Along Came a Lady

by Christi Caldwell

  “Trout,” the miner provided, with a little blush on his coal-stained cheeks.

  A blush proved safer and warmer than the usual glower she was met with from villagers. Edwina’s smile widened.

  Mr. Audley, however, leveled a scowl to silence the lad, who immediately directed his stare at the ground.

  Hmph. Well, she had no intention of letting Mr. Audley off that easily. Every moment was a teachable moment, and this one had a good deal to learn. “It would generally help for clarity’s sake in terms of conversation,” she went on to clarify for the uncouth gent, “if you addressed the person to whom you are speaking. In this case, the subject being me. Therefore, other parties needn’t be confused as to who is the intended recipient of a particular query.” When he continued to stare blankly back, she patted him reassuringly on the forearm, the way she did her young female charges. Alas . . . none of her female charges felt like he did. Shoving off that wicked observation, she drew her palm back and smiled at him. “Worry not. We shall work on that later.” She made a mental note to add that detail to her book after they began their journey back. She’d be starting with the very basics with this one and earning every penny of her two thousand pounds.

  Wordlessly, the miner backed slowly away.

  Her smile dissolved into a frown. “Tsk. Tsk. And here I believe you’ve gone and scared the young man, Mr. Audley. That’s hardly appropriate, either.” They would work on that in the future, as well.

  Mr. Audley’s dark brows came shooting together, and his jaw went slack. “Who the hell are you?” he whispered.

  Edwina offered her now mud-stained palm. “As I said, you may call me Miss Dalrymple.” She flashed her most winning smile. “And I’ve come at the behest of His Grace, the Duke of Bentley.”

  Chapter 4

  There’d been, in total, five men sent to retrieve him.

  And that was only counting the ones who’d secured a face-to-face meeting with him. There’d been an additional four who’d not persisted beyond a knock at his door, before scurrying off with their tails tucked in terror between their legs at the threats he’d hurled.

  Three of those who had persisted hadn’t needed anything more than an inventive threat to also be sent scurrying off with their tails drooping below their cowardly arses.

  Two, he’d planted a facer on.

  All five had been males.

  This . . . this was a first, a damned female showing up here.

  And though there’d be no violence for the tiny thing, the answer would also remain the same: “Get the hell out,” he said, clipping that utterance past clenched teeth. He started past her.

  Beaming brighter than the Cornwall sun, the lady stepped in front of him, blocking his escape. “Ah, but we’re already outside. Might I suggest we meet somewhere more—”

  “No.” Rafe took a wide step around her, and headed back to his work.

  “Private,” she called, her incessantly bell-like voice managing to rise above the machinery.

  He took longer strides, hoping that increasing the space between them would serve as both an answer and the deterrent that had until now failed.

  Alas, she proved bolder and braver—or mayhap stupider—than her predecessors. “Yoo-Hoo! Mr. Audley! Mr. Audddley.”

  He briefly closed his eyes and turned to face her.

  Some five paces back, eyeing the ground as she went, the lady moved at a decidedly more cautious pace than when she’d gone hurtling toward an open mine hole moments ago. When she reached him, she was slightly out of breath, her painfully pale cheeks splotched with color from her exertions. And through it, she wore that same noxious grin.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Our meeting,” she began.

  “We don’t have a meeting.” He had work, and he’d already allowed her more time than all the other duke’s lackeys who’d come before her, combined.

  “Precisely.” The lady proceeded to dig around that garish golden valise on her arm. She immediately produced her tiny nub of a charcoal pencil and notebook. “I was thinking we might agree upon a time—”

  “Audley,” Tabbot called, “are you still intending to check the bell pits?”

  “Damn it, Tabbot. Yes.” He lifted a hand. “I’ll be there.”

  “A time that is agreeable for both of us.” Miss Dalrymple spoke loud enough to be heard over that interruption.

  This had gone on long enough. All the patience he’d shown her, he’d done so because she was a female and he wasn’t a bully. Because he hated bullies. But as much as he hated bullies, he equally hated presumptuous people who thought they could command him. Rafe removed his hat and used the top of it to wipe the sweat off his brow. “How about high noon.”

  Those dimples and slightly crooked smile were firmly back in place. “Splendid. As the duke is currently my only client, I’ve wide availability within my schedule. If you can tell me which day you’ve in mind. The sooner, rather than the later, would be immensely preferable . . . As we will need to begin the journey on to London.” She proceeded to rattle off a megrim-inducing explanation as to why it would be better to leave sooner.

  Wait. She . . . Even with all this . . . she thought he was leaving with her? It was decided. The lady wasn’t brave. She was damned stupid. There was no else accounting for this . . . this . . . cheerful optimism and confidence.

  “. . . of course the sooner we meet to go over the terms of . . .” she was saying.

  That was really enough. Rafe stuck his face close to hers. “How about high noon on never.”

  That managed to silence the garrulous chatterbox. The lady’s plump mouth tensed with her displeasure. Any quiet, however, proved short-lived. “That is rude.” Almost instantly, the lady’s usual smile chased off the frown. “We shall just add that to your lessons.”

  “My . . .”

