Nick had dreamed such scenes before, in the haunting combination of memory and nightmare that stalked his sleep. Only this time he would not awaken to find himself in his own bed, the linens twisted and soaked with sweat.
“Back!” She waved the scythe as menacingly as she could, but Nick could see that her arms were tiring quickly.
“More like ‘on yer back,’” the man smirked. “‘Tis where you’ll soon be, you—”
Nick sucked in a deep lungful of air and rolled to his feet. Glancing about, he spied a small stone urn on the potting bench along the wall. He grabbed the vessel and raised it above the ruffian’s head. The thug, unaware of Nick’s recovery, continued to advance on the girl. With all the force he could muster, Nick brought the urn down on the man’s crown with a resounding blow. A second thud followed the first as the ruffian dropped to the ground.
The girl stood immobile, stunned by the violence and more than a little bit green beneath that creamy complexion. Nick looked down. At his feet, the thug lay in a crumpled heap, blood oozing from his crown. This skirmish was over, but how long until the other villain returned with a rope—or reinforcements?
Nick knew the best antidote for the shock of battle was practical action. “He’ll come round before long. We should toss him out.”
The girl exhaled and then squared her shoulders, and Nick knew, from that one small movement, that she was tenacity to the backbone. She looked up, capturing him again in those clear blue eyes before she turned her attention back to the man at their feet. “Can we manage? He looks heavy.”
“He’s not likely to grow any lighter.” Nick leaned down and grasped the thug under the arms. Without waiting for instructions, the girl took hold of his ankles.
“One, two, three.” In unison, they inched the man’s dead weight across the path and to the door. With a grunt of satisfaction, Nick shoved the man’s torso across the threshold and then set his hands on the girl’s shoulders to slide her aside. The brief sensation of her flesh beneath his palms sent a flash of heat through him. Nick dropped his grip on her shoulders, grasped the man’s legs, and swung them out the narrow portal. With a final shove, he rolled the thug onto the cobblestones and shut the door. The girl threw home the bolt and dropped the crossbar like a chatelaine preparing for siege.
Nick took a long look at his undoing and could only suppress a groan. Curse it, why couldn’t she have been plain and wan? “Care to tell me why those two ruffians had you so firmly in their sights?”
The girl feigned innocence. “I have no idea why those men followed me,” she protested, and Nick had to allow that she was a credible actress, just not enough to fool him. Again, she squared her shoulders—those shoulders that had felt so right beneath his hands. “Men see a female servant alone and take a great many notions. Thievery. Or rapine.” She shuddered at the thought, and Nick did as well. He was all too aware of the vulnerability of a woman alone.
“Indeed,” was all he said.
She knotted her fingers in her skirt and shifted from one foot to the other. “I do thank you, sir, for your assistance and will trouble you no further.” She bobbed a curtsy, and her eyes darted toward the other door in the garden’s eastern wall.
“Trouble?” He was irritated, intrigued, and foolishly reluctant to let the hoyden leave. “Pray tell, princess, what makes you think you’ve been any trouble?”
She flushed a becoming shade of pink, and Nick’s body responded with alacrity to her beguiling combination of brazenness and embarrassment. She spread her hands in front of her in a gesture of apology.
“See here, I’m dreadfully sorry about your head, but how was I to know you were waiting just this side of the door? And I’m sorry for the thugs, too, but it’s not as if I asked them to follow me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way, and we can forget this small incident.”
“Small incident?” Nick eyed her in disbelief. “I am struck unconscious, the most repulsive villain ever dredged up from the Thames attacks us, and it’s a small incident? Remind me, my sweet, not to be present when you become ensnared in anything large.”
The girl bit her lip, her features white, and Nick cursed himself for a cad. While she obviously prided herself on her independence, she clearly wasn’t accustomed to street brawls. An apology formed on his lips, but before he could utter a word, the girl burst into tears.
