Leslie Lafoy (4 page)

Tristan looked around the immediate vicinity and then farther. A flash of white moving toward the end of the flaming mansion caught his eye. “Where’s Simone going?” he asked, his eyes narrowed against the smoke and drifting cinders as he considered her.

“To find Haywood,” his sister supplied.

“Who?”

“Haywood,” she repeated. “I don’t know who he is. She didn’t say.”

“She just thanked us for the adventure,” Noland chimed in, “wished us luck in finding our carriage, and headed off on her own.”

“Independent thing,” Tristan muttered through a smile. As the first of the fire brigade wagons came racing up the shelled drive, he turned back to the others. Abandoning both his smile and his original plan, he improvised a new plan and set it into motion. “Noland, would you see Emmaline home?” he asked. “Lady Simone shouldn’t be left unescorted.”

Noland blinked. “Your sister and I alone together in the coach? Are you sure?”

You wouldn’t take a liberty if it were offered on a silver plate.
“The circumstances being what they are tonight, I don’t think anyone is going to notice. Or care if they do.”

It took the man a minute to think about it, but eventually Noland nodded. “I suppose that makes sense.”

It made perfect sense, but a lukewarm acceptance was good enough. Especially with Simone putting more distance between them with every heartbeat. Tristan leaned down, planted a quick, perfunctory kiss on his sister’s cheek, and promised, “I’ll call on you in the morning.”

She smiled and looked up at him adoringly. “Thank you for saving us, Tristan.”

“I did nothing more than follow Lady Simone’s lead,” he countered as he eased away. “She’s a remarkably levelheaded and resourceful woman.”

Em brightened. “I take it that you would approve of a continuing friendship?”

“Absolutely.”
In fact, I’m counting on it.

“Thank you, Tristan!” she cried. “Please keep yourself safe and I’ll see you in the morning!”

He smiled, waved jauntily, and strode off. He grinned as he saw that Simone had stopped and hiked up her pure white petticoats and was in the process of stripping off her stockings. God and females only knew why it was necessary to do so, but he was most appreciative of the show. Long and gorgeously shaped legs had always been a weakness of his. As well as pert breasts. And hourglass curves. And elegant shoulder sweeps. And silken napes. And mischievous, sparkling bright eyes. Add in accepting an advance with a laugh and a dare.… From what he could tell so far, Lady Simone Turnbridge was very close to being his idea of the perfect woman.

He timed his pace so that he arrived at her side just after she’d dropped her petticoat hems and resumed her trek toward the end of the house. “Hello, again.”

“Hello.” She glanced over her shoulder and then up at him. “Where are Emmy and Noland?”

Oh, he liked the way she tilted her head when she met his gaze. She had the most amazing cheekbones. High and finely carved. When the light traced over them, they practically begged for fingertips to follow. And her neck … Long but hardly spindly, it was the ideal length for effective seduction. By the time a man kissed his way from the lobe of her ear to the hollow at the base of her throat, she’d be melted into a most willing participant.

God, it was going to be difficult to take things slowly with her. And damn difficult to keep his mind on anything other than her. What had she asked him as she’d set his blood on fire? Oh yes. Why they were alone together. He wasn’t about to be completely honest with her and confess his most basic motives. Not when a superficial one would do for the moment. He cleared his throat and very deliberately put away his fantasies.

“Em and Noland are searching for our carriage and then hopefully on their way home. Who’s this Haywood fellow you’re looking for?”

“My escort this evening.”

Escort? Damn.
“Oh?” he posed ever so casually. “Am I likely to have to meet him in some field at dawn for having cut your skirt off you?”

She laughed softly. “He’s my brother-in-law’s friend and old enough to be my father.”

That was fairly reassuring news, but it was better to be certain. “Age is seldom a consideration in matchmaking, you know.”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s like a favorite uncle. A matching with Haywood would be perverted.”

The angels didn’t sing, but they did hum a few bars of a snappy tune. Tristan stripped off his jacket as they walked and draped it over her shoulders, saying, “You’d best wear this.”

Again she tilted her head to look up at him. “I’m hardly chilled.”

