Читать книгу The Anonymous Miss Addams - Kasey Michaels, Kasey Michaels - Страница 11

“COO, GUV’NOR, would yer jist look at dat! Dat gentry mort looks jist like yer—wit a coffin o’ snow plopped on ’is ’ead!”

André Standish leveled a cool, assessing look at the untidy urchin perched on top of the traveling coach, then descended the few remaining steps to the gravel drive and addressed his son through the lowered coach window. “An acquaintance of yours, Pierre? He has an interesting way with description. Have you lost your way and must retrace your steps, or have you somehow learned that cook is preparing your favorite meal for tonight—a lovely brown ragôut of lamb with peas—and it is your stomach that brings you back to me?”

“My current favorite meal is rare roasted beef with horseradish sauce,” Pierre corrected, “although I know it is rude of me to point out this single lapse in your seemingly faultless store of information about me. And no,” he said, shifting the human weight in his arms in preparation for leaving the coach, “much as I love you, I have not lost my way. May I infringe upon your affection by prevailing upon you to open this door?”

André complied with a courtly bow, flinging open the door and personally letting down the steps. A moment later, Pierre was standing beside him in the drive, the young woman still lying limply in his arms.

The older Standish gently pushed back the hood of the grey cloak, revealing the young woman’s face. “I detect the smell of brandy. I foolishly thought I had raised you better than this. Surely you haven’t taken to drugging your females, Pierre?”

“Not lately, Father. My coachman nearly ran over her as she lay in the road.”

“Unconscious? A head injury?” André asked, not wasting time in useless questions as to how the female had come to be in the road in the first place.

“Most definitely unconscious.”

“Have you learned her name?” André asked as the two men hurriedly mounted the steps to the house, Jeremy Holloway at their heels until Duvall stuck out one foot and tripped him so that he landed facedown in the drive.

“I like to think of her as Miss Penance,” Pierre replied immediately. “Whether she is mine or yours remains to be seen. Duvall,” he called over his shoulder, “I saw that. For shame. I would not have believed it of you. Now wash it and feed it and put it to bed.”

Duvall, having no trouble in understanding who “it” was, tottered over to lean against the side of the traveling coach and buried his head in his hands.

“SHE’S STILL SLEEPING?” André asked the question three hours later as Pierre entered the drawing room, having excused himself after dinner to check on their patient.

“Hartley assures me that she’ll sleep through to the morning,” he told his father. “It may only be a butler’s opinion, but as the doctor said much the same thing before he left, I believe we can safely assume it’s true. She’s got a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg on the side of her head.”

“Poor Miss Penance,” André commented, accepting the snifter of brandy his son offered him. “She’ll have a bruiser of a headache when she wakes, I fear. Now, do you think it’s possible for you to tell me about the urchin? We somehow neglected to speak of him over dinner, perhaps hoping to preserve our appetites, for he was most unappealing when last I saw him. Duvall appears to dislike him, a lack of affection that seems to be mutual. I happened to pass by the bedroom as your man was giving the boy a bath, you see. The language spewing forth from the pair of them was enough to put me to the blush.”

Pierre took a sip of brandy. “Duvall likes everyone very little, save me, of course, for whom he would gladly die if asked. A man could become quite full of himself, knowing that. But to answer your question, young Master Jeremy Holloway is a runaway—having escaped the life of a chimney sweep, if my powers of deduction are correct. He chose my coach as his route to freedom when we stopped for luncheon.”

“An enterprising young lad,” André remarked, watching the burnished liquid swirl and gleam as he rubbed the brandy snifter lightly back and forth between his palms. “Oh, by the by—young Master Holloway would like to have a hot poker inserted in an area of Duvall’s anatomy that is not usually spoken of in more polite circles. Duvall, in his turn, would like the boy deposited in a dirty sack posthaste and drowned in the goldfish pond—as I am convinced my understanding of gutter French is still reasonably accurate. My goodness, I begin to feel like a spy reporting to his superior.”

“Duvall likes to think of himself as bloodthirsty,” Pierre remarked calmly. “Even taking Duvall’s sensibilities into account, however,” he went on silkily, “I do believe I shall take Jeremy as my Good Deed, and leave the disposition of Miss Penance to you.”

André blinked once. “Indeed,” he drawled, setting the snifter down very carefully. “And might I ask why I’m to be gifted with an unknown female with a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg on her pate?”

“Of course.” Pierre lifted his own snifter and tipped it slightly in André’s direction. “I won’t even remind you of how you maneuvered me so meanly once you learned about Quinton. Shall we drink to poetic justice, Father?”

THE MORNING ARRIVED very early, very abruptly and in full voice.

“How dare you! Get your hands off me! At once! Do you hear me?”

Obviously the injured young lady had come to her senses with a vengeance. Mere seconds after her screams had stopped, Pierre—who had been sleeping most peacefully in the adjoining chamber—skidded to a halt just inside the bedroom that had been assigned to Miss Penance, still tying the sash of his maroon banyan around his trim waist.

