“Well, that is not so lascivious a tale as I feared.”
“Hoped for, you mean?” Charlotte teased. “That is not the part that will give you the vapors. Once Tiresias was a man again, he was asked to settle an argument between Zeus and Hera as to whether . . .” Was she blushing? Surely not. Nothing had made her blush for a decade. “As to whether men or women derived more pleasure from the marital act.”
Frost leaned back upon his elbows and laughed. “And I thought Londoners would bet on anything. Those old Greeks may have them beaten. I probably shouldn’t ask what the answer was, but I’ve got to.”
“Women. Tiresias was blinded by Hera for noting this, but Zeus gave him the power of prophecy to make up for it. Though I imagine it depends on the man.”
“I imagine it does.”
She ventured a quick look at him before remembering she didn’t have to be circumspect about that sort of thing with Benedict Frost. So she let her gaze rove over him, boot to knee to the long, strong line of his thigh in its uniform breeches. Flat abdomen, broad chest and shoulders. A strong-featured but sensitive face, with eyes as dark and deep as they were unseeing.
Had he taken lovers since losing his sight? She was almost sure of it. His careful notice was a caress, his mischief sweetly erotic.
She wrapped her arms more tightly around her legs. It would not do to forget herself: she was Charlotte Perry, maiden aunt to the granddaughter of a vicar.
“Are you cold, Miss Perry? Would you like my coat?”
I should like to see you shrug out of it. “No, no. I’m quite all right.” Certainly her cheeks were heated. “Have you been in Derbyshire before?” It was a nothing question, a distraction as she let the breeze cool her face. In the road, Maggie had taken hold of the stick and was teasing Captain with it again.
“Never. I’ve traveled little around England. It’s been all London and all roads to somewhere else.”
“Such as Edinburgh?”
“Yes.” He tipped his head. “Tell me, what do you like about this place? What makes Strawfield distinct?”
This was a question more difficult to answer than it first seemed. Was not everything different between the Peak District and, say, London? What did such a slow place have to recommend itself?
Well, there was Maggie, gamboling with dauntless energy from one side of the grass-flanked road to the other. But Maggie would make any place precious.
“I like the grass,” Charlotte decided. “It’s rare in cities—and in truth, it’s rare here, too. So much of the Peak is scrubby moorland, but grass unrolls like a living blanket during its short season.”
“And what else?” Frost sat up, unwittingly matching her indolent posture of arms draped about the knees.
“People who like stars may find many to see here. And sunsets—they aren’t covered over with coal smoke.”
“What color is the sky now?”
She squinted, deciding. “It’s like the edge of a bruise, just where purple goes to blue and peach.” Too much poetry and contemplation was not safe for the soul.
He grinned. “Miss Perry, you are a natural-born memoirist.”
“It’s a gift,” she agreed. “Describing the world in terms of blankets and injuries. And tell me, how does the world strike you? You heard a feeling for Maggie in my voice that I thought no one would ever notice. You must be surrounded by hidden wonders.”
“Nothing that wouldn’t be obvious to anyone who gave the world the same attention I do.” He tilted his head. “I can tell that Maggie and Sir are coming back our way, and that the dog has begun to favor one of her legs. Her steps are uneven through the dry grass.”
“Poor Captain. She is much older than Maggie, and she is footsore.”
“But after she is rested, she’ll have all the room to roam that she could wish. I have never lived anywhere with much space. In my parents’ shop, I always felt as though I were about to be crushed under bookshelves.”
“A scholarly way to die. My mother would be honored.”
“Yes, well. Hugo would probably like it too, but I—I was never much of a reader. And when I went to sea, my world was a sling in a wooden box on an endless ocean.”
Within Charlotte’s long sleeves, the fine hairs of her arms prickled. How fine it sounded to slip across the world in truth, as she had so often pretended to do. “I wish I could leave England someday,” she murmured.
A blunder. She realized this at once—and so did Frost, for he said lightly, “What of your time in dull bits of the world, doing virtuous deeds?”
