by Maya Rodale
“Are you all right?” His voice was rough with worry. “Did he hurt you?” His voice had deepened to a growl.
Highwaymen. Night. Young women. It was not a good combination. In fact, it was often deadly. Or worse.
He knew about worse. And even though he barely knew her, John was taken by an overwhelming desire to protect her, defend her, to bring to justice anyone who laid a hand on her. And by justice, he meant the sort of beating that left a man barely clinging to life.
He never could resist a damsel in distress. He always had to charge in and save the day. Under the table he flexed his fist, remembering the times he’d done it before.
Miss Merryweather blinked at him a few times. She seemed taken aback by the passion in his voice. He supposed he shocked her. Hell, he shocked himself by the surge of emotion he felt for a woman he barely knew. But, God, the thought of a woman hurt like that—it always made the bile rise in his throat. He’d seen it too many times.
“I’m fine,” she said. John rolled his eyes. Women were always “fine” even when they were a sobbing, incoherent mess, sprawled upon the furniture.
“But did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine. I escaped,” she said evenly. She held his gaze for a moment: drop the subject. Then she looked away.
“You must have walked through the forest all night,” he said as it occurred to him.
Prudence laughed. “What was the alternative, wait around for someone to rescue me?”
“A lot of women would have done just that,” he said. “Sat right down on the roadside and cried. And waited. Someone would have come along eventually, thus sparing them the bother of walking for miles under a hot sun.”
“Well, I know better,” Miss Merryweather told him. “Prince Charming never comes. God doesn’t answer. A girl is on her own.”
“That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” John said softly. “You are too young to be so jaded.”
“Would you like to borrow my handkerchief?” she asked. “Shall I excuse you whilst you have a bit of a cry?”
It was Castleton’s turn to blink in surprise. There wasn’t any malice in her voice, just the sort of impatience reserved for those in the throes of excessive emotion over trivial things. This girl was strong. This girl was something else.
And she didn’t even seem to know it.
“I like you, Miss Merryweather.”
“You don’t even know me,” she said with a girlish sigh.
“If this weather keeps up, we’ll know each other very well,” John said with a glance at the window.
“Whatever do you mean by that?” Her alarm was swift and obvious. He hastened to let her know he didn’t mean it that way.
Not that he would turn down a kiss or more if she wanted it. Miss Merryweather had a lovely mouth. Her lips were plump and pink and smiling far too infrequently. Made him want to kiss her, cause her to laugh. She was so tense, her spine so rigid. Made him think about how a caress of his hands could send the tension fleeing. He imagined the feel of her softening under his touch.
From the moments he’d first seen her on the road, hips swaying, her figure had had him constantly at war with himself. Look at those curves. Do not look. Just a glance. I can’t look away.
And then she just slayed him with her sharp wit and dry humor. He never did understand the appeal of simpering misses.
Of course he wanted her. But he could tell she didn’t want him, and that was enough to keep his blood cool and flowing to his brain and not elsewhere.
“I don’t expect to have many conversations with Buckley or that harried family,” he explained. Buckley was still face down on the bar, and Mrs. Hammersmith was admonishing her brood to finish up already, for Lord’s sake. “I doubt the innkeeper has time to sit back and chat over a brandy. That leaves you, Miss Merryweather, for all my conversational needs.”
She was about to utter some scathing retort. He could tell by the flash in her eyes and the sudden part of her lips.
“That is,” he added quickly, “if you are amenable.”
Now what did she have to say about that? He waited, holding his breath, thinking how dangerous it was that he should care so much about her reply.
Chapter 5
The following morning
Six days before Lady Penelope’s Ball
PRUE WOKE UP to the sound of raindrops drumming on the roof. She lay in bed, allowing her eyes to adjust to the soft gray morning light, remembering that she wasn’t in London or Bath or any fashionable place for young ladies. She was alone, in God only knew where. With Lord Castleton.
She wasn’t sure of him at all—like all London lords, he scared her. Yet he wasn’t like the typical dissipated rake, and that intrigued her. She envied his ambition. And, dear God, she wanted to gaze into his blue eyes forever.
She wanted to gently smooth his unruly brown hair, feel the soft strands with her fingers. But that would never happen.
When he smiled at her, she wanted to revel in all the fireworks she felt. She wanted to have all the feelings a young woman did when a charming man bestowed kindness and attention on her.
Those feelings had been dead to her for some time now.
After waking, she quickly donned her dry dress, made of soft violet-colored muslin and edged in black ribbon. Emma and Olivia had insisted that the colors suited Prue’s coloring. After pulling a brush through her auburn hair and tying it in a bun, she dared a glance in the mirror. She still looked so young, so wide-eyed.
She still had those cursed freckles, though the sunburn on the bridge of her nose and cheeks disguised them somewhat. If she was pretty or a beauty, she didn’t know or care.
She descended the stairs, planning to dash through the corridor and into the main room. Hopefully she was early enough so that no one else was awake. By no one else, she meant Castleton.
Until she fortified herself with a pot of tea and toast, she feared she didn’t have the nerves to battle her feelings for a handsome man who would seek her out for his “conversational needs.”
