by Sheila Walsh
There was a red mist of fury before his eyes as he heard Beau, who stood at the window, say in his most finicky way: ‘If you are sufficiently recovered, Theodora, I believe we should go now. I have arranged for a man from the hotel to take your valise down to the harbour.’
Benedict closed the door with a firm click, and Beau swung round, his eyes for once so wide that they almost bulged from their sockets. ‘The devil!’ he exclaimed.
‘Something like that,’ Benedict agreed softly.
Theo looked dazed for a moment, as though she could not believe what she saw. Then she was out of her chair and across the room to him, a stifled sob breaking from her.
‘Oh, how like you to come, my dearest love, but indeed you ought not to have done so!’
With his arms tightly about her, he stared down at her poor head.
‘So you endeavoured to convince me, my dear, in that very curious missive you sent me.’ His voice lost all gentleness as he looked towards the dandy, who still stood transfixed. ‘Perhaps Cousin Beau would care to explain himself before I settle with him?’
Theo cried, ‘No, you must not! He has that brute of a man with him … and besides, there is nothing you can do. I have to go …’ Her voice broke.
Benedict held her away a little, frowning down.
With Theo’s desperately voiced plea, some of Beau’s old arrogance returned.
‘You see, Benedict, your interference has got you nowhere, and will simply earn you a broken head.’ His tone was almost gloating as he moved in mincing fashion towards the bell-pull. ‘You really should have taken the hint!’
Benedict put Theo from him, crossed the room in a few loping strides, and hit Beau flush in the mouth. The dandy went down without a sound and lay motionless, a thin trickle of blood oozing from a cut lip.
‘I’ve been wanting to do that for a very long time,’ he said with satisfaction.
Theo came suddenly to life, running to kneel by the prostrate form, her headache forgotten. ‘You haven’t killed him?’
‘No such luck,’ Benedict said grimly, and lifted her to her feet. ‘And now, my dearest Theo, will you tell me what the devil all this is about? Why did you consent to this nonsense?’
She told him then about Beau’s threat against Aubrey. ‘I read the letter and had no doubt whatever that he would do as he said. He has it with him now ‒ in case I should prove difficult.’
‘So that was it.’
‘He stood over me as I wrote to you, so I couldn’t tell you; but I knew that, desolate as I was to leave in such a way, it wouldn’t be the end for us, as I meant to write again the moment I was free of Beau.’
Benedict had gone to kneel beside Beau, and was searching methodically through his pockets. ‘This looks like it.’ He read the letter without comment and tore it into little pieces.
‘Yes, but he can easily write another,’ Theo pointed out. ‘And unless you can get Aubrey to safety before then …’
‘He can’t if he isn’t around to do so,’ said Benedict with sudden decision. He picked up Theo’s bonnet from the floor, where she had cast it upon first seeing him, and grinned to see her growing bewilderment. ‘My dear love,’ he said, ‘I fear your poor head must ache quite abominably.’
She put up a hand to caress his face. ‘It is growing less painful by the minute,’ she asserted tremulously.
He caught her to him and kissed her with sudden ardour, and then resolutely put her away from him.
‘Nevertheless,’ he said, placing her bonnet gently on her head and tying the ribbons with loving care, ‘I think that you should seek an apothecary as quickly as possible ‒ we’ll ask the landlord to send someone with you to the nearest one. And be sure that he gives you some laudanum to help you to sleep, because of the dreadful pain!’
Theo stared at him in growing suspicion. ‘Benedict ‒ what are you plotting?’
‘Later,’ he said, ‘There isn’t much time.’
‘But what about Beau ‒ and Beau’s man? He’ll never let me leave!’
‘Oh, don’t you fret about him ‒ he was called away rather unexpectedly,’ said her cousin off-handedly. He refrained from adding that it had taken only a word, reminding the man what penalty he might expect for his role in the kidnapping, to make him disappear. ‘And as for Beau …’ There was a curious gleam in his eyes. ‘There is nothing wrong with him that a nice long sea trip won’t cure!’