“Yes, well, you knew that wasn’t true. But it is a convenient sort of thing for my parents to tell the curious. It shuts questions right down; no one wants to hear about a tedious spinster and her dismal virtues.”
In their rare letters, her parents never asked any questions about how she passed her years. She wondered if by now, the fiction had taken on heft enough that they had begun to believe it. Certainly they had long ago stopped thinking of Maggie as hers. The girl was Margaret’s, and she was theirs.
Charlotte supposed this was a good thing for Maggie, though it made Charlotte herself an interloper in her daughter’s life.
Maggie ran up just then, breathing with the hard clean gasps of a strong young body enjoying its exertion. “Would you like to throw the stick for Captain, Mr. Frost?”
“I’d be pleased to, Miss Maggie.” Benedict accepted the clear compliment along with the stick, heaving it off to a respectable distance.
Maggie sped after the stick, Captain plodding slow-footed behind. “A fair throw,” Charlotte commented, trying not to mind that Frost had been permitted to join in the game of fetch when she had not.
“Was it? That’s good. Throwing sticks is more of a sighted person’s game.”
“And what is your preferred game?”
“At present, locating fifty thousand pounds worth of stolen gold sovereigns.”
For a little while, Charlotte had forgotten all about that. “Yes, that is mine, too.” She tried to laugh, but the words were too heavy. “I know I shouldn’t, but I’ve begun to build plans upon the reward, as though it’s already in my hand.”
“You cannot be the only one doing so, Miss Perry. You are certainly not the only one determined to find the coins. The death of the serving girl at the Pig and Blanket proves that.”
“It proves that Nancy Goff knew something, does it not? Something she didn’t even realize was important until it was too late.”
“Cat eyes and cloak? Maybe, but I can’t make anything of that. I’m more suited to taking the lay of the land hereabouts.”
My land. My gold. A spasm of possessiveness made Charlotte clench her fists. “Much luck to you, Mr. Frost,” she said with false lightness. “The land is a rock sponge. It’s riddled with caverns and streams—the gold could be hidden anywhere.”
“Do you have a different plan?”
She set her lips, mulish. Her silence told him enough.
“Ah, you really do think of yourself as my competitor.” He sounded sorrowful. Sunset painted his face—not the color of a bruise, but that of a jewel. A ruby, warm and precious. A topaz, orange-golden. All a step away from gold, but only a step.
She released a deep breath, unknotting her hands. “It’s for her, Mr. Frost.” At a distance, Maggie called to Captain, two small shadows in the waning daylight. “With the reward, I could begin anew with her. We would live as aunt and niece, respectable in some small village. My parents could relax into peaceful retirement, and I . . .” She trailed off.
“Would be utterly bored?” He lifted his brows.
How did he know what she feared? “Maggie would be enough for me,” she said firmly.
But what if she isn’t? Is that fair to either of us?
This was her dream of perfection, but she might be too imperfect ever to make it succeed.
“I apologize,” Frost said. “I spoke as a wanderer without a single root. But your dreams are your own business, and you know them best.�
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“There is nothing about business in a dream. That is what makes it such a pleasant diversion.”
But here there was not diversion enough; Strawfield was quiet in all the wrong ways. Breeze and sleepy birdsong and the faint buzz of some twilight-hungry insect in place of London’s hallooes and hoofbeats and carriages. How was one to avoid thought?
“I think,” she said, “it must be time to go back inside. Captain will be getting tired, and Maggie, too, though she would never admit it. Mr. Frost, if you care to remain outdoors, I shall leave the door unlatched for you.”
He rose to his feet, helping her up, and bent to gather her shawl and return it to her fumbling hands.
“I will stay a few minutes longer,” he said, “and let the sun finish slipping away.”
But you cannot see it, she almost said aloud. She could feel the darkening, though; and if she could, with her sense of touch grown lazy and subservient to sight, he certainly would, too.
