After the Kiss (3 page)

He gave a stiff nod. “Of course, Lady Isabel.”

She smiled brightly. “Because if anything should happen to me, you would be blamed for it.”

Well, that had perhaps been a bit straightforward, but she didn’t know how else to convince him to stay close by until…until she’d figured out why he fascinated her so. For heaven’s sake, she’d never blackmailed anyone before. It frightened and excited her all at the same time. And that seemed more significant than turning him over to the authorities. At least for now.

Phillip led the group of people and horses around the house to the stable at the back. At six-and-twenty her older brother could at times be almost comically stoic, but today with his flushed cheeks and quick smile he looked more like a boy tasting hard candy for the first time than he did the oldest male offspring of a marquis. As for Douglas, the teen pranced in a circle around Waring with such enthusiasm that if he’d been a puppy he likely would have wet himself.

As they reached the stable she grabbed Douglas’s arm and hauled him a short distance from their so-called guest, her admiring family, and the growing crowd of grooms and stableboys. “What were—”

“Fiend seize it, Tibby, let me go,” he grumbled.

“What were you saying about Mr. Waring?” she insisted, keeping her voice low and yanking on her brother’s sleeve to keep his wandering attention.

“I said he’s the primest horse breeder in England. Now let go before I miss something he says.”

“No. Not that,” she returned, ignoring his protest. “You started to say that he was reputedly someone’s by-blow. Whose?”

“I just got clubbed in the head for being impolite. I’m not talking to my own damned sister about bastards.”

Stifling a growl, Isabel grabbed his left ear. “Talk!”

Douglas howled and twisted away from her. “Amazon!”

“Coward!”

“Isabel!” her father said sharply. “If you expect me to allow you to ride this animal, you first need to prove that you will devote your time and attention to doing it properly.”

With an irritated sigh she stopped pinching Douglas and returned to her father’s side. “Apologies,” she said stiffly, to him rather than to Waring. “What did I miss?”

“How to saddle a stallion.”

“I hardly think that’s my concern, then.”

“You need to know how to handle an animal.”

For a second she couldn’t figure out whether her father was referring to Ulysses or to Waring. The men, though, were obviously enraptured, and she was the only one who knew that Waring was anything other than what he claimed. He finished buckling the girth on Ulysses’ saddle, then offered his cupped hands to Phillip. “Remember, Lord Chalsey,” he said, as her brother swung into the saddle, “he’s trained as a hunter, so he’s got a sensitive mouth. If you even think about turning, he’ll turn.”

Since Phillip generally acted as though he knew everything, Isabel was deeply surprised when he only took the reins and nodded. Waring stepped back, ending up directly beside her, while her brother walked Ulysses about the stable yard and said admiring things.

Isabel studied Sullivan Waring’s profile as he gazed at the big stallion like a proud papa. She would put him somewhere in his late twenties, a few years older than Phillip. He was built like a born horseman, tall and lean, with strong hands and muscular thighs, his light brown hair disheveled from riding hatless. What was he up to? An obviously well-respected horse breeder who broke into homes and burgled them by night? Aside from the fact that he’d kissed her, this didn’t make any sense. Which made for a mystery—something else she enjoyed probably more than she should.

“What are you up to, my lady?” Waring murmured, sending her a brief sideways glance.

“I’ll ask the questions, Mr. Waring. And if you wish to remain out of shackles, you’d best do as I say.”

“To a point, my lady. Don’t push me.”

She ignored the warning. Or she pretended to; inside, she was quite a bit less certain. “I’ll do as I please,” she said aloud. “And you’ll do as I please, as well, Mr. Marauder.”

Sullivan Waring leaned over the wooden gate of the box stall and absently fed carrots to his mount. Distraction was never safe, even away from legally declared wars and uniformed enemies, but this evening he couldn’t help himself. Achilles nickered as one of the stableboys passed the open doors, a mare in tow. “Sorry, old fellow,” Sullivan murmured, rubbing the black’s nose, “she’s not for you.”

“Mr. Waring?”

He shook himself. “Yes, Samuel?”

