“You did. I tried to jerk away, but you still got me.”
He frowned at that, lightly touched his fingertips to her temple, then frowned again. “I don’t like to see bruises on a woman. Actually, I’ve always hated it. What’s worse is I’ve never been one to do it.” He threw some more straw over her, then lay down beside her.
“How many mistresses have you had?”
His eyes came open. “Why? You want the job?”
“No, I don’t even want you near me, but you fastened my chemise like you’ve done it many, many times. You even had your eyes closed.”
“I have done many little services. I remember the first chemise I fastened. It was swiftly and very well done. I’m not a clod. I was never a clod. I closed my eyes because looking at your breasts wouldn’t be the right thing to do. Actually, I’d already looked my fill at your breasts. Thus, doing the right thing this time wasn’t that difficult. What am I supposed to do with you now?”
He sounded like a reasonable man, but she couldn’t be certain. She hadn’t really known many men in her life, other than her father and the two she’d known better than just simple acquaintances hadn’t been reasonable. “Perhaps,” she said, feeling her way since she well realized that she was mired in a very big problem, “you could simply help me back to London. I will just lie low until I am well again. I’ll convince the aunts that I’m all right. You could perhaps just forget all of this?”
“And when you could, you’d try to steal one of my horses again?”
He had a point there.
“No, don’t even try to lie. You’re no good at it. Now, I think it’s in your best interest to tell me the truth and let me decide what’s best to be done.”
Total silence.
“Very well. Tell me about Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford.”
He thought she’d fainted, but when he came up on his elbow to look at her, he saw that she’d squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
“Who is he?”
“Not a good man.”
“I know that. Even Quincy knew that. Quincy has something of a second sight about people, inherited all the way down from a great-great-grandmother. Yes, Sir Henry came looking for you.”
“Oh, God. What did you say?”
“He told me he was in London on business and just wanted to see if the aunts were doing all right. Then he asked if the aunts had brought a guest with them.”
“What did you say?”
“Jack the valet wasn’t a guest. I said no. I’m not certain if he believed me, but he had no choice but to leave.” He saw that her hair was nearly dry. He himself was finally warm again. Her skin had lost that waxy gray color. She must be warmer as well. He came up on his elbow and began picking the straw out of her hair.
“Since you said you’d never seen a man’s chest before, then I assume that Sir Henry isn’t your husband.”
She groaned.
“No. Well, then, your father?”
“No. My papa’s dead. Mathilda and Maude will be frantic. We must get back to London.”
He was untangling hair from around a crooked piece of straw. “Since we’re both covered with straw, I think I’ll take my breeches off.” He rose, stripped, laid out his pants, then returned to lie next to her, straw poking him in places he hadn’t thought vulnerable since the time when he’d been fifteen and made love with sweet Florence Dobbins in the shade of a sand dune on the beach at Torquay. “If the sun holds steady, our clothes should be dry in a couple of hours. Now, how do you feel?”
“Fine,” she said. He heard some strange noises, turned to face her, and saw that she’d stuffed her fist into her mouth and tears were slowly trickling down her face.
6
HE DIDN’T think, just acted, pulling away the straw and bringing her close. Her body was incredibly warm against him, which was a surprise, since she’d been shivering just a minute before.
She stiffened tighter than a virgin in a brothel, which, he supposed, wasn’t all that much of a surprise. He just pulled her closer and pressed her cheek down against his shoulder. Her arms were as bare as her legs, which were against his, all smooth and delightful. He turned his face into her hair and said, “It’s all right. Don’t cry unless you’re hurting, and not just feeling miserable about this impossible situation that you, I might add, are responsible for getting us into.”
“You didn’t have to come after me. You could have let me have Durban for a while. I would have returned him.”
He started to burn her ears, but he felt her tears on his neck and cursed instead, then stopped cold. “No, I won’t curse again, at least until it’s impossible not to. I have this feeling that with you near at hand, cursing will become a regular habit with me.”
