Ransom Redeemed

by Jayne Fresina

  Hidden among the pleats of her skirt, the rescued finger shyly recovered. The same could not be said for the uneven, giddy thump of her heart.

  Ransom Deverell had announced his name a little too grandly, she thought, as if he expected her to slap one hand to her brow and faint at the sound of it.

  What a strange, amusing man he was. Infuriating too, no doubt, if one was "blessed" with his company for too long.

  In the very beginning his eyes had appeared heartless and savage, just as his French pursuer described them. But when Mary challenged him, stood up to his foolishness, the light came and now, when he looked at Mary, there was so much heat and curiosity in his regard that she feared for her skirt. As Dr. Woodley had reminded her, it was a terribly combustible garment. She'd never felt quite so much truth to the warning, as she did now.

  Pity she didn't have a washbasin of cold water at hand, as she did when droopy Lionel Winchester performed his tuneless mating call beneath her window.

  Today the cooling splash might have been useful, not only for this wild-eyed panther, but for her too.

  Chapter Four

  She could blame it on the grey-day malaise she'd suffered earlier, or the fact that she was hungry, but a long-dormant desire for mischief suddenly reared its naughty head.

  Reaching under the counter for the ledger of bills due, she asked politely, "Drivel. Was that the name? Could you spell that for me, sir?"

  He rested his sizeable knuckles on the counter and leaned forward. "Deverell! You must have heard of me."

  She glanced upward. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't believe I have. Should I? Are you an actor of some sort? Like Mr. Edmund Kean?"

  His expression was priceless. Quickly she looked down again, struggling against the desperate urge to laugh.

  "No, I'm not an actor," he huffed.

  "Oh," she muttered with a quaking sigh. "I always rather regretted the fact that I never got to see Mr. Kean perform."

  "Well, I'm not a bloody actor."

  "It's just that...your attire is somewhat theatrical."

  "Because I left my house in haste this morning."

  "And your mistress has a certain manner of the stage about her."

  "What makes you think she's my mistress?"

  "I meant the term as in... owner or keeper."

  At once she felt him stiffen with anger.

  She took a breath and continued, "Since she chases after you as if you are a pedigree poodle that slipped his leash in the street, I assumed she had ownership."

  "Nobody owns me," he grumbled fiercely. "Apparently you do not get out much, Miss Ashford, if you don't know who I am."

  She readied her pen in the ink and kept her gaze on the open ledger before her. "I'm sure you must be a very important person. So much in demand, apparently, that you are pursued through the streets and forced to run headlong into lamp posts."

  "You've never been chased anywhere? No, I don't suppose anybody ever gets you out of breath, do they?"

  "Quite. My world is much less dangerous than yours and far more predictable. I don't need to be chased, because I am usually exactly where I'm supposed to be, and nobody goes to great lengths to seek out my company."

  "That's a pity."

  "I wasn't lamenting the fact."

  "Ah yes, I heard you assuring that humorless doctor fellow that your life is very tedious and unexciting. You might have deceived him into believing you prefer it that way, but you don't fool me."

  "Don't I? Oh, dear."

  Just as she moved to dip her pen in the ink again, he took the little pot out of her reach and turned it in his fingers, holding it up to the light, before putting it down again. "I can see you must be bored out of your stockings, Miss Ashford. You need a worthy opponent, a man to kindle your temper and your passions. A man to challenge you and make your life less predictable. Not one like that doctor fellow who wants to put you to sleep."

  It was somewhat alarming that this man, who'd only known her for a matter of minutes, should, so smoothly, take measure of her situation and read the boredom on her face. Had it been that obvious? Nobody else ever seemed to notice.

  Agitated, she muttered, "As you're so busy and in such great demand, you must have little time to sleep."

  Something sad and raw passed over his face, but it was brief. Now he ruffled the pages of her ledger, flicking the corner with his thumb, making her writing go all wobbly on the paper. "My world can be thoroughly exhausting, truth be told."

