The Scoundrel and I: A Novella (4 page)

“But I—”

“You have really done enough already,” she said sharply. “Haven’t you?”

For a moment he seemed to consider her again. Then he bent his head, set his hat atop his glossy black locks, and went out.

Elle closed the door, bolted it, and fell against the edge of the desk where a captain in the Royal Navy had sat minutes earlier.

“Never again,” she whispered fervently, her gaze slipping through the doorway to the far corner of the press room, where once she had allowed foolish weakness toward a handsome man to overcome her good sense. Straightening up, she brushed her skirts free of the taint of
that
man’s desk and stepped away from it. Because of that weakness, because of what happened afterward, Josiah Brittle Junior, had it in for her.

His smiling lies and seductive grins had coaxed her into trusting him. Then came the heartbreak when he returned from a trip to Edinburgh married. Then—when she refused to give him again what she had while in the throes of naïve adoration—began his vendetta against her, a vendetta that he still held onto tightly, five years later. She could already see his triumphant grin, when the family returned and he discovered the missing type, and hear him condemning her to his father and brother, and then throwing her out onto the street.

She would never again fall for a pretty face.

Captain Anthony Masinter was not pretty. He was worse. He was the sort of man Lady Justice despised: attractive, privileged, elite, obviously wealthy, and entirely at ease with his mastery over everybody. She needed his help like she needed a fresh new hole in her heart.

Her heart was already sufficiently full of holes.

“Never again,” she said loudly to the empty shop—no matter how tempting the man and his offer to help. “Never, ever again.”

She was the prettiest thing he had ever seen, in a heap of trouble he’d caused, and more disdainful than the Duchess of Hammershire on her tetchiest days.

He had to help her. Even if she didn’t want help.

There were three things Tony knew without doubt: how to command a man-of-war to victory in battle, how to turn a glum body to lighter spirits, and how to solve tricky problems. For this sassy-tongued printing-shop mistress with troubled eyes he’d haul out the twelve-pounders if it meant she’d direct that smile at him again.

Leaving behind Gracechurch Street and the girl whose name he didn’t even know yet, he turned away from the part of town where his first lieutenant had once lived and toward his own house instead. He couldn’t very well go beg the widow’s hand with his head full of another woman. And Mrs. Park probably needed a day or two to come to terms with the state in which her husband had left her and their children: broke.

He would find a solution to the pretty print mistress’s bind, and then—afterward—see about the other woman’s horrid situation that was also his fault.

But by the time his manservant, Cob, set the post beside his coffee and steak the following morning, he still had not devised a solution. Taking up a letter marked with his name in a familiar flowing hand, he passed it back to Cob.

“Do the honors, old fellow?”

His manservant opened the message and read aloud.

Darling,

Cob cleared his throat, then continued.

Uncle Frederick is crawling out of his hole to attend Lady Beaufetheringstone’s ball tomorrow evening. No other hostess can ever summon him forth; I think he must have a tendre for her. But I know he will be delighted to see you.

Tony snorted above the rim of his coffee cup. “Delighted” went too far. His mother’s brother, Bishop Frederick Baldwin, was as much of a snob as the rest of the family. But Tony could always make the old prelate laugh, or better yet, turn red and holler.

I expect to meet you there. Save a dance for me.

Bisous,

Seraphina

P.S. Do wear your uniform. You know how I adore it when the ladies flock about you like gulls around a topsail.

Tony smiled. Seraphina was the only member of his family who acknowledged his chosen profession. The others preferred to pretend that he’d been on an extended educational trip abroad. For twenty years.

He would attend the ball. Uncle Frederick was a cranky old codger, but Tony enjoyed him. He enjoyed everybody, mostly.

He wanted to enjoy a snappy-tongued, doe-eyed print mistress, however, more than he had ever before wanted to enjoy a respectable woman.

Her sweet, lush pink lips had entranced him. And her slender fingers, so graceful yet purposeful on that machine . . . He’d gotten downright lightheaded watching her hands move. And hard. Right there in that shop he had imagined removing the pins from her tightly bound hair the color of Russian sable, sinking his hands into it, and tilting her face up to his.

“
Captain,”
his manservant said.

“Cob?”

“I said, would you care for me to reply to Lady Beaufetheringstone’s invitation to the ball, which has been waiting for your consideration, unopened on the foyer table, for a fortnight—”

“If it’s unopened, how do you know it’s an invitation to a ball?”

“—or to Mrs. Starling’s letter?”

