Page 2 of Escape of the Scoundrel (Escape #1)

F or once in her life , Miss Harriet Cole was deprived of words. Not because of the insolence of her handsome tormentor, nor his almost frighteningly intense blue eyes, nor even the shock of being kissed for the first time in her life in such a way.

What forced her smothered giggle and took her by complete surprise was the cold metal that he slid into her palm at the same time. He had given her the key to his room.

And if he imagined she would open the door to him or anyone else that night, he was vastly mistaken. Even more insultingly, as soon as he’d kissed her, he appeared to forget the whole matter and return his focus to the dice game.

Around her, men were castigating him for muscling in, addressing him in high dudgeon as “my lord,” “Sanderly,” or “Snake,” depending on how loud their voices. He did not appear to notice, merely sat down and threw the dice with a practised, elegant flick of his wrist.

Someone grasped her by the arm. “This way, miss,” said a large, grim-looking woman, presumably the innkeeper’s wife, urging her toward the stairs. One man fell to his knees beseechingly. Another blew her a kiss. But noticeably, they kept their distance now, as if his mark was upon her. She was grateful for that too, since a press of people always upset her and she had been about to panic before he intervened.

His mark , his key . Her room.

“Wait, I need to fetch the children,” she said, pulling back. “I can’t let them pass through that —”

“Tom’ll bring ’em up the back stairs and lock the door behind.” Mrs. George hauled herself on to the landing and using her own set of keys, opened the first door on the left.

“Lucky bastard,” said a voice feelingly at the foot of the stairs.

“Ignore ’em,” Mrs. George said roughly. “Nice as ninepence when they ain’t jug-bitten. Like a pack of animals right now, though, all wound up by a stupid prize fight and more ale inside ’em than my newly stocked cellars.”

A lamp was already lit. Mrs. George turned it up and took a spill to light some candles. Harriet looked about her. A closed trunk sat under the window. A hairbrush seemed to have been thrown carelessly on the bed, on top of a discarded coat. A leather bag was open beside it.

“Who is that man?” Harriet asked, dropping her own tatty carpet bag on the floor.

“Earl of Sanderly.”

“He doesn’t look like a man who gets drunk at prize fights.”

“He’s certainly not sober. Didn’t come for the fight, though, just went because he was here. Never thought he’d put up with that lot.”

“Yet you didn’t give his room away.”

Mrs. George glanced at her with what might have been apology. “Didn’t think you’d come once you heard about the fight, or want to stay if you did.”

“I don’t,” Harriet said ruefully. “But my sister’s not well and I don’t want to make her walk two miles in the rain and the dark—certainly not with men like that springing out from every hedge.”

“Oh, I think they’re all safe under cover,” Mrs. George said, tossing the hairbrush and the coat into the open bag on the bed. She looked around for any other items and removed a shaving kit from the washstand. “I’ll send you up some tea and a hot meal—if they’ve left any. Tom’ll take the trunk away.”

Harriet, who’d had every intention of shoving both bag and trunk out into the passage herself, eyed Mrs. George with unease. “Won’t he mind your removing his things?”

“Don’t be daft, he meant me to, didn’t he? Otherwise he wouldn’t have sent me up with you.”

Harriet closed her mouth. Had he given her the key not to let her in but to keep everyone else out? Then why the performance downstairs? Opportunism?

“Where will he sleep?” And why did she care now?

Mrs. George cast her a look. “You think any of us’ll get any sleep? You’d have been better at the Red Lion. You might want to leave early in the morning while they’re finally out cold.”

“Oh, I mean to, and that reminds me, can you provide us with a conveyance to Grand Court?”

Mrs. George paused by the bedchamber door. “Grand Court?”

She sounded so disbelieving that Harriet tilted her chin. “Lady Grandison is my godmother.”

“And she couldn’t send someone to meet you off the stagecoach ?” She uttered the last word with such contempt that Harriet would have blushed had she not been so tired.

“I do not care to trouble her,” she said haughtily, before she became aware of heavy footsteps in the hall and grabbed her carpet bag again. At a pinch it would make a useful weapon, although Mrs. George herself might prove to be a better one.