Blast and damn! Instinctively, Nick grabbed her and pressed her against his chest. With an awkward, hesitant motion, he stroked her hair, for he was far more used to fighting on behalf of fair maidens than comforting them. “C’mon, now, don’t cry, princess. I abhor when women cry.”
For one long moment, she clung to him as if he were the only thing afloat in a stormy sea. Her need was a siren’s call. Every inch of her pressed against him, and Nick fought the urge to turn his head and seek out her lips with his. The fierceness of the desire scared him more than the scythe-swinging ruffian. Rescue but don’t respond, he had always pledged to himself. The words had never proved problematic before.
Suddenly, the girl shoved at his chest and stumbled away, leaving his arms empty and a strange, unsettled feeling in his midsection.
“I do not cry.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, her appearance at odds with her defiant words. “It is merely some dust in my eyes.”
He didn’t argue further; he couldn’t really, because his mind wouldn’t form the proper sentences. Instead, he produced a handkerchief from his pocket and extended it to her. She frowned and then took it, careful not to let their fingers touch. Without a thought for feminine delicacy, she blew her nose with a resounding honk. She flushed when she realized what she’d done, looked about in embarrassed indecision, and finally shoved the handkerchief into the pocket of her worn dress.
Nick refused to be enchanted. If he wanted the truth about what she was up to, it was time to collect himself and take advantage of her flustered state.
“Do you really expect me to believe that you’ve no idea why those men were following you?” He stepped forward, and she instinctively stepped back. He didn’t think he truly scared her, but if she was intimidated, he was not beyond pressing his advantage. “I’m afraid, princess, you give yourself away rather easily. You didn’t appear surprised to see those thugs. No more dissembling. What intrigue are you involved in? Thievery? Smuggling?”
“Neither,” she protested. He continued to advance, and she fell back, step by step.
“Princess—”
“Please don’t call me that.” Her fingers twisted her skirt into knots.
“Why? Is it not every young girl’s dream to be a princess?” She continued to retreat until her back met the stone wall. He had her cornered.
“Dreams of being a princess?” She laughed derisively. “Not for those of us belowstairs.”
“Belowstairs,” he murmured, and his eyes searched hers. Her speech was far too refined for a lower servant. “I would have thought you a chambermaid at least.” With a quick movement, he caught her hands from her skirts and examined them. Her palms were red and chapped, the knuckles scraped raw.
“You’re rather a puzzle, aren’t you?” He dropped her hands, leaned closer, and planted his own hands against the wall on either side of her head. Her breath was coming in tiny gasps, and she seemed as intensely aware of him as he was of her. Nick knew he should stop. He should let her go before he became any more involved than he already was. How many minutes had it been since he’d sworn off heroism? Ten? Twenty? But who would have expected temptation to be as entirely delectable and confounding as this mysterious girl?
“I’m no cipher,” she protested, but Nick wasn’t paying attention to her words. He was leaning closer, drawn by the irresistible lure of a damsel in distress.
“The devil you’re not,” he murmured as his lips moved toward her ear. He felt her breath on his cheek, and that soft caress weakened his knees far more than the blow to his head. “And unless I miss my guess, you’re involved in some sor
t of hum all the way up to your delicate little neck.” His lips paused a mere inch from the neck in question.
“Wellington!”
“What?”
In a flash of movement, the girl ducked beneath his arm and dashed across the gravel path. Nick cursed and turned his head to watch her, his hands clinging to the wall for support—and for the strength not to follow her. He watched as she found the pug beneath the small white blooms of the Solomon’s seal, its little body motionless. She laid one tender hand on the dog’s side, but the pug showed no signs of distress. Instead, he snorted in his sleep and twitched his hind leg.
“With any luck, he’s frolicking in a heavenly meadow, but I suspect you couldn’t kill him with an ax.”
She raised her chin in defiance. “Wellington is well, thank you very much for your concern.” She stroked the pug’s round belly. “At least he tried to protect me.”
“That mongrel? Protect you?” Nick snorted. “And what do you call what I did?”
