His Dark and Dangerous Ways Read online

  “You know exactly what I mean,” she said, refusing to play a game with him. “This is business, but lately I’ve been worrying about what kind of business it is.”

  He leaned forward and laced his hands on the table, suddenly serious. “What kind do you think it is?”

  “I’ve thought of abduction, blackmail, and murder,” she said before she could think better of it, her voice beginning to rise. “And I tell you I want no part of any of that.”

  The tavern keeper approached, bearing plates of steaming stew and fresh bread, with bottles of wine under his arm. Instead of smiling, he was straight-faced and quick about his business. There were a few silent moments as the plates were set on the table, and the wine decanted.

  When he’d left, Simon sighed. “Oh, my lamentable reputation. Our host looked nervous. Do you really think any of those things were my intention? Certainly he didn’t—at least, not until now.”

  His thin brows tilted down at the corners, and his dark eyes followed suit. It gave him a faintly satanical look. Jane wondered if those eyes were dark brown or black, but they were so watchful she didn’t dare look deeply enough to find out. His cheekbones were high and his nose straight; his skin was clear and closely shaven, in spite of the late hour. He was even more appealing up close like this. But still, he had a dangerous look. She wondered if she should have been so forthright. She wondered why she was here at all. She sat still.

  “None of your fears have any basis,” he said. “Why would I ask about young Richard if I had any evil intentions? I don’t know you well enough to be sure you wouldn’t tell someone, do I? What kind of absurd criminal would question the innocent in a household if he had evil plans? Please, Miss Chatham, I don’t know what you think of me, but credit me at least with some intelligence.

  “In brief, then, and in secrecy please: my old friend, Viscount Delancey, is worried about his younger, impressionable brother, Richard. He is especially concerned about your employer’s intentions toward him. He feels Richard is too young to be wed and asked me if I’d take a look at the situation to see what I made of it.”

  “But the young man surely can’t be more than two and twenty, and my lady at least…” she paused, feeling disloyal.

  “The lady is five and thirty on her next birthday, and the young man has but one and twenty years in his cup. Quite a difference.”

  “But if it were reverse, it would make no matter,” Jane said.

  “Exactly. But in this situation, it does. A woman of one and twenty has some sense. It is debatable if a man of fifty does. You females surpass us in that, at least. Or should. Unless there’s a reason. I doubt your lady is madly infatuated with Richard. So, my friend is right. There must be a reason. Now, if I come to your lady’s salon every time Richard is there, I’ll be taken for a suitor too. That, I assure you, I am not. I need someone to tell me which way the wind is blowing. I need to know if she’s really fond or is he simply flirting? Is he really smitten? Are there other suitors? Perhaps one she wants to pay attention?

  “The lady won’t tell me, and the lad certainly won’t. You work there, Miss Chatham, and you can hear, if not always see, what’s going on in that household. Servants live on gossip. All I asked was that if you could watch and listen in for me. Now, are you comforted?”

  She frowned. “You pay a great deal for very little.”

  He laughed aloud. “And you’re a very bad bargainer. No matter, a contract is a contract. I pay for services rendered. My friend considers the information vital. Now, taste your stew before it gets cold, and then tell me what you’ve learned. That is, if you’re convinced I’m not an evildoer. If you are, why then, enjoy your dinner and good-bye, with no hard feelings on my side. Or, I hope, on yours. And,” he added conspiratorially, in a whisper, “I suggest you remove your foot from the bucket for a while.”

  She hastily lifted out her foot. The conversation had been so enthralling she’d forgotten any pain. But her ankle was so nicely numbed now it didn’t hurt. It just ached from the cold. Then she applied herself to her dinner. After the first taste, she looked up at him with widened eyes.

  “Yes,” he said pleasantly. “Delicious, isn’t it? The patrons here may not have social status or very much money. But they do know value, and appreciate good food.”

  “So do I,” she said fervently. She hadn’t dined so well for a very long time. As she blotted up the last of her gravy with the last of her bread, she found herself regretting the fact that she couldn’t return. Because even here, females couldn’t dine alone.

