What a Lady Craves (4 page)

“Beggin’ yer pardon, miss,” Tilly put in, “but I didn’t get a chance ter look.”

Alexander showed little inclination to pick himself up off the floor. And why, in heaven’s name, would anyone want to lie on those filthy planks? Amid the jumble of articles crammed into the Flotsam and Jetsam shop, she’d never once spotted a broom.

“And begging your pardon,” Alexander said slowly, as if he didn’t like to admit what he was about to say, “I seem to be in need of some assistance.”

That was it, then. She couldn’t just leave him there in the inch-thick layer of dust on Tilly’s floor. Pressing her lips together, she stepped closer and extended a hand.

As their fingers touched, he caught her eye once again. She braced herself. At one time, the mere brush of those fingers against hers, even separated by gloves, had been enough to send a jolt straight to her core, a heady awareness that buzzed through her most private regions. But she would not—would
not
—allow her body to betray her like that again. His palm slid against hers; his hand curled about her wrist, the grip surprisingly strong.

And calloused. The skin just over her pulse warmed and tingled. Gracious. The man had calluses. They hadn’t been there before.

She pulled, and he heaved himself upright, his body swaying slightly, his breath heavy.
He gripped the counter for balance. Goodness, had he always been that tall? He must have. Neither did she recall his shoulders being quite that broad, nor his chest so solid. His presence dwarfed her. Overpowered. And yet, his pallor proclaimed him not yet recovered from his ordeal.

“And what gave you the idea you were ready to rise from your bed, much less able to manage a constitutional down to the village?” She sounded like someone’s maiden aunt, clucking and peevish as an old hen. Hell, she
was
a maiden aunt since her brother’s wife gave birth to a son two months ago.

“I had business.” He raised a sandy brow. “Same as you, I daresay.”

Naturally, he’d overheard her heedlessly blurt to Tilly that she was seeking a new situation. Naturally. But then, he didn’t know of her current position, thank the heavens. She hadn’t acted as his aunt’s companion long enough for a letter to have reached him in India. Indeed, if Lady Epperley had written to him, the note would have crossed paths with his ship somewhere near the Cape of Good Hope. At any rate, who was to say that Henrietta even merited a mention in his aunt’s missive, no matter their history?

“Business you’re in no condition to carry out, clearly. My goodness, how you ever made it down from the manor is beyond me when only last night …” She stopped herself before she could rattle off any more.

His jaw tensed; if she didn’t miss her guess, he was setting his teeth. “It could not wait, irrespective of my
condition.
”

How dare he mock her? “You should still be abed.”

He lowered his brows, but the sternness of his expression still managed to entice and intrigue. “You speak as if you are intimately aware of the goings-on at the manor. What do you know of them? For that matter, what are you even doing in this part of England?”

Damnation. She’d given herself away.

“I’ve been acting as your aunt’s paid companion.” She kept her tone brisk, as if she’d bumped into an acquaintance she’d rather avoid.

Actually, he
was
an acquaintance she wanted to avoid. The memory of what he’d put her through set her insides churning. And as long as she recalled that, and not their more pleasant interactions, she’d be safe. For he represented a real danger. She could not allow him near her again, no matter how handsome he was. No matter how her skin, even a spot so innocent as her inner wrist, still buzzed with the echo of his touch—an echo that vibrated in much more secret spots.

He leaned one hip against the counter. “For how long?”

“Just over six months.” Six long months—enough to make her change her mind about staying to spite him—but he didn’t need to know that.

“And you’re looking for a new position already?”

“Yes.” A lie, as she hadn’t decided, but she couldn’t resist the chance to needle him. “Since last night, as it happens.”

“And what does my aunt have to say about that?”

“She doesn’t know, and I’d prefer to keep it that way until I’ve lined up something else.” She kept her gaze steady on his, daring him to contradict her. Daring him to tell her no. As if he had any say in her life these days. He had none, and he damned well knew it.

“That is hardly fair to my aunt.”

