Читать книгу Regency Rogues: Outrageous Scandal - Энни Берроуз, Annie Burrows - Страница 16

Chapter Seven

Prudence had hardly got going when a trio of young men emerged from a side street and sauntered in her direction. She could tell they were trouble even before they pushed to the front of the crowd who’d gathered to hear her sing.

She did her best not to display any sign of nervousness. But it was difficult not to feel anxious when one of them pulled out a quizzing glass, raked her insolently from top to toe, and said, ‘Stap me, but I never thought to find such a prime article in such an out-of-the way place.’

She carried on singing as though she hadn’t heard him.

One of his companions, meanwhile, turned to look at the farmer standing next to him. With a supercilious sneer he pulled out a handkerchief and held it to his nose. The yokel turned a dull, angry shade of red and shuffled away.

The three young bucks had soon had the same effect on all her audience. By the time she’d reached the end of her song they’d all dispersed. Leaving her alone on the steps of the cross.

Time to leave. Her voice was past its best anyhow. What with having nobody to bring her a glass of water...

She darted the bucks a smile she hoped was nonchalant as she bent to pick up the hat.

‘Allow me,’ said the one with the quizzing glass, snatching it from the ground before she could get to it. He smirked at his companions, who chuckled and drew closer.

‘Thank you,’ she said, holding out her hand in the faint hope that he’d simply give her the hat. Though she could tell he had no intention of doing any such thing.

‘Not much to show for your performance,’ he said, glancing into the hat, then at her. ‘Hardly worth your trouble, really.’

The others sniggered.

‘It is to me,’ she said. ‘Please hand it over.’

He took a step closer, leering at her. ‘Only if you pay a forfeit. I think a hatful of coins is worth a kiss, don’t you?’

His friends found him terribly amusing, to judge from the way they all hooted with laughter.

He pressed forward, lips puckered as though to make her pay the forfeit.

She backed up a step. ‘Absolutely not,’ she protested.

‘A kiss for each of us,’ cried the one who’d driven the farmer away with his scented handkerchief.

All three were advancing on her now, forcing her to retreat up the steps until her back was pressed to the market cross.

‘Let me pass,’ she said, as firmly as she could considering her heart was banging against her ribs so hard.

‘If you are going to give my friends a kiss just for letting you pass,’ said the ringleader, ‘I should demand something more for the return of your takings, don’t you think?’

The look in his eyes put her forcibly in mind of the greasy ostler from The Bull. And when he leaned forward, as though to follow through on his thinly veiled threat, her whole being clenched so hard she was convinced she was about to be sick.

‘You will demand nothing, you damned insolent pup,’ said someone, in such a menacing growl that all three bucks spun round to see who was trying to spoil their fun.

It was Mr Willingale. Oh, thank heavens.

‘I will take that,’ he said, indicating the hat.

Miraculously, they didn’t argue, but meekly handed it over and melted away, muttering apologies.

Or perhaps it wasn’t such a miracle. He’d looked disreputable enough last night for her aunt to select him to act as the villain in her scheme. With the addition of a day’s growth of beard and a furious glare in those steely grey eyes he looked as though he might easily rip three slender young fops to ribbons and step over their lifeless corpses without experiencing a shred of remorse.

She forgot all about her determination to prove she didn’t need him to look after her as she stumbled down the steps and flung her arms round his neck.

‘I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life,’ she sobbed. ‘I thought you’d gone! Left me!’

‘Of course not,’ he snapped, standing completely rigid in the circle of her arms. As though he was highly embarrassed.

‘Oh, I do beg your pardon,’ she said, unwinding her arms from his neck and stepping hastily back.

‘That’s quite all right,’ he said gruffly, patting her shoulder in an avuncular manner. ‘You had a fright. Here,’ he said then, tipping the small change from the hat into her hands. ‘Your takings.’

Then he clapped the hat back onto his head and tipped it at an angle that somehow magnified the aura of leashed power already hanging round him.

A tide of completely feminine feelings surged through her. Feelings he’d made it very clear he found embarrassingly unwelcome. She bent her head to hide the blush heating her cheeks, pretending she was engrossed in counting her takings.

Fourpence three farthings. Better than she’d have thought, considering her audience hadn’t looked all that affluent.

‘Well?’

His dry, sarcastic tone robbed her of what little pleasure she might have felt at her success if he hadn’t already made her feel so very awkward, and foolish, and helpless, and...female.

‘Well, what?’

‘Do you have enough to pay the landlord for our breakfast?’

‘You know very well I haven’t.’

