His hand was bare, and he placed it on her cheek. “Such supple skin.”
“Lotion.” Her voice sounded breathless. “Plenty of it. Always after a bath.”
“I take it you enjoy a good soaking.”
Her cheek burned beneath his fingers. Surely, if it were daylight, he’d catch her blushing again. “I like your confidence and your vulnerability, Miss Croome.”
“Then why do you keep wanting me to give up?”
“I won’t lie to you, Miss Croome. I had no expectations outside of a woman of grace with kind eyes and humor in need of a husband. The fact that you are a Blackamoor and I’m not doesn’t seem to matter to either of us anymore.”
“It doesn’t, does it? I’ve been infatuated with you since the first time I saw you on stage, but I like the man in front of me now. I like you, Bex.”
He lifted her chin, bringing her lips closer. “Miss Croome, my attraction to you doesn’t care about our differences other than the important one.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m a man with eyes, and you’re a woman. I delight in your delectable curves, which are noticeable even as you try to hide beneath layers of fabric.”
With his other hand, he tugged at her shawl, freeing one shoulder. “I’m growing more curious about other secrets you have.”
Pushing at his hand, she turned away. “You like making me blush.”
“I like a lot of things.” He circled her until he captured her eyes and put his arms about her, pulling her to him. “You’re not afraid of being alone with a man by the side of the road at maybe four or five in the morn? Nothing fearful about being in my embrace?”
Her fingers went to his mangled cravat. “Not with Arthur Bex.”
“What if I weren’t Arthur Bex? Would you still feel secure?”
She puffed the loops of the tie, but only starch and an iron could save it. “Would you have the same melodious voice?” Hers was a purr.
“Yes. I suppose. You wouldn’t have accepted anyone else’s advertisement to escape your father’s suitor, just mine?”
Her slim index finger stilled, very close to the vein on his neck. His pulse ticked up. “Just you, Bex. If you must leap into a fire, why choose a match light over a hearth flame? Both will burn you, just one more so.”
“Am I the match or the hearth, Miss Croome?”
“Time will tell. You should give my name a practice. Ester Croome Bex. Ester Bex. Ester.”
Did she know how alluring she was? Or how well her curves fit against him? “You must truly like me, Ester Croome.”
“Yes. But say my name once more, with feeling, as if you were on stage.”
Arthur moved one hand from the glorious perch at her waist to stroke her neck. Round the curve and along a ribbon, he traced the lace at her throat that led to an ample bosom. “Is there a reward for saying your name in direct address, Miss Croome?”
Concentrating on her plump lower lip, he dipped his head closer. “A reward should be in order—”
Harsh galloping sounded from behind. A large carriage sprinted past them on the road where they were pulled over to the side.
Miss Croome ducked her face, hiding against his abdomen. She shivered against him. The lass truly feared being caught, and it reminded him how vulnerable they were.
“Bex, we should get back on the road. I don’t want to be found here in the middle of nowhere with no chaperone.”
“You’re eloping, Ester Croome. No chaperone required.”
She held on to him tighter; her words came out half muffled by his waistcoat. “If we fail and my father doesn’t kill or maim you, you will still be Arthur Bex. I’ll be a fallen woman. The limited choices and freedoms I have now as Josiah Croome’s daughter will be no more. No coaching inn will ever allow me to rent, not the infamous Ester. Not to mention that no respectable family will want anything to do with me. That shame will hurt Mama. She’ll forgive me, but the shame will cut her deep. We have to marry, being out here—all alone with you.”
“Then we can’t fail at making you my bride.”
“We can’t, and I know you can and will protect me. I don’t want us to fail.”
Her words were sweet, sweeter than the kiss he’d wanted to take. “We won’t.” He put his hands around her waist again and carried her back to the phaeton. He hoisted her up onto the platform. “We won’t fail, future Mrs. Bex.”
When he climbed in on the other side, she had the reins in her hand. “Bex, I’ve driven my friend’s gig. It’s small, with only two wheels, but I could drive this, and you could sleep. We could get more distance.”
