The Perfect Stranger (6 page)

“T
HE TOAST, MISS
!”

Faith jumped. “Oh, heavens!” She hastily knocked the burning toast into the fire. “Sorry.” Her cheeks must be flaming, too, she was certain. Had he noticed where she’d been looking?

“Never mind. ’Tis no worse than if Mac had done it—he’s useless, the big gawk!” Stevens broke off and glanced at Faith. “I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right,” Faith said ruefully. “I deserved it. Will you trust me with another slice?”

He shrugged his agreement. “If you like. We can scrape any black bits off. It’ll all get eaten, black or not.”

Faith, on her mettle now, silently vowed there would not be a speck of black on any future toast. If she hadn’t been so distracted…Thank goodness the fire would account for any extra redness in her cheeks. Whatever would they think of her if they knew how she’d stared? Stared at naked men. A true lady would have turned away, as Stevens had suggested. She concentrated on the toast.

It took great concentration, too, with the image of a naked Nicholas Blacklock still firmly fixed in her mind.

Stevens placed a dozen thick, streaky rashers of bacon into a pan, then thrust it into the coals. Soon they were sizzling, and the smell was heavenly.

Faith tried to concentrate on the toast but could not prevent an occasional quick glance at the two men coming up the beach, now dressed. Even clothed, he still looked magnificent.

Even clothed.
How depraved had she become! She dropped a perfectly toasted slice on a tin plate, buttered it, and skewered another on the toasting fork.

Last night she’d seen him in firelight, a man of shadows, hard and strong and fierce. A fearsome warrior, yet she recalled the way he’d tended her hurts, with repressed anger and gentle hands.

This morning, his face and body gleaming and wet in the morning sun, he did not seem the same man. The man of the night seemed all dark and brooding mystery. Now he looked like a sea god risen out of the waves, powerful, exhilarated, full of life.

Clad only in buff breeches and a white linen shirt, he looked the essence of strength, of masculinity. His shirt clung to his body. His skin was still damp. His chest was broad and powerful, his legs taking long strides in the sand.

A whiff of smoke caught her attention, and she hastily turned the toast. Slightly scorched did not count.

“Breakfast’s almost ready,” said Stevens as the men arrived at the campsite. “Bacon’s cooked, miss is making the toast, and I’m just doing the eggs now.” As he spoke he broke eggs into the sizzling pan.

“Good morning, Miss Merrit.” Nicholas Blacklock bowed gracefully.

For a moment, Faith did not recognize the name she’d hastily claimed. “Good morning, Mr. Blacklock, Mr. McTavish.” McTavish made some sort of noise, which Faith decided was a Scottish greeting. She stared up at Nicholas Blacklock. His eyes were gray, darker gray than the dawn sky, lighter than the gray and glassy sea behind. His skin was lightly tanned. Tanned evenly all over, she recalled. He must swim naked often. Their eyes met, and she blushed and looked away, as if he could read her thoughts.

He squatted down beside her, took her chin between finger and thumb, turned her face to the sun, and examined it intently. Faith squirmed. “I know; I look a sight.”

He said seriously, “No, the scratches are healing, the swelling has gone down a bit, and the bruises are a good color.”

“A good color?” She was inclined to be indignant.

“Yes, they’ll fade soon. You’re obviously a fast healer.” He released her chin and reached for the hem of her skirt. Faith, her hands encumbered with the toasting fork, managed to swing her knees away. “My feet are perfectly recovered, I thank you,” she said in a firm voice that told him she had no intention of baring her limbs to him again.

His lips quirked, and he sat down beside her in an easy movement. “I trust you slept well.”

She checked the toast. “Yes, thank you. Amazingly well—better than I had expected. And you—have you quite recovered from your indisposition?”

“I have.” His tone made it clear the subject was off-limits.

“Did you enjoy your swim?” She flushed as she recalled the sight he’d made emerging from the waves and added hastily, “Um, Stevens told me you went for a swim. Not that I saw you swimming, you underst—” She broke off, flustered, when he gave her a piercing look. What did it mean? Did he know she’d peeked? She hurried on, “It’s a beautiful morning. Was the water cold?” Oh heavens, what had made her ask that? She’d
seen
it was cold! Her whole face flamed.

