Taming Beauty (5 page)

“A female ploy a gentleman does not stoop to utilize.”

“Is it any wonder we women must stoop to such trickery when all about us men invite chaos and lunacy to run rampant?” Lilith asked with a smirk, a quite fetching expression few women could pull off with such aplomb.

“No wonder at all.” Jasper fought the grin forming on his lips. It wouldn’t do to encourage the lady to such trickery.

“You’d do well to remember that in the coming days.”

“As you are waving your family’s soiled undergarments about for my guests to ogle at will?”

Lilith Aberdeen took two small, gliding steps, coming to a stop mere inches from where he’d remained in the shadows, content to allow her to bask alone in the candlelight. Tilting her head back, she captured his gaze and held it. “Mere warning shots, my lord, to test the battlements, so to speak.”

Heat radiated from every inch of her long, lithe form, carrying her scent—anise and cinnamon and a hint of citrus—to him in undulating waves, buffeting his senses.

“Release Sissy from this misalliance,” she continued, her voice a husky whisper. “Or I will be forced to call for reinforcements and lay siege to your impressive battlements until you surrender.”

Jasper swallowed back a groan at her words, his mind addled simply imagining all the ways she might tempt him to surrender. “Do your worst.”

Lilith laughed, her breath fluttering over his neck and jaw. She was so near, so blessedly close, Jasper had only to bend his knees and lower his head to have her lips, those wanton lips even now curling with a mischievous smile, beneath his.

“For you, I think only my best will do.”

Miss Lilith Aberdeen had learned at an early age to appreciate mornings.

Not, as one might suppose, for the beauty of the sunrise or the trilling of birds in the trees or even the promise of a new day and all the possibilities it might present.

Lilith had learned to appreciate mornings for the privacy they afforded a girl raised in a courtesan’s household, where even the servants slept late after cleaning up after the previous night’s bacchanal.

It had been nearly four years since she’d removed herself from Gwendolyn’s Hanover Square home to settle into the rather dilapidated old house on the Thames—one of the un-entailed properties Malleville had cavalierly threatened to sell off, though not the one in which the countess had been born and raised—and still she rose with the dawn every day.

It mattered not at all whether she’d been out all night gambling, dancing or otherwise making merry with her numerous acquaintances. When the sun crested the horizon, Lilith came awake, suddenly and completely.

So it came as no surprise whatsoever when Lilith awoke with a start the next morning.

The only surprise was the silence surrounding her as she rolled to her back and stretched her arms up over her head. Opening her eyes she took in the wooden rafters on the ceiling, the unadorned stone walls and threadbare curtains shifting slightly in the cool breeze seeping through the cracks around the windows.

Silence was a commodity rarer than diamonds in London. If carriages weren’t trundling down the street fronting her house, the servants were banging pots and pans below stairs or the two elderly gentlemen residing on either side of her were hurling insults at one another over their garden walls.

Lilith lay still and listened to the silence until she realized morning in the country wasn’t silent at all, but rather a symphony of sound, soft and quiet. A faint buzzing, insects of some sort presumably, perhaps even grasshoppers. Wind ruffling the grass and blowing through the leaves on the trees. Was that the sea splashing against the cliffs in the distance?

She scrambled from bed and hastened across the room to the window. Pushing the curtains aside, she looked out over a vista of rolling green hills marked here and there by low hedgerows planted in tidy square formations. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, a blaze of orange beneath a cloudless blue sky.

Geography had never been her forte, but even she knew the ocean—the Celtic Sea if she remembered correctly—was to the west.

Perhaps this afternoon, between visiting the village Dunaway had assured her lay somewhere nearby and offering up further glimpses of soiled linen over dinner, she would take a walk along the cliffs. She’d never seen the ocean, and it seemed she ought to take advantage of the opportunity, for she couldn’t imagine when she might willingly travel beyond the environs of London again.

With her day planned out in her mind, Lilith drew on the silk kimono she’d purchased on the London docks, part of a bounty pilfered from some merchant ship waylaid in the channel by privateers, no doubt. Tying the belt loosely, she hurried out onto the balcony and down to her maid’s bedchamber. She pushed open the door and Tula looked up from the ironing board wedged into one corner of the room no bigger than her dressing room at home.