He hadn’t thought of her being useful like this. Taking his gloves from the seat, he offered them to her. “These are a little worn, but they will protect your hands. He tugged off one of her gloves, taking a moment to clasp her fingers—long, piano-playing-digits. “Let’s not ruin these silky things.”
“That is satin with Mechlin lace.” She took off the other and stuffed them both into her bag before pulling on his gloves. “Do I keep to this road?”
“Yes. Stay the course unless you are ready to quit. I hope you’re not ready for that.” He sank back into the seat.
“Bex, I’m staying the course.”
When she safely made the horse take to the road, he relaxed a little more.
Chin held high, arms taut, blasted shawl again wrapped about her, she had the phaeton moving smoothly, the horses’ gait steady and straight.
Surprised at her skill, he sank a little more into the seat. “Your friend taught you well.”
“Mrs. Fitzwilliam-Cecil believes horse skills are essential for women.”
“But not your parents?”
“Rest, Bex. I’ll keep us on the path.”
She hadn’t answered his question, but his eyelids refused to let him seek further counsel. He’d have to find out more about her parents later, and perhaps figure out a way to smooth things over. Miss Croome wasn’t like him. She needed her family. Since the age of twelve, after his uncle’s trial, he’d been forced to live by his own means. If Arthur could spare her the pain of giving up her relations, he would.
The world became quieter as his lids drooped. A little sleep would help, but if Ester was right, how would things work if they were caught here, days away from Scotland?
Chapter Nine
Women Drivers
As they drove farther north, the wind started to pick up, blowing chilly air at Ester. While Frederica’s shawl offered some protection, Ester’s wildly inappropriate travel gown didn’t. She shivered on the seat, partly from the cold, partly from the occasional touch of her napping companion. She should’ve changed before she leaped from the window, but Bex hadn’t seen her in her pretty blue gown with the netting.
Though Ester designed dresses for Frederica and Theodosia, the gown she wore had been her mother’s choice. Mama had beautiful, elegant taste, and the gowns Ester usually sketched were for taller, bolder women.
Mama must have thought Ester was being disrespectful for missing her cake cutting, and Ester remembered how she, Ruth, and Papa had always stood near Mama when she’d cut the cakes at her parties. How hurt had she been when she’d discovered Ester had actually run away?
Bex’s hand touched hers again, and at the same time, a memory of Mama crying shot through her. The words “his hands” repeated in her skull. For that’s what Mama kept saying on the stairwell leading to their rooms above the warehouse.
Ester remembered, for she and her sister Ruth had been naughty, staring at the hardworking men below through a knot in the floor. Ester had heard the noise, strained her eyes, and had caught Mama sobbing.
Odd, Ester hadn’t thought of this memory before. Odd, she’d never asked what “his hands” meant or why those words had made Mama cry?
Another breeze felt like ice water on Ester’s legs. She should’ve changed from this dress to the frumpy burgundy one when they had stopped at the coaching inn, but she’d had that feeling of
being watched. No show would be given to a voyeur or a thief.
Snort. Whistle. “Leave ’em alone.” Bex shot up straight from his sleep. His eyes were wide, almost crazed in the lantern light.
“Bex, are you all right?”
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and swiped at his mouth. For a moment, he stared at her as if he didn’t know her, as if he didn’t know himself.
“Bex, it’s me. Ester Croome. We are heading to Scotland.”
Sinking back on the seat, he covered his face with his hat. “I must confess, Miss Croome, I’ve been told that I snore a little and talk in my sleep.”
“Would it be lines of Shakespeare?”
“Clever, Miss Croome. And I remembered you and this venture to Scotland.”
“I hadn’t doubted that, but who said you snored? You’re an only child.”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Perhaps the Countess Devoors?”
He pushed his hat away and sat up again. “You read the newspaper too much.”
