The Dangerous Debutante

CHAPTER SIX

AFTER RATHER HASTY introductions, Morgan was whisked off upstairs by her sister-in-law, Julia—a polite, minor beauty who nonetheless looked more than prepared to drag Morgan out of the room by her ear if she didn’t have the good sense to go willingly.

Leaving Ethan alone with Chance Becket in the tastefully appointed drawing room. “Julia’s taking her up to the nursery, to see our daughter, Alice. And probably to ask a dozen questions about you. I don’t think you have to worry about me, Aylesford, half as much as you have to worry about my very astute wife. If she decides you’re a rotter, you won’t get within fifty yards of Morgan again.”

“Thank you for the warning.”

Ethan had been given only a few moments to visually inspect the man he’d judged to be two or three years his junior, and had come up with no familial resemblance between Chance and Morgan Becket. Absolutely none.

Chance was blond, like his wife, like Ethan himself. Tanned, but obviously fair-skinned, a well set up gentleman who seemed more than capable of knocking Ethan down. At least once.

Both Chance and Morgan were tall. Other than that, they appeared to be as “related” to each other as chalk was to cheese.

But Ethan did recognize the man, remember him. Just as Chance had recognized and obviously remembered him. Now to discover if this would make things easier for Ethan, or even more complicated. He’d much rather have Chance Becket as an ally, although if the man knew precisely what Ethan planned for his sister, Ethan felt certain he would already be a dead man, and Becket wouldn’t bother about the consequences.

Strong-willed people, these Beckets of Romney Marsh. Perhaps it was something in the air there, at the back of beyond.

“Thank you,” Ethan said, accepting the wineglass Chance offered. “I’ll speak honestly here, Becket.”

“Is that so, Aylesford? You know how to do that?”

Ethan answered without rancor and, in fact, with some humor. “I’m making an exception here, Becket, and being quite unusually jovial and forthcoming. But don’t push, and neither will I. I failed to make any connection between you and your sister, as we’ve never been formally introduced. My mistake entirely. Not that you and your father can be held blameless as, while Saul and his Bessie are both quite formidable, the young man she calls Jacob is so thoroughly enamored of, and cowed by, your sister that he’s of no worth at all.”

Chance gave up his slightly threatening stance, since it didn’t seem to have any affect on the earl in any case. “I’ve been worried about that from the moment I received my father’s latest letter informing me that Jacob would be accompanying her. Jacob’s a good enough lad, but that’s rather like putting the pigeon in charge of the fox.”

“You do seem to know your sister very well. I’d like to add that, had I realized your relationship to her, I would have made other arrangements to get her back into her coach and safely to Upper Brook Street, and gone on my way. Looking back, I would say those ‘arrangements’ would have been to bind and gag her before tying the coach doors closed.”

Ethan took a sip from his glass. “I repeat, I would like to say that. But that last little bit would be a lie, and we both know it. Your sister is the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met. And she seems to see straight through me, which is as unique as it is unfortunate. I’ll need to keep her close these next weeks.”

“Or I need to truss her up as you suggested, and send her back to Becket Hall,” Chance said, sitting down in the facing chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “But she’d only run away, find her way back here, as Morgan always most wants to be where she shouldn’t be, so I might as well not dream of such an easy solution. But what do you mean, she sees straight through you? I don’t know what’s going on. She can’t possibly know what’s going on.”

“And she doesn’t. But while the rest of London believes me to be fairly worthless and more than a little base, your sister’s reaction to my well-rehearsed patter was to grin and call me a liar. She then added that like recognizes like, or some such thing. That shocked me. Is there something else I should know, other than the fact that your sister would make a far better ally than an enemy?”

“You mean, other than that I’d hang parts of you from every lamppost in London if I thought you’d touched her, and damn the minister if he thinks you’re indispensable. Or so he said when he warned me to silence about your presence in the War Office that night.”

Ethan smiled. “He called me indispensable? Well, now I am flattered.”

“Don’t be. The last man the minister termed indispensable was sent off on a sure suicide mission three months ago. He came back to us last week, packed in pickle juice. I may not have to worry overlong about you and my sister.”

“Really. I can see you and I are going to have an interesting relationship these next weeks. And we won’t mention the minister again after this conversation, will we?”

Chance sighed, pushed his fingers through his long hair, which was tied at his nape. “Then this conversation is over. I can’t say what I don’t know. It was late, supposedly everyone was gone, and you were stepping out of his office as I was stepping in. We weren’t introduced, but still I was told—in no uncertain terms—to forget I’d seen you. That’s all I know on that subject.”

“And it’s more than enough, I think we’ll agree,” Ethan said, lifting his wineglass in a small salute. “Suffice it to say the gentleman and myself are involved in a small…project.”

“Yes, I’d worked that out for myself, thank you. And now that I’ve got the name to go with the face, and know the reputation that is common knowledge throughout Mayfair, I can keep myself up nights, wondering what the devil the gentleman is up to this time, or I can pace the floors worrying about what you think you might be up to with my sister. Either way, I see little sleep in my future.”

Ethan smiled, liking this honest, forthright man very much. And it was time to leave the subject of the minister, and Ethan’s connection to him. “You and Morgan had different mothers? I don’t mean to be overly curious, but she has a rather exotic look about her that, frankly, you lack. Spanish, I’d say.”

Chance gazed at Ethan for long moments, during which neither one blinked.

“She could be. Our father adopted most of us. All of us, actually, save our sister Cassandra, who is the daughter of Ainsley Becket and his deceased wife. We can trace our lineage to our own parents, some of us, but that’s as far as any of us can go. You’re the twelfth earl, aren’t you? Steeped in family and tradition?”

One corner of Ethan’s mouth twitched in amusement. “Obviously your knowledge of me, although most probably damning, is also limited, Becket. When it comes to matters of bloodlines, the only ones that interest me are those of my horseflesh. So I was right? Spanish?”

“Does it matter?

Ethan shook his head. “No. Not at all. What matters is that Morgan seems to believe she won’t be welcomed too deeply into society. She could be right, you know, which begs the question as to why she’s here. She told me it’s to marry her off, turn her into someone else’s problem.”

Chance sat back in his chair, blinked. “She said that?” He began rubbing the back of his neck. “She couldn’t mean it. Morgan knows we would never…And she wanted to come. I think she wanted to come. Seasons are for women. Gowns, balls, all of it. I really wasn’t paying attention. Damn. Maybe I should at least offer to send her back to Becket Hall.”

It suited Ethan to keep Becket talking. “You’re merely thinking out loud, I’m sure, and aren’t seriously considering chasing the girl home to the wilds of wherever it is you all live, to marry some stammering country lad she’d be forced to murder in a week, if only to break the boredom. And where is Becket Hall, again? Romney Marsh, I believe she told me?”

“The far end of the earth. Another few hundred feet, and we’d be floating in the Channel,” Chance said, still with his mind on other things. “No, she has to stay here. There’s no future for her at Becket Hall, no future there for any of the girls. We all agreed.”

“You all agreed? This is so utterly fascinating,” Ethan said, and meant it. “Tell me, just how large is a clutch of Beckets?”

“Hmm? Oh, I’m sorry. Woolgathering. How many of us are there? Eight, actually, and our father, Ainsley. Four girls—Eleanor, Morgan, Fanny and Cassandra. Four boys—Courtland, Rian, Spencer and myself.”