by Gina Lamm
He snorted in derision. “Love is a child’s fairy tale. And you must be more of a child than you seem to believe in such nonsense.”
Hot shame burned her cheeks. She crossed her arms in self-defense at his mocking tone. “So you don’t think the duke could be my true love? Even though Mrs. Knightsbridge has a hundred percent success rate?”
“It is impossible.” He shook his head. “As I said, you must be a foolish girl.”
Leah swallowed hard at the ridiculous knot in her throat. What did this stranger’s opinion matter? This was a once in a lifetime adventure, and she’d be damned if a stuffy valet would stand in her way. Mrs. Knightsbridge said her true love was here, and she owed it to her grandfather to find the best husband she possibly could. She gathered her courage and stared Avery straight in the eye. She hadn’t backed down from a challenge in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now.
“I am not a child, and I am not a fool. I know exactly what I’m doing, thank you very much.” With a confidence born of many years of acting classes, Leah smoothed her dress down her hips, willing them to twist slightly, enough to get his attention. “And if you don’t believe in love, that’s your problem.” Turning with a dramatic swish of her skirts, she strode to the other end of the massive chamber like a queen, making sure to twitch her ass. Tossing a look over her shoulder, she smiled when she saw the lustful fury brewing in his eyes. Teasing him shouldn’t make her this happy, but damn it, the stuffy jerk deserved it.
“Well, Miss Ramsey, who am I to stand in the way of true love?” The last words were said in a mocking tone so bitter that they made Leah wince. “If you should like to remain here, I will not stop you. You may look to Smythe for that honor.”
With a bow that was more mocking than respectful, the valet turned on his heel and left the room.
Leah sank down on the bed, rubbing her forehead. Why didn’t she feel triumphant? Hurdle number one had been cleared. So what was with the nervous bubble in her gut?
Swallowing her anxiety, she stood and took a deep, calming breath. Time to get her game face on and go round two with Mr. Smythe. This isn’t going to be easy, but then again, Leah thought as she exited the massive bedchamber, nothing worth doing usually is.
The corridor was wide enough to put a couple of pool tables end-to-end and still have room to play them both. Gilt-framed portraits spanned the huge hall that was lined with expensive furnishings, showpieces, and closed doors. Picking up a small vase from a marquetry table, Leah examined it in the critical way her Pawpaw had drilled into her since she was tiny.
“Holy cow,” she whispered to herself, and quickly put the ancient porcelain down. That piece could easily buy and sell a pretty nice Lexus a couple times over. Rubbing her suddenly sweaty palms against her borrowed costume skirt, Leah backed up to the wall to get another look at her surroundings. She was really beginning to worry that she was out of her league. And for a girl like Leah, who’d never met a challenge she didn’t want to fling herself face-first into, that was really saying something.
Four
“Thoughtless, foolish chit,” Avery snarled beneath his breath as he resumed his polishing. With all the fury he felt at the beautiful girl who’d waltzed into the room as if she belonged there, he rubbed at the scuff mark. That such a complete stranger had roused this much ire, and if he was honest, interest, made his blood bubble into an angry froth.
It was several moments later when the red fog of frustration left his brain that he looked down at the Hessian. Blinking in surprise, he realized he’d mangled it. The boot’s toe pointed toward the floor. A costly pair of His Grace’s boots had been ruined because Avery had not kept his wits about him. He’d allowed her to divert his focus, a lapse in vigilance that could have had unforgivable consequences.
Letting the boot drop to the floor, Avery looked up at the beamed ceiling. Drawing air deeply into his chest, he blew it out through pursed lips, concentrating on slowing the too-rapid thumping of his heart. The prayers that his pious father had beat into him at a young age ran through his head as Avery searched for a semblance of calm.
“Mr. Russell?”
The sweet, feminine voice with its altogether odd accent ran roughshod over his attempt at peace. His pulse surged, and he fought to maintain his focus on the wooden beams above his head.
“Mr. Russell, I’m really sorry about before. I was wondering if you could help me.”
