Sinfully Ever After (Book Club Belles Society) (5 page)

* * *

Of all the creatures to run into just when he was about to slip away into the shadows again! That plucky, bronze-haired, pistol-pointing debt marker.

On that snowy evening, she was aglow with light, something around which a weary traveler might warm his hands.

Apparently she thought he was there for her—that he came to claim the kiss she owed. A romantic idea, of course. Typical of a young woman. While he should have amended her mistaken assumption, he felt absolutely no desire to do so. She was rather bossy. Perhaps she’d pull that pistol on him again if he didn’t obey her orders and kiss her.

“Don’t dally,” she shouted over her shoulder. “I get terribly ill-tempered if I don’t eat before seven.”

“By my salty cockles, we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

“Certainly not, sir, if you came for that kiss. Now make haste.” She marched on.

Whenever a woman made the error of giving commands to Lucky Luke, it usually meant one of two things: she was a fool, or she was too old to feel in danger from him.

In this case, neither was true.

And oddly enough, on this occasion, he didn’t mind being given orders by a woman.

Luke quickly tossed the dog a slice of bacon filched from the tavern kitchen. Ness caught it swiftly and disposed of the morsel with equally efficient speed. Now he picked up his paws and trotted happily alongside his master, stump wagging.

The woman walked onward, leading the way with a forceful stride. Something about her reminded him of Dora Woodgrave. Ah, youth! That must be it. What he wouldn’t give to be young again. Or perhaps not. He’d learned a lot of lessons in his younger years and suffered the scars to prove it. Dora was one of those most unhappy lessons.

One of his brother’s lessons too.

He sighed heavily, breath forming a mist before his face. He knew he shouldn’t follow Gingersnap. He should say goodnight to her, walk on, and never look back.

But she commanded him to follow. And she worried about his dog.

And she had a lovely, well-curved figure.

Uh-oh. See, that is how I always get into trouble
, he thought glumly. Hips were his downfall. But then so were a good pair of titties, a high, rounded bottom, and the soft swell of a woman’s belly when he kissed it and made her giggle. That hadn’t changed since he was fifteen. There was always another pretty woman catching his attention, keeping him moving on from each to the next. The idea of settling with just one seemed patently ridiculous. He could never put his mind to one thing for very long.

“I cannot help but wonder what you are so afraid of, Lucius,” his father had observed, “that you need to surround yourself with more than the customary number of females. As if you might one day run out of the commodity.”

Suddenly he imagined a stream of angry women’s faces at his next funeral. Some would no doubt bring objects to throw at his gravestone. Shoes, candelabra, potatoes. His head had been the target for a fair number of projectiles over the years.

As he watched this kindly, chattering redhead marching ahead of him, he wondered if it was too late to make changes.

Hmm. What would Darius do in this situation?

His brother would probably say, “She does have a mind, you know, Lucius. She’s not just a vessel, an object with which to slake your base desires.”

Yes, his brother said things like “base desires” a lot, as if they were bad.

Therefore, rather than imagine her sweet nipples in his mouth, or her buttocks warm in his hands, or the delicious little dip beneath her ear where she probably dabbed perfume, Luke considered instead her warm, clever eyes and how they filled with excitement when she thought he was there to find her. He thought of her kindness in taking in two strays. Of her bravery.

What harm would it do to give her that kiss for which she claimed she’d waited so patiently for five years? It was only a kiss.

His savior warned him sternly, “I am well acquainted with rogues and their antics. So don’t think to pull the fleece over my eyes, sir. I will give you both food and warm shelter for a while tonight, but don’t abuse my hospitality or you’ll be sorry.”

Again, like the last time they met, she was very keen to let him know she had no time for nonsense, but those golden brown eyes—which she declared could not be deceived—were full of stars, inquisitive and playful. She glanced down at Ness and her lips softened with a half smile.

Luke was sure she took them in purely because of his dog. “Your husband…won’t object to company?” Should have asked that before, of course, but he was waylaid by the admiration of her authoritative, extremely captivating walk. Damn it.

