Chasing the Heiress

by Rachael Miles

  No, the only possible problem would be crossing paths with Colin in society. But even that was unlikely. His brother was a duke. He traveled in circles above hers and, she prayed, above her cousin’s.

  After her bath, she returned to her room—directly above Colin’s, an exact replica of his.

  She imagined, as she lay in bed above him, that she lay in bed with him instead. She thought of his kisses, and she touched her fingers to her lips, remembering. She remembered his breath in her hair, his lips against her neck, the tickle of his whiskers grown into a pleasantly rough stubble during his convalescence.

  She imagined Colin’s hands, the elegant strength she’d felt when she’d held them during his sickness. She already longed again for his touch, his hand on her breast, his mouth on hers. She could imagine exactly how Colin’s hand would feel on her belly, her thighs, her buttocks because James had touched her in all those places. But she didn’t long for James’s roughened hands. James had smelled of leather, of gun oil, of lineament, and though he never came to her without as much of a bath as he could manage in the camps, he’d always smelled of war. Colin smelled of—she realized with a half laugh—soap. One of the finer soaps, probably French milled, with just a hint of spice. This man smelled of culture, of ballrooms, of clean sheets—of peace.

  * * *

  The next morning, Lucy rose early, having dreamed of Colin through the night. As soon as she had learned that they were to begin their journey, she had washed both of her dresses, wishing to set out in fresh, clean clothes. She had cut out the makeshift pocket that had held her great-aunt’s papers and placed it to the side, where it would not be harmed. It took only a few minutes to sew it back in place and put on her dress for the journey.

  Aurelia had not confided in her what the letter said, and Lucy had not asked, only promised to deliver it as soon as she could. Even so, it had already been three months since her great-aunt’s unexpectedly sudden death. But she would fulfill her obligation soon: Colin had already promised to take her where she needed to go.

  Lost in her own thoughts, she didn’t hear the latch click as the door to the shared drawing room opened. And she turned almost into Colin’s arms.

  He set her back, smiling. “The carriage will be ready within the hour.”

  “I feel that I must make a confession to you, before we go.” She watched his face turn from playful to severe.

  “I wish to hear all your confessions.”

  “It’s a small one, really. My given name isn’t Lucy. It’s a pet name, what my father always called me when I was growing up in the camps and the men adopted it. But Lucy is the name I gave soldiers to hold when they had no one else to remember, as I held their hands. . . .” She blinked away unexpected tears.

  Colin’s face held only compassion. “When they died.”

  She nodded.

  “Then, is it a name you wish to remember or to forget?” He folded her into his arms.

  “I’m more myself when I’m Lucy,” she whispered into his chest.

  “Then Lucy it is. My angel, my star . . .” He set her back and looked dismayed as he examined her clothes. “. . . in unsuitable clothes. Is there a clothier in the neighborhood?”

  “My clothes are adequate, I think, to our travels.” His question reminded her that she had not fully revealed the extent of her troubles, and she felt the same pang of panic that she’d felt each time she’d seen Oaf in the stable yard changing his horse for another leg of his search. She turned away from Colin, so he could not see her face.

  “But they are not adequate, if we must claim an engagement.”

  “It would be easier for you to dress down than for me to dress to your station.”

  “I’m no better than a lord’s younger brother.”

  “But a lord’s younger brother is far superior to a scullery maid.” She felt her spine stiffen. “And I have only clothes a servant would wear.”

  He clasped her shoulders and pulled her to him, her back to his chest, hugging her close but without kissing, just letting his breath warm her neck. He whispered in her hair, laughing. “Well, my lady, I will solve this problem of clothes.” He began a line of kisses from her ear to her shoulder, and she tilted her head to let him kiss her neck thoroughly. She felt his body tense; then she heard it too: the crying of a baby.

  “Go.”

  And he was gone.

  She leaned for a moment against the wall, catching her breath. Just the slightest touch, and she wanted him to touch her again. It would be a long day.

