Well, as much as a man that small could obstruct anyone.

  “Kingsley!” he said in his usual grand style. “Whatever are you doing here with—?”

  Arabella panicked and went into a fit of coughing. “Oh, my, excuse me,” she choked out between coughs, and in English, forgetting that she was Flemish, and forgetting that she was supposed to be silent.

  But the one thing she couldn’t do was let Augie finish that sentence.

  Whatever are you doing here with Lady Arabella?

  She continued to cough and choke, clutching at Kingsley’s sleeve. “A drink of something, if you can,” she managed, looking up at the man with her best and most practiced flutter of lashes.

  This was a moment when the experience of four Seasons came in most handy.

  “Aye, Kingsley,” Augie echoed. “The lady appears quite parched. Don’t you usually keep a flask of wine in your carriage?”

  Then it finally struck her. Augie knew him? Oh, this was a disaster.

  Kingsley glanced over at her and then back at his friend, his face a mix of consternation and dismay. “Yes, I suppose I do. Birdie, do you mind waiting here with an old friend of mine, Lord Augustus Hustings. He’s a vagrant and a scoundrel, but he’ll keep you safe until I can bring round the carriage.”

  After a warning glance from Arabella, Augie grinned and told Kingsley, “I would be delighted to be of assistance to your most enchanting and surprising friend.”

  The major turned to go after the carriage, but not before sending a speculative glance at Arabella. She coughed again for good measure and fluttered her hand at him to hurry along.

  Quickly. Before Augie blurted out something telling. Like her real name.

  Arabella smiled encouragingly at Kingsley until he was well out of earshot. Then she whirled about on one of her oldest friends. “Augie! What are you doing here?”

  He took an affronted step back. “Me? Birdie, what the devil are you doing here? And in his company?”

  “Whatever is wrong with him?” Her gaze strayed back over her shoulder at Kingsley’s retreating figure. “Oh, I grant you he’s common enough . . .”

  “Common?” Augie sort of choked out.

  “Yes, of course,” she replied. Truly, sometimes Augie’s choices of friends blinded him. Yet in Kingsley’s case, she was willing to make an exception. “Though he seems a gentleman of sorts. He was a major after all. I don’t suppose they make just anyone a major.”

  Augie gaped, openmouthed, like a freshly landed trout. “Does your father know about this?” he finally managed to get out, even as he searched his inside coat pockets for a handkerchief, which he used to swab at his damp brow.

  Arabella pressed in close and covered his mouth with her hand. “Oh, do be quiet. Of course my father doesn’t know about this. My father is dreadful. He’s forcing me to wed.”

  “I know. Marbury’s heir.”

  “Yes, that’s the horridly dull fellow.” She shuddered and glanced back at Kingsley. Now why couldn’t he be the heir to a dukedom?

  “That’s the—” Augie shook his head as if clearing out an attic’s worth of cobwebs. “I do say, Birdie, whyever is that a problem?”

  “A problem? I’ve never even met the man!”

  “Never met—” Augie’s eyes narrowed. “But Birdie—”

  “Oh, please do not ‘but Birdie’ me!”

  “But if you would just let me—”

  Arabella had no desire to listen to his admonishments. “Augie, no more. I know my own mind.”

  He took a step back, his brow furrowed as if he had plenty to say, but to her surprise, managed to agree with her. “Yes, I suppose you do.”

  Then the man’s gaze narrowed and fixed on Kingsley, as if he were laying all the blame on the major’s shoulders.

  “You know him,” Arabella said. “The major, that is.”

  “Yes.” The answer came out in a short clip. “However did you two come to this place?”

  She quickly explained how they’d met and what she had asked of the major.

  “Asked?” Now it was Augie’s turn to laugh. “You most likely demanded his attendance and I’m surprised you didn’t ask for the moon as well.”

  “And why shouldn’t I? I’ve been held like a prisoner all my life.” Arabella knew Augie would appreciate a dash of the dramatic. But not today.

