by Sophia Nash
And then suddenly…
Lord, she could hear the driver telling someone, “Ain’t seen nobody loikes that, Cap’n.”
Blood pumping fast and furiously in her ears blocked out the low, insistent words from the soldier.
“No, that be me master’s lady bird…No mate, you doesn’t go in wivout ’is leave and ’e be—”
A deeper new voice interrupted, “Lefroy, what’s the bloody problem? Don’t say your past has finally caught up with you. Well, we’ve no time for this, man.” Oh, it was that blackguard Manning’s voice, she was certain. “And what in hell are you doing with that moldy thing? Taken to selling posies on the side, have you?”
Now it was the officer’s voice, rising in intensity, “Sir, this has nothing to do with your driver. We’re searching for—”
“Don’t care. Don’t want to know.”
“But I’m certain I saw a woman entering this—”
“Lefroy, I’ll dock your pay if you don’t get us out of this bog of humanity in time. Auction’s in twenty bloody minutes.”
When Elizabeth heard the loud creak of the door handle, she knew her goose was cooked. People said it had to rain on wedding days for good luck. Today, there was nary a cloud in the vast, pale blue sky. And of course she had had the bad fortune to enter the carriage of the last man on earth willing to help her.
She sucked in her breath as the light from the sunny day filled the doorway for the briefest moment before it was blocked by the broad shoulders of the powerful man. He was uttering a foul obscenity over his shoulder as he lunged inside, and so he did not see her.
With irritation, Rowland Manning flipped aside the charcoal-gray tails of his coat within the dark confines of his carriage and turned to plunk his frame down onto the seat. He landed on something far too soft and he sprang up like a scalded dog. “What the devil?”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Manning. Um…I require your assistance.” She exhaled. “Please.”
Ah…the juicy widowed morsel from the church—the one with the bountiful hair and the magnificent glittering emerald eyes. He narrowed his gaze. “Really? And what’s in it for me?”
She was doing a fairly good job of hiding her panic. Only her uneven breathing gave her away. “Everything I have if you will not betray me to those soldiers.”
“Everything? Hmmm, my favorite word.”
Someone knocked insistently on the carriage door. “Yes, yes. Anything.”
“All right. But one word and I’ll throw you to the wolves myself,” he muttered. In a smattering of moments he wrapped her damned lace fichu around his neck, transferred his hat to her head, and flipped up her skirts, ignoring her shocked intake of breath. He abruptly hooked an arm under one of her knees and fit himself snugly between her slender thighs. Surprisingly, she had the good sense to keep her lips from flapping and hid her face against his neck cloth. At the last second, he lowered his breeches, and reached for his crop between the roof’s hat straps.
The carriage door wrenched open, and the sound of gruff coughing mixed with coarse guffaws soon echoed behind him. Rowland worked the trunk of his body against hers in a slow, provocative manner, not allowing her to retreat an inch as he tickled her calf with his crop.
He turned his head slightly and addressed the onlookers, “Gawk if you like, you buggers. Lizzie likes it, don’t you, dearie? But there’s a price. Lefroy? Make ’em pay up or be gone.” He reached over and yanked the door closed.
He looked down into her wild eyes, which held the same mesmerizing sparkle as a sunset’s rays as they bounced off the River Thames. She made a few inarticulate noises, pushed against his chest and budged him not.
“Oh no. We’ve gone this far, madam. I’ll not face the magistrate now. Wrap your legs around me, you fool. If there’s a second act, you could put more effort into it. A few moans wouldn’t hurt,” he growled into her pretty ear.
She was glorious with that dazzling beck of honey-colored hair flowing from beneath his brushed beaver hat, her vibrant eyes spearing him with defiance.
“Give me that.” She took a swipe at the plaited leather whip he tickled her with, but missed as he raised it above his head.
There was but the thinnest bit of feminine linen separating him from intimate knowledge of her, and he had to give her credit for displaying such pluck in the face of such offenses.
But then, he didn’t know her, did he? Oh, he knew she was one of those widowed harpies trying to claw her way up the slippery slopes of society by way of the Helston clan’s coattails. But now it appeared her ladyship had a few sinful secrets tucked away in her blue silk and satin skirts. Didn’t they all?
