Claiming His Defiant Miss

by Bronwyn Scott

  May was not oblivious. If there was one blight in May’s perfect world it was that this had to be hidden. Her father could never know about this. He tolerated Preston bringing this friend along. He even understood this was an opportunity to do some good for a young man with potential who’d been born into poverty. However, he would never condone that young man kissing his daughter, no matter how much potential he had and heaven forbid he find out his daughter had put her hand on an Irishman. She was meant for far greater men...

  In retrospect, the beginning had been quite nearly the end as well. Maybe there had never been any hope, their passion ill fated from the start, only they’d been too naïve to see it. But for a while the illusion had been nice. More than nice. There were still nights when she lay awake, wanting to feel that way again, free and immortal, even knowing those feelings were part of an illusion, part of something unsustainable. In the end, he had left her.

  Liam brought the horse to a halt in front of the cottage and leapt off, taking her perfunctorily by the waist to help her down. There was no boyish exuberance on his part and there was no grabbing of his hand and dragging him off for a kiss on hers, further proof the wounds they’d given one another had been deep and lasting.

  ‘I need to check on Beatrice and get supper started or we won’t eat until nine o’clock,’ May excused herself and hurried inside. Those wounds would never go away. They were scabbed over, a thick outer layer of protection. But scabs could be picked, if they weren’t careful, and those wounds could be exposed. The wisest course of action here would be to tread carefully. The afternoon had shown her that much.

  Being close to him had conjured up memories best left undisturbed and, oh, how easily they’d been conjured! It was as if they lay just beneath the surface instead of buried deep down. May tied on her apron and reached determinedly for the round of bread dough. She gave it a thorough punch and began kneading. If she was going to survive the next two months, avoidance would be her best policy.

  Chapter Six

  That night he dreamed of her. He couldn’t avoid her, not even in his sleep. A mental flashback come to life: May with her hair down, her face shining with mischief, her features softer and more innocent than they were now, before the world had disappointed her for the first time. Or perhaps it was only he who had disappointed her? In the dream, it didn’t matter. The dream was before all of that...

  She was tugging him, half-running, half-walking, down the wide aisle of Worth’s summer stables, dust motes dancing in the shafts of sunlight as she laughed over her shoulder. There was something she wanted to show him and apparently it was at the back of the stable—the immaculate stable—Liam noted. There wasn’t a single errant stick of straw about the place. Of course not. Worth hired a boy just for that purpose. Liam caught sight of a young boy with a broom in hand out of the corner of his eye as he and May ducked around a dark corner to her destination.

  May leaned against the wall, looking up at him with her dancing eyes. Good lord, those eyes were going to be the undoing of him. They made him want things he had no right to want. ‘I envy him.’ Liam jerked his head towards the sweeping boy moving away from them with his rhythmic push and glide of broom against floor.

  ‘I don’t,’ May answered bluntly. ‘Doing the same thing every day.’ She shuddered her distaste. And why wouldn’t she? She had access to so much more. ‘He sweeps all day, every day. How boring is that?’ If there was one thing May Worth despised, it was being bored. Preston’s sister was a wild handful. She’d dogged their steps since their arrival, riding with them, fishing, even swimming although he was fairly sure her parents hadn’t known she’d come along.

  Liam leaned an arm against the wall just over her head, suddenly aware of how close they were to one another and how alone. ‘I think he’s quite lucky. I’ve done much worse than sweep for a fraction of what he receives in return.’

  ‘What he receives?’ May queried with an interested cock of her head. ‘A few pennies?’

  Liam chuckled. ‘Oh, May, he gets more than pennies from this. He gets good clothes, a warm place to sleep, three meals a day and, yes, a few pennies in his pocket. Then there’s his future and he gets that here, too. He’s not just sweeping. He’s learning about the stables every day, learning the care of horses simply by being around them. He’ll move up the ranks when he’s of age. He won’t sweep for ever. He’ll be a groom. If he reaches high enough, he could be master of horse eventually. He’ll be able to tell his bride he has an honourable, reliable living they can raise a family on. He can build his whole life from this. He’ll never need to worry.’

