England's Perfect Hero (19 page)

He looked over at her. "Then you're not angry."

"I'm not angry."

"And I may continue to call on you."

"Of course you may."

The curricle turned up Pall Mall, and he drew the team to a halt alongside her favorite outdoor cafe. Jumping to the ground, any reserve he'd demonstrated earlier seemingly gone, Geoffrey trotted around to offer her his hand. Lucinda stood, but before she could take him up on his assistance he put both hands around her waist and lifted her to the ground.

"That wasn't—"

He bent his head and touched his lips to hers.

"Geoffrey!" she gasped, pulling away.

"That, I won't apologize for," he returned, taking her hand and tucking it over his arm. "I intend to enjoy and take advantage of your loveliness. It is another aspect of you for which I am exceedingly thankful."

A footman showed them to a table. Lucinda sat, nodding at several acquaintances at nearby tables as she did so.
Hm
. She had asked for Geoffrey's honesty, and she seemed to have received it in spades. He confessed himself thankful for her pretty face, because if she'd been ugly he wouldn't have enjoyed courting her nearly as much—but he would have pursued her, nonetheless.

Was she the same? Or worse? Had she chosen Geoffrey for his mild demeanor and appeal to her father, or for his handsome countenance and heroic reputation? Neither choice sank very deeply into his character. Or hers. At least she wasn't so practical that she couldn't appreciate his kiss. He'd done that quite well, with obvious skill and at just the right moment so that no one would see, and so that it would provide the appropriate punctuation to their conversation.

She took a grateful swallow of Madeira as soon as a footman poured her a glass. It was a toast to her success so far, she decided—not a delaying tactic while she tried to think of something innocuous and charming to say in order to change the subject.

Yes, everything was proceeding swimmingly. And she wasn't thinking about seeing Robert Carroway on Saturday evening, or about how she would have to tell him now that the list and lessons were moot, because she and Geoffrey had a mutual understanding. And she certainly wasn't thinking about
his
kiss, and how it hadn't melted into her as much as it had seared and burned. She didn't want to be seared. She wanted peace and calm. So, no, she wasn't thinking of Robert at all. Not a bit.

Robert sat on the library couch, reading. He'd stretched both legs out along the seat cushions, trying to rest his bad knee, after his family had finally given up on asking him how he felt. The last of them, Andrew, had vanished nearly an hour ago to some afternoon entertainment or other.

The question of how he felt was becoming increasingly complicated, anyway. His knee was easy—it ached dully, a great improvement from the raw throbbing of earlier. For the first time in a long while, though, warmth seemed to have swept into him, soaking bones and muscles and veins with… life.

That was it. He actually felt alive. And when he'd kissed Lucinda, he'd remembered some things he'd thought long forgotten: the way a woman tasted, how it felt to have warm, soft skin touching his, the arousing smells of sweat and sex.

"Robert, you are insane," he murmured to himself, turning the page.

When Lucinda had stumbled across him hiding that day, he'd been genuinely curious to know her lesson plans. Her choice of Lord Geoffrey Newcombe had been both a surprise and something of a disappointment, but if she'd already set her heart on someone else, it also made her safe. Safe for him, and safe from him.

They could be friends, and he could tell himself he was helping her—while that made it easier for him to venture out into Society. Success or failure didn't matter so much when it was on someone else's behalf. Or so he could tell himself, which was the only reason he'd been able to accomplish any of it at all.

Lucinda didn't feel safe any longer. In fact, he wasn't certain she ever really had, or whether that was another lie he'd told himself when the truth would have meant facing the black panic again.

So now the cripple wanted Lucinda. It would have been funny, if he hadn't felt her kissing him back, stretching her body along his. That made it real, and it made coming up with an easy, comfortable lie impossible.

He heard the front door open, and then voices. Dawkins, of course, then the lower tones of Tristan and surprisingly, Greydon Brakenridge, the Duke of Wycliffe. Parliament must have ended session early.

The two of them approached along the hallway, likely heading for Tristan's office. They were best friends, probably the reason the duke hadn't shot Tristan when the viscount had ruined Georgiana. He smiled a little at the memory. First cousins could be very protective of their female relations, and Grey and Georgiana were closer even than most siblings.

"Bit?"

He looked up at the doorway. "I'm fine."

"I wasn't going to ask that," Tristan returned. "Have you been here all day?"

Robert nodded. "Why?"

"I just don't want you attempting the stairs without help. By the way, Grey wanted to borrow the Runt's old saddle. Do you remem—"

"It's still in the tack room, wrapped in burlap," he interrupted, nodding at Grey. "For little Elizabeth?"

"I'm going to try to convince Emma that fourteen months isn't too young to begin riding," the duke rumbled.

"He's going to lose," Tristan put in, grinning, "but the argument should be fun to watch. That's why I'm supplying the props."

"Edward's old hobby horse is in the attic, if you want to try that first." Robert went back to his book. "Less arguing that way."

"I always said Tristan wasn't the smart one in his family," Wycliffe drawled.

"And I never argued with you about it, either." Tristan started out, then stopped again. "What are you reading?"