She was, indeed, every bit as much an actor in this farcical quagmire of humanity plaguing the earth as he.
Christ, she was so damn soft beneath him, and she smelled so good. His groin pulsed despite the cacophony of voices outside the door, and he cursed foully.
“Lefroy,” he barked over his shoulder toward the closed door. “If there be no takers, haul up the wheel shoe and get your bony arse on the driving board.” Furious that he had lost his usual iron grip on his body, he grabbed the edge of the seat and prepared to recommence the show if necessary.
With a shout, the conveyance jolted forward, and the sounds of the traces jangled.
He jerked away as if her flesh burned him, and whipped her skirts back into place before swinging into the opposite seat. “You’re lucky I prefer beds for ravaging,” he lied.
She smoothed imaginary wrinkles from her elegant gown as a blush crested her cheeks.
“I don’t know what you did, madam, but whatever it was, I wouldn’t wager those blades will stop looking for you. There’s a gaggle of Wellington’s finest out there with enough gold braid to excite a small village’s worth of skirts.”
She returned his hat without a word and tried to rearrange her hair without success. “May I have my fichu back?”
He tossed it to her and palmed his finely tooled crop. Crossing the space between them, he tickled her tightly clenched jaw with the end loop. “What, no tears? No explanations? Good. Now give me your nibs and nabs.”
“Nibs and nabs?” she finally spoke, expelling her breath in a rush.
“You know, those nasty sharp bits or anything else you might foolishly try to use to thank me.”
“Mr. Manning, I know you’ll be surprised to learn that I don’t have any nibs or nabs on my person,” she said with all the primness of a schoolmistress. Not that he had spent a moment in school. But he could imagine.
“No? Perhaps a search is in order then,” he said, trying to raise the edge of her gown’s hem with his crop.
She swatted it away and looked at him sourly. “Look, I thank you for your quick thinking—your performance. Really, I had no idea…And to reassure you, I’ve every intention of properly repaying you.” She brushed the corner of the curtain and glimpsed outside again. Oh, they were nearing Lamb’s Conduit Fields, where she knew someone who might very well come to her aid. “Would you be so kind as to deposit me at the gates of the foundling home?”
“No,” he said, without hesitation.
She jerked her attention back to him. “No? Whatever do you mean?”
He ignored her lip-flapping.
“Surely you trust a lady to repay her debts, sir.”
He gave her a lazy half smile. “You’re good. You’ve got that righteous air down pat. And you’ve fooled those toffs well enough. Helston is doubtlessly duped, as are Ellesmere, Wallace, and all their brides.”
“You’re absolutely right, sir.”
He watched her pleat her hands tightly.
“Hmmm. Well, while I consider the terms of payment for saving your hide, madam, we’re for my stable yard. Nobs plump with coin won’t wait. We can’t have them trotting their fickle hides over to that damned uppity fellow Tattersall’s sticks, now can we? The pleasure of attending to you will just have to wait.”
Before she could respond, the carriage jerked
to a halt, and Rowland leapt out without waiting for the step to be swung into place.
He breathed in the air, which was filled with the sweet, raw fragrance of fresh pine and cut stone, the scent of new construction—and debt. It was as far removed from the aromas of his past as it could be.
Three classical structures of pale limestone fronted a sprawling, vast series of smaller buildings and enclosures. Stable hands, dressed in the dark blue and yellow colors of the stables, performed their jobs with workmanlike precision, feeding, watering, washing, working the animals with well-honed precision. But above all, it was the beauty of the animals that stood out. They were the only things that mattered.
“You cannot hold me against my will,” the lovely little fraud insisted, moving to his side.
Her words drew him back to the moment. “No?”
“No! Now look, I insist your driver take me to—”
“Lefroy, Mrs….” he looked at her expectantly.
“Ashburton,” she answered, exasperated.
“Mrs. Ashburton has a fondness for storerooms,” he said with heavy sarcasm. “Show her ours.”