  “So,” he said, sitting back, “before we taste that plum tart we were promised, tell me what you’ve learned.”

  “I learned not to ask little girls to leap before they looked,” she said ruefully, gingerly putting her foot back into the bucket.

  “Good advice for big girls too. I meant, about the young man in question.”

  “Oh. Well, the interesting thing,” she said with more spirit, “is that he’s the young man who rescued me. I mean, he saw the accident and immediately offered me his hand.” She looked down at the tabletop because she was sure her face was growing pink. “That wasn’t so pleasant for me, though, because my skirts had flown up while I was on a huddle on the floor. But I was surrounded by children,” she said, daring to look up at him.

  He hid his smile, but not very successfully. “Ah. I see, still, Venus, while half-clad, is usually depicted by artists surrounded by cherubs. She’s still considered very provocative.”

  “Well, I wasn’t,” she said hotly. She lowered her voice again. “I was fully clad, only in…disarray. Well, I was sprawled on the floor. I couldn’t help it and as soon as I saw what was happening, I corrected matters. He was kind to me, that’s all.”

  “So, you’re the new exhibition at Lady Harwood‘s salon, are you?”

  She looked uncomfortable. “I appear to be. But salons are considered the places with the latest, the newest, and most interesting rages in Town. My lessons appear to be such. It won’t last,” she said sadly. “That’s why I have to work hard now, before I have a dozen competitors. Lady Harwood’s salon is currently one of the most successful. It’s attracting more and more gentry: titled ladies and gentlemen and now artists and poets, and even those high in the government. I’ve heard many famous names mentioned. So it won’t be long before other hostesses copy her, at least so far as dancing lessons for children, and I’ll be out of work, or at least, paid much less.

  “At any rate,” she went on, “that’s not interesting to you. The point is that my lady wasn’t happy about the young gentleman’s interest in helping the dance instructress. As though I would try to make capital on it!” she said indignantly. “He’s a very nice young man, but he’s so young! I’m three and twenty, and he’s younger than I. Apart from the fact,” she added more hastily, “that I know such a thing would never do.

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that while I was down in the kitchens resting my ankle, I heard the servants talking,” she said quickly. “They’d forgotten my being there, I suppose. They said they weren’t half surprised that the lady was annoyed with me.”

  “Was she?”

  Jane sighed, remembering her pittance of pay for the day. She nodded. “Yes. They say that she does have a fondness for young Richard. I can’t understand it at all. Lady Harwood is very beautiful, and she’s witty, and wealthy; it seems to me she could have any gentleman she chooses. And now that her salon is filled every day, she has a great many more to choose from.”

  Simon didn’t say anything for a while. He stared at her, bemused. It both flattered Jane and made her uncomfortable. But then, she thought, reviewing her speech, she hadn’t said anything that would be considered libel, or betrayal, or in any way harmful to her employer. That, she’d never do.

  He nodded, at last. “I can see Richard’s interest in you. You are, in your present condition, very like our dinner tonight. Surprisingly tasty, and growing more so on better acquaintance.”
br />   Jane frowned, not knowing whether to stand and march out, as best she could, or stay and be flattered. But her ankle did throb. And it was the first time she’d ever been able to sit at dinner, in public, with a handsome gentleman. She said nothing.

  “Yes, I can see your being put in an uncomfortable position, in every way,” he said, acknowledging her unease. “But I can’t see the attraction your employer has for the young man.”

  “No one can. You know,” Jane said, on sudden inspiration, “perhaps instead of asking you to spy, his brother ought to come to one of Lady Harwood’s salons when Richard is there and see for himself.”

  Simon tilted his head to the side, studying Jane. Then he gave her a sudden wide, open smile. It was Jane’s turn to be bemused, because if he was attractive when he looked dangerous, he was twice as much so when he was pleased.