  “A gilded one, I would point out,” he said, his arms folding over his chest as if he thought her better served to be locked back in it.

  “You sound like my father.”

  He ruffled at this, his brow crinkling in outrage. “I’m hardly as stuffy as all that.”

  “Then don’t scold,” she advised him. “And you won’t tell him that you saw me, will you?”

  Augie stepped back, aghast. “Lie to your father?” He shook his head. Adamantly. Nor was he done protesting. “He’ll skin me alive if he discovers I’ve aided and abetted all this.”

  “Not if he doesn’t find out,” she told him most confidently.

  “Your father always finds out,” he reminded her. “No, no, I won’t hear of this. Birdie, you must go home now or I’ll have no choice but to—”

  Arabella caught hold of his sleeve. “You tell my father and I’ll tell your mother about the redhead you visit in Bloomsbury. Gwen, isn’t it? An opera dancer, isn’t she?”

  His eyes widened in horror. “How the devil do you know—?”

  “You were more than squiffy last month at the Bastion ball.”

  Augie’s jaw worked back and forth. For he knew—just as Arabella did—that Lady Prendwick would make her son’s life miserable over such a mésalliance.

  “The consequences of today are all mine,” she told him. “Augie, dearest, you are my oldest friend. My best friend. Well, besides your sisters. Please, don’t tell my father.”

  Augie’s jaw worked back and forth. “Oh, stuff and bother, Birdie. You will be the death of me.”

  She clapped her hands together and laughed. “So you will keep my secret?”

  He made a tight, short nod. For he was very fond of Gwen.

  “And not tell my father? Or Kingsley? It would never do if he knew who I was. He’d take me home in a thrice.”

  Augie muttered something about “—that, or pack you away to Bedlam,” but she ignored him.

  She hugged him quickly. “Once I’ve had my fun, then I shall go home,” she promised faithfully, though that didn’t stop that now all-too-familiar pang of guilt over the worry her disappearance was most likely causing.

  Though weighed against a lifetime married to the dull prospect her father proposed, it seemed a fair trade.

  “There is no harm in all this, truly—” she rushed to assure Augie, who appeared to be wavering yet again. “I only want to learn to whistle before I must pay the piper.”

  “Oh, is that all? If it was whistling you wanted, you need only have asked me,” Augie teased. “I can make quite a merry tune.” To prove his point, he whistled a naughty ditty.

  It was an old joke between them, and Arabella couldn’t help herself, she laughed as well.

  “Whatever are these three tasks you’ve charmed Kingsley into doing for you? I won’t have you getting him in over his head. Always the Hercules, that one, ready to dash into danger. He’s done enough.”

  The wistful note to Augie’s voice gave her pause and she remembered what Rollins had said. “Kingsley was at Waterloo, wasn’t he?”

  Augie looked up at the major, a light of loyalty and admiration in his eyes. “Yes. And in Spain before that. Acquitted himself quite nobly, though you won’t get the story out of him. Heard it from another. Nearly got himself killed—”

  Arabella shivered and wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Who is he, Augie?”

  “Oh, he can’t know who you are, but I’m to tell you all his secrets.” Her friend laughed.

  “No, really, who is he?” she asked, overcome with curiosity.

  “That is your task to uncover, my dear girl,” he told her. “But you must be kind to the major. Promise me that. And when the time comes, forgiving.”

  Her gaze wrenched away from the major. “Forgiving? Whyever will I need to forgive him?”

  Augie grinned and nodded at a spot just over her shoulder. She turned around to find Kingsley had brought his carriage around, and almost as soon as he stopped he was out and coming around to join them.

  “Ho, there. You two forgotten me?” Kingsley asked, his gaze sweeping from one to the other.

  “Not in the least,” Arabella told him, smiling brightly.

