Hero Wanted

by Betina Krahn

  She backed away a step, then another.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a warm bath and change into dry clothes. I am chilled to the bone.” She turned on her heel and headed quickly for the stairs, leaving her father in turmoil and her aunt grappling for a response.

  She ran the last few yards to her room and quickly closed the door behind her and turned the key in the lock. She swallowed hard, remembering the anger rising in her father’s face. He was going to be flaming furious. Normally he was a steady and even-tempered sort, but when pushed he could rattle the windows with his roars.

  And there it came. The knob rattled furiously, then his fist banged against the door.

  “Lauren Elena Alcott, open this door! You will answer for this headstrong behavior, young lady, right now!” More pounding. He was really angry.

  “Bathing, Papa—ch-ch-chilled through and through. I’ll be d-down when I’m done, I promise!”

  She rushed into her newly installed bathing room and lit the gas heater for her bathwater. She hadn’t lied—she was cold and shivering. Her mouth dried as she was beginning to feel the full impact of what she had done. In one tempestuous moment she had wiped blank the slate of her future and upended a long-awaited merger of her father’s East Anglia Trading and Horace Townsend’s import company. She knew her father had crafted this tricky bit of commerce like a royal diplomat. Every term of the contracts was polished to perfection.

  She stripped off her damp clothes, wrapped herself in toweling from the cupboard, and perched on the edge of the claw-footed tub, waiting for the water to heat. The sight of Rafe Townsend’s outrage came back to her.

  He’d just sat there watching two women flounder and succumb to the water. What happened to chivalry, nobility? Christian charity toward others? Why couldn’t he have done something more to help them?

  She was right to jump in and help them.

  Wasn’t she?

  * * *

  “I feared all that time swimming at the country house and on those seashore holidays would bring her to no good,” Lawrence Alcott said, tromping back and forth in the salon. His face was like red granite.

  “Her swimming saved two lives today, Lawrence. If anything has brought her to no good it was having no say in her engagement,” Amanda said calmly. “Young women these days don’t generally care to be bartered and traded like commodities. I did say that, you know.”

  “I’ve been negotiating this merger for two years. She knew about it early on and never objected.”

  “If she had, would you have listened?”

  Alcott paced before the long, sunlit windows with his hands clamped firmly behind his back. Clearly he wasn’t listening now.

  “And those books,” he continued. “She’s always reading something. Not good for a young girl’s eyes, posture, or mental stability. Puts all sorts of notions into their heads.” He paused and looked to his sister. “What is that wretched tome she’s always going on about?”

  “Ivanhoe. Sir Walter Scott,” Amanda provided with a small smile that contained just enough sympathy to cover her pleasure at being proved right. If there was anything she loved, it was saying I told you so. Especially to her older brother Lawrence.

  “Reading did not bring her to this, Brother. It was your ignorance of your daughter’s heart and your incessant maneuvering to get the best of Horace Townsend.” She took a deep breath. “That, and the younger Townsend’s regrettable deficits. I must say, I would find it intolerable to be yoked to a man with no chivalry or charity in him.” She shivered noticeably. “My husbands were all men rich in spirit and sensitivity.”

  “That was all they were rich in,” Lawrence grumbled.

  “True.” She sighed quietly. “They were not adept in finance and worldly matters, but we bumped along quite nicely together. Each was happy to breathe their last in my arms.”

  “No doubt,” Lawrence said tartly. His opinion of his sister’s marriages was well-known.

  “I have to set her straight and then send a message to Townsend. We shall have to meet.” He groaned. “No doubt he’ll want concessions—if not reparations for this attempted default. Pray to God the marriage and the merger can both be salvaged.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes, thinking surely God had better things to do than to rescue Lawrence Alcott from a mess of his own making. In her experience the Almighty made it a policy to leave headstrong fools to the results of their own follies. She removed her spectacles and set her needlework aside.

  “I’ll see if she’s all right.” When Lawrence spun on his heel to glare at her, she added, “And I’ll see she comes straight down as soon as she is presentable.”

  Two

  Lauren steeped in warm, rose-scented water, trying to think of a way to make her father understand how desperately she did not want to marry Rafe Townsend. Some kind of punishment was probably in order for her impulsive behavior, but surely her father wouldn’t try to force her to recant her rejection. Even if she tried, she doubted the outraged Mr. Townsend would have anything further to do with her. She had all but called him—devil take it, she had called him a coward. Her eyes widened. That was not something a man of such pride would soon forget.

  The rattling of a key in a lock barely registered as she sank into a quagmire of unpleasant possibilities . . . disinheritance, spinsterhood . . . banishment to a nunnery....

  “You’ve done it this time.” Aunt Amanda’s voice coming from the bathroom doorway startled her.

  She covered herself with her arms and sat up sharply, sloshing water from the tub onto the tiled floor.

  “How did you . . .” She looked past her aunt and was relieved to see that Amanda was alone.

  “The household keys, dear.” Amanda jingled a ring of keys, then dropped them back into her pocket. “I want details.” She settled on a nearby stool and clasped her hands in her lap. “Don’t skip a thing.”

