if she could still climb like a cat, Louisa Alstone swung her feet out of the window and eased into the spring night; considering the thought of marrying Charlton Hawberry was unendurable, she supposed she’d find out soon enough. His purloined breeches shifted about her lithely feminine legs as she flexed muscles she hadn’t used properly in six years and did her best not to look down. She’d certainly changed since the last time she had chased through the London streets, or scampered across rooftops above them, but she fervently hoped she hadn’t forgotten all her street-urchin skills.
She should be far too much of a lady to consider such a desperate escape now, but silently prayed her agility hadn’t deserted her as she tried not to shake like a leaf in a high wind. Her brother, Christopher, or Kit Stone as he went by in business, was off with his best friend and business partner Ben Shaw, too busy having adventures on the high seas, so there was really no point waiting around for them to rescue her. Since she’d rather die than wed a man who would happily force her up the aisle after she had refused to marry him, she let go of the window mouldings and edged out along the parapet.
This would work; she refused to think of the swift death awaiting her if she fumbled. She boosted herself across the next window and blessed the builder of these narrow town houses for insisting every shutter fitted so neatly no hint of her passing outside would shadow the closely barred wood. She still breathed a little more easily when no one stirred within and felt for her next shallow grip on Charlton Hawberry’s house.
If she managed this, then where was there to go next? No point asking Uncle William and Aunt Prudence for help when they were calluding with Charlton. Uncle William would sell his soul to the devil for a good enough price and Kit’s growing wealth hadn’t endeared him or his sisters to their uncle, especially since her brother made sure their uncle got as little of it as possible, which left only her sister and brother-in-law to turn to. Maria and Brandon Heathcote would be deeply shocked at Charlton’s appalling behaviour and give her sanctuary, but how could she bring scandal down on their comfortable Kentish rectory when neither of them deserved such notoriety? Then there was Maria’s ridiculous soft-heartedness to contend with and Louisa grimaced at the thought of her sister feeling sorry for lying, cheating, facilely good-looking Charlton Hawberry.
You must learn to be less extreme in your opinions, my dearest, Maria had written in reply to Louisa’s last letter, in which she announced she’d rather die than marry the wretched man after his third proposal in as many weeks. And why not consider Mr Hawberry’s proposals a little more seriously? she had continued. For all you persist in believing you will never marry, he sounds well enough looking and genuinely devoted to you. Being wed is so much better than dwindling into spinsterhood, my love, and I really think you should try to find yourself an agreeable husband, rather than regretting becoming an old maid when it is too late to remedy.
Louisa no more believed in that love of Charlton’s than she did in her own ridiculous persona of lovely, impossibly fussy Miss Alstone, Ice Diamond of the ton, rumoured to have rejected more suitors than most débutantes imagined in their wildest dreams. Louisa knew her resistance to marriage would make her a curiosity to the bored gentlemen of the ton, so she’d made herself treat them coldly from the outset. Now her carefully cultivated aloofness was in ruins and, if she escaped Charlton, she’d be besieged by suitors and would-be seducers. In truth, neither Maria nor amiable, optimistic Brandon had it in them to stand up to Charlton for long and Uncle William and Aunt Prudence wouldn’t even try, so her reputation was already gone—a lost cause she couldn’t bring herself to mourn deeply. Perhaps it would persuade Kit to let her keep his house and help in his business, she decided, an old hope lightening her heart as she edged along the ledge, teeth gritted against the compulsion to look down into three-storeys’ worth of shadowy space.
‘I’d sooner starve,’ she’d told Uncle William truthfully when Charlton brought him into the unappealingly luxurious bedchamber she was imprisoned in to show how compromised she was only an hour ago.
‘As you please. I won’t have a notorious woman under my roof, so you can go back to the streets we took you from as far as your aunt and I are concerned,’ Uncle William had replied with a Judas shrug and added, ‘If you don’t want to wed Hawberry, you shouldn’t have run off with him in the first place.’
‘He abducted me from that wretched masked ball Aunt Prudence insisted on attending and you know very well I hate the man. Won’t you send me to Chelsea to await my brother’s return, even if you won’t help me in any other way?’
‘I’m done with you, madam. I wish I’d never taken you into my home when your return for my foolishness was to ruin your cousin’s chance of making a good match by stealing all her suitors.’
‘I couldn’t do that if I tried. I’ve no idea where Sophia gets her looks or her sweet nature since it’s clearly not from you. A normal brother would have helped us when Mama died out of compassion for your orphan nieces and love for your only sister, but you had to be paid a king’s ransom to house us once Kit was at sea mending all our fortunes,’ she told him bitterly as she saw the weasel look in his eyes and realised he’d known about this horrid scheme all along. ‘Don’t worry, Uncle William, I wouldn’t spend five minutes under your roof now if the only alternative was the workhouse.’
Which seemed unlikely since her dowry was substantial, thanks to Kit’s efforts; if she could escape Charlton she’d live on that if Kit wouldn’t let her share his new bachelor home in Chelsea. A share of her fortune would fill Uncle William’s coffers very nicely, of course, but while her uncle and aunt had clearly plotted against her, could her cousin Sophia have known what was afoot? Louisa shook her head very warily and decided to trust one of two certainties in this shifting world that she suddenly seemed to have stumbled into. Cousin Sophia was far too amiable and feather-headed to be party to such a plan. She wondered how Uncle William came to have a sister like her lion-hearted, stubborn mother, and such a sweet widgeon for a daughter. Deciding the mysteries of heredity were unaccountable, she crept on along the façade of the hired town house, still trying to block the killing drop to the flagged pavement three storeys below from her thoughts.
Louisa didn’t intend to marry; now the man she didn’t want to marry most of all was threatening her very soul, she wished she’d never agreed to give the marriage mart another try to appease her brother and sister. Her heart hammered against her breastbone as she took an unwary glance into the street below and fancied Death was creeping along the ledge behind her, his cold breath on her neck and bony fingers clutching a ghostly scythe. Since she’d rather die than wed Charlton, she crept on, keeping her thoughts busy with what came next.
Could she evade her uncle and Charlton until her brother came home to dismiss their antics as the farce they ought to be? Her brother’s house would be the first place anyone would look for her and his minions lacked the authority or power to repel her enemies. Not quite true; one of Kit’s employees had both and she recalled her encounter with Kit’s most notorious captain as she ghosted past the empty rooms on this part of the third floor inch by heart-racing inch. Captain Hugh Darke had made a vivid impression on her, but he was one step from being a pirate and the rudest man she’d ever met, so little wonder if the image of him had lingered on her senses and her memory long after the man had left her alone in Kit’s office.
Considering she’d spent mere seconds in Captain Darke’s darkly brooding, offensively arrogant company, his abrupt insolence and the satirical glint in his silver-blue eyes shouldn’t haunt her as they did. She fumbled her handhold on the neatly jointed stone at the very thought of explaining this latest misadventure to sternly indifferent Hugh Darke and had to swallow a very unladylike curse while she scrambled for another and terror threatened to ruin her escape in a very final way.
‘Confoundedly inconvenient, ill-mannered, cocksure braggart of a man,’ she muttered very softly to herself as she inched round the corner of the Portland Stone–faced
