“Isn’t Lizard Bay supposed to be a fishing town?”
He shook his head. “The fish have all gone up coast, or died.”
Lucy tried to puzzle it out. Why would a fishing village—one that had clearly been here for many generations—suddenly have no more fish? Jamieson might depend on the townspeople for his living, but they depended on fish for theirs. She eyed the empty shelves with fresh understanding. It wouldn’t make sense to stock them if no one could afford to buy the goods.
“But . . . what do people do instead?”
“Some folks have already moved away, looking for better opportunities. Some have even gone up to Marston. Your aunt was livid over it.” Jamieson leaned across the counter and beckoned her closer, as though eager to impart a bit of gossip. “Miss E was determined to fix matters, too, you know. She had grand plans and wasn’t going to let Marston have the last say in Lizard Bay’s future. She told us we couldn’t depend on fishing and her forever.” His face fell. “Turns out she was right on both fronts.”
The bell on the shop’s door tinkled. But even before she heard the exuberant voices of the Tanner boys, she felt a telltale shiver roll pleasantly up the base of her spine. Lord Branston had not even said a word, and yet she was already as aware of his presence as if he’d trumpeted his arrival. Blast it all, but was it possible that in spite of her resolve to have nothing to do with him, she was even more aware of the man than before?
Heart thumping, she swung around to face them.
But was it even the same man?
In London, he’d scarcely stood out for anything but his handsome face. He’d worn the requisite checked wool trousers and silk waistcoat of any town gentleman. But it seemed he shed that skin here in Lizard Bay. Today he was at ease, smiling, and dressed in a loose-fitting frockcoat and flannel brown trousers, unusual only in how ordinary they looked. He was lacking a collar entirely, and instead of a necktie wore an old scarf looped about his neck.
Had she ever seen a gentleman look so . . . useful?
Lord Branston stood back and let the boys surge forward, their school books and lunch pails swinging. The boys converged on the counter, their hands grappling with the licorice jar.
“Watch it, Charles!”
“Leave some for me, Ethan!”
As they each fought for their fair share, she watched Lord Branston. As it stupidly insisted on doing at every coveted sight of him, her heart wobbled a bit in her chest. He looked at ease—not only more so than he had in London, but even during the long journey to Lizard Bay. He carried an old leather satchel over his shoulder that appeared to be bulging with secrets, and his jaw looked unshaven. The dark stubble made her wonder what it would feel like to run her finger along it. But she wasn’t going to get close enough to do such a foolhardy thing.
She tried to be irritated with him, in his easy, carefree appearance. He was a marquess, for heaven’s sake. Could the man not employ the services of a valet?
Or be bothered to put on a hat?
His auburn hair was wildly awry, as though he’d spent the entire day out of doors. That gave her pause. She hadn’t seen him about town—not that she’d admit to looking for the man. But given that Lizard Bay only had the single street, she couldn’t help but wonder just where he passed his hours all day, only to emerge looking so delectable.
Their cheeks full, the boys began to move away from the counter. They parted like the Red Sea and came back again to surround her.
“It’s Miss E’s ghost!” crowed the one who had extracted the sovereigns from her pocket last night.
The youngest—Danny, she recalled—elbowed his brother. “Lord Branston said we wasn’t to tease her like that anymore, Ethan.” He sucked on his candy, and looked up at her with hollowed cheeks. “Besides,” he said with a knowing air. “Miss E’s ghost don’t live here in town. She lives up at Heathmore.” He snickered. “Not that any of you are brave enough to know it.”
Lucy lifted a questioning brow in Lord Branston’s direction. He stared back. She felt again that shiver of awareness, no doubt because his attention was focused so inappropriately on her, and not at all another reason. She fit a purposeful frown to her lips. “Have you been spreading more tales of ghosts then, Lord Branston?”
“I don’t know why I’d need to.” He shrugged. “The town will believe what it wants.”
“Mm hmm.” Lucy reached behind her and collected the paper-wrapped tin of snuff. She hefted the weight of it in her hand. She needed something more substantial if she was going to put a dent in that man’s cocky grin. And she probably ought to set a better example for the young boys. God knew she’d never been able to aim worth a shite.
