How to Seduce a Bride

either. But he can make a butterfly sound lewd if he tries.”

“Butterflies are salacious creatures,” Leland said mildly. “All that flitting from flower to flower, pouncing on a beauty, staying on long enough to sip sweet nectar, then flying away to a brighter blossom? Don’t get me started or I’ll make poor Mrs. Masters blush.”

Helena laughed. “I didn’t know you studied insects, my lord,” she said.

“He knows everything,” Daffyd said. “Or so he wants you to think.”

“Well, maybe he does. Would you look at this?” the earl exclaimed.

They’d come to the end of the lane and found themselves standing on a closely cropped lawn that looked out over the lake. The view across the water was clear, or would be if there was anything to see. Twilight had finally ceded to nightfall, and it was a dark, starry night. The moon was a sickle; the only light came from torches across the lake and their mirrored reflections dancing on the water. The only sounds were those of far-off music drifting on the air.

“Lee, my hat’s off to you,” the earl said with admiration. “This is the best place to see fireworks in all of London, I think.”

“No,” Leland said. “The view from the balcony in back of the palace is perfect, marred only by the host. It’s difficult to watch fireworks or anything else from there because Prinny hates attention being paid to anything but him. So. Everyone comfortable? There’s only one bench, and we’ll have to wipe off the dew to spare the ladies’ gowns, but at least no one is occupying it. Ladies?”

“I’d rather stand,” Daisy said. And then, as a comet suddenly launched from the earth across the lake and soared up to splinter into golden pieces high in the sky, she clapped her hands and cried, “Oh! Look!”

Soon, silver shells were bursting in air, and green ones, scarlet and blue, some thumping and pounding like artillery, some screaming as they ascended before they burst into sparks and flowers and sizzling spinning wheels high in the sky overhead. The night was shattered with explosions of light, and the dark lake below glittered, echoing the spectacle.

Daisy was thrilled. Her upturned face was rapt. At one point, each of the three men was looking at her when they noticed the others doing the same, and they couldn’t help exchanging small secret smiles of pleasure at her obvious enjoyment.

The last shell had exploded and its sparkling lights long since faded into the blue haze of gunpowder that hung in the air before anyone spoke again.

“That,” Daisy said with enormous satisfaction, “was worth the price of admission.”

“It was free,” Leland reminded her.

“Not for me,” she said. “I had to travel across an ocean, and I’d sworn never to set foot on a ship again. But that made it worthwhile. Well. Thank you, gentlemen. When are they doing this again?”

“We’ll find out, and go,” the earl promised her, laughing.

“Good,” she said.

Leland raised an eyebrow, and then exchanged a look with Daffyd.

“I can’t,” Daffyd said, “I’m going home tomorrow. Fireworks are fine, but my Meg’s finer to my eyes. When you come visit us, Daisy, I’ll order up some for you. Until then, you’re on your own.”

“Not at all,” the earl exclaimed, “She’ll see more. Spectacles are common in the summer in London.”

“Oh,” Daffyd said. “So, you’re going to skip your usual trip to Egremont, stay on in London for the summer, and be her constant companion here, are you, Geoff?”

There was a significant silence, and then the earl smiled down at Daisy. “Why not? Does that suit you, my dear?”

“Oh yes,” she breathed.

“Lovely,” Leland remarked sourly to Daffyd when they reached the main road again, and Helena Masters had thanked him and went to stand by her charge. “That’s set the seal on it. Well done. Or was it quite enough, I wonder? Maybe you’d prefer to come right out and say, ‘She’s all alone, will you protect this beautiful, vulnerable creature forever, Geoff?’ ”

“Damn,” Daffyd said. “I just wanted to know. Suppose I could have been more subtle. Well, what can you do?”

“You, my dear little brother, nothing. But I’ll continue to try. Her getting Geoff is like trapping a fish in a barrel. The man’s lonely, and she’s done everything but move in on him. I’ll be here to find out why and perhaps prevent that from happening.”

“For his sake?” Daffyd asked.

He got no answer.

The earl paused at the end of the lane, at the edge of the crowded road. “Here we are in the thick of things again,” he said. “What a mob. Shall we wait, and have an ice or some such?” he asked Daisy. “That way we can let those in this crowd who are bent on leaving right away do so. Most of them have to work tomorrow morning; we don’t. We can let them go first if you’d like. My carriage is waiting. We don’t need to hurry.”

People crowded the paths, moving forward like a living river, the crowd surging toward the exits to the park. Daisy hated being jammed in with a crowd. Anyone who’d been in Newgate prison would feel the same. She looked up at the earl. But before she could answer, she saw movement from the corner of her eye. The viscount came lunging toward her. She gasped and shrank back.

Leland had seen a man plunging toward Daisy and dived forward to intercept him. He felt a shove as the fellow pushed against him, and reached out to grab him. But the man ducked and spun, and ran away too fast for him to get hold of.

Daisy felt a sudden lightness on her arm. “My purse!” she shouted, looking down, “the bastard cut the strings and nicked my purse! Stop thief!” she shrieked. “Stop him! The bloke with the red kerchief ’round his greasy neck. The bloody bugger clipped my purse!”

Then she picked up her skirts and plunged into the steam of humanity, shouting as she ran after him.

If there was anything Londoners liked better than a fireworks display, it was a chase, especially one in defense of a gorgeous lady. This lady cursed like a trollop and ran like an athlete, but that only added to the theater of the moment. They loved theater, too.

Leland usually enjoyed a spectacle, but not tonight. His long legs ate up the distance between him and the thief, whose red bandana was like a beacon urging him onward. Too soon, Leland felt his strength draining. Still, he kept on, frowning as he did, pushing people aside with no ceremony, wasting no breath on apologies.

The culprit heard the ruckus behind him and looked back to see a sea of Londoners chasing him, shaking fists and shouting curses. The little beauty whose purse he held ran after him, screeching. He put on a burst of speed, leaving her behind. The tall, lean gentleman who had been with her cut through the mob, bloody murder clearly written on his face.

The thief flung the purse he’d cut into the crowd, causing them to part and scramble, fighting like spinster bridesmaids to be the one who grabbed the bouquet. He bent double and barreled through the crowd ahead of him, pushing any hapless people who blocked his passage. When he came to a thicket at the side of the road, he ran away down a dark path.

“That’s it, oh, thank you,” Daisy managed to pant when a rumpled red-faced fellow who looked like a grocer on holiday proudly presented her with her reticule.

The earl came along a few minutes later. He was clearly winded, but recovered his breath enough to delight the crowd by presenting a golden guinea to the fellow who had retrieved the purse.

“He’s gone,” Daffyd said in disgust, as he emerged from the dark path the thief had taken. “There’s another path it led to, and a few hundred people on it, but not a sign of him.”

“Let him go,” the earl said. “No sense pursuing now. He did throw it back. Anyway,” he said, still catching his breath, “wouldn’t want to see a fellow face a noose for trying, would you?”

“Aye, you’re probably right,” Daffyd said regretfully.

After much mutual congratulation, the crowd slowly melted away, and went back to pushing toward the exits again.

“Don’t brood. You almost had him, Lee,” Daffyd said, seeing a peculiar expression on the viscount’s face. “He was ahead by a long shot but you were gaining on him. Then you slowed down and he took off. But it was a near thing.”