A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (14 page)

~ * ~

Ten minutes. Ten bloody minutes he had
been standing at the altar, waiting for his deuced bride to arrive.
Quin was ready to explode. He clenched his jaw and prayed that he
would not strike the next person who spoke.

The vicar kept sending anxious looks
his way and tapping his feet. The few guests in the pews stared at
him.

He’d been bang up to the mark, by God.
They could not blame him. They’d better not try, least of all
Hyatt. The man ought to have done a better job of teaching his
daughter punctuality.

If this was a sign of things to come
within their relationship, Quin would have to learn patience.
Either that or he’d have to tell Aurora to be ready an hour before
he expected her.

That might be the better option. He
doubted himself capable of adopting patience.

The vicar gave him yet another pointed
look.

“
Where in God’s name is
she?” Quin yelled, startling everyone in the church, including Lord
Hyatt, who jumped long enough to cease pacing at the opposite end.
“What is taking her so bafflingly long?”

His bride’s maid and friend stared
back at him with huge eyes. Jonas stomped on Quin’s foot and glared
at him.

Christ, he shouldn’t have lost his
temper like that. But really, how long must a man be kept waiting?
“I apologize,” he gritted out to the small gathering. “Hyatt, would
you go and check on your daughter? Hurry her along.”

The older man looked at him with
disdain. “Perhaps, Quinton, you ought to go and check on your
bride. It is, after all, your fault all of this is taking
place.”

“
Excuse me, please,” said
the young maid. “I will check on Miss Hyatt.” She slipped out of
her pew and rushed down the long aisle, disappearing from
sight.

Well. That eliminated the likelihood
of Quin and Hyatt cursing at each other over whose responsibility
Aurora was at the moment.

Quin paced before the altar. He wanted
to rip the fussy cravat from his neck and toss the overcoat aside,
but Jonas would give him hell if he did. With every sound, from the
creaking of a seat to a muffled clearing of a throat, his head
snapped about, expecting to see Aurora coming down the aisle to
meet him.

But she didn’t.

Finally, after the maid had been gone
for what had to have been another ten minutes, she came
back.

Alone
.

He tried to maintain his sanity as he
returned to his position. “Where is Miss Hyatt?” he asked through
clenched teeth.

The poor girl trembled before him.
“The door is locked,” she said, her voice hardly more than a
whisper. “She won’t answer.”

“
Bloody hell.”

A chorus of shocked gasps sounded
around. Blast, Quin thought he’d only said it in his head, not
aloud.

She couldn’t be doing this to him. She
could not leave him standing at the altar. He’d be damned if he let
her get away with it.

Quin marched down the
aisle, into the hall, and to the changing room where his bride had
been
supposedly
getting dressed and taking a moment to calm herself before
their nuptials. He tried the knob. It didn’t budge.

“
Aurora! Open the door.” He
pounded out an impatient rhythm. “This is neither the time nor the
place for this.”

Nothing. He didn’t hear a single
sound, not one peep.

A crowd gathered behind him, Jonas in
front of them all. “Do you think something has happened to her?
Perhaps she is unwell.”

“
She will be if she doesn’t
unlock this door in the next thirty seconds.” He’d make certain of
it himself.

Everyone started talking at once
behind him.

“
Should we ask the vicar
for the key?”

“
Perhaps someone ought to
break down the door.”

“
I can’t
believe
the nerve of her.
Ungrateful chit.”

“
Sir Jonas! Sir Jonas.”
This voice rang out urgently amongst the din of the others. Quin
turned to see a groom pushing his way through the small crowd.
“Your horse, sir.”

“
We are busy here, man,”
Jonas responded. “The horse can wait.”

“
But, sir! Your horse was
stolen. She rode off with it before I could catch her, she
did.”

She
.

“
Damnation,” Quin muttered.
He rammed his shoulder repeatedly into the door. By the third time,
Jonas joined him. After a few joint efforts, the hinges gave way
and the door fell open.

“
Of course,” Quin said.
Aurora’s belongings were strewn about the small chamber as a slight
breeze blew in through the open window, fluttering everything
about.

Aurora Hyatt, however, was nowhere to
be found.

Chapter Nine

3 April, 1811

There is an art to horse
thievery. Or at least there is an intelligent manner of going about
it and an unintelligent manner of going about it. The intelligent
manner, should one be of the female sex, would be to either steal a
horse that is saddled with a side saddle, or else to be certain to
wear breeches instead of a gown. Particularly troublesome is a
wedding gown. It is rather unbecoming, not to mention curious (and
conspicuous), to ride astride through Mayfair while draped in ivory
silk. This is not an act I recommend.

~From the journal of Miss
Aurora Hyatt

His bride was an imbecile. What other
explanation could there be?

Quin had thoroughly and completely
ruined her. He had offered her a chance to salvage her
reputation—and she ran. He would damned well catch her, too.
Whether he would return with her to the church or take her straight
to Bedlam was still up for debate.

The horse he’d borrowed from Jonas was
close to foaming at the mouth, he had been pushing the animal so
hard. He had no choice. Aurora must be found.

Immediately.

The groom said she rode off with the
skirts of her gown bunched up about her knees, for Christ’s sake.
Idiotic. Rash. Gauche. Why on earth had he ever thought it a good
idea to marry her?

But after what he’d done,
not only did she not have any other option—
he
had no other option. He’d never
find a respectable bride after his behavior at that ball. No one
else would have him, and then he would be unable to do what Rotheby
required.

She was the closest thing he would
find to it.

And she
would
marry him.

