Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
The city is always rife with rumor, but it takes a perceptive individual to sort the truth from the merely titillating. Lord X is just such an individual.
Lying in Felicity’s bed wide awake, Ian heard a distant clock chime the hour.
Two o’clock in the morning already. With a sigh, he nuzzled the scented hair of the woman who slumbered in his arms. It was time to wake her, and not so he could make love to her either.
He shouldn’t even have done it twice, with her newly deflowered.
But if he’d hurt her the second time, she’d certainly hidden it well. He would never have dreamed that a woman with such firm ideas about morality could take to bedding so enthusiastically. Lusty wench.
His own quenchless fever stirred him erect once more, and he groaned.
There’d be no more satisfaction this evening even if she could endure it.
Tarrying any longer was unwise. Yes, she would marry him soon and that would right everything, but tonight he must preserve the proprieties, if only to spare her embarrassment at the hands of her neighbors.
If he stayed, they’d be sure to notice his carriage in the street come morning.
Yet he couldn’t bear to disturb her peaceful sleep. With waking would undoubtedly come remorse—Felicity wasn’t the sort of woman to happily embrace her ruin. No matter how much he told her it was inevitable, she would blame herself.
And then him.
He grimaced. Well, he’d have years to make it up to her, years of long winter nights in the master bed at Chesterley and lazy summers making love in the gazebo while the scent of roses sweetened the air ...
Damn it, he was hard again. Would he ever be able to think of her without having his cock shoot to attention?
Bedding a woman was supposed to take the edge off desire, not sharpen the need to a fine point.
Yet he wanted her now, and he would want her a hundred times more before they even reached the altar.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and he froze.
Who prowled about at this hour? One of the boys perhaps?
Bloody hell, Felicity would be mortified if her brothers discovered her like this.
When the steps halted outside the bedchamber door, he groaned.
Touching his mouth to Felicity’s ear, he murmured, “Wake up, querida. You must wake up.”
“Hmm?” she grumbled as a soft tapping sounded on the door.
That was followed by a muffled voice he recognized as the housekeeper’s. “Miss Taylor, are you in there?” The doorknob rattled, and he thanked his good fortune that he’d thought to lock the door earlier.
“Miss Taylor!” the voice said more loudly. There was no mistaking the urgency behind the three sharp raps that followed.
Felicity shot up on top of him, her expression hard to read in the darkness.
First she glanced down at him sprawled beneath her, then at the door, then back at him.
Though he couldn’t really see her face, he could imagine what she was thinking, especially when she jerked a sheet up to cover herself.
She started to speak to him, but he gave her a quick shake of his head.
“Come on now, luv,” the voice outside the door pleaded. “I know you’re in there. Wake up. It’s important!” There was the sound of keys clinking, and he groaned.
Felicity nearly vaulted out of the bed. “I’m coming, Mrs. Box!” She motioned for him to stay put, then scooped up her chemise and jerked it on over her head. “What is it? What’s wrong? Is it one of the boys?”
“It’s that nasty Mr. Hodges again,” Mrs. Box said through the door. “He’s drunk. Says he met up with your father’s trustee in a tavern and found out the truth about—”
“Wait, I’m coming out,” Felicity said, cutting Mrs. Box off. In a flash, she’d yanked on a voluminous dressing gown and tied it around her waist, then was sliding out into the hall, taking care not to let Mrs. Box see into the room.
“What’s this about the butcher?” he heard her say before the door shut behind her, muffling the voices.
Quickly he climbed out of bed and lit a candle.
While donning his shirt and trousers, he strained to hear the conversation that trailed off as the women apparently descended the stairs.
Cursing, he searched for his Hessians until he found them lying half under the bed.
As soon as he had the boots on, he eased out into the hall without bothering to put on his frock coat or waistcoat.
Voices wafted up from downstairs. The first was a man’s, querulous and slurred, with the accents of a lower tradesman. “Now lookie here, Miss Taylor ... I gots to have me money ...”
“Keep your voice down,” Felicity urged. “Do you want to wake the entire household?”
“If that’s wot it takes to get me money, I will. I don’t care ‘bout wakin’ them brothers of yours no how ... a lot of devils, them boys ...”
Ian strode to the stairs and looked over the banister. The man named Hodges, a scrawny creature in disheveled frock coat and breeches, swayed unsteadily in the midst of the ill-lit foyer below. Mrs. Box stood between Hodges and the stairs with her back to Ian, plump hands planted on plumper hips.
A few paces away, Felicity, looking distinctly agitated, clutched her dressing gown closed at the throat. “You’ll get your money as soon as Papa’s estate is settled.”
