by Liz Tyner
‘Your sister, Honour, is going to have a baby in a few months. She fell in love with the man—Reginald—who brought wares to your father’s shop. They ran away to Scotland to marry.’
Annie took a step back. That was true. Honour had told her Reginald was taking her to live with relatives while he found a house. His uncle in Scotland had work for him.
‘How do you know?’
‘I stayed several days in your home. Your father told me every bit of family lore and tale he knew. A letter to a man in Manchester who knew Reginald verified your father’s suspicions.’
The thought of Honour having a child while being so far from family hit Annie in the pit of her stomach. ‘I must get to her now. I have no choice.’
‘You do not even have her correct location. I do.’
‘I can’t believe you.’
‘You can. I paid quite well for that information,’ Barrett said, reaching out to her. ‘You can’t help her. You’re only risking yourself. I’m taking you back to your home.’
She swung, arm extended.
He darted his head back, but she grazed his hat, causing it to fall. It plopped down on to a patch of mud, settling into the mire. He stared at the mud a moment, then back at Annie. ‘I should have just let you hit me.’
‘I can help my sister,’ she said.
‘If she needs help getting a hat off her head.’ He shook his head, momentarily distracted.
‘I told you to not swing the arm. And don’t aim at the skull.’ He pointed to his nose, his temple, his jaw and his chin. ‘Four points to hit.’ He held up the fingers on one hand besides his thumb. ‘Four.’
‘True love,’ the old woman said and laughed. ‘A man teaching his beloved how to hit him.’ She looked at Annie and moved her arm wide. ‘A child hits like that.’ Then she moved her fist straight. ‘This is how a woman says good morning.’ She laughed again.
‘Eyes speak louder than words and yours said plenty. You learned nothing I taught you. You did not practise at all,’ Barrett said.
‘I practised.’
‘Not enough.’ He gazed at her. ‘Go back with me and I’ll see that your sister has more help.’
‘Why didn’t you do this before?’
He shrugged. ‘It didn’t occur to me and I didn’t need to. You can’t change the path of every leaf that falls from a tree. Your sister is where she needs to be for now.’
Annie turned and the old woman lifted Annie’s satchel, holding the bag out to her.
‘What’s in it?’ he asked the woman.
‘Nothing of value,’ the hag answered. ‘At least, not any more.’
‘That’s not true. It has my jewelled pin.’
The woman poked out her bottom lip. ‘I am certain it does not have a pin inside. You must have left it behind.’
Annie stalked forward, opened the case and looked inside, rummaging. Then she glared at the old woman. ‘It’s gone.’
‘Ah. Must have fallen out.’
Annie looked from the woman to Barrett.
‘I don’t have it.’ He lowered his chin, eyes still staring at her, and held out a hand to indicate she leave.
‘My pin.’ She looked at the woman, pointing. ‘I have had it since birth. It was my grandmother’s.’
The woman raised both hands. ‘I do not have jewels for my hair. The other women would be jealous.’
‘You thief.’
‘Yes.’ The woman nodded. ‘I have a skill. And you, miss?’
Barrett reached in his waistcoat pocket and held out a coin. ‘I want to buy a jewelled pin.’
‘Fancy that,’ the woman said. ‘I have one for sale.’ She pulled it out of the folds of her dress, blew on it, then wiped it on her skirt before exchanging it for the coin.
Barrett took the bauble and tucked it in his waistcoat pocket.
His eyes challenged Annie to ask for it back. Instead, she turned to the old woman.
‘You were paid to take me to my sister.’
‘Of course.’ The woman batted her lashes. ‘And if you are still here in the morning, we will do just that.’ She glanced at Barrett. ‘Sound fair to you?’
He didn’t answer the question, but turned to Annie, grabbing the satchel. ‘Let’s go. You can verify everything I said about your sister by writing to her when I get you back to your home. I’ll help your sister if you leave with me,’ he said. ‘Consider your odds, your sister’s welfare and your own. You only have one good option. But it’s not my choice to make.’
Annie looked at him and then at the old woman. Then she tossed her reticule to the woman. The woman caught it, almost dropping it, shock in her eyes.
‘There’s the rest I owe you. Thank you very much.’
* * *
‘You are such an innocent,’ Barrett said. She should never have given the woman more funds.
‘Yes, I am,’ Annie said, stalking beside him. She turned back, shouting to the men. ‘Make sure she shares everything with you. I had two jewelled pins in my satchel.’
Barrett opened his mouth, but she had a look of too much innocence. If there was another pin, he wasn’t staying to find it.
He looked at the bedraggled miss and his body reacted. Instantly, he swore at himself. This was not how he was supposed to feel. Something had gone wrong in his head the moment he’d seen her wrist and it still grew inside him like a wound that wouldn’t heal. And he’d never had a wound that wouldn’t heal.
He tugged the ribbons on his horse and stepped towards the road. Her footsteps sounded at his side.
The inn they’d passed earlier would make a good place to get the mud and filth off him and keep her safe while putting distance between them.
For the moment, he had to get her safely away from the camp.
They traipsed along without speaking until they reached the main road.