  “Lessons. We can talk about that more later.”

  He stood there, his brain blank.

  The young lady sighed. “Le-ss-ons.” Miss Dalrymple used the tip of her parasol to punctuate each of those elongated syllables. “As in a section into which a course of study is divided, especially a single, continuous session of formal instruction in a subject . . . something that is to be learned or studied . . . a useful piece of practical wisdom acquired by experience or—”

  “I know what a damned lesson is,” he thundered when it appeared there was no end in sight to her laundry list of definitions.

  “Audley!” Tabbot called for a second time.

  Rafe shot a hand up. “Goddamn it, I said I’m coming.”

  The chit jumped several inches in the air.

  Her wariness proved as short as her common sense. She patted her notebook. “I’ll also add a session on ‘proper tone and not yelling’ and taking the Lord’s name in vain,” she said, in that nauseating cheer-filled voice. All the while, she continued to scribble away at that little leather book; her hand flew across the page as she wrote with a grand flourish.

  After she finished, she read through her notes and gave a pleased nod. She packed them away, then looked up at Rafe.

  She smiled. “You were saying?”

  It was deliberate. There was nothing else to explain . . . any of this. His patience snapped. “I wasn’t saying anything,” he bellowed. Whatever this was? It was officially at an end. He marched toward her, and she backed away as he did. “I do not know who you are.”

  “I told you, my name is—”

  “And I care even less about who you are. All I know is you were sent by the duke, and that’s reason enough to have no dealings with you. So I suggest you take your pretty self off before you find yourself hurt.”

  As if on cue, the lady’s foot snagged on an uneven patch, and for the second time in their very short acquaintance, she lost her footing. Dropping that parasol once more, she emitted a birdlike chirp and gr
abbed for Rafe. Even as he wrapped an arm about her painfully thin frame to keep her upright, her fingers were already curling in his shirt front.

  Pressed against him as she was, he felt all of her. What there was to feel . . .

  Her hips trim, her waist even trimmer, and her breasts small. She was also narrower, gaunter, and sharper than anything he preferred in a woman.

  The young lady gripped him tight, her flawless, manicured nails leaving little crescents upon his chest. Her round eyes grew impossibly rounder, and instead of pulling away her palms clenched and unclenched.

  He flashed a wolfish smile, and for the first time since she’d arrived, he began enjoying himself. “Now, that I might oblige, princess.”

  She gasped and pushed herself away from him. “Mr. Audley! I’ll not tolerate your boorishness.”

  “And you don’t have to,” he whispered against her ear, and immediately went stock-still. For the scent of her also wasn’t like anything of the women he knew or kept company with. She had the sweet smell of different flowers he couldn’t place, all melded into that untamed, fragrant garden he walked past every day on his way to and from the mines. The scent of her as pure and cleansing, and— He quickly set her away. “We’re done here. You can go back and tell your duke I’d sooner spend a summer’s day in hell than join you or him. Now get the hell out so I can go back to my work.”

  “I’m not leaving, Mr. Audley,” she insisted, hurrying to keep up. There was a resolute set to her faintly sharp jaw. “I will sit here as long as I must.”

  His second-in-command looked Rafe’s way, and Rafe lifted his hand in acknowledgment. “Find yourself a good seat, then, princess. I’ll not be around a third time to save you from getting yourself killed.” And with that warning, she was free to take her leave, and he rejoined his crew.

  “What the hell was that about?” Tabbot asked the moment Rafe finally reached him. They’d begun working together in these very mines when they were boys, and there wasn’t a person he trusted more. But neither did Rafe intend to get into an irrelevant discussion about his latest unwanted visitor.

  “London nonsense,” he said, with the shortness meant to discourage any further questioning. That’s really all it was, anyway. Some old lord with regrets about how he’d lived—or not lived—his life wasn’t Rafe’s problem. And neither were the fools who took on the duke’s assignments. “Are we in position for the inspection?” he asked, immediately putting the young woman from his mind.

  “Everyone is set.”

  They’d just been waiting on Rafe. It was how mines were run, with all the men, women, and children deferring to the foreman. As he hastened to join the assembled inspection crew, he set his jaw with annoyance. Rafe hadn’t been and wasn’t one who took advantage of his authority. He respected his workers, and more, he respected their time. Because every miner knew how precious each moment was. And how perilous it was, wasting any of it. The princess showing up today didn’t have respect for any of that. All she knew was whatever assignments had brought her here and her allegiance to a cold-hearted duke. And Rafe had permitted her entirely too much time. They’d both put his crew at risk.

  Rafe and Tabbot reached the six men at the vertical shaft.

  He nodded to Austel, who stood at the ready. “I want any deficiencies noted. Any weaknesses . . . no matter how slight,” he instructed.

  “Aye.”

  With that, Austel, with the help of the crew in position, began his descent.

  “Sparrow know about this?” Tabbot asked quietly for Rafe’s ears alone.

