How Not to Chaperon a Lady--A sexy, funny Regency romance

by Virginia Heath

  To his horror she sang it. Just a phrase with the minimum effort, yet it still punched him in the gut.

  ‘If I do it properly, I feel the highest note here.’ Her fingers brushed the skin on the side of her neck beneath her ear. ‘Like goose pimples.’

  More inappropriate images skittered through his mind and he realised he had to change the subject again or she would likely kill him. ‘You missed breakfast.’ By about four hours. ‘You must be starving.’

  ‘Ravenous.’ She smiled, a little shyly, which was also unusual. The Charity he knew was never bashful or unsure about anything, yet as sublime as that confident version of her was, this one...perhaps the real one...did odd things to his heart. ‘Is it too soon for luncheon, do you suppose?’

  ‘I shall make sure that it isn’t.’ Griff stood, grateful for the excuse to escape her for a moment to compose himself while he ordered her a feast. Since their unplanned stop before Hatfield, and his unfortunate epiphany, he had been awkward around her and avoided her wherever possible for the sake of his own sanity. Hence he hadn’t been in the theatre last night when she had dashed out of it but had been pacing outside in two minds whether to join his sister in the audience or use his work as an excuse to back out of it altogether. ‘Go and relax and I’ll come and find you when it’s ready.’ And when he wasn’t feeling quite so aware of her in every possible way or so devastated that he could never act upon it.

  * * *

  He hadn’t expected her to still be in that cosy private dining room when he returned and was emotionally unprepared to see that she had moved to the chair next to his and was scrutinising his drawings. ‘What is this?’

  ‘A high-pressure steam engine. Hopefully one strong enough to run thirty power looms at speed simultaneously.’

  ‘Hopefully?’

  ‘There were a few flaws in the initial design which are proving to be annoyingly persistent to rectify.’

  ‘What sort of flaws?’

  ‘The boiler keeps exploding.’

  ‘It explodes!’ She looked horrified. ‘That sounds dangerous.’

  ‘Only if you’re within fifty feet of the flying shrapnel or indoors of course, where I dare say it could blow the roof off and bury you under several feet of raining rubble.’

  ‘Perhaps you need to cut your losses and go with a different design if that one isn’t working?’

  Griff shook his head. ‘Can’t. The designer is too stubborn.’

  ‘Then maybe it is time for a different designer too? One better at his job and not quite so set in his ways.’

  ‘Can’t do that either.’ Then he shrugged as he grinned, suddenly embarrassed. ‘Because the designer is me.’

  ‘Oh.’ She frowned then stared back at the complicated diagram rolled out on the table. ‘Oh... I never knew you were an inventor, Griff.’

  ‘I dabble here and there, usually where steam is involved.’

  ‘Because you enjoy explosions?’ She smiled, entirely without her usual artifice and he decided he preferred that smile too.

  ‘Because of the endless possibilities steam power could provide. It’s already revolutionised the mining and textile industries and they already power boats with it in America to great success. The possibilities are endless, and it isn’t only factories which will improve with such mechanisation. Agriculture could be improved with machines bearing the brunt of ploughing, harvesting or bailing. Mark my words, it won’t be long before steam replaces horses and allows us to travel faster too with locomotives travelling the length and breadth of the country on rails in a matter of hours instead of days.’ He was babbling and likely boring her senseless in the process.

  ‘Locomotives? Like the one at that ridiculous Steam Circus which came to Bloomsbury a few years ago? The one you dragged us all to the day before it flew off its rails and smashed to smithereens? It was a miracle nobody died that day! I cannot imagine any sane person choosing to travel on those filthy things over the safety and comfort of a well-sprung carriage.’