The girl’s spine stiffened, straight as a poker. “Your actions were foolish. And unnecessary. Even the rawest recruit knows never to throw down a weapon. Honestly, I’d have been better off—”
“Cease!”
The girl jumped as if she’d been slapped. Anger and frustration tightened his stomach like a vise. Nick was glad he’d not moved from the wall. His fingers curled in the ivy. He had to untangle himself from the girl, and he had to do it now, before it was too late. She was not his responsibility. She was not his mother. Or his sister.
“You don’t have to stand like that. I’m not your prisoner anymore.” She glared with the defiance of the young and naïve.
“Princess, I’m holding on to this wall so that my hands don’t decide to wrap themselves around your neck, which they are itching like the devil to do.”
“Oh.” She paled, which salvaged his pride a bit.
“Go.” He barked the word like a commanding officer. He needed her to leave. She was too vulnerable, too beautiful, too tempting. Saving this girl would never change the past.
“But—” She hesitated, and he realized with a shock that felt like a blow to his solar plexus, that she did not want to leave him either. Anger mingled with attraction in her eyes, and Nick swallowed an oath. Whatever sparked between them, the girl felt it as well.
Nick clung harder to the ivy. “Go! Or I’ll not be responsible for the consequences.”
The girl stood unmoving for a long moment. Nick felt his knees sag, and he swayed toward her. His fingers flexed and then renewed their grip. Hang on, old boy. Hang on.
Finally, with a small sigh, she took a step backward. “Yes, of course. You’re right. I should go.” She paused and bit her lip, which only drew Nick’s attention to its fullness and delightful rosy hue. “Good-bye.”
His eyes met hers, and their gazes locked. A connection, almost a bond, arched between them, and the feeling shook Nick to the core. The girl turned and fled. Nick watched her go, not sure whether the tightness in his throat was evidence of relief or regret.
LORD CRISPIN Wellstone watched the entire scene from behind the shelter of the drawing room draperies and cursed his friend for a lucky dog. Nick never had difficulty finding female companions, and this one looked a fit match for the arrogant prince. As the girl ducked through the gate that separated his grandmother’s garden from that of Nottingham House, the sun caught her golden hair. Crispin started, and the curtain almost slipped from his fingers. He had been mistaken. The chit was not a maidservant at all, but the seldom-seen Lady Lucinda Charming, daughter of the late Duke of Nottingham and stepdaughter to the aging schemer next door who styled herself the duchess.
Lucy Charming. Hmm. Crispin rubbed his chin and looked toward Nicholas St. Germain, Crown Prince of Santadorra, who was softly pounding his head against the garden wall.
Or might it be . . . Princess Charming? He smiled at the delicious irony. Just as Nick always played the hero, Crispin could never resist acting as matchmaker. He dropped the curtain and rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation. Any addlepated fool could see that Nick and Lucy Charming were a match made in heaven—or at least in his grandmother’s garden. Now they only needed to realize it.
And perhaps a bit of help from Crispin.
Chapter Two
LUCY RACED ACROSS the garden of Nottingham House, her cheeks aflame. Anger and attraction combined to fuel her embarrassment. Her heart still pounded, more from her encounter with Lady Belmont’s new gardener than from the contretemps with Sidmouth’s spies. Of all the arrogant, wrong-headed, interfering . . . She had no need of a champion, and she refused to depend upon anyone but herself. What’s more, she would not succumb to the lure of a handsome face, even if he looked more like Guinevere’s Lancelot than a gardener. Nor would she be drawn in by a strong pair of arms, never mind that they offered shelter in a world spinning out of control.
Lucy paused outside the kitchen door and listened. None of the servants would mention her clandestine comings and goings, but still she was careful. Her stepmother was no fool. Lucy sank onto the bench outside the doorway to catch her breath.
With the toe of one half boot, she scraped mud from the leather of the other. She would put the gardener from her mind entirely, even if his brown eyes had been as seductive as her morning cup of chocolate, and his defense of her had created a beguiling warmth in her heart. Above all, she would not recall the delicious shivers that had raced through her when he’d looked into her eyes. No, she would not think of any of that. She need only remember that she was no princess, and he was no prince.