“Oy, you gave me a fright,” Tula said by way of greeting, her brown eyes going wide beneath a frizz of pale curls tumbling from a white mobcap. “I’d a’ been in with your Turkish coffee some ten minutes past only the cook ain’t never brewed up anything more ‘an weak tea. And seeing as she don’t allow anyone to muck about in her kitchen, I ‘ad to give her a quick lesson on how to grind the beans and add the milk just so. Not what I’m makin’ any promises on whether t’will be to your liking.”

“Never mind, I suppose one can’t expect perfect coffee, or anything else, in the country,” Lilith replied, eyeing the yellow gown the girl was ironing. “I thought I’d wear the lilac and the turquoise shawl with the matching fringe. And a pair of sturdy walking boots.”

“You don’t own anything sturdier ‘an the gray ‘alf-boots you wore fer travelin’ and thems fair coated in mud.”

“The white kid-skin then. Oh, and when you fetch my coffee, ask Reggie to bring around the carriage.”

“You goin’ somewheres?”

“To the village, and the sooner the better as I’ve a letter to post before the mail coach arrives.” Lilith turned back the way she’d come, scurrying over the warped boards of the balcony.

A movement flashed in her peripheral and she halted before her open door. Turning, she swept her gaze over the tangle of rosebushes, weeds and wildflowers between the bachelors’ quarters and the house proper.

Two heads sporting bright orange curls poked up from behind a crumbling fountain, matching blue eyes fixed on Lilith. The boys were the oldest of Susan Rossiter’s brood of little people, if she didn’t miss her guess.

Lilith dropped into a curtsy, her robe parting to expose one leg from mid-thigh to bare foot before she quickly pulled the silk closed and rose to stand once more.

The little persons erupted into giggles as they ducked down beneath the fountain.

Smiling, she looked toward the main house only to find Baron Malleville standing on the threshold of one of the open glass-paned doors. He was dressed simply in a white linen shirt open at the neck and black trousers tucked into tall boots. With his arms crossed over his chest, his muscled legs braced apart and his too long hair falling to frame his square jaw shadowed by night whiskers, he was the very picture of the Beast of Breckenridge.

He watched her, silent and perfectly still but for a lock of mahogany hair lifting on the breeze before settling across his brow.

A delicious little shiver traveled up Lilith’s spine to quiver along her limbs, unwelcome but not entirely unexpected.

She’d felt precisely the same thrill, a heady mix of anticipation, danger and desire, the moment he’d joined her on the balcony the night before. The sensation had expanded and multiplied to an almost desperate yearning when she’d allowed herself to stand near enough to witness the flare of lust in his eyes and hear the low hiss of his indrawn breath.

It was one thing to acknowledge her desire for the big brute of a man, it was quite another to know he was similarly afflicted.

And it was a third thing altogether to act upon that knowledge knowing full well the consequences would be disastrous for them both.

Malleville stepped away from the door, disappearing from view, and Lilith drew in a ragged breath before turning for her borrowed bedchamber.

She hadn’t the time nor the inclination to allow the man to distract her from her purpose. A purpose she was only just realizing was entirely at odds with that of the Earl of Dunaway. The lying, conniving reprobate.

Dunaway hadn’t offered her up as an alternate bride, nor had he brought her along to educate his daughter about the goings on in the marriage bed, or even to keep him company until the wedding. He’d cajoled her into accompanying him solely to tempt the baron to forfeit both his virgin bride and the thirty thousand pounds that came with her.

And so she would, but not in the manner the earl envisioned.

She had only to make it to the village before the mail coach came through, and wreak a bit of havoc while she was there.

* * * *

Except when Lilith arrived in the village of Breckenridge, she learned they hadn’t anything so civilized as a mail coach coming through daily, nor even weekly. And no wonder, the village was nothing more than a dozen structures scattered along both banks of a narrow river winding between steep, craggy hills covered in grass and some sort of purple flowers.

She also learned she’d unwittingly taken up two passengers, stowaways from Breckenridge House who’d apparently climbed onto the boot as the carriage trundled down the twisting, rutted lane.

The two boys hopped down, giggling and prancing about the inn yard, just as Reggie assisted Lilith from the carriage.

“We were up there all along,” the taller, and presumably older, boy crowed, slapping his brother on the back. “And the lady didn’t even know it.”

“All along,” the other boy agreed, his freckled cheeks flushed.

“I thought for sure the groom would see us before we left Uncle Jasper’s land.”

“Before we left Uncle’s land.”