  Lauren recounted the outing in full: the barely tolerable picnic, the float on the river, and Rafe Townsend’s unfeeling reaction to the women in trouble. The “silly” women.

  Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “I always thought he was superior and standoffish. Not especially good husband material. But you seemed to accept him, so I thought it wrong to interfere.”

  “Well, you were right. He is cold and utterly self-interested. Every time he looked at me I felt I was being judged against some exalted standard and found barely passable.”

  “Ridiculous men—concentrating on a woman’s face and figure and forgetting that there’s a world of other qualities inside that fleshly shell. They crave physical pleasure from women, of course, but their truest desires are for control and status in the eyes of other men.” She tsked. “Such limited creatures—sometimes I wonder how they manage. Your father included.”

  They were silent for a time, and Lauren sank down into the tub.

  “What do you think Papa will do?” She stared off into a future as cloudy as her bathwater.

  “Hard to say. I think he’s confused as much as angry,” Amanda mused. “He can’t imagine why you would reject such a paragon of masculinity.”

  “But I just told him. The man’s arrogance. Lack of charity. No concern for others. Do you know—in the weeks we have been together, Rafe Townsend has never asked me a single question about my interests, experiences, or opinions? He’s never asked if I had learned to ride or traveled abroad or liked to dance. But at the drop of a hat, he would launch into lectures on his opinions, as if delivering some bit of wisdom from the halls of Mount Olympus.”

  Amanda shook her head. “I told Lawrence it was a mistake to announce the engagement before you’d had a chance to get to know the man. He thought I was being silly. You were levelheaded and sensible, he said. You’d know quality when you saw it and count yourself fortunate to have such a handsome husband.”

  “Handsome?” Lauren pounced on that. “He truly thought I’d be grateful to have a husband with a pretty face? Surely he knows me better than that.
I want someone with verve and daring . . . someone with a noble spirit . . . someone who will fight for goodness and right and decency. Someone like—”

  “Ivanhoe.” Amanda stared pointedly at her.

  They had had this discussion before, she and Aunt Amanda.

  “What is wrong with wanting a man to admire and respect? A man of high ideals and the strength to make the world a better place?”

  “Nothing, dear.” Amanda leaned forward with a patient smile. “It’s just that it sounds like what you want is perfection. And perfect men are rather hard to come by in the real world.”

  “You think I’m too idealistic.” Lauren crossed her arms on the side of the tub and planted her chin on them.

  “All young women are idealistic. It’s part of being young. But with experience comes wisdom and a better understanding of those ideals. Do you think Ivanhoe was a hero to everyone who knew him? Some people, including his own father, thought he was wrong . . . outright treasonous.”

  “Well, he wasn’t. He was noble. And brave. And compassionate. Willing to risk his life for others. He never would have sat in a boat and watched two women drown without lifting a finger to help.”

  “He was a hero,” Amanda said, summing it up.

  “Exactly.” Lauren felt a welcome certainty expanding through her. “A hero. Courageous, selfless, gallant . . . everything Rafe Townsend is not.”

  “Well,” Amanda said with a sigh of resignation, “one thing is certain. Townsend wouldn’t have made much of a lover.”

  Lauren looked up with surprise. “What makes you say such a thing?”

  “Selfish men make dismal lovers, dear. And if he’s as arrogant and self-centered as you say, he wouldn’t care a whit for your pleasure. Just on and done and on to more important matters.” Amanda waved a hand in dismissal. “I had to teach my second husband to slow down and learn some creativity. There are so many lovely ways to make pleasure in the marriage bed, but only one way to make misery. Selfishness.” She fixed Lauren with a look that said it was a lesson she must remember. “Loving means sharing and considering the other person in all things. Clearly Mr. Townsend has never learned that.”

  Amanda rose and straightened under Lauren’s widened eyes.

  “Stick to your guns, dear. You deserve better.”

  * * *

  Lauren watched her go, thoughts racing.

  She wasn’t sure what she deserved, but thanks to Aunt Amanda’s observations on marital relations, she had just discovered what she wanted.

  An Ivanhoe.

  She wanted a hero.

  * * *

  By the time she entered her father’s book-lined study later, Lauren was well-warmed and braced to confront the result of her impetuous action. He sat behind his heavy walnut desk, looking somber. His fingers were templed, his brow was furrowed, and he had clearly mastered his anger . . . which Lauren knew made him all the more formidable. It wasn’t for naught that the Townsends considered him a worthy rival and maneuvered to make him an ally and partner.

  “I want details,” he said, nodding her into the lone chair placed strategically in front of his desk.

  She took the seat, keeping her back straight and her chin up. At his demand she recounted the incident, leaving nothing out . . . at least nothing of importance. No reason to recount that she was in her smalls and wet to the skin while breaking her engagement.

  “And it was solely this incident that made Townsend unacceptable to you? Nothing untoward had happened before?”

  “If you call ignoring me and blathering on about himself ‘nothing,’ I suppose you could say nothing inappropriate happened.”

  “In other words you took a dislike to him because he wasn’t attentive enough to you.”

