Along Came a Lady

by Christi Caldwell

  “Tell me, have you ever donned quality shoes, Mr. Audley?” She looked pointedly down at the tattered, mud-stained articles he wore on his feet. “For, if you did, you’d know there was nothing more glorious than sliding your foot into an expertly crafted article, made of the highest quality.”

  Mr. Audley glanced up her way, a wry grin on his hard lips. “Then you don’t know what glory is, princess.” He winked, and with that scoundrel’s flutter to his black lashes, there could be absolutely no doubting the double meaning to his words.

  She gasped, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. “Mr. Audley!”

  She opened her mouth to school him on the importance of proper dress but thought better of it. With his reticence, he’d already revealed his nervousness about claiming his rightful place among the ton. She didn’t wish to spook him any more than she already had.

  As such, she remained quiet as he returned his attention to her injury. “You’ve my assurance that the only thing less enticing than a right foot is the left one.” Edwina leaned over and stared at her feet. Yes, he was correct on that score. There was hardly anything less interesting or appealing . . . than a foot. “Well?” he asked impatiently.

  She gave a reluctant nod.

  Ever so delicately he prodded the inseam of her arch up to the overly sensitive sole of her foot, earning a breathless laugh; she had to bite her lip to keep it in.

  The silk stockings she wore were no barrier. Instead, that soft, thin fabric only heightened the most delicious tingles that left her nerve endings confused as to whether to elicit a sigh or giggle from her.

  And then, ever so slowly, he curled his fingers around her foot, enveloping it in a gentle, almost reflexive caress. The hum of the quiet thundered in her ears; that sound of silence only added to a heightened awareness of the slightly harsh quality of his breathing, and hers.

  Hers as it came in little, uneven spurts.

  Which was . . . of course . . . impossible. Because he’d been abundantly clear that feet were not seductive or tempting, and yet if that was the case, why was his thumb even now stroking that slight indentation where her foot met her ankle? And why was her heart racing all the harder for it?

  It’s simply because he is a stranger holding your foot in his hand. Not because she liked the feel of it. At all. That wouldn’t be proper.

  Conversation, as she taught her charges, was the great equalizer of tumultuous emotion. “Do you have some training as a doctor, then?” she asked, as he continued his examination of her leg.

  “Not a day,” he said gruffly, directing his words to the place where her ankle met her foot. “Rotate your ankle. Slowly,” he cautioned.

  Edwina carefully turned her foot, to the right, so that her toes pointed at the door. Then she rolled it back the other way. Tingles raced up from where he touched her, and she bit her lip to keep from sighing.

  “Any pain?”

  It was hard to turn her focus away from the pleasure. She shook her head. Before recalling that he couldn’t see her, that he was firmly focused on her foot. “None.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Some.” Also, when he held it as he did, in that strong, calloused grip, it was hard to concentrate on anything beyond his touch.

  Someday . . . someday you shall find a man whose touch makes you forget your name . . .

  She recoiled as that long-ago warning her mother had given her came roaring into her ears.

  Mr. Audley looked up. “That hurt?”

  “Yes,” she blurted out. It hadn’t. Not really. Her mind, however, was all muddled recalling her late mother’s teasing, a mother who had insisted that Edwina would fall as hard and fast and as deeply and completely as she herself had for the Marquess of Rochester. “Some. Not a lot.” Guilt at lying made her rush to reassure him. “Just the teeniest bit.” To demonstrate her point, she lifted her thumb and forefinger, and held them apart the tiniest fraction.

  Mr. Audley eyed her as though she had gone mad.

  And perhaps she had, because Edwina had been so very convinced she wouldn’t ever be so aware of any man. “It is just when you touch it,” she finished weakly, the closest thing to the truth. When he extended his search, higher up her leg, Edwina’s heart raced faster, and she directed her eyes at the ceiling. “You’ve had no training, and yet you know so very much about breaks and sprains, Mr. Audley?”

  “I do.”