“My mother hated cursing. Once I said ‘damn’ when I was just a little girl and she made me eat a bowl of turnips. She wouldn’t let me add any salt or butter, nothing. I came to hate turnips very quickly. I can’t look at a turnip now without thinking about that one small ‘damn,’ which felt very good saying at the time.”
“Turnips, huh? A better punishment than having a mouth full of soap, which I understand is the time-honored curse punishment. Now, you’re warming up and so am I. Let’s just rest here a couple more hours until our clothes are dry.”
“Then what?”
“We’ll go back to London.”
His skin felt itchy from her tears and he shifted just a bit, bringing up his hand to scratch himself. When she realized what he was going to do, she did it for him, lightly digging her fingernails into his shoulder and neck.
“Thank you,” he said. “You hair smells good.”
She sighed. “You shouldn’t say that. I’m nineteen years old. I don’t know you except for what the aunts said, and they aren’t sure if you’re nice or very wicked. You’re naked. I can feel your legs and they’re hairy. My rib hurts and so does my head.”
“All right. Take a nap. Oh, yes—I’m not wicked. I’m staid, even proper. This one small incident with us lying here bundled together isn’t the norm. Trust me.”
“I don’t know about trusting you just yet. Yes, the aunts wondered if you were like your father. They didn’t like your father.”
“I didn’t either. Go to sleep.” He was the one, however, who was lightly snoring five minutes later.
She’d never before lain half-naked against a fully naked man. It was at once strange and just a bit exhilarating. What to do now? She lightly scratched his shoulder again.
When she woke up, she was quite alone, packed in straw like a fish on the dock. She opened her eyes and stared around her, not moving until she remembered, and then she sat up quickly. She was so dizzy that she nearly fell over. She sat very still, waiting. Finally her head cleared. She saw him some six feet away, shrugging into his waistcoat.
“Are the clothes dry?”
He turned around and gave her a smile. She’d never seen him smile before. It was quite nice. In fact, it was a smile that would have knocked her flat—would have knocked any female flat, she imagined—if she weren’t sitting here with only her chemise on, with straw sticking out of her hair. If she hadn’t believed him to be a womanizer, and possibly just like her stepfather, she would have thought his smile quite the nicest smile that had ever been bestowed upon her. On the other hand, he’d assured her that he wasn’t wicked. In her meager experience, however, men weren’t to be believed.
“Yes, they’re dry. How do you feel?”
She was no longer dizzy, thank God. She silently queried her body, from her rib to her head. It wasn’t too bad, just light throbbing in both places. She did feel a bit heavy, perhaps on the dull side, and that was odd, but it wasn’t bad enough to say anything about. “I’m fine, but I don’t want to go back to London, unless it’s just to leave you there with Brewster and make certain I’m on the road to Folkstone.”
“Not likely,” he said, giving more attention to the wrinkles in his coat than to her very serious statement.
She
didn’t think it was very likely either, but still, he could have perhaps explained, apologized, even smiled at her again. She watched him walk to her and drop her clothes onto the straw.
“Get dressed. I’ll see to Durban and Brewster. They’re probably thirsty.”
She was fastening her breeches when he came back into the barn. “The sun’s brighter than a woman’s smile when her lover gives her a diamond necklace.”
“I’ve never heard it put quite that way.”
“I’m sometimes a poet,” he said. He narrowed his eyes and looked at her closely from toe to head. “You look like a wreck.”
“So do you.”
“Yes, I suppose neither of us would be welcome in a London drawing room. On the other hand, my face isn’t a mess of blue and green and yellow bruises like yours is. Let’s go get something to eat. There must be a town nearby with an inn.”
The Corpulent Goose was the premier inn in the market town of Grindle-Abbott. Set in a small yard surrounded by oak trees and a little stable, it faced the town square on High Street. The Corpulent Goose was at least three centuries old and looked every decade of it, but still somehow managed to retain a touch of bygone elegance, what with its slate roof that sloped sharply and dozens of small diamond-paned windows that were sparkling clean.
