“Why do you look so diverted?” he asked.
Her eyes flickered over his body in a way that sent blood rushing to his groin. “I was just thinking that Ajax was tall, strong, and fearless, so it was a perfect ship for you.”
For the first time in years Juss felt his face heat. Was that how she saw him? He knew he was a fine figure of a man, but he’d always thought that a woman like her—educated and refined, no matter that she’d fallen so far in the world—would view him as an unlettered behemoth. Her words were, well . . .
“Juss?”
“Ah, yes,” he temporized, scrambling for his wits. “I didn’t know it then, but we were headed for what is now called the Dardanelles Operation.”
She nodded. “Admiral Duckworth.”
“I’m surprised you heard of it.”
“Why? Because women don’t keep abreast of such matters?”
“Not at all, darling.” She jolted at the endearment and he grinned. “I only meant the operation was overshadowed by what was going on in the West.”
“Oh.” This time she was the one blushing.
“To make my already too long story shorter, we were waiting for the right wind to get up the Dardanelles when poor Ajax caught fire, ran aground, and blew up.”
She raised a hand to her mouth. “Were you injured?”
“Hardly a scratch,” he confessed. “Fortunately there were no fatalities. We were divided among the fleet and I made my way up toward Constantinople on the Canopus. As you know, not much of anything happened before Duckworth turned the fleet and headed back out. The second time through the straights we took heavy fire and something big—I never learned what—hit me in the head and knocked me overboard.”
She sucked in a noisy breath, her eyes wide.
“Do you want me to stop?” he teased. “It looks like you are—”
“Don’t you dare stop; this is better than an adventure novel.”
Juss had never seen her so open and enthusiastic. She’d never shown anything but a prim, judging, haughty face all those years ago. Had that been merely a defense? Was it true the servants had been after her from the start? He knew nothing about the female staff but the men had all been half-way smitten—himself included. Juss knew they hadn’t shown their admiration in a mature fashion, but had taunted and mocked. Recalling his role in all of that made him feel more than a little uncomfortable
“Juss?”
“Hmm?” He looked up from his thoughts to find her staring impatiently.
“What happened next?”
Ah, yes, his tale of woe.
“I was captured along with an officer from another ship. He’d sustained a serious hit and the Turks weren’t sure that one injured officer would be enough, so they kept the rest of us—two other swabbies like me—to use in trade. The wheels turned slowly and we were held in Constantinople for some months.”
“What was it like?”
Her expression was enrapt but he knew she wouldn’t like the truth—no normal human being would. Still, there were bits and pieces he could share.
“It was eye-opening,” he admitted truthfully. “They held the wounded officer elsewhere and kept the three of us in with a lot of other prisoners. I met men from all over.”
“I shall want to hear more about Constantinople later,” she told him hurriedly. “But I want to know the rest of your story just now.”
“When the time came, the Turks sent us back home on an English merchant ship.” Juss’s lips pulled up into a wry smile. “Luckily the captain was a kind man who dropped us off before he got to Portsmouth, where the pressgangs would have been waiting for us.”
“Surely they would not have preyed on men who’d already been prisoners?”
“Oh, they would prey on Prinny himself if he wandered down to the wrong docks,” he assured her. “But I escaped unscathed and received a piece of paper from His Majesty that made me more respectable than I’d been before my stint in gaol.”
The carriage slowed and he saw they were approaching The Three Sisters, a very busy posting inn.
“You can’t stop yet, Juss. You haven’t even begun to tell me how you made your fortune.”
Juss was flattered by her interest, but he wasn’t exactly eager to share the next part of the story. Luckily the vent slid open and Beekman saved him.
“Do you want to stop, sir?”
“Yes. I’m a bit peckish and we can see if anyone has word on the weather ahead.” It hadn’t snowed yet, but the sky was a menacing dark gray.
“Aye, sir.” And the vent slid shut.
She looked out the window and blinked. “We are already at Colnford. I’d no idea we’d gone so far.” Her cheeks tinted lightly and he knew she’d just realized her words might be taken to mean she’d been so diverted she hadn’t noticed time flying. “It must be this coach,” she added. “I’ve never been in one so well sprung.”
“Yes,” Juss agreed with a smile. “It must be the coach.”
Eight
They’d finished the sandwiches Juss had procured at the posting house and Oona was about to ask Juss to finish his fascinating story when he said, “I think it is your turn, now—just part of your story,” His big body was relaxed, his lips curled into a half-smile, and his posture insouciant.
“Aren’t you cold?” Oona asked, shivering beneath the three traveling robes she wore, in addition to the new hot bricks Juss had procured for her.
Juss smirked. “No diversionary tactics, Oona. Where are you from? Why did you become a governess? You can start with those questions.”
“I have to warn you that my life is considerably less exciting than yours.”
“I’ve been warned.”
She took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m from a very small town called Hexham, which I doubt you’ve ever heard of.”
“You are correct. Where is Hexham?”
“It is west of Newcastle, in the region of Hadrian’s Wall.”
