Mischief

by Laura Parker

  Devlyn’s lips thinned. Just as he was leaving the breakfast room the plump Shrewsbury sister, whom he thought of ungraciously as “The Goose,” had approached him wearing the shawl he had bought for Japonica.

  She had simpered and dimpled and made a general nuisance of herself in thanking him for the, “prodigiously delightful gift.” All the while the minx kept drawing the shawl tight about her shoulders in a way that brought into prominence her ample bosom. It crossed his mind to wonder what delights of the feminine anatomy she might have displayed had she opened the boxes containing the chemise and stockings.

  She had then looked at him in a knowing way and said, “I do wonder what you brought our new step-mama. She is such a wonder, our new step-mama. One would think she’d had a child of her own to practice upon. But, of course, that is impossible, isn’t it? Such a good step-mama, to be so new at it.”

  He knew at once that her words were false. What he could not gather was why she had approached him. Then she let drop her handkerchief in the practiced method of flirtation and he understood. The minx thought to play at coquette.

  Unable to ignore it, he bent to pick it up and handed it back to her. That was when she noticed his hook. The look of surprise on her face seemed genuine but then she began to screech like a scalded cat. Her swoon was a plop of ungraceful if deliberate design and he had been too annoyed by it to try to catch her. She did not, he noticed, bump her head when she fell.

  Her eldest sister, the horse-faced dragon who now sat to his left in the pew, had entered in time to rescue her sister from the floor. No need to guess her feelings toward him. She sat so stiff and looked so severe that he wondered what would happen if he brushed her shoulder with his own. No doubt she would strike him with her reticule. As for the other three sisters, they had sat like toadstools in the coach, their gazes darting back and forth over his countenance like fireflies. The Mirza himself would not have been subjected to more ogling.

  The only person who seemed less at ease in his company was the lady on his right. He had discovered in the last hour that Lady Abbott had a sweet husky voice, perhaps better suited to country tunes than hymns but he liked it. And she was nearly as fidgety as he. She kept folding and refolding her gloved hands and biting her lower lip. She was furious to be made a spectacle, of course. As was he.

  He glanced over at her and not for the first time during the service, at the same moment she looked at him. He would swear she was seeking his assurance though her lips did not move. Courage, he offered her in a glance. It will be over soon. It had better be, he mused with a scowl.

  It was her fault he was at the service. After the foolishness with Laurel in the breakfast room Lady Abbott had greeted him at the top of the stairs with the news that, contrary to his desire, she would not be returning with him to London. He did not recall exactly what he had replied but it set off a rather lengthy and loud debate which quite restored him from his black mood of the evening before.

  A great deal of nonsense ensued as she railed at him and he roared back. When he sent Bersham to pack her bags she declared that Bersham might pack any number of bags but she refused to set a foot out of the door. He then informed her that if she did not get in the carriage when he ordered it, he would have her bodily carried to it by the footman.

  Rallying with indignation she answered that she was a grown woman, married and widowed, and so free to do what she wanted and not do precisely the same thing. It was none of his business if she did not want to go to London. He retaliated with a great number of black looks and threats to shake her until she saw reason.

  It was a wild scene, embarrassing and unnecessary, for in the end the younger three Shrewsburys had shown up and announced their intention of walking to church.

  He had to admire Lady Abbott’s quick wits. She had ushered the girls into the coach, drawn up in expectation of her accompanying him back to London, and ordered the driver to take them all to Ufton Nervet.

  But now he had her!

  A deep sound like a chuckle rumbled in Devlyn’s chest. He noted her glance but this time he dared not catch her eye. Before he stepped up into the coach with a surprise of his own, that he would accompany them, he had set Bersham the task of packing her things and given the coachman instructions to pick them up at the house while they attended the service. Another carriage would see the sisters home. Lady Abbott would not be told this until she was once back inside the traveling coach, for he did not mean her to step down again until they were in Mayfair.

  He smiled to himself. Rousing Lady Abbott’s ire entertained him no end. When she forgot to be the dowdy dowager her face took on an animation that was quite fetching. That, and the kiss they had shared. She had kissed him warmly the night before. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that they were not strangers. But why, if that were true, would she be reluctant to admit it?

  He glanced down at his pinned sleeve. He did not intend to repeat the unfortunate mishap of last evening when he tore her gown. She did not seem overly concerned about it but even he understood that brandishing about that dangerous barb was not in the least romantic. Before them lay three hours alone in the coach bound for London. More than enough time for the beginning of a discreet dalliance. The mere thought of it was enough to stir his blood and tighten his groin.

  Devlyn shifted uncomfortably in the pew, disconcerted that his present location had no dampening effect on his thoughts or his body’s response.

  The tedious sermon seemed longer than the average, followed by the inevitable passing of the collection plate. A last hymn and finally the service was at an end. He was delighted to discover that Japonica shared his disinterest in circulating among the congregation that waited as they passed out of the church. After a quick exchange with the vicar, she turned without pause and headed straight for the coach. He heard the whispers of the crowd and did as she did, nodded here and there, but gave no one leave to waylay them. He noted with an inward smile that two additional bags were lashed to the coach. The postillion held the door as she stepped up and then he entered behind her and pulled up the stairs.

