She watched him lift his teacup to his lips—and stop just short of drinking from it.
“That was much too easy.” He scrutinized the tea, sniffed it carefully, and joked, “Is it poisoned?”
“Though I begged and pleaded,” she replied airily, “Prudence refused to give me any hemlock.”
He enjoyed her retort and looked all the more handsome for his appreciative grin. She hurried to the bow to calm the growing turbulence inside.
The narrow boat floated past Pewsey wharf and a series of long brick warehouses beside the canal. Dozens of steel blue swallows burst into the air from the docks. They darted and swooped low to the water before careening skyward.
Watching them, Jane realized the fluttery stomach Seelye caused wasn’t butterflies but an entire gulp of swallows.
* * *
Mr. Stoker canvassed systematically all the establishments along the canal in Hungerford. He anticipated finding a serving maid, tavern owner, or ostler who’d recall a striking young lady of quality.
At The Lock and Key, Hiram Coates confirmed he’d seen someone much like the lady in the miniature, though she was dressed for the canal, not a fancy ball.
“Fanny Jellicott brought a friend by. Same coloring, blonde, blue eyes you could see across the room.”
“When was she here, Mr. Coates?”
“Night before last. Fanny and her had to borrow my key.”
“The lady hired a narrow boat?”
“No, sir. Just borrowed a key. Gentleman returned it later. Didn’t think much about it, to be honest. You might ask Fanny, the Jellicott’s are just up the road.”
Stoker found Miss Jellicott, spoke with her briefly, and hurried straight to Devizes.
Chapter 31
In which our hero learns what’s in the eyes of the beholder.
Vale of Pewsey
At dawn, Seelye stood by Bibendum’s crate with journal in hand to watch the dawn illuminate a knoll east of Bishops Cannings, but he was too troubled to sketch it. How had yesterday’s breakfast gone so wrong? He’d thought to make Jane happy. Instead, he piqued her curiosity about an event that would only make him miserable to revisit.
If he kept his secret, he’d fail Lady Abingdon. Reveal it and he’d sacrifice whatever regard Jane had for him.
The bear poked his snout through a barred window to nudge him. He patted it absent-mindedly.
The cause of his latest predicament joined him without a word.
He and Jane stood together and watched the landscape’s transformation in the light. The Plimptons arrived and made ready quietly.
The bear nudged him again and moaned for attention.
“Does Bibendum want something?” she asked.
“That’s gratitude for his pre-dawn stroll. You’ll be glad to know there’s a happy bear’s scat from Woolhampton to here.”
“How proud you sound, Seelye.”
Whether in tense conversation or teasing, she used his given name most frequently and he liked that.
“I’ve the knack of it now,” he boasted. “When Bibendum avails himself of the great outdoor loo, I stand by his head to avoid the dirt he claws up. I stay clean and that makes me as happy as your bear.”
He flipped pages to show Jane a sketch of Bibendum peering over his shoulder. On the next page, the bear leaned against a Savernake tree, his furry body’s attitude blissful.
“Nothing like a good scratch, eh?” he said.
He turned the page and Jane laughed out loud. Bibendum’s muzzle was caked with something, his eyes intent, ears forward.
“He looks rather pleased with himself,” she said.
“You’ll also be glad to know the tooth drawing was a complete success. He eats with enthusiasm, though what he chooses to consume turns one’s stomach.” He rubbed the bear’s chin. “We’ll reach Devizes today. Mr. Plimpton said it’ll be slow going. You’ll have to stay out of sight in town.” He gestured to the deck and sat down against the crate. “Let’s enjoy ourselves till we get there, shall we?”
“Dare I lounge in full view on the good ship Oubliette?” she joked and sat down daintily beside him.
He could’ve kissed her for forgiving his initial inhospitality. His muscles twitched reflexively to do it. But he did not, must not, and would not—no matter how tempted he was. He watched her out of the corner of his eye.
