A Proper Mistress

by Shannon Donnelly

  Theo glanced back at him. "Tip us—? Just you hold your tongue, or I'll set you down again."

  "Ha. See if you can! I'm going where those bays go."

  "Then stubble it. Terrance may pay you, but the day I can't handle the ribbons better than he ever did is the day I take up driving cart horses. Tip us over!"

  He glanced at Molly Sweet who stared at him, wide-eyed and looking a touch alarmed. She gripped the edge of the black coach hood that had been folded back and which could be lifted over them in case of bad weather.

  "I've never tipped over any carriage," he told her, but had to admit, "Well, other than that first cart, and that wasn't my fault for that blasted pony ran off with it. So settle back and enjoy yourself, my sweet Sweet, and we'll be to Winslow Park in no time."

  She offered a weak smile and turned her face forward. But, he noted with a touch of irritation, she did not let go her hold on the edge of the carriage hood.

  So much for thinking her to be what she looked—a sweet, trusting soul.

  #

  Two hours later, Molly sat on the green verge beside a hard, dusty road. The leaves of an oak shaded her as she watched Theo—they had progressed to first names within a half an hour, when passing through Hounslow. She had been delighted to see London streets and houses give way to countryside. They had attracted a few stares while in town—no doubt due to the smart carriage—but with leaving the city they also left behind the street gawkers and other carriages. So far only the mail coach for Bath had passed them on the road.

  True to his claim, Theo did drive well. At least she thought he did. He set the pair of bays to a steady trot, easing them back when they tried to break into a canter to follow the galloping mail coach, and smoothly guiding the pair as if the reins were extensions of his arms.

  With white clouds dotted the blue sky, drifting idly, rather like fat, lazy sheep, and the weather fair, Molly had begun to relax and enjoy herself.

  Her companion had not much to say for himself. He stared ahead, jaw set, eyes dark, as if brooding about something—that bone of contention of his, she thought. Or perhaps the groom's insults to his skills. Shrugging off his mood, she had sat back against the padded leather cushions—the carriage rocking from the horse's brisk trot, the breeze cool on her face, ruffling the ostrich feathers against her cheek—and had given herself to the parade of aromas.

  Smells of the city—horse dung, chamber pots emptied into the streets, coal fires—gave way to cut hay, cow pastures, and teasing wisps of flowery scents that she could not identify. It was new enough that she did not even mind the dust, dry as the road was from summer and a day without rain. She had been to India and back as a child, but since her return to London, she had never been further than an excursion to Richmond Park. Vague memories of her earliest years stirred of green countryside—but they slipped away.

  Time slipped past fast enough as well, until, on an open stretch between any village or town, one of the horses started to bob its head. Cursing under his breath, had pulled the carriage to a halt, easing it off the road and onto the grassy verge. After jumping down from the carriage, he strode to the horses' heads, the groom already there ahead of him to hold the animals.

  The two had set to arguing, blame and curses flying like smoke from cooking oil spilled onto a fire.

  Molly had waited, but she had grown bored and stiff. Climbing down from the carriage, she glanced around her. The gentlemen, bent over as they were to stare at the horse's leg, had seemed not to notice and that suited her.

  She had walked a bit, and found it too warm to do more, and so she had found her seat under the oak tree. And still Theo and his groom, Burke, stared at one of the horse's front legs, lifting it, putting it down, feeling down the back of it, all the time conferring in low voices, both of them frowning and looking a little guilty.

  In the warmth of the sun-dappled shade, Molly's eyes began to drift closed.

  "Well, he's lame!"

  Eyes startled opening, Molly straightened. Theo's voice sounded tense with anger.

  Arms folded, he stood next to her, glaring at the carriage where Burke had begun to unbuckle harness straps, his face set into deep, frowning lines. "Thrown a shoe, and gotten himself a stone bruise by the looks of it. Blazes, but these roads are hard as iron! I'm going to have to send Burke back to Twyford for a fresh pair."

  "Won't a new shoe help?"

