Scandalous Regency Secrets Collection

“Dany?”

“Yes, yes, I was going to answer you. Reluctantly. You’re right,” she said at last, sighing rather theatrically. “But I expect Rigby and Darby to have your back. They will, won’t they?”

“Yes.” But Coop was far from relaxing. Dany obeyed when she wanted to obey. He’d learned that well enough in only these few days. “I’d move you to the duchess’s mansion, but you need to remain with your sister. What if Oliver were to return before we have the letters? She’d need you.”

“Again, I have to agree. Will you at least tell me what these other plans are that you have set in motion?”

He attempted to hold back a smile, but failed. “Minerva and the duchess are involved, along with an eager-to-help Clarice Goodfellow. And believe it or not, the whole thing was Rigby’s idea. I only had to agree to not interfere and ‘Get on with it,’ as Minerva told Darby and me to...”

The shot came from the trees to their left, and Harry cried out in pain.

Coop reacted with a soldier’s quickness, never slowing the curricle.

“Harry!”

“Here, sir. It’s m’leg, sir.”

“Hold on! Dany, can you take the reins?”

She already had her hands out to accept them. “We all need to learn sometime. Grab him, Coop, before he tumbles off.”

Coop didn’t have time to worry about her inexperience. The roadway was far from crowded, and straight as far ahead as he could see. He turned on the bench seat, snagged Harry by the front of his shirt, lifted him clear of the seat and pulled him forward so that he landed facedown between them, then managed to right him on the seat before taking back the reins.

The time—from the sound of the shot, to Harry’s yelp of pain, to taking back the reins while Dany cradled the tiger tightly against her—had been no more than a few seconds.

Seconds that had seemed like a lifetime.

“Holding on?”

“Holding on,” Dany replied. “Ferdie heard the news about that Geoff person sooner than you thought?”

“And made other plans, also sooner than I thought. Are you certain you’re all right?”

“I am, at least as all right as anyone would be in similar circumstances, I suppose. But Harry’s bleeding.”

“Jist a nick, ma’am,” the boy said cheekily, his head against Dany’s breast as he smiled up at her in some adoration. “Jist a wee dizzy, that’s all.” He then wound both arms around Dany’s waist.

“I’ll pull to the side of the road, once I’m certain nobody’s in pursuit.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Dany told him. “From the look of his trousers, he was only grazed by the ball. Mostly, it ripped them. Um, could you spring the horses a little more? This may sound silly, but I think my back itches.”

He grinned at her. “Mine, too. We’re already seeing more traffic on the road. I’ll soon have to slow down in any case.”

“Then do that, and I’ll tend to poor Harry here as we keep moving.”

“Poor Harry, m’mum’s only baby,” the boy said on a sigh, snuggling even closer, until Coop was tempted to give the boy a clap on the ear. Except that the lad had taken a shot clearly intended for him, a shot that could just as easily have found Dany.

They’d put a good mile between themselves and the failed assassin, and now there were two coaches riding behind them, and an empty farm wagon in front of them. They were slowed to a near walk.

“You can let go now, Harry, unless you think you might faint?”

“Yes, m’lord.”

“Close your eyes, Harry,” Dany told him as she bent forward, lifted her skirt and proceeded to tear a strip off her petticoat. “There. Now let’s just wrap this around your leg, all right?”

“Yes, ma’am. Should I...should I be droppin’ m’drawers?”

“No!”

“Honestly, Coop, there’s no need to shout,” Dany told him, laughing. “Thank you, Harry, but that won’t be necessary. I only want to put pressure against your wound. That’s what my papa did for my brother the day he thought it would be fun to see if he could toss his new knife in the air and catch it.”

“Don’t have no brother,” Harry said. “No papa, neither. Jist me and m’ma, and she’s still on the baron’s estate, all alone an’ lonely like.”

Dany finished wrapping the leg and tying the ends. “You’ll see her soon enough. Won’t he, my lord? And with a nice new set of livery. He’s been so brave, hasn’t he?”

They were entering the outskirts of London. “Anything else, Miss Foster? Perhaps his very own pony?”

“M’very own pony!” Harry grabbed Dany in a fine rendition of a bear hug. “Oh, thank’ee, Miss Foster, ma’am, thank-ee!”

Dany patted his head and made a silly face at Coop. “You’re very welcome,” she said, obviously content to take all the credit.

Coop shook his head and made the turn that would lead back to Portman Square. She made Minerva look like nothing more than a rank amateur...and somehow, he couldn’t be happier.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#u25973cb7-38b6-5eee-b0b0-28ad01a1b954)

“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Dany asked her sister as she peered through the semidarkness in the bedchamber, as all the draperies had been pulled tightly shut.

She probably should have asked that of the pair of maids collapsed on chairs, mounds of toweling at their feet, one still holding a horsehair brush in one hand. Both scrambled to their feet when Dany spoke, gathering up the toweling and hastening from the room, probably to beg the housekeeper for restorative cups of tea and buttered biscuits.

“No, I’m not all right,” the countess answered sourly from the bed. “Only you could ask such a ridiculous question, Daniella. My head aches from all the repeated washings, my face is still covered in splotches and I have all but begged someone to bring me some cucumber pickles in cream and no one has paid me the least amount of attention. Where have you been?”

“You said you didn’t care where I went,” Dany reminded her as she hopped up onto the bed. “Your hair looks much better, Mari. And it definitely smells better in here.”

“I will not consume chicken again, not for the remainder of my life!”

“Yes, fowl creatures,” Dany agreed, although she knew she was the only one who would appreciate her small joke. “But you’re all right? I mean, in general? With the baby and all?”

Mari pulled a pink lace bed jacket more closely around her. “You certainly are persistent today. Yes, I’m fine. Has the baron recovered my letters as yet? Is that where you were? With the baron? Where did you go?”

There wasn’t much that could be circumspect in Dany’s answer, not if she answered truthfully. So she summoned a lie.

“We took a stroll along Bond Street and then another in Green Park, where his lordship took my hand and we disappeared into the trees so that he could kiss me. Twice, if you can imagine.”

“Oh, you did not. The baron would never so compromise you, not when he has no real plans of wedding you. Nor you him? Dany, you aren’t getting any foolish ideas, are you? I appreciate what you’re doing, but I don’t want you hurt. You are my sister.”

“No, no, of course I won’t be hurt. Yes, I was fibbing, silly. As if he’d kiss me. I wanted to be certain you were paying attention. You often don’t, you know. I don’t know why Mama thought you’d be a good chaperone.”

Mari burst into tears, which was the very last thing Dany wanted.