He heard a scornful snort. “There is no husband.”

That was good news, then. Although perhaps not. The way she said it suggested there might once have been a husband, but he was buried in her backyard, minus his manly tackle, and now feeding the roots of that walnut tree they’d just passed.

Luke followed her into a warm kitchen. Immediately he began to thaw out, snow melting and dripping in glassy beads from his shoulders, the tip of his nose, and the brim of his hat. Ness quickly claimed a spot by the fire, shaking himself thoroughly to spatter the floor with drops of water and then letting out a grateful grunt as he found an empty potato sack on which to curl up beside the coal scuttle.

As she untied the ribbons of her bonnet, he caught her glancing at his walking cane again. “Do take off your wet coat and sit. You must be in need of rest.” She cleared a sewing basket from a small stool and then moved it closer to the fire for him.

Why was she so kind to a stranger? What was she up to? Women generally had an ulterior motive, so he’d found. They wanted to go through his pockets while he slept, or they would use his company to make someone jealous, or they hoped to persuade him that they’d been mistreated so he’d fight for them. Or they were bored and looking for a little wicked excitement.

Swinging the leather bag of belongings from his shoulder, Luke overestimated the space in that small kitchen. He knocked into a large Welsh dresser by the wall, shaking all the jugs and platters arrayed there on shelves. Cursing under his breath, he put out his free hand to steady the tilting dresser, and when one silver milk jug tumbled, he had to catch it swiftly in his other hand, dropping his cane in the process. As he set the jug carefully back upon the shelf, he looked over his shoulder and found her studying him—and his fallen walking cane—with great curiosity. Before he could bend and reach for it, she bounced forward, retrieving the stick for him.

“I’m sorry I made you walk at such a pace, sir, but I wanted to get you out of the cold.”

“The name is Luke, madam,” he muttered, snatching the cane from her hand and gripping it tightly. “But everyone calls me Lucky.”

“Of course, I remember. But this time you’re on
my
territory and we’ll abide by proper manners. So I shall call you
sir
and you may call me Miss Sherringham.”

Having removed her coat and bonnet, she slung them hastily on one of the hooks by the door and, in doing so, obscured the small mirror that hung there. She didn’t spare a single glance at her reflection in the glass and so was unaware of a dark blot of charcoal smudged between her eyebrows until he pointed it out to her. Then she wiped it with her sleeve.

“Is it gone?” she demanded, tipping her face up for his inspection.

He nodded slowly. “You now have two eyebrows as opposed to the one.”

“I was in a play.”

“Ah.”

“They need me for the male parts because we don’t have enough men.” She groaned and threw her hands in the air. “
Not
enough
men.
Ha! There’s always too many about, in my opinion, until they’re actually needed for something. Then they are nowhere to be found.”

Tonight her features were clearer, not semi-obscured by smoke from an ill-tended chimney as they were in that tavern five years ago. The young lady’s cheeks had lost the roundness he remembered. They were more sculpted now, tinted a delicate pink from the cold air and framed by dampened twists of copper. Her lips were full, the natural curve sensual, even when she was not smiling. She had the sort of mouth a man might consider flirtatious, coquettish. Until those disdainful, dismissive exclamations about men came out of it to put him in his place.

He gazed at those soft, dusky pink lips, at her full bosom under that flimsy bit of lace and velvet, and her hands—quick, busy hands that would probably feel like the kiss of an angel on his rough, weathered skin.

“Is there something else amiss? My
dear
friends obviously thought it amusing not to let me know about the charcoal, so heaven knows what else you might find.”

He scratched his chin slowly. “No. I see nothing else amiss.”

“Just the freckles, I suppose.” She shrugged. “Not much to be done about those.” When she looked up again and discovered him still studying her face, she exclaimed, “I knew a boy once who went cross-eyed from staring. I told him it would happen, but he didn’t believe me. Well, the brat soon knew better, I can tell you.”

