The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel (The Brethren Book 5)

by Christi Caldwell

  Squeeeak.

  And there was that squeak. In the end, curiosity won out. She had to sort out the source of that high squeal. Why, Lathan might have left a window open or… or… Well, she really didn’t wish to ponder too much as to what else it could be.

  Francesca pushed the door open enough for her to step through. The door panel gave easily, the hinges surprisingly well oiled and smooth, at odds with the dilapidated state of the rest of Mr. Lathan Holman’s household.

  Not that she took exception to any of it. There was a charm to the cottage, which was too small to be a manner but also too modest and in too much of disrepair to belong to a person of influence. And as she defied Lathan’s orders and made her way closer to that periodic squeaking, she wondered once more about her housemate.

  He had a crisp, refined speech, and yet, with several days’ worth of growth on his cheeks, broad shoulders, and muscular thighs, Lathan Holman had the physique of a laborer.

  He was a study in contradictions, and contradictions always held a pull for Francesca.

  Lifting her hem, Francesca picked her way belowstairs.

  A faint light shone from the direction of the kitchens, and not unlike those poor winged creatures drawn to flame, she moved closer to it.

  Danger…

  It whispered and danced in the air.

  Gooseflesh dotted her skin.

  Go back. Run.

  Everything in being here, in this place, near this man, screamed at her to flee.

  Francesca reached the kitchens and stopped just outside the doorway.

  Lingering, Francesca cocked her head, for the figure seated at the kitchen table with his back to her didn’t seem so very dangerous. Not so very dangerous at all. Lathan Holman’s shoulders were hunched slightly, as if he were in deep thought over whatever task consumed him. Squeak-squeak-squeak.

  There it was, that sound that had stretched across her sleep and drawn her belowstairs.

  “I told you not to leave your room.”

  Francesca jumped. Had he been aware of her watching him this whole while? She gave silent thanks that he remained engrossed in his task, lest he look over and see the blush on her cheeks. She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t sleep,” she confessed.

  “I don’t care.”

  Indeed, he had the deadened tones of a man who didn’t seem to care about much of anything at all. And she knew she was supposed to be afraid… She knew that was what he wanted. And yet, she could not bring herself to that sentiment.

  Quitting her spot at the door, Francesca made her way over.

  Lathan looked up. Surprise filled his eyes. It was the first real emotion she’d detected in the man that hadn’t been cynicism, anger, or mistrust.

  Not bothering to ask or await permission, Francesca drew out the chair across from him and sat. “What are you doing?” she asked curiously.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” he snapped.

  “I’d say you’re fixing the door handle.” Despite the cold, her cheeks warmed. “That I broke.”

  Squeak-squeak-squeak.

  He wasn’t much of a conversationalist. In fact, to call him taciturn would have been an overstatement. Whereas Francesca? She never knew what to do with extended stretches of silence and always preferred the sounds of voices and laughter and enjoyed conversation.

  The wind howled outside, and Francesca drew her cloak closer about her person, huddling deep within the muslin folds and taking the warmth she could from the velvet lining.

  “It is lovely.”

  That gave him pause. “The door handle?” he asked incredulously.

  “Well, the handle is rather lovely. Grooved and contoured and—”

  “Rusted,” he said flatly, cutting her off. “It is rusted.” Squeak-squeak-squeak.

  Francesca let the silence go on for only a heartbeat more.

  “But… it is aged, and aged doesn’t mean ugly or unworthy of appreciation. Why, think of how many people turned that handle and stepped through that door, and the stories they knew, and the—” The horror-filled gaze he turned on her brought a quick end to her musings. “Your residence,” she said, clearing her throat. “I was, however, speaking of your residence.”

  He grunted.

  In addition to his lack of ease with discourse, he wasn’t much for receiving compliments either.

  No one wished to be around him.

  Not the members he’d served with in the Home Office.

  Not his family.

  And now, there was this woman.

