Lord Fool to the Rescue by L. L. Muir Read Free Book Online Page A

that one day, Your Grace.”
    “I look forward to it.” And with that, Leland Wescott, Lord Fool, fell to his side and found the wood floor not as hard as he’d imagined.
    ***
    Leland woke with a broken neck and a ringing in his ears unlike anything he’d previously experienced. A moment later he realized the ringing was actually the sound of a man screaming nearby.
    He pushed himself off a wood floor and made his way over to the man, to explain why he should stop screaming.
    There before him was Baron Ledford wreathing in agony. Bandages on both his leg and his hand had come loose and the burns beneath looked horribly painful.
    Leland did the only humane thing he could think of to put them both out their misery.
    He coldcocked the man. The ensuing silence was Heaven on Earth.
    To escape the smells of alcohol and burned flesh, he descended the stairs and searched out a dark room and some servants. He found only the first and was happy for it. After he lowered himself into the overstuffed chair and prayed some blood out of his overstuffed head, the events of the previous evening began a parade behind his closed eyelids.
    Backward.
    Good Lord, he was a poor drunk.
    He’d done nothing whatsoever to help Miss MacIntyre escape the wicked man upstairs, although if a certain thief ran into a woman named Aphrodite, he’d be sure to check on the woman’s safety.
    What a stupid arse.
    But not quite as stupid as one Baron Ledford.
    If the stories were true, the man had caught himself on fire. If one could discount the evil scheme of his auction, he was more the fool for demanding that payment be made in the middle of the night. In cash. At his home. The fact that a half-dozen thieves showed up soon after the hour of payment should have been no surprise.
    But they’d all been dressed alike. They’d come together.
    There was something tickling Leland’s brain. Something he needed to remember from the night before. Something about the way they were dressed.
    And where were the servants?
    Why had they needed his carriage?
    Someone pounded on the front door. Since there was no sign of a butler, it was up to Leland to stop the offender. He hoped he wouldn’t have to hit this one.
    He pulled the door open and Robbie, his own driver stood before him, fist raised, slack-jawed.
    “Praise be, you’re all right, Your Grace!”
    “Where have you been?”
    “The old gentleman, he said you’d agreed he could take your carriage, sir. After we got clean out of London, they stopped and told me to go home. Took your carriage. Shall I call for the authorities, Your Grace?”
    “No, Robby. I told him he could borrow the carriage. I need you to find me a hack then find Doctor Morris and get him back here as soon as possible. Then get yourself home.” His conscience prodded him. “There’s a patient upstairs who has been abandoned. And he’s in pain.”
    It was damned Christian of him to add the last.
    Hangover or no, he would find Miss MacIntyre and Lord Anonymous. And to accomplish it, he needed only to find a certain vest and an odd pair of boots.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Leland had listened closely to his driver, to the route he’d taken the night before. Unfortunately, the location where the Lord X’s man had abandoned the younger man had been very near a crossroads. There were three directions they could have gone. For all he knew they could have wound their way back into London as well. There was just no way of knowing.
    If he could just remember where he’d seen that man before…
    As night approached, he couldn’t get Miss MacIntyre out of his mind, or what might be happening to her. It was driving him mad enough to wish someone would coldcock him . At least he would wake in the morning and the nightmare would be over. For a while.
    But none took such pity on him, and into the wee hours, he finally slept.
    Lord Anonymous was due to return Miss MacIntyre by noon. Leland and half a dozen people with morbid curiosities sat in parked