How that blue could be so warm on her skin, and at the same time warm her from the inside out, Pru could not say. She knew only that by the end of the fourth day, she was shaking from a strange mix of frustration and irritation. She had no idea what she would do with Robert Waters on a feather bed, but she had a feeling he might be able to teach her a thing or two. Or even three.
On their last night on the road, she found herself so restless after dinner that she left Mary Elizabeth alone in their room, practicing her fencing with the fireplace poker. “This won’t do,” Mary Elizabeth said. “Not in a real fight.”
Pru answered on her way out of the door, “In a real fight, a lady often has to improvise.”
Mary Elizabeth looked thoughtfully impressed. “That’s true.”
Pru closed the door behind her, taking with her the sight of Mary Elizabeth brandishing the poker. So she was smiling as she stepped into the stable just off the inn yard. She only intended to see the horses, and to take them some small apples. They had changed horses earlier that day just outside of York, and the beasts had had a long journey.
A coach and four was an extravagance more expensive than Pru would ever be able to afford. But once her time with the Waterses was done, she would have a little nest egg. It would be enough to invest in something safe in the City, enough to care for herself for the rest of her life. While that was a greater blessing than she had hoped for when she became a companion, she found herself less enthusiastic about this plan than she once had been. And she knew the reason: in that future, there was no Robert Waters to tease her.
She stood next to the lead horse, who ate her last crabapple with calm aplomb. The gelding gave her no warning, however, when a man came up behind her and laid his hand on her arm.
Nineteen
Pru had no weapon, but she moved to block the hand that touched her. She knocked it away almost without thinking, and only then saw that it belonged to Robert Waters.
He chuckled at her, his grip returned at once, tightening in a gentle squeeze. “You’ve been mewed up with my sister too long,” was all he said.
How had she not known at once that it was him? His scent was unmistakable, unless highwaymen had taken to staying in decent inns and wearing cedar. She stepped closer, a moth toward a flame, breathing him in. She stood close enough that she was able to tell that the cedar was not on his skin, but on his clothes. His skin was warmer than that, and smelled like some delicious spice she had never tasted before.
She was so intent on identifying his scent that she did not pay attention to where he was taking her. When she blinked again and looked beyond his shoulder, she found that they had stepped together into an empty stall filled with fresh hay. The rushes underfoot smelled of that hay and of some wildflowers that had been swept up with it.
She could see little, the nearest lamp hanging on a nail in the main section of the stable. She wondered where the stable hands were, and where they might have gone. She stopped thinking altogether when her shoulders came up against the wooden wall behind her.
Robert Waters stood close, but not so close that she could not get away. Escape was far from her thoughts, though. She wished he would step closer and block her in altogether.
The desire to feel his body against hers was second only to her desire to feel his lips on hers again. She looked up at him, and found him watching her, his eyes on her mouth. There was a tension in his stance. Was he torn by the oath he had taken? Would protecting her for the rest of her life keep him from kissing her? Pru did not take long to contemplate this, but closed the gap between them herself.
She had little experience, but she hoped to make up for that with enthusiasm. She did not think again, for as soon as her lips touched his, Robert Waters took over, and she could do nothing but feel. He was not the least hesitant once she touched him, but boxed her in with his body just as she had hoped he might.
He was a large man, and her breasts pressed against his chest as his hands went up to cup her head, keeping her from rapping herself on the wooden boards behind her. His hands did not stay there, but once assured that she was not striking anything that would hurt her, they began to roam.
She had never been touched that way before. If any other man had done it, she would have wished for one of Mary Elizabeth’s throwing knives. As it was Robert, she simply reveled in it.
His hands slid down her body, one stopping at her breast. His mouth moved down from hers to caress her throat and the bare skin along the high neck of her gown. The hand on her breast kneaded her like dough that had just begun to rise, caressing her in a steady rhythm that made her breath come short and her nipples tighten. She was trembling beneath the onslaught of his touch, but she did not want him to stop.
His mouth moved from the top of her bodice, roving over her as if she were naked, tonguing her breast through the heavy fabric of her wool dress and stays. She cried out then, and pressed herself closer, only to find his knee between hers, forcing her legs apart slowly, one inch at a time.
As soon as she figured out what he wanted, she let her legs fall open a little. He grunted in satisfaction, pressing his thigh between her own with a knowing way that made her lose what was left of her breath. She felt the most dizzying pleasure of her life as his thigh pressed against her secret places. She had not known such pleasure existed. She shook with it, feeling suddenly out of control, as if she were riding a fast horse toward a precipice. If she was not careful, she would fall.
She raised her hands to caress his hair, and his thigh pressed harder against her. She moaned then, and shook, but knew that she had to make him step away. Whatever he was doing to her body had to stop. She was a lady. An earl’s daughter. A woman who did not stand about, moaning in stables.
“Robbie,” she said, her hands buried in his curls. His hair was deceptively soft, so unlike him. She ran her fingers through it, but when he did not stop what he was doing, either with his mouth or with his thigh, she spoke louder. “Robbie. Stop.”