The innkeeper’s wife pulled open the door and Harriet’s sisters and cousin spilled into the room ahead of the tapster carrying their bags.

“Oh, Harry, did you see the baby goat?” Rose said. “Its mother was crying for it, and you should have seen it dashing and jumping around to find her. So sweet!”

“Trunk, Tom,” Mrs. George said.

“Lord, have we thrown someone out of their room?” Alex asked with more cheer than guilt.

“I thought so,” Harriet murmured, casting her bonnet on the large bed, “but apparently not.” Her first concern, when the door closed behind Mrs. George, Tom, and the trunk, was Lily, who looked very pale and wan. “Does your head still hurt?”

“Only a little,” Lily assured her. “The fresh air helped, and that sweet little goat made me feel better.”

“There’s an awful racket downstairs,” Orchid remarked, reaching for the door handle. She was only six years old. “I’ll just nip down and see what’s going—”

“Absolutely not,” Harriet said, so forcefully that they all gawped at her. “There is a large party of—er...sporting gentlemen at the inn and they are...not at their best.”

“Foxed?” Rose suggested.

Harriet gave in. “Drunk as wheelbarrows,” she admitted. “And horrible to be around. You are not to leave this room for anything less than fire. I’m serious, Orchid. They already tried to assault me.”

“Oh, did they?” Alex demanded, his face kindling with wrath.

Harriet, who should have remembered her cousin’s newly protective instincts now that he was all of ten years old, hastily assured him that no harm was done and that the gentleman concerned had apologised. “In his own way,” she added, fitting the key he had given her into the lock.

Alex seemed mollified, although when the sharp rap sounded on the door, he marched up to open it first, with Harriet at his heels. However, their visitor was merely Tom, with a large heavy tray which he placed on the table.

He bade them good night with a certain wistfulness before he squared his shoulders and returned to the chaos downstairs. Harriet locked the door behind him.

There were only two chairs at the table, so they all sat on the floor, while Harriet sliced the pie and divided up the vegetables that came with it.

“Eat as much as you can,” she urged Lily, who was eyeing her plate without enthusiasm. “And then you can go to bed. Hopefully the rabble below will fall into a collective stupor soon and give us some peace.”

“Over-optimistic,” Rose pronounced. “Cousin Randolph’s friends don’t fall asleep until dawn sometimes. And if you ask me, it’s not their discussions of the Bible or philosophy that makes them gabble so much.”

Cousin Randolph, in fact, was the epitome of hypocrisy. He preached a rigid Puritan code of hard work, simple fare, and modest dress for his wards, but possessed a rather magnificent wardrobe for a clergyman. He also had some distinctly raffish acquaintances who didn’t come often to the house, although he travelled frequently to London to see them. On church business, apparently, although he had no living of his own.

“I wonder if he’s missed us yet?” Alex wondered.

“Bound to have,” Rose said, “when his dining table won’t have set itself or the candles sprung magically to life when he wants them. I wish I could see his face when he realizes his unpaid housekeeper and servants have gone...”

Rose was still at the “serves him right” stage. But Lily’s eyes were sad as she met Harriet’s gaze. Already, she was missing her old home. Harriet’s own heart twisted at the thought of leaving it in Randolph’s hands, but the law had made him the owner on their father’s death. And in truth, they had no reason to stay.

“Do you suppose Lady Grandison will be happy to see us?” Orchid asked.

“Bound to be.” Alex grinned. “Just look at us! And we’re pretty useful—I suppose we can thank Randolph for that if for nothing else.”

“I’m not thanking him,” Orchid said. “He’s a pig.”

Alex snorted in his best pig impersonation. Orchid replied and they all soon joined in, even Lily, laughing till their throats hurt.

Although Lily hadn’t eaten a great deal, she had drunk all her tea and she did not resist when everyone else urged her into bed. After that, they prepared for the night in order of age.

From below came shouts and gales of laughter and occasional inexplicable bumps and crashes, the tinkle of breaking glass and massive cheers. Sometimes a voice was raised in anger. Then the fiddle music began, along with a thunderous stomping that made everyone giggle helplessly with images of the drunken jigging below.

“Do you suppose all the gentlemen are dancing with each other?” Rose said.

