“Stop it, you blasted bird. You can’t stay in here forever.”
Evelyn hiked her skirt over her ankle and mounted the bottom step of the carriage. The driver hovered at her elbow, ready to offer his assistance if need be.
“Let me take her.” When Evelyn reached out her hands, Antonia quieted. She made a cooing sort of sound and stepped, meek as a dove, from Lucy’s arm onto Evelyn’s.
Lucy scowled. “Why does she like you better than me?”
“You’re very excitable, dear. You have to be calm or she’ll pick up on your agitation.”
Had Lucy ever been calm? She was filled with such energy, mischief, and enthusiasm that Felicia suspected the only peaceful mood she had was while asleep.
She clomped down the stairs. Antonia flapped her wings and screeched, “Get off your rump!”
Lucy scowled. “That’s what I’m doing now, isn’t it?”
The dowager petted the bird with light, steady strokes. “She’s a parrot, dear. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
Lucy glowered. “She knows…”
Felicia pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. It wouldn’t help.
The moment Charlie stepped to the ground, stretching her legs and groaning, Gideon stopped scratching the mastiff’s belly and glanced over his shoulder. Without the distraction, Chubs noticed the large blue bird. He rolled onto his feet, slobber flying as he barked. The parrot dug her claws into Evelyn’s arm through her glove—painfully, judging by her expression and the way she tried to wheedle her hand in between.
“Pudding-house,” Antonia screamed.
Chubs barked. He danced around the dowager and the bird, his tail wagging like mad, as he tried to decide on the best angle to greet his new friend.
“Pickle,” cried the bird. “Giddy, pickle, pickle!”
Apparently, Antonia had a limited vocabulary. Though Felicia had to admit, there was a time or two when she ran out of words to say when Chubs frustrated her, too.
This time, the word was easy. “Chubs, no. Sit.”
The dog sat, drumming his tail on the ground. His haunches coiled to jump.
“No!”
Felicia lunged for his collar, falling half on top of him. Gideon had the same idea. They collided in midair, cracking their heads together and falling to the hard ground in a tangle of limbs. Felicia groaned as she struggled to get her feet beneath her.
“Not there.” Gideon’s words were strained, little more than a hiss, but his fingers clamped over her hips to still her was anything but. The grip was unyielding. She could barely wiggle against him, let alone gain any more traction.
“Let me up.”
“Carefully,” he spat between gritted teeth.
Only then did she realize how close her knee had come to injuring his manhood. “Forgive me,” she muttered as she straightened out her leg.
The movement freed him from danger, but did little to help her rise. In fact, she was pressed even more fully against him, her breasts crushed to his chest and his mouth so close to hers that his warm breath played over her cheek. He smelled incredible. Too good. Even knowing her reaction to him was chemical did little to keep it from happening.
And judging by the bulge against her pelvis, he couldn’t help his reaction to her, either. She met his gaze, stilling and waiting for the reaction to subside. She couldn’t stand and expose it, could she?
Better that than encourage him. The moment their eyes met, his a deep, crystal green, a shiver coursed through her. She rolled off of him, onto the packed dirt. This time, he let her. He rolled in the opposite direction, away from his family.
Fortunately, Chubs and Antonia occupied their attention. Evelyn held the bird as high as her trembling arm could support while Antonia whistled provocatively, called Chubs a bizarre series of insults, and flicked her tail feather at him. Chubs was slathering at the mouth as he dreamt of what parrot feathers would taste like when licked. It took both Charlie and Lucy, tugging on his collar, to keep him on the ground.
With a tense expression, sweat beading on her forehead, Lucy struggled to make herself heard above the dog’s puncturing barks. “Take her inside!”
Although it took more than one try before her meaning was clear, the dowager soon balanced the agitated bird while rounding the carriage and hurrying up the broad, stone steps to a massive set of double doors. They were opened from within as she approached and she disappeared without issue.
Chubs continued to strain against the young women restraining him. Felicia straightened, put on her most imposing dog owner voice, and said, “Quiet, Chubs. Lay down.”