“Blame my mother. She collects all the papers. Every scandal caricature, she saves them. There was a funny one of you and the countess throwing a set of Wedgewood platters when you broke off your…arrangement.”
“The papers get things wrong all the time. It was one bowl, maybe a vase. No heirlooms were destroyed in our parting.”
“Why didn’t you marry her? You courted for a while. Definitely more than a day.”
He coughed, then said, “The widow wasn’t the marrying kind.”
“Then why were you with her?”
The seat lantern exposed a look on his face, brow rising over his eye, suggesting she’d asked one question too many. Ester turned back to the road, studying the couple of feet in front of them illuminated by the phaeton’s side lanterns. “Well, I don’t mind you snoring.”
“That is good. I don’t intend to sleep in separate chambers.”
She couldn’t look at him now, not when her questions could lead to such dangerous territory. “I don’t mind so much. My father snores. When we lived above the old warehouse, that hard noise meant Papa had made it home safely, that nothing had happened to him in his business dealings. Those long nights with the moon high over the Thames, I’d wait on my mat for the door to open, to hear the mumbles of my parents, then that harsh sound of his sleeping. That was safety.”
“You’ll be plenty safe with me.” He yawned big, surely pushing out all the air in his big chest. “Your father lives with danger?”
“Some don’t take kindly to the Croome’s advancing wealth. Mama, all of us, were gleeful when Papa hired solicitors to do his negotiations. And someone must not have liked my uncle’s advancing. Nothing save a bloody coat came home.”
“Miss Croome. I can imagine…the pain—”
“Say no more of it.” She remembered her uncle’s quick laugh—his never-to-be-heard-again-on-this-side-of-glory laugh. Her fears for Papa returned. Ester almost wished she could walk past her parent’s bedchamber and hear Papa’s snores. “Look at the bruises on your hands, Bex. We live in dangerous times.”
“We do. I remember the first rally I attended. I don’t know what I feared more at St. Peter’s Field, being shot or trampled.”
“Last year. You were at the St. Peterloo Massacre.” Her heart thumped hard, remembering the horrible reports of those killed. She jerked to stare at him and rocked the cart. “Fifteen people were killed, hundreds injured. How many bloodied coats were sent home? Bex, you can’t be so reckless.”
“The road, madam.” He grabbed her hand and steadied the reins. “What you call reckless, I call finding my purpose. I saw Henry Hunt speak. The great orator of the people used his voice to try to create change. I can’t live just to be in a costume on the stage. I can’t be quiet to appease my wife’s fears.”
“Hunt was arrested. They say he may serve time in prison. Maybe he should’ve listened to his wife.”
Dousing the seat lantern again, he leaned back and put his head near her side of the phaeton. “You won’t come visit me in Newgate?”
She dared herself not to look at him and risk her heart melting at moonbeams dancing on his grin. “I won’t be a couch woman, Bex. I won’t sit around and not have my opinion heard.”
“Not sure what a couch woman is, but I hear you just fine.” His voice was a yawn again. Soon his nostril made another heavy noise, a sawing sound like workers raising a new section of the warehouse. His sleep-warm face pressed into her shoulder. His lips moved again against the skin exposed by her cap sleeves.
A breath caught in her throat when he moved away. Why was her skin so aware of him? Why did she feel foolish and scared for Bex? How would she protect him from the dangers she knew to be real?
Bex’s hand joined hers, tugging to the right. “You’re drifting, Miss Croome. Are you tiring?”
“No, getting tangled in my thoughts.”
“Regrets? So soon? If I were arrested, you wouldn’t have to come to Newgate every day.”
She cast him a frowning look, but it was probably too dark for him to see. “My hope is that you never put yourself at such risk. Is that why you broke from your countess—your rallying?”
He sat up and steadied the reins, his naked hand atop her wrist. “She’s not my countess. It was an affair many months ago. Your mother’s papers should have made you aware of that.”
“My mother’s not aware of everything. She didn’t discover my father’s affair until last Yuletide.”
Bex straightened. “You could tell me about it. I’m up now.”
