A Scandalous Lady (7 page)

Why?
What did he want from her? He'd said maid service, but no one extended such a kindness without expecting something greater in return. He'd also said he had no intention of making her lift her skirts. Ha! She believed that like she believed man could fly. He was a man, a nobleman, and an
American
at that. She knew their kind. Once he realized she wasn't as young as he'd first assumed, he'd reveal his true colors. They all did.

Well, she wasn't about to stick around and wait for it to happen.

She raised her head from the pillow. Millie snored on, dead to the world, and Lucy had finally settled into peaceful oblivion. She drew the soft cotton nightgown she'd been given over her head and started to shove it into her rucksack, then stopped.
Do not steal from me.
It was the nicest thing she'd ever worn, and she hated to part with it, yet she'd not give him any more reason to come after her than he already had. She got the feeling that the baron was not the sort of man to spout empty promises.

With one last, wistful glance, she carefully folded the gown and laid it on the pillow. It took only a few minutes to find her own clothing, and she recoiled at the stench. Just the thought of the stiff, filthy clothes against her clean skin made her want to vomit, but there was no help for it; the set in her rucksack was just as bad. She'd not leave with anything she hadn't brought with her.

Faith dressed quickly and without a sound. With the rucksack looped across her shoulder, she crushed her hair and wrestled the too-silky curls under her hat, then tiptoed toward the door. Where she'd go and what she'd do, she had no idea. Going back to Jack was out of the question; she'd burned that bridge. He had three unbreakable rules: don't get caught, don't squeal, and don't run away. She'd already committed two out of three. If she went back, they'd find her carcass floating in the Thames.

She supposed she could attempt a position as an orderly at the hospital—except, she couldn't stand the sight of blood. Applying as a governess was another possibility, but she'd need references, and she didn't think petty thief would be the ticket.

Sadly, she really wasn't qualified for anything besides picking pockets. It might not be a respectable means of making a shilling, but she knew every technique in the book. More, she was bloody good at it—even the baron thought so. And as long as she could filch, it kept her from living on the streets. Not such a bad prospect if there were more ways for a woman in her twentieth year to make a living than prostitution. . . .

Well, first things first. Get out of the house. Make her way back to London. Find Scatter. She'd take everything else one step at a time. At least the decisions would be her own.

She stepped out of the room and looked up one side of the hallway and down the other. The house was dark as pitch and quiet as a tomb as she made her way down the first flight of steps to the second floor. Solid wall waited behind her, a short, blackened corridor stretched ahead, and she could make out a dip in the floor where the main staircase would take her to the front door. A high sense of risk stole through her veins. Any moment she expected Jack Swift to fling himself into the foyer, barge up the steps, and drag her out of the house by the hair. Surely by now he knew of the incident at Jorge's. . . .

Well, all the more reason to pad the hoof.

Ten years of creeping stood her in good stead as she made her way toward the staircase. The soles of her shoes were thin enough not to squeak on the hardwood floor, and her clothes were dark enough to blend well with the shadows. The baron no doubt rested behind one of the closed doors on either side of her, and if he caught her, she'd be hard-pressed to explain what she was doing, skulking about at this time of night.

She made it to the top of the steps without incident and blew a breath of relief between her lips. She was just about to begin the long descent to the main floor when the sound of a door opening below froze her in her tracks. A wedge of light spilled onto the foyer floor. A long shadow crossed the foyer.

Faith pressed herself against the wall. She glanced behind her toward the back set of stairs; too far to make it back safely. Ahead, beyond her stretched a dark passageway, more doors on either side. Which were occupied? Which were empty? Damn this house! Damn herself for not mapping out the place earlier—not that she'd had time; everything had happened so fast that she'd not had a chance. She was paying for that now.

Footsteps approached the stairs. Faith flipped herself around a corner, opened the closest door, and found herself in a cavernous room. A huge four-poster bed dominated the floor. A quilt-covered chest acted as a footboard. A scroll-topped secretary and one overstuffed chair commanded a corner. There was not a single place to hide.

The rhythmic beat of heavy heels in the hallway grew louder. She raced to the window beside the secretary and twisted the clasp. After several seconds of struggling, the pane finally slid up. The footsteps stopped outside the door. Glancing first left, then right, Faith saw what she was looking for and threw her left leg over the sill at the same moment she heard the door latch click.

