by Anne Gracie
And found himself drowning once more in a pair of wide blue eyes.
His mouth curved with cynical self-knowledge: She was not for the likes of him. Dammit. He punched the pillow again.
Chapter Ten
An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be done.
—JANE AUSTEN, MANSFIELD PARK
The gypsy was the first thing Jane thought of when she woke. The curtains were stirring with the breeze from the open window, but she could hear no rain. Good. She could take Caesar to the park.
Perhaps, if you happen to walk your dog in the mornings, say around ten, we might happen to meet.
A slow smile curved her lips. Of course she wouldn’t meet him—that was out of the question—she was a betrothed woman.
Still, it was exciting to have a man suggest an assignation. And not just a man—a stranger. A dark, unshaven gypsy stranger who gazed at her with the most beautiful eyes. As if he’d like to eat her up.
Like the big bad wolf.
A little thrill of excitement rippled through her. She lay snuggled in the blankets, the cool air from the window fanning her warm cheeks.
It wasn’t as if anything could come of it, after all. She wouldn’t be meeting him alone and unchaperoned. Young, unmarried ladies of the ton didn’t go anywhere alone. Besides, ever since that kidnap attempt last year—right in Berkeley Square!—Lady Beatrice was stricter than ever and William or Polly or one of her sisters always accompanied Jane when she went out.
What if he did come to the park again? What would she do?
She’d never so much as flirted with a man before. Growing up, she’d had so many problems with men trying to touch her—in the street, and even in church, twice!—and expecting things from her, and imagining she felt about them the way they felt about her. She’d learned not to give men the slightest bit of encouragement.
Though discouragement didn’t always work. Some men enjoyed the challenge. Even when she was a young girl and had no interest in boys or men or anything like that, it had been a problem.
At school, the drawing master had kept her back one day, and with no warning he’d grabbed her and tried to kiss her. Luckily Mrs. Bodkin had come in and stopped it. But the drawing master had blamed Jane, saying she’d tempted and encouraged him—and it was so untrue! He was old and hairy and had gray hair sprouting even from his nostrils and ears. She hadn’t even thought of him as a man, just the drawing master.
But even though he’d been dismissed, Mrs. Bodkin had subjected Jane to a severe lecture on forwardness, temptation and brazen behavior, and she’d been punished every night for a week afterward by having to copy out tracts from the Bible about the sins of women.
She’d learned not to tell anyone if a man was bothering her. Nobody except her sister ever believed she wasn’t to blame, and Abby had left the Pill by the time Jane was twelve. So she’d learned to recognize the signs and do her best to avoid them.
Now, for the first time ever, she was tempted to follow Daisy’s suggestion and flirt with a man. Not just any man, with Mr. Zachary Black, of the darkly handsome face, the gleaming silvery eyes and the dashing smile that caused her insides to curl up deliciously. She hugged the thought to herself.
The idea of an assignation with a dark and dangerous stranger thrilled her. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. An assignation was a little too . . . calculated.
But if she took the dog out later, and they happened to meet. Nobody could say she’d made an assignation then, could they?
And if he didn’t wait for her? Well, that would be that.
In the meantime, how had Caesar fared in his first night in a lady’s residence? Jane quickly threw off her bedclothes and dressed hurriedly, hoping her dog had not disgraced himself.
To her great relief and pride, he had not. It seemed he’d also made a friend below stairs: Cook had seen him dispatch a rat in the yard that very morning. “Snapped its spine with one bite, miss—a joy to watch ’im, it was.” She gave Jane a choice bone for the dog, adding, “I never thought much of dogs, to be honest, but ’e’s better than them spoiled, useless moggies of ’er ladyship’s, any day.”
It was a good sign, Jane thought. Cook was very influential with the other servants, and if she approved of Caesar, he would be well treated in Jane’s absence.