  * * *

  The baby’s cries had been nothing more than a call for food, and Colin only embarrassed the wet nurse as he rushed into the room without warning. He turned his back and retreated quickly, pulling the door behind him. Then he leaned back against the door to catch his breath—slowly. To do otherwise—to extend his lungs fully at the bottom—only made his side ache.

  He had refused further laudanum. He would need to keep his wits about him as they traveled—and that wasn’t going to be easy with Lucy so near him in the carriage. She was already a distraction, the memory of her kisses never far from his mind.

  He was about to return to Lucy’s room when he heard heavy footsteps running up the stairs. Seth burst into the hallway.

  “I heard . . .” He stopped abruptly when he saw Colin outside Jennie’s door.

  “He’s hungry.”

  “Ah! The carriage is ready, and Fletcher and Bobby are already aboard.” Seth looked carefully at Colin’s face. “Aidan is settling up with the landlord. If you intend to set out today, you should slip into the carriage before he returns. Otherwise, he’ll take one look at how pale you are and call for the militia to guard the child.”

  “Pale?” Colin pushed himself away from the wall.

  “You look so ill it calls to mind that poem Benjamin used to recite whenever we were lovesick.” Seth grinned. “Why so pale and wan, fond lover, prithee why so pale?”

  “I remember.” Colin took his brother’s arm to descend the stairs, then filled in the rest of the stanza. “Will, when looking well can’t move her, looking ill prevail? Prithee why so pale.”

  “Perhaps when you are well, your pretty nurse will discover what a dreadful ogre you are.” Seth supported Colin’s weight to the bottom of the stairs. “And that will open the field to me.”

  “Luckily for me, you won’t be with us on the road to tempt her.” Colin dropped his brother’s arm as they approached the door to the courtyard.

  “On the excuse of the ladies, Fletcher has set out the stairs.” Seth opened the door wide. “If you think to fall as you go up, fall to the right—that direction is out of the view of the main tavern.”

  Just three short steps. Colin told himself. Only three. Seth had already positioned himself to the right of the steps as a precaution.

  “Can I offer you my hand, dear lady?” Seth gallantly held up his arm.

  “Why, dear sir, how kind,” Colin replied in a falsetto, but he took Seth’s outstretched arm and made his way up the stairs and into the carriage. Taking his position at the far door of the carriage, he lowered the window to take advantage of the breeze.

  Unlike the weathered carriage he had borrowed to transport Marietta, Aidan’s ducal carriage was made for comfort. Thick cushioned pads for the seats and backs of an extra depth accommodated his brother’s long limbs. Aidan had even had a cushioned box made to fit the space between the seats, ostensibly to aid in playing cards on the road. Colin positioned it in the well in front of him, against the far door, converting his portion of the carriage into a chaise longue. Colin suspected (and hoped to test his theory with Lucy) that the box could serve a more erotic purpose.

  It was a shame, in fact, that the wet nurse couldn’t ride in a separate carriage with the infant. What was the use of a long carriage ride if one couldn’t make the hours pass discovering the pleasures of Lucy’s body as he had already discovered the pleasures of her mind? Her kisses delighted him like nothing else.
His obsession with her made little sense, but then so little had for so long.

  And a woman who had made love in the camps would appreciate the richly cushioned privacy of the ducal carriage. He wished he had known her then, in the camps, wished he could have competed with her fiancé for her affections. He imagined her in her sober blue dress meeting him for a tryst during one of the endless sieges. Imagined kissing away her fears as he took his leave to complete a mission or to fight in an engagement.

  But his reverie took a sober turn. Had he known her fiancé? Had they fought alongside one another? Was he one of the men whose passing Colin had mourned? A man whose body Colin had helped to bury? He offered up a promise to a fallen brother in arms. Whatever happens between us, I won’t let her return to being a scullery maid. When we part, if we part, she will be well cared for.

