Lavinia spent most of the night sitting on her bed and staring at her window. She’d never spent a night without Louisa nearby. The room was quite empty without her sister, and Lavinia felt hollow inside as well.
She had thought that perhaps . . .
Well, never mind that. It had been a foolish, reckless hope.
That Tuck would come, tossing pebbles at her window and tempt her out into the night.
But even the garden had remained quiet and lonely.
Save when Hannibal had set up a dreadful racket in the wee hours, howling on the fence as if his serenade was his rightful and honorable song.
But morning had finally come and with it, Lady Aveley, throwing open the curtains and clapping her hands together to add to the urgency. “Today we will start anew. Shopping is the best way to begin.”
Lavinia had opened her mouth to protest—for she knew not even a new gown would cheer her spirits—but there was a brittle set to Lady Aveley’s smile and a sharp light in her eyes that stopped Lavinia’s protests.
Something was wrong—beyond the current straits. But what it was, Lavinia had no idea.
So, at the ungodly hour of eleven in the morning, Lavinia found herself being hustled from shop to shop.
At the modiste’s—the one Lady Aveley favored—the assistant had brought forward a muslin for Lavinia that the girl thought would be perfect for “the young miss.” While Lady Aveley and the assistant looked at the newly arrived collections of prints, Lavinia drew back, as if seeing it all for the first time.
Oh, the muslin was perfectly proper, but something told her such a modest, respectable gown was not what she needed.
Just then, the Frenchwoman who ran the shop came out from the back room. “My lady! Exquisite timing. A silk came in just yesterday—mais oui—I thought instantly of you. Come back, I would have you see it in the best light and share a cup of tea—for I have an idea as to how to make it up just so.”
Lavinia, who had wandered over to one side, lured by a red velvet that took her breath away—both for the rich color and the price—smiled at her chaperone. “I’ll wait here, my lady. I have yet to decide which pattern will suit.”
Nearly the moment Lady Aveley disappeared into the back of the shop, the front door opened.
“Mrs. Rowland,” Lavinia said in surprise.
“My dear girl, there you are. What a time I’ve had finding you.”
“Me? Whatever for?”
She puffed out a little sigh. “Didn’t Charleton tell you this morning?”
Lavinia shook her head. “I didn’t see him. We left the house rather early.”
“Of course you did,” Mrs. Rowland said, coming farther into the shop. She stopped in front of the same velvet that Lavinia had been admiring, her eyes alight with appreciation and the same sigh over the price as Lavinia had made. But the widow was a whirlwind unto herself and turned back to Lavinia. “I’ve come to claim you, my dear.”
Tuck’s mother walked over to the counter and picked up an order sheet and the bit of pencil there, dashing off a note and handing it to the assistant, who fluttered about as if she wasn’t too sure what to do about such high-handed behavior. “Do give this to Lady Aveley when she comes out—but not before.”
The assistant sent a searching glance at Lavinia, as if she had an answer to all this.
But Lavinia was rather baffled until Mrs. Rowland brushed her hands over her skirt and turned to her.
“Come along, my dear, we have much to do today.”
“But Lady Aveley—”
“Her Ladyship won’t mind in the least,” Mrs. Rowland told her, tucking her hand into the crook of Lavinia’s arm and towing her toward the door. “Lord Charleton had no objections last night to my offer of assistance, and I told him I would be picking you up this morning.” She sighed and glanced over her shoulder at the door to the back room. “Apparently, he didn’t have the chance to tell Lady Aveley, but my note will explain everything. She’ll understand.”
“I really should tell—”
“Come, come, time is of the essence,” the woman declared, her back to the shop and her determined gaze set on the street beyond.
And with that, Lavinia found herself being tugged out of the store and toward a waiting carriage. Lord Charleton’s carriage, to be exact.
That seemed to confirm what Mrs. Rowland was saying, that Lord Charleton had given his blessing to all this, but at the same time it hardly seemed proper to leave Lady Aveley behind without giving an explanation.
The door to the carriage swung open and it was then she realized that Mrs. Rowland was not alone.
“Ah, my lovely child! How delightful to see you again, and looking so fair this morning,” the Honorable declared, jumping down from the carriage to help her in; then once Mrs. Rowland was settled in, they were off in a trice.
“Sir, how nice to see you again,” Lavinia said. She was growing rather fond of Tuck’s great-uncle. He had a bon vivant about him that lifted her spirits.
