Scandal (9 page)

Hundreds of faces stared back at him—some from the theater’s pit and others from the second floor, their bodies packed together like fish in a barrow.

And it was then, and only then, that Rein began to feel something he hadn’t felt since a lad. Fear.

Get him, Marcus.

The words were from his childhood, yet he could still hear them as if they’d been spoken yesterday.

He blinked, and when he opened his eyes, a room full of people stared back at him.

“Well?” someone cried, a man with rather a lot of gum and no teeth, but who made up for his lack of ivories in size. Rein should know, for he had a perfect glimpse of his muscular forearms as he hurled a potato at his head. Fortunately, he missed.

Rein opened his mouth, his lips suddenly so numb, it felt like he himself had no teeth.

Hold his hands behind his back.

“Ach, ’e’s got the fright of the stage, he has,” someone else yelled. “Get ’im outta here.”

He glanced over at Anna, who waited in the side wings.

Throw him to the ground.

He faced forward again, summoning the calm that he’d learned to pull around him in such situations. He opened his mouth. “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” he bellowed, “lend me your arse.”

“What?” someone cried.

“’E’s doing Shakespeare?”

“
Shakespeare?
Don’t want no bloody Shakespeare.”

“This ain’t the Drury,” someone else cried.

“Arse,”
Rein said to that person. “I said
arse,
not
ears
.”

“Get ’im off the stage,” another person yelled.

They didn’t find that amusing? A second missile whizzed by his ear. Apparently not.

“How about a ditty?”

But the man in the front, the one who’d thrown the potato, let another one fly, only this time it didn’t miss. No. It smacked into Rein’s thigh with enough sting to make him cry out, “Bloody hell,” and clutch his limb.

An onion came at him then. Rein reacted with an instinct he had thought long forgotten. He ducked to the left and out of harm’s way.

It was, perhaps, unfortunate that at that moment more than one person decided to take aim. Indeed, the barrage of vegetables aimed at his head no doubt resembled the cannon at Trafalgar.

“Bloody hell,” he cried again, arms raised, which left his midsection vulnerable, something he admitted as a mistake the moment the first onion smacked into him. “Bloody hell,” he cried out again.

“Stop it,” someone yelled. “Stop it right now.”

To Rein’s relief, they stopped, though only because Anna had run in front of him, hands outstretched.

“Anna,” he hissed. “Go back.”

She ignored him, yelling, “The next man what throws something at the bloke will have his tallywags cut off and served to him on a platter.”

“At least those tallywags’d belong to a real man and not a sorry bloke what recites Shakespeare,” someone answered back.

A few missiles were lobbed at the stage, but only a few, and none of them near Anna.

“Anna,” Rein tried again.

But she ignored him, facing the audience boldly now, hands on her hips. She’d slipped out of her cloak, though Rein hadn’t seen her do it. The brown dress she wore beneath could hardly be called low, but she dipped forward so that the men had a view of her cleavage.

“Anna,” Rein hissed, suddenly impatient.

She didn’t straighten because he asked. No, she straightened so she could turn and walk along the front of the stage. “So you think you have bigger tallywags than this bloke ’ere?” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder.

“Come ’ere and I’ll show you,” someone yelled.

“Ach, gov,” she said, “staring at your dried up prunes’ll likely turn me stomach.”

“Ooo,” cried the audience as Anna changed directions. She eyed the crowd. Indeed, she strutted, hands still on her hips, her rear sashaying. “Anyone else think they have bigger tallywags than me friend ’ere?”

What the bloody hell was she doing?

“I’ve got meself a pair,” someone yelled. “And I’ll show ’em to you, too, if you like.”

Laughter followed the words. Anna proudly stared back, her head held at an aloof angle as she gave the man a look that must have conveyed how unimpressed she was, judging by the chuckles that followed. She was, in that moment, the single most enthralling woman Rein had ever seen. Gone was the Anna who hid herself behind her cloak and beneath that silly straw hat she wore to market. In her place stood a vixen with a spitfire’s attitude and a confident lady’s allure.

