But she’d had her advantages and couldn’t fault Percy for trying to shore up the Ferguson fortune. Life was expensive and fickle.
Lucy poked a nose outside the tradesman’s door while she waited for the kettle to whistle. It was a lovely fall day—the sky was a brilliant blue, but there was a nip in the air which made her close the door in a hurry. There had been quite a few unpleasant transactions at the step the past couple of months—and at the front door too—which Yates had handled with his usual aplomb. He really was a very fine butler who never batted an eyelash when presented with an irate bill-collector or Percy in a ruffled scarlet ballgown.
The clang of the knocker at the door above broke into her solitary reverie over her tea and second apple tart. Blast. If it was Victorina come for her brooch, she was too late. Lucy took another sip of tea and examined her painted nails. They were chipping, another sure sign of the destitution that was to follow if she did not accept Sir Simon’s protection. If he offered it.
After three minutes of excessive banging, the ensuing silence was deafening. She waited another five minutes to make her way upstairs with a pitcher of warm water for her ablutions. A sponge bath was better than nothing.
Mindful of the sloshing water, it was not until she collided with the giant at her bedroom door that she realized her defenses had been breached. She shrieked and tossed the pitcher and its contents at her trespasser. The nerve of these dunning leeches to break into and enter her home for some trifling debt!
Well, perhaps not trifling. Percy, and she by association, really were up the River Tick.
“Lucy Dalhousie!”
For the longest minute she just stared at the giant, her brown eyes wide. She hadn’t heard her own name in six years, and had been perfectly content to let Percy change it—what her parents had been thinking of she had no idea. Dellamar was so much more musical, so refined. When she found her voice, she croaked, “Simon Grant?”
“Sir Simon Keith now. The name Grant was too hot back then, so I enlisted in the army under my mother’s maiden name. I—I thought you were dead. Your aunt said—well, it doesn’t matter! I canna believe my eyes!” He was grinning rather idiotically, the babbling bounder, even as he drew out an expensive handkerchief and mopped the water away from his incredibly broad chest. “What are you doing here?”
“I l-live here.”
“Are you Miss Dellamar’s maid, then? I never pictured you in service, Luce. You were always such a fiery, spirited little thing.”
Little? Lucy now knew the true meaning of tongue-tied. She believed hers was in a French knot. She unraveled the knot just slightly.
“You are Sir Simon? The Sir Simon Percy—I mean Lord Ferguson has sold his house to?”
“The very same! I’ve risen up in the world quite a bit, Lucy. I came to tell you five years ago, but that aunt of yours told me you’d passed away. Did you run off? No one could blame you—she was a wicked old bit-bat.”
“I—” Lucy looked around the doorframe wildly. Tiny black spots floated in front of her eyes, quite distorting Simon’s handsome face. His bright blue eyes—the color of the sky she’d just observed a short while ago—his firm jaw, his white smile—he was grinning at her like a looby!—his broad shoulders clad in dark blue superfine—she slid to the floor in a faint. It seemed like the right thing to do while she gathered her far-flung wits about her.
Simon was alive.
Not in prison.
He had come for her five years ago.
He was a knight.
Impossible.
He was looking to set up a mistress.
Her!
“Come now, lass! I know it’s a shock, running into me like this.” His laughter boomed. “And you did run into me, no mistake. I’m sorry I scared you, love. Wake up, now.”
Lucy was not going to wake up. She wondered how long she could lie on the floor with her head in Simon’s lap before he called for a doctor.
He was loosening the belt on her robe, palming her forehead, pulling off the kerchief. Suddenly her head clunked on the floor.
“What’s this?” he growled. “Lucy Dalhousie, your hair!”
Lucy cracked open one eye. The man was standing over her, twirling a leaf in his hand.
“Uhhh,” she groaned. Her head truly did hurt, from the whiskey and the careless way Simon had stopped tending to her and dropped her.
That was just like him. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Gone for seven years with no word.