  He glanced at her. "Did you not hear me say he'd bruised his frog with a stone?"

  "Frog? I thought he was a horse?"

  Theo rolled his eyes and began to drag off his driving gloves. "The frog is the soft part of a horse's hoof—could you walk after pounding your foot on a rock if all I did was to put new shoes on you? You dashed well could not. No, he'll need a few days rest. Burke will have to walk them back, and there's no telling how long it will take him to bring a fresh pair."

  "Can he not ride the one horse and lead the other?"

  He shot her a scornful glance and said, his tone dry, "These are carriage horses."

  "Oh," she said, nodding as if this made any sense to her. The horses she recalled from her childhood in India had been trained for both riding and driving, but perhaps that was because they had all been military horses. She also had distant memories of her father taking her up before him, and her mother had ridden. But London had held no opportunity to renew any acquaintance with anything equine. One had to be rich to afford a horse.

  Glanced up at Theo, she studied his scowling face. "It could be worse." He turned to her, so she offered a smile. "It could be raining."

  With a sigh, he threw himself onto the grass next to her, careless of how it might stain his coat or his bluff buckskin breeches. "Or it could have been a ligament—Terrance would skin me for that. Still, it's damned nuisance. I'd hoped to make Hungerford today—and there's the cost of sound horses to be had now. I hadn't expected that. Well, I shall just have to hope I can fetch the bays back sound again before Terrance finds out."

  "Would he really—skin you?"

  Propping himself on his elbow, Theo took off his hat. He dragged his hand through his hair, disordering it utterly so that one black lock fell over his lined forehead. "Blister me at the least."

  "Really? How awful!"

  Theo lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Oh, he's a capital fellow really—quite the best of brothers. But he does have a temper worse than your own."

  "I do not—that is, I don't have no temper, ducks. Least not much of one."

  "Oh yes you do. Hold on a bit, Burke has them unharnessed and I'd best give him enough blunt to get a decent pair. Lord knows what we'll get, but if they're too dreadful, I can change 'em when they're blown."

  He rose.

  Molly watched, admiring the easy grace with which he moved. A breeze ruffled his hair like a lover's hand.

  She glanced down at the hat and gloves he had left beside her. He did not wear cologne, she noted. Pulling off her own gloves, she smoothed a finger across the fine nape of the beaver-skin. He seemed a gentleman who disliked encumbrances. Was that why he wished to be rid of his inheritance?

  He finished giving money and instructions to the sour-faced Burke, who grumbled words of doom for both of them when Terrance learned of this, and Burke started walking back along the road, the horses led behind him.

  "Poor Burke," Molly said, as Theo stretched out in the grassy shade beside her.

  "Poor what?"

  "Well, to have to walk miles in the heat and dust. And he seems so unhappy about this."

  He offered up a sudden grin, which crooked his mouth. "I have never seen a day when 'poor Burke' hasn't been anything but the worst doomsayer in England. You'd think he'd be happy working in a stable that boast the kind of horseflesh as my brother owns. But don't you go pitying him. He's well paid, and he'll get to Twyford and demand the best ale for himself and their best care for his master's horse. And he'll get them, too."

  "You sound rather fond of him."

  "Oh, Burke's a g
ood enough sort. Once you get past the sour side of him. Taught me how to ride in fact."

  "What? He hardly looks old enough to be shaving!"

  "That's his size. I've a suspicion he had ambitions once to ride as a jockey—he certainly did for my father for a time."

  "And why did he not continue? Did something happen?"

  He glanced at her, eyes puzzled and black eyebrows lowered flat. "My sweet Sweet, I don't go inquiring into the personal lives of my father's servants. It would be damned prying and rude of me!"

  "As I'm being now?" She turned away. Propping up her feet, she folded her hands on her knees.

  "Taken a pet now?" he asked, his voice coaxing.

  She wouldn't look at him. "No, I have not."

  "Oh, come along. We've hours to pass, and I don't fancy spending them staring at sheep and grass."