‘So we shall have to pop my watch after all.’ He grimaced. ‘I can’t believe I’m using such a vulgar term. I suppose I must have caught it from Hugo. He is always being obliged to “pop” something or other to “keep the dibs in tune”, or so he informs me.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, we have this,’ she said, jingling her coins.

‘Oh, please,’ he huffed. ‘We’ve already established you’ve hardly made anything there.’

‘It’s enough to buy some bread and cheese,’ she pointed out. ‘Which will keep us going for the rest of the day. We have a week before we have to pay the landlord what we owe him. A week in which to raise the money some other way.’

‘That’s true,’ he said, with what looked suspiciously like relief.

‘And if all else fails, or if we run into any other difficulties, we will have your watch in reserve.’

‘And knowing you,’ he muttered, ‘we are bound to run into more difficulties.’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

‘Just that you seem to have a propensity for stumbling from one disaster to another.’

‘I never had any disasters until I met you.’

‘That is not true. We would not have met at all had you not already been neck-deep in trouble. And since then I have had to rescue you from that ostler, and your penury, and your foolish attempt to evade me, and now a pack of lecherous young fops.’

For a moment his pointing all this out robbed her of speech. But she soon made a recovery.

‘Oh? Well, I do not recall asking you to do any of those things!’

‘Nevertheless I have done them. And what’s more I fully intend to keep on doing them.’ He halted, frowning in a vexed way at the clumsiness of the words that had just tumbled from his lips. ‘That is,’ he continued, ‘I am going to stick to your side until I know you are safe.’

‘Well, until we reach wherever it is that your dragon of an aunt lives and you hand me over to her, I reserve the right to...to...’

‘Be mean and ungrateful?’

‘I’m not ungrateful.’ On the contrary, she’d been so grateful when he’d shown up just now and sent those horrible men packing that she’d fallen on his neck and embarrassed him. Embarrassed herself. In fact she suspected that half the reason she was suddenly so cross with him again was because she was ashamed of appearing clingy and weepy. Right after vowing she wasn’t going to rely so totally on him.

‘Of course I’m grateful for everything you’ve done,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t give you the right to...to...dictate to me.’

‘Is that what I was doing? I rather thought,’ he said loftily, ‘I was making helpful decisions which would keep you from plunging into further disaster.’

‘Oh, did you indeed?’

All of a sudden his manner altered.

‘No, actually, I didn’t,’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. ‘You are quite correct. I was being dictatorial.’

‘What?’

‘Ah. That took the wind out of your sails,’ he said with a—yes—with a positive smile on his face. ‘But, you see, I am rather used to everyone doing as I say without question. You are the first person in a very long while to argue with me.’

‘Then I expect I will do you a great deal of good,’ she retorted.

‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ he replied amiably. ‘Just as being in my company will be an improving experience for you. Because you,’ he said, taking her chin between his long, supple fingers, ‘are clearly used to having your every whim indulged.’

‘I am not,’ she objected, flinching away from a touch that she found far too familiar. And far too pleasant.

‘You behave as though you have been indulged all your life,’ he countered. ‘Pampered. Spoiled.’

‘That is so very far from true that...’ She floundered to a halt. ‘Actually, when my parents were alive they did cosset me. And Papa’s men treated me like a little princess. Which was what made it such a dreadful shock when Aunt Charity started treating me as though I was an unwelcome and rather embarrassing affliction.’

Just as Gregory had done when she had rushed up to him and hugged him. That was one of the reasons it had hurt so much. He’d made her feel just as she had when she’d first gone to live with Aunt Charity, when everything she’d done had been wrong. She’d already been devastated by having lost her mother, being parted from her father, and then being spurned by both grandfathers. But instead of receiving any comfort from Aunt Charity she’d been informed that she had the manners of a hoyden, which she’d no doubt inherited from her morally bankrupt father.

‘I suppose it must have been.’

They stood in silence for a short while, as though equally surprised by her confession. And equally bewildered as to how to proceed now they’d stopped quarrelling.

‘Look,’ said Prudence, eventually, ‘I can see how difficult you are finding the prospect of parting with your watch.’

‘You have no idea,’ he said grimly.

‘Well, then, let us consider other options.’

‘You really believe we have any?’

‘There are always other options. For example, do we really need to redeem your horse? I mean, how far is it, exactly, to your aunt’s house?’

‘Exactly?’ He frowned. ‘I couldn’t say.’

‘Guess, then,’ she snapped, barely managing to stop herself from stamping her foot. ‘One day’s march? Two?’

‘What are you suggesting? Marching?’