The taproom was very small, holding only four square wooden tables with benches so old they looked worm-eaten.
A man with a huge belly that was covered with a stained apron came to their table and bellowed, “Wot be fer ye lads?”
“Something to eat, please,” Gray said, “for my brother and me.”
“A lot of something, please,” she said, her voice as deep as she could make it.
“Yer a purty little pullet, ain’t ye?” the innkeeper said, as he rubbed his belly with a huge hand. “Even with yer face all bruised up.”
“I’m not a little pullet. I’m just a little rooster.”
The innkeeper eyed them both and said, “Ye both look like ye slept in yer clothes. Wot did ye do to yer face, little un? Yer brother here belt ye a good un?”
“My brother fell afoul of a door,” Gray said. “Actually we did sleep in our clothes. Food, please. A lot of it. My brother’s a growing boy.”
“Aye, don’t flap yer feet.” He looked at her again, frowning. “Ye’d best pray Mrs. Harbottle’s good food will ’elp yer little brother grow up straight, but I don’t think so. Aye, I know. I’ll bring one of me Millie’s roasted pork knivers, that’ll help the lad if anything will.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
Gray saw that she was staring after the innkeeper. “What is it?”
“I’ve just never before seen a man quite like that one. He was very familiar. What did he mean that the pork knivers would make me grow straight? I have excellent posture.”
“I don’t believe we should visit that subject. The aunts wouldn’t approve. Actually I don’t know if the aunts would themselves understand, so just forget the straight business.
“Now, do you want me to tell the innkeeper that I’m a baron and that he should bow, slinging that huge belly low, to show me proper respect, and then charge me twice as much?”
She laughed. “Oh, no, I’m sure he couldn’t keep his balance. Oh, goodness, do we have enough money to pay for the food?”
“If you don’t eat too much, we should be fine.”
“That’s good—you look too dirty and wrinkled to be a baron.” She giggled behind her hand, a very white hand with long slender fingers. Gray saw another man who was drinking a glass of ale in the corner look up, his nose twitching, sniffing out that sound.
“Be quiet,” he said, leaning toward her. “Boys don’t giggle. They particularly don’t giggle behind their hands with their eyes all wicked. Keep your head down and your mouth shut.”
Actually, he thought, just one look at that face of hers and no man worth his salt would for an instant think she was male.
The innkeeper brought a platter of baked chicken, a single pork kniver for the purty little rooster, an entire loaf of bread, still hot from the oven, and two large glasses of ale. She fell on the chicken before the ostler had taken two steps away from their table.
“Oh, goodness, it’s the best chicken I’ve ever tasted in my life,” she said after she’d dropped a breast bone on her plate. “Indeed, I never had a clue that chicken could be so delicious. Is that thick leathery-looking thing a pork kniver? I’ve never seen one before.” She gently hefted the slab of pork off her plate and onto his. “If I have to eat this to grow straight, I think I prefer taking my chances.”
He laughed, picked up his fork, and dispatched the pork kniver in half a dozen bites. “I just realized that I was ready to take a bite out of that table leg,” he said. He followed the kniver with half the chicken. When he saw her take a long drink of ale, then swipe her hand across her mouth, he laughed. He couldn’t help it.
“If you weren’t so damned pretty, I would believe you a boy. The mouth swipe was well done.”
“I watched Remie do that once after he’d kissed an upstairs maid and heard Quincy coming. Remie’s very manly, you know. I decided that mouth swiping after drinking was just the thing to make me more believable in my rooster role.”
“Well, just don’t drink too much of that ale. It’s got fists. You’ve already drunk most of that glass. Do I see crossed eyes?”
“Naturally not.” She was feeling just the slightest bit dizzy, perhaps a bit light-headed, perhaps almost like she was going to fall in a wrinkled lump onto the taproom floor. She got her strength back when she saw there was still a single heel of bread left. She snatched it up before he could draw a bead on it himself.
