Mad About the Duke (13 page)

“Perhaps you could help me, Mr. St. Maur,” she asked as coyly as possible.

“Help you?” he choked out.

“Yes, of course. Help me. However am I going to know if I'm wearing the dress correctly without a man's opinion? And you seem to have a vast number of opinions about this dress, and quite a knowledge of…oh, how did you put it? Oh, yes, ‘trollops.'”

“I have no such knowledge, I only suggested—,” he began in that vicarly voice of his.

Elinor ignored him. “I hardly think the daughter of a gentleman such as I, and a respectable widow to boot, would look common or a trollop just because she chose to wear such a gown.” She smiled up at him.

“Do the daughters of gentlemen and respectable widows usually accept invitations to accompany a man into the gardens?”

Elinor blanched. So they had gone into the gardens together. It wasn't just a dream.

As she'd hoped.

“I wasn't feeling well…. You insisted,” she said, picking at the vague memories that she did recall.

At least she hoped it had been he who had insisted.

“And you came along,” he offered.

Oh, damn the man! He probably knew full well she couldn't remember much from the night before.

“Sir, I never—,” she began.

“Never what, my lady?”

He had her there.

St. Maur cocked a brow at her and gazed down from his superior vantage point—being that he'd most likely been sober at the time and remembered everything. “Lady Standon, if you wear that gown in public you'll end up in far more dire straits than you did last night. What if I am not there to rescue you?”

“As you did last night?” she asked, rising up on her toes. For she had some very good memories of his methods.

He shifted his lofty stance a bit. “Well, yes.”

“So do you kiss all the ladies you rescue? Lead them out into a moonlit garden and ravish them? Because if that is your definition of the word, you have an odd notion of the meaning.”

“Madame, last night was—”

She waved off his protest. “Lest you forget, I am a widow, Mr. St. Maur. I am allowed a few indulgences.”

“Indulgences?” he said, his voice deep and full of nuances. A tone that whispered down her spine and sent shivers all through her limbs. “If I have an odd notion of rescuing ladies, then you have an odd notion of indulgences.”

She did.
Indulge me, Mr. St. Maur,
she wanted to say, wanted to throw her arms around his neck and discover how improper he could be.

As they'd argued, they'd edged closer together.
Elinor couldn't understand it, but she was completely drawn to him, pulled toward St. Maur. This arrogant, smugly handsome, wretchedly perfect man.

Around them, the crowded marketplace swirled into the background. Far from Mayfair, far from prying eyes, where there was no one to see them if they just happened to…

Even as she looked up at him, considered the impossible,
kissing him yet again,
he backed away just a step, and the distance yawned like a canyon.

“If you intend to make an advantageous marriage, I suggest we cease—”

Just then, out of the corner of her eye, Elinor saw a large man slide past them, and she stopped listening.

The giant thug studied both her and Mr. St. Maur a moment longer than was necessary, and something about his pleased expression sent a cold chill down her spine.

As if the fellow was watching them.

Watching her and Tia.

She whirled around.
Tia!
Her frantic gaze searched the crowd for any sign of her sister. But Tia was nowhere to be found. And when Elinor looked for the fellow who'd set this alarm clamoring through her veins, he was gone as well.

“Dear God,” she gasped, reaching for Mr. St. Maur. “He's taken her.”

 

James wasn't as convinced as Lady Standon that her stepfather had kidnapped Tia right off the streets under their very noses, but then again, they hadn't been paying much attention to the girl.

At least he hadn't been.

So as it was, Elinor scoured one side of the lane, while he searched the other.

Infuriating woman, this Elinor Sterling. She was driving him to distraction.

Shaking off that thought, he strode through the crowd, using his bearing and height to make headway.

Where the devil could one fourteen-year-old gel have gotten herself off to in just a few moments?

He shook his head. It had been a few moments, hadn't it?

More like a lifetime. What had she said?
Indulgences.

It might as well have been
“Indulge me.”

Before he realized what was happening, a large fellow stepped into his path. “Looking for someone, gov'ner?”

As James faltered to a stop, another fellow came up behind him, and before he knew it, the pair of ruffians had him in their grasp and were pulling him down a dark alley.

“Unhand me!” he ordered.

And they did, by tossing him toward a pile of refuse.

Luckily, James had always been agile, so he was able to find his footing and spin around to face his assailants.