  This peculiar oddity who’d ignored his directives and come around anyway.

  “Are you skilled in repairing door handles?”

  And who asked questions. She asked a lot of questions, too.

  In fact, she very well might have served the Home Office well, if she were trained on which queries to ask.

  Lathan paused, and pushing his spectacles higher on his nose, he peered over at her. “Do you think someone who is skilled at repairing door handles would have one that falls off the minute you force your way in?”

  It was the wrong thing to ask.

  Taking that as an invitation, Francesca sat up. “It doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t skilled at it. Why, mayhap you’ve only recently arrived—”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Or mayhap there are so many handles”—there were—“and you cannot possibly see to the repair of all of them on top of everything else there is to be done here.” Those owl-like eyes didn’t blink for a moment. “Beg pardon. I didn’t mean to suggest…” The woman leaned over and spoke on either an exaggeratedly loud—or an outrageously pathetic—whisper. “This is generally where a gentleman assures a woman that no offense was taken.”

  Once, he’d prided himself on the respectable existence he’d lived. In every and any way, he’d conducted himself above reproach. And for what? “I’m no gentleman,” he said flatly.

  “Yes, well, gentlemen and ladies certainly have a monopoly on kindly ways.”

  A sharp bark of laughter burst from him, real and ragged from ill use. “That’s a certainty.”

  A pretty little twinkle set those already mesmerizing eyes aglitter. “Not the kindest, are they?”

  Unnerved by feeling something other than bitter anger, and all because of his night visitor, Lathan grunted once more. He went back to twiddling with the inner mechanism of the door handle. He worked in silence for a long while. Unlike their earlier exchanges, Francesca Cornworthy didn’t rush to fill the void. Whenever he paused, she’d push an instrument his way.

  His brow wrinkled. And oddly…

  The correct tools.

  He lowered the handle to the table. “Do you have experience with door handles?”

  “Well, not necessarily… Well, yes, some.” Yet again, she took his words as an invitation. “Nearly all homes have, as you’re likely aware, handles. And yet, when I was very young, my father wished for my rooms to be something so unique.” Her expression grew wistful. “Something as unique and special as I was, he would say,” she murmured. She came back to the moment, and an entrancing blush bloomed on her cheeks. “Not that I’m unique in any way.”

  Nay. Francesca Cornworthy was unique in every way. He’d known the woman less than a handful of hours, but he could say that much.

  As if she couldn’t meet his eyes, Francesca picked up the lever and square box. As she spoke, she assessed Lathan’s tools and availed herself of one. “One day, Papa had my chambers redone, and those changes included the door.”

  “And the handle.”

  She lifted her gaze. “Precisely.” She beamed at him, and damn if he didn’t feel the same way he had as a boy when he’d earned the high praise of the most strict tutors.

  “Of course, a knob is not an altogether new concept. They’ve had spherical or oval handles for some time. Louis XIV preferred those elaborate gilded doorknobs, but most?” She lifted the rusty bronze piece. “Most households have handles. As such, the person Papa empl
oyed was only familiar with the lever.” Setting aside one tool for another, she fiddled with the interior lock, turning it several times. Tightening something.

  For the first time since he’d betrayed his superior, the Marquess of Tennyson, and earned the label of traitor, Lathan found himself feeling something—wonderment.

  At the woman’s skill. At her ability to prattle on while she adjusted those intricate parts. That she was able to adjust those intricate parts.

  She laughed softly, a wistful sound of one recalling happier times. “The knob the builder put on in place of a handle… it would fall every time I closed the door. Any time anyone did.” She erupted into a full-out belly laugh.

  He stared on, riveted by that joy.

  Was she even real… this woman who’d walked in, in the middle of a snowstorm, and invaded his household? Everything pointed to the contrary. But then a sad little sigh escaped her, and she dashed back the tears of mirth so that a heavy solemnity fell over the kitchen. Yes, she was real. As was this moment. The sadness confirmed it all.

