Scoundrel in My Dreams

by Celeste Bradley

  Gazing across the spacious carriage at Colin and Aidan, Jack knew that moment was going to be hard. He’d never been much good at explaining.

  He wasn’t even sure he could explain his actions lately to himself!

  The Threadneedle Street market was organized chaos, heavy on the chaos, a little light on the organization. This was a varied market, where one could buy a melon, a parakeet, and a book on social revolution in the space of a few stalls. Melody bounced on her toes, thrilled by the spectacle.

  “I want to see the birdie! Papa, can I have a birdie? Ooh, spoons!”

  Colin grunted. “No need to take her to see the Royal Menagerie. We can just bring her here and buy sausages while we’re at it.”

  Aidan rolled his eyes. “You and your blasted sausages.”

  Colin blinked, hurt. “What’s wrong with sausages?”

  As they ventured farther into the market and the way became more crowded, Colin swept Melody up to sit on his shoulders. She held on to his ears and kicked her little white boots, most content with her vantage point. “Look, Papa! I see chickens!”

  Aidan glanced at Jack. “What are you going to do about that?”

  Jack looked away. “Not fond of chickens.”

  Aidan put a hand on his arm. “You know what I mean,” he said, keeping his voice too low for Melody to hear. “When are you going to tell her that you are not her papa?”

  Sometime on the far side of never. Jack slid his arm out of Aidan’s grasp. “One thing at a time.”

  Aidan eyed him for a long moment. Jack didn’t meet his gaze. “I suppose,” Aidan said slowly.

  Colin turned around and walked backward. “Are you two going to make me do all the—”

  He walked directly into a cart full of apples, jostling it hard. Apples began to tumble down from their carefully stacked pyramid. It was a rain of red and green, thudding down around Colin’s feet. Melody clapped her hands with joy.

  The hawker wasn’t so pleased. “Oy! Them’s me livelihood, ye blighter!” A stout, red-faced woman rose up from behind the cart, wielding an apple in each hand. “Ye’ll be payin’ top price for—” She stopped and blinked when she saw three well-dressed gentlemen.

  Colin held out both hands in apology. “I cannot express my regret, my good woman.”

  Aidan simply reached into his pocket and withdrew a gold coin. “This ought to even matters out.” He tossed it to the apple seller, who snatched it out of the air with the ease of long practice and then gave it a good bite.

  Mollified by her profits, which were more than she usually made in a fortnight, her ruddy face became wreathed in smiles. “Let me fill ye a bushel, kind sir. I’ve the finest apples in London, I do!” Then she squinted up at Melody atop Colin’s shoulders. “Well, hello, pet! I ain’t seen ye for ages!”

  Melody grinned and waved both hands. “Hello-hello, apple lady!”

  Aidan stepped forward, frowning. “You know this child?”

  The apple seller sobered, intimidated by such a tall, grand gentleman’s fierce attention. Her eyes wide, she looked from Melody to Aidan but said not a word.

  Colin swore and pushed Aidan away with one hand in the middle of his chest. “Step off, you great oaf! You’re intimidating the witness.”

  Aidan took a single step back and clamped his jaw shut, but the look he shot Colin was thunderous. Colin ignored him and swung Melody down to stand on her feet among the fallen apples. She immediately squatted and began to fill her arms with them.

  Smiling genially, Colin oozed charm at the worried hawker. “Ignore my dour friend, madam. He’s just hungry.” Colin cast an apple over his shoulder at Aidan without looking. Aidan caught it with a sharp snap of his hand. “Now, my good woman, as you can see, we’ve brought this child to the market to find out where she came from. Do you know Melody?”

  The woman stared at them. “Everyone knows the little poppet. She’s a right favorite in the market. Ain’t seen her for a while, though.”

  Colin gazed at the woman mournfully and shook his head, but he waved a hushing hand over Melody’s bent head. “Do you remember who she was with last time you saw her?”

  The woman nodded. “Aye. She came every week with the old woman. Bought seven apples every time. Got so regular I’d pick out the best and save ’em back for ’er, though I let her pay for bruised.” She thrust her chin at Melody. “Seven days. Seven apples. All for the little one, none for herself.”