‘I don’t see why not. We are both young—relatively young,’ she added, glancing at him in what she hoped was a scathing way. ‘And healthy.’ He most certainly was. She’d never seen so many muscles on a man. Well, she’d never seen so much of a man’s muscles, to be honest, but that wasn’t the point. ‘And the weather is fine.’

He placed his hands on his hips and gave her back a look which told her he could rise to any challenge she set. And trump it.

‘We could cut across country,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t believe it is all that far as the crow flies.’

‘Well, then.’

‘There is no need to look so smug,’ he growled.

‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, although she couldn’t help smiling as she said it. ‘It is just that, having grown up in an army that always seemed to be on the move, I am perhaps more used than you to the thought of walking anywhere I wish to go, as well as having more experience of adapting to adversity than you seem to.’

There—that had been said in a conciliating manner, hadn’t it?

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, you said yourself that your life has been rather dull and unpredictable up to now. Obviously I assume I am more used to thinking on my feet than you.’

‘Ah.’ He gave her a measured look. ‘Strange though it may seem, I do not regard my time with you as being one of unalloyed adversity, exactly. And thinking on my feet is...’ He paused. ‘Exactly the kind of challenge I was looking for when I set out. So, instead of regarding the loss of my horse as a problem, I agree—we could look upon it as the perfect excuse for taking a stroll through what looks to be a rather lovely part of the countryside.’

Now he was catching on.

‘And having a picnic?’ she suggested. ‘Instead of having to eat in yet another stuffy inn.’

‘A picnic...’ he said, his eyes sliding to her takings. ‘We would only need to purchase a bit of bread, some cheese, and an apple or two.’

‘And what with it being market day,’ she added, ‘there will be plenty of choice. Which generally means bargains.’

‘I shall take your word for it,’ he muttered.

‘You won’t have to. Until you have seen an army brat haggle over half a loaf and a rind of cheese you haven’t seen anything,’ she informed him cheerfully.

And then wished she hadn’t. For he was looked at her in a considering manner that had her bracing herself for some kind of criticism. Hadn’t Aunt Charity always said that her life in the army was not a suitable topic of conversation—indeed, forbidden her ever to mention it?

‘Then lead on,’ he said, picking up his valise in one hand and crooking his other arm for her to take. ‘And haggle to your heart’s content.’

She let out her breath in a whoosh of relief. And took his arm with pleasure. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had allowed her to be herself, let alone appeared to approve of it.

It felt as if she were stepping out of an invisible prison.

* * *

Morals, Gregory decided some time later that day, could be damned inconvenient things to possess. For if he didn’t have so many of them he could be making love to Miss Prudence Carstairs instead of engaging only in stilted conversation.

He’d been thinking about making love to her ever since she’d flung back her head and started singing. That rich, melodious voice had stroked down his spine like rough velvet. And had made him see exactly why sailors leaped into the sea and swam to the rock on which the Sirens lived. Not that she’d been intentionally casting out lures, he was sure. For one thing she’d been covered from neck to knee by his jacket, whereas the Sirens were always depicted bare-breasted.

Ah, but he knew that her breasts were unfettered beneath his jacket and her gown. He had her stays in his valise to prove it. Which knowledge had given him no option but to take himself off for a brisk walk while reciting the thirteen times table. Fortunately he’d just about retained enough mental capacity to keep half an eye on her, and had made it to her side before those three drunken young fops had done more than give her a bit of a fright.

He’d have liked to have given them a fright. How dared they harass an innocent young woman? A woman under his protection? He could cheerfully have torn them limb from limb.

Though who, his darker self had kept asking, had appointed him her guardian? To which he had replied that he’d appointed himself. And he knew of no higher authority.

Besides, what else was he to do after the way she’d rushed to him and hugged him and said she’d never been so pleased to see anyone in her life? Nobody had ever been that pleased to see him. He hadn’t known how to react. And so he’d stood there, stunned, for so long that eventually she had flinched away, thinking he hadn’t liked the feel of her arms round him.

Whereas the truth was that he’d liked her innocent enthusiasm for him far too much. Only his response had been far from innocent. Which put him in something of a dilemma. She wasn’t the kind of girl a man could treat as a lightskirt. For one thing she came from the middling classes. Every man knew you didn’t bed girls from the middling classes. One could bed a lower class girl, for the right price. Or conduct a discreet affair with a woman from the upper classes, who’d think of it as sport.

But girls from the middling class were riddled with morals. Not that there was anything wrong with morals, as a rule. It was just that right now he wished one of them didn’t have so many. If only Prudence didn’t hail from a family with Methodist leanings, who called their daughters things like Prudence and Charity. Or if only he wasn’t fettered by his vow to protect her. Or hadn’t told her of his vow to protect her.

