A Midsummer Night's Sin (10 page)

Regina suppressed a sigh. Her mother lived her entire life attempting to avoid doing anything that might upset her husband. He’d never hit her, as far as Regina knew, just as he’d never physically punished Regina herself. Which had left her to think that the threat he used to keep his daughter in line was the same one he employed to keep his wife obedient, terrified and constantly seeking solace in her wine bottles.

Regina knew that hate was a sin, but she at least very much disliked her father—and her grandfather, who had as good as sold his daughter in order to pay his gambling debts. And, of the two of them, she probably despised her grandfather more.
He
was of the upper classes, an earl, and should have been above such things. Reginald Hackett was Grandmother Hackett’s son. No better should have been expected of him.

She patted her mother’s arm. “We’re traveling to Mentmore, Mama. No one will be counting noses there. Fellows has been charged with overseeing a complete refreshing of both your bedchamber and mine in our absence. That’s all been settled, remember?”

In truth, Fellows had been put to the daunting task of ferreting out any and all of Lady Leticia’s carefully hidden stores of strong spirits and disposing of them. From attics to cellars, this was a task that would occupy Fellows until their return, for her employer had no end
of cunning tricks. Even her cut-glass perfume flasks were not immune.

“No,” Lady Leticia said sadly. “I don’t remember. But if you do, then I suppose I should, as well. It will be good to see Mentmore again. Your father does not often approve of me being there.”

“And Aunt Claire will be with us, to bear you company,” Regina reminded her as a pair of footmen held open the double doors that led down to the Square, two more servants holding large umbrellas over their heads, as the morning was both gray and very wet. The crested Mentmore coach stood waiting for them. “Look—she is already in the coach, Mama, waving to us.”

“Claire has always been kind. She was sold, too, you know. Her grandfather was a haberdasher in Queen Street. Quite wealthy, and they were said to have been very fine hats. I never saw one, but they must have been excellent. Good enough, at least, to buy her papa a viscount. Pity it was Seth. The hats should have bought finer than that.”

“Mama, quietly,” Regina said, although the servants certainly had heard the woman. “Ah, and here is Hanks, and your traveling case. Now up you go, Mama, and we’ll be off.”

She handed her mother over to the servant holding the umbrella over the woman’s head and took a moment to surreptitiously cast her gaze around the Square. They were about to climb into the family coach and be driven off to Mentmore. Yes, that had been the plan, as Puck had told her it yesterday, but she still had hoped to see
him here somewhere, to be certain he had been able to turn his broad strokes into a more detailed plan.

She at last looked up at the luggage strapped to the roof of the coach, covered in canvas tarps, and smiled her first real smile of the day.

From his seat up on the box behind the horses, Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn, his long, blond hair hanging loose beneath his dripping slouch hat, the coachman greatcoat bearing the Mentmore crest on its back protecting him from the rain, inclined his head in her direction and winked.

P
UCK, FRESH FROM HIS BATH
after the soaking he’d endured during the earlier downpour, and once more dressed in his usual fashionably cut clothes, his hair tied back at his nape, reclined at his ease in the Grosvenor Square drawing room, one ear cocked as he waited to hear footsteps on the black-and-white marble tile in the entrance hall.

The wait seemed interminable, but at last he was rewarded for his patience. He put down his wineglass and got to his feet just in time to turn a welcoming smile toward Regina as she entered the room, looking about her at the understated splendor that was the Blackthorn mansion.

She looked weary, as if the past two hours had not been easy for her, and he hadn’t supposed they would be, at least not until she was allowed to explain to two distraught women that no, they had not been kidnapped, like the unfortunate Miranda.

He put a finger to his lips and walked past her to close the double doors, which would give them some privacy, before he held his hands out toward her. She took them, allowed him to lead her over to the sofa he had just vacated.

“They’ve agreed?” he asked her as they sat down facing each other, searching her face for some hint as to how his plan was progressing thus far.