  “Eventually, I realized the only way I’d have a door that properly shut was if the handle were fixed, and so I set to work trying to figure it out. And then, after I did, I wondered about the handles and so took apart those, too, and put them back together and…” She shrugged. “I just figured it out.” Francesca worked the remainder of the time in silence.

  Her telling served as testament to one key detail about her identity—the woman was a lady. One whose father had funds enough to commission a project for her, and such a highly intricate one at that. She was firmly a peer’s daughter. Or, by her revelation, the daughter of a late peer.

  Then, how did she not know of Lathan? How, when all the ton had lived on the gossip left by his impressment and trials? For surely she would have heard something. At the very least, she’d have had some reaction when she’d learned his name. Because a woman like her wouldn’t be here with a scoundrel like him if she knew.

  Resentment soured on his tongue, stinging like vinegar. What was more? He’d no one but himself to blame. His fate was one he richly deserved. But it didn’t keep Lathan from wishing he’d done so very much so very differently.

  Click.

  He looked up.

  Francesca smiled. “This was your problem. The interior latch was rusted and bent sideways. I’ve managed to straighten it. That should keep it for a bit, but you’ll need to replace it soon.”

  Which would mean he’d need to have someone out to his solitary cottage in the country. Nay, he’d opt for the perils of a broken handle. He wanted her gone. And he wanted to be alone so that he didn’t have to wonder how life might have been different for him.

  “Are you done?” he asked crisply.

  Confusion filled her eyes as she looked at the little workstation she’d taken over from him. “Uh… yes. I just said as much.” She rose slowly, but held firm in her spot. Not fleeing as she should have—and would have if she’d a brain if her head.

  Why isn’t she fleeing? Why?

  He stood. “I meant talking.” Lathan pressed his hands to the surface of the table and leaned forward. “I don’t want your company.”

  “Well, it’s not so much company as two people who’ve been forced together.”

  “It’s semantics, hen.”

  “Yes, but then, that can be said of anything.”

  And then, when presented with no end in sight to her prattling, Lathan did the only thing he could. Nay, the only thing he wanted.

  He kissed her.

  It was a bid to send her running, at last.

  Except, she didn’t.

  Francesca’s entire body stiffened. And then the prey became the predator. She dragged at Lathan by the front of his shirt, tugging him forward and unsettling his balance. Any other time, he’d have railed at the useless leg that made him clumsy. Not now. Now, Lathan caught himself with his good leg, and then, like the animal he was, he crawled across the table to get closer to her.

  The tools and handle went clattering, tinkling little pings as the metal hit the floor. The whole cottage could have been falling down about him, and it wouldn’t have mattered.

  He towered over her, taking what she offered… and more.

  Her entire back arched back to receive him.

  She kissed as she existed, bold and unapologetic and wild.

  Her hands tangled in his hair as she angled his head in a way that she desired. Kissing his mouth. There wasn’t the slightest hesitation to her movements. She threw herself into their kiss.

  Lathan cupped her nape and pressed his mouth to hers over and over again.

  She moaned, and he thrust his tongue inside, tasting her, and she tasted him in return.

  Her tongue lashed against his. Bold strokes that developed an increasing franticness.

  He groaned. It wasn’t enough.

  This was the first time since his fall from grace that he’d embraced his shattered honor, because the gentleman he’d been would have never have made love to the mouth of a woman he’d just met, not the way he did Francesca Cornworthy’s. But the man he was now wanted to lay her down and make love to her in every way.

  Lust fired through him as, never breaking contact with her mouth, he climbed down from the table. Lathan brought her under him so the kitchen table was at her back. Her cloak fell open, revealing the black widow’s weeds that clung to her generous form, and he paused to rake a gaze over her full figure. Lush. Her magnificently full bosom challenged the modest neckline.

  Lathan tugged it down and freed her breasts.