Opening up to Bex or keeping quiet warred in her head until she felt the warmth of Bex’s hand. This man was to be her husband. She needed to be open to him. “I love the Yuletide. The smell of cinnamon, ribbons on wreaths. My father still gave us presents to make up for when we were poor. He’d always hide the tiny parcels. I thought I was so clever finding one in his study. It didn’t have a tag, but I thought I could guess if it was for me.”
“So, you opened it?”
“Yes.”
“And could you tell, Ester?”
“Yes. They weren’t for my or Mama’s consumption. They were letters to my father’s mistress.”
“Oh.”
Was that all Bex could say? She could still see the brokenness in her mother’s face, still feel the twist in her gut when Mama took the box of letters Ester showed her. “That was the worst holiday ever. No morning songs, no lighting of candles—just pain. And no explanation, if there could be a reason to be an adulterer.”
“Did your mother forgive the transgression? She must have. She hosted a party with him last night? Right?”
She jarred the horses, making them run faster. “There was a party for the New Year, just six days after the discovery of the letters. Fake smiles and a strand of watercolor pearls seemed to be the price of making it all better.”
“I’m sorry, Ester.” He clasped his hand about hers and the reins for a moment before refolding his arms and getting comfortable again. “Maybe he repented, and your mother found a way to forgive him.”
“I’m not my mother, Bex. I’m not an easy spirit who will do or think as you want me to. I am no couch woman.”
“You said as much when we discussed my going to prison. Ester, I haven’t said I want a couch woman. And what I’ve come to know about you, I highly doubt your mother to be that easy with a betrayal.”
Bex didn’t know her mother to be weak and so concerned about public opinion. “We are nothing alike, mother and I.”
“If you say so. Thou doest protest too much, Ester.”
“You would use Shakespeare against me? Though, with your voice, I’ll forgive you.”
He chuckled, something wicked and knowing. “What else can my voice do?”
Skin to skin, his fingers had slipped beneath her shawl and wound about her arm, sending a deep shiver through her. “What things do you want, other than for me to give up my principles and my rally-making.”
Biting her lip, she warred against the butterflies doubling inside. “I said it before. Your honesty and fidelity are the most important things.”
“What if an omission was for your protection?”
“No, that won’t do for me, Bex. I need to be able to trust you.”
“Miss Croome, no riddles. I’m not sure my brainbox is fully awake. You seem to be a smart lass, so this definitely isn’t fair, but since you are speaking of what you want, I need to know what type of marriage I should expect?”
Foot jittering, she righted the carriage’s rumble off the road. “What type of marriage is it you seek?”
He settled beside her, a little closer than before. From the heat of his breath on her cheek, he’d nestled near her ear. “I believe one with you, my dear.”
Ester wasn’t a little girl, so she couldn’t act like one. She’d leaped as she had through the window with everything at risk. “You’re wondering if I want a marriage purely of convenience or one of occasional affection?”
“Never occasional, my dear. I’m inclined to passionate relationships. Surely, you read that in the papers. That part was no lie.”
Cheeks fevering, she focused on the closest horse. “You are trying to set my face on fire, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps, but I need to know if Ester Croome is inclined to a passionate relationship. You could let a fellow down easy if you aren’t interested.”
There was no way she’d change her mind, but what did he mean? “You wouldn’t marry me, if I weren’t inclined?”
He tapped the soft, ticklish spot along her ribs. “It would make things more challenging, and of course, I would take great pleasure in changing your mind. There’s an attraction between us which cannot be denied.”
His chuckle was arrogant, and melodious, and deadly accurate. How could she not be attracted to someone she’d loved from a distance for two years?
“What? Miss Croome? No response?’
There were plenty of responses—her stomach was tense, her head was light. She’d jump out of her skin if his elbow tapped her again. “I’m not a couch woman, one of those wives waiting for a carousing husband to find his way home, hoping for a gift to make his lies better. Not me, not that type of relationship.”
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