Free The Purloined Heart (The Tyburn Trilogy) by Maggie MacKeever

Tony thus tripping. Confidences, she decided, would be unwise. “Lady Georgiana needn’t concern herself. I’m hardly the sort of female to catch Angel Jarrow’s eye.”
    “I shouldn’t say there is a sort. I recall a dark marchesa and a little opera dancer whose hair was yellow as a crow’s foot—” Tony broke off, wondering how best to extricate his foot from his mouth. His embarrassed gaze fell on a grubby, curly-headed urchin wearing patched boots and a shabby dress, who was sauntering along the pathway. She gave him a gap-toothed grin.
    Tony reached into his pocket, tossed her a coin. She caught it in mid-air. “Ta, guv.”
    “Poor mite. That was kind of you.” Maddie watched the urchin continue along the path. “Do you dislike Mr. Jarrow, too?”
    “Angel ain’t going to offer me carte blanche! I like him well enough. Everybody does. Or everybody but the highest sticklers, and they probably like him too, but daren’t say so out loud.” Tony’s voice trailed off as he noticed a handsome phaeton drawn by a pair of matched bays pulling up so the driver might speak with a woman mounted on a dainty dappled mare. Tony knew a great deal about the Contessa DeLuca, his mama not needing to be acquainted with someone to air her opinion of them. He admired the contessa’s emerald green riding habit, the jaunty cap that perched on her chestnut curls. Less appealing was the sulky expression on her face as she spurred her mare and rode away.
    “Hah!” ejaculated Tony. “Speak of the devil and he’ll come calling. I never heard it was also true of angels, but there he is. And hat , my girl, wasthe sort of female a fellow offers a slip on the shoulder, and you’re not to have anything to do with her if she should come in your way!”

Chapter Twelve
     
     
    I am better than my reputation.  —Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
     
     
    Angel glanced at the young woman perched beside him on the phaeton’s high seat. She wore a carriage dress that didn’t suit her, steel blue with a white lace collar and matching capelet; an unflattering bonnet trimmed in the same color as the dress; and a bemused expression on her face. “Air-dreaming?” he inquired.
    She regarded him reproachfully. “I’m trying to determine how you detached me from my companions, and even induced them to bid me have a nice drive around the park. Are you in the habit of abduction, sir?”
    “Abduction?” echoed Angel. “Hardly. That would require too much concentrated effort on my part.” He felt the touch of her gaze on his brass-buttoned blue coat, nankeen breeches, gleaming top boots. The effect was startlingly erotic. “There is concentrated effort there,” she said, as her eyes returned to his intricately tied cravat.
    “The credit goes to my valet. I have but to raise and lower my chin.” Angel’s hands were firm on the reins, his horses having already displayed displeasure at finding themselves in company with the creatures that made their home along the shores of the Serpentine. He had himself displayed displeasure during his recent encounter with Daphne. Why was it women must always plot and scheme?
    Mrs. Tate didn’t have it in her to plot and scheme. Or she was damned good at it, which was not an impossibility. “Are we to welcome you to the family? My sister tells me that you are Ashcroft’s ‘dear dear friend’.”
     “I daresay I am. But it’s not what you think. Tony doesn’t wish to take a lawful blanket. Being as he already lives under the hen’s foot.”
    Her chuckle was infectious. Angel joined in. In that moment of inattention, an ill-tempered swan came to the notice of his team. An intricate bit of maneuvering ensued. Angel said, “That is called feathering a corner. You may compliment me, Mrs. Tate.”
    “And so I do!” She clutched the seat with one hand and her bonnet with the other. “Your vehicle is, ah, well sprung.”
    His vehicle was unstable and high off the ground, its front wheels