“I don’t think Mama fully understands yet,” she told him and sighed. “Hanks brought her the traveling case, much as I wished not to resort to such a thing. She’s sleeping now. Aunt Claire both surprised and embarrassed me by throwing herself on my neck in gratitude. She hadn’t wanted to leave London at all, in case Miranda somehow found her own way back to Cavendish Square. I still can’t believe we’ve done it. You’re brilliant.”

“Be sure to have that put on my tombstone, if you please, after I’m hanged for kidnapping and other assorted crimes.”

He was immediately sorry he’d teased her, for Regina’s eyes went wide and she squeezed his hands with all her might.

“But no one will know,” she said quickly. “We departed in the Mentmore coach, and for all anyone knows, we’re already well out of the city and on our way to my grandfather’s estate.” She tipped her head to one side. “How did you manage that, by the way?”

He still couldn’t believe she was here, beneath his roof. Well chaperoned, of course, perhaps even
overly
chaperoned. He should probably kiss her now before one or the other of them realized she was no longer upstairs and came searching for her. But he’d made himself that damn promise to be a gentleman.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, of course it does. You should be exceedingly proud of your genius and be longing to impress me with the retelling of the adventure. It was an adventure, wasn’t it?”

He smiled. “Only a small one. If you’ll recall, your uncle’s precious coachman was turned off the other night. I merely introduced myself and my few companions as new hires of your uncle, instructed to transport the ladyship and her female relatives to someplace called Mentmore. When the order came round to the stables not ten minutes later for the coach to be ready to travel first thing in the morning, there wasn’t anyone who thought to question what I’d said.”

“I’ll say it again. Brilliant! You really are brilliant.”

“I’ll concede the point, since you insist. The coach is now draped in canvas and locked up tightly in my stables until your return to London a week hence.”

“And we are free to begin our pursuit of Miranda without having to worry that my father will know of it.” Regina blinked back tears. “My aunt is beyond distraught, and I feel so very guilty. If I had only insisted the coach be turned about…”

“We might never have met,” Puck supplied as she seemed close to tears. “We most certainly would not
have kissed. And that,” he said as he leaned toward her, “would have been a tragedy.”

He touched his mouth lightly to hers, their hands still clasped together. He watched as her eyes fluttered close and a small sigh escaped her lips. He touched his tongue to hers, and she moaned low in her throat.

Slowly, Robin Goodfellow,
he warned himself.
There are no masks between us now. No moonlight.

They touched only at mouth and knee, and yet he felt the heat of her burning into his body, setting it aflame. In his mind’s eye, she was already upstairs, in his bed, her dark hair flowing across his pillow, her arms reaching up to draw him down to her.

What he would do to her, where they would go, together. She was fire, she had been born to the flame, her body fashioned for pleasure. To give it, to receive it. Even now, still unawakened, she responded to his touch with some innate knowledge whispered into her ear by Eve while still in the womb. She would prove a lusty, greedy lover, she would dare anything, demand everything, and she would give as good as she got. Together, they could ignite the world.

He skillfully bunched up the thin skirt of her muslin gown and slid his hand under the material, walking his fingers along her inner thigh. And then hesitated.

Don’t. Not now. Not yet. You promised yourself. In your idiocy, you promised yourself.

She squirmed slightly where she sat and relaxed her muscles. Eased open her knees.

Jesus.

The silk of her lace-edged undergarment was the coarsest wool when compared to the treasure beneath. Here she was liquid fire, dangerous to touch, impossible to defend against as some of that fire transferred itself to him through his seeking fingers, to course through him, ignite small blazes at his every nerve ending.

He continued kissing her, telling her without words what he would do to her if they were anywhere but where they were. And she knew. She had to know, because she returned his heat with more of her own until his expertise combined with her eagerness. She tore her mouth from his, buried her head against his shoulder and gave in to the ecstasy.

So much for resolve.

Puck attempted to conceal his own struggle for breath, the self-control he was drawing on in order to tamp down his still-alert passions.

He lifted her chin with his hand and looked deeply into her wondrous blue eyes. She was calming, but slowly. He could still see the heat of passion in her eyes. And bless her, no hint of regret.
“Million de pardons, mais aucunes excuses.”
A million pardons, but no excuses.