She hadn't thought there could be any worse humiliation than when the baron had caught her eating off the floor like a stray cur.

She'd been wrong.

Chapter 4

A
dark and handsome prince should find a lady stitching delicate samplers on a drawing room divan. He should find her seated primly at a gleaming pianoforte or strumming the strings of a lute. He should find her gliding gracefully across a ballroom floor.

He should
not
find her hanging upside down from a rose trellis two floors off the ground.

“My, my, Your Majesty, you are quite full of surprises,” came his mirth-filled observation from the window directly above her where he leaned over the sill.

Fighting against gravity, Faith tried to curl upward in an attempt to salvage a measure of dignity and felt the trellis give another inch under her ankle. Falling back in defeat, she almost wished it would fall. Better to be buried in thorns than face another mortifying episode before the baron.

Unfortunately, she would not be spared.

“You wouldn't by chance be trying to run away, would you, Highness?”

“Do I look like I'm running?” She sneezed, then cursed the reaction to the roses that had first caused her ungainly slip, then no doubt given her away. So much for her clever escape.

“Actually, you look like you're about to break your crown. Come down from there, Faith.”

“I can't,” she almost whimpered. “Me foot 'as gotten stuck b'tween the slats.”

She couldn't be sure if he chuckled or sighed. Maybe both. The first touch of his hand around her ankle sent a shock of lightning coursing down her leg. Faith jerked; the trellis quivered.

The baron muttered a mild curse that echoed across the lawn. “I can't seem to get a secure grasp to pull you up, so I'll have to come down. Stay put, I'll have you untangled in a jiffy.”

Stay put? Crikey, where did he expect her to go? She'd already discovered that she wasn't strong enough to pull herself up and untangle herself, else she would have done so long before he'd discovered her hanging like a sea monkey from the fragile wooden ladder.

Several minutes later, she felt his presence below and sought out his lean figure. Little more than shadow seemed to appear at the base of the trellis. Then a dim curl of moonlight brought him into mellow focus. She watched him bend down and pluck her stocking cap from the ground, where it had dropped beside her pack. “Why, I believe you've lost your tiara!” Even in the tip-turned darkness she could see his eyes twinkling as he swung her limp wool cap back and forth from his forefinger by the brim.

She clenched her teeth together. “Just help me down.”

“Please?”

She glared into the laughing gray eyes and ground out, “
Please.
”

He chuckled, then grabbed hold of the braces of the trellis, and after giving it a shake to test its sturdiness, began to climb.

And she began to sneeze.

And sneeze.

And sneeze. Her eyes watered, her nose ran.

“If you keep doing that, we're both likely to take a tumble.”

“I can't help it. It's these bloomin' flowers.” His weight seemed to dislodge every ounce of perfume in the blossoms.

“Ah, yes, the roses. My sister is very fond of them, as was my mother. 'Tis unfortunate they don't agree with you . . .” His eyes became level with hers. “Wouldn't you say?”

If she weren't so afraid of him taking her with him, she'd have shoved him off the trellis. As it was, the blood was draining straight to her brain, and her leg was beginning to ache from being stretched beyond its limits. All she wanted was to feel solid ground beneath her feet once again—even if that meant being the brunt of Westborough's humor.

He climbed another two steps until her upside-down body was faced with his right-side-up bum. Never in her life had she given a thought to a man's backside, but the sight of this one, with its low snug curve shrouded in velvety dove gray, made her mouth go dry, her head swim, and strange sensations rise up her middle.

“Hold me about my waist so that you won't fall.”

Hesitantly, Faith released the hold she had on the trellis to circle her arms around his stomach and back. No coat padded his form, just a simple shirt made of thin cotton separated the soft flesh of her arm from the hard plane of his belly.

Another step upward jarred the trellis. Her grip tightened about him, and she buried her nose against his thigh. The scent of roses vanished, replaced by the potent scent of heat and serried muscle. Crikey she liked the smell of him. So strong. So solid. So . . . manly.

She was dimly aware of his fingers prodding her ankle above her shoe and the instep of her foot. He cursed several times as he loosened the strings of her shoe. “Blasted thorns. Ah, yes, I think I've got it. Can you work your foot loose?”

