The Songbird's Seduction

by Connie Brockway

  “I am escorting her—them.”

  “You are?” The interest became more pointed.

  “Yes. Well, I expect to be. I was planning to join them here.”

  “Well, you will have to wait longer. They are gone.”

  “What?” Why would she leave without him? Panic drilled through him. She mustn’t. “Where did she go?”

  “She?” The hotel manager regarded him in puzzlement before his expression cleared. “Non. I am speaking of the Misses Littons and their friend, Mrs. Martin. Those ladies have gone, having left a letter for Miss Eastlake. And a bill. A large bill. Of which, despite assurances, I have yet to see a sou.”

  “You’ll get paid,” Archie said impatiently. “Where is Miss Eastlake?”

  The manager ignored his question. “But by whom?”

  “Miss Eastlake, I suppose. Could you please tell me where—”

  The manager’s lips turned down. “I am not sanguine.”

  “Look. You’ll get paid what is owed you. I personally will vouch for it.”

  The manager brightened perceptibly, his gaze raking over Archie’s expensive if mud-spattered coat and shoes. “You will pay?”

  “Yes. Certainly. As soon as the bank opens tomorrow. Now, please. Where can I find Miss Eastlake?”

  “She is in her room. But, before you ask, since you are not interested in that type of girl and because I have three daughters who are not that type of girl, and I know what men who accept the responsibility for young lady’s bills expect in return—no, do not bother looking indignant. I am a man; you are a man. We both know the truth of what I say—I will not tell you her room number,” he said in grim paternal tones but then spoiled the effect by adding, “That is the lady’s prerogative.”

  “I was not going to ask.”

  “Then you are either a fool or saint.”

  Archie suspected he knew which category he fell under, but didn’t feel the need to share.

  “Now, about a room.”

  “I am sorry. There is nothing available. See?” The manager reached across the counter and with an adroit flick of his wrist spun the open register so that it faced Archie. “Miss Eastlake was fortunate that the delightful Mrs. Martin reserved one for her. I could have rented her room for twice what I charge her.”

  Archie had his doubts. “Fortunate indeed. Where is the nearest hotel?”

  “La Maison is a short distance, but it will be fully occupied, too, as, I am much afraid, will all the hotels in town.”

  “How about some place near the docks?” he asked, though he didn’t like the idea of being so far away from Lucy. She might require him for some reason. Like asking anyone anything in French, he thought drily.

  “Perhaps. But I should recommend you have a penchant for bed bugs if you stay down there.”

  “Could you let me bed down in a storeroom for the night?”

  Navarre tutted. “This is not a home for itinerants. What would my staff think? They see you there and the next thing I know the cook will insist I let his drunken brother-in-law sleep off his debauch or the accountant will expect to have a bed there the next time his wife kicks him out. No.”

  “Would an additional twenty francs help you to explain my presence?”

  “Ah, that is different. Then I am not providing charity. You may avail yourself of my office. Very cozy. I will add it to what is owed. And of course, you are welcome to dine at our very fine restaurant. Feel free to charge it to the room. Miss Eastlake’s room.”

  The little swindler. He wouldn’t offer him a cot in a back room gratis but he was pleased to let him spend his money in his restaurant. He’d be damned if he’d spend another penny here. “Thanks, but I’ll—”

  “Miss Eastlake has reserved a table for seven o’clock.” The Frenchman tipped his head in the direction of an elaborately carved set of doors. “Should I have the table set for two?” he asked innocently.

  Dinner for two. With Lucy.

  “Thanks. Do that.”

  “. . . so I spent the night beneath the dugout and walked back to the town in the morning,” Archie finished, realizing he’d been rather going on for a while. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I tend to become overenthusiastic when I’m talking about my work.”

  “No. Please. It’s fascinating,” Lucy said.

  He studied her, assuming she was simply being polite but finding no evidence of it in her rapt expression. She looked beautiful sitting across the dining table from him, her elbow next to an empty sherbet glass, her small, pointed chin nestled in her palm. Her hair had been pulled up in rippling brown waves secured by a black velvet ribbon, a few curls released to tease the long line of her neck and tickle her cheek.

