on this remark on the way to Berkeley Square. In fact, he was rather counting on it. If she agreed to accompany him after what he now had to say. Their acquaintance was short, but he felt fairly confident that she would, if only so that she might berate him for calling her hysterical.
“In answer to your question, my lord, I am the third and youngest son of Cyril Woodword, Marquess of Blackthorn.”
The earl stuck out his right hand, said, “Marquess of—” and then just as quickly drew it back, his expression suddenly so horrible Puck could have thought himself to have just announced that he carried the plague. “You’re one of Blackthorn’s bastards?”
Puck inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I am. I am Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn, known to my friends as Puck. A bit of nonsense, yes, but many say it suits me. A word in private, my lord?”
“A— No! There are ladies present. You will leave my house at once, sir!”
“Uncle Seth!” Regina stepped between her uncle and Puck, as if to protect at least one of them from the other. “Mr. Blackthorn has been exceedingly kind this evening. The good Lord knows what would have become of me—Mama and me—if he had not come along as he did. Only think how Papa would have seen the thing if any harm had come to us while I was in your coach. You should be thanking Mr. Blackthorn, not ordering him out of the house.”
God, I must know this woman better. For so many reasons.
“Thanks are not necessary, Miss Hackett,” Puck told her. “Although I would appreciate that private word? My lord?”
The viscount seemed to be considering what his life would be like—and what it would be worth—if Regina’s father were to become upset with him in any way. “Very well,” he said, and then walked toward one side of the large room, motioning rather rudely for Puck to follow after him.
“You’ll keep your eyes and hands off that one,” the viscount warned. “Reginald Hackett has plans for her, and they don’t include marriage to some jumped-up by-blow. I know what happened last year with your brother and Brean’s chit, but Brean is an ass. Reg is not. And he’s mean. Mean straight through to the bone.”
“Yes, thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,” Puck said smoothly. “But I’ve had a thought. Being by inclination a rather observant man, it has occurred to me that being beholden to Mr. Hackett for more than you already might be could be said to hold little appeal. Therefore, I would like to gift you with a sum of money you might use to employ the Runners. Oh, shall we say, two hundred pounds? And as a gift only, my lord. With only one small string attached, that I would be allowed to escort Miss Hackett home this evening.”
Puck knew, and Viscount Ranscome knew. A Runner, three Runners, could not cost more than ten or twenty pounds. Puck was offering the man a bribe—a ridiculously generous bribe—in exchange for his cooperation tonight and in future, if need be. Not that either man would say so. Puck was too smart … and Ranscome too greedy.
The viscount goggled and gasped at Puck, rather like a fish that had just unexpectedly found himself tossed onto the bank of the stream, only to be offered a helpful lift back into the water. “You … a gift, you said? You wouldn’t wish repayment?”
“You insult me, sir. Are we agreed?”
“It’s the girl. You want the girl. I know what you’re doing here. You want my help, or my silence. He’ll kill you. With his bare hands.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, also, but I hardly think so.” Having hatched much of this plan whilst Gaston was fussing over him as he tied his cravat, Puck had put more than one small but heavy purse in his pocket. He extracted the second, heavier purse and, with his back to the ladies, briefly flashed it to the viscount. “Take it. Take it now, or the offer is withdrawn. Ah, very good. You show some small spark of intelligence. The rest, tomorrow, sent over by messenger. Now I shall turn slightly so that the ladies can see, and you will smile and shake my hand. If we meet in public in the days and weeks to come, you will behave likewise. I am your friend, my lord. Your new bosom chum. Even if it kills you.”
“You are a bastard, aren’t you?”
Puck smiled in real delight as the two shook hands. “In every way, my lord, yes, I am.”
REGINA KEPT HER eyes facing toward the front of the coach as Puck sat himself beside her on the seat. “You could have told me.”
He adjusted the lapels of his black evening jacket and shot his cuffs. “Told you what, Miss Hackett?”
Where could she begin?
“You could have told me your circumstances. That would have gone a long way in explaining why … why …” She was suddenly at a loss for words.
“Why I behaved like such a bastard in the gardens?”
She shifted about on the seat to glare at him in the near darkness. “That is not what I meant! Besides, we are both going to forget about that entirely. Is that clear?”
“Clear and yet, I fear, impossible. You have a glorious mouth, Regina. I live only to taste it again.”
She was going to die. She was going to sink straight into these cushions and expire.
“You can’t say things like that to me.”
“I can’t? But I just did.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. She felt … she felt so alive. “You’re being purposely obtuse.”
“No, I’m being brutally honest. And, yes, perhaps provocative. I enjoy doing things I’m good at, you see.”
She drew her hands up into fists in her lap. “My cousin has been abducted!”
“Yes, and I am still amazed that you seemed to grasp the why of that abduction so easily. Do a lot of reading of penny dreadfuls, do you? Chaste maidens, snatched from the bosoms of their families for their beauty, carried off to foreign parts, lost forever behind the walls of some harem. Until the hero saves her or she, to preserve her virtue, takes her own life? Only after twenty pages of hand-wringing and virtuous speechifying, of course. Did you ever wonder, Regina—what good is an intact virtue when you’re dead?”
She faced forward once more, not without effort, because it was difficult to look away from his face, those fascinating eyes and their mischievous sparkle that, she was realizing more and more, hid a rather terrifying intelligence. “My father owns ships. Trading ships. Quite a few of them. He has been all over the world and seen things most of us wouldn’t believe. He … he has told us stories, and I see no reason to believe he was lying. But I didn’t think something so terrible could happen here, right in London.”
“Bad things happen anywhere, Regina. One of the servants I applied to with your cousin’s description informed me that a barmaid in a tavern he frequents disappeared last week. And he knows of another girl, a milliner, who went missing a few days ago. He said there were more. All of them looking much like your cousin, all of them small, all of them blonde. You and I saw the state of her mask, the obvious evidence of a struggle. She may have gone out into the gardens willingly enough, but that’s not how she departed them. No, we can’t be completely certain that your cousin was abducted by the same persons collecting pretty, petite blondes, but I don’t think such a conclusion is too far-fetched, do you?”
Regina remembered the ruined mask, the green glass stones in her reticule. “She didn’t go willingly. We were only going to watch, perhaps … flirt a little. It was silly, it was stupid, but it shouldn’t have been dangerous. And Miranda never would have gone off willingly with anyone and left me alone. It … it was only supposed to be a lark. A little … a little fun.”
She took the handkerchief he offered and wiped at her eyes.
“Your uncle will be hiring a brace or more of Bow Street Runners in the morning. Those Robin Redbreasts must have heard about the other disappearances by now