“Very well,” she called out, her hands lifting from her hips to silence the audience. “I’ll make you a wager.”

It amazed Rein how quickly the crowd fell quiet. Lord, it was as if she’d shot a pistol. “We’ll have ourselves a contest. Me friend ’ere will go first. If he survives, someone can challenge him. The winner will get himself a kiss.”

Survive?
Pandemonium erupted. Rein hissed, “Anna. No. Do not.”

“Who will lend me a knife?” she called out, ignoring him. “I need more than one.”

More than one?
What was she about to do?

The amount of knives passed forward was both frightening and shocking. Everything from long blades to short blades, the men apparently too riled to care that they might not get the things back. He watched as Anna bent forward, giving the audience another view of her breasts.

“Ach, lovey, forget the contest. Run off with me now,” said one man.

She looked up and gave the man a wicked smile, at least judging by the audience’s reaction. Masterful. That was the word that came to mind. The way she handled the audience was masterful. It made Rein wonder if she’d done whatever “act” she was about to do before.

She selected four knives from the pile, somersaulting them in the air one at a time as she tested their weight and balance.

“These’ll do,” she said, straightening with the knives in hand, the rest left in a pile near center stage.

“Back yourself against the wall, Rein.”

“What?” he hissed at her in a voice meant for her ears only. “Anna, what are you doing?”

She tossed a knife in the air, catching the hilt with a
thiiik
against her palm, and this after it’d tumbled end over end a good two feet in the air.

And he knew.

“Oh, no,” he said, straightening. “Absolutely not.”

“They’ll pull me from the stage and have at me if we don’t give them an act,” she hissed, her eyes absolutely and utterly serious.

Rein looked behind her to the audience.

Yes, they would. They wanted a show. They’d be furious if they didn’t get one.

“How good are you?” he asked.

She lifted her chin, and he got his first taste of Anna with a saucy smile on her face.

Good lord.

He stared, transfixed, at the way her eyes glowed with amusement. At the way that glow erased the tiredness in her eyes. And if he’d thought her beautiful before, seeing such a flirtatious smile on Anna Brooks’s face made him think no woman could ever be as beautiful as her.

“You’ll just ’ave to wait and see.”

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t have said a word if he’d tried. Good lord, she could put the season’s incomparable to shame. The past ten seasons’ incomparables to shame.

“Go on up against the wall,” she said, pointing with her knife, the smile fading. Which made him realize this was no game. Granted, he’d seen the act done before, but only performed by professionals. Not a golden-eyed temptress who kept tossing her knife into the air over and over and over again.

“Go,” she ordered once more.

He went—reluctantly, but he went. She took position by the front of the stage, her skirts almost touching the candles that lined the front of it.

“Here we go, then,” she called out.

The audience quieted. She tossed the knife in the air one last time before raising her arm and flinging the thing, only as her arm came back, she lost her grip. The audience cried out as the thing sailed above their heads to land with a thunk in the rail around the second floor.

“Hey,” someone cried.

Anna turned, looked up and called out, “My apologies,” before turning to face him.

“Gonna kill ’im,” Rein heard someone else say.

Yes, she was. And for the first time in his life, he remembered the years of suffering through beating after beating, and that came to his aid. Taking a deep breath, Rein stilled. She flung a second knife.

It landed above his head with a thunk and a twang.

Silence, and then a cry of approval. She raised a second knife.

“Anna, one is enough,” Rein said.

“Throw it,” someone cried.

Anna turned back to the audience. “Should I?” she asked them.

A chorus of “Ayes” filled the room.

“What if I keep my back turned to him?”

Loud cheers.

“Anna—”

She flicked the knife without turning to face him. Rein froze.

The thing landed right next to the first one.

Stunned silence greeted her, then cheers so loud they made Rein’s ears ring. She playfully tossed her last knife in the air.

“Do that again,” someone cried.

“Do what again?” she called, flinging the last knife over her shoulder once more.

It, too, landed above his head.

Bloody hell.