“Indeed! Indeed!” he declared. “And I am most pleased we were able to find you. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it half a dozen times this morning—that you will brighten our day, our very prospects. Didn’t I say that, Jenny, my girl?”
“You did, Uncle,” Mrs. Rowland agreed. “You did.” Tuck’s mother turned to her. “Good thing I arrived when I did—Lady Aveley is a lovely woman, but she lacks an eye for true fashion. What the right gown can do for a woman. I nearly died when I saw that muslin on the counter. She didn’t think to have that for you, did she?”
It hardly seemed polite to agree—for it was disloyal to Lady Aveley, who had only been kind to them, but secretly, Lavinia agreed.
But she didn’t need to. Mrs. Rowland said it all. “Dreadful choice. Just dreadful.”
Lavinia had thought much the same thing but hadn’t had the heart to tell the kind woman that it just wouldn’t suit.
Not anymore.
“If I had your coloring! Oh, I would be a duchess,” Mrs. Rowland declared.
“Should have been,” the Honorable added. “Could have been if you’d listened to me.”
“A duchess?” Lavinia asked.
“Yes, but sadly the heart wants what the heart wants, and I had already fallen in love with my dear Granville.”
The Honorable snorted, arms crossing over his chest. “Devil of a cheat that fellow. Intimating vast connections, claiming a grand inheritance. Bah!”
Mrs. Rowland smiled indulgently at her relation. “You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never been in love.”
He harrumphed at this. “Bah! Love rarely brings prospects. A fool’s fancy is what it is.”
Mrs. Rowland winked at Lavinia. “You mustn’t listen to him. Love might be blind, but it is divine while it lasts.”
“You must have cared most deeply for Tuck’s, er, Mr. Rowland’s father to give up a duke.”
“A duke?” the lady asked absently, that is until her uncle nudged her with the toe of his boot. “Oh, yes, right, a duke. I hardly remember it all now. I would have made a grand duchess, but I am most content being Mrs. Rowland.”
There was another snort from the Honorable.
Ignoring him, Mrs. Rowland continued on, “Now that I’ve rescued you from that gown, I must tell you my plans—”
“About those,” Lavinia began. “I’m not sure—”
“Not sure? My dear, you must always be sure. And confident. And quite convinced of your place. That is how I nearly secured the affections of a duke.”
“Yes, well, Lady Aveley was just saying this morning she would be working most diligently to secure—”
Mrs. Rowland waved at all this. “I am certain she is trying her best, my dear child, but I have such grand plans for you, magnificent plans.”
That stirring inside her, the one Tuck had ignited the other night in the garden, sparked to life. It whispered of a world far beyond the proper one she had so dutifully planned.
“What plans did Lady Aveley have in mind?” Mrs. Rowland was asking.
“She mentioned making calls,” Lavinia offered.
Mrs. Rowland’s expression was one of horror, and when she seemed to recover, she asked, “And on whom did she propose to call?”
“A Mrs. Clementson.”
That did not improve Mrs. Rowland’s expression in the least.
From across the carriage, the Honorable groaned.
“Yes, well, I understand Mrs. Clementson isn’t the most lofty of personages,” Lavinia rushed to add, once again feeling that twinge of loyalty. “But she was willing—”
Oh, it was rather lowering when she had to admit it like that. Out loud.
She was willing to let me enter her house.
Not that Mrs. Rowland or the Honorable appeared to notice. “Good heavens, Tuck wasn’t exaggerating for once, now was he, Uncle?”
The Honorable shrugged. “Seems rather low in the instep, but I suppose one must start somewhere.”
“If one is to ascend to great heights, it is always best to start far higher up the mountain,” Mrs. Rowland declared.
“Indeed it is,” the Honorable agreed, sagely nodding.
“The advantage of Mrs. Clementson,” Lavinia began, feeling the need to defend the choice, “is that she is willing to welcome me.”
“Yes, but not much more, I imagine,” Mrs. Rowland said. “My dear, Society will never invite you in because they already know you.”
“I don’t see how they can know me when they’ve never met me,” Lavinia replied, thinking of the fleeting hour or so she’d had at Almack’s before everything had gone so terribly wrong.
“No, my dear, they know you. At least they think they do. Do you see the difference?” Mrs. Rowland asked.