He didn’t respond. Breathe in, hold it in…
“Oh, are you praying? I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll wait until you’re done.” She sat on the narrow bench beside him, her soft thigh pressing innocently against his knee. From the corner of his eye, he watched her bow her head and lace her delicate fingers together in her lap. Her long eyelashes fluttered closed.
She looked the very picture of piety, but it was impossible not to notice the way her breasts swelled above the neckline of her dress with each breath. The way her body bled heat into his. The way she smelled of sweet, exotic spices. All thoughts of calm and prayer forgotten, Avery leaned closer, trying to draw another breath of her into his lungs.
Her eyes popped open, and he jerked backward in surprise. “Oh good, you’re done.” She smiled, a genuine expression that made her brilliant blue eyes sparkle with inner fire. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier.”
He stared at her without a word. What more was there to be said?
“It was totally my fault. I really hope you can forgive me.” She looked down at her lap, and Avery fought the bolt of protectiveness that struck him when her smile faltered. “It’s just that I was so excited about being here and thinking I was meeting my perfect guy. I didn’t think about how it would affect you, especially considering I screwed up.”
Avery tried to swallow, but his throat was suddenly parched. His voice, when it came, was dry and cracked. “I took no offense. But you must realize how ludicrous this appears.” He wished he could bite the words back—her opinion was a commodity he hadn’t realized he valued—but once said, it was too late.
She picked at an imaginary thread on her skirt. He wished he could reach out and rub a finger across the fair skin of her wrist. A bitter laugh echoed in his head at the impossible thought. Despite how he was drawn to her, she was a beautiful stranger to him, nothing more.
“It was wrong, and I’m sorry. And I shouldn’t even ask, but you’re the only person I know here.” When she looked up at him, her eyes were as blue and guileless as a midsummer sky. “I need your help if you can forgive me.”
Before he could voice the protest that lay heavy on his lips, her small hand covered his scarred one. His heart stuttered in his chest as he fought to breathe, to keep his head, to not jerk away. She couldn’t know that hers was the first hand to touch him so gently since his mother had passed away all those years ago. But he knew, and her touch shook him to the core.
* * *
Leah wasn’t sure why Avery reacted so strongly when she touched his hand. The wary guardedness in his eyes intensified, and the tension lining his shoulders and spine increased. It was almost as if he needed to pull away but simply couldn’t. As gently as she could, she broke the contact. Did he have some kind of social anxiety or something?
Shaking off the concern, she tried to focus. Like it or not, at the moment, she needed his help. Nothing to it but to do it. Opting for honesty, she launched straight into her idea.
“I know this doesn’t seem like it’s possible, but I’m from the twenty-first century, from what you’d probably call the colonies.”
She tucked a stray hair behind her ear, scanning his features for disbelief. But, just her luck, Avery Russell had a poker face to end all poker faces. He was like a gorgeous statue with a slight bump in his nose. “It’s magic,” she said, and then immediately wanted to smack herself in the forehead. As if that would make it better.
“Of course.” His tone was dryer than South Texas in July.
S
he rolled her eyes and stood, needing to put some distance between them. “There’s no need to be sarcastic. I wouldn’t have believed it either if it didn’t actually happen to me—and my best friend, who’s now married to the Earl of Dunnington, by the way.” She hoped the name might mean something to him.
When he didn’t respond, her smile faltered, but she held her pose. Fine, she’d lay it all out there on the table—either he’d help her or not.
“So listen, here’s my problem. I can’t meet the duke without some kind of introduction. You and I both know I’ll need some help in order to meet him, let alone convince him we belong together.” She sat back down beside him and leaned close to lower her voice to its most convincing level. “You’re my only hope, Avery Russell.” She hoped her sincerity was clear in her face. There wasn’t much else she could think of to say.
The only clue that he wasn’t as composed as a sack of concrete was the slight flaring of his nostrils. It was almost like he smelled her perfume and liked it. Well, he could sniff her all damn day if he’d just agree to help her. And actually, there were a lot of things that could be worse than staying close enough to Avery to let him smell her perfume. The man really was magnetic, despite his attitude. Her gaze flicked to his full lips before she could stop it.