Gray sat back in his chair, his hands folded over his belly. “That was quite excellent. Now, are you full yet? It’s time we got back to London. Perhaps on the way you’ll be so kind as to tell me who you are and why you’re the aunts’ valet, Jack—their valet, Mad Jack, to be exact. If you’ve still got a taste for talk, you can tell me why you felt you needed to steal Durban and why you were planning to return to Folkstone.”
She sat as still as the man three tables away who was still staring at her, his head cocked to the side.
“If you don’t tell me, why, then, I’ll just let the aunts know that the game’s up. Then I’ll have Quincy find Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, please, no, Gray. You wouldn’t do that.” Then she blinked at him, tilted her head to one side, opened her mouth, and closed it. She fell forward, her nose hitting a thigh bone in the middle of her dinner plate.
Gray looked up at the dark-timbered eaves of the taproom. “Why me?” he asked no one in particular.
She wasn’t drunk. She was ill, and he was scared to death—and furious. He’d done his best by her, even fed her until her breeches’ buttons probably were ready to pop, and she’d had the gall to get ill. She was roasting with fever, limp as her breeches, which were now folded neatly over the back of a chair that looked to be older than the aunts.
Gray watched the little man straighten. His name was Dr. Hyde, and he was Jack’s size and completely bald. He was also clean, which was a good sign. Gray had been relieved no end when Harbottle, the innkeeper, had brought him up. “My lord,” said Dr. Hyde, who recognized a lord when he saw one, since he himself was the second son of a baronet, “the girl—yes, I know this is a girl despite the ridiculous clothing—she’s indeed ill, as anyone can see.” He raised a small, narrow, very clean hand when Gray opened his mouth. “No, I don’t need to know anything about either of you. She’s got the fever. It’s evident she was in the elements. It was a heavy rainstorm last night.”
“We were on our way to London.”
“If you want her to remain alive, you won’t go anywhere,” Dr. Hyde said. He placed his palm on her forehead again, then slipped his hand beneath the blankets to lay it over her breast. He closed his eyes and was quiet for a good minute. Finally, he looked up and said, “She sh
ould survive this if you keep her very warm and pour water down her throat, else she’ll just shrivel up and she’ll die, my lord. Now, here’s a tonic for her. It’s good for many things, a fever among them. I’ll return this evening. If she suddenly worsens, have Harbottle send for me.” Dr. Hyde cleared his throat. It took Gray a moment to realize that he wanted money. He pulled out a wad of notes from his waistcoat pocket. It wasn’t all that big a wad. He paid the doctor, not moving until the little man had let himself out of the bedchamber—the best bedchamber in his inn, Mr. Harbottle had told Gray when he’d followed him upstairs, carrying an unconscious Jack over his shoulder, since she was a little rooster and thus couldn’t be carried in his arms.
Gray cursed and nearly ran from the bedchamber, calling out when he saw Dr. Hyde at the end of the hall, “Dr. Hyde, the boy is my younger brother, Jack. I ask that you not forget that. It’s very important.”
Dr. Hyde frowned down his very thin nose, then slowly nodded.
Gray was cursing again an hour later when Jack shot up in bed, looked straight at him, and said, “If I don’t get Georgie, he’ll realize that he can use her against me, and I don’t know what he’ll do.”
Then she simply collapsed back onto the bed, her eyes closed, the fever hard on her now.
She was shivering violently. He took off his wrinkled clothes and climbed in beside her. Her chemise was damp. He managed to get it off her without ripping it, then pulled her tightly against him. He rubbed his hands up and down her back, over her hips, as far down the back of her legs as he could reach.
He said quietly, hoping that at some level she could hear him, “Come on now, Jack, you’re ill and that’s all right, but for just a little while. I’m getting you all warmed up, and soon you’ll be sweating like a mistress I once enjoyed who hated the summer heat because she sweated and she thought it would revolt me. Can you begin to imagine anything more silly than that? No one could, at least no man could. Come now, breathe more slowly, stay close to me. Yes, that’s it.”
Mad Jack Page 5