“Wait’ll Meg learns what we done. She’ll be right sore she missed it.”

“Right sore.”

There was more jumping and back pounding and even a few jabs of shoulders before the boys settled down enough to turn and face Lilith who only watched their antics silently.

Seconds ticked by while Lilith studied the grimy little smiling faces, threadbare shirts and patched-knee breeches. Two pairs of bright eyes dimmed and identical toothy grins fell away under the weight of her quiet regard, and she wondered if they expected her to offer congratulation or some sort of reprimand for their antics.

Lilith offered neither. “The two of you act as if you’re the first boys ever to hitch a ride on the back of my carriage.”

“We aren’t?” the taller boy asked in some surprise.

“I can’t travel more than a mile through the London streets without some chimneysweep or mudlark climbing onto the boot or hanging off the side of my carriage.” It was something of an exaggeration, but only just barely.

“What’s a mudlark?” he asked.

“Mudlark,” the smaller, freckle-faced boy repeated.

“Boys who scavenge about in the mud along the banks of the Thames,” Lilith replied. “I suppose some of those pitiful creatures might even be girls. It’s impossible to determine, what will all the muck clinging to them.”

“Do they find treasures?”

“I presume so, else why would they bother sifting through the filth?” Lilith replied. “Now then, as I haven’t time to take you home, you’d best tell me your names and make yourselves useful.”

“I’m Charlie Rossiter,” the taller boy answered. “And this here’s my brother, Henry. We seen you yesterday when you arrived at Uncle’s house.”

“When you arrived,” Henry repeated.

“You saw a bit more of me this morning, if I’m not mistaken.”

Both boys blushed and shuffled about, hiding smiles behind dirty hands.

“I am Miss Aberdeen, but you may call me Lilith.”

“Mama says as how you’ll be our cousin when Uncle Jasper marries Lady Priscilla,” Charlie said.

“Mama says,” Henry parroted, an odd habit that struck Lilith as rather sweet. Still he ought to discard the tendency lest he appear an idiot to strangers.

“I’ll be no such thing,” she argued without much heat. “Tell me, Charlie, and you can reiterate if it suits you, Henry, where does one drop off the post in this little village?”

“Mr. Poole collects the post at the inn,” Charlie answered readily. “Unless it’s Sunday morning, then you’ll find him across the river at the smithy.”

Lilith waited for Henry to add his two pence, never mind they would be borrowed from his brother.

“Sundays he’s at the smithy,” the boy said with a lopsided smile.

“On account of he does a brisk business with folks bringing in their horses for shoeing while they’re in church,” Charlie added.

“Brisk business.”

Lilith was tempted to send the boys back to Breckenridge House in her carriage, but they might prove useful for gathering information and introductions. And if she were honest, she found them rather entertaining as they launched into a discussion, one-sided as it was, on the merits of larking along the banks of the narrow river.

“You’d best ride back to Breckenridge House and tell their nanny, or whoever it was who allowed them to escape the nursery, that the little men are with me,” Lilith said to Reggie who only laughed before hopping up on the bench and giving the reins a flick to set the horses moving.

“There’ll be no mudlarking today,” Lilith told the boys as she started for the stone bridge traversing the river. “We’d best make for the blacksmith’s shop post haste lest we get caught in the crowd looking to have their horses reshod while they sing hymns.”

The boys fell into place on either side of her, Henry skipping along with his arms swinging at his sides while Charlie wrapped one hand in her skirts and clung as if afraid she’d leave him alone in the street.

When they reached the bridge, Henry scrambled up onto the stone balustrade and, arms held out for balance, nimbly walked the entire width of the river to the other side.

Charlie stayed pressed to Lilith’s side and looked up at her from huge, unblinking blue eyes. “What about the person who lost the treasure? Shouldn’t a mudlark return it to its rightful owner?”

“I don’t see how he, or she, would earn a living returning goods, for not everyone would offer a reward.”

“And who is to say who the rightful owner is?” Charlie mused, his brow wrinkling when he frowned. “The person careless enough to lose the treasure in the first place, or the person careful enough to find it?”

As they reached the opposite side of the river and started up the dusty road to the smithy, Lilith came to the surprising realization the boys had separate and quite distinct personalities. While Charlie was a chatterbox and Henry little more than a mimic, the older boy was something of a philosopher while the younger boy was an adventurous little devil.