Rescued By The Earl's Vows

‘By morning gossip will abound. Your costume fools no one.’

‘Whereas yours is the perfect disguise.’ How like a man to avoid taking any responsibility.

He held out an arm. ‘Come, let us take a turn about the shrubbery as if that was our intention for getting up all along. I am told it is quite beautiful at night.’

‘It is dark. We won’t be able to see a thing.’

‘Even better.’

She swallowed the urge to laugh at his scorn of the poor shrubbery. Tried to hang on to her anger.

‘Very well, but I expect an explanation of your behaviour.’ She snatched up her bow and slung it over one shoulder. ‘And don’t even think about trying anything untoward. I did not lie when I said my arrows were sharp.’

‘Last thing I need is an arrow in my backside,’ he muttered low in her ear. Not quite the voice she’d heard this morning—this time there was laughter in it. How surprising. And attractive. And intriguing.

Dash it all, the man was a menace.

Also surprising were the lanterns all along the garden path. Soon they were out of earshot of the couples on the terrace, but not in the dark and not out of sight if anyone had cared to look for them.

‘Well?’ she asked peremptorily.

‘Well what?’

She started to turn back. ‘I see you are still playing games.’

He held her fast by the crook of her elbow, his hand firm but not painful in its restraint.

‘Let me go.’

‘It is no game when a respectable young lady comes alone to the chambers of a bachelor.’

The emphasis on the word game sounded bitter. ‘What are you suggesting, sir?’

‘That you took a risk with my reputation as well as your own. I have no intention of being forced into marriage.’

She gasped. Blood ran hot through her veins. Tension had her shaking. ‘You think I would marry you? I don’t like you, sir. Not one bit. I gave you my reason for coming to see you this morning. You gave me your answer. We have no need for further communication.’

‘How can you say you don’t like me? You don’t even know me.’ Again he sounded amused. He was like a cat playing with a mouse. A very large self-satisfied cat.

‘You will return me to my cousin at once,’ she said with all the dignity she could muster.

‘But what about this person you need found?’

‘Do not trouble yourself, my lord. I have made other plans.’

‘It would be no trouble to me. Others, however, might take weeks to find your answer. I had the impression your matter was urgent.’

Oooh, he was so very annoying! Even if he did have the right to boast. ‘I have changed my mind.’

He turned her to face him, bending to peer into her face as if he could read her expression behind the mask. ‘I don’t believe you.’

While she could not see his face, his intensity made her breathing quicken and her heart flutter strangely.

He tipped her chin with a finger, staring into her eyes. Mesmerised, she could not move. ‘Let me take you driving tomorrow and you can tell me all about it.’

At the graze of his breath across her cheek, her insides tightened. He dropped his hand as if burned. Had he sensed her reaction? Oh goodness, she hoped not.

Panicked by her untoward response to his touch, she opened her mouth to refuse. Closed it again as her brain overtook her emotions. This was what she had wanted, was it not? His help. ‘Very well. I will, of course, return the money you paid for my ring.’

‘I don’t want your money.’

There was a seductive note in his voice. Her body trembled. Shocked, she gazed up into the void where his face should be, a face she could see in her mind’s eye. She had no trouble recalling the mocking smile on his lips. ‘What do you want?’

She had meant to sound impatient. Dismissive. Instead she sounded scared. Weak.

‘I will inform you when we meet tomorrow.’

She wanted to argue, but she also wanted to find Grey. Seething, she walked at his side, trying to think of suitably cutting words.

He turned them back towards the terrace, strolling as if there were no undercurrents rippling beneath the surface of their silence.

At the French doors, she dipped a curtsy. ‘Thank you for a pleasant dance and conversation.’

‘Pleasant?’ he murmured.

Really, the man was impossible. On legs that felt stiff and awkward, with a heart pounding loudly in her ears, she marched in the direction she had last seen Wilhelmina. When she glanced back, he was gone.

Oh heavens, what would he want? And how far was she prepared to go with this man? Her stomach gave an odd little pulse.

Dash it, she would insist on gentlemanly behaviour, no matter what.

* * *

Jaimie had spent the half the morning expecting a note from Lady Tess politely refusing their engagement to drive. And the other half being annoyed by his lack of concentration on his work.

He wasn’t certain whether he was pleased or sorry when no such note made an appearance. Of course there was a good possibility that he would arrive at the Rowan front door and be informed that her ladyship was out.

And that would be that.

Whatever had possessed him to invite her to go driving, anyway? It wasn’t as if she was the sort of woman whose company he enjoyed. She was prickly and combative. A less subtle female he couldn’t imagine. She didn’t even know how to flirt. They might have traded all kinds of barbs about those arrows in her quiver.

Yet surprisingly, he’d enjoyed her directness and her willingness to confront him. He’d always thought debutantes an insipid, simpering lot. What he did not like, however, was that she had occupied too much of his thoughts these past few hours. He kept wondering how she had recognised him beneath his costume. Something had given him away. Perhaps she’d tell him what it was at their meeting. He certainly would not ask. He intended to keep their relationship strictly business.

He pulled his phaeton up outside the town house and his liveried tiger jumped down and held the horses’ heads while he knocked on the front door.

‘I’ll let her ladyship know you are here, my lord. Will you come in?’ the butler said.

‘I’ll wait out here. My tiger has the horses, but they’re a mite fresh.’