“Ah, that means the driver did recognize me.” Nicholas chuckled. “He’s probably explained to Malory by now that the lady and I are friends.”
“I still can’t believe you did this, Nick. She’ll never forgive you.”
“I know. Now be a good chap and follow me upstairs so you can light a few lamps before I deposit my baggage.” He paused just long enough to grin at his butler, who was staring at the feet hanging over his lordship’s shoulder. “Tell my man to get my evening clothes out, Tyndale. I want to be out of here in ten minutes. And if anyone comes to call, for any reason, say that I left for the Duke of Shepford’s ball an hour ago.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“You’re still going?” Percy asked in amazement as he and the butler followed Nicholas upstairs.
“But of course,” Nicholas replied. “I intend to dance the night away.”
He stopped in front of a bedroom at the back of the house on the third floor, checking it quickly to make sure there was nothing of value in the room that Selena could destroy in anger. Satisfied, he told Tyndale to fetch the key, then nodded to Percy to light the lamp on the mantel.
“Be a good girl, my dear, and don’t make too much fuss.” He patted her backside in a familiar manner. “If you start screaming or do anything else foolish, Tyndale will be forced to put a stop to it. I’m sure you won’t enjoy spending the next few hours trussed up on the bed.”
He motioned for Percy to leave the room before he dropped her on the bed. Then he loosened her wrist bonds and left the room, locking the door with a soft click. He knew she would remove the gag sooner or later, but he wouldn’t be around to hear her.
“Come along, Percy. I have extra evening clothes if you would like to join me at the ball.”
Percy shook his head in confusion as he followed Nicholas back down to the second floor where his rooms were located. “I might as well, but I don’t see why you’re going on to the ball now that she won’t be there.”
“That’s the crowning touch.” Nicholas chuckled. “What’s the point in Lady E.’s missing the ball unless she’s told by her dear friends tomorrow that I danced every dance from the time I arrived until I departed.”
“That’s cruel, Montieth.”
“No crueler than her throwing me over for Malory.”
“But you don’t even care about that,” Percy pointed out, exasperated.
“No, I don’t. Still, it warrantssomekind of reaction, doesn’t it? After all, the lady would have been devastated if I’d done nothing.”
“If she could choose how you would react, Montieth, I don’t think she would choose this.”
“Oh, well. Better this than my challenging Malory. Don’t you think so?”
“Heavens, yes!” Percy was genuinely appalled. “You wouldn’t stand a chance against him.”
“You think not?” Nicholas murmured. “Well, perhaps not. After all, hehashad more practice than I. But we’ll never know, will we?”
Chapter 5
REGGIE wasn’t frightened. She had heard enough to know that her kidnapper was a nobleman. He assumed he’d been recognized by the driver of her carriage, so he meant no real harm. No, she wouldn’t be hurt.
One other thing made Reggie smile with a deliciously wicked grin. The man had made a dreadful mistake. He thought she was someone else—Selena, he had called her. “It’s only me,” he had said, as if she should recognize his voice easily.
Selena? What made this man think she was Selena? He had simply picked her up off the sidewalk, so what made him…“The driver recognized me”!Good God, Lady Eddington! He knew the carriage so he thought she was Lady Eddington.
This was priceless. He would go to the Shepford ball—andvoilà, there would be Lady Eddington with Reggie’s cousins. Oh, how she wished she could see his face. It was just the sort of prank she might have played on someone in her younger years.
And then he would come racing back to his house, full of frantic apologies, begging her forgiveness. He would plead with her not to say anything. She would have to agree, for her reputation was at stake. She would go to the ball and simply say she had stayed longer with Uncle Anthony than she’d planned to. No one would ever know she had been abducted.
Having removed her gag and wrist bands, she stretched out on the bed, perfectly at ease, enjoying the adventure. It wasn’t her first, not by any means. She’d had adventures all her life, beginning at age seven, when she’d fallen through the ice on Haverston Pond, and would have drowned if one of the stableboys hadn’t heard her calling and pulled her out. The following year the same boy distracted a wild boar that had chased her up a tree. He’d been gored, and while he recovered quickly, happy to tell his friends all about the dramatic rescue, she was restricted from the woods for a year.
No, even her uncles’ almost religious devotion to her upbringing hadn’t been able to stand in the way of fate, and Reggie had seen more adventure in nineteen years than most men did in all their lives. Looking around her elegant, temporary prison, she smiled. She knew young women dreamed of adventure, yearned to be swept away by handsome strangers on horseback, but she had known the real thing. Twice, as a matter of fact, this evening’s escapade being the second.
Two years before, when she was seventeen, she’d been attacked on the road to Bath by three masked highwaymen, and whisked away by the boldest of the three. Thank heaven her daring oldest cousin Derek had been in the coach that day and, taking one of the coach horses, had pursued her abductor furiously, rescuing Reggie from…whatever the stranger had had in mind.
And before that, when she was twelve, there had been her high-seas adventure. She was kidnapped for a whole summer, and endured terrifying storms at sea and even an incredible battle.
