The Last Hellion (19 page)

She argued with the devil. One would have to be self-destructive to wish for a liaison with Ainswood. He used and discarded women; she would lose all her self-respect if she went to bed with a man who didn't respect her, she would lose the world's respect as well, since he'd be sure to let the world know.

She reminded herself how much she stood to lose. Even the most open-minded of her readers would have to doubt her judgment, if not her morals, in taking England's most notorious debauchee as a lover. She told herself it was insane to sacrifice her influence, limited though it was, upon the altar of physical desire.

Yet she could not quiet the inner devil urging her to do as she wanted, and to hell with the consequences.

As a result, day was already breaking when Lydia finally drifted into a fitful sleep, and it was past noon before she came down to breakfast.

Tamsin, who'd been asleep when Lydia came home, had risen hours before. She Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

entered the dining room soon after Lydia sat down, and started the interrogation promptly after Lydia took her first sip of coffee.

"You should have wakened me when you came in," the girl chided. "I tried to keep awake, but I made the mistake of taking a volume of Blackstone's
Commentaries
to read in bed, which was rather like taking a large dose of laudanum. What did Madame Ifrita want to talk about that was so urgent?"

"She's uncovered some dirt on Bellweather," Lydia said. "If it's true, we've a delicious exposé of our archrival for the next issue. I'll find out tonight whether it's true or not."

The truth was that she couldn't tell Tamsin the truth. The girl would raise as much of a fuss as Ainswood had done last night. Worse, Tamsin would spend the night worried frantic.

With the big lie out of the way, Lydia went on to an edited version of her encounter with Ainswood.

She left out all references to the planned crime, but she did not leave out the torrid embrace in the dark corridor of the piazza. It was one thing to shield Tamsin from needless worry. It was altogether another to pretend to be any less a fool than one was.

"Please don't ask me what I did with my brain," Lydia said at the conclusion of the tale, "because I've asked myself the same question a hundred times."

She tried to eat the food she'd mainly been pushing around her plate, but she seemed to have lost her appetite along with her mind.

"It was most inconsiderate of him," Tamsin said, frowning at the neglected breakfast, "to behave nobly twice in the same day—first in Exeter Street, then with the flower girl—and both times under your observation."

"Three times," Lydia corrected tightly. "He stopped when I told him to, Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

remember. If he hadn't, I'm not at all sure I should have made much of a struggle to preserve my maidenhead."

"Perhaps there's a decent man inside him, struggling to get out," Tamsin said.

"If so, the decent fellow has an uphill battle." Lydia refilled her coffee cup and drank. "Did you have a chance last night to look over that lot of books and notes I left on my desk?"

"Yes. It was very sad, especially the last funeral, for the little boy who died of diphtheria—only six months after his papa."

The boy's father, the fifth duke, had died of injuries sustained in a carriage accident.

"That papa appointed Ainswood guardian to three children," Lydia said. "What do you reckon possessed the fifth duke to leave his children in the care of England's prime profligate?"

"Perhaps the fifth duke was acquainted with the decent fellow."

Lydia set down her cup. "And perhaps I'm only looking for excuses, trying to justify succumbing to the handsome face, strong physique, and seductive skills of a practiced rake."

"I hope you're not hunting excuses on my account," Tamsin said. "I shan't think ill of you if you go to bed with him." Behind the spectacles, her brown eyes twinkled. "On the contrary, I should be vastly interested to hear all about it.

Purely for information, of course. And you needn't act it out."

Lydia tried a majestic glare, but her quivering mouth spoiled the effect. Then she gave in and laughed, and Tamsin giggled with her.

She was a darling, Lydia thought.

With a few words she'd dispelled Lydia's black gloom—and this wasn't the first Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

time. One could tell Tamsin just about anything. She had a quick understand-ing and an open heart and a delicious sense of humor.

Her parents hadn't appreciated what they had. Her father had abandoned her and her mother had driven her away, when it could have been so easy to keep her.