  “Oh, la. Look at this.” Jennie peered into the carriage with awe. Dressed as a field hand, with a smock top and full gathered pants, Jennie had tied her hair up under a straw hat. “I only rode in a carriage once, but then I sat on the outside back on top of the luggage. But this time . . . to be inside . . .” She turned away, and Colin lost the end of her sentence.

  A moment later, Seth handed Lucy into the carriage, and Colin patted the seat beside him. But Lucy chose instead the backward-facing seat. He raised his eyebrow in question.

  “As your nurse, I need to be able to watch you, to see when you tire . . .” Lucy began to explain.

  “Here, Lucy.” Seth held out the baby’s rush basket. Lucy placed the rush basket on the forward-facing seat to Colin’s right.

  Colin kept himself pulled into the opposite corner, at a distance from the babe.

  “I’m not convinced traveling so soon and with so little protection is the best solution.” Aidan stood outside the open window beside Colin’s door, wearing his least ducal clothing. “But it is your mission, not mine. I still believe you should accept more help.”

  Colin bristled slightly. “I have already accepted a great deal more help than I think would please Prinny. And as you said yourself earlier, it’s a good plan.”

  “Of course it is.” Sophia, wearing a drab servant’s dress, joined them and opened the door to offer Colin a proper goodbye. “Your brother simply wishes he could do more.”

  “I will send you news as I find it.” Aidan put his hand on Colin’s shoulder, and Colin covered his hand with his own.

  “Can three play this game?” Seth patted Colin’s knee. “Don’t die, brother. Aidan will never forgive me for siding with you, if you do.” Seth closed the door, then called back through the window. “And, Lucy, remember: you can always call on me when you tire of his moods.”

  Colin rolled the glass window up, while Lucy laughed.

  Chapter Eleven

  A mile from the tavern, in a secluded portion of road, Fletcher pulled the carriage to a stop, allowing Jennie to move inside the carriage. Jennie hopped in quickly, then pulled the basket into her side and peeked below the cloth covering the baby from view. “’E’s sleepin’,” she said with satisfaction. Any name they gave the infant would be only temporary, so they had told Jennie to pick a name she found appealing. Jennie had tried a dozen and rejected them before she decided on Sweet William, the name of her favorite flower.

  “Well, I have somewhat ’ere to pass the time.” Jennie fidgeted herself into a comfortable position before reaching into her knitting bag. Instead of the thick wool she had been knitting before, she produced three issues of the Lady’s Magazine. “Any time a lodger leaves magazines, Nell lets me have ’em.”

  Colin stiffened and drew himself in more tightly. He said nothing, but from the look of pained recognition that passed fleetingly across his face, Lucy assumed the magazines must have been Marietta’s.

  “My lord, would you read to us?” Jennie turned to a page marked near the back of one. “Even though it’s a magazine for ladies, there is natural science and history and . . .”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a Sporting Magazine in there would you?”

  Jennie looked stricken. “None of the lodgers ever leaves those.”

  “I wonder why!” Lucy hoped to lighten Colin’s mood. “Do you think sportsmen can’t actually read?” But the joke fell flat.

  Jennie held out the issue, open to an article on traveling in Europe.

  Colin paled, but slowly held out his hand. A man who does his duty, even when it pains him, Lucy realized, even when he could snub a servant to avoid the discomfort. He looked at the title and read silently the first paragraph. “I have already read this one. Would it be acceptable, Jennie, to choose something else?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.” Jennie smiled broadly, at his consideration of her opinion. Another man of his rank and family would have merely chosen a different article.

  “Given his wound, it will tire his lordship to read to us,” Lucy intervened. “But perhaps we could solve the enigmas?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jennie nodded enthusiastically. “I like puzzles.”

  Colin handed the magazine back to Lucy, mouthing, Thank you, when the wet nurse buried her face in the pages.

  “Then find some for us to solve together,” Lucy instructed Jennie gently.

  Jennie found the enigmas, rejected them all, and began searching through the other issues for better ones.

  Lucy leaned forward as if to check on William in his basket, but took the chance to whisper in Colin’s ear. “Have you already worked the enigmas?”

