Malia Martin (3 page)

She blinked at him, her brown eyes round and terribly innocent. “Well, of course, Captain, there are two rooms at the front of the house. One is mine, though, and I thought it very imprudent to put you in the other …” She stopped suddenly, her eyes raking him from his toes up to about waist level, then moving away to stare determinedly out the window.

“It has an adjoining door to my own,” she whispered.

“Ah.” James let the filmy curtain drop, hoping the action would hide the sudden tremor in his hand.

No doubt he was losing his mind when just the suggestion of having an adjoining room with a woman made him hard as a rock.

Sexual attraction zinged about the room like a hail of falling stars, not good. It was really too bad that Lady Farnsworth had not turned out to be the doddering old widow he had believed her to be, because now, on top of everything else, James had another problem.

He took a very deep breath, folded his arms over his chest, and contemplated that problem.

The problem swallowed hard and threaded her fingers together at her waist, shifting her weight slightly from one foot to the other. “Of course,” she said tremulously, “Clifton is below stairs, as well as Cook and Mabel. And Tuck and Paul live in the attic, so there is no worry of … of …” Obviously it was beyond her to finish her sentence.

James felt his lip twitch and bit hard at the inside of his cheek. Truly, he felt the strangest urge to laugh aloud. Very strange indeed, seeing that he could not remember laughing aloud … well, since he was a child.

“I am gratified that my reputation will remain unsullied while I reside in Gravesly, Lady Farnsworth.”

Lady Farnsworth’s brows climbed an inch, and her rosy-lipped mouth opened in a slight “O.”

Clifton barged in then, pushing past the still-unblinking Lady Farnsworth, shooting a distrustful glare at James, and dropping his old leather bag unceremoniously on the bed.

“Here you be,” the man said gruffly, and turned on his heel, stopping short in front of his mistress.

There was another one that he had never expected. This huge, bald butler with the black eye patch: a pirate gone astray.

They all stood in silent contemplation of one another for a moment, then Clifton did a very strange thing, indeed.

“C’mon then!” the man demanded, and pushed the gaping Lady Farnsworth from the room. Turning, the man beetled his shaggy brows. “You let that poor gel be!” he said, and pulled the door shut with a bang that set the window to rattling.

James stood quite still for a moment. He blinked, then actually pinched an inch of skin on his hand to make sure that he was awake. Nothing around him faltered or began to swim into reality.

He was awake. He was at his new post. And he had just experienced a very strange welcoming.

“C
lifton! How could you?” Prudence wailed to her butler’s back as he marched down the stairs.

The man grumbled something she didn’t hear, turned around the banister, and started toward the back of the house.

“We must act as normally as we can, Clifton! And that was most decidedly
not
normal.”

Clifton stopped so abruptly that Pru plowed right into his back. She straightened as Clifton turned and glared at her. “Weren’t nothing normal to the way that man was looking at you.”

Pru blinked. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Clifton turned and stomped down the hall, leaving her to stare after him.

At the door to the kitchen, Clifton turned. “I’ve enough trouble afoot that I don’t need to be protecting your virtue on top of it all.”

“Virtue? What on earth are you talking about?”

“That man was looking at you like you were a woman!” Clifton nearly snarled.

“And how should he look at me? Perhaps he should see me as a dog? A cat?”

“He should see you as Lady Farnsworth, very much above himself, and definitely not someone he can look at like … that!”

“You are being absurd, Clifton.” The look on her butler’s face told her he didn’t find his statement at all lacking in sense. “Really, Clifton, I
am
a widow.” She lowered her voice a little. “I have no virtue that needs protection.” She could feel heat suffuse her face, and she decided in that moment that she absolutely hated Captain James Ashley for making her blush. For it was entirely his fault that Clifton would bring up this most uncomfortable subject.

Clifton growled some unintelligible retort, swirled around, and pushed through the door of the kitchen.

Pru stood staring at the door for a moment, as the full impact of Clifton’s words hit her.

The captain had looked at her as a man staring at a woman.

Pru glanced down at her fingers clutching the folds of her gown. They trembled, still.

Slowly, she lifted her hand. She had found herself staring at the captain as well. And she had trembled at his touch. It had not been nerves at all, she thought. Rather, it had been attraction. She had never in her life been attracted to a man.

Her very good friend, Leslie Redding, had spoken of the feeling, and Pru had always wondered, and, yes, wished to have her heart beat a bit faster than normal, her senses shiver.

“Goodness,” she breathed slowly, and pressed her shaking palm against her breast. “Goodness.”

She no longer hated the captain. Rather, she was very much in awe, actually, of the first man to whom her body had finally reacted. But, oh, did it have to be the captain?

Pru made a soft sound of sadness. “Of course, you would pick the one man I could not possibly have anything to do with,” she said to her stomach.

“If you want him to think you’re normal, quit talking to yourself.”

Pru looked up to see her butler’s large, bald head sticking around the kitchen door.

“Oh!” Pru twitched her skirts and pounded down the hall, as Clifton disappeared once more. She threw the door open, enjoying the crack of wood as it banged against the wall. “Clifton Rhodes you are insufferable.”

Her butler was sitting on a stool with his back to her, and he didn’t move an inch at her reprimand. Cook looked up from her work, though. “I have dough risin’, and if you two keep your stompin’ up, it’ll fall, sure enough. Get out of my kitchen if you want to keep actin’ like children.”

