Rules of Engagement

by Christina Dodd

  This wasn’t the senior upstairs maid. This was youth and a maiden’s innocence and beauty incarnate. Her caramel-colored hair was piled atop her head in a swirl that defied gravity, and glinted with sparks of amber and chestnut. For a woman, her shoulders were broad, yet soft and golden, and the long indent of her spine led his gaze inevitably to the cleft of her bottom.

  What a bottom it was. The globes were full, yet tight and high, the kind he would hold in his hands as this woman straddled him and rode him for hours, for days. She wouldn’t tire, not this woman of abundant charms. Nor would he, for his erection throbbed as it had when he was a half-grown lad getting an eyeful of one girl’s forbidden graces.

  As always in a dream, he couldn’t move, so he forced himself to call out, “Come on, then. Give me what you’ve always promised.”

  And she turned, providing a glimpse of full breasts, the indent of navel in the smooth flesh of her belly, the triangle of hair that hid the petals of nature’s sweetest rose.

  Just as in real life, he stared at her body until his eyes ached and it occurred to him that she wouldn’t walk toward him or kiss his lips or place her naked form against his until he looked at her face. Women, even dream women, were funny that way.

  So with painful effort he lifted his gaze from the smooth, rose-colored nipples to her face—and screamed.

  That man was sure staring at Miss Lockhart funny.

  Lord Kerrich hadn’t stared at her like that yesterday, and Beth didn’t understand why he would be all big-eyed and suspicious today. It wasn’t as if Miss Lockhart had mucked up her looks or anything. She wore a gown that bunched around her shoulders, a brown one today. Her tinted spectacles slid down her nose, and when Lord Kerrich strolled into the classroom carrying his cane, wearing a monocle, and dressed as dapper as bedamned, she still got that sour expression like he gave her a bellyache.

  “My lord.” Miss Lockhart stopped smack in the middle of the spelling lesson and curtsied. “We didn’t expect you so early. It’s not yet gone eleven.”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” Lord Kerrich said, as grumpy as you please.

  Beth had stood when he came into the room, and when he stopped before her, she curtsied, feeling almost jaunty in the pink dimity gown, which was only a little faded and was actually ironed, and the white pinafore with the ruffles on the shoulders.

  He just looked her over and pronounced, “You’re clean. Stay that way.”

  “Yes, my lord.” An idea occurred to her, and she was so taken with it she dared say, “If I stay clean, I don’t have to have any more baths, do I?”

  “Oh, no.” He shook his head. “You’re not involving me in that battle. Miss Lockhart, teach something. I have things to think about.” Marching to the rear of the classroom, he paced back and forth, and every time Beth glanced his way he was looking at Miss Lockhart like she scared him.

  Beth fidgeted in her desk. She already knew all this corn about reading and writing, but Miss Lockhart called this a review, so Beth was free to examine Miss Lockhart and figure out why Lord Kerrich was gawking so.

  Of a surety, this morning with the sun shining through the big windows, her face looked eerie, too pale with pink color on her cheeks, but all in all she had the demeanor of a lady, the lady who had taken Beth from the orphanage and given her a chance at a new life.

  Beth knew how to be grateful. She would do anything for Miss Lockhart. She’d learn all that stuff Miss Lockhart said she needed like Latin and pianoforte and history and literature and sketching. She’d dress in these fine new clothes that one of the maids had found for her. And somehow, she wouldn’t be ascared anymore. After all, Miss Lockhart had called her a lion. So Beth would be the foundling Lord Kerrich wanted. Tough. Brave. Better than a boy.

  Luckily, being better than a boy wasn’t difficult.

  “So.” Lord Kerrich came and stood over Beth’s desk, and interrupted Miss Lockhart right in the middle of T-H-R-O-W and T-H-R-O-U-G-H. “You don’t like to take baths.”

  The pen felt awkward in Beth’s hand, so she put it in the stand and looked up, way up, to Lord Kerrich’s face. “My mum used to make me take baths. She about scrubbed my skin off, and so did Miss Lockhart.” She tried to look as disgruntled as any lad, which wasn’t hard because she really didn’t like washing. “Why do wenches like water so much?”

