The Songbird's Seduction (19 page)

The perpetually silent Mr. Beaufort gaped delightedly.

“I am not paying for these rags twice.”

Before Mrs. Beaufort’s scandalized gaze, she peeled off the scratchy sweater and started in on the blouse’s buttons. “I would rather leave here in my combinations for all your neighbors to see than pay you another penny, let alone two crowns. What do you say to that, you miserly old crone?”

For thirty seconds the two women’s eyes locked in silent combat until finally Mrs. Beaufort spoke. “Did I say two crowns, three shillings? Meant three crowns.”

Lucy gasped.

Frantically, Archie pulled some bills from his wallet.

“Don’t you
dare pay that creature so much as a farthing
,” she breathed in tones that he dared not ignore.

He stuffed the bills back in his wallet and snatched Lucy’s blouse off the line, grabbed one of her arms, and shoved it through the sleeve, then treated the other to the same before clumsily buttoning the back up and spinning her around.

“Not a word, Lucy. Not. A. Word,” he muttered between clenched teeth. He dropped her damp skirt on the ground, bent down, picked her up and set her down inside the waist opening, and then jerked the skirt back up over her hips. Lucy had unfortunately washed it in water that was too hot, for it had shrunk, the hem four inches above her ankles and the waistband pinching her middle. And the lye she’d used had left bleached spots on the material.

He tossed Lucy’s coat over her shoulders then edged her past Mrs. Beaufort, opened the door, and shoved her outside.

She wheeled on him. “I cannot believe you were thinking of paying that
sea hag
!”

“Ahem.”

The expression of Mr. Beaufort, who’d followed them out, was as wooden as ever. “I kin drive ye.” It was the first time she’d heard the man speak.

She sniffed, collecting what she could of her tattered dignity. At least the poor, downtrodden fellow had a sense of decency. “Thank you, Mr. Beaufort.”

“For a bob.”

“
What
? Why, you miserable old bloodsucker. I would not get on that carriage to save my—”

Archie grabbed her round the waist and tossed her over his shoulder. He nodded to Beaufort. “Thank you.”

“Round back,” Mr. Beaufort said, leading the way around the house.

Lucy bounced on Archie’s shoulder with every step. “Put me down! At once. I would rather crawl on my knees all the way to town rather than pay these . . . these
people
a single sou.”

“
You’re
not paying anyone anything.”

The pony was already hitched to the cart and waiting. Archie dumped her in the back.

“There’s another half-crown in it for you if we make it to the ferry in time,” he told Beaufort.

A quarter hour later they arrived in the small harbor. The last of their fellow passengers stood on the pier, waiting to be handed into dories that would transport them to deeper water where the newly repaired ferry waited. The carts and wagons that had brought them were already disbanding.

Archie leapt from the dogcart, pressed some coins into Beaufort’s hand, and came round the back to take custody of his valise.

“Well done, Lucy! We made it.”

She stared at the sea, her anger vanishing. “Oh, dear.”

The muttered “oh, dear,” should have alerted him. But Archie was so pleased that they’d actually made it in time he didn’t pay it much heed. He hefted the valise to his shoulder and held out his hand to help Lucy hop down from the back of the cart.

She didn’t hop. She just stared at his hand as if it were a snake about to strike.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” A lone dory awaited them, bobbing up and down in the rolling surf alongside the rickety pier. The fishermen who would row them out—no doubt for a pretty remuneration—stood in their rubberized wading boots thigh deep in the surf. Inside the boat sat a half dozen people, their expressions displaying various degrees of impatience.

“Get on that.” Lucy nodded toward the ferry.

“Of course you can,” he assured her in his heartiest voice.

She shook her head. “I’ll become ill again. Horribly ill. The sort of ill where death doesn’t seem such a bad alternative.”

“No, you won’t.” He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt because all his assurance was based on anecdotal information, which he now kindly shared. “I’m told the trick is to keep yourself distracted and your eye on the horizon.”

