Page 55 of Indecently Daring

Montagu let out a breath and hauled her into his arms, hugging her tightly, his eyes closed.

“I’m s-sorry, Papa,” Cat said quietly.

Montagu released her, only to grip her shoulders, looking very much like he wished to shake her until her teeth rattled. “Cat, you wicked, wicked girl. You will be the death of me yet.”

“Oh, no, never say it!” Cat said and burst into tears.

Harry turned away to give them privacy and hauled his aching bones out of the cart with a muffled groan. Everything hurt, the bruises Jo had inflicted making themselves known with increasing vigour.

“Harry! Harry, my boy… oh, my dear, what happened?”

Harry watched, bemused, as his Aunt Cora hurried down the steps towards him. “Your poor face!” she cried, her soft hands turning his head this way and that as she inspected the cuts and bruises.

Touched and a little overwhelmed, Harry hugged her. “There, there, Aunt. A bit bruised is all. I’ll mend.”

Cora let him go reluctantly, sniffing and blowing her nose on a handkerchief that her dreadful friend, Lady Beauchamp, pressed into her hand.

“Reverend Martin,” St Clair said, his tone calm but his gaze travelling over Alana as he spoke, ensuring she was in one piece. “I’m certain you have an admirable explanation for this.”

“Er….” Harry tried manfully to pull himself together, but his ears were still ringing from a particularly vicious blow Jo had landed and he was feeling rather out of sorts.

“Of course he does, Uncle,” Alana said briskly, jumping down from the cart and marching towards her family as though she hadn’t been dropping from exhaustion a second before. “It was a rescue mission. I’m so sorry I didn’t have time to leave a note or an explanation, Aunt, but every second counted. That awful woman who calls herself his mother sold Jeb to be a climbing boy.”

“Good heavens!” Aunt Harriet exclaimed in shock, hurrying to the cart now she realised Jeb was in it too.

“He’s been drugged,” Alana went on. “We think opium. I believe he’s fine, but he ought to see a doctor.”

“Oh, the poor little mite!”

The front steps became a flurry of activity as a footman was instructed to carry Jeb inside, and the housekeeper set to preparing a room and a bowl of broth, as well as tea for everyone. Instructions flew back and forth.

“I suppose we ought to have seen the other fellow,” the earl remarked, looking Harry over critically.

“Once Miss Cadogan got hold of him,” Harry agreed wryly. “I’m afraid I had little impact. She knocked him out cold.”

St Clair turned towards his niece and raised an elegant eyebrow. Alana shrugged.

“Just like her mother,” the earl said with a sigh.

Alana brightened at that. “Thank you, Uncle.”

Once Jeb had been given into the tender care of about a dozen housemaids, who fussed over and coddled the ‘poor brave boy’ as they bore him off to await the doctor, the others repaired to a warm parlour. A tea tray arrived in short order.

“You’ll all be wanting your beds, I don’t doubt,” Lady St Clair said as she prepared the tea. “I know I do, but you’ll never sleep if you go to bed at once. You must settle your nerves, so a cup of tea and something to eat first, and you may as well tell us what happened before we all die of curiosity.”

Montagu got up and moved towards a bureau that held an elegant tantalus. He picked up a glass.

“I’ll take a brandy if it’s all the same to you. I think I lost a decade over the past hours, and I need something stronger than tea,” he said, his eyes flitting towards his daughter.

Cat was fidgeting in front of the fire, too agitated to sit still.

“Pour me one too. I shall turn white, you see if I don’t,” St Clair said, raking a hand through his hair. “Thank heavens your parents weren’t here, Lana. Do you have any notion what manner of scene you caused tonight? Heaven alone knows how we’ll hush this up. I pray your powers of persuasion are everything they’re cracked up to be, Lucian, for the entire village is talking about the disappearance of Lady Catherine and my niece here, and with the two of them having been seen talking with Kilbane, though God only knows why he’s here at all—excuse me, Martin—and, well, you can just imagine the speculation.”

Montagu slanted another glance at his daughter, who blushed and avoided his silver gaze.

Harry did not blame her. There was something about the man that commanded attention, a force of personality that was impossible to ignore. The idea of displeasing him was, quite frankly, horrifying.

Harry cleared his throat. “Actually, Kilbane was instrumental in helping us save Jeb,” he said, unwilling they should blame the man when he’d done the right thing for once in his life.