Whimpering, the dog lowered onto his front legs. His rear end was poised partially into the air wriggling as if he hoped to escape and run after the bird. He glanced over his shoulder at Felicia, his brown eyes limpid pools of wretchedness.
What an actor he was. Shaking her head, Felicia approached and laid her hand on his rump. “You can let him go. He won’t run. He may lick you, however, so beware.”
The girls set upon him with admiring words and scratches.
“Is he yours?” Lucy asked. “I didn’t know you had a dog. We could have taken him with us.”
Gideon, now on his feet and in a less embarrassing state, brushed off his breeches as he grumbled, “Lord save us if we put this fellow and Antonia in an enclosed space together.”
Felicia grinned. He had a point. “I needed him to guard the wagon while I was away. That is the reason I adopted him, after all.”
Lucy cooed. “What a smart dog you are, to save us from that dangerous parrot.”
Laughing, Felicia could barely force out the words, “I thought Antonia was your pet.”
“Oh, she is. That doesn’t mean she isn’t dangerous.”
Gideon offered a bland smile. “She fits in with the rest of the family.”
Lucy’s dark eyebrows snapped down over her eyes, her expression hostile. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing at all,” Gideon said, his tone and expression innocent. “It’s cold out here. Why don’t we go warm ourselves inside and continue the conversation there?”
“A splendid idea,” Felicia said.
She rose, snapping her fingers to get her dog’s attention. Groaning, he straightened to his full height. You’d think she asked him to walk over a bed of hot coals.
Absently, she added, “I won’t be long. Back before supper, to be sure. Come, boy.” She turned toward the stables.
Gideon’s mouth dropped open as she strode past him. A moment later, he turned and trotted at her heels. “Back?”
Lucy hiked up her skirts and sprinted to Felicia’s side. “Where are you going? What’s in the wagon? Why do you have it? Do you usually travel that way?”
Throughout the barrage of questions, Gideon repeated his statement in the same disbelieving tone. “Back?”
She ignored him.
When Lucy took a breath, Felicia informed her and the young blonde trotting behind, “I’m going into town. The wagon is my home and holds my belongings. Do you remember when you spilled that vial on Gideon? Well, I created that perfume, I didn’t buy it. Actually, I sell it at market. It’s how I’m able to sustain my style of living. And yes, I’ve been all over Britain in that sturdy wagon.”
She reached the doors of the stables. Lucy asked more questions—about how she sold her perfumes, the places that she’d been, what kind of clientele she attracted. Felicia walked down the row of stalls, searching for her mule and found him, happily munching away at some hay. He seemed reluctant to see her, as if he knew it meant more exertion. Shaking her head, she gave his nose a pat and grabbed hold of his halter to guide him out.
As she strode back toward her wagon, she answered as many of Lucy’s questions as she could before the slim young woman asked more. Lucy pulled a small notebook from her reticule, no bigger than her hand, and jotted down Felicia’s answers. Although Felicia sought to give the most simple answer and thus end the tirade,
Lucy’s questions were endless. Felicia managed to hitch Rudolph to the wagon while talking. She opened the wagon door to let Chubs take his usual roost inside, and climbed aboard the front driver’s seat.
Although the seat was high off the ground, it was only at the level of Gideon’s shoulders. He brushed past his sister and Charlie and met her gaze. “We just arrived. Surely you don’t mean to leave again.”
“That I do.”
She flicked the reins and Rudolph started forward with a groan. For all his leisure and reluctance in reaching the wagon, he seemed to sense that there was a better chance of being fed if they arrived at their destination quickly. The wheels creaked a bit as they found traction on the packed earth, and they were away. Felicia waved her hand and called, “I’ll be back again soon!”
The ladies waved to her, then linked arms to retreat into the abbey. Gideon, on the other hand, stood in the middle of the drive, flabbergasted. Felicia faced forward, but even then she seemed to feel his gaze.
