The Reckless Bride Read online

  Suppressing a grimace—of course she would know his family—Rafe bowed over her hand, with the other gestured to Hassan. “We’ll escort you back once you’re ready.”

  Lady Congreve’s smile widened. “Thank you, dear boy. I’m feeling quite recovered already, but"—she gripped his hand and Rafe helped her to her feet—"before I return to thehotel, I must complete the errand that brought me this way. I have to collect tickets from an office on the embankment.”

  Rafe gave her his arm and they turned down the street. “Which company?”

  “The Excelsior Shipping Company.” Lady Congreve gestured with her cane. “I believe they’re just around the corner.”

  Half an hour later, Rafe and Hassan found themselves taking tea in the premier suite of the Imperial Hotel in the fashionable castle quarter of Buda. Lady Congreve had insisted. Rafe had discovered that his grande-dame-avoiding skills were rusty. There hadn’t seemed any way to refuse the invitation without giving offense, and as he’d learned, to his horror, that Lady Congreve and her party were among the passengers due to depart on the Uray Princep the following morning, trying to avoid closer acquaintance seemed pointless.

  He had to admit the array of cakes that arrived on the tea tray were the best he’d tasted in a decade.

  “So you and Mr. Hassan were with the army in India.” Lady Congreve settled back on the chaise and regarded him. “Did you ever meet Enslow?”

  “Hastings’s aide?” Rafe nodded. “Poor chap’s usually run ragged. Hastings has a finger in so many pies.”

  “So I’ve heard. So you were based in Calcutta?”

  “For the most part. In the months before I resigned and departed, a group of us were operating out of Bombay.” Rafe understood she was checking his bona fides, but he wasn’t sure why.

  “So you’ve been soldiering for all these years, and have been a captain for how long?”

  “Since before Toulouse.”

  “And you fought at Waterloo?”

  He nodded. “I was part of a compound troop—part experienced regulars, part ton volunteers. Heavy cavalry.”

  “Who of the ton fought alongside you?”

  “Mostly Cynsters—the six cousins—plus a smattering of other houses. Two Nevilles, a Percy, and one Farquar.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember hearing about the exploits of that troop. And now you’ve resigned and are heading back to England?”

  Rafe shrugged. “It was time.”

  “Excellent!” Lady Congreve beamed.

  Every instinct Rafe possessed went on high alert.

  “It seems, sir, almost as if fate has sent you to me.” Lady Congreve glanced at Hassan, including him in the comment. “I wonder if I might impose upon you—you and Mr. Hassan—to act as my party’s courier-guide and guard? We left Paris with an experienced guide, but sadly had to part with him in Trieste. Knowing we would be traveling on by riverboat once we reached here, I didn’t see any point in securing a replacement, but today’s events have demonstrated my error. It simply isn’t safe for ladies to walk these foreign streets unprotected.” Lady Congreve held Rafe’s gaze. “And as you are going the same way and, indeed, have already secured passage on the same boat, I do hope you can see your way to joining my party.”

  By sheer force of will, Rafe managed to keep all reaction from his face.

  When he didn’t immediately reply, Lady Congreve continued, “Our meeting does seem fortuitous, especially as you’ve taken the last tickets on the boat, so even if I could find any men as suitable, I wouldn’t be able to secure passage for them.”

  Rafe inwardly cursed the clerk at the shipping office, who, of course, had recognized him and commented. Racking his brains for the right form of words with which to decline, aware of Hassan looking at him, waiting for him to get them out of this trap, Rafe opened his mouth … then shut it.

  He and Hassan needed some reason that would explain their traveling on the river, some purpose that would make people accept their presence and not look too closely.

  “And of course,” Lady Congreve went on, “I’m sure your brother will be pleased to know you’ve been able to extend me this small service. I will, of course, take care of all the expenses involved and reimburse you for the tickets you’ve already purchased.”