She twisted her ankle one way, then the other, and to her surprise, her foot slipped from its moorings.

“That's a girl,” he praised. “Now hold fast while I step down.”

Oh, aye
, she thought, tightening her arms about him in pleasure. She was barely aware of the smooth descent until she heard him chuckle.

“You can release me now, we've reached the ground.”

Her eyes snapped open. Her head jerked back from his leg.

He braced her against him with one arm crossing her back and the other hand cupping her thigh. A hot iron to her flesh could not have burned a deeper imprint.

It took a bit of acrobatic maneuvering to set her upright. Standing on her feet at last, Faith's knees felt weak as pastry dough, and her instincts blared a warning to step away, put some distance between him. But with his arm lingering around her waist, holding her close to his powerful frame, thigh to thigh, breast to chest, she could do naught but stare into the eyes fixed on hers. Her mind went numb to all but the musky scent and male heat of the body pressed against hers.

A bit of moon peeked out from behind the clouds sliding across the sky, giving her a glimpse of his darkening pupils. More perfect features had never been created on a man. A sloping jaw, shadowed in whiskers. Smooth, firm mouth, temptation incarnate. And most compelling, eyes like the sea, which seemed privy to the deepest secrets of her soul.

What did he see when he looked at her? Could he see the wild street urchin, abandoned by her family? The foul pocket-thief, desperate to survive? The lonely young woman, lured by delusions of being a lady?

Then his eyes narrowed. All traces of amusement left his face. “What happened here?” With the same unexpected gentleness as he'd shown before, he tipped her chin toward the light of the waxing moon and brushed his thumb across the discoloration in the hollow of her cheek, and the world stopped along with her heartbeat. “Who did this to you?”

Faith blinked. The question seemed to come from a tunnel.

“Did someone strike you?”

The murderous rage in his eyes took Faith off guard, as if given the chance, the baron would kill whoever touched her. Rip him apart with his bare hands. He might not be as bulky as some or as robust in frame, but there was no doubt in her mind that with his lean and wiry strength, he could brawl with the best of them.

“Maybe I scraped it against the wall.” It wasn't a lie. Exactly. Jack hadn't done more than bruise her pride. It was more a twist to divert the truth, she told herself. Not to protect Jack Swift. She did it to protect herself. Somehow she knew that if he learned Jack had struck her, he would hunt him down, and though the knowledge filled her with unaccustomed tenderness and bittersweet shame, she didn't want Lord Westborough knowing the extent of the depths to which she'd sunk. Bad enough she was already labeled a guttersnipe and thief.

“Oh, Faith . . .” The tender stroke of his finger against her cheek was nearly her undoing. “What am I going to do with you?”

Hold me close. Tuck me into you heart. Make me yours.
“Let me go,” she found herself whispering. “I'll get ye back yer money somehow, I swear I will.”

His hand dropped slowly, as did his lashes, shuttering his thoughts. “I can't do that,
cherie
.”

She almost wept. “Why not? It ain't as if ye need the money—crikey, two hundred pounds is a drop in the bucket to gents like you!”

“We have an agreement, Faith, or have you forgotten?”

“T'hell with our agreement!” she cried recklessly. Then, aware that she might be treading on dangerous ground, she took an instant step backward and put herself out of his reach. “Ye might as well summon the magistrate right now because I'd rather spend the rest of me days in Newgate than step foot inside that house again.”

“You don't approve of Radcliff?” The sweep of his hand encompassed the opulent surroundings.

Approve? Crikey, it was everything she'd ever dreamed of! “T'ain't nothing wrong with it.”

“Then what is it,
cherie
? Is prison so much more preferable to working for me?”

If he'd demanded an explanation, she could have kept up her guard. But the infinite gentleness in his smoky tone broke through her reserves and sent her defenses crumbling. “I don't belong here,” she whispered, her voice as raw as her fear. “I don't belong here at all.”

“Neither do I. But it seems that we both must make the best of our situations.”

She'd half expected him to laugh off her angst, or at the very least, scoff at her for being a silly twit.

She hadn't expected him to understand.

