“Sara, you’re making a scene. Pru’s not dead, just in hiding.”
His dark brown eyes met hers, and Prudence remembered why she had once loved him.
Sara sniffled and drew a handkerchief from her sleeve. She blew into it vigorously, and accepted the second handkerchief that her brother handed her. “I’m sorry,” Sara said. “I’m so happy to see you. Why are you hiding?”
Pru lowered her voice. “My employer is just beyond that door. I’m sorry, Sara. You’ll simply have to trust me when I say that I am all right.”
“Yes.” Sara nodded but the pain in her eyes went deep. Pru felt it herself, for being the cause of it.
Sara kissed her once, furtively, on the cheek, then disappeared into the back of the shop to hide in one of the fitting rooms. Pru heard Madame Celeste greet her effusively. The guests of the Duchess of Northumberland had some cachet, but the sister of the Earl of Grathton had a great deal more.
Prudence felt as if she had been stabbed in the heart. From the look on John’s face, he felt the same.
“I’m sorry, Pru,” he said. “I had no idea you were here.”
Prudence felt the tears in her eyes recede at the kindness in his voice. She steeled herself against it. Rather than ruin this man and his family along with her own, she had turned him away five years ago. And while she had cared for him, she had not missed him nearly enough. After the first few months, the pain of the loss had faded, and now he was like someone from a dream she had dreamed once, long ago. Pru had done the right thing to release him from their almost-engagement. Once he was free, he might marry a woman who could bring honor to the Vaughton name and money to the Grathton coffers, as she herself could not.
“Are you well?” John asked. His dark eyes never left her face, and for a moment she remembered why she had once thought to marry him. He was a steady man in a world of madness. The earth might turn beneath their feet, but always, he was himself, unblinking and afraid of nothing.
Though she knew that she had done the right thing, in that moment, she wished that she had loved him more. That she had loved him enough to stay, no matter what the cost. He deserved unswerving devotion from the woman he would marry. She hoped Lady Cecelia offered that.
“I am well,” she answered. “I have found a good situation, with good people.”
“As a companion?” he asked, his distaste clear, though his voice remained cool and quiet. “For sword-wielding Scots?”
She smiled in spite of herself. “I haven’t seen that sword again.”
“Thank God,” John said.
“They are good people. You need not worry about me.”
“I won’t reveal your secret,” he said. “Neither will Sara. I give you my word of honor.”
“Thank you, John.”
There was a long silence. The shop assistants eyed her and the earl with curiosity, but kept their distance. Pru thanked God that no one else was there to see them together, and to wonder who she might be. No doubt the shop girls assumed that she was making arrangements for a liaison with the young lord for later. Whatever their reasons, they stayed away. Still, Robert or Mary Elizabeth might walk back in at any moment, or some other woman from her past might enter the shop, and remember her. This reunion had to be cut short.
“Have you seen your brother?” John asked then, and her heart almost stopped beating.
John Vaughton was kind to the point of madness, so he could not mean to wound her. Still, her heart bled for the second time in ten minutes, and this time the flow could not be stopped with a couple of long breaths. She felt for a moment as if she might faint, but he caught her arm and held her aloft until the room stopped spinning.
“Forgive me,” John said. “I did not mean to frighten you. But there is word at my club that your brother has been seen by the East India docks. I assumed that he had contacted you.”
“Albert is dead,” Prudence said. “He cannot contact me, or anyone.”
John did not let go of her arm, but he did not stop speaking either. Each word was like a nail through her eardrums. “He is in hiding, perhaps, like you, but he is not dead. Lord Billings saw him himself. Billings would know him anywhere.”
Billings was just one of the many great men who had lost a fortune when her brother’s ship had gone down. He had been the loudest detractor, always saying that he did not believe the ship lost. No, it had simply gone to other ports, where Albert, Viscount Stanhope, had unloaded the cargo without having to pay anyone else their share.
Pru knew otherwise. Her brother had been wild and devil-may-care, but he was no thief. Nor would he leave her alone in the world with no one to defend her. He was dead. She was sure of it.
She heard herself asking, just the same, “The East India docks?”
“Do not go down there yourself, Pru. I’ll make inquiries, if you’d like. But the docks are no place for a lady.”
She drew a deep breath, her stays supporting her, shoring her up. She took her arm away from the man she had once loved a little, and stepped away from him. “Thank you, my lord. But that is not necessary. Albert is dead, and the earldom with him. But thank you for your kindness.”
John looked pained, but he was a gentleman. He did not try to touch her again. “I am sorry, Pru. For everything.”
She smiled and felt the tears she had suppressed earlier rise up, unbidden. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
The door to the shop jingled then, as it shut behind Robert Waters. “Your Lairdship may have nothing to apologize for, but I do.”
Pru felt the ground shift under her feet once again, but she turned to Robert. “Lord Grathton, may I present Mr. Robert Waters of Glenderrin.”
“Good day, Mr. Waters. And no apology is necessary. I have a sister myself.”
Robert laughed. “God help you then.”
The gentle Sara was no burden, so John Vaughton did not get the joke. He forced his eyes from Pru at last and bowed to them both as Sara stepped out from the back.