  She wore a subtle blue-green gown made from a softly lustrous, draping material that brought out the sea colors in her eyes. Shimmery, copper-colored lace, embroidered and beaded, covered a low-cut bodice that closely followed the natural curves of her body and exposed the soft, sweet swell of her breast, in any other woman a modest display, but with Lucy one he had to forcibly keep his eyes from straying toward. What the hell was wrong with him?

  “I would love to see water the color you describe. And birds flying above the jungle canopy with tails like party streamers,” she said wistfully.

  An image of Lucy appeared in his mind, Lucy dressed in a chemise and a skirt, her feet bare on the warm sand, the sun glinting off her hair, her face tipped to the brilliant sky. Her expressive face would be alight with pleasure and interest. He’d never known anyone who took such joy in things, who found humor in the oddest places, pleasure in the most unusual things. But then, maybe he was imagining things. Maybe she wasn’t as unique as she appeared to be. How could she be?

  “Most people would find the experience more enjoyable viewed in a photograph than firsthand.”

  “I can’t see how. A photograph might capture the look of a thing, but it can’t re-create the feel of warm sand beneath your toes, the sound of birdcall in your ears, the scent of . . .” She trailed off with a laugh. “What does it smell like in Fiji?”

  “On the beach? Salt air and brine, but as you move into the forests, there’s a humid, earthy scent of growing things, a subtle sweetness, more spice than floral.”

  Her eyes drifted shut. “Mmm.”

  He couldn’t look away from her. Her skin glowed in the romantic candlelight. A smile played about her lips as she imagined the scene he described. Who cared what Fiji smelled like; what did she smell like? His body tensed at the idea. He forced his gaze elsewhere.

  He had to put an end to this purposeless speculation. In a few days they would be in Saint-Girons and, a few days after that, he would say good-bye to her in Weymouth. There was no reason they would ever meet again. She would return to the theatre and he would go back to St. Phillip’s. Maybe someday he would get a ticket to one of her shows. She might recognize him if he stayed afterward to congratulate her. She would smile and perhaps he would remind her of . . . of what? That she had thrown up all over him? That he had hauled her over his shoulder like, what was it she’d said? A sack of potatoes? That he’d almost kissed her and spent the months in between wishing he had . . .

  And what would she say to that? Would she be shocked? Amused? Would she touch his hand and say, “Well, you’re hardly the first?”

  He hated the idea.

  “Yes. It smells good enough on the beaches. But the towns and villages aren’t on the beach,” he said, his tone reflecting his anger with himself. “The places I’ve stayed have all had hard beds, if there are any beds at all, a plague of biting insects, and as for hygiene, it’s more a theory than a practice and ofttimes not even that. I guarantee you, the smells in the villages generally are not convivial.”

  But rather than look put off by this attempt to insert some much-needed realism into the fantasy her words had conjured, she laughed. “Oh, I’ve slept rough my share of times. I daresay I could tolerate a few jiggers and the smell of rotting fish.”

  She�
�d surprised him again but then he recalled her propensity for storytelling. “You? Where? Don’t tell me your aunts kept you in the attic because I won’t believe it.”

  She laughed again. She had a lovely laugh, one she used often. When was the last time he’d heard Cornelia laugh? Had he ever heard Cornelia laugh?

  “Of course not. They spoiled me rotten.”

  “Aha!”

  “But I didn’t always live with them.”

  “Your parents were poor?” he asked sympathetically.

  “No,” she replied promptly. “Well. Perhaps. But if they were I didn’t notice it. Of course, I don’t know that I would have; I was only seven when they died.”

  “Accident?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She tipped her head, her smile unexpectedly poignant. “Thank you.”

  “It must have been difficult for your great-aunts, as well.”

