Madcap Miss (5 page)

“As you wish, doctor, but when your ministrations are complete, do stop by and have a word with me. I will be in the private parlor.” So saying he took Felicia’s elbow and began to lead her out of the room.

She made a feeble objection. “Yes, but …”

“No buts, my girl. It is time you and I …” He smiled at her softly. “… have a bite to eat and a little chat. I would wager, and win, that you are starving.”

It was true. She hadn’t eaten all day, what with the news that the duke was nearly about to descend on her and then rushing off beside Scott with London in their sights. She was absolutely famished.

“Yes, it is an awful thing, but I am hungry,” she answered.

“Awful?” He frowned. “Why?”

“Well, I shouldn’t be, should I? What with poor Scott …?” She shook her head. “He lies there in an awful state all because of me …” She stopped herself and said without looking at him, “Well, I shouldn’t want to gorge myself, should I?”

He chuckled. “Very loyal sister.” He then eyed her as though studying some new species, which made her almost squirm in place, before he added, “Well, as to that, it is perfectly natural for you to be hungry after such an adventure, and after all, you have seen to Scott’s well-being.”

She cocked her face at him and considered this. “Yes … especially as I haven’t eaten since a piece of toast early this morning.”

“My poor dear, why is that?”

They had by this time reached the private parlor her hero (as she had begun to think of him) had hired for the evening, and he saw her seated. Felicia looked up at him and suddenly knew: he did not believe that she and Scott were brother and sister. Why he didn’t believe it, she could not say.

She would have to be careful. What did he think? She felt herself blush as she realized what it might look like. He thought she and Scott were lovers …
eloping!

~ Six ~

FELICIA FOUND HERSELF staring up into silver glitter full with secrets and was momentarily both taken and set on guard. Well, she told herself, that wasn’t quite fair, as she had her own secrets.

She looked away and studied the small parlor dominated by a huge window that overlooked a garden with wrought iron chairs and tables, lit up with garden torches. It was most charming. She looked back at him to find him studying her, and butterflies took flight in her stomach.

The room itself was dimly lit with candles and a small fire in the grate. She had never dined alone with a man, other than Scott, and this was a completely new experience for her. She felt intimidated by it all and chewed her bottom lip.

She knew she must look a mess with her long hair all windblown and her simple brown velvet riding ensemble covered now in dried blood. She had no other clothes with her. How could they ever present themselves to Scott’s aunt in their present circumstances?

He offered her a smile. “Well, I can see you are thinking that you have gotten yourself into a fine mess, and you have, child, you have.”

She put up her chin. “I am not a child.”

He chuckled and inclined his head. “Oh, are you not? Do forgive me. Perhaps the breeches made me think so?”

She blushed furiously and said nothing to this, and he said softly, “Come, then, we shall call a truce and enjoy some honest conversation while we await your meal and my brandy, Miss … ah, is it like Scott’s—Hanover?”

“Oh?” she asked. “Are you not hungry?”

“I have just only come from dinner, but I will join you with some cheese and brandy. Now, if you would be so kind as to answer my question, is your surname … like Scott … Hanover?”

“If we are brother and sister why would it not be?” she offered—without lying, she told herself.

“If you were brother and sister, but had different fathers …?” he offered, his eyes silver and bright.

“Oh, yes, I did not think of that,” she answered innocently. “Well, you may call me Felicia.”

A serving girl appeared at that moment, her mop cap askew over her light brown hair. She smiled at them, plopped a basket on the table, and announced, “Here are some rolls … fresh they are, right from the oven. Don’t they do smell nice.”

He thanked her, and off she went.

“Felicia?” her savior asked, and she saw curiosity in his eyes as she took a roll, dipped it in the soft butter, and stuffed her mouth with a groan.

She nodded.

He said, “I fancy I heard Scott call you something else?”

She smiled. “Yes, he has always called me Flip, ever since we first … ah, since we were very little.”

“And do you prefer that to Felicia?”

“Scott is the only one who has ever called me that, but I like my name,” she answered. Then she tore off another piece of the roll, dipped it in the butter, and moaned once more as she chewed.

“Right then, after you swallow, I think you might want to tell me what sent you and Scott off into the night without so much as one portmanteau between you? Are you two in some kind of trouble?”