So instead of hurling it at his smiling face, she put the tin of snuff in her reticule and pulled out her last sovereign instead. Holding the coin up, she flashed it temptingly at the lads. “No matter what untruths Lord Branston has told you, Miss E is not a ghost. Now, which of you boys might like to earn a bit of money? I need a guide to Heathmore Cottage.”
HE’D GIVE HER this: she was a persistent thing. And it was proving an enjoyable experience, watching her try to turn the tide of local opinion. He suspected Miss E would have been proud of her niece and what she was trying to do. The elderly spinster had been a woman who admired persistence and backbone, in all their various forms.
But persistence alone wasn’t going to get Lucy Westmore to Heathmore Cottage.
And if she continued to refuse his offers of help, she deserved whatever misery her backbone brought her.
He watched the boys, waiting to see what they would do. Danny was the most likely choice to take her money, given that he’d been the only one of the four brave enough to bring the letter up a week and a half ago. But Danny was looking down at his shoes, shuffling them in near agony. A properly earned sovereign was an unheard-of luxury, but it seemed fear had a way of paralyzing even the neediest of feet.
If one of the boys did accept, Thomas knew he would have to go with them. The lads knew the way, of course, but the path would be complicated to navigate in heavy skirts. And her skirts were an atrocious, bell-shaped thing, stuffed from beneath with crinolines that probably weighed close to a stone. No doubt she’d need help to pull herself over rocks and such, and to make sure she didn’t break that long, lovely neck.
And it wouldn’t be a hardship to feel the slip of her hand in his own.
But it seemed such wild, fanciful notions were not to be. As though they were a single organism, the boys came to a joint conclusion and escaped through the door, chattering about ghosts and haints and the like.
“I am sorry about that,” he offered, shaking his head.
“Somehow I doubt it.” She shoved the coin back into her reticule. “Things seem to have a way of going to hell around you, Lord Branston, and I suspect that’s exactly what you intend,” she added, then turned back to the counter and offered the grocer a thin smile. “Thank you for everything, Mr. Jamieson. It was nice speaking with you.”
“ ’Tis my pleasure, Miss L. I hope you find someone soon who might show you the way to Heathmore.” He glanced Thomas’s way, a confused slant to his brow. “Have you . . . ah . . . asked Lord Branston? He knows the way quite well.”
“No, thank you.” She gave a haughty sniff. “I prefer to find someone else to help, someone who doesn’t expect something in return.” She gathered her skirts in one hand and pushed past him, stepping over the hound and leaving the scent of licorice in her wake.
Mr. Jamieson winked at him. “She sounds just like Miss E, doesn’t she?”
Thomas offered the grocer a bemused shrug and shook his head. “Seems a bit more determined, if you ask me.”
“More determined than Miss E?” Jamieson scratched his chin. “Heaven help us all.”
Not wanting to let her escape without offering a word of explanation—or an apology, if need be—Thomas shoved his hands in his pockets and followed her outside. He spied her a hundred feet distant, walking away from the store, her back
rigid as she stepped over a pair of adoring wharf cats.
“I really am sorry about the boys, you know,” he called out. He headed toward her, relieved to see her stop, at least. “They should have been more polite in their refusal. That wasn’t well done of them. Miss E was planning to work with them on their manners.”
She turned to face him. “They’d not have refused in the first place if their minds hadn’t been poisoned to the idea from the start.” She lifted one hand to extend the shade of her bonnet and stared up at the edge of the cliff that ran along top edge of the town. “Your hand in that matter does you no credit.”
Hand? What on earth was she talking about? And the way she was eyeing the top edge of the cliff made him uneasy. So far it seemed like she’d stuck to town in her efforts to uncover the path to Heathmore, proving herself smart enough to recognize the danger that awaited her in the surrounding cliffs. Surely she wouldn’t try to strike out on her own?
Then again, she’d struck out for Cornwall on her own, hadn’t she?
