Читать книгу Regency Rogues: Outrageous Scandal: In Bed with the Duke / A Mistress for Major Bartlett - Энни Берроуз, ANNIE BURROWS - Страница 16

Chapter Eight

The barn was almost empty. It looked as though the farmer had used up most of last year’s crop of hay over the winter. Though there was enough, still, piled up against the far wall, to provide them with a reasonably soft bed for the night.

Clearly Prudence thought so, because she made straight for it, sat down, and eased off her shoes with a little moan of relief.

His own progress across the barn was much slower. She was too tempting—in so many ways.

‘Miss Carstairs...’ he said.

Yes, that was a good beginning. He must not call her Prudence. That had probably been where he’d gone wrong just now. He’d called her Prudence when he’d thought she was crying, and then he’d started trying to think of ways to make her smile, rather than ignoring her poor mood. He had to preserve a proper distance between them, now more than ever, or who knew how it would end? With him flinging himself down on top of her and ravishing her on that pile of hay, like as not. Because he was too aware that she had nothing on beneath her gown. That her breasts were easily accessible.

He’d tell her that he had her stays in his valise and beg her to put them back on in the morning—that was what he would do.

Though that would still leave her legs bare. From her ankles all the way up to her... Up to her... He swallowed. All the way up. Whenever he’d caught a brief glimpse of her ankles today that was all he’d been able to think of. Those bare legs. And what awaited at the top of them.

Now that she’d removed her shoes, her feet were bare, too. Whatever he did, he must not look at her toes. If thoughts of her breasts and glimpses of her ankles had managed to work him up into such a lather, then seeing her toes might well tip him over the edge. There was something incredibly improper about toes. A woman’s toes, at any rate. Probably because a man only ever saw them if he’d taken her to bed. And not always then. Some women preferred to keep their stockings on.

Just as he was thinking about the feel of a woman’s stockinged leg, rubbing up and down his bare calves, Prudence flung herself back in the hay with a little whimper. And shut her eyes.

All his good resolutions flew out of the door. He strode to her bed of hay. Ran his eyes along the whole length of her. Not stopping when he reached the hem of her gown. His heart pounding, and sweat breaking out on his forehead, he breached all the barriers he’d sworn he would stay rigidly behind. And looked at her naked toes.

‘Good God!’

Her feet—the very ones he’d been getting into such a lather about—were rubbed raw in several places. Bleeding. Oozing. He dropped to his knees. Stretched out a penitent hand.

‘Don’t touch them!’

He whipped his hand back.

‘No, no, of course I won’t. They must be agonisingly painful.’ Yet she hadn’t uttered one word of complaint. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were getting blisters, you foolish woman?’

‘Because...because...’ She covered her face with her hands and moaned. ‘I was too proud,’ she muttered from behind her fingers. ‘It was my idea to walk wherever it is we are going. When I haven’t walked further than a mile or so since I was sent to England. And I boasted about being young and healthy. And I taunted you for not thinking of it. So how could I admit I wasn’t coping?’

‘Prudence,’ he said gently, immediately forgetting his earlier vow to address her only as Miss Carstairs, and removing her hands so that he could look into her woebegone little face. ‘You would have struggled to get this far even if you’d had stockings to cushion your skin. Those shoes weren’t designed for walking across rough ground. It would have been different if you had been wearing stout boots and thick stockings, but you weren’t. You should have said something sooner. We could have...’

‘What? What could we possibly have done?’

He lowered his gaze to her poor abused feet again. And sucked in a sharp breath. ‘I don’t know, precisely. I...’ It seemed as good a time as any to explain about the stocking she’d found in his pocket. ‘If I’d had both your stockings I could have given them to you. But I didn’t. There was only the one this morning...’

She looked up at him as though she had no idea what he was talking about. He’d been trying to explain that he wasn’t the kind of man who kept women’s underthings about his person as some kind of trophy. It made him even more aware of the immense gulf separating them. Of his vast experience compared to her complete innocence.

Though not the kind of experience that would be of any use to her now. He had no experience of nursing anyone’s blisters. Of nursing anyone for any ailment. ‘They probably need ointment, or something,’ he mused.

