all inspired me.”

“Inspired?” Mason didn’t like the sound of that at all. He knew damn well what Riley inspired in him.

“Yes,” Del said, a little too enthusiastically for Mason’s comfort. “The moment I saw your cousin I knew it was time to start my nursery.”

“Your wh-a-a-t?”

“My nursery. You heard me the first time. I think that cousin of yours will make a first-rate mistress for Delander Hall. Exactly the respectable chit to please my mother and plump up my pockets if my suspicions about her purse are correct.”

“Your mother?” Mason knew he shouldn’t have asked the heavens how his day could get any worse. “You can’t be serious. I doubt very seriously your mother will find Riley acceptable.”

“My mother will find your cousin extraordinary.”

More than you know,
Mason thought. “I think you ought to consider your choice of bride a little more carefully before you start introducing her to your mother.”

“Are you daft? Riley is perfect. Odd name, that, but a rose by any other name, as they say.” He leaned back in his saddle, his eyes closing. “She is like a breath of fresh air. Wherever did you find her?”

“I didn’t find her. She found me,” Mason said quite truthfully.

“I swear you Ashlins have the damndest luck. But not this time. I intend to steal your little heiress right out from beneath you.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, then laughed hilariously at his own jest.

Mason chuckled, but not for the same reason. He could well imagine what the Dowager would do if her son married an actress.

As they rounded the corner and were about to enter the park, Mason spied Hashim walking toward them.

He had told Riley not to bring her outlandish escort, and now here he was, parading onto Ashlin Square for all to see.

As they passed, Hashim made no acknowledgment toward them.

“Look at the fierce creature, Saint,” Del commented once they were well past the imposing man. “I say, you should consider reporting him to the watch. Can’t have the likes of that wandering ’bout frightening the citizenry. He’s probably the same fellow my mother was clamoring on about yesterday. Ever since that actress arrived in London a few years back with her Saracen, now all the ladies want one. They’ve become a plague. And if my mother looks out the window and sees him passing by, she’ll be atop the house. She’ll insist I move back in.” He shud
dered as if that would be a fate worse than death.

Mason smiled to himself. Del may well consider death a welcome fate if his mother found out he was courting the woman the male half of London called Aphrodite’s Envy.

M
ason returned from his ride an hour or so later, determined to put Madame Fontaine—no, he corrected himself, Riley, on notice.

He’d had a hell of a time getting rid of Del, who’d lounged about looking for an invitation to see more of Riley. But Mason had ignored his friend and even now took the front steps two at a time, ticking off her demerits, while Del rode away with a determined look on his face that said only too clearly that this was not the last they’d seen of the Viscount.

Mason didn’t know what irritated him more—the matter of her tardiness, her overly appealing appearance, or her flirtatious manners.

Why, she was a veritable lodestone of charisma, and he wanted her to put a stop to it immediately.

He’d spent most of his ride, between listening to Del come up with names for his and Riley’s children, preparing his own future for the impossible lady.

First, she was under no circumstances to see or speak with Lord Delander. She was to avoid him at all costs.

Second, there was the matter of her servant. He’d told her quite plainly she was to leave him behind. And yet
here he had been this morning, walking along Ashlin Square as if he owned the place.

“Belton,” he called out, stripping off his riding gloves and stuffing them into his hat.

The butler came around the corner. “Yes, my lord?”

Mason handed off his cloak and hat, and said, “Send Madame Fontaine to my study. Immediately.”

He was three steps away when he heard Belton’s reply.

“Madame has already left.”

Mason turned around. “Left? What do you mean, left?”

“She and that infidel departed about a half hour ago.”

“Whatever for?”

Belton shot a withering glance up the staircase, where Mason caught a fleeting glance of muslin as a guilty-looking trio fled the impending storm.

“Did Madame Fontaine say anything before she left?”

Belton shifted. “I’m afraid it was in French, sir. And rather unrepeatable even in the translation.”

Mason could well imagine. He let out an exasperated sigh and continued into his office, Belton following in his wake.

There on his desk awaited his correspondence and accounts, which he was now an hour overdue to begin. His daily schedule lay in shambles.

“Should I ring for your morning tea, my lord?”

At least something of his routine could be salvaged. “Yes. And send for my nieces. Tell them to be in my office in five minutes, no more, no less.”

“Yes, my lord,” Belton said, remaining in place.

“Is there something else?” Mason asked.

Belton held up a reticule. “Madame Fontaine left this behind.”

Mason waved his hand at the thing. “You can return it to her tomorrow.”

“If she comes—” Belton said under his breath.

“Yes, well, I imagine Madame Fontaine is made of sterner stuff than what those harridans of ours can dish out.” If he thought that was the end of it, Mason was quite mistaken. Belton remained in front of his desk like a sentry.

An unwanted one.

