A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides (11 page)

“Damn my eyes, Preston, it’s you.”

Chapter Seven

She drew the mare to a stop and leveled him with that blisteringly direct smile, as if she had only been waiting for him to discover her. “It is,” she answered shortly. “Surprised?”

“I shouldn’t be, devil take me.”

“You’re angry.”

“Not in the least.” He refused to be angry. It was unprofessional, and altogether unnecessary. What he was was bloody confounded. She was here, out in the middle of the sodding night, because he had stupidly, impulsively asked her to come and get up to some real trouble. And here she was.

It was so insane, and so fitting, all he could do was laugh. “Why should I be angry? It’s your neck.” And impossibly long legs and long curvy body and—

God’s balls, as his captain used to say—his captain who had known more than his share about young girls dressed up as lads. After all the intervening years, Will finally knew just how Captain Colyear felt.

Will’s face, and a few other, less public parts of his body were heating with some sensation he would rather not name.

Broad Ham remained unperturbed. “You know this boy, Master Will? He’s been following us. Trailing us all the way to and from Downpark. And why’s that?”

Preston’s answer to Broad Ham’s question was forthright. “I wanted to speak to Commander Jellicoe.”

“That so? One of your navy boys then, young sir?” Broad Ham was looking at her with something of disapproval, as if she were a bug of some undefined, watery species.

“No, not a navy boy. But I know him, right enough. Get your arse down off that tall beast, Preston, so I can speak to you without getting a damned crick in my neck.”

She smiled at that, her wide, impish smile. The impishness was all in the lightening of her eyes, and the dimples peeking into her cheeks. But she did as she was bid, and jumped handily back to the ground, relinquishing her control of the animal to Broad Ham who took a careful, loose rein.

“That’s better.” Will took her by the arm, and marched her off a ways so he could speak without being heard, even by Broad Ham, who had an uncanny knack for finding out things Will would rather keep to himself. The man had always seemed to know everything he and James had gotten up to as children.

Thankfully, the coachman was enough of a servant still, to move away with the mare under his quiet hand, but Will noted he didn’t go far.

Will steered Preston beneath the shelter of the bare trees at the intersection of Sheep Street. He kept a hand on her shoulder, both from the overwhelming compulsion to touch her, to be sure that the girl was there underneath the lanky lad’s clothing, and to keep her from decamping anywhere else. Or rather, anywhere else
alone
. It was near two o’clock in the morning and he had no bloody idea where her home was. But he was not a man who shirked his duty. She had obviously come out in search of him in response to his invitation, which made her his duty.

“You
are
angry,” she said. The mischievous smile had gone out of her eyes, but she was still forthright as she faced him.

Will took a deep breath. “I’m not. I am surprised, but not unpleasantly so.” Actually, he wasn’t pleased. He was impressed. He’d been teasing her earlier, in the library, with his idle challenge. He never thought she’d actually do it. But she had, she’d come out with him. “So you followed us? All the way from Northfield?”

She nodded, matter-of-fact, chewing on her lip a bit, and tossed up a shoulder in a nonchalant shrug by way of explanation, as if chasing a coach and four across Hampshire in the middle of the night were a regular occurrence. As if she were already thinking of going elsewhere.

Oh, he liked her.

It was no wonder she got herself banned from balls by the likes of Lady Barrington. “I have to admit, I’m flattered.” Will had to laugh—mostly at himself for having encouraged her. She was nothing if not supremely resourceful. “You look like the veriest urchin dressed like that. But I’m glad you decided to take me up on my invitation.”

She tossed up that shoulder again, but she spiked his guns completely by giving him the full measure of that mischievous, dimpled smile. “I’m just having a bit of a lark.”

“A lark?” He tried not to react to that smile, not to give in to the lure dancing in the deep, fathomless depths. But something about her smile—its sheer hopefulness—made him feel all achy and restless inside. Which was ridiculous. He had long got over that sort of rebellious impulse.

He countered the itchy feeling by reaching out to ruffle the hair sticking out of the disreputable cloth cap. “You idiot.” He said it to her but he might as well have been talking to himself. “You do know you’ve gone completely stark, raving mad?”

