Kasey Michaels - A Reckless Beauty

“Ah, and here they are again. It wasn’t a nightmare and I’m awake now. How unfortunate,” Brede said from his place standing in front of the cold fireplace. Rian stopped short to slam his ankles together and smartly salute him. “Yes, yes, very pretty, thank you, Lieutenant. And the redoubtable Miss Fanny Becket, as well. Don’t you look—so depressingly the same.”

Fanny opened her mouth, but Rian’s elbow was in her ribs before any words could come out, so she merely inclined her head slightly, mockingly, in his lordship’s direction.

“My stars, Valentine, you weren’t funning me, were you? And you expect me to, as you begged me, do something with that? My stars!”

Fanny’s attention went immediately to the couch and the petite young woman sitting there, at the moment waving a black-edged lace handkerchief beneath her softly rounded chin. The woman was handsome rather than beautiful—there was too much of her brother in her for beautiful—and dressed in the most becoming mourning black London could fashion.

Not that she held a patch on Brede himself, who was also in black, his linen white as a gull’s wing, his streaked light brown hair ruthlessly combed back from his face. Rough and tumble, dirty, he was formidable. Dressed as he was now, he was truly frightening. And, again, those eyes. And that dangerous, smiling mouth…

“Ma’am,” Fanny said, caught between a bow and a curtsey, so that she nearly tripped over her own two feet, eliciting a short bark of laughter from the Earl.

“Did you see that, Valentine? Oh, my stars!”

“Lucille, if you could dispense with that repetitious and quite annoying exclamation, so that we might move on? Lieutenant Rian Becket, Miss Fanny Becket, you are in the presence of my younger sister, one Lady Lucille Blight, widow of the late and largely unlamented Viscount Whalley, although she is quite enjoying her blacks, aren’t you, Lucille? Please, Miss Becket, don’t attempt that maneuver again—you may injure yourself.”

“Valentine, you’re such a wicked tease,” the woman said, waving at Fanny. “Please, call me Lucie. Everyone does. Everyone save Valentine, but I pay him no never mind, although he is quite right about poor William. I don’t know what possessed me to think I had to have him, and all over my dear brother’s objections. He drank like a fish, you understand, and chased anything in skirts. Oh, don’t scowl so, Valentine, it’s not as if no one knows. And aren’t you pretty, Lieutenant? Valentine—isn’t the Lieutenant pretty? You couldn’t give me him, could you, and just keep the girl for yourself? You go about looking nearly as bedraggled half the time anyway. I mean, she’s wearing trousers. My stars!”

Fanny, unable to help herself, actually snorted, and Rian rushed into speech to cover her rudeness. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said for lack of anything more intelligent springing into his mind, bowing yet again. “My lord, again I apologize for the monstrous inconvenience my sister and I have put you to, and I would like to say that I am more than cognizant of your forbearance and—”

“Oh, for the love of heaven, Becket, shut up,” Brede said wearily, looking at Fanny. “Lucille, what do you think? Can you rescue that?”

“In time for the Duchess of Richmond’s ball this Saturday night? That’s only four days away. Oh, I hardly think so, Valentine. My stars. When have you known me to perform miracles?”

Brede smiled slightly. “A miracle? Surely, Lucille, you don’t see Miss Becket here as on a par with loaves and fishes?”

Lucie gnawed on the side of her index finger as she looked at Fanny, who was caught between amusement and longing to wring the Ogre’s neck with his own snowy cravat. “I suppose a bath might be of some small help? And then I could have my Frances attempt something with the hair. And there’s this lovely little modiste a few blocks from—Yes, all right, Valentine, if I must. I shall gather all of my depleted strength and attempt to do my best.”

This last was completed with the tragic pose and half-gulping voice of the truly put-upon, and Fanny looked at Rian, whose shoulders were shaking as he attempted to tamp down his mirth at her expense.

“That’s my brave Lucille. The trials you endure for your quarterly allowance,” Brede said bracingly, wondering idly if he was right as to Bonaparte’s current position, and the possibility of riding there, lashing himself to the mouth of one of the French cannon. “You’re dismissed.”

Lady Whalley got to her feet, clearly in a huff. “Dismissed, is it? You drag me away from a perfectly marvelous lamb cutlet, just to dismiss me? Oh, very well.” She looked to Fanny yet again. “Tomorrow. But no one can see her until I work this miracle you require of me. Bring her round to the servant’s entrance tomorrow morning at eleven. Clean, if possible.”

Fanny didn’t bother to either curtsey or bow as Lady Whalley swept out of the small room, trailing her ruffled black skirts and enough scent to make a meal of by itself, and then turned back to glare at the Ogre. “Definitely your sister, my lord. There’s no question there.”

Brede ignored her, the cheeky brat. When forced to deal with females, ignoring them had always topped his list of the ways preferable to him. “Lieutenant, you will accompany me tomorrow morning at precisely eight of the clock. You’ll be quartered with other more junior members of the Duke’s staff, which means the food will be good and the beds dry. Take any opportunity to ride out these next few days, familiarize yourself with the topography of the area—I suggest you concentrate on the area south of Brussels, all the way to Quatre Bras, Ligny, and beyond—as I expect you’ll be traveling that ground quite often in the next week or two. But keep an eye out for Boney’s advance parties. I last spied one only a few miles below Givet. He’s been there before with his army, years ago. But he won’t wait for us to come to him there, fight on traditionally French soil. For the moment, I suggest you scare up Wiggins from where he’s hiding himself and he’ll show you to your chamber. The same goes for you, Miss Becket.”

“I’ll want a bath,” Fanny dared.

“If you are applying for my opinion, I completely concur. However, I do not number that among my duties to Jack Eastwood. There are other females in this house—I’m sure I’ve glimpsed at least two of them. Go find one, Miss Becket, and beg a tub. Difficult as this may be for you to comprehend, I have other things to do.”

Fanny watched, her mouth screwed to one side, her fists jammed on her hips, as the Earl of Brede quit the room in much the same way his sister had moments earlier. The sound of the door to the street slamming behind him lent her the happy information that the Ogre was gone.

She turned to Rian and grinned. “Papa would adore him, wouldn’t he?”

Rian gave a single shake of his head. “If he didn’t kill him, yes.”

WIGGINS HAD WORKED a small miracle of his own, Fanny decided the next morning as she donned the freshly laundered and pressed gown she’d rolled up and stuffed in her pack. She’d had a bath last night before slipping in between clean, fresh-smelling sheets, and felt very nearly human again. Her only regret was that she’d slept the sleep of the dead until nine, which meant that Rian had gone off without saying goodbye to her.

But she’d find him again, she had no fears there. After all, she’d found him before, hadn’t she?

After breakfasting in her chamber, something she did at Becket Hall only if she was ill or, when younger, when being punished for something or other and temporarily not allowed to “associate with reasonable human beings,” she made her way downstairs, leaving her pack and uniform behind her, for Wiggins had promised he’d have the pack sent round to Lady Lucille’s later in the day. She’d miss those trousers.