‘Do you have any ointment?’ she asked dryly. ‘No, of course you don’t.’

‘We could at least bathe them,’ he said, suddenly struck by inspiration. ‘There was a stream in the dip between this field and the next. I noticed it before, and thought it would come in handy for drinking water. But if it is cool that might be soothing, might it not?’

‘I am not going to walk another step,’ she said in a voice that was half-sob. ‘Not even if the stream is running with ice-cold lemonade and the banks are decked with bowls of ointment and dishes of strawberries.’

He took her meaning. She was not only exhausted and in pain, but hungry, too.

‘I will go,’ he said.

‘And fetch water how?’

He put his hand to his neck. ‘My neckcloth. I can soak it in the water. Tear it in half,’ he said, ripping it from his throat. ‘Half for each foot.’

She shook her head. ‘No. If you’re going to rip your neckcloth in two, I’d much rather we used the halves to wrap round my feet tomorrow. To stop my shoes rubbing these sores even worse.’

She was so practical. So damned practical. He should have thought of that.

‘I have another neckcloth in my valise,’ he retorted. See? He could be practical, too. ‘And a shirt.’ Though it was blood-spattered and sweat-soaked from his exploits at Wragley’s. He shook his head. How he detested not having clean linen every day. ‘Plenty of things we can tear up to bind your feet.’

As well as her stays.

He swallowed.

‘Why on earth didn’t you say so earlier?’

‘I would have done if only you’d admitted you were having problems with your shoes. I could have bound your feet miles ago, and then they wouldn’t have ended up in that state,’ he snapped, furious that she’d been hurt so badly and he hadn’t even noticed when he was supposed to be protecting her.

Though how was he to have guessed, when she hadn’t said a word? She had to be the most provoking female it had ever been his misfortune to encounter.

‘You weren’t even limping,’ he said accusingly.

‘Well, both feet hurt equally badly. So it was hard to choose which one to favour.’

‘Prudence!’ He gazed for a moment into her brave, tortured little face. And then found himself pulling her into his arms and hugging her.

Hugging her? When had he ever wanted to hug anyone? Male or female?

Never. He wasn’t the kind of man who went in for hugging.

But people gained comfort from hugging, so he’d heard. And since he couldn’t strangle her, nor ease his frustration the only other way that occurred to him, he supposed hugging was the sensible, middling course to take. At least he could get his hands on her without either killing or debauching her.

Perhaps there was something to be said for hugging after all.

* * *

Prudence let her head fall wearily against his chest. Just for a moment she could let him take her weight, and with it all her woes—couldn’t she? Where was the harm in that?

‘You’ve been so brave,’ he murmured into her hair.

‘No, not brave,’ she protested into his shirtfront. ‘Stubborn and proud is what I’ve been. And stupid. And impractical—’

‘No! I won’t have you berate yourself this way. You may be a touch proud, but you are most definitely the bravest person I’ve ever met. I don’t know anyone who would have gone through what you have today without uttering a word of complaint.’

‘But—’

‘No. Listen to me. If anyone is guilty of being stupidly proud it is I. I should have swallowed my pride at the outset and pawned the watch. I should have done everything in my power to liberate that horse and gig from the stable so you wouldn’t have to walk. I will never forgive myself for putting you through this.’

‘It isn’t your fault.’

‘Yes, it is. Oh, good grief—this isn’t a contest, Prudence! Stop trying to outdo me.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are. Even when I admit to a fault,’ he said, as though it was an immense concession to admit any such thing, ‘you have to insist your fault is greater.’

‘But I feel at fault,’ she confessed.

It was easy to maintain her pride when he was being grumpy and aloof, but so much harder when he was trying to be kind.

‘It was my fault you lost all your money.’ She’d known it from the start, but had been so angry when he hadn’t scrupled to accuse her of carelessness that she’d refused to admit it. ‘It was my fault you got into this...this escapade at all. If my aunt and her new husband, whom I refuse to call my uncle, hadn’t decided to steal my inheritance...or if you hadn’t had a room up on our landing...’

‘Then we would never have met,’ he said firmly. ‘And I’m glad we have met, Miss Prudence Carstairs.’