His fists came up, ready to fight.

But to his horror they both just looked at his balled-up hands and laughed as if they had never seen anything so funny in their lives, as if he'd been offering them a kitten in each hand.

“What the devil is so funny?” he demanded. “I'll have you know I've trained with Gentleman Jim.”

“Gentleman Jim!” the redheaded one spat. “If you haven't noticed already, Your Grace, you ain't in Mayfair. Now put down them mills. We don't want to hurt ye.”

“But we will if we must,” the other one said, looking sadly disappointed not to be able to use his ham-hock-sized fists. “You're Parkerton, aren't ya?”

That question made James realize that his situation had gone from bad to far worse. And not because they hadn't tried to rob him.

For if that had been their intent, the deed would have been over before he'd had a chance to consider it.

No, it was what this fellow had just asked him that made his situation more unnerving.

For they knew exactly who he was.

James nodded, for he was too proud to deny his own name, even if it meant saving his neck. No Tremont ever had. Ever would.

“Yer the duke?” the other fellow asked, eyeing James from head to toe, then shaking his head in wonder. “Thought you'd have a better coat.”

S
o you know who I am, what the devil do you want with me? I am going to be missed, and missed quickly,” James told them.

The redheaded one stepped forward. “What we wants to know is, what sort of rum go you're pulling on her ladyship.”

“Her ladyship?” he asked, glancing from one to the other. “You mean Lady Standon?”

“Gar! You mean you've more than one bird in this con?” the other asked. “Now that puts a fine polish on all this.”

“No!” James sputtered. He rose up to his full height, which meant he eyed the stout one square on but the redheaded bloke was still a good head taller. “My only concern is with Lady Standon. All of which is none of your business.”

“Certain parties don't agree with that notion, Yer Grace.”

“What parties?” he asked, his mind running through the people who knew of his deception—and
he couldn't imagine any of them hiring these louts to frighten him.

So that meant someone else knew…but who? Lord Lewis?

James quickly discarded the man as a possibility. Besides, hiring these fellows had taken blunt, and from what Elinor had said about her stepfather, Lewis was too cheap to pay even these fellows.

“We've been sent to find out what your…that is to say, what you mean to do…” the redheaded fellow said as he glanced at his partner.

“His intentions, you bugger. We've got to find out his intentions,” the other man supplied.

The big fellow snapped his fingers. “That's it. Yer intentions, as it were. To the lady.”

“Nothing dishonorable, I hope,” the other one said, cracking his knuckles and grinning as if he'd be mightily pleased to discover quite the opposite.

James couldn't believe it. Whatever sort of company was Lady Standon keeping that had someone sending these hounds from hell after him? Whoever could she know that would have connections to these sorts of ruffians?

Then he remembered a bit of something Clifton had said after he'd punched James.

…
George Ellyson was a thief who picked your father's pocket, and your father had him sent to school and used his contacts in Seven Dials to…

Ellyson! That was it. “Lucy Sterling!” he sputtered aloud. Lucy Ellyson Sterling's father had come from Seven Dials. And hadn't James run into the newly minted Lady Clifton coming out of the house on Bond Street yesterday after his interview with Elinor?

All the pieces started to fall together, especially as their eyes widened with shock.

“This has nothing to do with Goosie,” the redheaded fellow said.

The other fellow had the good sense to flinch and shove his elbow into his partner's ribs. “Oh, now you've done it, Rusty.”

“Oh, Sammy, not me ribs,” the redheaded fellow whined, rubbing his side and giving his friend a friendly swat that had the man teetering to one side. “And it weren't me who gave it away, it were himself.” Rusty nodded at James. “Right smart to have figured it out.”

“So Lady Clifton sent you to discover my intentions toward Lady Standon?”

They both shuffled a bit and studied their ratty boots rather than answer.

“I won't tell her,” James promised. “Lady Clifton has nothing to fear on my account. I will keep Lady Standon well looked after.”

“You can, can you?” Sammy dug around in his jacket and pulled out a man's wallet. “This yours?”

James patted his own pockets and came up empty. “What the—”

“Exactly,” Sammy said, tossing it back to him.

The duke caught it and stowed it, this time well inside his waistcoat.

“It got pinched a few blocks back, but we retrieved it for you.”

“You've been—” He glanced from one to the other as they shuffled their feet like guilty school lads.