Jane with her Town veneer buffed to high gloss was beautiful in an aloof, pedestal-appropriate way. Here, her appeal was earthier and harder to ignore. This woman rasped at his instincts, daring the gentleman to revert to nature and do what animal desire dictated. She had unbent, just as he’d advised, although she’d done it when most difficult for him to ignore.
On the boat, she hiked her faded skirt above her ankles to move about or to sit on the deck. Those glimpses made him uncomfortably aware of the rest of her legs. Her blue eyes danced, her mouth softened and stayed turned up at the corners. Loose tendrils of flaxen hair caressed her sun-kissed cheeks. Her off-putting elegance of person had eased by degrees into disarming winsomeness.
She no longer lectured on the should’s and ought’s. She cuffed his shoulder or shook her head in snorting, unladylike exasperation. In fact, if he teased her with a little wit or caught her off guard, as with his sketches of Bibendum, she looked put out at first, only to guffaw helplessly. This was not her dry, unamused ‘Hm hm,’ but boisterous delight.
Her eyes cut to him. “Are there more sketches?”
He showed her other pages.
When she laughed like this, her inner struggle with propriety was most evident—and endearing. She knew better than to cackle, but with sufficient provocation, she couldn’t help herself. She pursed her lips, bit them, even turned her head away to resist his delinquent influence, but her eyes twinkled in sidelong glances. Her struggle to maintain ladylike composure, and her guilty giving-in, charmed him utterly. He liked this Jane very well.
He sensed trouble but could no more resist the temptation to set her off than hold his breath till Bristol. Laughing was the only release possible for what he kept tamped down inside—and it was the closest thing to carnal satisfaction he dared permit himself.
Stop that! his conscience screeched. She deserves better. Tell her about Maguilla and she will never look at you this way again.
“These are wonderful, Seelye. You have captured our dear Bibendum perfectly,” she said at last. “Please draw more.”
He accepted her compliments about his drafting skill with a shrug, though it pleased him enormously.
“That’s enough for now,” he said and begged pardon abruptly. “There’s something below I forgot.”
He escaped to the solitude of the cabin and tossed the journal on the table. He paced in the tiny space, reminding himself not to succumb to Lady Jane Babcock Unbent.
Be careful, he ordered himself, keep a tight leash on wayward impulses, for a heedless man might fall in love and that would never do.
After sufficient self-reproach, he returned to the deck, determined to ignore her and sketch landscapes, which were almost never funny.
Like the days before, a fresh draft horse towed the narrow boat at a ground-eating pace past half-timbered villages and neat countryside.
Jane sat in the bow, her legs tucked beneath her skirt. With her permission, he sat against the front-facing crate door and drew.
In time, she came over and exclaimed at his doodle’s likeness to the scenery. She did not laugh. He said nothing much in reply. And she went away.
He didn’t notice her leave. Fine, he noted the sway of her slim hips in the big skirt. Nothing more. Except her ankles, but they were on display, for God’s sake.
When she returned, she cast a shadow on the page till he looked up. She held a book.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque,” she said. “I thought it appropriate. Shall I read aloud while you draw?”
“Best not.”
&nbs
p; Mutinous thoughts turned to her agile, mellifluous voice, dipping low as one character, rising for another, adding a lisp to distinguish a third. Her reading voice enchanted him. And his blood, that wretched, ungovernable fluid, heated at the memories of hearing her read to Lady Abingdon.
“There are pictures, Seelye, amusing pictures,” she purred in just the sort of voice he found most provocative. “Wouldn’t you like to see?”
She held it out.
Not looking up, he said, “Go sit where you were. You’re casting a pall on my work.”
She did so without taking offense and gave her full attention to the book. He peeked up at her. The fresh air left her skin prettily flushed and her blue eyes more brilliant.
A narrow boat approached from the opposite direction. He tensed for the inevitable.
“Good day, miss,” some of the men called out, grinning moronically and ripping caps from their heads.