“There are some women there,” Harriet said, recalling with distaste her glimpse of the woman on some man’s knee being fondled quite inappropriately while the same man gaped lasciviously at Harriet. The woman had glared at her too.

“Are they foxed?” Orchid asked with interest.

“Ladies don’t get foxed,” Alex said disparagingly from the truckle bed no doubt designed for servants.

Harriet decided to say nothing. She climbed into bed beside her sisters, blew out the last candle and lay down.

It was going to be a long night. Still, she had plenty to think about, planning just the right words to explain to Lady Grandison why they had come to her and how to enlist her help in the matter of schools and a governess position, and secrecy. Then there was the embarrassing necessity of borrowing money for travel, for they’d used their last penny in getting this far. Even the cost of the hired chaise tomorrow would have to be borne by Sir John Grandison. And then there was how to appease her employer for the sad fact of her youth.

All these things required planning, and yet her wayward mind kept being distracted by a dark, haughty, devastatingly handsome face with the most stunning eyes she had ever seen. The touch of his fingers on her skin, and the shock of his mouth on hers. She was outraged at such disrespect, furious at the assault by a so-called gentleman, a nobleman. With nothing noble about him , she told herself crossly.

And yet he had given her his key and apparently issued some kind of silent order for his things to be removed.

If he had wanted her to have his room, why had he not simply offered as a gentleman should? Why the show? And it had been a show, she realized, not without an inexplicable feeling of insult. Was it possible he had been deliberately hiding a good deed in a bad one? Why would he do that?

She supposed she would never know. But she could be grateful to him, and she was...

***

T HE EARL OF SANDERLY knew he was in danger of being lulled into a false sense of security. Once the fiddler started, the noisy, drunken conviviality of the inn began to take on a familiar, comfortable aspect, almost like impromptu parties in the officers’ mess at winter quarters in Portugal.

It must have been Jonny Berry’s presence, making him maudlin for old times. In retrospect, they certainly weren’t good times.

“Shall we increase the bet?” Illsworth said.

Sanderly shrugged. “If we all agree.”

Beside him, Berry said, “I’m out, whatever you agree. Happy to watch for a bit, though. Never could see the skill in this game.”

“There isn’t any,” Durward said cheerfully. “That’s what makes it exciting. Pure luck, to make you rich or ruin you.”

“It’s certainly ruining me,” Wolf said.

“Stop playing then,” Sanderly advised. “I’ll take the bank.”

No doubt the flicker of alarm in Illsworth’s eyes was reflected in the others, which made Sanderly smile with as much of a sneer as he could fit into a gentle curl of the lips.

“If no one objects,” he purred.

It was ridiculous. No one played with a cheat. One cut him dead until he was too humiliated to be seen in public. Yet here Sanderly was, not only playing but winning at hazard against a table full of drunks, and no one had accused him of loading the dice.

Yet. The night was young.

Illsworth chose to be gracious, though a few minutes later, he said, “I’m surprised to see you still here, with such a treat awaiting you in your bedchamber.”

“Oh, I don’t mind making her wait. Play.”

They played.

Illsworth said, “Shall we see you at Lady Grandison’s?”

“God, no,” Sanderly said with a shudder.

“Lady Barbara will be there.”

“I’m aware.”

“Whatever persuaded you to give your beautiful sister to such a dull stick as Martindale?” Durward asked.

“She did. I really didn’t care enough to argue. If we’re going to gossip, I’m going to bed.” He raised his eyes to see Wriggley edging up the stairs toward the bedchamber. “Going somewhere, Wriggles?”

A spasm crossed the man’s face, although he froze with one foot on the next step. “Just going to the pot, old fellow,” he said feebly.

“Go outside like everyone else,” Sanderly recommended.

“There’s no need to be such a damned dog in the manger,” Wriggley said.

“You’ve got no right to guard her like a bone, Snake,” someone else called. “Sharing is an act of friendship.”

“I agree,” Sanderly said sweetly. “No one touches her.”

“Or what, my lord?” Illsworth asked in clear amusement.

Sanderly merely curled his lip. He’d made his point. Jonny, however, backed it up by laying a pistol heavily on the table. Talk about a damned sledgehammer ...

