Suzanne Robinson (4 page)

“Whoa, there,” Nick snapped as she walked toward the front of the wagon. He started toward her, then stopped as Lavinia lifted her shotgun.

“Mr. Ross,” Georgiana said, fighting hard not to show her embarrassment or her anger before servants again. “You seem to have mistaken me for your horse.”

“Well, you’re a mite more stubborn, but you got a point there.”

She heard a stifled snicker from the workmen. A snicker! Color drained from Georgiana’s face. Her back stiffened. Whirling in a flurry of twenty yards of skirt, Georgiana offered her hand to the wagon driver and climbed onto the seat. The driver got up beside
her. Looking down, she inspected this uninvited barbarian as though he were a rat she’d found in her sewing box.

“Your indelicacy puts you beyond polite society, sir. You’ll leave Threshfield immediately. If not, I’ll have the earl throw you out.”

Nick Ross replaced his hat, shoving it back onto his head, and grinned up at her. “I heard tell you’d grown all high-and-mighty.” He glanced at Lavinia’s shotgun. “Looks like it’ll take me a sight longer than I thought to fix this mess. So I reckon I’ll just have to stay till I can get you to leave.”

To her consternation he strolled to the wagon, leaned over, and reached out. She jumped and collided with the driver, which caused Mr. Ross to grin at her in that infuriating manner that made her feel like smacking his face. He grasped a handful of her skirt and tucked it inside the wagon away from the front wheel.

At no time did he touch her. He was wearing gloves. But the feel of his hand on her skirt created hot confusion, as if a blistering current passed from his body, through her skirt, to hers. She grew even more flustered because as he came closer, she was afforded a glimpse of that bare throat and that sun-darkened chest.

“Course, you could get rid of me now,” he said softly. “Just promise me you’ll pack up and go back to your pa.”

“Go away, sir. I shall speak to the earl.”

Nick Ross backed up and rested his hands on his hips, leering up at her with intolerable insolence. “Won’t do you no good. I got myself invited to stay.
Me and Threshfield are old friends. I reckon you might as well give up now.”

Lips tight, cheeks crimson, Georgiana nodded at the driver, who set the wagon in motion. She tried to ignore the chuckle that sent pinpricks of irritation down her spine.

“See you later, George. Maybe by then you’ll have put on some more clothes.” His voice grew louder as the wagon retreated. “I think you forgot your petticoats.”

Her composure broke at this last humiliation. Twisting around in the seat, she glared back at the tall, dusty savage and for the first time in her life shouted before servants. “Drat your evil soul, Nicholas Ross. You’re nothing but vermin, and I’ll take great satisfaction in watching you get thrown out on your—your ear!”

Nick watched the wagon bearing Georgiana make a turn on the gravel drive that took it around the northwest wing of the house. Shoving his hat lower on his forehead, he walked over to Pounder, grabbed the animal’s reins, and handed them to one of the footmen who had followed Randall outside. He’d been certain his wild-frontiersman tactic would work. Any nobly born young woman threatened by a gun-toting barbarian ought to have lifted her skirts and scurried for the protection of her papa.

Lady Georgiana had faced him down, and now he was stuck trying to pry her out of here some other way. He had various other clever, and some mean, ploys ready, but the crazed gunfighter had been the quickest. Nick glanced at the butler and the lady in pants. They were staring at him. Still silent, he patted Pounder on the rump, removed his saddlebags, and threw them over his shoulder.

For the first time since he’d set out on this mission for his friend, he was worried. Not just worried—
damned worried. She wasn’t what he’d expected. He had remembered Lady Georgiana as a bespectacled, awkward adolescent but had come face-to-face with a black-haired young noblewoman with the dignity of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and the queenly height to match. She didn’t stumble over her feet anymore.

No one would ever mistake her for a great beauty. He was familiar with the standards of Society, and Georgiana was too tall, too determined, and had that intriguing spray of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. He couldn’t help smiling at the way her spectacles kept slipping down that delightful nose. Which was all the more reason to be furious with himself—because as soon as he hopped off Pounder and confronted her, he’d experienced a deep, gut-twisting burst of desire.

