Heather and Velvet (9 page)

Since Sebastian’s arrival, Prudence had somehow tolerated the walk from the drive to the house with Tricia clinging to his arm like a limpet. She had suffered through the awkwardness of tea, although the buttercrumb tarts crumbled to sawdust in her mouth each time he looked at her. She had endured supper and the maddening swing of his expression from perplexed curiosity to something bordering on hostility.

But when he’d looked at her as if he ached to reach out and enfold her hand in his, her pretense of dignity had snapped. She pressed a hand to her burning cheek. She had never dreamed he would be so bold and foolish as to follow her, to say he was sorry about her papa, to touch her face …

Violently, she stripped off her gown, then tore at the stays of her corset, bending them beyond repair. She was in no mood to summon a maid to undress her as if she were an invisible doll.

Indignation flooded her. Sebastian Kerr had a surfeit of arrogance to attend one of her aunt’s dinner parties in such a bizarre manner of dress! He had worn no wig. The powder that had burnished his tawny hair was light enough to be more of an insult than if he wore none at all.

She threw her gown in the armoire and jerked out a cotton night rail. She pulled it over her head backward, lost the armholes, and spent the next few seconds trying to extricate her head, muttering all the while. Then her head popped out and her hair came tumbling down, scattering hairpins across the faded rug.

Sebastian’s unfashionable tan had made Sir Arlo, with his powdered visage, look like a day-old corpse. His charcoal knee-breeches had matched exactly the color of his thick lashes, and had clung to his thighs in a most unseemly manner. His cutaway frock coat had been devoid of all lace but for a narrow band around the cuffs. And most shocking of all had been his unstarched cravat. Its soft, loose folds
had framed beautifully the piquant play of emotions across his face.

Prudence plucked the rest of the pins from her hair and dragged a gilt brush through the heavy mass. The brush caught in a tangle. She tugged, taking a perverse satisfaction in the pain. She started to braid her hair, then stopped. What difference did it make? There was no one to see her in the privacy of her simple chamber. She slammed a nightcap on her head with enough force to cover her eyes.

A hairpin jabbed her heel as she padded blindly to the bed. She crawled beneath the counterpane, pillowed her head on folded arms, and glared up at the tent-bed’s canopy. Tricia had a massive mahogany bedstead with fluted posts and embroidered tester. Prudence’s small bed was crafted of light iron and shrouded with white muslin. Polished brass finials topped the bedposts.

As she rolled to her side and pounded her bolster into submission, she had the discomfiting sensation that she was eleven years old again and struggling to understand why Papa must send every extra tuppence to his “poor orphaned little sister.”

“Be patient, my Prudence,” he would say. “All it will take is one word from the king and your future will be secure. Our day will soon arrive.” Prudence was still waiting.

While she and her papa had lived in rustic comfort in a two-room apartment in London, Tricia had luxuriated in the Northumberland countryside, collecting and discarding Hepplewhite pier-tables and fawning beaux with equal panache. Prudence had tried not to resent her lovely aunt.

To Prudence, Tricia’s infrequent calls to their cluttered lodgings had been like the earthly visitations of a satin-swathed fairy. Tricia would pat her cheek, her fingers cool beneath their net gloving. An irresistible sympathy would warm her amber eyes as she pressed a perfumed kerchief to her dainty nose. For a brief moment, basking in the glow of Tricia’s attention, Prudence would find it not so terrible to be smart and skinny and plain.

The sympathy in Sebastian’s touch told her otherwise. Prudence flung herself onto her stomach. Sympathy was too
kind a word. Perhaps someday she would learn to separate it from pity.

Coach wheels rattled on the cobblestones of the drive. Tricia’s lilting farewell drifted up through Prudence’s open window. Devony Blake, she thought, was now free to go home and dream of her mystery bandit with the relentless hands and heated lips, while Tricia was left to do more than dream with a man who was a greater mystery than she knew.

Prudence sighed, wishing her kitten was snuggled beside her. He was probably in the herb garden, chasing moonbeams and dreaming of bewhiskered fairies. Why should he be at her side when she needed him? What could she expect of a beast with a treacherous name like Sebastian? Especially a male beast.

A board creaked on the stairs. She pulled the counterpane over her head. A hushed whisper was followed by a throaty giggle, then the giggle was muffled abruptly in a manner Prudence did not choose to explore. A door closed. The house fell silent.

Prudence lay still until her legs grew stiff and she wearied of breathing the air beneath the stifling confines of the covers. How dare the scoundrel pity her? she thought, throwing back the counterpane.

She rose to pace the room. Moonlight slanted like prison bars across the rug. A brisk night breeze stirred the ruffled curtains. Her restlessness grew until it bordered on wildness. She picked up a book and tossed it down, then strode to the ceramic water pitcher.

It was empty.

It was just like the maids to forget to fill it, she thought. No doubt Tricia’s pitcher was brimming over with cold water. Old Fish had probably shaved the ice himself for her ladyship’s pleasure.

Prudence’s throat suddenly felt as parched as if she’d trekked across the Sahara without benefit of a camel. She tightened her jaw, telling herself she would not remain a prisoner in her bedroom for the rest of her life, simply because her aunt had the insensitivity to marry a highwayman.

She donned a wrapper and stuck her head out the door to peer both ways. The long corridor was empty. A single candle in a glass sconce cast a gentle glow on the polished cedar floor. Old Fish always kept a candle burning for his mistress. Tricia hated the dark.

Prudence crept into the hall, her bravado dissipating along with her savage temper. The days when she would have gone to her aunt’s chamber for a drink were done. Heaven knows what sordid sight might greet her there.