  He frowned, all his attention tunneled on the operation. That shaft allowed them to mine for the coal in the most shallow seam. The bell pit could only be used as long as the roof was secure and proper ventilation ensured. Hell no, Sparrow didn’t know. As much had been evidenced that morning, when he’d squabbled with Rafe’s brother over payment, and then had ended up issuing it in tokens. Paid Hunter in tokens. Rafe hedged for the other man. “Sparrow doesn’t need to know about the details that go into day-to-day operations. He gets his money. And that’s all that matters.”

  “Aye. To him. That’s why I trust he wouldn’t approve of another inspection.”

  No, he certainly wouldn’t. Most owners and foremen didn’t bother with regular inspections. They were content to let those structures collapse and lose whatever workers were unlucky enough to be mining on those days. But when Sparrow wasn’t counting his coins, he was drinking, and by the slurring of his speech earlier that day, Rafe could squeeze in another inspection without answering for it.

  Tabbot snorted. “You’re going to get yourself sacked one day.”

  The hell he would. Rafe was too good at what he did. “I bring Sparrow too much money for him to replace me, and he knows it,” he said, folding his arms and watching as the levers continued to roll, indicating Austel’s ten-meter descent continued.

  Nearly thirty minutes later, Rafe stood with his arms folded beside his second-in-command, waited while the operation was carried out.

  “Who is your fancy guest?”

  His fancy guest?

  “The bird,” Tabbot clarified.

  “The what?” Rafe asked, not taking his focus off the ground. From the corner of his eye, he caught Tabbot nudge his chin. He followed his stare over and blanched. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Not only had the bird remained but she’d perched herself right in the thicket of the mining activity. All around her, children and women pushed wheelbarrows. Men hefted equipment from one place to the next. Through it, she sat with her umbrella perched against her left shoulder, a perfect shield above her, while she wrote in that notebook with her right hand.

  “Not your usual type,” Tabbot jibed.

  “Go to hell,” he muttered. But then, maybe the duke’s emissary having cornered him and refusing to leave was hell. “She’s not my concern.”

  “She’s going to get herself killed, there. Or break something.”

  Neither of which would be his fault; that chit had taken it into her stubborn head to gainsay the orders and warnings he’d already given her numerous times. “She’s not my responsibility.” Ironically, she would have it so that he was hers.

  As he worked, Rafe refused to look the lady’s way.

  Tabbot continued stealing glances at the princess. “It still would be a shame if something happened to a pretty thing like her.”

  He frowned. A pretty thing like her . . . ? “Be quiet, and do your damned—”

  A god-awful screech went up, and his gaze immediately went flying across the muddy, open space toward her. Of course it was toward her. At some point she’d abandoned her place on the makeshift bench, and she went sprawling face forward, landing on her stomach in an enormous puddle of mud.

  “Goddamn it. Finish up here,” he ordered, not even waiting for Tabbot’s acknowledgment, and took off flying toward the damned princess.

  Ten-year-old Abby stood beside Miss Dalrymple. “Think she drowned, sir,” the girl whispered, her eyes huge circles.

  Reaching forward, Rafe fished the young woman out.

  She emerged sputtering and spitting mud from her mouth as she did. The puddle had caked her face in black soil. The lady frantically swatted the equally damp, dark strands of auburn hair that blocked her vision.

  He expected one such as her to dissolve into a watering pot. If the stubborn minx hadn’t been driven off before, this would surely do it.

  She rubbed her fists against her eyes in a futile bid to clean them.

  Rafe had mercy on her. Reaching inside his pocket, he pulled out a kerchief and jammed it into her fist. “Here.”

  “Thank you,” she said with all the aplomb of one who was accepting tea from the queen . . . an impressive feat, given the fact she was covered from her “pretty little head,” as Tabbot had referred to it . . . to the bottom of her
toes. Her slipper-encased toes. What a damned fool.

  “What in hell were you doing?” he bellowed, cursing and then promptly catching the lady, still fully engrossed in wiping her face, as she walked, nearly falling over the same log that had taken her down in the first place.

  When she lowered his kerchief, instead of the expected and requisite fear in her expressive hazel eyes, there was a horrifying amount of awe and appreciation. Rafe found himself squirming under that unwanted attention. The lady turned a blindingly bright, even white smile on him. “You saved me yet again, Mr. Audley.”

  Why was he destined to be wrong where this woman was concerned?

  Her already impossibly wide smile grew wider. “There is hope for you yet. Not that I ever doubted it. You are after all a—”

  “Do not say it.” He let that whisper hiss from between his teeth.

  The concession she made was a whisper. “A duke’s son.”

  A loud whisper.

  He swiped a hand over his face.

  Around them, a crowd had begun to form. “She’s fine,” he barked. “As you were.” The miners immediately dispelled, bustling about with whatever work they’d temporarily put on hold because of her . . .

  He swiveled his gaze back to her. Sharpening a glower on her. The lady didn’t have a lick of proper fear. She continued to look up at him, still with that puppy dog expression. “On your feet, now,” he clipped out. Rafe gripped her painfully trim waist and saw to the task himself. “In my office.”

  Curiosity chased away the earlier adoration. “Indeed? You have an office here?” Recovering her parasol, she popped it open; the edge of that silly scrap caught his nose. The lady proceeded to search the mining yard.