The Songbird's Seduction

by Connie Brockway

  What if she had made a horrible mistake? What if he thought she meant to trap him into a marriage proposal? While she had every intention of marrying Archie, she didn’t want it to be because he’d deflowered her—and there really ought to be some better term. She felt like a well-pruned rose bush. Apparently, he’d been concerned about taking her virginity—again, why must it sound so awful? As though Archie was a thief? She’d freely given her virginity up—but she’d cut him off with a precipitous answer. Which is why he’d thought she wasn’t a virgin. By the time he’d realized she was, things had been far beyond the point of no return, at least as far as she was concerned, and even though he’d hesitated at that exact instant, he hadn’t needed much convincing to continue . . . pruning.

  And she had encouraged him. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. She had been eager, no, beyond eager. She had been frantic to discover what lay at the end of the tsunami of pleasure she’d been riding.

  So, yes. Yes. And yes. Last night had been imprudent, reckless, and heedless. She hadn’t been thinking. But the moment they’d kissed, thought had simply ceased to be a factor in anything that followed and what followed had been, in a word, wondrous.

  Desire had ignited the intense, sensation-charged journey from kiss to culmination, from wanting to knowing, and had taken her to a culmination so rich, so exquisite, so potent she’d started laughing like a loon and then burst into tears of pure gratification. And then? And then it had begun again, a new journey. And when Archie reached that same destination and his body strained, taut and glistening above her, his face suffused with dark color, his eyes glittering—

  “Why’s that lady look so funny, Miss Pritt?” the little boy across from her asked in charmingly accented English.

  Lucy’s vision telescoped back into focus. The little boy was staring at her with unabashed curiosity while his nanny shushed him. Heat exploded up her neck and into her face.

  Archie glanced up from his determined study of the floorboards.

  She smiled hopefully at him.

  A brief, involuntary smile flickered across his firm, well-molded, warm, pliant—she gave her wrist a vicious pinch—across his lips. It died as quickly as it had been born, leaving his face once more a study in preoccupation and guilt.

  But guilty about what? Or about whom?

  The woman he’d imagined he was going to ask to marry him? Did he feel that he had been disloyal?

  A dark mood fell over her. Last night, Miss Litchfield might as well have not existed for all the thought Lucy had given her. Perhaps she should have. Archie would not take vows, even ones he’d not yet spoken or even promised to speak, even ones he simply assumed he would be speaking someday, lightly. She would detest it if she were party to making Archie hate himself.

  But Archie didn’t love Miss Litchfield. And no matter what sort of woman she was, Lucy could not believe Miss Litchfield would want to marry a man who did not love her but another woman. What self-respecting woman would? By making Archie understand that he loved her, Lucy was saving two people from a terrible mistake and ensuring the future happiness of at least two others. So what if she was one of them?

  Still . . . “Are you troubled about Miss Litchfield?”

  He didn’t answer. He had raked his hair back with his hand, in effect only tousling it more. He looked incredibly appealing.

  “Archie? About Miss Litchfield.”

  “Hm?” He glanced up, still distracted. “What about missing a field?”

  The tension left her on a sigh. Whatever was causing him unhappiness, it wasn’t Miss Litchfield. Had he been thinking about her, her name would have been foremost in his mind.

  Then he must be feeling guilty about me, Lucy decided.

  Hadn’t he realized by now that they were meant for one another? For a brilliant man he certainly didn’t tumble to the obvious very quickly. She smiled. And it really was so very obvious. They were both nomads at heart, both collectors of stories, both drawn to discovering what lay beyond the next horizon.

  True, Archie’s wanderlust had the added component of scientific curiosity, hers the lure of the exotic, but they both were drawn in the same direction by similar impulses.

  Years ago she’d arrived at Robin’s Hall hoping she would finally find her home, a place at which she would always belong, somewhere that would last forever. But even as a child she’d felt the lure of far-off places, the call of the unknown. It had confused her that she could love her great-aunts and Robin’s Hall so much and yet still feel restless. That was probably why her favorite roles had always been exotic ones in which she could live out her dreams.