“No need. Lady B don’t stand on ceremony, and Seri knows that if she asks I’ll attend.”

“Very well, sir. And when do you wish to meet with the land steward from Maitland Manor?”

“Right.” He was now the owner of his dearly departed great-aunt’s house, including its lucrative lands. With a tidy bundle in his bank that he had accumulated at sea, he was set for life on land like a veritable nabob . . . while John Park was underground. “Have him come tomorrow.”

“Very good, Captain.” Cob gave a smart bow and retired from the breakfast chamber.

Maitland Manor was a dashed fine estate. Now he was going to set up a family in that house. A ready-made family.

He toyed with the corner of Seraphina’s note. Then, like lost treasure washing up on shore, a solution to the pretty print mistress’s conundrum occurred to him.

Bolting from his chair, he grabbed his hat and headed for the mews.

~o0o~

When the door of the shop burst open, Elle had just folded her umbrella and bent to remove her boots. The summer sky was pouring down rain in slanting sheets, and she had returned from her regular weekly tea with Minnie, Adela, and Esme soaked through. In a whirl of rain and wind, Captain Masinter swept in, knocking her off balance. She flailed, he grabbed her arms, and abruptly she was looking up at very close range into a face that was even handsomer in the light of the gray day than by lamp-lit night.

“Good day, ma’am.” His smile glittered and his eyes were so full of pleasure that she could not make her tongue function.

She wrenched out of his hold and backed away. She had barely managed to cease thinking of him since the night before. This was not a pleasant surprise.

“Why are you here?” she demanded.

His smile did not falter. Sweeping off his hat, he moved toward her.

“I’ve devised a solution.” His gaze traversed her from hair to hem, lingering on her stockinged feet soaking up rain on the floor. “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

“I have just come in from— My business is none of yours, sir.” She searched around the floor for her slippers.

Grabbing them up, he went to one knee on the damp boards and proffered a shoe.

“Hand on my shoulder,” he said.

Her mouth hung open.

“Come now.” He wiggled the slipper. “Can’t tell you my capital idea with you standing there shoeless.”

“Captain Masinter, this is—”

“Serendipitous!”

“Serendipitous?”

“I’ll explain it all as soon as you’re shod.”

There was nothing to do but set her palm gingerly on his gloriously hard shoulder, slip her feet into the proffered slippers, and try to ignore the delicious tingle that leaped from his fingertips brushing across her insole right up into her belly. Shod and breathless, she backed away as he stood to his full height again.

“You have ruined your—that is—your—” She simply could not say the word breeches. Not to a man she did not know. She pointed to his knees.

“Sailor, miss. A bit of damp’s nothing.” He waved it away. “Good God, woman, aren’t you eager to hear my plan? Moment I came up with it I could barely contain myself. Wished I’d had wings to fly here.”

“Impetuosity does not seem like a very useful trait for a ship captain,” she mumbled.

“
Au contraire,
madam. All great sea commanders have got to be able to throw themselves into a fine idea at a moment’s notice. That’s how battles are won.”

“Are you a great sea commander, Captain Masinter?” She already knew. Casually introducing the Royal Navy into conversation at tea with her friends, she had learned from Adela, who was silly with adoration for all men in uniform, and Minnie, who practically memorized the gossip columns, that Captain Anthony Masinter, recently retired from his command of the
Victory,
was a bona fide war hero. Apparently, he had also lately come into an impressive fortune. None of this had been welcome news to Elle. She did not need more reasons to dream about the stranger who had ruined her life. And she adamantly did not trust sailors.

But now she was not dreaming of this sailor. She was staring up at him like a nincompoop.

“Came out of a few routs intact,” he replied easily. “But that’s not important at present, of course. Now see here, miss—” Abruptly he sobered. “Know it ain’t proper—”

“It
is not
proper.”

“—to ask you to give me the honor of your name, but this’d all be much easier if I knew it.”

“What would be easier?”

“Helping you out of this bind.”

“No.” She backed away. “I told you last night that I do not need your help.”

He watched as she retreated another step.

“You know,” he said, “you needn’t always be running away from me. I won’t bite. And I’m dashed sorry to disagree with you, but it seems you do need help.”

But she did not believe that he would not bite. Men always bit when they discovered a woman unprotected and alone. From the moment her father had sold her mother’s leather tooled Holy Bible to buy gin, to the day Jo Junior reappeared in London with a wife, all Elle had ever known of men were lies. Except her grandfather, but he had been a man of letters.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “What do you hope to gain from it?”

