The laughter he’d heard might have come from any woman who had sought privacy with her lover in the shadows, but Ewan had to be certain it was not his charge. He would rather apologize to the couple for interrupting their tryst than to the Duke of Ridlington for losing his daughter.
Ewan started in the direction of the laugh, and though he’d never been a great tracker, he’d spent more than enough time navigating through dark and dangerous landscape that he had little trouble locating the couple. The two were murmuring together quietly. He heard first the man’s voice and then the woman’s. Ewan crept closer, the topiary shielding his approach. If this was not Lady Lorraine, then he could retreat without being seen.
“Darling, I know you are impatient, but we will have our whole lives together. A few more months is not much to wait.”
Ewan’s heart sank into his belly. He knew that voice. Ewan felt six again, and he had the urge to shrink down as small as he could make himself and pray with all his might that no one would notice him behind the bush trimmed to look like a swan.
“But why should we wait?” the woman asked. “I told you. I don’t care about the money.”
The sound of Lady Lorraine’s voice, quick and light as a song, was like a snowball in Ewan’s face. He straightened his shoulders and rose to his full height. He would kill Francis and then make Lady Lorraine wish he’d murdered her.
“Darling, we must live on something—”
“I can find work,” she protested. “I can take in washing or bake pies to sell. Any sacrifice would be worth it if I could be with you.”
Ewan had been moving forward and now he rounded the main body of the swan topiary and saw Lady Lorraine put her hands on Francis’s shoulders. For a moment, the sight of his old nemesis paralyzed Ewan. His body sought to betray him, and his feet would not move forward. Consequently, he had time to note that Francis did not take the liberty any other man in his position would have and put his arms around the woman before him.
“Kiss me,” she said, looking up at Francis with adoring eyes the bastard did not deserve in the least. “I could wait forever if you would but kiss me.”
It was perhaps the silliest speech Ewan had ever heard. It was the sort of thing he expected one of Beaumont’s women to say, and yet despite the melodrama of the sentiment, at that moment Ewan hated Francis more than he ever had when his cousin had been his daily tormentor.
His loathing was so strong and so incomprehensible that Ewan regained control of his body and stepped out from behind the topiary.
Francis saw him first, and he stiffened and stepped back, putting a respectable distance between himself and Lady Lorraine. His expression was wary and, to Ewan’s satisfaction, frightened. The lady spun around as well, but her face showed no fear, only annoyance. She gave a long sigh. “Mr. Mostyn, I believe you know your cousin, Mr. Mostyn.”
“Ewan.” Francis looked him up and down. “We seem to keep meeting. Run along now. Lady Lorraine and I were having a private word.”
Ewan held out his hand to Lady Lorraine. “Come.”
“I see your vocabulary remains much the same,” Francis remarked. “As I’m certain you will use your simple grunts and growls to inform His Grace about this meeting, be sure to mention that I did nothing improper.”
“More’s the pity,” Lady Lorraine muttered. “At least the lecture and scolding would have been worth it.”
Ewan had the urge to laugh. Instead, he beckoned her with his outstretched hand. She did not take it. “I am not a dog, Mr. Mostyn. You needn’t crook your finger at me.”
Francis bowed. “I see I am no longer needed. My lady, sleep well tonight. I will see you…soon.” With what Ewan perceived was to be a meaningful look, Francis marched in the direction of Carlton House.
Since the lady seemed to have such an objection to them, Ewan folded his arms across his chest. He waited for her to speak. He felt he should say something, but he was not certain what that something should be. He had supposed Francis to be taking advantage of the lady, while it appeared she was the one intent on ruination. Francis was no paragon of honor and virtue, and Ewan would have liked little more than to beat the man to a pulp. But he could not fault his cousin for the scene he’d witnessed tonight.
“You won’t tell my father, will you?” Lady Lorraine finally broke the silence.
Ewan let out a breath of surprised air—half laugh, half incredulity.
The lady grasped his forearm. “If you do, it will not only doom me, but it will reflect badly on you as well.”
Ewan inclined his head, acknowledging the point. He’d made mistakes before, and he always took his punishment like a man. He was not much of a gentleman, but he had retained enough of his upbringing to know that one did not lie or cheat to avoid trouble. One faced the consequences of his mistakes with head held high. “Then so be it.”
She gaped at him. “You do not even care? You will be dismissed.”
Ewan blew out a breath. He did care. He cared very much, much more than he wanted to admit to.
Her hand on his forearm tightened, and he looked down at her. The damned chit was shivering with cold. Ewan was impervious to all but the coldest temperatures, but she looked almost blue. “Very well. Tell him. Nothing happened anyway.”
“Not for your lack of trying. I should tell your father you don’t need a bodyguard. You need to be locked in a convent.”
Now her eyes narrowed, and she released his arm as though it were filth she could not bear to touch any longer. “So now I am to be censured by you?”
He frowned at her. “Why not me?”
“Are you married?”
The question took him off guard. Conversations with women generally had the effect of unsettling him. He could never predict where their maze-like minds might wander. Conversations with men began at point A and ended at point B. Women often meandered to C then R and back to L before coming to the point.
“It is a simple question, Mr. Mostyn. Are you married?”
He shook his head.
“I didn’t think so. Are you a virgin?”
Ewan gaped at her. The question was so wildly inappropriate that, in his opinion, she had abandoned the points of the alphabet all together.
She waved a hand. “Yes, I know I am not supposed to ask you that, but humor me. I am making a point. Just answer yes or no.”
He shook his head, as he did not trust his voice at the moment.
“Of course you are not. And yet no one thinks anything of the fact that you have bedded a woman who is not your wife. If I had to guess, with those eyes and those shoulders and chest”—she looked him up and down, and he actually felt himself heat at her frank perusal—“I imagine you have bedded more than your share of women.”
Ewan’s head was spinning at the rapidity of her speech, but what he did understand was that she had just complimented him. She admired his body, and the thought of her eyes on him caused him to have to take a breath. His chest felt tight, and he lifted his hand to loosen the goddamn cravat before he remembered where he was.