“But, Mr. Manning. I must be allowed to send a note to the dowager duchess, and to—”
He turned toward the main massive yard now filling with gleaming silk and beaver hats and equally gleaming horseflesh. “You’re boring me, Mrs. Ashburton.” He waved his hand languorously in the air.
A hint of a breeze in the warm air carried her next words back to him.
“The feeling is entirely mutual, sir.”
He didn’t pause, yet he couldn’t stop the smallest bit of amusement from tickling his lips. Oh, she would prove an excellent test to his finely honed discipline. It had been a while since he’d jousted with an aristocratic female with morals to let. And he needed the practice, if this damned unflagging peg leg bobbing between his hips was any indication, for gawdsakes.
Yes, he had a score to settle with the Upper Ten Thousand. And he was doing it through the deep pockets of the lords who flocked to him for superior mounts, and their fickle wives who came to him for an entirely different sort of ride. The past few years, he had accommodated the latter only out of necessity and only when the blackest of moods was upon him.
This pampered lady was ripe for the plucking. She was everything his small ragtag family had not been—well fed, elegantly dressed, and clearly an inveterate charlatan. The only question was how much blunt he could extract from her and in what fashion.
Yes, the lovely Mrs. Ashburton would rue the day she chose to throw her lot in with him instead of going quietly to face her transgressions. Yet those damned eyes of hers flummoxed him with their false innocence. By God, he would wipe that expression clean by the time he was done with her. She knew nothing of his game.
They never did.
Chapter 2
The storeroom was hot and filled with the most unpleasant scent of decaying cabbage mingled with unplucked fowl. But nothing could induce Elizabeth to descend again into the cooler cellar as the sound of scurrying confirmed even worse accommodations.
Although…she did not doubt she would jump into the awful, dank darkness at the first echo of Pymm’s officers. Dear Lord. She prayed no one had followed Manning’s carriage.
In an effort to stem the cascading thoughts of the morning’s events, Elizabeth continued reorganizing the goods lining the rows of cluttered shelves. The pickled vegetables were improperly potted, the spoilage evident. Ugh. Why, half of the food here would have to be carted away.
She wondered if and when Mr. Manning would allow her to be carted away from this awful place. She leaned her head against a shelf. God. She’d never been so mortified in all her life.
His raw actions were forever imprinted in her memory—his large hand gripping her knee wide while his hips flexed against hers. And each time she pressed her nose into the folds of her fichu to escape the dreadful smells of the storeroom, his lingering masculine scent brought her right back to the scene in the carriage. His was the aroma of fresh-cut hay and bayberry shaving soap, along with starch and the indescribable scent of his skin. She shivered in remembrance of his vulgar words and actions.
Oh, she should have been terrified, but for some absurd reason, she had not been. She had not been afraid of him for a moment. It was ridiculous. She had thrown herself on the nonexistent mercy of a famous black-hearted, fire-breathing tyrant. But then again, wasn’t that precisely what she had needed against Pymm’s well-organized detail of officers?
After a slight rustling sound, the storeroom door swung open, and Eliza gratefully breathed in a great lungful of fresh air. “Oh, Mr. Lefroy, thank goodness you’ve returned. Mr. Manning has no authority to hold me.” She stepped over the threshold. “I shall just be on my way, now, and here is the guinea I owe you, sir.” She held out the promised coin.
Flustered, the thin man dipped his head. “I’m sorry, lovey, but the master says you’re to stay. ’e wants you to ’elp Cook. Said it were part o’ the bargain. The two under cooks left wivout notice yester eve.”
Elizabeth gazed past Mr. Lefroy’s shoulder, only to finally notice a large matron, wearing a filthy apron, studying her with a bleary eye. “But this is impossible. I must go. I’m certain Mr. Manning doesn’t want to incur the displeasure of my friends.”
Mr. Lefroy scratched his grisly, thick side-whiskers, which hung low on his cheeks and were shaped like iron clubs. “Don’t rightly think the master cares if ’e earns anyone’s ire, ma’am. And I beg you not to leave for ’e’ll strip a large part of me old ’ide off if’n you up and disappear like. You wouldn’t do that to your old friend Lefroy now, would you?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Besides, I’m to lock you bowf in the kitchen.”