“It is madness, foolishness, and the worst sort of nonsense.” He sighed and looked down at his hand, the one she’d touched only moments before. “But it is not for me to judge you. If your course is firmly set, then I shall do my best to aid you.”
“Oh, Avery, thanks. You’re the best.” She flung her arms around his neck. His muscles trembled, and the slightly coarse fabric of his coat scratched at her cheek. She breathed in shoe polish and strong soap. But Leah didn’t care. She’d made her first friend, albeit a handsome and reluctant one, and he was going to help her get her true love. How much better could today get?
* * *
“And this is where you’ll sleep.”
The door swung open and Mrs. Harper gestured into the dim attic room. Leah closed her eyes, made a wish, and walked toward the open door to face her fate.
A haughty sniff came from her unwilling tour guide. The housekeeper, Mrs. Harper, resembled a disapproving Q-tip more than anyone Leah had ever met. Her tiny, stick-thin frame was crowned by a bushy cloud of stark-white hair, but a duchess herself could be no more stuck-up than Mrs. Harper was.
The grand tour for the new underhousemaid had culminated with this, the reveal of Leah’s temporary living quarters. She tried to contain her dismay as she looked around the tiny room, crammed with two beds and other people’s belongings.
“You’ll share this bed with Henrietta,” Mrs. Harper said. “Teresa and Sara sleep in the other. You’ll have one drawer for your things.” She gestured to a simple wooden bureau in the corner. “Your uniforms are already inside. Dress—mind you take care—and be down for supper at the hour.”
Mrs. Harper shut the door without another word, leaving Leah alone in the rapidly darkening attic room. She dropped the empty, beaten leather bag that Avery had produced to lend authenticity to her role as applicant for housemaid onto the floor beside her and crossed to the single, tiny window. After pulling it open, she ducked her head out to look at the city of London below.
She bit her lip, excitement thrumming through her veins. Carriages rolled down the cobbled streets, beautiful horses tossing their heads as Londoners called greetings to one another. Lamp boys scurried along, propping small ladders against the posts and touching their lit wicks to the lamp heads. A baker’s boy ran past, his arms loaded with golden-brown loaves. It was picturesque, beautiful, everything she’d imagined.
Her happy sigh echoed through the room. Who’d have thought that she’d be living such a dream?
“From the country, are you?”
Leah nearly swallowed her own tongue in shock at the high-pitched voice behind her. She whirled and smiled.
“Hello. Who are you?”
The girl didn’t answer at first, just tilted her head quizzically, causing her too-big mobcap to flop over one eye. She shoved it back with a motion that was clearly of longstanding habit.
“I’m Henrietta. You must be the new maid. Mrs. Harper sent me up to help you get settled.” The girl gave a small smile, revealing crooked front teeth.
Faint discomfort nestled at the back of Leah’s spine. This girl looked only a few years older than Leah’s drama students at Concord Magnet Elementary School. She couldn’t be more than twelve, thirteen years old, and she worked here? Reminding herself that child labor laws were still a work in progress, Leah nodded.
“Nice to meet you, Henrietta. Or do you go by Henry?”
“What a daft question. I am a girl, so I am Henrietta. They said you was a sight dim, and weren’t they right and all.” The polite smile was gone, and in its place was a look of dislike that was more suited to Mrs. Harper’s drawn cheeks than Henrietta’s apple-shaped ones.
Well well well, thought Leah as she drew herself up to her full height. The little match girl is more of a little spitfire. “Well, Henrietta, why don’t you show me around?” Leah kept tight eye contact with the little demon, daring her to challenge further.
Aha, she thought as Henrietta looked away and marched to the bureau. Round one to Ramsey.
“Your uniforms is here, caps and aprons there. Hair tucked all beneath your cap. You’ll be scolded if it’s not done to Mrs. Harper’s liking. Oh”—the girl turned—“and one more thing.”