Lucy sighed, rose from the bench, and entered the kitchen. For eight years since her father’s scandalous death, she had depended on her own ingenuity and resourcefulness. Nevertheless, that traitorous part of her that still felt the clasp of the gardener’s hands on her shoulders wished that she had someone to share her burdens.
She slipped through the kitchen door and descended the stairs to the lowest regions of her father’s Mayfair town home. Please let them be here. While her birth and family lineage might offer her the smallest of protections against Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, and his persecution of the reformers, her friends would have no such shield.
“Mr. Selkirk?” She lifted her candle higher and peered into the dim corners of the little-used storage room. “Tom?”
A soft rustle came from behind a row of casks, and then two figures emerged into the light: an older man and a boy on the verge of manhood, both of whom shared a strong chin and a decided family resemblance.
“Lady Lucy.” The younger of the pair doffed his cap and ran his hand through an unruly shock of hair. “Is it trouble?”
Her stomach twisted. “Sidmouth’s men followed me as far as Lady Belmont’s. There was an altercation.” She forced herself to ignore the disturbing images of the gardener who had come to her defense. “They are indisposed, for the moment, but there isn’t much time.”
“You are well, Lady Lucy?” Tom twisted the cap in his hands.
“Yes. Please, do not worry. Help arrived from an unexpected quarter.” Unexpected and unwanted. Definitely unwanted.
Mr. Selkirk frowned. The older man had been her father’s gamekeeper until her stepmother had turned the family off the Charming estate. Now the family eked out a meager existence in the hills above Nottingham. The wizened servant reached out, and Lucy took his hand gratefully. Soft understanding shone from hazel eyes that had seen too much of the world’s cruelty. “We must leave, then, Lady Lucy. We have put you in danger long enough, asking you to carry our messages and papers.”
Mr. Selkirk’s words were sensible, Lucy knew, but the thought of losing her connection to the reformers made her ache. Her father had believed that England must change if revolution were to be avoided, and that only by giving all men the vote would the country he loved remain the country that he loved. Now, his cause was all that remained of him. Yet the late duke would have been the first to say that her involvement m
ust be sacrificed for the greater good. Lucy reached into her pocket and pulled out a tightly folded piece of parchment.
“Sidmouth’s men will not be thwarted easily, so I will not attempt the Blue Barrel tonight. Here is the list of contacts in the midlands.” Lucy wanted to scream at the injustice, for at long last she had earned the confidence of the reform leaders and had been invited to attend a meeting of the inner circle. “Plans are to be made tonight for the suffrage rally at Spitalfields, and for Nottingham as well. The names of key reformers in each of these shires will be needed.”
Mr. Selkirk squeezed her hand. “You have more than done your duty, my lady. ‘Tis only this list that keeps us safe from Sidmouth’s infiltrators. Your father would be proud of you.”
Mr. Selkirk’s words pierced her heart. Unbidden, images of the library at Charming Hall rose in her mind, the Axminster carpet spattered in blood and her father lying twisted behind the massive teakwood desk. Swamped by the memories, she couldn’t respond, could only press down the dangerous thoughts that lurked at the edges of her consciousness. Rumors had flown after the duke’s death, rumors of suicide and scandal, but her stepmother had quickly squelched them. His Grace had only been cleaning his pistols. Tragic, really, for he was a man in his prime. Lucy’s knees shook so much she pressed them together, afraid that Mr. Selkirk and Tom would see her trembling. She had seen the gun in her father’s hand. She had seen the blood, and she had hotly denied the rumors whenever they reached her ears. If only she could make a convincing denial of them to herself.
“Tom and I will find another bolt-hole,” Mr. Selkirk said, attempting to reassure her. “I only hope they have not discovered your identity. Perhaps we should remain, for your father, God rest his soul, would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”
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