“Not precisely,” Lavinia admitted.
“We need to show them they knew nothing of the Miss Tempest they coldly—and wrongly—”
“And foolishly,” the Honorable added, hands folded over the top of his walking stick.
“Yes, entirely foolishly,” Mrs. Rowland agreed enthusiastically, “gave the cut direct. While your sister’s marriage to Wakefield is perfectly timed—it creates a curiosity—you must be more than that—a mystery, a puzzle, a divine creature they scorned and now will fall all over themselves to anoint with their blessings.”
While it sounded glorious—in fact Lavinia could nearly see it, glimmering before her—she was now well versed enough in the London ton to ask the obvious. “How can we do all that when I am relegated to calling on the likes of Mrs. Clementson and no one else?”
“Leave that to me and Uncle Hero,” the lady told her. “But first, we must get you a gown.”
“I was just about to order one,” she pointed out.
“That was a dress,” Mrs. Rowland said in lofty tones. Much like the duchess she might have been. “I said a gown.”
“But I have—” Lavinia began.
“Tsk. Tsk. A gown, I said,” Mrs. Rowland said as they left Bond Street.
Tuck arrived at his uncle’s house just as Lady Aveley’s carriage came screeching to a halt behind him. He had gained some leads on Ilford and his mysterious accomplices, terrible whispers of what the marquess had planned, but nothing credible. What he needed was a bit of gold to move along reluctant tongues that refused to wag without an incentive.
But his plans were immediately put on hold as Her Ladyship bolted to the sidewalk, and she turned on Tuck. “You! I blame you!”
“Blame me?” Tuck immediately drew up in a defensive stance, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of what he’d done. Recently, that is. After all, he’d spent a good part of the night prowling about the Dials trying to find a lead on this Bludger fellow and his accomplice.
But before he could ask what transgression the lady was referring to, she’d already marched into the house and was calling out his uncle’s name.
No, make that yelling.
“Charleton! Charleton! Where are you? I demand you come out now!”
Tuck stood in the doorway, utterly dumbfounded. For he’d never seen the cool and serene woman in such a state—and wondered if he was about to come into his inheritance a bit earlier than expected given the murderous light in Lady Aveley’s eyes.
Bludger and company forgotten, Tuck rather feared for his uncle’s safety.
Even Brobson had left his post, shooing the gaping footman before him. The man hadn’t served the ton all these years not to know when it was best to abandon ship.
“Charleton! Come out this instant.” Lady Aveley stomped her foot to the marble floor.
Actually stomped her foot.
His uncle appeared at the top of the stairs. “Amy? Whatever has you in such a fettle?”
Amy? Tuck’s brow quirked. It seemed his uncle and Lady Aveley had moved beyond a polite detente.
At least on his uncle’s side.
Not so Her Ladyship. “Don’t you try to cozen me, you wretched scoundrel!”
Tuck nearly flinched, for usually that was the invective being tossed in his direction. Certainly not his uncle’s.
Nor was the lady done. “That woman snatched Lavinia right out from under my nose. Mrs. Rowland absconded with my charge in the most high-handed and nefarious way!”
“Just a moment,” Tuck sputtered. “My mother?”
Lady Aveley whirled on him. “Yes. Your mother.”
Now this time he did flinch.
“Oh, so Jenny found you,” his uncle said, having come down the stairs, boldly wading into the fray with a wry smile on his lips. “I rather thought she would.”
“I merely went into the back room of Madame Poirier’s shop, and when I came out—” Words failed her, but she held up a crumbled note. “This! This was waiting for me.”
“I hardly see how this is my fault,” Charleton told her. “I told you last night that Mrs. Rowland was going to be by this morning for Lavinia.”
While Lady Aveley tried to find the words to argue with him, Tuck waded in.
“Are you saying Miss Tempest is with my mother?” A ripple of panic ran through him. Not just from the thought of what his mother and uncle could do without any restraints to be had—but more from what he’d learned of Ilford’s plans.
Now it was his uncle’s turn to look a bit sheepish, but he rallied quickly, like an old campaigner. “I don’t see why you, of all people, are surprised, Tuck. You did after all, demand she help you.”
“You did wha-a-at?” Lady Aveley stammered, now whirling to face Tuck.
He shot a furious glance at his uncle, who looked entirely unrepentant now that the tide had turned from him.
