He huffed out a mirthless laugh, feeling the heat from the altercation leave his blood. Bloody hell, this was the last thing he needed.
“If you are safe,” he said, beginning to retreat, “I will leave you.” He exchanged a nod with the footman from her carriage, who had leapt away from the crashing vehicle unharmed. Hector wasn’t going to abandon a woman in the street, but she had her staff to accompany her.
“Thank you for your assistance,” she said politely.
He made a gruff sound, one that would have been widely understood in the North, but which he assumed was a complete mystery to these weak Southerners.
“Goodbye, Lady Clio,” he said. “With any luck, we will never see one another again.”
CHAPTER 5
“Who are you and what have you done to my brother?” Clio asked with a laugh as her brother, Aaron Warson, the Duke of Redcliff, embraced her wholeheartedly. “I’m looking for my brother Aaron. He’s surly, taciturn, tries to carry the weight of the whole world on his shoulders …”
“Oh, hush,” Aaron said, playfully shoving her away. “Or else I’m going to send you back to Belgium.”
He was teasing, but Clio’s heart leaped slightly. Gosh, if only it could be as easy as annoying her brother into submission …
How funny to think that she now longed for the home she’d made with her great-aunt. The first time she’d gone to Belgium, she had wept bitter tears for a week over being sent away. Then, she had been practically banished by her brother, as he’d been suffering from the idiotic notion that she would be traumatized by his surly attitude or something of the sort.
Clio, aided by Aaron’s wife, Phoebe, had disabused him of this bit of foolishness.
Her return, though, had been bittersweet. Clio had discovered that, after several years in the less-rigid social spheres of the Continent, London felt rather restricting.
She’d returned to Belgium, much to her great-aunt’s delight. Letitia had found the position she’d taken after serving as Clio’s governess not to her liking—the children were numerous and bratty, and the pay was poor—, so she had graciously returned to serve as Clio’s companion, cementing their friendship.
“Come here, you,” Phoebe, Aaron’s wife, said, brushing her husband aside so she could sweep Clio into her arms. This was absolutely in character for Phoebe, who was everything warm and effervescent to Aaron’s normally stern exterior. These past few years, doting on his wife had admittedly softened Aaron somewhat … not that Clio had been here to see it.
For the first time, she felt a faint pang over her years abroad. It had been the right decision for her, but still. There were things she had missed.
“Right, right, let’s not linger in the door, not after you’ve had such a long journey,” Phoebe said, cheerful over the opportunity to fuss. Phoebe had practically raised her own younger sister, and she loved to practice her mother hen routine whenever Clio was around. “Tell us, how was the trip? What’s the latest from Belgium? Your last letter was weeks ago.”
Clio gave Phoebe a bright smile, hoping that her relief wasn’t evident in the expression.
All right, good. Her family hadn’t yet heard about the incident with Gwanton.
Or, ah, theincidentswith Gwanton.
Maybe that meant that Clio had time to get out of London—or better yet, England in its entirety—before Aaron learned and went absolutely insane over the news.
“Oh, the Continent is wonderful, as always,” she said brightly, seizing upon the opportunity to lay the seeds of her little plan. She chattered merrily about the different acquaintances she’d made while abroad, many of whom she’d mentioned in letters over the years, before dropping her next little hint.
“You know,” she said, as though she was only just thinking of it, as the three of them sat around, eating teacakes and sandwiches. Clio would admit that she had missed the food of her home country, which always provided one of her few good memories of childhood. “Many of the people with whom I have long socialized in Belgium were thinking of taking a long trip to the south of France in a few weeks. I was invited to join them …”
She let this trail off suggestively in a way that she hoped was subtle.
It wasn’t, judging from the way Aaron and Phoebe exchanged one of those looks that married people always seemed to be sharing with one another—happily married people, anyway.
“You just arrived, though,” Aaron said. “And you said you were going to stay for the whole of the Season.”
Clio waved a hand airily. “Oh, I was just thinking about how fun it could be to see a new place,” she said. “I have done the London Season before, but I haven’t seen that part of France. Apparently, the water there is so blue that it’s like looking at a jewel.”
“But what about finding a husband?” Aaron asked, sounding completely baffled.
“They do have men in France,” Clio pointed out.
“Certainly, but they’reFrench.”
Phoebe was looking carefully between her husband and his sister, but when she caught Clio’s eye a moment later, Clio realized, with horrifying certainty, that Phoebedidknow what was going on.
