The Notorious Scoundrel (5 page)

“In the sitting room?”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “I think I’m used to less comfortable surroundings.”

She nodded. “I’ll get you a blanket.”

She slipped inside the bedchamber, and he listened with interest as she rummaged through a series of unidentifiable articles in a chest, looking for the blanket, he supposed. What sorts of treasures had she buried in there? he wondered.

A minute later, she returned.

She offered him a white embroidered quilt and matching bolster. “It’ll keep you warm.”

“Thank you.”

He touched her slender fingers as he reached for the linens, and she quickly dropped the bedding into his lap, skirting away as if he had burned her.

“Good night, Edward.”

She closed the bedchamber door.

He remained in the chair for a minute more, looking at the sealed barrier. He hadn’t intended to make her feel uncomfortable; however, it was hard for him to suppress the intense feelings she evoked in him.

Edward unraveled the linens and settled on the round, woolly hearth rug. He placed the bolster under his head and covered himself with the blanket, staring at the ceiling.

He sensed the wood floor under his bones, even with the plush carpet. He tossed from one side to the other before he settled on his back once more and sighed, weaving his fingers together and placing them behind his head.

He soon noticed a dark figure standing, watching him from the bedroom door, clearly cross. She had opened the barrier without making a peep.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

Was he making too much noise? He found that unlikely, for the sounds coming from the other tenants were far more boisterous.

He sighed. “I don’t think I’m accustomed to going to bed so early in the evening.”

He had walked a far distance today. He should be ready for sleep. He was restless, though. It was only about ten o’clock, he guessed.

“You’d rather be out chasing skirts and getting tattoos?” she quipped.

He grinned at that. “I think so.”

She snorted. “Don’t let me stop you.”

Truth be told, he’d rather be in the apartment with her. He’d rather be close to her…touching her.

“What do you do for fun, Amy?”

“I don’t have fun.”

He cocked a brow, gazing up at her from the floor. “At all?”

“I work six days a week and I only get one day off to rest.”

“So what do you do for fun?”

Amy made a wry face and returned to the bedchamber, shutting the door quietly.

She was an odd lass, wasn’t she?

Edward was nestled beside the coal hearth, the spring nights still chilly, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, when Amy slowly opened the bedroom door once more.

“I like to play croquet,” she confessed quietly.

The genteel sport suited her temperament. She wasn’t one to enjoy the rat pits, he reckoned.

“I even purchased a croquet set.”

Edward pulled the blanket away and jumped to his feet. “Let’s play then.”

He folded the embroidered linen and set it and the bolster, aside.

“Here?” she said, puzzled. “Now?”

He started stacking the chairs in the corner of the room. “Why not?”

“I’m tired,” she said lamely.

“You don’t look tired.”

She was hardy, like him. And if he wasn’t all that fatigued, she wasn’t, either, he suspected. She was only putting up pretenses, for she was…odd.

“Do you play?” she wondered, folding her arms across her bust.

“Perhaps.” He pushed the round table into the other corner and rolled up the rug. “And if I don’t know the rules, you’ll teach them to me.”

She wavered.

“What’s the matter, Amy? You like to play the sport and I’m restless.”

She sighed at that. “Wait here.”

She vanished back inside the small bedroom, and again he heard the shuffling and knocking as she groped through the mysterious items she had buried in the sturdy wood chest.

She returned to the sitting room with a long leather case, and set it carefully on the floor, unfastening the belted straps.

“It looks new,” he observed.

“It is.” She opened the container. “I’ve yet to use it.”

Slowly she removed the wickets, balls, and mallets.

He hunkered across from her and collected the pieces. “Don’t you play with your friends?”

She scoffed. “I don’t have friends.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like the people who live in the building…or in the area at large.”

He eyed her intently before he arranged the thick wood wickets around the room in a pattern, keeping the arches steady, as he wasn’t able to stake them into the soil, as the game required.

“I guess you do know how to play croquet.” She nodded at the figure-eight arrangement. “You’ve placed the wickets in the proper order.”

He looked around the room and shrugged. “I suppose I do.”

Amy handed him the mallet with a blue stripe. “Why don’t you start?”

He picked up the corresponding blue ball and readied himself at the starting point. The space was cramped, but he managed to gauge the wicket and send the ball rolling through the arch.

He stepped aside, and allowed Amy the next play with her red mallet and ball.

“Don’t you ever get lonely, Amy?”

She knocked the ball through the first wicket. “No, I like my company.”

“I like your company, too,” he admitted, observing her blush. His belly warmed, rumbled with pleasure even, at the charming sight. “But what’s the use in having a croquet set if you can’t play the game with others?”

