“No.” Silence again.
“Should we go to Goodrum’s and—”
“No.”
“Coward. You’re afraid of the Pirate Queen.”
“And you’re not?” CB popped another piece of the Bath bun into his mouth.
“There is fear and then there is respect. I have a healthy respect for Captain El Goodrum.” Ath snatched one of the pieces of the Bath bun and practically swallowed it whole.
“Myarse. CB snorted and shook his head.
“No, my legs. The last man who crossed the Mistress of Goodrum’s still walks with a limp.”
“Point taken. So, we are not worried about Col and Sythe, their legs, or any other portions of their anatomy?”
“Definitely not,” Ath agreed. “Read this.” He handed CB the foolscap. CB read through the carefully worded instructions once. He glanced up at Ath, blinked, and read the instructions again.
“It is likely to rain tonight,” CB said with a quick check of the window next to which they sat. The sky had already acquired a grey and dreary hue. The wind had sucked the curtains outside to wave like flags for everyone on Piccadilly to see.
“I am hoping for a storm,” Ath said torn between a smug certainty and an unfamiliar sense of doubt.
“You’re mad.” CB handed the paper back to him. “Or she is. Or you both are. Is that ridiculous contraption still—”
“It is.” For some reason, Ath’s breakfast began to swirl around in his belly.
“She has no idea what she—”
“I’m counting on that.” He was, even if he didn’t quite know why.
“She won’t do it,” CB said as Ath folded the letter and went to the mantel to fetch what he needed to close it with a wax seal. “No gently bred woman would dare,”
“Perhaps,” Ath mused. He handed the sealed message to his friend. “But if she does, I will know what sort of woman I will be dealing with for the next few weeks.” Which was something he had a burning need to understand. “Give that to Dickie and tell him it is to be handed into Lady Honoria’s hands only.”
CB deposited the remains of the Bath bun and one of the raspberry tarts into the next to the last of Ath’s linen napkins, folded the corners into the middle, took Ath’s message in his other hand and bowed. “Yes, my lord. Whatever you say, my lord. Is there anything else, my lord?” he nattered on as he opened the bedchamber door.
“Ask Cheddars to have the footmen bring up the tub and my bathwater.” Ath tapped his fingers on the table.
“You’re actually going to bathe? Why? She isn’t going to comply, Atherton. I’ll wager a pony she won’t.” CB left the room and in moments his hurried steps sounded on the stairs.
“I’ll take your bet,” Ath shouted after him. “And stop bribing Dickie for information.”
“Someone has to look out for you,” CB called back up the stairs. “You’re playing with fire, and your drawers are soaked with lamp oil.”
“I don’t wear drawers,” he called back. After a loudHarumph!sounded from the other side of the staircase a door slammed indignantly. Sir Repton, a fellow inhabitant of Albany, did not approve of Ath, or Ath’s friends, or frankly anything that Ath could recall. He added talk of one’s lamp-oil-soaked drawers to the list.
Ath nearly went after CB to take back the note and come up with a counteroffer to Lady Honoria’s selection. He caught sight of the pot where her glove still soaked. She’d show up tonight. She’d made the choice. She’d come.
* * *
Honoria lifteda corner of the curtain drawn over the window of the carriage she’d climbed into mere minutes ago and changed her mind for the tenth time. She raised her hand to rap on the ceiling, the signal to the driver to turn around and take her back to the mews behind Julia’s townhouse. She still found it impossible to believe she’d actually done precisely as Captain Atherton had instructed and stepped into the mysterious unmarked carriage alone with no idea where she was bound.
Julia and Esme had found the entire thing impossible to believe as well. They’d followed Honoria around the guest chamber in Julia’s townhouse and had explained in great deal exactly how utterly mad Honoria was for even entertaining the idea of taking an unknown carriage to an unknown destination to fulfill a wicked fantasy with a man she hardly knew.
Which only proved she was right not to inform them of the rest of the gentleman’s instructions. The part she’d been horrified, insulted, and then beyond intrigued to obey. But she’d done exactly as he’d said and no matter her doubts, she refused to go back. She slumped onto the squabs and pulled her hooded, ankle-length black wool cape more tightly about her. An erotic shiver roiled through her, icy then white hot. In spite of her trepidation, she reveled in the arousal already building in places she’d never imagined before and with a powerful edge that teetered between pleasure and pain.
The carriage took another slow turn and pulled to a halt. In moments the coachman had left his seat, opened the door, and lowered the steps. They stood in a mews courtyard behind an imposing building. Honoria sensed she recognized the location, but not from this angle. Lightning lit the sky. The coachman pointed to an ordinary door set into the brick façade. Thunder rumbled ominously and the first smatterings of rain began to fall.