She wanted to delight in his company. But she couldn’t. What if he understood it as an invitation for more?
She wanted to feel the warmth of his smile, but she couldn’t. What if she developed feelings for him—ones she couldn’t fathom indulging?
She wanted to entertain thoughts of a kiss with anticipation and excited pleasure, but that would never happen.
Of course she ran right into him, given her luck lately. Her momentum on the stairs made it impossible for her to stop when he came around the corner suddenly.
“Oh!” The exclamation was wrenched from her lips.
She hit something hard. And wet. And warm. It was his chest, and he’d been out in the rain, yet she could feel the heat of his skin radiating through the wet shirt plastered against his chest.
Heat surged within her. It was a kind of heat she’d never experienced; it warmed her from the core. Then her nerves sparked, on high alert. The panic hit her swiftly, knocking her breathless. She hadn’t felt a man’s chest since—
Castleton’s arms enclosed her. Logically, she knew he only acted on instinct. Logically, she knew this embrace was merely to prevent her from tumbling backward and possibly to the floor. She knew these things. But still her body stiffened and the warning bells in her head clanged loudly, drowning out the voices of logic and reason. They were alone, she was unguarded, and his hands were on her.
“No,” she gasped. Air. She couldn’t get air into her lungs. Her voice sounded strange and faraway. “No.”
“It’s all right, I got you,” he said, holding her at arm’s length now, away from his soaking shirt. But this reminded her too much of another man’s hands gripping her. Prue’s heart beat too hard and too quickly. Danger. The perimeters of her vision went black. She could only see his face—a man’s face peering down at her. Like before. She had to get away. She had to get away.
“Let me go,” she cried, twisting awkwardly in an attempt to get
out of his grasp. His hands felt like iron bands holding her captive. “Please, let me go.”
Castleton let her go instantly.
She stood away from him, gasping as she tried to catch her breath and will her heartbeat to return to normal. The whole exchange had lasted no more than ten or twenty seconds, but every one of them had felt like a lifetime. Each second had felt like before.
Eventually, she dragged her gaze up to Castleton’s, afraid of the derision she would see there. Silly female. Ridiculous, overreacting female.
But she rather thought he looked concerned. In fact, she rather thought he was peering at her too intently, as if trying to unearth the reason why she had panicked from an accidental collision. It was almost as if he knew the truth.
Prudence felt the shame anew.
“Are you all right, Miss Merryweather?”
It took her a moment to remember that she was Miss Merryweather.
Her brain began to register where she was—rushing through the hallway of the Coach & Horses Inn on her way to breakfast. She was not in Lord and Lady Blackburn’s corridor. The Beast was miles from here. The highwayman had presumably gotten his spoils and ridden off—along with her former fiancé.
“I’m fine,” she said, anxiously smoothing her skirts.
“Women. Always saying they’re fine when they’re not.” Though he kept his remarks light, there was an undercurrent of seriousness in his tone. He didn’t believe her. “Care to tell me what just happened?”
Her heart kind of stopped, because he had noticed that she’d reacted strongly to what had essentially been nothing. No one ever really noticed how she rushed through corridors, avoided a gentleman’s touch, or bristled at contact. No one except this blue-eyed stranger.
Castleton leaned against the wall, as if he didn’t mind waiting around all day in soaking wet clothes just to hear her talk.
It wasn’t really nothing, though, was it? Prudence was still painfully aware that she was alone in a corridor with a man whom she barely knew and who could overpower her in an instant. He was a handsome man that any other woman would have flirted with, especially without a chaperone looking on disapprovingly. But not her, oh no. She couldn’t just be normal. She couldn’t just have faith or believe in people’s innate goodness. She had to be afraid all the bloody time, unless she was with Lady Dare or her friends. The bitterness that rose up in her throat caused her to bite her lip and look away.
It wasn’t fair. That awful thing that had happened to her and all the quiet little devastations since . . . it wasn’t fair. Not for the first time did she wish that once, just once, she didn’t have to live so enveloped in fear. Not for the first time did she wrack her brain, wondering what she’d done to deserve this.
There was no going back, but she couldn’t move forward either.
“Miss Merryweather?” Castleton stepped toward her.
“Excuse me,” she whispered. Then she fled.
In the parlor
“He’s a handsome one, isn’t he?” Annie asked with a sassy grin, as she poured a desperately need cup of tea for Prudence, who wrapped her hands around the mug, savoring the slightly uncomfortable heat because it distracted her from other feelings.
“I see you had a little encounter with him,” Annie ventured with a glance at Prue’s bodice.
“Whatever do you mean?” Prue’s instinct to keep such things private and make sure no one knew kicked in.
“Your dress is wet,” Annie said with a pointed look at Prue’s gown. “And he just returned soaking wet from checking on the horses in the stables. You could see right through his shirt, if you haven’t noticed. And let me tell you—I noticed. But then I reckon you’d have to be dead not to notice.”
Prudence had noticed.
In her mind’s eye she recalled the sharply defined muscles and smattering of dark hair she’d seen beneath his shirt and matched them up with the firm feeling of his chest. Even though she’d only felt it for a second, it had been a potent, memorable second.
