Jenny took the kettle from Fox and fussed with it, glancing over her shoulder at MacEwen. He didn’t look back—the man’s attention was focused squarely on Perry in a way that sent her skin wriggling, like a butterfly pinned to a mat.
She stood taller, bringing her eyes almost even with his. “Why are you here, Mr. MacEwen?”
Something shifted in his gaze. Fox drew closer, as if standing where he could come between them if they came to blows.
“I’m here on your father’s business, my lady.”
“And what is that business?”
A twitch started next to his eye. “I’m here to serve Mr. Fox.”
Yes, she’d heard that part, and she’d also heard it was pretense. Who was arriving? A smuggler? A spy bringing a report? Or…a traitor her father was hunting?
Her pulse quickened. There’d been much of that these last couple of years, her father seeking out the men and women who’d betrayed England during the long conflict with France. Why her father could not leave the war behind, she didn’t truly understand.
“I see. My father sent you along to serve Mr. Fox, who’s come here to paint. You’re serving him, and yet he’s cooking for you.”
“As I made dinner for you and Jenny,” Fox said. “I am, after all, one of those hardy republicans, throwing off the yoke of class and aristocracy.” He went to the stew pot and lifted the lid. “Warming up nicely. Seat yourself, Lady Perpetua. You too, MacEwen.”
The last was a terse command. MacEwen eyed him hotly and sat. She took her seat and glanced at Jenny, who nodded and brought her the teapot.
While she poured, Jenny went to the crockery cupboard, returned with a bowl and filled it with stew. Her breast brushed MacEwen’s arm as she set the bowl in front of him, sending his dark eyes bulging.
The cheeky, clever girl. If MacEwen got her with child, she would make him marry her.
Or perhaps he had a wife in Scotland.
Perry took a careful sip of her tea. “As you’re to be living in my home, tell me about yourself, Mr. MacEwen.”
MacEwen gave a sketchy description of his roots and his history. He’d been in the army, as had many of Father’s men. Both Jenny, and surprisingly Fox, listened attentively.
“What of your family?” Perry asked. “Have you a wife somewhere?”
“It’s not wise for a soldier to marry, miss.”
She infused patience into her smile. “That was a dodge, if ever I’ve heard one. A yes or a no, Mr. MacEwen.”
He sighed. “No. No wife.”
Jenny brushed Fergus again, setting down a plate of bread.
Fox’s lips quivered.
“And do you know, Mr. Fox, I’ve never asked you that question. Have you a wife somewhere?”
His eyes narrowed on her, but he did not answer right away. She could see him struggling with what to say.
Perhaps he did have a wife. That would make him ineligible for marriage. It would increase the scandal if they were caught under the same roof, and if she actually dared to act on these unfamiliar feelings, the wickedness…
But no. She would not do that with another woman’s husband.
Her question had thrown him off balance. He should dodge as MacEwen had done, or lie and say yes. He might have married in America, which he’d left at the tender age of eighteen.
But here…nowhere in this old world was an impoverished painter a candidate for matrimony, and neither was a spy.
Her look was direct, but for once, shuttered. The sweep of her hair tied back loosely softened her narrow face and angular features, and the light from the lamp made her amber eyes luminous. Almost, almost, he could see her lips tremble.
He could lie, but he wouldn’t.
“No.”
She expelled a breath and her eyes softened.
No, Perry, not me. You cannot look that way at me.
“Nor do I wish to have one, which is why I hope that you will let me escort you back to the main coaching line so that you may return to London.”
Her face paled and then colored deeply, the pink glow flowing into the lacy neckline of her night wear.
Shame smacked him like an invisible hand, but he had to go on, even with the maid and MacEwen listening. He reached for her elbow. “My lady, in spite of my handsome face, you could not wish to be forced into a marriage, not with the likes of me. Not that your father would consider me a suitable match. But to protect your reputation, he might insist you marry someone else.”
