How I Met My Countess (11 page)

However could she object? These were her lessons, after all.

His lips crashed down on hers. At first there was nothing but a
mew
of protest from her, her hands balled up against his chest as if ready to beat out her refusal.

But that refusal never came.

It was as if the last week had left Lucy as filled up with pent-up need as it had him, and she kissed him back, her fingers twining into his lapels, tugging him closer.

Her tongue slid against his, enticing him to explore her, to give her the pleasure she hungered for.

As her hips brushed over his growing need for her, Clifton nearly forgot himself. Forgot where he was.

Forgot that they were kissing before an audience.

“Bravo! Bravo!” Malcolm called out. “Well done, Gilby! I didn’t know my proper brother had it in him.”

Lucy pushed away from him, her eyes bright and her face flushed.

He didn’t know whether he was about to suffer Monday Moggs’s fate or she was about to send Malcolm and her sister packing.

“Yes, yes, quite improper, my lord,” Mariana added, clapping her hands like a delighted audience. “I think you have rattled Lucy right out of her slippers. But the real question is, did you gain your reward?”

He glanced back at Mariana and grinned, then turned to Lucy and held up his real prize.

The keys she had tucked in her apron pocket.

Her mouth fell open in a wide O. “You wretched devil!” she exclaimed as she snatched them back. “You cheated.”

“All is fair in love and war, Goosie,” he whispered to her, chucking her lightly under the chin. “And you are the fairest of them all.”

She moved past him, her steps as determined as ever. “I can see you are going to be entirely insufferable from here on out. You great, conceited—”

Before she could finish, Mariana’s laughter filled the room. “He’s bested you, Lucy. What does it feel like to have finally met your match?”

And Lucy Ellyson’s answer was telling.

She let out a disagreeable “
Harrumph
.”

Clifton took it as evidence that he had indeed stolen more than her keys—not that she was going to let on.

Not yet, anyway.

The rest of the evening was a blur for Lucy. Even after Clifton and his brother left, she found no peace in the silence of the house, so she went upstairs to her father’s map room to file away the dispatches that had come in earlier.

But when she got up there, she found her father awake, sitting in his chair and staring at the flames in the fireplace.

“Papa, you’re awake,” she said, surprised to find him so.

“That I am, Goosie,” he said, taking a long look at her. “I’ve been considering a difficult matter.”

His scrutiny left her unsettled, but she crossed the room and began to sort the maps on the table as if there was nothing unusual about her arrival in his study.

“And that is?” she asked as nonchalantly as she could muster.

“You’ve taken a keen interest in the earl and his brother,” he said, eyeing the pink gown she wore—her finest dress, in fact.

She stilled and waited, for she knew him well enough to know this was no mere observation but merely the beginning of his inquiry.

The fire crackled, and after a few moments, her father cleared his throat and asked, “Do you think that is wise?”

Lucy glanced up at him, for that was the last thing she’d expected him to say. “I only meant … that is to say, Mariana and I thought to help them.”

“You and Mariana?” One bushy brow cocked with skepticism.

“I did,” Lucy replied, taking full responsibility.

“I thought as much,” he said. “Be wary, daughter.”

“I don’t know what you—”

“You know exactly what I mean. Guard your heart. You can try as hard as you may to give someone everything they need, but that won’t guarantee they will come back to you.”

She wondered if he was speaking of Clifton or her mother. For she knew her father had tried every way possible to give the contessa the life she’d desired, but it had never been enough.

He had never been enough.

“You have no cause to be concerned, Papa,” she told him. “Naught but lessons in a bit of thievery and cards.”

“And?” he pressed.

“No more,” she told him, feeling the press of his questions, the weight of his scrutiny.

But this was George Ellyson, and there were few who could escape his examination.

Even his daughter.

“Goosie, I won’t bandy this about, any more than I will see your heart broken. As much as you fancy this man, he will never have you. Not in a way that is honest and noble. He cannot.”

But he could,
she wanted to tell her father. Clifton had said as much himself.

“I will not marry without love.”
The earl’s words echoed inside her, sparking her defiance.

