Wedded in Sin (15 page)

He began walking forward, using his larger size to push the ladies into the shop. But once inside, they were met by the rest of the shop workers, including a tall man who hovered near Francine. They were all drawing breath—almost like a Greek chorus—but he forestalled them.

“Upstairs, if you please, Miss Shoemaker. You will wish to cool your face and sit down for a moment. I am sure Tommy can be brought to your side. Ah, here he is, and chewing on a very handsomely wrought glove. Lord Redhill’s, I wager. Nonetheless, upstairs, if you please. Ladies, Miss Shoemaker needs a moment to compose herself. You can direct your questions to me, if you would.”

“Just one bloody moment, you cheeky toff!” bellowed Penny.

That was it. The words he was dreading. He had already learned that his usual techniques didn’t work on Penny. That she stood strong against him now when she was so clearly done in just emphasized how formidable a woman she was. Especially as everyone grew silent to stare at Penny.

“Yes?” he asked sweetly, though inside he quailed.

“You have no right to take control of everything like this.”

He nodded. “True enough, but I am. Do you wish to have me thrown out?”

“Yes,” she snapped. Then she immediately shook her head before Francine’s man—probably the groom-to-be—could do the deed. “No.” She turned to the room at large. “Everyone, this is my cheeky daft toff, Mr. Morrison. If you could get a straight answer out of him, then you are better at it than me. I am going upstairs.”

“To sit by the fire and close your eyes for a moment.” He was pushing his luck for sure, but he saw a flash of gratitude in her eyes.

“Yes. But just for a moment.”

“And I shall bring you tea.” When her eyes narrowed in suspicion, he held up his hands. “Just tea, Miss Shoemaker. I shall be the soul of propriety, I swear.”

He didn’t like swearing something that wasn’t true, but in this, he assuaged his guilt. He would deal with the ladies, brew the tea, and then he would proceed to give Penny exactly what she needed.

A physical pleasure that only he—and a few Tantric masters—could give.

Chapter 9

Penny felt her nose twitch, the scent of strong tea
filtering through her mind. Then between one breath and the next, she bolted upright.

She’d fallen asleep!

Even before she could blink and focus her eyes, she heard his voice, low and soothing. It both quieted her slamming heart and cleared the cobwebs from her mind at the same time. Even before she could understand the words, she thought what a nice voice he had. She could wake to his words every morning and not grow tired of it. It wasn’t that he spoke sweetly. Far from it. But the simple recitation of facts settled her as nothing else could.

“You have been asleep for nearly two hours. Tommy is downstairs along with the other ladies being pampered as any boy—toddler or not—would enjoy. In fact, I heard laughter not more than three minutes ago, so I am sure all is well below. I have learned nothing else of note except that Cordwain did indeed appear this afternoon while we were at my brother’s home.”

Her eyes shot open at that, but she didn’t speak. Instead, she focused on his face, where it was illuminated by the fire. She saw the harsh angles of his jaw and nose, smiled slightly at the wildness of his hair, and then steadied herself by looking into his calm, steady gaze.

“Nothing untoward happened,” he continued. “Cordwain demanded to see you. They said you were not here. He made blustering threats which, as you may guess, got him nothing but the door slammed on his nose.” Samuel shrugged. “He wants the likes, as you anticipated, but will not find them here.”

Penny exhaled slowly, her body sinking back into the chair as she reviewed everything he’d said. Nothing more than she expected and a good deal less than she’d feared.

“Tommy is well then?” she finally asked. She didn’t need to. She could hear the low murmur of happy voices rising up from below.

He answered anyway as he poured a cup of tea for her and passed it into her waiting hands. “He is doing very well. I gave him Cook’s tart that you saved. Last I saw, he was covered in it and the ladies were discussing a bath in the workroom tub.”

Actually, he had been the one to think of saving the tart, not she, but she didn’t say that. She was too busy sipping her tea. Good solid brew, thick, dark, and hot. She frowned at the steam, wondering how he had managed it. He answered even before she could ask.

“I guessed that you would wish to be woken within a couple hours’ time. My mother used to enjoy waking gently with the smell of a hot pot of tea.”

“It is the best way in the world,” she concurred.

His smile flashed for a brief moment. “Perhaps I could suggest some other ways. Maybe at another time.”

She blinked, wondering if he was flirting with her by suggesting something scandalous. Of course he was, but he did it so gently—when he was usually so blunt—that she wondered if he knew what he was about. Of course he did, she thought as she sipped her tea. But that didn’t mean it was any less effective. She was intrigued.

She smiled over her teacup at him, marveling at the quietness of the moment. A nap followed by strong tea. She shifted in the chair. Someone had put a blanket over her, so she was warm and comfortable. And a handsome gent was being kind.

“Will wonders never cease?” she drawled to herself.

He heard, of course, and he cocked his head. She didn’t answer except to shake her head. And to her surprise, he accepted it with a nod.

“You will want to be about soon,” he said softly. “I know that is inevitable. I have already tallied the ladies associated with Miss Richards’s wedding. Most will need likes made.” He indicated a page of foolscap and the names he had written down. A single glance told her it was easily a dozen names. “Is this the design for the bride’s shoes?” he asked, holding her sketch pad open to one of her best designs.

“Yes,” she answered, surprised she wasn’t more annoyed with him for finding her sketches.

“It’s beautiful,” he said as his hand stroked over it. “I have not spent much time studying women’s footwear, but even I can see the art in all your work.” He carefully turned through page after page of designs.