“At the time, I thought it might be—”
“You thought!” Lady Aveley scoffed.
“And Lady Wakefield,” Tuck hastened to add. “It was actually her suggestion first.”
It was a cowardly thing to say, but right at the moment, Tuck’s concerns for his uncle’s life had transferred to a genuine fear for his own neck.
“I hardly see what you have to object to, Tuck,” Charleton said, having used his brief reprieve to rally. “Whyever would your mother’s assistance be a problem?”
Tuck set his teeth together, gaze fixed on the ground, rather than give his uncle any hint of an answer.
“Yes, so I thought,” his uncle said, turning to Lady Aveley. “And you? What are your complaints as to my dear brother’s widow offering her assistance?” When Lady Aveley did the same—setting her jaw—Charleton nodded. “Yes, indeed. That is better.” He stood a little straighter and looked them both over. “Are we done now?”
“Yes, sir,” Tuck agreed—having seen that look on any number of occasions and knowing better than to voice another complaint.
Lady Aveley opened her mouth, but then must have had the same experience and thought better of saying anything further. Rather, she simply nodded, a short, curt gesture.
But to Tuck’s way of thinking, it also very clearly said, This isn’t over yet.
“Yes, well, I am off to my club. Try to keep the dramatics to a dull roar—the two of you have quite frightened off Brobson.” And with that, his uncle continued out the front door.
The door closed, leaving a terrible silence in the foyer.
But not for long.
Tuck moved into his uncle’s wake, headed for the door.
“Where do you think you are going?” Lady Aveley demanded.
“To fetch her back.” He paused and looked over his shoulder at the lady. “I don’t suppose you are going to object to that.”
Lady Aveley drew in a deep breath. “Thank you.”
He nodded and opened the door.
“Tuck—”
He paused but didn’t turn around.
“I’m sorry,” she said kindly.
She didn’t need to explain why. He’d been apologizing for his mother all his life.
Tuck arrived at his mother’s house almost afraid of what he would discover.
But to his amazement, he burst into the sitting room to find Livy comfortably curled up on the settee, sewing.
It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to such a cozy scene of domestic bliss. In his mother’s house.
Hell, he didn’t even know his mother owned a sewing basket.
But here was Livy, and save for nipping at the thread with her teeth, looking like a proper miss.
Thank goodness.
And no sign of his mother or the Honorable. Even better.
His relief, however, was short-lived.
For her part, Livy looked up at him in a mixture of bemused humor and surprise. “Mr. Rowland, what a surprise. Your mother said you were previously engaged today and wouldn’t be joining us.”
“I imagine she did.” He continued into the room warily. He didn’t trust his mother—and as for the Honorable?
That went without saying.
“We’ve had such a lovely afternoon,” Livy continued, setting aside the gown. “Thank you ever so much for bringing me to her attention. You can’t imagine what we’ve been doing.”
That was the problem. Tuck could.
“Such as?” he ventured, almost afraid to ask.
“Shopping and sewing, and oh—” She paused and lowered her voice. “I played cards with Uncle Hero.”
Uncle Hero? Now the Honorable was “Uncle Hero”? Then the rest of what she said came echoing back. Tuck’s heart walloped to a thud. “You did wha-a-a-t?”
“Just some shopping,” she replied, looking into the basket and pulling out another spool of thread. “And just this bit of sewing—”
Tuck waved his hand to get to that last part again. “No, no! You played cards—”
“Oh, yes, with dear Uncle Hero.” She shook her head slightly, like one might over a toddler in need of a nap. “I fear your uncle is not a very good player.”
Not a good player? What was this? Tuck paused, his eyes narrowing. Maybe he’d mistaken the matter. Which uncle were they discussing? Or had he suddenly come into a new one?
Given his mother, that wasn’t an impossibility.
“I hope he isn’t put out with me,” Livy whispered. “I did try to return his money—but men can be so overly proud about these things.”
“Return his mon—ey?” Tuck said each word slowly, more for his own benefit.
She heaved a sigh. “He lost a fearful sum. I tried to let him win it back.”
He struggled to get this straight. “The Honorable lost money. In a card game? Against you?”
“I fear so.” She sighed and began to thread her needle. Pausing, she glanced up at him. “As I’ve told you before, I always win.”
“Always?” He looked again at the woman before him, trying to reconcile this sure-footed creature with the innocent miss he’d come to know.