  Rafe recognized that she’d rolled out her heavy guns—his brother, no less. His gaze abstracted, distracted by a prospect he was still trying to define, he waved her last words aside. “No need for recompense. If we do as you ask …”

  Refocusing on Lady Congreve, he wondered at the wisdom—and the morality—of involving her, however much at arm’s length, in his mission. The cultists throughout Europe would be watching for him and Hassan. As a pair of men traveling together, they were easy to spot—both over six feet tall, one distinctly fair, the other distinctly dark, both with military bearing.

  But the cultists most likely would not look closely at two men traveling as part of a larger party.

  Rafe glanced briefly at Hassan. “It might be possible for us to act as your guide and guard. We’ll be on the same boat regardless, and as you noted, you won’t be able to add more passengers to the list….”

  Lady Congreve was clever enough to keep her lips shut and watch him vacillate.

  Rafe remembered James MacFarlane’s body.

  Remembered the scroll-holder presently strapped to his side.

  Remembered that the closer they drew to England, the more cultists they would need to slip past.

  And Lady Congreve was the sort of lady who, if she knew the details, would wholeheartedly support his mission.

  He focused on her face. Should he tell her of his mission?

  He opened his mouth, the revelation on his tongue, then remembered the other tickets she’d picked up. “Who else is traveling with you? You have four tickets.”

  “As well as myself, there’s my maid, Gibson, whom you’ve met.”

  The maid had been waiting in the suite, and had taken her mistress’s coat and cane, then gone to order the tea. Rafe judged it likely that Gibson, a woman of mature years, had served Lady Congreve for decades; there was an unspoken degree of empathy and loyalty between maid and mistress that suggested Gibson would fully support any decision her mistress made. No threat to his mission there. “And the other two tickets?”

  “Another lady and her maid.” Lady Congreve tilted her head, regarding him curiously. “They would be included among the people you would guide and guard, if that makes any difference.”

  Rafe knew that ladies of her ladyship’s generation often traveled in pairs, providing company for each other on the journey, someone to share the sights with, to converse with of an evening. He imagined that any lady Lady Congreve chose to travel with would be much like her. Which meant there was really no reason he shouldn’t explain his mission and, if subsequently Lady Congreve stood by her offer of making them her courier-guide and guard, accept.

  He drew breath, met Lady Congreve’s gray eyes. “I’m inclined to accept your offer, ma’am, but first I must tell you what has brought Hassan and me this way.” He glanced at Hassan, who raised his brows a fraction, but didn’t seem disapproving, then looked back at her ladyship. “If once you’ve heard our story you still wish us to take up the positions of your courier-guide and guard, then I believe we can accommodate you.”

  Lady Congreve’s smile was triumphant. “Excellent! Now what’s this secret—”

  She broke off as the knob on the corridor door turned. An instant later, the door opened, and a vision in a vibrant dark blue pelisse, with a fur hat with a jaunty feather perched atop swirls of lustrous dark hair, swept in.

  “Esme—” The vision broke off, stared at Rafe, then glanced at Hassan. But her gaze returned to Rafe as he came to his feet, and she simply stared.

  He stared back. He was only vaguely aware of another female—presumably the other maid—slipping into the room and closing the door; his entire attention, all his senses, had fixed, unswervingly, on the lady
in blue.

  The young lady in blue.

  She was tallish, slender, and intensely feminine; an aura of suppressed—or was it controlled?—vibrancy all but charged the air around her. Her eyes, large and just faintly tip-tilted, were of an arresting shade of periwinkle blue made only more striking by her royal blue pelisse. Her curves were sleek, yet definite. He’d heard women with such figures likened to Greek or Roman deities; he now understood why. She was Athena, Diana, Persephone, Artemis—she seemed to be those constructs given life, just with sable hair and blue, blue eyes.

  He felt like he’d taken a clout to the head. Just as in battles when he was staring down Death, time stood still.

  It took effort to restart his mind, to return to the real world.

  To the here and now.

  “Esme” she’d said, and meant Lady Congreve. She was the other lady, Lady Congreve’s traveling companion. A young lady her ladyship had taken under her wing.