  That was it.

  Goodness, he was brusque. That would hardly serve him well when he was attending dinner parties and other formal affairs. There was always room for a lesson. This moment proved no exception. “The discourse in which you engage is helpful in diffusing tension other people may feel in your presence.”

  “I don’t much care if people feel tense in my presence,” he said coolly.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Even with his head bent, she caught the lines that creased his high brow before several loose strands tumbled across it, concealing them.

  “It is just that I cannot see the benefits of relishing another person’s discomfort.” And if he carries that mentality with him to a London Season, the only resulting outcome would be cold shoulders and gossip.

  At last, he finally shifted all his attention away from her leg and up so that his eyes met hers. “It has nothing to do with relishing a person’s discomfort. And it has everything to do with not caring what other people think, because I don’t have the time for it.” He nudged his chin pointedly at her throbbing foot. His meaning was clear.

  He wanted to get back to tending her, and did not care much either way whether she was comfortable or uncomfortable.

  This time, when he went to collect her foot, she angled it to the right and just out of his reach. “But I’m not at ease,” she said.

  “And that matters?”

  “Yes, I rather think it does. It certainly matters to me, and you should be gent—” She abruptly stopped herself from completing that word. Because for whatever reason, he delighted in thinking of himself as anything but. “—generally one who doesn’t wish to make people uncomfortable.”

  Mr. Audley growled, not unlike that enormous black bear her mother had once taken her to visit at the Royal Menagerie. Strange, how that ruthless, ferocious-looking creature should have scared her less than the living, breathing human before her.

  “If I answer you, will you let me get back to it?” he demanded.

  Edwina nodded sagely. “Oh, absolutely. You have my word.”

  “Anything I know comes from helping any miners who’ve been hurt working.”

  And then as he returned to tending her injured foot, Edwina’s heart did somersaults all over again, for altogether different reasons. “You take care of them, then,” she said softly, as with that curt explanation he revealed so much . . . about himself and more, his character.

  Ruddy color splotched his cheeks. Near as he was, she felt his entire body tense and stiffen as he turned a dark scowl on her. “You’re not one for keeping your word, are you?”

  She smiled widely. “Ah, just the opposite. I am very much one who honors my word. You asked if I would allow you to ‘get back to it,’ and I assured you I would. Which I have. Which you were, until you stopped this time to quiz me.”

  Chapter 6

  In his years working deep under the grounds of Mr. Sparrow’s mines, Rafe had found himself caught in a cave-in. Twice.

  He’d had the rungs of his ladder collapse, which had sent him tumbling deeper into the mine, requiring an entire team to extract him. And then, only days later, there’d been the explosion when such a thick, black cloud of smoke had filled the air, making it impossible for a man to see his hand held directly in front of his face.

  Never, in any and all of those circumstances, had Rafe ever been as turned around as he was just then by the always-smiling Miss Dalrymple.

 
Miss Edwina Dalrymple with her dimpled cheeks and given to laughs and giggles and smiles

  Which was just one of the reasons she’d turned him upside down.

  Her endless stream of chatter.

  Her nauseatingly cheerful disposition.

  And then, there was also . . . her foot. A part of the lady’s body that he’d been absolutely certain, before her, was neither enticing nor seductive. In fact, he’d been so confident of it, he’d given her assurances that had previously been true about that appendage.

  Only to be proven wrong.

  In fairness, he’d never felt a foot like hers. One clad in silk and soft against his coal-stained palms.

  Suddenly, it seemed essential to get this over and done with so he could send her away, and never again think about the chatterbox and her sexy foot.

  “Yea, I take care of them,” Rafe finally said when she continued to stare at him with those wide, hazel doe-eyes.

  Resting her elbow atop her knee, she dropped her chin in her hand . . . and sighed. “That is very heroic of you. And gentlemanly,” she added softly.