Or had he truly taken her measure? Apparently not.
“Yes, I fear I’m rather good,” she admitted with the same resignation that she exhibited about her lack of agility on the dance floor. “No one in Kempton will play with me. I suppose, if I stay in London for much longer, no one in the ton will either.”
Tuck felt as if he’d fallen down a rabbit hole and was now lost in the warren. “Tell me again about Uncle Hero,” he asked. “You say he lost to you?”
“Well, yes,” she said, looking at him quizzically.
“What were you playing?”
“Écarté. Which he asked to play—at first—but once I’d won several hands, he suggested vingt-et-un—”
Which was the Honorable’s ace in the hole choice. Quite literally.
She shrugged and leaned over her sewing, lowering her voice yet again. “I did let him win a few hands, then . . . Well, I fear the thrill of the game got to me, and I trounced him.”
She bit her low lip and did her best to look repentant, but Tuck had grown up around gamblers and sharps and thieves, and he knew a lie when he heard one.
Livy hadn’t been able to resist winning, the lure of the hand too tempting to ignore.
And then she all but confirmed his theory when she said, “He made an impetuous wager, and I won all his ready coins.”
“And you won?” Tuck still couldn’t quite believe it.
“Yes,” she said, glancing at him with an exasperated flash of her blue eyes that said all too clearly, haven’t you been listening?
“Did my mother see you playing?” he asked, wondering what she’d make of this.
Or rather how she’d use it to her advantage.
“Yes, but only a hand or two—and one of those I let your uncle win. Then she was called upon to help an acquaintance.” She tied a knot in the thread and nipped the thread. Setting aside her tools, she shook out the gown she’d been working on.
The deep blue velvet beckoned like the night sky, touched as it was with brilliants at the hem and on the sleeves. Tuck found himself slightly entranced by the seductive waver of the velvet as it fell in place.
A gown worn when a lady wanted to catch a man’s eye.
Tuck stilled and eyed it suspiciously. “What is that?”
Livy smiled. No, make that grinned. “A new gown,” she admitted. Breathlessly. Dreamily.
Passionately.
She’d sounded like that when she’d danced with him, when she’d been lost in his kiss.
Or maybe that had been him.
He shook his head. He had a far greater problem before him.
“We went to the most amazing modiste shop,” she was saying. “It was quite out of the way, but your mother was more than happy to share its location with me.” She gazed at the dress.
Tuck found himself taken aback by how contented and happy she looked—something he’d never seen before—well, save that moment in the garden.
Dear heavens, he had to stop thinking about that.
Yet, it was impossible not to be drawn by her smile—it lit up her entire face. That, and the long tendril of dark hair that fell from her usually tidy coif. Its wayward path gave her an innocent air, and he thought Lavinia Tempest a nonpareil in that moment, that is until he widened his view to include the entire gown and the lady holding it.
“What the devil?” The words exploded from him.
The navy blue velvet fell against her fair skin like a deep curtain of night. What he hadn’t seen was the plunging neckline and around the short sleeves where a twining string of brilliants that cast their seductive flickers like elusive stars—tempting anyone looking upon them to come closer.
And while she might be merely holding the gown up, the fabric clung to her in all the ways that made it easy to imagine her in it.
Oh, the devil take him.
Clinging to her curves, setting off her mahogany hair with traces of color he’d never seen before—illuminating hints of chestnut and rich, dark shades of midnight—this gown, this lady, paired together made for a seductive dream.
He’d asked his mother to help him make Lavinia Tempest compelling, a woman no man could take his eyes off of.
And she’d done it. In one afternoon. With one gown.
Tuck wanted to groan.
He wanted to possess her.
In that velvet sheath of temptation, there wasn’t a man in London who would care a whit that Lavinia Tempest’s mother had been a terrible scandal.
All they would want was to be her path to ruin.
“You aren’t going to wear that!” he said, stalking over and taking the gown from her.
Even holding it, the soft fabric crushed in his grasp gave him a tempting glimpse of the future.
Livy. His Livy. Naked in his bed. Her skin as soft and as teasing as the gown he now held.
“You aren’t going to wear that,” he repeated.
Livy rallied quickly, retrieving her gown and shaking her head. “Your mother said you would say that. And that I was to ignore you. She says for a terrible knave, you can also be a terrible prude.”
Her glance said all too clearly she now shared her mother’s opinion.