  Glancing at him from the corner of her eyes, she asked, "Does that mean I may ask prying, rude questions then?" She added a belated, "Ducks?"

  "I suppose it does," he said, his eyes lightening with humor. "Though it don't mean I'll answer them."

  "Then I'd rather talk about myself. Did you know that I once lived in India? I am rather proud of that, for I think it gives me a touch of the exotic. Don't you think, ducks?"

  "No. But you must have looked exotic there—that red hair and pale skin among all those Hindus."

  "Not all the natives are Hindu—but they are all rather remarkable people. I rather miss them. And the food. Oh, the spices are heaven. And the land is one of the most extraordinary contrasts of beauty and harsh ugliness. But I don't miss the heat. Not at all. But what about you? Have you traveled?"

  He stood and stripped off his coat, which he tossed to the ground beside his hat before stretching out again. He looked even better, she thought, sneaking an admiring glance, without his coat on. The white sleeves of his shirt billowed loose, and his waistcoat hugged his lean, muscular body.

  Propping himself on one elbow, he plucked a blade of grass and began to chew on the pale end of it. "Not particularly. Though it's my plan to do so after my father disowns me."

  "Won't that upset your mother—and your brother?"

  He gave a short, harsh laugh. "I don't see Terrance being upset in the least about anything. And my mother's dead."

  She nodded and said, her tone matter of fact, "Mine is too."

  Theo lay still for a moment, surprised. He had expected, and braced himself for, her to offer the usual artificial sympathy for his loss, the sort that generally masked the unspoken relief that tragedy had struck elsewhere. Now he realized how harshly he had spoken, in anticipation of any pity from her.

  She seemed not even to notice, however, for she just sat there with her knees pulled up close to her, looking more like a girl than a woman of ill-repute.

  Lifting her head, she undid the strings to her bonnet, and he smiled as she took it off. What a pleasure she was to look at, with that glorious hair and those enticing curves. No wonder she cost what she did for a night. And he had her for far more than that—'course, it was all supposed to be look and no touch, but he had not yet tried to persuade her into just a bit more.

  "I was—what, ten—no, I was nine when she died," she said, eyes distant. "Cholera. Everyone dreaded it. At least the Europeans and English did. The natives had a rather fatalistic view—karma—they called it, I think." She turned to him. "What about you? How old were you?"

  He lifted a shoulder and looked away, not wanting to touch those memories. "I hardly remember."

  She made an understanding sound and he glanced at her again. She had her cheek resting on her hand and her head turned toward him, and she looked adorable.

  "What do you think is better—to have lots of memories?" she said, rocking herself gently. "Or to lose a parent before it really matters? I had a younger brother, but he died on the voyage to India. I only know about him because my mother once showed me a locket with a snippet of his hair. And I could only feel guilty, for I honestly could not work up even a single tear over him."

  He sat up and leaned closer. "That's it exactly. I can only remember my father making everyone dress in black, and no one allowed to do anything. No running, no playing. I used to escape to the woods just so they wouldn't see me enjoying myself while everyone else went around with faces like black clouds."

  "It's difficult, isn't it? My uncle used to say that tears are only about feeling sorry for yourself, for if you believe in a heaven, you ought to be happy for anyone who's gone there. He used to say he liked to think of them as having gone off to Brighton for holiday."

  Theo gave a snort. "Brighton? Not exactly my idea of heaven. But who do you mean by them?"

  "Why my father and mother, of course. I lost them both—such an odd way of putting it, as if I mislaid them, but it sounds so harsh to just say they died."

  He stared at her. She had not a trace of self-pity in her eyes or expression, but gazed back at him, a slight smile lifting her lips, her eyes bright.

  "You are an extraordinary woman," he said, his voice soft. Her laugh bubbled loose, giggly as a girl's. He couldn't help but grin back. "What? What is so funny about that?"