  “We ladies”—Miss Lockhart emphasized the word so much Beth got the impression she didn’t like to be called a wench—“like to see clean children.”

  “The sight must be better than the feel,” Beth retorted.

  Miss Lockhart rapped on the desk with her pointer. “Don’t be saucy.”

  “No, ma’am.” Beth arranged the folds of her skirt.

  But Lord Kerrich stared down at Beth, then up at Miss Lockhart, then back at Beth. In a conspiratorial tone, he said, “Ladies do make a fuss about a little dirt, don’t they?”

  Beth wanted to leap to her feet and shout her jubilation. She’d said a boy thing and he’d agreed with her!

  Grabbing one of the big chairs, he turned it backward and straddled it. Leaning his chin on the back, he asked, “What else makes you want to yell?”

  He made her nervous, looking at her so hard, but over his shoulder Miss Lockhart was nodding encouragingly, so Beth gathered her courage and tried to think. What made her yell? “When Mrs. Fallowfield put me in the closet, I yelled and kicked the door.”

  Miss Lockhart began to clean the chalk off the slate-board.

  “Who’s Mrs. Fallowfield?” Lord Kerrich asked.

  “The old bitch what directs the orphanage.”

  “Beth!” Miss Lockhart drew herself sternly erect. “Such expressions must never cross a lady’s lips.”

  “That’s right, Beth.” Lord Kerrich looked like he was going to explode, his face twinkly with laughter. “The correct phrase is, ‘The old bitch who directs the orphanage.’ ”

  Miss Lockhart’s eyes flashed so bright Beth could see the wrath right through the tinted lenses. “You know very well what expression, Beth.”

  Beth didn’t dare play the dunce, and she nodded and whispered, “Yes, Miss Lockhart.”

  Miss Lockhart answered his earlier question. “Mrs. Fallowfield is the director of the orphanage, my lord.”

  “She sounds like a dreadful old…wench,” Lord Kerrich observed. “Why did she lock you in a closet?”

  “Because I cried at night and woke the others.” Beth didn’t want to talk about that, so she hastily added, “I yelled when I set my apron on fire.”

  “You set your apron on fire.” Lord Kerrich repeated what she said as if he couldn’t quite comprehend her.

  “You know. An apron, like this one.” She held up the white cotton pinafore. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I was just little. Mum was cleaning the grate, and I thought the coals look pretty, so I scooped one up with the shovel and put it in my pocket.”

  “Good gracious.” Miss Lockhart put her hand over her mouth.

  “This can’t be true,” Lord Kerrich said.

  “It is, too.” Beth glared in indignation. “When the flames started busting out, my mum grabbed me and rolled me on the floor and pounded me with a rug. And look!” She rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm where a ripple of purple marred the skin. “I got burned.”

  Standing, Lord Kerrich kicked his chair away. “Miss Lockhart, I can’t do this!”

  Miss Lockhart lifted her dark brows. “My lord?”

  “This is too hard. What if I get fond of that child and she sticks another coal in her pocket? What will happen to me then?”

  Miss Lockhart looked like her belly was aching again, and she kept opening her mouth, then closing it, as if she didn’t know what to say.

  Beth knew what to say. “I was little when I did that. I don’t play with fire anymore.”

  “You can’t fool me,” Lord Kerrich said with chilly precision. “Children get hurt all the time.”

  Miss Lockhart must have gotten her words back, because wh
en she started talking it was a tirade to amaze. “You’re right, my lord. She could get hurt. Somehow. She could need care. And should you, in your munificence, become attached to her, you might get hurt by her suffering. So I’ll just go and tell Lord Reynard that you have no intention of following through on your commitment. Shall I?”

  Lord Kerrich pointed his finger at Miss Lockhart. “You dare!”

  Miss Lockhart sniffed. “And I believe there’s some matter to be taken care of with Her Majesty, too.”

  “Miss Lockhart, you take too much upon yourself.”

  “I am just trying to remind you what you have at stake here.”

  “I know what I have at stake here.”

  “Then keep the course, my lord, and you will succeed. Waver now, and you are a craven.”

  “No one calls me a craven.”

  “Perhaps someone should call you illogical for thinking a boy orphan would be less likely to hurt himself and thus you.”

