Page 12 of How to Tempt An Earl
Kieran managed a tight smile. ‘Lord Hadley, well met. Lady Elizabeth, good day.’ He gave an especially hard pull on the oars and ensured his boat passed theirs quickly.
Celeste twirled her parasol, a smile teasing her mouth. ‘Not friends of yours,Lord Wrexham?’ She invited explanation.
‘Hadley’s a pompous, self-righteous fellow who thinks too much of his own consequence, and I spent a few weeks this Season squiring the lady around for work purposes only. I needed access to her father.’
Her father had been a potential player in Roan’s arms sabotage, along with Caine’s father-in-law, but that didn’t need to be said. He wanted nothing to remind them of their business just yet. Today was for peeling the onion, as his grandfather called it. Onions and people had layers, both of which were delicate and must be revealed subtly, which meant slowly. He was starting with personal details of seemingly little consequence to their business. He told stories so that she’d reciprocate. The exchange would be the beginning of a bond, of comfort between them. From there, he would move on to the more strategically important questions. That they were also enjoyable discussions was a bonus.
‘And the “Lord Wrexham”? I was unaware you had a title.’ She was doing a little onion-peeling of her own but that was how it worked. To peel another’s onion, one had to peel their own as well. Otherwise, it would indeed look more like the interrogation she’d accused him of and less like the conversation he wanted.
‘My brothers and I were awarded titles for our efforts at Wapping.’ He leaned on the oars, letting the boat slow and drift. ‘It’s a Welsh earldom, on the border with Cheshire. It’s nothing grand. From all reports, the estate is in disrepair, although it has untapped resources of coal beneath the ground.’
‘Have you not been to visit?’ she queried and he heard the want in her voice—the want for a home, for a place that one never had to move from, a place where a girl who’d lived in boarding schools could put down roots and know that those roots were not grappling for purchase in rocky soil.
‘The title is blood money for Stepan.’ Kieran picked up the oars again and steered them a little further out, away from the other boaters. ‘As if a price could be put on my brother’s life, on his sacrifice.’ That still galled him. ‘To rub salt in the wound, those titles are only on loan unless we meet certain conditions within the year.’ That galled even more.
Celeste leaned forward, her slim brows knitting. ‘That sounds intriguing. What might those conditions be?’
‘Marriage. The Crown has decided it is time for the notorious Parkhurst boys to wed. The ton’s mamas are tired of we rakes flirting with their daughters. The public at large is in the dark about the details from Wapping. All they know is that the titles are for patriotic service and an inducement to wed. Matchmaking mamas have been throwing their daughters at us all Season, quite a change from the usual.’
‘Your brother wed.’ She trailed an elegant hand in the cool water.
‘Yes, but not one ofthem. His marriage was a bit of a scandal. Mary’s father wanted a duke for her, not an upstart marquess with an inconsequential title and a not-so-inconsequential reputation.’ There was more to it than that and likely she knew what that was without him trotting it out. Mary’s father had been deeply implicated in the arms sabotage at Wapping through his own ignorance of with whom he’d been doing business—Roan himself, although Roan had used an intermediary. ‘You’d like Mary. She’s practical and kind and honest.’
‘Commodities that are not always available in our world,’ Celeste offered with a hint of sharpness. ‘I suppose I should be pleased you think I would like her, that I also value those things.’ She gave her parasol a twirl. ‘Does the ton know you and your brothers are the Horsemen?’
‘No. It’s an interesting duality. It’s not a secret, per se. Grandfather’s world knows who we are, but the ton is more facile. They see only what is right in front of them—four, I meanthree, men in need of wives to bring them to heel. Marriage is everything for the ton, there is nothing else.’ His gaze drifted to the shore, fixing on a lone rider ambling along the path to the pace of their little boat. The paths were not crowded today. The rider could have chosen his pace and yet he seemed to let their boat dictate it. He’d have to keep an eye on that. It might be nothing but, then again, given the circumstances, it might be something.