Staring at her as if she was a dead silkworm on a mulberry leaf.
She struggled to sit up. “I’m sorry my hair isn’t tidier. I wasna expecting company, especially you after thirteen years.”
“Surely Lord Ferguson told you I was coming.” His tone was icy now, and that dazzling smile had disappeared.
Lucy lifted her chin. “I cannot recall.”
“Oh, really? You cannot recall you had an appointment with the new man who was going to offer you another carte blanche?” His French accent was atrocious.
“Percy says a great deal of nonsense.”
“Percy, is it? You are not the maid here, are you, Lucy? No wonder your aunt said you were dead. Och! The shame of it!”
Lucy sprang to her feet and punched Sir Simon Keith in the chest, the third time she’d hit a man in the same spot in less than twenty-four hours. “Don’t you dare talk to me of shame! You were a thief! A liar! A seducer of innocents! I’ve only done what I had to do to survive.”
“Fuck that fop? Really, Lucy, I would think you’d have better taste than Lord Ferguson. There’s something off about him.”
Lucy bit her tongue and counted to ten. The nerve of him to accuse her of what she hadn’t been doing after all he’d done and planned to do! “The only thing ‘off’ about him is his inability to make wise investments! And now he’s given you this house in exchange for some pie-in-the-sky venture of yours. Did you tire of robbing people the old-fashioned way?”
“I am not a thief. Not anymore. I learned I could do something else with my hands besides pick pockets.”
“Bully for you,” Lucy grumbled. “I expect you’ll want me to clear out at once. Get out of my way so I can pack.”
He grabbed her arm. “Not so fast.” He gazed down at her, his blue eyes assessing. Lucy really wished she was not wearing her lumpy socks on her feet. Or had coal dust on her hands. Or whiskey on her breath.
“Where will you go?”
“Oh, what do you care? You left me once. Now I’m leaving you.”
He inched closer and Lucy stopped breathing. “Did you want to see me hang, Luce?”
“The world would no doubt be a much better place,” she replied tartly.
“I trust Napoleon agrees with you.”
“Napoleon! What does he have to do with all this?”
“I’ll tell you about it some time. In bed.”
Lucy stumbled backward. “I am not going to bed with you!”
“Just once. It might be nice to have you in an actual bed. For old times’ sake.”
“You are mad!”
Simon loomed over her. “A kiss then.”
“I have not brushed my teeth!” She swept her tongue over her teeth, dislodging a chunk of apple. She was not dressed for seduction. She did not smell like seduction. And if she knew anything about Simon Whateverhecalledhimselfnow, he would not settle for a single kiss. “Absolutely not! Unhand me, sirrah!”
“Och, you’ve been reading silly things, Luce. You sound like a heroine from a gothic novel.”
“What would someone as ignorant as you know about books?” she asked spitefully.
“You’d be surprised, lass, verra surprised. I’m a changed man, I am.”
“Hah,” Lucy snorted. But she had no chance to say anything else, because Simon chose that moment to silence her with a kiss.
Not just any kiss.
A kiss that shook her down to her nubby socks.
His mouth captured hers. His lips were w
arm, dry, and his tongue tasted of spearmint. He wielded that tongue like a weapon designed to vanquish her and anyone else who got in the way of what he wanted. Any thought she had of denying him entrance evaporated—the searing heat of his hands at her shoulders held her in place. Flames licked from his fingertips down her spine to the emptiness between her legs.
Lucy forgot about brushing her teeth or washing or tidying her hair. She stood rooted in her doorway, standing on the wet carpet, her breasts pressed against his damp waistcoat as he kissed and kissed and kissed her.
There might be another word for it, but Lucy couldn’t think. She could only do. She explored his mouth, shivering with cold and desire, her hands brushing against his tailored coat. He was so much bigger than he’d been—taller, heavier, stronger than the scrawny scarecrow boy she’d loved so. And his kiss was taller, heavier and stronger, too. He had been practicing.