  Perhaps a little too brightly, for the major then turned to his friend. “Augie, you devil, don’t you get any ideas about the lady. I hope you haven’t been filling her ears with lies about me.” He looked over at Arabella, his eyes twinkling, merrily. A tempting clarion call that was only for her.

  And he must have felt it as well, for he reached out and took her hand. Possessively. His fingers entwined with hers, and instead of ruffling her feathers, leaving her feeling confined, contained, the major’s strength lent her a sort of freedom.

  With him at her side, she could fly anywhere.

  This man could give her the world, her heart’s desires.

  Her Hercules, as Augie had teased.

  “No, he’s chiding me to treat you kindly,” Arabella told him, doing her best to ignore the new raft of shivers running down her spine.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

  Arabella nodded, as it hit her. Two more tasks and then he would set her down in front of her father’s residence and her freedom would be lost.

  Kingsley would be lost.

  She slanted a glance up at him from beneath her ridiculous bonnet, catching only the slightest peek at his stubbled jaw, his smooth lips.

  Lips she might never know. Never feel them against her own.

  Oh, if Arabella knew anything, she knew that would never do.

  After handing Birdie up into the carriage, Kingsley turned to his friend. “Augie, a word.”

  Augie backed up a step or two. “Would love to, but I haven’t the time,” he declared, turning to flee.

  Kingsley caught him by the collar. “A word.” “Guiding” him a few steps from the carriage, and out of Birdie’s sharp hearing, he asked, nay demanded, “How do you know her?”

  “Know who?” Augie glanced this way and that, but most notably not in the lady’s direction.

  “Demmit, you know very well who I mean. Birdie.”

  “Ah, Birdie!” Augie’s mouth widened into a smile. “Delightful gel. A devil of a handful, but I imagine you have everything in order.”

  “Who. Is. She?” he bit out.

  And to his disbelief, Augie shook his head. “Not mine to tell, my good man.” Then he set his mouth in a mulish line.

  He’d known Augie since they’d been lads, knew enough of his friend that nothing could induce him to tell what he knew. Augie was nothing if not loyal. So Kingsley let go of him.

  Then Augie surprised him again by catching hold of his sleeve and tugging him down so they could see each other eye to eye. “You do anything to ruin her, to break her heart, and I’ll put a bullet through your chest.”

  Kingsley, who had faced the French in a dozen or more engagements, who’d had two horses shot out from beneath him at Quatre Bras, had known fear. But it was nothing like the cold chill that knifed through him now.

  The man meant it.

  Then Augie released him and in the blink of an eye was back to his usual congenial self. “There now, as I understand it, you owe the lady two more labors.” He straightened his jacket and puffed up a bit. “Be about them and then have her home safely.” He bowed, then glanced over his shoulder at the carriage. “Mind what I said, Birdie.”

  She nodded with a regal air. “I promise, Lord Augustus.”

  With that, Augie waved at Birdie and ambled off, whistling a jaunty tune.

  Kingsley turned slowly and gave his full attention to the lady in his carriage. Her smile seemed to tremble a bit, as if she were waiting for some hammer to fall upon her expectations.

  Then she sat up straight as if remembering herself, and her chin jutted up just a bit, as if she wasn’t about to let anything—or anyone—deter her.

  He had no doubt she would be as closemouthed as Augie, so there was no point in wasting his breath and prying as to how some cit’s daughter knew the youngest son of the Marquess of Prendwick.

  “What say you, Birdie? Where are we off to next?” he asked as he climbed up into the driver’s seat.

  Her eyes widened and then her smile followed suit. “Truly?”

  He nodded. “I promised.”

  “That you did,” she said firmly, folding her hands in her lap. “I would like to take tea with someone.”

  Tea? That wasn’t quite what he had expected, but at least it was something that could hardly lead them on the path to ruin.

  Augie’s warning had rather startled him and he glanced back toward the crowd, half expecting to see his old friend peering after them like a gargoyle of old.

  . . . break her heart, and I’ll put a bullet through your chest.

  Never once in all the years he’d known Augie had the man ever left him floored.