She called Maggie and Captain to her, bundling them inside with a hurried good-night. Wanting to get away, to close a door between herself and the sunset, and Mr. Frost, as the night fell with the dread and promise of something new to come on the morrow.
Chapter Seven
The night seemed very short and far too long once dawn broke Charlotte’s troubled sleep for good. Morning meant freedom to begin her search—as soon as she could slip from the vicarage.
She made certain she crossed paths with no one but the maid Barrett at breakfast time, a simple meal taken when one wished. Barrett took Charlotte’s rough boots and lumpy-sleeved gown—knife in place—as a matter of course. She had learned when they were both no more than girls that one didn’t ask questions of Charlotte, because one could not be sure of wanting to know the answer.
Silently as she could creep, now, Charlotte retrieved the horrible veiled bonnet from her shared bedchamber and made for the staircase.
The second stair creaked beneath her weight; she bit her lip. She should have remembered that noise. She had sneaked down these stairs innumerable times during her teen years.
With a tiptoe, she tested the tread of the next stair.
“Off somewhere in secret, Miss Perry?”
She shouldn’t have been surprised. She really shouldn’t.
But she had hoped, all the same, that she wouldn’t encounter him before leaving the vicarage. “Mr. Frost. Good morning to you. Of course there is no secret about my departure. I am an open book.”
“Ah, well. You know I can’t read such things. If you plan to leave the vicarage, a virtuous young lady such as yourself ought to have an escort.”
Slowly, she turned and looked up at him through the film of her veiled bonnet. He stood outside the door of his bedchamber, wearing his naval uniform coat again, with clean linens. Arms folded; expression expectant.
Delicious collided with damnation in her thoughts. “I do not require an escort.”
I am not a virtuous young lady.
She would have liked company on her errand, had it been any other sort. But she could not invite Frost along on this one. Could not bring herself even to speak the words of explanation. You cannot come with me, because I need to check the places where Edward Selwyn once hid the contraband of our love affair, and where I fear he might again have hidden some clue. He is a man of great sentiment, you see, and great suggestibility.
And he has eyes like a cat.
For my daughter’s sake—not that she can ever know—I want to make sure he is not a thief.
Right. She was not going to say any of that—not to Benedict Frost, wry and waiting.
“You think you don’t require an escort.” He raised a brow.
Fine. Let him exercise his brow all he wished. “That’s correct. Farewell.” She turned and descended one more stair before he spoke again.
“You have veiled your face.”
She sighed. “It is so annoying how much you notice.”
“A sighted man would notice far more,” he said drily.
“I think not. A sighted man would notice different things.” She had become familiar with the things such men noticed through the past decade, a long lesson in the pleasures to which they felt themselves entitled.
She hated the damned veil, but she needed its anonymity. Miss Perry had no reason to roam about the countryside. And in case someone recognized Charlotte Pearl—well, La Perle could not afford to be seen at present. Not while Randolph was still hunting for her.
If he was hunting for her. But she had the feeling he was. Randolph didn’t like losing so much as a hand of vingt-et-un, and he had lost an entire courtesan.
Sleepy Strawfield had suddenly become too much like London: a few familiar faces surrounded by strangers. Each unknown face had an unknown story, made desperate by unknown motivation.
She knew little so far of Benedict Frost, though what she knew, she liked. But she would not allow anyone to accompany her. Not even him.
“I thought you would be speaking to the coroner with my father,” she managed by way of excuse. “Surely you want to be prepared for the inquest this afternoon.” Such events had to be held in a hurry, so the jury might view the body before it decayed. As the following day was a Sunday, all the events were to be squeezed in today.
“I have no need to prepare. I will hardly be called as a witness.” He leaned against the frame of the bedchamber door, as solid as though he were part of the house. “Your mother is giving Maggie her morning lessons. Your father will be gone all day, for after he speaks to the coroner, he’ll be off performing virtuous works until the inquest.”