Theo stopped in her tracks, staring at him in awed disbelief. ‘Benedict ‒ you wouldn’t!’
‘Why not?’ He grinned. ‘There’s a passage booked in the name of Radlett. It would be a pity to waste it, and it would get him out of our hair for a while!’ His voice hardened. ‘It’s no more than he would have done to you.’
‘But … you’d never get him to go on board!’
He took her by the shoulders and propelled her towards the door. ‘Why do you think we need the laudanum? Now do hurry, there’s a good girl. There isn’t a lot of time.’
Theo went.
When she returned, Beau was slumped in a chair, his head in his hands, looking something less than elegant. Benedict perched on a near-by table, arms folded, keeping him under observation.
‘Do you have it?’ he asked, straightening up briskly.
‘Yes.’ She glanced at Beau. ‘But I’m still not wholly convinced that what we are doing is right.’
‘Trust me,’ he said.
Beau had heard Theo’s voice. He looked up, his eyes bloodshot and heavy, but glinting with malice. When he spoke he lisped, and it became obvious that he had lost a tooth. ‘You may think yourthelf mighty clever, my dear ‒ but I’ll have that boy in jail before you can thave him, just thee if I don’t!’
Theo, close to hysteria, wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, but his threat decided her. She handed Benedict the phial.
He approached Beau with unusual solicitude. ‘Now, don’t try to talk,’ he said. ‘Just take this ‒ it will ease the pain.’
Before Beau properly realised what had happened, he had swallowed the draught.
‘Damn you to hell! It’th laudanum!’ he cried, and struggled to get up, but Benedict held him, and soon he grew quiet.
‘I hope I didn’t give him too much,’ Benedict muttered. ‘I don’t want him totally unconscious!’
A few minutes later, a small procession could be seen approaching the harbour. Theo, leading the way, carried Beau’s small overnight valise, and Benedict followed with a servant from the hotel, supporting between them the sagging figure of a rather sad-looking dandy. ‘Poor fellow, just had a tooth removed … been given something for the pain,’ Benedict told the servant with perfect truth.
The story was repeated to the master of the Delaware, who was none too pleased to have his arrangements set at naught, even for a lord.
‘I have a Miss Radlett on my way-list,’ he said austerely.
‘That’s me,’ said Theo quickly, throwing all caution to the wind. ‘I’m afraid that my uncle’s man made the silliest mistake when he booked the passage.’ She gave her most winning smile. ‘It really is most awfully urgent that my uncle get to Philadelphia as soon as possible.’
After a certain amount of judicious haggling and formalities, involving a customs official who became enmeshed in the proceedings, proof of identity was produced from Beau’s valise, together with sufficient guineas to sweeten the deal, and the matter was concluded, and the master, being in some fear of losing the tide, allowed Beau to be helped on board.
Theo watched, with Benedict’s arm close about her, as the packet glided through the choppy waters and under the walls of Pendennis Castle, which stood on a mound near the mouth of the harbour. A light mist which had hung over everything had lifted in the brisk breeze, which began to fill the sails under a pale blue sky.
‘Well, that’s settled,’ Benedict said with considerable satisfaction.
‘How odiously complacent you are,’ said Theo, trying to sound reproving. ‘I suppose you will have co
nsidered the possibility that Beau might prevail upon the Captain to put back to port once he has recovered himself?’
‘Certainly. But he is hardly in an ideal bargaining position, and I doubt the good captain would be swayed by any but the most persuasive arguments.’
For a moment Theo felt a pang of sympathy for Beau, but the recollection of what he had intended to do soon banished all but relief that they were rid of him.
‘You really are quite ruthless, aren’t you?’ she nevertheless reproached her beloved.
His arm tightened. ‘Only when those most dear to me are threatened.’ He bent his head, his mouth finding hers and exploring it with a thoroughness that banished all argument and occupied her to the exclusion of all else for a considerable time.
‘Now we are going home,’ Benedict said huskily, punctuating the words with kisses in a way that made her shiver with delight, ‘and I am going to procure a special licence with the utmost speed ‒ and no one is ever going to take you away from me again!’