She might as well have a blinking neon sign on her cute little forehead that read “I’m about to try to screw you over.” Leah crossed her arms and waited.
“Mrs. Harper said to tell you that supper has been delayed. You’re to remain here until quarter past the hour.”
Leah inwardly shook her head. Poor kid. She had talent but no control. Overplaying a part was worse than underplaying it. “Hold it right there.”
Henrietta had been about to turn the doorknob to make her escape, but Leah’s “freeze or you’re dead meat” voice had been fairly well honed over the years. The girl turned slowly, a wary look in her wide brown eyes.
“If supper is delayed, then you can help me settle in.” Leah plopped down on the bed and patted the faded covers beside her. “Sit down with me.”
Henrietta’s look of repugnance would have been funny if it wasn’t so damn depressing. Leah began wishing she’d stuck closer to Avery. Clearly the female staff wouldn’t be giving her as warm a welcome as he had.
Leah sighed and rubbed at the temple that was beginning a steady throb. What a damn depressing thought.
Five
It had been easier than Avery had thought to convince Mrs. Dearborn, the cook, to pretend Leah was her relation from the colonies. An older woman with a softer heart than anyone else in the house, Cook had been Avery’s only confidante. Despite their cordial acquaintance, he’d expected much more of a fight from her when he suggested the plan. But once Avery had explained that Leah would be out on the street if she couldn’t provide a reference, Cook had agreed to the charade and bustled Leah away to meet Mrs. Harper and apply for Fannie’s recently vacated position.
As Leah waved a cheerful farewell from the kitchen doorway, an odd twinge took up residence in Avery’s chest. Turning, he’d thumped at his ribs, trying to dislodge the feeling as he’d exited the main house and walked out toward the stables. It hadn’t worked. The buoyant, almost excited sensation cast an unfamiliar lightness to his walk.
Her tale was difficult to believe, but she had appeared sincere. Was it possible that she had come from nearly two hundred years in the future? The gravel crunched beneath his feet as he considered the notion.
When he was just a boy in the village of Chelmsford, their neighbor, Mrs. Comstock, had dabbled in the Old Ways. Though his clergyman father forbade him to speak with the old woman, he knew from her that strange things were possible. He’d seen her making potions and curing folk in ways that no normal person could, so it sto
od to reason that this stranger’s outlandish claim could prove true.
His father was dead, and he was no longer a boy. Would he heed the warnings he’d been given as a child, or discover more about this beautiful stranger? Whether she’d come from the future or no, she stirred an interest within him that she should not. And he could not afford any distractions.
Once he’d reached the stables and tossed the hounds some scraps he’d gotten from Cook, he rounded to the back of the buildings into the lean-to shed he used for training. As he reached for the leather door strap, he could have sworn that his lips were stretched oddly, in what almost felt like a smile. Shaking his head, he tried to clear his thoughts of yellow hair and summer-sky eyes as he entered the shed. It was damn near impossible. She haunted him like a wraith.
The scents of dust, hay, and sweat hung heavy in the air, a reminder of the sole purpose of this room. Imagining the way she’d felt for that brief moment pressed against him, he methodically stripped to the waist. Streams of late-afternoon light reached through gaps in the slat wall, lying in wicked angles across the straw-dusted floor. Dust motes floated in the air as Avery carefully hung his valet’s waistcoat, shirt, and jacket on iron hooks by the door. A rip, another, and then he wrapped thin linen strips around his knuckles, knotting them securely. Stretching his rib cage with a heavy breath, Avery turned and faced his opponent—a canvas bag filled with sand, hung with thick ropes from a ceiling beam. Settling his weight squarely on the balls of his feet, Avery’s fists tingling and ready, he pulled back for his first swing.
The ghost of an impish smile with twinkling eyes winked at him, and he missed the bag completely. Overbalanced, he staggered forward, nearly plowing directly into his former employer’s tall form.
“Oy, Russell, you’ll never win another tourney with a pitiful showing like that.”