“You’re
told
?” she echoed. “I’m afraid that’s not enough to persuade me.”

“Don’t be unreasonable.”

Rather than encourage reasonableness, his words seemed to have the reverse effect. Her lips tightened. “You’re right. I probably could get in that boat.”

He released a gusty sigh of relief. “I knew you’d—”

“But I won’t.”

“Hoy! You there!” one of the fishermen bellowed. “You staying or coming?”

“Coming!”

“Staying!”

“Look, Lucy,” Archie said. “I understand your concern, but there really is no choice.”

“I’m getting queasy just looking at it. I’m sorry, Archie.”

“It’s only twenty-some miles to France, Lucy. We’ll be on dry land in an hour. Or so.”

She looked away, shaking her head.

“What do you intend to do? Stay here forever?” He threw up his free hand in exasperation.

“Just until the seas are calmer.” She peeked up at him worriedly. “They do get calmer, don’t they? I mean, eventually?”

“I don’t know and I’m not staying to find out.”

She looked sharply at that, her eyes widening with hurt. He fought down the nearly overwhelming urge to reassure her. “You’re not?”

“No. And neither are you. How can you? Where will you stay? Are you going to appeal to Mrs. Beaufort’s sense of charity? Because I don’t think you’ll have much luck finding it and I daresay the other islanders aren’t going to be any more sympathetic once you run out of funds which, at the going rate, won’t be long.

“And before you ask, I’m nearly tapped out. I left England in a hurry, without stopping at a bank, assuming I would wire for money once in France, so don’t look to me for a loan.” This flawlessly practical argument had no visible effect. If anything the set of her chin grew more stubborn.

“I know.” He snapped his fingers. “Maybe you can find work with the Beauforts? I’m sure Mrs. Beaufort could find something for you to do. Maybe she’ll teach you to make oatcakes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, that was
low
, Archie.”

“Low it might be, but true. You have no money to spare, no place to stay, and no
reason
to stay.”

The sailor beside the dory waved his arm. “Hoy! Ferry’s fetching to leave!”

The stubborn line of her jaw softened. Her expression became pleading. “I know this must seem fantastically impractical to you but—”

“Oh, hell.” He grabbed her wrist, pulled her to her feet, and then dipped down and chucked her over his shoulder again. He had no choice. He wasn’t about to be marooned here.

“Put me down!”

He ignored her screech, picking up his valise in his free hand.

“What
is
it with you? Is it only me you feel compelled to treat like a sack of potatoes or is it every girl?”

“Just you.”

He strode down the pier to where the dory waited, tossed his bag down atop the plank seat, and in one economical motion swung Lucy off his shoulder and into the waiting arms of the grizzled old seaman. Then he jumped in after her.

“Get going! Before she dives over the side and swims to shore,” he advised.

One look at Lucy’s belligerent, desperate face and the fishermen on either side of the dory clambered in, shedding water like drenched spaniels as they scrambled into place and heaved back on their oars, sending the boat shooting out over the waves and toward where the ferry waited.

“Ohhh!” A low whimper escaped Lucy’s lips. Archie patted her hand. She snatched it back and glared at him.

“Won’t be long,” a fisherman assured her.

She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched the gunnel. It only took a short while before they pulled up next to the ferry. Archie stood up and, leaving her no chance to object, plucked Lucy from her seat, lifting her above his head. “Take her!” A pair of sailors leaned over the side of the ferry and, each clasping an arm, pulled her up and over the edge as she squealed in protest.

A seaman on deck threw down a rope ladder. One of the dory’s other passengers, a fat man in a tight checkered coat, heaved his portmanteau over his head and into the crewmembers’ waiting hands before ponderously struggling onto the first rung. He’d made it to the second when a comely female leg appeared over the gunnel followed by an even shapelier female posterior draped in a dingy skirt. The foot began groping for a toehold.

By God, she was trying to jump ship.

