An Unexpected Earl (Lords of the Armory #2) - Anna Harrington Page 0,5

about to reach for her elbow to stop her, a man stepped into his path and blocked his way.

He slid to a halt to keep from slamming into the nodcock.

The woman glanced back at him as she fled. When she saw the man standing in front of him, she stumbled. Her hand went to her face, to check that the mask was still in place, still hiding her identity. But she never slowed in her flight.

Pearce tried to follow, but the man grabbed his hand to shake it, stopping him before he could take another step to pursue her.

“Frederick Howard.” The man pumped his hand hard in that irritating American fashion that had become popular in certain circles in London. “We’ve met before.”

Vague recollection flashed at the back of Pearce’s mind, but he was too preoccupied by the woman in red to immediately recognize the name. “Not now,” he growled and began to move around Howard, only for the man to step in front of him again.

“I was hoping for a word with you tonight.” The man forced a too-bright laugh. “How fortunate that I found you.”

Biting back a curse, Pearce leaned to the side to look past him—

The woman was gone. She’d vanished into the dimly lit town-house as mysteriously as she’d appeared. He’d lost her.

Damnation. He rolled his eyes. Tonight was proving to be frustrating in all kinds of ways.

Blowing out an irritated breath, he slid his narrowed gaze at the dandy in front of him, who didn’t seem to realize—or care—that he’d just interrupted something important. Although what it was, exactly, Pearce couldn’t have said, except that he’d wanted it to continue. He’d barely scratched the surface of Lady Scarlet’s mystery, her identity still unknown.

But she was gone, and all chances of learning more right along with her.

“Howard, you said?” Pearce ground out. After all, it was only polite to learn the name of the man he was about to pulp.

“Yes. Frederick Howard.” Irritation pinched his face that Pearce didn’t recognize him. “Our families knew each other years ago. In Birmingham.”

Unlikely. Pearce’s parents died long before he was shipped off to his innkeeper uncle in Birmingham, and this man didn’t seem the sort that frequented inn yards.

“You recently inherited the Sandhurst estates, and we now have neighboring properties.” As if realizing he was stirring up more acrimony than memories, the dandy changed tack. To bluntness. “I want to discuss a joint business venture.”

“Business?” Pearce repeated, unwilling to believe that he’d been stopped for something so unimportant.

“Exactly.” The man smiled tightly. “The best kind, too—capital development!”

“No such thing as the best kind of business.” He peered past the man, still hoping to catch a glimpse of red satin. No luck. “All business is—”

“Turnpike.”

That caught Pearce’s attention, if only for its unexpectedness. He blinked. “Pardon?”

“I intend to put through a new turnpike, and you’re the perfect man to help me realize it.”

Oh, he sincerely doubted that.

“A turnpike has the potential to leverage all kinds of possibilities for property that is otherwise worthless. Imagine the funds that…” Beneath Pearce’s stone-cold stare, Howard’s voice trailed off. Realizing that he was losing the battle, he cleared his throat. “If I could set up a time to call on you—”

“Fine.” Pearce dismissed the man with a wave of his hand. He couldn’t care less. He had more important concerns at that moment. The woman had been after Varnham, and Varnham was in the stair hall. Maybe he could still catch her there. Pearce stepped around the man before he could stop him again and strode toward the front of the house.

He hurried through rooms that were all piled into each other like Russian nesting dolls. She should have been easy to spot in that dress, but a sea of jewels and satin filled the rooms—

A flash of red slipped through the front door and out into the night.

“Scarlet!” He chased after her.

Pushing his way through the crush, he stumbled through the handful of men gathered at the front door and out onto the footpath. He stopped to glance down the rain-drizzled street. His breath clouded on the cold night air, and his heart pounded as loudly as the rumbling of horse’s hooves over the stones. He had to find her—

There. Her dress showed a muted blood-orange in the yellow lamplight as she hurried across the wide street toward a waiting carriage.

He started after her.

Without warning, a phaeton turned onto the street at breakneck speed, so fast that it lifted off its rear right