Page 4 of Outrageous

“Er, Lady Eva . . .”

“Don’t worry, James. You can hit him again if he comes around. He certainly deserves it.”

It was James who groaned this time. “It don’t matter how much he deserves hittin’, my lady. It just don’t do to be smacking earls over the head and—”

“Do you recall when Gabriel showed you how to shoot the pips out of a card?”

Silence met her question.

“Do you?”

“Well, yes.”

“And how about the time Gabriel told your father you’d accompanied him to look at bloodstock rather than telling him the truth—that you’d gone to see a mill and became so ill on hard cider I had to pay two postilions to lift you into the carriage?” James’s father was the stable master at her father’s country estate and a man feared almost as much as his master, the marquess.

“But it was you that made me go to that mill, my lady. And it was you that kept buyin’ me cider.”

Details, details. “That isn’t the point, James,” she said in her best lady-of-the-manor tone. “The point is, Gabriel has been a good friend to you on many occasions. Now it is time we do something for him. If we don’t get this man”—she gave Visel a hard shove—“away from Gabriel, Visel will end up either killing him or making Gabe kill him. And then my brother shall have to flee to the Continent and take up gambling to survive.”

As they passed below a streetlamp she saw James scratch his head. “Now why would he have to become a Captain Sharp when he has plenty of money? And his new wife is bloody rolling—”

James was so literal. “Yes, yes, yes. All right, so he shan’t have to become a card sharp. But that is beside the point. We are removing Visel from their vicinity so Drusilla and Gabriel can take his little boy into the country and start a life together.” She didn’t have to hide Gabriel’s illegitimate son from James because they’d discovered the boy’s existence together, while spying on Visel—who had, in turn, been spying on Gabriel and Drusilla.

The hack shuddered as it rolled over the worn and rutted cobbles into the courtyard of the Swan with Two Necks. Eva pulled up the collar of her cloak and put on her hat, tucking up loose strands of her bothersome hair. She’d wanted to cut it short for the journey, but James had practically had a fit of the vapors when she’d suggested it. Sometimes he could be such a girl.

“You’ve a bit above your right ear.” James motioned behind his own ear to demonstrate.

Eva caught the offending lock and tucked it in before looking at him, tilting her high-crowned beaver hat over her forehead. “There, do I look like a young gentleman escorting his drunken elder brother back to our parents?”

“You don’t look like no boy I’ve ever seen,” he muttered.

Eva ignored him and peered out the grimy window. “You go make sure everything is all set and tell them you’ve got a cupshot gent in here and want our chaise pulled alongside so we can easily load him.”

James gave her one last, sad look and sighed before opening the door and hopping down, not bothering with the steps. After he shut the door, Eva bent to examine their captive. The light from the inn was shining through the window and slanted across his face.

He was wearing some stupid costume—she supposed it was a pirate outfit—and his turban had tumbled from his head, exposing hair that was normally an angelic pale blond but was now an inky black. He must have dyed it himself because there were smudges of black on his temple. In profile he looked just like many other aristocratic men of her acquaintance: a knife-straight nose, sharp cheekbones, and thin, supercilious lips. But somehow when you combined those features on Visel, they yielded something exceptional.

Eva did not believe it was just his shockingly good looks that distinguished him from the rest of his crowd, nor the fact that he was a womanizing, drinking, gambling fool, because those things, too, were usual aristocratic habits. No, there was something else. She thought it must be some expression in his eyes, or perhaps the way he held himself: aloof, confident, and coiled—just the way she imagined a dangerous jungle creature must behave.

She’d watched him like the proverbial hawk all Season long, and not because she found him attractive. She’d watched him because he never stopped watching her brother. Visel hated Gabriel with a ferocity that frightened her. He’d already managed to entangle him in one duel; a duel which he’d then stopped with a bizarre and very public apology. But his apology had not meant the end of his hostile behavior; quite the reverse. The few times she’d been close enough to see his face, she’d recognized the pent-up rage in his eyes. And that rage had been aimed at Gabe.

That was when Eva had decided to follow the man and see what the devil he was up to. When she’d found out that, it had been a logical step to kidnap him. Well, logical to her. Although she didn’t like to admit it to James, her father would likely lock her in one of the towers at Exham Castle for the rest of her life if he ever learned about what she’d done.

She looked down at the earl’s unconscious form and smiled grimly; she’d just have to make sure nobody ever learned about what she’d done—or what she was about to do.

Chapter 2

Godric hurt. Everywhere.

He opened his eyes and then quickly shut them again after his eyeballs caught fire, the bright, searing light sending agony arrowing directly to his brain.

“Ah, good morning, slugabed.”

The voice clanged in his head like somebody pounding a mallet against a gong.

“I daresay your head is paining you a bit. I’m afraid there’s nothing for it but to rise and shine. And I have this . . .”

A delicious smell wafted beneath his nose, and his stomach gurgled with joy. “Guh. Coffee.”