The Lord and the Wayward Lady (14 page)

The man who rose from amidst the group beside the fire was unmistakeably a Carlow, favouring Honoria rather than Verity in his looks. As tall as Marcus, but of a lighter, rangier build, his hair was more of a golden brown, his eyes blue-grey, his tanned face devoid of any hint of his older brother’s familiar frown.

‘Miss Latham.’ He came towards her, hand held out, a smile on his lips that made her feel that there was no one else in the room. ‘I understand I am to thank you for rescuing Marcus.’

‘Lord Stanegate was in no need of rescue, I assure you, Lieutenant Carlow,’ Nell protested, taking the long-fingered hand that seemed reluctant to let hers go. ‘He dealt with the situation most masterfully.’

‘That I can believe.’ The way his smile warmed his eyes sent a tingle right down to Nell’s toes.
My goodness, he must have to beat the ladies off with sticks!
she thought, startled by her own reaction.
If I wasn’t in love with his brother I would be a puddle at his feet.

‘Come and sit by the fire, Miss Latham.’

‘I think it is time we all went in to luncheon,’ Lady Narborough said, getting to her feet and smiling at her
son. ‘Miss Latham, you must be wondering if we were ever going to eat. I should have had the gong sounded half a hour since, but we were all so delighted to see Hal,’ she explained, leading the way to the door. ‘He has been giving us considerable anxiety.’

‘You have been wounded, I believe?’ Now that she had recovered from the impact of those smiling eyes, she could see that he was carrying little surplus weight and the skin under his eyes was shadowed as though by sleeplessness or pain.

‘A ridiculous scratch from a sabre that provoked a fever I couldn’t shake off. My commanding officer took exception to the fact that I kept falling flat on my face and ordered me to bed, then, once I got to my feet again he packed me off home. My regiment is here. I expect I will join it again in a week or two.’

‘You must be very happy to have him with you, Lady Narborough,’ Nell observed.

‘I am delighted to have both my sons at home,’ the countess said, taking her seat and gesturing Hal to sit beside her. ‘I have to confess that I wish they were both not in such a battered condition.’

‘They are both on the mend, my dear,’ the earl observed from the other end of the table.

‘Hmm.’ Lady Narborough looked doubtful. ‘They
say
they are.’

There certainly appeared to be nothing wrong with Lieutenant Carlow’s appetite nor his ability to hold his own in conversation. He soothed his mother, passed on all the military gossip to his father, teased his sisters affectionately and still managed to give Nell the flattering impression that he could hardly keep his eyes off her.

It was all flummery, of course. She was under no misapprehension about him. She was the only female at the table to whom he was not related and Hal Carlow was a rake who flirted as easily as he breathed.

Nell had never been flirted with before. It was, she concluded, a most stimulating experience, even when one had a bruised heart. Or perhaps especially because of those bruises. A glance in the mirror reassured her. Yes, she was still looking remarkably fine. Experimentally she lowered her lashes and shot Mr Carlow a sideways glance. His lips curved appreciatively.

‘We must invite some people over, Mama,’ he observed. ‘Get up a party. Dance a little. I am sure Miss Latham would like to dance, would you not?’

‘I do not dance, Lieutenant Carlow.’

‘On principle? Never tell me you are a secret Quakeress.’ His gaze seemed to linger on her mouth.

‘Because of lack of ability, sir. I am sure Lady Narborough has explained, I am not in Society.’

‘But I could teach you.’ The polite offer held suggestions of many things that Hal Carlow would like to instruct her in.

‘Thank you, Mr Carlow, but I think it better not,’ she said demurely, realising a moment later that he had simply taken that as a challenge. The blue-grey eyes laughed at her as she felt her cheeks warm.

He was still amusing himself by making her blush, and laugh, when they returned to the drawing room. ‘You make those prodigiously pretty bonnets my sisters wear?’ he asked.

‘I make similar bonnets, sir.’

‘These fingers are that nimble?’ He lifted her hand
as though to examine it and she pulled it away, folding her hands together in her lap.

‘It is a matter of practice and some natural aptitude. Lady Verity is just as skilled with a needle and has a far more artistic imagination than I,’ Nell said, turning his attention back to his family and taking the opportunity while Verity fetched her latest embroidery to move to sit next to Lady Narborough.

‘How proud you must be of your sons,’ she murmured.

