Mistress of Scandal

by Sara Bennett

  Francesca paused, resting her hand on the stair rail. It had been a simple matter to walk in through the front door, but she wasn’t at all sure about continuing on up the stairs. That was where the voices were coming from, and her plan had been to burst in and discover what Sebastian was up to.

  “Private business,” he’d said, but what could he possibly have to say to Hal the blacksmith that it had brought him all the way from London? She was dying of curiosity. He wouldn’t appreciate her breaking in on them, but it was her adventure.

  Feeling her way in the darkness, Francesca moved up the stairs. There was a faint light spilling out from under the door on the landing, and as she drew closer it helped her to see her way. Something made a scuffing sound below her in the shadows, and she came down on the next step more heavily than she’d meant to. It gave a loud creak. Francesca held her breath, listening, but the voices in the upstairs room continued without pause, while downstairs there was only silence. Probably mice, she thought with a shudder.

  Go home. This is madness, her inner voice castigated her, but it didn’t seem to matter. Good sense might tell her she should be running as fast as she could in the opposite direction from Sebastian Thorne, but good sense had little to do with it.

  “…has friends in high places,” Hal the blacksmith’s voice was slightly muffled by the closed door. “You’d be surprised, Mr. Thorne, what sort of thing some great men fancy. And once she has ’em in her web, that’s it. She never lets ’em go.”

  “She blackmails them?” Sebastian sounded cool and collected, but Francesca heard his suppressed excitement.

  “Aye.”

  She? Who was she? Francesca put her eye to a knot in the wood. She saw a candle on a table, flickering and smoking, but other than that only shadows.

  “You said her husband was dead, Hal. Is there anyone else?” Sebastian’s voice went on.

  “She has a daughter…”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’ know,” he muttered, “I haven’t seen her for years.” But there was something in his voice that suggested he did know.

  Sebastian heard it, too. “You’ve come this far, Hal. If I’m to stop her, I need to know everything you know.”

  Francesca pressed closer. Distracted, she heard the creak of the stair behind her. A rough and sweaty hand closed over her mouth, and stopped her from screaming. The door in front of her was wrenched violently open, and Francesca was shoved inside.

  She shrieked as soon as he let her go, careering full on into an immovable object. It had a muscular chest and hard arms that wrapped around her, while her nose was pressed hard into a clean-laundered shirt with a familiar scent. She said something like “Oomph.”

  “Damn and blast you, Miss Greentree,” Sebastian said with quiet fury. “I told you to wait.”

  “Ah, women! They never do as they’re told, Mr. Thorne, you should know that.” The new voice was young and cocky.

  Francesca tried to extricate herself from Sebastian’s arms, but he kept a tight grip on her. She turned to look over her shoulder, and the first thing she saw was that the other man was holding a pistol in his hand. The next thing was that she knew him.

  “Jed?” she cried. “Is that you?”

  Jed cursed beneath his breath. “Now see what you’ve done, Da,” he said to Hal, a trace of a whine in his voice. “She knows me.”

  “Of course I know you, Jed,” Francesca retorted. “You used to help in the stables when I was a girl.” She felt Sebastian’s arms tighten, as if she’d said something wrong.

  “Aye, well, I’ve better fish to fry these days,” Jed said, full of importance.

  “I thought you was gone.” Hal rose to his feet. “You said you was headin’ back to Lon’on.”

  “So I was, but I met someone on the road who knew of a gen’leman who’d just been saved from Emerald Mire. So I come back.”

  Hal eyed his son with a mixture of doubt and fear. “What are you going to do, lad?”

  Jed’s angry gaze turned to Sebastian. He was of only medium height, but thickset, with big shoulders. There was something of the bully in him, Francesca decided, and wondered why she hadn’t noticed it before. “I’m going to have to kill him myself, seeing as you didn’t do the job properly, Da.”

  His father and Francesca gasped, and Jed smiled, pleased with the effect of his words.