Her face had gone stony. She tried to pull away, but he held on. “Or, he might try to insist and make your life a misery as long as you resist. Will you let me take you away?”
“No.”
“I can escort you and your maid, my lady.” MacEwen said.
“No,” and “No,” Perry and Fox said at the same time.
Her elegant chin lifted. “You both might as well tell me whose arrival you’re expecting.”
MacEwen opened his mouth, closed it, and looked at Fox. The silence stretched.
Fox nodded to MacEwen.
MacEwen cleared his throat. “A dangerous man.”
She snorted. “Everyone who gathers about my father, friend or foe, is dangerous.”
“He’s a smuggler from these parts,” Fox said. “And that’s all that we’ll say.”
“Else your father would skin us alive,” MacEwen said. “As he might do, did he but know you were here and we allowed you to stay.”
She chewed on her lip, swinging her gaze from MacEwen to him. Finally, she pushed back her chair and stood and picked up a lamp. “Jenny, go back to bed. I’m going to check on Chestnut and then I’ll come up.”
And then she was gone.
The maid glared at MacEwen. “You,” she said. She turned her accusing eyes on Fox. “I’ll not go anywhere until Lady Perry returns safely to the house.”
Fox snatched up the other lamp. “Suit yourself.” And then he left.
Chapter 8
Outside, he spotted her lamp, bobbing along the stone path between pockets of gorse and wild berries. Perry would not stumble over that cliff, not if she stayed on the path to the stable. He waited until he saw the stable door open and close, then he turned his own lamp low, shuttered it, and set it down on the door stoop.
Out at sea, there were no lights. That didn’t mean no one was out there watching, wondering who was lighting the path at Lady Shaldon’s seaside cottage. And why they were there.
Perry stared through the slats at the dark gelding confined there. A white diamond between his eyes reminded her of the foals borne by a spunky mare that Bakeley had purchased several years earlier. This one’s eyes were slack from fatigue, yet he mustered the energy to lift his head and curl his lips revealing young sturdy teeth.
“Just like your surly master, aren’t you?” she said. MacEwen had ridden him hard and put him away quickly. He would need a good brushing down and a look at those feet tomorrow when she could see better.
She picked her way past the plodding inn horse and Fox’s big gelding, down the row to Chestnut’s stall. For a seaside cottage, this was a very fine stable. Fine enough for the Earl of Shaldon, though as she remembered, Father did not much give a rat’s bum about the state of the stables. He’d left all of that to Mother and then, by necessity and birth, Bakeley.
As Perry drew closer, Chestnut turned in her stall and took two steps closer. Perry slipped inside.
The snuffing soft mouth tickled her hand and sent warmth through her. “I’m so sorry, my lady, I’ve not brought you anything.” She chuckled. “And, anyway, we’d not have your insides twisting from eating soggy biscuits.”
She smoothed her hand over the silky coat. “You did well on the journey today, my girl.”
Chestnut’s head lifted, and a current of air ruffled the straw, sending the hair on her neck dancing. She heard it then, the soft click of the latch closing.
“Lady Perpetua.”
Her lungs froze. Fox had opened that door soundlessly.
>
Chestnut shuddered and shifted around, nostrils sucking in the air that Perry couldn’t seem to find.
She sensed him moving through the dark and mustered a breath. “Go away. I’ll not ride away in my nightclothes.”
His dark form appeared next to her, silent and hulking.
Chestnut looked him over, remembering. She flicked her tail and nosed his hand.
“Traitor,” Perry muttered.
Fox didn’t laugh. His hand, that large hand with its long fingers, slid over the horse, stroking and soothing, the action pulling the warmth through her own flesh, soothing the hair on her neck and the tension behind her eyes.
She straightened her shoulders. “You’ve no doubt come to tell me again how dangerous it is here. How I shouldn’t be out in the stables at night.”
“It is dangerous, my lady.”
His lady. The words stirred her tension into a hot knot of unshed tears. She swallowed them back and made herself snort. “Ah, yes. Dangerous country. Smugglers and such.”