‘Indeed.’ The countess watched Hal intently. ‘How I wish they would settle, though.’ She sighed, then smiled. ‘Now, Miss Latham, you have an excellent eye for colour. What do you think I should do about the curtains in here? This green has faded sadly and I am not convinced it was the right choice in the first place.’

Almost an hour later, when the tea tray had been brought in, sounds from the hall heralded Marcus’s return home. Nell was helping her hostess, carrying a cup of tea to Lieutenant Carlow, when the door opened.

Mr Carlow’s hand was over hers on the saucer, his smile warm as he thanked her, as Marcus came in.

‘Hal!’ His smile as he greeted his brother was broad. His eyes as they rested on Nell, were like fresh-split flint.

‘H
al!’ He had never been happier to see his hellion of a brother, and never been so close to wanting to strangle him. Hal had been in the house, what, a few hours? And there he was, smiling at Nell with
that look
in his eyes, his fingers all over hers.

And was she retreating in blushing confusion from a man she must know, with one glance, was a rake? Was she shaken and trembling after what had happened in the folly with him?

Oh, no.
Miss Latham was smiling at his brother. Miss Latham was glowing. Miss Latham had never, he was damned sure, looked better in her life than she did at this moment, her hair gleaming in the candlelight, her skin soft and creamy, her figure admirably displayed by a gown that brought out the green in her eyes. And her mouth, soft and full with that delicious hint of a pout curving in appreciation of whatever outrageous flummery Hal had just spouted. The mouth that had opened under his that morning, the mouth that had trailed fire along his jawline.

Marcus smiled. Damn it, he knew he was smiling as he strode into the room, hand out to Hal; he could feel the muscles in his cheeks ache. But she had seen something in his face. Nell put the teacup down on a side table and retreated in a whirl of skirts to a seat on the far side of his mother, her eyes cast down, her hands in her lap, the picture of modesty.

‘Hal,’ Marcus said again, his fingers closing round the brown hand held out to him as his brother got to his feet. They embraced, hard, no need for words. Hal was back, alive, unmaimed. Under his hands, his brother’s body felt slighter than he remembered, the lines of his face when he pulled back to look at him properly were fine-drawn with fever. He read the message in his eyes:
Don’t fuss, don’t ask.
He would, of course, but not until they were in private and the others could not hear.

‘You look well,’ he said instead, slapping him on his shoulder and taking the seat next to him. ‘All that lying about in bed, I suppose.’

‘Of course. Dreadful bore, but I caught up on my reading,’ Hal drawled.

Marcus was not deceived. If Hal had been ordered to his bed—and stayed there—then he had been ill indeed and being kept from active service would have fretted his nerves raw. But there would have been diversions, he had no doubt. And pretty girls to play at mopping his fevered brow, and bottles of wine smuggled in against doctor’s orders.

‘Strategy and the Classics?’ he suggested.

‘But of course. French novels,’ Hal added in an undertone. With a grin he turned back to the rest of the family. He knew his duty as the returning son: it
was to suffer himself being fussed over for at least a day while they satisfied themselves that he really was safe and well. He picked up his teacup and proceeded to regale his mother and sisters with tales of Lisbon’s shops and amusements and tease all three of them with hints about presents he had brought back.

Marcus caught his father’s eye and nodded reassuringly, seeing the older man’s shoulders relax. Lord Narborough had never had the easiest of relationships with his younger son, who could not recall his father fit and vigorous as Marcus could. The two found it hard to talk to each other and the earl’s disapproval of Hal’s wilder excesses resulted in a certain coolness.

Honoria and their mother were drawing Nell into the conversation about Portugal now. Didn’t it occur to Mama that exposing Nell to Hal was not a good idea? Their guest was ignoring Marcus now, smiling and asking Hal questions, her apparent embarrassment when he had come into the room quite gone.

Marcus collected a cup and went to sit down, listening, studying his brother’s face until his anxiety began to give way to a certainty that Hal really was on the mend.

With that reassurance, and not the slightest interest in the Lisbon pastry shops which seemed to so intrigue Verity, he let himself think about Nell. He had come back after an uncomfortable morning of soul-searching to apologise, to make her an offer of a partnership in a shop, a respectable business. Her talent and work, his money—a fair exchange with no obligations on either side beyond those that were strictly businesslike.