  To Francesca, standing in the warm circle of Sebastian’s arms, the moment didn’t seem real; it was as if at any time she would wake up.

  “What about Miss Greentree?” Hal was saying. “You gonna kill her too, lad?”

  Jed glared at him, his hand clenching on the pistol, as if he was trying to make up his mind.

  “Stop it,” Francesca said. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

  Jed curled his lip at her. “You always was too good to be true. Maybe I’ll enjoy wringing your neck, miss.”

  “Jed—”

  “Always handing out your charity, always visiting the poor folk. You visited us. Da here was over the moon, but I hated it. I hated you. Well, now I don’t need your charity.”

  Francesca was shocked. She hadn’t known Jed felt this way. It had never occurred to her that her good works might be resented by those they were meant to help.

  “Jed, you know that if anything happens to me, or my guest Mr. Thorne, there will be a hue and cry all over the county. You will be hunted down. Is that what you want?”

  “This has nothin’ to do with you,” Jed snarled.

  “She’s right.” Hal moved toward his son. “Leave them be, Jed. I’m asking you as your da.”

  His impassioned plea was enough to distract Jed, just for a moment. Francesca didn’t even see Sebastian move, but suddenly she was brushed aside, and he launched himself at Jed. They clung to each other, toppling over the chair and falling to the floor.

  The pistol clattered across the bare wooden boards. Francesca went for it a moment too late. Hal knocked her to one side, and she fell heavily against the table, bruising her shoulder and her leg. The candle teetered in its holder and fell. The flame was extinguished, and suddenly everything went dark.

  As Francesca lay, momentarily stunned, she was aware of the men still rolling and fighting on the floor nearby. The next moment there was the sickening crack of something hard striking flesh and bone. She tried to move, but she was disoriented. Where was he? Then, from the blackness, Hal’s voice: “Come on!” Jed was cursing softly. They stumbled to the door, one of them limping, and it slammed shut behind them.

  A moment later Francesca heard horses galloping away, and silence. They’d gone. But where was Sebastian? She climbed to her feet and stood perfectly still. It wasn’t really pitch dark. There was some starlight from the window, but not much.

  “Mr. Thorne?”

  He didn’t answer. She felt dizzy. What had they done to him? What if he was dead?

  That just wasn’t possible, she told herself with rising alarm. The villain didn’t die, at least not until the very end, when the hero bested him, and so far there were no heroes in this story. She shuffled forward, creeping across the room, feeling for him. She was praying, but she didn’t know for what. It couldn’t be a happy ending, could it?

  That was when she smelled it.

  The smoke.

  At first she thought it was the candle, and that when it’d fallen over, it had caught alight on some piece of furniture. But then she realized this had nothing to do with the candle. Jed really had meant what he said about killing them.

  He’d set fire to the blacksmithy before he rode away.

  Chapter 8

  He was dreaming again, and a very nice dream it was, too. Francesca Greentree was holding him in her arms and caressing him. He could feel her trembling hands on his chest and shoulders, her fingertips touching his face. That was nice. But then she began calling his name in a shrill voice that pierced right through him, and suddenly she grasped him under the arms and attempted to haul him to his fe
et.

  Her seduction technique certainly needed some refining, he thought muzzily. And then nausea curled in his stomach as she jolted his head forward, and his brain felt as if it was jumping up and down inside his skull. He thought about protesting, but the next moment she sat down on the floor, cradling his poor aching head on her lap. She leaned over him, and he felt her breath, tickling his cheeks and jaw, the tip of his nose, his eyelids…

  He wished she’d kiss him. He wanted to feel those luscious lips on his again. You could keep your resurrectionist remedies, a kiss from Francesca Greentree would bring a dead man back to life.

  He sneezed.

  “Oh!” She nearly leaped out of her skin. “You’re alive!”

  “Unfortunately,” he said, trying to sit up and groaning aloud with pain. “What the hell happened?”

  “I think Hal hit you.” She sounded breathless. “He and Jed are gone, but they’ve set the building on fire.”

