Chapter 5 #3
While the pair spoke, Culross haphazardly pulled a shirt on. He stuffed the long tails into his partially buttoned trousers.
That’s what had waylaid the bastard.
At least one of them had gotten his nob polished. If only Kerr had been in the mood with Susanna and Diane, then…
Andromena would have found herself ruined in all the ways he’d warned her about. And it isn’t Susanna and Diane you’ve got in your randy mind, the Devil in his head taunted.
Discomfited, he gave another look outside.
The last thing he needed was Culross catching sight of her mouth. It would take a single glance to know what had been at play. “Hood up.”
After she’d complied, he opened the door and jumped down, eager to get her out of his hair. When the chit made no move to take his hand, Kerr snatched her by the waist.
“Eek.” She steadied herself on her feet.
Culross looked the length of the yard and gave an order that sent a stable hand running. The earl, however, failed to move with any speed. He took the painstaking time of a valet to fix his clothes.
“What’s coming next?” Kerr cupped his hands around his mouth. “An invitation for tea and biscuits?”
Tea and biscuits didn’t come, but rather a dark wool evening jacket brandished by a young servant.
“He’s not a barbarian, Edgar.”
“Like me.” Wrong. Kerr and Culross both were. “At least dare to say the rest aloud.”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” she pushed her covering off and batted her long, curved lashes at him. “Is that how you view yourself?”
“Given how close I am to shaking you, yes. Put your hood back on, unless you want Culross to see what we’ve been up to.”
“What you were up to,” she said.
“Your moans and eager mouth told a different tale.”
That shut her up.
Kerr fished out his pocket watch and popped the gold piece open. “Yes, why hurry? It is not as though I have anything better to do?” he muttered. “Is he going to gather his footwear?”
Another servant brandished a pair of Crockett and Jones half-boots.
Kerr tucked the gift Culross gave him when he’d signed on to partner with him back into his pocket.
“Edgar?”
“What?” Now.
“Comptez-vous me mettre à genoux, à présent?” Do you intend to turn me over your knee now? “Je ne suis pas s?r que Culross approuve.” I cannot say Culross will approve.
A hot flush rushed up his neck.
Logic whispered it was his own damn fault for assuming she hadn’t mastered French. Pride and power didn’t care about his miscalculation; they only tasted the razor-edge of her mockery, didn’t give two shites for anything other.
With her impudent, impeccably delivered French, she smiled at the Earl of Culross’s approach.
Naturally, the imp waited until Kerr’s damned captain arrived to say; “Devons-nous le lui demander, Lord Kerr?” Shall we ask him?
Culross frowned. “Ask me what?”
“So bloody good of you to join us,” Kerr said. “We were debating whether Miss Smith requires a bodyguard assigned her at all times.”
Andromena gasped. “We were most certainly n—”
He bullied his voice over hers. “I’m of the firm belief she should. The lady is obviously of the contrary. What say you, Culross?”
“I’m not certain—”
“Your wife, my sister, will approve, August? Having the pleasure of knowing her my entire life and most of hers, I can confirm she will not.”
“Would she rather her witless sister get herself killed in the Rookeries?” Kerr asked out of genuine curiosity.
“The Rookeries!”
Culross finally made an appearance in the quarrel. About bloody time.
“Andromena, what is this?”
The young lady ignored her brother-in-law’s question outright. “With all your grand self-praise, Lord Kerr, you failed to mention you’re a busybody.’”
Culross looked back and forth from his sister-in-law and quartermaster with all the confusion in the world.
“It is late. Why don’t I escort you inside, Andromena.”
“My sister—”
“Is sleeping, and unaware you are here, but the longer I’m away the more questions she’ll have.”
The captain knew precisely what to say to get the impudent chit moving.
Culross personally delivered the McQuoid chit inside and returned, with the same questions Kerr had upon finding the lady scurrying about St. Giles.
“The lady got it into her otherwise empty brain to visit a fortune-teller. A bloody fortune-teller.”
“Have a care, Kerr. The lady is my sister-in-law.”
“I thought your focus would be on how close the lady came to dying tonight. Forgive me. I will remember that I am only allowed to insult the countess’s male relatives.”
“How did she come to be—”
“Finally, the only question that matters.” By the time Kerr finished his recounting, his fury had peaked. He wanted to storm the townhouse and thrash her—which God help him, with her impeccable French, she’d heard and understood.
French. Kerr gritted his teeth. She spoke it like she’d been a damned descendant of the Sun King’s line.
And more infuriated by that, he didn’t even realize he’d marched to the exit.
“Kerr, you have no mount or carriage.”
“I’ll bloody walk,” he shouted, lifting a fist in the air and giving it a hard shake.
Good riddance. His hands were forever free of the maddening chit.