He would find something that would keep her safe and comfortable and not in any danger of being tempted
to fall into the clutches of some man. A man like his brother. Like himself. Marcus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His conscience was giving him hell. What had he been thinking of to equate Nell with the likes of Mrs Jensen and the rest of the muslin company? She would make a very good courtesan, he had no doubt, crossing his legs as the memory of her untutored passion came back with inconvenient force.

She was intelligent, thoughtful—oh yes, with time she would be magnificent, not because she was naturally wanton, but because she was the sort of woman that a man would be comfortable with and she would try to do her best whether she was trimming hats or learning sophisticated bedroom tricks.

Hal’s rich, slightly wicked and utterly infectious laugh had them all smiling. And of course, Marcus thought, his own smile congealing on his lips, she has to storm back into the house after his crisis of conscience, straight into the company of a man who could most certainly teach her any bedroom trick she could possibly want to learn.

And why was she looking so damned lovely? He had come back braced for a furious, tear-drenched woman yet she appeared to have emerged from an experience that had shaken him severely looking not just untroubled, but blooming.

Marcus drained his cold tea and studied the tea leaves in the bottom of the cup as though to read his future there. He thought he could make out a gallows, which felt about right. What had happened up there in the woods?
I do not lie to you,
she had said, a thread of bitterness running through her voice. And he had looked at her and seen truth
and pain and need in her eyes. Need for him that had called up an answering ache in his chest, the impulse to hold her, love her, claim her.

And the madness had seized him, swept way everything that might have held him back until that moment, almost too late, when he had found himself at the very point of surging into her body. It had been her eyes again—filled with trust—that had stopped him.
Trust.
And he was betraying it, whatever she thought she wanted or needed at that moment.

Damn it, why should she give him a second glance now? Hal was here: handsome, laughing—Hal never frowned—fun.
Good
. Excellent in fact, provided Hal did not seduce her. He would have a word with him about that, explain her circumstances, tell Hal all about the mysterious attacks.

Marcus looked across, satisfied he had now solved the puzzle of what to do about Nell Latham. All he had to do was warn his brother to behave, let her enjoy whatever parties or amusements that Hal’s fertile brain conjured up, and then when this was all over, establish her in a neat little shop in a fashionable district. She could communicate with his man of business; there would be no need to see her again. That had to be good.

He caught Hal’s eye and jerked his head slightly towards the door.

‘I’ll go up and er…rest before I change for dinner,’ Hal announced, getting to his feet. ‘Keep me company, Marc?’

‘Of course.’ He followed his brother out and they climbed the stairs together in silence until they were out of earshot of the footmen in the hall.

‘What’s afoot?’ Hal asked. ‘Mysterious ladies dis
guised as milliners—or is it the other way round?—gamekeepers all over the place, Mama putting a brave face on something, you all here with only weeks to go to the start of the Season. This is a damn sight more interesting than I expected my convalescence to be.’

They walked into Hal’s room to find his batman laying out his evening clothes. ‘Thank you, Langham. Lord Stanegate will assist me.’

‘It’s a mystery,’ Marcus said as the door closed and he went to help Hal out of his well-fitting coat. ‘And a dangerous one, I suspect. I’d best start at the beginning. What do you know about the scandal of ninety-four?’

‘Nothing.’ Hal began to unbutton his waistcoat. ‘I was five, remember? No one has enlightened me since, and on the one occasion I asked, I had my head bitten off for my pains. Life’s too short to worry about ancient history.’

‘Not so ancient,’ Marcus said, going down on one knee to pull at his brother’s boot. ‘It’s come back to haunt us.’

‘Bloody hell.’ After half an hour of concise explanation, Hal had given up undressing and was still in his shirt sleeves and stockinged feet. Military life had certainly given him an ability to absorb facts, Marcus noted. The questions had been few and pertinent, but Hal’s eyebrows still had to descend to their normal level.

‘No wonder you’ve abandoned the field and surrendered the delicious Mrs Jensen to Armside,’ he added, when the tale was finally told.

‘What? Damn it, I was on the point of settling with her.’

‘I know. The clubs are full of it and Armside is smug
beyond bearing. Mind you, having seen the delicious Miss Latham—’He broke off as Marcus’s fist clenched involuntarily. ‘No?’

‘No,’ Marcus said with emphasis. ‘Miss Latham is gently born but has fallen on hard times since the loss of her family and is now employed as a milliner. She is mixed up in this because, as I told you, our mystery man used her as a messenger.’