“Tell me, Miss Westmore,” he said slowly. “What is it you think I’ve done?”
“One would think a marquess had better things to do with his time than tell ghost stories to small, impressionable boys.”
“I’ve not told them anything of the sort. In fact, I’ve encouraged them to stop spreading such tales. And they don’t think of me that way here.” He hesitated. “You shouldn’t either. In Lizard Bay, I am not the Marquess of Branston. I am just a man.” He took a step forward.
And she was just a woman.
A woman, in fact, who made his blood stir, even when she was spitting mad at him.
“Not a marquess?” She continued to scan the upper cliffs even as she scoffed at him. “As though you can shove the title in a drawer and forget about it? You might be able to pretend such nonsense, but I can’t. Nothing about you makes sense.” She lowered her hand and gave him a disdainful glance. “Apparently you’ve a grand manor just outside of town, and yet you are determined buy my little house. Willing, even, to stoop to disrespectful means to do so. Why are you hiding away in a little town like Lizard Bay, anyway? Don’t you have a seat in the bloody House of Lords you could be putting to good use?”
“I’m not hiding.” In spite of his rising confusion, his lips twitched at her language. Did she trot it out just for him, or did it flow off her tongue like butter? “I just don’t like London very much,” he admitted. Too many memories.
And too many of those very ghosts she was accusing him of conjuring.
“Well I don’t like useless gentleman, particularly ones who squander their potential political influence by hiding away in fishing towns.”
“I don’t have any political influence,” he answered.
“And whose fault is that? You do realize you are entirely Radical in your views, don’t you?” At his look of surprise, she sighed in exasperation and threw up her hands. “Surely you have some view of politics.”
Thomas blinked. “I . . . ah . . . I hadn’t really thought of it.” Mainly because since he’d gained his majority, he had either been lost in a bottle, playing at a betrothal, or . . .
Damn it all . . .
Hiding in Cornwall.
She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Lord Branston, did you really think the study of botany was going to properly prepare you for the responsibilities of your position?”
Her words stung, as she had likely intended them to. It was very nearly an accusation that he had been selfish in his choice of studies, and part of the problem was that perhaps it was true. He’d certainly been selfish in not considering the impact his absence would have on his sister. And then, in the years following university, when he floated through London’s social scene in a drunken haze, he’d never once considered answering that summons from the Crown, never stopped to consider if he ought to be doing something else with his life. Was it because he’d been orphaned at such a young age, with no firm sense of the expectations of the position?
Or had he rejected the notion because he was sure he would only muck it up, the way he’d mucked up his life?
He cleared his throat. “My . . . ah . . . parents died when I was eleven. I wasn’t old enough to take my father’s seat then, and I suppose it never occurred to me to do so later, when I reached my majority.” He had told himself that so many times he wasn’t even sure now whether or not it was the truth. But it sounded like the truth.
And it was preferable to admitting his failures.
“I am sorry for your loss,” she told him. But she didn’t sound sorry. In fact, her eyes flashed at him, nearly silver in the sunlight. “But there is a good deal happening right now in London with Lord Aberdeen as prime minister. If you would but take your seat in the House of Lords and put some of your good instincts to wider purpose, you might influence the lives of thousands of orphans, not just four. You might even be able to do more. Improve the lives of women, for example. Change the laws so they might keep their property after they are married, or retain their children if they must leave brutal husbands.”
He stared at her, feeling more than a little lost at sea. She thought he had good instincts?
And when had this become about him?
She stared back. “But no, you’re too important for such matters, it seems. You seem more content to hide away here, making sure one young man doesn’t play truant.” She looked away and tugged at the edges of her gloves, the very picture of a dismissal. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I don’t have time for idle chitchat, Lord Branston. I’ve a cottage to find.”
He stepped in front of her. Damn it all, but how could she see through his black heart and know just how to poke at him? If there was a measure of guilt to be found in his self-imposed isolation, in the panic he felt at the thought of returning to live in London, she had surely just found it. He’d known his choices of the past three years were cowardly at best, selfish at worst.