‘Why could you not stay in your warm house with your servants?’ he spoke, the words echoing in his mind.
‘I did not ask you to follow me. Why didn’t you stay in your warm house with your servants?’
A thousand answers entered his mind. None acceptable to him, but all hinging on the same fact that Annie had been traipsing off after her sister without any chaperon and the woman could not disable a gnat.
‘My horse needed the exercise,’ he said. ‘It would have been unacceptable to get my stable master out of bed that early to do what I had hired him to do in my stead, like exercise my horse.’ He softened his voice. ‘Don’t you agree it would have been very bad manners on my part to make the poor man traipse out in the countryside this early?’
‘Positively. I would never do such a thing. I would get up myself and tackle the problem.’
‘You are so thoughtful and considerate.’ His face was away from her and he knew she couldn’t see him look to the heavens and frown. ‘You did not make me ride all the way to Scotland. I appreciate that.’
She grumbled, a choking cough sound. Apparently his sarcasm hadn’t been well disguised. A faux pas. Perhaps her ire was not of the intensity that he felt inside himself, but he’d ruined a hat and his boots weren’t doing much better on the muddy path.
The road was little more than a rut and would remain the same until they reached the inn and nothing would change that.
But they’d make faster time if she rode.
He tightened his hold on the ribbons in one hand, then walked back and reached for Annie’s arm, but stopped midway and let his hand drop. He didn’t need to be touching her. Inwardly he cursed himself.
‘Come on.’ He stepped over another mound of dirt and turned to see that she followed.
Annie gathered the sides of her skirts, taking a broad step over the uneven ground, and he saw the slippers she wore. Those had never been out of London before the journey.
He pulled the horse ev
en with her and tied the satchel to the saddle. ‘You can ride?’
‘Not very well,’ she said.
‘I’ll get you situated.’ Although it would be impossible without touching her. Well, it couldn’t be helped.
She put her hand on his arm and he grabbed her waist and turned, sweeping her off her feet and holding her in the air, putting the horse right in front of her.
He tried not to feel anything through his fingertips. But he could feel so much naked skin through the layers of dress and corset, and—no—his mind was going in the wrong direction. Chemise. Chemise, those shapeless bags of a garment that only had any form when they touched the skin underneath and called out for a man’s eyes to take note.
He sat her so she could grasp the pommel.
He took a second, keeping his eyes locked on hers while he mentally pried his fingers from her waist, releasing, he knew, his nearness to a well-formed, feminine garment that could have taken a good hour of his time just to explore. Forget about how much time he could devote to everything near it. ‘I’m not happy with you. I do not like being your chaperon.’
Because if he hadn’t been her chaperon he was blasted sure he could get her away from any other chaperon on the face of the earth.
Turning his head, he only kept the barest glimpse on her so she could slip her opposite foot into the stirrup. She perched sideways on the saddle and he stepped back.
‘Can you hang on?’ he asked, reaching again for the ribbons.
‘I think...not.’ The horse took a step and he caught her as she slid into his arms, her foot dangling in the stirrup. His nose told him she smelled more like a saddle blanket than a woman, but everything in his hands screamed female to his inner and outer extremities. And his brain wafted the scent of bedcovers in front of him.
He put her down quickly, but the damage was done. He shoved away the thoughts of breasts, of hips, of soft curves tangling around him.
He gritted his teeth and stepped closer to the horse, taking in a big whiff of sweaty beast, leather and manure. Hoping to cleanse his mind of the scents that were dancing along inside him.
‘My parents never let me ride,’ she said. ‘They didn’t want us trampled.’
‘That’s thoughtful of them.’ Very thoughtful, but not for him and not in this situation.
Oh, hell, it was out of his hands. At least she was, for the moment. A good thing. Certainly. But he could still feel her waist. And the chemise. He was certain it had been washed so many times that it had softened and now caressed her, hugging close.
His feelings pounded into his body and his head was trying to talk some sense into him, and it was getting him nowhere. He imagined his brain shrugging its way into the size of a peanut and telling him he was on his own.
His intentions vibrated from one side of his thoughts to the other, but his mind focused on her legs. It was as if he still touched her. He tried to push his imaginings a different direction with his words. ‘Your parents need to hire a companion for you. One with eyes in the back of her head and who does not mind chasing after you in the night.’
She squared her shoulders and raised her face to look at him. ‘You did not have to come after me. I was fine until you did. I’m not enjoying listening to your complaints or looking at your sour face.’ She lifted the edge of her skirt to move forward. ‘And I could have helped my sister. It might have taken me longer, but I could have.’
‘If one of the ruffians you ran away with decided to do you harm, you would have been at their mercy.’ He followed at her side, pleased for an argument. Anything was better than the thoughts of her chemise.
And then he thought of Annie being damaged at the hands of her companions.
‘Do you see?’ His body shook. His voice thundered. ‘Do you see what you just did? You left your safe house to travel with people who would steal a pin.’ Or a man who would notice softness and curves.
‘It’s not my fault. I am an innocent, apparently, and can make friends with all sorts of low types.’ She swaggered her shoulders and he took the jab as she began to walk straight through the muddiest part of the road.