  He could smell the smoke now, strong and growing stronger. They probably didn’t have much time. He lurched dizzily to his feet, knocking against her as she also stood up. She gasped. Visions of Jed hitting her, too, filled his pounding head. An icy rage flooded him.

  “What is it?” he demanded, more shaken by the possibility of her injuries than his own. “Are you hurt?”

  But her voice was strong. “Just a bruise. By the way, they bolted the door when they left. We’re locked in.”

  Sebastian began feeling his way over the framework. It wasn’t all that sturdy. He used his boot against it, kicking hard, but it didn’t do much damage, apart from his aching head. He took a breath, gave himself a run up, and tried again. This time there was a cracking and splintering of the wood. The third time the door broke off its hinges and hung drunkenly onto the landing.

  Downstairs was a chaos of flames and smoke.

  Francesca started to cough. He caught her hand in his and squeezed it hard, to gain her attention. “Follow me,” he said. He didn’t wait for her to answer, quickly moving down the stairs, feeling the heat of the flames as the fire licked at the banister. Sparks landed on them and all around them. With streaming eyes he ran for where he thought the door should be.

  Fortunately Jed hadn’t thought it necessary to lock it, and they staggered out into the night, gasping in the cold, fresh air.

  He spied the horse trough on the opposite side of the yard and, dragging Francesca protesting after him, went to plunge his head into it. The water was icy, but it did the trick. He was alert again, and thinking. He shook himself like a dog.

  “Your head…” Francesca was watching him with streaming eyes, her face flushed and streaked with soot.

  He reached up cautiously and discovered a tender lump at the back. “It’s too hard to break,” he said wryly. “He must have hit me with the butt of the pistol.”

  She shuddered and half turned away, and that was when he realized the hem of her green dress was smoldering. In a moment, he thought, she’d be alight. Burning. He reached out and grabbed her.

  “Sebastian?” she said uneasily, her voice rising on a wail as he swung her up and around and dropped her into the horse trough. She sank, completely.

  “Are you sure no one saw me?”

  Her teeth were chattering; she was drenched, hair and clothing wringing wet, but all Francesca could think about was being discovered in Sebastian’s room at the inn. She knew there would be a terrible scandal and she’d be ruined, like her sister Marietta.

  He was working on the small fire, building it up with curses and slivers of wood. “The blacksmithy is burning, and the innkeeper, and everyone else in the village, is trying to put it out. So to answer your question, no, no one saw us come in.”

  They’d crept around buildings and cottages, avoiding the crowd headed in the direction of the fire, and found the empty inn. Now here she stood, dripping, in the middle of Sebastian’s room. He’d dunked her in a horse trough.

  “You do realize,” she said, with as much dignity as she could muster, “that wool is very slow to burn. You could have put me out without resorting to such drastic measures.”

  “So you’ve said…several times. There,” he added, as the fire crackled. He frowned at her, then tugged the coverlet from his bed and wrapped it around her.

  “I—I suppose you thought you were saving my life,” she said, between violent shivers, “but I’m finding it difficult to feel grateful.”

  “I’ve apologized,” he said evenly. He began to rub his hands over her arms and shoulders. “Would you like me to kiss you better?” he added, his voice dropping.

  “No, thank you,” she said, trying not to blush.

  “Pity.”

  She winced when he touched her bruised shoulder. A glint shone in his eyes. “Did they hurt you?”

  She pushed her wet hair back from her face. “I don’t think he meant to. Hal, I mean. We bumped into each other when we went after the pistol. He won,” she added ruefully.

  “Where does it hurt?”

  “My shoulder.”

  “Show me,” he demanded.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Which shoulder?”

  Francesca sighed. “The left.”

  He began to peel down the coverlet with quick, impersonal movements. She was still dressed, of course, so then he moved to the back of her, and started unfastening the long line of buttons. About halfway down he had enough slack to draw the garment over her left shoulder and down her arm, so that he could examine her for any injury.

