Mad About the Major (4 page)

“Might?” It was so easy to tease her . . . And so tempting.

“But I didn't ask to be born the daughter of—­” She glanced at him, her eyes wide with alarm as if she'd said too much. “Any more than you were born the—­” She paused and looked him over. “Oh, dear, who are you exactly?”

“Your rescuer.”

She sniffed. “Hardly, when you keep nattering on about taking me home.”

Kingsley decided to make another run at discovering her secrets. “And where exactly is home?”

She wasn't fooled by his benign probing. “London.”

“That hardly narrows it down.”

“That is as narrow as it shall remain until I have my day. So you might as well set me down right now.”

“I will deposit you somewhere—­but only when I am assured you will be safe.”

“I'd be safe right there,” she said, pointing at the sidewalk where a trio of young blades stood. One of them winked at her, and another blew her a kiss. She straightened and looked away, a blush rising on her cheeks, telling him more about her than her half clues as to her identity. “Well, perhaps not there precisely.”

“Let me get this straight,” he began. “You think you can just go gallivanting through London on your own?”

“Why not?” Once again, her chin rose, her pert nose tipping up so very defiantly.

Oh, she was the devil's own, this one. He was starting to wonder, if he did find where she lived, if they would be willing to take her back.

She might have mistaken the matter and they'd actually let her go.

But that hardly solved his problem: What to do with her now? For just letting her go was out of the question.

“Why not?” he repeated. Kingsley could think of a thousand reasons “why not.” “You'd be in trouble before you turned that corner.” He nodded toward the intersection just up ahead.

Her brows shot up, as if taking his words not for the admonition that they were, but a challenge.

“That is ridiculous,” she told him. “Whatever harm could befall me here?” She swept her hand regally over the landscape before them. “I might remind you we are in Mayfair.”

He glanced up and saw for a moment what she most likely thought she was seeing—­well-­dressed matrons, proper maids, old Corinthians leaning over their canes, footmen hurrying to and fro on their errands.

Everything right and proper and well-­ordered.

Except . . . she'd failed to notice the two urchins watching the crowd from the shadows of the nearby alleyway. The beggar woman weaving her way down the sidewalk—­but to Kingsley's sharp eyes, she didn't appear to be a woman at all—­not with those large hands and big feet. Then there were the two sharp-­dressed culls leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the thoroughfare.

All of these seemingly innocent souls that his companion had blithely overlooked were seeking the same thing: a plump fool to pluck and pick like a lame pigeon.

“You don't believe me!” she sputtered, looking out over the same scene, oblivious to the dangers all around.

“No,” he told her bluntly, as if that was the end of the discussion. The matter decided.

Which, he discovered very quickly, it wasn't. Before he could stop her, she gathered up her skirt and hopped down from the carriage.

“You just wait and see,” she told him, hurrying through the traffic to the opposite sidewalk.

“Get back in this carriage,” he ordered, only to have her wave him off and skip along, grinning at him when she made it to the other side.

See, I am perfectly safe.

At least she hadn't gone in the direction of the pair of sharpsters. Though her arrival hadn't gone unnoticed. But when one of them glanced up at him, Kingsley gave the fellow the most murderous gaze he could muster, and it was enough to send the pair skulking off down the street.

But in that moment, he also lost sight of her.

“Demmit,” he cursed, getting to his feet and using the advantage of the curricle's height and his own imposing stance to see over the crowd. He couldn't even call for her, not when he didn't know her name.

But as he stood there, a litany of advice prodded at him.

Drive off.

Wash your hands of this.

You didn't ruin the gel. You don't owe her a demmed thing.

But he couldn't. He didn't know why—­well, he did, but he wasn't about to consider such a foolish notion.

It wasn't as if he cared for her, as if she had been more than a flirtatious—­albeit disastrous—­moment at a ball.

Still, when her merry blue bonnet came into view like a beacon, and he spotted her in front of the bakeshop, he realized he'd been holding his breath, tensed and ready to pounce.

For a chit he barely knew.

Wanted nothing to do with. But he still couldn't shake his relief as he fixed his gaze on her slim figure standing before the shop window.

This looked harmless enough, he mused, relaxing his vigilant stance slightly. She'd get herself something to eat and then be back.

At least he thought that until he realized the two urchins he'd spied moments earlier were now making their way toward her.

And what unfolded next happened in the blink of an eye.

Like most of the trouble that happens in London.

G
ood heavens
, Arabella thought as she jumped down from the carriage, he sounded as pompous as her father.

And as a duke, Arabella's father was the very definition of pompous—­that is, according to her uncle Jack.

Nearly skipping with the heady air of freedom beneath her feet, she moved quickly to the other side of the street, sending a triumphant glance over her shoulder at
him
.

Then just as quickly glanced away. He rather towered above everyone else, and it wasn't just the curricle's height that gave him his lofty status. He was a tall, imposing figure of a man, and it made her shiver just to look at him.

Oh, there wasn't very much different about him—­though in the daylight she could discern that his driving coat was of a very good wool and an excellent cut.

The sort of coat done by only the best, most exclusive of tailors.

So, who the devil was he? Having been in Society for the last four Seasons, she should have some inkling as to who he might be, but she hadn't the vaguest notion.

Worse, it didn't help that when she looked at him, her gaze strayed to his lips and she imagined what they might have felt like kissing her.

Oh, bother
. That was exactly how young ladies of quality got into trouble. And she was determined to prove that she was capable of taking care of herself.

Which meant avoiding any entanglements that could be misconstrued. Yet here was her would-­be rescuer glowering at the scene before him as if he thought she was wading through the plague.

Really, did he think her such a child to be chided and reminded how to walk in the street?! Though she hadn't any notion of what she was going to do next, certainly she wasn't about to be ruined on a street corner in Mayfair.