“What—Why—” he began twice, then more slowly, seriously: “Your continued future employment in this shop, of course. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

“That is all? You do not want anything else?”

For a moment the ship captain was silent. Then he said, “No. I want nothing else.” With a tilt of his head forward and a very slight upturning of the corner of his lips, he added, “Miss . . . ?”

She did not believe him. But he believed himself, and that was better than nothing. Also, he was correct: she did need help.

“Miss Flood,” she said.

He smiled with such clear contentment that she wished she believed him too.

“Great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Flood.” He bowed. Today he had left off his uniform and wore instead a coat that fit his broad shoulders to perfection, dark breeches, and well-used although perfectly polished boots. If not for his tan she would have assumed him merely an aristocrat, a man perhaps more comfortable in the country than town, but wealthy and elite nonetheless. She must be mad to have imagined he wanted anything from her—anything of the sort that Jo Junior wanted. A man like this did not need to go trawling among the common class; he could have any woman among the glittering beau monde that he liked. She need not have worried.

Then his gaze dipped to her lips and destroyed her certainty about that.

“No,” she said flatly. “This is a mistake. I can see to this myself.” She went to the door, opened it to the rain, and gestured him out. “Please go, Captain.”

“Charming enactment of déjà vu, ma’am. But I’d rather drown in the indoor flood than the outdoor one.”

“Captain, please.”

“Miss Flood—”

“
No
. No and no. I have thought it all out, you see. Every possible solution. And unless you plan on petitioning the city to drill through the concrete to wrest that drainage grate from the street, you can offer no solution that will serve. Anyway, today’s rain has blocked even that far-fetched avenue of hope, for if any pieces had fallen into that drain, with this deluge they have surely been washed further down the pipes, perhaps even to the Thames already. So you see, Captain, there is no need for you to—”

He was upon her so swiftly she hadn’t even time to protest. Grabbing the door with one hand he swung it shut. Then both of her hands were in his, entirely encompassed in warm strength, and, despite the shock of it,
not at all uncomfortable
.

“Miss Flood,” he said very soberly, “resolve yourself to my assistance in this matter. And then, if you could see your way to sharing with me your given name, I would account myself the most fortunate of men. That, and it’d make this whole thing a lot less formal.” He smiled. “What say you?”

She was a fool to allow it. But she would be a bigger fool to reject help.

“You will not go away, even if I demand it?” she tried a final time.

“Given who’s at fault here, I truly would be a scoundrel to desert you now.”

“My name is Gabrielle.”

“Gabrielle.” Upon his tongue it sounded like a caress, deep and seductive. “Lovely name, like the lady who bears it.” Abruptly he released her and backed away, disposing himself once again quite comfortably on the surface of Jo Junior’s desk. “Now, as to my idea, me and you will—”

“You and I.”

“Precisely. Me and you—”

“
You
and
I
. Not me and you.”

“What in the devil? It’s the same two people.”

“I am not a ‘two people’ with you, Captain.” Moving around his outrageously muscular outstretched legs, she removed him from her sightline. It was considerably easier to talk to him when she could not see him. “Despite my reluctant agreement to accept your help, we are not a ‘we,’” she insisted. “You are a scoundrel—”

He chuckled.

“—and I must devise a method of crawling into that sewage drain in order to—”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to say.” He followed her into the press room. “I’ve got an idea to replace those bits and it don’t require crawling about in drainpipes to accomplish it.”

“It
does not
require crawling about in drainpipes. Your blithe use of improper grammar is an abomination of the English language and good manners.” Her head snapped around. “It doesn’t?”

He peered at her carefully, his gaze traveling over her from the crown of her bedraggled bonnet to the sodden hem of her skirt.

“A man’s allowed to misuse grammar every so often, ain’t—
isn’t
he?”

“Not unless he wishes to sound like a cretin. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Fact is,” he said thoughtfully, “this little project’s going to require the opposite of crawling through drainpipes.”

“The opposite?” She frowned, making a delicate crease in a brow that had suffered far too many creases lately, Tony thought, or perhaps—given the sorry old state of her accoutrements—always.

Not this time
.

“Last night,” he said, “when you mentioned the name of this machine’s maker, War—”

“Warburg?”

“Right, Warburg. I thought it sounded familiar.”

“Unless you are an aficionado of printing technology—which we have previously established you are not—I fail to see how that name could be familiar to you, Captain.”

“Not an aficionado myself, no. But I’ve got an uncle who’s a collector.”