Regency: Rogues and Runaways. Margaret Moore

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СКАЧАТЬ the dressmaker I employed. If I’d acted as if the introduction was not to be thought of, what do you think Gerrard, and every other young buck at Thompson’s, would have thought? They would have been even more curious about her. I sought to avoid arousing any further speculation by agreeing to the wager.”

      “Did you lose for that reason, too?”

      “I did not lose. It was a draw.” Drury held out his hands. “Need I remind you I’m not the man I was? And it so happens, Mr. Gerrard is very good.”

      Buggy flushed and finally took off his hat, twisting the brim in his hands.

      “I forgot about the wager because last evening,” Drury continued, “before you returned from the Linnean Society, I learned that Miss Bergerine came to London seeking her brother. She’s been told he was murdered in Calais before embarking for London as he’d planned. She hopes that was a terrible mistake and, although it’s probably pointless, she came to London hoping to find him.

      “As you know, I have certain associates who can be useful in such matters and, having decided to assist Miss Bergerine in her quest as a further expression of my gratitude, I was anxious to get the search started without delay. Gerrard and the wager completely slipped my mind.”

      Buggy tossed his hat onto a table and sat heavily in the nearest chair. “That’s good of you, Drury. I know that sort of search doesn’t come cheaply. I’m sorry I was so angry, but I was completely caught off guard by Gerrard’s visit. And then to think you’d made such a bet… I don’t want to go through anything like that again with you. It was bad enough when it was Brix.”

      “I point out that Brix was really in love with Fanny despite his denials, so that wager had more serious consequences. However, I have no such feelings for Miss Bergerine.”

      As for how Juliette felt about him… He preferred not to think about it. Instead, he poured his friend a brandy. Buggy took the proffered glass and downed it in a gulp. He had once said that brandy seemed like slightly flavored water compared to some of the brews he’d imbibed on his travels, and occasionally proved that must be true.

      Drury would have preferred to let the matter drop without any more comment, but there was one question he felt compelled to ask. “Was Miss Bergerine upset?”

      Buggy undid the top buttons of his coat. “She was a little surprised, although quite polite to Mr. Gerrard.”

      “She wasn’t angry? I can easily imagine her flying into a temper. Heaven only knows what rumors would race about Almack’s or White’s about her then.”

      He wondered what rumors might already be spreading about her.

      “Actually, she was very friendly.”

      Drury was sorry he hadn’t used that nasty little maneuver Thompson had taught him when he had the chance. Then Gerrard wouldn’t be intruding and demanding introductions.

      “I should be on my way,” Buggy said, rising. “I’ve kept my carriage waiting long enough.”

      Drury nodded a farewell. “Have a safe journey and I hope Lord Dentonbarry is generous.”

      Buggy inclined his head in return. “Try to be kind to Miss Bergerine, Cicero. She’s a remarkably intelligent, resilient young woman.”

      “I appreciate Miss Bergerine’s merits,” Drury replied, although perhaps not quite the same way Buggy did.

      Unless she had kissed him, too.

      “Then act like it. You can start by telling her you’re sorry,” Buggy said, leaving that parting shot to bother Drury until he could no longer concentrate on the case he would soon be defending.

      Because Buggy had a point.

      Later that afternoon, Drury walked into the small conservatory at the back of Buggy’s town house. The large windows allowed in plenty of light and a host of plants, several of which had come back to England with the young naturalist, thrived there even in winter.

      Although he’d never asked, he’d often wondered if Buggy had brought back exotic species of spiders to go with the plants. Today, however, seeing Juliette sitting on a little wrought-iron chair near some huge, palmlike monstrosity of a fern, he forgot all about Buggy’s plants and his area of expertise.

      In a gown of soft blue fabric, her thick, shining hair with a blue ribbon running through it coiled about her head, Juliette looked like a nymph or dryad sitting quietly among the vegetation—until it occurred to him, from the way she held her head in her hand, one elbow on the chair’s arm, that she also looked sad and lonely.

      As he had felt so many times, before the war and after.

      For her sake, he hoped she was right and her brother was alive. He also hoped that he could help her find him. There could never be anything lasting between them—their worlds were far too different—but he would feel finding her brother as excellent an accomplishment as saving an innocent from hanging or transportation.

      Although he’d been quiet, Juliette must have heard him. She lifted her head and regarded him with those bright, questioning brown eyes.

      He, who could so often predict what a man or woman might say in the witness box, who could read volumes in the movement of a hand or blink of an eye, had no idea what she was thinking. She was as inscrutable as he always tried to be.

      He decided to waste no time, so got directly to the point.

      “I’m sorry about the wager, Miss Bergerine, and I regret causing you any discomfort. I assure you, it will not be repeated.”

      “Lord Bromwell was very upset with you,” she said.

      Why had she mentioned Buggy? Drury still couldn’t decipher anything from her expression or her tone of voice. “Yes, I know. He came to see me in my chambers before he left for Newcastle and made that very clear.”

      “So now you apologize.”

      He couldn’t really claim that he would have apologized to her anyway. “So I have.” In for a penny, in for a pound. “I’m also sorry I wasn’t here to make the introduction. It wasn’t my intention to leave that to Buggy. I went to see a man who’s going to Calais for us. I worked with Sam Clark during the war. He’s from Cornwall, and his family have been involved with smugglers for years, so he has a lot of friends on the docks there. If anyone can find out if that really was your brother in that alley, or if he boarded a boat for England, Sam can.”

      She rose and came closer, and as she did, he wondered why he had failed to notice how graceful she was.

      “In that case, all is forgiven,” she said. “Besides, Monsieur Gerrard is a nice young man. I did not mind being introduced to him.”

      Allan Gerrard was a forward, overreaching young man, and Drury didn’t care to discuss him.

      Juliette lifted a spade-shaped leaf belonging to a plant he couldn’t identify, although Buggy surely could. Buggy, who obviously liked her a great deal.

      She ran her fingertip along the leaf’s spine, then its edges. “The men who attacked us—they still have not been found?”

      Drury tore his gaze СКАЧАТЬ