  “Of course,” he said, as though to himself. “The lady’s no fool, and neither are you, Miss Chatham. I’ll wager that’s her game! Richard is no catch, but his brother is, only he never swims near her net. He’s a recluse. What else would draw him out but a mystery, or what he perceives as danger to someone he cares for? And whom does he care for more than his brother? Well done, Miss Chatham!”

  “Oh,” Jane said, surprised. “Yes. I just suggested it, but I suppose that well may be so. So then I also suppose my job is done.” She said it with flat reality in her voice, but her face spoke volumes about disappointment.

  “Of course not,” her host said. “I’m not half done with your services.”

  He said it with such conviction in his voice and sly humor in his expression, that Jane was both comforted and terrified, and at that moment, didn’t know which she preferred to be.

  Chapter 5

  “You’re still hobbling,” Simon said as Jane rose from the table. He held his sack over his arm, and waited, watching her. “It still hurts, doesn’t it? Here, lean on my arm.”

  “No, thank you,” she said nervously.

  “Oh, don’t be a fool,” he said with impatience. “No one here knows you. No one here cares. Why should they? Come, the hackney will be back by now. I’m taking you home. But you ought to have that ankle bound,” he added, looking at her thoughtfully. “Please, sit. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  Jane sat again, as Simon disappeared into the crowd. Her ankle did still hurt, but she knew it wasn’t the blinding pain that a break would be. She waited. It wasn’t long before he returned and offered her his hand again. She took a deep breath, and his arm. Trying not to limp, she left the tavern with him. As he’d said, a hackney awaited them.

  “The steps will take you time, and pain. Let’s have done with that,” Simon told Jane, and before she could object, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the hackney. She would have been more worried if he hadn’t simply placed her on the seat like a parcel, sat himself down opposite her, and told the driver to go on.

  “Now, your ankle,” he said, as the coach began moving.

  The lanterns hung at the side of each window in the hackney were lit, and Jane could make out his movements and expressions, although the flickering light given by the bouncing flames distorted them.

  He opened his sack and rummaged in it. “Put your foot on my knee. The landlord had an old sheet. We tore it into strips. So now,” he said, sitting up with a handful of the material and leaning forward, “Put it here, in my hand, and we’ll wrap it tight.”

  She sat stone-still and stared at him.

  He groaned. “Oh, Miss Chatham. And here I hadn’t taken you for a fool. Your ankle is strained. If you bear weight on it, it won’t heal very soon. But yes, I see. Here we are alone in the dark, or worse still, the comforting soft candlelight. And me: a suspicious-looking and mysterious nobleman, and you, a destitute young charmer. I see. You think I’ll grab your limbs, tie you up tight, and have my way with you? Sorry to disappoint. I like my females active, but not in trying to escape. I just want to bring your bloo—blasted ankle over here.”

  “I’m not such a fool as to think that,” she said, although she’d had her doubts. “But I suppose I am one anyway. Surely you know that it’s very singular for me to hand my foot to you.” She heard what she’d said, and her hand flew over her mouth. But she couldn’t hide the giggle that emerged. “Oh, bother!” she said. “It’s not done. That’s the point.”

  “It is, if it’s done with no one the wiser, and if the woman in question is injured. And the gentleman,” he added, in bored tones, “is either a physician, or on his best behavior. Now. Do you want to work again this month? If so, I urge you to comply.”

  She raised her leg, pulling her skirt down over it as far as she could, and delivered her foot into his waiting hand.

  “Right,” he said, as he cupped her heel. He took a long strip of material with the other hand, and began to wind it around her ankle. “Now tell me if I make it too tight. We don’t want to cut off your blood supply.” After he’d wound that one strip, he took another, and covered it over, and then another over that.

  “You’ve done this before,” she said, because she hated silence. And because even though she was injured, the feeling of having her foot in his large, competent hands was more thrilling than she’d imagined.

  “Yes,” he said briefly, concentrating on wrapping her leg to the calf. “Now try to bend your foot, move it up and down. Toes up. Toes down. How’s that?”

  “A bit tight,” she said, “on the up. The down seems fine.”