Theo had little quarrel with this prospect, but as they turned away from the sea, she spared a last glance for the diminishing outline of the ship.
‘Oh, poor Beau!’ she exclaimed suddenly.
‘And if you say “poor Beau” just once more …’ he threatened.
She laid a finger over his mouth and began to chuckle. ‘But my dearest, only consider ‒ an overnight bag and no valet! He will be quite overset!’ A fresh thought occurred to her which sent her into fresh mirth. ‘Oh, and he will have m-my … valise!’
The piquancy of the situation brought an answering echo of appreciation to Benedict’s eyes.
‘Serve him right!’ he said unsympathetically.
Improper Acquaintances by Sheila Walsh
From the author of Cousins of a Kind, another gripping regency romance ‒ Improper Acquaintances. Keep reading for a preview of Chapter One and details of where to buy the book.
Chapter One
The thunderstorm erupted with sudden and quite astonishing ferocity, as summer storms so often do. It caught Charis Winslade still some way short of home, her arms laden with books from the circulating library.
Even as she paused to look about her in hope of finding a roving hack, the fast-darkening sky was rent with jagged light, and a long menacing growl of thunder echoed in response. Then the rain came, lashing slantwise in solid rods of water that soaked her muslin dress in seconds.
The little maidservant staggering in her wake with the remaining parcels uttered a frightened moan.
‘Oh, God help us, we’ll be struck down for sure!’
‘Humbug!’ Charis exclaimed in bracing tones. ‘And if we are, we won’t know a thing about it! Come on ‒ keep close to me ‒ if we run we can be home in no time!’
She rounded a corner and met the full implacable force of the wind and rain which flung itself against her, driving the breath from her body. Head down, she clutched despairingly at her bonnet with her one free hand just as a particularly violent gust plucked it from her ineffectual fingers, dragging it backward to flap crazily around her neck in a tangle of rain-soaked ribbons that threatened at any moment to choke her.
In her preoccupation, she quite failed to notice the figure advancing in her path and so ran full tilt into an unyielding, unmistakably masculine chest. The books slithered irretrievably from her grasp and splashed one by one into the fast-forming river at her feet.
‘Oh, devil take them!’ she gasped in disgust.
‘Unladylike,’ returned a deep voice. ‘But pardonable in the circumstances.’
The voice, resonant with amusement, came from somewhere above her head. Firm, steadying hands encompassed her waist as Charis lifted a face already awash with the little rivulets that came trickling down from a once fashionable fringe of Titian hair now plastered in dark, sodden tendrils across a wide, intelligent brow.
She looked up and blinked away the prismatic brilliance of the raindrops that beaded her lashes, to discover the bluest of blue eyes darkly ringed, regarding her with the liveliest interest from under lazy lids. The gentleman’s smile deepened, his mobile mouth quirking upward at one corner.
Irresistibly, Charis found her own mouth curving in response and for the space of one crazy, heart-stopping moment it was as though the sheeting rain had locked the two of them together in a silent, timeless bubble; her body became pliant ‒ she swayed a little towards him.
Then the lightning forked again, the sulphuric sky reverberated with an angry, crackling roar that made her flinch quite involuntarily, and Meg screamed.
‘Easy, child,’ said the gentleman reassuringly.
It was to Meg that he spoke, but Charis was acutely aware of being drawn closer by the insistent pressure of his hands, of the way their warmth penetrated in the most intimate way the rain-drenched muslin that now clung to her like a second skin. She blinked furiously and found those extraordinary eyes very close above her, a disturbing gleam in their impertinent depths.
‘You are not afraid, I think? Not of the storm at any rate.’
Hot, embarrassed colour suffused her face. In all her two and twenty years she had not been so discomposed by a man.
‘Certainly not!’ she retorted, mortified to find that her voice was stifled and that she was gabbling like an idiot. ‘One must expect storms now and then, so it’s only sensible to get used to them.’
