Page 24

A mos Tucker was not a man much given to remorse.

As his parents had taught him, and his life to date had confirmed, he was always right.

If he lost his temper—as he frequently did with his silly, maudlin little wife who was trying to turn his fine son into a soft mama’s boy—then the fault lay with whoever had caused his anger.

He went to church. He was a good man. Everyone told him so, and he tended to agree that he had done nothing in his life to reproach himself with.

He had always obeyed the laws of God and man.

On the other hand, he did tend toward the belief that it had been a mistake to break into Lord Petteril’s house.

Not that the pampered lord didn’t deserve it for keeping Tucker’s wife and child from him, but the act did actually put him in the wrong.

Moreover, if he had been caught, as he so nearly was. ..

He still shuddered at the memory, for his throat still hurt.

He hadn’t thought his face was visible in the darkness during that brief struggle, but Petteril still suspected him.

He had been to the hackney stand looking for him, and had even gone to the old house, according to his neighbour.

Thank God he’d told no one the address of his new lodgings.

On the other hand, he hadn’t worked all day either. And while frightening his errant wife into another bolt might have been amusing, even satisfying in its way, it had not ultimately been successful. He would try again later today, whenever a fare took him in that direction.

He pulled his horse up behind the last hackney in the Oxford Street queue and saluted with his whip a couple of the fellows gossiping at the side. It behoved him to keep a weather eye out for Petteril, of course, but he expected him to have given up. As he would, sooner or later, give Ginny up too.

He contemplated with some pleasure how he would make Ginny suffer for her fall from grace—for the sake of her own soul, naturally.

And just as naturally, Tucker would forgive her and take her back.

After which, the mighty Lord Petteril would owe him some compensation.

After all, the man had a new wife, had he not?

So what the devil he was about, installing Ginny and the brat in his own house, Tucker had no idea.

The man was blatant and ungodly and should pay. ..

Dear God was that him?

The viscount strolled into his line of vision from behind, a rather lovely lady on his arm who was most certainly not Ginny. This girl, though probably about the same age as Ginny, was vital and brilliant and wore beautiful clothes.

Hastily, Tucker pulled his muffler up and his hat down, but too late, the aristocratic eyes swept over his person, freezing his blood. The funny thing was, Petteril showed no sign of recognition but sauntered on toward the gossips.

Unable to quite believe his luck, Tucker urged his horse to walk forward the few feet necessary to close the gap that had opened in front.

Perhaps Petteril was not looking for him. After all, it would have been a miracle if he’d made out Tucker’s face in those few moments of struggle. His lordship had no real reason to believe Tucker was involved. He must just have been asking around about him and no doubt the other jarveys too.

All the same, Tucker would be happier when he had a fare.

Too late, he remembered that Brearly, one of the jarveys Petteril was talking to, had been there on the previous occasion too. Would it matter? Brearly was grinning, and nodding, damn him, right at Tucker. The fool even raised his hand.

Tucker wondered if he should bolt again and had to remind himself that he was not in the wrong. Lord Petteril had stolen his wife and child, and Tucker was quite sure he wouldn’t want the beauty on his arm to be aware of that.

Lord Petteril sauntered up to him. “Mr. Tucker,” he said affably. “I believe I have something of yours.”

Well! That was blatancy with a vengeance.

Tucker had to close his lips tight, for he did not want the world to know his wife had run away to this fop with his ridiculous quizzing glasses—two, no less!

—dangling around his neck. One of them came into play as the viscount appeared to inspect Tucker’s coat.

“No buttonhole today? I suppose there can’t be Christmas roses at your new home.”

“Can I help you guv’nor?” Tucker said aggressively. “You want a hackney, you got to take the one at the front.”

“Oh, no, I just wanted a chat. Would you care to come down to save the crick in my neck?”

“I would not,” Tucker retorted, his eyes flickering to the young lady who had separated herself from Petteril to stroke the horse’s nose. “Mind out, missus, he don’t like strangers and he’s quick to bite.”

The girl glanced up at him boldly, amusement in every line of her face. “What, this well-mannered gentleman?” The treacherous horse snuffled and ducked his head nearer her. “Nonsense.”

God, she needed schooling. Raising her eyes, disputing a man’s word and judgement... She must be the viscountess, he supposed, but that was no excuse. He felt like jerking on the reins to make the horse walk over her feet.