She would not beg. Not to any man, but most especially not to him. “I will give my notice in due course.”
If
she gave it, but as long as he planned on treating her like a servant he could question and order about … “Until then, I will thank you to keep your opinions to yourself. I will further thank you to let me deal with your aunt as I see fit.”

The muscles about his lips tightened, but he nodded. “You have a week to tell her.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but the rustle behind the counter reminded her that Tilly had overheard every word of their discussion. He looked from Alexander to her and back like a spectator at a battledore and shuttlecock match. Yes, and he’d be all too eager to repeat every last word of their exchange to various and sundry.

Henrietta scowled at Tilly. “You might keep this conversation quiet.”

His slow grin revealed the gaps in his dentition. “I might, and again I might not.” Alexander whipped his head about. “You heard the lady.”
Lady.
How long had it been since anyone considered her a lady? “Keep an eye out for what I told you and this conversation remains private. I’ve left a deposit. There’s more where that came from.”

“Arr, I see we understand each other perfectly.”

Henrietta firmed her jaw. She ought to thank Alexander, but she did not want to be beholden to him, not even for so much as keeping the lid on a bit of gossip, much less any manner of hush-money. But she had no choice if she wanted to get away from him.

Alexander took a none-too-steady step back from the counter. “I’ll see you to the manor.”

Oh, how she wanted to refuse, but he was clearly in no condition to make it up the hill on his own, and he needed to return to his chamber. To his bed. Otherwise, he was likely to keel over once more and spend the rest of the day on Tilly’s rough and filthy floorboards. She
wouldn’t relegate even him to such a fate.

He proffered an elbow, the gesture oddly formal in a derelict shop owned by a scavenger. Ever the gentleman, Alexander. Just as she remembered him.

She closed her eyes against another flurry of memories, ones that had her dressed in silk and him in cravat and black topcoat, dancing, laughing, stealing off to the terrace for a few stealthy kisses. Yes, he’d been all that to her, but he’d also broken her heart. She’d need the memory of that pain to steel herself against his charm.

For he could charm her again, all too easily.

She took his arm, ignoring the flex of lean muscle beneath her fingers, and tipped her head so Tilly could not overhear. “Are you certain you can make it back to the manor?”

One side of his mouth tilted upward. “No, actually. In fact, you may have to carry me.”

Please, let that be a joke.
He was already standing too close—enough that she caught a breath of his scent, at once familiar and foreign. The clean sharpness she recalled so well, overlain by a hint of exotic spice, the enticing scent of India, if she didn’t miss her guess.

Damn her heart. It insisted on pulsing all the harder, as if it had forgotten the way he’d broken it. And that was the last thing she needed.

“Shall—” For some reason her voice emerged on an oddly husky note. She cleared her throat before trying again. “Shall I leave you here and send the footmen down? Your aunt might even have a sedan chair spirited away somewhere.”

He gave a soft laugh. “If anyone still owns a sedan chair in this day and age, it would be my aunt. I believe I’d rather rely on my own two legs as far as they’ll carry me.”

And wasn’t that just like him to insist on self-reliance? The very thing that had called him to the East India Company eight years ago when his father died, leaving the family’s finances in a disastrous state. Alexander had taken his father’s remaining ship and chanced everything the Sanfords had left on a voyage to the Orient.

Her lips tingled at the memory of their last kiss. It had tasted of poignancy, sadness mingled with hope. In delaying his personal happiness to restore his family’s fortunes, she’d thought him admirable. Noble. Everything a hero out of a fairy tale should be. Surely such a man would keep his promise to come home and marry her. What a naïve little chit she’d been.

She pushed those useless thoughts aside. “You shouldn’t have left your bed in the first place.”

He hobbled through the shop door, the bell tinkling as he closed it, and looked down the street. “Do you think we might?”

She followed the direction of his gaze, past several villagers going about their business. “The pub? And isn’t that just like a man. What are you thinking? You’re in no—”

“Condition, I know, but what of my crew? Where else would I get word?”

She shook her head. The Alexander she remembered would have been concerned, yes, but he also possessed a great deal more practicality. “They can wait until you’re better, or you can send a message.”