Previously he’d spent no more than a few minutes in her company with no such awkward results. But she’d changed in the two years since they’d last met. He wasn’t sure how, but his body didn’t seem to be thwarted by his ignorance. He lusted after the sister of the man he loved like a brother.

Nick Ross, you’re a disgusting prig what don’t deserve to live. You think Jos, sterling bloke though he is, would want a Whitechapel thief for his sister? You owe him your life, and you ain’t going to repay him by interfering with the girl he sent you to protect. Bloody hell. You stow it. Just stow it. Get this business over with, and get yourself away from her quick
.

He was in luck, though. Trying to ruin her betrothal was going to make Lady Georgiana hate him. He couldn’t bed a woman who hated him. He was safe; Jos was safe; the lady was safe. Satisfied, Nick returned to the woman with the shotgun.

Glancing ruefully in the direction of the vanished wagon, he shook his head. “Dang and bloody hell too.”

“Indeed, young man,” she said. Shifting her shotgun to one arm, she offered her hand. “I am Lavinia Stokes, Lady Georgiana’s aunt.”

Nick took her hand and bowed over it, saddlebags and all. “Pleased, ma’am.” He eyed her man’s breeches surreptitiously. He’d never seen a woman in pants, not even in all his time in Texas. It was a sight. Jos had warned him that Aunt Lavinia was Georgiana’s idol, and no doubt the influence in her plan to gain independence.

“I remember you now,” Lavinia continued. “I remember Jocelin speaking of you. Whatever possessed you to attempt to bully my niece in such an outlandish manner?”

“Jos sent me to break up this engagement, ma’am.”

“You’ve failed.”

“Not yet, and I got me a whole lot more to say about it.”

Lavinia nodded while giving him a look of severe appraisal. “Why?”

“Uh, why?”

“There’s nothing wrong with your hearing, young man. Why are you pushing yourself in where you don’t belong?”

“I’m doing it for Jos, ma’am.”

She gave him a sharp, sidelong glance that told him she didn’t believe him. He wondered if she’d somehow perceived his disreputable reaction to her niece. What was he going to do if Aunt Lavinia pointed her shotgun at him and ordered him off the
estate? Now she was giving him a long, assessing look that almost made him blush.

“You may remain, young man, as long as we have an understanding.”

Caught off guard, Nick concealed his surprise behind a smile he’d used on ladies and factory girls alike. “What understanding might that be, ma’am?”

“You may try to convince my niece to give up her plans to marry his lordship by any peaceful means, but no more of your indelicate displays. Do we have an agreement?”

“Just as you say, ma’am,” he said softly as he pushed his hat back farther on his head. A lock of chestnut hair dropped over his forehead.

Lady Lavinia’s gaze flicked to the errant lock and back to his eyes. “Be careful, sir. Jocelin also mentioned that you have the charm of Byron linked with the ruthlessness of a Cossack. I even remember his giving me quite a long list of your conquests in Society, ladies who ought to know better than to succumb to the devil.”

“Devil, ma’am? I protest.”

Lavinia walked over to him, her boots crunching on the gravel, and spoke quietly. “Georgiana is an intelligent girl. Far more intelligent than Jocelin has ever realized. Please remember that in your dealings with her. I’m trusting you because my nephew trusts you, with his life apparently, and I respect Jocelin’s judgment. Behave yourself, Mr. Ross.”

“Yes, Miz Lavinia.”

“And drop that absurd accent,” Lavinia said as she headed for the monumental Corinthian portico. “You may have fooled my niece, but you haven’t deceived me.”

Nick lifted his hat, swept it off and around in a half circle, and bowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

He replaced his hat, shifted his saddlebags, and beckoned to Randall, who had retreated discreetly out of hearing range. Lapsing into the manner of speech his tutors had been drilling into him for the past several years, he presented the butler with an engraved calling card.

“His lordship informed you of my visit?”