The groom shuffled his feet. “Sir, I put the sacks of feed up in the loft, and the pasture troughs are full. If you—”

“Off with you, then.” Sullivan glanced over his shoulder at the shorter man. “Well done with the mares today. McCray has your pay; you’ll find an extra five quid there. And enjoy your holiday in Bristol.”

The groom grinned. “Thank you, sir. My boys are beside themselves to see their grandmum again. I’ll be back here bright and early next Tuesday.”

“I know you will be. Good night.”

“Good night, Mr. Waring.” With a half salute, Samuel headed out the back door.

“So now you’re giving employees bonuses and time to visit their relations?” Bramwell Johns drawled from the double doors at the front of the large stable. “People will begin to think you’re…pleasant.”

“Only until they come to know me.” Declining to admit that he had a soft spot in his heart for families who actually liked one another, Sullivan handed over a last carrot to Achilles and moved away from the stall. “I thought you were going to seduce some chit or other tonight.”

“Yes, I already did. Then I got bored. It was lamentably easy, really. Morality these days truly gives me pause.”

Sullivan grinned. “No, it doesn’t. In fact, I’ve a suspicion that you’re the major cause of Society’s decay.” Walking past his friend to the main entrance, he pulled the double doors closed and latched them from the inside.

“I certainly hope so. I’ve put enough effort into it.”

“Why are you here, Bram?”

“I was worried about you, Sully. How was your afternoon with Phillip Chalsey and the chit you kissed?”

“Say that a bit louder, why don’t you?” Sullivan grunted, lifting a lantern off a hook and heading for the back door. With Samuel gone for the next week, Vincent would be sleeping alone in the stable, and he stepped aside as the small man, a former Derby jockey, entered. “You’re all set, I presume?”

“Aye, Mr. Waring. Don’t worry about a thing.”

He couldn’t help worrying. Even with two grooms making
rounds all night they’d come close to losing stock from time to time—along with the reputation for having the region’s finest horses came the risk that someone else would want to possess them. Funny, he supposed, that a thief worried about thieves. “Even so,” he said aloud, “I’ll take a turn or two about the place tonight. So don’t shoot until you’re certain it’s not me.”

Vincent grinned, tugging on his hat. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

“Does this mean you’re not going to Jezebel’s with me?” Bram asked, following him across the large stable yard toward his small two-story cottage.

“I thought you had a ball or something tonight.”

“Almack’s,” his friend returned, in a tone that said that one word should explain everything.

“Tell me again why you don’t have any friends of your own station?” Sullivan asked, stripping off his rough work jacket as they entered the cottage and hanging it on a peg beside the door.

“They’re all jealous of my good looks and keen wit. You, however, know the true, inner me.”

Sullivan shook his head. “The only inner you I’ve seen is when you got sliced on the arm. It’s red.”

“Precisely. As are your innards. You see, we have so much in common.”

Obviously Bramwell
was
bored this evening, and just as obviously Sullivan wouldn’t have a moment of peace until he gave in. “Buy my dinner, and I’ll go with you,” he said, dipping his hands into the washbowl and scrubbing off the dirt.

“Done. And then you can tell me what you’re going to do about your problem.”

His problem. Lady Isabel Chalsey. With a shrug he tossed
Bramwell a bottle of whiskey. “She’s not much of a problem,” he said offhandedly, trudging up the stairs to change into evening attire. “She’s had her moment of bravado, so I’ll tolerate her for a day or two and meanwhile make it clear that she needs to keep her pretty mouth shut.”

“Her ‘pretty’ mouth?” Lord Bramwell repeated from the ground floor.

Bloody hell.
“Yes, her mouth. Her keeping her nose closed wouldn’t much benefit me, now, would it?”

“That depends on how much time you’ve been spending in the stable with the horse shit.”

The wisest plan for tonight would probably have been to stay at home and spend the ensuing hours before his morning visit to Chalsey House figuring out what precisely he was going to do about Lady Isabel. Sullivan blew out his breath.