  “No.” He tilted his head to whisper in hers, brushing an escaped curl back from her face, then tucking it behind her ear. She felt the sweetness of his touch in a tingle down her neck and spine. Then his hand was gone, and he leaned back against the seat. “She preferred the travel memoirs, or discussing court news: who was visiting whom, what marriages were expected, whose fortunes were on the ascent and whose were on the decline.”

  “Sounds dreadful.” Lucy grimaced. She lifted the blanket, saw that William was still fast asleep, then leaned back in her seat.

  He raised an eyebrow at her comment.

  “I suppose it would be different if you knew the persons being discussed, but without that”—she shrugged—“it’s all rather . . . vapid, don’t you think?”

  He smiled, that slow, knowing smile that made her heart warm. “But sometimes useful as information.”

  “If one were a Machiavel, intending to use that knowledge to gain or wield power.” Lucy regarded him carefully, noting how the corner of his mouth tightened when his wound was hurting or how it twitched with amusement when he tried to hide a smile. “Are you a Machiavel, my lord, gaining information to profit from it?”

  “Ah, a bluestocking after all!” Colin winked.

  She was saved from response by Jennie’s declaration that she’d found the best set of puzzles. Jennie held out the section for Colin’s inspection. “Are these acceptable, my lord? Some of them look hard.”

  Colin took the issue from her hand with a kind smile. “I’m sure your choices will be fine. Should I begin?”

  Jennie blushed. “Oh, yes, sir, of course, sir.” Lucy was certain that, had they been standing, Jennie would have offered at least half a dozen curtsies.

  Colin swept the blond hair from his eyes, “Let’s see. Ah, here. Name a popular author in two syllables. First syllable is a valued metal. Second syllable is the second half of a worker of molten iron.”

  Jennie beamed. “Oh! I know the second word. Blacksmith. The second syllable would be just smith. But I don’t know no poets, ’cept Bobby Burns.”

  “Well, let’s think of valued metals . . .” Lucy prompted, avoiding Colin’s eyes as he hummed softly the first bar of “O Good Ale.”

  “Silver, gold, copper.... Must be gold. It’s the only metal with a one-syllable name.” Jennie chewed on the nail of her index finger. “Gold-smith. Do you think that’s right?”

  “Goldsmith is a poet, so that’s likely the solution.” Colin looked at the cover of the magazine. “This is J
une. Do you have the July issue for the answers?”

  Jennie’s face fell. “No, sir, I only have the three, January, March, and June. We won’t have answers to any of the puzzles.”

  “Then we will simply decide if we are right.” Lucy patted Jennie’s arm.

  “Can we do that, miss?” Jennie looked distressed.

  “Well, certainly, as long as our answer meets the criteria the original puzzle provides,” Lucy reassured her.

  Jennie squinted into the distance, thinking, then smiled broadly. “That seems fair.”

  “And let’s make it more interesting, shall we?” Colin suggested. “We’ll make it a contest. If I win . . .”

  Jennie looked down at her hands, her knitting stopped. “I have nothing to offer, sir, but the cakes that Alice gave me as a present.”

  “But those are yours, Jennie,” Lucy interceded, sending Colin a threatening glare. “No, we shall be a team, the two of us against Lord Somerville, and I will pay any penalty if we lose.”

  “Any penalty?” Colin’s eyes grew bright with amusement and something else.

  “Any penalty, if we lose.” Lucy caught his eyes and the intention in them, but she turned to Jennie. “And we shan’t lose, Jennie, shall we?”

  “No, miss, we shan’t. I am terrible good at puzzles.”

  “Then let’s see.” Lucy avoided looking anywhere but at Jennie. “Shall we do flowers, desserts, trees, vegetables, or towns? Jennie, you choose.”

  “Flowers, miss.”

  “The first enigma is ‘a lady’s name.’”

  “Rose,” Jennie answered without hesitation.

  “Excellent. Your turn, Somerville.” Lucy allowed herself to meet his eyes. Blue. Bottomless.