* * *
After breakfast, teeming with repressed impatience, she sat upstairs with Daisy, sewing the seams of the dresses she would wear during the season—Daisy wouldn’t trust her with anything visible. They sewed until the clock chimed half-past ten, then Jane set her sewing aside, went downstairs and clipped Caesar’s leash on.
She was determined not to hurry. She didn’t have an assignation. She’d made it very clear she wouldn’t meet him at ten. So.
In the square, she casually glanced around. There were nursemaids talking in small clumps while around them children played, bowling hoops and playing hopscotch. She saw one or two people walking dogs and taking the air, but of a tall, dark gypsy there was no sign.
She tried not to feel disappointed. Of course he hadn’t come. She’d made it quite clear she had no intention of meeting him. So.
She felt William glance sideways at her, and immediately started walking briskly along one of the paths, leading Caesar, affecting an airy unconcern as if it hadn’t even occurred to her to look for anyone.
If Mr. Black didn’t care enough to wait, he wasn’t worth looking for.
Caesar suddenly jerked at the chain, pulling hard away from the path. A rat? A squirrel? “Caesar!” she reprimanded him. But the dog took no notice. He strained eagerly at the leash.
She looked up and saw what the dog had noticed already: Zachary Black, on the far side of the square, rising from a bench. Her pulse leapt. She tried to look unaffected. It wouldn’t do to look too interested.
Caesar had no such compunction. Panting, wagging his tail and uttering small yips of delight, he towed Jane firmly in the tall man’s direction, practically choking himself in the process. For all his skinniness, he was a strong little dog.
She was breathless and laughing by the time she reached him.
No wonder she hadn’t spotted him at first. He’d discarded his gypsy coat and earring. In a plain dark coat, well-worn buckskin breeches and boots, he ought to have looked quite ordinary, but he was so tall and broad-shouldered and strode toward her with a careless arrogance, as if he owned the square—which he quite obviously didn’t.
With his overlong hair and dark, unshaven jaw, he didn’t look the least bit gentlemanlike, and even looked slightly menacing, so why she should feel a delicious shiver of awareness the moment he fixed her with that silvery gaze and strode toward her, she didn’t understand.
“Miss Chance, fancy meeting you here on this fine crisp morning.” His eyes gleamed as he gave her a small, casual bow. “William, delightful to see you too.” He glanced at Polly and gave her a nod and a wink. “There’s something on that bench over there, William, fetch it, would you? It’s a gift for—”
“She don’t accept gifts from gypsies,” William growled. “And you don’t order me around.”
“It was a request, not an order. And I wouldn’t dream of offending Miss Chance by offering her a gift,” the gypsy said with a virtuous air that deceived no one. “This is for RosePetal—the dog,” he added when William gave him a blank look. “I hope you don’t mean to tell me that after one night in a lady’s establishment, the dog is now too high in the instep to accept a small token of my friendship.”
William hesitated.
“It’s over there on that bench, William. But if you’re unable to carry it, I’d be delighted to bring it home for Miss Chance.” Without even looking to see
if William had obeyed him, he squatted down and energetically scruffed at the loose folds around the dog’s neck. Dog bliss if Caesar’s expression was anything to go by.
Jane glanced at William, and with a scowl, he tromped toward the bench.
“Oh, you like that, don’t you, RosePetal?” Zachary Black said. “You have landed on your feet, haven’t you? Spoiled rotten already, I’ll wager.”
His hands were bare, big and elegantly shaped with long, strong fingers. His knuckles were grazed. Wounded in her service.
“He’s called Caesar now,” Jane told him. Her words came out a little throaty.
Zachary Black laughed as he straightened, but not in an unkind way. “He’ll always be RosePetal to me. Though perhaps I should start calling him Lavender now. He smells a good deal better, and that ointment looks to be working already.”
“It is. We bathed him with the herbs you gave me too. Thank you so much for them.”
William returned carrying a large, shallow, woven willow basket.
“Oh,” Jane exclaimed. “A bed for Caesar—thank you—it’s exactly what I needed.”
“I thought so, when I saw it in the market.”