Her heart performed a somersault inside her ribcage. She became very aware of his arms enfolding her with such strength, and yet such gentleness. Remembered that he’d put them round her of his own volition.

And then he looked at her lips. In a way that put thoughts of kissing in her head.

‘Because before I met you,’ he said, with a sort of intensity that convinced her he meant every word, ‘I have never admired or respected any female—not really.’

What would she do if he tried to kiss her? She had to think of something to say—quickly! Before one of them gave in to the temptation to close the gap that separated their faces and taste the other.

What had he just said? Something about never admiring a female before? Well, that was just plain absurd.

‘But...you were married.’

He let go of her. Pulled away. All expression wiped from his face. Heavens, but the mention of his late wife had acted upon him like a dousing from a bucket of ice water. Which was a good thing. If she’d let him kiss her or, even worse, started kissing him, who knew how it would have ended? A girl couldn’t go kissing a man in a secluded barn, on a bed of sweet-smelling hay, without it ending badly.

‘Instead of sitting here debating irrelevancies, I would be better employed going to that stream and soaking my neckcloth in it,’ he said in a clipped voice. Then got to his feet and strode from the barn without looking back.

A little shiver ran down her spine as she watched him go. It was just as well she’d mentioned his wife. It had been as effective at cooling his ardour as slapping his face.

It was something to remember. If he ever did look as though he was going to cross the line again she need only mention his late wife and he’d pull away from her with a look on his face as though he’d been sucking a lemon.

Had he been very much in love? And was he still mourning her? No, that surely didn’t tie in with what he’d just said about not respecting or admiring any female before. It sounded more as though the marriage had been an unhappy one.

Gingerly, she wiggled her toes. Welcomed the pain of real, physical injury. Because thinking about him being unhappily married made her very sad. It was a shame if he hadn’t got on with his wife. He deserved a wife who made him happy. A wife who appreciated all his finer points. Because, villainous though he looked, he was the most decent man she’d ever met. He hadn’t once tried to take advantage of her. And he had been full of remorse when he’d seen what her pride had cost her toes. And when she thought of how swiftly he’d made those bucks who’d been about to torment her disperse...

She heaved a great sigh and sank back into the hay, her eyes closing. He might have admitted to breaking into a building, but that didn’t make him a burglar. On the contrary, he’d only broken the law in an attempt to redress a greater wrong. He might not have the strict moral code of the men of the congregation of Stoketown, and her aunt would most definitely stigmatise him as a villain because of it, but his kind of villainy suited her notion of how a real man should behave.

She must have dozed off, in spite of the pain in her feet, because the next thing she knew he was kneeling over her, shaking her shoulder gently.

‘You’re exhausted, I know,’ he said, with such gentle concern that she heaved another sigh while her insides went all gooey. ‘But I must tend to your feet before we turn in for the night. We should eat some supper, too.’

She struggled to sit up, pushing her hair from her face as it flopped into her eyes for the umpteenth time that day. He knelt at her feet, holding a wet handkerchief just above the surface of her skin, as though loath to cause her pain.

And though he looked nothing like a hero out of a fairytale, though he had no armour and had put his horse up for security, at that moment she had the strange fancy that he was very like a knight in shining armour, kneeling at the feet of his lady.

Which just went to show how tired and out of sorts she was.

‘Don’t worry about hurting me,’ she said. ‘I shall grit my teeth and think of— Oh! Ow!’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, over and over again as he dabbed at her blisters.

‘I wish I had a comb,’ she said, through teeth suitably gritted. ‘Then I could tidy my hair.’

‘You are bothered about your hair? When your feet are in this state?’

‘I was trying to distract myself from my feet by thinking about something that would normally bother me. Trying to think of what my usual routine would be as I prepare for bed of a night. My maid would brush my hair out for me, then plait it out of the way...’

But not last night. No, last night she’d had to rely on Aunt Charity’s rather rough ministrations. Because she’d said there was no need to make her maid undergo the rigours of a journey as far as Bath. Even though Bessy had said to Aunt Charity that she wouldn’t mind at all, and had later admitted to Prudence that she thought it would be rather exciting to travel all that way and see a place that had once been so fashionable.