  But this time, he suspected Augie wasn’t joking. Not in the least.

  “Tea, is it? That sounds rather tame after a boxing match,” Kingsley teased as he gathered up the ribbons and turned the horses toward the city.

  “Yes, well, we will need to secure an introduction first.”

  An introduction? Kingsley paused for a moment. “Who the devil are we taking tea with, the Prince Regent?”

  “Oh, no one as boring as all that,” she said, as if taking tea with the heir to the throne was a weekly occurrence. “I want to take tea with Mrs. Spenser.”

  Mrs. Spenser? No, he hadn’t heard her correctly.

  But when he turned toward her, there it was, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

  And worse, a determined sort of challenge.

  “Considering the lengths you went to meet her the other night,” she said, “you can hardly object to taking tea with her this afternoon, now can you?” She paused and nodded toward the road. A silent nudge to remind him that he’d promised. “Not quite the assignation you planned, I imagine, but I find tea is always a very good beginning to an association, don’t you agree?”

  They drove for London for some time in silence.

  Arabella could tell Kingsley was working on a raft of objections as to why and how they could not just call on London’s most infamous courtesan and demand she take tea with them.

  And when he did begin listing all the reasons, she was at the ready.

  “One doesn’t just call on a courtesan,” he explained.

  “Why not?”

  This set his jaw to working back and forth. “Because it isn’t done.”

  “She’ll make an exception for us, I am most certain.” She smiled brightly. Aunt Josephine always said that confidence in one’s opinion, no matter how shaky it might be, would always help buoy a cause.

  Yet Kingsley just snorted at her words.

  “I thought you wanted to meet her?” she pressed. “I do believe you expressed an interest to get to know her quite intimately.”

  . . . after I’ve discovered every delectable, delightful corner of your divine body. . .

  Bother the man, but every time Arabella recalled those words, that promise, her body tightened, shivered with a begging need.

  No matter how shameless it was, Arabella wondered what it would be like to have Kingsley discover every corner of her body.

  Next to her, the major shifted in his seat, as if he was recalling his words as well. “That is neither here nor there,” he objected. “Women like Mrs. Spenser don’t just let strangers into their homes. There are rules to this sort of thing.” He glanced away, while one hand loosened his cravat.

  “Rules? What sort of rules?” Arabella shook her head. “And here I thought these ladies had all the freedom in the world.”

  “They are most particular about who they befriend.”

  “And how do they choose who they friend?”

  “Like anyone else, I suppose,” he replied, tugging again at his cravat.

  Truly, whatever was wrong with the man? He was making a mess of that linen. “You suppose? Don’t you know? Haven’t you had a mistress?”

  “Good God, Birdie! This is not something one discusses with a lady.”

  She fluffed her red dress and let her lashes flutter at him. “But I am not a lady. Don’t you recall what you told Rollins? A Flemish piece.” Now it was her turn to snort. “He isn’t very bright, your friend.”

  At this even Kingsley had to laugh. “No, he is not.”

  “Flemish, indeed.” She turned so he could see her in her entirety. “Do I look Flemish to you?”

  “You look like a very expensive handful.”

  That, for whatever reason delighted her. “Thank you very much.” And it wasn’t his words that had her feeling grateful, but the wolfish light in his eyes.

  And if to confirm his statement, a pair of blades driving out—most likely having learned of the boxing match late—came flying by, but not so fast that one of them hadn’t the time to let out a long, appreciative whistle.

  “I am acquiring admirers,” she crowed. “Is that how it is done?”

  “No. The usual method is expensive jewels and a promise of rents paid.”

  “Jewelry!” Arabella exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “What do you mean?” Kingsley asked, a wary wrinkle to his brow.

  “Jewelry. We must bring an offering of jewelry. Then Mrs. Spenser will have to invite us to tea. We could bring a basket as well. From Fortnum & Mason, I think, so as not to trouble the lady’s staff.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17