by Mary Balogh
Edward was all the more annoyed at the blatantly sensual look on the man’s face because his own must have looked very much like it just a few minutes ago.
“Sweetheart,” Windrow said softly, obviously having dismissed Edward as a man of no account whatsoever—or perhaps he had not even noticed him, “may I persuade you to share my ale? Better yet, may I persuade you to share it and a meat pasty? There is only one comfortable-looking chair over by the fireplace, I see, but you may sit on my lap and share that too.”
Edward frowned at him. Could he not see that the woman was a lady? The evidence was glaring enough in the fine muslin of her dress, despite the bright shade, and in the intricacy of her coiffure of dark hair. He glanced at her, expecting to see her stiffen with horror and fright. She continued to stare out the window. She either assumed that the invitation was directed at someone else, or—was it possible?—she simply did not hear the words at all.
He should leave, Edward decided. Right now.
He spoke instead.
“I doubt you know the lady,” he said. “Calling her sweetheart, then, would be inappropriately impertinent.”
Maurice had often called him, affectionately enough most of the time, a staid old sobersides. Edward half expected to see dust emerge from his mouth along with the words. But they were spoken now, and he would not recall them if he could. Someone had to speak up for defenseless female innocence. If she was innocent, that was.
Windrow’s head swiveled slowly, and just as slowly his lazy eyes swept Edward from head to toe. His perusal aroused no discernible alarm in him.
“You were speaking to me, fellow?” he asked.
Edward in his turn looked slowly about the room.
“I must have been,” he said. “I see no one else present except the two of us and the lady, and I am not in the habit of speaking to myself.”
Slight amusement showed in the other man’s face.
“Lady,” he said. “I take it she is not with you. She is alone, then. I wish she were a lady. It might be mildly less of a yawn to frequent London ballrooms and drawing rooms. You would be wise, fellow, to address yourself to what remains of your ale and mind your own business.”
And he turned back to regard the woman’s derriere again. She had changed position. Her elbows were now on the sill, and her face was cupped in her hands. The effect of the change was to thrust her bosom into more prominence in one direction and her derriere in the other.
If she could only step back and see herself from this position, Edward thought, she would run screaming from the room and never return, even with a dozen chaperons.
“Perhaps this lady would care to sit in my lap while I call to the landlord to bring her a pasty and ale so that she may share with me,” Windrow said with insolent emphasis. “Would you, sweetheart?”
Edward sighed inwardly and moved one degree closer to an unwilling confrontation. It was too late to back off now.
“I really must insist,” he said, “that the lady be treated with the respect that any female ought to be accorded as a matter of right by anyone claiming the name of gentleman.”
He sounded pompous. Of course he sounded pompous. He always did, did he not?
Windrow’s head turned, and his amusement was quite unmistakable now.
“Are you looking for a fight, fellow?” he asked.
The lady seemed finally to have realized that she was the subject of the conversation behind her. She straightened up and turned, all wide, dark eyes in a narrow, handsome face, and all tall, shapely height.
Good God, Edward thought, the rest of her person more than lived up to the promise of her derriere. She was a rare beauty. But this was no time to allow himself to be distracted. He had been asked a question.
“I have never felt any burning desire to enforce gentility or simple civility with my fists,” he said, his tone mild and amiable. “It seems something of a contradiction in terms.”
“I believe,” Windrow said, “I have the pleasure of addressing a sniveling coward. And a stuffy windbag. All wrapped in one neat package.”
Each charge, even the last, was an insult. But Edward would be damned before he would allow himself to be goaded into adopting swashbuckling tactics just to prove to someone he despised that he was a man.
“A man who defends the honor of a lady, and who expects a gentleman to behave like one and confronts him when he does not, is a coward, then?” he asked mildly.
The woman’s eyes, he was aware, had moved from one to the other of them but were now riveted upon his face. Her hands were clasped to her bosom as though she had been struck by some tender passion. She looked remarkably unalarmed.
“I believe,” Windrow said, “the suggestion has been made that I am not a gentleman. If I had a glove about my person, I would slap it across your insolent face, fellow, and invite you to follow me out to the inn yard. But a man ought not to be allowed to get away with being a coward and a stuffy windbag, gloves or no gloves, ought he? Fellow, you are hereby challenged to fisticuffs outside.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the inn yard and smiled—very unpleasantly indeed.
Once more Edward sighed inwardly.
“And the winner proves himself a gentleman worthy of the name, does he?” he said. “Pardon me if I disagree and decline your generous offer. I will settle for an apology to the lady instead before you take yourself off.”
