Author: Wendy Soliman
Category: Historical
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‘It requires guile and ingenuity,’ she said under her breath, fingering the paring knife in her pocket that she had borrowed from the fruit bowl in her aunt’s hall.
The tavern, as she neared it, was busier than she had anticipated and she almost lost her nerve. It would be easy for a person to slip a dagger through the duke’s ribs and saunter away undetected, she thought, her heart rate quickening at the prospect. The patrons had spilled out of the taproom into the street in front of it. There was much raucous laughter and bad language that Clio found…interesting.
As she slipped round the side of the building, where she would have a good view of proceedings and be in a position to spring to the duke’s rescue should the need arise, she gave a little squeal. A man and woman appeared to be fighting.
Except they were not, Clio realised, as she stopped in the shadows and observed them with fascination. The man had his breeches down and the woman’s skirts were hitched up around her waist. They were copulating and grunting like pigs. Clio found the sight disappointing. It seemed so clinical, especially when it was over in seconds and coin changed hands. The man fastened his breeches and strolled off, whistling. The girl—and she was little more than a girl, probably younger than her, Clio thought with dismay—adjusted her skirts, slipped the coins she had been given into her bodice and disappeared from view with her hips swaying. Neither of them appeared to notice Clio in her hiding place.
What now? she wondered. If the girl came back to what was obviously a favourite spot with another customer then Clio would likely be seen. She slipped round the back of the tavern, narrowly avoiding the contents of a chamber pot when they were thrown from an upper window, and took up a position on the opposite side of the building. She was slightly more exposed here, but still had an excellent view. She could see the duke in conversation with Lord Fryer. Salford was there too with his arm around the waist of the girl who had just dispensed with her previous customer.
‘Well,’ Clio muttered. ‘If I regret my decision to reject him, which I do not, I am now absolutely sure that I did the right thing. The man is dissolute with obvious plans to rut in the street like a rampant pig.’
She was uncertain how long she remained there, watching the duke and thinking about Salford’s loose morals. Gradually she became aware of the fact that she was drawing the occasional glance from passers-by. It didn’t seem as though anything was going to happen to the duke and Clio couldn’t run the risk of being accosted. The moment she opened her mouth, any doubt about her gender would dissipate. Ezra hadn’t allowed himself to be separated from Lord Fryer and Salford was otherwise occupied, having disappeared around the side of the tavern with the girl. Clio was glad of her decision to remove herself from her original location. She felt hot and cold all over when she considered the ramifications, had she been discovered lurking there—and by Salford of all people.
Deep in thought, Clio didn’t hear the footsteps coming from behind in time to react. A large hand was clamped over her mouth and although she fought like the devil, she couldn’t budge it. She could however reach her paring knife and would find an opportunity to use it before her identity was revealed. Of that she was fiercely determined.
‘Stop fighting, damn it!’
The familiar voice immediately drained the fight out of Clio.
‘You!’ She spun round, knife raised, ready to deposit it in her assailant’s eye. The duke easily removed it from her hand and slipped it into his pocket.
‘Clio? What the devil…’ He grabbed her arm and led her further into the shadows. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Trying to keep you safe.’ Merlin had materialised and wagged his tail furiously at the sight of Clio. ‘Someone has to look out for you.’
‘Oh my sweet love!’ His ferocious scowl gave way to a reluctant smile as he lowered his head and briefly covered her lips with his. ‘No one has ever done anything half so selfless or foolhardy for my sake before. I am overwhelmed.’
‘You almost lost an eye,’ she replied, bemused by the kiss and…well, everything else she had seen and heard in the last hour. ‘You should not creep up on people like that. How did you know I was here anyway?’
‘You are not easy to overlook.’
‘Nonsense! I blend in perfectly.’
‘Godfrey saw you arrive and skulk about. When you didn’t take yourself off, he thought I should know.’
‘I didn’t see him approach you.’
‘That is supposed to be the point.’