“Witchcraft,” he muttered.

“Oh, of course! It’s always the woman’s fault. Rather than admit a weakness of his own, a man will resort to accusations of witchcraft.
Men!
Good Lord, I have heard every excuse for a man’s behavior and never a simple admittance of guilt or an apology. Worthless, the lot of you. Except for my father, of course, who merely can’t help himself.”

All that because of the one little word he mumbled. A word he hadn’t even meant for her to hear. He mentally drew a pen strike through his earlier admiration of her curves and thickly underlined the fact that she talked too bloody much.

If it wasn’t so pleasantly warm in that kitchen and his dog hadn’t already lain down, he’d turn around and leave. Impertinent, distracting woman. He didn’t need a lecture from her.

“What can have upset Mrs. Jarvis tonight?” She was looking at the kitchen table where onions, carrots, cabbage, and potatoes sat in their raw, unpeeled state and then at the empty pot suspended from the iron crane over the fire. A chicken roasted on a dangle spit, but that was the only sign of progress. “Supper should be ready by now.”

Quick footsteps, accompanied by a shrill querulous voice, echoed down the passage toward the kitchen. “Of all the ridiculousness I’ve put up with in this house! I won’t have it! No, indeed, I shan’t! I’ll find a better place, where I’m appreciated.”

To his surprise—for the voice had suggested someone much larger—a small, narrow woman appeared in the open doorway. She was already untying the strings of her apron.

“This is the last time I work in a house of eccentrics. I was warned before I came here and I should have listened. One mad old soldier with an aversion to decent clothing, his rakehell son, and a wayward daughter who comes and goes as she pleases at all hours. Acting in plays and wearing breeches, for heaven’s sake! Oh, I should have paid heed!”

Luke rubbed his unshaven chin as he surveyed Miss Sherringham and her abundant figure again. The one he shouldn’t be noticing.

Breeches, eh? Now that he would have enjoyed seeing.

The cook stabbed a finger in his direction. “What’s this? What have you dragged home this time? A filthy beggar. Well, if that isn’t the last straw, I don’t know what is!”

Gingersnap protested, “This poor man—a wounded old soldier—is hungry and cold. The least we could do is provide him with shelter. Where is your sense of charity?”

Luke winced at her use of the terms “old” and “charity.”

“Where the devil did you dig him up?”

Well, that was appropriate, he mused, for he had, after all, just risen from the grave.

“I found him, Mrs. Jarvis, on the common, in the snow.”

“Then you can provide for him with your own fair hands—if he doesn’t provide for himself first by stealing the contents of the larder the minute your back’s turned. I’ve just handed in my notice to the major, so there!”

Suddenly the angry woman caught sight of Ness, who had lumbered upright from his newly claimed patch by the fire and now plodded across the floor to stand by his master.

“So it’s
two
filthy, flea-bitten beasts in my kitchen. I won’t stand for this!”

“It’s not
your
kitchen, is it,” Luke interrupted, “if you’ve just handed in your notice?”

Gingersnap scowled at him and then tried a conciliatory tone with the irate cook. “Mrs. Jarvis, I’m sure we can set this straight, whatever it is this time. Do please stay. What shall we do without you?” Such an entreaty would be hard for him to resist, he thought, feeling a smile creep over his lips, picturing her splendid shape in breeches again. Oh, he was warmer now, all right. Nicely thawing.

For
pity’s sake, Lucius, you’re not here for that! Remember? Can’t you concentrate for one blessed minute?

“Indeed I shan’t stay!” the cook cried. “I warned the major before. I won’t remain in a house where…appendages…items that should remain covered are displayed for all to see.”

“Mrs. Jarvis, whatever my father has done now—”

“And I won’t tend another one of your rescued beasts.” The woman grabbed her hat and coat from a hook by the door and disappeared in a whirlwind of mostly incomprehensible grumbles. Luke caught only one partial sentence. “…scandalous drawers with a great deal too much lace, left out on the washing line without a thought for anyone else in this house. And wages never paid on time. Too much for a God-fearing widow woman mindful of her reputation.”