He struck her red ball with his blue ball, earning himself another point and a bonus play.

“I don’t keep the croquet set so I can play with it,” she returned tersely, waiting for him to make another attempt.

He frowned as he took his bonus turn. “Why?” What was the purpose of amassing so many “treasures,” then? To engage in make-believe?

But she remained quiet.

“What about a beau, Amy?”

She stiffened. “I don’t have a beau.” She eyed the red ball and knocked it through the next wicket, bumping his blue ball. “You heard Madame Rafaramanjaka. I’m not to keep a beau.”

“I heard she doesn’t want you to have a lover…but that doesn’t mean you have to listen to her.”

She bowed her head, her beautiful long locks loose from the braid and hiding her features. “If I want to keep my employment at the club, then, yes, I do.”

“But who will keep your bed warm?”

She glared at him, missing her bonus shot. “Are you trying to distract me from the game?”

“No.” He took up his turn. “I’m just curious.”

She huffed. “I keep my own bed warm.”

“There can’t be any fun in that,” he said seriously.

“I told you, I don’t have fun.”

He had rounded the figure-eight course and was making his way back to the starting point. “And yet here we are, playing croquet.”

She was quiet for the rest of the game—and appeared piqued to lose as he struck the blue ball back through the starting wicket, ending the play.

“I’ve won, Amy.”

Her pert lips twisted and he smiled.

“Don’t be peevish. I’ve clearly played more often than you.”

She humphed and snatched the mallet from him.

He nuzzled her soft cheek, scented with lemon soap. “This is why you should play with friends, Amy…you might lose every time if you don’t practice.”

She bristled, rooted to the spot. He listened to the sound of her breathing, so heavy and irregular, and blood hastened through his veins as he sensed her growing arousal.

“How about a kiss for the victor?” he whispered.

She glanced at him sidelong: a sharp, wicked glance, for she then let her right fist swing in the direction of his jaw.

He ducked this time, avoiding the blow, and chuckled. It had been worth the effort, he thought roguishly.

Amy gathered the equipment and secured it in the leather case before she returned to her bedchamber. “Good night, Edward.”

She shut the door with a sharp snap.

A
my was seated at the dressing table, combing her hair. She twisted her long locks into a queue and secured the tresses with a white ribbon, observing her reflection in the vanity glass. She rarely fashioned her locks outside the club, but today she decided to adjust her routine.

She stood and smoothed her skirts before she opened the bedchamber door. Her heart pattered at the imposing sight of Edward. He was standing beside the window, gazing out into the street below, a meditative expression across his low brow. He offered no indication that he was even aware of her presence, so she took the quiet, discreet moment to observe him in greater detail.

He was dressed in a slightly rumpled shirt and creased trousers, his coat draped casually over an oak chair. The man’s dark locks were mussed, his otherwise piercing blue eyes still somnolent. He was in such a bedraggled state that he stirred her blood. It was almost dreamlike, the impression he made upon her. He filled
the room with his energy, and she welcomed the comforting company. For the first time in many years she had someone else in the home to talk to after waking up in the morning.

“You can stay here as long as you’d like,” she blurted out.

Slowly he looked away from the pane of glass and stared at her. He gazed at her quietly for a lengthy time, the silent observation making her bones quiver.

She was quick to impart: “As you search the city for your home, I mean.”

He returned his attention to the window without commenting, and she busied herself in the room, collecting the blanket and bolster and returning them to the chest in her bedchamber.

“You have no money, after all.” She next moved into the small kitchenette and gathered the pewter dishes, set two bowls on the table in the sitting room. “You might as well stay here until your memory returns.”

“Are you trying to keep me around, Amy?”

“Of course not.”

She fastened an apron around her waist before she stuffed kindling into the iron stove in the kitchenette. She started a fire with the matches, then set a copper pot over the range and filled it with water from a pitcher that was sitting on the shelf.

“But what will you do for funds?” she said. “Shelter?”

“I’m resourceful,” he assured her with confidence. “Don’t worry about me.”

She opened a ceramic jar and scooped a handful of oats from the container, stirring the contents into the pot. She wiped her fingers in her apron, careful to keep her back turned toward Edward. “You mean, you’ll steal.”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that. I’m sure my memory will return soon.”

She twisted her lips at his annoying tranquillity. Did nothing ruffle the man’s feathers? How could he act with such coolheadedness? Was it all just bravado? Or was the man really unperturbed at the prospect of starting over?

She whisked the oatmeal in the steaming pot with a wooden spoon before she ventured a glance at Edward again. He was still standing beside the window.

“What are you looking at so intently?” she demanded, sounded unintentionally peevish.