She turned, giving him a wink before she faced forward again and took a bow, but as she did so her hand reached into the pile of knives, grabbing one and turning to face Rein with a quickness that took everyone aback, including Rein. With an expert flick, she let the thing fly. And then the others in quick succession. They sank, one by one by one around his body, outlining it.

Anna looked as close to laughter as he’d ever seen her. Chaos erupted. Rein slowly straightened. His eyes narrowed as his gaze met Anna’s.

She lifted a brow.

He lifted an answering brow and then slowly, ever so slowly, smiled, too.

Chapter Ten

They won the prize.

Anna almost did a little dance down the narrow alley that led to the front of the theater.

“Proud of yourself, are you?” Rein asked from alongside of her.

“I am,” Anna said.

“You should be,” he answered.

She preened. That was the only way to describe how she seemed to fluff up. If she’d been a bird she’d have shaken her tail feathers, too.

He smiled down at her again, and maybe it was the leftover thrill of performing in front of such a large audience instead of the small crowd that usually gathered at the market when she did her act, or maybe it was the relief she felt at being able to purchase her canvas and enter the naval competition after all, but suddenly Anna wanted to kiss him. She wanted to yank his head down and plant her lips on his to thank him for coming up with the idea of performing in order to save her sails.

“Where did you learn to throw knives?” he asked with a glance down at her.

“Sometimes I toss knives to attract a crowd.” The right side of her mouth tipped up. “But that was before I learned the benefits of shredding lettuce.”

The two of them emerged from the alley and onto the street. This part of London had lamps, moths hurling themselves at the glass like insect Don Quixotes at windmills. Anna heard their soft little bodies hitting the glass with a
tink-tink-tink
.

“Tell me, Anna, have you always been clever?”

“Yes. Always.”

When she met his eyes they both smiled. Such a small thing, a smile, but this was one of the first Anna and Rein had shared and it hit them both like the boom of a Dover wave. They held their breaths; they stared into each other’s eyes, each as if seeing the other for the first time. Who knows how long they would have continued to do so but for the fact that a jarvis stopped near them and said, “Need a ride, gov?” from high atop his perch behind the cab, the bedraggled white feather in the horse’s bridle hanging limply off one side.

Rein’s gaze seemed to hold hers until the last possible moment, and he pulled his eyes away with an effort as he looked up at the driver. “Yes, my good man, we do.”

It took a moment for what he said to register, took her a moment to concentrate over the pounding of her heart, the heat cascading down the length of her body, the memory of his green eyes staring at her so intently making her feel special, unique, desired.

“Your carriage, my lady,” he said with a small bow as he moved aside to let her precede him into the hack, whose door was suddenly held open by the driver.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We can’t waste the coin.”

“
Au contraire,
my dear. For tonight you shall be whisked away by a magical steed.” He motioned to the open-faced carriage. “Or hack, as the case may be. And before you say another word, let me remind you that we just won a good deal of coin and that should be enough to ride us home.”

Oh,
she thought.

And the yearning that such a simple thing as a carriage ride raised within her made her think how long it’d been since she’d engaged in just the smallest of luxuries. It made a memory surface of sitting next to her mother and snuggling beneath her comforting warmth.

Cold, darling?

No, Mama.
So many stars above them Anna had sat and marveled almost the whole way home from the fair. She shook her head a bit now, focusing on the hack in front of her.

Dare she? Dare she be alone with him in the confines of a carriage?

Oh, why the bloody hell not? Molly would be proud.

And so Anna took his hand—for once not caring that her fingers felt as raspy as a cat’s tongue. His own fingers wrapped around hers—solid, warm, masculine. Feeling like a fairy princess on her way to a ball, she stepped into the carriage, Rein helping her up. She had to force herself to let go of his hand as she took a seat.

“’Ere’s a warm cover for you, mum,” the jarvis said, placing a wool blanket over her lap. And was it her excitement over going for a ride in a hack that made her stomach flutter, or was it Rein taking a seat next to her?

He smiled at her as the door closed.

“May I?” he asked as he held his hands out toward the blanket.

She nodded.

