The Scoundrel and I: A Novella (13 page)

“Good day, Gabrielle.” With sandy hair and hazel eyes, Charlie was an uninspired version of his elder brother’s blond gorgeousness. He did the shop’s books and wrote contracts and in general was not particularly interesting. She had no idea how a man like this could make Esme’s pulse flutter, and it bothered her that while her friend was so obviously infatuated with him he had never once looked at Esme.

Now he seemed to assess the flush rising to Elle’s cheeks and her tightly clasped hands.

“How have you been?” he said.

“Very well.”
A big fat lie
. Except today. Today she had been extraordinary. Until this moment. “How did you enjoy Bristol?”

“It’s crowded at this time of year, of course, and you know how I despise the sea.” He moved toward her. “But Mother seemed pleased, and Hattie, of course.” He always said Mrs. Josiah Brittle Junior’s name flatly. Like Elle, Charlie had never taken to his brother’s wife.

His gaze traveled about the office.

“Won’t you ask why I have cut my holiday short, Gabrielle?”

“Yes. Naturally, I am curious.” And
dying
. Unlike Jo Junior, whose interest in the family’s business was all about money and social connections, Charlie actually cared about printing. Because of it, they were friends. He shared her passion, even if he did not share it with any
actual
passion.

“I had a letter yesterday, Gabrielle, from Abel Pickett.”

“Oh?” The apothecary across Gracechurch Street could not possibly know about the missing type.

“He wrote to me because he is fond of you and did not wish to plunge you into trouble with Father. He said you have been transacting business in our absence.”

“I have not. I would never disobey your father’s orders.”
In that manner
. “I never have.”

“That was my thought. You are not a liar.”

Elle could do nothing but stare. And wait.

“Mr. Pickett gave me details of the”—he shifted from one foot to the other—“the customer he has witnessed enter the shop several times in the past sennight. From what he said, it seems to me, Gabrielle, that this man is probably not in fact a potential client.”

“What man?” She forced her voice not to shake.

Charlie came forward and took her clasped hands into his own.

“You are an honest person and, despite my brother’s wickedness, still wonderfully naïve.”

Considerably less honest and naïve than he believed
.

She drew her hands away. “What do you wish to say to me?”

“You and I have our differences on occasion. But I believe you know that I care about you.”

Impatience prickled up her neck. She could not bear another moment waiting for the axe to fall.

“Charlie, please, speak directly.”

“Mr. Pickett said your caller is a gentleman, a man of attractive appearance and costly attire. He said he believes the man is a”—his eyes recoiled a bit—“a naval officer.”

Charlie hated the sea.

Elle squared her shoulders. “Yes. I admit it. An acquaintance, a naval officer, has called here several times this week. How that is Mr. Pickett’s concern, however, I cannot fathom.”

“Gabrielle, men like that, men who can have any woman that appeals to them at the flick of a wrist, they are not—” He drew himself up. “They are not honorable men.” His gaze grew surprisingly firm. “They chew up women like you and spit them out without a second thought.”

She gaped. And every tiny niggling worry she had harbored about Captain Masinter’s intentions came roaring back.

“Has he called on you at home?” Charlie said. “Has your grandmother met him? Or does he only waltz through here while you are alone, unprotected, when he knows you are vulnerable?”

Charlie’s concerns were entirely reasonable, of course. But last night in the captain’s house, she had not felt vulnerable. She had felt powerful. Beautiful.
Cared for
. As no one had cared for her in years.

“I see,” Charlie said. “He has not met your grandmother. Either you are ashamed to tell her about this flirtation with a man you do not actually respect or he has made excuses not to meet her.”

“That is not—”

“I don’t like it that a man of that sort is calling on you, Gabrielle. I don’t like it and I will not stand for it.”

“You will not stand for it?” She backed away from him. “Charles Brittle, you have no right to tell me whom I may or may not see. If I wish to consort with—”

“Consort with?”

“—a handsome war hero—”

“
War
hero?”

“—I very well will.”