  And in another show of firsts that day, his cheeks went hot. My God, he was . . . blushing? It was fortunate not a single other miner was about, because all of Rafe’s authority would be lost, and for just cause—showing any weakness because of some lady from Town was grounds for dismissal. “You’re wrong.” Rafe kept his tone curt and cold to dissuade and discourage any further nonsense. “In fact, you’re making more of it than it is, princess.” Which was no doubt an attempt on the lady’s part to lessen the unease she’d spoken of feeling around him a short while ago. And that strategy appeared to be working.

  “I don’t think I am.” Straightening, Miss Dalrymple beamed. “Quite the opposite. In fact, one might say I am very rarely wrong. Very rarely.”

  He snorted. He’d known her just under an hour, and would stake his future as foreman that nothing could be further from the truth.

  “I shall ignore that, Mr. Audley, as I suspect you are less than comfortable with any praise directed your way. Furthermore, I also suspect that you would prefer it if myself and others took you as an unfeeling beast. But you’re not. I’m quite certain of it.”

  And by the steady conviction in that pronouncement, the ninny believed it.

  “Do you want to know the truth?” When she went to answer that rhetorical question, he glared her into silence. And miracle of miracles, she didn’t continue with her prattling. “Injured men, women, and children are unproductive men, women, and children. Miners who aren’t working aren’t pulling their load. Which means money isn’t being earned. Which means my role as foreman is in jeopardy. So do not go making more out of anything I’ve said.”

  Her smile deepened. Deepened. So that her eyes positively sparkled.

  “Ah, but if that were true, then why would you care for me even now? Certainly my injured ankle has nothing to do with your productivity. In fact, some might also argue that you spent an inordinate amount of time looking after my injury at the expense of a day’s work.”

  Well, hell . . . if she wasn’t right on that score.

  Miss Dalrymple leaned close, placing her lips close to his ear, and whispered, “As I said, Mr. Audley, I am very rarely wrong, and there is something else you should know about me . . . I’m a determined woman and I’ll neither fail nor take ‘no’ for an answer where you are concerned.”

  It was her insolence he should be focusing on. And annoyance he should be feeling.

  Not the hint of rosewater that whispered about him, filling his senses with that sweet, fragrant scent. And damn, if those garden smells weren’t more intoxicating than the too-strong ale Old Mr. Ward served at the inn. And as close as they were, unbidden his gaze slipped lower, as he noted a detail that had previously escaped him about Miss Edwina Dalrymple: that slightly more lush upper lip that lent an interesting pout to her mouth, and conjured all manner of wicked delights to be enjoyed with and by such a mouth.

  Just then her lips parted ever so slightly, giving the illusion of surprise.

  Aye—he swallowed hard—that made two of them.

  Salvation came in the click of the door opening. “You summoned . . .” Hunter’s words trailed off. “My apologies. I didn’t know you had company.”

  Miss Dalrymple’s clear-eyed gaze slid past his shoulder. Only the pretty blush that filled her cheeks gave a hint to the brief, charged moment they’d shared.

  Rafe hurriedly lowered her skirts back into place. “I don’t suspect you have any tears in your ligaments. Nothing is fractured. Probably currently have nothing more than a light sprain.” With brusque movements, he grabbed for her ruined slipper. All the while he slid the previously ivory satin scrap onto her foot, he was aware of his brother taking it all in.

  “I was told there was an emergency?” his brother drawled, and with his usual boldness, he sauntered over.

  “Oh, hello,” Miss Dalrymple greeted him. Extending her gloved palm, she gave Rafe a pointed look. “This is where you help me to my feet,” she said in a ridiculously loud whisper that would be a secret to no one.

  Quickly standing, he grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet.

  “Many thanks, Mr. Audley.” She continued to stare pointedly at him.

  He shook his head in abject confusion. Why was she looking at him like that?

  The lady emitted a soft sigh and, also not discreetly, cupped her fingers around her mouth and spoke in those hushed tones. “And now for the introductions.”

