The Spinster Who Saved a Scoundrel (The Brethren Book 5)

by Christi Caldwell

  She patted him on the shoulder. “Fair enough.” There was a patronizing quality to that concession.

  He sharpened his gaze on her face, those delightfully reddened cheeks giving her an innocent look—and not the look of one deliberately baiting him.

  He didn’t believe her for a damned minute.

  Yet again, she’d distracted him from the whole reason he’d set out in pursuit. “Where are you going?” More specifically, why wasn’t she leaving or asking for his escort so that she might leave?

  She planted her arms akimbo, as they’d been earlier, and angled her head back. “Explorring.” She managed to add an extra syllable to that word, and with that, she again set out for… for…

  Lathan limped after her. “Yes, you said as much. What are you exploring?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” He knew he sounded like a damned parrot, echoing back every last word she uttered, but there was no helping it.

  This time, the stone wall at the back of the gardens came up to meet them, blocking whatever damned trek she was making.

  Or so he thought.

  “If you will?” She held a palm out.

  He stared down at her long, glove-encased fingers. “Will I… what?”

  “Give me your hand, Lathan,” she said ever so gently.

  He scratched at the back of his head, feeling like he’d been spun about in one direction and then sent promptly spinning in the other. “For what purpose?”

  Francesca sighed, but made no move to let her arm fall. “You are very suspicious. Do you know that?”

  With the work he’d done for the Crown, it had been ingrained into him… and cemented during his trials.

  “I want your assistance so that I might continue on over the wall.” And then, as if there were another wall in question, she pointed a finger down, and he followed that gesture anyway, because this really required clarification.

  All of it.

  Her.

  Her intentions.

  This day.

  So why, then, did he find himself offering his hand?

  Francesca fairly glowed from the depth of her smile. “Thank you.”

  Mayhap that was whatever magic this damned siren possessed, for just those two words and her smile had a briefly dizzying effect.

  All too brief.

  Hefting her skirts up in her other hand, she planted her boot on the slight mound of snow atop the wall and drew herself up with an ease to be admired. And oddly, resentment at the miserable state of his limb that would make those efforts a struggle this time did not come.

  She stood there, towering over him and his properties, peering out at the horizon painted white from the snow, the sun’s rays glaring blindingly bright from it.

  “Let me get this straight. You are exploring, but you don’t know what you’re exploring.”

  Francesca glanced down at him as if she’d just recalled his presence. “Well, if I knew what I was searching for, then it wouldn’t really be exploring. I would be looking for something.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said bluntly.

  Smiling widely, she wagged a finger at him. “It doesn’t have to make sense to you. It only has to make sense to me.” With that, she lowered herself over the edge and took off… this time at a slower pace.

  Muttering under his breath, Lathan struggled to get himself over the wall and set out after her. Again.

  “The weather is fine, Francesca.”

  She spun about. “Yes, isn’t it?”

  Lathan closed his eyes.

  He’d dealt with all manner of people in his career… nay, in his life.

  The Marquess of Tennyson, who’d been obnoxious and rude and demanding in the schedule and expectations he’d set.

  Lathan’s parents, whose expectations for him had surpassed his superior’s at the Home Office.

  Through it all, he’d developed a patience for dealing with people of all personalities.

  This chit, however, was trying every last shred of it.

  He opened his eyes and found her smiling up. Always smiling, she was.

  “I wasn’t remarking upon the weather, Francesca.”

  Her head tipped at an endearingly confused angle.

  “That is,” he sought to clarify, “I wasn’t being conversational when I mentioned the weather being fine. It was an observation because you are still here.”

  She looked about. “Here?”

  “At my cottage, Miss Cornworthy.” His voice rose.

  “That will not do at all,” she said with a shake of her head. “Given the nature of our relationship, we cannot fall back on surnames or polite forms of address.” With her words, she vexingly dodged his observation, picked up her hem, and started on through the snow.

  He limped along after her. “Oh, no, hen. You don’t get to simply walk off.”

  “I’m happy to have you join me, Lathan.”

  His pulse jumped… because no one was happy to have him ’round. Quite the opposite.

  You fool. No wonder you failed with the Home Office. You’d be so distracted by a flibbertigibbet… Nay, worse, you’d be entranced.

  Lathan hardened his mouth and steeled his resolve. “Miss Cornworthy.” When she didn’t respond, he called her name again, this time more loudly. “Miss Cornworthy.” She ignored him. “Francesca.”

  That managed to stop her. “Yes, Lathan?” she said in sweet tones as he joined her.

  “You said you’d leave when the weather turned. And yet, you haven’t.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  Confusion buzzed in his ears. “You… changed your mind?”

  “I’ve decided to stay.”

  Chapter 8

  Lathan was taking her pronouncement far better than she’d thought he would.

  “You have decided to stay?” he thundered. His deep baritone echoed loudly in the country quiet and sent birds from the nearby oaks into flight.

  So much for that.

  Having been an observer more than an active participant through life, however, Francesca had become adept at studying people and their interactions. As such, she’d learned from those who’d been agitated that meeting their response with a calm one invariably was the wisest course to diffuse all tension. “I have, Lathan,” she said simply.