She was stunned. She knew he knew that things weren’t what they seemed. He was a ‘knowing one’ Scott would say. He had an air of sophistication and experience about him, but she had not expected him to ask so soon and so openly.

She nearly choked and did, in fact, cough. She settled herself, and as she felt the heat rise to her entire face she tried on an answer. “We were on our way to London … to Sc—our aunt’s place.” She eyed him and tried to change the subject. “These are delicious. Do have one.”

He ignored this and apparently was going to go for the throat, because he eyed her doubtfully and asked, “On your way to London? In the dead of night? Why?”

She sighed and answered honestly, because she could not think of anything else, “We had no choice.” She just couldn’t snub him by not answering. He had stopped and helped her with Scott. Without his help, she didn’t know what she would have done.

Besides that, there was something about him that drew on her and not beat, but gently stroked, her natural independence into sweet submission. Ludicrous that such a notion should pop into her head, but it had.

He said, “No choice? But, my dear, why is that?”

She dimpled at him and went kitten-like into her large, comfortably upholstered chair, tucking her legs beneath her. “Shall I trust you, sir?”

His gaze almost made her swoon. She felt safe and coddled with the look he gave her. It was a glance that said she could trust him with her life. But he was a stranger. She should be careful.

He said, “You don’t wish to be thought of as a child, yet here you are, an enchanting ragamuffin, asking a total stranger if you should trust him. In my case, yes, so I hope you have an instinct for such things.”

She laughed. “Well, I have never been lectured for wanting to be honest before.” Were her instincts on the mark
? Could she trust him
?

She shouldn’t. He was a stranger—and quite devilishly attractive.

* * *

Imperceptibly he looked her over, and noted that her long black hair framed a face that was exquisite. Her eyes, lush in their color green, were full with innocence.

He tried not to stare, but when she removed her soiled riding jacket, he could see her full breasts pushing out at her tightly fitted lace blouse, and his manhood came to attention.

She seemed to trust him. Should she? He wasn’t sure he could trust himself.

He said, “Well then, you want to know if you should trust me? A question that draws a many-faceted answer. You are an imp, a beautiful one, but an imp, and you may trust me for the time being to look out for you … but I shan’t use your judgment but my own to do so.”

“Fair enough, but when you know the whole, you may be so shocked you will only want to wash your hands of us and be off,” she said on a whisper.

“You do not know me, and I do not shock easily,” he answered ruefully.

“Very well, I must tell you, then, that Scott and I … well, we are running away,” she told him conspiratorially.

“That much I surmised,” he answered, as it was precisely what he suspected. “From whom? Your parents?”

She blushed again, and he narrowed his gaze. Ah, she did not wish to give details. Why was that? What more could there be?

She offered, “I … lost both my parents in the last two years … only a bit apart from one another.” She looked down at her clasped hands and then took in air to add, “The guardian their joint will installed to look out for me was unconcerned with me. Well, at least he has been unconcerned with me until recently. I simply thought he was sickly, and since I was happy going on as I was …” She hesitated.

Was she afraid of telling him too much? “What has changed to make you take this drastic step?”

She chewed her bottom lip. “Well … he has decided to scurry me off to an outlandishly terrible place.”

“Why would he do that suddenly?”

“Well … we suspect he wants to marry me to one of his relatives before I come of age.”

He watched her and believed some of what he heard was truth. He rather thought he could see her busy mind at work, perhaps ready to fabricate a tale from some truth. He wasn’t yet sure just what was truth and what wasn’t. He said, “Why would he want to do that all of a sudden?”

“That is the thing. I don’t know,” she said and frowned.

That, he decided was a truth, at least in her eyes. “It seems odd that he should suddenly, just before you reach your majority, decide to force you into marriage.”

“It does, and yet that was what his recent letter advised me … in so many words. He wrote that he would soon arrive to collect me and take me off and settle me securely. That says it all, doesn’t it? He wants to marry me off to some horrible person—a total stranger, in fact.”

Ah, another truth. Perhaps her guardian was in need of funds suddenly and saw this as a way to it. Blackguard. Well, he was not about to allow such a thing from occurring on his watch.

Would she, he wondered, trust him with her true identity? He didn’t think so. He leaned towards her and asked, “Just who are you, Felicia? Who are your people? Tell me, and let me help you.”

