That Perfect Someone (8 page)

“Is it? Let your hair down and show me.”

Now his tone was too husky by far. She felt a fluttering in her belly and her pulse was quickening. This was getting out of hand! It occurred to her that he might be thinking she’d come here to tryst with him. Why wouldn’t he? She shouldn’t be there!

“I should leave,” she said abruptly, and started to stand.

“No, no, don’t do that! My pain went away the moment you appeared.”

What a whopper, though she smiled anyway over the blandishment. Then he put his hand on her arm to stay her, and all she could think about was him touching her.

She finally got out, “Your friend Gabrielle thought you could use some cheering, but she obviously didn’t know about your injuries.”

“She worries too much about me.”

“With reason?”

He grinned. “Be my shield,
chérie
. She won’t yell at me while you’re here.”

She chuckled. “I have a feeling she—”

She stopped with a gasp when he suddenly leaned out of his chair and nearly across hers. But then she heard the buzzing sound of the bee close to her ear and instinctively moved away from it, which brought the side of her cheek up against his chest. He was batting at the insect to get it away from her. She heard his grunts. That was too much stretching for his bruised ribs. But she didn’t hear the bee anymore either, he’d swatted it away. What a chivalrous thing to do, despite the discomfort it had caused him.

“Thank you.”

She leaned back at the same time he did and saw immediately that the bandage on his face had fallen to the ground during his exertions.

“It was a nuisance and due to come off this afternoon anyway,” he said, then grinned as he leaned closer so she could see for herself. “Just a few scratches, correct? I don’t look too scary, do I?”

No, just too handsome,
she thought before she met his eyes, realized she was far too close to him now—and felt his lips brush across hers. Her gasp was lost in the pressure that began immediately, her surprise so sudden, she didn’t even think to close her lips this time. His tongue slipped inside her mouth, carefully exploring, amazing her with his taste, with her instant, passionate response. He was holding her there against him with just one arm, but she wasn’t trying to get away. Oh, no. She was right where she wanted to be.

Carried away by that kiss, she put up a hand to caress him. Thoughtlessly, so thoughtlessly, her fingers got too close to his nose. She felt him wince and shoot backward as if burned.

“I’m sorry!”

He was giving her a wry grin. “Not as much as I am,
chérie
.”

She could see his whole face now. Despite the bruising on both sides of his nose and the abrasions on his cheek, she saw just how handsome he was, even more than she’d imagined that night at the ball. But his features seemed familiar to her. Had she met him before?

Maybe he’d ridden in Hyde Park—no, she would have noticed someone this handsome on her riding grounds, wouldn’t she? But she must have met him somewhere for him to look so familiar. She just couldn’t pinpoint where.

And then she did.

The anger didn’t creep up on her slowly, it burst instantly from inside her where it had been hidden away, just waiting for the sight of
him
again to spark it to life. Even after all these years he could still provoke her. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t show up when she’d just petitioned to have him declared dead and out of her life for good!

“Dieu,
what’s wrong,
chérie?”

Her relief was tremendous when she heard his French accent. He was French, not English. This wasn’t her fiancé. But, good God, it had been frightening to think he was, however briefly. And of course, it wasn’t. Jean Paul only bore a minimal resemblance to the fifteen-year-old Manford whelp she’d last seen eleven years ago, and it wouldn’t be the first time someone had shared a trait or look with him that had brought that skinny, arrogant boy so clearly to mind again.

She was still shaken, though. She’d had no idea that such rage had been lying dormant inside her all these years.

She had to take a few deep breaths before she could trust her voice to sound normal. “Sorry, it was an old, horrid memory that snuck up on me.” Then she grinned to make light of it. “Your cuts are mostly superficial, but there’s an obvious dent in your nose. Will it go away once your nose mends?”

“My nose is fine. The bump is from an old break when I was young that wasn’t treated.”

“Broken when you were twelve?”

