Ensnared by Innocence: Steamy Regency Shapeshifter Page 20

  He’d not doubted again.

  Nor had he been privy to the ultimate torment; only witness to the heightened senses, the ferocious need for fornicating and the ever-revolving parade of young peers his friend sought to mentor. Until exactly one week ago. When he’d seen the beginnings of the worst, he’d feared. Watching his stalwart, take-care-of-everyone-and-everything-in-his-path friend start to break apart…

  “You know exactly where he is,” she said with assurance completely at odds with how ridiculous she looked in the borrowed clothing. “I can tell by the way you consider my request. Take me to him, please.” When he remained silent, still contemplating, she added, “Posthaste, if you would.”

  As though determined to override his hesitation, the younger one released her cousin and moved into the shadows, pressing her spine flush against the wall. “I shall stay here till you return. Then you may escort me home. I’ll not utter a peep.”

  “Even a peepless lady in these environs is trouble beyond compare,” he told her, impressed with how very English he sounded. He’d been practicing. The better to blend and ask questions, he’d learned. Even if, against E’s advice, he had held on to his mustache.

  Her spine popped upright. “Then take me with you and—”

  “No. Hush now. Let me think.”

  One female, he could protect, his years of illegal fighting gave him advantages over regular Regency street thugs. But two ladies? That would put him at a disadvantage, especially as he’d no idea how Erasmus would react. No idea if he would even come to the door. Or if he could. Or if, even now, he was frolicking in bed with his own private harem.

  He addressed Lady Francine. “I don’t know what sort of reception—”

  “It matters not.” Her hands, clutched over her heart, should have looked melodramatic. Instead, they came across as sincere. Her entire demeanor impassioned, worried…yet impressive in a crisis. Even a blind man could see she was exactly the type of woman his friend needed. Capable. Bold. Yet alluringly demure as well. What a combination. “What does matter is that he needs me.”

  Damn.

  “And I am not a real lady,” the other one piped up.

  “You’re peeping,” he told her.

  She snickered. “Well, I am not. My father was a country vicar. Even though my stepfather is titled, I remain only a simple, unadorned miss.”

  “Miss pain in my ass,” he muttered, startled when the younger one laughed outright.

  Even as the older one gave a sad smile. “You will take me to him, then?”

  Instead of answering, he pointed to them each. “Stay here. Both of you.”

  He wrenched the inner door open and stepped through, scanning who was left of the crowd. To shield the innocents behind him from the debauchery within, he closed the door all but a few inches, letting his bulk block the opening.

  “Tyndale!” he barked without thinking. Shit. He moderated his tone to one of deference instead of demand. “Lord Tyndale, may kindly I have a word?”

  Playing the subservient always stuck in his craw. But at least the man was fully clothed, which was more than he could say for most of them.

  A few months back, when Tate’s crowd roughed up Bunnie, Tyndale had stepped in. At the moment, that was the best reference he could find. That and clothes.

  “Lord Tyndale?” A feminine voice piped—peeped—from beneath his outstretched arm. “He is here?”

  Damn it! “Did I not tell you to stay put?”

  “You did but—”

  “But nothing!” Seeing Tyndale approach, a look of inquiry on his swarthy features, Adam turned to shove the annoying little “not-a-lady” lady back into the anteroom.

  “Nay! You cannot.” She shoved back, surprising him with her strength.

  “Don’t tell me ‘Nay’ in my own damn club!” Okay, yeah, mostly E’s club, but partly his too. As of two years ago, they were officially partners. Had acted like it for several before that.

  His brute strength easily overpowered hers, gripping her upper arms and simply lifting and rotating—

  He stopped dead. “Oh shit.”

  Tyndale bumped into his back, lanky where Adam was beefy, the other man easily saw over his shoulder. And whistled his appreciation.

  “I told you!” His little miss hissed, jostling them both back into the main area and following this time, pulling the door shut behind her.