  That silenced her, pretty May Worth in her pale pale blue summer riding habit, who wanted for nothing, who couldn’t begin to imagine what it meant to live in constant need. ‘I will never look at a sweeper the same,’ she said with quiet sincerity, not necessarily because of what he’d said—although that had clearly made some impact—but because he’d shown too much of himself and she’d seen it—the wistfulness that he’d once dreamed such a position might be available to him.

  Her green-eyed gaze turned contemplative, her voice soft. ‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’

  She was dangerous to his senses like this, an unbridled threat to a reality that said he could not have a girl like her—beautiful and spoiled beyond measure. In these moments, rich and poor didn’t matter, didn’t exist. Maybe that was why he told her the truth. ‘I worked for a doctor in the slums. After his, ah, surgeries, I disposed of the waste, the remains.’ It was the most delicate way he could describe what he’d done for the doctor who visited the St Giles whores.

  May put a hand against his chest, the first time she’d ever deliberately, voluntarily touched him. Could she feel his pulse speed up? ‘That’s why you do it, then,’ she said it almost more to herself.

  ‘Do what?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘Add things up with your eyes. When you look around a room, it’s like you’re estimating the value of its contents.’ Thinking about money was one thing a gentleman was definitely not supposed to do. Price was to be no obstacle and yet surrounded by all this opulence, Liam couldn’t stop thinking of the cost of it all and not merely the financial expense, but the social expense it took to sustain all this. A gentleman never counted costs—of any kind.

  ‘I’ll have to work on that.’ Perhaps gentlemen were born, not made, after all. It was a hypothesis Preston was working on—could a man become a gentleman? Or was it something a man was born with, some indefinable quality passed through the genes?

  ‘How old were you?’ May wasn’t done with her gentle interrogation.

  ‘Nine,’ he answered, aware this was becoming far too personal. ‘But I don’t think that has anything to do with what you wanted to show me when you dragged me out here.’

  She slanted him a coy glance that spoke of trouble, her eyes starting to sparkle again. ‘No, it isn’t.’ May stood on her tip toes, twining her arms about his neck. ‘This is.’

  ‘May, what are you doing?’ But he knew. His hands were already at her waist as if they had always belonged there.

  ‘A girl only gets one first kiss and I’ve decided, Liam Casek, mine should be with you...’

  Liam woke, almost able to feel the press of her lips as if it had only just happened. He’d never forgotten that kiss, long and slow like a lazy summer afternoon, as if they’d had all the time in the world. He’d had a lot of kisses since then—five years’ worth of kisses, some more tumultuous, others more passionate, but he still remembered that one, would always remember that one. That kiss had lit a spark of hope, misguided as it turned out to be. There were days he thought it might have been better if that spark had burnt down the barn instead.

  * * *

  It was some comfort to note he wasn’t suffering alone. May felt the tension, too. By noon the next day, it was clear May was trying
to avoid him. It wasn’t even very subtle. She simply endeavoured to be wherever he wasn’t. And she wasn’t being entirely successful. He was making it difficult on purpose. If she was going to haunt his dreams, he was damned well going to haunt her days. He wasn’t going to suffer alone. Misery loved company, after all. At least there were no more unaccompanied jaunts to town.

  He wasn’t gullible enough to believe it was because he’d succeeded in knocking any sense into her about the gravity of her situation. It was more likely because she didn’t want him to come after her. Whatever the reason, he’d take it if it kept May safe. The road that passed the cottage was not terribly busy, only a few wagons went by and he’d learned their patterns, just as he’d learned May’s and the days took on a shape of their own.