“Belton! Why are you hovering?” Mason had never seen the butler so out of sorts. “What is it, man?”

Belton cleared his throat. “When I was retrieving the lady’s reticule, a note fell out.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tattered piece of paper, placing the scrap on Mason’s desk.

“Belton, the contents of Madame Fontaine’s reticule are hardly any of our business, and I cannot believe you would stoop to—” he stopped short of saying “snoop through her belongings” when his gaze fell on the crudely lettered missive.

Leve Englund whore or sufer.

“Well, at least they spelled ‘whore’ correctly,” he remarked.

He picked it up and looked at it more closely. It wasn’t written in a woman’s hand, the letters were far too clumsy. For some reason, he suspected Riley’s writing would be like that of the lady herself, full of passion and curves, not this ignorant scrawl.

So what the devil was going on? he wondered. It made no sense, unless…He dismissed the notion as ridiculous.

Someone threatening Riley?

The note suddenly felt as cold as death in his hands, and he hastily stuffed it back into her reticule.

That was a mistake. For as he opened the brown velvet
bag, he caught a hint of her perfume. His body knew that scent, knew it only too well, and all his instincts clamored for him to protect her.

He dismissed that errant notion outright. The lady was hardly his, or his concern, but certainly he knew what needed to be done—he should return her reticule and get to the bottom of this mystery. He had an investment to protect.

Yes, an investment. That gave an entirely respectable reason for him to rush down to Covent Garden—that Ashlin den of sin and iniquity.

Well, he was a new kind of Ashlin, impervious to the allurements found there.

Even Madame Fontaine’s, he resolved.

An hour later, his nieces left his study. He’d listened to their claims of no wrongdoing, but he hadn’t believed a word of it. They were a little too insistent. So he’d sent them off with an admonishment that their days would begin by helping Mrs. McConneghy in the kitchen if their next lesson didn’t fare better.

On his way out to his awaiting carriage, he cringed at the sound of Cousin Felicity bustling up behind him in a flutter of lace. “Oh, Mason, you are a dear to call a carriage for me,” she said, moving past him and climbing into the conveyance without a second glance back.

“Cousin, this carriage is for me. I have some business to attend to,” he told her, peering inside as she settled in.

“You can drop me off, for I have a little shopping to do,” she said, patting the seat beside her.

“Cousin, I told you, no more unnecessary expenditures.”

She shook her head. “Dear boy, none of my expendi
tures are unnecessary. Besides, you are going to see Riley and return her reticule, aren’t you?”

He shot a glance in her direction. Were there no secrets in his house?

“Yes,” he said, unwilling to go any further into the business.

“Then you can drop me off on the way,” she said, settling deeper into the seat.

Mason knew there was little hope of evicting her now, so he climbed in, and he gave the driver directions. With a lurch and a pull, the carriage was off.

“Dreadful business,” she said quite lightly. “Mason, I do hope you discover what this ‘leve Englund’ nonsense is about.”

His gaze spun around. “You read it?”

“Well, of course. I was there when Belton went through—” She stopped short of completely condemning their butler. Instead, she finished by saying, “We needed to know who the reticule belonged to, so Belton thought it best to open it.”

It was the flimsiest excuse he had ever heard. Cousin Felicity made it sound as if leftover lady’s reticules were a common occurrence at Ashlin House.

“Whyever would anyone want our dear Riley gone?”

“I haven’t the vaguest idea, Cousin. I am sure it is nothing more than some type of theatrical lark.” He hoped that was the case, but something about the note told him there was more to it. “Now, where may I drop you?”

She smiled. “Oh, I’ll just tag along to the theatre, if you don’t mind.”

“I do,” he told her. “If this is some type of threat against Madame Fontaine, I don’t want you mixed up in it.”

Cousin Felicity straightened her shoulders. “I am quite able to take care of myself. Look at how I handled Lord
Delander this morning—I diverted him most efficiently with my story about Riley.”

“You certainly did that,” Mason said, “but you made things more of a muddle by intimating that she is rich.”

“Isn’t she?” Cousin Felicity’s gaze lit with hope.

Shaking his head, he told her, “No, cousin, she isn’t.”

“That’s a dreadful shame, for if she were, then you could marry her.”

Mason sputtered and choked.

Pounding him on the back, she continued, “She is quite a lovely girl and would make a beautiful bride.”

Given the way his cousin tended to mix things up, Mason knew he had to make his next point very clear. “Cousin Felicity, I cannot marry Riley.”

“Whyever not?”

“For one thing, she’s an actress,” he said, still too stunned by his cousin’s suggestion to offer the million other reasons as to why he couldn’t take Riley as his wife.

Cousin Felicity sighed, as if the entire world had gone mad.

They drove along, rolling into the crowded streets of Covent Garden, drawing closer to the Queen’s Gate.