‘That’s not all, is it?’ Hal began to strip off the rest of his clothing.

‘No. She knows more than she’s saying, but I can’t believe— Hell’s teeth, that looks sore!’ A raw scar cut a jagged path down Hal’s ribs. In the centre, there was still a dressing and the skin looked heated and slightly swollen.

‘You might say so.’ Hal squinted down at himself. ‘The cut wasn’t deep—more of a slice—but it took all sorts of rubbish in under the skin and by the time I got some medical attention it was a proper mess. Healing now, though.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Marcus splashed warm water into the washbasin for him and propped his shoulder against the bedpost while Hal took the rest of his clothes off and began to wash. ‘Another dashing scar to fascinate the ladies?’

‘Well, not exactly
ladies
.’ Hal grinned, comfortable in his nakedness. ‘You were saying about Miss Latham?’

‘That she might be hiding something and she might be a milliner now, but she has enough on her plate without you setting out to break her heart.’

‘Me?’ Hal managed a look of utterly unconvincing innocence as he pulled on his evening breeches. ‘What you mean is, you were enjoying a pleasant flirtation
when along I come, with my superior charm and elegant profile, and now you’re getting all protective.’

‘As yet the French have not managed to flatten your
elegant profile,
little brother, but believe me, if you compromise Miss Latham I will do it for them.’ He managed to smile as though the threat was a joke.

‘Compromise her? Certainly not.’ Hal tucked in his shirt. ‘Pass me a clean neckcloth, will you? But I’ll enjoy cutting you out.’

Marcus contemplated retorting that his brother could try, then saw the trap. The worst thing would be to offer Hal a challenge, it was the equivalent of releasing a mouse in front of a cat. He shrugged negligently. ‘Stop mangling that neckcloth. I need to change too.’

‘I’m ready.’ Hal tugged at his cuffs and followed Marcus out. ‘So what, exactly, are we doing to solve this mystery, or does the family skulk out here for ever?’

‘We can’t do that,’ Marcus said when they were alone in his room. ‘The girls and Mama don’t know what is going on. They expect to be back in London for the Season. If it were you and me and Father we could lure him in, but I daren’t send the women away either, not without me.’

He tossed his shirt on the bed as Hal came and turned him by the shoulders into the light. ‘So this is the famous gunshot wound from the footpad?’ He lifted the edge of the dressing and drew a sharp breath. ‘Nasty. But small calibre. One might almost say a
lady’s
pistol.’

‘One might, if one did not care about the consequences to the lady.’

‘Ah.’ Hal nodded appreciatively. ‘What was she aiming at? Your head? Or your manhood?’

‘Nothing at all, apparently. According to this hypothetical lady, she had no idea it was loaded.’

Hal adjusted the dressing again. ‘Made a tidy mess of your shoulder. Hurt like hell, I should imagine.’

‘It stung a trifle,’ Marcus admitted with what he felt was commendable understatement. ‘I was bleeding like a stuck pig. Miss Latham was remarkably effective in dealing with that.’

‘Perhaps I can help her improve her aim,’ Hal remarked as Marcus washed. ‘It would be amusing to take her down to the Long Barn, assist her with getting a grip on a pistol.’

Marcus grabbed the soap so hard it shot from his hand into the basin. For a moment, the room vanished behind a red haze.

‘Miss Latham is…fragile as far as men are concerned,’ he said when he could master his voice. ‘She has had much to fear from them and a very recent encounter with one who was not—’ he searched for the word ‘—wise.’

Whether his brother guessed he was in the same room as the unwise man in question, he neither knew nor particularly cared. Hal could rag him all he liked, provided he left Nell’s feelings unruffled and her heart intact.

Dinner passed uneventfully, with everyone focused on Hal. Nell retired into her shell, while the family bombarded Hal with questions and nagged him into eating more. With his own worries over his brother’s health at rest, Marcus was left to watch Nell covertly and to wonder just why he was feeling so strangely unsettled. After all, he had a plan for dealing with her.

Lady Narborough refused to allow her menfolk to linger over their port, insisting that they had plenty of time to swap bloodcurdling tales of the battlefield later. So Hal was ensconced in the place of honour by the fire and fussed over, while Nell went quietly back to ponder the chess game she and his father were playing very slowly over several evenings. The earl, who seemed to enjoy teaching her, did not press her for a move, but sat back in his chair watching his younger son with an occasional smiling glance at Nell.