Read Online Lord Perfect by Loretta Chase - Free Book Online Page A

I shall wait."
    Then he disposed himself upon a chair at a table and
began perusing a portfolio of lithographs.
    "I sh-should be h-happy to, your lordship,"
Popham stammered. "But there is a d-difficulty. My assistant is
making a delivery, and I cannot leave the shop unattended."
    "Then send a ticket porter," said Benedict
without looking up from the prints.
    "Yes, your lordship." Popham stepped out of
the shop. He looked up the street. He looked down the street. No
ticket porter appeared. He returned to the shop. At intervals, he
went out again, and looked up and down the street.
    It was a small shop. Though Benedict was not a small
man, he did not take up a great deal of space physically. However,
being an aristocrat—a species virtually unknown in this part of
Holborn—he seemed to take up a good deal more space than
ordinary people did.
    Not only did he seem to occupy every square inch of the
shop, but he made customers stare and forget what they'd come in for.
Several walked out, too awed and intimidated to buy anything. That
wasn't the worst of it.
    He had taken a hackney in lieu of one of his own
carriages, in order to travel without calling attention to himself.
But he'd paid the driver to wait, and the vehicle dawdling in front
of the shop was slowing traffic. Idlers gathered about to gossip with
the driver and among themselves. Passing drivers expressed their ire
loudly enough to be heard inside the shop. Popham grew redder and
more agitated.
    Finally, when half an hour had passed and the assistant
had not yet returned, he gave Lord Rathbourne the address.

    FROM HOLBORN THE hackney driver turned left into Hatton
Garden then right into Charles Street. Here, at a public house named
the Bleeding Heart, Benedict disembarked. He asked the driver to wait
farther down the street, where the vehicle would not impede traffic
so much.
    He crossed the street, then paused at the narrow way
leading down into the yard.
    The neighborhood was an exceedingly poor one. Contrary
to Mrs. Wingate's beliefs, however, Lord Rathbourne was no stranger
to London's more downtrodden areas. He had been involved in several
parliamentary inquiries into the condition of the lower classes. He
had not obtained his information solely by reading.
    He did not hesitate, either, because he feared
contagion, though his wife had died of a fever caught during one of
her evangelical missions into a neighborhood like this.
    He paused because reason returned.
    What on earth could he say in person that he could not
say in a letter? What did it matter to him whether
    Mrs. Wingate took it ill or not? Had he simply leapt at
the excuse to see her? Had he let the rampage in his mind rule his
actions?
    This last question made him reverse direction.
    He made his way back down Charles Street. He walked
briskly, keeping his eyes on the way ahead and his mind firmly where
it ought to be. This was business. He would write Mrs. Wingate a note
informing her that Peregrine was returning to school and could not
continue his lessons with her. She would be paid for the full
schedule of lessons they'd agreed upon, naturally. Benedict would
thank her for all she'd accomplished with the boy so far. He would
allow himself a word of regret, perhaps, about the abruptness—
    Curse Atherton! Why could he not go on in an orderly
fashion, instead of one minute throwing up his hands and proclaiming
the cause hopeless and the next—
    A jarring sensation, then a jumble of sensations:
Benedict heard the short shriek, saw the parcels tumbling about him,
felt a bonnet strike his chin and a hand grab his coat sleeve, all at
the same time.
    He caught her—it was definitely a she, and he knew
which she it was in the next instant, even before he saw her face.

    IF SHE'D BEEN paying attention to where she was putting
her feet instead of gawking at him, Bathsheba would not have missed
the step. He was not looking her way, but straight ahead, his mind
clearly elsewhere. If only she'd kept her