“The two suspicious-looking fellows who keep pacing the street.”

Amy frowned and crossed the sitting room. She paused beside Edward and peered through the damask drapery at the bustling crowd.

“What two—?”

She quickly stepped away from the window, her heart pounding.

“What’s the matter, Amy? Do you know them?”

Unfortunately, she thought grimly. It was the same two assailants from the Pleasure Palace. The men had looked confused, prowling the street as if searching for the right building. Perhaps someone at the club had
confessed she lived in St. Giles? But who? The guards staunchly shielded her true identity. The queen paid them handsomely for their silence…and yet the thugs had infiltrated her dressing room the other night. There was a snitcher at the club.

Edward had quickly guessed her thoughts about the thugs, for his eyes darkened and he suddenly stormed from the room.

“Edward, wait!”

But he was gone. She looked out the window again and watched him with bated breath as he moved through the throng in the direction of the assailants. He disappeared from view and she wrung her fingers.

“Oh, bullocks.”

She snatched her shawl, wrapped it around her shoulders, and descended into the congested street. She passed the lemonade vendor, the lavender seller. She circumvented the young girls and boys fencing stolen goods from the previous night.

Amy pushed her way through the pressing crowd, looking for Edward. He was a skilled pugilist, she thought. He had already trounced the attackers, but he had injured himself in the fight, too. He was still recovering from his head wound. If he ended up in another scuffle so soon, he’d likely come out the loser…bloody…broken.

As the images in her head grew more gruesome, she hastened her steps and broadened her search, making her way toward the river. She followed the natural flow of heavy traffic into Billingsgate Fish Market on Lower
Thames Street. The costermongers hawked herrings, stockfish, oysters. The robust shouts and pungent smells filled the wharf. She peered over myriad heads, searching for Edward’s tall figure. He wasn’t at the market, though. She had lost him.

Amy cursed under her breath. She treaded back toward her lodgings, determined to wait for the scoundrel there. As she traversed the narrow lanes, she passed the charity school for female foundlings.

The gloomy structure chilled her. She had survived her girlhood in a similar asylum. She preferred not to reflect upon those wretched days, though, and she skirted past the building…when lyrical laughter arrested her rushed movements.

Amy stilled, muscles pinched. She slowly looked over her shoulder at the charity school and spotted the back of a well-dressed lady as she entered a regal-looking vehicle. A white-gloved hand waved through the parted window at the children. The girls wished their benefactor cheerful good days in return before the carriage set off.

The warm figure soon approached her and knelt, and Amy sensed a pair of gloved hands squeeze and tickle her midriff.

She squealed with delight.

Amy stared after the vehicle, feeling dizzy. She sorted through the shadowed figures, the muddled sounds in her head…

“Watch it, girl!”

She stumbled as a bounder bumped into her back
side, pitching her into another pedestrian, the missteps causing a calamity.

“Troublemaker!”

“Rioter!”

Amy girded her muscles, befuddled. “It was an accident.”

But the swelling mob wasn’t so sympathetic, their expressions black. She fisted her fingers in anticipation of a brawl, but a hard hand gripped her wrist and jerked her roughly away from the rankled crowd.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing, Amy?”

She was rattled, breathless. “I-I was looking for you.”

Edward frowned. “Why?”

“I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I don’t need you to protect me,” he said firmly. “
You
, on the other hand, need protecting.” He ushered her toward her lodgings. “You almost started a rampage.”

“It wasn’t my intent,” she snapped. “I saw…”

“What did you see?”

The vehicle. The laughter. The gloved hand. She had remembered…but the vision vanished.

Amy mumbled, “Never mind.”

The moment they entered the apartment again, she wondered, “What happened with the thugs?”

“I lost sight of them in the crowd,” he returned in a surly manner.

She sighed. “Damn fools! Why won’t they give over and trouble some other, more
sociable
barmaid?”

“I doubt there’s any as pretty as you.”

The man’s gruff voice had softened at the expression, making her cheeks warm. She looked at the floor and observed his booted feet approaching her. The muscles in her midriff tightened, and she sensed the blood pulse in her ears.

“I think you’re right, Amy.”

He tipped her chin up with his forefinger, meeting her gaze…that smoldering gaze; it singed her flesh, unsettled her nerves.

“I think I should stay with you for a little while more—until my memory returns.”

He was staying to protect her. It was there in his eyes, the gentlemanly impulse. Funny he should be such a gentleman now, without his memory. If the scoundrel ever regained his thoughts and former bad habits…

In truth, she didn’t mind him staying awhile longer at the apartment with her, and so long as he stayed away from the club and the vicious queen, there wasn’t any harm in keeping him for a short time more, she supposed.