“I can’t. You are too good, and I don’t wish to drag you into this. Scott will see to me as soon as he recovers, and we shall manage,” she said, her chin up proudly.

She was a brave little thing, and everything about her was so very intriguing.

“What has me baffled is the suddenness of it all,” Ashton said, pulling at his bottom lip.

Felicia said, “I think it is, in part, my fault. I am not biddable, you see, and when he first wrote to me … after … well, I was grieving and wished only to be left to my own devices. He said he would come for me. I told him that under no circumstances would I leave my home. We went back ’n’forth, you see, on this point, and when I did not hear form him for a time I happily thought it was a concluded issue.”

“And now he wrote that he was coming for you and to settle your affairs?” Again Ashton frowned over the problem. “Why now?”

“Scott and I believe that he must have an errant son … who has incurred insurmountable debts, and he decided he would secure him by marrying me off to him. I am not quite an heiress, but I do have a very nice income that my parents have left for me to manage when I turn one and twenty. No doubt the law would allow a husband to take charge of that.” She made a derisive sound. “As though I would marry anyone like that.”

There was a lie somewhere in her story, but he was hearing more truth than prevarication. He could not help but believe this part of her story. She was probably correct in her belief that her guardian was after her fortune for a son … or a nephew. At any rate, she believed it to be true; that was a certainty.

“Felicia, he cannot force you to the altar,” he offered her.

“Oh, but, Mr. Ashton, he could do so. I am not being melodramatic when I say that a woman’s lot is … at times, most unenviable. Once he got hold of me, he could … hire a despicable person to marry me to his awful son, couldn’t he? He wrote that he means to take me to … well, Scott says it is a heathenish place, and I would have no one there to aid my plight.”

Ashton was puzzled. She seemed to be genuinely distressed, and yet, why would her parents have appointed such a man as her guardian?

“Felicia, what you are suggesting is infamous. It would take a certain kind of man to plan and execute such a dastardly deed. Why, then, would either of your parents appoint such a man to look after your funds and estate and you?”

“I have given this a great deal of thought, and this is what I think,” she answered immediately, which suggested once again to him that she was telling the truth. “They knew him years and years ago. He went to school with my father, you see, and my mama was impressed with him, but they lost touch. They probably wrote the will when they were younger and forgot … and he changed over the years. That is what I think.”

This made some sense. It was a possibility. People’s fortunes changed. Life did have a habit of intruding and making changes in a person’s ways. Well, one last question. “Who is this guardian of yours?”

“Ah, ah … I don’t know if I should say,” she answered, and this time she would not meet his gaze.

He said encouragingly, gently, “Tell me, Felicia, so that I may help you in this matter.”

“The Earl of Storewell,” she answered and bit her bottom lip.

This was an out and out lie. Blatant. He saw it all over her face. She was a very poor liar.

A barrel decorated with a vase of wildflowers stood in a corner of their parlor, right in their sights, and the name imprinted on the barrel was
Storewell
. Too much of a coincidence to be one, he decided, and felt a tickle of amusement.

“Storewell, eh?” he said to goad her on.

He had noticed that she had a habit of biting her lip when she fibbed. She did that and looked away. He leaned in towards her again and said, “Hmm, as it happens,
I may know him
.” There, then, let her think about that.

Her lashes fluttered, and her eyes opened wide.
“Oh no
, I am sure you do not.”

“Why would I not?”

“Well, he is old and keeps to himself.
A recluse
,” she answered.

He almost laughed but managed to maintain a grave face. “So then, he is a recluse, a scoundrel of a guardian, and wishes to marry you to his equally scandalous son. Have I that right?”

She smiled, apparently pleased with his ready understanding. “Yes.” However, even as their eyes met she hurriedly studied something of great interest across the room.

He reached over, took her chin, and made her look at him. “It is often done, my dear, marriages of convenience. It is amongst our kind, a way of life, you know. He may not think he is doing anything wrong.” He regretted the words as soon as they were out.

“You say that because you are a man. You don’t have to be forced into anything. Your fortune will stay in your hands after you marry—you can come and go as you please without all the world calling you a hoyden. Women do not have that luxury, but I intend to stay as free as I may … at least, until I fall in love.”