“Following you,” Rusty admitted.

“Following her ladyship,” Sammy corrected. “When we seen your wallet get lifted, Rusty went and got it back. We explained right friendly to the little blighter to spread the word you and her ladyship weren't to be touched.”

“Then that doesn't explain what happened to Tia.”

“Tia?”

“The girl. Her ladyship's sister.”

The pair looked at each other and laughed. “That bonny bit of muslin? Oh, she's in the tea shop across the way getting herself a tin of biscuits.”

“Safe as can be,” Rusty assured him. “Got a good lad keeping an eye on her, cause our Goosie was worried about some fellow snatching her. Don't you worry a moment about that bit of muslin.”

“Well, thank you, gentlemen,” James said, bowing slightly to them and starting to take his leave, but he wasn't about to make his escape just yet.

Sammy stepped into his path. “Not so fast there, gov'ner. You still haven't told us your intentions.”

“My wha-a-t?”

“Yer intentions toward the lady there.”

James shook his head. “If you must know, I am helping her find a husband.”

“Gar! Why would you be doing that?”

“Why wouldn't I?” he shot back.

The pair exchanged a glance that suggested they thought him a bit thickheaded.

“Just seems to me—,” Rusty began until Sammy nudged him. “I mean, seems to us, that you've got a bit of an eye for her.”

“I have no such—”

But even as he started to issue his denial, they crossed their arms over their barrel chests and frowned at him.

“It's a difficult situation,” he told them.

“Cause she doesn't know yer a duke?” Sammy asked.

“Right funny, that,” Rusty added. “Don't see why you don't tell her. Fix things between you, right as rain it would.”

James shook his head. “She'll think I'm mad.”

“She wouldn't be the only one,” Rusty muttered in an aside to his partner in crime.

The pair of them chuckled, but James found nothing amusing about it. She would! She'd be furious with him for deceiving her. Probably end up as a footnote in the duchess's
Chronicles
:

The Duke of Parkerton is as looby as they come.

If it wasn't there already. Which might explain why he wasn't on Elinor's demmed list to begin with.

“But if you like her…”

“And find her willing…,” Sammy added.

“Why not?” Rusty finished.

“It isn't that easy,” James told them. Just marry Elinor? He didn't know if he could. What if he failed her? Could she love him? Could they discover the
more
that seemed to surround Miranda and Jack like a secret that only the two of them shared?

For wasn't Elinor looking only for an advantageous marriage? And how would he ever know for certain that she'd married him for reasons other than such practical and mercantile ones? As Vanessa had married him at her father's insistence.

“Oh, but that is where you are wrong,” Rusty told him. “But I suppose you've got to find that out for yourself.”

Sammy nodded knowingly, and James knew for certain that his life was indeed upside down when he started getting advice about women from a pair of Seven Dials ruffians.

“Just don't break her heart,” Sammy warned.

“Cause Goosie will send us back after you,” Rusty continued. “And you seem a good 'un for a duke.”

“But don't think that will get you off lightly,” Sammy rushed to add. “She's paid us to watch over the pair of you and we will be watching.”

Excellent. Now not only did he have his brother, sister-in-law and daughter giving him advice about Lady Standon but he also had a pair of watchdogs to make sure he didn't overstep his bounds.

“But you won't mention this to anyone, will you?” Sammy asked. “Cause we weren't supposed to let you know about…”

“About Lady Clifton's involvement?”

They both nodded.

“You have my word,” he told them. Besides, who would believe him?

Rusty brightened up. “Oh, Yer Grace, that would be right kind. Goosie isn't the sort to forgive and forget.”

Sammy nodded in agreement. “She'd have our heads, she would. Say we bungled this right good.”

“You haven't bungled it at all,” James told them, just thankful he wasn't going to get murdered in this wretched alleyway. “And you can assure your ‘employer' that I have the lady's best interests at heart,” he told them. He shuttered a laugh, for he could well imagine the horrors Elinor might suffer over having this pair as her “guardian angels,” even if they were sent by her good friend. “Now if you don't mind,” he told them, “I would like to return Lady Standon's sister to her care.”

“Might look for a new coat while you are at it,” Sammy said, slapping him on the back and sending him once more scrambling to catch his footing. When he turned around, the pair was gone, having slipped into the shadows.

