by Regina Scott
“Not so fast, blast it! You never said this was a race.”
She slowed, biting back a smile. If he wanted to prolong his torture, who was she to argue?
She schooled her steps to a saunter and opened her lace-edged blue parasol to shield her from the sun. To her immense satisfaction, people began to stare. She did not have to glance back at him to know he was there. The looks of those passing assured her that he was a sight. When the crowd and carriages thinned momentarily, she even heard the shuffle of his boots as he dragged them along.
“You had better pick up your knees, Mr. Darby,” she called back. “Your valet will have apoplexy if you ruin the shine of your boots.”
“I have no valet,” he informed her testily.
“Just as well,” she replied, giving her parasol a twirl, “as I expect the knees of your trousers will not survive either. I would not want to give the poor man reason to leave you when you return home in rags.”
His response was a disgusted grunt.
They continued down the street. Some people grinned when they saw her shadow. Others raised a brow or scowled in censure at such a display. Eloise kept her head up. Well did she remember similar looks on the faces of her schoolmates when she had been brought to the headmistress’ office.
Cleo had felt compelled to confess what she had seen in the hayloft. Now Eloise knew her friend had been trying to help, but then she had only felt betrayed yet again. Cleo thought Miss Martingale would understand Eloise’s predicament, perhaps even insist that Jareth Darby do right by her. Eloise would never forget the headmistress’ words.
“I am very disappointed in you, Miss Watkin. I expected better.”
She felt her smile slipping now at the memory and forced it back into place. She had survived the humiliation that was the consequence of her choice. Now it was Jareth’s turn.
And humiliation it was. Ladies of quality crossed the street to avoid being seen near him. Gentlemen refused to meet his gaze. The street vendors pointed and laughed. Some went so far as to stop traffic for her as they crossed King Street. A daring urchin threw a half-eaten apple. Eloise did not turn to look at Jareth, but she knew he must be mortified.
Yet as they continued down St. James, she began to notice different expressions on those they met. Ladies’ faces puckered. Gentlemen looked thoughtful. Street vendors sobered, and urchins sighed. She could not imagine what they saw in him until she heard Jareth’s voice.
“Alms! Alms for the poor!”
She whirled, nearly colliding with him. He had his top hat in one hand and already it rattled with coins. Somewhere along the route he had found charcoal or soot, for he’d smeared it across his forehead and cheeks until he looked like chimney sweep. His coat was dusty, his shirt tail hung out in damp folds, and he’d gone through one knee of his trousers to show cool skin wearing raw. When she gasped in surprise, he grinned, and she realized he had been sucking in his lips to appear toothless as well.
“Give a poor bloke a shilling for vittles, milady?” he whined, holding out his hat.
She pushed it away. “Stop that at once!”
“Now, now, Miss,” scolded an older gentleman just passing. “We must be patient with those less fortunate.” He dropped a penny in Jareth’s hat and continued on.
“Go’ bless yer, guv,” Jareth called after him.
“You are impossible,” Eloise declared. “You have failed, sir. Take yourself off this minute.”
“On the contrary,” he replied. “I intend to continue the length of the street. Press on, my dear.”
“I refuse to have you following me like this!”
He shook his head. “You must. You promised: no paradoxes. I cannot follow you down the street if you refuse to lead.”
She glared at him. Around her, people continued about their lives, dropping coins in Jareth’s hat, casting her curious glances. Now she was the object of scorn. She could not allow him to get the best of her. She faced forward, resolute.
“Unclean!” she cried. “Clear the street! Typhus!”
People paled, cried out, and scuttled away from them as fast as they could. She waved her hands and set off at a sharp pace. “Typhus! Yellow fever! Make way!”
Behind her she heard Jareth curse as he tried to keep up.
By the time she reached Piccadilly, she was nearly out of breath and the area around them was nearly empty of passersby. Turning, she waited while Jareth waddled up to her. He was sweating from the effort, the moisture making his blackened face more disreputable until he looked the villain she named him. Yet he was grinning.
“Clever girl. Here.” He held out his top hat as he climbed gingerly to his feet. He could not quite hide the grimace at the pain the movement caused him. Glancing down, she saw blood soaking the edges of his torn trousers.
Guilt assailed her. “You’re hurt.”
He seemed to notice the wound for the first time and shrugged. “Nothing serious. And the price is small if it brings me closer to your forgiveness.”
She swallowed and pushed his hat back at him.
He waved it away. “Keep it. You must know a good charity. Only tell me I passed this test.”
“You passed,” she acknowledged as he tucked in his shirt. “Though I question who feels the more humbled at the moment.”
His smile was wry. “I doubt you could surpass me there. I will own that your test gave me more than a moment’s pause.”
“Yet you turned it into a game,” she protested with reluctant admiration.
He spread his hands. “What would you have me do? Gnash my teeth and tear my clothes?”
She glanced pointedly at his oozing knee. He chuckled. “Very well. You achieved a partial victory. Look on the bright side. You have more opportunities to torment me. Now, if you don’t mind, I prefer to return home and tend to my leg.”
