Page 18 of Miss Ellis Unleashed

He looked like a pirate, a scoundrel, not a man who warned against scandal and vice.

His bloodshot eyes widened as he recognized her.

Daisy gasped, “Throsby?”

“Miss Ellis,” he answered, his gaze shifting around nervously, but then he smiled for her maid. “Miss Finch.”

Annoyed by the warmth of his greeting for the maid, Daisy stepped in front of the young woman. Then she glanced pointedly down the lane behind him. Yet she saw nothing to suggest where he’d come from or what he’d been doing down there. They were quite a distance from the usual gentlemen’s clubs a man of his position in society might be expected to patronize.

She smiled tightly. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m going, I’m going,” he muttered, misunderstanding the intent behind her question before hurrying away, lurching badly down the street.

Daisy followed a few steps behind for a short distance, startled by his abrupt manner, but his longer legs soon outpaced hers. She would not run just to keep up to talk to the man. Finally, he flagged down a carriage and disappeared inside.

“Well!” she huffed, as the carriage vanished round a corner.

“I barely recognized him, Miss Ellis. Lord Throsby seems ill.”

Daisy set her hands on her hips and scowled. “Not ill. He is cup-shot, Miss Finch, but his manners are the same as they ever were,” Daisy complained.

The maid giggled. “He was very polite to acknowledge me.”

“Yes, he reserves all his worst behavior for me.”

“Begging your pardon, miss, but can you blame him?”

The maid had been the one to hear all her complaints about Throsby’s behavior over the season. They had become each other’s confidants in a way.

“No. Not really,” Daisy admitted honestly, as she glanced down the alley Throsby had emerged from again. “What was he doing down there, do you think?”

The maid confessed not to know but curiosity got the better of Daisy. She walked down the alley a little way. A few yards along, she saw a plain wooden door with a rose carved into the surface. They heard ribald laughter from the occupants inside. Women and men. Many of them.

The maid grabbed her arm and tugged hard to pull her away. “Such places are not for us to visit, miss.”

“No, of course…and not for him once, I would have thought, too,” she murmured darkly.

Daisy hurried back to the safety of Bond Street with a horrible feeling churning in her stomach. She was certain the rose signified a dwelling where a gentleman might pay for pleasure.

Hadn’t those fellows just claimed Throsby had taken a mistress from a duke last night?

She was appalled. Had her argument with Throsby dared him to prove her wrong about everything and made him reckless?

For as long as she’d known him, Throsby had never kept a mistress or taken a lover. He’d drank sparingly and only occasionally gambled.

They climbed into a rented carriage, her nose wrinkling with distaste at the shabbiness, and she told the driver to take them straight home, forgetting to make a detour for the ices she’d promised her lady’s maid until it was far too late to turn back. She apologized when she realized her oversight, but the maid didn’t seem to mind; she was too busy chattering on about Throsby’s ill condition.

Daisy listened with half an ear. Her shopping trip had been a waste of time and energy. The outing had left her feeling disappointed in her former guardian now, too. Getting drunk and gambling for a mistress’ favor was not the way a gentleman, her Throsby, should behave.

But at her home, she found a huge surprise awaiting her in her drawing room.

Throsby was curled up on her settee, her servants standing about watching him as he snored, making them all snicker.

She rushed to the front and shushed them. “What is he doing here?”

The butler stepped forward. “I’m afraid I don’t know, miss. He let himself in with his key, lay down, and fell straight to sleep. I can’t seem to wake him, either.”

Daisy edged closer to the viscount, and in the close confines of the drawing room, she could detect the strong smell of spirits pouring off him in cloying waves. She’d seen the signs but missed the scent during their earlier encounter on Bond Street. She held her breath as she leaned over him and shook him by the shoulder. “Throsby, you can’t be here.”