  Introductions? Where in the hell did she think they were? But then, it only reminded him why she was here. Who had sent her. And what both of those unwanted people were expecting of him. “This isn’t a goddamn London ballroom,” he snapped, and it was the first time those always-uptilted lips turned down at the corners. And damned if he didn’t feel like the village bully who had delighted in sharpening his insults on Rafe’s younger brother, until Rafe had put a quick end to it.

  His brother cleared his throat. “I brought the wagon.”

  Good. Now, he could be done with her. “Miss Dalrymple, this is my assistant, Hunter.” Rafe placed the very slightest emphasis on that name, as the only concession he was willing to make in terms of her introductions. “He will see you back. These mines are no place for you. I trust you’ve learned as much.”

  “Oh, dear. I would never be so bold as to refer to you by your Christian name, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Hunter,” his brother said bluntly.

  “Very well, then.” The young lady shifted her weight over her uninjured leg, and with those same graceful movements she’d displayed while conducting lessons on walking in the middle of the mine, she whirled about, and dipped ever so gingerly, and collected her parasol. Using the tip of it, as if it were some prop on a Vauxhall stage, she brought herself back so she faced them. “I must decline the offer, as I’ve already a carriage waiting for me. Though it was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hunter.”

  And reflected back in Hunter’s own eyes was Rafe’s very real horror.

  “What the hell?” his brother silently mouthed over the top of the young woman’s head.

  Rafe made a slashing motion across his throat once. “Don’t ask,” he returned, in an equally wordless response. Alas, it was the wrong response. The befuddlement was replaced by curiosity, which meant this was decidedly not the end of his brother’s questioning. Splendid. Rafe turned his ire back where it belonged . . . on Miss Dalrymple. “He’ll escort you to make sure you find your way back.” And Rafe was sure she was gone.

  “I must in—”

  “You’re going with my . . . Hunter, here,” he said cutting her off.

  The lady wrinkled her nose. “Very well. If you can send word for the duke’s serv—”

  “Get her out.”

  Hunter jabbed a finger in Rafe’s direction. “You. Owe. Me.”
He impressively clipped out each word without making a sound.

  Rafe lifted his head in acknowledgment. Saddling anyone, let alone his beloved brother, with Edwina Dalrymple was the height of cruelty.

  “It has been a pleasure making your acquaintance,” the young lady said once more, while making an elegant curtsy better suited for a presentation with the queen and not a rushed introduction made by two miners. “I thank you very much for your rescue, Mr. Audley. But alas, I have to take my leave.”

  She had to take her leave? Or he’d ordered her gone? Either way, to debate was to prolong her stay. “Then, do that,” he said bluntly when she made no attempt to do so.

  Behind Miss Dalrymple’s shoulder, Hunter snorted another laugh.

  Giving no indication she heard that amusement at her expense, Miss Dalrymple extended her right hand, and tilted her four middle fingers down toward the floor. As if she expected him to collect those fingertips. As if she expected him to drop a kiss atop them. As if she were nicked in the damned bob. Once again, she flashed one of those silly, encouraging smiles and waggled her palm. “Yes, well, then,” she said when he made no move to take it. She turned to Hunter, facing him instead. “I shall be waiting outside.”

  His brother took a hasty step back, as he eyed the door behind them.

  And Rafe proved a completely disloyal brother for preferring that attention be fixed Hunter’s way, instead.

  He offered a crooked grin as his dumbfounded brother collected Miss Dalrymple’s palm and escorted her toward the door. Hunter had a hopeless look to him.

  When the unlikely pair reached the door, she made a delicate clearing sound with her throat, and with enough effort to be clear about what she intended but not enough to be completely noticeable, she discreetly pointed the tip of her parasol at the door. “This is where you open the door, Mr. Hunter.”

  Hunter immediately grabbed the handle and drew the panel wide. With a flourish, Miss Dalrymple gathered her skirts, swept forward . . . and thankfully out.

  Until, at last, there was silence.