He was popular with ladies of quality, and he’d had his share of lovers. This, though, was different. This was complicated. And despite the kiss and the odd…connection he felt with her, he wasn’t certain this difficulty was something he could resolve through physical domination or intimidation. What did spoiled, pretty chits fear? What could he offer or threaten that would convince her to keep her silence? She’d kept his secret to this point, but he had no idea why. And he needed to find the answer to that question without delay.

He pulled on a clean shirt and buttoned a waistcoat over it, then shrugged into a jacket. Jezebel’s had a very mixed clientele, from merchants to bankers to horse breeders to second sons of dukes, but he would be in Bram’s company, and so he would look the part. And to himself he could admit that he didn’t want to appear common. Of course, he
wasn’t
common. Without his father’s acknowledgment, he wasn’t anything.

“You look lovely,” Bram drawled from a chair by the fire downstairs. “Prettier than me, even. I don’t know that I like that.”

With a snort, Sullivan pulled on his greatcoat and beaver hat. “You’re still the prettiest,” he said, calling for his housekeeper and instructing Mrs. Howard to bank the fires and go home for the night.

“As long as we agree about that,” Bram continued, leading the way to his coach. “So what do you know about the Chalsey family?”

Sullivan took the opposite seat, and the big black behemoth rocked into motion. “Wealthy, two sons and a daughter. The oldest boy is an earl with a fondness for fine horses, the daughter is a light sleeper, and they used to own one of my mother’s paintings.”

“You’re beginning to sound cynical.”

“I
am
cynical.”

Bramwell gazed at him for a moment, his eyes shadowed in the dark coach. “By some miracle you’re not dead, Sullivan,” he finally said in a quiet voice. “The Chalseys are a straitlaced lot. And their daughter is one of polite Society’s darlings. Don’t take Lady Isabel’s silence for granted. I’d hate for you to end on the gallows after I went to the bother of saving your life in Spain.”

Sullivan narrowed his eyes. “You’re not actually concerned about me, are you, Bram? Because I think I was fairly clear about my intentions when this all began, and you still agreed to point out the locations where I might find those paintings once you spotted them. Nothing’s changed.”

“Someone saw you. That changes things. And even if you can persuade her to keep her knowledge to herself for now, what’s going to happen when you go after the next painting? Will she stay silent then?”

For a long moment Sullivan gazed through the coach window at the moonlit evening. His stable was just outside London, but it felt far more countrified. Yet within a mile or two they’d reached the heart of town again. “The risks are mine, Bram. If you’re backing out of our—”

“No, I’m not backing out. Damnation, you’re stubborn. Get yourself hanged, then. I’ll continue to do my part.”

“That’s all I ask.”

All through dinner he fended off questions from Bramwell about his plans regarding Lady Isabel, and from Molly Cooper about his plans for the rest of the evening. The innkeeper’s daughter was a pretty little thing, but it was rumored that her father kept a loaded musket behind the beer kegs, and Sullivan didn’t feel like the risk would be worth the reward. Aside from that, he had other things on his mind.

Finally Bram pulled a handful of social invitations from his pocket. “These are the ones I’m undecided about,” he said, pushing the stack in front of Sullivan. “Any preferences?”

Sullivan looked through them. They were requests for Bram’s presence at various soirees, music recitals, and private dinners; he already would have accepted the invitations to the more interesting and prestigious events. After all, cynical and jaded as he was, Bram did have a duke for a father.

“The Hardings,” he said, sending one of the cards back in his friend’s direction. “Eugenia Harding already owns two of my mother’s paintings legitimately.”

“So what should I
not
look for?”

“Two young girls in a flower garden, and Dover at sunset,” he said immediately. Even if he hadn’t remembered them all, his mother had kept very precise records. That was
why when he’d returned home from the Peninsula to find every wall in her home bare of her own dearest paintings, he’d known it hadn’t been her idea.

“Are you certain you don’t want those back, as well?”

Sullivan shook his head. “She sold them. I only want the ones that were stolen from her, and from me.”