“Yes, I have your buttonhole,” Lord Petteril said unexpectedly and with perfect clarity. “You left it behind when you tried to break into my house the night before last.”

“Here, you can’t go around saying things like that!” Tucker said furiously, for the viscount’s voice had carried and an audience was gathering. “Brearly, fetch the Watch, this gent’s mad as a sack of frogs.”

Before his eyes, the affable and empty-headed fop turned into a haughty, hard-eyed aristo. “I don’t like your tone fellow.”

“You’s the one who spoke to me , guv’nor,” Tucker said triumphantly.

“I’m just doing my job!” He was about to tickle the horse’s ear with his whip to instruct him to once more close the gap in the queue of carriages, but the beast was already walking to the urging of the girl who was leading him as though he was her pet dog.

Tucker’s whip hand itched.

“That’s true,” Petteril allowed. “I did speak to you first. Thought you’d like to know how your son is.”

“My son?” The words spilled out before he could think.

“Her ladyship and I are—er... looking after him for you, at the request of your wife.”

“She got no call to do that—and no right neither. You give me back my son—and send that good-for-nothing woman with him.”

“So you can hurt them again?” Petteril asked.

Tucker wanted to smack that smooth, supercilious face. Except, to his annoyance, the listening crowd looked shocked, and he felt compelled to win them back and turn them against the ungodly dandy trying to torment him.

“A woman needs discipline. So does a son.”

That made the fool speechless! Not so the wife, however, who said in disbelief, “ Discipline? At six weeks old? Or less?”

A rumble of shock swelled in the still growing crowd. More well-to-do people had stopped to join the throng listening in to this confrontation. How had it even got this far? It was a nightmare he wasn’t sure how to end.

“You do know infanticide is a crime?” Lord Petteril said conversationally.

“I never killed no infants, least of all my own,” Tucker said furiously. “You got no call to say such lies! There’s laws against that too!”

“Lies?” Petteril looked baffled.

“I never killed my son!”

An “Ooh” rumbled around him, and it was not friendly, for he had spoken too loudly.

Tucker’s whole body heated with embarrassment and outrage at the injustice—why did people assume his denial was an admission of guilt?

He blamed the whole thing squarely on the manipulation of the swaggering nob before him.

Tucker needed to get away from here before the crowd turned nasty.

“So you just disciplined your son?” Petteril said. “What did he do? Break wind? Steal your gin? Talk back to you?”

“I don’t drink!” Tucker roared, though that was not strictly true either. “You give me back my stolen child!”

“Come and get him,” Petteril invited, bowing and gesturing gracefully that he should come down.

Which gave Tucker all the excuse he needed to escape. The crowd would think he was driving away to retrieve his son, and he would be out of this nightmare—at least in the short term, which was all he really cared about right now.

But the wretched woman stood in front of the horse, holding its head and the red mists of fury began to descend on Tucker. She was in his way. Before he could even think what he was doing, he lashed out with his whip, straight for her pretty, pampered face.

It should have hit her, too, laid open her skin, only she had reflexes like a boxer. She jerked aside, freeing his way.

He yelled, “Yah!” and lashed with the reins instead. But quite suddenly, the fop below launched himself from the ground and landed with a bump beside him on the box. Somehow the whip was ripped from his hand, and he stared into black, fathomless eyes that promised him death.

In sudden blind fear, he struck out, and his fist connected with flesh and bone.

***

I N HIS UNIVERSITY CAREER , Piers had once been quite adept at gaining and retaining the attention of unruly, generally arrogant young men, though he could not recall ever using ridicule before. But he saw at once that like the students, Tucker was over-conscious of the opinion of others.

Even so, riling and ridiculing did not appear to be sparking the kind of attack he needed Tucker to make against him. At this rate, the man was simply going to escape him, and then it would all be to do again.

Until Tucker lashed his whip at April. And then there had been no thought in his head, no planning, only blind instinct and fear for her. He might even have yelled out some bizarre war cry as he leapt for the box of the moving hackney and wrenched the whip from Tucker’s hand.

Too late to prevent the lash, but the bastard would never make another. And he knew it. He saw it in the man’s suddenly terrified eyes.

“Piers!”