Scandal (7 page)

“Oh, aye, it’s a jolly parcel of fun to stand on your feet day in, day out.”

He frowned. She realized she was being too contrary. He’d helped her double her profits this day. She should be polite.

“Is that your room I just came through?” he asked.

“It is,” she answered, suddenly as jumpy as a flea on the alley cat she’d befriended down below.

Silence, Anna mentally asking him to leave, her hands clutching her coverlet so tight, she felt the fabric digging into her palms.

“My, that’s a long way down,” he said, very obvious attempt at conversation.

“Mr. Hemplewilt—”

“One moment, please, Anna. I am observing the view.”

Anna.

He’d called her Anna.

She opened her mouth to rebuke him, but he’d moved forward, and as he stood there at the edge of the roof, looking over all of London, Anna was reminded of a feudal lord of old, one that perused his kingdom as he clasped his hands behind his back. Arrogant. Powerful. Lordly.

And masculine.

That was part of what drew her, she admitted. She liked the authority he resonated, and that he seemed to want to use that authority on her.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like some privacy,” she forced herself to say.

Go, go, go,
she silently begged. He made her think of things, made her recall a life long past, fantasies long suppressed, of knights in shining armor and handsome princes come to carry her off.

He turned away, his silhouette framed by a gray sky.

“I am not going until you tell me what that mound of fabric is that lounges in the corner of your room.”

She toyed with getting up and leaving herself, only she felt somehow safer sitting upon the bench, the blanket wrapped around her.

A hand reaching out to stop her, one that spun her around so he could kiss her.

The image tossed itself so quickly into her mind she found herself saying, “It’s for my sails,” just to cover the way her body throbbed in reaction to the fantasy of his lips moving down to cover her own.

“Sails?”

“Aye,” she admitted, having to swallow once before her voice box would work.

“Sails for a ship?”

“Yes,” she said impatiently, though it was an impatience for herself, not him. She looked away. The sun had fallen down low enough so that it slipped its scarlet rays into the layer of fog and smoke that covered London, turning it fuchsia. She inhaled deeply and pulled the blanket tighter, almost as if it could shield her from him.

“And are sails something else that you sell at the market upon occasion?”

“Mr. Hemplewilt, I would like some privacy,” she said again.

“Not until you answer my question.”

And there it was again. That autocratic tone. Her name on his lips, as if he often said and did what he wanted.

Anna.

Her name sounded so different than the way the culls in the rookery said it. Soft, like the notes of one of those fine instruments she’d heard when she’d been lost years ago and found herself in a toff’s neighborhood far, far away.

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Call you what?”

“Anna,” she said, and as Rein stared at her, she shifted that worn and ragged bedspread around her so that it drooped a bit over her shoulders, her knees drawn up so that her work-worn half boots rested on the bench. Lord, when he’d first seen her sitting on her bench, her hair loose and down her back, wide eyes gazing out at London’s landscape, he’d had to stop for a moment

Stunning.

Beautiful.

Perfect.

There had been a moment then when he’d found himself wishing she wasn’t a market maid. When he’d wished, instead, that she had a different vocation, one that would allow him to simply take her work-worn hand, lead her to bed, and take her.

God, how he suddenly wanted to take her.

Instead he found himself acting polite, for if he did not, he might ruin his chance at residing with her and her grandfather for the next few weeks, thereby forcing him onto the streets.

And so he said, “Very well, Miss Brooks, but you still haven’t answered my question.”

She looked like she wouldn’t answer. He even saw her sneak a glance at the trapdoor he’d squeezed through earlier.

“There is a competition being held in three weeks’ time, one sponsored by the Navy. I plan to enter my sails.”

“A competition? Sails?”

“Aye,” she said with a nod, her hair rustling over that ridiculous cover of hers. “The Navy is trying to improve the speed of their ships. They’ve announced a one-hundred-pound reward for the person who can do that.”

He stiffened, for the sudden memory returned, of stepping out of the carriage, looking up and seeing a triangular shape fall toward him like a comet from the sky. “Good lord. The kite.”

She nodded. “Aye. It’s a smaller scale version of my design.”

He’d wondered why she’d been flying such a childish toy. Now he knew.

Egads, not just beautiful. Brilliant.

And for a moment, envy filled him, but he quickly covered it up by saying, “I am most impressed.”