“There’s no need for either,” she told him quietly. “I tried to forget what you told me Friday, at the masquerade. When you believed I was something that you later believed I was not. I think…I think you were correct the first time. Even your words, remembering them, make my body go all warm and strange inside. I haven’t
been able to stop thinking about what you said to me in the gardens. In French, as you did again now.”

Puck remembered. Every last suggestive, lascivious word, directed, he had mistakenly believed, to a woman of the world, impossible to shock. “I never should have said those things.”

“I could say that I never should have listened as long as I did or allowed your kisses…your touch. I’d been holding the hat pin ready from the moment we entered the gardens. You didn’t know who I was and had no reason to believe I was anything more than you believed. It was I who knew myself or thought I did. You make me feel so good, and I’m not ashamed to tell you that I like how you make me feel. Alive. You make me feel so
alive,
Puck. Of course, I’d also like to blame Grandmother Hackett for the reason I’m being so brazenly forward and unashamed, but that would only be self-serving.”

Puck got to his feet, feeling it safer to put some space between them, as his mind might be thinking nominally normally once more, but his body was still busy considering different plans. So much so that he discreetly positioned his lower body behind the back of a chair.

“I think I need to hear about Grandmother Hackett.”

She smiled rather ruefully. “Very well. Other children may have been warned about monsters lurking beneath their beds or that the Gypsies would carry them off if they were bad or refused to finish their porridge. I had Grandmother Hackett. And still do,” she ended, sighing.

“She was a terror?”

Regina shrugged. “I never met her. However, everything about me that might not be pleasing to my mother is laid at the woman’s door. I’m sometimes sorry she died shortly before I was born and that I never met her. Mama said she picked her teeth at the table and had very large bosoms and was forever talking—loudly and no matter what the company—about her many lovers before and since the dear, departed Joseph Hackett. All, of course, completely unforgivable behavior.”

“Oh, yes. Completely. Is there more?”

“Much more. I don’t know if it’s true, but once, when Mama was rather agitated by something, she confided in me that Grandmother Hackett and Grandfather Ment more had been discovered by Grandmother Mentmore as they
indulged
themselves in the conservatory. Grandmother Mentmore threw a handy pail of water on them, and that’s why Grandmother Mentmore owned at least one diamond necklace that wasn’t made of paste.”

“Ha!”

“Isn’t that strange? I also found it all rather funny, although I never shared that with Mama.” But then all hint of humor left her eyes. “Puck?”

He instantly sobered. He’d tried to divert her, get past their recent…intentness. “Yes?”

“Aunt Claire is incensed with my Uncle Seth. He’s done as my father ordered, and sent the Runners off toward Gretna Green. My aunt pleaded with him to re
consider, but since my father is paying for the Runners, Uncle Seth feels he must do as he says.”

Puck tucked that information away, knowing he now had the man even more firmly in his pocket should he need him. “Your aunt doesn’t believe Miranda eloped?”

“No,” Regina said quietly. “I told her the truth yesterday afternoon when I visited her in order to tell her that we’d be leaving London. All of it, even about the masquerade. I…I showed her the few beads I had from Miranda’s mask. My aunt recognized them as Uncle Seth wore that mask years ago, when the two of them had gone to masquerade balls. They were much more proper then, she told me.” She looked at him as if begging him to understand. “I knew she’d be devastated, of course, to realize what Miranda and I had done, but I felt she also would be more cooperative when the coach stopped here.”

“I only hope I can alleviate her fears entirely by safely returning her daughter to her.”

“You’ve already helped her. She feels that at least she is doing
something,
being here, and she wants you to contact her grandfather in Queen Street if you would, because she is convinced he will give you any assistance you might need, although her father, she told me, is a total loss.”

“Mad as a hatter, is he?” Puck asked her, unable to restrain himself. He’d heard one learned man’s opinion that the chemicals hatters dealt with in the making of hats had turned more than one man into a raving lunatic.