‘I thought he had remained on the estate,’ she reluctantly conceded, aware that she had royally underestimated Ezra’s sense of self-preservation, and his meticulous planning too for that matter. ‘That is why I thought I should come. I didn’t think you had taken me seriously.’
‘Godfrey is across the street. He sent me a signal.’ Clio looked in that direction and noticed Ezra’s man for the first time. He smiled at her but Clio didn’t return the gesture. She felt foolish and unobservant. ‘I took your warning very seriously. If you have been observing me, you will have noticed that I didn’t allow myself to be separated. As for Salford, he’s…’
‘I know exactly what Captain Salford is doing, and with whom.’ Clio shuddered.
‘Well, there you are then. Come on, I’ll escort you back. Where did you leave Raven?’ He motioned to Godfrey, who disappeared and shortly returned with Pharaoh. Ezra led his stallion down the street and Clio walked beside him, not attracting any particular attention. ‘Nice outfit,’ Ezra remarked, treating her body to an exacting scrutiny.
‘It has its uses. Anyone who looked at me simply assumed I was a lad hanging around the tavern in the hope of picking up an errand and earning a few pennies.’
Ezra turned a laugh into a cough and Clio blushed, aware of one way in which a female could earn a few pennies, having just seen more evidence of it with her own eyes than she had ever wanted to.
‘Godfrey did not mistake you for a lad, and nor would anyone else who observed you at close quarters.’ His gaze again raked down the length of her body, making her feel exposed, but not in an unpleasant way, which seemed contradictory.
‘You are not taking this threat seriously,’ she complained.
‘On the contrary,’ he assured her.
‘And you are enjoying yourself a little too much. Men never really grow up, which is why they get involved with wars so frequently.’
‘There is nothing enjoyable about warfare, my love. Take my word for it. Anyway, no one tried to kill me this afternoon, which I consider to be a bonus.’
‘Who is Lady Walder?’ Clio asked, trying to make the question sound casual. ‘You appear to be well acquainted with her.’
‘Jealous?’ he asked, hitching a brow in a provocative manner that made her want to strike him.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! I am simply curious. I did not know she had been invited. In fact, I have never seen her before.’
‘She was married to an officer in our regiment, a man who died a hero’s death.’
‘Can death ever be heroic?’ she asked. ‘Dead is dead, no matter how it comes about.’
‘Some might say so.’
‘Most likely those who are attempting to encourage the enlisted men to take all the risks.’
Ezra laughed. ‘You have a very jaundiced view. However, to answer your question, I am slightly acquainted with Lady Walder, and I did not know she would he here either. I had no reason to. There, does that answer your question?’
‘Perfectly so.’
They had reached Raven’s position. Ezra placed his hands on Clio’s waist and lifted her into her saddle before swinging into his own.
‘Come on,’ he said, spurring Pharaoh forward. ‘I’ll race you home.’
Chapter Ten
If Ezra lived to be a hundred, he reflected as he dressed for dinner, he didn’t think anyone would ever do anything half so impulsively reckless on his behalf as Clio had that afternoon. It defied explanation. Ordinarily, ev
eryone who crossed his path required something from him, not the other way around. If the child craved adventure there were far less dangerous ways in which she could go about experiencing it. Did she harbour doubts about her father’s wishes for her future and feel guilty for defying them by rejecting Salford? He had already surmised that Benton had largely ignored his only child, so it stood to reason that Clio would have wanted to impress him.
Ezra could have written a book on the subject of neglectful fathers and the lengths their children would go to in an effort to make an impression on them. Perhaps a small part of her actually believed that Benton had wanted his daughter to marry his adjutant. But Clio, young as she was, appeared already to know her own mind and trust her instincts. Those instincts told her that Salford was a wrong ’un, interested only in her fortune, which Ezra had heard was considerable, and she was going that extra mile to vindicate her decision. Protecting Ezra from any murderous intentions was not her primary motive.
‘That possibility has put me firmly in my place,’ he muttered with a wry smile.