What was she doing? Did she still have doubts?
She’d
broken her fiancé‘s nose when he was twelve and she’d been so glad that she’d done so.

But he was frowning over her question, then his green eyes flared wide with the same memory she was having. “If you tell me you’re Julia
Miller,
I’m going to wring your bloody neck,” he said in a snarl.

She shot out of her chair so fast, she almost tripped. “You son of a bitch!
You son of a bitch!
How dare you come back when I’m almost rid of you for good?!”

“How dare
you
not be married so I
can
come home? My God, I can’t believe I’ve been trying to seduce
you
!”

The way he shuddered, or pretended to so as to insult her, made her see red. She almost flew at him. It was so close! But just enough of a sense of self-preservation remained that she quickly walked away before they picked up where they’d left off and tried to kill each other.

Chapter Thirteen

W
HAT HAPPENED DOWNSTAIRS?
” Ohr asked Richard from the doorway when Ohr returned to the room. “Gabby and I got back to the table and found you and the young lady gone. Gabby was still in high dudgeon after chewing my ear off and thought you two might have gone off somewhere more private. I’m thankful she just huffed off without another word.”

“Sorry about the ear-chewing.”

Ohr shrugged. “Since I was pretty much tasked with keeping you out of trouble, I deserved it. I finished lunch, though, to give you a little time in case you did manage to get the lady to come up here.”

“If you thought that was a possibility, you were dead wrong.”

Ohr finally noticed that Richard was stuffing clothes in his travel bag. “Did Gabby send up a message that we’re leaving early because of this?”

“No, but I am.” Richard didn’t look up to say it. The panic he was feeling was similar to what he’d felt nine years ago while waiting for his ship to sail away from England, afraid his father’s henchmen would find him and drag him back to Willow Woods, his home outside Manchester, Lancashire—his personal hell.

His fear had been very real that night because he’d known the search for him had already begun. He had a little more leeway now. Unless his father was currently in London, which was unlikely since he rarely traveled so far from home, it would take a day or two for a message to reach him, depending on the messenger’s mode of travel. Richard didn’t trust Julia not to send that message. But as long as he vacated this hotel, he could still control the situation.

“Let me guess,” Ohr said next. “The young miss wanted a ring on her finger instead of a nice tumble.”

“Exactly.”

“Er, I was joking. You haven’t been here long enough for a woman to insist on marriage.”

“Time is irrelevant if the woman has been engaged to you nearly since she was born.”

“That would actually make time more than relevant,” Ohr pointed out. “This sounds more like an arranged marriage from my culture, not yours.”

“My people are half yours, or rather the Americans are, but it’s still archaic no matter how you look at it, and I didn’t escape from this horrid situation all those years ago to end up getting trapped by it again. Bloody hell, I really thought she’d be married by now to someone else whom she could torment for eternity.”

“Why didn’t you marry her if you were obligated to?” Ohr asked carefully.

“Obligated because my father signed a contract, thereby signing away my life? Not bloody likely.”

“Still—”

“No, by God, don’t try to make me feel guilty for not honoring the word of my tyrant father, who thinks he can live my life for me. Besides, there’s no polite way of saying this, Ohr. The girl and I hate each other. If I had asked her to marry me, then I might feel obligated, but I didn’t. I never wanted any part of her or her bloody fortune that my father covets.”

“I begin—to understand.”

Richard snapped his bag together before he glanced at Ohr and, with a nod, said, “Thought you might. Not every culture instills in children the importance of honoring their parents above all else. Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t honor mine out of love, if I had a parent left who was worth loving. I don’t. But I’m not catching a ship out of here until I break all my old ties to this place for good, and I can’t do that until I’ve seen my brother one last time.”

“The brother you mentioned a few years back when you were so drunk you couldn’t stand up?”

“I actually told you about him? Why didn’t you ever mention it?”

Ohr shrugged. “Figured it was something you didn’t want to talk about since you never did—unless you were drunk beyond remembering.”