She asked for nothing. She was so eager to be of use. She never complained about the long hours she spent alone while Lydia worked. The girl was thrilled when asked to help with an assignment. The most tedious research task was an adventure to her. The maids loved her. So did Susan.

Though Lydia had learned long ago not to place any dependence upon Providence's assistance, she could not help viewing her young companion as a gift from heaven.

Tonight, if all went well, Lydia would be able to give a small but precious gift in return.

That was what mattered, she reminded herself.

She rose, still smiling, and ruffled Tamsin's hair.

"You ate hardly anything," the girl said. "Still, at least you've recovered your spirits. I wish it were as easy to cheer up Susan."

Belatedly, Lydia noticed that the dining room contained no canine pretending to be in the last stages of starvation.

"She turned up her nose at her breakfast," Tamsin said. "She dragged me out to Soho Square, then dragged me back home three minutes later. She didn't want to walk. She went into the garden and lay down with her head on her forepaws and ignored me when I tried to tempt her with her ball. She didn't want to chase sticks, either. I was looking for her pull-along duck when you came downstairs."

Susan had several toys. The battered wooden duck with its frayed pull string was her favorite.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

If she was sulking, though, as it seemed she was, the duck wouldn't cheer her, Lydia knew.

"Either she ate something that disagreed with her—a stray Pekingese, for instance—or she's in a sulk," Lydia said. "I'll go out and have a look at her."

She left the dining room and started for the back of the house. Before she'd taken more than a few steps, she heard paws thundering up the stairs from the kitchen.

The servants' door flew open and Susan burst through. In her blind rush through the hallway, she bumped into Lydia and nearly overturned her.

The knocker sounded, and Bess hurried out from the parlor to answer the door.

Lydia recovered her balance and hastened after the excited dog. "Susan,
heel
,"

she ordered. To no avail.

The mastiff thundered on, sideswiping the maid. Bess stumbled and caught the door handle. The door swung open, Susan pushed through, knocking Bess aside, and leapt upon the man standing on the doorstep. Lydia saw him stagger backward under the mastiff's weight a moment before her foot struck something.

Lydia toppled forward, saw the wooden duck skid sideways while she headed downward. An instant before she could land, she was jerked up and hauled against a large, hard torso.

"Plague take you, don't you ever bother to look where you're going?" an all too familiar voice scolded above her spinning head.

Lydia looked up… into the laughing green eyes of the Duke of Ainswood.

A quarter hour later, Lydia was in her study, watching His Grace inspect her books and furniture as though he were the broker's man, come to assess the property for a debt action. Meanwhile, Trent—he was the one Susan had tried Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

and failed to knock over—Tamsin, and Susan had departed for Soho Square—

because Ainswood had told them to go for a walk.

"Ah,
Life in London
, by Mr. Pierce Egan," the duke said as he took the book from the shelf. "It's one of my favorites. Is this where you learned what a chancery suit on the nob was?"

"I am waiting to learn why you have invaded my house," she said frigidly. "I told you I would come to collect you at nine o'clock this evening. Do you want the whole world to know we're acquainted?"

"The world found that out a month ago in Vinegar Yard. The world witnessed the introduction." He did not look up from the book. "You really ought to get Cruikshank to illustrate for you. Purvis is too Hogarthian. You want Cruikshank's slyer touch."

"I want to know what you mean by strolling in here as though you owned the house—and bringing Trent with you."

"I needed him to draw Miss Price out of the way," he said, turning a page. "I should think that was obvious. He will keep her busy trying to fathom the mystery of Charles Two, which will prevent her speculating about my unexpected arrival."

"You could have achieved that purpose by not arriving at all," Lydia said.

He closed the book and returned it to the shelf. Then he eyed her, slowly, up and down. Lydia felt a hot prickling at the back of her neck that spread downward and outward. Her gaze slipped to his hands. The longing they'd stirred in her last night rippled through her again, and she had to back away and busy her hands with tidying her desk, to keep from reaching for him.

She wished she'd experienced a schoolgirl infatuation when she'd been a girl.

