Barbara Metzger (5 page)

Juneclaire had been hoping for that very thing, but now she was hesitant. The man’s accents were those of a gentleman, but he was scowling and speaking as if he thought she enjoyed her difficult situation. Did he think she would have left herself open to insult from every passing sheepherder on a whim? She was not reassured by his travel-stained appearance either. His greatcoat was caked with dust, and his cravat was missing altogether. The carriage was none too neat, and the horses were spent. A gentleman down on his luck, Juneclaire decided, no one she should know. Which was too bad, she regretted, since the dark-haired stranger might be very attractive if only he would smile. She bobbed a shallow curtsy with Pansy still in her arms and said, “Thank you for your kind offer, but it would not be proper for me to accept.”

“Not proper? How can you consider propriety at this late date? And even if you were some innocent miss who had to protect her good name at all costs, how could you put such thoughts ahead of her welfare?” He nodded toward the blanketed bundle in her arms.

Now that was unjust! Juneclaire turned her back on him and set off down the road.

St. Cloud cursed the caper-witted female, then drove the chestnuts up to her. He started to get down, but he saw the woman shrink back and glance furtively to either side, as if seeking a way to run. He sat down, hard, his green eyes narrowed. “You’re afraid of me,” he stated matter-of-factly.

Juneclaire bit her lip. “You are angry.”

“I am always angry, ma’am. Now I am enraged. I have been set on and robbed, my groom injured. I have been treated worse than a horse trader at a miserable inn, and my feet hurt. I am tired and hungry and dirty. Soon I will be cold. If that’s not enough to try the patience of a saint, which I am not, I come upon a woman in circumstances no female should be forced to endure.
That
makes me furious.”

“You are mad for my sake?” Juneclaire asked quietly, disbelievingly. No one had ever taken her part in anything before.

“I have been trained since birth to recognize damsels in distress, ma’am. The books never tell you they are so reluctant to be rescued, nor that they might be more afraid of the knight errant than the dragon. Truly, I only wish to spare you the dangers and discomforts of the road.”

He was not looking nearly so fierce, Juneclaire thought, and the holdup could account for his bedraggled appearance. She realized that although his voice bespoke education and refinement, he could still be a plausible villain, but the very idea of highwaymen in the vicinity sent a shiver down her spine.

He saw her tremble and held out his hand. “Come, ma’am. At the rate you were going you would have no possessions whatsoever by the time you reached Bramley. And I don’t eat babies, I promise.”

She looked down at Pansy and smiled, then took a step closer to the carriage. She had the feeling that her stern-faced savior would not take no for an answer anyway.

“There, why don’t you hand the baby up first?”

She flashed him a quick grin that was more naughty schoolgirl than dignified matron and lifted Pansy to his waiting arms. The earl had a hard time tearing his eyes off the enchanting sight of her dimples and transferring his gaze to the unfamiliar burden.

“I’ve never held a—”

Christmas pig.

S
t. Cloud threw his head back and laughed. Then he looked at Pansy on the seat beside him, a bristly black-and-white Berkshire pig with stand-up ears, little pink eyes, and a pink snout wriggling up at him. He recalled his promise not to eat her and laughed till tears ran down his eyes.

Juneclaire clambered up and took Pansy in her lap, laughing, too. She was right—he was attractive when he smiled. Actually, he was the most stunningly good-looking man she had ever seen, but since she hardly saw any men except for the farm workers, the vicar, and her uncle, she thought her judgment was suspect. The smile took years off his age and made his green eyes sparkle. He no longer wore that hooded, forbidding scowl, and Juneclaire settled back on her seat, contentment easing her tired muscles.

St. Cloud patted Pansy on the head before giving the horses the office to start. “Thank you for the joke. That was the most fun I’ve had in years.”

“You should laugh more,” Juneclaire said, then followed the startling familiarity with an explanation of sorts. “She really is a fine pig, you know, and a very good friend. I’ve had her ever since Ophelia stepped on her by mistake.”

“Ophelia?” His lip quirked. “Never tell me that’s the sow? Then the boar must be Hamlet?”

“Of course. It wasn’t fair that Pansy should be the runt and lamed, too, so McCade—he’s Uncle Avery’s head pig man—gave her to me to feed and raise.”