With a final glance toward the pub, he set out along the path toward the manor. He held his arm stiffly, not so much as a prop for her than as a means of lending her a bit of his weight. “I promise I shall retire to my chamber as soon as we arrive.”

He might have been attempting to flirt with her, only he sounded so earnest. But he’d always sounded earnest. Painfully so, even when attempting to flirt. Damn, damn, and damn. “And have you left your wife back in India?”

He stopped short, and his already grayish complexion paled alarmingly. His eyes, when he turned them on her, glittered like clouded sapphires and just as hard. “In a manner of speaking.”

“And what can you possibly mean by that?”

“I buried her there.”

If her stomach had fallen off the cliff face into the sea, it could not have plummeted faster. “Heavens, forgive me. I did not know.”

He stared for a moment or two at the tattered pall of gray clouds overhead, the remnants of yesterday’s storm. “Of course you didn’t.” His words were gruff. “No one did. It is a fairly recent occurrence.”

“Oh.” Good gracious. What could have happened to the woman? Not that she wanted to broach such a painful topic with him.

“Do not apologize.” He clipped each syllable to a finality she dared not argue.

Naturally, he would not want to discuss it. Most especially not with her. And what business of hers were his feelings for his wife? Clearly, he’d loved the woman to marry her so suddenly, before he’d properly broken off things with Henrietta.

After a moment, he shuffled off once more, leaving her no choice but to keep pace. Beneath her fingers, his elbow trembled. Each of his footsteps was firm—deliberate, in fact—and the path to the manor was steepening. He’d climb it by sheer grit. She could feel as much through his increasing weight on her arm.

“Would … would you like to take this in stages?” she ventured.

He glared at the path ahead of them, as if he could cow the rocks and dust into a less demanding slope. “No.”

“And when you keel over once more, what would you have me do?”

“I don’t plan on keeling over.”

Stubbornly determined as always. That much about him hadn’t changed a whit. He went on doggedly setting one foot in front of the other, while she stole furtive glances at him. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the fresh wind off the Channel. A drop trickled into the hollow of his cheek.

“Please, you must rest,” she insisted.

He turned his glare on her—the same he’d used on the road—and its effect was devastating. A spot just below her ear throbbed in time with her pulse, and something deep in her belly—long suppressed and yet wildly familiar—turned warm and liquid.

But she refused to give in to him any more than the stones had. His breath came in shallow puffs, too rapid for the energy they’d exerted. Too rapid to be healthy.

“If you fall, I cannot carry you. It would be foolish to continue.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but he acquiesced, settling himself on a low stone wall that protected the path from the sheer drop to the beach.

“Shall I fetch help from the manor?”

“No. No,” he repeated more softly. “Let me rest, and I’ll be fine in a moment.”

She stood before him, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and wringing her hands. Her nails dug into her wrists. The silence stretched between them, emphasized by the wind and the stark cry of gulls overhead. Good Lord, but she remembered this feeling, this awkwardness with him, when she’d first gained an introduction and fumbled to say something clever enough to claim his attention.

But she no longer ached for his regard. She only wanted to get him safely back to the manor so they could part.

He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at his brow. Beneath the tan caused by a relentless sun, his complexion resembled chalk. She was only concerned because if he fainted again, she’d have to leave him and go for help. Or so she told herself. Oh, she didn’t want to care, but she did. She could hardly do otherwise.

She ought to leave him here, whether he liked it or not, but knowing him, he’d stumble after her, collapse once more, and pitch over the wall into the sea below. He’d nearly drowned yesterday; he didn’t need to drown in actuality today.

“How have you been keeping, Henrietta?”

She jerked her head up and met his gaze straight on. The question was natural enough for one who’d spent so many years abroad, but he’d asked it in a low, odd voice, as if the reply mattered to him. As if he’d never broken their engagement.

“You can see that for yourself,” she replied shortly. Honestly, what else could he expect her to say after the years and miles that had separated them? After the woman who had come between them?