He was spending quite a bit of money on her—her dog—Jane thought. “Can I pay you for—”
He put up a hand. “Not at all. It’s my pleasure. As I said, it’s a gift. For the dog.” He smiled at her, a swift slash of white in the tanned face. She felt her cheeks warm. When he smiled at her like that . . .
“Shall we walk? That dog needs exercise,” he said, and Jane nodded.
“So tell me,” he asked as they strolled along the path, “how has he settled in? I hope he didn’t disgrace himself on his first night.”
“Not at all,” Jane told him, matching her steps to his. Walking made things easier; if she didn’t have to look at him, her brain wouldn’t get so scrambled. “In fact, he has done amazingly well, much better than I expected for a dog raised in the streets.”
Dark brows rose. “Housebroken?”
Jane laughed and crossed her fingers. “It’s early days yet, but so far so good. He also impressed Cook by killing a rat.”
“Oho, that’s the sort of ingratiating creature you are, is it, RosePetal?” Zachary Black said. “Very clever, making friends with the cook. And I see someone has bathed you—I bet that was a shock.”
Jane laughed. “Yes indeed, but he was quite the gentleman about it—in the end, that is. He struggled at first—I was quite drenched—”
“You bathed him yourself?” he said, surprised.
“Of course. He’s my dog, after all, and it’s important he knows that. And as I said, he put up quite a fuss at first—he was fearful of drowning, poor lamb, but eventually he accepted his fate and simply endured.” She smiled and added, “You should have seen the profound expression of martyrdom on his face. It is a shame dogs cannot be actors, because I’m sure he played the martyr better than any actor I’ve seen on the stage.”
He chuckled.
“Of course, the cuts and abrasions must have hurt, but he never once snapped or growled or threatened me in any way. He really is a very gentle creature.”
“That might be why those lads were kicking him. They’d probably hoped to make him a pit dog, and he didn’t have the temperament for it.”
She shuddered. “It’s wicked the way men set innocent creatures to fight against each other, simply for their own entertainment.”
They walked on a little, then he said, “Didn’t you say you also had cats? How did that go?”
“To tell you the truth, I was terrified he’d attack them—we have three, you see, all half grown, all from the same litter, and—”
“Don’t tell me, you rescued them too.”
She stared at him. “Well, yes, I did. How could you know that?”
He gave her a lazy smile. “Just a feeling.”
The smile seemed to curl around her insides and it was a moment before Jane could gather her wits and continue the story. “They were in a place we—er, an old building, scheduled for demolition, and they would have been killed. We brought the mother cat with us, but she abandoned them—and us—soon afterward.”
“And so you kept all three kittens, of course you did, why would I even ask? So how did these lucky cats react to RosePetal’s arrival?”
She laughed. “They were horrified—they spat and growled and climbed up the furniture.”
“And RosePetal?”
She described how, as everyone watched, Max-the-cat approached the dog, “with menace in every claw and whisker. He’s the bravest and most dauntless of the kittens. Well, of course I had no idea what Caesar would do, and I was so worried, because Lady Beatrice was by no means convinced we needed a dog and she’s very fond of the cats—and then . . .” She glanced down at the dog and smiled.
“Then?”
“Caesar rolled over and just . . . went to sleep. You should have seen the cat’s expression. And everyone else’s.”
He laughed then, a rich, deep laugh that warmed her insides.
A sudden flush of heat rippled through her, and though she glanced away as if perfectly composed and indifferent, she could not help but be aware of his stance, the close proximity of his tall, hard body, the angle of his head as he looked at her. And the intensity of his gaze, which she affected not to notice.
Her neck ached with the effort not to turn her head and look, gaze, stare her fill of him.
The trouble was, he was beautiful. The faint tan of his skin, unfashionable as it was, only made the contrast of his white teeth and brilliant silvery eyes stronger, and the dark slash of his brows, the high, angled cheekbones, and the dark, bristle-roughened jaw . . . She felt her hand closing in a fist. She longed to stroke that jaw, feel the roughness under her palms, feel the hard line of his jaw beneath.
