Scandalously Yours (Hellions of High Street 1)

No doubt the dastards would promise to free his son unharmed if he followed orders, but John didn’t trust them to keep their word. During the war he had been involved in several hostage exchanges, all of which had ended badly. His son would have seen too much, heard too much for his captors to risk releasing him.

If Scottie is to survive, I shall have to rescue him myself.

But the question was how.

John

closed the pistol case and began searching the cabinet for the box containing bullets and powder. He hadn’t yet formulated a plan of attack. That would depend on the first message—but when it came, he would be ready to spring into action.

“What are you going to tell him?” asked Anna as they descended the townhouse steps and turned onto High Street.

“The truth,” answered Olivia.

“The whole truth?” pressed her sister.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” she quipped. “But in answer to your question, yes, the whole truth. He is a man of integrity and principle—I think he deserves no less.”

Anna was about to answer when her eyes suddenly narrowed as a curricle came tooling around the corner. “Speaking of integrity, here comes a man who has none to speak of.”

It appeared that the Devil Davenport was going to fly past them when all at once his vehicle skidded to a stop.

“Good day, ladies,” he said, jumping down from his perch. “Might I stroll with you for a bit?”

“We are in a hurry, milord,” said Olivia. “And in no mood to socialize.”

“Neither am I.” He drawled an order to his tiger to walk the horses and then quickened his steps to catch up. “Allow me to cut to the chase,” he said, “an apt expression—seeing as Lord Wrexham’s son has just been abducted from the grounds of the Tower menagerie.”

“Abducted!” Much as Olivia itched to slap the supercilious smile from his handsome face, she kept her temper in check. “Why the devil are you dawdling here with us when you should be flying to Berkeley Square,” she demanded.

“Oh, don’t bother quizzing him, Livvie,” snapped Anna, her eyes sparking with ire. “Everyone knows the Devil doesn’t exert himself unless he sees a profit in it for himself.”

“I was, in fact, exerting myself far more than I usually do. If you’ll notice, my team is in quite a lather.”

Anna made a rude noise.

“However, there are complications. So when I spotted you two,” he went on with infuriating sangfroid, “I saw the chance to solve several problems all at once.” Moving with deceptive quickness, he slipped between Olivia and her sister and linked arms with them. “Do hear me out, ladies,” he murmured, setting off at a brisk pace toward the east side of Berkeley Square.

“You had better have more to say than your usual sardonic quips, sir,” said Olivia. “This is no laughing matter. We must alert the earl—”

“His sister is doing so as we speak,” assured Davenport. “However, the information will be of little value to him, for she knows naught about the deed, save that the bantling has been snatched.”

“And you know more?” demanded Anna.

“I do,” he answered. “And if you will kindly refrain from interrupting, I shall explain.”

Two hot spots of scarlet bloomed on Anna’s cheeks, but to Olivia’s relief, she kept her mouth shut.

“Please hurry, sir,” urged Olivia, feeling her insides tangling into a tight knot.

Davenport’s drawl steeled to a sharper edge. “I happened to be driving by the Tower grounds when I saw a little girl tussling with two grown men…” A darting glance at Anna. “…And even an indolent wastrel like myself could not ignore the child’s cries—she was, by the by, screeching loudly enough to wake the dead. However, just as I was about to leap down from my perch, the varlets pushed her down and fled to a waiting carriage. It was then that I saw they had a lad in their clutches.”

“How do you know it was the earl’s son—” began Olivia, but he waved her to silence.

“At that same moment, Lady Silliman came bolting out of the archway, followed by two of the Tower guards,” he explained. “As she was very vocal in raising the alarm that her nephew had been abducted, I put two and two together…”

“The saving grace of a debauched gamester is the fact that he knows how to add,” muttered Anna under her breath.

To his credit, noted Olivia, Davenport ignored the jibe. “Lady Silliman gathered up the girl, and I assumed that she would inform Wrexham of the situation just as quickly as I could. So I decided to follow the abductors.”