  “Heavens! Men. She is changing into a dress. You cannot expect her to greet him fashioned as a man!”

  Great.

  Jim. Fucking. Dandy.

  Adam could feel E’s right hook connecting with his jaw even now.

  For both he and Tyndale had just gotten an eyeful of the Marquis of Blakely’s future countess.

  In a magnificent state of complete and utter disarray.

  With nary a stitch upon her person.

  Earlier That Evening

  Francine plopped herself down in the hack they’d hailed, tugging on the crotch area of the men’s trousers that she wasn’t used to wearing. “My, these saw into you when you sit.”

  “I daresay, ’tis your hips. They are wider than Tom’s”—she mentioned her uncle’s coachman—“and it was not as though I had time to search further than the laundry. His were only set aside because of the rip in one leg.”

  “I’m not complaining, ’tis just…” She tugged again, trying to resituate her backside so the front wasn’t cleaving that delicate area. “Decidedly uncomfortable.”

  “Here.” Temperance clambered up next to her and settled a packed valise upon Francine’s lap. “You will have need of this later. I folded one of your dresses, stays and a clean shift for later. So you can greet him attired properly. We cannot have a marquis seeing you masquerading as a man.”

  “Excellent idea.”

  “What a Grand Adventure!” her cousin enthused, head swinging every which way, to look out beyond the hack they’d waved down several streets from Rowden House. “I have always craved having several, you know.”

  “What? Adventures?” No, Francine hadn’t known, not because she didn’t care, but because Temperance hadn’t confided in her for years. This getting to know another person, when you had to snatch brief conversations, here and there, was taking longer than Francine had hoped.

  And now wasn’t the time for her to indulge her excitable cousin, who’d thoughtfully—forcefully—joined Francine on her quest after a hurried, hushed argument Temperance only won because Francine had not the fortitude to fight both her cousin and her own escalating worry.

  Thank goodness, too. In her haste to act, once she finally made the decision to, she’d stupidly left her spectacles in her room.

  Traversing London on her own would have proved a nightmare.

  As it was, Temperance was just coming home from an evening out with friends and encountered Francine tiptoeing down the stairs, hoping to find Burford, to ask if he knew where she might locate some men’s clothing.

  “Dearest,” Temperance had exclaimed once she finally pressured the story from the nervous and anxiety-riddled Francine, “you cannot enlist his aid. Not with his advanced age. Should Mother learn of it, why, I have no doubt she would delight in dismissing him without a character or a farthing to his name.”

  While Francine doubted her aunt still wielded that amount of power, not now that Uncle Rowden had finally taken an interest in curtailing her nefarious activities, she agreed risking Burford’s livelihood wasn’t ideal.

  “Return to your room. I shall bring what you need posthaste.” As though she planned secret exploits routinely, Temperance took over, soon delivering clothing Francine shrugged into as fast as she could and then meeting her cousin by the servants’ entrance as agreed.

  “Thank heavens Patience is still out with Mother and Lord Hansen,” Temperance whispered on a giggle as they’d let themselves out of the still and silent home behind them. “Else she would have either demanded to accompany us or put a halt to everything and completely ruined our fun
.”

  Fun wasn’t what Francine would call it. Not even close.

  The hack was decent, an open carriage intended for four, with the top pulled down, leaving them both exposed to the night and her with the ability to make out the driver’s back just a short distance in front of them.

  Heart fluttering madly, she took on the role they’d agreed. “We are off to The Den, fine sir,” she told the driver in her imitating a haughty lord voice.

  “The Den now, eh?” Their driver sounded dubious. “Are ye certain ’bout that?”

  “Most assuredly. Be quick about it,” she ordered, hoping that she sounded sufficiently authoritative—something she certainly didn’t feel.

  “Pity that Wylde is from town,” Temperance leaned over to whisper. “For I have no doubt we could enlist his assistance elsewise.”

  Francine wasn’t so sure. Nor sure how many others she wanted privy to her desperate behavior. Scandalous was one thing, but desperation? Not something one liked to advertise.