“Well,” Elizabeth huffed.
He leaned in with a whisper, “Have a care, Cook is meaner than a badger wiv a ’ound on ’er shoulder.”
“But I must be allowed to get word to my friend Sarah Winters at Helston House at the very least.”
Mr. Lefroy studied her for a moment.
“Of course, I would pay you for your trouble.” She held up her last coin.
He scratched his neck, doubt in his old eyes. “I suppose it be only fair. But keep your coin.” It appeared the man had a measure of pride to maintain.
As he left, Elizabeth reached her hand to stop him. “Oh, and Mr. Lefroy?”
“Aye?”
“Make certain no one sees you deliver the message to Mrs. Winters, will you?”
He held out his hand. “Now that’ll cost you, lovey.”
An hour later, surrounded by a mountain of half-rotted potatoes, Elizabeth toiled at the task of peeling, under the thunderous gaze of Mrs. Vernon, who hadn’t taken kindly to Elizabeth’s efforts in the storeroom or elsewhere.
The cook had taken particular exception to her insistence in mopping the filthy tiles of the floor. The last time Elizabeth had seen such dirt, and such fare, was during the long march through Spain during the rainy season. And even then there had been—
Mrs. Vernon’s shriek pierced Elizabeth’s thoughts and the dull paring knife slipped through her fingers. The cook’s bulky form lay sprawled before her.
“Now look wot you’ve done, you silly girl,” Mrs. Vernon spat out in her virulent strain of cockney. “I told you it would be only good for slippin’. Me back is loike broke. Well, you’ll be sorry, is wot you’ll be. ’Tis you wot will cook for those sorry coves today.”
Elizabeth wondered for the hundredth time how the day had fallen into such shambles in such short order. This morning she had risen from a mound of warm, sweet-smelling bedclothes to breakfast with all her friends in the stately rooms of Helston House in the heart of Mayfair, and now a mere five hours later, she was reduced to being a target for a mean spirited cook’s barbs. “I’d be delighted to prepare dinner, Mrs. Vernon. How many will be at table?”
The burly cook smiled, revealing teeth going in an astonishing number of alternating directions. “
Slops for thirty-eight. And o’ course Mr. Manning’s fare.”
“Thirty-eight? What time is dinner served then?”
The cook chortled. “You’ve got plenty of time, dearie. Two hours.”
“Of course.” Elizabeth gazed at the woman on the floor and couldn’t decide if she pitied or loathed her more. No one with this sort of irritable temperament could be happy. “Perhaps,” she suggested softly, “you would like for me to make you a drop of tea?” With just a few more hints of solicitude, Elizabeth stemmed the vile froth of words spewing from the cook.
It cleared away a good third of the remaining edible items in the vast storeroom to produce an acceptable meal.
“Yer makin’ too much, I say. You shouldn’t have used the molasses. That be for fattening the horses, not the men,” the woman whined from the corner. “The master will take it out o’ me wages.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Vernon. You can blame me.” Really, what would a few more damning words to her character mean at this point?
Elizabeth cut the hot gingerbread into steaming, fragrant squares and whipped the cream. It had been the only truly fresh item in the pantry, aside from some very tough beef she had ground into submission.
The fare was simple, yet seasoned and prepared to perfection. Four enormous meat and onion pies rested beside mounds of mashed potatoes topped with a hint of melting cheese. A mountain of grated carrots dressed with oil, vinegar and a hint of mustard and lemon lay nearby. It would have to do.
The older lady moaned in frustration. “He won’t like it.”
Eliza hoped he would, for there wasn’t enough time to prepare something different for him. She didn’t want to face the blackguard without putting him in a more amiable mood. Tempting Manning with food was the only option she could think of at the moment. Besides, her pride forbade her to prepare anything but the very best she could muster. And she had learned from her father and the men under his command that there was nothing that could soften a man’s disposition more than a good meal. Especially on a battlefield. And if Mr. Manning was not a battlefield in the flesh, then Elizabeth would eat her lace fichu.