It came as no surprise that she drew avid stares from other boats. With two 70-foot narrow boats passing each other in opposite directions, there were 139 feet of overlap and plenty of time for gawking men to make Jane blush, much to his annoyance.
Visceral possessiveness flared up whenever boatmen paid court to her in passing. These would-be Romeos stood within arm’s reach, if one were tempted to lean over the gunwale and punch a man for presumption.
More and more often, he was.
Seelye looked heavenward and asked Him, “A bear isn’t trial enough?”
He heard her dry chuckle but turned away rather than drink her in like the others.
The morning was fine, cloudy but clear in a way London’s smudgy air rarely was. Deliberate herons, like gray-frocked clergymen, stalked the marshy banks of a nearby winding hole, where narrow boats turn to change direction. Streaks of brilliant, airborne blue kingfishers whistled their sharp ‘chee-chee’ darting low over the water.
The fresh air filled with happy, purposeful sounds. Plimpton told Jacob to mind the towline.
The setting and the company made the moment idyllic but, as he recalled, every idyll comes to an end.
Seelye closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Something tight inside his chest slowly unwound. He tilted his head back and let the slanting sunlight warm his face.
Jane chortled, “Really, I must,” and read aloud:
“‘He felt that he content must be, with drudging in a Curacy.
Indeed, on ev’ry Sabbath-day, through eight long miles he took his way,
to preach, to grumble, and to pray; to cheer the good, to warn the sinner,
and if he got it,—eat a dinner;
to bury these, to christen those, and marry such fond folks as chose
to change the tenor of their life, and risk the matrimonial strife.’”
“Amusing,” he allowed and rolled his shirt cuffs out of the way.
Hard to believe he’d grown accustomed to the soft, thick fabric of his coarse shirt. He’d come to appreciate the ease of motion his rough trousers afforded him, though they did nothing to flatter well-shaped legs. He felt more sure-footed unshod on the well-polished wood deck, though his feet were mortifyingly bare.
He watched Jane from under half-closed lids. With her voluminous skirt tucked around her, he couldn’t make out whether or not she wore shoes and stockings.
Stop that!
Unshod thoughts were dangerously close to unclothed ones. Feet were safe to ponder only so long as they were at the ends of his own hairy shins. And so long as hers were covered, with nothing hinted at in an alluring way that made mischief for one’s man parts.
His gaze lingered where her feet might be while pretending to sketch. Odd jolts of attraction now and then were nothing momentous, he reassured himself. Perhaps he had grown a little fond of her is all.
Fond.
No.
That wasn’t the word that came out of the blue, harmless as a streak of light in the sky until it landed on him with the impact of a meteor.
Mustn’t think it.
Fond, no. He was not a little fond of her. That was a lie.
A gentleman mustn’t lie. But he mustn’t tell the truth either if the truth was—he closed his eyes, emptied his head, and listened.
Plimpton said there was a rhythm to the way men worked the canal. With sufficient concentration, Seelye heard the melody as well.
Beside the quiet ‘plash’ of water between canal bank and flyboat’s hull, Marcus encouraged the draft horse up the towpath in a singsong. The animal plodded with slumbrous syncopation. Gravel crunched rhythmically under the horse’s plate-sized hooves. When they came to a turnover bridge, the towpath meandered up and over to the other side of the canal past a little village. The ‘ker-chunk, ker-chunk’ of the iron-shod horse stepping up the stone incline and across the wooden bridge differed from the hesitance of heavy hooves descending on the other side.
Add to this, other horses’ steady hoofbeats on the towpath growing louder as eastbound boats approached only to fade as they moved on. The skippers exchanged greetings and news. Boatmen tried to wrest Jane’s attention from her book with flirtation.
At the next lock, the flyboat’s knotted rope fenders were slung over the side to thump dully against the hull. He heard the turning of gears, the creak of paddles in motion, then the soothing rush of water. He felt the boat rise. Heard the water still and the skipper’s whistle. More gears meshed and he floated quietly into the channel beyond, calm at last.