  Knowing her smooth, feminine hands would easily give her away, she kept them stuffed in pockets or hidden beneath the jacket’s edge, her bare fingers worrying themselves sick. “Gloves? Did you think to bring those?”

  “Drat. Nay, I did not, nor fresh stockings either. Ack. I fear I’m not as accomplished an accomplice as I might have hoped.”

  The drive proved an unnerving blur, Temperance keeping up an animated discourse that Francine was starting to think was intentional, something to set her mind at ease—something that wasn’t working nearly as well as she wished it would.

  When the hack horses slowed, then came to a halt beside a curb, she took what stock she could of their surroundings. No lanterns burned on this street, the store fronts decidedly dark, empty and intimidating. If it weren’t for the lamps on their hack, she’d see nothing at all.

  As it was, they’d paused directly in front of a nondescript narrow door set off by several feet of empty wall on either side, situated between an apothecary and a mercantile, both of those fairly easy to discern, due to the glass windows fronting the dark shops and the large signs marking their existence. (Aided, no doubt, by Temperance whispering in her ear what she saw, bless her thoughtful heart.)

  “This is it, then?” Francine asked, both forgetting to use her low voice and that she should have brazened it out, pretended as though she knew exactly where she was going. Ugh.

  Hoping to cover the blunder, she started to rush from the hack.

  Temperance held her back with a firm grip upon her arm. “Nay. Wait. You are attired as a man, lest you forget. Move… Clunkier than you would as yourself. Mayhap swagger a bit.”

  She heard their driver chuckle. No wonder. She did not see herself as the swaggering sort.

  He turned his head to the side and spoke over his shoulder. “Are you bof certain ’ere is where you ought to be?” He seemed of a fatherly disposition. Perhaps indulging them the entire way? she started to wonder. Had he purposely made it take longer than it needed to, hoping they’d cry craven? “I’m thinkin’ I best wheel you right back where I found you.”

  “Nay, please,” Francine said without any attempt to disguise how she sounded. “My betrothed is in there.”

  I think. I hope. I fear.

  “All the more reason why chasin’ ’im down ain’t the smartest move, ye ’ear me?”

  “We shall be fine,” Temperance spoke to him. “I will pay you extra to wait here until we are safely inside.”

  He shifted round, placed one arm across the back of his seat so he could look at them, an evaluating stare that made Francine start to sweat in her borrowed disguise.

  “You want I should wait beyond that?” He grumbled on a bit about lost fares but seemed kindly enough.

  Francine was tempted to take him up on his offer.

  “Nay,” Temperance said. “That will not be necessary. Just ensure we are both safely inside, then you may drive off.”

  “Are you certain?” Francine hissed under her breath to her cousin, starting to question this whole outing now that they were here. Now that she was likely to find him hale and hearty—and in the arms of another. Oh, why had she taken on this wretched business? Why had he not simply been truthful with her in his notes?

  His notes. She reached deep into the unfamiliar jacket’s pocket and gripped them. This was why.

  He’d not been himself this past week. He needed her. She just knew it.

  “Absolutely, I am certain,” Temperance said with staunch conviction. “You do not want to give him an easy way to reject you, do you? To send you on your way. Not until you have had a chance to secure his presence and the answers you need, correct?”

  “Aye.”

  And then proceeding to prove her worth far and away that above simple companion, Temperance counseled, “Now, do not go in there screaming for him like a girl. Remember, you are a man at the moment. Behave as one.”

  A man. Right. Shouldn’t be overly difficult to recall, not with the groom’s hat Temperance had brought her, cramped tight over her skull and holding all her thick hair up. Or the way she’d bunched up her shift, above the too-tight trousers, stuffing the lower portion inside the loose-fitting shirt that belonged to someone other than the owner of the borrowed trousers. All the extra fabric around her middle concealed the curve of her breasts every bit as much as the heavy jacket they’d pinched off a peg down below. The boots, at least, were hers, her oldest pair usually reserved for stormy days, and fortunately with a low heel.