  ‘Even a well-sprung carriage will tip over if you drive it at full pelt around and around in a small circle.’ He was still annoyed at Richard Trevithick for showing off that way and dragging their cause of progress backwards. ‘There are other locomotives in use nowadays—for proper work rather than idle pleasure. A fellow called Stephenson built one last year which can shift thirty tons of coal from pit to canal in one go. And it’s been doing it day after day since last summer in Tyneside without incident.’ Perhaps it was her supreme skill at acting, but she seemed interested. ‘If they can carry coal safely, they can carry people. It’s the future, Charity, and one Philpot & Son Manufacturing will be spearheading if I have any say over it. Although to be fair to my father, who was sceptical at first, he is a convert now that we’ve seen sales of our steam-adapted machinery outsell the others two to one in the last couple of years.’

  ‘All your doing, I suppose?’

  He shrugged, not wanting to sound like a braggart. ‘It is important to move with the times. People were sceptical of steam-powered looms a few years ago, and now, since they have evolved all the northern mills are rapidly converting to them because they make sound financial sense. They weave faster, longer, more efficiently and more accurately than any human being could manage. Passenger locomotives will follow suit as soon as one bright spark designs one which doesn’t derail at speed. I suspect that is down to the wheels and the rails, not the engine.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you are attempting to build one of those too?’

  ‘I am sorely tempted.’ And he might already have a few hundred preliminary drawings stashed in his study that he pulled out from time to time and which he would work on seriously once he had convinced his father of the benefits. ‘But I need to build an actual locomotive before I can adapt it for passengers, and to do that, I need to find a businessman with deep pockets willing to take a punt on my designs because dear old Papa is still a draconian sceptic on that score. And I need to fix this power loom engine first, as all those designs hinge on that. But something is wrong with the layout of the pipes and valves, which I am damned if I can find—but I will. It’s just a matter of stripping it back to the place where it all went wrong, then rebuilding it again properly.’

  ‘If it’s broken, aren’t you tempted to just scrap it and start from scratch?’

  ‘And admit defeat?’ He shook his head in mock horror, making her laugh. ‘Out of the question. Where would the world be if the Egyptians hadn’t invented paper or the Romans hadn’t developed roads? If Archimedes hadn’t bothered with his screw or Gutenberg had given up on his printing press? You need to be tenacious in this game—even in the face of crushing failure—and remember that if the basic premise is sound, then no problem is unsolvable and no mistake unfixable.’

  ‘I sincerely doubt that. I’ve certainly encountered several unfixable problems.’

  ‘That’s likely because you saw the thing as a whole, which is always overwhelming. But the devil is always in the detail and once you put aside the whole and break it down into the component parts, you eventually find the single tiny piece that prevents success and you work on that. It might need a light tweak, it might need a complete rethink and rebuild, but if you persevere you will solve the puzzle.’

  ‘And how long do you persevere for?’

  ‘As long as it takes.’ He laughed at her perplexed expression, knowing that was an entirely unsatisfactory answer for someone who always lived life in a rush like Charity. ‘You just have to keep believing and plodding away at it.’

  ‘A stubborn dreamer and an inventor.’ She shook her head as she stared at him, obviously impressed. ‘You’ve kept that quiet, Griff. But then you have always been a closed book, haven’t you?’

  ‘Have I?’ It was odd that she thought of him that way because that wasn’t how he saw himself. ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, for a start
, I have known you since I was six years old, and it is only today and at the ripe old age of three and twenty, that I discover you can draw such complicated schematics and that you while away your hours designing steam engines. We have been confined in a carriage together this last week, and all that time I assumed you were totting up dull accounts, not doing this.’ She swept her hand over the piles of diagrams scattered across the tabletop.

  ‘You could have asked what I was doing. I would have happily told you.’ Or would he? He had always been self-conscious of his academic leanings around Charity, because they always seemed so staid up against her vivaciousness.

  ‘But we don’t do that, you and I, do we?’ She stared at him unblinking. ‘We never have.’

  ‘That’s likely my fault.’ It was all his fault because he had no idea how to cope with his feelings for her beyond avoidance. ‘I suppose I am a bit of a closed book.’

  ‘A bit?’ She laughed. ‘Getting anything out of you is like getting blood out of a stone. Most of the time I never know what you are thinking or feeling. To be frank, I don’t think anybody does.’