‘Have to hand it to the chit,’ Godfrey remarked, apparently in tune with Ezra’s way of thinking. ‘She has pluck, misplaced or not.’
‘She could have met a worse fate than she feared for me.’ Ezra shook his head, which was filled with images of slim thighs and a pert backside encased in tight-fitting buckskin that he knew would haunt his dreams and cause him considerable discomfort for weeks to come. ‘If any of those dissolutes had been capable of seeing straight, they would have taken the evidence of her gender as an invitation that she was there to satisfy their baser needs.’ He clenched his fists. ‘And the devil of it is that we couldn’t have done a thing to avenge her without drawing the fact that she was there to her aunt’s attention, and dressed as a boy. Her reputation would never have recovered.’
‘Children of either sex only hang around those places for one reason. No wonder she was drawing glances,’ Godfrey agreed.
‘I am glad you spotted her before any harm was done.’
‘She’s hard to miss.’
‘You and I both know that,’ Ezra replied, slipping his arms into his coat, ‘but Clio is painfully unaware of the fact and still thinks that she was inconspicuous.’
‘I don’t doubt you’ll point out the error of her ways to her,’ Godfrey replied, chuckling. ‘I should like to be a fly on that particular wall. Unless I miss my guess, the chit don’t put much stock by your elevated status and will give as good as she gets.’
‘I’ll put her across my knee and spank some sense into her if she doesn’t stop behaving so irresponsibly,’ Ezra growled.
Godfrey grinned and refrained from commenting on that possibility. ‘Salford didn’t do anything out of the ordinary today,’ he remarked instead.
Ezra grunted. ‘Keep asking discreet questions about him, here and in the village. If he didn’t bring a servant with him then one of Lady Fletcher’s footmen must be waiting on him. See what he has to say about his habits. Go back to the village after supper and install yourself in the taproom. Keep your ears and eyes open. You know as well as I do that if he’s been in there meeting anyone, someone will have seen him and be willing to speculate if you make it worth his while.’
‘I get all the tough assignments,’ Godfrey replied affably.
‘Don’t get pie-eyed and forget why you’re there.’
‘I will do my humble best.’
Ezra snorted at his man as he walked through the door that Godfrey opened for him. ‘There’s nothing humble about you,’ he remarked.
Ezra was one of the last to go down, and he found the rest of the party assembled on the terrace. Clio was unrecognisable from the hoyden who’d tried to stick a paring knife through his eye less than two hours previously, and looked demure in pale pink silk, with a headdress of fresh flowers flowing through her coiffure. Her ensemble was simple and unfussy but her svelte body made her stand out amongst the more sophisticated styles that dominated the terrace. He nodded in Clio’s direction and she returned the gesture with a miniscule inclination of her head before returning to her conversation with her cousin.
Lady Walder drifted up to his side and he almost choked on the overpowering perfume that exuded from her body. She wore a red silk gown that left little to the imagination and did absolutely nothing to engage Ezra’s interest.
‘Your grace,’ she said, slipping her arm through his. ‘We were beginning to despair.’
‘What on earth about?’ he asked disinterestedly. He couldn’t abide predatory females and there was an air of desperation about this particular one. At close quarters he could see that her face was heavily if artfully painted, but fine lines still showed around her mouth and eyes. She would hate to know that her age was showing almost as visibly as her desperation. He wondered how well situated Walder had left her. The man had been a gambler, often in debt to his fellow officers, and he sensed that Lady Walder would have been high maintenance.
‘Why, you gentlemen of course. You all disappeared and left us ladies to our own devices. We were in danger of squabbling amongst ourselves for want of some better way to occupy our time.’
Ezra hoisted a brow in disdainful response, barely civil. ‘You have something against the company of your own sex?’
‘No, silly, of course not, but still…’
Her words trailed away and she looked rather foolish because Ezra hadn’t responded to her light, flirtatious manner in like fashion. They reached Lady Fletcher’s party and Ezra managed to abandon Lady Walder in the middle of a group of men who seemed perfectly willing to flatter her in the way that Ezra had not.