  There was a heavy pause, confirming the lessons she’d—

  “The hell you are,” he shouted.

  And now, so much for that.

  Francesca opted for another course. “You’re being rude, Lathan. You don’t need to go about yelling like a bully.”

  “I’m a bully?”

  “I didn’t say you’re a bully, but rather, that you are behaving like—”

  “I’m a bully.” His voice climbed a decibel. “You’re the one who has decided to squat upon my properties.”

  “Pfft,” she scoffed. “Come, I’m not taking over your land without legal title. Therefore, that’s hardly what I’d call this.”

  “Oh?” Lathan folded his arms at his chest. “And what in hell would you call it?”

  His question gave Francesca her first pause since she’d resolved to remain and then stated her intentions to him. What would she call her decision? “I’m not ready to leave, and we get on well enough. As such, I’ve decided, why not stay?” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

  “Because I don’t want you here, Francesca.” He stuck his face close to hers, and she trembled slightly at the fury emanating from his eyes. “And in this place, the decisions are mine. You have until the hour to get your things and get gone. I’ll see you off to wherever in hell it is you need to go. The driver who abandoned you. Your mount. The inn. But you aren’t staying here.” With that thread of finality in his tone and words, he turned and stomped off.

  She stared after him.

  She should just go.

  She’d responsibilities elsewhere, and the man who owned this place and property didn’t want her here. And yet…
/>   “Please,” she said softly, hating the faint crack in her voice.

  He stopped abruptly, but didn’t glance back at her.

  “I’m not ready to go. Not yet. I promised my father…” At last, he turned, and her words trailed off.

  “You promised your father what?” he asked quietly, without his usual anger or annoyance, and that helped her to continue.

  “He died and left me this.” Reaching inside her cloak, she pulled out the sheet she always kept close.

  His gaze locked with hers, Lathan took the letter. A long while passed before he gave the page a shake and looked at it.

  His sharp gaze made quick work of the words written there.

  “He wished for me to fill my days and live my life—”

  “And you think you can do that here?” he asked flatly.

  Francesca stuffed her hands inside her cloak pocket. “I know the moment I leave this place”—nay—“your home, that Society will be there.” As she spoke, she couldn’t stymie the rise of resentment at the lot of women. “They’ll be there to place the same constraints they always have upon me and all women, but here…” Lifting a hand, Francesca stepped toward Lathan. “I’m free to explore and do the other things upon my list, because there is no one…” She let her arm fall back to her side. “That is, no one but you.” Oddly, stranger though he was, she felt an ease around this man with whom she’d spent one night that was greater than she’d known with almost anyone. Nay, anyone.

  Lathan continued staring down at that most special letter, that coveted piece written by her father in his last days, when he’d remembered her but had also known enough to worry about his declining state.

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered and thrust the note toward her.

  Francesca took the letter and folded it along its same crease. “I… t-take it that you’re agreeing?” she asked hesitantly, hope creeping into her voice.

  A muscle rippled along the sharp contour of his cheek. The scars he wore upon his flesh should have added a layer of harshness to this man who went out of his way to be surly. Only, in those marks he wore, she saw a realness to Lathan Holman. A sign of his fallibility. A reminder that even when he was a beast with his behavior, he was as real as she herself.

  As if he felt her stare, he narrowed his gaze. “I should send you away.”

  A gust of wind tore through the grounds, and she drew her cloak closer to her person. “But… y-you won’t.”

  Even as it wasn’t a question, she hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until he gave his head a tight shake.

  Francesca surged forward and took his hands in her own. “Thank you.” She spoke on a rush. “I promise I shan’t be a bother. I…”

  All at once, she became aware of the fact that she’d joined their fingers. And it felt so very right to have them twined so. His chest moved in a quickened rhythm like her own, little puffs of white escaping their lips and their breath dancing together in the air.

  One last, staggering realization penetrated…

  It was possible to feel fire amidst the ice. Energy crackled all around them. Between them. Francesca tipped her head back to meet his gaze and found herself promptly burned by it.

  In a moment, his mouth was on hers.

  Or rather, hers was on his.

  It was all a blur.

  Mayhap they’d moved as one.

  Francesca knew only one certainty… she didn’t want it to end.

  He devoured her lips, worshiping the seam with the tip of his tongue, and she let her mouth fall open to know even more of him.

  And he complied.

  God, how he complied.

  “Lathan,” she moaned into his mouth between kisses.

  He groaned. That little reverberation hummed all the way through her as his tongue swirled with hers.

  His arms came up about Francesca, and he held her against him, angling her body so it was pressed close.

  And then… it was over as quickly as it had begun.

  Lathan drew back, ending the kiss and shattering the moment.

  “You’re free to say.” Just like last time, but for the hoarse quality of his voice, Lathan gave no indication whatsoever that anything had passed between them… and certainly no hint that the fire he’d lit within her had consumed him, too. “But your time here is finite. When I decide, you leave, and you do so without any of… this.”