“Och, give it here!” Mac grabbed the toasting fork. The toast was smoking gently.

“Oh dear, I’m sorry! I was not looking!”

“Aye, I noticed,” he grunted. “I’ll have tae scrape this lot wi’ a knife!” He pulled a knife from his boot and with a long-suffering expression started to scrape toast.

It was only one piece and not that badly burned and Faith was inclined to tell him so, but Stevens interrupted. “Don’t worry, miss. Mac is a rare talent at scraping toast. As he said, he’s our usual toast maker.” Stevens winked at Faith, and she felt better.

“Now, here’s yer breakfast. Eat it while it’s hot.” It was a feast; golden scrambled eggs, thick slices of bacon, and toast, carefully scraped and lavishly spread with the rich local butter.

Now, Miss Merrit, I think it’s time you told me your story,” Nick said when they’d finished breakfast.

“My story?” she said, with a not-very-convincing air of innocent surprise.

“You know very well what I mean,” he growled. “The story of how a gently bred young English lady comes to be alone, hungry, and sleeping among French sand hills. At the mercy of any passing villain.” His bluntness was deliberate. This was no time for false pride. She could not be allowed to continue like this. The consequences of last night—had he not been there to prevent them—were unthinkable.

“None of us will repeat a word of what passes here. You have my word.”

She looked down and mumbled a thank-you. “I suppose the story will be all over London in a few weeks anyway…” She hugged her knees and wiggled her bare toes, stretching them toward the fire. The slender, dainty feet were a mess of blisters. Healing blisters, Nick saw, but still! He made a resolution to do something about those big ugly boots at the first opportunity.

When it seemed she wasn’t going to say any more, he said, “Come on—spit it out! What the devil are you doing in this mess?”

She raised her head and gave him a cool look. He attempted to moderate his tone, make it sound less like a prisoner interrogation. “I mean, who is responsible for your current predicament?”

She shrugged. “I have no one but myself to blame.”

Nick’s brows knotted. It was his experience that most people’s problems were invariably someone else’s fault. “How so?”

She hesitated, then said, “I fell in love.” She broke off, and for a moment it seemed as though she would leave it there. Nick opened his mouth to prompt her further, but she said, “I fell in love in England, but he was—well, I
thought
he was a Hungarian violinist. He asked me to marry him, to elope with him! And…and so…I did.”

“I see.”
Damned fool romantic notions!

Stevens swore under his breath. “You didn’t even think about the disgrace, miss?”

She gave him a rueful look. “It never even occurred to me, Stevens.”

“Why ever not, miss? Surely you knew what people would say!”

“No,” she said simply. “The thing is, eloping is something of a tradition in my family. My mother and father ran away to Italy to get married.” She hugged her knees, and her voice grew wistful. “I grew up hearing about it. They were completely and wonderfully in love until they day they died…”

The fire sputtered, and far away, seagulls fought over some morsel of food.

“You said you thought he was a Hungarian violinist,” Nick prompted. “Wasn’t he?”

“No! Well, yes—he is most definitely a violinist and an extremely talented one, but he wasn’t Hungarian at all! He was
Bulgarian
.”

Nick frowned. “And it mattered—his being Bulgarian?”

“No, of course not. What mattered was that he has
five children
! Five!”

“Five children?” he nodded. “Rather a quiverful, I agree. I gather you’re not fond of children.”

“Of course I’m fond of children. I love children! It wasn’t the children!”

“Then what?” He was puzzled.

“He was
married
. His wife and children are living back in Bulgaria. He
lied
to me.”

“So when he refused to marry you—”

“Oh, he married me. I would never have lived with him without being married. I am not so lost to propriety as—”

Nick leaned forward. “But you just said—”

“The thing is, I
thought
we got married.” Her voice was a mixture of desolation and anger. “He faked the wedding.”

“How the devil did the bast—” Nick bit off the word and tried again. “Er, how does one fake a wedding?”

“He bribed a priest for the use of the church, and he got a friend of his to dress up as a minister and perform the ceremony.”

Nick carefully unclenched his fists. He wanted to throttle the bastard. “How did you discover the cheat?”