  Now she realized that in Archie she had finally found her true home, and it wasn’t a place but a companion to share in all the adventures, the mundane and the extraordinary, the struggles and the laughter, the roads and—God help her—if need be, the seas. Home meant shelter and refuge, passion and laughter, but above all being recognized as the person one was, not the person someone else wanted them to be.

  No one had ever known her as well as Archie. He alone could differentiate playacting from reality, the fictional character from the person.

  Just as she’d recognized him.

  Her pirate. Her befuddled professor. Her chivalrous knight, spurned Gypsy beau, long-jumper, cat burglar, boxing champ. Lover.

  Why couldn’t he see what was so obvious to her?

  The door to the cabin swung out and the tired-looking porter stuck his head in. “Attention. Arrivee a la gare de Châtellerault.”

  Archie stood up and held out his hand. “We’re there, Lucy.”

  Not yet, she thought. And took his hand.

  The minute they stepped down onto the train platform a sleek-headed hansom cabdriver sporting a trim black moustache hurried up to them, trailed by a lad of about ten.

  “English, yes? I speak English. The clothes, little ma’am,” he answered Lucy’s unvoiced question. “No Frenchwoman . . .” His gaze fell tellingly on Lucy’s clothing as he trailed off, shaking his head apologetically. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Paul Herve. And I have the pleasure of addressing . . . ?”

  “I am Lucy Eastlake and this is Archie Grant,” Lucy replied, drawn into the formalities of making introductions.

  “Miss Eastlake. Mr. Grant. Come, I will take you wherever you wish to go. If you extend your stay, I will be your guide. I know everyone and everything about Châtellerault. The best places to dine, the finest vineyards.”

  Archie met her glance. She shrugged.

  The cabdriver turned as though their following him was a foregone conclusion and led them the short distance to the curb. A pair of well-fed geldings waited patiently behind a large, black hansom carriage, its windows raised against the darkening sky.

  “Here we are.” The cabdriver beamed. “Now, where do you wish to go?”

  “Is there a good hotel or inn in town?” Archie asked.

  “But of course. The Hotel de la Post is a superior establishment and right across the street from our new theatre.” He said this last with an unmistakable touch of civic pride before his neat little features collapsed in commiseration. “You have not traveled all this way to see Margery, I am hoping? Because Margery had only the one performance last night. Standing room only and even then, the crowds!” He kissed his fingertips by way of exclamation.

  Lucy held her breath, willing Archie not to recognize the name from the evening they’d met at the Savoy. Luckily, he had other matters on his mind.

  “No. We’re not,” he said.

  “Then there is no problem. Those who came to town for the performance have left, too. I am sure the hotel can accommodate you. Now, where is your luggage?”

  Archie looked down at the small leather satchel in his hand then wordlessly shoved it into the surprised cabdriver’s arms.

  “This is all?”

  “That’s it.”

  Once more he beamed and shook his head. “You English,” he said. “So refreshing in your refus
al to trouble yourself with transporting clothing appropriate for every occasion of the day.”

  Archie’s black eyes narrowed, uncertain whether they had just been complimented or ridiculed. Lucy, who had no doubt at all, bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  “Hm,” Archie said. “Take us to the hotel.” He shot her a determined expression; Lucy’s heart sank. He meant to take advantage of the closed carriage to talk. She wasn’t sure she was ready to talk.

  “At once,” the driver said, “but first I must collect my other passengers.”

  “What other passengers? I thought we’d just hired you.”

  “Now, now, monsieur. Châtellerault is a small town. There are not so many carriages for hire. It only makes sense to take as many passengers as wish to go to the town center all in one trip rather than back and forth and back and forth while the people left behind get tired and chilled. Like those small children,” he pointed at their compartment companion and her wards. “The Favre’s nurse is English like yourselves. You would not want her to stand about with those small children in the cold?”