“She seems, ah, well behaved, for a pig.”

“Oh, she is. And smart and clean, too. I bathe her in buttermilk to keep her hair soft, and then she licks it up for a snack.”

“How efficient,” he teased, knowing full well what was coming next, with a tenderhearted girl and a tender-meated piglet.

“Yes, well, you can see then how I could not hand Pansy over to the butcher just so Aunt Marta could impress her fine London guests. She wanted a boar’s head, the way she thinks things used to be done, but McCade wouldn’t part with Hamlet, of course.”

“Of course,” he solemnly agreed, his eyes on the road so she could not tell if he was bamming her again.

“Then Aunt Marta settled on a suckling pig, with an apple in its mouth, but there were no new litters. It isn’t Pansy’s fault she’s so small, but Aunt wouldn’t listen. All she cares about is putting on a show for the toplofty London titles visiting in the neighborhood, without spending a fortune. The peers only come for the party anyway. Those snobs will never accept her in the highest circles no matter what she does, in spite of Uncle Avery’s title. Aunt Marta’s father was in Trade,” she confided.

St. Cloud was suddenly sobered, the habitual frown again marring his fine features. His passenger wasn’t a mother, a matron, or a married lady. She wasn’t a seamstress or a serving girl. By the Devil’s drawers, she was a cursed highborn virgin, a runaway, and a pig thief! Oh Lord, what had he got himself into now? Perhaps if he knew the family, he could just sneak her back with no one the wiser.

“I’m sure your family must be worried about you, Miss . . . ?”

She must have read his intent, for she sat up straighter. “No, they are not. They never did before. And it’s Juneclaire. One word.”

“Very well, Miss Oneword, I am Merritt Jordan, at your service.” He was not about to put notions in her head by mentioning his title. He couldn’t bear to see that typical calculating gleam come over her guileless brown eyes. Besides, she seemed to have a low-enough opinion of the shallow Quality already. Heaven knew what she would think of Satan St. Cloud. For some reason her thoughts mattered.

Juneclaire was studying him, fitting his name to the strong planes of his face, the cleft in his chin. “I suppose your friends call you Merry?” she asked doubtfully.

Friends, relatives, acquaintances, everyone called him St. Cloud and had since he was seven. “Only my uncle George used to call me by a pet name. ‘Merry Easter, Merry,’ he used to say. ‘Merry Christmas, Merry.’ That’s my birthday,” he told her, not examining how easily he revealed personal details to this chance-met waif. He doubted if anyone outside his immediate family knew his birthday or cared. And he never mentioned George to anyone, ever.

“How wonderful for you! I suppose Christmas is your favorite day of the year, then.”

“Hardly. That’s the day Uncle George died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Juneclaire was upset, thinking sorrow turned his lips down.

“Of course not, how could you? And no, the rest of my doting family does not call me anything half charming,” he went on. He heard the bitterness in his own voice and saw regret in her serious little face. Dash it, the chit felt sorry for him!

The earl quickly turned back to the horses to hide his scowl, but Juneclaire huddled deeper in her cloak, squeezing Pansy to her so hard the piglet squealed in protest. She did not understand this man at all, and his uncertain temper unnerved her.

“I told you I don’t bite,” he said gruffly, then added, “I would be honored if you called me Merry, if you like. If your chaperon”—a nod toward Pansy—“permits this breach of etiquette. I think the circumstances are such that formal rules need not apply.” There, she was smiling again. St. Cloud released the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“Thank you. My family calls me Claire, or Clarry. I hate both of those,” she confided in return.

“Then I shall never use either,” he vowed, again enraged at the way the girl’s family seemed to hold this rare treasure in so little esteem, so careless of her feelings and well-being. If she was his . . . sister, he’d be out scouring the countryside. For sure he would have found her before some stranger with who-knew-what on his mind could offer a ride. Or worse. The earl masked his outrage at her poor treatment as best he could, with so little practice at hiding his ill humor. He’d quickly realized his little innocent could be startled by the slightest hint of anger, like some wary forest creature. He made a conscious effort to ease the set muscles of his face into an unfamiliar smile. “I shall call you Junco, then, for a gray-and-white snow bird in the Colonies.” He reached over to touch the gray cloak and the white muffler she had wound around her neck. His gloved hand briefly grazed her cheek. “It’s not quite the
rara avis
I think you are, but a brave and cheery little fellow. Do you mind?”

