The Virgin's Auction (17 page)

Oh, how would she bear it? How could she possibly bear it?

She could not. There was no way. No conceivable way. It simply could not happen.

But what else was there?

What else could she do?

She was helpless. No money, no friends, no resources. She had nothing but his offer of help.

Freely given, but there would be a cost. There was always a cost. Nothing was truly free.

Why would any man go so far out of his way to assist a woman who spurned him in the strongest of language, vilified him even? He would not do it unless he
were mad or he hoped to profit from it somehow.  She was certain he knew she had no money to give him. She had all but said Peter had taken
everything
.

He must have something else in mind.

She did not have a choice. She must accept his aid, and be ready to repel any advances he made on her person. She must now act the model of propriety and ladylike behaviour, hoping to appeal to the gentleman within him.

Pray God it would not come to force. She had no weapons to defend her virtue.

She smiled a bitter little smile. Virtue? Aye, there was the rub. He was the very worst person to travel with, for almost alone in the world he knew she had no virtue to speak of.

A depraved, fallen woman.
And now it was up to her to teach him to think differently of her, with only the power of her wits.

“Mrs Bristow? Mrs Bristow?” Melissa called out as she came hurrying down the stairs, portmanteau clutched in one hand, the other hand holding her sensible hat. “Mrs Bri- oh, there you are, Ma’am,” she said, coming upon the widow reading a novel in a chair by the fireplace.

“I hate to say it, but the most vexing thing has happened. That foolish brother of mine has – for a lark – run off to London to visit with a chum.” She put her bag on the floor and her hat on her head, hastily doing up the ribbons as she spoke. “He has said nothing to me about it, only posted me that letter. I’m afraid I must hurry off after him for I can’t have him roaming about. He’s a good lad but with no real sense of how to go on in the world.”

“Oh dear, vexing indeed! But surely he will be safe enough on the road. None will think to bother a country lad, I’m certain.”

“You have no notion of the awfulness of his chum,” said Melissa darkly.
“A most dangerous young man, and not at all the thing. He is the reason I brought Trevor away from the city. I feared for his morals. But I will say no more. I do not wish to distress you.”

“Oh how upsetting.
That poor, dear boy. But surely you cannot mean to travel alone? How will you get to London? By stage?”

For a second Melissa considered simply answering yes, but she knew it would only take a moment for the widow to find out otherwise from any of her neighbours.

“Actually, the most marvellous thing happened,” she said airily, trying to make light of it. “That gentleman you encountered here the other day – Mr Carstairs – came to call, and found me wondering how to chase Trevor down. By happy chance he is off to London himself this afternoon and offered to escort me. So very kind of him, to be sure.”

“Well, that is lucky,” said the widow doubtfully, “but do you think you ought to . . . well I’m certain that any friend of Mr Mayhew’s must be . . . I mean he is quite a striking young . . . Do you think I ought to go with you?”

Melissa wished again she could say yes, but how would she deal with the widow in London while she tracked Peter? For that matter, how would she deal with Mr Carstairs while she did so? She paused, arrested by this worrying vision and trying to come up with a solution. It was several long moments before the widow’s expression of dread recalled her to the unanswered question still hanging in the air.

“Oh no, Ma’am, why should you?
Unless of course you would like to go to London. But I can’t see chasing some harum scarum boy as something you’d enjoy. I shall be back before you know it.” There was the sound of a carriage and pair pulling up in the street outside the house. “Ah, and here’s the kindly gentleman now.”

Much as she tried to make him sound like an avuncular sort, there was no disguising the trim, muscular figure and handsome face of Mr
Carstairs driving his dashing curricle, as Melissa opened the door and the widow joined her on the front stoop. He looped the reins and leapt down, coming towards her with his loping stride, his hand outstretched. It made her heart leap into her throat, for no reason she could define.

Melissa could see the words of protest forming on Mrs Bristow’s lips as she – duty-bound – made to call her innocent young boarder back from the perils of associating alo
ne with an attractive gentleman; and in such a vehicle, no less.

Before the widow could speak Melissa passed her small portmanteau to Mr
Carstairs to stow, mounted the step into the carriage and was seated, speaking as she went:

“We must be off now after Trevor,” she called firmly as if there were no other option to consider. “If we only hurry we will quickly catch him and I may be at peace. We shall see you soon, Mrs Bristow.”

The widow frowned, clearly torn, then gave way. “Certainly I wish you Godspeed, my dear, and also His blessing to keep you and the young master safe on your travels.” Melissa saw she still looked upon Mr Carstairs with misgivings but would say no more.

Mr
Carstairs inclined his head and flashed his beautiful smile at Mrs Bristow before leaping up beside Melissa. The widow fluttered and curtsied, not above being charmed by the notice of such a smart member of the ton. He flicked his whip over the ears of his horses and the carriage lurched into motion. Melissa turned her head in the direction of the road. To London then, with all its perils.

Chapter Fifteen

Lord Carstairs’ curricle was exquisitely well-sprung and comfortable. Comparing it to the journey from London to Bourton-on-the-Water in the hired carriage, Melissa could have believed they took a different road entirely.