“Sorry, Delilah.”

“Hmmph.” Cook went back to her mixing.

“You”—Pru pointed her finger at Clifton—“follow me.” And she walked as quietly as she could out the back door, making sure that Clifton followed. Pru picked her way through the gardens and out to the stable. When Clifton entered and closed the door behind him, Pru propped her hands on her hips.

“Now, we have already spoken of what we must do while our guest is in residence, Clifton. We must,
must
act like a normal household.”

“I don’t like the looks of that man,” Clifton said stonily.

“Well of course you don’t! And I don’t either.” Now that wasn’t entirely true, but with Clifton staring at her every expression, Pru surely did not want to dwell on the idea that she found Captain Ashley’s looks rather appealing. “But looking at him as if he were Lucifer himself and shoving me through doors is not going to accomplish our goal in the least.”

Clifton just scowled.

“Now, we must remain calm at all costs.” Pru took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think we definitely bungled our first meeting with Captain Ashley, and we mustn’t allow that to happen again.”

Still, Clifton said nothing.

“And we must also remember that part of our plan is to have me keep near him.”

“That part of the plan is now changed.”

“Oh really? So we should just let the man prance about the countryside without any knowledge of his whereabouts?”

“I’ll stay near him.”

Pru tapped her fingers against her hips for a moment of silence. “I am not sure, Clifton, that will be possible.”

Her butler folded his beefy arms over his barrel chest and scowled.

“I rather think that having you tagging after him will make him suspicious. And that is what we are trying to avoid, are we not?”

“When we spoke of this before, I didn’t know the man was a rogue.”

“Oh, please, Clifton, he is not a rogue.”

“Right, then, why would society pin him with a name like the Most Delectable Man in England?”

Obviously men could not see what women did. Delectable was the perfect name for Captain James Ashley.

“You’re leavin’ tonight!” Clifton suddenly thundered.

“What?”

“Tonight, I say, you’re leaving for a visit to your aunt’s up in York.”

“You jest, Clifton. We have a very serious mission ahead of us.”

“
I
do, not you.” Clifton pointed his crooked finger at her. “I see your eyes going all dewy and unfocused. You’re fallin’ for the rogue, like all the rest of them society ladies.”

“For shame, Clifton. I have complete control of my faculties.” She pushed all thoughts of the captain from her mind and tried her best to look as serious as possible. “I am good, Clifton, you have told me so, and you cannot take that back. You know that I can do this, and I will not allow you to take this mission from me.” She took a step closer to her good friend. “Yes, the captain is a pleasing person to look upon …”

Clifton looked suddenly as if he were about to erupt.

“But,” Pru said quickly, “this town and these people are more important to me than any man. And so is the Wolf.” She stared into Clifton’s one sky-blue eye.

Her butler blinked, then nodded. “Fine, but you have no idea how persuasive a man of the captain’s ilk can be.”

“Persuasive or not, Clifton, I think I have proven myself to be a woman of intelligence and focus. I will not allow the Captain’s charms to sway me in my duty. It is his persistence in finding the Wolf that we must worry about, not the outside chance that he might fancy me.”

Clifton seemed about to rebut her conclusions, but they were interrupted by Tuck. “Oh, excuse me, milady,” the boy said as he stopped just inside the now open stable door.

“Do not worry about us, Tuck, we are just having a bit of a conference.”

As if finding his lady conferencing with the butler out in the stable were an everyday occurrence, Tuck nodded and swaggered over to the stall that housed the captain’s horse.

“What are you doing with Ashley’s horse?” Clifton demanded.

“The captain ordered me to bring it ’round,” the boy said as he led the gelding out of its stall.

Clifton made a soft sound of disgust. “And what are you supposed to do when the captain tells you he’s going out?”

Tuck hauled a saddle up and over the horse’s back. “Supposed to tell you or Lady Farnsworth,” he said nonchalantly as he secured the saddle beneath the gelding’s belly.

“Well …” Clifton was obviously exasperated.

Tuck looked at him as if he were daft. “And I just did.” He rolled his eyes.

Clifton let out a huff of breath, hunching his shoulders around his ears.

“Tuck, put the captain’s horse back and hitch up the wagon instead. I’ll take the captain wherever he wishes to go,” Pru said.

“You will not.”

Pru glared at her butler. “I shall go inform the good captain that I was just going wherever he intends on going,” Pru said to Tuck, with a pointed stare at Clifton.

“Well you can’t do it in the wagon,” Clifton said, a triumphant tone to his voice. “It’s full.”

“Oh.” Pru tapped her finger against her bottom lip.

“It’s all in baskets, though,” Tuck said. “Just like we talked about, Lady Pru, I put it all in baskets to look like offerin’s to the poor.” He stopped for a moment, then cocked his head to the side. “’Course they’re a might heavy.”

“Perfect!” Pru cried. “I shall take the good captain with me as I deliver baskets to the poor.”

Clifton looked as if he would be sick. “You can’t.”

Pru clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth. “Oh, come, Clifton, it’s not as if I’m taking an entire shipment into London. I’m just taking baskets of tea to the poor.”

Her butler mumbled something beneath his breath and stomped out of the stable.