Sari Robins - [Andersen Hall Orphanage] (4 page)

Edwina started, appalled by the thought. Then she shook her head, deciding that it must simply be the fact that she hadn’t been around a good-looking man with a brain in his head for so long.

Or more to the point, that she’d actually
noticed
that the man was attractive. And had perceived his appeal on a very primal level. Edwina swallowed, thankful that the contemplative Mr. Devane couldn’t hear her thoughts.

Her reaction to Mr. Devane didn’t change anything, not really. She supposed spending time with him would effectively eradicate the sense of excitement he stirred. Make her immune so to speak, like to an odor. Stay around it long enough and you didn’t smell it anymore.

The sounds of children’s voices rising up in hymn emanated from the chapel nearby and Edwina suddenly realized that they were almost at the stables where her carriage awaited. They hadn’t yet decided upon anything! Was this Mr. Devane’s way of shrugging her off, like a pesky tradesman?

“We’ve much to discuss yet, Mr. Devane.” Her voice was tinged with anger.

He started, as if surprised. “Ah, yes.” Upon looking up and seeing the stables with the servants mingling nearby, his steps slowed. “But not here. Too many ears. Walk with me, if you will, my lady?”

A sudden tingle crept up her spine as Edwina allowed Mr. Devane to lead her into the darkening wood.

T
heir steps were muted by the mossy ground as Edwina and Mr. Devane traversed the path through the wood behind the orphanage’s stables.

At a gap in the trees, Mr. Devane released Edwina and moved to lean on a large oak tree. She couldn’t tell if she was more relieved or disconcerted by the sudden distance between them.

Lounging against the oak, Mr. Devane rested the backs of his hands on his muscled thighs. In that position, Edwina could hardly help but notice his sculpted form as his white breeches were tighter than cream on milk.

Edwina pulled her eyes away from the sight of Mr. Devane’s bulging thighs and looked up. His gaze was so frankly assessing as to border on rude. Lord, the very hairs on her skin rose in unison, as if she were naked to his unwavering eye. Self-consciously,
she raised a hand to her shoulder and was gratified to feel the wool of her coat. She was being a ninny and forced herself to at least pretend to be her practical self.

Clearing her throat, she wished that her mouth wasn’t quite so dry and her heartbeat would calm a bit. It was the brisk walking, of course.

“I’ll get right to the point, Mr. Devane. I need your help and you are in a wonderful bargaining position. You seem to be interested in the dock. Is there something I can help you with in that regard?”

Prescott hid his surprise that she would speak so bluntly. Yet he did not immediately answer, understanding with great clarity that he was at a pivotal juncture. He didn’t believe in destiny any more than he believed in luck; he distrusted good fortune, knowing it usually hid an underlying scourge. Yet here stood Lady Ross, offering him the very access he’d been struggling for weeks to acquire.

He had been banging his head against the proverbial brick wall trying to secure warehousing for his shipments in London’s congested, delay-ridden and thievery-infested facilities. He desperately needed the warehousing at the dock, but was space for his goods worth the risks her madcap scheme entailed?

He’d be dragged back into the existence he had already sworn to forsake. He was ready for a new chapter in his life and feared that if he was sucked back now his resolve would weaken, his choices would wane. Headmaster Dunn would have considered it a test of sorts. One that would strengthen his character, the good headmaster would have claimed. Were he here. The grief sliced through Prescott once more, ever the
more potent since Prescott knew that Headmaster Dunn would have wanted him to help this woman.

An unsettling feeling twisted in Prescott’s gut as he considered this young lady’s going up against a blackmailer alone. The disquiet was wholly his own and not dependent on Dunn’s approval. No doubt this blackmailer’s scheme was a dangerous hornet’s nest of trouble.

Yet, his instincts were telling him that Lady Ross wasn’t telling the whole truth, no matter what Dr. Winner said. Then there was the fact that the blackmailer was targeting her because of something that she’d done. Again, he couldn’t help but wonder at her secret. He knew his curiosity shouldn’t cloud his judgment, yet it did.

Staring off into the trees, he surmised, “Even if I ask for your assistance with some business at the docks, there are still more holes in your plan than in a beggar’s shoes.”

Her brow knitted and he could tell that she was affronted but trying not to be. “Once I explain it all more fully to you, perhaps you will have a different opinion.” Her shoulder lifted in a faint shrug. “And I suppose that, as you are involved…”

He liked how she said it as if it was settled; she had a knack for business, this one.

“I welcome your suggestions on how to deal with this terrible man.”

Silence descended once more, interrupted by the leaves rustling on an agitated wind.