  "I'm as ordinary as you can find—other than for my hair. Plain Molly Sweet, a bit of a girl with no family and not much else going for her other than God's grace. And there are times I wish that stretched just a bit further than it has for a common girl like me."

  He sat up. "Now who filled your head with such nonsense? Common! Does Sallie tell you that?"

  "Oh, no, Sallie's been one of the better blessings. But the workhouse...." Even in the warmth of the day, she shuddered.

  He knew little enough about such places, other than that they were established to help the poor—give them shelter at the least, and perhaps opportunities to find a position if someone came to them. Frowning, he asked, "I thought they're supposed to take care of you in such a place?"

  With a shake of her head, she looked away. "I don't want to speak of it." She looked back, smiling, her accent roughening again. "Let's talk of good memories, ducks. Why don't you tell me about your brother?"

  And so he did, happy to amuse her.

  He told the story of how he had once followed Terrance, thinking to discover his brother's favorite fishing spot but had instead found his brother intimately entangled with a neighbor's wife. And how Terrance had first brought him to London and shown him the gaming hells to avoid and the brothels to frequent. And how Terrance and he had once held up the mail coach. "We actually didn't steal anything—we only wanted to see if anyone would actually 'stand or deliver' but Terrance's horse kept wanting to bolt with him every time he started to shout and I just about fell off my own horse laughing."

  She had laughed at that herself, and he decided he could not have asked for a better audience. At the more outrageous stories—such as the time Terrance was caught at a ball in an indiscreet position with not one, but two ladies, both of them older than himself—her cheeks pinked. And he found himself wondering how she had managed, at Sallie's house, to keep the ability to blush.

  He also found himself telling more and more of the disreputable stories, just to see her mouth pucker with prim disapproval, as if she had no such similar stories in her own past.

  With a rueful laugh, Molly shook her head. "Your brother sounds an incorrigible knave—and you sound proud that he is."

  "Incorrigible? Now that's a fine word, coming from you."

  "I'll have you know—" Molly broke off her protest, realizing she had been about to proclaim her virtue. Face warm, she lifted one shoulder. "Some of us are bad because we don't have much choice in it."

  And she would have added more disapproval of his brother, except that she had heard the pride in Theo's voice. Even during the worst stories, it had been there—a thread of admiration for his brother's daring, his lack of concern for what others thought, his growing notoriety.

  In truth, his brother sounded a disaster. But to say that to Theo seemed as if it would
only be courting an argument.

  As she thought on it, she realized a pang of envy lay under her faultfinding.

  How lovely to have someone to care about. To have close family and ties.

  She straightened. Might as well wish to have wings. She really had to keep in mind that she had come with this handsome fellow for his fifty pounds.

  Only it was rather difficult with him gazing at her, a bemused smile lifting the corner of his mouth, his eyes sparkling with some mischief.

  "Penny for your thoughts, ducks," she asked, curious now just what did stir that light in his eyes.

  His smile widened, and he said, "I'm thinking about how much I want to kiss you."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Molly stared at him. Her pulse beat faster in her throat. The drone of a bee hummed past her ear. The breeze, soft and light, touched her cheek, and it lifted the lock of black hair that lay across Theo's forehead. His eyes had gone dark, as deep and vivid a blue as the open sea.

  If she sat still, he would kiss her. She knew it. Knew it in her muscles and bones and in the blood that sang through her—with fear or anticipation?

  Mouth parched, she could think of no answer to give him. No quip as Sallie might have to turn away desire. And no reason for her own mad curiosity as to what his lips might feel like on hers.

  Utter, utter madness.

  He would know in an instant that she lacked any skill. She might be only a cook in a house of ill-repute, but she had overheard and had seen what went on—a good deal of it carried out not behind closed doors but in hallways and in Sallie's parlor and even once she had glimpsed them on the stairs. And she had never been kissed—never could kiss anyone—like one of Sallie's girls.

  Or could she?

  He leaned closer, his movement slow, almost as if he, too, drifted nearer on the breeze. The smile on his lips faded and a curious intensity lit his eyes.