He froze in midmotion, as if he were a puppet and someone had cut his strings. She thought she heard a muffled curse against her breast, and she sighed, thinking he was angry with her. But when he drew back a little, his lips trailing along her temple, his thigh drawn from between hers, he sounded contrite.
“I am sorry, Pru. I got carried away with you.”
She almost asked him to go back to what he had been doing. Her nether region ached with the pain of thwarted desire, and as her heart slowed its rhythm, her breasts missed the touch of his hands and lips. She sighed again, and he drew back far enough to look down at her face. Though they were in shadow, a bit of light fell into the stall. Robert drew her toward it, examining her face.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She smiled, knowing that she must look as mussed and bemused as she felt. She felt deliciously alive, more in tune with the world than she had ever been. So this was the reason women fell from grace: they let a man like Robert Waters touch them.
“I’m very well,” she said. He frowned down at her and she raised one hand to caress his cheek. “I kissed you, if you recall.”
He had the grace to look embarrassed, for he had taken their dealings far past a kiss, and they both knew it.
She kissed his cheek. “Don’t berate yourself, Robert. You did nothing wrong.”
He smiled, his crooked smile a little quizzical. “So we’re back to Robert then?”
She took a deep breath. “Robbie.”
“Aye.” He leaned close and for a moment she thought that he might kiss her again, but he only ran his lips over her temple. “I like my name on your tongue.”
She shivered hard, and he pulled back.
“Where are the clothes I bought you? Did you throw the gowns in the river?”
She smiled at his playful tone. How could he turn a moment of lust to teasing so easily, and in the space of a br
eath? Her desire for him still coursed through her, skittering across the surface of her skin, but she was able to think now. His good-natured humor gave her a bit of much-needed breathing space.
“Did you leave them behind for the duchess’s housemaids?” he asked.
She leaned back against the stable wall and smiled up at him. She felt her own laughter bubble in her throat, and she gave it voice. “I did not,” she answered. “Those gowns were far too fine to leave behind.”
He raised one of his hands above her head. He did not touch her this time but leaned close, as if preparing to tell her a secret. His breath was hot on her cheek, and Pru found herself almost overwhelmed by the desire to pull him against her. She refrained, for she was a lady. But she did enjoy it.
Why did she feel so cherished and protected and excited at Robert Waters’s nearness, when any other man would have made her cringe? She was definitely in trouble. Perhaps it helped a little that she knew it, but she doubted it helped much.
“If the gowns I gave you are so fine, why aren’t you wearing them?”
“It wouldn’t be proper.”
He raised one brow at her, telling her without words what he thought of that excuse.
His eyes traveled down from her face then, and she felt his gaze caress her breasts, hidden as they were beneath the ugly brown worsted she wore. Her gown was hideous and wrinkled, but when he looked at her, she felt beautiful. Pru had never felt beautiful in her life. She wondered how he made that possible with just a glance.
She felt her hair slipping from its pins, and watched as Robert brought both hands up, working them through her curls, releasing her hair from its prison.
“Everyone in the inn is going to think me a harlot,” she said.
“Don’t use that word, or any other such, about yourself, now or ever.” Robert spoke harshly, but his hands were soft in her hair. She reveled in his touch, and when he pulled away, he had her widow’s cap in his fist. Instead of giving it to her, along with her hairpins, he tucked it all away in the pocket of his coat.
“I will sneak you in the back door,” he said as answer to her query.
She did not mention that he might have done so with any lady of the night. She was tempted to say it, just to see how he might respond. But there was a muscle jumping in his cheek from her last bid at humor, so she did not.
“You should always wear the gowns I bought for you, and keep your hair down,” he said.
“I cannot,” she began.
“It wouldn’t be proper,” he said, finishing her sentence for her.
He kissed her then, a swift touch of his lips. She leaned in, hoping for more, but he did not oblige. Instead, he pulled back and smiled at her, offering her his arm.
“As much as I enjoy dallying with you in this stable, we have to a ways to go tomorrow, and you will need your sleep.”
Pru had a mad moment in which she hoped he might invite her back to his room. She had no idea what she would tell Mary Elizabeth or how she would face the girl come morning, but in that moment, standing close in the deep shadows with Robert Waters, she did not care.
“I can sleep in the carriage,” she said, hoping against all common sense that he would carry her away deeper into the shadows, or sweep her into his room, leaving her no choice in the heat of the moment, and thus, no responsibility.
But he was Robert Waters, a man of honor. He did no such thing.
“Tonight, you will sleep tucked safe in your bed, my sister beside you.”
He walked with her out into the night, as if they were strolling through a London park in broad daylight. When they came to the shadows behind the inn, he stole one more kiss before bundling her up the back stairs, as silent as a specter. He did not speak again, but left her in her room, where the fire was burning low. His footsteps did not start again until she turned the key in the lock, and shot the bolt home.
Pru sighed, and leaned back against the door, listening as his booted feet carried him across the way to his own room. She knew she had lost her mind, but she did not care. She would soon have Robert Waters in her bed, or die trying.