Edward sniffed…then sniffed again.

Indignant, she took a step back, glowering, but she quickly smelled the burning oats and kicked up her heels. “Oh no!”

“Everything all right in there?”

She removed the bubbling pot from the stove, the oatmeal ruined. She would have to begin anew, though she hoped the wasted grains weren’t an ill omen, that she wasn’t making a mistake in letting the seaman reside with her.

The coal fire in the hearth warmed Edward’s toes as he sat, slumped, in an oak chair, arms folded across his chest, frowning. He peered at Amy through the parted bedchamber door. She was seated on a stool at her dressing table, oblivious to his darkening mood. He observed her with growing impatience as she brushed her lengthy locks, dolling herself up for an evening shift at the gentlemen’s club, where she’d have to gratify another party of overbearing patrons. And thanks to him, she’d get half her usual earnings for her trouble.

“Well, I’m off.” She grabbed a shawl and draped it over her head and shoulders as she entered the sitting room, and looked at him pointedly with her sharp green eyes. “I’ll be home late, so I suggest you get some rest.”

Rest? He snorted. He lifted out of the seat and approached the front entrance.

“Where are you going, Edward?”

“I’m escorting you to the club.”

Amy’s eyes swelled. “No.”

He ignored the woman’s brusque retort and opened the door. “You were attacked two nights ago.”

She sighed. “I appreciate your concern, but I don’t need an escort.”

“I think you do,” he returned evenly.

“I have been going to the club alone every night for almost three years, and there’s no reason for me to change my habits now. Besides, when you regain your memory and return home, I’ll still be working at the
club. You can’t protect me all the time—and I don’t want to depend on you.”

He eyed her mulishly. “I can protect you tonight.”

“I’ll be fine, really.” She pried his fingers off the door’s latch. “Madame Rafaramanjaka knows about the attack. She’ll make sure the guards are more vigilant.”

Edward took her hand and squeezed her warm fingers, sensing her rapid pulse. “Do you really think I’m going to sit here idly, while you walk the streets alone at night?”

“Are you daft?” She glowered at him. “I just told you, I’ve been walking the streets alone at night for almost three years. I’ve yet to meet my Maker.” She wrested her fingers away, lips pinched. “You’ll never get inside the club, anyway.”

“I got inside two nights ago.”

She looked him over in a quick, keen manner. “How
did
you get inside the club?” She waved her fingers in a dismissive gesture. “Perhaps you sneaked inside the establishment.”

“You see? You have poor security at the club if
I
was permitted within its walls.”

“You have to stay here and rest, Edward.”

“I can at least escort you to the club’s door.”

“No!” She flounced off and entered the passageway. “If Madame Rafaramanjaka thinks I have a beau, she’ll dismiss me from the club. Stay here, Edward. Please!”

She skirted through the darkened hall.

He stared after her bustling figure, the blood in his veins pounding. He took one step back inside the apart
ment, reached around the door to locate the iron key on the hook, then shut and locked the entrance, skulking in the shadows after Amy.

Edward followed her to the impressive establishment in Covent Garden. There he waited for her in the streets for more than an hour, restless. He waited for her to come out again, so he could walk her home, but as he witnessed more and more posh gentlemen flood the club’s premises, the irritability in his blood strengthened, and he itched with the profound need to smash their aquiline noses into the pavement.

Edward crossed the street with wide strides. He had sneaked inside the club the other night. How hard would it be for him to sneak inside again?

Slowly he climbed the three stone steps leading to the front door and stealthily attempted to part the main entranceway. The thick door was secured.

No, it wouldn’t be so easy, he supposed. He headed down the steps and decided to make his way around to the back of the building. Perhaps there was another door there? The sound of heavy iron hinges rooted him to the paved walkway, though.

He glanced over his shoulder at the surly-looking guard peering at him suspiciously through the slightly parted door. He must have detected Edward’s endeavors to steal inside the club. Edward anticipated a rude remark and a threatening show of fists…he wasn’t prepared for the gatekeeper’s welcoming gesture.

The gruff sentry opened the door fully and bowed. “Good evening, sir.”

Edward hesitated for a second before he composed himself and scaled the steps again, walking into the sensuous club with confidence. Had he impersonated a gentleman the other night? Was that how he’d entered the club? Was that why the gatekeeper was being so welcoming now?

It was the only logical conclusion, and keeping the thought in his mind, he headed through the elaborate passageway and up the flight of winding steps with aplomb. He intended to keep a close watch over Amy. He would remain in the shadows; he wouldn’t give off the impression that he was her “beau,” and risk her losing her livelihood. However, he would safeguard her well-being…for tonight.