He steered her to the edge where the grass kept the mud at bay.
‘Your mother is terrified she will never see you again. I am not used to being summoned by a distraught mother. Nor do I wish to take care of someone who does not know to be happy with all the baubles of life.’
The road was dryer and he kept walking. Even with the horse, he had to walk. Riding two abreast with an arm around her and her legs dangling down from her skirt would likely do what a hundred jabs at Gentleman Jackson’s hadn’t been able to do. It would take him to the ground. He switched hands with the ribbons and walked fast enough so that he could move the horse between them.
* * *
‘Life is not about baubles.’ She walked in the road and Barrett again steered her to the more stable grass. He had no idea of what it was like to live in a cage with only two others to be friends with, then to lose them.
She loved her family. She loved her parents. She didn’t like having her mother at her elbow at every dance, smiling at eligible men. She was certain her mother had scared away all the ones she didn’t deem eligible for her daughters by giving them that sweet drop dead, you big hairy beast smile. A few of the eligible ones had certainly noticed how well the Carson sisters were guarded and kept their distance.
Oh, goodness, her mother would have abhorred it if a man spoke more than four words to Annie if he’d not been someone her mother deemed worthy of matrimony.
‘You have been eating too many confections.’ Barrett held a limb back so it would not hit her as she walked by. ‘It makes you believe in nothing but sweetness. The world is not so simple. I learned that at my father’s knee.’
‘He should have taught you about more than that.’
‘Oh, he did.’
‘I dare say you would make a horrible tutor, unless it is for boxing.’ She lifted the edge of her dirt-caked skirt.
Her shoes were not made for anything more uneven than a few cobblestones and he’d begun walking faster. She pulled her dress up and scrambled to keep up with him. Now, he didn’t seem to care if he left her behind. He was in a foul mood.
She’d never heard a man curse so much. In fact, she’d hardly ever heard a man curse. He strung the words together in such a way it almost sounded as if he spoke a foreign language. It didn’t seem the time to remind him she was a lady and one didn’t talk so in front of a lady. She wasn’t even sure if one spoke so in front of another man.
And legs. She didn’t know why he cursed legs.
‘Would you stop with the foul language?’ she asked, scurrying to keep abreast, lifting her skirt higher so it wouldn’t drag on the uneven ruts. ‘I do not even know what half those words mean.’
He stopped. He looked at her. He cocked his head. ‘You just need to be quiet. I am not used to having a woman around. My apologies for the language, I’m just damned...’ He paused, took in a breath. ‘It’s just not something I’m used to. Other people take care of my—female problems.’
‘Well, I’m not used to being around a man and you don’t hear me swearing.’
‘Oh, by all means, go right ahead. It will make the trip go faster.’
‘I don’t think it really would.’
‘This is why you are kept locked away in your parents’ house. You don’t understand a man’s thoughts.’
‘You can’t tell me you planned this.’
‘Miss Carson. It seems you are the one who planned this, if you remember.’
‘Well, I did.’
‘You take off with a woman who is a stranger—’
‘She’s got the highest recommendations. The servants have spoken of her for years. She saved the rag-and-bone collector’s life with one of her herbal mixtures. And she sells the best shawls, which surpri
ses me given that she dresses in rags.’
‘Spare me.’
She hurried along behind him. ‘I didn’t ask you to come after me. In fact, I waited until you were gone before I left.’
He paused, then looked at her. He took in a breath, then he smiled. ‘Thank you for that consideration. I take full responsibility. And I take full responsibility for getting you safely home which may be more than a mere mortal can handle.’
‘If you can manage Gentleman Jackson’s, I should be no problem.’
‘You are.’
He turned and strode away, and she kept up with him even though it meant that she had to take the straighter course which was through the mud. Her slipper mired in the road. When she raised her foot, the shoe stayed behind. She turned, putting her toes down, holding her dress out of the muck.
She twisted the tail of her skirt, draped it over her arm and bent to pry the shoe out of the mud, hearing the gasp as it released its captive. Her stockings would never be white again.
He continued walking along and she stood holding her skirt tail over one arm and a muddied shoe in the other.
‘Mr Barrett.’ Her voice rose. ‘Mr Barrett. Wait up. You are leading me through a mess.’
He turned, his mouth widened and he stared. She dropped her shoe, ignoring the squish of putting a foot inside it, and fisted her hands on her skirt and took off after him, the shoes flopping in the mud.
She caught up with him. ‘I wore my sturdiest shoes, but I did not expect to walk in a swamp.’ She raised her chin and wiped her muddied hand on her dress. ‘Your arm, please.’
‘This is not a soirée,’ he said, looking at the mud remaining on her hand before holding out his elbow. ‘Trotting out in the night like a babe walking right into the fire. Stumbling headfirst into it. Unable to pull yourself back until it is too late.’
She’d trusted a stranger. Him. She’d left the woman she’d hired to take her closer to her sister and trusted him.
‘I have money for you to give to my sister,’ she said.
She paused then, reached to open her coat and searched her spencer for the pocket she’d sewn inside. She pulled out folded notes. ‘There’s more.’