  Francesca was still shivering. She supposed she should be horrified at her situation, and his actions, but she’d gone beyond horror. All she wanted was to be warm again.

  “You have the beginnings of a fine bruise,” he said levelly. He stroked her skin lightly with his fingertips. “Can you lift your arm?”

  She did so, carefully. He grasped her elbow through the woolen cloth and manipulated it in a professional manner. “No pain?” She shook her head. He rewrapped her in the cover, leaving her dress half undone. “I have some brandy here somewhere,” he said, moving away.

  “I hate brandy.” She crept closer to the fire, holding out her hands. A long, wet strand of hair fell forward. “Mr. Thorne…”

  “Sebastian,” he corrected her, finding the brandy and uncorking it. “I think we’ve gone beyond formalities, don’t you?”

  “What are you doing here? Why did Jed want to harm you…us? I don’t understand.”

  He handed her a glass with a bare inch of liquid in it. “Adventures don’t always make sense,” he said, and took a swig out of the bottle with his eyes closed and his head tilted back. When he looked at her again, the firelight flickered on his face, making shadows. She thought how strange it was that she should feel as if she knew him so well, when she didn’t know him at all.

  Why, he could be a…a highwayman, and she could be a tavern wench. He might find her alone in his room, and before she knew it…She swallowed and tried to halt her imagination before it led her into danger.

  “Why did Jed want to kill you?” she repeated. “Are you from Scotland Yard?”

  He smiled. “No, I’m not from Scotland Yard, although my profession is of a similar nature.”

  “Your profession?” she said. Her clothes were beginning to steam and her hair to curl. Finally some warmth was starting to pierce her frozen state.

  “I investigate. I find missing people. I solve mysteries.”

  Her lips parted. “Oh?”

  “I am here on a private commission.” Sebastian seemed to stop himself. He shook his head. “In a moment I’ll be telling you everything, and that wouldn’t be professional. But there’s something about you that makes me feel…safe, and that makes me think the situation is very unsafe.” He laughed softly.

  The heat was making her sleepy, and her wet clothing was so heavy. She swayed, and Sebastian pulled the shabby armchair closer to the flames, and she sank into it with a sigh.

  He was still musing. “If I we
re sensible I’d get as far away from you as possible, as soon as possible,” he said, bending to remove her sodden boots. “But I’m not feeling very sensible.” He tossed her boots over by the hearth, and stared down at her stocking-enclosed toes. “The truth is, I haven’t felt like myself since I first saw you.”

  “You said this was an adventure,” she murmured, her eyes growing heavy. “I don’t think I’ve ever had such an—an interesting time. I don’t want it to end, either.” The coverlet slipped, and she saw his gaze go to her bare, rosy skin and the soft curve of her shoulder. He was looking at her, and she liked it. “This doesn’t seem real,” she said dreamily. “I feel like I can do whatever I wish.”

  “What is it you wish to do?” He was holding her feet in his warm hands, the firelight behind him.

  Francesca was feeling very peculiar. There was something about his eyes and his voice; she felt like a silly rabbit held by the eye of a snake, except this was a far more pleasurable experience. Pleasure, that was the word. Sebastian Thorne was a man who could give her unlimited pleasure, and he fascinated her and frightened her at the same time. Or perhaps she was more frightened of herself.

  What was it like to kiss a man like this? In her life she had kissed, of course she had, but usually bumbling boys who slobbered on her cheek before she pushed them away. She’d never let herself imagine how it must feel to kiss a real man, an attractive man, and one she was attracted to. She had been too afraid she might not be able to stop.

  But now here he was, the man of her dreams, and suddenly desire outweighed fear. Impulsively she threw her arms about his neck and placed her lips on his.

  Surprise gave way to passion. He grasped her roughly in his arms, and he was strong. Lovely. She felt caught up in something she mightn’t be able to stop and she was afraid, but only for a moment, before his mouth proceeded to plunder hers.

  An explosion of sensation. Her sense of touch and taste and smell were all focused on him. There was no escaping this, and she didn’t want to.