And he clamped his teeth together if only not to shoot off the retort, the promise biting at him.
I’ll show you what sort of knave I am, you reckless minx.
But, instead, he drew a deep breath and remembered his promise to Lady Aveley. To bring Livy home. Safely. “Speaking of my mother, where is she?”
“A friend of hers came by, mentioned that he was having some difficulty—”
Hardly a surprise there.
“—and she was most attentive to his concerns.”
“That sounds like my mother,” he remarked.
Livy paused. “I don’t like to judge—”
Tuck coughed, and she had the decency to blush.
“But as I was saying, this man who came to call . . . well, he hardly seemed proper.”
“Truly?” Tuck did his best to sound utterly shocked.
He also utterly failed.
For Lavinia shot him a quelling glance. The sort that said he wasn’t taking this seriously. “Yes, well, he was quite young. At least to be an associate of hers—”
He didn’t want to explain to her that his mother’s associates got younger every year.
“Nor did he seem . . . Well, he had a bit of an air of—”
“Impropriety about him?” Tuck ventured.
“Yes, that.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “I am so glad you understand.”
“When it comes to my mother, understanding is rarely possible.”
Just then the door to the kitchen opened and in strolled—not his mother—but the Honorable.
“’Allo there, Tuck. Fancy you dropping by. Any good word?”
“Uncle,” Tuck acknowledged, bowing slightly for Livy’s sake. “I’ve been hearing of Miss Tempest’s adventures today. How kind of you to entertain her when I know your time is so very taken up with other matters.” He made a pointed glance toward the door.
The Honorable—always on his best behavior when there was company about—deliberately ignored the hint about leaving.
“Don’t you think Miss Tempest looks utterly divine today?” the Honorable prompted, subtly changing the subject.
Tuck took a vague glance in her direction. “Yes, of course.”
“I think she shows a particular glow about her.”
And by “glow” his uncle meant “prospects.”
As in a large dowry and an income to boot.
Which Tuck knew Miss Tempest had neither. Charleton had been most clear on the subject.
“Glowing, I say. Glowing with prospects,” the Honorable was continuing, as if he were once again on the Continent working another of his shady cons.
“She always glows, Uncle,” Tuck told him.
“Excellent. I feared you hadn’t noticed. Gotten all rag mannered up there in Mayfair. Forgotten what I taught you.”
Tuck had always thought his uncle’s advice ran more toward, always keep an ace in your pocket and never pay for a Vestal without laying eyes on her first.
“We’ve been working on her skills,” the Honorable was saying. He held his hand out to Livy, and she took it, rising slowly and elegantly from the settee.
Skills? Oh, that could hardly bode well.
“What skills in particular?” Tuck managed, well aware that he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“How to walk,” Livy told him.
“The walk is where it all begins, my boy!” the Honorable declared.
Livy glanced at Tuck, a sly sort of tip to her lips as she began a slow turn around the end of the settee, then wandered past him with a confident air. From her first step, her gaze had locked upon his, but he couldn’t say the same. His gaze had wandered down to where her hips were swaying, hypnotically, leaving his mouth suddenly dry and his heart hammering erratically.
“Bloody hell,” he managed, as she brushed past him, her hand trailing across his chest. His uncle had done this? In just an afternoon?
“She’s the quickest study I’ve ever met, Tuck,” his uncle told him. “Divine, my dear. Utterly divine,” he said to Livy. “Ah, what I could teach you in a fortnight.”
Teach her in a fortnight? Tuck swung around. “Uncle! She came here to learn to be a lady.” He hoped his uncle understood what he meant when he emphasized that last word.
And his uncle, mesmerized by his own success, suddenly snapped to attention. “Oh, yes, Right. A lady. I fear I got carried away.”
“Not in the least,” Livy said, holding up a pocket watch but grinning at his uncle, “Oh, I do believe I did it, didn’t I, Uncle Hero?”
“Indeed you did, my dear gel! Indeed,” he said, applauding with gusto. “And look there, Livy, at his expression! The poor lad doesn’t even realize you took it.”
Tuck looked from his uncle to Livy. Why the minx was holding up his pocket watch. “What the devil?!” he exclaimed, patting his waistcoat, then turning to the Honorable. “She’s here to learn the graces of a lady.”