  Melody stood with her skirt held wide, the expensive lace full of street-grimy apples. “I founded them for you!”

  The apple seller bent low and took the apples back one by one, putting them carefully into a bushel basket, though they were only fit for pigs now. When she was done, she tsked at Melody’s skirts. “What would your old Nan say ’bout that if she were here, eh?”

  Melody ignored the dirt and held out her arms to be picked up. With a glance for permission from Colin, the hawker lifted Melody and put her on one vast hip. “Wipe yer hands, then, missy, and I’ll give ye a fresh one.”

  While Melody bit into an apple so crisp that it made Jack’s throat feel parched in envy, the woman continued. “It’s been months, it has. Where’s the miss been all this time?”

  Colin leaned an elbow on the strut holding up the awning over the cart. “Oh, we’ve been looking after her. But now we can’t find . . . er, N-a-n-n-y.”

  The woman gazed at him without comprehension. Aidan leaned forward. “We’re looking for her old Nan.”

  “Oh.” Light dawned. “Why didn’t ye just say so?” The woman wrinkled her brow and gazed into midair for a moment. Melody was happily mangling the apple, which was too large and round to fit into her little mouth. Jack took it from her and cut it into neat slices with the penknife from his watch fob.

  “I think she lived that way.” The woman tilted her head to illustrate direction. “I never knew ’er name or house, but I don’t think it were far, ’cause the miss walked it well enough on her own little feet. The old bird wasn’t up to carryin’ ’er them last weeks.”

  Jack spoke for the first time. “Was the lady ill?”

  The hawker scrunched her weathered face. “I’ll say she were. Went from spry to frail in the span of a single spring, she did.”

  Jack looked at the other two men. “The apothecary.”

  Colin nodded. “Yes. He’d know her address if he delivered to her.”

  The hawker nodded. “Aye, there’s a shop not two streets over. Likely she’d have used that one. Might have seen her with a parcel from there once.”

  Aidan tossed the woman another coin. She grinned at him, flashing tangled teeth. “I’d have told ye for free, handsome, but I thank ye kindly anyway.”

  Colin snorted. “Stop your flirting and come along, Aidan.”

  They left with Melody hefted to Aidan’s hip. She waved farewell to the woman over Aidan’s shoulder, opening and closing her pudgy hand. “Bye! Bye! Sell lots of apples!”

  The woman laughed. “Bless ye, pet!”

  The apothecary was precisely where the hawker had directed them. Outside the shop, Aidan and Colin hesitated, a reluctant glance passing between them. Jack entered without pause. Colin took a deep breath. “We’re about to find out, aren’t we?”

  Aidan worked his jaw. “Whether we like it or not.”

  Side by side with Melody between, they entered the shop, each holding one tiny hand.

  Whether they liked it or not.

  Seventeen

  Wilberforce was not one to intrude into his charges’ rooms, but the chief of staff of Brown’s Club for Distinguished Gentlemen now stood in the center of the chambers used by the Marquis of Strickland and gazed about him in mystification.

  It was most unsettling. The carpets were missing. Simply vanished, as if by magic. Where could they have gone?

  If his lordship had asked to have them cleaned, Wilberforce would surely have been informed. His staff was in far too much terror of him to forget that little detail. Even then,
the floor would have simply been covered by clean carpets from storage, not left bare and dusty.

  Dust again! In his club!

  It wasn’t the girl’s fault precisely, he supposed, but ever since the eye-catching Fiona had arrived, the male staff—which was to say all of them!—had been as inattentive as restless schoolboys in springtime!

  All except for Bailiwick. Wilberforce’s youngest, and largest, underfootman did everything that was required of him, but he did it with such a stoic expression of grim determination that Wilberforce would almost rather the lad did a bit of mooning once in a while instead.

  Fiona was indeed a hard worker and the ladies had already expressed their appreciation of her way with hairdressing, so Wilberforce could not fault the girl herself.

