Tempting Miss Allender (Regency Rakes 3) by Wendy Vella Page A

on, Charlie?” he asked, but the color had leached from the boy’s face and the footman had stepped to his back, placing a hand on his shoulder.
    “Please go after her, Lord Belmont. I cannot leave Lord Allender alone, and fear that Miss Allender may fall into trouble without me.”
    “Mathew, where the hell is she going?” Simon looked at him, then back up the street at the rapidly diminishing figure of Patience.
    “Stay with the boy and I’ll go after her.”
    After handing the footman his cup, Mathew followed Patience. She was running down the middle of the street following a carriage. She jumped over piles of manure, wove around carts, people and horses, but never slowed. Mathew followed, doing the same, and slowly closed the distance between them. He could see her ankles and the soles of her half boots as she ran, and then finally he drew alongside her.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    “That gunshot…it has to have been from him!”
    Her breathing was coming in pants, and the carriage was now some distance away. Mathew wrapped his fingers around her arm and stopped her. Her eyes were frantic as she craned her neck to see where the carriage had gone.
    “Let me go!” She was trying to pull his fingers from her arm, but he didn’t release her.
    “Stop, Patience. You cannot outrun that carriage.”
    As if she were waking from a dream, her eyes grew wide and she stopped moving as reality returned.
    “No…no, no.” She dropped her gaze to his feet, and Mathew watched her shoulders rise and fall as she drew in a deep, shuddering breath.
    “I-I’m sorry, Lord Belmont. I, ah, thought I saw an old friend, but it seems I was wrong.”
    “You could never lie worth a damn, Patience, and it seems that has not changed over the years.” She tried to walk away from him, but he still held her wrist. “It was after the shot rang out that you panicked. Who did you think was in that carriage, and why did that bullet scare you?”
    “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
    “Your brother is standing outside the cowkeeper’s shop looking terrified out of his wits, with his footman standing over him.”
    “Dear God, Charlie!” Patience tried to run again. “Let me go! I must see to my brother.”
    “Unless Charlie is in imminent danger, I think it best that we walk,” Mathew said into her ear.
    She stiffened as her eyes darted from side to side. There were a few people looking at her strangely, but Mathew saw no one he knew.
    “Take my arm.” She did as he asked, and together they walked back to where Charlie was waiting for them. She was rigid, her muscles tense, fingers digging into his arm, so he gave her a few seconds to calm down before he asked another question. “What was that about?”
    “I’ve explained already.”
    “Your eyes tell me you are lying, Patience. They have the same look of fear as I saw in your brother’s. Plus I doubt seeing an old friend would cause you to cast propriety to the devil as you just did.”
    She bit her lip but said nothing further, and as they approached the cowkeeper’s shop, Charlie ran to his sister and she wrapped her arms around him. Simon was standing beside the front door, looking at the wooden façade, when Mathew joined him.
    “That’s from a bullet.” He pointed to a hole. “And I cannot be certain, but am fairly sure it was not here when we arrived. And if that is true, my guess is that it was aimed this way. After Miss Allender’s astonishing actions, I would suggest it was aimed at one of them.”
    Mathew felt his blood chill as he looked at the hole. “The question is, why?”
    “Yes,” Simon said, following Mathew back inside the shop. The Allender siblings had already retreated there.
    “’Tis a disgrace, my lord,” the proprietor said, approaching him. “I have sent my daughter to alert the constabulary. I won’t have some fool shooting his pistol about theses busy streets. A stray bullet might harm my cows.”
    “No indeed, Mr.