She sank down at the top of the stairs and peered through a lyre-shaped baluster. Her hands curled around the cool wrought-iron. Moonlight and shadows dappled the entranceway below. A candle left guttering in the drawing room cast a shallow pool of light across the marble tile. Prudence listened, but heard only the odd creaks and groans of any house abandoned to the stillness of night.

She glided down the stairs. The mahogany banister felt clammy beneath her palm.

As she stepped off the last stair and turned toward the mundane comfort of the kitchens, a band of relentless muscle shot around her waist and jerked her against an unyielding male chest. A firm hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her would-be scream to silence.

P
rudence waited for the steely arm wrapped around her waist to lift and tighten across her throat. She could well imagine the conversation between Tricia and her fiancé over breakfast the following morn.

Sebastian’s sulky mouth would look appropriately penitent. “I’m dreadfully sorry, pudding. I mistook her for a robber and accidentally strangled her to death.”

Tricia would tap Sebastian’s arm playfully with her fan. “You silly boy. How unfortunate! You didn’t leave a mess, did you? I had that marble floor installed only last February.”

Prudence slowly realized he was holding her only firmly enough to still her fevered struggles to a helpless wiggle. It was a measure of the strength of the man that he could restrain her without hurting her. She felt a gentleness in his touch, an unspoken wish to exert no more force than was necessary to hold her. He dragged her into the shadows beneath the stairs, pressing his back to the wall for leverage. Her weight fell helplessly against him; her hips were pinned
to the muscular contours of his thighs. He splayed his legs to keep his balance.

His breath, laced with tobacco and brandy, stirred her nightcap. “Quiet, lass. I won’t hurt you. If you’ll quit squeaking and squirming, I’ll let you go. I swear it.”

She ceased her struggles. His muscles relaxed, but his forearm remained snug beneath her breasts, and his warm palm still cupped her mouth. The heat of his body trapped her in a silken web perilously near to an embrace. As he buried his face in her unbound hair, she realized the danger she believed herself to be in might be of a different sort altogether. Perhaps he had made his promise not to hurt her in haste. The pain he was capable of inflicting was both sweet and deadly.

He eased his hand from her mouth. His fingers lingered for a tantalizing moment against her lips.

She took a shuddering breath and summoned some shred of dignity. “Would you please unhand me, sir?”

She might have imagined the briefest brush of his lips against her bared shoulder before he freed her. “As the lady wishes.”

She stepped away from him, but her knees betrayed her. He reached out to steady her. She jerked her nightcap straight before turning to face him.

He leaned against the curving wall with arms crossed. Shadows hid his face. Prudence felt exposed in the bright ribbon of moonlight streaming through the fanlight over the door. She sensed rather than saw his gaze slide downward over the thin cotton of her wrapper. She shivered, though the night was not cold.

“I thought you’d never come,” he said.

“I fear to disappoint you, Lord Kerr, but I did not come downstairs for a rendezvous with you.”

“Are you so sure? Or are you lying to yourself again? As I recall, you weren’t too clear on your reasons for accompanying me to the crofter’s hut either.”

“I might suggest that you were the one unclear about my motives, not I.”

He stepped into the light. If Prudence had found his dress to be immodest at supper, she was doubly alarmed
now at his casual disarray. He had discarded his frock coat. His white shirt was half unbuttoned, and moonlight gilded the fur of his chest to gold. His hair was freed of its queue and tumbled loose around his face in a way more becoming than Prudence would have ever admitted. She took an involuntary step backward.

He circled her like a tawny panther. “You’re a cool one, aren’t you? I admire that in a man.”

She chose to ignore the implied insult, studying the marble tiles as if she’d never seen them before.

“You’d make a fine faro player,” he went on. “I dare say you’ve never tried your hand at it, though.”

“Of course not.” She lifted her head to face him. “Although I’m sure you’d number it among your many skills, along with highway robbery and lurking under stairways.”

“Don’t forget cheating at whist. What did you come down for, Miss Walker? Dessert?” His crooked smile was infuriating.

“I thought you might need help finding the silver,” she snapped.

“Ah, the mouse roars. Is that why you believe I came to Lindentree? To rob your aunt?”

Prudence wished that was what she did believe. “No.” Her voice lost its stinging note. “I believe you came to Lindentree to marry her.”

He stared down into her eyes, seeming mesmerized for a moment. He lifted his hand to touch her cheek, then let it fall. “You should have worn your bloody spectacles. You could fall down in the dark and hurt yourself.” He walked over to the pier-table, his limp more pronounced than before. Picking up a china shepherdess, he laughed shakily. “You have only yourself to blame. It was you who told me you would cry if I were to hang. You who suggested I might pursue my lust for gain in a more honorable fashion.”

“Such as marrying a rich woman?”

“Aye.” His long, elegant fingers caressed the delicate china. Prudence wondered if he was assessing its value. “It’s a timeworn but socially acceptable method of amassing a fortune.”

“You and Tricia have more in common than I realized.” Prudence paced into the glow from the drawing room and back, frowning distractedly. The wrapper foamed around her calves. “Tricia always marries men with money. I have been over and over it in my mind and I can’t figure out why she would marry you.”

She turned back to face him. He stood silhouetted in the moonlight like a rumpled pagan god, and her cheeks flamed as she realized what a stupid question it had been. The reason for Tricia’s choice was all too clear—as clear as the silvery light bathing the slanted planes of his face. Tricia had finally found a man more beautiful than she.

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I lied. I told her Dunkirk was still mine. And soon it will be. With an English countess as my wife and her purse strings to back me, even MacKay won’t be able to stop me from claiming it. A few more robberies and I’ll have enough in my account to maintain the illusion of riches—at least until we’re wed.”

Prudence kept her tone deliberately light. “Why marry? Why not just purchase your own title? Our prime minister hands them out like tissue paper. All you must do is prove an annual income of ten thousand pounds.”