‘Hat,’ he hissed, sweeping her up and over his shoulder. Jessica made a grab and held it on. ‘Too late, Madame, you don’t want him throwing up on your nice marble floor.’ Then the doors were open and with an exaggerated stagger they were out. Out into the blissful cold of the night, out into the quiet of a side street with only a hackney cab driving past.
‘Cab!’ The carriage reined in. Jessica tried to catch a glimpse of the man’s face in the light from the windows of the brothel, but he bundled her into the musty interior before she could focus.
‘Well.’ The door slammed shut and he settled down opposite her in the darkness. ‘Here we are, then.’
The dark shape opposite her did not become any clearer, however hard she stared. Dots began to swim in front of her eyes and Jessica gave up. Seeing him clearly was not going to make any difference—she was in those large, capable hands whether she liked it or not.
Count your blessings, she always said to pupils who whined or complained, knowing as she did it just how infuriatingly smug it sounded. But it was the sort of thing expected from teachers. Now she tried to apply her own good advice.
Blessing One: I am not naked, I have clothes on—but they belong to some man who is currently disporting himself in a house of ill repute. Blessing Two: I am not in a brothel about to be ravished by goodness knows who—but I am in the power of a complete stranger who probably has my ravishment high on his agenda. Blessing Three… She appeared to have run out of blessings.
Know your enemy. Another useful dictum. Especially when you did not know how much of an enemy he was.
‘My name is Jessica Gifford.’ She ignored the impulse to give a false name. Life was complicated enough without that. ‘Miss,’ she added with scrupulous care.
‘And mine is Gareth Morant.’ The deep voice was curiously calming. She had noticed that in the corridor in the brothel, but then, at that point, anyone who had not drooled or sworn at her would have been comforting. Now that her panic had subsided into cold fear she expected to be rather more discriminating—but he still made her feel safe. Safe-ish, she corrected scrupulously.
‘Mister?’
‘Lord.’ She could hear he was smiling. ‘Earl of Standon.’
‘Thank you for rescuing me, my lord.’ There was no call to be impolite, even if you were quaking in your silk-stockinged feet. His silk stockings. That felt almost more indecent than wearing that other man’s pantaloons.
An earl. An aristocrat. Oh Lord, she really had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. A nice, respectable baronet might be concerned with rectitude and reputation. A plain gentleman might be law abiding and bound by the conventions of church and received morality.
But everyone knew about the aristocracy. They did what they liked and to hell with anyone else’s opinions or values. So long as they paid their gambling debts they disregarded with impunity every standard held dear by lesser mortals. They gambled, they spent with wild extravagance, their sexual morals were a scandal, they duelled and they did not give a fig for the opinion of anyone else outside their own charmed and privileged circle. Look at Papa, she thought with an inward sigh. And look at Mama—which is rather more to the point under the circumstances.
‘So, what am I going to do with you, Miss Gifford?’ Lord Standon enquired. The thread of amusement was still there in the deep voice—he knew exactly what he was going to do with her, she supposed.
‘Take me to a respectable inn?’ she suggested hopefully.
‘You have your luggage safely somewhere, then?’
‘No. They took it all.’
‘But you have some money?’
‘No.’ Obviously she did not have any money, he must know that perfectly well.
‘Some respectable acquaintance in London to whom I could deliver you?’
‘No,’ she repeated through gritted teeth. He was finding this amusing, the beast.
‘Then I think you are coming home with me.’
Where you will expect me to show my suitable gratitude for this rescue, she thought with a sinking heart. The trouble was, it was not sinking quite as much as it ought, given that she was a respectable virgin completely in the power of a rakish aristocrat. There was something about his size that made it very hard not to feel safe with him, and something about the amused kindness in his voice that made her want to talk to him. And something about the sheer masculine splendour of him that makes me want to put my hands on him. All over him…
‘Are you frightened?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Yes.’ It was the honest truth. Frightened of him, frightened for the future, terrified of her own, purely female, responses to him.
‘Sensible of you.’ He did not appear insulted by her response. She supposed she should have tried a little feminine fluttering: I feel so safe with you, my lord…’ In fact you are an admirably sensible female, are you not, Miss Gifford? Strange how one can tell that in a mere twenty minutes’ acquaintance.’
‘Not sensible enough to avoid being tricked by a brothel keeper,’ Jessica said bitterly. She was not flattered to be told she was sensible. She knew she was, it was her chief virtue and stock in trade and, try as she might, she could not sound anything else.
‘Well, you will not be caught a second time. If my solution is not to your liking, what would you like me to do with you?’
Have your wicked way with me? she thought wildly, then caught herself up with a effort. She was exhausted, frightened and completely out of her depth, but that was no excuse for hysteria.
‘Would you lend me some money, my lord? Then I can go to a respectable inn tonight and seek employment from an agency in the morning. I am a governess.’
‘Go to an inn dressed like that? I am afraid all the shops are shut and I do not carry ladies’ clothing on my person.’
‘Oh. No, of course you do not.’ He must think her completely buffle-headed.
‘However, I do have some available.’ He let the sentence hang. ‘At my house.’
‘You mean your wife will lend me something?’ she enquired sweetly. How she knew it Jessica could not say, but this man was quite definitely not married. The clothing in question was doubtless the silks and laces of some past or present mistress.
‘I am not married.’ She had the impression that she had slightly unsettled him. ‘If I were married, I would not be patronising establishments such as the one we have just left.’
‘You have no need to explain yourself to me, my lord.’ And having a wife at home made no difference to whether a lord kept a mistress or frequented the muslin company.
‘No,’ he agreed with the calm that appeared to be natural to him. ‘I was explaining it to myself. A tawdry place—there is little excuse for its existence.’
‘Other than that gentlemen patronise it.’ She thought sadly of Moll, grateful to be employed in a brothel because there she had regular food and nobody blacked her eyes. She hoped someone had found her by now and released her from the clothes press.
The hackney cab drew up with a lurch. ‘My town house,’ Lord Standon said, getting up and opening the door. He held out his hands to help her down and Jessica paused in the doorway, seeing him for the first time in the light of the torchères either side of the wide black front door.
He