He glanced at her again. She was still gazing fixedly at him.
He had, as he was fully aware, backed himself into a tight corner from which there was no way out that was not going to prove painful. He was going to end up having to fight Windrow and either give him a bloody nose and two black eyes to take to London with him, or suffer his opponent to dish out the like to himself. Or both.
It was all very tedious. Nothing but flash and fists. That was what being a gentleman was to many of the men who claimed the name. Maurice, unfortunately, had been one of them.
“Apologize to the lady?” Windrow laughed softly and with undisguised menace.
That was when the lady decided to enter the fray—without uttering a word.
She seemed to grow three inches. She looked suddenly regal and haughty—and she shifted her gaze to Windrow. She looked him up and down unhurriedly and appeared to find what she saw utterly contemptible.
It was a masterly performance—or perhaps a mistressly one.
Her wordless comment was not without its effect, even though Windrow was half grinning at her. Perhaps it was a rueful grin?
“I misjudged you, alas, did I?” he asked her. “Because you were alone in here and leaning nonchalantly on the windowsill and dressed like a bird of paradise, I suppose. I cannot persuade you to share a pasty and a glass of ale with me? Or to sit on my lap? A pity. And it would seem I cannot persuade this sniveling coward to defend your honor or his own with his fists. What a sad day to have encountered, when I had such high hopes of it when I awoke this morning. There is nothing for it, I see, but to resume my tedious journey and hope for a brighter tomorrow.”
And he pushed himself away from the counter, setting down his empty tankard as he did so, and would have sauntered out of the inn without a word more or a backward glance. He found an obstacle in his path, however. Before he could reach the door, Edward was there ahead of him and standing in front of it, blocking the way.
“You have forgotten something,” he said. “You owe the lady an apology.”
Windrow’s eyebrows rose and amusement suffused his face again. He turned back to the room and made the lady a deep and mocking bow.
“Oh, fair one,” he said, “it pains me that I may have distressed you with my admiration. Accept my humble apologies, I beg you.”
She neither accepted nor rejected them. She gazed coldly at him without relaxing her regal demeanor.
Windrow winked at her.
“I shall look forward to making your official acquaintance at some future date,” he said. “It is my fervent hope that that will not
be far in the future.”
He turned to Edward, who stood out of the way of the door.
“And likewise for you, fellow,” he said. “It will be a distinct pleasure.”
Edward inclined his head curtly to him, and Windrow left the inn and closed the door behind him.
That left Edward and the lady in the taproom together again. But this time she knew he was there and so the impropriety could not be ignored or even silently fumed over. He was freshly annoyed with her—and with himself for having become embroiled in such an undignified episode.
She was gazing at him, the regal demeanor vanished, her hands clasped at her bosom again.
Edward inclined his head curtly to her and made his way outside. He half expected to find Windrow lying in wait for him in the yard and was almost disappointed to see no sign of the man.
Less than five minutes later he was inside his carriage again and on his way toward London. Ten minutes after that, the carriage passed a far smarter one—of course, it would have been difficult to find one shabbier—traveling with reckless speed in the opposite direction. He caught a glimpse of the coat of arms emblazoned on the door. The Duke of Tresham’s. He breathed a sigh of relief that at least he had been spared having to encounter that particular gentleman at the Rose and Crown in addition to Windrow. It would have been the final straw.
Tresham was not his favorite person in the world. And, to be fair, he did not doubt that he was not Tresham’s either. The duke had been another of Maurice’s friends. It was in a curricle race against him that Maurice had overturned his own and killed himself. And then Tresham had had the effrontery to turn up at Maurice’s funeral. Edward had made his opinion known to him there.
He wished anew that he could have stayed at Wimsbury Abbey. But duty called in London. And there was consolation, for Eunice was there too. She was staying with Lady Sanford, her aunt, and he would see her again.
It struck him suddenly that Tresham was driving in the opposite direction from London. Perhaps he was on his way to Acton Park. Perhaps he was going to remain there throughout the spring. It was something to be hoped for.
Who the devil was that lady back at the inn? Someone needed to take her in hand and teach her a thing or two about what was what.
But devil take it, she was a rare beauty.
He frowned as he shifted position in a vain attempt to get comfortable.
Beauty was no excuse for impropriety. Indeed, beauty called for more than usual discretion.
He still felt entirely out of charity with her, whoever she was. Unlike Windrow, he did not look forward to making her official acquaintance. He hoped rather that he would never see her again. He hoped she was traveling away from London rather than toward it.
Preferably to the highlands of Scotland.