As for his mouth, framed by that dark roughness, the way he smiled was a pure invitation to sin . . . He could have been created by Michelangelo or Machiavelli or some other brilliant and scandalous Italian. And she needed to remember that.
He was dangerous. Associating with him was like playing with fire.
Such a relief that he was quite, quite impossible. And that she was safely betrothed.
His gleaming, brilliant gaze dropped to her mouth and it was as tangible as a touch. Her lips tingled. She felt her face warming.
William cleared his throat in a meaningful manner, and Jane glanced at him and realized they’d done two complete circuits of the square. “I’d better go now,” she told Zachary Black. “I have a lesson to attend.”
A dark brow rose. “More lessons?”
She nodded. “You have no idea how many things there are to learn for my season. Thank you so much for Caesar’s basket. I’m sure he’s very grateful—or will be tonight when he sleeps in it.”
He bent and patted the dog. “I’m not sure gratitude is even in his vocabulary, though it ought to be. But joy certainly is, isn’t it, you rascal?” he added as Caesar grinned his crooked, sloppy grin and wagged his entire body in delight.
They said their good-byes. He made no further suggestion about any future meeting, and Jane, of course, was not so far gone to impropriety as to suggest one.
Besides, she hadn’t flirted with him at all. Apart from a few unruly and quite inappropriate thoughts, she’d only talked to him, as if she’d known him forever.
Chapter Eleven
The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing.
—JANE AUSTEN, NORTHANGER ABBEY
“No, no, no!” Lady Beatrice rapped her ebony stick on the floor. “Don’t bob up and down like a dratted maidservant! You’re not concentrating. Slow and graceful, Jane, how often must I remind you?”
Jane, Damaris and Abby were assembled in the front drawing ro
om of Lady Beatrice’s house, practicing their curtsies. Daisy sat on the sidelines ostentatiously sewing.
Now that Abby and Damaris were back in London, almost every morning had been devoted to lessons in deportment, lessons in how to behave in every conceivable situation—and after that, dancing lessons. Though Jane, Abby and Damaris had been gently born, and spoke and behaved as ladies should, none of them had grown up in a gentleman’s residence, or had what Lady Beatrice considered an acceptable upbringing.
And none of them were up-to-date with the dancing, though Abby and Jane knew some of the country dances.
As for Daisy, for reasons of her own, Lady Beatrice insisted she attend the lessons too, even though Daisy declared loudly and often that it was a waste of her precious time, she wasn’t makin’ a blasted come-out, and she had sewin’ to do.
Having longed for daughters all her life, Lady Beatrice was determined that nobody—not the highest stickler in the land—would have any excuse even to glance sideways at her beloved nieces. They would, each one of them, shine. Even Daisy.
So she drilled them all like soldiers.
“Watch your sisters. Abby! Damaris!” She rapped her stick on the floor and first Abby, then Damaris walked to the middle of the floor and sank into a slow, graceful curtsy.
The old lady snorted. “See, Jane? Perfect. Daisy, you next.”
Daisy looked mutinous. “Why should I? I ain’t going to make any grand come-out so why should I make a fool of meself pretending?”
It was her bad leg making her self-conscious, of course, but in this, Lady Beatrice was adamant. “Your intentions are neither here nor there—no niece of mine will leave my house less than perfectly trained—for whatever she might encounter.”
Daisy opened her mouth to argue, but the old lady flapped her hand in irritation. “Yes, yes, yes, I know you intend to become the most fashionable dressmaker in the ton, and I approve, even if it is in trade.” She wrinkled her nose briefly. “But I have yet to hear why that exempts you from knowing what any lady should—and if you try and tell me one more time that you ain’t no lady”—she imitated Daisy’s accent so well that it set the others giggling—“I’ll—I’ll smack you, Daisy! Now, I asked you to curtsy, miss, so get on with it.”