Bronwyn Scott's Sexy Regency Bundle: Pickpocket Countess / Grayson Prentiss's Seduction / Notorious Rake, Innocent Lady / Libertine Lord, Pickpocket Miss / The Viscount Claims His Bride

‘How does Reggie Portman figure into all this?’ Brandon prompted quietly when she fell silent.

‘My uncle had a marriage planned for me to a man that was stricter than he. I couldn’t fathom a worse fate and I couldn’t imagine how I would manage living such a life. It wasn’t the life I wanted. I felt I was in prison. There was a fair in town, and Reggie Portman was there, a charming and handsome travelling merchant. He offered me a way out. I was desperate and I took it, four days before the official betrothal.’

‘And taught you everything you know?’ Brandon supplied wryly. ‘A good role model.’

Nora grimaced in censure. ‘Everything has its place. I use my skills for good, not evil.’

‘That’s debatable.’

‘Not today it isn’t. Do you want to hear my story or not?’ Nora scolded, back on familiar ground, the hardest part of the telling over.

Brandon acquiesced graciously. ‘My apologies, please continue.’

‘Travelling with Reggie was exciting at first. But as Reggie and I moved from place to place, I saw the same stories being played out in different towns. The poor got poorer and the rich got richer, not caring who they stepped on to make a guinea. I promised myself I’d do something about it, just as my mother and I had tried to do for the workers at my father’s factory and as I had tried to do at my uncle’s, especially for children and widows; people who had limited ways of improving their station in life.’

Nora made a face. ‘Reggie didn’t share my attitude, although I thought he cared enough for me to help anyway, out of affection. But what he loved was making money at any cost. He sold fine fabrics, jewellery, expensive trinkets. He lavished gifts on me and my head was turned. I assumed he would want to use his largesse to help others. But I was wrong.

‘Once we married, I discovered he was singularly interested in making a pound wherever he could. His finer goods were acquired through illegal means and the items he sold at discount were so flawed that they were of little use.’

‘You married him for his philanthropy and he let you down,’ Brandon summarised.

‘He was boyishly handsome. He could make me laugh when he made the effort, which was seldom after we courted. His charming was an act. He just wanted someone to trail around the countryside, cooking and cleaning for him.

‘The worst part was once I got over the realisation that he was a borderline criminal with his business dealings, I couldn’t leave him. The law doesn’t allow for a woman to cast off a husband and, even if I had been able to, I had no way to support myself.’ Nora paused, letting Brandon assimilate the pieces of her history.

‘Then you ran away and became The Cat?’ Brandon guessed.

Nora shook her head. ‘Not at first. I started small. In the beginning, I left baskets of goods I pilfered from Reggie’s stock. He was a terrible book-keeper and kept a shoddy inventory. It was easy to take a length of cloth here and few tins of food there.’

‘He never caught on?’

‘Not for a while. He was quite angry when he discovered what I had been doing.’ Nora cringed at the memory.

‘He hit you?’

‘He beat me up quite thoroughly. I started carrying the knife in the sleeve sheath after that. One night he came back to our camp site drunk. It was worse than usual. I pulled the knife and, when he lunged for me, I stabbed him in the shoulder. Between the wound and the alcohol, he passed out. I knew I couldn’t be there when he woke up.

‘I took what was left of his stock, and had the good fortune to meet up with Hattie and Alfred at a fair. They were smalltime con artists, but they were getting on in years for such living. They liked the idea of settling in a house, even if it was just for a year or so at a time. After that, I started being The Cat in earnest. When it became clear that I had to have a means of income, I expanded The Cat’s range of activities.’

‘Incredible,’ Brandon breathed when she had finished.

Nora gave a bittersweet smile at the sight of his admiration. ‘That is why I can’t possibly marry you. I have to be The Cat for the sake of helping others and because I must live in hiding. Reggie is out there somewhere. As long as I keep moving and forgo my true identity, he can’t find me. You cannot risk being connected to me.’

‘Do you really expect me to let you walk away after knowing that?’ Brandon said softly.

‘Yes.’ Nora stamped her foot in frustration. ‘There’s nothing for you here but the harbouring of a fugitive.’ Especially since you don’t love me.

Not an iota of affection. She had noticed that he admired her. She fired his blood like no other, but that was all lust and physical attraction. It was the novelty of her. Those things would fade and Brandon would be left wondering why he’d risked so much for so little. And, of course, she’d be left hurt because in the final analysis she liked him a great deal. A great deal.

‘It should be for me to decide,’ Brandon said. ‘You are my responsibility. I will not have you martyr yourself out of some misguided notion that I am the one who needs saving.’

There was that word again: responsibility. She was coming to hate it. She would hate it if it wasn’t so important to her too. She understood the power of responsibility all too well.