  “That is not at all what I meant.” Her face reddened. “I dislike him because he is arrogant, condescending, and too full of his own opinions to give credence to anyone else’s. You should hear how he disdains mandatory schooling, improving medical care and providing help for the working poor.”

  She realized that last part was a mistake the moment it left her mouth. Her father stiffened visibly and his eyes narrowed. She knew too well that he believed her personal involvement in progressive causes and charities was not suitable for a young woman of refinement.

  “I see.” He leaned forward, his face taut with determination. “I believe you need to reconsider some of your notions, missy. You need to start thinking of the future.”

  “I do think of the future, Papa. Every day.” In for a penny, in for a pound; she may as well breach the subject underlying her objection to the man and the marriage. “The future of thousands of children who need books and teachers and decent food and proper shoes—do you have any idea how much children’s shoes cost these days?”

  “Enough!” Lawrence smacked the arm of his great leather chair.

  “It is high time you quit thinking about the nameless, faceless children of the masses and give some thought to producing children of your own.”

  “They are not nameless and faceless. I see them every day in the streets, in our workers’ homes, in the workhouse and St Ambrose’s parish school. I know them by name, by their hopeful smiles, and by the stories they love.”

  “There it is again—you and your blasted books. Reading to those children, filling their heads with daydreams and desires above their station.... What can that do besides breed discontent? And I’m not talking about the world’s future, missy, I’m talking about yours!”

  He shot to his feet and glared down at her.

  “You are hereby confined to this house . . . forbidden to consort with those rabble-rousing, free-thinking cohorts of yours. There will be no reading to child—” He halted abruptly, giving her a look that said he’d hit upon a perfect punishment. “I shall have your chamber and the solarium cleared of reading material. Going forward, you will read nothing but the Bible and Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management.”

  She gasped, truly astounded. Her father was banning her from books, from reading? For a moment she was speechless.

  “You’re not getting any younger, Lauren Elena. Your mother, God rest her soul, was nineteen when we married, and you are . . . are . . .”

  “Twenty-two,” she supplied, her throat tight and her mouth dry. She was still reeling from his command that she read nothing but scripture and household advice. Did he prize his precious merger so much that he would sell her—body and soul—to acquire it?

  “At such an age you are old enough to comport yourself rationally. It’s not a woman’s place to go about saving people. That is a man’s job!”

  “And if no ‘man’ is doing the saving—” she came to the edge of her seat, her face heating—“am I to just sit there and watch people drown when I am perfectly capable of rescuing them?”

  Her father paused, taken aback by her vehement response.

  “Enough! You will obey my orders. You will keep to this house and assist your Aunt Amanda in running it.”

  “For how long?” She wanted to stand but found her legs too weak.

  “Until you come to your senses,” he said sharply.

  “And what must I do to show I’ve come to my senses?” She was determined to quickly meet his conditions and regain her independence.

  “Marry Rafe Townsend.”

  Three

  A hellish bright sunbeam sliced through the dark bedchamber and across Rafe Townsend’s eyes the next morning. He awakened with a pounding head and an unreasoning resentment that the sun should be so bright in the morning. He rolled over in his richly draped bed, buried his face between the pillows, and groaned.

  This was a penance for last night. He and his best friend had drained the cellar bar at his club, and someone—probably the night porter—called cabs for them and sent them home to repent their wicked ways in private. Good God, was he repenting! His mouth tasted like the bottom of a barn-mucker’s boot, his stomach burned, and he was as parched as if he’d been staked out to dry in
a desert.

  The wages of sin. Which was why he never indulged in such pointless and punishing pursuits.

  Almost never.

  Charging out of bed, he yanked the drapes more tightly together to banish that demon sunbeam. He swayed and then braced against a bedpost to stop the world from spinning. As his senses settled, a different turmoil took vertigo’s place. Memory flooded back.

  Her. More correctly, it was her demand that he jump out of a perfectly good boat into a raging river and save two feckless women from their self-inflicted fate.

  Very well . . . the river wasn’t quite raging, and the women were, well, probably in a bit of danger. But he’d tried to free their boat to row to the women and he looked for help on the shores. Someone else could have jumped in to rescue them. But noooo; she’d ripped off her clothes, dove into the water, and towed them to shore. Then—good God—she stood there dripping wet, exposed bits-and-brass to the whole bloody world, and accused him of lacking the courage to do it himself.

  Him. Lacking courage.

  It was a piercing thought.

  Lauren Alcott had to be the most unreasonable female he had ever encountered. And his father had all but lashed him to her for the sake of a merger between companies that had been rivals for decades. Horace Townsend was a planner, a plotter, and a schemer par excellence. How could he have missed the Alcott female’s disastrous nature? Or did his father just figure she would be his problem after the wedding?

  How would saddling his son and heir with a half-mad wife ensure the future of Townsend Imports or help his mother acquire the grandchildren she so desperately desired? And speaking of desire . . .

  He rubbed his eyes, hoping to dispel the delectable image of Lauren Alcott as she stood on the riverbank dripping wet, her underclothes—lace-infested combinations—clinging lasciviously to every mound and curve she possessed. Shameless female. She’d spurned his jacket and strode to the boat in her altogether like the bloody Queen of the Nile. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made the memory more vivid.