Charlotte coughed. “Perhaps we’d better not use that phrase. Ever again.”
A second roguish brow lifted to join the first. “Very well, hostess. But you must understand—it’s just you and me for now. And I want to keep you company.”
“That won’t be possible. I’m sorry, Mr. Frost, but I really have to be go—”
“Ah, you are embarrassed to be seen with the rough, blind sailor.”
“Indeed not.” Piqued, she took a step back up. Creak. “I choose my company based on manners, not appearance.”
“I have beautiful manners. The finest in all of Europe, with the possible exception of a few people in Paris.”
“Is that so? The Parisians I have met have all been uncommonly rude.” How did he always make her want to smile? “Mr. Frost, I have every confidence that a man who can explore foreign lands enough to write a book can occupy himself for a few hours.”
“Oh, I’ve never lacked for occupation. I can always find a way to busy myself.”
Something about the low swoop of his voice made her clench her toes within her boots. Yes.
“But it’s you about whom I’m thinking.” His expression turned serious. “Miss Perry, a young woman has been killed. Nance Goff had only the slight knowledge that came from a chance encounter with a stolen coin and the person who gave it to her. Someone in Strawfield is desperate. A woman walking alone might be in danger.”
She was up again, mounting the top stair and facing him across the corridor. “But if I don’t know anything, won’t my ignorance keep me safe?”
“A fine question, though I wouldn’t wager on the answer. Would you accept my escort if I place it on a personal level? If I would rather not trust to your supposed ignorance or to the logic of a killer, but to the presence of a brawny, well-mannered man at your side?”
Indeed he was, and her toes weren’t the only body part clenching their interest at the moment. “You are very kind. Truly. But I always carry a knife.”
A curl of a smile played on his lips. “Do you really? Where do you keep it?” He lifted his hands. “Never mind; I do not need to know. I only pray that I shall never encounter it.”
“I cannot believe I would ever have to use it on you, Mr. Frost, though I’m willing to use it on your behalf.”
The slow smile grew. “I find myself more convinced of your virtuous works by the minute.”
“Ah, must I be virtuous?” On impulse, she flipped back her veil, and the world turned from gray to the color of life. Closing the distance between them—one step, then a small eager scoot of feet—she rose to her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his.
Mmm. Mint and starch, wool and shaving soap. The old copper tub had been pressed into service the night before, and each member of the household bathed in turn. Now they all smelled the same, like wintergreen soap. Breathing him in, Frost seemed already a part of her, each breath shared as her lips parted beneath his.
She slid her hands up his arms, feeling the hard muscles bunch within their sleeves. He unfolded his arms into a gentle embrace, cradling her shoulders in his broad hands. A gentleman, holding her steady, letting her lead. But my Lord, he kept pace with her every movement, eager and teasing at once. Learning the shape of her with soft brushes of lips, with a touch of tongue to tongue that made her sex wet.
When a kept woman permitted a kiss, she knew it inevitably led swiftly to the final act. A protector could not wait to shove his cock in, to be brought to pleasure. But she was no courtesan to Benedict Frost, and this—ah, this was a kiss for its own sake. And another, and another.
She was the one to draw him closer, body fully against body, filling her hands with the wool of his coat and spreading her palms across his back. So solid; so strong. Her eyes closed, she surrendered to the sensation of his touch. Against her belly, his erection thickened, but he did nothing more than kiss, and kiss. Lips, tongue, sending each small note of her trespass ringing through her body in vibrant pleasure.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured. “Let me stay with you.”
A false note, like the clang of a cracked bell. Her shoulders went stiff; her eyes popped open.
No. He didn’t know her. He couldn’t see her. With sweet words, he hoped to get what he wished—and she was letting it happen. She always let it happen.
She was such a fool.
“Mmm.” She feigned a low moan of pleasure, raising herself up onto her toes to press fully against him. Clutching at him, turning his body so they were both within the doorway to his bedchamber.
Fortune Favors the Wicked Page 7