She was, after all, George Ellyson’s daughter.

But her father wasn’t finished yet. “He’s an earl, my girl.”

“I’m well aware of his—”

“And when he returns—”

“If he returns,” she pointed out.

“Oh, he’ll return,” her father said, sounding none-too-pleased over the fact. “You’ve seen to that. You’ve done more than teach that man ‘thievery and a few lessons in cards.’ Oh, don’t look so surprised. As if I wouldn’t notice what is going on under my own roof. You and your sister have been quite busy.” He shook his head. “Now, if this were Mr. Grey we were discussing, that would be one thing—”

The natural brother. The illegitimate one.

She straightened, hands fisted to her hips. “I’m not good enough for the likes of Clifton? Your own daughter, and you say I’m not worthy of the man’s love?”

“Goosie, you are worthy of a prince, but that doesn’t mean I’d let you run off with one. Can’t you see that Clifton could never have you for anything more than his mistress? He can’t.”

Something in her father’s desperate tone cut through her anger, and she knelt beside his chair and laid her hand on his sleeve. “Papa, he is different from the others.”

“Aye, I’ll grant you that. But that is because he is here, in our society, in this house, with you guiding him into a realm he’s never imagined. But what of his world, Goosie? Of the
ton
and London? You aren’t prepared for such a life. You have no idea what it takes to navigate those streets. I’d sooner see you dropped in the middle of the Dials than into Mayfair.”

Up until this moment, Lucy would have denied with her every breath that she’d even considered such a future, of Clifton returning, declaring his love and sweeping her off her feet, but something about the dire lilt to her father’s words upended that secret part of her heart.

For there was too much truth to his words.

She knew nothing of Society and, as her father had said, would most likely fare better on the mean streets of London than on the elegantly appointed ones.

How she wanted to tell her father that if two people loved each other, truly and deeply loved each other, such odds could be surmounted.

But when she looked into his misty green eyes, so very like her own, she knew he’d walked this rocky path once before. When he’d fallen in love with her mother and whisked her away from Italy.

And as much as the two of them had tried to merge their two worlds, to live a life that would have made them both happy, her father’s origins and shadowy past had always barred the contessa from living in the lofty circles in which she’d been raised, to which she’d been accustomed.

Hampstead had not been enough for her, and London held too many reminders for George Ellyson of where he’d come from and where, as many liked to point out, he still belonged.

“Guard your heart, Goosie,” her father said. “Guard it well, before it is lost.”

“I assure you, Papa, my heart is not engaged. You needn’t fear for me,” she told him as she slipped out of the room.

And after she left him, he glanced back down the hall to where she’d disappeared and wondered when she’d learned to lie so convincingly.

Just like her mother.

* * *

The next night, Lucy met Clifton and Malcolm at the bottom of the steps with their supper packed away in tin buckets.

“I’ve a bit of an adventure planned for you this evening,” she said, handing over their meals.

“Are you coming with us?” Clifton asked.

“Heavens no. Even I have lines of propriety I don’t dare cross.”

Clifton and his brother exchanged a glance.

Do you think she means to get us both killed?

You should never have kissed her,
Malcolm’s upraised brow seemed to say.

“Dare I ask where we are going?” Clifton said, sending a grin at her, hoping to see a flash of mischief in her eyes.

But there was none forthcoming. “Sometimes it is better not to know,” she told him as she handed him a dark, patched coat. She had another similarly shabby one for Malcolm.

“More larceny?” he asked.

“Not unless you are of a mind for it,” she told him. “No, tonight I think it is time you made some new friends.” Just then there was a soft scratching at the door. “Ah, right on time.” She opened the door to reveal Rusty and Sammy, shuffling nervously about the front steps, the larger of the pair holding an unlit lamp. “They are ready for you. Please don’t get them killed.” She turned to Clifton and his brother. “Enjoy your adventure,” she said, then paused for a second. “Oh, and you have new names—you are the Drayton brothers. From York. And don’t get caught, for I have it on good authority that you are wanted for smuggling, robbery and at least three counts of murder.”