James was still righting himself as he came out of the dim alley and into the light of the lane, when someone asked, “Having a bit of difficulty, Your Grace?”

He glanced over and found Tia, arms crossed over her narrow chest and her eyes bright with mischief. Much as she had looked when she'd been sitting on the stairs the other day.

“None at all,” he replied, straightening his coat, about to launch into a lecture about wandering off until an echo of her words rang back through his skull.

Wait just a moment. What had that little imp called him?

Your Grace.

And like an idiot, he'd acknowledged her.

He clenched his teeth together and dared a glance in her direction. The wretched eavesdropping little chit had a glint in her eye that would put a mercenary to shame.

So there was only one question to ask.

“What do you want?”

Tia grinned unrepentantly. “Oh, where do I begin?”

 

Elinor's panic now had her by the throat. Oh, gracious heavens! Where was Tia?

He couldn't have…he wouldn't dare…But she knew the answer only too well.

Lord Lewis could and he would.

She shuddered and kept pushing her way through the crowd, glancing down alleys, her gaze piercing shop windows, anywhere the man could have hied off with her sister.

But how could he have just taken her? Just snatched her off the street without Tia setting off a royal fuss? And now, much to her chagrin, she'd lost sight of St. Maur as well.

Where the devil had he gone off to?

Elinor turned around and began to retrace her steps through the crowd, past the same shops until she stood before the vendor who had sold her the gown she had clutched to her chest.

“Lady Standon,” a strong, familiar voice called out.

She whirled around to find the tall, straight figure of Mr. St. Maur coming toward her, a flash of white muslin and a blue pelisse at his side.

Tia!

Elinor let out a heavy sigh as she ran headlong through the last few yards and caught her sister into a hard, long hug. “Tia, you've given me a wretched fright!” She released her and held her at arm's length, giving her a bit of a shake. “If you ever do that again, I'll send you to school in Scotland. No, make that Ireland. Western Ireland. On an island.”

“You'd never,” Tia laughed.

Of course she was right, Elinor wouldn't, but oh, how she wanted to right now, if only to keep her sister safe.

Turning to Mr. St. Maur, Elinor found herself overcome. Utterly.

And she flung herself into his arms, crying, “Oh, you found her!”

“I did,” he stammered, and for a moment he stood there, rather awkwardly, and Elinor's relief went from complete joy to the scandalous realization that she was making a cake of herself.

Then his arms wound around her and he pulled her close. “I found her, indeed.”

But there was something else to his words. A second meaning perhaps, one that sent Elinor's heart pattering for reasons other than well-intentioned panic.

He'd found
her.

Just as he had in her dream, as he'd rescued her the previous night, just as he was now, holding her pressed up against his solid chest, the clean, masculine scent of his body teasing her to lay her head down against his heart and breathe deeply.

Elinor reeled back as she realized what she'd been thinking…doing…

Desiring…

“Oh, yes,
he
found
me,
” Tia said with an indelicate little snort.

“Yes, well, I was lucky enough to stumble upon Miss Wraxton,” he said, straightening his coat and looking in every direction but Elinor's. “And now here she is, safe and sound.”

There was a wry tone to his words that had Elinor shooting a glance not at him but at Tia.

What the devil was her sister up to now that had Mr. St. Maur sounding like a dandy with a wrinkled cravat?

“Yes, it was quite lucky,” Tia said. “For it gave Mr. St. Maur a private moment to tell me that he is planning on taking us for a picnic Tuesday.”

“I am?” he said, his gaze swiveling to her sister, even as Elinor sputtered, “You are?”

“You are,” Tia said, with all the confidence of a woman who has a man wrapped tightly around her finger.

Glancing from one to the other, Elinor could see the two of them were now as thick as thieves, or worse, at crosshairs. Oh, she smelled a rat in all this, and she knew exactly where to find it.

“Tia, this was your idea, and Mr. St. Maur is under no obligation to cater to your outlandish whims,” she scolded. “A picnic in February, indeed!”

“But he offered,” her sister said, looking all inno
cent and smug. It was a lethal, dangerous combination. “And he's to bring his daughter along as well.”

His what?

“I a-a-am?” he said, his eyes wide and his brows arched.

“Your daughter?” Elinor said, glancing over at the man who was glaring at Tia with a sharp gaze that should have put the girl to blush.