  They were acting like two of the lads at the orphanage, and just like at the orphanage Beth scrambled to distract them. Grasping the hem of Lord Kerrich’s fine black coat, she tugged at it. “I yelled at the horse races when my papa took me.”

  Lord Kerrich stopped shouting and shaking his finger. He looked down at Beth with something like amazement. “Your father took you to the horse races?”

  She nodded.

  Miss Lockhart said, “Oh, no.”

  Lord Kerrich ignored her, coming to kneel at Beth’s side. In a pleasant, coaxing voice, he asked, “Did you like the horse races?”

  “I loved them.” Beth didn’t have to pretend. Her enthusiasm swept her along. “The smell of the dirt and the straw and the way people jumped up and down and all the shouting and sometimes if I asked nice the owner would let me pet the horse—”

  “You cannot take that child to a horse race,” Miss Lockhart said.

  Leaning back on his heels, he cupped his chin and examined Beth—but not unkindly. As if he was interested. Then he sighed. “No. I suppose not.”

  “But—” Beth said.

  “No.” Miss Lockhart stood firm.

  Beth slumped in her seat. It wasn’t fair. Papa had taken her. Why couldn’t she go now? With Lord Kerrich? It would make him like her, and so she would tell Miss Lockhart later.

  “Where did you go to the horse races?” Lord Kerrich asked.

  “The Hippodrome.”

  “It’s not a good track,” he said. “The clay is so heavy the best jockeys refuse to ride on it.”

  She kicked the leg of the desk.

  “And it’s on the outskirts of a slum. Surely you saw the pickpockets and thieves that frequent the place.”

  “Yes.” She shot him a scornful glance. “But Papa and I couldn’t go to Ascot, could we?”

  “I suppose not.”

  A thought came to her, and she sat straight up. “Do you own a horse, my lord?”

  Lord Kerrich shook his head. “No. No racehorses.”

  Miss Lockhart pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Praise be for that.”

  “But you own a horse? A real horse? Is it tall?” Beth squirmed with glee. “Is it chestnut? I think they’re the prettiest, but Papa liked the dappled grays.”

  “I have a chestnut.” Looking more like a fairy godfather every moment, Lord Kerrich grinned at Beth. “And a dappled gray. In fact, I own a team of both.”

  In her rush of joy, Beth forgot she wanted to please Miss Lockhart and build a kinship with Lord Kerrich so he would keep her. She thought only of the horses, the beautiful horses. But it was almost too good to be true, and she couldn’t help asking suspiciously, “You wouldn’t be fibbing to me, would you?”

  Throwing back his head, he laughed out loud, a great, ringing laugh that made Beth want to laugh along.

  But not Miss Lockhart. She came and stood over the top of them, and glared down her nose at him as he knelt at her feet. “My lord, this is not what I intended.”

  “What did you intend, Miss Lockhart?” He drawled so slowly he sounded like Chilton when he was being a wise-acre. “That I should take needlework lessons with Beth?”

  “There are men who would be much improved by the lessons of patience and gentility learned along with needlework.”

  “I am not one of them.” Slowly, he rose, stretching himself upward until Miss Lockhart’s nose reached just about to his collarbone, and he looked down toward her.

  They both wore such insufferably superior expressions that Beth was hard-pressed not to giggle.

  “I’m taking the child for a ride in the park.” He held out his hand to Beth, and she took it without hesitation. “If you plan to go along, Miss Lockhart, you’d best change into suitable riding gear.”

  Chapter 9

  A groom led Beth’s mare on leading reins, Lord Kerrich followed on a chestnut gelding, calling out encouragement and comments, and Pamela brought up the rear—figuratively as well as literally, in her opinion. She knew she ought to be glad that Beth and Kerrich had found something in common, something about which they were mutually enthused. But an hour in the stables being introduced to every horse was not what she had had planned for the first day of Beth’s lessons. And riding through the park on this old nag who could scarcely plod along! Somehow it didn’t seem equitable.

  In all fairness, Pamela had to admit part of her dissatisfaction came from the variety of aches she had acquired last night during the bathing battle with Beth. Right now, as her mare followed along the path radiant with tawny blossoms and miniature pinks, she felt every bruise clear to the bone.