Without warning, Jane disrupted this tranquility.
“Have you never been in love, Seelye?”
He felt the uncomfortable prickle of skin foretelling danger.
“Hundreds, possibly thousands of times,” he replied without opening his eyes. A raffish grin failed to quell her.
“I don’t refer to carnal lust, Lord Seelye, but love.”
He noted her use of his courtesy title.
“A lady does not talk of that, Jane. But if you must, don’t speak in that manner,” he said. “Makes you sound like a Quaker shuddering over creatureliness.”
“You mean to dodge the question?”
“I’d rather be pickled in vinegar up to my neck than discuss it with you.” He opened his eyes to find cultivated fields beyond the canal. “Look over there, Jane! A farmer’s flogging livestock.”
She shook her head and murmured, “I thought so.”
What in blazes did she mean by that?
Did she imply he had no capacity for finer feelings? Right. It meant nothing to him either way, so long as she let the subject drop. What did it matter if his married comrades behaved like sated guests at a saturnalia he’d never attend? He wasn’t destined for love just marriage, and that, only if he were extraordinarily lucky.
He meant to let the subject drop. Really, he did.
“Just what do you mean by ‘I thought so’?” he demanded when he’d had his fill of stewing.
“You’ve never been in love.”
“I cannot afford the luxury.”
She studied the passing scenery and said, “In other words, you must be mercenary.”
“I must be realistic about my prospects, yes,” he replied sharply. “In my experience, females are more mercenary than I where marriage is concerned.”
“Am I mercenary?”
“No, your rejection of every eligible in the kingdom makes you the sole exception to the rule. But then, you are exceptionally rich so you can afford to be the anomaly.”
“Were you disappointed in love? Did someone hurt you?”
“I’m too clever to court rejection. Even we wastrel lordlings have pride.”
At that last bit of sarcasm, she looked abashed. She plucked at her skirt as if she were uncomfortable. He waited for what might come next.
“I shouldn’t have called you that,” she said with eyes downcast. “It’s not true, but I didn’t know any better at the time. I am sorry, Seelye.”
That was unexpected, he thought. And in turn, he considered his own mistakes.
For miles, the two sat in silence. Seelye stared at nothing. Jane leaned against the gunwale in the bow reading her book, the breeze riffled more hair loose from her braid. In time, her eyes drooped.
He turned to a fresh page and sketched quickly.
In a few sure strokes, he captured the shape of her face, eyes closed, hair waving up and away from her patrician forehead. He traced the elegant arch of her darker brows, the sweep of lashes, her straight nose and perfect cupid’s bow mouth. He shaded her lips to give them fullness and the slight, upturned curves at the corners that leant her expression sweetness. Her jawline was firm, not mulish. Then again, she was unconscious, he chuckled. She looked like an enchanted fairy tale character. A fleeting vision of her lying beside him made him drop his pencil.
She stirred.
He snatched it up from the deck and quickly turned back to the landscape.
In time, she roused and opened the book to her place only to close it on her finger.
“If you won’t discuss love or marriage sensibly, tell me about your war.”
“I won’t repeat myself. It’d make me a bore.”
“Something changed you,” she said carefully. “I’d like to know what happened.”
His heart kicked into a gallop, God damn it-God damn it-God damn it-God damn it!
Unbidden, the afternoon in Spain came to mind. He remembered the sound of cloth ripping with one razor-sharp thrust and the warmth of blood running down his fist.
“I’ve no complaints. War forges a man like steel. In my case, it made a rapier. Or so I’ve read in the newspapers.”
“If you must be flip, never mind.”
She re-opened her book. Or rather, she ignored him. He doubted she read a word, her color was too high. He’d angered her but what could he say that was suitable?
Civilians wanted the derring-do, never the carnage or the questionable acts required to stay alive. The memory of Maguilla left him nauseated. It happened years ago, he reminded himself. No use revisiting it unless he had to.
His Lordship's Last Wager Page 26