The breeze smelled moist as it pressed Edwina’s cheeks and she realized that she was holding her breath and forced herself to relax.

“I’d intended to make a change.” Mr. Devane’s deep
voice was rough with emotion. “Alter the course of my life in a new…more respectable direction. No longer be at another’s beck and call. No longer pretend I have a place in a Society where I have none…” He cleared his throat. “I had wanted to be someone Headmaster Dunn would be proud of. Hell, I wanted to be someone I would be proud of…A man of my own making.”

A stab of guilt speared Edwina’s middle as she suddenly realized the source of Mr. Devane’s obstinacy. She’d heard that he had not been with a lady since Headmaster Dunn’s death, had been living here at Andersen Hall, but she’d had no idea that he was hoping to change his life. Now she was trying to force him back into the very Society that he’d come to spurn and be at a lady’s beck and call once more. Moreover, she was putting him at risk, albeit a limited one, and he really had no vested interest in her cause.

But if Mr. Devane didn’t help her, then she couldn’t bear to consider the consequences that had kept her awake so many nights.

Edwina forced her resolve to harden. “Perhaps a time limit might do? If we don’t have the blackmailer by then…Well, after that, we part ways. Would that make a difference?”

His lips pursed. “How long?”

“Ah, six weeks…” At the look on his face, she adjusted, “Or three.” His face seemed to relax. “Three weeks should do it rightly enough, I’d say. Then you are no worse off for your efforts than you are today, but better off in whatever your business undertaking.” Again, she wondered at his need for assistance at the dock but supposed she’d find out soon enough. Agreement was starting to feel so close she could almost taste it.

“Better off in terms of my venture possibly.” Mr. Devane’s eyes were hard as jade. “But lower in terms of disrepute, my lady. You’re asking me to lie, pretend to be someone I’m not, and Lord only knows what else is involved in your scheme.”

He was a good negotiator; she’d grant him that.

She opened her hands. “For a good cause. Also, as far as your reputation goes, Mr. Devane, all will believe that I loved you and yet you chose to leave me. I can only imagine that your reputation might be enhanced from this little ruse. You will be known as a man who can’t be chained by the mighty coin.”

“And what of your reputation, my lady? I know what it’s like having a soiled name. Do you?” The anguish she glimpsed in his gaze shocked her. Then his eyes hooded, hiding any trace of emotion on his handsome countenance. Yet by the working of his jaw and the tight set to his broad shoulders, she could tell that he was incensed.

With her heartbeat clamoring, Edwina swallowed. “I’m a widow, not some young lady searching for a husband. It should not warrant. Besides, my true friends…those who love me…will know me to be the same person that I was before…”

Mr. Devane shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re signing yourself up for. When we’re done, you will have been known as the foolish woman who lost her heart to a nobody and lost her reputation for nothing.”

She straightened. “It’s not
nothing
to me, so pray don’t belittle my comprehension of the situation.”

“This man must hold some pretty terrible secrets over your head.”

Biting her inner cheek, her traitorous skin flamed, but she refused to look away and lifted her chin instead.

He shrugged a broad shoulder. “I think I have a right to know—”

She bristled, rearing up. “You have no right whatsoever! It’s indecent of you even to ask!”

He pushed himself away from the tree. “It’s my neck on the line—”

“And my reputation!” Anger made her voice shrill. “As you noted, I’ll be aligning myself with you, one in a long succession of ladies, I might add!” Lord how it irked her, but she didn’t know why.

His eyes blazed with indignation as he stepped nearer. “Popularity with the ladies is not exactly a crime.”

She moved forward, showing him she wasn’t afraid. “A little discretion would go a long way in repairing your good name, Mr. Devane.”

“Repairing!” he ground out, the muscle in his jaw working. “I don’t have a good name, if you recall. Which is exactly why you wanted me in the first instance!”

“I don’t want you!”

His eyes flashing, he stepped closer, moving barely inches away. “Don’t you?” His voice was such a low rumbling caress, it unsettled her nerves. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely!” Stepping forward, she stood toe-to-toe with the man and glared up at him. “I don’t want you in the least!”

“Liar.”

“How dare you insinuate that I—”

Her words were swallowed up as his lips pressed down to hers.

Shocks rocketed through Edwina like a lighting bolt sears the earth, scorching her every thought to ash. The birds stopped chirping, the wind died, the sun eclipsed. All was black behind Edwina’s closed lids. There was only the heat of Prescott Devane’s smooth lips pressed against hers and the heady flavor of him, a hint of cinnamon, of all things, in her partially opened mouth. Never had anything tasted so shockingly divine.