"
The Care and Cultivation of Roses
," Robert answered. "Miss Barrett loaned it to me."

"My thanks, Robert," Grey said. "We'll see you at Vauxhall, yes?"

Apparently everyone meant to attend the fireworks. "I'll make an attempt."

"Good."

The two of them vanished into Tristan's office. He had a feeling the visit wasn't about saddles or hobby horses; both men had seemed too on edge for a casual visit. And Tristan had wanted to know where he was, and where he'd been. Interesting, that. He was used to being checked on, but it usually wasn't done with friends in tow. He shrugged. Maybe Tristan really did think he was getting better. He felt like he was.

It would have been easy to listen in on the conversation; the room upstairs from Tristan's office was unoccupied except for stacks of spare dining-room chairs and an old wardrobe or two. The problem would be getting upstairs with his bad knee.

Robert settled back again. If they were talking about something important, someone would tell him eventually.

Eventually turned out to be dinner, and the someone, Andrew. "Did you hear?" he asked, around a mouthful of roast ham.

"Should I just have Dawkins collect your silverware, then, and you can use your hands?" Georgiana queried.

"Apologies." He swallowed. "You've heard, haven't you, Tris?"

The viscount sighed. "Probably.
Where
did you hear it?"

"It was all over Tattersall's this afternoon. You can't tell me they know more at the horse auctions than they do at Parliament."

Georgiana scowled. "What in the world are you two talking about?"

"Nothing much," Andrew said with a grin. "Just rumors, unless they're not. Not just rumors, I mean."

"Andrew! Tell us!" Edward demanded.

Amid the general round of chuckling, Robert kept eating. His appetite had certainly improved over the past few weeks. As he glanced up, though, he abruptly didn't feel quite as hungry anymore. Tristan sat gazing at him, a surprisingly serious expression on his face.

"No one's confirmed anything," Tristan said slowly, "but there's a rumor that some papers were taken from the Horse Guards yesterday."

"Which papers?" Edward asked.

"Maps of St. Helena Island," Andrew chimed in, "and lists of Bonaparte's supporters still on the loose, things like that."

Bradshaw set down his fork with a clatter that made Robert flinch. "Someone's trying to free Bonaparte!"

"Shaw, you're jumping to conclusions," Tristan said sharply. "This could all just be a nasty rumor. It probably is. No one from the Horse Guards has confirmed anything."

Robert closed his eyes, the excited chattering of his family blurring into a buzzing roar and flooding into his ears. The last time Bonaparte escaped an island prison, it had taken the combined armies of England and Prussia—and the battle of Waterloo—to stop him. No one would make him go this time, but he would know—know what other soldiers faced, and wonder whether the French would again inhabit Chateau Pagnon.

"Bit? Sit down."

He blinked. Tristan had him by one arm, and he stood at the table, his chair pushed over backward. Shrugging free of Tristan's grip, he grabbed his borrowed cane and backed for the door.
Breathe
. "I'm fine. I just need some air."

His knee slowed him down, but he lurched for the front door. Yanking it open, he half stumbled down the steps. He stopped at the rose garden—his rose garden—and sat on the ground at one side of the cuttings.

"Robert, I'm sorry," Tristan said from the edge of the carriage drive. "I should have's—"

"You should have said something before," Robert grunted, picking up a dirt clod. He wanted to throw it. Throw it and break something. Instead he tightened his fist around it so hard the dust sifted out through his fingers. "You knew. You and Grey. What were you doing, checking to see whether I'd heard or not?"

"Bit, you—"

"Too late, Dare," he interrupted. "Just go away."

"Bit—"

"
Leave me alone
!" He drew a breath. "I'll be in later."

Robert didn't move until he heard Tristan leave the drive. It was dark; the moon wouldn't be up for another hour, and clouds drifted in over London, anyway. They'd have rain before midnight.

He liked the rain. When it had rained in the Pyrenees, he'd been one of those fighting for a place by the window, stretching out his hand with a bit of torn cloth to hold the moisture. It had meant he might stay alive for another day or two.

The news about the thefts shouldn't have struck him that hard. After all, he hadn't known until much later about Bonaparte's exile to Elba, or of his subsequent escape, or of the hundred days of war which had ended at Waterloo. But he did know what the war had done to him—and to others who hadn't been as lucky.

Robert shredded a leaf in his fingers. Perhaps the former emperor would have been less anxious for battle if he'd spent time at Chateau Pagnon rather than a pair of nice, cozy islands. Perhaps then all he would want was the scent of fresh air and never to smell the sweet copper odor of blood again.

He should never have mentioned Pagnon to Lucinda. Hopefully she would forget the name—few knew much about the fortress, anyway. Few who were alive, that was.

When the rain began, he was still sitting at the edge of his garden. He tilted back his head, letting the cold droplets run down his face. It was just rain now, he told himself. And Andrew's story was just a rumor, or at worst just a few missing pieces of paper. He didn't have to go back. Tristan had sold away his commission before he'd even been able to sit up in bed.

The rumors, true or not, couldn't hurt him, regardless. He was safe. He was still safe.