He lifted it, his fingers brushing her thighs in such a way that it caused her flesh to warm like lantern glass. Suddenly she felt afraid to look at him as he settled the blanket over the both of them, the heat his body radiated beneath the cover nearly as great as the warmth in her belly.

A hackney ride. With a virtual stranger.

She shivered.

The driver flicked his buggy whip with a crack. Anna resisted the urge to clutch at Rein as they set off with a stomach-lurching tug.

“’Tis a bit chill this eve,” she said because, lord help her, she couldn’t think of another single bloody thing to say.

“It is,” he said conversationally.

You don’t know this man. He could be anybody. Get out and walk.

Instead she peered outside the ring of light the carriage lantern spilled in a wild arc around the interior. The immediate rush of air across her face made Anna want to close her eyes, made her want to tip her head back and inhale.

Calm down, calm down. ’Tis only a carriage ride.

“Why do you close your eyes?”

Her eyes snapped open. Had she closed her eyes? “I am thinking,” she answered automatically, though she knew immediately what he would ask next.

And he did. “About what, if I might ask?”

About how frightened I feel all of a sudden. How much I miss my mother. How much I wish I could ask her what this fire in my belly means.

“’Bout how long it’s been since I’ve taken a hack,” she said instead.

“And how long has that been?”

She darted a glance at him, but it was quick, Anna not trusting herself to hold his gaze, not when they were so close. “I can count on one hand how many times I’ve paid for someone to ride me someplace.”

“One hand?” he asked in surprise, his black brows lifting as the lantern light moved over his face, only to swing away again.

“Three fingers, actually.”

“Three?”

“Once on my way to London, and…” she paused for a moment to quell the pain of the next memory. “Once when I went away and then came back.”

“Went away?” he asked. “To where?”

“To where I grew up. A short visit.”

He shook his head, his gaze fixing upon her face for a moment before he looked toward a shop front that reflected the glow of the lampposts they passed. Fancy hats sprouted like mushroom caps from a mound of off-white fabric, hats she’d often dreamed of wearing.

He looked back at her all of a sudden, she saw out of the corner of her eye, though she didn’t turn to meet his gaze. “Anna, were you always as poor as you are now?”

She stiffened, resisting the urge to glance over at him in surprise. Why did he ask? And why the blazes did the question make her feel as if all the joy had gone out of her evening, her happiness flitting away like air out of a pillow?

“Anna,” he said, the sound of her name on his lips gentle, almost earnest, as he said, “Should I not have asked you that?”

She shrugged.

And then he turned her face toward him. The cuff of his brown jacket brushed her shoulder. When she met his eyes, she forgot all about how his touching her made her feel. Lord, there was a look in his eyes, a sort of tenderness.

“Have I upset you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she admitted, her voice as uneven as the call of a swallow.

“Bloody hell,” she heard him mutter. “My apologies.”

“No. Do not apologize,” she said quickly, because she felt like she should reassure him. “It wasn’t always bad. It only got worse when grandfather’s illness kept him from inventing the trinkets and the like that he used to sell to feed us. So I found my own job as a costermonger. Like as not I’d still be selling vegetables if I hadn’t discovered my grandfather’s face shaver worked better on things that didn’t breathe.”

But he hadn’t even appeared to hear her words.

“Lord,” he said, looking back at her, his eyes flitting over her face. “Have you ever begged for food?”

The question actually jolted her. “No. I’ve never begged for food, not really. When it’s gotten bad, I’ve asked my friends at the market to give us a spoiled apple or two. You’d be surprised how filling slices of apple can be.”

“Slices? You’ve eaten only slices of apples when you’ve had no food?”

“Sometimes.”

He turned away from her, his dark hair mussed and yet so neatly cut. And for just a moment she felt the urge to touch that hair, to run her fingers through it. To see if it felt soft and smooth like it looked. Instead she curled her fingers into her palm.

“You seem angry,” she said.

“I should admit that I never…”

She waited for him to finish. Waited for him to turn toward her. To say something. “What?” she prompted, her back hitting the seat as they hit a hole in the road.

“Noticed,” he finished, finally turning back to her. “I never noticed there were people like you in the world. Oh, I knew they were about—I just never thought about them. I see now how utterly self-absorbed that is.”

