by Lela Bay
Emmaline raised the lid of the box. Inside shuffled a beautiful bird ornamented in red and orange. She detected the long shimmering feathers of his iridescent tail.
The bird cocked his head so one beady eye aimed at her. He considered the open top of the box and elected to ask no further questions. With a shuffle of wings, he fluttered into the air.
“Will he find his mate?”
“Loneliness is a terrible thing. Of course he will.”
He’d said that to her on the street across from the hat shop. She recalled the pang it had given her. “Loneliness…you were talking about the bird.”
“Was I? I’ve always been more clever than I give myself credit for.”
He pulled Emmaline toward him, and she went willingly. Their lips met in a soft kiss.
“I thought you had a broken heart, and that’s why I helped you,” she chided, pressing her cheek to his chest.
“I know, you were prepared to walk away from me and I couldn’t have that. I may have given you a mistaken impression on purpose,” he teased. “You were so eager to help me fix my mistake with Catherine.”
“Uncle says I’m too soft-hearted,” she confessed, searching his face and finding only acceptance there.
“Now, how are we going to go about making your uncle fond of me? Does he like birds?”
“Only if they’re pheasant or grouse…” She had a hard time thinking. Happiness filled her too completely. “You’ve already been forgiven. The hats went far to make amends, and your connection to the Viscount should do the rest.”
He tucked her arm beneath his and led her back to the entry door. “It will be cold out there. Hold onto me.”
“I shall,” she promised.
Behind her, the birds chattered and called their congratulations.
Virtue’s Temptation
Virtue’s Temptation
Though her coach was well sprung, Eleanor’s battered body protested as she stepped down after a day’s ride across the pitted paths that crossed Britain’s northern border. Gorgeous country, but the price on one’s back made her reconsider her extensive travel plans. She lifted her hems and crossed the courtyard while her driver spoke with the inn’s boy.
Her maid hobbled to a cane-chair, and Eleanor addressed the man at the inn’s front desk, keeping her gloved hands above the dirty counter.
“My horse threw a shoe. Have you tea and something sweet, while my driver sorts things out?” she asked.
The innkeeper looked up from his books and gave her the once over, licking the inside of his lip.
Too aching to be patient, Eleanor displayed the color of her coin.
The skinny fellow spread his lips in a wide smile, revealing brown teeth. Bobbing and nodding, he gestured up a set of narrow wooden steps. “We’ve private rooms, jest right for tea time, your ladyship. Up the stairs and to your right. I’ll send the missus along directly.”
Withdrawing a gloved hand, Eleanor swept the bonnet from her skillfully curled hair and lifted her skirts to ascend.
Halfway up she hesitated, hearing a murmur of voices rise alarmingly.
“No, Andre! I’m not at all fagged. Please, we should continue on,” said a young, feminine voice.
“Bitsy, my darling,” a man drawled in lightly accented English, “this is but a stop to return the roses to your cheeks.”
Eleanor advanced another step and spied a couple lingering outside a door on the level above. A dark-haired man with a thin moustache stroked the cheeks of a milky-skinned young miss. She half-closed her eyes, leaning into his caress. Though Bitsy wore her hair up, and her modish dress strained against the press of her bosom as she arched toward his firm chest, Eleanor doubted the girl had been out of the schoolroom even a year.
“But we must continue on,” Bitsy protested, placing a hand over his on the knob of the door.
His stroking thumb passed from her cheek to her mouth, and he bent his head to touch his lips to hers. His hand stole down her shoulder and pressed the fullness of her breast.
The girl gasped and a shudder passed through her.
Still leaning in, she managed to protest weakly, “We…are to be married.”
“Exactly,” he promised. His eyes never strayed from hers as his hand continued to stroke her breast, and his other stole around the curve of her hip to pull her tight. She put her arm over his shoulder, forgetting to protect the doorknob.
“We are to be married.” He rolled his hips seductively against hers. In one smooth movement, he spun them and pressed her back against the door.
