The Last Hellion (Scoundrels 4)

“Oh,” Lydia softly exclaimed time after time, as the wrappings fell away to reveal the treasures.

And, “Oh, thank you,” she said at the end, when the wrappings lay strewn about her, on the bed where she sat and on the floor. She had the writing box in her lap, and she opened and closed the tiny drawers and lifted the lids of the compartments and took out their contents and put them back again—like a child enchanted with a new toy.

She felt like a child, truly. There had been gifts, on her birthday and at Christmastime, from Ste and Effie, and pretty ones, too: shoes and frocks and bonnets and sometimes a pair of earbobs or a bracelet.

This was altogether different, for these were the instruments of her trade, and she, who traded in words, found her vocabulary robbed, along with her heart.

“Thank you,” she whispered again, helplessly, while she looked into his handsome face and gave up all hope of ever being sensible again.

Pleasure shone in his green eyes, and his mouth curved into a smile that reduced the mush of her heart to warm syrup. It was a boy’s smile, half mischief, half abashed.

“My humble offerings have pleased Her Majesty, I see,” he said.

She nodded. Even if she could have strung words together at the moment, she didn’t dare try, lest she commence bawling.

“Then I collect you’re sufficiently softened up for the coup de grâce,” he said. He reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew yet another parcel.

This one he opened himself, turning away, so that she couldn’t see what it was.

“Close your eyes,” he said. “And let go of the damn writing box. I’m not going to steal it back.”

She let go of the box and closed her eyes.

He took her right hand and slid a ring onto her fourth finger. She knew it was a ring, smooth and cool, and she knew her hand was shaking.

“You can look,” he said.

It was a cornflower-blue sapphire, rectangular and simply cut, and so large it would have appeared gaudy on any hand but hers, which was no daintier than the rest of her. Diamonds winked on either side.

She was aware of tears winking from the corners of her eyes. Don’t be a ninny, she told herself.

“It’s…lovely,” she said. “And—and I shan’t say you shouldn’t have, because I don’t feel that way at all. I feel like a princess in a fable.”

He bent and kissed the top of her head.

“I’ll take you to Bedfordshire,” he said.

Chapter 16

Vere sat at his study desk, surrounded by crumpled wads of paper. It was Saturday morning, and he was trying to compose a letter to Lord Mars. That should have been easy enough, but Grenville had warned him to be diplomatic…whatever that meant.

Vere was about to go looking for her, to demand specifics, when she opened the door.

“Lord Mars is here,” she said, “and by the looks of him, it isn’t a social visit.”

Moments later, they were in the library with His Lordship.

He was travel-stained, trembling with fatigue, and unshaven. “They’ve bolted,” he said, as soon as Vere and Lydia entered. “Please, for the love of God, tell me they’re here. Safe. The girls, I mean. Elizabeth and Emily.”

Blank, cold, Vere stared at him.

Grenville hurried to the decanter tray and filled a glass, which she gave to Lord Mars. “Do sit,” she said. “Collect yourself.”

“They’re not here.” His shoulders sagged. He sank into a chair. “I feared as much. Yet I hoped.”

Feared. Hoped. Tell me they’re here. Safe.

The room darkened, shrank, and swelled again. Something swelled within Vere, cold and heavy. “Bloody hell,” he said between his teeth, “You couldn’t keep them safe, either?”

“Safe?” Mars rose, his face white and stiff. “Those children are as dear to me as my own. But my affection, my care, avails nothing, because I am not you.” He pulled a crumpled note from his pocket, flung it down. “There. Read for yourself what they have to say. The girls you’ve neglected. Not a word from you. Not a visit. Not so much as a note. They might as well be lying in stone coffins with their brothers and parents, as far as you’re concerned. Yet they left the shelter of my house, where they’ve been loved and cared for—dearly, dearly. They left because their love and loyalty is with you.”

“Please, sir, collect yourself,” said Grenville. “You are overset. Ainswood is, too.” She urged Mars to sit, put the glass back in his hand.

Vere read the note. It was but a few lines, that was all—a few daggers to the heart. He looked at his wife. “They wanted to be at our wedding,” he said.

She took the note from him, quickly read it.

Mars drank a little. His color returned. He went on talking. The girls must have left before daybreak on Monday, he told them. He and his brothers-in-law had set out looking for them by midmorning. Yet despite the mere few hours’ start the girls had had, the men had been unable to discover a trace of them. No one had seen them—at the coaching inns, tollgates. They couldn’t have made it to Liphook, because he’d combed the village and its environs.

Mars took out a pair of miniatures and laid them upon the library table. “They are not ordinary-looking,” he said. “How could anyone fail to notice them?”

Vere stood looking down at the small oval paintings, making no move to pick them up. Shame was acid in his mouth and a cold weight in his chest. He would have recognized them, yes, would have seen Charlie in them. He didn’t know them, though. He would not have known the sound of their voices, because he’d scarcely ever spoken to them, never listened, never paid attention.

Yet they’d run away, from love and protection, to see him wed because, Elizabeth had written, “We must make it clear that we wish him happy, as Papa would have done. Papa would have gone.”

Vere became aware of his wife’s voice. “You will make ready while Lord Mars takes some time to rest,” she told him, “though I know he doesn’t wish to. Send messages to all your cronies. You want as many eyes as you can muster. You will take half the servants; I’ll keep the other half, to help me cover the London vicinity. You must take some maids as well. Women see things differently than men do. I shall contact all my informants.”

She turned back to Lord Mars. “You must send your wife a message, to assure her that matters are in hand. I know you wish to wait until there is good news, but it is dreadful for her to wait and not know anything.”

“You are generous,” Mars told her. “You make me ashamed.”

The duchess lifted her eyebrows.

“We closed ranks against you,” Mars said. “Because you were not highborn. Because of scandal.”

“She’s a Ballister,” Vere said. “Dain’s cousin. You snubbed a Ballister, you pious snob.”

Mars nodded wearily. “That’s what I heard. I thought it was idle gossip. I saw my mistake a little while ago.” He rose, carefully set his empty glass down. His hand trembled. “I’ve slept little. At first I believed my eyes played tricks on me. I thought I was seeing ghosts.” He essayed a smile, not very successfully. “That of the third Marquess of Dain, to be precise. You are remarkably like my old nemesis in the Lords.”

“Yes, well, she’ll be our nemesis if we don’t find those girls,” Vere said shortly. “I’ll take you up to a room. You’d better have a wash, and something to eat, and contrive a nap if you can. I’ll want your brain in working order.”

He took Mars’s arm. “Come along, then. We’ll let Grenville marshal the troops. It’s best to stay out of her way when she’s organizing.”

Athcourt, Devon

“I say, Miss Price, you do have a knack for makin’ yourself scarce, not but what it’s easy enough in this pile. I wonder why Dain don’t keep a post chaise handy to carry the ladies at least from one end of the place to the other. But the truth is, no one would blame a fellow for thinkin’ you was avoidin’ me, which,” Bertie added with a stern look, “ain’t sportin’, especially when he’s ra

ked fore and aft and you knew what I was goin’ to say, didn’t you?”

“Oh, dear,” said she, wringing her hands.

“I know you wasn’t leadin’ me on because you ain’t that sort,” Bertie said. “You ain’t goin’ to tell me you was, and you don’t like me even a little, are you?”

Her face turned cherry pink. “I like you exceedingly,” she said in a disconcertingly saddish sort of way.

“Well, then,” said he, disconcerted but undaunted. “We’d best get shackled, don’t you think?”