  But for a guest to have his room stripped of carpets and left bare! What was this club coming to?

  However, when Wilberforce checked the other, empty rooms on the floor, he realized that it was more than simply a new distraction in the staff.

  Stalking from the room with a hint of a scowl on his patrician features, Wilberforce determined to check every single room on every single floor.

  Something had gone seriously amiss in his domain.

  And nothing ever went amiss at Brown’s!

  In the attic, Laurel bit her lip as she put the key into the lock. Once out of her cell and into the main room of the attic, she quickly ran down the stairs and pressed her ear to the door that led to the top-story hall. She held her breath until her head started to hum but heard not a sound from the club.

  Slowly she turned the latch and peeked through the crack in the door. Nothing to see but the long stretch of patterned carpet and some sort of vase on a small, gleaming table halfway down.

  She let herself out of the attic stairwell and tiptoed to the top of the staircase. Gazing down, she saw not a sign of life.

  It wasn’t this floor she wanted to visit this time. No, this time she was after bigger game than viewing Melody’s nursery.

  Laurel was on her way to Jack’s rooms.

  He’d told her that he lived in the rooms just below Melody’s. Lifting her skirts a little with one hand, Laurel placed the other hand on the railing and trotted lightly down the stairs. When she found that the floor below was every bit as deserted as above, she finally allowed herself to breathe normally. Apparently mid-afternoon was nearly as good a time to go adventuring as the middle of the night! It almost seemed as though the customers of Brown’s took naps, silly thought though that was!

  There were a few doors to choose from on this floor, but the first was clearly deserted. Dust cloths covered the furniture, and there seemed to be a distinct lack of carpet. The next room was much the same except that it oddly seemed to be missing the mattress on the large carved bed frame.

  “Jack, you thief,” Laurel murmured.

  She knew the third room was his the moment she stepped through the door. It wasn’t that it was full of possessions, for it was nearly as stripped as the other rooms, including the lack of carpets. It was the way the air felt, as though charged with him, like the air before a storm.

  She walked slowly around the perimeter of the room, keeping her gaze away from the big bed in the center, letting her fingertips trail lightly over his few possessions. He still liked to read, for books were the most numerous things. There were odd exotic bits—shells and strangely heavy foreign coins and carvings of animals she’d only seen in drawings. A giant triangular tooth mystified her, as did a globe of blown glass wound in what looked like fishing net. Rectangular ivory things, smooth to the touch, were carved and inked in odd, foreign symbols. Were they some form of money? Game pieces?

  The things that he must have seen! All those faraway lands, all those fascinatingly different peoples! She was at once envious and curious.

  Had he realized the gift of such freedom? Did he understand how much richer his existence was than hers, trapped in one house and then another?

  Or was he too lost in the night to appreciate the privileges of his days?

  Her fingers slipped lightly over several books on a shelf. Then one caught her eye. Childe Harold.

  She’d given him a copy once, just for a joke. He’d laughed and told her he’d keep it forever. She hadn’t believed a word of it.

  Taking the book down, she flipped the cover open. There was an inscription there.

  To Jack, from Bramble. If you’ll stop moving your lips, you’ll soon be reading much faster.

  She’d thought herself so clever then. How dismaying it had been to realize that she was just an ignorant child after all.

  Yet Jack had laughed aloud and tugged her braid and said, “I’ll call on you if I need help with the big words, shall I?”

  When she’d conceived of the notion of snooping into Jack’s room, she’d had the idea of discovering his secrets, learning his motives, so that she could better manipulate him into letting her take Melody. The thought of some sort of blackmail had even flitted through her mind.

  Yet now that she was here, breathing him in with every inhalation, all her thoughts seemed to be centered on remembering him the way he used to be.

  He was so beautiful then. Laughing, teasing Jack with the warm dark eyes and smile that made her knees weak. She’d worn herself out with restless, girlish lust over him then. Her nights had lasted interminably as she’d tossed and turned, unable to sleep for thinking about his eyes, his smile, his large hands, and the way it felt when his fingertips had brushed her neck when he’d tugged at her braids.