Then she would have been familiar with the feelings, and disciplined them as Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

she'd disciplined so many others.

"I've asked Trent to take Miss Price to the theater tonight," he said.

That brought Lydia back to business with a jolt. Trent.

Tamsin. To the theater. Together. She made herself think. She must have an objection.

"Jaynes won't be available to fleece him at billiards," Ainswood continued, distracting her. "And I can't leave Trent to his own devices. I considered drawing him into our conspiracy—"

"Into our—"

"—but the prospect of having Trent's unique brand of help—as in tripping, breaking things, walking into doors, knives, and bullets—made my hair stand on end."

"If he's so troublesome, why in blazes have you adopted him?" Lydia asked, while she tried to get her mind off the absurd images Ainswood painted and back onto the right track.

"He entertains me."

Ainswood moved to the fireplace. The study being small, he had no great distance to travel. It was more than enough, though, to display the easy, athletic grace with which he moved, and the form-fitting elegance with which his garments hugged his muscular frame.

If he'd been merely handsome, she could have viewed him with detachment, Lydia was sure. It was the sheer size and power of his frame that she found so…

riveting. She was hammeringly conscious of how strong he truly was, and how easily he wielded his strength. Last night he'd carried her in his arms effortlessly, and made her feel like a mere slip of a girl.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

She'd never felt that way before, even when she Was a girl.

At present he made her feel stupid as well, like a besotted adolescent. She hoped she was not looking as idiotishly entranced as she felt. She dragged her gaze away, to her hands.

"You needn't be uneasy."

The deep voice called her attention back to him.

Ainswood rested his elbow on the mantel and his jaw upon his hand, and gazed at her. "I told him you'd asked me to help you with a difficult assignment of a highly confidential nature," he went on. "I asked him to take Miss Price to the theater, to 'allay suspicions.' He didn't ask whose suspicions had to be allayed or inquire why going to the theater would allay them." Twin devils danced in the green eyes. "But then, a man who imagines a girl can dig her way out of a stone dungeon with a sharpened spoon can imagine just about anything. So I left him to it."

"A spoon?" she said blankly. "Out of a dungeon?"

"Miranda, of
The Rose of Thebes"
he said. "That's how she'll escape, Trent believes."

Lydia came out of her fog with a jolt. Miranda. Bloody hell. She gave the desk a quick survey. But no, she hadn't left the manuscript out. Or if it had been left out, Tamsin must have locked it away. Letting her in on the secret had been an act of trust—not to mention less complicated than subterfuge would have been, with so quick and perceptive a young woman in the house.

Tasmin had also put away the
Annual Register
and
Debrett's Peerage
. But Lydia's notes and the Mallory family tree she'd begun lay square in the center of the desk. She casually pushed them under a copy of the
Edinburgh Review
.

"You're not going to stab me with a penknife, are you?" Ainswood asked. "I Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

didn't give the game away. I know you wanted to surprise her tonight. I collect you've already fabricated an assignment."

"Yes, of course." Lydia shifted position to perch on the edge of the desk, her derriere resting on the
Edinburgh Review
. "I'm supposed to be digging up dirt on a literary rival. There's no chance of their comparing stories. She would never disclose my doings."

"Then what's got your back up?"

He came away from the fireplace and made a circuit of the desk. Lydia stayed where she was. "I suppose the possibility of her declining Trent's invitation hasn't occurred to you," she said.

"I heard they had an interesting encounter yesterday." Ainswood rounded the corner of the desk and paused a pace away from her. "It seems she bore Trent's blithering for rather a long while." He bent his head and in lower tones said,

"Maybe she fancies him."

She felt his breath on her face. She could almost feel his weight upon her, and the lashing strength of his arms.

Almost wasn't enough. Her hand itched to reach up and grab his pristinely starched neckcloth and pull his face down to hers. "I doubt it," she said. "She…"

Lydia trailed off, belatedly realizing that his neckcloth was indeed crisply starched and that, moreover, those form-fitting garments fit without crease, wrinkle, rips, or stains.