“Have you your package, sweetheart?” he asked.
“Yes. Thank you.”
Sara did not spare a glance for Robert Waters but pressed her hand against Prudence’s arm once. “Take care, Pru. Please let me know if you need anything.”
“Come along, Sara. The carriage is waiting.” John ushered his sister out as quickly as he could, but he lingered in the doorway, his eyes meeting Prudence’s once more before he closed the door behind him.
Pru sighed, grateful they were gone, and grateful that Mary Elizabeth had not seen them. She moved toward the back of the shop to see what was keeping her charge when Robert Waters stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
“How do you know the Earl of Grathton?”
“I don’t.” He stood stubbornly in her path, so she spoke again. “He was a family friend, a long time ago.”
“An earl was the family friend of a poor widow from God alone knows where?”
Pru flinched. For the space of a moment, she had forgotten about her deception and the reasons for it. She did not know what to say, so she simply straightened her back and stared the Highlander down.
“That man is in love with you,” Robert Waters said.
Pru blinked, feeling the blood rush to her face in a blush. “Mr. Waters, you are mistaken.”
“Are you in love with him?”
She swallowed hard. “Why are you making such absurd statements and asking such inane questions?”
“Are you?” Robert would not back down.
She tried to step beyond him, but his bulk blocked her path again. He stood so close that this time she could take in the scent of his leather gloves and the cedar on his clothes. She wanted to lean closer. She wanted to stand on her toes and press her nose into the place where the line of his jaw met his throat and breathe deep. She forced herself to answer.
&nbs
p; “I am not.”
Robert Waters smiled, but the hint of heat she had seen the day before was in his eyes, a dog that looked ready to slip its leash. Mary Elizabeth emerged then in a green satin gown trimmed in feathers.
“Look here, Mrs. Prudence! Some actress or other lost her protector, and now she can’t pay her bill. Her gowns are divine…so vivid! Do you think this one will do for the duchess’s fancy ball?”
Two ladies stepped into the shop in that moment to the sound of a sweetly ringing bell. They froze in place to stare at Mary Elizabeth in her elaborately feathered gown. Pru watched as they smirked, one to the other, tittering and whispering together before disappearing through the front door again, clearly unwilling to patronize the same shop that catered to the Scottish girl. The cut direct was one she had felt over and over again during the dark days when her family had first fallen into disgrace. Feeling it again now, she winced for Mary Elizabeth’s sake. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer to God for strength. She knew well that this story would make the rounds of the gossips by teatime.
Perhaps it was just as well that the duchess had called them out of town, for she saw no way of mending the damage Mary Elizabeth had already done.
Pru stepped away from Robert to deal with Mary Elizabeth and her courtesan’s gown. But even as she talked her charge into buying a soft-pink ball gown with a light green under dress, she felt Robert Waters’s eyes on her, watching her every move.
Thirteen
Robbie knew he had behaved badly where the Grathton man was concerned, but he had wanted to throttle him as soon as he saw him standing so close to Prudence. The man looked at her as if he once had owned her, and as if he would again. Robert swore to himself in Scots and in Gaelic that the lord would have her over his own rotting corpse.
Where such flagrant imagery had come from, Robbie couldn’t say. He was good in a fight, but he had never killed a man, and had no intention of doing so. At least, not until now. He knew himself well. If that man, or any other, touched Prudence again, there would be hell to pay and plenty of it.
He lingered a moment after Prudence glared at him and hustled Mary Elizabeth away with the officiousness of a hen with one chick, leaving him to pay the bill. He paid in cash, and in gold, not specie, which Madame Celeste seemed to appreciate. The lady’s gaze spent a moment roving over the money as she tucked it into her strongbox. Then her eyes turned and roved over him.
Normally such an invitation from a woman would have at least merited a moment’s consideration. But as it was, Robert simply smiled, taking in her fine form and figure. She seemed too tall of a sudden, and her bosom not cushiony enough for his taste. Not as broad and fine as Prudence’s bosom, for instance. And the woman was a bit thin, not as well-rounded in the posterior as was his current interest.
He laughed at himself. Never before had he met a fine-looking, free woman he hadn’t liked. He wondered what had gotten into him, that he did not feel even the first temptation to take this woman up on her offer of amusement. Instead of examining this thought, he leaned close and said, “Did you notice the lady who was here with my sister?”
Madame Celeste’s smile faltered but only for a moment, for she was a businesswoman before anything else. “I did, sir. And what of her?”
Robert felt his own smile widen even as he lowered his voice a bit more. “Might you have a little something or three that might fit her?”
* * *
Robert drove the ladies home in his borrowed carriage, wondering if he would be spending the afternoon watching Prudence prune roses in the garden. But as she had the afternoon before, Mrs. Prudence disappeared upstairs without a word to him.
“Give her time,” Mary Elizabeth said. “She’s thinking.”
“She looks worried,” Robert answered.
“If you were courting me, I’d be worried, too.”
Robert threw a pillow at her as she blithely strolled outside for some fresh air and gardening. He sighed. He was turning into one of those men that lived only indoors and pined for women they couldn’t have. Correction: in his case, a woman he hadn’t had yet.
