Rakes and Rogues

by Boyd, Heather

  He studied her more closely, noting the thin scarf wrapped high about her neck, the soft but dated felt cap perched over dark, inky locks. He could not discern her age, and for him that was a rare occurrence. He could usually decide a woman’s maturity, and likely interest in accessories, within a few moments of seeing her.

  He eased deeper into the shadows and continued his observations unobserved, trying to figure her out.

  Her shapely red lips expelled warm air into the chill of London in a short puff. A strange feeling swelled inside him when her pink tongue darted out to lick those lips.

  He felt the stirrings of desire, which in itself was unusual for him with any prospective customer.

  She shivered noticeably as a gust of wind stirred up the snow around her until she was almost lost from view. Her pert nose was red from the cold and wrinkled in dissatisfaction as her attention moved to another item on display.

  He could reopen the shop for a few moments should she merely be waiting for her friends to join her. He glanced behind her to see where her companions might be, or a waiting carriage, and saw only the empty pavement and street behind. She should return to her carriage before she froze to death.

  But there was no stopped carriage on the street.

  She was alone, which was odd for this hour of the evening.

  A single woman could be subjected to the worst sort of behavior by any number of scoundrels on Bond Street after dark.

  A pair of well-dressed fellows strolled past, and he held his breath as she glanced their way. Although a woman alone would do well to avoid the attention of strangers, she lifted her chin and smiled warmly at them. Were they friends of hers?

  One of the fellows nudged his companion, a knowing smile brightening his features, and the pair came closer to the woman. Harper reached for the door handle, prepared to intervene. After a moment or two of conversation, the pair moved on. The woman’s face fell.

  Harper cursed. She was not a prospective customer, just a poor woman attracted by the pretty things in his windows on her way to somewhere else. More than likely she was one of London’s light-skirts in search of a gentleman to offer up his warm bed on this coldest of nights. And there he was staring at her as if she were a proper lady in need of his protection.

  Harper reached for the blind and drew it down over the display, utterly disappointed that the first time he had experienced stirrings of arousal had been for a completely unsuitable woman.

  Chapter Three

  Amy stood back to admire her handiwork in the dim light, rather proud of her only stroke of good fortune that day. The tiny collection of empty crates she’d found tossed behind Cabot’s Haberdashery would provide a better night’s sleep than anything she could think of given her lack of funds and location. Because of the cold, or perhaps the approaching holiday, she had failed to tempt any gentleman that day or night and was entirely without funds. Even the whores were scarce on the street corners, which meant they’d had all the luck while Amy had none.

  Without coin to pay for a rented room, she had no other option but to make do with a night outside in the elements and be grateful for the meager shelter. Unfortunately, she could not shake her fear that the dangerous fellow she had met earlier would find her. Amy tested the weight of the two sticks of wood she had found at the entrance to the lane and wondered what harm they might do if she had to use them against an attacker. Poor protection indeed, but it was all she had at hand.

  As usual, her best defense would be to run for safety, but no close safe haven sprang readily to mind.

  After a quick glance left and right, Amy wormed her way into the pile and huddled in as comfortable a position as she was able, blowing on her cold fingertips, which she couldn’t see in the utter dark of her secluded hideaway. She kept her weapons at her side, within easy reach. It would not be the worst night she’d ever spent alone since her mother’s death a year ago, but this makeshift home was better than freezing to death in the frigid wind that had sprung up in the past hour.

  Hopefully it would not all fall down on her head in the middle of the night and break her skull. And maybe the dangerous man had forgotten his interest in her too.

  She pulled her mother’s scarf up over her tender, chilled nose and cheeks and let her breath warm her skin, lamenting her pale complexion. She had caught her reflection in the Cabot’s window display and had almost cried over the red hue of her nose and cheeks. No doubt the ruddiness of her features had not added to her appeal that night, and there was not much she could do about it so late in the evening. Crying over her ill luck would only make her redden further.

  She was much more appealing in summer when her skin caught a touch of color from the sunshine, but warmth and fair days were half a year away. Tomorrow she would take greater pains to protect herself from the wind and the uncomfortable flush a winter season had brought to her skin, and hope to turn a nice gentleman’s head instead of the nasty talking pair she’d just met.

  Gentleman was a term that was hardly applicable to those crude scoundrels, and she’d learned to apply it sparingly to the male gender.

  She hummed a little Christmas tune that her mother had sung often while she’d baked Christmas treats in the home she’d grown up in on the outskirts of London and then clamped her lips shut as her eyes stung with fresh tears. She blinked, shaking the moisture away before her lashes grew too damp. The festive season brought so many memories that, for a little while, she could almost forget that her life was unbearable. Of course, reality always returned to cut to the bone and remind her how desperate her situation had become.

  How many more months, weeks, days could she live like this? Her belly ached in a constant reminder that starvation was never far away.

  Amy hugged her knees, trying to fixate on something pleasant to warm her thoughts away from bitterness.

  Her mother would have loved the Cabot’s window display this year. The man, Cabot, had a gift for arranging his goods with such an eye to a woman’s desires that it became so very hard to look away. If only she had the coin for a fur muffler, her hands might never be cold again.