  The goddess had halted at the back of the chaise on which her laydship sat. Lady Congreve raised a hand, gracefully waved. “Allow me to present Miss Loretta Michelmarsh, my great-niece. The Honorable Mr. Rafe Carstairs, and his companion, Mr. Hassan.”

  Rafe inclined his head. Stiffly. The goddess was a relative; that made matters worse.

  Miss Michelmarsh, her gaze still locked on him, her expression oddly blank, bestowed the barest bob that would pass for civility.

  “You’re just in time, Loretta dear, to hear the latest news.” Lady Congreve twisted around to smile at her great-niece. “Mr. Carstairs and Mr. Hassan saved me from two attackers in the street near the shipping office, and at my request they’ve agreed to fill the positions of our courier-guide and guard.”

  Rafe now understood the reason behind Lady Congreve’s triumphant expression, realized that the trap he’d fallen into was of quite a different nature than he’d foreseen. He’d forgotten the principal entertainment grandes dames such as Lady Congreve delighted in. Matchmaking. Preferably with those of their acquaintance.

  Her ladyship knew his family. She knew her great-niece. But he’d be damned if he allowed her to matchmake him—even with a vision that brought to mind a pantheon of goddesses.

  Aside from all else … dragging in a deeper breath, he forced his gaze from its distraction, and looked down at her ladyship, who was clearly waiting to gauge his response. “Lady Congreve, I regret it will not be possible for me and Hassan to act as courier-guide and guard for you during your upcoming journey.”

  Lady Congreve regarded him, a frown forming in her eyes. “I understood, dear boy, that you had already agreed to fill the positions subject to informing me of the reason behind your current journey and my confirmation of the appointments subsequent to that.” She opened her eyes wide. “What on earth happened in the space of just a moment to change your mind?”

  She knew. Rafe held her gaze, felt his jaw firm. “Regardless, my lady, on further consideration it will be impossible for me and Hassan to join your party.”

  Lady Congreve’s eyes narrowed on him, something her niece couldn’t see. “Surely you aren’t reneging on our agreement because of Loretta?”

  Yes, he was. While he’d entertained the possibility of joining forces with Lady Congreve, a lady in the latter years of her life and, he judged, with significant life experience, and had been prepared to court the risk that through him she might be exposed to the Black Cobra’s minions, he would not, could not even in his most reckless mood, countenance putting a young lady like Loretta Michelmarsh in any danger whatever.

  He held Lady Congreve’s gaze. “There’s a certain degree of risk involved in being associated with me and Hassan, and while I would have considered, should you have been agreeable once you were fully informed of that risk, accepting the positions you offered in your train, it would be unconscionable of me to continue with that arrangement while you have a young lady such as Miss Michelmarsh traveling with you.”

  Loretta frowned. What was going on? Her first thought on sighting the tall, blond-haired man, clearly a military man—she could tell by his stance, the way he held his broad shoulders—was a simple, albeit dazed: Who is he?

  Her mind had stalled at that point, her senses scrambling to fill in details, none of them pertinent to answering that question.

  How bright the golden streaks in his sandy blond hair, how unexpectedly soft his eyes of summer blue, how absurdly long his brown lashes seemed, how deliciously evocative the subtle curve of his distinctly masculine lips, how square his jaw, how imposingly tall, how strong and powerful his long body seemed to be … all those observations flashed through her mind, and none helped in the least.

  Adrift, her gaze locked on him, her senses … somewhere else, all thought had suspended, and had remained beyond her reach, until he’d spoken.

  His deep voice, its timbre, the reverberation that seemed to slide down her spine and resonate within her, shook her—enough to shock her out of her mesmerized state.

  Bad enough. But apparently Esme had invited him and his friend to act as their courier-guide and guard.

  Her immediate thought—the first rational one after her wits had returned to her—was that Carstairs and his friend were charlatans out to rob Esme … but then he’d refused the position.

  Because of her. Why?