  Only then did she speak to him. “What are you doing? The girls are coming with us.”

  “Over my dead body,” Devlyn declared. “London!” he called to the coachman and slammed the door.

  Japonica gasped. “Open that door this instant The girls are expecting to ride home with us.”

  “Bersham will see to them. In fact they are quite preoccupied elsewhere,” Devlyn answered and nodded in the direction of the church. There on the stairs Alyssum remained in conversation with the vicar while Peony and Cynara flanked her. Hyacinthe was speaking with a pair of elderly gentlewomen. Only Laurel seemed interested in the departure of the coach. She watched it roll away with a scowl of fury.

  Realizing that her protest was for naught, Japonica sat back with a look of displeasure. “You are kidnapping me!”

  He looked across at her and shrugged. “Call it what you will, you are coming to London.”

  “I have told you I have no wish to do so. If you do not stop this coach at once I shall launch myself through the open door with the coach at a full gallop.”

  He leaned toward her. “I am perfectly capable of sitting on you to prevent that eventuality.”

  Despite herself Japonica’s lips twitched. “Wretched man!”

  “Indubitably.”

  It surprised her to realize that she was enjoying their contest of wills. Still, it would do her no good to allow him the easy victory. “You cannot keep me locked up in London. I will leave at the first opportunity.”

  He reached for one of the coaching blankets of fur-lined velvet and unfolded it “I have need of your company for one, possibly two evenings. Is your schedule so full or your disinclination toward me so strong that you cannot allow for one evening’s duty in service of your sovereign?”

  “Duty for the King? What possible duty could I perform for the King?”
>
  He leaned forward and placed the blanket across her lap. “Ah, you are like all of your sex. Mention the monarchy and you are all ears.”

  “I suppose there is a condemnation in that but as I am too ignorant to appreciate it, you will need to explain yourself.” She shifted in embarrassment as he began tucking the blanket in at her waist. “I can do that,” she said suddenly, for he was tucking it around her hips with the seeming intent of moving ever lower.

  Giving up, he leaned back and crossed an ankle over the opposite knee. “Women seem able to adjust every matter in their lives to accommodate an inconvenience that will raise them in society.”

  “And, of course, a man would never do anything rash in the name of his sire. He would never leave his home, seek out foreign lands, undergo shot and saber, risk his very life for that notoriously risky business called national pride.”

  Devlyn grunted and set his tricorn forward over his brow so that it blocked out the light, and the disturbing sight of Japonica Abbott.

  Satisfied to have had the last word, Japonica settled back against the squabs of the coach. She was no fool. She had noticed her bags lashed to the coach and known what he was about. She had climbed in because she was more than a little curious to see London from a viscount’s point of view. It had occurred to her that she might, despite his unwillingness to aid her, make useful social contacts if she accompanied him to London. Her sense of urgency in settling one Shrewsbury sister was compounded by news from Lisbon.

  She’d had four letters from Aggie! The relief she felt reading them was so great she could not put them aside but slept with them under her pillow. Today they lay tucked against her heart.

  Jamie was growing “fat and sleek as butter” Aggie had written, with a voice to match his appetite. The wet nurse claimed “the bairn suckles more than the twins at her last post.”

  Longing squeezed hard on her heart. She could not bear this! She was ready to abandon her promise and return to Lisbon … then what?

  With each passing day her fear grew that word would sooner or later reach England that she had borne a son in Lisbon. She had kept first her pregnancy and then Jamie hidden from Wellington’s officers but one never knew what might have been whispered about. Before speculation caught up with her she must leave England.

  “You are deep in thought.”

  Lord Sinclair had set his hat aside and was staring at her with the bright concentrated gaze of the Hind Div. “ ’Tis time we became better acquainted. For instance, I cannot even recall your Christian name.”

  She did not believe him, but why refuse something as simple as her name? “Japonica.”

  He smiled. “The bush with lovely red blossoms? A fitting if highly improper name for an English lady.”

  Japonica blushed. He had complimented her! But she must not take it to heart. Her mother had always clucked in fretful disappointment over the intemperate color of her hair. “I’m certain I’ve not heard your Christian name.”

  “Devlyn.”

  “Devlyn. That is a proper name for a gentleman to be sure.” She cast a mirthful glance his way. “It means courageous, intrepid and chivalrous, which I suppose in your case is debatable.”

  His black brows lifted. “Debatable?”

  “Inconclusive, open to interpretation, unresolved …”

  He snorted with humor. “I did not ask you for an encyclopedia of interpretation. Do you doubt I am as fully courageous, intrepid, and chivalrous as any other man?”

  Before she could stop herself, her glance took him in from head to toe. She looked away out the carriage window. “But my judgment would do you no credit.”

  Devlyn itched to grab her by the shoulders and demand that she explain that comment. But he dared not lay a hand on her, not when he trembled to do so much more. “What name would you give a male child?”

