Page 2 of Just a Little Daring

“Oh, Ash, don’t tease. You will help me, won’t you?”

With a long-suffering sigh, her brother slung his arm about her shoulder and hugged her. “When have I ever refused you?” he demanded, sounding a tad exasperated.

“Never,” she admitted, hugging him back.

“And I have a lifetime of regrets to prove it,” he added darkly.

Vivien laughed.

28th December 1840, Rother House, Burwash, Etchingham, East Sussex.

August tugged the rough woollen cap over his blond hair, straightened the cheap, well-worn waistcoat, and scowled at his reflection in the mirror. This was the last straw. Truly. He ought to leave the lot of them to their own devices. Lord knew they wouldn’t miss his interference. Well, not unless he was being useful and hauling one of them out of gaol or breaking them out of some building they’d accidentally got locked in, or smuggling them out of a village on the verge of riot for spreading pamphlets of an incendiary nature. Good God. Could he not at least get through an entire week without one of his female relations exploding some blasted scandal in his face? Apparently not.

Muttering furiously under his breath, August stomped down the stairs, heading for the kitchen and the servants’ entrance. His mother caught sight of him on his way through the hallway and perked up.

“Ah. Bill Brown, how good to see you again,” she said, beaming at him.

August snorted. “It was only three days ago, Mother, and I swear I shall burn this infernal disguise and Bill Brown alongside it, and then where will you be?”

“You say that every time, August, dear,” his mama said affectionately, reaching up to pat his cheek. “But every battle requires sacrifice.”

“Yes, but why am I always the fatted calf?”

“Oh, pish. It’s your poor sister languishing in that horrid cell, and for what, I ask you? Speaking her mind, as any free-thinking individual ought to do.”

“Yes, Mother, but must she speak her mind so loudly that she causes mayhem and disorder, and in front of so many witnesses? It’s only a matter of time before people realise Anna Brown is Anna Lane-Fox, and then I shall be a laughingstock, and she and Gwen will be completely unmarriageable.”

Though what manner of poor fool would marry them as it was, August could not imagine. It boggled the mind to envisage either of his sisters as wives and mothers. Warrior-queens of ancient Britain, yes, but docile, well-behaved spouses? Not on your life.

“Oh, no. Bill, dear, is that you again?”

August sighed as an ethereal figure dressed all in pale grey floated into the hall like an elegant phantom, bringing with her the faint scent of peppermint. “Yes, Aunt Lettice. Anna has got herself into a bit of a scrape.”

Again, he added silently.

Aunt Lettice made a sound of distress and pressed her ever-present lace hanky to her lips.

“Don’t fret, love,” Mama said cheerfully, giving her beleaguered sister a hearty squeeze. “Bill will get her out of gaol and no one the wiser.”

“Gaol! Again? Oh! The scandal! We’ll be ruined. Ruined!” Lettice wailed and fled down the hall sobbing. Oh, Lord. Could this day get any worse?

“Mother,” August reproached her, for Letty’s nerves were fragile things, and existing within Dante’s lesser-known tenth circle of hell as she did—August lived with the conviction his mother had created a new one—was a constant strain upon them. He sympathised.

His mother just grinned and pressed her ink-stained fingers to her lips and then upon his cheek. “Run along now and free your sister from tyranny. There’s a good boy. I must get back to my book. It’s flowing marvellously well at the moment.”

August groaned and hurried away. At least this debacle would get him out of the madhouse for the afternoon.

“There’s no need to scowl so. It worked, didn’t it? And it didn’t cost half so much as last time. In fact, I thought the guard was rather sweet. He let me send you that letter after all, and he paid the boy over the odds to get it to you quickly.”

August regarded his younger sister with impatience. “Yes, for which I have now repaid him with an exorbitant amount of interest. That get up doesn’t fool anyone, you little twit. Anyone can see you are a lady, not… not a—”

“Flower seller,” Anna said, quite unperturbed. “I had to get my paper into the hands of Lord Selby, and I discovered he buys his wife flowers every Monday on his way home. As an apology for all the vile things he did over the weekend when he was in town, I don’t doubt.”

“Oh, my God. Anna, you didn’t?”

Anna beamed at him. “I did! I wrapped the flowers in my paper. Wasn’t that clever of me, August? For even if he doesn’t see it, his poor wife will—the servants are bound to show it to her—and do you not think she is tired of being made a laughingstock by the disgusting old satyr? Perhaps it will give her the motivation to join our fight.”

“Or hit him over the head with the fireside poker.” August sighed gloomily. “And then we’ll be taken up for inciting a riot or murder, or something equally appalling.”