  Under the circumstances, he should have found that admission a huge relief because he worked hard to mask his inappropriate emotions all of the time. But now, after seeing an aspect of her he had been unaware existed, he wished she knew a bit more of the real him too. ‘I find discussing anything personal difficult. We men are expected to keep our emotions tightly in check and I suppose I practice that a little too literally.’

  ‘Yet you do disdain so very well, Griff.’ A dig he undoubtedly deserved because that was how his pent-up feelings for her always leaked out. ‘And all those things aside, we have never enjoyed the easy friendship that you have with both my sisters. Why is that, do you suppose?’

  His inappropriate feelings again and a veritable hornet’s nest which was best left undisturbed. ‘I suppose Faith and I are the same age and Hope is only a year younger. We naturally migrated towards one another when we first met as you did with Dottie.’

  ‘I think, if you ask Dorothy, she will confirm that we see that distinction quite differently, as we forged our friendship not because we were the same age but because we were excluded from yours. We were the annoying baby sisters that none of you wanted around. Or at least you never wanted us around. I always got on with my siblings like a house on fire when the only boy—Gruff Griffith Philpot the Fun Spoiler—wasn’t around.’

  ‘Is that what you used to call me?’

  ‘I still do. Sometimes. When you are being overbearing and vexatious.’ Her lovely eyes danced with mischief. ‘I suppose I shall have to re-evaluate that now I’ve finally discovered you are a hopeless dreamer with a decent side.’ Then she avoided his gaze, her fingers smoothing a tiny fold on one of his papers. ‘And on that score... I owe you a huge thank-you for last night, Griff. It would be remiss of me not to mention it no matter how much my stubborn pride might want to pretend it hadn’t happened. You saved the day and very likely my career too. I still cannot fathom what came over me but I am truly horrified that you had to see it.’

  It was odd. She might well be horrified that he had seen the cracks in her façade, but he felt privileged to have been allowed to. He also suspected few had ever seen that side of her. Perhaps not even his sister knew that the indomitable Charity Brookes harboured any doubts about anything. He was still reeling at the revelation. Humbled by the rare honour of witnessing it. ‘You floundered for a moment, that is all, but rallied immediately.’ There hadn’t been a single visible crack when she had walked on to the stage a scant few minutes later, and the determination and strength of character that must have taken staggered him and made him ridiculously proud. He wanted to tell her as much but didn’t.

  ‘I blame that silly corset you strapped yourself into entirely.’ The mere mention of that intimate garment reminded him of the sublime feel of her bare skin beneath his fingers and made his collar feel tight. ‘Those laces were done up so tight I doubt they allowed any blood to flow to your head. No wonder you had a wobble.’

  ‘And you are doing it again...being nice.’ She feigned an irritation which belied the sudden confusion in her gaze. ‘After seventeen years of being denied so much as the scraps from your table, Griff, it is most disconcerting. How am I supposed to thwart you at every juncture of this trip as I’d planned, if I finally start liking you?’

  ‘Have I been that bad?’

  ‘Do you remember that time we all went to Brighton? You had a brand-new kite...’

  ‘Because you had broken the old one.’

  Charity narrowed her eyes, smiling, but continued undaunted as he gingerly sat beside her. ‘I had just turned seven, I think, and was desperate to impress you. Do you remember how you decreed that you would only grant a turn to us each to fly it if you were paid in advance with a splendid shell for the honour? Faith, Hope and Dorothy all got several turns and with the most lacklustre shells to boot, yet each time I brought you one you declared it not quite good enough and sent me packing to fetch a better one. I scoured that beach for hours trying to find the perfect specimen so that I could play too, but you found a flaw in all of them and you never relented. Not once that entire weekend.’

  ‘In my defence, I was still scarred from the previous incident when I entrusted you with my precious old kite and you stomped on it in a fit of pique.’

  ‘That was an accident which you have never forgiven me for.’