But to see the ground rushing by almost under her feet at such a speed was frightening. Mr
Carstairs had declared he would spring the horses, and he was true to his word. Fresh and eager, the matched bays surged ahead so fast Melissa clutched at her straw bonnet with one hand and the seat with the other and pressed her lips tight together.

He handled the reins smoothly, and with such surety eventually her heart stopped beating hard with fright they would be overturned at any moment. Her whitened knuckles, aching, called themselves to mind and she unclamped her hand from the seat and gave them a little rub, pressing her back into the leather-covered squabs.

They flashed past a farmer’s cart and then a gig. They were so fast. Perhaps they would catch him yet; although truly they would have to travel at twice the pace of the mail or the stage coach to come upon him in time.

If he were even on one or the other.

She could only guess how he might choose to travel, and hope he would be trying to husband the money to pay off to the supposed creditors. If he hired a coach and four in one of the villages or towns on the way then he would be far beyond her reach.

She should be planning how she would find him in London. At least there was no link he knew of between their father and Black Jack. He would have no idea where to go to discover the man.

Did he know any of Father’s friends?
Or Mr Beaseley? They were the most likely references for a young man trying to discover his father’s creditors; unless he meant to check with the merchants and shopkeepers to find out any unpaid bills.

The greater worry was if Black Jack had a network of informants who might recognise Peter. That in itself was unlikely, surely? For Peter would stay to the streets he knew, in the centre of the town. And Black Jack and his people must dwell in the slums and the stews.

She longed to believe Peter safe from threat. Yet remembering the intelligent malignance behind Black Jack’s face, she could not find it in her to be complacent. There was no reason to believe the man had given up the search for them.

London was the very last place either of them should be. 

She had sacrificed so much to escape from it and from the threats of that evil man, and now here she was driving back into his territory. Her skin crawled at the thought. This was so wrong.

There was no point in blaming Peter. If he had known the truth he would still be safely in the village, working in someone’s garden. Keeping the secret had been an unwise decision, though made with the best intentions. She wanted to shield him from pain.

But he was a young man now, able to make his own choices. Too soon grown perhaps. Becoming orphans meant an enforced maturity and independence for both of them.

She fretted with the edge of her sleeve, drawing it up into tight pleats then releasing it, over and over. If
only
she had told Peter. Oh, not about how she had earned their escape money – never that! But about the debts, and about Black Jack. If she had enlisted his help in her mission to start a new life. Keeping him in the dark had led him to draw all the wrong sort of conclusions.

Hindsight was always perfect.

Yet it was such a surprise to have obedient, easily-led Peter act with such initiative. He was growing up indeed; at exactly the wrong time.

The silence between her and Mr
Carstairs had stretched out for a long while. Maybe an hour, she guessed, when he pulled back on the reins and drew up the horses. When she looked enquiringly at him he nodded towards a threatening cloudbank, sweeping in on the fresh breeze.

“I shall put the cover up,” he said, then suited action to word, pulling the hood up over the carriage to protect them both. She felt the curricle rock slightly as he resum
ed his seat and took up his reins again from the spot where he had looped them.

Feeling immeasurably more confined in the shaded and small space under the hood, Melissa nibbled nervously on her lower lip. She had managed to ignore him thus far by focusing determinedly on Peter and her troubles with him. Yet the moment she stopped thinking about one problem, an awareness of the other assailed her.

Mr Carstairs broad, muscular thigh lay only inches from her own skirts. With the rush of air about her now reduced, she imagined she could feel his body heat radiating out from his large body, his pleasingly masculine scent in her nostrils.

She looked upwards and away, seeing the dark cloud come rolling
in, fat drops of rain beginning to plash down on the footrest, only inches in front of her boots.

As the curtain of rain closed around them they were cocooned in privacy together. Melissa felt her heart start to thump. She had tried to ignore the subtle current of awareness that always charged the air between them. Now, alone, with no one knowing they were here except the widow and she now miles behind them, that same awareness was thick on
her as syrup.

Her gaze flicked from his broad gloved hands grasping the reins to his fawn serge breeches, his
finely chiselled profile, dark hair waving back from his high brow. She tried to keep her head facing forward, sitting back further in her seat so she could watch him from the corner of her eyes. She looked again at his hands, hidden in leather. She knew what they looked like bare.

Knew intimately – and she squirmed in her seat with the heated quiver that ran through her – what those hands felt like too. Gentle, knowing, the skin a little roughened with callus so they scraped lightly over her smoother skin.

Oh, she knew.

She felt her cheeks warm, certain her imaginings must be written on her face. Thank heavens he was absorbed in his own thoughts, his brows lowered towards the bridge of his nose in a slight frown. She watched his lips tighten, relax, pinch together again, and wondered what words he spoke in his mind.

She dreaded the hours still to pass alone together, wondering what he would say and how she could reply.

She did not know
what
to say to him, in truth. Their whole acquaintance was out of the bounds of normal, polite behaviour. Let alone the things she had said to him when last she saw him. Yet now here he was, a knight errant, whisking her away on her quest.