Why hadn’t she seen how suspicious it was for her aunt to appear suddenly so concerned over the welfare of a servant? Why hadn’t she smelled a rat when Aunt Charity had said it would be better to hire a new maid in Bath—one who’d know all about the local shops and so forth?

Because she couldn’t possibly have guessed that Aunt Charity had been determined to isolate her—that was why. So that there wouldn’t be any witnesses to the crime she was planning.

Prudence sucked in a sharp breath. It was worse than simply taking advantage of the opportunity that being housed in that funny little attic in The Bull last night had provided. Aunt Charity and that awful man she’d married had made sure there wouldn’t be any witnesses to what she now saw was a premeditated crime.

‘Did I hurt you?’

‘What? No. I was...’ She shivered. ‘I was thinking about my maid, Bessy.’ She paused. Up to now she’d been too busy just surviving to face what her aunt had tried to do. But her mind had been steadily clearing all day. Or perhaps the pain of Gregory tending to her feet was waking her up to the unpleasant truth.

‘I’m afraid you will have to make do with my clumsy efforts tonight,’ he said. Then reached up and twined a curl round one finger. ‘Though it seems a kind of sacrilege to confine all this russet glory in braids.’

‘Russet glory!’ She snorted derisively. ‘I never took you for a weaver of fustian.’

‘I am not. Not a weaver of anything.’ He leaned back on his heels. His eyes seemed to be glazed. ‘But surely you know that your hair is glorious?’

The look in his eyes made her breath hitch in her throat. Made her heart skip and dance and her tummy clench as though she was flying high on a garden swing.

Oh, Lord, but she wanted him to kiss her. Out of all the men who’d paid court to her—or rather to her money—none had ever made her want to throw propriety to the winds. And he hadn’t even been paying court to her. He’d been alternately grumpy and insulting and dictatorial all day. And yet... She sighed. He’d also rescued her from an ostler and a group of bucks, forgiven her for pushing him out of his gig and throwing a rock at him. Even made a clumsy sort of jest of the rock-throwing thing.

A smile tugged at her lips as she thought of that moment.

‘So you accept the compliment now?’

‘What? What compliment?’

‘The one I made about your hair,’ he breathed, raising the hank that he’d wound round his hand to his face and inhaling deeply.

‘My hair?’

Why was he so obsessed with her hair? It must look dreadful, rioting all down her back and all over her face. A visible reminder of her ‘wayward nature’, Aunt Charity had always said. It was why she had to plait it, and smooth it, and keep it hidden away.

He looked at her sharply. ‘If not that, then why were you smiling in that particular way?’

‘I didn’t know I was smiling in any particular way. And for your information I was thinking of something else entirely.’

‘Oh?’ His face sort of closed up. He let her hair fall from his fingers and bent to dab at her feet again.

Good heavens, she’d offended him. Who’d have thought that a man who looked so tough could have such delicate sensibilities? But then she hadn’t been very tactful, had she? To tell him she’d been thinking of something else when he’d been trying to pay her compliments.

‘I was thinking,’ she said hastily, in an effort to make amends, ‘of how funny you were, searching about for rocks for me to throw.’

He shrugged one shoulder, but didn’t raise his head.

‘How very forbearing you have been, considering the abuse you’ve suffered on my account.’

He laid her feet down gently in the hay. ‘That is all I can do for them for now,’ he said, and scooted back. Looked at his hands. Cleared his throat. Scooted another foot away.

Which was both a good thing and a bad. Good in that he was determined to prevent another scene from developing in which their mouths ended up scant inches apart. Bad in that... Well, in that he was determined to prevent another scene from developing in which they would be tempted to kiss.

No, no, it was a good thing he wasn’t the kind of man to attempt to take advantage of the situation. They were going to have to spend the night together in this barn, after all. And if they started kissing, who knew how it would end?

Yes, it was a jolly good job he was maintaining some distance between them.

It would have been even better if she’d been the one to do so.

‘We had better eat our supper before the light grows too dim to see what we’re putting in our mouths,’ he said, opening his valise and taking out what was left of the provisions they’d bought in Tadburne Market.

‘We know exactly what we have for supper,’ she said wearily. ‘About two ounces of cheese and the heel of a loaf. Between the two of us.’