  ‘An accident? Clearly your definition of the word and your memory of the event differs greatly from mine.’

  Before she could respond, the innkeeper knocked on the door and carried in a huge tray of food. Much too much for one, as he had ordered, and with two plates. Before he left them to it, and before Griff could decline the meal, Charity piled ham and cheese on both, handed him the butter knife then sawed off some bread.

  ‘Do you remember the plays Hope wrote which we put on for our parents each Christmas, Griff? Despite having no obvious theatrical talents, you always put yourself in charge of the productions because you used to say such a complex task was a man’s job, then when you divvied out the roles, you always gave me the minor parts with the worst costumes—the old crone, the town crier, the beggarman—part of the crowd in the distance.’ He had forgotten all that and her reminder did make him wince. ‘One year, you made me a tree, issued me with a bunch of paper leaves to hold and told me I had to stand as still as a statue for the duration as there was absolutely no breeze in the scene.’ She prodded him in the arm. ‘That was downright mean, Griff, and you knew it.’

  ‘Yes... I suppose it was.’ He had done his level best to curtail her and the profound effect she had on him, and all to no avail. ‘Yet as I recall it, you still stole the show anyway and had everyone in stitches with your ridiculous poses throughout my impassioned final soliloquy.’

  ‘It turned out there was a breeze that day. A gale in fact...’ She grinned, flashing her becoming dimples which his fingers suddenly itched to trace. ‘I had to get my revenge on you somehow for spoiling my fun.’ Then she popped a chunk of generously buttered bread into her mouth upon which she had balanced a perfectly cut cube of cheese, her blue eyes widening in pleasure at the taste because her zest for life and all its many wonders was never far from the surface.

  ‘You always stole the show as I recall. No matter how small the part. I knew at the time I should have given you the lead but churlishly refused to do so because an annoying little scrap of a girl had no right to be more talented at everything than a proud young man who was four years older.’ Had he already lost his heart to her then? Probably. And had likely behaved badly because of it as he would have reasoned that a wizened, mature and bookish ten-year-old had no place adoring a flamboyant baby of six.

  ‘Yet all these years later and I still annoy you. Or am I condemned for ever to be that little scrap of a girl in your decrepit old eyes?’

  If on
ly.

  Nowadays, those four years of difference seemed inconsequential and all his greedy, adult eyes saw was the seductive woman she had become. So he grinned and attempted humour, hoping those inappropriate and overwhelming feelings would soon go away for both their sakes and that he would continue to have the willpower not to act on them. ‘Sadly, I suspect you are doomed to be that scrap for ever, Charity.’

  ‘Then why did you kiss me, Griff?’

  The question came out of nowhere and it took all his strength not to outwardly show how flustered it made him. Better to dismiss it. To deny it. ‘I kissed you?’

  ‘You know you did. Last night...before I went onstage.’ Her index finger touched her lips, drawing his eyes there and reminding his body what it had felt like. ‘You kissed me and called me darling.’

  ‘If I did, then it was out of brotherly affection and concern for you in your hour of need.’ He shoved a big piece of ham in his mouth to save him from elaborating and did his best to play the part of man unperturbed, concentrating on his food. Hoping to convey that it had meant nothing and that he had absolutely no recollection of it, when he had done nothing but contemplate it since. Because a simple, quick kiss shouldn’t have such a profound effect and it certainly shouldn’t wield such intense power that he still felt the after-effects of it even now. As a veil of awkwardness descended, all entirely of his making, he forced himself to change the subject.

  ‘Do you remember the time you stitched the bottoms of each leg of all my breeches closed and before I realised it I fell over trying to wrench a pair on and cracked my head open on the bedstead?’ He lifted his hair to remind her of the scar on his forehead. ‘Three stitches as I recall and all completely unprovoked.’

  She laughed and offered him a guilty shrug. ‘Perhaps you weren’t the only mean one?’

  ‘There’s no “perhaps” about it, Charity. Because you always gave as good as you got. It was never a one-sided war. Not how I recall it anyway.’