She did not know whether to be coolly civil, or warmly grateful. Certainly she could not treat him badly when he was helping her. But she had let the cat out of the bag when they last spoke, referring to the auction. Pretending to be someone else had
never been an effective defence. But it was all she had had. Now she had nothing.

She felt the suspense pressing down on her, urging
her to say something, anything; to break this waiting silence.

If only she knew him better. She had spent so little time in the company of men, she did not have any idea what she might say in small talk, to politely paper over their awkwardness and establish a more normal interchange. She thought with a touch of hysteria that surely – surely! –
she could not speak to him of the weather. And she knew nothing of hunting or horses or carriages or . . .

“This is a most excellent carriage,” she blurted out, seizing on the inspiration.

He emerged seamlessly from his introspection. “Yes, I’m very pleased by it.”

“Is it new?”

“I took delivery of it just last month, in fact.”

“It seems most elegant.” She had let her natural accent reassert itself, her voice cool, calm and clipped, the precision of the gentry in every syllable.

“It is my own design.”

“How very clever of you.”
If she could access his habitual gentlemanly behaviour she might be safe. Let him only adjust his thinking to include her amongst England’s fair flower of womanhood that must be revered and protected, and perhaps he would hesitate to pursue her with his unwelcome words and touch.

He turned his gaze upon her and she thought he seemed dubious. She smiled brightly at him and
tried to look as innocent and pleasant as she could manage. He narrowed his eyes in assessment and then almost visibly allowed himself to surrender to her intentions, to talk to her of polite nothings like any chance-met female acquaintance; for now at least.

Obligingly he pointed out his innovations: the space under the seat for a little quantity of luggage, the hood that nestled into the sweeping curve of the backrest, keeping them dry at this moment, and the cunning loop for resting the reins so he needn’t hold the horses still but could step down and – for instance – stow a lady’s baggage.

“Do you take up many ladies then?” she asked without thinking.

“Not usually with baggage,” he replied, his lips twitching only slightly, “other than my sister.”

“You have a sister?” She was astounded by this. He had seemed to her some darkling creation of fate, sprung up to at once rescue her from the horror of the auction, and then to be inextricably linked to that horror as they fulfilled the contract of it. Then most recently becoming her nemesis as he arrived in the neighbourhood. Not to mention the shameful fantasies her mind and body indulged in, inspired by his face and body.

The idea he might have a sister, a person with whom he shared a childhood, that he had even
had
a childhood, had been at one time a little boy . . . it was all quite foreign to her image of him.

She knew so astoundingly little about him. For all that she knew the taste of his mouth, the shape of his body beneath his clothes, and how astonishingly
tender and sensual he could be, she knew virtually nothing of his character.

Though she had read once that one might know a man by how he treated those who were powerless against him. And if that were the measure to use, she had been in his power and he had cherished her gently, given her pleasure and been kind.

He could have used her roughly or been callous and uncaring of her. He could have been brutal or worse.

Perhaps a man more pure in heart would have set her free untouched. But then there had been a contract between them. She in turn could have pleaded with him to leave her be. It occurred to her now he might have done so had she asked. Yet she had not.

For she had not even considered a man might surrender the goods for which he had paid – and paid so handsomely – only because a woman wanted him to do so. Men did not act for the convenience of women. They simply took what they wanted, and let the devil take the hindmost.

And she had taken his money, had used it well, to get herself and Peter – and those who had helped them – to safety.

Now Peter was using the same money to run right back into danger.

She deliberately took a deep breath, and then another, relaxed her clenched fists and jaw. Mr
Carstairs was saying something about his sister.

“. . .
her first season. She is at a pinnacle of excitement.”

“I’d imagine so,” she murmured.

“So you are doing me a favour, allowing me to drive you to the city and leave her behind. It’s a blessing to escape from enumeration of every invitation, every gown and hat and slipper embroidered just so. I thought just being in the countryside would curtail it, but no, her recall is perfect. Every day I am treated to a litany of the gatherings she is missing, and what she would have worn had she been in town.” He shook his head in grave sorrow, and Melissa smiled slightly at this byplay. Underneath it she heard another side of him, an almost paternal fondness.

“I can’t imagine that would be of much interest to you. You are very good to indulge her.”

“I don’t lay claim to any great virtue. I sit and nod agreeably and make encouraging noises. That is quite enough for her.”

She was amused by this incongruous picture of docile masculinity. It was hard to envisage what that must be like for a girl to have a strong and benevolent man in the house who offered approval.

She wondered suddenly what he was like in a rage. Would he shout and throw things? Would he use his fists?

That was also hard to imagine, but then men were very different creatures when in their cups. There was no telling what they might do. Mr
Carstairs was certainly very physically powerful. Much bigger than her father.

No, she would not trade her little Peter for a big, burly brother such as Mr
Carstairs.

“I had not imagined you as a brother.”

“Had you not? How had you imagined me?” In a moment he was all seductive warmth, his hot eyes on her making her tremble and stammer.

Blast it.
So much for protecting the delicate flower of her womanhood. “Oh, well I . . . you… you seem quite the sophisticate my lord. Not a family man.” Again she tried for an innocence untainted by sexual awareness, lifting her eyes to him all vapid and empty.