The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,124
feared when she’d chosen not to tell him about the quarry…though she’d never know now if he’d have been more sympathetic to her plight had she confessed before he was ambushed with the information in front of his peers.
She waited outside of his door in a heavy mantle. She was getting adept at skulking about on stoops and knew just how long she could linger before the constable came and chased her away. Finally, Lord Bart stepped from his offices. As with the other times, he looked down his long, patrician nose at her and stalked past without saying a word.
She grabbed his sleeve. “Wait! Please. There must be a way—”
He stilled and looked over his shoulder at her without yanking his arm back. “Why? Why does there have to be? Because your conscience tells you so?”
“Yes.” Her voice, weak and broken, was still strong enough to give him pause.
She dropped her hand from his sleeve, confident he’d talk to her, at least for a time. “Prisoners can be pardoned, can’t they? There’s such a thing as clemency. We could have his sentence commuted, or…” She searched his face for any spark of hope.
He turned toward her. His dark head cocked slightly to one side and his chin tilted down so that he regarded her with handsome incredulity. “Do you think I haven’t considered that? Of course Montborne—and Tony, I might add—have seen the Regent. Do you think His Royal Highness gives a tinker’s damn if another rotten Alexander has got himself tossed in the clink?”
She flinched at his vehemence. “They must try again.”
Lord Bart straightened his shoulders and made to walk away. She darted in front of him. The exasperated look he cast her would have made her laugh, weeks ago. But there was nothing funny about their antagonizing each other this afternoon.
“I’ll try,” she said boldly.
He shook his head, again seeming unable to believe her gall. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
She wished she were being silly. She wasn’t proud of her past, not anymore, but she’d use it to her advantage if she could. “He may remember me.”
Lord Bart’s eyebrow arched. “How will that look in the papers, do you think? Pardoning one of his whore’s husbands? Forgive me the epithet, but that’s what will be said. Even Prinny wouldn’t be so reckless with his reputation.”
Who else could they turn to?
“We need someone who has his ear, then,” she mused aloud. She stepped deftly to the right when Lord Bart made to go around her from that direction. “I must know a few men who fit that description.”
“But will they be willing to save your husband’s hide?” Lord Bart moved toward her left.
She blocked him again. “The trouble is, men who would help me are likely at their hunting boxes. It could take another month to locate one, bring him back to London and secure an audience with the Regent. We need a person who is already here and barely requires permission to approach the throne.”
Lord Bart gave her a long, considering look. “You mean a man like your father?”
Elizabeth’s father might not need much in the way of an invitation to see Prinny, but he’d made it very clear to her that she required an invitation to see him. With shaking hands she penned a note and sent it by way of a footman, along with instructions for the lad to wait for a reply.
In the interim, she walked the few blocks to Nicholas’s house. Her mantle kept her warm. In her hands she carried a basket filled with needles, threads, a round pillow, and two small hoops stretched with cloth. She’d never been much for embroidery as a girl, but she must have something to do while she sat in silent petition for the right to see her child.
She used the knocker to alert the household of her presence, as she’d done now for days. No one bothered to open the door. She pulled the pillow from her basket and set it on the topmost step, then turned and sat upon it. The wrenching sound of a baby’s cry muffled through the closed window. It tore at her until a teardrop wrenched from her eye. She both hated the reminder of Oliver and relished it at the same time. Here, she could still hear him, even if she couldn’t be with him.
Two hours later, she gathered her half-finished embroidery and tucked the pillow back into her basket, then rapped on the door twice and returned to her house.