“Gabrielle—”

“That is, no, I have not been consorting with him.” Only briefly at a ball, then in his foyer.
Not nearly enough
. “We have been working together on an important project.”

“A project? Is that what he calls taking advantage of a lonely girl? By all that’s holy, Gabrielle, do you hear yourself? A fortnight ago you were a modest, disciplined, hardworking, sensible girl. Now you are a—”

“Woman.” The captain stood in the open doorway, his jaw rigid, his bearing decidedly military, and his gorgeous blue eyes spearing Charlie like a fish. Abruptly Elle could think of nothing except that he had arrived early after all.

“She is a modest, hardworking, disciplined, sensible woman,” he said to Charlie. Then he turned his gaze upon her. He bowed. “Miss Flood, how do you do?”

Better
. So much better.

“Captain,” she said, “this is my employer, Charles Brittle. Charlie, this is Captain Masinter.”

The captain nodded.

Charlie bristled, but said, “Good day, sir,” between his teeth. “You have happened upon a private conversation between Miss Flood and I. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind stepping outside until we have finished.”

“I would mind. Miss Flood, are you at liberty to allow me to take you up in my carriage?” He spoke slowly, articulating each syllable with sober authority, and Elle realized that when he spoke formally it was always thus. Now she understood the reason for it. The effort it must cost him to make no mistakes would be enormous, and the anxiety he must feel—recognizing that he would not even know if he did make a mistake—must be terrible. She wanted to throw her arms around him and tell him that he was more than a war hero; he was simply a hero.

“I should like to convey you to call upon my sister,” he continued. “She has awaited your visit for several days now.”

“Sister.” Charlie snorted. “Likely story.”

“Charlie,” Elle snapped. “You are being ridiculous.”

“No, Gabrielle, I am not. I understand the nature of men much better than you do, and I—”

“I advise you, Mr. Brittle,” the captain said, “to reconsider your words before you continue speaking. Or, ideally, to simply cease speaking entirely.”

With each word, he was making her want more fervently to drag him into the press room and ravish him on the spot. Her heart was bursting.

“I will not cease speaking,” Charlie said. “You have been carrying on a secret flirtation with Miss Flood here in this shop, that any number of our neighbors have witnessed.”

“If the neighbors have witnessed it,” the captain commented in his wonderful, easy voice, “how do you suppose it’s secret?”

Charlie’s jaw flexed. “Twist my words. But I will not sit back and allow this to continue. You, sir—”

“Captain.”
A feral warning smoldered in his gaze fixed firmly on Charlie’s face, and a shiver of heat went straight from Elle’s lips all the way to her belly, to fan out in the most decadently wicked manner between her thighs.

“Captain Libertine, I’ve no doubt,” Charlie spluttered. “Why, he probably has a woman waiting for him in every port, Gabrielle. Don’t you,
Captain
?”

“Not at all,” he said, and his gaze slid to her. Deviltry glimmered in it. “I’ve at least two or three per port.”

“Captain,” she said with a smile she could not restrain. “You mustn’t tease Charlie. He will think—”

A woman walked through the open shop door behind him.

Casting the captain a glare, Charlie went forward. “Good day, ma’am. How may I help you?”

“Good day,” she said softly. “I am searching for—Oh, here he is. How lucky.”

The captain’s features went slack. He turned his shoulder, looked at the newcomer, and Elle actually saw his chest compress in a sudden exhale.

“Captain,” the woman practically sighed, her face a pale oval of genteel feminine loveliness. “I am so happy to find you finally. You cannot imagine what a search I have had.”

“The little ones,” he said abruptly. “Are they all right?”

“Little ones?”
Charlie said.

“The children are as well as can be expected,” she said. “They would be glad to see you.”

The captain inhaled thickly, his shoulders falling.

“Intended to call upon them—you all—this afternoon,” he said.

Charlie’s face was livid. Elle’s stomach churned. She grappled for the doorjamb behind her, found it, and gripped it until its edges bit into her palms. There was cotton in her ears, and a whooshing sound, like the rustling of the branches of trees beset by storm winds.

