Regency: Rogues and Runaways: A Lover's Kiss / The Viscount's Kiss

—from The Collected Letters of Lord Bromwell

“Are you quite sure you’re in a fit state to attend a dinner party?” the elderly Mr. Edgar asked as he nimbly tied Drury’s cravat. “It’s only been a fortnight. I think it might be best if you didn’t go. I’m sure Mr. Smythe-Medway and Lady Fanny will understand.”

“I’m quite recovered.”

“Now, sir, no lying to me,” Mr. Edgar said with a hurt air and the candor of a servant of long standing. “You are not completely recovered.”

“Oh, very well,” Drury admitted with more good humor than Miss Bergerine would ever have believed he possessed. “I’m still a little sore. But it’s only a dinner party at Brix’s, and I don’t want to be cooped up in these chambers another night. I could, I suppose, go for a walk instead…”

Mr. Edgar’s reflection in the looking glass revealed his horrified dismay at that proposal. “You wouldn’t! Not after—”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Drury hastened to reassure the man who’d been like a father to him all these years, for he was not ungrateful, no matter what some French hoyden might think. If he had been rude or insolent to Miss Bergerine, she had her countrymen to blame.

Mr. Edgar reached for a brush and attacked the back of Drury’s black dress coat as if he were currying a horse. Drury, penitently, kept silent.

As a general rule, a dinner party held little appeal for him, unless it was attended by his good friends. Then he could be sure of intelligent and amusing conversation rather than gossip, and nobody would hold it against him if he were silent.

At other parties, he was too often expected to expound on the state of the courts, or talk about his latest case, something he never did. It was worse if there were female guests. Most women either looked at him as if they expected him to attack them, or as if they hoped he would.

Just as Mr. Edgar pronounced him suitable to leave, a fist pounded on the outer door of his chambers, and an all-too-familiar female voice called out his name.

Juliette Bergerine’s shouts could wake the dead—not to mention disturbing the other barristers with chambers here. And what the devil could she want?

“Saints preserve us!” Mr. Edgar cried as he tossed the brush aside and started for the door.

Drury hurried past him. He fumbled for a moment with the latch, silently cursing his stiff fingers, but at last got it open.

Miss Bergerine came charging into his chambers as if pursued by a pack of hounds.

“I was attacked!” she cried in French. “A man grabbed me in a lane and pulled me into an alley.” A disgusted expression came to her flushed features and gleaming eyes. “He thinks I am your whore. He said you had other women, so what did you want me for?”

Shaken by her announcement as well as her disheveled state, Drury fought to remain calm. She reminded him of another Frenchwoman he’d known all too well who’d been prone to hysterics. “Obviously, the man was—”

“My God, I never should have helped you!” she cried before he could finish. “First you treat me like a servant even though I saved your life and now I am believed to be your whore and my life is in danger!”

Drury strode to the cabinet and poured her a whiskey. “It’s regrettable—”

“Regrettable?” she cried indignantly. “Regrettable? Is that all you have to say? He was going to kill me! If I had not bitten him and run away, I could be lying dead in an alley! Mon Dieu, it was more than regrettable!”

She’d bitten the lout? Thank God she’d kept her head and got away.

He handed the whiskey to her. “Drink this,” he said, hoping it would calm her.

She glared at him, then at the glass before downing the contents in a gulp. She coughed and started to choke. “What was that?” she demanded.

“A very old, very expensive, very good Scotch whiskey,” he said, gesturing for her to sit. “Now perhaps we can discuss this in a rational manner.”

“You are a cold man, monsieur!” she declared as she flounced onto a chair.

“I don’t see that getting overly emotional is going to be of any use.”

He sat opposite her on a rather worn armchair that might not be pretty or elegant, but was very comfortable. “I am sorry this happened to you, Miss Bergerine. However, it never occurred to me that any enemies I might have would concern themselves with you. If I had, I would have taken steps to ensure your safety.”

She set down the whiskey glass on the nearest table with a hearty and skeptical sniff. “So you say now.”

He wouldn’t let her indignant exclamations disturb him. “However, since it has happened, you were quite right to come to me. Now I must consider what steps to take to see that it doesn’t happen again.”

He became aware of Mr. Edgar standing by the door, an avidly interested expression on his lined face.

He’d forgotten all about his valet.

On the other hand, it was a good thing he was there, or who could say what Miss Bergerine might accuse him of?

Not that there would be any merit in such accusations, as anyone who knew him would realize. Although Juliette Bergerine was pretty and attractive in a lively sort of way, such a volatile woman roused too many unhappy memories to ever appeal to him.

The sort of women with whom he had affairs was very well-known, and they were not poor Frenchwomen.

“If you can provide me with details,” he said, “such as the location and a description of the man who attacked you, I shall take the information to the Bow Street Runners, as well as another associate of mine who’s skilled at investigation. I’ve already got him looking for the men who attacked me. This fellow could very well be one of them.

“Until the guilty parties are apprehended, however, we have another problem—where to keep you.”

“Keep me?” she repeated, her brows lowering with suspicion.

He shouldn’t have used that word. It had a meaning he most definitely didn’t intend. “I mean where you can safely reside. I would offer to put you up in a hotel, except that people might suppose our relationship is indeed intimate.

“As that is most certainly not true, I shall have the associate I’ve mentioned provide men to protect you. Since this is necessary because you came to my aid, naturally I shall pay for their services.”

“You mean they will guard me, as if I am your prisoner?”

He tried not to sound frustrated with this most frustrating foreigner. “They will protect you. As you have so forcefully pointed out, I have put you at risk. I don’t intend to do so again. Or did you come here only to berate me?”

He waited for her to argue or chastise him again, but to his surprise, her steadfast gaze finally faltered and she softly said, “I had nowhere else to go for help.”

She sounded lost then, and vulnerable, and unexpectedly sad. Lonely, even—a feeling with which he was unfortunately familiar.

“Is something the matter with your hearing? I’ve been knocking for an age,” Buggy said as he walked into the room.

Mr. Edgar, who had been riveted by Miss Bergerine’s tirade, gave a guilty start and hurried to take Buggy’s hat and coat, then slipped silently from the room.

Meanwhile, Buggy was staring at Drury’s visitor as if he’d never seen a woman before. “Miss Bergerine! What are you… I beg your pardon. It’s a pleasure, of course, but…”

As his words trailed off in understandable confusion, Drury silently cursed. He’d forgotten all about Brix and Fanny’s dinner party, and that Buggy had offered to bring round his carriage to spare him the trouble of hiring one for the evening.

“Miss Bergerine had an unfortunate encounter with a man under the delusion she and I have an intimate relationship,” he explained, getting to his feet. “Fortunately, Miss Bergerine fought him off and came to me for assistance.”

“You fought the scoundrel off all by yourself?” Buggy cried, regarding Miss Bergerine with an awed mixture of respect and admiration. “You really are a most remarkable woman.”

That was a bit much. “The question is, what are we to do with her? She can’t go home, and she can’t stay here.”