Lucy found her courage and stomped on his boot with a wet-stockinged foot.
He pulled away, his face neatly arranged as if they’d done nothing more than shake hands. Lucy was sure her cheeks were on fire.
“You’ve improved some, I see,” he drawled.
“I was thinking the same of you, you rat.”
“I thought you were dead, Luce. What’s your excuse? Fell for the first rich lord who came by? Or is Ferguson just the latest of many?”
Lucy was so furious she couldn’t speak. And that was just as well. She’d promised Percy not to share his secret, and she had nothing to prove to Sir Simon Keith after what he’d put her through.
Revenge. She wanted it, a great, heaping portion of it. With cinnamon.
“Tell me, Simon, are you still a wanted man? I imagine the authorities in Edinburgh would like to get their hands on you, even after all these years, no matter what you call yourself now. You made fools out of all of them.”
He scowled down at her, and for a moment Lucy felt a frisson of fear.
“What are you saying, Lucy?”
“I’ll accept your carte blanche,” she said, mispronouncing it as he had. “I’ll live in this house and wear your clothes and entertain your friends and keep my mouth shut about your past. But you’ll not have me in your bed again, Simon, for all the money in the world. I’ll need some time to make other arrangements—three months should be sufficient.” She lifted her chin again and stared him straight into his narrowed blue eyes.
“Three months. And I suppose you’ll want money for your blackmail, too.”
This plan was so new to her, she hadn’t thought of that. “Of course.”
He shook his head. “You’ve grown to be a miserable bitch just like your auntie, haven’t you?”
“Quite.” She turned her face so he wouldn’t see her hurt.
Chapter 5
By God, she had bollocks. To think he’d keep a roof over her head without her getting under him. Or above him—he wasn’t particular at this point. He shifted so she wouldn’t see his cockstand. That kiss had been nothing like the hurried assaults they’d made on each other when they were kids.
Simon doubted seriously she meant to turn him in—the warrants out for his arrest must be tattered scraps by now. Surely the authorities had more to worry about than a skinny seventeen-year-old boy who stole to feed himself and his old gran over a dozen years ago.
He’d worked back then, too—anything he could get his hands on. Mended bridles at stables, hauled barrels of ale, ran errands for the local moneylender. One such ‘errand’ had been his undoing. He’d kept a little extra from the toff he’d had to persuade—not much, but enough to make his employer turn him in to the corrupt magistrate. And it hadn’t helped when he’d had to tie a sweet little old lady to a chair on his last job.
Simon became expendable. His bad judgment meant he was running from both the law and his boss, even if the sweet little old lady hadn’t pressed charges. He’d only been back to Scotland once—to find Lucy Dalhousie—for all the good it did him. England was his home now.
He was a new man—it was a new age with a new king, a time filled with the promise of industry, machinery, investment, invention. He had a different name, a different appearance. No one would connect the knighted, rich Sir Simon Keith with the impoverished boy he used to be.
Lucy had changed too. Oh, physically she still looked the same, all pale and slender, with her mermaid hair and bee-stung lips. Like a princess from a fairytale book or a medieval madonna. She used to be putty in his hands, a fact that had once thrilled his youthful pride. It seemed she had grown a backbone.
And she was a whore.
A badly dressed whore, in an old rumpled robe and ugly woolen stockings, with a smudge of soot on her nose. Percy Ferguson had truly fallen on bad times if this is how his mistress comported herself.
Simon imagined her in a copper bathtub, her hair unbound and floating on the surface of the water, her pink nipples hard peaks. He’d scrub the soot off and clean everywhere else personally and not mind a bit if she splashed him again.
Three months. Simon supposed he owed her that. It wasn’t so long. But long enough for him to get her where he wanted her again.
And to get her out of his system.
He couldn’t go on carrying a torch for a Jane Street courtesan.