He went to the music room to compose another song for the Gathering, but this time he left the door open so he might hear Mrs. Prudence coming down the stairs and waylay her before she could get too far. He had forgotten how immersed he got in his music, though, for when she did pass him by, he did not know it until he heard the front door slam downstairs.
He took the ducal staircase three stairs at a time, but he found only the butler standing by the door, his hand on the knob.
“Where did she go?” Robert asked.
“Whom, sir?”
The duchess’s butler stood at his full height, but Robbie was not a man to be intimidated. He met the man’s eyes, standing toe-to-toe with him. He did not speak to him as the English spoke to their servants, but man to man.
“Mrs. Prudence. Where did she go? I’m losing time, man.”
Pemberton must have heard the desperation in his voice. For some reason, after seeing her with Grathton, Robbie was afraid that if she went on an afternoon walkabout, she might not return.
“I know only that she sent for a hackney coach, and then got into it.”
Robert blew his breath out between his teeth. “Give me something.”
The butler hesitated. But if English servants were anything like the folks back home, they saw and heard everything. Robert wondered for a moment if he should offer a bribe, but then the butler spoke. “I believe she mentioned the docks for the East India Company.”
Robert let loose with an expletive that would have made his mother’s hair curl.
Instead of being offended, Pemberton simply nodded. “My opinion as well, sir.”
Robert took the man’s hand and pumped it once, as an equal. “My thanks. I’m off then.”
“To the docks, sir?”
“To save the idiot woman from herself.”
The butler retrieved his hand and opened the door again. “I wish you Godspeed in that endeavor.”
* * *
Prudence questioned her own sanity as her hired hack left the comfortable peace of Mayfair for the ever-louder crowds that teemed beside the river. She could hear her father raging in her ear. She could hear her mother weeping as she swooned on a divan in her favorite sitting room. Her brother would just chuck her chin and tell her not to be a damn fool. Of course, all three of them were dead. She had only herself to rely on. So she would use her own judgment, and search for her brother herself.
She knew Albert was dead. She truly had no doubt in that regard. But John Vaughton’s words still repeated themselves in her brain, over and over. She would not sleep that night, or ever again, if she did not at least go down and see for herself.
She had her reticule with her, filled with some of the silver Robert Waters had already paid her. She was a terrible companion, it seemed, leaving her charge for two afternoons in a row, both for wild-goose chases and this one more dangerous than most. When she returned, hopefully Robert would not dismiss her.
The crowds became too heavy the closer she came to the East India warehouses, so Pru paid her driver and climbed out of the coach. “Shall I wait for you, miss?” the driver asked, eyeing the crowds, and then her widowed form. She was wearing full black with a veil for this journey in the benighted hope that the men of the wharf might respect a widow and give her help without charging her overmuch.
“I think you might go,” Pru said. “I will call for a hackney coach when I am done here.”
The driver looked speculative, but there was a gentleman hailing him from the roadside, so he tipped his hat to her and left her where she stood.
Pru shored up her courage and started walking toward the first warehouse she saw. She had not taken three steps when she saw him.
The man looked like her brother. He had the same dar
k hair, the same way of moving as if he owned the earth and all that was on it. His hair was longer than she remembered, tied back in a queue, and she could not see his eyes, but for one heady moment, she knew that it was Albert.
Then he looked toward her, and she saw the gauntness of his face, and the shuttered hostility in his gaze as it passed over her veiled form. Her brother would never have looked at her like that, no matter how many years or horrors separated them. The man moved away into the crowd then, and the sense of her brother was gone, leaving her winded.
She saw then that whatever their resemblance, the man was too thin to be her brother, too hardened by sea and sun. She was looking at a man who had lived the hard life of a low-ranking seaman. No doubt this man, whoever he was, was the reason Billings and John Vaughton thought her brother still lived. But she knew the truth, for now she had seen it with her own eyes. Albert was truly dead.
The crushing disappointment felt like a blow to her sternum. She gripped her sleeve where she had hidden her silver, hoping that the reminder of Robert Waters and her new position would ground her, and calm her, but it did not. For in the next moment, she was knocked down from behind.
The fullness of her widow’s weeds kept her from scraping her knees, but her gloves were cotton, and she could feel the heels of her hands bruise even as she caught herself. She felt the back of her dress start to come up, and she struck out with her booted heel as her brother had taught her.
Her boot met bone, and she heard a man groan as she raised her own skirts and got to her feet. She pushed aside the pain of her newly bruised heart and focused on the here and now. She had been a fool to come down here unescorted. It was a waste of time to chastise herself, though; she would have to brazen it out.
Her heart was pounding like a horse’s hooves, but she would not give in to fear. She faced her attacker down, edging away along the wall behind her. He drew a knife then, his face bleeding from the nose, and she wondered if she would die here, foolishly looking for a man who was five years dead.
But then the man was taken from behind, an arm beneath his chin, cutting off his air. He struggled, but Pru’s rescuer hung on. She kicked her assailant in the groin, as her brother had also taught her. He gasped, and stopped struggling.
How to Wed a Warrior Page 8