“I imagine you can be heard in Bond Street, brat,” he commented, running his fingers through his sleep-mussed hair and ruefully looking down at his bare legs and feet. Raising his head, he addressed the butler, whom he espied backing toward the door to the hall, a china cup and saucer nervously chattering against the silver tray he was clutching with two hands, his face white with shock. “Ah, Hartley, dear fellow, what seems to be the matter?”

Hartley’s lips moved, quivered actually, but no words came forth.

“What seems to be the problem?” the woman asked. “What seems to be the problem! I awoke to see this man leaning over my bed! That’s the problem! And why are you asking him? And who are you? You’re not even dressed, for pity’s sake. What has the world come to when a lady can’t get some sleep without all the world creeping into her bedchamber, with only the good Lord knows what on their minds, that’s what I want to know. Well, don’t just stand there with your mouths at half cock. You both have some explaining to do!”

“Hartley, you may retire now,” Pierre offered kindly as the elderly butler looked about to expire from mingled shock and indignation. “And please accept my congratulations. I didn’t know you were still considered to be such a danger to the ladies.”

Leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb, his arms folded against his chest, one bare leg crossed negligently over the other at the ankles, Pierre then allowed his gaze to take a slow, leisurely assessment of the young woman occupying the bed.

She was still as beautiful as his initial impression of her had indicated, with her small features lovingly framed by a heavy mass of coal-black hair, her pale skin made creamy where her slim throat rose above the fine white lawn of Eleanore Standish’s nightgown. His first sight of her long-lashed, blue-violet eyes only reconfirmed his opinion. However, she might not be quite as young as he had first thought, for the light of intelligence burned brightly in her eyes. “Unless it’s fever,” he hedged aloud, knowing his wits weren’t usually at their sharpest this early in the day. His early morning wits or the lack of them to one side for the moment, Miss Penance was still a most remarkably beautiful young woman.

“Well?” she asked, pushing her hands straight out in front of her, palms upward and gesturing toward him. “Have you somehow been turned to marble, sir? Perhaps I should remind you of your current situation? You’re in a lady’s bedchamber without invitation. I suggest you retire before I’m forced to do you an injury.”

Pierre smiled. “Oh, Father’s going to adore you,” he said silkily. “What’s your name, little Amazon? We can’t go on calling you Miss Penance, although my spur of the moment christening now seems to border on the inspired. Please, madam, give me a name.”

“My name?” she croaked, wincing.

“Your name,” Pierre repeated. “As you’re sleeping in my father’s house, I don’t believe it is an out-of-the-way demand.”

Miss Penance slumped against the pillows, suddenly appearing to be even smaller than she had before, her chin on her chest. “So you don’t know who I am, either,” she said in a small voice, all her bravado deserting her. “I had hoped—”

She sniffed, a portion of her spunk reasserting itself. “I should have known I’d be looking for mare’s nests, asking for some spark of intelligence from a man who has that much hair on his legs and is vain enough to consider showing it off to strangers.”

“Eight to five you’re a parson’s eldest,” Pierre was stung into replying. “And a Methodist parson to boot. Only the worse sort of strumpet or a holier-than-thou old maid would even dare utter the word ‘leg’ in front of a gentleman. Somehow, I can’t quite picture you in the role of strumpet. You dislike men entirely too much. Which leaves us with only the other alternative. Now, are you really trying to tell me that you have no recollection of your own name?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Of course I know my own name! Everyone knows his own name,” she shot back at him. “I just—” Her voice began to lose some of its confidence. “I just seem to have, um, momentarily misplaced the memory. It’ll come to me any time now. I’m sure of it.”

“How reassuring,” Pierre soothed, slowly advancing into the room. “And, of course, once you succeed in locating this truant name, you’ll doubtless inform me as to why you were lying unconscious in the middle of the roadway just north of here, obstructing traffic and upsetting my coachman no end. It’s the merest bagatelle—no more than a trifling inconvenience—this temporary lapse.”

The violet eyes shot blue-purple flame. “Oh, do be quiet, Mr.—”

“Standish,” Pierre supplied immediately, lowering himself into a seated position on the bottom of the bed. “Pierre Standish. See how easy that was. Now you try it. How utterly charmed I am to meet you, Miss—”

She nodded her head three times, as if the movement would jog her memory. “Miss…Miss…oh, drat! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“Quietly, my dear Miss Forgetful, quietly,” Pierre scolded absently. “We shall abandon this exercise momentarily, as it seems only to annoy you, and speak of other things. How is your head? You sustained a rather nasty bump on it, one way or another.”

She reached up to gingerly inspect the lump she had discovered earlier upon awakening. “It’s still there, if that’s any answer,” she told him. “Your guess is as good as mine as to how I came to have it. And, even though I am sure it matters little to you, it hurts like the very devil.”

Pierre frowned at her use of the word “devil.” Tipping his head to one side, he commented, “I believe we can dispense with the notion that you are a parson’s daughter. Your language is too broad.”

