Scandalous Regency Secrets Collection

She glanced down at her outfit, belatedly realizing she had foregone a blouse in favor of haste, and she looked decidedly bare above the last button of her jacket. She imagined it would be impossible to blow out the fire, to turn the room completely dark. Besides, it was fairly obvious he’d already noticed her missing bit of wardrobe. And he couldn’t resist jabbing her about it, could he?

Really, once people got to know the baron, perhaps they wouldn’t all be so loopy and silly when he was around. He was just a man, and a maddening one at that. Especially when his smile carried all the way to his eyes, as it was doing now.

“Let’s be on with this, shall we? Or do you want to stand here being obnoxious until the blackmailer has been and gone?” she snapped, resisting clapping her hands to her chest only with the greatest of effort. She bared more to the world in her evening dresses, but there was something very different about showing that same skin above a severely cut riding habit.

Or maybe just in exposing that skin to one Baron Townsend...

“If he’s going to appear at all.”

“I know. He hasn’t yet, and it has been five days—nights—since his threat. He’s bound to show up soon.”

She watched as he positioned the fire screen so that it blocked some of the light from the fire, redirecting it toward the bed, before he walked to one of the long pair of windows and pushed back the drapery as he sat down on the window seat.

“Tonight’s our last chance, if I’m correct about someone in this house being in his employ. Did you have your sister pen the note and put it in the knothole?”

“I did, yes. She actually wrote Dear Blackmailer by way of salutation. She promised the five hundred pounds would be put into the knothole as soon as her letters were placed there for her retrieval. We also wrapped up our grandmother’s garnets and put them with the note.”

Coop turned to look at her. “Why would she have done that?”

“Because they’re ugly, I never liked them and I’m fairly certain they’re paste, thanks to our father’s forays into the gaming hells a few years ago.” She thought about what she’d said, because he was looking at her as if he’d never been anywhere near the inside of a woman’s head before and that his first foray there was proving more than a tad unsettling. “To show her good faith, that is.”

Coop shifted his gaze to the mews and the line of trees. “So you decided to show your sister’s good faith by gifting the man with a down payment of paste garnets? Because you never liked them, anyway. You’re a rather frightening young woman, but I imagine you already know that.”

“I probably am, I think I do and he might not notice. They’re very good paste,” Dany said, defending her brilliant idea. Poor hero. If she’d found it sometimes difficult to be Dany, she could only imagine how other people could be uncomfortable in her presence. She was beginning to actually pity him.

“Well, then, that makes it all right, doesn’t it? I suppose I should thank you for obeying at least half of my instructions.”

“Probably. I can be a sad failure at matters requiring cooperation. I say it’s because I have a mind of my own, although Mama insists I’m only good for driving others out of their minds,” she admitted truthfully. “Can you see well enough to know if someone approaches the tree? I couldn’t see much of anything the first two nights I tried to watch, but the moon is growing fuller now.”

“Probably what the blackmailer has been waiting for. Enough light to see, but not a full moon, or he would chance being seen, as well. By the way, I’ve got Viscount Nailbourne stationed at one end of the alleyway and my friend Jeremiah Rigby at the other, prepared to act on my signal.”

“What sort of signal?”

“Nothing too elaborate. If we espy anything unusual, it would be a simple matter of cranking open one of these windows and giving a whistle,” he told her. “How else could I do it?”

Pity him? Was she mad? It wasn’t her fault he’d chosen to compromise her with those two adorable cherubs, just so he could run tame in Oliver’s household.

“Indeed, yes, how else? How silly of me to badger the hero with obvious questions. What a brilliant plan. I stand in awe, my lord, truly. Such a shame that those old windows have been painted shut for what’s probably decades.”

“Damn.” The baron tried the handle, and it turned easily, the casement opening just as easily. He swiftly closed it again. Without looking at her, he said, “You’re worse than a menace. Go sit down.”

Satisfied she’d gotten just a little of her own back, she walked over to the window seat and sat down beside him, twisting enough to be able to see through the narrow opening in the draperies.

They were shoulder to shoulder, their cheeks nearly touching. She could feel Coop’s eyes on her.

“Dany,” he said after a moment.

“What?”

“Over. There. At the other window. I said go sit down, not come sit down. And while you’re at it, you misbuttoned your jacket. Fix it, before somebody comes in and thinks I’m responsible for your dishevelment and you’ll have lost any hope of breaking our engagement without forcing me into a duel with either your father or your brother.”

She practically flew from the window seat to take up her position at the other window, and immediately began to fiddle with her buttons in the dark. She hadn’t misbuttoned at all.