He’d just never had anyone—not even the outspoken Miss E—call him out for it.
“This isn’t about my empty seat in the House of Lords.” He shook his head, trying to steer his thoughts back to center. “It’s about your determination to reach Heathmore. Why are you wasting your time traipsing this dusty street, asking everyone you meet for help? As I have repeatedly offered, I am more than willing to show you the property myself.”
“And as I’ve repeatedly said, I prefer to find someone else to help me. Either that, or find it on my own.”
Thomas knew he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t even be standing here talking with her, much less touching her. His last disastrous touch had led to the kiss that brought him to all of this. But as though it had a mind and imagination of its own, his hand reached out to curve over her arm. Her spine remained stiff and unyielding. Her skin, though—that was soft, as soft as he remembered. He recalled how pliant her hand had felt in his own, there at the inn in Salisbury, when she burned her thumb on the hot wax and he’d taken it up in his. He wanted desperately to go back to that place, however dangerous the sentiment was.
“Promise me,” he said, softening his voice, “that you won’t attempt it without a guide.”
“I see you have continued in this habit of touching women without their leave,” she told him, though she didn’t pull away.
“I assure you, it’s an entirely new phenomenon, one that only seems to occur around you.” He tugged until she thumped up against him, both of them breathing harder now. “Promise me, Lucy. The cliffs are dangerous. You could easily be killed.”
Her lower lip slid between her teeth, causing him to suck in a breath. “I owe you no promises, Lord Branston.” She hesitated. “But rest assured I have no intention of purposefully meeting my demise.” Her lips firmed. “Because then you’d have Heathmore without a fight.”
He wanted to point out that was hardly a reassurance she wouldn’t do something stupid and find herself dead by accident, but he somehow held his tongue. He could feel the energy humming in her where his hand c
urved over her skin. She might not be setting off on her own yet, but she was poised to do something, that was assured. “Why are you being so stubborn about this?” he asked.
“Why are you being so persistent?” she countered, but he couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t trying to twist out of his grasp. If anything, he felt the merest loosening of her spine, a melting response that told him she, too, felt this queer, electric pull between them. “I can’t help but think you aren’t telling me the whole truth about Heathmore.”
“I’ve told you no lies,” he said, though his conscience scratched at him, reminding him that a falsehood and an omission of the full truth could be argued as shades of the same transgression. He stared down at the wide, well-shaped mouth that somehow—despite being attached to a spinster who insisted on saying the most outrageous things—tempted him beyond reason. She smelled of licorice and sunshine, and he wanted to know if she tasted the same way.
He licked his lips. “You can trust me, Lucy. I am not lying to you.”
She pulled away, out of his grip. “I can’t trust you. I can’t even trust you to use the name I have asked you to.” She took a firm step away from him. “My name is Miss L. Not Miss Westmore, and certainly not Lucy. And a woman like me can’t be too careful.”
“What do you mean, a woman like you?” he asked.
“I know how you see me. How everyone sees me. An easy target. A woman who ought to be grateful for an ounce of a handsome gentleman’s attention.”
He shook his head, surprised at her admission, and more than a little confused. “That isn’t how I see you at all.” No, quite the contrary. He saw her as determined. Decidedly ungrateful.
And utterly, entirely desirable, despite her sharp edges.
“Miss L,” he said, being sure to emphasize the words, “you are the farthest thing from an easy target. In fact, if a suitor’s arrows were drawn, I suspect they’d go flying in the exact opposite direction. You’ve a way of pushing people away, even people who have your best interests in mind. You might try trusting others, on occasion.” He paused, remembering how Miss E had helped him, even when he’d initially resisted the offer of assistance. He’d needed a shove to be convinced to give up the bottle, and Miss E had been all too happy to provide it in the form of a little blackmail. “You’ll find,” he said ruefully, “that life sometimes requires an outside hand. And beyond how I or anyone else sees you, I would imagine, in the end, it only matters how you see yourself.”
The Spinster's Guide to Scandalous Behavior Page 15