  Her breath caught as he filled his hands with that enormous flesh, pressing the mounds together, thumbing her already puckered nipples until they were sharp, pink peaks.

  “Beautiful,” he rasped harshly, and her wet, kiss-swollen lips curved in a dreamy smile.

  “Indeed? Do you think…?”

  He answered her unfinished question by putting his mouth to her.

  A hiss slipped from between her teeth. “Oh, my,” she whispered, curling her hands into his hair, freeing his queue so that his hair hung about his shoulders. “I-I th-that is quite lovely.”

  Lovely?

  He resisted the pained urge to laugh… or cry. It cost him more strength than he’d believed himself capable of anymore, but he straightened.

  Francesca’s thick lashes fluttered up. And he knew the very moment that shock and horror penetrated the haze of desire that had held Lathan in its same snare. “Oh, dear,” she whispered, her voice shaking and her shoulders heaving, and never had he wanted more to take a woman into his arms than he did this one.

  Those lustful thoughts were at odds with the frantic speed with which the woman scrambled to her feet… and away from him. As she gathered her cloak and held it close, it was surely a mark of his depravity that Lathan wanted to tug it free and carry on from precisely where they’d left off.

  “I told you not to leave your room, hen,” he said. The harshness of his tone stole the color that had filled her cheeks. “Don’t make that mistake again, or next time, I won’t stop…”

  Francesca stood absolutely motionless, fear in her eyes. Nay, it was something worse—horror.

  Lathan snarled, “Run, hen. Run.”

  For the first time, the chit obeyed.

  Lathan followed her flight with his gaze, grateful when the echoes of her steps faded and the click of her door indicated she’d closed herself in her rooms once more.

  He didn’t want to have questions about her or have her regale him with enthralling little stories about her past. Nay, he’d be better once she was gone on the morrow, and then he would be free to return to his own damned misery.

  Chapter 6

  The following morn, Francesca awoke to find the storm had not broken.

  Neither the one that raged outside, or the one that had raged inside… since his kiss.

  Nay, it had been so very much more than a kiss. It had been passion and near lovemaking and… feelings she’d ne
ver thought to feel. Physical ones. Things spinsters only hoped to know and feel.

  Don’t make that mistake again, or next time, I won’t stop.

  Seated at the edge of her borrowed mattress, she touched a fingertip to her lips, the flesh still burning with the memory of him and the taste of mint on his lips.

  And she’d wager all the funds she’d left that “make love with a stranger upon a kitchen table” didn’t fit with the directives handed her by her godmother.

  And the rub of it was, as scandalous and shocking and horrific as it was, she’d not wanted Lathan Holman to stop.

  She, good, respectable, dutiful Francesca Cornworthy, had wanted him to keep going. Had wanted to know what happened after that painful little throb settled between her legs. An ache that had remained through most of the night and kept her awake and then returned on the morn, from the mere thought of Lathan Holman and his—their—embrace.

  Furthermore, what did a woman say to a man whom she barely knew, and yet, had almost made love with?

  An experienced woman would be flippant.

  She brightened. Yes, that was what she’d do. She’d be breezy. After all, how many Seasons had she sat on the sidelines of the ballroom, watching more elegant, experienced women practicing that breezy demeanor? It couldn’t be so very difficult.

  Confidence brought her to her feet, and she made her way across the room and belowstairs to the kitchen.

  If he was even there. Granted, he’d not be outside, not in this weather, but it was highly unlikely he’d be in the kitchens.

  She reached those rooms, the ones where she’d nearly lost her innocence. The moment she entered, the back door opened, and Lathan Holman came stomping in.

  Her heart sped up.

  They both spoke at the same time.

  “What are you doing?”

  And it would seem they were of like thoughts.

  Of course, his terse query was vastly different from her more curious tones.

  And yet, all her confidence, all plans and efforts to be breezy, went flying out the proverbial door he’d just stepped through.