Page 37 of Seduced By a Scoundrel

Derrek knew when he was being pushed off to spend time with someone. He found it admirable of Miss Jones to give up her friend so that he and Jeremy could enjoy the May Day festivities together.

“Shall we?” Derrek asked once Miss Jones left, sending Jeremy a pointed look over her shoulder as she walked away.

“Yes,” Jeremy answered with a smile. “I’ve been eager to see everything, do everything, and taste everything the village has to offer today.”

It took every effort of will that Derrek had not to grasp Jeremy’s hand and walk around the village as if Jeremy were his beau. Jeremywashis beau, but despite the kindness they’d found so far, he had no wish to risk the two of them getting into trouble.

That did not mean they could not enjoy the festivities. Miss Jones was right, there was enough food to feed half of London, and most of the villagers were selling it at generous prices. That was a good thing, as the money Derrek had brought from London was beginning to run out and Jeremy had said nothing about whether Miss Jones was paying him for his time and work in her shop or not.

None of that mattered on a day as beautiful as that, though.

“You cannot find pies as good as these in London,” Jeremy said as the two of them gobbled down crisp, flaky, savory pies while wandering along a row of carts selling everything from ribbons to brass candleholders. “Country air is the best seasoning I could ever imagine.”

“It is indeed,” Derrek said.

He laughed as he watched Jeremy attempting to rescue a bit of pie that broke off from the bite he had in his mouth, then push the crumbs past his lips so that he didn’t waste any of it. Focusing on the sight of Jeremy’s lips filled him with heat and longing.

“This is the life,” Derrek said before he had fully formed the thoughts born of the emotions that pulsed through him. “Can you not see the two of us living like this? Good food, good company, and some sort of good living out here in the beauty of nature?”

Jeremy finished chewing his bite as they neared a cart selling beer put out by one of the pubs. He swallowed, then laughed and said, “I can see the two of us making perpetual fools of ourselves as we attempt to adopt country ways.”

He nodded to Derrek’s calves. Derrek glanced down to see that he’d never removed the bells from his Morris dancing costume. He laughed, glanced around for the nearest bench, then moved to sit there so that he could bend to remove them.

Jeremy joined him on the bench, looking out at the activity of the village as he did. “I never thought I would have enjoyed any of this,” he said, an introspective look tightening his expression. “Country life is so far from anything I know. I’ve always been given to believe that country folk are simple and uninformed, even a bit brutish. And while that may be true for some, while the topics of conversation I’ve engaged in of late are quite different to those in London, I have been pleasantly surprised.”

The words were lovely, but there was something pinched and distant in Jeremy’s expression. He fell into his thoughts, staring out at the world around them, and to his surprise, Derrek did not feel as though he was a part of them or privy to them.

He didn’t like the sudden feeling of distance between them. It wasn’t just the tranquility of the country that had won Derrek’s heart in the last month. The closeness he’d come to feel with Jeremy had grown precious to him. The only thing he’d ever had that was anything like that closeness was what he’d shared with Joseph. Even that, as wonderful as it had been, was unlike the need to be a part of Jeremy’s life.

“Jeremy, do you think you might ever want to stay?—”

Before Derrek could finish his question, a shift of movement from the other end of the street caught his eye. A man had rounded the buildings at the end of the street and stepped into the Three Bells. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have meant anything to him, but most of the activity of the village was out of doors at the moment. The other curiosity was the clothing that the man wore. Derrek only caught the barest glimpse of the man’s back, but he knew enough to know the cloth that the man’s jacket was made from was too fine for an ordinary villager.

“Is something the matter?” Jeremy asked, noticing Derrek’s distraction.

“Perhaps,” Derrek said slowly, standing. “Stay here for a moment. I need to investigate something.”

He handed his bells over to Jeremy, then strode away, his heart beating harder as suspicions niggled at him. Only noblemen wore the sort of clothing he’d seen on the man who walked into the pub, and there were not very many noblemen who belonged in that part of the country. The ones who did belong there were the very last people Derrek wanted to see.

He made it to the Three Bells without being waylaid, but when he stepped inside, the pub was more crowded than he expected it to be. A few of the men waved and called out to him, and as he made his way to the back to see if the gentleman he’d spotted had retreated to one of the back rooms, he was stopped and congratulated for his dancing several times over.

The investigation took longer than he wanted it to, and in the end he found nothing. The unease of seeing someone who was out of place at a country May Day festival stayed with him as he left the pub and headed back to where he’d left Jeremy.

Only when he got there, Jeremy was gone.

“Bloody hell,” Derrek cursed, looking this way and that, immediately imagining the worst. He’d left his dove for only a handful of minutes and Conroy, or more likely his accomplice, Lord Albert, had swept in and stolen him. “Jeremy?” he called out, twisting to see where his beloved could have gone.

All at once, the smiling, celebrating faces of the villagers around him didn’t seem so friendly or benign as they had been. Any one of the people who wandered the streets, eating celebratory treats, laughing with their neighbors, or enjoying the music and shows that echoed all around them could have been the one to tell Lord Albert precisely where Jeremy was. Anyone could have betrayed him.

“Jeremy?” he called out again, searching as he strode through the revelers on his way back to the center of the village. So help him, if anything had happened to his beloved, he would?—

“Derrek!”

Jeremy’s call from off to the side as Derrek stormed past a row of shops was like a blow to his gut that relieved immense pressure instead of leaving a bruise. He turned and found Jeremy in front of Miss Jones’s shop, helping her with a display of aprons and bonnets.

“I was called away from the spot where you left me by Miss Budde,” Jeremy said, his expression completely innocent, as if he had no idea how terrified Derrek had been. “She wanted my opinion about?—”

Derrek did not wait to see what sort of opinions Miss Budde had. He marched right up to Jeremy and without caring what anyone might say or do, he threw his arms around him.

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