He wasn’t, either, and the fire had nothing to do with it. The angle of her chin was so incredibly come-hither that he stuffed his hands in his pockets and forced himself to look away. “I was thinking to protect you from the drifting cinders.”

“Oh. Thank you. That’s very considerate.”

A woman with more carnal experience would know that it wasn’t an entirely magnanimous gesture. Tristan felt a slight pang of guilt, but it was short-lived, snuffed out in the tide of appreciation. A woman instinctively and naturally seductive was such a rare thing. In fact, now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember ever having met one. The women of his world came in three varieties: completely clueless fawns like Emmaline, deliberate, predatory sharks like Sarah Sheraton and a hundred others whose names he couldn’t remember, and icebergs like his stepmother.

Lady Simone Turnbridge was decidedly not fawnlike, hardly predatory, and most definitely no iceberg. God give him strength to resist the temptation of her in a measured, well-timed fashion. If he was
too
bold too soon and scared her off, he’d likely kick himself for several months.

They rounded the corner of the mansion together in silence and then froze in the same step. The heat struck hard against his face and he had to narrow his eyes to look into it. Flames rolled out the doors of the ballroom and up the manison’s already-blacked stone walls. Those windows that hadn’t yet shattered from the heat glowed in promise. Knowing there was nothing the fire brigade or anyone else could do to save the structure, he looked away, out into the yard and the gardens.

In the pulsing orange light of the fire and the rain of cinders, people were moving about like oddly jointed dolls. There were knots of them here and there, some clustered around a form lying on the ground, others standing mute and clinging to each other. Still others were moving away as quickly as they could and damning the indignity of stumbling. It was eerily close to the images of hell Dante’s book had conjured for him.

“My God,” Simone whispered.

Tristan shook his head to dispel the trance and took command. “Perhaps you should describe this Haywood,” he suggested firmly, “and let me go about the search for him while you wait over there with the ladies.”

“I’m not a lady. The title notwithstanding,” she declared, starting forward. “And three-quarters of the windbags under that tree will be happy to tell you so and why. In great detail.”

Interesting.
“What about the other quarter of them?” he asked as he took up his place beside her.

“They wouldn’t say shit if they were buried up to their necks in it.”

He blinked and his jaw sagged. He quickly recovered, making a mental note to ponder the wonder—and implications—of her language at a later time. At the current moment, there were more important considerations. The immediate need to effect rescues was obviously past and no one in need seemed unattended, but the injuries he could discern ran the full gamut of severity.

“If you keep going,” he warned, “you’re likely to see some grisly sights.”

“As you may have heard,” she countered, continuing her course and looking around the yard, “only the last six years of my life could be described as sheltered. Ridiculously so, actually. But my memory goes back a good bit further than that. I can promise you that I will not retch or cry or faint.”

Yes, but she might have nightmares. And he wouldn’t be in any position to garner her appreciation for offering comfort in the dark of the night. “I haven’t heard much of anything about you,” he confessed. “But I’m incredibly fascinated by what I’ve seen so far this evening.”

“Is that so.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “Of course. You’re very different from all the other misses.”

“I
have
been described as a true diamond in the rough. The windbags were in a kind mood that day.”

“I think roughness, like beauty, is defined by the eye of the beholder. Personally, I think man rarely improves on Nature’s creations.”

She stopped and slowly turned to face him. Her chin came up. So did one beautifully wing-shaped raven brow. “Are you attempting to make my heart go pitter-pat with all this?”

Well, yes.
He smiled. “Is it working?”

“No.”

“What
would
make your heart go pitter-pat?” He leaned down slightly. “Just a hint will do.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” he countered, thoroughly enjoying the game.

She rolled her eyes and walked off, saying, “I don’t want my heart tripping and skittering, thank you very much.”

Only because she’d probably never felt the thrill of it being done properly. Once again, as was rapidly becoming their pattern, he caught up with her. “This is why you’re so fascinating. Most women dream of feeling the flutter of true love.”

“Yes, well, most women are—” Whatever observation she’d been about to make was lost as she darted off, calling, “Haywood!”