  “Of course not,” Lucy exclaimed, relieved at this unanticipated reprieve.

  “How do you know she wants to hire your cab?” Archie asked, looking a mite disgruntled.

  “Because every time she returns from visiting the children’s grandmama she takes my cab.”

  There was nothing left to discuss. Ever the gentleman, Archie handed Lucy up and then waited while the English nurse and her charges hurried over and piled in, followed closely by a prosperous-looking merchant and a reedy adolescent with a banded stack of books, clearly a student on his way home for a visit.

  Unlike on the train, however, Archie sat next to Lucy. With a whistle and a snap of the driver’s whip above the horse’s backs, the carriage moved out on poorly sprung wheels, swaying like a rocking chair. Even through the horrid—and hourly becoming more horrid—skirt she could feel the heat of Archie’s thigh, a potent reminder of the heat of the rest of him.

  Archie kept his black gaze fixed ahead, but she could see a muscle working in his jaw as though he sought to contain some powerful emotion.

  Less than fifteen minutes later they lurched to a stop. The cabbie leapt down from his perch as a lad scooted up. The two held a short conversation and the boy dashed off. The cabbie came round the side and opened the door. “My son. I have sent him to the hotel to see about readying you a room.”

  “Rooms,” Archie corrected vehemently, climbing out of the carriage. “Two rooms.”

  The cabbie shrugged. “Yes, yes. I am sure they will oblige.”

  The merchant exited next, the school lad close behind him. At the last minute the poor boy dropped his bundle of books, breaking the strap and sending them scattering across the carriage floor. Turning beet red, he scrambled to collect them. He scooped them up in his arms and hurtled out of the carriage, chased by mortification.

  Archie held out his hand. “Lucy?”

  Instead of Lucy’s hand, he found himself the recipient of a little boy. The nanny unceremoniously dumped the child in his arms, a matter he handled with admirable aplomb, accepting the boy with perfect equanimity before casually setting him on his feet.

  “Bless you, sir,” breathed the nanny as she climbed down. Shifting the baby to her hip, she grabbed hold of the boy’s hand and headed down the street.

  Lucy emerged from the door but rather than offer his hand again, Archie put both his hands round her waist and lifted her off the step. For an instant he held her above him. She braced her hands on his broad shoulders, her heart racing.

  Then, ever so gently, he set her down, his hands lingering a second before he withdrew them to curl into fists at his side.

  “That is the hotel there.” The cabbie pointed across the street. “Beside it is the theatre. Next is our police station, and then a mercantile. On the other side, the apothecary.” He turned and pointed down the street. “Down there is the school and the cricket field. Two streets over—”

  “Yes. I see. Thank you,” Archie broke in and thrust some francs into the man’s hand. “Merci.”

  Archie turned to Lucy, his expression grave. “Lucy, as soon as we are settled we need to talk.”

  He was entirely too somber. She tried giving him a gamin grin. “We’re talking right now.”

  It wouldn’t wash. “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

  Yes. She did. The jig, as the Americans said, was up. And in more ways than one. Soon he would meet Margery and realize just to whom she’d entrusted her great-aunts’ care. “All right, Archie.”

  He picked up his kit and inclined his head toward the brick building the cabbie had indicated. “Shall we?”

  They’d walked a short distance when Archie realized he’d left his hat in the carriage. Saying there was no need for her to wait in the cold while he hunted it up, he bid her go on ahead of him. She was halfway across the street when she noted a trio of uniformed men hurrying into the hotel, their batons in hand.

  What would require three gendarmes to make use of their weapons in a small countryside hotel? Clearly they had been dispatched to deal with a problem.

  The unpleasant possibility occurred to her that France might not be as forward thinking about men dressing up as women as they were England. Perhaps Margery stood in imminent danger of, if not arrest, deportation.

  With this thought in mind, she sped up, arriving in the hotel lobby to find the gendarmes had taken up posts, one each on either side of the door and the other near the front desk. They held their batons at ready, their eyes flinty and their mouths grim.