“I’m merely saying, as long as you’re…liberating items from a house and angering Dunston, why stop at the ones to which you have a legitimate claim?”

“Because I have a legitimate claim to them.” He handed back another folded card. “This one. Barnett’s a collector, and he’s greedy.”

Bram frowned. “But he has two unmarried daughters.”

“And?”

“You know precisely what the ‘and’ is, Sullivan. The only reason I was invited to their dinner was so one of the chits could trap me into marriage. If I attend, they’ll think I’m willing.”

“If you weren’t willing to go, you shouldn’t have handed me the invitation.”

“You are hardheaded.”

“I’m on a course of vengeance, if you’ll recall. It’s supposed to be messy.” Sullivan took a breath. A good friend probably wouldn’t attempt to force his companion to attend something he deemed unpleasant. He knew Bram well enough, though, to have a fair idea that the Duke of Levonzy’s son wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want to, under any circumstances. “Those are the only two that strike a note with me,” he continued, handing back the rest of the invitations.

Bram signaled for another glass of port. For a moment he looked as though he wanted to say something, but he finished off the last few bites of his roast duck instead. Good.
Sullivan could think of a few choice words for someone who lived the life that Bram did and then handed out advice to others.

Yes, what he’d chosen to do was dangerous. And yes, he supposed that he’d had the option of making a legal or a public outcry about his missing property. He’d seen the results of such things before, however, and he had a business to protect and employees to support. No, a few thefts were the best way to set things right.

And his burglaries had the added benefit of undoubtedly angering and humiliating the original thief, with the happy knowledge that the Marquis of Dunston could do nothing about it without ruining his own good standing with his fellows. After all, failing to acknowledge an illegitimate son was one thing. Stealing from the poor soul, especially when he was a respected fringe member of Society—well, that would just be shabby. And Dunston and his legitimate brood were never shabby. Thieves, yes. But not shabby ones.

With a breath he set aside his own tankard of bitters. “I’d best be off. I wasn’t making up excuses to try to avoid dinner with you, earlier. With Samuel gone, I
do
want another pair of eyes watching my stock.” He glanced across the table. “And you have to be at Almack’s before long, don’t you?”

“I told you, I’m not going.”

“Mm-hm. It’s not your fault that you’re blue-blooded, Lord Bramwell Lowry Johns. I’ve already forgiven you for that.”

Bram sent him a dark smile. “Yes, but there are other offenses on my head.”

Before Sullivan could ask what he meant by that, Bram paid their bill and rose from the table. In the midst of the noise and drinking and wagering and cigar smoke of Jezebel’s, private conversation was both easy and almost impossible
all at the same time, but business was one thing. For Bram, personal matters were another. And there was nothing new about that.

Sullivan hired a hack to drive him back to his three acres of stables, cottage, and grazing land. It wasn’t much by noble standards, he supposed, but at least he’d worked for it and earned it himself. And no one could take it away from him.

Sullivan scowled. No one, that was, except for Lady Isabel Chalsey. Putting him in prison would make his land forfeit. How much of a threat was she, then? Pretty and spoiled, no match for him physically, but she had a mouth on her. Good for kissing, but quite capable of ruining his life. He needed to do something about her. And before his next sojourn through someone’s window.

“Mama, I just wanted a horse,” Isabel stated for the fiftieth time since Zephyr had arrived. She wasn’t any closer to believing it, but she hoped her family was. “Eloise is always going riding, and she says it’s wonderful exercise. So I decided to stop being a ninny about it and learn to ride.”

Lady Darshear looked at her from across the breakfast table. “Eloise Rampling is a lovely young lady, but you’ve never felt the need to imitate her daily routine. If anything, the other girls follow
your
lead.”

“It’s not about aping anyone. I’m nineteen, Mama. Nearly twenty. I’m past being silly, and I would like to be able to do this.”

“She certainly couldn’t have chosen a better teacher,” her father put in as he entered the breakfast room, pausing to kiss his wife and then Isabel on the cheek before he sat at the head of the table. “And as we’re something of a family of horse lovers, I’m glad you’ve decided to give this a go.”