  “What?” The question brought her startled gaze back to him.

  “What would you name your son?”

  “Why, I don’t….” How could he have hit upon the very last subject she wanted to discuss with him? Had he found her out? No, that could not be it. He would not be so cavalier about a discussion of a presumptive heir to his title. Yet the Hind Div might!

  She glanced down then out the window, feeling the world drop away from her. “Why do you ask?”

  The anxious note in her voice surprised Devlyn until he saw that her chin trembled. That tremble stirred not only his compassion but also less honorable emotions. How could one woman be so enigmatic yet so appealingly winsome?

  “I but pass the time, lady,” he said smoothly. “Idle conversation is difficult for one with no memory.”

  No memory! Japonica blinked. She was making a cake of herself for no reason. He could not guess her secrets, for there were no memories for him to attach to whatever he might have heard about her! She stifled her alarm and said in a measured tone, “James—Jamie, after my father.”

  “James. A good strong name. Two English kings shared it.”

  She shook her head. “I do not aspire to so lofty a comparison. I am the daughter of James Fortnom, late of Bushire, Persia.”

  “Persia.” He repeated the word slowly, watching as her fingers curled into a stranglehold on her reticule. What made her so reluctant to talk about her family? The predator’s instinct of sensing vulnerability in another set his interest in the topic. She was hiding something, something she did not want him to discover.

  “So that is how you know the Persian language. Your father was, I suppose, an officer in the Indian Army.”

  “No, a merchant with the East India Company.”

  “Indeed? Are you perchance related to the English grocers Fortnum and Mason?” She nodded readily enough but there it was again, that cautious glance from beneath golden-red lashes. “Do you have many relations in England?”

  “No close relations.”

  He was not so much listening to her answers as watching her. What a lovely mouth she had, full and ripe as a peach. “It must grieve you to be so far from your parents and your home.”

  “My parents are dead.”

  He saw misery in her expression and wanted to tell her that her secrets, whatever they might be, were safe with him. But that ludicrous notion vanished almost instantly. He did not believe he had ever been a man much concerned with the feelings of others. He wanted her, not her secrets. Desire pushed hard at him. “Were we acquainted in Persia?”

  “I never met anyone named Devlyn Sinclair,” she answered carefully.

  That was not what he’d asked her. So then, they were known to one another in some fashion. But she was still too wary to confide in him. A wise man knew when to push and when to retreat, for the moment. “How did you meet Lord Abbott?”

  Japonica resisted answering. Looking into his strong face with its proud expression she could feel again his kiss of the night before, almost believe that the intensity of that golden gaze was for her alone.

  Foolish! Absurd! What would it gain her to encourage his interest? Only more grief and heartbreak. Even if marriage had lifted her to his class there were things about her he might never accept. There was Jamie. Without the buttress of his own memory, would he believe she bore him a son? Why should he? Even if he did, what would it gain her? He would be within society’s bounds to think her little more than a whore and her son a bastard. No, better for them both if he thought of her as others did, an interloper, perhaps even an adventuress, who had duped a dying nobleman into marriage.

  “I was asked by the East India Company to become Lord Abbott’s nurse. I’m told it is not uncommon for an ailing elderly man to believe he is in love with the woman who cares for him. Some are foolish enough to offer marriage. Now if that is all, I am a little fatigued by the conversation.” She looked out the window, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles ached.

  Devlyn noticed her lips pinched white by nerves and regretted the direction the conversation had taken. He had not deliber
ately sought to push her away but he knew he had. No doubt she had suffered at the hands of gossips for her marriage. Bersham for all his tact had made plain the Shrewsbury daughters resented her with a rare hostility. Perhaps she expected that he harbored the same censure of her birth. How wrong she was! She was more than his equal in his eyes. She was a worthy companion.

  Scowling, he joined her in a sightless gaze out of the window where it had begun to rain harder than before. This pressing desire for her, this lust like a fever, had made him clumsy. Instinct told him he was not always so inept in courting the sentiments of the fairer sex. But at the moment her close proximity and her damned perfume were working to make a mockery of his self-possession.

  “You are not to wear that scent in my presence again.”

  “What?” Japonica turned to look at him, for her thoughts had been as absent from the carriage as his were confined to it.

  “You are never to wear that concoction of yours in my presence again. It disturbs me.”

  “Disturbs … ?”

  “Irritates, annoys, irks. Are those sufficient words?”

  “I see.”

  His gaze came around carefully to meet hers. “Do you? Do you really?”

  He’s flirting, she thought with surprised pleasure. No, she could not afford to respond. She jerked the edge of the carriage rug away from his legs, as if the merest contact with him was an insult. “If you find my presence so detestable why don’t you take a horse and ride ahead?”

  “The beasts do not care for my clumsy handling of the reins.”

  Before she could stop herself she glanced down at his right arm. “Could you not ….” The look of anger on his face made her swallow the thought But another came quickly to fill its place, fired by consternation and fear. He had no right to speak to her as if they were intimates. “I shall keep my opinions of you to myself if you will so oblige me. I will wear my perfume when and where it suits me.”