  She gave an odd smile. “I don’t think they even knew she’d died until I showed up. Mention of her name was strictly forbidden at Robin’s Hall. You see, my great-grandmother disowned my mother when she was sixteen.”

  “What for?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. That was unconscionably ill-mannered of me. Believe it or not, I really was raised properly. Not that you’ve had much evidence of that.”

  She didn’t look offended; she looked amused. “Oh, I think I’ve seen a hint or two. And I don’t mind, anyway. Secrets breed sorrows, as my dad used to say.

  “As to what Mum did to earn being vanquished, she fell in love with a conductor.” She leaned forward, her eyes sparking with mischief. “A foreign conductor. Hungarian. She met him at a party her grandparents were hosting in his honor. By all reports, it was love at first sight and, according to those same reports, my great-grandparents were apoplectic. It wasn’t just that my future father was foreign, you understand; it was that he was foreign and with no aristocratic antecedents.”

  “What about your mother’s parents? Did they object, too?” His mouth tightened in chagrin. “Again, I shouldn’t have asked that.”

  “And again, I don’t mind. My grandmother was the oldest of the Litton sisters. She died shortly after giving birth to my mum, whereupon my grandfather turned his newborn baby girl over to his in-laws to be raised. He remarried years later but his new wife did not want children, either her own or anyone else’s, so my mother stayed with her grandparents.

  “At any rate, thereafter the conductor was refused at the door. In response, my mother climbed out the window, an act for which her name was struck from the family Bible. They eloped, I was the result, and disowned in turn through association.” Her brow furrowed. “Gads. I just realized how few children my immediate ancestors produced. Hm. Maybe they weren’t as happily married as I assumed.”

  He supposed he should be shocked, but he wasn’t. He was charmed. She simply said whatever popped into her head. At least when she wasn’t spinning yarns, a process during which you could practically see the possible storylines unfurling. It wasn’t politic, it probably wasn’t polite, but it was certainly novel.

  “You were an only child, too?”

  “Yes. So perhaps the fault lies there. Maybe musicians just aren’t fertile.” Her eyes lightened. “That would explain the dearth of good composers, wouldn’t it?”

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it.

  She joined him. “Actually, Dad came from a line of not very successful but very creative types and there were scads of them. You know, musicians and actors and poets and playwrights. The only one of the lot who ever made a penny was my dad’s cousin Eloisa and she wrote penny dreadfuls.” Her gaze turned musing. “I always thought I’d pen a jolly good gothic romance . . .”

  He nodded as things fell into place. “That’s how you ended up sleeping rough. You were sent to live with your father’s people.”

  “I was rather hoping you’d forgotten that. Rough may be doing it a bit brown. Simple is more like it. I never actually slept on the ground.”

  “Who had custody of you before the Littons?” The more he found out about her, the more he wanted to know.

  She laughed again. “Who didn’t? I spent time with seven different relatives in four years. It was hard right . . . right after. I was used to being the center of my parents’ world and suddenly I wasn’t the center of anyone’s world. I was more like a meteor, crashing others’ orbits before spinning off to the next planet.”

  She spoke lightly, but he heard the yearning behind the words, the slightest hint of confusion at how life could so substantially change from one moment to the next, from being well-loved to . . . not. “I’m sorry, Lucy.”

  She shrugged. “Things worked out. They always do.” There wasn’t a trace of irony in her voice. “Besides, no one ever claimed they could take care of me forever. Quite the contrary. I knew straight off they were not permanent situations.

  “And I learned something new in every place I stayed, too. How to make a penny disappear, pick a lock, play the piano, swim like a fish, speak like a duchess, sew my own dresses—which reminds me, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you for that loan. I’m tapped out. In fact, I still owe the dressmaker a few quid.”

  “Of course,” he said, impatient to hear the rest of her story. “Then what happened?”

  “Then?” Her expression softened and her gaze slipped to somewhere far away. “Then I came to Robin’s Hall.”

  The way she said it, tenderly, with the expression of someone remembering something wonderful, told its own tale. “As I said, things always have a way of working out.”