Eleanor inhaled sharply and looked away, feeling the voyeur. It wasn’t her business, after all, but someone should put a stop to such indiscretion. Where was the girl’s mother or her maid? She was far too young for…
Well! It hardly bore thinking about. Whatever the girl’s background, this was unacceptable.
The skinny innkeeper anticipated her and scuttled out of sight behind his counter to avoid her call. She’d get no assistance there. Eleanor tightened her lips, realizing his location on the border between England and Scotland made this sight not as uncommon as it should have been.
Heaving a deep breath, Eleanor hesitated. She was not proud that she did so, but their intimacy made it embarrassing to interrupt. Still…
“Ma petite cherie, I ache for you. I cannot think how to proceed when you are beside me, taunting me. I think only of the bounty that will soon be mine. Surely you, too, feel the heat between us? Let us not linger here in the hall when a new world of bliss opens to us both with the turn of a lock.”
He pressed a key into the keyhole.
Eleanor choked back a gag at his florid prose. Her estimation of him dropped even lower.
Against the thrum of his seductive purr, the girl melted, yet a thin thread of sanity let her resist the pull of his hands. She stole the key away and pressed it to her chest. “We’re almost to Gretna already, Andre.”
Ah, so the girl thought they were on their way to be wed. Eleanor had heard this tale, before. Pray, the child came to her senses or her protectors arrived. Eleanor had seen enough of the world as a widow to know how harsh it could be to those left unprotected by a man’s name. Who was looking after this girl?
Eleanor glanced around once more, seeking for someone to intervene. She wanted them out of the hallway so she could take her rest, put up her feet, and enjoy a cup of tea.
Andre kissed Bitsy as if driven mad by the sound of her voice, his lips meeting hers in teasing caresses until he plunged against her mouth with a furious groan, his arms tightening. Lifting his head, he stroked her forehead. She lay across his bent arm.
“You mustn’t disobey me. Your parents left you in my keeping. Have I not always taught you? Here is the last lesson—”
Eleanor had heard quite enough. Her parents had entrusted the girl to him. He was using his authority over her? It seemed no other help was here, so she must rise to the occasion, as unseemly as it may be.
Eleanor stomped on the next step, her light form given greater substance by her anger. “Step away, monsieur.”
Andre looked up. His breath panted, and his hand still pressed against the soft flesh beneath the fabric of the girl’s modest bodice. He pulled thin, tan fingers loose but did not step out from the girl’s skirts, maintaining a grip on her waist as he cocked a sultry eyebrow. He examined Eleanor, taking in her green travel dress, the beribboned bonnet, and the stormy indignation expressed by every line of her slim body. Realizing he’d quite possibly infuriated a woman of influence, he gave the girl a final caress, sending her blonde curls bouncing as he stepped back and bowed.
In French, he observed, “You misunderstand.”
“I do not think I do,” Eleanor replied in kind. Rising to their level on threadbare carpet, she stepped to the girl.
Bitsy glanced between them, a delicate frown turning her pouting lips down at the corners. No comprehension dawned in the wide blue eyes.
Eleanor switched to English. “Wher
e is your family, child?”
This was the wrong thing to say. With a toss of her head, Bitsy stepped toward her tall lover. “I am a grown woman. Andre and I will be married.”
“Child,” Eleanor snapped, “use your senses. This is not how a proper fiancé behaves. This is not courtship. This is scandal.”
Bitsy leaned against him, rubbing her plump curves against his lean length so awkwardly Eleanor would have laughed if she hadn’t been so furious. Daring Eleanor to stop her, Bitsy fell away from him and put key to lock.
The door slid open. She fluttered her eyelashes at Andre. “Our room is ready.”
“It is not.” Eleanor stepped between them. “You bring ruin on yourself, your name, and your family’s name. Have you no care for the horrors you bring on yourself and others? For propriety? The wedding is a guise, a sham for a gullible child so he may have his way with you.”
Bitsy wavered, eyes widening at Eleanor’s direct address. She glanced at Andre, biting her lip, the brief illusion of sophistication shattered as she tugged a curl and wound her finger through it.
The flat bed and brown bedding was framed by their shoulders. Eleanor placed her hands on her hips.