“You shouldn’t make light of it.”
“I don’t. I’m not unprotected. I have my knives and my pistols.”
“Would you use them?”
“I’ve been tempted to use them on you several times this night.”
His hand stopped. “Lady Perpetua, your government is cracking down on smugglers. Desperate men do desperate things. There is but one of you and many of them.”
“There’s a riding officer in these parts. There’s a baronet justice of the peace down the road. I will look them up if there is trouble.”
“And if they’re part of the smuggling organization?”
Her mind froze around the idea.
But of course. She was not so naive that she shouldn’t have realized—smuggling corrupted all of the locals. Though in all fairness, the smuggling in these parts had not been on her mind at all when she came here.
Fox pulled both of her hands into his. She dropped her gaze to them. “They won’t bother me. I am the daughter of the powerful Earl of Shaldon.”
He tensed at that and when he spoke his words were a scold. “They could make you disappear and no one would know. You ran away, didn’t you? You left London without telling anyone where you were going.”
“I wasn’t in London. Charley married. I was at his home in Yorkshire.”
“He will be frantic.”
She almost laughed. “You don’t know Charley, do you? And even if he were the type to worry, he thinks I’m visiting a friend.”
“So, you see. No one would know.”
Anger rippled through her and tightened her chest. “You would know, Fox. You would know. Unless you’re also part of it.”
“What if they’d killed me?”
She pulled her hands away. “No. You’re not going to muddle me again. I’m not leaving.”
He moved closer, towering over her. “No matter whose daughter you are, it’s not safe here for a beautiful young woman—”
“Stop.” She slapped his hands away. Chestnut sidestepped, and Perry took a breath. “I am simply one woman. One spinster well on the shelf. Not young, and not beautiful.”
“You are beautiful.” He clipped out the words, harshly, but those strong, long fingers curled over her shoulders, working their artist’s magic, sending tendrils of bright-colored feeling streaming into her, as if he could flick his brush and make her handsomer than God had made her.
She tried to swallow against a sudden dryness. She knew the truth. “Long Meg.” She breathed deeply. “Horse Face. Bluestocking. Ape Lead—”
His lips pressed to hers and for a moment she couldn’t find air. He used that moment, pulled her closer, flattened all of her against hard muscles, wrapped her in his long arms. His hands cradled her, his fingers dancing and doing things to her neck and her back that sent her nerves spinning. She sobbed, caught a breath, opened her mouth against his, and surrendered.
Tender, long, moments of such melting bliss. Her head whirled with the feel of their lips moving together, their tongues probing with need melding them. Her hands slid under the silky hair at his neck, grasping the sinewy strength, holding him. She wanted him closer, deeper, and—
He pulled his mouth away and looked down at her, his eyes glistening like onyx. “Perry,” he growled from a place deep in his center, “you are beautiful. And you must leave.”
The sharp words cut her. He desired her. He wanted her gone. In the games her father’s people played, both could be true. Especially for the men.
Not for a minute should she believe his words about beauty. Lord Baxter had taught her that.
“I’m staying. If I’m tossed in the ocean, well, I might as well be dead than be suffocated by men who think I’m stupid.”
His jaw hardened. She tugged away, allowing a hair’s breadth of air between them.
“You think you can kiss me senseless and I’ll leave? I’ve been kissed before, Fox. I’ve had several proposals of marriage, and one nobleman tried to pull me into the mews where his carriage was waiting. I was able to get away because I am, as he said, a great lumbering beast.” A man must keep his eyes shut to swive a great lumbering beast like you. She blinked tightly and inhaled.
Tension rolled off Fox. His hands tightened on her. “Who’d say such a thing? I’ll kill him for you.”
She shook her head. “He fled to France.”
“Before your brothers could whip him.”
“No. From his creditors.”
She tried to lift her arms, but he’d tightened around her. “And anyway, you’re not a killer. You can let me go now.”