“You have an amazing lack of curiosity, my friend.”

“It’s called patience. If I’m meant to know, then eventually I will know.”

Richard chuckled. “You miss out on knowing a lot of things with that attitude.”

“Would you like some help in locating your brother?”

Richard’s instinct was to say no. He didn’t really want his friend to know how pathetic his life here had been. But he couldn’t go anywhere near Willow Woods himself. Time hadn’t changed his appearance as much as he’d thought it would. His body might have changed, but apparently his face hadn’t altered drastically in nine years, or in eleven years in Julia’s case. She had recognized him, or thought he looked familiar enough to pry with her question, which made him realize who she was.

Good God, he hadn’t seen that coming. She bore absolutely no resemblance to the scrawny little savage who had tormented him when they were children. He couldn’t even say what color eyes she’d had back then, they were always so narrowed on him with rage. Her hair had been much lighter, nearly white, when she was a child, not the ash blond it was now. She’d actually turned out pretty! Who would have thought? But he knew the vicious little termagant was still inside her. Look how quickly her rage had sprung forth the moment she’d guessed who he was.

“I know where to find Charles, at least I assume he and his wife, Candice, are still living at Willow Woods with my father,” Richard said. “I just can’t go near the place myself, or I’ll risk being dragged back into the fold.”

“So you do feel you have obligations?”

“No, not a single one. But actually I could use your help.”

Ohr nodded and started packing as well. He didn’t ask what Richard feared would happen if his father found him. His restraint really was amazing.

Richard decided to volunteer a little bit about his life anyway. “It’s a complicated story, Ohr. I might be my own man now, but my father won’t take that into account. He uses—harsh means—to see his will done and employs brutes to enforce that will. He’s Milton Allen, Earl of Manford.”

“That makes you as aristocratic as the Malorys?”

“Yes, but I’m the second son. I won’t be inheriting the title. My father, while not poor, is by no means rich either. Comfortable in the pocket barely describes his lot. So uncaring tyrant that he is, he decided to barter his sons to improve his circumstances.”

“That’s not an uncommon practice, to plump up the coffers through marriage.”

“Agreed, but in this day and age, parents take their children’s preferences into account. My brother and I should have been allowed to choose our own wives, keeping our father’s criteria in mind. But we weren’t even consulted, we were simply told who we were going to marry, and before we even came of age.

“Charles, with the title coming to him, was logically used to marry up the social ladder, and you can’t ascend much higher than marrying a duke’s daughter. That’s so lofty, it wouldn’t be conceivable for an earl’s son under normal circumstances. But Candice, the girl to whom Charles became engaged, was so unappealing in appearance and disposition that her father, the Duke of Chelter, couldn’t get rid of her after three Seasons of trying. She’s what you might call a screecher. She’s also a habitual complainer. All of which made her suitors, and there were plenty of them who sought the connection to the duke by marrying his daughter, go running in the opposite direction long before they got to the altar. It was becoming something of a joke, the number of engagements broken off with her. So the duke jumped at my father’s offer of his eldest son, despite that the girl was four years his senior. They were married two years before I left home, and his marriage became the nightmare Charles and I guessed it would be.”

“You apparently left to avoid the marriage your father arranged for you. Why didn’t he?”

“As the eldest son, he had much more to lose. And he’s not the rebel that I turned into. He might have raged and bemoaned his fate, but in the end he always did whatever Father told him to do. He wants to become an earl someday. God, I used to get so furious at him, for always buckling under. And look where he is now because of it, married to a woman who makes his life a living hell. She drove him to drink, you know. I don’t think I ever saw him sober after the day he married her.”

“You thought the same thing would happen to you, didn’t you?” Ohr guessed.

“Are you joking? I knew it would be exactly like that. Actually, I was afraid I’d end up killing my intended, if she didn’t kill me first. We hated each other on sight.”

“Why?”