“Thank you,” she said, standing suddenly. “I have work to do,” she said, looking away and stepping past him.

He caught her elbow as she went by, his hand sliding down her arm until it reached her fingers.

She gasped, staring at their connection for a moment before looking up to say, “Unhand me.”

Rein immediately let her go, though not because of the steel he saw in her eyes, but because as he’d touched her, he’d suddenly realized that he shouldn’t have done so, for to touch her felt… dangerous.

Dangerous?

“Beg your pardon,” he said.

“Don’t come up here again,” she said. “I have few pleasures in my life and my privacy is one of them.”

And with that she jerked her head up and turned, leaving the roof without a backward glance. Rein watched her go, motionless, thinking he must be afraid to touch her for fear she might order him to leave her home, and then what would he do? That must be what concerned him, for it certainly couldn’t be her.

Could it?

Chapter Seven

He’d touched her hand.

It was the first thought on Anna’s mind when she awoke the next morning.

He’d touched her. Her worn and battered hands… and he’d not flinched at their coarseness.

Ach, you’ll not be thinkin’ of
that
again.

And she wouldn’t, she vowed. She wouldn’t think about how his hand had felt so soft against her own flesh. Or how embarrassed she was about her dry, red—and, yes, blistered—fingers. About how she’d wished for a second, as his handsome, noble face had stared down at her so enigmatically, that she’d taken the time to rub fish oil on her palms.

Silly, silly, silly,
she thought as she pulled on the white apron that covered the skirts of her brown dress.
Fish oil won’t erase what you are. A woman what uses her hands for a living.

She tied her white apron around her waist and then shoved a battered and worn straw hat atop her head. The ribbon beneath her chin looked frayed, Anna suddenly noticing the disrepair the lace around her dress’s collar was in, too. Bloody hell, what a sorry state she’d been reduced to.

So far away from a world of balls and castles.

“I often wondered,” her best mate Molly said from behind her as they headed for the market that morning, the two of them taking turns trailing each other through the busy streets like ducks on a pond, “what type of man it’d take to get your attention.”

“Molly, if you don’t stop badgering me I’ll clout you with a masher.”

“Mornin’, ladies,” Bertie the tobacco seller said as they passed by his shop, the gray-haired old gent giving them a tobacco-stained smile. This part of town was filled with storefronts, and Anna and Molly sometimes entertained themselves by staring into the windows of them. Fine hats, premade dresses and shoes were sold. The lovely, soft shoes Anna swore one day she’d have made for herself. But today it was too cold to do much more than hurry toward Covent Garden Market, Anna certain it would rain before the sun fell behind the ocean.

“Evenin’,” they called back over the sound of the dustman’s cries. But the minute they passed him, Molly hurried alongside Anna. Molly didn’t have a cart, Anna listened to the whiz of her barrow’s wheel as it passed over sucking muck, she rather envied her friend.

“Charlotte said she saw ’im the first day he arrived,” she said with a twinkle in her green eyes. “Told me he’d had a jacket as fine as spun silk. Is that true?”

The jacket
had
been made of silk, Anna thought as they passed between the three- and four-story buildings, not that Molly would know. Molly was what Anna would call local—London bred and born, something Anna envied. It was easier not to covet luxuries if you’d never had them before.

“’E’s as handsome as he is arrogant, and the only reason why he’s in St. Giles is to win a wager. To my way of thinking that makes him a sapskull, and you know how I feel about sapskulls.”

“He
is
handsome,” Molly said in a matter-of-fact, this-is-bloody-fabulous tone of voice, brown ringlets bobbing as she tipped her head back and smiled. “Did you kiss him after you got home from market?”

Anna took a firmer grip on the work-worn handles of her barrow, ostensibly to push her way through the thick mud, but in reality to get ahead of her friend.

“Does he make your crinkum-crankum heat like a—”

“Molly,” Anna hissed, tipping her head so that her hat would shield her cheeks so that Molly wouldn’t see them color.

“He does, doesn’t he?”

No answer.

“You’re as hot for him as a bed brick, ain’t ya?”

Anna refused to speak.

Molly went silent, too, as they worked their way through the crowd, pausing for a moment when a marble shot out in front of them just as they crossed near an alley. A boy of about ten darted out to catch it, fetching the glass ball with a nod of thanks for stopping.

“So it’s happened to you at last,” she heard Molly plainly over the
zzzzz
of a passing carriage’s wheels to her left, a fat drop of rain landing on the brim of her hat.