“Oh, yes, right,” Uncle Hero agreed, scratching at his brow as if that knowledge needed to be soothed back into place. “But remember, my good boy, the true graces can be nothing more than an illusion, and our Livy is such a quick study.” The Honorable smiled at her. “Did you not see how intoxicating her carriage can be.”
Both men turned to look at her, for Livy was back to prowling about the room like a . . . a . . .
Well, Tuck was too much a gentleman to admit what she looked like.
But certainly if she’d sashayed like that into Almack’s, no one would have bothered to ask her to dance.
Tuck stepped back, partially in a panic. Another hour—nay half an hour—in the Honorable’s company, and she’d be capable of replacing an entire harem.
And absconding with all the sultan’s gold.
“Miss Tempest, we need to go.”
“Oh, but Tuck—” she began.
“We are leaving,” he said in no uncertain terms.
“Before your mother returns?” she posed, then glancing over her shoulder toward the kitchen door as if she expected the long-delayed Mrs. Rowland to magically appear.
“She’s right, my boy, that wouldn’t do,” the Honorable rushed to add. “Jenny would be terribly put out, for I believe she had more things to discuss with our dear, dear Livy.”
And to his horror, Livy beamed.
Smiled actually. Happily, as if fitting in here, in his mother’s house was the only place she wanted to be.
Proper, practical Lavinia Tempest no more. She’d fallen into this den of thieves like she’d been born to it.
For the sake of every man in England, he had to get her out of here and quickly.
“My mother will understand,” Tuck told her, nodding toward the front door. “Now I must insist. You’ll be missed, and there will be a need for explanations.”
That got her attention. But then she did the unthinkable. She began to gather up the velvet gown.
“Oh, no,” he told her. “I don’t think Lady Aveley will approve of such a choice.”
She bit at her lower lip again, a light of regret in her eyes. “What about the other one?” She tipped her head toward a pile of sapphire silk thrown over the back of the chair. He hadn’t noticed it before—but now that he had . . . Oh, good God, where had his mother taken her shopping?
At a house of ill repute?
Tuck stopped himself right there. This was his mother. Not even she would do that.
Now the Honorable, on the other hand . . .
“Where did you go shopping?” Because this still had his mother’s hand all over it . . .
Livy brightened immediately. “Oh, such a lovely, unusual shop. Uncle Hero, where was it precisely?”
“Uncle Hero,” indeed! Tuck thought his head would explode.
For his part, the Honorable grinned widely. “Madame St. Vincent’s? A perfectly respectable address, my dear boy, if that is what you are worried about.”
In the meantime, Livy was gathering up the silk gown.
“That will have to stay as well,” Tuck told her.
She sighed with some reticence and finally, albeit reluctantly, nodded in agreement. Then, after a protracted farewell to the Honorable, and with Uncle Hero’s grand and elongated praise in return of her qualities and prospects, Tuck was finally able to extract her from his mother’s house.
But halfway to the carriage, the Honorable called after him. “My boy, about that matter—”
Tuck got Livy into the carriage and hurried back to the old rogue’s side. “Did you find out anything?”
“Yes, I fear so. You’ve made some rather dangerous enemies,” the Honorable told him. “Grave caution is warranted. Do you remember my associate down by the wharves?”
“Old Kelley?”
“Yes. Go find him. He prefers to take his afternoon ale at the Dog and Spoon. With a bit of gold, I’m certain he can help you.”
Tuck nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“Caution, my lad. Ilford has gathered some dangerous fellows to his cause. It is no longer a simple wager but a vendetta. He means to win, but mostly he means to ruin you and Wakefield.” He gave Tuck’s shoulder a gentle pat, like a blessing, and sent him on his way.
A vendetta. That word put a cold, icy pick into his heart as he returned to the carriage and set out for his uncle’s house.
Though if he was being honest, he’d known that it had always been more than a wager to Ilford.
“I think I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he told her when they were halfway back to Mayfair.
“Oh, no, not in the least,” she assured him. “I’ve had the most enlightening day.”
“Learning to lighten gentlemen’s pockets?”
She fluttered her hand at him in a dismissive wave. “It is merely a skill to gain my true potential and prospects.”
Tuck groaned. Good heavens, now she was quoting the Honorable.
Worse yet, she continued. “It isn’t like I am going to start working a bulk and file in St. James’s Square.”
“A bulk and file? Do you even know that means?”
Oh, how he wished he hadn’t asked.
