Page 12 of Earl Crazy
He stared at the dog, something tugging at his memory. “I’ve seen that dog before.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, no, I’m sure you’re confused. It’s the head injury, no doubt.” She edged toward the study door, the dog clutched in her arms. “I wish you the best of luck in recovering your wits, such as they are. Goodbye!”
“Wait! What’s your name, and how did you happen to be—”
But it was too late.
She’d already disappeared through his study door, her white muslin skirts flying out behind her. Only they didn’t look like skirts, with that narrow band of lace at the hems. They looked like…
God above, was she wearing a night rail?
He staggered to his feet, wincing at the burst of pain in his head, and stumbled after her, but just as he reached the corridor, she fled through the front door.
He staggered after her, through the entryway and onto the steps, but her dark, slender shadow had already skirted the edge of the iron fence surrounding the cottage garden. She darted past the shrubberies to the pathway beyond, and turned…
Straight into Lady Fosberry’s rose garden.
The faint squeal of the garden gate echoed in the still, dark night, and then silence descended again. A few moments later, a candle flickered in one of the bedchambers on the third floor of Fosberry House.
He stared up at the dancing light, his stomach lurching.
The girl was no doxy. She was a guest of Lady Fosberry’s, likely the daughter or niece of some viscount or earl or other, here for the season.
She was alady, with a reputation to lose, and she’d been in his house, withhim.
At night. Alone.
In her night rail.
And he’dkissedher. Not an innocent brush of his lips against her knuckles, or a chaste kiss on her forehead, but a deep, wet, drugging kiss. He’d tasted her lips, her tongue.
He’d been in London for a single night, and he’d already compromised an innocent.
A shiver gripped him, the icy air wrapping around his bare throat like a fist.
The Prestwick curse had found him.
ChapterFour
None of the devout souls crowded into the pews of St. George’s this morning could accuse Tilly of anything less than the strictest piety.
She’d worn her most demure gown—a white cambric monstrosity with a stiff, frilled collar at the throat, and a dull green robe with fussy cambric trimmings. She’d even included a white mob cap under her straw bonnet, lest any wayward locks of her hair chose to stage one of their frequent mutinies.
The mob cap had been a mistake. The wretched thing itched as if dozens of spiders were crawling over her scalp, but one would never know it to look at her. She’d borne the torment without squirming. Indeed, she hadn’t stirred a single inch since she’d taken her seat, not even when her neck began to ache from being bent so long over her prayer book, and her backside had gone numb from the hard wooden pew assaulting it.
It was all most unpleasant, but it was essential she present such a flawless picture of female virtuousness, no one would ever suspect the truth.
She hadn’t come to church this morning to hear the sermon.
No, she’d come tospy.
This was London, after all.Mayfair, no less, and St. George’s was the most fashionable church in the city. It was always stuffed to the rafters with the most fashionableton, but particularly so today, as it was the last Sunday before the start of the season.
She might reasonably expect to catch sight of a notorious rake or two, or at the very least, a merry widow or demi-rep. She did want a quick peek at one, just to satisfy her curiosity.
But she hadn’t come to London to gawk at the rakes. No, she was searching for someone else entirely. If the handsome, the charming, the inimitable Earl of Wyle really was in town to search for a countess, as rumor claimed, she wanted to get a look at him before the season commenced.
Not for herself, of course, but for Harriett.