‘Be glad I have the good sense not to take advantage of you. My rejection is a gift,’ Nora fired back, relieved to feel her temper rising. Good. She wouldn’t dwell on all that she was turning down. She cared for him too much to tie him to her when he did not reciprocate her depth of feeling. When he worked that out, he’d be thankful for her decision.

‘You will see reason and you’ll know I was right to decline. I cannot abide the idea that you would marry me to fulfil your sense of duty. You cannot wish to be shackled to a woman you don’t know for the rest of your days.’

‘You’re wrong. I know you, Nora. I know you’re The Cat. I know you have a criminal past, all for a good cause. I know and I still admire you. When I saw Witherspoon point that gun at you, I knew I couldn’t lose you.’

Of course not. You can’t stand to lose, you insufferably stubborn man. Nora stared at him, letting silence permeate the room. She took a moment and let the import of his words sink in. It would be easy to interpret them to mean what she wanted them to mean—a replacement for ‘I love you’.

Any other woman might be taken in by those powerful words. But in the past month she’d come to know Brandon Wycroft. He was a man who hated to lose and hated to share. She knew what he really meant: he wasn’t going to let a chap like Witherspoon call the shots. This was his game with The Cat and his game alone. She understood, but it still hurt.

Brandon chuckled in the quiet. ‘Besides, Nora, you can’t leave just yet. I need to produce a betrothed for a reasonable bit of time or else it will look suspicious.’

‘How long?’ Nora said warily. Letting him determine how the betrothal gambit evolved put her in a tenuous position.

‘Two weeks ought to be sufficient.’

‘Two weeks and then you let me walk away?’

‘Yes, unless you change your mind.’

‘I won’t. I can’t.’

Brandon smiled knowingly with all the confidence of an urbane rake prowling the London drawing rooms. ‘We’ll see.’

What had she got herself into? Nora wondered two days later, standing in what had become her suite of chambers, surrounded by boxes of hats, shoes, gloves and undergarments of the finest linens. Her wardrobe began arriving the afternoon following the dressmakers’ initial visit, providing a signal of sorts to those in the village who felt obliged to consort with the Earl and his intended.

The purported tragedy befalling her luggage and maid held would-be callers at bay for a day, long enough for Brandon and she to sort out what lay between them. For the ruse to succeed, they had to have a united front. Playing his role to the hilt, Brandon had dashed off a letter to his closest sister, inviting her to chaperon.

Now that her new clothing had arrived, the callers were not far behind. Indeed, Nora had been informed mere minutes ago that Witherspoon, along with his wife and sister, were downstairs in the front drawing room, hoping to be received. She supposed she could ask Brandon to tell them she was indisposed, but that would be the coward’s way out. Brandon expected more of her. He had performed his role as dutiful husband-to-be quite well.

She must respond in kind. Any believable candidate for an Earl’s wife would be an accomplished hostess. Acting like a shy country miss or wilting wallflower would not reflect well on Brandon.

Nora rang for the maid and pulled a morning gown of emerald-printed challis with Medici sleeves from the pile of gowns covering the bed. ‘Quickly, Ellie, we must not keep Witherspoon and his guests waiting overlong,’ Nora said in her best imitation of the lady of the house, which was what the servants expected of her. In their minds, she was to be the Countess.

Fortunately, she’d spent enough time robbing the rich to know something of their lifestyle and behaviours. She was not without her own resources when it came to avoiding major mistakes and Brandon had been diligently present behind the scenes, making sure she did not face insurmountable tasks alone.

Nora let Ellie drop the dress over her head and straighten it before sitting down at her vanity to arrange her hair in a hasty but tasteful coiffure. Ellie was a genius with hair, gathering Nora’s heavy curls into a low knot at the base of her neck that at once gave the admirer an impression of maturity and innocence when studying Nora’s face.

As Nora fastened on a pair of earrings, a knock sounded at the door. Brandon peered in and smiled. ‘Are you ready to go down? When I heard Witherspoon was here, I thought we could receive him together,’ he offered politely.

Nora graciously accepted. Witherspoon was their first visitor—the first of many. Nora knew Brandon wanted to offer guidance and cues so that she could manage well on her own for later visits. No one would expect the Earl to actually be present for the social calls. That was a woman’s domain.

There were other reasons she was glad of Brandon’s presence by her side. The way Witherspoon had looked at her when she’d descended the stairs the night he and the others brought Brandon home from the dinner party made her nervous, as if he were trying to unravel a great mystery. And, of course, there was the fact that he’d been ready to shoot her the night of the St Johns’ dinner party—not that he knew The Cat and Brandon’s intended were one and the same. Still, there was something edgy about socialising with someone who wanted to see her dead.

‘I don’t suppose we can get out of this,’ Nora said as they descended the stairs.