He bowed, then turned to go. Though he tried to hide it, she could see he was limping. Pride warred with guilt. She reached out a hand.
“Jareth, Mr. Darby, wait.”
He looked her askance.
“My carriage waits around the corner. Please let me see you home.”
She thought he might refuse, but after a moment’s hesitation he nodded. She led the way.
Chapter Eight
Where does Lord Watkin find such condemning servants? Jareth wondered as he climbed stiffly into the lacquered Watkin carriage behind Eloise. The butler had been bad enough but the coachman was worse. He looked rail thin in the dark livery of the household, and his sharp blue eyes glared at Jareth as if the fellow suspected him of bloodying his knee just to wrangle a ride.
The truth was that the blasted knee throbbed, and Jareth wasn’t sure he could have made it home on his own. As it was, he refused to let Eloise take him to his ugly little rooming house. He’d have her drop him at the Fenton, which wasn’t too far. He could only hope he could hobble the rest of the way. He seated himself gingerly across from Eloise on the brown velvet upholstery and bit back a grunt of pain as the coach jolted forward.
She frowned, dark brows gathering. “Your knee appears to be swelling.”
He leaned forward to check. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but what he could see through the rent in his trousers was raw and puffy. He straightened and offered her an encouraging smile. “Ah, well. You never said the tests would be easy.”
Her exquisite eyes were clouded. “No, but I assure you, I did not intend to cripple you.”
“Merely castrate me?”
He watched as the color surged up her cheeks. “Surely any number of fathers and husbands have tried the same,” she retorted, head high.
“No fathers,” he replied, “and only one husband.”
Her gaze focused on her gloved fingers as they worried at the fabric of her soft navy gown. “Then the tale of your flight from London is true.”
He leaned back, suddenly weary. “That depends. Which tale have you heard?”
She glanced up to meet his gaze head on. “
I was told you tried to seduce Lady Hendricks and were driven off by her husband at gun point.”
He could feel his face settling into forbidding lines. “That is a lie.”
“Then what is the truth?”
The desire to tell her was strong, but he knew it would be a mistake. For one, it was doubtful she would see anything as the truth if it came from him. For another, he did not wish to start fresh gossip. “Did you meet Lord Hendricks before his happy demise?” he asked instead.
“I did not have the pleasure.”
“It would not have been a pleasure, but that is not the point. Since you have not met any of the participants in that little drama except me, I suggest you talk with someone you trust who was about the ton at that time.
“Perhaps I shall,” she replied. The touch of defiance in her tone told him he had been right about whom she would believe.
As she lapsed into silence, he found himself watching her. That close, he could see feather-fine lines at the edges of her eyes and mouth. They made her look too serious for her age. Had he put them there? Or had something else troubled her since he’d known her? He had to keep his arm pressed against his side so as not reach out and stroke away the worry. How sweet it would be to press his lips against her temple, to inhale the fragrance of her hair and feel it slide like satin through his fingers. But he was reformed and even if he weren’t she would never forgive him if he trifled with her again.
But how tempting was that trifling. Some poet had once claimed that a man never forgot his first love. Jareth was more willing to quote poets than agree with them, but he found this sentiment to be true. He remembered more about Eloise than any other woman he had dallied with: the first time they’d met, the first time he’d touched her hand, their first kiss, the look of sweet yearning in her eyes when they’d parted. He did not think it had been love that motivated him five years ago, but he would not have been surprised had his feelings grown in that direction.
“You are staring at me,” she said, shifting in her seat. “Am I so changed?”
“In some ways,” he acknowledged. “In others, not at all. If I closed my eyes, we could easily be in the Darby chapel again.” She said nothing, but her reaction raised a chuckle from him. “Now you are staring.”
She collected herself with obvious difficulty. “I am merely shocked that you remember.”
“Of course I remember. Do you think me totally devoid of feeling?” When she did not answer, he shook his head. “I am not the monster you want to paint me, Eloise.”
“Yes, you claim to have changed as well.”
“In that, I have not changed. I’m no more a monster now than I was then.”
She stiffened in her seat. “Then why did you leave me?” she blurted out.
“Madam,” he replied, “I was driven off by a pitchfork.”
“By someone else,” she protested, leaning toward him as if intent on making her case. “Not by me. Were you so faint-hearted that you could not return to me later?”
The view down her bodice was enchanting, but he forced himself to sit back, cursing his role as gentleman. “May I remind you that I was wounded?” he replied. “It took some time and a great deal of fabrication to heal my posterior and my brother’s suspicions.” And even as he said it, he realized he had been only partially successful. If Adam hadn’t suspected, Eloise’s name would never have appeared among his effects.
Eloise was watching with equal suspicion. “Then your family knew about our assignations?”
“Not everything,” he assured her. “The Darbys have ever kept their own council. Father insisted on it. He had high expectations of all of us. Adam was to be the mighty earl, Justinian the lofty scholar, and Alex the stalwart soldier.”
“And what of you?” she asked softly.
He shrugged. “I’m the wastrel. Every family has to have one. You’ll find the rule in Debrett’s.”