“Raining,” Anna said.

“Don’t change the subject.”

Anna pressed her lips together in irritation.

“You’ve finally found you a man what’s tempting you to bread and butter.”

Anna stopped suddenly. “I just met him, Molls.”

“Does that matter?”

“Yes.”

Liar, liar, liar.

Molly smiled like a cat that just finished eating a bowl of fish. “If you weren’t burnin’ for him, you wouldn’t ’ave skulked out of your rooms this morn to avoid waking him.”

“Not true.”

“It is. You didn’t want him with you today for fear of the heat he’d stir in you.”

“You make me sound like a fireplace grate.”

“Then why you denying everythin’ I say?”

“Because I’m in a hurry and talking slows me down.”

“Liar,” Molly repeated.

And she was. She knew it. She just didn’t know what to do about it.

He didn’t show up at the market, even though she’d looked for him all day.

Fool.

She’d looked and he hadn’t come and that should have filled her with relief, not annoyance. And yet, she couldn’t deny the way she felt.

Which was why when she opened the door later that evening she told herself she would not react to his presence… if he was still there. Not only that, but she would ask him to leave the moment she saw him.

“Bloody hell,” she cursed, observing the mess that greeted her. After all her hard work cleaning up last time, her grandfather must have activated the Colossal again. Lord, she wished she could come home just once and not work more hours. Just once.

“Anna.”

She turned. Mr. Hemplewilt stood by the wall to her left. Her heart took off in another direction now, slowing for a beat as she stared across at him.

Go on, Anna. Ask him to leave.

But something about him, something about the look in his eyes, made her stiffen.

“What is it? My grandfather?” She turned toward the room he occupied—well, if one wanted to call tattered cotton sheets that served as walls a room.

“’Tis not your grandfather,” he said, stopping her with a hand on her arm.

Anna froze. He’d touched her again. She stared down at his hand, wondering how she could feel his warmth through the material of her cloak.

“Then what is it?” she asked again.

“Anna,” he said, the look on his face seeming to turn to one of sorrow. “Someone came into your rooms today.”

It was so opposite of what she thought he’d say, so completely a shock, that it took her a moment to form a reply, and even then it wasn’t much of one. “I—” she frowned. “Our rooms?”

He nodded, looking around at the mess.

And suddenly Anna understood.

“I caught the person as I returned from washing this morning. He nearly knocked me down the steps. When I realized it wasn’t your grandfather, I opened the door and found this.” He indicated the debris around him. “When I went upstairs, I discovered worse.”

And the grim look in his face, the way he wouldn’t meet her eyes for a moment, the way he shook his head, made her race for the ladder.

“Anna—” he said, trying to stop her. But she had to see, had to see if they’d stolen her one and only irreplaceable possession, the thing she had wagered her entire future upon, the item she’d spent all her saved blunt on.

He couldn’t have stopped her if he’d tried, but he didn’t try. And so she fumbled with the ladder, nearly fell as her feet tangled in her cloak and brown dress. In the end it might have been better if the man who had done it had simply stolen from her. But no, he had done far worse than that. He had ripped it, no, shredded the mound of precious material, rendered the canvas useless in an act of malicious violence that made Anna fall to her knees.

She stared. Her brain simply couldn’t absorb it. She knelt on the floor, her cloak falling around her like spilled gray paint.

“Why?” she asked, her voice a monotone. “Why would someone do this?”

“There was a note,” she heard Mr. Hemplewilt say. “It was addressed to me.”

“You?” she said numbly, still staring at the ruined material, as if by doing so it might magically piece itself back together again.

“Yes, me.” He lapsed into silence. Anna stared up at him. All the money she’d saved, all the years she’d put it aside, only to spend it all on this one purchase… She’d been terrified to do it. It’d been such a gamble, one she’d hoped would pay off.

It wouldn’t.

It would never have the
chance
to pay off. She bowed her head, the blow hitting her so hard, she could barely stomach it. She was going to retch. She could feel it gathering in her throat.

“The letter was a threat, Anna, toward me. It advised me that I give up. My… wager, that is. That I go home. I have spent the better part of this day doing my best to deal with the situation. I’m afraid I’ve not met with much success.”

Home. He had a home. Someplace grand, she would imagine, while she had… nothing.