“Don’t let her get on the ladder!” Archie shouted. If she got back into the dory, they’d never get her out. She’d burrow in like a tick and the captain of the ferry wouldn’t wait for him to dislodge her.

He grabbed the side of the ladder and started up the outside of it one-handed, fettered by his valise as he tried to climb past the fat man staring in frank appreciation at Lucy’s flailing leg.

“Catch my bag!” he shouted up to a red-haired lad.

“Lemme go!” he heard Lucy squeal from above.

“Don’t let her go!” he yelled. “Here! Catch my valise!” With a grunt, he swung the heavy bag out and heaved it upward, sending it sailing through the air and into the lad’s outstretched arms . . .

. . . and out again.

The valise bobbled against the gunnel as the boy’s eyes grew round in his face and his mouth formed a silent “o” of surprise that turned into a gasped, “Oops.”

Archie arched back, nearly dislodging the fat man from his perch as he grabbed at the bag plummeting inches past his outstretched fingertips.

It hit the water and sank like a dead weight.

For a second everyone froze. Then, in quick succession, the fat man dropped back into the dory, the red-haired lad disappeared, and Lucy’s posterior and leg withdrew from sight with politic swiftness.

“You go ahead of me,” the fat man said, edging away from the fury in Archie’s expression.

“Thank you.”

He was up the ladder and on the deck in seconds. The deckhand was nowhere in sight. But Lucy was. She’d backed away from the side of the ferry and was smiling nervously, her hands twisting together at her waist.

“I suppose all your things were in there,” she said.

“Um-hm.”

“I suppose you somehow hold me to blame.”

“Um-hm.”

“You shouldn’t. You mustn’t. Not in all fairness. Because really, you have only yourself to blame. If you hadn’t manhandled me . . .” At this point some deep-buried scintilla of prudence wiggled to life and she trailed off. “I daresay you will be able to replace your things once we are in France.”

“Oh. So, you’ve decided to go to France now, have you?”

“Why, yes.” She smiled with noble fortitude then, realizing he wasn’t going to commend her, her smile faltered. “You don’t seem too happy about it.”

“Don’t I?” he asked, his voice deceptively mild. “Perhaps that’s because I was thinking how nice it would have been had you made the same decision, say, oh, five minutes ago. Before every article of clothing I’d brought with me had sunk to the bottom of the English Channel.

“Selfish of me, no doubt, to be dwelling on something so banal when you have so graciously decided to do what you really had no option but to do in the first place.”

She stared. Swallowed. Stared some more as her eyes welled up with tears. Real tears. He could tell they were real because her nose was going pink and she was sniffing in a truly off-putting manner and her lower lip was wobbling treacherously. For the first time since he’d clapped eyes on her, Lucy looked massively unappealing and yet, conversely, every fiber in his body yearned to take her in his arms and—

Good Lord! What was he thinking? He going to ask—to ask—why couldn’t he recall her name? Not that it mattered, he was going to get engaged!

She sniffed again, blinked, and now the tears overran her lower lids and spilled down her cheeks. He watched in horror, rising panic obliterating every ounce of his former anger. He’d never made a woman cry before. He’d never even
seen
a woman cry before. It was
terrible! It filled him with the most awful sensation, one he would do anything to rid himself of.

“Stop. Please. Stop,” he said, taking a step toward her.

“I . . . I . . . I can’t!” she blubbered. Her eyes had turned red and puffy and her nose was dripping.

He reached out and gave her shoulder an awkward pat. “Of course you can. Just stop.” He patted her shoulder again. “Now.”

She shook her head, snuffling miserably. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his handkerchief, snapped it open, and handed it to her.

She took it and loudly blew her nose. “Thank you,” she sniffled.

“There, see? Isn’t that better?” he asked, relieved that she’d gotten hold of herself.

Apparently it was the wrong thing to say for as soon as he’d uttered the word
better
the tears welled up again in her gold-green eyes. “No!”