“Again, my lord?”
“Yes, again. Any sign of her?”
The butler trailing behind his master paused long enough to briefly scan the street. He sighed as he turned a lugubrious face to Carlisle. “South-southwest, my lord. In a pink phaeton of such a virulent color that merely looking at it has given me a sharp pain on the left side of my head.”
Dare muttered an expletive and lengthened his stride. “It must be Mrs. Benton. She’s been trying to catch my eye for the last three days. How close is she? Do you think we can make Dunbridge and Storm before she catches up to us?”
Batsfoam, hired originally as a butler and now by a regrettable lack in the earl’s fiduciary standing, secretary, valet, and draftsman, squinted against the afternoon sun and gauged the distance to the solicitor’s office. “Doubtful.”
“Blast!”
The butler’s shoulders drooped even more than was normal in his habitual slouch. Dark of eye and hair, with skin the shade and texture of an unripened lemon, Batsfoam moved through life at the center of a seemingly perpetual cloud of gloom. “We’re doomed. It’s no use, my lord, you must sacrifice me and leave me behind. My leg will only hold you up.”
Dare immediately slowed down, turning to cast a questioning glance at his employee. A sergeant in his unit when they served in the 12th Light Dragoons, Batsfoam had done his part to keep England safe from Napoleon, but it had cost him his lower right leg. “Dammit man, why didn’t you tell me your leg was aching? I would have hired a carriage.”
Batsfoam shrugged a shrug that spoke of servitude, unworthiness, and emotions too depressing to be put into mere words. “I am but a lowly servant, my lord. I live to fulfill your slightest whim. Your commands are my commands. It is with the profoundest pleasure, nay ecstasy, that I am able to martyr myself upon the altar of your happiness.”
“In other words,” Dare replied, his arms crossed over his chest, “you’d like me to hire a hack.”
A momentary lifting of the ever-present gloom indicated that Batsfoam would like just that, but just as quickly his usual dour, murky, abysmal expression returned. “I would not dream of imposing on your lordship in any such manner. Indeed, it would give my life the utmost meaning if you allowed me to throw myself before the razor-sharp pounding hooves of Mrs. Benton’s approaching team, sacrificing, as it were, my frail and feeble mortal frame so that you might escape without suffering such unpleasantness as might be experienced in having to tip your hat to her.”
The earl rolled his eyes. Batsfoam had been with him for more than seven years, and despite the man’s tendency to speak with significantly less than the respect due him, Dare wouldn’t ruin the pleasure his servant found in being utterly and completely wretched. “It’s good to see you in such a happy mood for a change, Batsfoam. Such a frolicsome, carefree attitude suits you. I must remember to dock your wages a few quid just to keep you from bursting into song on the stair in the morning as you go about your duties.”
The corners of Batsfoam’s lips twitched, but he had steely command over his expression and quickly pressed his mouth into its normal grim line. “As you desire, my lord. Alas that these frivolous few moments of jocularity are about to end with the imminent arrival of a lady. What is your will? Shall I cast myself to a certain bloody and unpleasant death under the horses’ hooves, or will you suffer the cruel fate of gentlemen of your noble and honorable mien by greeting Mrs. Benton?”
Dare ignored the sarcasm that fairly dripped from Batsfoam’s voice just as he always did, glancing down the street instead to where the lady in question was slowing her team in preparation to stopping before him. He squared his shoulders and resigned himself to the inevitable. “I shall reserve your sacrifice for another time, Batsfoam. As you say, I shall be forced to do the honorable thing and greet Mrs. Benton politely.”
“Chivalrous to the tips of your noble toes, my lord,” Batsfoam murmured, bowing obsequiously as he did so. “I shall just step back off the pavement into this pile of rancid, rat-infested refuse made up largely of offal and what appears to be droppings from a violently ill horse, so as not to sully the impression your lordship makes by tainting it with my unworthy presence.”
Dare wondered briefly what he had done to deserve Batsfoam, but his attention was quickly wrenched from contemplation of his greater sins to the scene before him. Just as the pink carriage was slowing to a stop, a scarlet-and-black racing curricle swerved around the slower vehicle and came to an abrupt halt a mere foot from the tips of Dare’s glossy Hessians, effectively cutting off the phaeton’s approach, much to the dismay of its team and driver.