One thing she could say for him—he gave as good as he got. Why, she could almost think, in other circumstances, they could have been the best of chums.

“You could have simply asked me to move. And to think at least half the people in this house, my sister most especially, believes we’re in here being indecent. I was even beginning to pity you.”

“Don’t bother. The more I’m around you, the more I’m pitying myself. Damn, somebody’s stepping out from the earl’s stables. He’d better not stay long, or the blackmailer will never show himself.”

Dany pushed the drapery aside and squinted down into the mews. It might be dark, but there was no missing her maid’s rotund brother, even if he was mostly in shadow. “That’s only Sam,” she said. “He sleeps in the stables. Why is he looking around like that? Do you think he heard something and has stepped out to investigate? Let’s hope he didn’t scare off the— Oh, my heavens!”

She let the drapery drop just as Sam began lowering his trousers even as he turned to face the stone stable wall.

Coop’s laughter, strong and clear, was so engaging that she couldn’t help but join him in his mirth. It would be stupid beyond measure to pretend she didn’t know what Sam was about.

“That’s what peeking out of windows will get you, I suppose,” she said when she could control herself again. “Is he gone yet?”

“He’s gone. If the earl ever wonders why no ivy grows on that side of the stable doors, you’ll have an answer for him, although you might be wise not to volunteer the reason.”

Dany’s only response was to carefully pull back the drapery again, and continue her surveillance, suggesting the baron do the same.

Which they did, for nearly two hours, during which neither spoke and many carriages made their way down the alleyway to return to stables that lined the mews.

Harnesses jingled, grooms and stable boys shouted to one another, stable doors banged and slammed. London certainly wasn’t known for its quiet, no matter the hour.

Other than that business with Sam, Dany believed she had never been so bored in her life. She’d totally forgotten that she and her supposed fiancé were alone in her bedchamber. There was nothing romantical about their current situation, and if she yawned one more time she would have no recourse but to go over to her pitcher and basin and splash cold water on her face to stay awake.

“He’s not coming,” she said at last, breaking the silence. “This has been an entire waste of a compromise, you know, now that you’ve as good as said tonight was our only chance to capture the man. I can only hope you’re not an efficient hero, and have already sent off a letter to my father. Or worse, a notice to the newspapers.”

“It’s too late to worry about that, I’m afraid. Since both my mother and her boon chum the Duchess of Cranbrook, who you met earlier today, were guests at the same dinner party this evening, I imagine the news of our coming nuptials will be served up at breakfast all over Mayfair tomorrow. Today,” he corrected.

Dany left her seat and joined him as he kept his watch over the mews. “Upcoming nuptials? Why would you phrase it that way? You said you were going to allow me to cry off.”

“I remember. You punched me for it. The offer does remain open, but I’ve realized that hearing Darby and Minerva point out all the reasonableness and benefits of the thing and actually dragging you into this mess are two very different things. Therefore,” he continued, still doggedly looking out the window, “I’ve decided to leave matters entirely in your hands. I came to London to search for a wife, my idea being that a wife by my side would put an end to all the nonsense. I’ll admit to that, as well. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t throw away their idea, and allowed myself to be carried along, shall we say, by the tide of events.”

He finally looked at her. “And you didn’t say no.”

“Oh, so now I’m part of the reason, am I? I am to shoulder my share of blame for the predicament you tossed us into today? And who is Minerva?”

“My mother. You’ll meet her tomorrow. I’ve found myself rather looking forward to seeing the two of you together. Darby mentioned the possibility of selling tickets of admittance actually.”

“I’m certain I won’t like her. She sounds utterly overbearing, and obviously still has you tied to her apron strings. The more I know of you, Cooper Townsend, the less I understand how you ever became a hero.”

“At least we finally agree on something. In my defense, I do have a very good reason for not wanting the blackmailer to publish his threatened third volume, and since you and your sister are my only current avenues to finding the bastard, I plead guilty to using you. The both of you.”

Ah, now they were getting somewhere. Finally. “The chapbooks don’t just embarrass you, do they? You’re in a prodigious amount of trouble, aren’t you? I felt it from the beginning, or at least I’d like to tell myself I did. Does the viscount know? Your mother? Are you going to tell me? I think you owe it to me. To tell me, that is.”

He squeezed her hand for a moment. “I’m sorry. I can’t. Nobody knows. Darby has made a few guesses, as have you, but mine isn’t the only reputation at stake here. I was asked to swear to secrecy and rewarded for my agreement. That, too, doesn’t make me a hero, in case you were about to point that out. But at least I’m still breathing.”