Never noticed? How could he not have noticed? Unless he came from a world far above her.

Her gaze caught on the white ring around his finger. Signet ring? She opened her mouth to ask, then closed it again. She didn’t want to know, because if he turned out to be from a world far, far removed from her own, that would mean… what? What did it matter? It was obvious he came from wealth, and that should be more than enough to send her scurrying in the other direction.

“Most people never learn to notice,” she said, reaching beneath the blanket to squeeze his hand. Such a forward thing to do, taking a man’s hand, yet taking Rein’s felt absolutely natural, perfect.

They held each other’s gaze a moment before he said, “Tell me about your life
before
London.”

No. She pulled her hand away. He grabbed it back, though atop of the cover this time. She wanted to jerk her fingers away, wanted to escape all of a sudden. Tell him about her life? She couldn’t do that. One thing she’d learned during her time in St. Giles: Thinking about the past always did more harm than good.

“Anna?” he prompted.

She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t, and yet she found herself saying, “It was wonderful,” as her gaze moved up the sky she could see just around the edge of the roof. A rain-drenched moon lit the edges of white clouds so that they looked like torn cotton. In between she could see stars twinkling down.

What are those, Mama?

Those are stars, my love.

She must have been three, no more than four years old, and yet she remembered sitting in her mother’s lap in the comfort of her arms as if she’d asked the question yesterday.

What are stars?

The souls of angels staring down upon us.

And then, when her mother and father had been buried, her grandfather standing alongside of her at their graveside, she’d looked up, but it’d been day and so she couldn’t see the stars. The loneliness and longing she’d felt at the moment was a hurt she’d never forget.

“You grew up on the coast?”

Rein’s voice snapped her out of her memories. Had she told him that? She couldn’t remember, but she nodded, the back of her throat aching as she fought back unexpected tears. “In a little cottage, one so near the ocean, on the right day you could hear it rolling in from the sea. I used to listen to the roar at night.”

Please don’t ask any more questions.
She realized then that she held his hand so tightly she felt surprised he hadn’t said anything. She loosened her grip.

“And your father, what did he do?”

Choppy seas. A storm. They’d gone down too fast to save themselves.

“He captained a ship.”

He noticed her reaction. “Anna, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“No,” she said after a deep breath. She learned that trick years ago. If a body inhales when one is about to cry, it makes the tears go away. “It just reminded me, is all. I miss them.”

This time it was his grip that tightened. She looked down at their entwined hands, at the way the skin blanched around where his fingers squeezed her own, at how big his knuckles were compared to hers, how long her nails were compared to his.

“They died at sea together.”

“Anna, please, there is no need. I feel horrid for asking—”

“No.” She shook her head, feeling the need to talk about it. To him.

Why?
a voice asked.
He is a stranger.

She didn’t know, just allowed herself to say, “My father was a captain in the Navy. He’d take my mother with him on occasion. She was an avid sailor.” Anna forced a smile. “Time and again I heard her say if she’d been born a man she’d a been serving in the King’s Navy. My father would let her steer the ship upon occasion—when his crew weren’t looking, of course. She used to tell me about it, used to say she did as good a job as my father. One day they went out.” She glanced up at him, the story having been told so many times that it came out automatically. “And never came back.”

He stared down at her, his green eyes looking almost brown beneath the light of the lantern. “I didn’t realize wives were allowed to sail with husbands.”

She nodded. “It happens frequent enough that Admiral St. Vincent complained once about the amount of water women use.”

“Really?”

“Aye. My mother once told me that when Nelson was injured at Santa Cruz, he asked to be taken to another ship so as not to offend, because of his wounds, the wife of the captain of the ship he was on.”

“Indeed?” he said. Then he asked her a mundane question about life at sea, meaning to turn her mind from the pain of her memories. She knew that, and silently thanked him by squeezing his hand.

When they fell silent, she turned the tables on him. “Tell me about
your
life.”

He jerked. She could feel it because his hand gave a spasm along with his body, causing him to let go.

“There is not much to tell,” he said.