“Come,” he commanded, taking her by the hand. “Everything will look brighter in the morning.”

As they turned away from the trellis, the baron stopped and bent low. When he raised up, he had her pack and hat clutched in his hand. The cap he returned to her, but the rucksack he slung over his shoulder. “I think this should remain in my safekeeping for a while.”

Faith couldn't find the will to protest. It wasn't as if she'd be needing the tools anytime soon.

He guided her across an overgrown courtyard and through a rust-hinged gate to a side door that opened into the kitchen. Her rejected bowl of stew still lay on the worktable where she'd thrown it earlier. She stared at it wistfully as they passed but said not a word.

She followed him up the stairs in dull obedience. When they reached the landing, she started toward the room she'd been assigned, only to be brought to a firm halt.

“No you don't, Faith.” Gripping her arm, the baron inclined his head toward the door of the room in which she'd used to make her escape. “You'll sleep with me tonight.”

For a second, Faith wasn't sure she'd heard him right. She had been awake for nearly two days straight. Her mind was dull and her body numb with fatigue. But as she replayed the words in her mind, there was no mistaking them. “Over me dead body, baron. I'll sleep in me own bed.”

“Your bed is wherever I decide it is.”

She'd known it would happen. She'd known he would show his true colors; she'd just convinced herself it wouldn't happen so soon. “I won't sleep with ye, baron. I won't be no one's whore.”

“Whore? Good God, where do you get such ideas? The fact is, Faith, you tried to escape before working off your debt to me, and I can no longer trust you not to escape again. Therefore, I plan to keep my eye on you every moment—even if it means tying you to my bedpost—until our agreement is fulfilled.”

And in that moment, she hated the Baron of Westborough with every beat of her heart. How could she for a moment have been fooled into thinking she was safe with him?

With one last glower, she yanked her wrist free and entered his room, the very same one she'd used to climb out the window. The irony didn't escape Faith. The bed seemed to have increased in size. Her first thought was to flee, but there was nowhere to go. Nonetheless, she lingered near the door, her arms wrapped around her middle. The baron made his way toward the hearth. She watched in surreal detachment as he knelt before the stone mouth and fed it wedges of wood. So this was how it was to be then? A hundred pounds of flesh for two hundred pounds of coin? The price for her crimes? The punishment for her sins?

She'd known she should not have trusted him at his word.

Maybe she should be flattered that he would deem her body worth even a farthing of that. But all she felt was bone-deep resentment and soul-licking terror.

She would fight him, she decided, mentally scouring the room for a weapon. She didn't want to hurt him but if it meant—

“There's an extra quilt on the chest. You may sleep on the bed or the floor, it makes no difference.” He lifted himself up and away from the fire now flickering in the grate. “But be aware that I am a light sleeper. I will hear you if you try to leave.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “I don't understand.”

“ ‘Tis half past three o'clock in the morning, Faith. I am weary to my bones, and we must be ready to leave in a few hours.”

What? He wasn't going to punish her?

He rounded the side of the bed, seeming to forget her presence. Dizzying relief washed through her. She slumped back against the wall, her knees too weak to hold her, and closed her eyes. She couldn't believe he would spare her.

Then she opened her eyes and caught him pulling his shirt from his waistband.

“Ye ain't taking off your clothes!”

He paused. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “ 'Tis the natural order of retiring.” Then he drew the shirt over his head and discarded it into the round-backed chair by the secretary.

And for the first time in her life, Faith swore she was about to swoon. He was neither brawny nor scrawny. Instead, his build seemed in perfect proportion to his height. Wide-shouldered, deep-chested, long-waisted and long-legged, not an ounce of spare flesh marred the beauty of his body. He was simply corded muscle and tightly stretched skin, the deep, rich hue of dusk.

Faith had been raised among boys of all ages and had seen countless number of men in all manner of dress—and undress. But not a single member of the male species compared to the Baron of Westborough. Not a single one aroused her fascination as he did. He looked sleek and sinuous and more irresistible than she ever dreamed a man could look. She could easily imagine him besting a Nordic warrior as waltzing across a ballroom floor. Watching him, the fluid play of bone and sinew, the purposeful gestures, the smooth and somehow deliberate dance of motion, captivated her. Intrigued her.