“Have you ever heard such language from a lady?” the driver of the curricle asked, a pair of cornflower-blue eyes twinkling at him as her bonneted head tipped in inquiry. “You’d think she was from the stews the way she’s carrying on! What exactly do you suppose she meant by saying I was no better than laced mutton?”
Dare’s jaw dropped as he got a good look at the face under the wide brim of the blue bonnet. “You!” he sputtered. “You’re in Italy! You ran off with some mealymouthed son of a count, didn’t you?”
“He’s dead. I’m back.” Charlotte dimpled at him before turning to face the phaeton behind her. “Mrs. Benton, I really must protest your shocking habit of driving up on people’s heels. Not only is it rude in the extreme, but your horses are most ill mannered, and appear to be lunching on my cousin’s butler’s wig. Kindly remove them from our vicinity.”
“Crotch!” Dare bellowed, catching sight of the figure clinging to the tiger’s seat while beating off two horses clearly bent on eating his powered wig. The earl’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he glanced between Charlotte and the butler, wondering why a terrible sense of foreboding swept over him at the sight of the lovely blonde.
“Really, my lord, should you?” Charlotte murmured as she swept open her fan and adopted an expression of innocence that was not so far from the truth as she would like.
“Should I what?” he asked, stepping back as Mrs. Benton’s horses, having consumed the wig, turned their powdery white noses to him.
“Speak about genitals.”
He goggled at her, feeling as if he was a piece of driftwood caught helplessly in a whirlpool. With an effort, he swallowed and asked in a low, calm voice that was in direct contrast to his desire to shriek, “What the devil did you say?”
“Genitals. You brought the subject up, my lord, so you needn’t give me that look of surprise. I am a lady. I would never approach a man and enter into a discussion of genitals. Well, that’s not strictly the truth, perhaps I would under special circumstances, but not without him first introducing the subject, as you have just done.”
“I have mentioned no such thing!” Dare snapped, outraged at such a patently false accusation. Him? Discuss genitalia? With a lady? He glanced over to see if Batsfoam had heard such an outrageous slander, but that worthy was engaged in discussing the finer points of field amputations with the behooked pirate, Crotch, whom Lord Weston kept as a butler and general all-around thug.
“Yes, you did so,” Charlotte said vehemently. She turned around on the seat and bellowed, “Did he not bring up the subject first, Mrs. Benton? Genitalia?”
Dare ignored the unladylike comments spewing with increased venom from the pink phaeton in order to better extricate himself from what was turning out to be a horrible morning. “I did not introduce the subject of your genitals—”
“I should hope not,” Charlotte replied with an outraged flare to her delicate nostrils. She smoothed her gown over her thigh. “My genitals are my own business, sir, and they certainly have no relevance to you, no matter how hard you may try to introduce them into polite conversation. That is, they have no relevance to you at this moment, which, in fact, brings me to the very subject upon which I wished to speak with you.”
Dare felt slightly dazed. He blinked several times, shook his head, and tried t
o focus on a sane subject of conversation. He failed. “What is Crotch—” he began, waving his hand toward the two servants.
“There, you see, you did it again!” Charlotte crowed, snapping her fan closed with a smug smile.
For a moment Dare considered the implications of throttling the woman before him, finally deciding she wasn’t worth going to the gallows. “I meant Crotch. Crotch! Crotch the butler. You can’t possibly mistake him, he’s the one with the wicked-looking hook and a scar running from brow to chin. Weston’s butler. The thug Crotch!”
“I know who he is.” Charlotte’s smile went a little terse around the edges. “But his name is Crouch, Alasdair, not Crotch.”
Dare squinted suspiciously at her. “It is?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
Charlotte thought for a moment. “Reasonably so. I might have misheard Gillian…no, I am certain it is Crouch. It wouldn’t do at all having a servant named after one’s personal regions.”
“Ah. Well, then.”