“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know?” she quoted with a cheeky lift of her brows as she rocked up on her toes, unable to contain all her jangling nervous energy.

“Most assuredly mad.” They could be lunatics together. He took hold of her moth-eaten lapel to keep her from jangling away. And to keep himself from dancing along with her. The last thing she needed was encouragement, and the last thing he needed was an entanglement with a girl who so easily roused his less civilized instincts.

But there was something in this girl that appealed to him. Something in her shining eyes.
I don’t trust anyone,
she had said. But here she was, trusting him. It was potent, that intoxicating rush of something very much like pride. Yes. He was proud to be the kind of man she could trust.

Will cast about again, to make sure they were still alone, and to get a grip on himself. Broad Ham had moved off toward the coach with the mare in tow. “What if someone recognized you?”

“I don’t care if they do,” she began, before she became practical. “Though it’s highly unlikely. You’re the only person I’ve met in Hampshire, apart from Mr. Stubbs-Haye, and I’m thinking his mother probably had to give him a tisane, and put him to bed with a hot-water bottle.” She gave him another one of those charming, hopeful smiles, her eyes alight with the promise of unfettered, rule-breaking fun. “And I thought you weren’t going to tell.” She held up her hand in pantomime of his earlier pledge. “Officer of the Royal Navy and all.”

Will could feel his feeble attempts at resistance crumble. Damn her eyes for being so clever as to toss his own cavalier attempt at charm back at him. He didn’t know what he wanted more, to throttle her or kiss her.

Oh, fuck all. That was all he needed! He might want to act unfettered by the hobgoblin rules of polite society, but she was still a young woman whose family would string him up by his ballocks if he so much as touched her in the way his own wayward body was so insistently recommending. He let go of her coat instantly and stepped back.

“A lark?” he repeated for lack of a better thing to say while he got a hold of his senses. But his hand came up, seemingly of its own volition, to finger the wispy, blunt edges of her hair where it fell against the collar of her coat. What sort of a girl just chopped off her hair so she could ride around in the rain in the middle of the night? What sort of life did she have where such a thing was even thinkable, much less desirable?

“All this for a lark?” he asked as the backs of his fingers slid into the soft strands to brush at the delicate fold of her ear. Even he could hear the empty regret in his voice.

Her mouth opened slightly and then shut. She turned her face from him, closing her eyes to avoid his gaze. Finally she just gave a little helpless, uncomfortable version of her shrug.

“I had to get out,” she said very quietly. “I get … restless.”

Restless. William felt the messy mixture of confusion and illicit excitement slowly leach from his chest. This he understood all too well. How many times had he remarked upon the same frustrating feeling over the course of the past weeks? And unlike him, who could upon occasion cry off his mother’s plans, and do as he pleased, a young lady like Preston was at the mercy of others. Others who had banned her from the ballroom.

In place of the excitement, something sharper and more acute remained.

“And your family? How do you hope to conceal this escapade from them?”

“They’ll never miss me,” she said simply and tried another small, hopeful smile. “You did say you could be counted upon not to tattle.”

William looked into that smile, into her grave, dark, liquid eyes, and was again seized by the irrational urge to kiss her. He wanted to banish every trace of that gravity, and give her nothing but laughter and unfettered fun. He wanted to join her ludicrous romp.

Lord help him, she
was
mad and she was making him so.

“What about your hair?” He reached out and satisfied his continuing urge to touch her by flipping up the brim of her cap. “Surely even lackadaisical parents will notice several missing inches of formerly long hair?”

“Oh, no. It’s only pinned to make it look shorter, see?” She reached up and began to pull out the pins, letting her hair fall to its natural length down her back. A mental image of her, clothed only in the flowing locks of her long, sun-flecked, sandy hair flashed across William’s mind. The thought hit him like a gut punch, stunning him with its unexpected intensity.