Or if only she hadn’t gone so damned quiet, leaving him to stew over his own principles to the extent that he was now practically boiling over.

What was the matter with her? Earlier on she’d been a most entertaining companion. He’d enjoyed watching her haggle her way through the market. She’d even induced many of the stallholders to let her sample their wares, so that they’d already eaten plenty, in tiny increments, by the time they’d left the town with what they’d actually purchased.

But for a while now she’d been trudging along beside him, her head down, her replies to his few attempts to make conversation monosyllabic.

Had he done something to offend her?

Well, if she thought he was going to coax her out of the sullens, she could think again. He didn’t pander to women’s moods. One never knew what caused them, and when they were in them nothing a man did was going to be right. So why bother?

‘How far?’ she suddenly said, jolting him from his preoccupation with morals and the vexing question of whether they were inconvenient encumbrances to a man getting what he wanted or necessary bars to descending into depravity. ‘How far is it to wherever you’re planning to take me?’

‘Somewhat further than I’d thought,’ he replied testily. When people talked about distances as the crow flies, the pertinent fact was that crows could fly. They didn’t have to tramp round the edges of muddy fields looking for gates or stiles to get through impenetrable hedges, or wander upstream and down until they could find a place to ford a swiftly running brook.

‘So when do you think we might arrive?’

He glanced at the sky. ‘It looks as though the weather is going to stay fair. It should be a clear night. If we keep going we might make it some time before dawn tomorrow.’

She made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

‘Prudence?’ He looked at her. Really looked at her for the first time since they’d left the outskirts of town. ‘Prudence, you aren’t crying, are you?’

She wiped her hand across her face and sniffed. ‘No, of course not,’ she said.

‘Of course not,’ he agreed, though she clearly was. Which gave him a strange, panicky sort of feeling.

There must be something seriously wrong for a woman like Prudence to start weeping. A woman who’d been abandoned by her guardians, left to the care of a total stranger, had thought up the notion of singing for pennies with which to buy provisions so he could keep back his gold watch for emergencies, and then gone toe to toe with him about how to spend money she was proud of having earned herself—no, that wasn’t the kind of person who burst into tears for no good reason.

Was it?

‘Look, there’s a barn over there,’ he said, pointing across the rise to the next field. ‘We can stop there for the night if you like,’ he offered, even though he’d vowed only two minutes earlier not to pander to her mood. After all, it wasn’t as if she was crying simply to get attention. On the contrary, she looked more as though she was ashamed of weeping, and was trying to conceal her tears behind sniffles and surreptitious face-wiping.

‘You will feel much more the thing in the morning.’

‘Oh.’

She lifted her head and pushed a handful of wayward curls from her forehead in a gesture that filled him with relief. Because when they’d first set out she’d done so at regular intervals. Without a bonnet, or a hairbrush to tame her curls, they rioted all over her face at the slightest provocation. But as the day had worn on she’d done so less and less. She’d been walking for the last hour with her head hanging down, watching her feet rather than looking around at the countryside through which they were trudging.

‘Well, I don’t mind stopping there if you wish to rest,’ she said.

She was drooping with exhaustion, but would rather suffer in silence than admit to weakness.

All of a sudden a wave of something very far from lust swept through him. It felt like...affection. No, no—not that! It was admiration—that was all. Coupled with a completely natural wish to put a smile back on that weary, woebegone face.

As they got nearer the barn he started casting about in a very exaggerated manner. Tired as she was, she couldn’t help noticing the way he veered from side to side, stooping to inspect the ground.

‘What are you looking for?’ She turned impatiently, as though getting inside that barn was crucial.

‘A rock,’ he said.

‘A rock?’ She frowned at him. ‘What on earth do you want a rock for? Aren’t there enough in your head already?’

‘Oh, very funny,’ he replied. ‘No, I was just thinking,’ he carried on, with what he hoped was an expression of complete innocence, ‘of giving you some practice.’

‘Practice?’

‘Yes. You claimed you weren’t able to hit a barn door when you threw that rock at me. I just thought that now we have a barn here for you to use as target practice you might like to...’

‘In the morning,’ she said, her lips pulling into a tight line, ‘I may just take you up on your generous offer of using this poor innocent building as target practice. For now, though, all I want to do is get inside, get my shoes off and lie down.’

So saying, she plunged through the door, which was hanging off its hinges, and disappeared into the gloomy interior. Leaving him to mull over the fact that, in spite of deciding that coaxing a female out of the sullens was beneath him, he’d just done precisely that.

With about as much success as he’d ever had.