With that, she handed them both pistols, prodded them out the door and closed it on them. The sound of the latch and lock were hardly the “good luck” one might want to hear before being sent off to what appeared to be certain death.

“Come along now,” Rusty said, eyeing the pails in their hands. “Is that roast beef?”

Clifton raised his to his nose and sniffed. “I believe so.” He glanced up at Rusty. “Would you like it?”

“Oh, that would be awful nice of you, guv’ner.”

Clifton surrendered his supper and hoped that was the least of what he was about to lose this night.

The nefarious pair led them out of the humble and quiet streets of Hampstead, and they set off across the countryside until they came to a track, which they followed to an inn, situated a few miles off the main road, well hidden by the rolling hills.

Glancing around, Clifton realized that if one didn’t know of the inn’s whereabouts, one would never find it. But to that end, Rusty and Sammy showed the brothers the signs and marks their brethren used to show the way to a “flash ken,” as Rusty called it.

A safe house. It was naught but an old alehouse, a disreputable, run-down shambles filled with shifty souls and a few women, who, having gone well past plying their trade at respectable inns, had come to this poor end.

The moment the four of them stepped inside, a deep hush fell over the crowded room. Never in Clifton’s life had he seen such a dark collection of souls.

And here he’d given his last supper to Rusty, of all people.

Malcolm looked over at him.
Oh, yes. She’s sent us to our death.

Sammy stepped forward. “Brought me new friends for a bit of business. The Drayton brothers. Heard tell of them, I’d imagine.”

There was a murmured response to this, and every rummy eye was on them now.

“Oh, aye, a rare pair of rushers they are,” Rusty told them, elbowing his way closer to the fire and daring anyone who didn’t step out of his way to challenge him.

Clifton followed suit, doing his best to mimic the rogue’s swagger and manners. Malcolm followed, bringing up the rear and offering a glare worthy of the foulest, most ruthless criminal.

“We’re looking to put together a gang for working in London next month,” Rusty said, waving to the slattern behind the bar to bring a round of pints. “Thought we might find some likely lads here.”

Rushing, Clifton had learned on their walk to this dark hole, was done by sending a decent-looking fellow to knock on the door of an empty house of some rich family who spent their summers anywhere but London. When the poor, unsuspecting housekeeper answered the door, the crew overcame her, as well as anyone else in the house. They then entered and looted everything they could carry.

A big fellow moved forward, and from the way the others moved out of his way, he was likely the most dangerous man in the room. “How do we know they are who they say they are?” He stood nose to nose with Rusty. “You pair of scurvy stupid rats wouldn’t know a Bristol man from a sneakin’ budge.”

Clifton rose to his full height and ignored the way the stench of the man sent his stomach rolling. Elbowing Rusty and Sammy out of the way, he spat on the ground between him and the fellow before him. “And you are?”

“Black Britch. Who’s askin’?”

“Drayton. I’ve never heard of you. Should I?”

The man ruffled, glaring at Clifton over such an insult.

As much as Clifton was generally afforded every consideration because of his title, this wasn’t the turf of a Mayfair drawing room. Here, Black Britch was the ruler of the land, and he, Clifton, was naught but a mushroom, an interloper.

Yes, he had much to learn about living a different life, for he’d never been anything but the noble gentleman, with all the rights and comforts that position afforded. Lucy had sent him here so he could learn to adapt.

Quickly, as it were, for while in Mayfair an unwanted guest was escorted out the door, Clifton suspected that here, before he and Malcolm were tossed out of this coven, their pockets would be rifled and their throats slit.

And not necessarily in that order.

So what would this Drayton fellow do?

Clifton immediately narrowed his gaze and stared Black Britch down, using every bit of swagger and haughty disdain he could muster without giving himself away. He reached over and took up the pint the girl had brought over, tipping it back and emptying the contents down his throat.

It blazed a trail of fire all the way down to his gut, and it was all he could to do to keep his eyes from watering.

Never in his life had he tasted such deadly swill, but he drank it down and slammed the pint to the table, then nodded to the barmaid to bring another round.