A Gentleman Never Tells(5)

Somewhere, at the back of his mind, he heard Prissy barking again, but the sound barely registered. The little creature was always barking at something. Brutus woofed a couple of times, but there was no way he was leaving the golden-haired beauty with the enchanting blue eyes who had walked freely out of the mist and so amazingly into his arms.

Brent reached up and pushed her cloak away from her shoulders, letting it fall to her back, giving him more freedom to touch her supple body as he desired. His lips left hers, and he kissed his way down the slender column of her neck, past the tied, corded sash that held her cape on, to where a bit of lace at the neckline of her dress teased and tickled his cheek and chin.

“Gabrielle!” a man shouted.

“Unhand her, you scoundrel!” another man bellowed.

Startled, Brent released her. A button on the sleeve of his coat caught on the lace at the neckline of her dress and ripped it as he stepped away.

In the blink of an eye, Brent saw four men charging toward him. Two of the men were well-dressed gentlemen, and the other two were wearing servants’ garb. He glanced over to his seducer. Her eyes held firmly on his. He expected to see fear or maybe regret in their depths, but what he saw was guilt.

Guilt?

Surely not, but the expression on her face told the tale. She wasn’t frightened of him or the men barreling down on them.

Had she planned this?

Was it possible that barely a fortnight in London and he’d already been caught in a parson’s mousetrap by the conniving, sweet-smelling hand of an angel?

While it was true he had planned to look for a comely, well-suited wife while in London, he had no intentions of being leg-shackled by anyone he didn’t choose.

“Sirs, I’m Viscount Brentwood,” he said as the men skittered to a halt in front of him. “I assure you this is not what it looks like. I was not attacking this young lady.”

“Lord Brentwood,” the taller of the two gentlemen said, “I am the Duke of Windergreen, and I assure you, I saw you kissing my daughter!”

A duke’s daughter! Blasted hell!

He didn’t know what kind of wretched plan was in that lovely head of hers, but he knew how powerful dukes were. This little scheme of hers could easily land him in Newgate if he wasn’t careful.

Brent turned to face the bewitching young lady, who still stood close to him, and whispered, “You did this deliberately, didn’t you?”

Her blue eyes rounded in horror. “No, of course not. How could you think that?”

“Right now I’m finding it very easy to think that.”

“Explain yourself, Brentwood,” the duke demanded.

Damnation!

He turned back toward her father. What could he say to the duke? That his daughter was the one who had kissed him? Would the duke believe him or even care that this lovely young angel he called Gabrielle was the one who initiated the kiss?

Somehow, Brent thought not.

In the dark recesses of his mind, Brent realized he heard Prissy barking again. It wasn’t her yappy, irritating bark or her snarling growl at blowing leaves. It was a painful whine.

Brent tensed again. Something had happened to his mother’s dog.

He glanced down. It wasn’t the mastiff giving her trouble. Brutus stood quite innocently beside his mistress.

Prissy cried again, a piercing screech of alarm as if something had hold of her. Brent’s mind went blank, and without thinking about consequences, he bolted toward the sound.

“Catch him!” Brent heard the duke shout behind him, but he kept running toward the dog.

But not much more than a few steps farther, he was slammed to the ground from behind, a heavy body landing on top of him.

Brent grunted and winced. He struggled to throw the man off his back as a beefy hand shoved the side of his face into the hard, wet ground.

“Stop!” he yelled. “I’m not running away. I hear my dog. I need to go to her. She’s hurt.”

“Sure she is, my lord,” the servant muttered above him as he pushed Brent’s face harder into the cold, rocky earth. “And I have a manor house in Kent, too.”

What a hell of a mess he was in. Something was wrong with his mother’s dog, and he’d been caught in the park at daybreak kissing a duke’s daughter.

“Damnation,” he rasped into the hard ground.

No wonder his mother had always said it would be a cold day in hell before she went back to London.