  Between them, they implicitly claimed their own spheres of influence. They divided up the labour of running a small holding. He took the outdoors, spending his days repairing fences and the barn roof in anticipation of the snow and sleet to come. She stayed near the house, busy with laundry, with cooking, with turning mundane domestic chores into a subtle siege against his rules of restraint. He wasn’t even sure she intended it to be an assault as much as she intended it to be revenge for hot words spoken years earlier: you’re nothing but a spoiled princess. You could never survive in my world. That’s why you’re afraid. You’re a coward and a hypocrite. Regardless of what the ploy was, it was working.

  It was a dangerous domesticity to look over from his work and see her outside, in the cold November weather, washing his shirt, or to lie down at night on freshly ironed sheets sprinkled with lavender and to know that the shirt, the sheets, had all been done with her hand. Every careful crease had been her doing. For him. Another man would be flattered. He was too smart to be that man, even if he had to admit he wasn’t entirely immune to her efforts.

  The kitchen door opened and May came out, wrapped in a warm shawl, a mug of something hot cradled in her hands as she moved towards him, likely oblivious to the sway of her hips. ‘I thought you might like something to drink. I made hot cider. It’s cold today.’

  Liam took the mug. He welcomed the warmth and the drink, but with scepticism. ‘What are you playing at, May? If you think I’ll let you go into town because you made me cider, you’re wrong. It’s far too dangerous.’

  Her eyes flashed for a second and he wasn’t fooled by the demure words. ‘Do I have to want something?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said boldly. ‘You’ve been doing your best to avoid me and now suddenly you’ve voluntarily brought me a hot drink. Forgive me my penchant for suspicion.’ He chuckled, breathing in the warm steam. ‘Have you decided to stop avoiding me, May?’ Not that avoidance had been very successful to start with, as they were both well aware. No matter how hard she tried for distance in the day, there was always supper at the end of it and neither of them could escape that. They started their days together with breakfast and finished them together with supper. Company was unavoidable on those occasions, especially now that Beatrice was confined to her bed. Quite frankly, avoidance had only served to make them more aware of one another when they were together. He was sure that aspect had definitely not been part of May’s plan.

  ‘I’m not avoiding you.’ May’s determined point of a chin went up.

  ‘Not me, perhaps, but what I stand for—a past you’d rather forget, a past that is awkward to remember let alone face.’ He eyed her over the rim of the mug, watching her for any tell-tale signs of the truth. ‘Or is it that you’ve come to gloat? To lord the past over me? Have you come to collect my surrender, May?’

  She looked frustrated. ‘Whatever are you talking about?’

  Liam leaned on the shovel. ‘You’ve been making your case all week with your laundry and sheets, your perfectly cooked meals and...’ his gaze slid down to the mug of cider in his hands ‘...hot drinks delivered to a hard-working man in the cold. You want to prove I was wrong about your ability to make it in the real world.’

  ‘I dare say most men would be appreciative of my attentions,’ May argued, refusing to acknowledge the old quarrel, the hard words that had been spoken between them. But it was acknowledged in other ways: the flush of her cheeks, her breath coming in visible huffs in the cold. She’d not forgotten that quarrel any more than he had.

  ‘Other men don’t know you like I do.’ May was not flaunting her rather impressive domestic skills for the reason other women might: to catch a husband. A husband was the last thing May wanted. No, May was attempting to prove she wasn’t the spoiled rich girl he’d once accused her of being. ‘So which is it, Maylark? Why did you come out here? As a bribe or to start an argument?’ That got a rise out of her. How he did love nettling her! She was never more herself than when she was mad.

  ‘You’re the only one that calls me that and the answer is neither. You are an insufferable man who greatly overestimates his appeal. Maybe I just came out to tell you supper is in two hours.’

  Liam watched her go with a chuckle. Maybe it was worth being here just to fight with her again. Nobody he’d ever met fought quite like May; honest and bold and sharp. That didn’t mean he wasn’t paying for the pleasure of her company. He had two hours to work off his own heat, two hours to wonder if their little quarrel left her feeling as dissatisfied as it did him. Maintaining his sense of professional detachment was deuced hard when he’d been damned tempted to settle this quarrel the way they’d settled their quarrels in the past...