“Exactly. As that is straightened out, you may now beg my forgiveness for discussing my genitals in public. Lust after them as you might, I am not prepared to have talk of them on everyone’s lips, not even you, although should you care to—well, we’ll come to that in good time. You may now beg my pardon.”
Dare stared at her for a long, disbelieving moment. “You, ma’am, are stark, raving mad.”
Charlotte bristled, but Dare was not falling for such a display of righteous indignation. He shook a manly finger at her. “You always were slightly mad, and now I have proof. I have at no time, NO TIME, mentioned your genitals! You, on the other hand, burst into conversation with me about them at every possible moment! You’re genital-mad! Not only did you bring the subject up in conversation—after narrowly avoiding an accident with Mrs. Benton’s wig-eating horses—I do not recall ever stating that I lusted after your own particular…er…specimen. Indeed, Lady Charlotte.” Dare took a deep breath, feeling a great deal more in control than he had since he first caught sight of Charlotte’s lovely blue eyes. “Indeed, I hazard to say that you’re obsessed with genitals! As such is the case, you will excuse me from further conversation and give me leave to be on my way. I bid you a genital-free good morning.”
With a sharp nod to Charlotte, and the merest tip of the hat to Mrs. Benton, who had given up trying to blister Charlotte’s ears and was presently engaged in backing her phaeton with an eye to ramming her team into the black-and-scarlet racing curricle, he turned and started off for the solicitors’ office at a brisk, no-nonsense pace.
“Wait, Lord Carlisle!” Charlotte called, flicking the reins across the well-groomed rumps of Noble’s matched grays, sending the horses forward. Crouch and Batsfoam ceased discussing the relative merits of tourniquets versus cauterization as they leaped out of the way, Crouch swinging up behind the curricle as it passed him, Batsfoam ending up in the pile of offensive waste he had commented upon earlier. He stood and shook off clumps of sodden, odiferous matter, adding yet another nail in the cross he bore as his lordship’s servant before lumbering after his master.
“Alasdair, wait! I have something to say to you!”
“I don’t recall making you free with my name, Lady Charlotte,” he said pleasantly, ignoring the sudden appearance of the curricle beside him. He continued to walk, aware that people were standing and gawking openly at the sight of Charlotte pursuing him. He’d be damned if he would acknowledge her, though. He hadn’t surrendered to any of the ankle-twisting, pond-diving, bed-warming schemers, and he certainly wasn’t going to give a lesser hunter any sign she had him snared. “Now I know what a fox must suffer,” he muttered to himself.
“Do you really? Being torn to shreds by a pack of slavering hounds and having your tail cut off, do you mean?” Charlotte asked as the curricle kept pace with him.
Dare fought the urge to smile. He had to admit that Lady Charlotte hadn’t lost any of her delightfully unique sense of humor, the one attribute that had almost led him to offer for her five years before. She was so unlike the other young ladies out at the time, a fresh, lovely breeze of wit and charm in a room filled with unexceptional misses who were indistinguishable from one another. He had been captivated by the wicked glint of humor in her eyes, but events parted their paths before he could commit himself. Given the desperate state his life was in, that was all for the good, and all the more reason he should not now be recalling his fondness for her. He schooled his face into a scowl. “No. I was referring to the feeling of being hunted, chased, pursued.” He added emphasis to the last word and chanced a quick glance at her to see if she caught his meaning, but her lovely brow was wrinkled in thought.
“Who is hunting you, Alasdair?”
He raised one dark blond eyebrow at her.
“Lord Carlisle,” she quickly corrected.
“It seems at times, Lady Charlotte—er—what was your husband’s name?”
“Di Abalongia, but you may call me Char. All of my intimates do.”
“It seems, Mrs. di Ablagon…Alab…Alban…Lady Charlotte, that every marriageable woman within the bounds of the city of London has declared hunting season open, with me the game of the day.”
“Oh, them,” Charlotte scoffed, steering the horses around a stopped carriage blocking her path. “The marriage-minded mamas, you mean,” she added when she had returned to Dare’s side.
“And widows,” he added with a particularly meaningful look that was unfortunately wasted upon his fair huntress.
“You are the subject of pursuit by women who wish to trap you into marriage?”
