Page 10 of Unmasked by the Marquess
It was time to leave before her thoughts went farther in this direction. She stood up, but she must have moved too fast, or perhaps she had had too much to drink, because the room began to spin around her. Her field of vision narrowed and blurred, and the next thing she knew she felt a strong arm wrap around her waist.
“Steady now,” Pembroke murmured, his voice a rumble in her ear. “The brandy here may be stronger than what you’re used to.”
“Must be,” she said faintly, but she rather thought it was the presence of this man who had clouded her thoughts, and not the drink.
“Do you have a carriage waiting for you?” he asked. “Or, if I put you in a hackney, do you have anyone waiting for you at home?”
“No carriage,” she said. That was an impossible expense. “And I daresay Louisa has been in bed for hours.”
“Then I’ll drive you home in my carriage.” Pembroke steered her toward the door after bidding good night to the other gentlemen.
He kept his arm around her, hauling her against him, as they descended the stairs. She let herself enjoy the feel of him solidly next to her. He smelled good, too, like books and brandy.
“Up you go,” he said after his carriage was brought around.
“You didn’t have to worry,” she said. “I’m not drunk, and even if I were, I can hold my liquor. I wasn’t going to embarrass you.”
“You’re probably nine stone with your boots on. I doubt you can hold three glasses of wine.”
He was right about that, but she wasn’t going to admit it.
“Besides,” he continued, “I didn’t think you were going to embarrass yourself, let alone me. I wanted to go home and didn’t care to leave you in the company of those gentlemen.”
Oh. “Thank you?”
He laughed, low and soft. The carriage pulled up in front of her house and she opened the door.
“Don’t thank me,” she heard him say as she descended to the street. “I seldom do anything that merits gratitude, Robin. I am always correct, but never benevolent. Remember that.”
She hurried into the house without daring so much as a glance back over her shoulder.
Keating opened the door for her. “Miss Louisa is waiting for you.” His arms were folded across his chest.
“It’s two o’clock in the morning.” She handed him her gloves and coat. “She ought to be asleep.”
“So should you. It’s no hour for a young lady to wander about London.” These last words he spoke in a barely audible whisper. Keating, of course, was in on the secret. He had been with Charity since Cambridge, ostensibly as a manservant but more often as an accomplice and an ally. And tonight, a mother hen.
She kissed him on his grizzled cheek. “Good old Keating.”
“Be off with you, pet.”
When she reached the top of the stairs, she could see a light coming from under Louisa’s door. She scratched lightly on the door, quietly enough not to wake Louisa if she had already fallen asleep.
But there came the sound of slippered feet padding across the bare floor, and the door to Louisa’s room was flung open.
“I thought you were dead in a ditch.” The candle Louisa held was nearly burnt down. She had been waiting up for hours, then.
“I was at the club Lord Pembroke had me join.”
“Until two in the morning?” Louisa sniffed. “And positively reeking of brandy.”
Charity didn’t know what bee Louisa had in her bonnet—it had nothing to do with brandy or late hours—but there was no sense in getting into it now. “The night lasted rather longer than I had thought it would. Next time I’ll send word, if you like.”
Louisa wrinkled her nose. “And this is a Tory club, is it not?” She, like her brother before her, was a staunch Whig.
“Yes, Pembroke insisted—”
“Pembroke!”