She savored the moment she turned from the long drive onto the road. She was alone again, without the company of the Graylockes. Not that, as a whole, they were poor travel companions, but pressed up against Gideon for the entire ride had proven trying. She breathed deep the cool, crisp air. Before long, she wished she’d stopped to find a cloak or pelisse in her wagon. Seeing as she recalled the town as being so near to the abbey, she didn’t bother stopping but continued to drive.
One mule moved slower than four matched horses, and it took her over five minutes before the steeple of the church came into view. The lofty white edifice served as a beacon to her. It looked in good repair as she ambled past. A woman in a plain gray cloak carrying a basket slipped from between the doors as the wagon passed. Felicia waved.
A half an hour later, she reached the village. The trees dropped away, giving rise to squat, sturdy houses built mostly of wood. One, near to the edge of the village, sported a swinging sign that proclaimed it, The Golden Goose. A tavern or inn, by her guess. There was a small stable in the back, barely large enough to house five or six horses. The Golden Goose was a square building three stories high. It dwarfed the smaller homes and shops nearby, but didn’t look spacious, especially with the steep slant to the roof.
The hour was just after lunch, and patrons trickled from the tavern’s doors. Since it seemed to be a popular building for the area, Felicia parked her wagon in the flat area across from it. Not close enough to be associated with the tavern and risk the enmity of the owner, but close enough that the patrons emerging into the gray daylight immediately set eyes upon her wagon.
The moment she drew to a stop, she leaped off the hard driver’s seat and looped Rudolph’s reins around a hook in the corner. If he decided to amble forward, the bit would tighten uncomfortably in his mouth and it would prompt him to stop. Not that she thought he would decide to move of his own volition. Rudolph was the laziest mule she’d ever met.
However, he was spurred by his stomach, so as a reward she found a carrot inside the wagon as she let Chubs out. “Guard,” she told the dog. She fed the carrot to Rudolph while Chubs sat on his haunches and kept watch.
The men and women exiting the Golden Goose slowed, staring at her wagon. With the ease of long practice, she unfurled the awning and propped it on two posts. Felicia’s Love Perfumes billowed a bit in the breeze, but it was legible enough for those who could read. Those who couldn’t would be attracted by the sign and the gaudy colors of her wagon.
When she exited the wagon with the table that she hastily unfolded, she’d gathered a crowd of about six. She smiled and waved, and returned to the wagon to fetch the tablecloth and her wares. The most diluted samples, as this didn’t appear to be a prosperous crowd, for all their proximity to the Duke of Tenwick’s estate.
When she returned outside, the crowd had swelled to seven people, three men and four women. She beckoned them closer as she laid out her wares, probing them for information about their love lives. Despite the chill, she unbuttoned her plain spencer to show more of her tawny dress and wished it was more colorful. The flashier she looked, the more people she enticed to peruse her wares and listen to their effect.
Donning her saleswoman persona was like slipping into a second skin. Her troubles melted away beneath the onslaught of her efforts to be entertaining and charming. Not too alluring, so that she wasn’t branded a trollop and eschewed by the women, but enough to catch the eyes of the men with a flirtatious smile or the glimpse of her ankle as she paced the length of her table. A couple of young women seemed interested in her wares, but didn’t have the pin money on hand to purchase a vial and so had to run home to their fathers to beg for money. A pair of men older than Felicia joked about attracting their wives’ attentions once more. She tried to sell to them, but they shook their heads and sauntered off. Most other patrons kept to the outskirts of the group, listened to what she had to say, but didn’t make eye contact. After spending so long on the road, Felicia was used to deciphering a patron’s mood from their expressions. These were proper, God-fearing villagers. She saw some interest in the eyes of an older matron or two, clearly hoping to marry off a daughter that they hadn’t had any luck with as of yet. They might still return. As for the others… it was a lucky thing that Felicia was staying with the Graylockes, because otherwise, this would have been a lean village to pander her wares.
A young man with longish, caramel-brown hair flirted with her as he quizzed her about her wares. She answered his questions halfheartedly, gifting him with just enough of a smile so that he wouldn’t feel slighted. To her surprise, he bought a vial of the perfume.
The moment they concluded the deal, Felicia handed over his chosen bottle. “You don’t need to douse yourself in the perfume. A dab or two on your pulse points will do.”