“Yes.”
The office of his solicitor was a few steps away. He stopped and prepared to make yet another bow.
“And you don’t wish to be pursued by them? Most gentlemen are flattered when they are the object of a lady’s attention.”
Lord, she really was beautiful with the morning sun catching the curls nestled alongside her face, burnishing them into spun gold. His fingers itched to touch that warm golden hair, those smooth cheeks kissed by a hint of rose. He curled his traitorous fingers into fists. “I am not most gentlemen. I don’t have time for such foolishness. I am undertaking a project of the gravest import, and between my sister marrying in a week, and my work, I have little time for avoiding the matrimonial traps set for me.”
“Hmm.” She tapped one gloved finger upon lips that looked sweet as strawberries, her frown deepening. “You might almost say that your sad circumstance—being pursued by marriageable ladies—was interfering with your life?”
“That would be an accurate statement, yes. And now if you’ll forgive me, I have an appointment with my solicitors. Batsfoam? Ah, there you are. Good lord, man, you’re covered in dung! Did you roll in the stuff?”
Batsfoam glared briefly at Charlotte before casting a martyred glance at his master.
“No, no, it’s of no matter.” Dare forestalled what was sure to be forthcoming. “It’s not sufficiently offensive for me to require you to throw yourself to certain death before the hooves of Weston’s grays. Do you still have the documents? Excellent. Shall we?”
“One moment, if you please, Lord Carlisle,” Charlotte called as he turned toward the door to the office. “I believe I have a solution to your unpleasant situation.”
It was Dare’s turn to frown in puzzlement. “You have a solution?”
“Yes,” Charlotte said with just the slightest air of preening herself. “I do. It’s a very simple solution.”
“Leaving town, I suppose. That I will do—”
“Not that,” Charlotte interrupted him. “I know how much you would hate to leave London just as the Season is at its peak. No, my solution is much simpler, much more effective, and has many added benefits which I’m sure you’ll appreciate once you put your mind to the matter.”
Dare didn’t bother to
correct her misimpression of his desire to stay in town. He wanted to escape into the safe, dark, dusty warren that was his solicitors’ offices, but try as he might to turn his feet and walk away, he found himself standing next to the curricle with one hand resting on the seat rail, unable to tear himself away from the dancing eyes of the woman next to him. “Very well, I will listen to your solution.”
“It’s quite simple,” Charlotte repeated, her dimples flashing. “You are being pursued because you are unmarried. Therefore, you should marry me. All your problems will be solved.”
Dare didn’t know what he had expected Charlotte to suggest, but proposing to him on the steps of Messrs. Dunbridge and Storm was not it. The caught-in-a-whirlpool feeling returned. “Your offer is, of course, based on completely altruistic motives?”
Charlotte smiled a smile that would have brought a lesser man to his knees. “Yes, of course it is. I am ever altruistic. All my friends say that about me. Why, only Monday last, my dear cousin Gillian—you remember her, she was the woman you helped kidnap—my dear cousin Gillian said to me, ‘Char,’ she said, ‘you are the most completely altruistic woman I know,’ and so I am.”
Dare counted silently to ten. “You don’t know what altruistic means, do you?”
“Of course I know!” Charlotte paused for a moment. “An exact definition has, at the moment, slipped my mind, but I am not so ignorant that I am unacquitted with everyday words.”
“Unacquainted.”
“On the contrary, we’ve known each other for five years.”
Dare shook his head. Why he found Lady Charlotte’s habit of mangling the English tongue amusing, he never understood, but he did and unless he took himself off and tended to business, he would no doubt find himself bemused into deep waters.
“Regarding your plan—”
“It’s an excellent one, isn’t it? And it has the happy coincidence of meeting my needs as well, for although I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that I find myself in immediate need of a husband, the truth is that you will suit me quite admirably.” Charlotte batted long lashes over eyes so blue they would put a bluebell to shame, but Dare hadn’t withstood three weeks of the most intense onslaught of marriage-minded women just to be caught in a snare made up of blue eyes, golden curls, and dimpled cheeks. With an effort he stepped back a few paces and made a courteous bow.