  She eyed him dubiously. "The great hardships do not appear to have done you much harm."

  "I make the best I can of it," he muttered. "Mostly by remaining my own master, free to come and go as I please, steering clear of traps, staying off the leash when a woman tries to put one around my throat. Usually they know better than to try."

  Why did he tell her all this, she wondered. It was an intimacy that she should neither welcome nor encourage. And yet Mary suddenly heard herself warning him. "You can't hide from your French pastry— I mean, your French lady— forever, you know." She looked down at the ledger, feeling the danger of meeting his eye for too long. "Whatever your dislike of leashes, your companion evidently has a different opinion. The mademoiselle's sense of entitlement and ownership is as palpable as your desire to remain unfettered."

  "I should keep you at my side then, Miss Ashford, to protect me. You were remarkably effective just now."

  "But you are surely old enough to stand up for yourself, sir. She's one third your size."

  "So are you, but you put me in my place."

  Mary fought the urge to smile, but those lips he had threatened with ravishment acted like a pair of willful hussies.

  "Why don't you keep me?" he whispered, a grin evident in his voice. "I promise I'll be very good, as long as you don't try to chain me."

  "And why, exactly, would I want to keep you? Do I strike you as a person with so few problems in her life that she is desirous of another?"

  "Perhaps you have no choice in the matter. There is a Chinese proverb, you know, that says once you save a man's life you are responsible for it ever after. That, madam, means you ought to look after me."

  Is this how he usually got his way with women, she wondered. Did he trick them into a false sense of familiarity with his easy banter so that they forgot themselves? "I'm afraid I cannot afford a pet, sir. Especially one large enough to eat me out of house and home. Besides, I suspect you require a great deal of attention and I have too much to keep me busy already."

  "What keeps you so busy then? What do women ever have to do but make themselves look pretty? It can't take you that much time and effort, for your features are passable enough in a natural way."

  "Are they indeed?"

  "Not when you frown like that, of course. Then you could be a devious gypsy woman ready to lay a curse upon me."

  Again the temptation to laugh made it impossible for Mary to stay annoyed. "I am kept busy, sir, by the sheer effort it takes for a small, unimportant woman to survive. Not everybody has the liberty of running away from their problems, just to find more."

  She felt the air move as he leaned over her counter, and in the next intake of breath she swallowed a taste of his very masculine scent — sweat combined with citrusy bergamot and leather. It jolted to life a warm memory of her lost brothers, who were once so merrily unruly and loved boisterous sport of any kind. But, in this man's case, there was also a distinctive undertone of flowery feminine fragrance, probably belonging to a woman with whom he'd spent his night. It was not, however, the same lily-of-the-valley perfume worn by his French lady.

  Hence the chase this morning, she thought.

  Oops, she broke the nib of her pen.

  "What would you do then, Miss Ashford, to escape a person who pursues you through the streets in a raging, violent temper? Counsel me, if you will, since you're so very sensible and too brave to run away."

  She looked up and found his face much closer than she'd expected. His brow crumpled, his eyes
narrowed with amusement. Mary reached for a new pen. "Misunderstandings and confusions of purpose between a man and a woman are much better dealt with at once, rather than put off, sir. It saves everybody a vast deal of trouble."

  "Does it?" Feigning great interest, he rested his chin on one fist, his elbow on the counter. "The way you dealt with me, you mean. Putting me in my place with one crack of your tongue, before I could practice my dark arts of enchantment upon you."

  "When there are expectations on one side and no possibility of fulfilling them on the other, better to be clear at once."

  He seemed attentive, even contemplative. Of course, it might not be genuine.

  Mary continued cautiously, "I once knew a man who avoided confrontation, because he did not have the courage to be honest with a lady. So he let her suffer false hope for too long, when a simple conversation might have saved them both undue discomfort and embarrassment."