But his words had her jerking her head up in reaction. “Are you telling me someone did this to me because of your bloody wager?”

He didn’t say a word.

She lurched to her feet. Where there was once despair, now there hung only rolling, red anger.

“Are you telling me one of your chums did this to me because he wanted to win a
wager
?”

“No. Yes,” he said, in his green eyes a look she’d never seen before. Regret. Sorrow. Pity. “Someone did do this because of me—obviously. But I don’t know who. The, ah, chum I’ve wagered against told me he had nothing to do with this. And I believe he would never do something so malicious. It makes no sense.”

“No sense? Obviously your chum wants to win his wager.”

“No.” He dropped his head, inhaled with an audible sound through his nose. “Yes. No, though I suppose discovering who did it will not repair the damage.”

“It will when you go and see this man and tell him to replace my canvas.”

“I cannot.”

“You cannot?” she asked with a flick of her head to dislodge the blond ringlet that obscured her right eye. “Do not tell me you cannot.”

“Part of the wager is that I not contact anyone during my stay here. I took a chance today and visited my chum anyway, but I was warned not to do so again.”

Speechless. For a moment she couldn’t form a thought. And then they all tumbled about her head until one erupted past her lips. “And so you would see all my hard work destroyed because you refuse to confront the man who did this to me?”

“No. I will replace your canvas.”

Relief. Her shoulders bowed in the aftermath.

“But you shall have to wait until after the wager is won.”

“
What?
”

He must have realized he’d spoken the wrong words. And, indeed, Anna felt the urge to go to him, to shake him, to rattle the teeth of the very man who’d occupied almost every waking thought she’d had since meeting him.

“Anna, there is a great deal at stake here.”

“Do not speak to me of what is at stake.” Anna took a step toward him, her cloak swirling around her legs like an angry cat. “My competition is in three weeks. I have three weeks to finish my sails, three weeks to sew six staysails. I don’t have
time
to wait for you to win a silly wager.”

“I’ll make it up to you. I’ll buy you whatever you wish when my time here is done.”

“What I
wish
is to win this competition.”

He didn’t say a word, and in that moment Anna wondered what it was she ever saw in him. Fancy cull with his fancy airs and his fancy way of treating people. She’d forgotten how selfish and self-absorbed men with money could be.

“’Ave you any idea how much work I’ve put into my design?” And listen to her dropping her
h
’s and speaking like a street girl. But she didn’t care. Her world—the one she’d looked forward to after winning the competition, because she was certain she’d win it—was being ripped apart, literally. “I’ve spent weeks—nay, months—ever since the competition was announced. But it’s not just the competition, it’s more than that. My parents’ ship went down because they couldn’t outrun a storm. They
died
because British ships are so slow. For years I’ve toyed with ideas to make them go faster.” She spun on her heel, went to her bed and pulled out from beneath it her drawings, flinging them at his feet, the ink outlines of hulls and prows skidding to a checkerboard stop at his boots. “But I don’t have the funds to build a ship. It wasn’t until this competition that I realized I was aiming too high. I could concentrate on the sails first, then move into shipbuilding later, if I can find a builder who’ll trust a woman’s mind. But I need to win that competition first. Win it and the prize money and prove that a woman can be twice as clever as a man. Only now I—” her gaze caught on the canvas.

The anger left her.

Like a bellows with a hole popped into the side, the fury drained away from her, leaving behind a sharp anguish that was as painful as a blow to the stomach.

“Why do I try and explain?” she said, her gaze still on the sails. “You’ve no notion of what work I speak of, the time, the energy I’ve invested. One need only look at your hands to see that. What do you know of hard work?”

Rein couldn’t answer her question. Indeed, as he stared at the dejected form of Anna Brooks, he felt a sense of impotence he hadn’t felt since he was a lad. It had been a shock to learn today that he was not allowed to visit his uncle’s solicitor. The man had been most incensed to see him. But Rein’s argument that he was not asking for help, but rather trying to discover who had done such a horrible thing to Anna had been met with deaf ears. He’d been banished. Again. Told not to return, though it’d taken half a day to find his way to the man’s office.

“Leave,” she said. “I don’t have the time for your nonsense.”

He almost did as she asked, almost turned away and skulked out, but as he looked at her, as he watched her kneel down by the fabric and then begin to examine it as if seeking a way to piece it back together again, he found himself saying, “No. I shan’t.”