  “Man. Aye.” She reminded them both out loud, taking a huge breath and praying for courage. “I am ready. Let us alight while the street is still empty.”

  “I shall do it.” Temperance followed close behind Francine as they disembarked. “You be quiet.”

  “Quiet? Whatever for?” Did that not completely contradict their very purpose in being here?

  “I shall ask for Lord Blakely. You remain silent.”

  Francine stumbled to a stop, gripping the bag with both hands. “Nay. You shall stand there silently. I will not see you ruined too. You are not disguised. Anyone could recognize you.”

  “Posh.” Temperance pried Francine’s grip from the handles and took the bag. “I care not about that. You know I entertain myriad interests beyond making a match and making babies. You are the one engaged to a marquis, the one we cannot allow to be recognized.”

  Rather than argue, Francine marched forth and tried the door handle.

  Locked. By the blazes. One more obstacle.

  With a closed fist, she assaulted the door.

  Whether she sounded like a girl or not, she’d give someone on the other side two seconds to answer before she started screaming in truth.

  Adam.

  They’d found him.

  Francine wouldn’t admit out loud, but certainly would to herself, how very much more at ease—if one could count their teeth rattling and body quivering at ease—she’d been since locating this friend of her betrothed’s, the man who insisted she dispense with the Mr.

  Above a tall, very muscular body, dark blond, longish hair was brushed back from a strong, mayhap handsome face. Hard to tell with half of it obscured by the thick mustache she’d noticed he ran his fingertips over when he was debating something—such as whether or not to help her.

  But he’d agreed.

  And she could breathe once again. Now that she no longer had to navigate the dark streets of London on her own, for that’s how it’d felt. Temperance’s company might have been an unexpected boon, but having her along, while giving Francine a much-needed distraction, had also caused her to worry more.

  Was she now putting her cousin at risk, letting her also be out at night?

  Uncaring at being caught changing, she’d quickly drawn her fresh shift and dress over her head—who had time for stays on such an errand?—and finished making herself as presentable as she could given the lack of light and mirror. Given the lack of steady hands.

  “I cannot drive a pair
worth shit,” Adam told her minutes later when she balked at mounting the giant stallion he called a mere pony. An ironic appellation, to be sure.

  She stood there, uncertain, in the mews a block from the club. Shifting her feet, feeling the press and glide of her inner thighs once again against each other and not coarse fabric, her previously abused tissues thanking heaven.

  The horse might be devastatingly large, but the men’s trousers were gone. Her Venus mound sighed in blessed relief every bit as much as it blossomed in anticipation of seeing her man.

  Adam huffed when she made no move toward the horse. “Lady Francine, this is it. Your only choice. I’m not risking either of us by walking.”

  After he’d taken such extreme caution, just gaining the short distance to the stables, she had no doubt of his conviction. He might be able to see perfectly well, but he obviously had no desire to chance this portion of London on foot. Certainly not the worst area she’d been in, nor the most fashionable, but somewhere betwixt the two, she suspected, certain there were other gambling hells and likely brothels nearby.

  After leading his horse away from the sleeping groom, Adam had saddled it himself and now expected her to simply, “Climb on.”

  Bringing the beast right up to her, barely a foot away.

  “With you?” That was not how ladies rode a horse, not that she’d had much practice in years, Uncle Rowden keeping horses for the carriages but not for much else.

  “Of course with me. I’ll ride behind you.”

  This deep into the night, with no spectacles and lanterns sparse and few between, so much of the journey had been a black blur. The horse now?

  Just a giant black beast, bigger than many she was used to seeing, not nearly as refined or tame looking either.

  It seemed as though, the more she hesitated, the more the horse aimed a baleful, disapproving eye her direction, as though he knew it was her fault he’d been roused and forced back into duty when he thought his workday was over. She would be in a position to see that!