  He leaned even closer, eyes cast down as if deep in thought, both elbows and forearms now planted firmly on the counter in front of her ledger. Apparently each of his nannies— Mary knew that he and his sister had endured many when they were children— had failed to teach him that a gentleman should never slouch. Amongst other things he should never do.

  "Sir?"

  "Hmm?"

  It occurred to her then that he was reading her ledger upside down— probably had been doing so for the last few minutes— and was not listening to her at all.

  "You asked me what I would do, sir."

  "About what?"

  She drew a quick breath and stabbed her pen into the ink pot. "No matter. It was an absurd notion to think that you asked because you were actually curious to know my opinion."

  "You're making a proper mess of that ledger, Miss Ashford," he observed. Again he toyed with her ink pot, moving it, and her pen, out of her reach. "I see my presence makes you nervous. Or else you find me so entertaining, you're reluctant to see the back of me."

  "What could possibly make you think that?"

  "Because you're making such a wretched mess, first of tying the parcel and then of writing the bill. Hindering my departure. Keeping me trapped in your web."

  "Please rest assured it is not deliberate. In fact it is as much your fault as mine."

  Wide-eyed he asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?" His grin grew broader.

  "Yes. Be still and stop touching my... my things."

  "Touching your things, Miss Ashford? What things might I be touching?"

  "You are a fidget, sir." She paused, raised an eyebrow, and added smoothly, "Perhaps my presence makes you nervous."

  His eyes narrowed, his lips parted, but nothing more than a low huff emerged, followed by a belated sniff of scorn.

  Just then Mr. Speedwell came out of the parlor and Mary silently thanked the heavens that her employer was hard of hearing.

  "Did you need any assistance with this gentleman, Mary dear?" As usual the elderly fellow had a book open in his hands and barely looked up from its pages.

  "No, it's quite all right," she said loudly. "Mr. Drivel is purchasing some books."

  "Oh." Her employer's jowls sagged at the prospect of losing more of his precious stock.

  "Only on approval," their customer growled, standing taller and looking Mr. Speedwell up and down in the same terse, challenging way he had first looked at her.

  "I'll finish making the tea then, Mary, since you are delayed." Still reading his book, Mr. Speedwell returned to the parlor.

  Again she focused on her writing. Or tried.

  "Was that your father?" he whispered.

  "No."

  "The uncle with the monkey?"

  "No."

  "Not a sweetheart, surely?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Mr. Speedwell is my partner in business. We share ownership of the bookshop."

  "I see," said the wretched menace, rubbing his hands together. "You are unattached then. I thought you might be fibbing when you said those luscious lips are neglected."

  "I do not fib, Mr. Drivel."

  "Yes you do. You told my friend that I wasn't here."

  "I didn't tell her that. I simply pointed out that this is a bookshop. Which is perfectly true."

  He laughed. "You're a sly piece. I'm becoming inordinately fond of you already."

  "Lord help us both."

  This made him laugh all the harder. "Despite your evident desire to insult me by drawing comparisons first to a monkey and then to a stray mutt—"

  "A poodle."

  "Despite all that, I find myself fascinated by Miss Mary Ashford. Who pretends to disapprove of me, even as she schemes to keep my company, first with her insistence that I purchase books, and now with her inability to concentrate and pen a simple line of ink."

  "As I said, if you stopped distracting me—"

  "My routine has been set asunder by your dilly dallying, woman, and once things get too far out of hand there is nothing to be done to save them. All my plans for today are blown apart like a blasted bulrush pod, and thanks to you and your quarrelsome lips, I am now left dangling at a loose end this morning."

  "Sounds most uncomfortable," she muttered, watching his fingers as they toyed again with the corner of her page. "I regret that my lips had anything to do with your loose ends dangling."

  Apparently he found something exceedingly amusing about that and chuckled so heartily he was almost bent double. Mary, disconcerted, made another unsightly blob of ink on the ledger.