All semblance of her astonishment was almost immediately replaced by an exhilarating warmth that cascaded down her body from her hairline to her toes, making her feel so good she was light-headed.

She did want him. Badly. The knowledge was like a moth fluttering about in her mind, there but not truly acknowledged.

Somehow her hands crept up to rest against his broad chest, her palm feeling a hint of the bold heart beating within.

His kiss was a powerful combination of daring offensive tempered with delicate tease as he sucked gently on her lower lip. Her lips clung unashamedly to his, seeking more of his delicious spice.

His arms wrapped around her, pulling her even more tightly against him. The force of his chest against hers gave a heady thrill, but nothing compared to the rush of pleasure that surged through her as his knee pressed into the juncture between her thighs.

Through her skirts, his well-muscled thigh pressed deeply, causing a wild conflagration of liquid heat inside of her. Brazenly, she leaned forward, pushing him
deeper, driving him against her, yearning for something she didn’t quite understand.

Her ears roared and the earth seemed to shake beneath her. Her body was a chorus of sensation harmonizing in a melody she hadn’t known existed before.

Before. Sir Geoffery. Her deceased husband.
Edwina blinked her eyes open, appalled to find that she was clinging to Mr. Devane more closely than moss to a rock. Her stomach clenched. She stiffened. She ripped herself away from him, horror-struck.

Mr. Devane released her without a word.

Edwina stepped aside and stood under the cover of a nearby tree. Her heart was pounding, her chest heaving. It took a few moments for the world to come back into focus. Only then did she realize that the sky had darkened and that the earth that had been shaking beneath her before had been a boom of thunder as a storm threatened in the gray sky overhead. But there was another kind of tempest raging within her as Edwina struggled to regain her composure.

“I’m not like the other ladies of your acquaintance.” The quiver in her voice betrayed how shaken she truly was.

“That’s for damned sure,” Mr. Devane muttered, looking troubled.

Tears burned the backs of her eyes and she wished that the mossy ground would cleave open and swallow her whole. The only thing keeping her on her feet was the idea of embarrassing herself further before Prescott Devane.

Pride had its uses and the Earl of Wootton-Barrett’s daughter had been infused with it from birth. Enough
so to declare, “This was a mistake.” A foolhardy, idiotic mistake that Edwina knew she was going to regret for as long as she lived.

“What?”

“I’m sorry to have bothered you.” More sorry than he would ever know.

“You don’t want my help?”

“No.”

“What about the blackmailer?”

She looked away. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You were trying to protect yourself and stop a villain.”

“The plan was idiocy.”

“And what about my business at the dock?”

She swallowed. “Send a note to my man of affairs. Now I must go.” Lifting her skirts, she stepped through the trees, her only thought moving away from him as quickly as possible.

“My lady!” Mr. Devane grabbed her arm.

“Let me go!” Large drops of rain splattered down on them, blurring her gaze.

“But you’re going the wrong way.” He motioned in the opposite direction. “Your coach is at the stables, that way.”

“Oh.” She felt even more the fool.

“Are you crying?”

“Certainly not!” She brushed her hand over her face. “It’s raining.”

She moved to go, but his hand was like an iron vise on her arm, not hurting but not releasing her either.

“You can’t just walk away, my lady. You pulled me into your troubles; you can’t close the door on me now.”

“This was a mistake, Mr. Devane. Can’t you see
that?” Her voice had risen with a hint of panic; couldn’t he just let her go? “I’ll leave and you’ll never have to see me again.”

“It’s too late; I’m already involved.”

“Not really—”

“I know about the blackmail, I know about your scheme. I can’t just forget it all—”

“It’d be for the best.”

“For whom? The blackmailer?”

For me,
she thought, knowing that she was lying to herself but couldn’t face the alternatives. She was still so certain he was the man to help her, but she’d mucked it up beyond repair.

“I’ll give you four weeks,” he declared. “But that’s it. No more pressing for a better deal.”

Edwina blinked, the rain making her lashes heavy with wet. “What…what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you’re a tough negotiator, but four is all I’m willing to give. In exchange, I want your help in acquiring some warehousing at the docks, and obviously, a say in how we proceed.”

Edwina shook her head, feeling woolly-headed. “You’ll do it?”

“You get four weeks, not a day more.”

The awful feeling in Edwina’s chest was still there, but she straightened, experiencing a hint of hope.

“I suggest we return to the guesthouse and get out of the rain, my lady.” The broad shoulders of Mr. Devane’s coat glistened with moisture, and the scent of moss and damp filled the air. It had begun to pour in earnest and Edwina suddenly realized that the rain was beginning to soak through her coat.