Pulling out the stopper, he poured a splash onto his palm and rubbed it over his neck and wrists. “Like this?”
“Exactly so.”
Once he plugged the bottle and tucked it into his pocket, he leaned forward. “What is your verdict, fair Felicia? Do you find me irresistible?”
I didn’t mean for you to use it on me!
She resisted the urge to rub her suddenly-throbbing temple or worse, smack the smug expression off his face. Although she skimmed the crowd for an ally, their expressions were closed off. Farther into town, more villagers marched on their business. A few glanced at her stall, but they either couldn’t read or weren’t interested in what she had to sell. One young woman, in a sky-blue dress and straw bonnet, caught Felicia’s eye. She lingered two houses down, staring at the stall with an expression that was unreadable at this distance.
Felicia returned her gaze to the flirtatious pest. His eyes danced as he awaited an answer. Either she had to admit to finding him attractive or she would lose the business of the town once word got out that her wares didn’t work.
“It takes more than a second to take hold,” she told him, which was true. Ideally, the wearer had to be in enclosed spaces with the object of their affection for a prodigious length of time. A day seated next to a man in a closed carriage did the trick, for instance. It took no more than ten or fifteen minutes. Felicia held her breath, not wanting to find herself inconveniently attracted to this rogue, if she could help it.
“Perhaps I can convince you to have a warm cup of cider with me at the Golden Goose.”
Only in your dreams. She turned her smile to one of regret. “I’m afraid I have to work, sir.”
“Call me James. I insist.”
Over my dead body. If she was reluctant to call Gideon by his Christian name, when they were to work intimately for the next several weeks until they completed the task set for them by the Crown, she certainly wouldn’t call a stranger by such a familiar term. Especially not one who seemed bent on seducing her.
Felicia didn’t mind a little seduction now and again, but now was not the time, and he was not the man. She dug her fingernails into her palm to keep the image at bay of the man she m
ight prefer for bed sport. She suspected she knew the answer her mind dredged up and would not be happy with it.
“Without selling my wares, I won’t be able to eat.” She batted her eyelashes, but not too many times. She didn’t want to encourage him too much.
“I’ll buy your dinner,” he declared.
Although she would love to say no, she didn’t dare. If she gave him the cut direct, he would regret his purchase. An unhappy customer was never a good thing, let alone in a town she had yet to make her mark in. So instead she fixed him with her best smile and said, “Perhaps another time. I cannot shirk my work. Surely you understand.”
A flash of sky blue caught her eye. The young woman! Felicia had suspected that the young woman might prove a customer. The woman, about Felicia’s age, must have been able to read, for she stood a few feet away with a hesitant expression on her face as she beheld Felicia’s banner. As Felicia turned her attention to the new arrival, thankful for the excuse to end her conversation with the young man, the woman firmed her chin and stepped closer. She’d made her decision.
Felicia might have a genuine customer, if she played the game right. She approached the woman with a broad smile.
“Hello, there! I am Felicia. Do you have a beau, perhaps? Someone whose wandering eye you’d like to attract?”
The woman had the look of a spinster. The neckline of her dress flirted with her collarbone. Her bonnet was trimmed with matching ribbon, likely by her own hand. She wore no gloves, revealing that no rings adorned her fingers. Hence, unmarried. From the pensive and hesitant way she’d approached the stall, she was undoubtedly unlucky in love and looking to do anything she could to change that. At their age, women were considered to be firmly on the shelf and not considered of marriageable age anymore. What poppycock.
The woman brushed a slim lock of brown hair beneath her bonnet once more. She had a handful of freckles across her nose, so light they were barely noticeable against her pale skin. A pretty woman, though with her mousy demeanor she might never be called a diamond of the first water. But her skin was unblemished, her teeth weren’t too crooked, and her figure was trim. With the help of Felicia’s perfume, she shouldn’t have trouble attracting the man of her heart, so long as she finagled her way into his presence.
Tempting The Rival (Scandals and Spies Book 3) Page 9