“You must wonder how I have come to find you here,” the woman said sweetly. She was
all
sweet, gently bred, blond softness. But perhaps a bit too slender; her cheeks were gaunt. And her dress and bonnet were of fine quality but thin from use, the ribbon frayed. “I called at your house first. Your manservant said that he had barely seen you in days. He sent me to another house, the home of Madame Étoile? Her parlor was so grand that I was afraid to sit down.” She offered a takingly modest smile. “The lady of the house was not in, but her assistant said that I might find you here.” She glanced about the office and seemed to notice Elle for the first time.

“Who is this, Masinter?” Charlie said. “Another poor female you’re hoodwinking? Perhaps a bit of fluff on the side?”

The woman’s eyes widened.

The captain stepped toward her. “M—”

“Madam, who are you to this man?” Charlie demanded.

“I—I am—” She gazed up at the captain mistily. “Captain Masinter has asked me to marry him. I am his betrothed.”

~o0o~

There was a quality of nightmare to the next minutes that Elle could not overcome, no matter how she tried to remind herself that she had fully anticipated this, that she had even experienced it before, in this very room, and therefore should not be surprised that her insides were twisting in knots of sticky hot pain, and the blood all draining from her face and hands.

But she had not really experienced
this
before. She had not been in love with Josiah Junior, only infatuated with a lying scoundrel. Which, she supposed, was the case this time too.

He had taken the woman—
his betrothed
—out of the shop and was speaking with her now on the street. Through the window Elle could see his face, grave and sober, even the taut muscles in his jaw.

“I told you, Gabrielle,” Charlie said as she turned from the window and went into the press room. “You mustn’t trust—”

“Then whom can I trust, Charlie?” She looked him directly in the eye. “Shall I go through life imagining every member of the male sex a vain, rapacious egoist like your brother? Shall I dampen all my wishes for companionship and affection, and fear all attachments because some wretched man might someday hurt my feelings? Is that how you would prefer that I go along? Is it?”

“No,” he said in an oddly strangled voice. “I don’t want that for you at all.”

The captain came into the doorway. “May I speak with you?” he said to her carefully, firmly, and despite all she felt her heart squeeze.

She nodded, passed him by, and left the shop. His betrothed was nowhere in sight. The carriage that he had purchased to celebrate bachelorhood was parked on the street. He gestured toward it.

She climbed up onto the seat without accepting his hand for assistance. A flat nausea was filling her. She could not look at him.

“You are betrothed,” she said as he guided the team away from Brittle & Sons.

“Technically. Not actually.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you did ask for her hand?”

“Yes.”

“You should not—you should not have . . . kissed me.” And touched her and made her feel like she was flying.

“I shouldn’t have. But not for the reason you believe.” There was certainty in his tone. She wanted him to be confused and miserable, like she was.

“She is lovely,” she said.

He did not reply; his lips were a line.

“Do you admire her?”

“Don’t particularly know her.”

“You do not
know
her?”

“Not really.”

“But, the children—”

His gaze snapped to her, surprisingly hard. “
Not
mine.” He looked forward again and his hands readjusted the reins. “Fond of them, though.”

“Is it an arranged marriage?”

“No.”

Elle folded and refolded her fingers in her lap. “She is obviously the daughter of a gentleman.” Despite the wear in her clothing. “Does she have a fortune you want?” she said skeptically.

“No.”

“She
is
very lovely.”

“She’s a fine looking woman.”

The sick ache in her stomach finally sealed her lips.

“I owe you an explanation,” he said. “But I can’t give it, Elle. Not—That is, not now.” His face was severe. “Matter of honor.”

“Honor?”

“Not
my
honor. Mine’s sailed away on an easterly, obviously.”

“I think I hate you for not telling me before,” she said.

“You should. But, by God, I wish you didn’t. Of all the people in the world—”

“Of all the people in the world you would not wish to offend, I am at the top of the list,” she said with intentional blandness. “I certainly believe that.”

“Don’t,” he said shortly. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I haven’t given you cause to believe I’m a heartless villain. I should have— Didn’t expect—” He exhaled hard. “I didn’t know.”