“You do not have a northern accent.”
“No, my father was a retired Oxford don and he was most rigid about proper English. He was quite old when I was born—my mother was a good deal younger than him. She died giving birth, so it was just me and my father until I was seventeen, when he died rather suddenly after taking chill.”
“Did you have family to take you in?” he asked.
Oona chewed her lip, wondering how much to share.
He cocked his head. “Yes?”
He’d shared some painful details with her—didn’t she owe him something? Not about Edward, of course, but. . . .
“My mother was a prostitute when my father met her in Oxford.”
He blinked, but didn’t look disgusted.
“When she became pregnant, my father married her. Of course his family shunned him after that and she had no family.”
“He sounds like a good man.”
Tears prickled behind her eyes and she gave an abrupt nod. “He was—the best.” Oona pushed back her sadness and plunged onward. “But he was also very unworldly—at least when it came to money. A few years before he died he took out a mortgage on our cottage and gave the proceeds to one of his old acquaintances from Oxford who had some sort of scheme.”
“Let me guess,” he said grimly. “The scheme fell through.”
His look and tone made her feel defensive. “I know you are thinking he did not do a very good job of taking care of me.”
“Am I wrong?”
“Not entirely, but he made the investment because he knew that the cottage would not be enough—that I would have still needed to work.”
He said nothing.
Oona shrugged. “I was young, but my father had taught me well so I looked about for governess positions. Lord V-Venable was my first interview. At that time the viscount had been widowed six months and his children were desperately in need of care. He offered me the position right after we spoke and I accepted.” Naturally she turned a flaming shade of red just saying Edward’s name.<
br />
He frowned and leaned toward her, his gaze more piercing than usual. “Why are you blushing?” he asked. “Did he tamper with you—force himself on you?”
“What? No! No he never forced himself on me,” she retorted. “Why would you say such a thing?”
He snorted and gave a dismissive flick of his hand. “Go on. Why did you leave Compton Abbey?”
It had been so long since she’d heard the name spoken out loud—so very long since she’d even allowed herself to think it—that it took her breath away for a moment. She’d been foolish to have even begun telling him a story that held nothing but pain for her. Well, not just pain, there was Katie, of course. She bit her lip. This had been a mistake.
Make something up, the cool voice in her head ordered. You taught English composition, surely you can spin a creditable yarn?
Lie? Could she really just—
“Oona?”
The single word scattered her thoughts like a cat tossed among pigeons. Lord. Had her name ever sounded as good as it did on his tongue?
“I left to accept a position with a school friend.” She paused. “Let me retrace my steps a bit.” So that I might lie more effectively. “I’d attended a girls’ school in Oxford that was run by a friend of my father’s. After my father died they offered to allow me to spend my final year with them even though I didn’t have the tuition. I refused because I knew I would need to work and I might as well face my future sooner rather than later. My school friend was a year younger than me and in the same position. She’d taken a position at a newly opened academy which needed an English instructor and the position paid well.”
“So you simply pulled stumps and went to . . . ?”
“Bath, a town already blessed with its share of girls’ schools.”
“I take it by the fact you are in London the school did not prosper.”
“No. It closed two years ago after the owner died suddenly and her niece, who inherited the school, shut it down without even finishing out the term. So then I was without a reference, except for Lord Venable’s, which was too old to be of any use to most employers.” It was a tangle of lies, but there was nothing she could do to make it any better at this point.
“I see.”
Oona knew what he was thinking—he was wondering about what she’d so foolishly told him in a fit of confusion and anger: that she was a fallen woman with no references. Why had she ever said that?
Because your tender feminine wits were scrambled by his distracting masculinity.
Oona scowled at the taunting voice.
“Ah, our luck has run out, it seems.”
She looked up from her mental chaos to see that he was staring out the window.
“Snow,” she said foolishly.
He nodded, the corners of his full lips turned down.
Oona took the rare opportunity to study his face without having to bear the brunt of his burning gaze. He was unfairly handsome. Even the wrinkles and lines and few gray hairs served to make him more attractive—distinguished, even. Something she never would have believed he could look when she thought back to him as a younger man. Oh, he’d been handsome, but there’d been nothing distinguished about it. It had been raw sensuality that he’d emanated a decade earlier.
He turned and caught her staring and the grim set of his jaw softened into his mocking half-smile.
“What will we do?” she asked in a breathy voice when it seemed he was contented to stare at her.
He pulled out a gold pocket watch. “It is barely three o’clock. We shall press on for a while and see how things are.” He looked at her and smiled. “Was the job you had with LeMonde your first in London?”
Oona frowned at the change in subject but could see by his expression he’d not be diverted.
“No. I had a teaching position in a household where the master and mistress were willing to believe my tale of woe about the school and pleased to have me because I’d taught for a peer, no matter how many years ago.” That, at least, was the truth.
“Ah. A Cit, I take it?”
“That is not a word I would use.”
He grinned at her chastising tone. “Go on.”
“To make a long, dull, story shorter,” she said, paraphrasing his words, “the lady of the house came to believe I had designs on her husband. And her son.”