He glanced out his window to get his bearings when he happened to spy Riley walking down the street.

Rather, he spotted those damnable plumes—undulating their way above the crowd with their haremlike movements—announcing her impending arrival with their voluptuous dance.

In contrast, the lady below the feathers moved with an elegant grace that made her seem as if she were entering a ball rather than walking down the litter-strewn street. As passersby spoke to her or called out a greeting, she inclined her head with nothing less than a royal nod, a gesture so regal that it left him almost believing the rumors
that she had descended from the very Pharaohs of Egypt.

Lost in the reverie of such a notion, he didn’t see the two men approaching her until it was too late to call out a warning.

The evil shining out from their beady gazes as they closed in on her from either side betrayed their injurious intent.

Helpless to intervene through the throng separating them, he could only watch as one of them threw a hand over her mouth, while the other caught her arms and they dragged her into a narrow alley in the wink of an eye.

As the greasy hand clapped over Riley’s mouth and nose, she gasped for air and her eyes began to water from the foul stench of her attacker. Before she could react, a second attacker caught her arms and pinned them to her sides. Her assailants quickly dragged her off the street and into the alley before anyone noticed her misfortune.

“Yer a right pretty one, ain’t ye?” the first man whispered in her ear. “Well, ye won’t be so nice when we get done with ye.”

To her horror, he drew out a long knife that even in the dark of the alley flashed with a deadly glint. “Oh, this isn’t the worst of it, my pretty,” he told her. “I’ve me other blade that I intend to use as well.”

“’E said no sport, Clyde,” his companion complained. “No sport with ’er, if ye know what’s good for ye.”

“I’ll have my sport for the measly coins ’e’s givin’ us for this job. Not likely as anyone will be listenin’ to ’er when we git done,” Clyde said, his foul breath wafting over her with a malodor akin to a cesspool on an August afternoon. “I don’t intend to leave ’er breathin’ or talkin’.”

Riley kicked and struggled, making every attempt she could to escape as they continued to pull her deeper and
deeper into the alley. The more she fought, the harder they cuffed and kicked her to keep her moving along.

She should have heeded the warning in the note. Let Hashim escort her on her errands, rather than sneaking out without him. Done a thousand different things…but now it seemed her unknown enemy would truly see her dead.

But who? And why?

“If ye think a little sport is in order, I say we do it before we cut ’er all up,” the second man said, loosening his grip to fumble with the rope that held up his trousers.

In that instant, she freed a hand. Exactly as Hashim had taught her, she balled her fingers into a tight fist and swung with all her might at the one called Clyde, while her foot came up and down on the boot of the other.

As they howled in pain at her sudden attack, she bolted for the street.

But Clyde was too quick for her. “Ye little bitch,” he cursed, catching her by the arm before she could take a second step and swinging her into the wall, the back of her head snapping against the bricks, leaving her stunned and slumping to the ground in a daze of stars. “Ye’re a dead one now.”

She closed her eyes and started to count her final moments…regrets flooded her mind, but the most outstanding one was Lord Ashlin.

If only she’d been able to do more than just kiss him. To discover for herself whether there lurked an unrepentant rake behind his starched demeanor, or whether the few moments in his arms had been exactly what he’d said they’d been—an aberration.

Now, she would never know. Yet as she braced herself for Clyde’s murderous blow, she heard a sudden commotion pounding down the alley toward them. She wiped
at her eyes, but the stars still dancing there obscured her vision.

“What the—” Clyde said, as a flash of silver seemed to light the entire alleyway, an avenging angel rescuing her from her plight.

Hashim!
He’d come looking for her. He’d heard the commotion and found her.

Clyde’s piteous scream pierced the afternoon clamor of the streets.

“Leave off,” the second man whined, his feet pedaling against the cobbles in desperate flight. “We meant no ’arm.”

“Liar,” she sputtered.

“She’s the liar,” Clyde spat back. “Invited us back ’ere for a little fun and then tried to rob us.”

“I tend to believe the lady,” a smooth male voice responded.

Her head jerked in that direction. Her rescuer spoke. So if it wasn’t Hashim, who could it be?

“Are you well, Riley?” the man asked. “Can you get away?”

The voice—she recognized it, though she was certainly dreaming.

Lord Ashlin? Here in Covent Garden?

She shook her aching head, trying to clear her vision of its blurry haze. All she could make out was a figure clad in black swooping past her, blade in hand, chasing down the two henchmen who had threatened her life.

It was like a scene from her play.

Act Three, Scene Two. Aveline is rescued from the pirates by Geoffroi.

“Oh, my God,” she muttered. She was dead and this was her hell—she was trapped in her own play with Lord Ashlin in the lead. As she felt herself slipping further into
the darkness of unconsciousness, she tried to claw her way back.

Even she’d admit her plays were poor art, but to spend eternity in one was enough to make her fight for her life.