  She caught his eye and grinned. “So you see, I think I am quite within my rights to assume I could enjoy your island despite a few bugs and the straw pallet.”

  “I believe you might, at that. I wish you could.” The words spilled out before he realized he’d spoken aloud. He felt the heat rise in his face.

  She’d tipped her head to the side and was regarding him with a puzzled little wrinkle between her brows, as if she had just spotted something she hadn’t been looking for but had misplaced long ago, and wasn’t convinced it could be what she thought it was. But then, her brow smoothed, her eyes cleared, and she took a short, deep breath, her lips parting on the promise of a smile. He found himself recalling the nearly magnetic attraction of her mouth, as he had all night and most of the day, ever since, in fact, he’d held her on that damn ferry. He forced himself to remember he was about to become engaged, that Cornelia considered it a foregone conclusion, that only the worst, most dishonorable sort of cad would keep such information silent—

  “I intend to marry.” He blurted it out like a confession. Which it was.

  She blinked, surprised. “Of course, you do. So do I.” Her gaze dipped and she smiled shyly. He’d never seen her look shy. It made her seem extraordinarily normal. When she was only . . . extraordinary. “Someday.”

  “No. I mean . . . That is, there is a particular young lady. Miss Litchfield.”

  Lucy froze.

  “This young lady expects—” God. What a dolt. Could he be any less chivalrous? “We’ve known each other a good long time and I believe an understanding has developed between she and I . . . and I mean to ask her to marry me.”

  He waited for her to reply. He didn’t know what he expected her to say: Congratulations? Why should I care? Am I invited to the reception?

  But in a thousand years he would never have expected her to respond as she did, with a scoffing little trill of laughter. “Really? What for?”

  Hallo, rabbit hole. “What do you mean, what for?”

  Her gaze was direct, challenging. “Just that. What for?”

  He started to speak. Stopped. Started to speak again and clamped his mouth shut and knew that the moment when he should have said, “Because I love her,” had slipped away. If he said it now, it would only sound facile. Cornelia deserved better than that.

  “See?”

  He couldn’t think of a reply. No gentl
eman would discuss his future wife with another young lady. Especially one who had turned his world on end and who increasingly filled his thoughts, leaving no room for anyone else.

  He waited in some trepidation, half expecting her to argue with him about his intention. She wouldn’t mean anything vulgar by it. It was just that Lucy was impetuous, a little audacious, and frighteningly candid. Her conversation followed an internal guide that was uniquely her own.

  She didn’t.

  Instead, for a long moment she simply stared past him, frowning a little. It unnerved him. He didn’t have any idea what she was thinking, if she considered him the worst sort of cad, if she wasn’t thinking of him at all. Maybe she was pondering her meal. And then she sighed, nodded to herself as though having realized something she should have already known, and pushed herself back from the table.

  She dabbed at her lips, set the handkerchief down, and rose from her chair. He leapt to his feet to hold her chair back. Her hem must have become caught under the chair—she seemed to have trouble with hems—and she started to stumble; he caught her.

  She looked up into his eyes. Her skin had turned a dusky, lovely apricot color. He could hear her breathe, see the rise and fall of the lace bodice, was too aware of it and the fact that now, finally, he knew that she smelled like vanilla and greenwood and sunlight, so much better than Fiji, so much—

  “Excuse me,” she said, laying a hand on his chest—to keep him away? Had she read so much in his gaze? He stepped back, nonplussed, chagrinned that she’d needed to recall him to his manners.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, her voice nervous, her gaze slipping away from his. “I shan’t be a few minutes.”

  He watched her leave the room, trailing the interested gazes of a half dozen Frenchmen in her wake. He lowered himself heavily back down and raked his hand through his hair.

  He should have said something about Cornelia the day he’d met Lucy, the moment he’d laid eyes on her. He should have gone up to her at the Savoy and said, “Excuse me, miss, I am about to become engaged. Can I have my pen?”

  But he hadn’t. And now . . . Now what?