She shook her head. “I sincerely doubt that any book of social etiquette covers that. But even if your family expected no better of you, how did you manage to explain your wound?”
He felt a grin forming. “I told them I fell from my horse and landed in a bramble patch. Adam was irritated that a Darby would be so ham fisted, Helena was embarrassed of what the other titled families in the area might think if the matter became known, and Mother was sympathetic that her baby had been injured.”
“Did no one question you?” she asked with a frown.
“Dr. Paxton pointed out how miraculous it was that none of my exposed skin had a scratch, but no one seemed to notice the discrepancy. I paid my valet to hide the fact that neither my trousers nor my small clothes had a mark on them.”
Her frown deepened. “So you escaped censure, unscathed.”
“Why does that disturb you? Neither of us would have wanted to be forced into marriage that young.”
“No,” she said, turning her gaze to the window. “Of course not.”
He frowned. “Is that what this is all about? Did you expect me to offer?”
Her laugh was bitter. “Oh, indeed, no. Not Jareth Darby. Everyone knew you were only after fun. Why would I be so foolish as to believe you cared?”
Her censure stung. “I cared. I admired you greatly.”
“Yet you simply left?”
He doubted she knew how young and vulnerable she sounded. In fact, her manner reminded him of the time they’d first met under the oak. He softened his tone. “I never promised to stay. I thought I made that clear.”
She sighed. “You may have said the words. I doubt I listened. Your actions made me feel as if I were different from the others I knew you must have wooed. I thought I was special to you. I thought you loved me.”
He could barely resist the urge to gather her in his arms. Speeches he had used to advantage in the past tumbled through his mind, but he rejected them all. She deserved better. She deserved the truth.
“I’m sorry, Eloise,” he said. “It was never my intent to hurt you.”
The carriage slowed then, and she seemed glad for the excuse to break his gaze and peer out. “We are nearing the Fenton Hotel,” she murmured, voice husky with emotion. “You are not staying with your brother?”
“My usual rooms are being remodeled,” he lied. “Besides, I shall be returning to Somerset shortly, when my business in London is accomplished.”
She made a noncommittal noise as the coachman climbed down to open the door and lower the step.
“When may I expect the second test?” he asked as he stiffly rose.
“Soon,” she said, still avoiding his gaze. “I need time to think.”
He hid a smile. It appeared his cooperation had been more effective than he had hoped. Perhaps gaining her forgiveness would not be so difficult after all. “Of course. I am at your disposal, Miss Watkin.”
He clambered down, leg protesting, then turned to bid her farewell. “Perhaps we will see each other about town.”
“Perhaps,” she allowed, once more distant.
“I hope we can be civil?” he tried.
She nodded, but her look was far away. “Yes, civil. I think I can manage civil, Mr. Darby.”
He bowed, and the coachman set about his duties of raising the step and closing the door. Jareth raised a hand in salute as they drove off. Then he limped around the hotel for the seamier part of London.
His knee, he found once he reached the dark little room, was merely raw. A good cleansing and a compress made from one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs finished it up nicely. His trousers, however, were ruined. A shame, as that meant he had only three left—the dove gray, the blue velvet, and his chamois pair. He could only hope he could get the dirt out of his coat. It was one of four left to him.
He congratulated himself on being once more immaculate as he made his way back to Mayfair. He was pleased to find his brother at Darby House and enjoying a late luncheon.
“Ah, Jareth,” Justinian greeted. “Have Baines fill you a plate. I can wait.”
The footman hurried forward to comply. He piled up the bone china with shaved beef, lamb brisket, and poached salmon along with sundry breads and cheeses. The fellow had evidently noticed how Jareth had been eating, for the plate groaned under the weight. Did he truly appear so starved? The grim reminder of his circumstances nearly turned his stomach, but he allowed the footman to place the food before him and spread his damask napkin with every intention of doing the repast justice.
“What have you been up to all morning?” his brother asked.
“Entertaining Miss Watkin,” Jareth supplied between mouthfuls. “And if you hear rumors to the contrary, please deny that I have typhus.”
Justinian choked.
Hoping to forestall questions, Jareth went on to tell his brother of the morning’s escapades. Justinian shook his head as he finished.
“It must have been quite amusing,” his brother said. “But I fail to see how you convince the ton you are changed if you appear to be chasing after Miss Watkin.”
“I needn’t convince the ton,” Jareth replied. “I merely need to convince Miss Watkin. You wished me to gain her forgiveness, did you not? This was her price, at least in part.”
“I shudder to think what else she would have you do.”
“Only a few more such tests, the content of which are a strictly guarded secret. I begin to believe not even Miss Watkin knows what they are yet.”
Justinian frowned. “She seems intent on making you pay. I take it you have remembered when you wronged her. What exactly passed between the two of you?”
Jareth paused. “Do you know, Justinian, I ask myself the same thing?” He started to explain the situation to his brother, then remembered the footman standing silently at the sideboard. He doubted Justinian would hire jabbermouths, but Eloise seemed so intent on keeping their liaison secret that he could not trust speaking of it before anyone. She would never forgive him if she thought he’d spread gossip.