Bitsy mirrored Eleanor. “We will be wed, and who can frown then? I’ll be a woman, with my own life.”
“You’ll be ruined. A fool whispered about in proper drawing rooms to warn others from similar foolishness, and I won’t allow it,” Eleanor said.
Andre grabbed Bitsy’s arm, cursing Eleanor with words she’d never heard even in all her travels.
Eleanor held her bonnet like a weapon, shoulders hunched.
She was a lady of determination, and she meant to prove it.
Chapter 2
Reputations being fragile things and nothing to be trifled with, Eleanor could only wonder what horrors awaited her for all her meddling. Yet, she could not have ignored the situation.
Resolutely, she made another tidy stitch, ignoring the glare of the untidy innkeeper. Her position in the cane-backed chair allowed her an excellent view of the courtyard outside the inn, the door, and the front desk. He could glare all he liked, but she was as settled as a limpet. Another, less tidy stitch joined the first, walking slowly along the length of fabric as sunlight glided across the floor through the windowpanes. She took tea at her seat, the innkeeper red-faced but obliging as he tried to determine her madness. She gave him a tight-lipped smile and no clear answer.
Wild clatter announced another arrival at the rundown inn. A figure wearing a many-layered greatcoat leapt from his mount. He raised a hand at the stable boy, passing his mount along.
The wavering glass and faded light had her sitting erect peering from her seat, but Eleanor caught herself and sat back. Taking a breath, she layered a new stitch onto her developing creation. She’d embroidered a mass of snarls, since her anxiety had grown as the afternoon progressed, but it had kept her hands busy. She smoothed the fabric over her lap as if admiring a piece of art. Her hand stilled, and her eyes closed to gather composure, which had already been tested many times in the last day.
Ruination threatened if she failed, so she must succeed. She exhaled and stared ahead.
“Will ye be sitting there until the devil comes for me soul? Are you sent to see justice done?” The innkeeper squawked, unable to bear her gaze a moment longer.
Eleanor did not deign to answer. Straightening her narrow skirts, she checked the angle of her cocked hat and walked toward the desk.
The innkeeper shied back, as if she really were an agent of infernal retribution. Rather pleased that he might consider his immortal soul, and perhaps improve his conduct in future interactions, she measured her steps with the wavering shadow outside. She arrived at the desk at the same moment the door slammed open, smashing into the wall. A long-legged force of nature swept into the room.
The innkeeper cried out and crouched away from Eleanor, who turned toward the stormy gentleman. At the sight of him, her own heart leapt, for he more greatly resembled an avenging angel than she could ever hope to. His hair, mussed from the ride, swept back in golden waves from a tanned forehead and gleaming brown eyes. The greatcoat made black wings on his back, giving him an ethereal magnitude that blotted out the rest of the room as he bore down on them.
Eleanor stepped back, a hand rising to her throat. Yet she squared her shoulders, standing in his way and sending him to a jarring halt that threatened to squash her as his mass wavered and the layers of fabric around him snapped toward her with a final clap like an animal’s jaws.
She held out a hand and placed a smile across her smooth lips. Eyes meeting his, searching, she spoke as if they chatted in an elegant ballroom. “I believe we are acquainted.”
He took her in with one incredulous sweep of brown eyes, jaw tightening, prepared to dismiss her like an ant before an elephant, but his eye returned to her, a faint frown flirting with the golden sweep of his eyebrows as he reevaluated.
She tilted her head, trying to convey with her body all she dared not say. Afraid to speak, for his measuring look had stolen the breath from her lungs, she quivered.
“I am on a mission, madam, and not interested.” Concluding his perusal, he gave her a remote bob of his chin rather than a proper bow.
Color brightened her cheeks. She practically snarled at the insinuation, yet could not turn away for she had a mission as well. She had expected an angry father of ample girth, belatedly drawn from his dining table to capture his wayward daughter, or perhaps a skinny younger brother, riding fast and hard to defend his family’s honor and test his mettle against a rascally suitor. She had not expected a man in his prime with broad shoulders and intense chocolate eyes.