The man—presumably Haywood—into whom she flung herself was tall and fair-haired going to gray and wearing what had undoubtedly been, at the start of the evening, an impeccable suit of high-quality fabric and fine tailoring. Now it was badly singed and either the left sleeve had been torn loose or the shoulder under it had.

“Oh, thank God you’re all right,” Haywood said, giving her a hard, one-armed hug. “Drayton and Caroline would have killed me if something had happened to you.” He let go of her, quickly looked her up and down and then over to meet Tristan’s gaze and ask, “Where is the rest of your dress and who is this man?”

“My dress is hanging in knotted strips out one of the front windows,” she supplied happily. “And this is Tristan.”

“Tristan who?”

She frowned, the expression clearly conveying that she didn’t have the foggiest notion.

Ah, but he was good at being a White Knight of All Occasions. “Lord Tristan Townsend,” he said, extending his hand. “The Marquis of Lockwood. Lady Simone is a recent friend of my sister, Lady Emmaline Townsend.”

His gaze was hard and openly assessing, but he stuck out his hand, saying, “The Honorable Cyril Haywood.”

“It’s a pleasure, sir.”

“Likewise.”

The formalities attended to, Simone moved them on, asking, “How did you break your arm, Haywood?”

“It’s not broken. Thank God.”

Tristan nodded. “If I were to guess, I’d say that your shoulder has been dislocated.”

“It is. Compliments of Lord Marthorpe. He let nothing and no one stand in the way of his saving his own fat arse,” Haywood explained, looking around. “And if I find him, I’m going to do some dislocating of my own. Starting with his ever-so-patrician nose.”

Simone cleared her throat. “Yes, but that can wait. Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold. Shall we take you directly to a surgeon or summon one to the house?”

Haywood, still looking for Marthorpe, didn’t reply.

“If you’re willing to take the chance,” Tristan ventured, “I think I can probably put your shoulder back into place for you right here.”

Simone looked at him, her eyes bright and that brow of hers arched in a way that said he’d suddenly become a bit more interesting than she’d expected. He hadn’t intended that as a consequence of offering his help, but he was pleased by it nonetheless. Seduction was far easier, not to mention quicker, if the woman was intrigued enough to be willing to meet a man halfway.

Haywood’s gaze came slowly to him. “You’ve trained as a physician?”

“It’s more a case of having considerable experience at making do in the absence of one. If it helps any to know, I’ve never killed anyone with my efforts.”

After a moment of apparent contemplation, the other narrowed his eyes and asked, “What about maiming?”

“I think they would have limped or worse if I hadn’t tried,” Tristan answered truthfully. He shrugged and added, just as honestly, “But I suppose there’s no way of knowing for sure.”

Haywood took his measure another time, then sighed. “All things considered … Let’s have a go at it. It’s beastly painful and I’d prefer to have it relieved as soon as possible.”

“If you would lie down, please.”

As Haywood carefully and somewhat awkwardly laid himself out on the lawn, Simone took a deep breath and asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Well, you don’t have to,” Tristan replied, “but I’d really appreciate it if you’d hold his good arm down and keep him from using it to take a swing at me.”

For some reason he’d expected her to go a bit pale at the notion that setting her escort’s shoulder might involve some violence. Which, he realized as she tipped her head back and laughed, had been a complete underestimation on his part. Lord Almighty, she was absolutely gorgeous. And so utterly, delightfully unpredictable.

“I’d appreciate it,” Haywood offered from the ground at their feet, “if the two of you didn’t seem quite so happy about this. Smiling and laughing at the prospect of another’s pain is rather ghoulish, you know.”

“Sorry, Haywood,” Simone offered, dropping unceremoniously to her knees beside him. “I’ll try to look properly horrified. How’s this?”

Haywood rolled his eyes at her futile attempt to control her smile, looked up at Tristan, and said, “Please get on with it before she explodes and makes a complete mess of my new suit.”

Kneeling on his other side, Tristan carefully took Haywood’s arm in hand. “I don’t think she can do any more damage to your suit, sir, than the fire’s already done,” he observed as he gingerly checked the position of the bones and then began to carefully rotate the arm.