Not when the scent of freshly baked buns tickled at her nose. She turned in that direction.

A bakeshop. Arabella's stomach growled, a very unladylike noise, but one that reminded her that she hadn't eaten breakfast this morning.

Having never purchased anything in her life, she found it rather daring to walk right up to the woman, tray in hand, and ask, “One of those, if you please.”

The woman glanced at her and then at her reticule.

Oh, yes, the coins. Arabella had almost forgotten. She fumbled with the strings and got out one of the pennies tucked inside and handed it over. “Will that do?”

“It will,” the woman said, relinquishing one of the hot buns.

Triumph ran through her. Yet as she turned around to show her prize to her doubting Sir Galahad across the way, she found a small girl in a tattered dress in front of her.

“Excuse me, miss, but I haven't eaten in two days.” The little urchin's grimy hand shot out and she looked up at Arabella with wide, sad brown eyes that implored for help.

“Oh, that's terrible,” Arabella said, as she looked down at the poor forlorn little dear, her heart nearly breaking. Why, it appeared as if the child hadn't eaten in a week. She was so thin, and, dear heavens, shivering something terrible. “How very sad. You poor, poor thing.”

“Could you—­if it isn't too much . . .” The child glanced at the roll and then glanced down at the dirty cobbles as if the sight of the fresh baked roll was too much to hope for.

Behind Arabella, the mistress of the bakeshop snorted and picked up her laden tray, moving it out of reach.

That, she later realized, should have been her first indication that something was amiss.

And then she made her second mistake. Some might point out that this was her third error—­if one counted that she should never have gotten out of the curricle.

But at that point her number of miscalculations was moot, for she handed over her breakfast.

Arabella would argue to her dying day that it hadn't been wrong to offer food to a starving child.

But a starving thief?

She held out the roll with both hands, leaning over to look the little girl in the eyes. In that instant, all the pretenses of suffering and agony fled from the child's face, replaced by a feral look of glee.

The roll left her hand in a flash, but so did her gloves, stripped off her hands in an instant. Even as she stumbled forward trying to retrieve them, she was bumped from behind and felt a jerk on her reticule strings.

Or rather where her reticule had been—­cut from where it hung on her wrist. As she twisted around, she was able to spy a second slight figure loping off with his prize held in his greedy grasp.

“Oh, goodness, no!” she called out.

Realizing she couldn't catch him, she tried to snag the child closest to her, but that little urchin was ready for her. She caught hold of Arabella by the hand and spun her, shoving her in yet another direction, leaving her off balance.

And by the time she righted herself, both of the little miscreants were gone.

Behind her, she heard a carriage pulling to a stop.

“Had enough, or do you still think you can make it to the corner?” came the insolent query.

She cringed and then turned around, nose in the air. “Not one more word.”

He didn't need words. He laughed. “Get in, you goose,” he told her, scooting over to make room for her.

She glanced over her shoulder where the pair had run off to. “They took my reticule! Aren't you going after them?”

He laughed again. “No.”

“No?”

“As in, decidedly not.” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her.

Arabella had never heard such a thing. “Well, that tells me one very important thing about you, sir.”

“Which is?”

“You are no gentleman!”

He laughed again. “I had rather thought you'd come to that conclusion the other night.”

She had indeed. But she supposed today she'd been lulled into a false sense of security by his well-­cut coat and fine carriage. “You truly intend to just sit there and ignore a lady's plight?”

He snorted. “A lady's plight! I will point out that you wouldn't be in such a ‘plight' if you had listened to me in the first place. Nor have we settled the matter of whether or not you are a lady.”

Arabella had the suspicion he was right—­about the first part—­ but she certainly wasn't ready to concede that point—­or any other—­just yet. Instead, she swiped her now gloveless hands over her skirt. “I would have been perfectly safe, save for a bit of uncommonly bad luck.”

“Uncommon, my aunt Abigail,” he barked with laughter.

“Sir, I will point out that this is Mayfair,” she told him, adding a stubborn tromp of her boot, as if planting herself in hallowed ground.

“This is London, you silly goose. Do you think the residents of Seven Dials find the air too rarefied here in Mayfair for their tastes?”

Seven Dials! She glanced around. Why, they wouldn't dare!

Yet . . . as she looked about this time, she saw the streets in an entirely new light. And when a pair of sharp-­eyed looking men stepped out of the alleyway, she didn't hesitate to scramble up into the seat beside her own ruffian.

The devil she knew, as it were.

Before he had a chance to laugh at her again, Arabella sat up, smoothing out her skirts, and then paused, her bare hands held out before her. “Oh, no!”

“What is it?” he said, picking up the reins and moving the curricle into the flow of traffic.

She turned her hand this way and that. “That little imp not only managed to take my gloves, but my ring as well.”

“Was the ring of value?”

Arabella paused, looking down at the white telltale reminder of where it had been, the indentation where it had sat so coldly and heavily for the past few years.

“Not much,” she conceded. “My aunt gave it to me when I—­”

She very nearly said “made my presentation at court,” but stopped herself. For then he would know she wasn't just some
cit
's daughter.

As it was he was looking at her, his dark brows cocked up like raven's wings, suspicious and searching for any bit of information.

“My birthday. Last year. Rather ugly, actually,” she finished. The latter part was true. It had been an ugly stone in an even uglier setting, but she'd worn it because it was about the only gift she'd ever received from her mother's side of the family.

A mother she'd never known. And her mother's sister only in passing.

Arabella knew why—­ her mother's family blamed her, and in turn her father, for her mother's death.

If not for her birth, her mother's life would not have been lost.

Such was the guilt and burden that had lain upon her since she'd heard the first whisperings of the servants as to why there was a duke, but no duchess.