The Beast’s chest had been soft, any definition of his muscles lost beneath the evidence of his debauched existence. She shifted her thoughts to Castleton’s chest instead. Then she forced herself to think of something else.
“It’s awfully upstanding of him to go out and tend to the horses,” Annie carried on, now setting down a plate with thick slices of toast and a dish of cold salted butter. “Most lordly types would make Rutherford do it, as if he didn’t have enough to do running the inn.”
So Castleton was nice. Many men were nice. Her friend’s husbands were kind men. That was another thing that she knew logically. But that knowledge didn’t keep her from spiraling into a panic every time she found herself alone with a man.
Honestly, what had she been thinking, trying to elope with Cecil? They had never been alone, for they’d always been in the company of other ball guests or fellow travelers. At his estate, she was counting on the company of maids and the amiable and aged aunt he had mentioned. As for their marriage . . . she’d never thought about that. She’d just assumed he’d be off with Lord Fairbanks.
But if this morning’s encounter had shown her anything, it was that she had no business marrying anyone. No, she needed to be alone or in the company of women she trusted. The sooner she returned to London, Lady Dare, and looming spinsterhood, the better.
It was just that . . .
No.
She no longer indulged in daydreams and fairy-tale thoughts.
Prudence sipped her tea and nibbled at toast positively slathered with butter. She knew that added a bit of padding to her petite frame. Once upon a time, she’d been a slender, willowy creature such as men preferred. But the curves she’d added to her figure kept men at bay.
Which was just how she liked it.
Wasn’t it?
Chapter 6
That evening
MISS MERRYWEATHER REMAINED in her room all day long, leaving Castleton to wonder what the hell had happened on the stairs this morning as he spent a good portion of his day polishing his boots until he could see his face reflected in the leather. All the while, he thought about the girl.
The sheer terror in her eyes nearly made him fall to his knees. Again, he felt an overwhelming urge to soothe and console her, even though he hardly knew her. Castleton had seen that look in a woman’s eyes before. Made him suspect that someone had hurt her. His throat constricted just thinking about it.
By evening he was going mad thinking about her, listening to the Hammersmith children play loudly in the parlor, and worrying that he wouldn’t make it to London in time because of this cursed, relentless rain. The High Street was a veritable swamp.
He needed a distraction, and he reckoned Miss Merryweather did, too.
So he knocked on her door with one hand whilst easily balancing a tray of food in the other.
He heard a small voice from the other side of the door ask, “Who is it?”
John paused a moment before answering. “Castleton.”
She unlocked the door and cracked it open.
“I have brought supper,” he said.
“Thank you. That’s very kind.”
“For both of us,” he added. Her eyes widened.
“And you brought it here? We cannot eat it in here. Together. Alone.”
This he knew. He also knew that if he had simply asked for her company, she would have refused. He suspected she needed to come out of her bedchamber before she went mad. Thus, his scheme to secure her company for supper over a table in the parlor.
“I love to hear you say ‘we,’ ” he said, grinning. She looked at him as if he were daft. “Come join me for supper downstairs, Miss Merryweather. I need someone to talk to about the weather.”
There was nothing to say about the weather. It was still raining.
She cracked a smile.
It did things to him, that smile. It was just an upturn of her lips, nothing more. That’s what he told himself, but he felt triumphant. She nee
ded to smile more. He vowed to see to it.
“Dinner is getting cold,” he said.
“I’ll be right down,” she told him.
She kept her word, appearing a few moments later in the parlor. She was tense again and glancing nervously around the room. Buckley had apparently woken at some point, resumed drinking, and was now sprawled on a bench, unconscious, snoring loudly. Annie mopped the tabletops.
“Would you care for some wine?”
“No, thank you.”
“Just a sip?”
“My friend Olivia’s mother says it makes a lady forget herself,” she said.
“Is that such a bad thing?” Sometimes he wanted to forget himself. Wine helped. Whiskey reliably got the job done, too.
“Yes, it is a bad thing. At least for ladies,” Miss Merryweather informed him. Then she pointedly took a sip of water.
“And what does wine do to gentlemen?”
“It makes them more foolish at a higher volume,” she answered primly.
He laughed. “Spot on.”
“Sometimes it makes them beasts,” she added. There was something in the darkness of her voice that brought an end to his smile and laughter. He pushed his wineglass to the side.
“How was your day, darling?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Uneventful,” she said, her lips quirking up into a faint smile. “And how was your day?”
“Wet.” He explained about taking care of the animals in the stables because someone had to and he was desperate to get out of the inn. He mentioned his two white horses, named Snow and White.
“How imaginative of you,” Miss Merryweather said dryly. “Why did you name them that?”
“I didn’t. I won them in a game of cards,” John told her. He’d managed an invitation to a bachelors-only house party at Lord Collins’s country seat, where they’d drunk excessively, dined exquisitely, and, when they hadn’t been winning and losing fortunes over cards, availing themselves of the prostitutes who’d been invited. Well, the others had. John had kept his drinking to a minimum and his eyes on his cards. That’s why he’d left that party three hundred pounds richer and with two prize-winning stallions.