“Then I am to be the worst sort of strumpet?” she asked, narrowing her eyes belligerently. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Pierre shook his head, “No, not a strumpet, either. You’re much too insulting. You’d have starved by now.”

“Perhaps I am a thief,” she suggested, pulling the blankets more firmly under her chin. “Perhaps you should be locking up your family silver at this very moment, for fear I shall lope off with it the instant I find my clothes. I may assume that I have some clothing somewhere? Not that I’m likely to recognize it any more than I recognize this nightgown I have on now.”

“There’s no reason for you to recognize it. It was my mother’s,” Pierre told her. “She died several years ago.”

“I’m surprised.”

“Surprised that my mother is deceased?” Pierre questioned, looking at her oddly.

“Surprised that she lived so long, with you for a son,” she answered meanly, for even a fool could see that she was feeling very mean.

“Touché, madam. I believe that evens up our insults quite nicely.” Pierre rose from the bed and turned from her before he spoke again. “I’ll send a maid with some breakfast,” he said just as he reached the doorway to his own bedchamber. “That is, if I recover from the wounds your tongue has inflicted. Later, when you are more rested, my father will doubtless wish to interview you. Pray don’t repeat your latest attempt at nastiness to him, for he loved my mother very much.”

“I’m sorry,” she called after him. “Really, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just…it’s just that I’m really very upset. I mean, I don’t even know where I am, let alone who I am. Please—forgive me.”

Pierre turned to look at the young woman now sitting up in the bed, her violet eyes drenched with tears. “Neither of us has been very nice, have we?” he said. “It happens that way with some people, I’ve heard. We have already decided not to like each other, no matter how little Dame Reason is involved in the decision. Let us agree to forgive each other, madam, and have done with it.”

“Agreed!” she said smiling for the first time, the unexpected beauty of it making a direct hit on Pierre’s senses, so that he blinked twice, said nothing, and left the room, suddenly uncomfortable at being dressed in nothing more than his banyan.

A HOT BATH HELPED to ease the soreness she had felt over every inch of her body from the moment she had first awakened in the beautiful, sunlit bedchamber.

The young maid who had introduced herself as Susan had carefully washed her hair, massaging away some of her tension and banishing the headache that had been pounding against her temples.

The meal of poached eggs, country bacon, toast, and tea had erased the gnawing hunger that had made her believe her stomach must have been worrying that her throat had somehow been cut.

But nothing could ease the terrible, blood-chilling panic that shivered through her body each time she attempted to remember who she was, or where she lived, or how she had come to be lying unconscious in the middle of a roadway.

“I just don’t remember!” she said out loud as she sat at the dressing table in the nightgown and robe Susan had brought her after her bath, glaring at her unfamiliar reflection, her chin in her hands. “I don’t remember anything; nothing before waking up here this morning.”

“There are many who would not curse such a lapse, but rather rejoice in it. Good afternoon, Miss Penance. I’m André Standish, your host. Forgive me, but I did knock.”

“You—you look just like him,” she was stung into saying as she stared into the mirror, where André’s reflection smiled back at her. “If it weren’t for the color of your hair, I’d swear—”

“Ah, you’d swear,” André interrupted. “I see my son has not exaggerated. You are an enigma, aren’t you, Miss Penance? You have the look and accent of a lady, but your conversation is sprinkled with words most well-brought-up young females have been taught to shun. Of course, there was a time, more years ago than I care to recall, when all the best ladies were shockingly frank in their speech, but that time has since passed, more’s the pity. Perhaps you were raised solely by your father, or a doting uncle. That would explain it, wouldn’t it?”

She sat quite still, listening to the sound of his voice more than his actual words. His tone was so gentle, so reassuring. “No,” she answered, suddenly sleepy, and wondering why she felt she could lean her head against his arm and doze, secure in the knowledge that he’d never hurt her. “No, I don’t think so. Men seem to frighten me—except you, that is. I was very afraid of your son this morning. I don’t think I’ve been around men very much.”

“Pierre can be most formidable, even in his banyan. Especially in his banyan, I imagine.” André laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re frightened, and with every right. Forgive me for trying to prod you into memory. There’s no rush, you know. We shall take this thing one day at a time. Now, come lie down on the bed for a while. You must be exhausted. I’ve already sent for the doctor, but he is busy with someone who is really ill and not merely confused by a bump on the head. He sent along a note assuring me that you’ll remember everything in time. He will be here tomorrow to answer any questions you might have.”

She allowed herself to be helped into bed. Looking up at André, she said, “You’re not at all like your son after all. You’re very nice.”

“Pierre’s a beast, I’m ashamed to say. Quite uncivilized,” André confessed with a smile and a slight shake of his silver head. “Were I you, I should stay as far removed from him as possible. Now, get some rest while I go downstairs and cudgel my brain into coming up with a female companion for you. It isn’t correct for you to be the lone young woman in a masculine household.”

She was very sleepy, but she didn’t miss the meaning of his words. “Then—then you think I’m a young lady?”

“Was there ever any doubt?” André replied, winking at her as he closed the door behind him.