do you think you could convey to my guests that I have sought my private chambers for the evening and that they ought to move their revelries elsewhere?”
The housekeeper nodded. “Of course, my lady. I would be pleased to tell your guests as much.”
Hyacinth had no doubt she would. Mrs. Combes disapproved of the fast set with whom Hyacinth rubbed elbows since her arrival in London. But the dear woman would never utter a word to suggest as much.
“Thank you, Mrs. Combes,” she said. “I am off to the gardens to find Lady.”
Still feeling somewhat dizzy—fine, inebriated—Hyacinth made her way to the gardens. Part of her still expected Southwick to appear from some darkened corner, demanding to know where she was going. Icy, iron fingers, disapproving frown, inescapable rage. But she shook herself free of those memories.
He could not haunt her from the grave.
She refused to allow it.
She was free.
Or something like it.
Her fingers fumbled with the handle on the doors leading to the garden, within a small, cozy chamber she had turned into her private salon from its former, robustly masculine study. It had been all bleak mahogany and the carpets smelled of tobacco smoke. Likely down to the previous occupant, but it had reminded her so dreadfully of Southwick that she had ordered the rugs replaced on her first day here.
After she finally had the latch undone, she found herself enrobed in inky summer darkness. London at night was not nearly as noisy as London during the height of the day was. Excepting the cacophony emerging from her own open windows, that was. A wonder the neighbors did not loathe her.
Then again, 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.
Still the quiet and darkness 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, then? 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 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, then? I ought to have known.” There was a grimness in his voice now, a harder edge to his words. “Nothing but trouble, the fairer sex. Even 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?