  Lucy’s gaze flew about the lobby, looking for Margery. She had to warn him. It hadn’t been that long ago that Oscar Wilde had been imprisoned for gross indecency and while Margery’s proclivities off of the stage—which she did not, in fact, know—had always been a matter of unimportance to her, who knew what constituted indecency in France?

  She hurried up to the reception desk where a fat, glistening-faced bald man stood nervously watching the door. The policeman next to the desk had adopted the attitude of a dog guarding a bone.

  “Monsieur, please, do you speak English?” she asked the gendarme. He glanced at her, shook his head, and went back to staring fixedly at the front door.

  She turned to the desk manager. “Please say you speak English.”

  “You should not be here, mademoiselle,” he told her. “Come back later.”

  “What are those police doing there?”

  “They are here to arrest a criminal,” the fat man said, mopping his face with a delicate lawn handkerchief. His gaze narrowed on her accusingly. “An Englishman. It would be best if you came back here with me where you will be safe.”

  This man thought they needed protection from Margery? She could not imagine anything more absurd. “Where is he?”

  “He will be coming through the door at any second. Please, mademoiselle. Behind the desk. We do not know of what this man is capable.”

  “He is capable of a stellar mezzo soprano. You are making a terrible mistake. He wouldn’t do anything illegal. Unless it’s illegal for a man to wear skirts in France.”

  “He wears skirts to facilitate his crimes?” The man’s eyes widened. “Deplorable!”

  “I am trying to tell you he would not commit a crime!”

  The man shook his head sadly. “You carry national loyalty too far, mademoiselle. He already has. We have a telegram from his last victim, alerting us to his purpose.”

  “Victim? His purpose?”

  “Oui, to take advantage of poor country innkeepers. Unless in your country it is legal to leave bills in excess of two hundred francs unpaid and sneak out in the middle of the night?”

  Realization dawned with the speed of a lightning strike. Oh, dear.

  The door opened and there stood Archie, his hat on his head, his mouth on the brink of a smile. “Did you find your great-aunts, Lucy?”

  “Run!”

  Of course
, Archie didn’t run; he frowned at her.

  “Run? Of course, I’m not going to—hey! What’s going on?” he demanded as the gendarme on either side of the door grabbed an arm. “Let go of me.” He jerked free of one, a middle-aged man who looked more concerned than confident.

  The possibility that Archie might get angry and exacerbate an already very fragile situation prompted her to shout, “Don’t hit him, Archie. Whatever you do, do not hit him!”

  The gendarme next to her grabbed her and pulled her back, not to restrain her so much as to keep her safe from big bad Archie. She had to concede he did look rather dangerous, with his two-day’s growth of beard, tousled black hair, and collarless, stained shirt beneath the rumpled tweed jacket.

  Archie froze, staring at her in astonishment. “Hit him? What on earth are you talking about, Lucy. I have no intention of hitting anyone. I just want to know . . .” His black eyes narrowed on her from behind their thicket of long black lashes.

  “Lucy. What have you done?” He turned to address the younger, grimmer policeman. “Whatever she’s done, I swear she didn’t mean any harm.”

  “Nothing! I swear . . . well, I have, technically, but nothing these men know about. They’re arresting you, Archie.”

  His expression grew even more dangerous. “So it would appear.” The way he said it, so vehemently calm, made her shrink back a little. Apparently believing she was no longer likely to run pell-mell toward danger, the gendarme let her go.

  “The question,” Archie continued, “is why?”

  “I’m not exactly certain. But I believe it is, maybe, for running out on the hotel bill in Saint-Malo.” She racked her brain. There had to be some way out of this mess that would not endanger what she’d worked so hard to achieve. She couldn’t think of one, not straight off. She needed time to think, plan. Plot.

  The dangerous expression evaporated from Archie’s face. He unleashed a torrent of French at the young policeman. From his intonations, Lucy could tell he was asking questions. From the inflections in the policeman’s voice, he apparently took a grim, official pleasure in his replies.