‘Enchanting!’ he murmured appreciatively.
She tried to break free and could not; found his breath soft against her cheek and experienced a moment of sheer panic mingled with some other emotion that she could not or would not define.
‘Sir!’ she protested, only too aware that her heart was hammering against her ribs in a most betraying way. ‘You really … that is, please let me go.’
There was a laughing devil in his eyes, pitiless ‒ questing. ‘And if I choose not to? After all, you did fling yourself at me quite shamelessly.’
‘I didn’t. You must know that it was an accident!’
‘Perhaps. But it would be a pity to waste such a perfect opportunity, don’t you think?’
As the full import of his words registered, she strove to collect her disordered wits ‒ to assert herself, to muster the tattered shreds of her dignity, to demand that he release her. But already it was too late.
His mouth on hers was a gentle, lingering caress, and tasted of rain. It was over before she could struggle, and to her shame she didn’t try.
‘There,’ he said softly. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it? I would even hazard that you quite enjoyed the experience.’
Even as she worked herself up into a fine fury, a small traitorous voice at the back of her mind clamoured to agree with him and had to be firmly quashed. Green eyes kindling, her cheeks flying flags of colour, she fought strenuously once more to free herself, and was disconcerted when he suddenly released her, setting her away from him quite deliberately though his eyes continued to enjoy the exceedingly revealing spectacle she presented.
‘Sir, you are not a gentleman!’ she cried, the curious sensation of loss she felt serving only to fan her fury.
‘So I have often been told,’ he admitted without shame.
‘Were my brother here, he would call you out for your insolence!’
‘I should think him a poor sort of brother an’ he did not.’ He nodded gravely, though his eyes were still laughing at her. ‘But ‒ not insolence, surely? I feel I must protest the word insolence!’
‘Insolence,’ she reiterated, drawing herself up with dignity. ‘You used me like a …’ she faltered over the word whore, and concluded lamely, ‘like a back-street trollop!’
His mouth quirked. ‘And what would a carefully nurtured young lady know of the way back-street trollops are used?’
It was a ridiculous conversation born of an even more ridiculous situation, she concluded, stifling a sudden and quite improper desire to giggle; to be standing arguing in a state of near saturation ‒ she with her feet squelching in a
puddle of water, he with the rain dripping steadily from the curling brim of his hat ‒ must rank as little short of high farce. It was well that the street was deserted.
But Charis had forgotten Meg. She remembered her now with a surge of embarrassment, and could only hope that the terrors of the storm had rendered her maid insensible to all else.
It was a vain hope, for the storm’s violence had been short-lived. The rain was easing, the thunder gradually fading to an apologetic rumble, and already the sky was beginning to roll back the thick, dark banks of cumulus. With it, Meg’s fear also began to subside, and she turned her attention to her mistress and the handsome stranger. Insensible to her own bedraggled state, she watched entranced what to her romance-starved soul appeared to be the most romantic of encounters, so that it came as a sad let down to find herself on the end of a particularly quelling look as Miss Charis said in her most positive voice, ‘This is quite absurd! I must go.’
‘Must you?’ said the gentleman with every appearance of regret. ‘Just when we were getting to know one another so well, too. Still, if you have quite made up your mind …’
‘I have,’ she said firmly.
‘Then, perhaps we should see if we can salvage your books?’
Charis had forgotten the books. Staring down now in dismay, she saw that their covers were beginning to curl and already some of the pages had been saturated beyond redemption.
Her tormentor, moving with remarkable agility, swooped to rescue one of the least damaged ones, and held it gingerly aloft between finger and thumb.
‘Oh no! Now see what you have done!’ Charis exclaimed, unjustly apportioning blame.
He accepted her censure with meek resignation, merely venturing the opinion that she might justifiably count them all lost, and abandon them to their fate. Charis had more or less reached the same conclusion, but now his complacence made her perverse.
‘Certainly not,’ she declared, stooping and beginning to chivvy them into some kind of order. ‘They are not mine to abandon. I shall return them to the library ‒ when they have dried out, of course.’