‘If it were only a few months later,’ he said, spreading the brown paper in which their meagre rations had been wrapped on the hay at her side, ‘I might have found strawberries growing by the stream.’

‘Strawberries don’t grow by streams,’ she retorted as he flicked open a penknife and cut both the cheese and the crust precisely in half. ‘They only grow in carefully tended beds. Where they have to be protected from frosts over winter with heaps of straw. Which is why they’re called strawberries.’

He raised his head and gave her a level look. ‘Blackberries, then. You cannot deny that blackberries thrive in the wild.’ He picked up the sheet of brown paper and its neatly divided contents and placed them on her lap.

From which he’d have to pluck his own meal. One morsel at a time.

She felt her cheeks heating at the prospect of his hand straying over her lap. Felt very conscious that her legs were totally bare beneath her skirts.

She picked up her slice of cheese and nibbled at it. What had they been talking about? Oh, yes...blackberries.

‘Some form of fruit would certainly be welcome with this cheese.’

‘And with the bread,’ he added. ‘It’s very dry.’

‘Stale, I think is the word for which you are searching,’ she said, having tried it. ‘But then, what can you expect for what we paid?’

No wonder the baker had let them have so much for so little. She’d been so proud of her skills at haggling. But they weren’t so great, were they? This bread was clearly left over from the day before.

‘I had a drink at the stream,’ he said, after swallowing the last of his share of their supper. ‘So I am not too thirsty. But what about you?’

‘I think I can just about manage to get the bread down. Though what we really need is a pat of butter to put on it. And then about a gallon of tea to wash it down.’

‘This will not do,’ he growled. And then, before she had any inkling of what he meant to do, he’d swept the brown paper to one side, hauled her up into his arms and was carrying her across the barn.

‘What are you doing?’

And what was she doing? She should by rights be struggling. Or at least demanding that he put her down. Not sort of sagging into him and marvelling at the strength of his muscular arms.

‘I’m taking you down to the stream so that you can have a drink. And dip your feet into the water. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,’ he said crossly. ‘I must be all about in my head. Dipping a handkerchief in the stream and then dabbing at your blisters...’ he sneered.

‘I daresay you were attempting to observe the proprieties,’ she said kindly. ‘For this isn’t at all proper, is it? Carting me about like a sack of grain?’

‘Proper? There has been nothing “proper” about our relationship from the moment I stretched my foot out in bed this morning and found you at the other end of it.’

Naked, at that, he could have added.

In the gathering dusk he strode down the field in the direction of the water she could hear babbling along its channel. Without giving the slightest indication that he was doing anything out of the ordinary. He wasn’t even getting out of breath.

Whereas her own lungs were behaving most erratically. As was her heart.

‘And what we’re about to do is highly improper, Prudence, in case you need reminding.’

She looked at his face, and then at the stream, in bewilderment.

‘Watching me bathe my feet in the stream? You think that is improper conduct?’

‘No,’ he said abruptly, and then set her down on a low part of the bank, from where she could dangle her feet into the water with ease. ‘It’s not the bathing that’s improper. It’s what is going to happen after I carry you back to the barn.’

‘What?’ she asked, breathless with excitement.

No, not excitement. At least it shouldn’t be excitement. It should be maidenly modesty. Outraged virtue. Anything but excitement.

‘What is going to happen after you carry me back to the barn?’

‘We are going to have to spend the night together,’ he bit out. He rubbed his hand over the crown of his head. ‘All night. And, since it promises to be a cold one, probably clinging to each other for warmth.’

‘We don’t need to cling,’ she pointed out, since the prospect appeared to be disturbing him so much. ‘Hay is very good at keeping a body warm. I can remember sleeping in a barn a couple of times when I was very little and we were on the march. Papa made me a sort of little nest of it.’

He gave her a hard look. ‘If you were still a little girl that might work. But you are a full-grown woman. And there isn’t all that much hay, Prudence. It is more than likely we will end up seeking each other’s warmth. And, unlike last night, which neither of us can remember, I have a feeling we are going to recall every single minute of tonight. You will know you have slept with a man. You will never be able to look anyone in the eye and claim to be innocent. Tonight, Prudence, is the night that your reputation really will be well and truly ruined.’