His face hardened into an expression of disgust that gutted her and Oona dropped her gaze to his feet, her face burning. Why had she thought he would look any different?
“Let me guess,” he said, “They both chased you around their vulgar Cit house and became angry when you rebuffed their advances?”
Her head whipped up.
“What?” he said.
“It’s just—well, I’m surprised. The woman at the employment agency didn’t believe me.” It had been worse than disbelief: it had been scorn.
Juss snorted. “Come, come, Oona—we were both servants together.” He scorched a trail of heat across her with his hot eyes “I know what it is like for servants—especially female servants—and their masters.”
The words hung between them and he held her captive with the intensity of his gaze, his expression . . . knowing.
The question was, just what did he know?
∞∞∞
Juss left the matter of masters and female servants alone for the moment, afraid he’d not be able to keep a civil tongue on the matter. So they rode in silence, both of them consumed by their own thoughts.
It was perhaps a half hour later when the vaults of heaven opened and the scene outside the window became a solid white.
“My goodness,” she said softly.
“Indeed.”
Beekman opened the vent. “I can’t see a thing, sir.”
“That was Anston a ways back, wasn’t it?”
“Aye.”
“Then we can’t be far from Falk Hill.”
“We may ‘ave just passed it—should I turn around?”
“That would be a bloody trick right now, wouldn’t it,” Juss demanded. “Even if we could manage it, what if somebody else came barreling along while we were stretched across the road?”
“All right, all right, guv. What then?”
“Keep on, but more slowly. Stop if you see anything decent, even a farmhouse.”
“Aye, sir.” The vent slid shut.
Blast and damn and bloody hell!
Juss looked up to find the woman staring at him, her expression. . .
“You’re enjoying this,” he said in amazement.
Her delicate pink lips curved into a grin. “Well, it is rather exciting to be traveling in a blizzard.”
He snorted. “Let’s hope you find it exciting when we are freezing to death in a snow drift.”
“It is one of the oldest roads in Britain, surely we’ll have no trouble finding shelter.”
But forty-five minutes later, when the carriage had slowed to a crawl and the last of the daylight had drained away, she did not look so excited. Instead her smile had disappeared and her smooth brow was deeply furrowed. Juss felt like a brute for what he’d said earlier.
“Oona?”
She wrenched her worried gaze away from the window.
“Don’t panic yet,” he teased gently. “Somebody once told me this is one of the most ancient roads in Britain.”
Her lips twitched into a faint smile.
The vent slid open. “There’s a light just up ahead—but it seems to be moving.”
“Moving? Good God,” Juss muttered. “Well, you’d better give it a look—it could be some poor dumb bas—” Juss glanced at Oona. “Er, it could be another traveler who is lost.”
“Aye, guv.”
“Do you really think it is somebody lost in this storm?” she asked once the vent had closed.
“I don’t know,” Juss said. “But I’m guessing we’re about to find out.”
Nine
It was somebody out in the blizzard, but they were not lost.
“He’s looking for what?” Juss asked again, just to make sure he’d heard correctly.
“Er, ‘e’s lookin’ for ‘is cat, sir,” Beekman said, his tone of disgust communicating his thoughts on the matter.
They’d turned off the main road to follow the light—a man with a lantern—a short distance down a branch road and it would be impossible to turn back at this point.
“’E says ‘is ‘ouse is just ahead, sir. A small farm, but we’re welcome to stay.” He hesitated and then added. “’Is name is Jonathan Cantrell and ‘is wife’s name is Mary. ’E seems like the a right ‘un, guv.”
Juss nodded. “All right. Tell Charles to take the rear coach lantern and help the man find his cat—and that you and I will come help them once we’ve settled the horses.”
Juss would have helped the man find his bloody cat right now—it was the least he could do for an offer of shelter—if he’d not had Oona with him, but he hardly wanted to send her into an unknown house alone.
“Aye, guv.” Beekman trudged off and Juss pulled up the window.
“He must be a nice man if he is out in this searching for a cat.”
Juss snorted. “Or perhaps he’s just crazy.”
Her chuckle was unexpected. “Have you never had a pet?”
“No.”
“That is very sad,” she said with exaggerated pity.
“Are you mocking me, Miss Parker?”
“Perhaps a little.”
“Did you ever have a pet?”
The carriage started moving and she settled back in her seat, the pile of rugs on top of her barely shifting.
She gave him an assessing look. “Well, sort of.”
“A sort of pet?”
“You aren’t allowed to tease.”
“Oh? But I do it so well.”
“Yes, I know.”
The atmosphere in the carriage was suddenly charged, like the air before an electrical storm. Because Juss had lighted both lamps in the carriage an hour before he saw her pupils flare. Predictably, his body responded to her involuntary sign of desire, the blood rushing south, a wave of warmth flooding him.
Christ. It would be a bloody miracle if he managed to keep his hands off her.
A Second Chance for Love: A Bachelors of Bond Street Novella Page 5