He let them float a while longer, letting her conversation wash over him as she regaled him with stories of boarding at the Smolny Institute and he indulged in pretending he’d found someone like her to court; that he, too, could make a match as Caine had. All the while he kept one eye on the shore until the rider disappeared. Good riddance. Perhaps it had been nothing after all. There was only one way to find out.
‘Time to go ashore. I was thinking ices at Gunter’s and perusing some shops.’ If the rider was following them, he would reappear. Kieran discreetly loosened the knife in his boot. He would be ready for him.
The rider did not appear again as they continued their day, but Kieran still couldn’t shake the sense of being followed. He turned a few times only to discover no one of note behind him or across a street. He was starting to think he was his own worst enemy. Having fabricated a foe at the Serpentine, he’d let that fabrication take over his senses. He thought about cancelling the visit to Soho and the Russian eatery but then thought better of it. He didn’t want to worry Celeste over nothing he could prove and, if they were being followed, the fellow would turn up there.
The question was what was the intention? Were they being followed by someone with the intention to do them harm or with the intention to report back to someone else? If it was the latter, it would explain why the rider had disappeared. His job was done. But Kieran’s was just beginning.
* * *
Something had been bothering Kieran since Gunter’s. Despite the relaxed atmosphere and cool ices, Kieran had been tense. As a consequence, it was also bothering Celeste. ‘Are we being followed?’ she asked as he swung her down from the curricle, his tiger running to hold the horses’ heads.
His hands lingered at her waist, and his mouth was close to her ear in a most intimate fashion that sent ripples through her imagination. This close, she could breathe in the scent of him—cinnamon and cloves with a hint of something smoky undercut with vanilla. He smelled more like the autumn that would come than the summer that lingered relentlessly, but he also smelled like comfort. ‘Possibly, but we may have lost him,’ he murmured.
‘Or he found what he needed to know and has sheared off,’ she replied in low tones, unmoving. Anyone passing them on the street would think them lovers instead of co-conspirators. She held his gaze, willing him to see the message in her eyes. If there had been a follower, it meant Roan’s men were here and they’d found her.
‘That’s a big if. Don’t do that to yourself,’ Kieran cautioned, tucking her arm through his and strolling down the bustling street. ‘We’re going to enjoy our evening until we have reason not to. This is one of my favourite places in the city because it has become so diverse. Some people complain because the property values have fallen, saying it’s no longer a prime neighbourhood for the ton and their sort. But I think it teems with life. There’s French émigrés, and Russians and Poles, and people from all over Europe looking to make a life.’ He pulled her aside. ‘Shut your eyes and just take a listen. How many languages do you hear as people pass by? How many different foods do you smell? You could eat yourself across the Continent here in a single evening.’
She did as she was told, letting her worries leech away as she breathed in Soho and listened to its rhythms. She heard it—the Russian, the German, the Yiddish, the Slavic languages she couldn’t quite distinguish from one another, and dinner-time smells from the cafés. Oh, they were delightful reminders of other times and other places.
She opened her eyes and smiled. ‘I smellpiroshky.’ She was hungry, she realised. Her nerves had settled. If Kieran thought it was safe to be out, then it probably was. And, she reasoned, if Roan’s men were here she wouldn’t have many more nights of freedom left to her. She ought to seize the opportunity while she could.
The streets were crowded with clerks returning from work and merchants closing shops. Unlike Mayfair, which was empty, the denizens of Soho wouldn’t be departing for country estates and cooler climes. Due to the heat, bistros had moved their tables outside to the pavements so that the streets took on a festive air as people sat down to dine.
The Russian eatery wasn’t far and Kieran was welcomed as a regular customer by the owner—a largish man called Grigori who wore a huge white apron—and his son, also Grigori. ‘There will be music tonight, and dancing. Will you stay?’ Grigori said to Kieran. ‘Show off for the lady a little? You need to bring Nikolay by. He doesn’t come as often as he used to.’
Kieran laughed. ‘We’ll see. Our plans may not be our own tonight. We’ve come for your wife’spiroshky, and don’t tell me there aren’t any left. We could smell them streets away.’
‘And vodka,’ Grigori suggested.
‘No vodka tonight. I need a clear head.’ The banter between the two men faded.