  She’d worn braids long after she’d meant to change to a more mature hairstyle, simply in the hopes that when she saw him next he would reach out to touch her again.

  Inside, she’d been aware on some level that if Jack ever realized the maturity of her feelings for him—heavens, the way she imagined him naked and sweating!—or if he even became truly conscious of the fact that she was no longer a schoolgirl at all, he would cease his attentions at once.

  He saw her as his future sister. They were friends, nothing more. She dared not tamper with that, either. She needed his friendship so desperately. With him, she could say every little thing that crossed her mind, no matter how odd. The strangest things could leave her lips and she would know that Jack would understand, though no one else would.

  In addition, as long as she kept Amaryllis assured of her plain, serious nature, then her sister would have no reason to turn her vindictive gaze upon her. As it was, Amaryllis only mildly noted Jack’s interest in her, making the occasional acid comment that it simply proved that he’d make an excellent father one day, he was that fond of silly children.

  A small laugh broke from Laurel’s lips at that memory. If Amaryllis had only known how prophetic her words would be!

  When Jack came back from the war, however, he was no longer the teasing young man Laurel had adored so fervently. He was much more, although her sister didn’t seem to see it.

  Amaryllis had loved the uniform, not the man. She’d loved the idea of a secret engagement to a soldier. She loved the idea of Jack, although she had originally tried to attract Blakely, who was, of course, the better heir, only a breath away from becoming the marquis.

  Jack had genially shoved his cousin aside in order to pay homage to Amaryllis, and she’d preened under his attention.

  However, when Jack had returned without Blakely, his soul dark and broken, Amaryllis had already decided upon another matrimonial target. Jack wouldn’t be able to marry for another year due to mourning, and Amaryllis wanted her perfect, privileged future now.

  Furthermore, miserable Jack wasn’t properly attentive. He was silent and brooding and prone to leave the room just when Amaryllis was waxing her most scathingly entertaining.

  Laurel, however, had loved him more than ever. His pain had made her ache, her heart breaking for him. She’d followed him everywhere those weeks, unwilling to abandon him to his grief, unable to breach her own restraint. On the few occasions when they’d spoken,
he’d been as kind as ever, but it was as if the light had gone out behind his eyes. She wanted to wrap her arms about him and hold him until his pain faded and he realized how much she loved him.

  And for one night, she had.

  Laurel wrapped her hands around one of the carved bedposts and leaned her forehead against the cool wood. That night—oh, sweet heaven, that night! Inhaling deeply with her eyes closed, Laurel breathed Jack into her.

  The scent of him was a little sandalwood, a little horse and leather, a little freshly washed linen, and a deeper, more seductive note that was all man. All Jack.

  She bent over his pillow and breathed. As if drawn down by magnetic force, she found herself lying on his bed, her face buried in the pillow, nearly weeping for the growing ache inside her.

  Memories assaulted her, turning her limbs to liquid, wreaking chaos on her mind, seducing her body with memories of his big hands on her, of his hot mouth, of the way he moved inside her, the way he’d swallowed her cries with his mouth even as he’d taken her higher every time.

  He’d taken her over and over again that night, until she’d scarcely been able to walk or sit the next day. They’d simply not been able to get enough of each other. She would roll off him or out from under him and begin to drift off in exhaustion, her limbs tangled with his, skin still slick with sweat and juices, her heart still pounding from yet another mind-scrambling orgasm. . . .

  His hand would be resting on her belly, or her thigh. She could feel the heat of it searing her damp skin, awakening senses only just satiated.

  She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes against the draperies shirred above her, letting that night play again in her mind.

  His hand, lax at first, would shift ever so slightly. Down, toward her pubic mound, or up, toward her sensitized breasts. She would roll into him, unable to resist that roving hand. . . .

  Laurel’s hand slid down her throat and into her bodice. She rolled her nipple gently, feeling it harden the way it had stiffened again and again at Jack’s merest touch. She did the same to the other one, enjoying the sensation of her rigid nipples grazing the silk of the gown.