She nodded, taken aback by the gravity in his tone. “I’m sure I shall be fine.” She blinked, pushing back the black wig to get a better look at him this last moment. His hair was so golden and wild. “Thank you for rescuing me,” she whispered. “I would not have enjoyed perishing in a fire.”
“Few enjoy such things,” he said with a charming smile. His quick, impassioned kiss caught her by surprise, then he jumped down to assist her from his horse, being careful not to disorder her wig or dress.
“You must go now,” she said in a begging rasp, and he complied, swinging back atop his great black stallion and wheeling away, toward the other side of town. He did not look back, even though she stood there a full minute watching the man who had breached her maidenhead disappear forever. She must forget all that now, forget such an ill-advised adventure had ever happened, or she’d be ruined in truth. When he turned onto Mount Street, she gathered her gaudy skirts and hurried toward her father’s stately home.
*
Wescott arrived at his town house to find it in an uproar. The street was clogged with carriages, the horses stamping impatiently. His groom took his exhausted stallion, promising to bathe and rest the panting mount. His butler, renowned for his never-changing demeanor, looked visibly relieved when he let him in the door.
“My lord, we thought—” Color rose in his sunken cheeks. “Indeed, welcome home.”
“Thank you, Jensen. Sorry it took so long. There was a fire.”
The servant trailed behind him as he headed for the stairs. “My lord, there was some fear that you had come to harm. If you please, your parents are here, as well as Lady Hazel and Lady Elizabeth. Lord Augustine, Lord Marlow, and Lord Townsend have been awaiting your arrival as well. Shall I announce you in the front parlor?”
Wescott turned from the stairs with a sigh. A proper hot bath, shave, and change of clothes would have to wait. “How long have they been here?” he asked.
“Since early morning, when Lord Marlow alerted your family that you hadn’t returned home after the fire. Have you taken any injury? Shall I call for a physician?”
“I’m perfectly well,” he assured him.
His mother, hearing his voice, burst from the doors of the parlor before the butler could announce his arrival. She threw her arms around him, her copious dark hair in disarray, as if she’d dressed just out of sleep.
“My darling son,” she cried, hugging him close. “We feared the worst when your friends came to see us. I’ve been so terrified.” He held her as she shook against him. “Oh, Jack, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Mama.”
The Duchess of Arlington was no shrinking woman, so it pained him to see her weeping. Hazel and Elizabeth, his two youngest sisters, flung their arms around him also, crying and wailing that they’d been too worried for words, so he was momentarily stuck in the doorway, enveloped by three of the most precious women in his life.
“That’s enough,” said his father, arriving to rescue him. “You see he’s fine, my loves. Let him sit with us and take some refreshment. He looks as if he’s spent a trying night.”
Wescott smiled at him in gratitude and took a seat on the divan, nodding to his three gentlemen friends as they greeted him. August, Townsend, and Marlow looked as haggard as he felt. His mother sat beside him, still sniffling, while his friends brought their chairs near. August and Marlow looked particularly peaked. He wondered if they’d slept at all.
“So where’ve you been?” asked Marlow with typical bluntness. “We thought you were coming behind us when we left.”
“I stopped to talk to my groom. It took some convincing to get him to leave the carriage.”
“The carriage did not survive,” his father confirmed. He waved a hand. “But it’s replaceable, and your groom arrived safely home.”
“I hoped he would. The fire advanced quickly once the winds started up. I tried to go around it to come home, but I got caught up in the crowds near the theater, so I headed east. I rode with the fire at my heels for some time before we—I—came to a place I could rest.”
He decided he wouldn’t tell them about Miss Layton. Rescuing an actress, and proceeding to seduce her in the middle of the crisis, wasn’t an act of which to be proud.
“The horse was too tired to return amidst the smoke, as was I,” Wescott continued, “so I took a room at an inn near Buxton Street and spent a restless night.” He squeezed his mother’s hand. “I’m sorry for your worry.”
“Oh, Jack.” Elizabeth insinuated herself between him and their mother, and leaned into his arm. “I cried when you didn’t come home. Your friends said you’d only gone the wrong way and couldn’t get back, but I worried you had burned alive.”