Randall glanced down at the card. His eyes widened, but he quickly recovered. “Of course, sir. Your man has just arrived with your things. May I show you to your room?”

“Thank you.”

Randall offered to carry his saddlebags, but Nick declined and followed the butler’s dignified progress up the stairs and into the house that was more palace than home. He entered a hall as big as a goblin-king’s cave. The first thing he noticed was that it was lined with alcoves peopled with statues of naked men and women. He recognized some of them from his studies with his valet/tutor. His steps slowed as he took in the graceful curves of Ariadne.

Randall had reached the opposite end of the room as Nick passed a statue of David. It sprouted a second head from its ribs, but this one wore a close-fitting, plumed bonnet and masses of false blond curls surrounding a face full of powdered wrinkles. And it hissed at him.

“Psst!”

Nick stopped as the stranger emerged from her hiding place and gestured for him to come closer. He glanced at Randall, who was looking at the ceiling in a deliberate manner, then joined the lady. She was
dressed in a pink muslin gown with a high waist, puffed sleeves, and tight, long undersleeves. He’d seen ladies dressed like this in pictures of half a century ago, but this one had the eagle’s-beak nose inherited by many members of the Hyde family. The prominent feature sat oddly with the lady’s air of daintiness, the curls, the plumes, the pink muslin.

He eyed her flat silk pumps, the brooch bearing a portrait of the Prince Regent affixed to her high collar, and her fringed silk parasol. Red-rimmed bean-brown eyes cut from side to side as if she expected to be attacked at any moment. She grabbed his arm with a gloved hand and pulled him into the alcove so that they were wedged between a wall and the statue.

“I saw you arrive,” she said in a desperate whisper. She paused to look around suspiciously at Randall. “Have you come from the Peninsula?”

“The Peninsula?”

“From Wellesley,” she said. Her voice was high and had that unfortunate squeaky quality with which some young ladies were cursed. “About the French spy. I saw you confront her. You must be clever, or she would have gotten rid of you. I wrote the marquess about her, and he said he’d sent someone to help me. Shhh.”

She pulled Nick closer and lowered her voice. “Napoleon has sent her here to intercept my communications with the Prince Regent. I pass them on to Wellington, as you know.”

She paused and gave him a proud look as if she expected him to reply. Nick fought the urge to gawk at this wizened little Regency belle and nodded in his most solemn manner.

“Of course, my lady.”

The faint sound of a door closing made his companion jump and drop her parasol. He retrieved it for her.

“I must go. We can’t be seen together. I’m glad Wellington has finally responded as is due my consequence. I’ll not refine too much upon his tardiness.” She poked her head out of the alcove, noted Randall’s turned back, and left.

Nick watched her little slippers skid across the marble floor beneath the high hem of her gown, then came out of his amazement as she left the house. He joined Randall, who resumed his stately progress up an elegantly curved staircase covered with thick, royal-blue carpet.

“Um, Randall,” Nick said.

“Yes, sir.”

“That lady …”

“The Lady Augusta Hyde, sir. The earl’s unmarried sister.”

“Ah. Just so.”

Randall cleared his throat. “Her ladyship has a somewhat capricious memory, sir.”

“Ah. Yes, that would explain it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lady Augusta seems to think Lady Georgiana is a French spy.”

“Indeed, sir. A not uncommon propensity on the part of her ladyship upon the appearance of strangers in the house. The earl has given me the responsibility of warning guests about her ladyship’s singular little habits. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do so in time, sir.”

“No matter, Randall.”

“Thank you, sir.” Randall stopped before a white-and-gold set of double doors and opened them. “Your room is the Charles the Second on the gentlemen’s side of the main house. His lordship’s chambers are down the hall. Lady Lavinia and Lady Georgiana are on the east side opposite, and the family are quartered in the northwest pavilion.”

Nick went inside and was immediately struck by blinding white furnishings and more gilt and gold than he’d seen since he’d bought his last country house five years ago. He waited for Randall to leave. Once the door was closed, he charged across the sitting room.