  She listened as Esme artfully twisted Carstairs’s words, then invoked his honor as an officer and a gentleman, intenton browbeating him into acquiescing to being their courierguide, apparently all the way back to England. She could have told Carstairs that he didn’t stand a chance of wriggling out of Esme’s talons, but … the notion of having him squiring her around in the guise of their courier-guide filled her with an odd mix of anticipation and trepidation.

  If just the sight of him could make her temporarily lose her grip on her wits, what would prolonged exposure—and closer exposure at that—do?

  She couldn’t afford to be distracted, especially not now. She needed to get another vignette off to her agent tomorrow; her editor was waiting on it, holding column space for it.

  Over the past six years, writing as A Young Lady About London, she’d steadily developed a following with her little pieces published in the London Enquirer, three or four paragraphs of philosophical social commentary, a mix of observation and political satire all delivered with a highly sharpened pen. The public had taken to her writings, but her abrupt departure from England had put paid to that endeavor; she couldn’t observe London society from abroad. But then she’d had the notion to continue in similar vein with her Window on Europe vignettes, and her public had happily followed her through her brief sojourns in France, Spain, and Italy.

  She’d known Esme would halt at Trieste, so had warned her agent, and a letter from her editor had been waiting for her there. Apparently the publisher of the Enquirer was an admirer of her work, and the paper was eager to publish whatever she could send them.

  Her agent had also written informing her of the sizeable increase in remuneration the publisher was providing for each witty installment.

  She’d thought her departure with Esme would spell the end of her secret career; instead, it had brought her work more forcefully to the attention of both her publisher and the public.

  Her secret endeavor had taken a highly encouraging turn, but close acquaintance with Rafe Carstairs might well endanger that—in more ways than he imagined.

  Yet she couldn’t help but be curious over what, exactly, he was so set on keeping her away from.

  “Perhaps,” she suggested, taking advantage of a temporary silence, “Mr. Carstairs might explain what this unprecedented danger inherent on being associated with him and Mr. Hassan is?”

  Carstairs, who, she had to admit, was giving Esme a run for her money in the stubborn stakes and was presently giving every indication of being as immovable as a monolith, lifted his sky blue eyes to her. He studied her for a fraught moment, then looked down at Esme. “There is no point continuing this discussion. We cannot—�
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  “Captain.”

  The quiet word came from Hassan, who had retreated to stand by the window; turning, Rafe saw him looking outside.

  Glancing up from whatever he’d seen, Hassan met his eyes. “Before you make your decision you should consider this.”

  Rafe inclined his head to Esme and her great-niece. “A moment, if you would.”

  He crossed to Hassan. Halting alongside, Rafe looked down through the lace curtains to the street below.

  To where two Black Cobra cultists were ambling along, looking this way and that.

  “They are looking, watching, not searching specifically,” Hassan said.

  “Which means they don’t yet know we’re here.”

  “True, but …” Hassan waited until Rafe raised his gaze to his before continuing, “What will happen if they learn we have been here, not just in Buda but here in this room, speaking with these ladies?”

  Rafe’s heart sank.

  “The cult will not have forgotten that it was a young Englishlady, Miss Ensworth, who brought you and the others the Cobra’s letter. Even if we part from the ladies now, that will not save them—the cultists will reason that they have to be stopped and they and their baggage searched, just in case.”

  “Damn!” Rafe all but ground his teeth. After a moment, he murmured, “We shouldn’t go on with them and expose them to danger, but not being their guards might be even more dangerous for them.”

  “So I think.”

  Rafe sighed and turned—and discovered Lady Congreve just behind him. She’d been peering around his shoulder.

  Raising her eyes to his face, she arched her brows. “I think, dear boy, that you had better tell us all.” Swinging around, she led the way back to the chaise. “And as we are, apparently, to be traveling companions all the way to England, you may call me Esme.”

  Elegantly sitting, beckoning her great-niece to sit alongside her, she lifted openly curious eyes to his face.

  Rafe stifled a groan, but, accepting the inevitable, walked to the chair he’d earlier occupied. Once Loretta Michelmarsh sat, he sat, too.