She flushed with pride as he touched the embellishments she’d added, the rosettes and ribbons. A stroke of his finger across one sketch of a heel told her he’d noticed the curve to the wood as it echoed the upper stitching. She’d labored well into the night on each one of those designs. She knew every stroke and shaded pearl. And now he was seeing them, too.

“You have a startling talent,” he said, still paging through the designs. “And quite a fascination with wedding shoes.”

She flushed. Every bride in England cherished her wedding shoes. The bride and groom’s names were inscribed in the sole along with the date of their wedding. And then, after the wedding, the shoes were placed on the mantle for their children to admire. Of course she would dream of wedding shoes. What little girl didn’t? And of course, as a shoemaker, she had sketched her ideas.

“I started creating designs well before I could read,” she said, completely avoiding the topic of weddings. “I knew the process of making shoes by the time I was six. By seven, I was begging to create something of my own.”

“He never let you?” Samuel asked. “Your father?”

Penny shook her head. “No. Not ladies shoes and nothing of my own design.”

“You will be a great success,” he stated as simply as if he were speaking of the evening’s meal. In his mind it was a foregone conclusion, and she was stunned speechless by that. He flipped back to the sketch of Francine’s bridal shoes. “You won’t have the time to do this design for all the bridesmaids, not with full likes for a dozen women. But I believe you are clever enough to find a solution.”

She nodded slowly, forcing her mind back to the logistics. She’d need an apprentice for the carving. She already had her eye on a likely child. A daughter of a furniture maker who was also being overlooked by her father. The girl was smart and had clever hands. She would do well in the shoe trade.

After the base measurements were done, the slippers could be made quickly enough. Without even a fully accurate like. She was not to make walking boots, but fine slippers for a wedding. Those were more delicate to stitch, but with a steady enough hand, they could be made faster and in time for the wedding.

Her mental list skipped on to the money she would make from these shoes. To what it would pay for and how she would survive these next weeks or months. For the moment, she and Tommy would survive. And if things continued like this, they might even thrive.

Her breath exhaled in relief.

“Better then?” he asked. “You have worked it all out?”

She frowned at him. “Worked out what?”

“Everything to your satisfaction. The money, the business, the timing of it all? Whether or not I manage the return of your home, you and Tommy will be fine.”

She frowned at him even as she was nodding slowly. “Yes, I have worked it all out. But our wager still stands.”

He sniffed as if insulted. “Of course it does.”

“And have you worked out how to accomplish the task?”

He nodded, but his words contradicted it. “Not exactly. Shall I explain my thinking?”

Her mad toff offering to explain? Tonight was a night of wonders. “Yes, please.”

“And would you mind terribly? In the evenings when I was a boy, I used to rub my mother’s feet. She had terrible bunions, you understand, and after a long day, she would sit by the fire and I would rub her feet. And we would talk.” He spoke so wistfully, that she was already shifting to accommodate him without even thinking of the scandalousness of it all.

“What did you talk about?”

“Oh, any number of things. What I had learned that day, what the workers had done, who was cheating whom in the village. Everything. Whatever came into my head to share, and she listened so patiently.” His eyes grew distant. “I should like to visit her soon. She says the dog isn’t nearly as good as I am on her bunions.”

“The dog rubs her feet?”

“What? Oh, no. He lays on them. His body heat helps, I think. But she says my hands are miracles.”

A man’s hands on her feet? She couldn’t imagine. But he seemed so eager and she was equally interested in hearing his thoughts, so she nodded.

He grinned like a little boy, which she found really endearing, and scrambled down to the floor beside her chair. He was tall and lanky, so it took a moment of arranging for him to settle with his back against the wall. Then he reached under the blanket and took hold of her left foot with a firm touch. She gasped and felt her shoulders tighten, but his touch was strong and impersonal. Or so it seemed, though she felt his every movement as if it were the only thing of true import. As if nothing else in the world mattered except his hand on her ankle as he worked off her shoe.

“This is very wrong,” she murmured as she tried to draw back.

“We shall leave your stockings on. Your foot is covered by the blanket. I can see nothing untoward. It is perfectly acceptable.”

“It is not, and you know it.”

He looked at her, his expression honest and a little disappointed. “Penny, forgive me, but you are not a fine lady to be worried about your reputation. If you were, my presence here would already have ruined you.”

“Tommy already ruined me,” she said under her breath.

“Your cousin, now brother? How could he ruin you?”

She frowned down at him. Surely he knew. “Everyone believes him to be my illegitimate son.”

The man grunted, the disgust on his face clear. “That is the problem with most people. They notice only one fact and forget all the others. Tommy does not have your features. There is some family resemblance, to be sure. In the ears and in the shape of your lips. But that is all. If you were truly his mother, there would be many more similarities, not to mention the changes in your own body.”

“Changes in me?” she asked, surprised.

“Wider hips, fuller breasts. Often the gait changes. Even the rhythms of speech can change, but perhaps that is more a result of chronic exhaustion or screaming after stubborn toddlers. I don’t know. But I can assure you, there are changes that happen to the body when a girl becomes a mother.”

She looked down at her chest. Her breasts had never been small, but…

His grip caressed along her ankle. “Rest assured, my dear, it is quite plain you have never had a baby, never been pregnant. Tommy is your relation, but not your child. And anyone with eyes to see will know it. I did immediately.”

She looked at him, her mind struggling with what he’d just said. He had known immediately that she was an honest woman. He had known and stupidly believed that everyone else saw it, too. The idea was so unsettling, so wonderful, that she could only stare. In her experience,
no one
saw,
no one
believed. Not even her friends here at the dress shop.

“You knew,” she whispered, her voice choked and her eyes misting with tears. Stupid woman that she was, crying over such a silly thing. And yet she was touched all the way down to the core of her soul.