Aurora was not at Hyatt House. Nor was
she at Grantham Manor on Grosvenor Square, where the Duke of
Aylesbury had been none too pleased to find Quin pounding at his
door, demanding entrance and to have the house searched at such an
early hour of the morning. But he had to check. Lady Rebecca had
suggested that Aurora might seek solace there.

Quin turned down Piccadilly, headed
toward Hyde Park. It was illogical for her to go to such a public
place—certainly not if she was trying to hide—but nothing the minx
had done of late made any blasted sense.

The park was virtually empty at this
hour. Only a small group of matrons strolled along the Serpentine
from what he could see on first glance. Blast. Where else could she
have gone?

Devil take it. Did she have other
friends? Surely she did. This was one moment it would help if he
knew just a mite more about his intended. Quin turned the mare and
headed back into Mayfair. He’d ride up and down every damned
street, if that’s what it took to find her and drag her back to the
church.

He’d already searched both Cavendish
Square and Grosvenor Square. Might as well try some of the other
elite areas. Her closest friend was the daughter of a duke, so the
rest of her acquaintances likely came from families of equally
elevated ranks.

Berkeley Square. He’d go there first,
with it still early in the day. Perhaps Rotheby would still be abed
and not up, wondering if Quin had actually gone through with it and
leg-shackled himself. The last thing he needed was to run into the
man and have to explain this current mess he’d gotten himself
into.

If there even was an explanation to be
given.

When Quin turned the corner, he nearly
fell off his horse. He’d never seen anything so utterly farcical
(not to mention bizarre, ignominious, and indiscreet) in the whole
of his life.

Aurora Hyatt, impeccably clad in a
white satin wedding gown and some silly Spencer and bonnet, sat
astride a horse outside Gunter’s. Her stockings were visible up to
her knees, with the gown draped in an unwieldy fashion across the
saddle horn. Dangling above the stirrups, one foot kicked about for
something to grab onto, while she attempted to swing the other
over. However, her slipper continued to catch upon the satin gown,
and if she didn’t stop her flailing about, she’d fall and crack her
skull on the pavement.

“
What the devil do you
think you’re doing?” he bellowed, ignoring the aghast looks of
passersby. They could all go hang. Quin rode over and took her
reins.

She had the audacity to
look affronted. “I thought to have an ice.” Aurora tried to snatch
the reins back from his grasp, but he would be damned if he let
them go. She huffed and swatted his hands in response. “What the
devil do
you
think
you’re
doing, my lord?”

Not here. He had hashed out
enough of what should have been their private matters in public,
with the gossips of the
ton
hanging on their every word or touch. Quin would
rather rot in Newgate than give them anything else to print in
their bloody society papers.

He turned his mare and made for Curzon
Street, pulling Aurora’s horse along behind him. She lost her
balance at the sudden change in direction, particularly since she
already had her body in a convoluted mess. She let out a squeal of
panic.

Quin turned to see what the problem
was this time. She’d fallen forward over the saddle horn and was
holding onto it for dear life, with her sweet little derrière
hanging precariously off the side.

Blast. They wouldn’t make it to the
end of the street, let alone to Jonas’s bachelor lodgings, with her
dangling about like that. Drawing the horses to a stop, he plucked
her from her horse and settled her sidelong across his
lap.

“
Oh!” Aurora said. “How
rude.” She wiggled her bottom and squirmed about.

“
Be still,” Quin ordered.
She’d wriggle herself off his lap and land face first on the
ground, if she didn’t quit. “And we’ll discuss rudeness in
private.”

“
Why, I never” The blasted
minx continued to struggle until she would have pitched forward and
fallen, if not for his arm about her waist keeping her
still.

Patience. He needed to be patient.
Quin took a deep breath, then pulled her tighter against his chest.
“Be still,” he growled.

Thankfully, they didn’t have far to
travel. Within minutes, they arrived at Number Five. Quin
dismounted, pulling his bride along with him. She fidgeted for
freedom, but the silly chit would likely run off again, or try to
climb onto a damned horse, or perhaps just plop down on the steps
of the flat and scream for help. None of those scenarios suited his
mood.

Instead, he flipped Aurora over his
shoulder—the opposite shoulder from the previous ramming, since
that one felt like a horse had kicked it repeatedly—and held her
legs about the knees.

“
Really, this is the most
absurd”

“
We will discuss absurdity
in private as well, Miss Hyatt. Hold your tongue.”

Quin let himself into Jonas’s
lodgings, tossing Aurora on a divan before turning to close the
door behind him—only to be confronted by Jonas’s
manservant.

“
Lord Quinton,” the
manservant said, attempting to push his way into the small sitting
room, “I cannot allow this. It is highly irregular. You cannot
bring a young lady in here”

Fiend seize it, enough with the damned
disruptions. “Leave us,” he said. His voice held enough menace to
scare most men.

This man proved predictable. “Yes, my
lord.” He seemed to shrink before Quin’s eyes, then backed
away.

Quin closed the door and tried to calm
his racing pulse before initiating discussion with his bride. When
he finally felt capable of controlling himself and turned to face
her, his heart felt like it had lurched off a cliff without
checking for water first.

Her clear eyes were so wide, he
thought they’d burst free from her face. One hand rested over her
bosom, trembling visibly.

Good God. She was
terrified.

Quin itched to strike something. What
had he done to cause such fear in her? He could never be confused
as a saint, but neither was he a monster.

Move. He needed to move or he would
throw something, or punch a hole in the wall, or rip his arm from
the shoulder that was so bloody sore. Instead, he paced.