“Oh, Good Lord,” Gingersnap groaned, spinning about on the spot. “I’d better sort this out. Please do sit, sir, and rest. I’ll return shortly.” With that, she dashed out of the other door and he heard her steps hurrying away down the passage, but only a few seconds later, they returned. She peered around the door. “Oh, by the by, sir, the silver is mostly Sheffield plate and dented. As for the china, it might once have been valuable, but it is badly chipped and cracked, the pattern worn away. So if you’re looking for something to steal, you’re in the wrong house. I suppose you might take the food, but it’s raw, as you can see. All this considered, you may as well sit down and wait.” She turned to leave again but looked back once more. “And you may inform your dog that we have no pampered pedigree bitch in the house to impregnate.” Her speech concluded, she raced off again down the passage.

Ness yawned and trotted back to his crumpled sack. Clearly he had no intention of leaving yet, even if his companion had doubts.

Luke was still thinking about those lacy drawers.

Catching his distorted reflection in the bowed belly of a silver tea urn, Luke examined the sorry state of his grimy, unshaven face. Aye, he certainly looked the part of a penniless beggar. To his rescuer, he was just a crusty, crippled old soldier and one to whom she owed a debt on her brother’s behalf. She fluttered and twittered about like a bird. A pretty robin in the snow.

He ought to tell her what really brought him to Hawcombe Prior, that it was quite by chance they’d met again. But she’d be disappointed. Her eyes were shining when she thought he came there to find her. Would it not be ungentlemanly to disappoint her?

Again he asked himself what his very proper brother would do in this position, and he decided Darius would stay silent. When Darius was uncertain, he went quiet and got on with mending his clocks. Both brothers liked to work with their hands in some way. It was one habit they had in common.

Luke looked at the chicken on the dangle spit.

Now that was a bird he knew how to handle.

* * *

Her father was in his chair by the dying fire, shoes off and with both big toes sticking through holes in his stockings. A half glass of port balanced precariously on his belly, only two fingers somehow holding it steady around the stem as he snored with a contented symphony of wheezes and rumbles.

“Papa!” Becky hastily grabbed the glass just as he opened his eyes. “What have you done to Mrs. Jarvis?” Evidently the bared toes were part of her trouble, but there must have been more than that, surely.

“I don’t know, m’dear. As long as I ain’t married her, it can’t be that bad.”

She set his glass on the sideboard and stepped over his feet to stir up the fire. “She’s gone off in one of her terrible huffs and I daresay we won’t see her back now until the new year.” Rattling the poker among the coals with considerable violence, she added, “You must have insulted her cooking again or said something offensive enough to send her into a mood.”

“Is there anything one can say these days that ain’t offensive, m’dear?”

“I think, Papa, you are better off saying nothing at all to Mrs. Jarvis.” It didn’t take much for the cook to find her excuse and walk out, especially this time of year when she liked to go to Manderson and pay an extended visit to her sister’s family. Rather than ask for the time off, she preferred to make the major beg for her to come back, of course. That way she could negotiate for a raise in her salary. “But at this moment, our most important concern is my cooking, for I’m afraid you’ll have to suffer it for the next few weeks without her.”

Her father heaved upright in his chair and laid a hand on her arm while she fluffed the cushion and set it carefully behind his back. “Everything that woman makes is tainted by the flavor of her resentment. I would rather eat a bowl full of your cold and lumpy gravy made with love and good intentions.”

“Well, that’s all very nice, and fortunate, because that may be what you get to eat tonight.” Becky glanced at his exposed toes. “Papa, you had better give me those to darn. Really, you cannot go about with holes like that.” She thought again of the parson’s wife eyeing their laundry as it dried on the washing line.

“Why not? If anyone should peer in at my window tonight, they will see I have holes, m’dear, and they will know for certain that I have toes, if they were ever in any doubt. And if that upsets ’em, they’d best not see the state of me drawers.”