Twenty
Robbie seemed to get along on less and less sleep. After seeing Pru to her room the night before, he’d sat up by his dying fire and contemplated the carnal bliss they might one day experience…if he ever worked up the nerve to ask her to marry him. As it was, he would simply have to keep his hands off her, and allow things to go on as they were—that being Prudence giving him come-hither looks, and himself living in a constant state of painful arousal.
Of course, she was worth it.
When Alex had run off after a young lady from Devon, Robbie had thought him mad. He had been right. He had simply not understood that kind of love-addled madness. Until now.
The very word love conjured up years of being called to heel by a slip of a woman no taller than his sternum. But his father had given over to his mother decades before and seemed none the worse for it. Not that Robbie had known him before that capitulation, being the last male fruit of their very fruitful union. But one thing he had seen from the men in his family who had succumbed to love and its vagaries: there was no hope of reprieve. Once a man had fallen, he had better surrender.
Robbie was not the surrendering kind, but his Pru made him wonder what it might be like.
After another half day of jouncing along in the Duchess of Northumberland’s elaborate carriage, they managed to arrive at her coastal estate without running afoul of highwaymen or ruffians. That was itself a little disappointing; he had hoped for another opportunity to show off his fighting prowess before Prudence. And since he had sworn to himself that he would not touch her until his ring was on her finger, he would also have to wait to show her his prowess in bed. So he was frustrated at every turn, though it was a frustration he could live with.
Still, he hated waiting.
Even now, she was climbing out of the carriage in front of him, giving orders to the army of footmen who had greeted them in front of the castle keep. The Duchess of Northumberland had invited them to her estate on the coast of the North Sea, where the sun never set in summer, and where a cold wind blew even in July.
The duchess herself was nowhere to be seen, but her people were everywhere, taking bags and bowing as they did, acting as odd as Englishmen could be when faced with illustrious guests. Robbie wondered why they stayed in her employ. Was it out of a sense of loyalty, as it would be among the people of his scattered clan, or did they simply have nowhere else to go?
He stopped his musing long enough to notice that Mary Elizabeth, awake and hale after the day’s journey, had turned herself to harrying a hapless servant. The poor bastard wore no livery, but was a well-dressed groom just up from the stables. He seemed a bit out of place and out of sorts, befuddled by the whirlwind that was Mary Elizabeth Waters. As any man in his right mind would be.
Mary handed him her traveling case, the one that held her knives and fishing lines.
Before Robbie could save the man, Pru intervened, gently corralling Mary, while handing the precious baggage over to an actual footman. Pru explained that each person had his role in the household, and that hierarchy must be respected.
Mary Elizabeth argued with her even as Pru steered her toward the front door. Robbie stepped in then, tipping both the groom and the footman. The footman did not bat an eye, but stowed the gold sovereign away in his waistcoat so quickly that Robbie almost didn’t see him hide it. But the groom must have been soft in the head, for he stared down at his own gold piece as if he had never seen its like before.
Before Robbie could thank the man, Pru was at his side. “Robbie, you can’t tip the duchess’s household.”
“Why not?”
“It simply isn’t done.”
“Yes, it is. I just did it.”
The groom stood in silence, listening to their conversat
ion, staring beyond them at the mass of indignation that was Mary Elizabeth. Robbie knew when the girl disappeared into the house by the sudden blessed quiet, but the groom’s eyes never wavered from where she had gone. Perhaps he was deaf and mute.
“The duchess pays her own people. It is not for us to pay them twice.”
“Northumberland is close enough to the border for these people to know the value of a pound. If a man, even a Lowlander, is given a piece of gold, he takes it and says thank you.”
He turned expectantly to the man before him, who still did not speak. Robbie watched as the groom pocketed the sovereign at last. “Thank you,” the man said, in perfectly understandable English. He sounded a bit posh for a groom, but he walked away then, and Robbie did not have time to ask his name.
“See?” Robbie said, turning back to Pru in triumph at being proved right.
She laughed at him, and took his arm so that he might lead her into the house.
* * *
Pru was not sure how she did it, but she managed to get both Robbie and Mary Elizabeth inside before they caused more than one scandal. They had both fixated on a strange groom in the forecourt, but Pru had diverted them both and brought them into the house.
She was not sure how she was going to pull off this visit. She only knew that she must.
Her mother had once been friends with the Duchess of Northumberland. Pru did not know how close they had been, but they had known each other years before. Perhaps the duchess had lost some of her eyesight as she aged. Or perhaps, like the rest of the ton, she had condemned the entire Lynwood family, and would not recognize Prudence as one of them.
Whatever came, Pru would have to brazen it out.
Unfortunately, there was no time to prepare for her first meeting with the great lady. There was barely time to wash her face and hands in the retiring room before they were summoned before the duchess in all of her glory.
Prudence stepped into the drawing room quietly, listening as Mary Elizabeth greeted the lady with tolerable manners. The duchess looked the girl over as she might a prize stallion at Tattersall’s, searching for flaws. Mary Elizabeth seemed to notice this, and quirked a smile at the old lady.
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