A few shocked laughs rippled around the room among those still paying attention. Wriggley was back at the foot of the stairs.

“Bit excessive, old man,” Illsworth said to Jonny.

“Who the devil is he?” Wriggley blustered. “Your guard dog?”

“What is this fixation on dogs?” Sanderly wondered. “And of course he is not. In fact, he’s the best shot of the 95 th —never misses. He lost half a leg at Salamanca. Didn’t stop him reloading and shooting the enemy into submission. Are you going to throw those dice, Wolf, or just keep praying to them?”

There were no more efforts to go upstairs, except when the weaker-headed gentlemen began to fall over and were carried to bed by their friends and the tapster. Others had a blanket thrown over them in what had once been a private parlour.

“You headed for Harwich, Snake?” Durward asked, stuffing his meagre winnings into his pocket. “I’ll come with you.”

“What, has Foster died?” Illsworth asked with interest.

“Not yet,” Durward said gloomily. “Planning in advance.”

“What has Foster’s death to do with you?” asked Wolf, who must have been the only man present not to know about the duel.

“I shot him, didn’t I?” Durward said bitterly. “They’ll be after me for murder if he croaks.”

“Afraid of the law, Durward?” Illsworth mocked.

“No, of my grandmother,” Durward retorted. “And who wouldn’t be?”

“Fair point,” Sanderly allowed.

“Well, we’ll think of you in Harwich at some run-down wharfside inn,” Wolf said, standing up, “while we are enjoying the legendary hospitality of Lady Grandison.”

“One more round, gentlemen?” Sanderly suggested.

Fortunately, everyone else finally seemed to be as bored as he was. The riotous inn had descended into snores and snuffles and the distant sound of retching.

Goerge the innkeeper was dousing the rest of the lights. Through the windows came the first glimmering of dawn.

Thank God . Sanderly stretched his legs, one at a time, and rose to his feet.

Mrs. George stood at the foot of the stairs. She must have taken a liking to the girl to be guarding her.

“I’ll pay my shot now,” he said.

“I won’t include the room.”

Sanderly sighed. “Include the room.”

Mrs. George’s eyes gleamed. “She wants a chaise to Grand Court tomorrow. I don’t think she’s a clue what it will cost her.”

He paused. “Then I hope Lady Grandison is pleased to see her.”

“That’s what I said. And with all those children too. Apparently her ladyship is her godmother.”

“Is she, by God?” Sanderly murmured, following Mrs. George to the front of the house, where she scribbled what looked like a random amount on a docket beside his name. He placed a handful of coins on top of it with equal randomness. “Thank you.”

“Going there yourself, my lord?” Mrs. George inquired. “Lots of these gents seem to be.”

“Harwich gets more appealing by the instant. Are my bags back in my carriage?”

“They are, my lord.”

He was half out of the door before another random thought struck him. “How many children are there?”

“Four. Five counting her.”

She was no child, though almost certainly sheltered and gently born. Pity, in many ways, but there it was.

He walked out of the inn into the cold, grey morning. He wondered if the girl found siblings the same curse he did.

His stomach twisted with the same old pain. He wouldn’t allow it to be his heart. But Christ, he missed Hugo.

I’m drunk. I’m tired. And it’s time for pastures new. I’m off to Africa...

At the stables, he sent a yawning lad in search of his coachman and went to fetch his own horses for speed.

A figure loomed up from the straw, startling him. The lantern light played over the features of a young and entirely unexpected man. None of my business .

“Morning, your Grace,” he murmured.

“Good morning, my lord.”

Ignoring each other, they fetched their own horses.

Sanderly tried to talk himself out of the idea. He should never have thought of Hugo, because it reminded him of Bab, his one remaining sibling. And his mild curiosity about the girl who was apparently Eliza Grandison’s goddaughter, was entirely irrelevant. Jennings, his coachman, and the sleepy stable lad finished harnessing the horses to the carriage. But as Jennings held the carriage door for him, he finally sighed and gave in.

“Grand Court first, I’m afraid, Jennings. I believe I must call upon my sister. Can you imagine Lady Grandison’s delight?”

“Vividly, my lord,” Jennings said, perfectly wooden.

Sanderly bestowed a nod of approval upon him and climbed into the carriage.