“Ha! Ain’t no settlement an’ you bloomin’ well know it!
That fancy trustee of yers were in the tavern tonight, and I asked ‘im ‘bout it. Tole me the truth, ‘e did, ‘cause ‘e was drunk. The only thing yer papa left you were a pile o’ debts and them four boys to feed. An’ I’m plannin’ to get wot’s comin’ to me before everybody else finds out you ain’t got a penny to yer name. ”
Ian had heard enough. With grim purpose, he started down the stairs.
“We can discuss this tomorrow at your shop, Mr. Hodges—” Felicity began, then squealed when the man lunged for her.
Ian vaulted down the stairs in a blind rage.
Below him, the tradesman caught hold of Felicity’s shoulders. “You c’n pay me in coin or you c’n pay me in pleasure,” the man was saying as Ian neared the bottom step, “but one way or t’other you’ll pay me tonight, little missy—”
Before Ian even reached the bottom, however, Felicity brought her knee up in the man’s crotch, then shoved the bastard backward over the leg Mrs. Box held conveniently out behind the man’s knees. The man toppled over and dropped on the marble floor bent double, his hands clutching his groin.
Mrs. Box laughed as she hovered over the moaning creature. “That’s the only ‘pleasure’ you’ll be gettin’ tonight, you damned—” She broke off as Ian rounded her and jerked the tradesman up in both fists.
Ian held the small man dangling off the ground. “You want money?” He shook the groaning man furiously. “You want money, you miserable bastard?”
“No, Ian!” Felicity cried as she ran up to him.
Insensible of anything but the insult to her, Ian shook the man again, heedless of the eyes going wide with terror and the head flopping back and forth. “You’ll have your money, Hodges. But if you ever lay a hand on my fiancée again, I swear I’ll—”
“Fiancée?” Mrs. Box said, having apparently recovered her tongue.
“Ian, put the man down, damn you!” Felicity ordered. “Now!”
Ian hesitated. Then he ground out, “Fine,” and released the wretch.
Hodges’s body thudded on the floor like a sack of barley, but he scrambled to his feet, half-sober and all outrage. “I dunno who you think you are, guv’nor, but—”
“He’s the Viscount St. Clair, that’s who he is,” Mrs. Box put in with a haughty sniff. “Y’d best not cross him, you fool.”
The man gulped, then dropped his gaze to examine his rumpled suit. “Viscount or no, he had no cause to grab me like that,” he mumbled. “It’s a sad day when a man can’t collect on his debts.”
“You weren’t collecting on debts, you bloody—” Ian began.
“I’d hold your tongue if’n I was you, Mr. Hodges,” Mrs. Box said. “Now go on with you. The miss and I’ll be round in the mornin’ to discuss the bill.”
“To pay the bill,” Ian corrected her. “And the ‘miss’ will not be there. My man will attend to it.” He stepped menacingly toward the butcher. “But see that you never come within a mile of Miss Taylor again, you understand? Or I swear I’ll—”
“I got yer message, milord,” the man said quickly, holding up a hand. “I’m leavin’ now, and I won’t be back. All I wanted was me money, and if yer seein’ to that—”
“I’m seeing to it,” Ian bit out.
Hodges fled without waiting for further assurances.
As soon as the door shut behind him, Felicity turned on Ian, eyes blazing. “There was no call for you to come barging down here. I had the situation well under control—”
“Yes, I saw how ‘well under control’ you had the situation! You were stirring up a hornet’s nest, damn it! What the bloody hell would you have done after he recovered from the blow to his groin?”
Felicity’s chin came up a notch. “I would have called Joseph to throw him out.”
“I’ve seen your footman, and he couldn’t throw out a mangy dog on his best day! But never fear, once we’re married—”
“We are not going to be married! I told you before, Ian, I won’t marry you, not even after ...” She trailed off with an embarrassed glance at the housekeeper.
“What d’ye mean, you told him before?” Mrs. Box broke in. She regarded Ian with new interest. “Have you proposed to my mistress before tonight, milord?”
Ian started to say it was none of her concern, then thought better of it.
If Felicity still intended to be stubborn about this—which did seem to be the case—he might need Mrs. Box on his side.
“My first proposal was a week ago, at the Worthings. Apparently, your mistress needs more persuasion than most to do what’s in her best interests. ”
“Beg pardon, milord,” the housekeeper said tartly, her gaze taking in his scanty attire, “but I ain’t sure I approve of your methods of persuasion.”
“If I’d known Felicity was destitute,” he snapped, “I wouldn’t have needed such methods.”
“I am not destitute!” Felicity protested.