Seduced by the Scoundrel (Danger and Desire 2)

Her smile was conscious and bright as she entered the cheerful small room and her stomach lurched—relief or disappointment?—when she saw the only occupant was Miss Gordon applying herself to a pile of toast with a book propped up before her on the cruet.

‘Good morning, Miss Heydon.’ She flipped the volume closed and rang the small bell by her place. ‘We are alone, as you see. My brother and Captain d’Aunay breakfasted over an hour since and my sister-in-law prefers the solitude of her bedchamber before facing the hurly-burly of the day. Did you sleep well?’

‘Thank you, I was most comfortable.’ A footman poured coffee and indicated with a gesture the buffet and its covered dishes.

Miss Gordon nodded to the man and waited until the door closed behind him and Averil returned to her seat with a slice of omelette before speaking again. ‘I gather that my brother spent half the night with the captain. The prisoners—although we are not supposed to know of them, of course!—are on their way to Plymouth already.’ She took a folded paper from her pocket and handed it to Averil. ‘From Captain d’Aunay.’

‘Thank you.’ Averil eyed the red wax with its impress of a unicorn’s head. His seal ring, she supposed, although she had never seen him wearing it. She laid the letter down unopened and picked up her fork.

‘Please, do not mind me.’ Miss Gordon gave an airy wave of her toast and reopened her book.

Averil put a forkful of egg in her mouth, chewed it for a minute without tasting it, buttered some toast, sipped her coffee. The letter lay there looking as innocent as a snake under a stone.

Impatient with herself, Averil broke the seal and spread the single sheet open.

It goes well, so far, the letter began without salutation. Luc’s handwriting was smaller than she imagined it would be, clear and somehow the style was different from the educated hands she was used to. He had been taught to write in France, she reminded herself. Sir George is convinced, having had his own suspicions, and will tidy things up at his end. I will take the brigs to Plymouth this morning.

When you need me, send to me at Albany, off Piccadilly.

God’s speed on your journey.

L.M. d’A.

When you need me, not if. Arrogant man. His certainty that her meeting with Lord Bradon would be a disaster was not encouraging, nor was her complete panic about what she should do if her betrothed rejected her. Andrew, she reminded herself. She must begin to think of him as a real person, not an abstraction.

She folded the letter and pushed it into the pocket in the skirts of her borrowed gown. Miss Gordon looked up, closed her book again and cocked her head on one side like an inquisitive bird, but she asked no questions.

‘I suggest you rest here another night to recover. It will take the best part of the day to sail to Penzance. I have written out some notes on the road journey for you, and my brother has a letter for his Penzance agent and some money. There is a letter for Lord Bradon as well. It contains no details other than to say that we are sorry we did not know of your connection with him and therefore did not know to contact him after the wreck. That leaves the explanations entirely up to you.’ Averil murmured her thanks. ‘I have given Waters some changes of linen for you and a cloak and bonnet.’

‘You are very kind. I will have everything returned as soon as possible, of course. And Lord Bradon will recompense Sir George.’ At least, she sincerely hoped he would. If he showed her the door, he might well forget all about the logistics of her arrival. She must note the amounts so, if the worst happened, Papa could repay her debts.

‘Of course. I quite envy you going to London. I miss it sadly, but perhaps we will meet again there later this year. I hope to visit a friend of mine there. She is staying at the Star Fort at the moment, away from the chaos this household has been in this past week, reacquainting herself with a certain gentleman,’ she added with a wicked twinkle in her eye.

That must have been what Lady Olivia had been so snappy about, Averil guessed. Miss Gordon appeared to have a penchant for assisting lovers. Perhaps she had been disappointed in love herself, or was merely a romantic.

‘I should be very glad to see you there,’ she said, and meant it.

By the sixth day of her journey from the Isles of Scilly Averil would have been glad to see London, with or without a friendly face. She was travelling in considerable comfort, although Sir George’s agent had been so particular and painstaking that it had taken two days before he was satisfied with all the arrangements and she could convince him that she was well rested enough to undertake the journey, by which time it was Saturday and Averil did not feel she should travel on the Sunday.

Her courses had started on the ship between the islands and Penzance, just to add to the awkwardness of travel, and she confided to Waters that she was not sorry to have the excuse of an extra day in the comfort of a good inn.

But the travelling was comfortable enough once they had set out. The postilions were courteous and steady and both the inn in Penzance and the one she had stayed in the night before at Okehampton had been respectable and clean. Waters was proving sensible, competent and reasonably quiet.

All of which provided not the slightest stimulus, challenge or impediment to her thoughts about what was awaiting her and what had happened in that week with Luc. Her meeting with Andrew Bradon loomed ahead and, like a prisoner awaiting execution, she just wanted to get it over with.

Even the green rolling countryside, so utterly different from India, passed like stage scenery against which the phantoms of her imagination acted out one disastrous encounter after another. There was plenty of time for lurid imaginings. On the first day they had been almost twelve hours on the road; today, it seemed, would be eleven hours.

The chaise slowed for a moment, drew over and another vehicle went past, its bright painted body rocking and swaying. ‘Another yellow bounder, and in a hurry,’ Averil remarked to Waters, who was pulling up the window against the cloud of dust the other post-chaise left in its wake. ‘The passenger must be immune to seasickness!’

‘There’ll be a lot of navy men on this road, I’ll be bound,’ Waters remarked.

‘Of course, yes.’ That would explain the impression she had received of navy blue and the flash of gold braid. ‘I shall be glad to stop for the night, I must confess.’ Journeys in India took weeks, ponderous affairs requiring much planning, the assembling of trains of creaking ox carts, the hiring of armed outriders, the organisation of the household to shift from the heat of the plains up to the cool of the hills for the summer and back again for the winter. The Europeans moved like the flocks, herding themselves, not for fresh grass, but for relief from heat and dust and disease.

This rapid travel, the ability of a lady to undertake a journey almost at a whim, was novel and rather alarming. As she thought it the chaise slowed to a trot, and she saw they were entering a town. It swerved, passed

through the arch into the inn yard and came to a clattering halt.

‘Here we are, ma’am.’ One of the postilions opened the door. ‘The Talbot at Mere. We were told this was the place for you to stop.’