‘We are to have impromptu dancing later,’ Lady Fletcher told him before he could make good his escape. ‘I hope you will take to the floor, your grace?’
‘I shall certainly dance with you, Lady Fletcher, if you will have me.’
‘Silly boy!’ The lady flapped a hand. ‘You should save your energy for the young things. My dancing days are behind me.’
‘You will be forever young, ma’am,’ he said, strolling away and joining Henry Fryer.
‘Still alive then,’ his friend remarked cheerfully.
‘Glad to see that you’re taking the matter seriously.’ Ezra had given Henry a brief outline of his concerns earlier that day, aware that his friend would keep his eyes and ears open on his behalf. ‘Although the Lady Walders of this world make me wonder if it’s worth the effort.’
Henry chuckled. ‘Making a nuisance of herself, is she? Well, what else can you expect, you being a rich, eligible and supposedly handsome duke? You’ve brought it all on yourself, so don’t expect any sympathy from this quarter.’
‘I have had it thrust upon me, Henry, as well you know.’ Ezra’s calm exterior showed a brief crack before he put his defences back into place.
‘Of course, old chap, my apologies.’ His friend acknowledged the fact with a rueful grin.
‘Did you notice anyone acting suspiciously at the tavern?’ Ezra continued, lowering his voice.
‘I didn’t see anything, but I did hear someone in the taproom remark upon Lady Walder’s lively disposition.’
Ezra sent his friend a concerned look. ‘In what respect? She would have no reason to visit the tavern. She would not have changed horses so close to her destination, so why else…’ Ezra took a moment to consider and scowled as a possibility occurred to him. ‘You don’t suppose she could be involved in this business to wipe my family out?’
‘Can you think of any reason why she would be?’
‘Money, of course. Isn’t that what motivates everyone?’ Ezra paused to consider. ‘She could be the assassin’s go-between, I suppose. No one would suspect a thing, but if she’s been sent here to tempt me into a liaison in order to get me alone and defenceless then she is destined to failure.’
‘You might consider going along with her plan,’ Henry remarked.
Ezra nodded. ‘Play into her hands and have people standing by when the assassin
attacks, or fight him off myself.’ He again fell to contemplating. ‘Risky, but plausible. Lady Walder has sufficient faith in her own charm to assume she’d be able to pull it off.’
‘The prospect of a roll in the hay with an experienced widow would be sufficient to tempt most men.’
‘I am not most men.’
‘I know that, obviously, but Lady Walder has yet to make that discovery.’
Perhaps I will let her think that I’ll dance to her tune. Anything is better than all this waiting and speculation. I will give the matter consideration.’
‘Where did you rush off to earlier?’ Henry asked. ‘I really did think that you’d been got at, until someone said they’d seen you walk away from the tavern with a lad. That’s probably the very last kind of rumour you’d want circulating. What was it all about?’
Ezra swore his friend to secrecy and then told him the truth. Henry roared with laughter. ‘The chit has pluck, you have to admit. Damned risky thing for her to have done, though.’
‘Precisely. She is very young but so intelligent and opinionated that it’s easy to forget she knows nothing of the world.’
Henry sent Ezra a speculative look. ‘You have taken a liking to her.’
It wasn’t a question, and Ezra merely nodded. ‘I find her intriguing, but the impulsive minx will get herself killed in her thirst for adventure if she does not have a care. How can I convince her that I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself?’
‘I would be more interested to know why you shared your concerns with her in the first place.’
Henry’s customary smile dissipated when Ezra explained.
‘I think the attraction has turned your brain to mulch,’ he said in an undertone, conscious as Ezra was of the throng surrounding them who could easily overhear their conversation. ‘You could have invented something, anything to explain the nature of the conversation she overheard that would have satisfied her curiosity—and yet you trusted her with the truth.’ Henry shook his head. ‘You know that women are incapable of keeping secrets, especially one of this magnitude. And the knowledge has driven her to impulsive acts that could have seen her attacked and despoiled in her desperation to impress you.’