Page 74 of The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke

“Is there no other way to sneak me out of the house?” Adrian asked as if not truly expecting an answer.

Jane frowned as she positioned the wig over his head. “Do you have a better suggestion? If so, speak up now. The Earl of Odham is waiting outside in his coach to collect Hermia. He has agreed to help you escape.”

“Who the blazes is the Earl of Odham?” Adrian demanded, feeling as if he were an actor in a theatrical improvisation.

“He is an older nobleman who once courted Hermia’s favor,” Jane replied.

“And betrayed me,” Hermia added.

Adrian frowned. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Don’t be,” Hermia said with a ruthless smile. “I have been making the poor fellow pay ever since. You can trust him. He has never betrayed me again.”

“Do you have another idea, Emma?” Adrian asked hopefully.

“I have my entire life,” she replied with great deliberation, “attempted to represent and obey the graces as I understand them.”

“It is deception or discovery,” Hermia said in a straightforward voice. “Make up your mind now, Wolverton.”

“Emma?” Adrian gazed up at the hovering wig as if it were guillotine.

She nodded decisively at Jane. “I think he needs a spot of rouge if he is to resemble Hermia. And, for heaven’s sake, let us at least roll up his trousers.”

Adrian followed Jane down the stairs, past Hamm’s dutiful scrutiny. Apparently the footman harbored a fond regard for the robust Lady Dalrymple, for although he lurched to his feet and bowed deeply to Jane, his gaze lingered on what he presumably took to be Hermia’s stalwart figure. “May I escort your ladyship to the carriage?”

“No, you may not, Hamm,” Jane said firmly. “Lady Dalrymple is feeling a bit under the weather and does not wish to be fussed.”

Hamm appeared stricken. “I am sorry to hear this. I trust it is nothing serious.”

“It is—” Jane hesitated, “a hoarse throat, I believe. She must go home without delay and rest her voice.”

“She certainly must,” Hamm said in concern. “Shall I bring a coal brazier to the carriage so she may warm her feet?”

Adrian swore to himself and resisted the urge to push Hamm down the stairs. It was humiliating enough that he was practically leaning on Jane in order to keep his balance. He could barely walk in Hermia’s black buckled pumps, whose seams she had unstitched to squeeze onto his big feet.

“Her ladyship does not need to be cosseted,” Jane said with a tight smile. “If you are distressed for her welfare, you may open the door so that the earl can take her home.”

Adrian nodded vigorously.

“Yes, of course,” Hamm said, hastening to obey. “And if there is anything else—”

“Is that you, Hermia? And Jane?” Lord Devon Boscastle, Emma’s younger brother, strolled into sight, halting at the bottom of the stairs. “Are you going home?”

Adrian scowled in the shadows of the hood drawn around his face. He debated whether he should make a quick escape through the hall or run back upstairs like a coward. He vowed that if Jane got him out of this coil without causing Emma further embarrassment, he would name his firstborn after her and employ every shoemaker in Europe to keep her delicate feet in fashion.

“Hermia does not feel well, Devon.” Jane grasped Adrian’s hand and dragged him down the remaining stairs. “It is a throat ailment and she must not breathe the damp evening air. Would you be a darling and fetch my gloves from the drawing room?”

Devon straightened, his face pensive. “Well, actually, I’m supposed to stay in—”

“Devon!” His sister Chloe came flying through the hall and launched herself at him. “You wicked boy! I haven’t seen you in an eternity. I was telling Dominic how much I’ve missed you.”

He gazed over her shoulder at Adrian and Jane, resisting as Chloe tried to pull him the other way. “Didn’t we just have dinner three days ago?”

“This,” Adrian muttered to Jane, pulling Hermia’s cloak around his shoulders, “is an indignity from which I shall not recover.”

Jane strode forward, her voice low and steady. “Kindly walk, Hermia, and do not strain your voice in idle prattle. Ah, there’s your faithful Odham now.”

Adrian caught his buckled shoe on the pavement and would have pitched into the street had Jane not quick-wittedly lent him the weight of her shoulder. The earl, a spry white-haired man in his sixties who had been in love with Lady Dalrymple for years, dashed across the street from his carriage.