She sighed. “It was our one month anniversary, and I wanted to do something to celebrate. Felix was busy, so I decided I’d go to the church and take some flowers there. I took a bottle of wine for the minister, too. But when I asked for him…I found the real priest and…well, it all came out. He said he hadn’t realized what Felix wanted the church for…” She shook her head.

Nick flexed his fists. Two people to throttle; a Bulgarian fiddler and a crooked priest. “What did you do then?”

“I went home and confronted Felix about it. I…I thought it would all turn out to be a misunderstanding, but…he didn’t deny a thing.” She bent over so he couldn’t see her face. Trailing sand through her fingers, she said in a low voice, “I discovered he’d never loved me, had never really cared about me at all.”

Nick said nothing, just waited for her to explain.

“I was a bet, you see.”

“A
bet
?” His body was like a coiled spring.

“Yes. He bet one of his friends he could elope with me.” She added in a tight voice, “Actually, any wellborn English girl would have done. But I was the stupidest girl in London that season. I thought I’d found my true love, just like Mama.”

There was a long, awkward silence. If he ever met him, the violinist was a dead man! To ruin a sweet young girl
for a bet
!

Nick could imagine it. A shy, sheltered, naive little creature, raised on stupid romantic fairy tales. She’d be no match for a slick Continental flatterer. She ought to have been protected from such a villain. “Did your parents not see what was in the wind, try to stop you?”

“My parents died when I was seven.”

Nick dismissed them with a curt mumble of sympathy, but he was not to be distracted. “Did no one try to stop this impostor from targeting you?”

She shook her head. “The thing is, Felix had assumed the name of a real Hungarian family. The Rimavska family is well-known, very rich and aristocratic, so he was accounted a good match. Great Unc—”

She bit off the sentence unfinished, but Nick could put two and two together. The lax guardian was her great-uncle. It made sense. Only a very sheltered girl, a girl brought up by an elderly man, would have been so easily deceived.

And it would account for why the guardian was willing to turn a blind eye. Anything for a chance of a fortune, he thought savagely.

She continued, “He wasn’t Felix Vladimir Rimavska at all. His real name was Yuri Popov.”

“I’d bloody well pop him off!” muttered Stevens angrily.

Mac noisily shoved some wood onto the fire. It blazed, creating a gush of smoke, before the wood caught.

Nicholas, coughing, gave Mac an irritated look but turned back to the girl sitting hunched and desolate next to him. “That still does not explain why you are apparently destitute and abandoned, unprotected. Do you tell me this”—he carefully unclenched his fists again—“this
violinist
threw you out with not a penny to your name?”

“Oh no.” Her voice was dull. “He wanted me to remain as his mistress.”

Nick swore.

“Feli—” She caught herself up. “
Yuri
did not see why his wife and children should be any sort of an impediment to his pleasure. After all, they were in Bulgaria.”

“Did the fellow have no shame at all?” exclaimed Stevens.

“No. He was not the slightest bit put out by my discovery of his lies. He knew I was ruined, that I could never return to my former life. He thought I had no choice but to stay with him until he tired of me. So many people knew we had run away to get married, you see.” She added in a brittle voice. “I cannot believe the extent of my folly now, but when we eloped, I wrote to everyone to tell them. I thought it was the most romantic experience of my life.” She gave a dry laugh. “I even thought Mama and Papa would approve if they knew.”

Mac crashed around, rattling dishes noisily. “For God’s sake, Mac, will you stop your dammed noise!” Nick said irritably.

“The dishes need tae be cleaned.”

“Then take them down to the beach and wash them there!”

“Aye, I will that!” There was another lot of rattling and clashing of tin implements, and then he heard Mac stomping away, his displeasure evident. Nick ignored him. He wanted the whole story.

“So what did you do?”

“I could not stay there another minute. As soon as he left for his concert—he really is extremely talented, you know—I packed a few things and fled. I did not take the diligence—it was booked out and—”

“Do you mean to say you left Paris at night, to travel back to England on your own and in the power of complete strangers?”

She gave him a narrow look. “I had no choice.”

“Didn’t you have a maid?”

“No.”

“What? But—”

“Look!” she flared. “I was upset, and I wanted to leave Paris as soon as I could. I didn’t think it through, and I haven’t had much experience of planning journeys. I did the best I could at the time, and yes, I know it was a stupid and dangerous thing to do. Does that make you happy?” She glared at him.