  As Kerrich moved up to ride beside Beth, Pamela watched him suspiciously. Just as she suspected, he allowed the stableboy to hand Beth the reins.

  “No,” Pamela called. “This is her first ride!”

  But they pretended she was too far back for them to hear her, and when she kicked at the nag’s sides and tried to get it to trot, she encountered nothing but a snort of exasperation from the horse. She, Pamela Lockhart Ripley, was left behind because of an old nag.

  As if she were an old nag.

  Slumping back into the saddle, Pamela resolved to speak to Kerrich as soon as they returned to his home about his abominable disregard for Beth’s safety. That was if the child didn’t fall off, although Kerrich kept her to a walk, kept close to her side, and kept the stableboy along her other side. Then they disappeared around a bend.

  Part of Pamela’s fretfulness was pure exhaustion. She hadn’t slept well the previous night, although, just as Lord Kerrich had promised, her bed was comfortable, her sleeping chamber well-ventilated and next to Beth’s, and she had been awarded every privilege. Much as she hated to admit it, Hannah was right. Pamela felt guilty. Guilty and desperately afraid someone would see through her disguise. It wasn’t that it bothered her to make a fool of Kerrich. No, the cocky boy had clearly grown into an overbearing man. But Lord Reynard was another tale.

  Tightening the bow under her chin, she hoped that the riding hat Moulton had scraped up for her shaded her face enough to hide the lines where her pale powder and red rouge met the true colors of her skin. When she’d applied her disguise this morning, she hadn’t planned on riding in the sunshine…and because of her secret guilt, she could scarcely bear to look at herself in the mirror.

  Yes, Lord Reynard made her feel guilty. He had peered at her with interest, and she could have sworn he was on the point of remembering her. Remembering her as being young and pretty, not the middle-aged spinster his grandson so disdained. But he hadn’t, and every time she thought about it, she almost fainted in relief that he hadn’t recognized her, and felt guilty—there was that word again!—that she should be tricking a man of his years. Then she worried that he had recognized her, and for some nefarious reason of his own kept his mouth shut. Yet what nefarious reason would such an old man have for abetting her in her disguise?

  The answer was—he had no reason. That she even worried about it proved Kerrich had influenced her so that she spied co
nspiracies everywhere. Kerrich was a menace to sense and honor.

  And safety. Pamela rode around the bend and looked ahead on the path. Cats and mittens, that was Beth stretched out there in Kerrich’s arms!

  She experienced an unwelcome jolt of fear. What if the poor child was hurt? Then Kerrich would truly wish to send her back, and demand a new child, a tougher one this time.

  This time she didn’t abide any headstrong disobedience from the horse, but kicked it into a trot until she could get to the child—and the man. “What happened?” she asked in a ringing tone.

  “We didn’t stand you up fast enough to avoid her censure,” Kerrich told Beth. His top hat rested on the grass beside him, and the bush behind him framed him in green and dappled him with sunshine. With Beth in his arms grinning at him, he looked like the subject of a Watteau painting instead of the careless rake Pamela knew him to be.

  Beth rubbed her head. “I’m fine, Miss Lockhart.”

  The stableboy rushed to help Pamela dismount, but she swung out of the saddle before he could reach her. “You bumped your head.”

  “That’s not what hurts the worst, but you’ll yell at me if I rub that.” With Kerrich’s arm under her elbow, Beth rose, and tottered momentarily.

  Pamela rushed forward, anxious as a mother, but Kerrich turned his shoulder and blocked her.

  “Anything broken?” Kerrich led Beth a few steps along the side of the path. “Anything sprained?”

  “No. I can ride more!”

  Pamela swallowed a surprise upswelling of tears. Surely it was nothing more than the fear of her plan going astray with Beth’s injury. It couldn’t be that she already felt a surfeit of affection for Beth. And certainly not hurt that Kerrich had rudely turned her aside. In that decisive tone that came so easily, she said, “That’s enough riding for this afternoon.”

  Beth whined, “Ah, Miss Lockhart…”

  “Walk a little farther. Work out the bruises.” Kerrich let go of Beth and with his hands on his hips and his head turned as he observed the child’s progress, he said, “So, Miss Lockhart, you don’t ascribe to the theory that she should get right back up on the horse?”