  “Right,” he said, and bent to undo his bandage, and do it up again. “Yes, I know how to do this. I was in the war. You learn all sort of things…how’s that?”

  She tried moving her foot. “Tight,” she said. “But good.”

  “As so many things are,” he said, with a smile in his voice. “Now, don’t walk on it unless you have to. And if you have to, use a stick.” He released her foot.

  “I’m very grateful to you,” she said softly, drawing her leg back, and shaking her skirt down over it.

  “I’ll make you more so,” he said.

  She sat up straighter.

  “Your payment is due,” he added, now with laughter in his tone. “Here.” He handed her a bundle of banknotes.

  She took it, and then held it out to him again. “It’s too much,” she protested.

  “You haven’t counted it,” he said.

  “I can feel it.”

  “You did your job,” he said, sitting back. “And perhaps even solved the reason why I had to hire you. So you did the work, and maybe put yourself out of work by doing so. You deserve the money, Jane.”

  His saying her name sounded warm, delicious, intimate. Still, she knew a gentleman didn’t use a lady’s given name unless she gave him permission to. But she was glad he’d done it. It reminded her that she wasn’t a lady, but only a servant in his eyes.

  “Then I’ll take it. So this is the end of the adventure?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Keep your eyes and your ears open until I tell you otherwise. I don’t know if my friend will break his seclusion and come to Lady Harwood’s salon, no matter what the lure is. I don’t know if young Richard will come to his senses and sheer off anyway. I’d like to know the lady’s true aims in this. But, thank you. You’re an excellent reporter, Jane.”

  “You have others,” she said.

  “I have. But you make the most sense. And I can talk to you as an equal. Makes matters so much simpler.”

  “I see,” she said, and pulled back a corner of the curtain on the window. “Stop here,” she said.

  He looked surprised. “This isn’t where your rooms are,” he said.

  “Of course, you’d know that,” she said on a sigh. “No, they’re a street away from here. But you can’t take me there,” she said, struggling to rise from the deep cushions. “I have my reputation to think of.”

  He smiled, and tapped on the roof. “Here,” he said, when the driver pulled the hatch back. “Stop here first.”

/>   The hackney slowed. When it stopped, Simon rose, and scooped Jane up in his arms again. He opened the door, and stepped down with her still in his grasp. When he reached the pavement, he smiled down at her quizzical look. She stared at his face, wondering at this pause, and slowly realized it might come to more. She stayed still, watching him. Then he lowered his head and kissed her lips. She gasped. That seemed to please him, because he lengthened the kiss and brushed her tongue with his own. She gasped again, pleasing him even more. When he put her down on solid ground at last, she wavered on her feet. It wasn’t because of any pain in her ankle, and they both knew it.

  His kiss had been so light, and sweet and so full of promise. Jane put her hand to her mouth and stared at him, trying to recover her senses. “You said you were a gentleman, and on your best behavior,” she managed to say.

  “So I am,” he said. “And so I was. I don’t know one man, gentle or not, who wouldn’t have taken that opportunity. You could have stopped me at any time,” he added. “It was only a kiss, Jane,” he said at her suddenly stricken expression. “Don’t refine upon it. It makes you no less a good woman, and me no more of a threat to you. That, I promise. No,” he said thoughtfully, “I can’t promise what I can’t foresee. Say rather, it oughtn’t to interfere with our business dealings. I’ll never do anything to make you sad or endangered. I simply couldn’t resist, and if you hated me for it, I’d be very sorry. I meant nothing by it. I give you good night, my virtuous Miss Chatham, though I wish you didn’t insist on tottering home alone.”

  “It’s better now that you’ve wrapped it,” Jane said absently, and turned to leave him. She stopped, and turned again. “Lord Granger,” she said stiffly. “It occurs to me that I’m at a disadvantage, and not just because of my accident. I can’t afford, either financially or morally, to tarry with you as a lady of fortune and family could do. All I ask is that you remember that. I do believe you are a gentleman, you see.”