Chapter Ten
Adrian swept his sword into the air, his knees bent in a classic fencer’s pose. He had come to the regrettable conclusion that his ruse would not work. He’d been bedridden for—how long? not two whole days—and he was ready to jump from the window and climb the rooftops from lack of activity.
Even as a child he had not been able to sit still for more than three minutes at a time.
His nursemaids had chased him for hours on end across his father’s vast country estate.
As a soldier he’d held the conviction that a man’s prowess began to deteriorate from the day he did not demand sacrifices of his body.
Even if he did come into the dukedom, he had no intention whatsoever of sitting plump-arsed on a bejeweled saddle and trotting about his acres while others broke their backs in labor.
He wanted to fight, to move, to—to make wild love to Emma Boscastle. But as that appealing option seemed to be temporarily denied to him, he wasn’t about to laze about in bed like a cosseted empress waiting for a daily bowl of stewed prunes to move his bowels.
Riposte.
Retreat.
He kicked over the stool, leapt onto the chaise, and attacked a nonexistent assailant at the door.
Unfortunately, at that instant, the door opened to admit an unsuspecting chambermaid bringing fresh towels and a pitcher of wash water.
She took one look at Adrian, standing on the chaise with his sword directed at her, then emitted a shrill cry and barely managed to unburden her delivery on the floor before whirling to escape.
Adrian lowered his sword. “I’m sorry. Did I frighten you?”
The gamine-faced maid shook her head, suddenly looking more curious than alarmed. Adrian climbed down from the chaise and frowned at her. “Have I seen you before? Aren’t you supposed to knock before coming into a gentleman’s room?”
“I dunno,” she said with an impertinent shrug.
He narrowed his eyes. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m whoever she tells me to be.”
“Lady Lyons?”
“Yeah.” She went down on her knee to collect her towels. “I thought you was laid up.”
“I was—I am. There was a cobweb on the ceiling. I was trying to reach it with my sword. I can’t abide spiders.”
She glanced up shrewdly. “I don’t see any cobweb.”
“No, you wouldn’t. I sliced it to kingdom come.”
Her knowing gaze sized him up. “You don’t look like there’s anything wrong with you, either.”
He sat down on the end of the bed. “And you don’t look like a chambermaid.”
She straightened, a look of delight brightening her elfin features. “I know what you are.”
“Do you?” he asked disinterestedly, his sword balanced between his knees.
“You’re a scaldrum-dodge.”
“A what?”
“You’re a fakement.”
He gripped the sword hilt. “I beg your pardon.”
“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with your ’ead.”
“There must be,” he retorted. “Or I wouldn’t be talking to you.”
She dropped her voice. “You ain’t a duke’s son, then?”
“That’s—this is none of your business.”
“Why are you fakin’ it? You gonna rob the house?”
He looked up in irritation. “You cheeky monkey.”
“Then why—” She started to laugh. “If it’s not money, then it has to be—There’s only two things a man goes after.”
“How old are you?” he demanded.
“Seventeen. I think.”
“Well, you sound as if you were brought up in a brothel.”
“How’d you know?” she asked, genuinely surprised.
“Go away,” he said wearily.
“How much?”
“How much what?” he asked in mild vexation.
She leaned her bony shoulder up against the door. “How much will you pay me not to peach?”
“What?” he said, his voice soft with disbelief.
“How much will you pay me not to tell Mrs. Killjoy you’re puttin’ her on?”
He stood suddenly, the sword gripped loosely in his left hand. He’d never hurt a female in his life. Then again, he’d never been blackmailed by one, either. “Do you know how I spent the last ten years of my life?”
“Growin’ marigolds?”
He walked up to her until she stood pressed flat against the door. “Death. Dismemberment. I’ve been accused, rightly or wrongly, of a beheading or two.”
“I see.” She swallowed, nodding in understanding. “So that’s why she likes you.”
Adrian knew he shouldn’t ask. A guttersnipe in any land was hardly the most reliable source of information. But, on the other hand, the girl didn’t seem stupid. “How do you know she likes me?”
“’Cause you’re in a bad way. She prides herself on fixin’ up people, making them all proper and pretty. Ye’re pretty, no doubt. But you ain’t proper. There’s the devil in your eyes.”
He smiled coldly. “In that case, you’d better not cross me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She thrust her hand at him. “The name’s Harriet and I’m gonna be a lady. Shake?”
“No. Just fetch me some clean towels. You’ve stepped all over the ones you brought, and I’m a bit particular about my personal habits.”
