Talk of the Ton (Free Fellows League 5)

Jonathan knew he should refuse. But India was sweet, amazingly innocent, and incredibly tempting. As he used his tongue to tease and tantalize, he couldn’t help but marvel at his good fortune. She had spent years in a seraglio, and yet Lady India had never been kissed the way he was kissing her. In some part of his brain he realized that if she was an innocent in the art of kissing, she might also be innocent in other ways. And he had no right to take that innocence away from her. He ended their second kiss and stepped back once again.

India opened her eyes, read the look on his face, and sighed. “Please don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

Changed his mind? Lost it, perhaps, but not changed it. He had acted on impulse, given in to his desire, and kissed her. And he knew immediately that he’d made a huge mistake. It was all right to think about kissing her, as he had ever since she’d walked through the doorway, but actually tasting the sweetness of her lips, not once but twice . . . that was a mistake.

“About taking me to London?” she prompted when he took too long to respond.

“Well,” he said with a shrug. “I can’t leave you here.”

“Oh, thank you, Lord Barclay!”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he warned. “Surviving a London season may prove every bit as challenging as surviving life in the sultan’s harem.”

India gifted him with a brilliant smile. “This is England, my lord. People in London may criticize me and gossip about me behind my back. Here members of the ton may crucify my reputation, but no one can ever force me to hide my face or bow my head again. And I’ll never again have to worry about Mustafa strangling me in my sleep.”

Her words tore at Jonathan’s heart. He understood that sort of fear. He knew what it was like to lie awake at night, afraid to close your eyes for fear of the monsters that preyed upon you while you slept. Once upon a time, he’d been terrified of the monsters in the dark, convinced they would come for him in the deep of night and carry him off.

Once upon a time, he’d been the youngest and weakest boy in the Knightsguild School for Gentleman, and he’d lain awake at night frightened and alone and crying for his nanny. Knightsguild had been one long, unending nightmare for Jonathan. He knew what it was to fear the darkness, knew how it felt to pray for someone to watch over him, someone to reassure him and keep the monsters at bay. And he knew what it was like to wonder if his prayers would ever be answered.

Jonathan had been lucky. His guardian angel had occupied the cot beside him, and ten-year-old Jarrod Shepherdston, twenty-second Earl of Westmore, founding member of the Free Fellows League, hadn’t failed him. Jarrod had sworn that he’d protect him and dispatch any monsters that dared to enter their dormitory or attempt to lay a hand on Jonathan. Jarrod had kept watch so Jonathan could finally close his eyes and sleep through the night. And Jarrod had protected him in other ways as well. He’d kept the bullies from using Jonathan as their whipping boy and deflected the instructors’ and the headmaster’s sarcasm and ridicule from Jonathan’s narrow shoulders to his broader ones whenever Jonathan stammered in the classroom or struggled to keep up on the playing field. Jarrod Shepherdston had helped Jonathan build his confidence and to make friends with the other Free Fellows.

Jonathan stared at Lady India. She’d done nothing to deserve her fate. She had had every reason to believe she was safe the day she and her governess boarded the ship that would take her home to Calcutta. The HMS Portsmouth was, after all, one of His Majesty’s naval vessels, and Lady India’s grandfather one of His Majesty’s naval commanders. She had no reason to think that she might fall into the hands of Barbary pirates who would sell her to a Turkish sultan for their own gain. And once she’d been imprisoned in the Topkapi palace, she had no reason to believe that she would ever be free again.

Jonathan let out a breath. He had waited most of his life to become a Free Fellow, and suddenly, remaining free from marital encumbrances in order to serve his country in the clandestine war against Bonaparte seemed far less important than offering this one young woman his protection. For if ever a lady deserved a champion to protect her from the monsters she feared and from the monsters she’d yet to meet, it was she. And Jonathan intended to be that champion. Fate had sent him to Plum Cottage, and fate wouldn’t be denied.

“I promise you, come morning, you needn’t worry about Mustafa ever again,” Jonathan told her in an echo of Jarrod’s long-ago promise.

“Must we wait until morning?”

“I’m afraid so,” he told her. “Because, as you pointed out, we cannot move him without help, and my horse is in no condition to help. But he should be up to the task by morning. If not, I promise I’ll find some other way.”

“No promises,” she whispered, “not unless you know you can keep them.”

The village of Pymley lay two miles north of Plum Cottage, off the main road. There was a pub there and a blacksmith and livery. Colin paid the blacksmith in Pymley extremely well to keep Plum Cottage’s stable in fresh hay and grain and to keep silent about it. And Jonathan had recruited laborers from Pymley for other tasks. They knew he paid extremely well for hard work and for prudence. He knew he could trust them to help him remove Mustafa from Plum Cottage to the coast and to keep silent about it.

“I can keep this one,” Jonathan told her. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll take care of everything. But now, I’m dead on my feet. All I want is a warm fire, a hot meal, a glass of brandy, a soft bed, and four or five hours of uninterrupted sleep.” Jonathan heaved a sigh, then picked up his saddle pouch and turned toward the back door. “But under the circumstances, I’m willing to forgo the meal, the fire, the brandy, and the soft bed in exchange for the sleep.”

“Where are you going?”

Jonathan recognized the fear in her voice. “To sleep in the stable.”

“You’re going to leave me here alone with Mustafa after what we did to him? What happens when he wakes up?”

“He’ll be securely tied and unable to move,” Jonathan replied. “Just as he is now.”

India bit her bottom lip in trepidation. “You needn’t forgo the soft bed, the glass of brandy, or the warm fire if you know how to build one,” she told him. “The cottage has two bedchambers, both with soft beds and fireplaces. And there are decanters of spirits on the side table in the sitting room.”

He was incredibly tempted. But he was a gentleman, and she was a young lady whose reputation had already been sullied through no fault of her own while she’d been the sultan’s captive. He wasn’t going to add fuel to the flame of gossip by compromising it once again now that she had finally returned home to England. “I thank you most kindly for the invitation,” he said. “But as you are an unmarried young woman and I am an unmarried gentleman, ” Jonathan stressed the word, reminding himself that was the case even as he informed her of it and inched toward the door. He was exhausted, but he wasn’t dead. Or made of stone. Jonathan knew himself well enough to know that his state of near exhaustion made resisting temptation harder instead of easier. “Since we are unchaper oned, it’s best that I seek shelter elsewhere.”

“But we are chaperoned,” she insisted. “Mustafa is here.”

“A sultan’s eunuch is hardly a suitable chaperone,” he replied.

“On the contrary, Lord Barclay.” India shook her head, focusing her gaze on his handsome face rather than the fascinating wedge of thick, dark hair that was visible through the opening of his shirt. “Chaperoning is what the sultan’s eunuchs do best. After all, they chaperone and care for three hundred seventy of the sultan’s concubine

s every minute of every day.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “What’s left of my reputation is safe.”

“Not with him unconscious.”