haunt her from the grave.
She refused to allow it.
She was free.
Stepping outdoors, she found herself enrobed in inky summer darkness. London at night was not nearly as noisy as London during the height of the day. Excepting the cacophony emerging from her own open windows, that was. A wonder the neighbors did not loathe her.
But perhaps they did?
She had spied a glimpse of the lord next door—a golden Goliath who had hastily disappeared behind a shiny black door with its lion’s head brass knocker. But that was all she knew of her neighbors thus far. How strange it all seemed. After so many years of rustication, Hyacinth was still growing accustomed to the peculiarities of Town life.
The quiet of the gardens this evening pleased her. A cool breeze bathed her cheeks as she slipped down the gravel path. Odd, that. She had not realized she had been overheated until now.
“Lady,” she called, expecting her darling to come rushing to her. “Adelaide! Come to Mama, you naughty little puss. Where are you?”
What Hyacinth was decidedly not expecting was the disapproving masculine drawl which emerged from the murkiness at her left.
“If you are searching for the pup that was abandoned to suffer a dreadful fate in the rosebushes, you may cease your caterwauling, madam.”
She jumped, pressing a hand to her thumping heart. And she swore she would not have been more shocked if the devil himself had appeared in the gardens of her leased London townhome.
Hyacinth’s eyes frantically searched through the darkness, attempting to discern the speaker. Where was he? Who was he?
More importantly, why was he holding Adelaide hostage?
“What in heaven’s name are you doing in my gardens, sirrah?” she demanded.
Though her eyes had grown accustomed to the moonlight, she could still only find the vaguest shape of a man near the colossal rosebushes which were attempting to overtake the gardens. The silver light of the moon glinted off what appeared to be golden hair.
The neighbor next door? The disappearing Goliath?
“Believe me, madam,” he said crisply, in a voice that was low and rich and deep, “your gardens are the last place in which I would hope to find myself at such a time. Indeed, I had hoped to be long asleep by this hour. However, the unrelenting din of your party and the pitiful sounds of your creature in terrible pain lured me from the comfort of my bed.”
Adelaide in pain? Her heart leapt anew at the suggestion. “Where is she?”
“Is the mongrel a female? That makes perfect sense.” There was a grimness in his voice now, a harder edge to his words. “Nothing but trouble, the fairer sex. Including in canine form.”
She moved nearer, captivated by the smooth baritone. By the man. Even in his cool agitation, there was something about that voice. And if he had heard Lady in distress and had rescued her? Why, Hyacinth could scarcely countenance the notion of such a man. A man who cared.
“Lady is indeed female,” she said, her eyes searching the details of his face now that she was close enough to detect him.
Adelaide was in his arms.
Being cuddled, the traitorous little minx. Had he just dropped a kiss upon her head?
Not that Hyacinth could blame Adelaide, of course. That broad chest looked an inviting place to nestle. Indeed, Hyacinth entertained a brief, foolish vision of herself held to that chest. Of those strong, masculine arms embracing her rather than hurting her as she had grown so accustomed from a man.
Mayhap she was a harlot, just as Southwick had always told her she was. Perhaps her constitution was lacking, her conviction absent, her morals corrupted. Did she deserve what Southwick had done to her?
Yes, said that awful voice inside her.
The one that inevitably made her pour another glass of spirits.
“She may have some thorns embedded in her paws,” the interloper in her garden said. “She was crying and howling when I came upon her and quite caught up in the rosebushes. In the darkness, I cannot see her injuries properly.”
Something inside her shifted. Softened. Melted.
This man, whomever he was, had heard a crying dog in the night and had come to her rescue. Surely he could not be all bad? Even if he had somehow found his way into Hyacinth’s gardens where he decidedly did not belong. And now, he was concerned about whatever injuries she may have sustained thanks to those hulking, overgrown rosebushes.
Hyacinth ought to see them removed, truly. But they were so lovely to behold, their fragrance so