Trapped in the circle of his presence time slowed. Outdoor air wafted around them and the fabric of his coat slowly settled. Discomposed, she hardly knew what to say.
She licked her lips, sending a hand to still him. “Yes, of course, the DeMontreys. We know them in common, Mr. …”
“Stinson.” His face a mask, Mr. Stinson did not move from his position of wary superiority, but she was certain she’d seen a flicker of recognition as she’d dropped Bitsy’s surname. She recognized his name as well.
Ignoring the heat that singed the tops of her cheekbones, she spoke in soothing tones to hide the panic underneath. If he couldn’t help her, she wasn’t sure what she would try next. She knew him by his excellent, if formidable, reputation only. Gathering thoughts scattered by the ambiguous intensity of his stare, she said, “I am Eleanor Sinclair.”
“A pleasure,” he agreed languidly, not specifying precisely what he found such a pleasure. His dark gaze added no authenticity to his words. He slipped around her to confront the clerk huddled behind the desk. The clerk’s gaze hunted between them as if he believed that Eleanor had called Mr. Stinson down on him.
No more impressed than she had been by the cowering fool, Mr. Stinson dismissed the clerk with a sharp glance and turned to Eleanor, extending a hand.
Eleanor took a calming breath, constricted by the buttons of her tailored pelisse, and manufactured a repressive frown, lest the impropriety of their meeting give him further wrong ideas.
However, he was entirely proper as he led her to a chair beside the fire. The brief touch of his hand on her arm made her pulse race even more. Suspecting that it was she who needed the repressive frown, she sat.
He slid the black greatcoat from his shoulder and draped it over a chair, then flipped back the tails of his jacket and assumed a seat across from her, his head bent intimately for quiet conversation. It felt illicit, although they were in full view of the desk and lit up before the many paned window. Besides, as a widow it wasn’t as though she needed to worry about her reputation. Not like some others, she thought, biting her full lip and glancing sidelong at him.
Silence lengthened between them.
A faint pucker drew his dark eyebrows down, but he did not interrupt her study of the beaded purse she wore on one slender wrist beneath the
hem of her sleeve. She had chosen the gown expressly since it was à la mamelouk, with sleeves that trailed over her hands.
Rare uncertainty kept her silent. Delicacy demanded she approach the subject of their meeting obliquely, but she wasn’t used to addressing gentlemen she hardly knew, and certainly not about anything like this!
Circumspect, she began their high-stakes conversation. “I am enjoying a month of travel in the excellent weather. You cannot imagine my surprise at meeting someone so congenial in such an out of the way place.”
She wondered whether she sounded inane.
The frown between his eyebrows deepened, giving him a stormy grimness.
Her stomach sank. Perhaps she had been mistaken in talking with him. What if, when he learned Bitsy had been here, he spoiled the girl’s reputation? Her hands tightened on her purse strings, the hard object within reminding her that she must follow through.
He rose from his chair, stepping toward her with such purpose that she startled in her seat.
His frown deepened. “Apologies, it is just that I am eager for news. I am DeMontrey’s nearest neighbor and watch over his property while the family is away.”
“Oh, yes?” She hardly dared to breathe, struck by the tenseness of his clenched jaw as he watched the movement of her lips. “It has been my pleasure to travel recently with the youngest of the family, Elizabeth DeMontrey.”
Mr. Stinson dropped to his knee at her side. Her mind blanked as he leaned toward her.
His words lay gentle and intimate between them. “I am quite certain her family would be overjoyed Bitsy has made such a friend.”
Nodding, eyes still trapped with his, she licked dry lips. Here, she must ascertain his nature. Would he judge Bitsy and destroy her, bringing Eleanor’s efforts to naught? She did not think so, but too much was at stake to venture boldly. She studied the planes of his face, seeking kindness or understanding.
“Both of us being without companions, it seemed an enviable solution to invite her along.” She was only human and forgave herself the faint bite she gave the word ‘invite.’ She also forgave the graywater lie. While sitting for hours all afternoon, she had become determined to edit events around her meeting with the young Bitsy.