  ‘We could go away, May, maybe to America. There’s opportunity for anyone who is willing to work for it.’ She was in his arms, in the grass beneath a tall, shady tree, her hair falling against his arm, her hand tracing idle patterns on his chest. They’d not talked of plans or futures, but the summer was coming to an end. They had a week or two at most before the Worths would go back to London, Preston back to Oxford and he would go...well, back to earth after this idyll in heaven, unless...

  ‘America? What would we do there? What opportunities would there be for us?’ May questioned, her response not as positive as he’d hoped for. He’d lain awake nights thinking this through.

  ‘I could work on the docks. Boston is becoming a big port, or we could go south to the port of Charleston. I hear the weather is warm. That would be nice for a change. No more cold winters.’

  ‘As a clerk?’ May murmured.

  ‘Um, no, as a dockhand at first,’ Liam hedged. His reading and penmanship probably weren’t up to the standards necessary for a clerk. Not yet, anyway. He was making progress, a lot of it, in fact, for a man who’d been illiterate until last year.

  ‘How would we live?’ May persisted.

  ‘I will work, you could work maybe in a dress shop, or taking in laundry.’ He knew they were the wrong words as soon as he said them. No one expected the regal May Worth to work. She probably didn’t even know how to do laundry, another blatant reminder of how different their lives truly were. She would expect a decent home in a decent neighbourhood. He’d never had a home, not even growing up. He had slept on whatever beds were vacant at the whorehouse and here was May expecting more than a bed, a whole house.

  ‘I suppose I could,’ May hedged. She didn’t sound convincing.

  ‘You’re afraid,’ Liam accused, angry at her, but mostly angry at himself for suggesting it, for not having a better plan, for not being more.

  May sat up, eyes flashing. ‘I’m not scared, it’s just that I’m not stupid. We can’t go haring off halfway around the world on a whim and hope everything will work out.’

  Her honest words cut. In a few sentences, she’d managed to destroy his plan. ‘Then what do you think happens when summer is over?’ Liam challenged.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He saw the sadness in her eyes. So she had thought about it, too—all of this glorious passion coming to an end. They were silent for a long moment, grappling with their thoughts, eyes holding.

&nbs
p; He broke the quiet, reaching for her. ‘I don’t know what happens next week, but I know what happens now. I don’t want to waste the time we have left quarrelling with you, May. I’d rather spend it loving you.’ He kissed her hard on the mouth, taking her back down to the ground, rolling her beneath him. At least on this score, they could agree.

  Chapter Seven

  Liam put away his tools for the day and washed up at the pump outside in spite of the cold. He’d need all the cold he could get. The cottage would be warm in all ways. Dinners were the best and the worst part of the day, the one time they couldn’t avoid each other.

  He stepped inside the cottage, the smells of fresh bread and stew reminding him how hungry he was, how demanding a day of manual labour could be on a man’s appetite. He smiled to himself. He was getting soft on all the good living that had come his way since he’d met Preston. That day, nine, almost ten years ago, had changed everything for him. One day he’d been running errands for a merchant who delivered supplies to one of the dons at Oxford and the next he’d been sitting down to dinner with an earl’s grandson and learning the elementary aspects of chess.

  The table was set for them in the kitchen. May liked to eat by the fire at the worktable. As usual, the worktable had been laid with a clean blue-and-white checked cloth, and the pewter plates and bowls had been set out, a loaf of bread and a pitcher between them. Liam knew many men who would delight in coming home to such a setting. A hot meal made all the difference at the end of a hard day.

  ‘Dinner smells good.’ He wasn’t going to let a quarrel get between him and hot food. Although the St Giles slums and starving days were years behind him, he’d never forgotten what a luxurious commodity hot food was. There’d been a time when he’d gone months without hot food, living off bread crusts and meat scraps from tavern dumpsters.