  Once recovered, he thumped his fist on the counter and exclaimed, "I suppose you want to invite me to stay for tea in that cozy little parlor back there. Especially as I'm suffering a hellish thirst and was obliged to leave my house without breakfast."

  His gall apparently knew no bounds, but Mary's sense of humor would not allow her to be deeply annoyed with this man. Again she made the mistake of looking up at him.

  "'Tis the season of goodwill to all men, etcetera," he added, blinking his dark eyes as if he might try, like a magician, to hypnotize Mary and bend her to his dastardly will.

  She'd heard Ransom Deverell described as the most "ill-mannered, licentious beast" ever to walk the streets of Mayfair, worse even than his notorious father. Her encounter with him this morning had perfectly demonstrated the truth of all that.

  But despite everything he was and was not, in that terrible moment, Mary felt tempted to say "yes" and invite the devilish miscreant to stay for a cup of tea. He would make a lively change in the proceedings, certainly. He had already.

  It wouldn't do, of course. All they had to offer were stale muffins, and besides that— indeed it ought to have been her first thought—he was everything a moderately sensible woman should avoid, for her impressionable sister's sake, as well as her own. Even her friend Raven knew that and had kept Mary safely out of his way. Men like Ransom Deverell spun through life and through women's hearts like a sharp-edged Aboriginal boomerang.

  "I doubt there is room for you in our parlor, Mr. Drivel. It's not nearly grand or big enough, to be sure. You would never fit."

  "That's a pity." He paused and then added, "You ought to serve refreshments to your customers. Of which I am one now, since you tricked me into it."

  "Our customers are here to buy books, not to consume tea and biscuits."

  "But if you encouraged them to linger—"

  "Why would I want them to linger?"

  "Bloody hell, woman! You may be a determined salesperson, but you have no mind for business clearly."

  "I fail to understand—"

  "Entice customers into your web with other delights and they will take time to browse your shelves, perhaps buy more than they came in for. You should think forward, madam, not let yourself be stuck with the familiar out of habit."

  Mary was appalled. "It will be a sad day, sir, when a person must be lured into a bookshop by anything other than a love of reading and appreciation of a good story. I would fear for the human race if people must be promised food and beverages merel
y to encourage the purchase of a book."

  He shook his head. "I suppose that eager but deadly dry fellow who worries over your skirt and petticoat going up in flames and yearns to guard you from undesirables, would like to have some sort of claim over you, eh? Apparently his advice is worthy of being heeded and mine is not."

  "I beg your pardon? Do you refer to Dr. Woodley? That very respectable gentleman, who—"

  "Clearly wants to put something more than wool next to your soft skin, Miss Ashford of the comely glowing cheeks."

  "How dare you suggest such a —"

  "The fellow drooled over you just like that mad dog he warned you about." His lip curled in a knowing smirk. "I shouldn't be surprised if he wants to sink his teeth into your ankles too."

  "That's quite enough, Mr. Drivel." This teasing had gone too far. "I will not listen to you debase poor Dr. Woodley, whose kindly nature and well-meaning concern does not deserve your mockery."

  "It's Deverell," he said firmly, lowering his voice to a menacing rumble. "That's D. E..." abruptly he reached over and guided her hand, the heavy weight of his fingers covering hers like a greedy spider, "V. E. R—"

  This time Mary pulled her hand away, leaving a scratch of ink across the paper.

  "E. L. L," he finished, his tongue rolling out the last letter with a languid sensuality. "I daresay you'll know it next time we meet."

  "Next time? Could fate be so unkind?"

  The sound of his laughter once more shook those old shelves and shattered cobwebs. It must surely wake Violet from her slumber upstairs, if it hadn't already. "It's unfortunate for us both, but inevitable, Miss Mary Ashford."

  She hastily resumed business. The quicker he was gone the better. "I'll see to it that you receive a copy of the bill. No need to come in person to pay it, of course."