“Of course, your uncle explained it. You have two people, and the first pickpocket—”
Tuck groaned. “Lavinia, I thought you wanted to be a proper lady?”
“I do, but Uncle Hero says—”
“Oh, stop right there,” he told her. “Nothing out of the Honorable’s mouth is proper.”
“Then they would hardly call him ‘The Honorable,’ now would they?” She shook her head and dismissed his protests as utter foolishness. “Your uncle only taught me so I would have a unique skill. Like a parlor trick. Uncle Hero says ‘every lady should be able to do something magical.’”
Tuck supposed he should be relieved that in this instance, the Honorable had left the magical part to merely picking pockets. Then again . . .
He thought of that seductive saunter she’d managed.
No, make that mastered.
“How long were you in my uncle’s company?”
“All afternoon,” she replied. “He is so charming.”
“You can say that,” Tuck agreed. Charming ladies out of their fortunes. Charming unwitting country rubes into card games. Charming yet another magistrate into releasing him.
Oh, yes, very charming.
“Weren’t you supposed to be shopping with Lady Aveley?”
Livy flinched and glanced away.
Good. At least she had a modicum of guilt left in her.
The Honorable hadn’t plucked that out of her.
Yet.
But to his surprise, Lavinia then raised a counterattack. “Actually, your mother and uncle rescued me from Lady Aveley’s clutches.”
“I might be inclined to argue that point,” Tuck told her.
“You wouldn’t if you saw the shop your mother took me to—no dreary muslins there. The most spectacular gowns—all of them at such wonderful prices—you cannot believe the opportunities to economize by buying a gown secondhand.”
“Truly,” he said. “And my mother taught you this?”
“No, I don’t think she even gave the price a second thought,” she replied. “She merely likes the expediency of buying an already made gown.”
That made sense. Economizing to his mother usually meant taking only half of someone’s jewelry case or only the lesser pieces.
“Of course, she agreed with me as to the advantages when I pointed out that with what we were saving, the hat and the slippers to match were practically free.”
“A rare bargain,” he noted wryly, having no desire to see the hat or slippers that went with such a gown—for it all rather made his head spin. And other parts . . .
“Mr. Rowland, you sound like the new rector in Kempton—”
Tuck had to imagine this was the first time in his life he’d ever been compared to a man of the cloth.
“—he is always droning on about frippery being a path to sin, but how can such a beautiful gown lead one astray?”
Tuck’s head swiveled and looked at her, for he thought at first she was joking, but no, innocent Miss Tempest was quite sincere.
All she had seen were lovely, elegant gowns, the likes of which she’d probably never seen in her small village.
But in London—well, such gowns were not worn by young ladies. Well, not by proper young ladies, and he was about to explain as much to her when he realized he would sound as boorish as her rector.
Besides, how much harm was there in her having such a gown when it was safe and sound at his mother’s house? It wasn’t like she was going to be wearing it out in public.
He paused and glanced over at her. She wasn’t, was she?
He had a feeling he was going to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, or worse, hard as iron, recalling the image of her holding that velvet gown up for him to admire.
“That velvet would be quite fetching on—don’t you think?”
He tried to breathe, for suddenly he saw her, cloaked in night, a sashaying temptress, her mahogany hair unbound, leaving him with only one thought.
How quickly could he get her out of it?
“Are you fishing for a compliment?” he managed.
“Well, yes I am.” She paused, brow furrowed. “Was I too obvious?” Her lips pursed as she appeared to be sifting through her afternoon of lessons. “Uncle Hero said—”
“Would you please stop calling him that,” Tuck said, blurting the words out.
“Whyever not?” she asked. “It would be rude not to. He quite insisted, since we are practically family—”
“He is not your family,” Tuck told her, more harshly than he probably should have, but hell’s fire, the Honorable was no more her family than he was Tuck’s.
“Yes, yes, I suppose you are correct,” she agreed, “but it would have been most impolite of me to argue with him when he was bestowing his years of accumulated knowledge upon me.”
The Honorable’s words, to a letter.
Oh, how had this gone all so terribly wrong? She needed to be proper. A lady. A Diamond.
Not the Queen of Seven Dials.
And mostly, she needed to be kept safe. Well away from Ilford . . . and now it seemed a pack of unsavory accomplices.
“Miss Tempest, I fear we must change our plans.”