“Perry.” Fox’s voice rumbled close to her ear, the vibrations tickling her. “Those men are fools. They’re simply intimidated by your height and your intelligence. Let me tell you what an artist sees. A woman of grace, tall and willowy, with a perfectly proportioned form. A square, determined jaw, an elegant nose, lips that are wide and plump. Eyes and hair the shade of caramel or creamed coffee laced with gold. Creamy skin—”
“Stop.” He was doing it again. She wriggled and flattened her hands on the planes of his shoulders. “I had no idea you were a poet as well as an artist and spy, or whatever it is that you are. You wish to kiss me or flatter me into leaving. I’m not leaving. If you try to force me to leave, I’ll shoot you. I’m not leaving.”
That was badly done, Fox.
His time keeping her at bay with badgering and teasing and pecking at her had come home to roost. She couldn’t see his heart when it spoke.
He slid a finger under her chin and lifted it. “The danger is real. If I can’t keep you safe, you’ll force me to die trying. And if I don’t die then, your father will likely kill me later for not packing you back to your brother’s.” He pressed his lips to hers, claiming a quick kiss. He wanted to take so much more. If she stayed around too long, he undoubtedly would. She undoubtedly would let him.
The thought made his already pumped-up shaft jump.
“Finish your talk with the mare. I’ll be outside.”
He carried her heat out of the door with him. Outside, he took the short path to the edge of the outlook and pushed his fingers through his hair, sucking in the cold damp sea air.
And spotted the boat.
Chapter 9
Fox needed Perry in the house, locked up tight, her pistols ready.
He slipped behind a rocky outcrop. Through his spyglass he could see the oars going on each side of the tub boat, casks strung to the sides, bobbing in heavy surf. That would slow them down more than a bit. The lugger he’d spotted earlier before the storm was likely sitting around the rocky point to the north, and the local Riding Officer was tucked in the bed of Scruggs’s maid, or drunk in the hearth room. Sex, drink, and money, they were all part of his payment.
He had time to get Perry inside and get himself down the cliff side.
Fox reached the stable door just as it opened, the lantern light flashing. He slipped in, slamming the door, grabbing her lantern and
shuttering the light.
“What the devil are you doing?” she asked.
“We need to get back to the house.”
He could feel her gaze on him. “Smugglers?”
“Yes.”
She tried to push past, but he stopped her.
“I want to see.”
Her nightclothes might shimmer against the high rocks.
“Wait.” He found a dun-colored horse blanket and wrapped it around her. “You’re entirely too bright.” Entirely, completely, overwhelmingly too bright. And he could not deny her the excitement of seeing this.
With one hand she clutched the blanket in front, and the other slipped into his.
He led her to the outcrop where she pressed her hips against the boulder and looked through his spyglass. “Three men on board, two rowing.”
As he’d seen. He needed to get down there.
“It looks to be heavy work. Are those casks of brandy?”
“Brandy or gin. Look to the beach under that outcrop. What do you see?”
“Nothing—or…” She drew in a sharp breath. “Shadows. The locals?”
“Most likely.” He reached for her. “Come. I have to get down there.”
She handed him the spyglass and followed along. “Is that the man, then?”
His Perry. So bright.
“I want to go with you, Fox. I have a dark pelisse.”
“No.”
She stiffened and stopped. Dug in her heels, the blanket slipping. He pulled it around her while she slapped at his hands.
“Perry.” He jerked her close in her blanket. “Gregory Carvelle. That’s who we’re looking for.”
Her sharp intake of breath told him she knew the name.
“That’s the man?”
“Yes. You know him?”
“Yes. I saw him once at a ball.”
If she had seen Carvelle, she would recognize him. He’d chased Carvelle’s trail of snail slime across Holland without once seeing him.
“Charley’s wife was once promised to him. Father was looking for him. His cousin was a traitor and so is he. He’s a vile man.”
The Counterfeit Lady_A Regency Romance Page 5