Juneclaire shook her head. Then, to hide the color she knew was rushing to her face at his words, at his touch, she bent to the carpetbag at her feet. “Would you like something to eat, Merry? I have some bread and cheese and—”

“I thought you’d never ask!”

 

Later, after a silence broken only by the steady beat of the horses’ hooves and Pansy’s vocal table manners, the now-content earl asked, “You do have friends waiting for you in Bramley, don’t you?”

He had a hard time holding on to his temper and his new resolve not to look like thunderclouds when she gaily answered, “Why, no, I am just going to meet the coach to London there. I was hoping to make the afternoon mail, but now I shall have to wait for tomorrow morning.”

St. Cloud ground his teeth in an effort not to curse. “Tomorrow is Christmas; no coaches will run.”

“Oh, dear, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I warrant there are a lot of things you hadn’t thought of, miss. Do you have enough brass for a respectable hotel? For sure I cannot help you there. The thieves barely left me the lint in my pockets.”

Juneclaire suddenly found a need to inspect behind Pansy’s ears. The piglet complained loudly, which hid Juneclaire’s whispered “No.”

“Did you say no? You ran away without enough blunt to hire a carriage or put up at an inn? Of all the cork-brained, mutton-headed ideas, why, I—”

Juneclaire was pressed against the railing at the edge of her seat. St. Cloud took a deep breath and unclenched his jaw. “Forgive me, Junco. I am just concerned for you.”

Concerned? He looked ready to strangle her! “The money doesn’t matter. I do have enough for my London coach fare and a night on the road, Mr. Jordan, and perhaps an inn in Bramley, although not the finest. But the inns are all filled with holiday travelers, and they don’t seem to want unescorted females at any price. Or pigs.”

There went St. Cloud’s plan to drop her off with some respectable party in Bramley and proceed on his way before anybody recognized him. “Just what had you intended to do, then, if I might ask?”

She didn’t like the sarcasm and raised her straight little nose in the air like a duchess. “I intend to sleep under a hedgerow as I did last night, for your information. It’s not what I would like, but don’t worry—Pansy and I shall manage.”

Don’t worry? Tell the Thames to stop flowing! Didn’t the chit know what kind of villains roamed the roads? Thieves, beggars, gypsies—if she was lucky. Didn’t she understand that she was ruined anyway? One night away from home was enough to shred her reputation. One hour in his company had the same effect, and that’s how well she managed.

He could make up some Banbury tale about being brother and sister and pray no one recognized him, the chestnuts, or the crest on the side of his curricle. That close to St. Cloud? Hell, he may as well pray the pretty bird-wit turned into a bird, in fact, and flew off. And her damned pig with her. St. Cloud could hire her a coach and four and send her on her way, except that the banks would be closed, and tomorrow, too! What a coil. For twopence he would take her home, beat some sense into her relations, and be back on his way before midnight. He would, if the chestnuts weren’t spent and she did not look so appealing, with her brown curls tumbling around her hood and a crumb on her chin.

“How old are you anyway, little one?” He wondered if he could throw her back, like a too-small fish.

“Not so little. I am nineteen, old enough to be out on my own.”

“So ancient.” She looked younger, he thought, with that untouched look. She did not have the brittle smile or the coy simper of a London belle years younger. “If you are such a mature age, how is it that you are still unwed? Are the men around here blind?”

“I do not go out in Society, so I do not know many men. But thank you for the compliment, if such it was.”

Gads, she couldn’t even flirt, and she was going to make it to London? “It was, Junco. But are you in mourning that you had no come-out?” he persisted.

Juneclaire picked at the unfinished hem of her mitten. She’d have the thing unraveled if he did not stop asking his probing questions, but she felt she owed him her answers, for his caring. “My parents died many years ago. Aunt is . . . embarrassed. They ran away, you see, and their marriage was irregular by her standards. But I am not quite on the shelf. Aunt Marta is looking for a husband for me, among the widowers and older bachelors.”