“No! Fuck all, stop that. Put it back.” He shoved her cap back down on her head. “As much as it pains me, we had much better keep you as a boy. But we need to get you out of here this instant. I don’t particularly want to be seen making love to a boy in the middle of a Petersfield street.” He started back to retrieve her mare, and let Broad Ham know of his change of plans.

When she didn’t immediately follow, he was forced to turn back, to find her still standing dead in her tracks where he had left her, an uncertain, almost stunned look on her face.

“Are you making love to me, Jellicoe?” she asked, her eyes dark and incredulous.

Oh, fuck
all
. Clearly, he was becoming as dangerously mad as she. He had given away all sorts of things with his careless talk this evening.

“No.” He was about to add that she would damn well know when he was making love to her, but however wayward she appeared, his gut instinct told him she remained innocent in the most basic of ways. He would have to go it cautiously.

“Oh,” was all she said, but he thought he heard disappointment in her voice.

There she was, a young girl of arguably good family, dressed as a boy, standing in the rain, in a street, at night, miles from home, upset at him for not wanting to ravish her on the spot. Clearly, this was God’s way of having a great, booming laugh at his expense.

So he gave in to his baser instincts and turned back to the wayward girl. Because the wayward girls were the only ones worth getting to know.

“I do have to say, Preston.” He perused her slowly, thoroughly enjoying the view. “You make a very good boy, as boys go. No one could think you were anything else.”

Her skin gave lie to his statement by flushing a beautiful berry pink under his regard, but she tipped up one of those nonchalant shrugs again. “People only see what they expect to see. They expect to see a lad, so they do.”

“Don’t I know it. I once lived with a woman for a very long time and didn’t even know. You girls are a canny, clever lot.” He forestalled her inevitable question—her eyes had gotten big and her mouth had popped open in astonishment. “That is a story for another day. Which brings us back to this day, or rather, this night. What had you planned on doing if I had gone into that house?” He tossed his head at number 6 down the road.

“I don’t know. Played dice, I should suppose. What would
you
have done if you had gone into that house?”

“Drank inferior brandy, I should suppose. And resisted the urge to make comparisons to the beginning of my evening.”

She smiled, her lips spreading her smile wide, like jam. “I think now I’m the one who is meant to be flattered.”

“You are. I am impressed by the sheer range of your talents. Do you really know how to dice?” He was more than familiar with sailors playing Crown and Anchor, and had heard tales of aristocrats betting their fortunes at hazard, but he had never imagined sweet young things from the country—and he still thought her sweet despite all appearances to wayward—were beggaring their neighbors with a roll of the dice.

“Of course. I’ve studied the theory.” Something pert and arch lit her eyes. It made her smile all the more sweetly mischievous.

“And how does a sweet country girl acquire a
theory
of dice?”

“Theoretical mathematics. I told you, I
read
.”

“What an interesting booksellers your village must have. How do you feel about putting theory into practice?”

“Remarkably sanguine.”

Oh, God yes, he liked her. More and more. “Well, all right. How much money have you got?”

She dug a sovereign and a few crowns out of her pockets. “Enough to start.”

So practical in the midst of her lunacy. He almost took her by the hand. Almost. It seemed somehow the right thing to do when taking a young lady to a scruffy dice game—take her hand and hold it fast as he was leading her into sin. But she had stuffed her hands into her pockets and was slouching along in an admirable imitation of a lad.

“Tell me about your theories,” he asked as they neared the group of dicers hunkered down against a curbstone.

“Well, they’re mathematical.” Her narrowed expression was skeptical, as if she doubted his ability to understand.

“Are they?” He decided to spare her his extensive knowledge of the trigonometry of navigation and admitted only, “I am familiar with the science.”

Her brow pleated together in the most adorable concentration. “Well, it’s all in the probabilities, you see, in how often a number is likely to come up.”

He leaned over to observe the play while he listened to her ramble on.

“You start with a one-in-six chance with one dice, but then the odds of throwing a specific number changes with two dice. And of course, they fix against those particular chances—that a seven is statistically more likely to be rolled than any other number—by having so many different outs on the main. But it’s really much more complicated than that. All about probability and outcome. It’s a fairly mutable game,” she explained at his ear.