  It was also very hard to look away from the very handsome Mr. Cabot when he occasionally stepped out of his shop. He had never noticed her passing him, few did, but there was something so very arresting about the shopkeeper’s face that made her insides tumble over.

  It was not fear of him or even shame that she passed unnoticed. She thought perhaps she felt lust for him, which in her line of work was an utterly ridiculous emotion to feel for any man.

  Yet she made sure to pass by Mr. Cabot’s bright shop every week just to see if the feelings he stirred had passed. They still had not as of today. Longing for the unattainable man to notice her was a foolish occupation since he was already happily married, but her consideration of his appeal and form kept her mind occupied when her body was entertaining other men.

  She shifted a little, disgruntled with her train of thought, and bumped the crate to her left but not enough to move it far. How foolish to think of a married man. Amy had caught a glimpse of Mrs. Cabot a few times. She was lovely and very attractive in her elegant clothes. So very, very good.

  A boot scraped over cobblestone nearby. “Who’s there?”

  Amy turned her face toward the voice, trembling at the gruff male barking out orders beyond her meager shelter. Had the dangerous man found her or was it the watch?

  She made herself very small and hoped that whoever it was might go away. If she was quiet, they might think they had merely heard a rat scampering about the refuse. The boots came closer until she could see a shape through the gaps in her construction. She did not believe she could be seen, but she covered her mouth to quiet her breathing. If she was overlooked and the man went on his way, she might stay undetected until morning when she crept out. She hoped so.

  “Show yourself, or I’ll call the watch,” the man demanded.

  Amy breathed a sigh of relief. The dangerous man was not the sort to hav
e threatened her with the watch. He would avoid authority as much as she would, perhaps more.

  It must be someone else entirely who had discovered her. Still, she could not have that sort of trouble. A night in a cell was bound to end up with her taken advantage of by any number of unsavory characters. Best come forward now so she would be left alone.

  “Please don’t call the watch,” she begged.

  Amy grasped her weapons and crawled out of her makeshift home on hands and knees then stood swiftly, holding her hands clenched at her sides. She faced the stranger, heart leaping out of her chest in relief the next moment. It was the nice man from the haberdashery—Mr. Cabot himself.

  Amy quickly dropped her unnecessary weapons before he noticed and made an effort to shake out her coat. She had to brazen this out so Mr. Cabot would not send her on her way.

  “Good evening, Mr. Cabot.” She dipped a curtsy, deciding that even a fallen woman should mind her manners this close to Christmas. “Happy Christmas.”

  He blinked at her greeting, then scowled at her makeshift home. “What are you doing there?”

  “Nothing.” She ran a quick hand over her frayed coat and smiled warmly. Surely Mr. Cabot would not mind her encampment behind his shop too much if she were very quiet and unobtrusive. “It’s a lovely night for a stroll, but shouldn’t you get back inside to the warmth? Your wife will be wondering where you are.”

  He stared at her a long moment and then blinked. “My wife passed away.”

  A hard lump formed in her throat, and she took a step toward him. So that explained why she’d not seen his wife recently. But then, to her shame, she had only ever really cared about the ever-changing window display and Mr. Cabot’s fine and unavailable presence. “I am so sorry.”

  He nodded sharply, his lips pressing together, and glanced aside. He crossed his arms over his chest. “It was sudden.”

  Amy took another step closer as he shivered. He was not dressed to be out of doors. His hair was wet and slicked back from his face, and he wore a banyan of thick and luxurious brocade, the type a wealthy lord might wear in the privacy of his own bedchamber.

  He looked as if he had been getting ready for bed.

  A warm bed.

  An empty bed.

  It took a second to formulate a new plan for her night, but then she felt shame and disgust in herself. She could not attempt to seduce a man who was grieving. It was not fair to him and would only lead to her own humiliation. She had had enough of that for one day. “You should go in, sir.”

  He refocused his attention on her as the wind spun snow around them in a white mist. “Were you going to sleep under those boxes tonight?”

  She hesitated to answer but then nodded. What was the point of lying about it? Since her mother’s death, she had learned to accept that she did not deserve anything more than to be where she was. Being fatherless, and now a whore, ensured she was scorned wherever she went. “I will be quiet. I promise. You won’t even know I’m outside your door.”

  “Have you no home, no one to wonder where you are?”

  He frowned when she shook her head again and then glanced around at the deserted, dirty lane.

  He really needed to return indoors before his hair froze. Amy backed away. If she pretended to leave, he would not have an excuse to linger. Once he had gone inside, she could sneak back and quietly creep into her shelter again.

  “Please go back inside before you catch a chill. I will go. I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  He stared at her so long she started to tremble for an entirely different reason. Mr. Cabot saw her at last, but this was not how she had imagined the moment. She had nothing to recommend herself. No money to spend in his shop, no beauty with which to capture his attention.

  He followed her a few steps and then bent down to pick up the sticks she’d dropped when he’d first made himself known to her.

  He turned them over in his bare hands a moment, eyes widening, but then shook his head repeatedly. He flung them aside and gestured to his open rear door. “You should come in. There’s a safer and warmer place for you with me.”

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  A Very Wicked Christmas Anthology.