“All right,” he said. He wouldn’t try to get her into his bed, but she’d said nothing about fucking anywhere else. It would be just like old times. He grinned.
She looked taken aback, her well-kissed lips wide open in surprise.
“I can’t have you looking like that when we meet with my investors next week,” Simon said, sweeping his eyes from her snarled hair and her wooly toes. “I hope Ferguson bought you some better clothes.”
“I have an elegant wardrobe,” she said haughtily. Damn but her chin kept lifting. Soon it would hit the ceiling.
“Good. I have an image to project. My mistress must be above reproach. And I’ll need new furniture immediately. Good china. Silver. See to it and put it on my account. I’ll write a letter of authorization for you.” He went to the little desk in the corner, hoped the spindly chair wouldn’t break under his weight, and began scratching away.
Again, she gawked at him. “You trust me to buy your furnishings?”
“Why not? You used to have aspirations to be a lady. Even when you had no money, you were nicely turned out.”
He watched as the blush stole over her cheeks at his praise. But it was true. Lucy always had good taste. She’d chosen him, hadn’t she?
“I’ll get my secretary to secure a household staff. A butler, a cook, a footman and two maids should be sufficient for a property this size. Maybe a kitchen boy.”
“That’s more than we had before.” He heard an odd gurgle behind him. “Wait a minute! Simon, you’re writing!”
He raised a brow. “I told you I was a changed man, Luce. I read too, but not the nonsense you keep in your parlor. Romances—pah!” he said in disgust.
“Someone deserves a happy ending! There’s little enough of that in the real world.”
Finishing his letter, he signed his name with an embellishment below, much better than the ‘X’ of the past. He scattered sand on the paper and pushed it toward her.
“This should give you entrée into the best shops. And I want the best, Luce. Doona be mingy.”
“I’ll be a total spendthrift. I shall enjoy spending your money for a change.”
She’d given him all her savings the last night he came to her, full of fear and promises. “I told you I’d pay you back those seventeen shillings, and I will.”
“With interest, if you please.”
“What a canny businesswoman you are. It’s a pity I cannot employ you in my railroad scheme.”
“I wouldn’t work for you for all the tea in China.”
“I prefer Indian, by the way. Please inform the cook. I’ll give you a list of my favorites so that when I visit, I’ll have what I want.”
Her blushes had disappeared. “W-when you visit
?”
“Did you think to be here all alone for the next three months, Luce?”
“I thought—you said you’d have parties for your business associates.”
“Aye, that I will. But a man in my position is expected to have a mistress. I’ve got to keep up appearances. Visit this house regularly.”
“Just like p-powerful men,” she muttered. “They’re all the same, leaving their wives and children behind, living a lie.”
“I’ve no wife or children. Not yet. And you’ll be happy to hear, I’m an honest dealer now. No shortcuts.” He pulled another sheet of paper from her short stack. “I suppose we should put our agreement in writing. I can get my solicitor to do up something more formal, but this is between us.”
Lucy folded her arms. She must be tired standing in the wet patch, as far away as she could get from him and still be in the room. “Write down I will have absolutely no sexual congress with you.”
Simon bit the end of the pen. “Hm. Would that include kissing? I canna see the harm in kissing, and it will be expected by our guests that you show me some affection.”
“I won’t have you shoving your tongue down my throat!”
“I believe that was your tongue down my throat earlier.”
She looked like she wanted to throw something. Simon hoped she wouldn’t remember the pitcher by her feet.
“If I’m to spend all this money on your food and lodging for the next three months, plus pay you off at the end of it, we need to make compromises,” he said reasonably. “I hardly think a little peck is going to pass for the lust I’m supposed to feel for my Jane Street mistress. Your breed is notorious, you know.”
“I am not—” She snapped her lips shut.
“Yes, I know. You won’t actually be my mistress. But we’ve got to make it look good. Real. I want to be the envy of every man I know.”
Improper Gentlemen Bundle with Touch of a Thief & Mistress By Mistake Page 67