  She blinked. “The kiss.”

  A smile ghosted his lips, gone as quickly as it had flickered to life. “Your debating or disagreeing.”

  “Oh.” Francesca chewed at the inside of her cheek.

  He sighed. “Why do I have the strong suspicion you’re about to debate me?”

  Because she was going to debate him. “Well, it’s just that perhaps you wake up one day and you have a bad day.”

  “Most days are bad,” he said dryly.

  Her heart pulled at the droll deliverance that revealed so very much. She, however, knew better than to highlight those words as more than the throwaway he’d likely intended them to be. “Perhaps you wake up more perturbed with me than you usually are.”

  “I always am.”

  She swatted his arm. “You don’t dislike me, Lathan Holman.”

  His gaze moved over her face. “No,” he murmured. “No, I don’t.”

  Something shifted in her chest at that, the unlikeliest of compliments from the most unlikely of men she would be keeping company with. Words. Find words… What was she saying? Staying here with him… and not being thrown out… “Of course. That is it.”

  “What is it?” His spectacles slipped forward.

  Reaching up, she pushed those wire rims back into place. “It is likely you’ll find yourself annoyed by me, and I’ll not be some cliché tragic figure, with our tumultuous relationship being abruptly ended when you have a bad… er… worse-than-usual day and my list remains incomplete.”

  He laughed, this laugh fulsome and whole, unlike any of those to precede it. And her heart moved all over again. He was dangerous, this Lathan Holman. Only, for reasons that she’d not considered in her time here.

  “Our tumultuous relationship, hen?”

  “How would you describe it?” She shook her head before he could speak. “Don’t answer that. You’re distracting me.”

  “Given the effect you’ve had on me, I say that’s fair.”

  She straightened. “You find my presence distracting?”

  Lathan shook his head slowly. “Is that a compliment?”

  Well, yes, in the way she’d wanted him to mean. “Never mind. I need to finish my list.” She jabbed at her pocket. “And I need to feel it’s complete before I leave.”

  “You don’t have carte blanche to remain as long as you wish. There’s surely people looking for you.”

  She started.

  “Yes, I know that, Miss Francesca Cornworthy, who performs curtsies and uses perfect King’s English and insists upon introductions, even with strange men in solitary places.”

  Lathan Holman was one for details, then. He’d reported that catalog like a clerk might report details for the one he served. “You speak with the same King’s English,” she pointed out in a bid to gather something of him… and his past. Just why did a man who was very clearly a gentleman live a recluse’s life on the fringe of civilization?

  His expression grew instantly shuttered. “I don’t talk about myself. I don’t intend to.”

  Reaching behind her back, she crossed her fingers. “I don’t intend to pry.” She intended to do just that. Yes, the reason she wished to stay was for her father’s list, but in her time here, she also sought to learn about the man who’d granted her the right to remain. For reasons she didn’t care to think of, largely because she couldn’t explain that need to know.

  “How many?” he asked.

  How many?

  “On your list. How many items are there?”

  “Fifteen.”

  He was already shaking his head.

 
“You’re assuming that it will take me a long time to do everything I need to.”

  “Wish.”

  She cocked her head.

  Lathan lifted his chin, gesturing at the note she’d tucked away. “If your intent is to find joy, the items upon your list should be things you wish to do and not a list of chores you need to see to, Francesca.”

  Her breath caught on a swift intake. “You’re right,” she whispered, glancing from her pocket back to Lathan. At some point, mayhap from the very beginning, she’d treated the list Papa had left as though it were a continuation of the things she needed to do after his death. Like marrying the Marquess of St. James. And with one casual, almost-throwaway statement, Lathan had made her look at that list and her devotion to see it through in ways she’d not previously done. “I… I’ve never thought of it that way,” she said softly.

  Lathan dusted the tip of one finger along the curve of her chin. He lingered his touch there, his eyes upon her face. “Well, if you intend to complete any of it, then you should.”

  With that, he let his arm drop and left her.

  She stood there, staring after his retreating frame until he was nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

  Wishing he’d stayed.

  Chapter 9

  It had been a fool’s decision to let Francesca remain.

  Lathan knew as much the moment the lady sidled into the parlor and took the seat closest to his at the fireplace hearth.

  Nay, in fairness, when he’d left her that afternoon in the snow-filled gardens and gone back to his chores, but had thought only of her, he’d known it then, too.

  Hurrying to gather up his files, he stacked them all and glared over at her.

  He needn’t have bothered with the dark look, however, as the lady didn’t so much as glance away from the little notebook she’d carried in and now had propped upon her lap.

  “What are you doing?”

  This time, she did look across the top of her book. “Reading.” She promptly returned her focus forward.

  “Reading?”

  She nodded. “Or trying to.” She paused long enough to favor him with a saucy little wink before getting on with her reading.

  First, she’d defied his orders when she’d gone down to the kitchens. And then she’d availed herself of his grounds. Now, his parlor. Why, soon, she was likely to declare his cottage her own and evict him from his properties. Lathan knocked his fist lightly on the small table he’d set up here for his work. “I’m working.”