She bobbed a shaky curtsy. “I’ll have ’em bloody well embroidered in gold thread and ironed, if you like.”
He grinned. It never hurt to have an ally. “Then we understand each other?”
She had the nerve to grin back at him. “We cheats and swindlers got to stick together, I always say.”
An hour later Adrian had reached the end of his tolerance for inactivity and escaped his room to wander downstairs and into the garden.
He hoped he would catch Emma alone. Her well-meaning scolds cheered him up. He liked the thought of walking with her in the garden, teasing her into a bit of temper. She’d probably admonish him for being out of bed. Perhaps she would take his hand and offer to sit with him for a few minutes.
He walked past a shed and suddenly found himself surrounded by a gaggle of sketching debutantes. He froze. By the expressions on their young faces he knew he’d done something very wrong by interrupting their class. Either that or they’d been warned he was a man to avoid.
Emma would strangle him if he embarrassed her in front of her students. Still, it was too late to make an escape unseen. One of the girls had spotted him over her sketchbook and gave a cheery shout of recognition.
“Crikey! Look who’s risen from the dead. It’s the duke ’isself.”
That voice. He cringed. That impudent young face.
The guttersnipe again. He nodded pleasantly as Emma looked up from the bench to stare at him in…
well, her face gave nothing away. She wasn’t exactly strewing rose petals of welcome at his feet.
She merely sat in a pose of guarded attention as if she were a figure in a painting.
Perhaps she was afraid he would give her away.
“Excuse me,” he said, bowing politely and coming to a halt. “I didn’t mean to cause a disruption.”
A disruption.
Emma breathed out a rueful sigh. A disruption would be defined as a cat chasing a squirrel up a tree, or one of the maids arguing with a butler. Adrian’s presence before a dozen or so sheltered debutantes was more akin to the heavens opening up to deposit a demigod in their youthful midst.
Gasps. Squeals. She lifted one hand in annoyance to quelch this little rebellion. “Control yourselves, please. A young lady does not twitter at the sight of a gentleman.”
But what a gentleman.
She was discombobulated herself at his appearance.
He’d strolled across the grass with long-boned grace, his artless beauty enhanced by his white Irish linen shirt, tight buff pantaloons, and well-worn boots.
That his short dark-wheat hair appeared a little disheveled only enhanced his devilish appeal.
Beautiful pagan. Her secret lover. Oh, how he made her ache for the forbidden.
Try as she might, Emma could not discourage the girls from staring at him.
Unfortunately, she had a hard time ignoring him herself.
It did not help matters that he was staring quite frankly at her.
Grinning with genuine delight, in fact. She shook her head, apprehension muddling her wits.
What on earth did he think he was doing?
If she didn’t know better, she would think he was smitten with her. But didn’t scoundrels always play their games with such conviction? Half their pleasure came not from the conquest but from the pursuit.
After all, he had admitted he was not inclined to heal the rift with his father in any great hurry. Could a man who had lived as he ever be content with the quiet life of gentility that Emma envisioned for herself? He decided he could.
But could she be content with him.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said. “I was dying for some exercise.” He waved his arms about in a physical way. “Fresh air, you know. Nothing like it.”
She managed to nod. “Yes. However, we were in the middle of a lesson on—” Adrian’s arrival appeared to have sent every thought out of her head. “On the correct form of etiquette should one ever be invited to a foreign court.”
“A subject close to my heart,” he said gravely.
Emma regarded him blankly for several moments.
Was he trying to impress her? Could he possibly be as sweet as he seemed?
“Indeed. Anyway, as I was about to explain to my students, the wife of a foreign ambassador shares her husband’s rank.
Therefore, she should be announced after his entry at an entertainment—”
“What if he’s late?” Miss Butterfield asked in a worried voice. “My father never arrives anywhere on time.”
“She will wait for him,” Emma replied. “Now, let us continue to the order of seating.”
“Lord Wolverton was a foreign diplomat, wasn’t he?” one of the girls cried in excitement. “Perhaps he could enlighten us on diplomatic society, Lady Lyons.”
Emma’s eyebrows arched at that suggestion. She met Adrian’s wry regard for a moment. She doubted that diplomatic society counted a disreputable English mercenary in its elite ranks. “I believe Lord Wolverton was more acquainted with—”
He shrugged modestly. “I don’t mind sharing my knowledge. I had to break the news once to the occupants of a harem that their master had been slain in an uprising. Granted, this is not a situation any of you young ladies are likely to encounter.”
“One trembles at the thought,” Emma murmured.
“He was a rajah,” Adrian added, his eyes twinkling.