The Songbird's Seduction (6 page)

“Have her sign your cuff,” someone suggested.

“The menu.”

“Napkin.”

“Will you sign
my
menu, Miss Eastlake?” another young man asked.

“Hey. Miss Eastlake is signing
my
menu,” Charlie said with some asperity. “You can wait your turn.”

“After you’re done with theirs, can you sign my menu, too?” a new voice asked. “I saw you perform the part of Honoria in
The Catch of the Season
last November. You smoked a cigarette on stage! It was . . . swell!”

“I nearly choked every time I set the vile thing to my lips,” she confided with a grin.

She’d been warned beforehand that playing the part of a young girl who had yet to make her bow but smoked behind her parents’ backs might shock the older audience members. Apparently it had not shocked everyone. And even though she knew that male competitiveness had more to do with her current popularity than an appreciation of her voice—or whatever it was they appreciated—it felt good. No, it felt
grand
.

“Let me get you another glass of champagne, Miss Eastlake,” Charlie said and, before she could refuse, hurried off.

Margery leaned close, whispering in her ear. “Go on, ducks. Enjoy yourself!”

So she did. She scribbled her name on the menu a young man handed her and presented it with a flourish. No sooner had she finished with that one than another took its place and then another. She flushed, smiled, and flirted, alternately taking sips of a champagne glass that miraculously never went dry. She traded quips with the various young men handing her items to be signed, her signature becoming bolder with each autograph. It was ridiculous. It was nonsensical.
It was wonderful!

“Miss? Excuse me, miss.”

She turned, her hand already stretched out to accept whatever this new petitioner might want autographed, and froze.

Her pirate stood before her.

He looked horribly self-conscious. “You . . .” Their gazes
caught. Held. He frowned again. He frowned an awful lot, her pirate.

Her pirate
. She smiled, floating on the euphoria of public adulation and more alcohol than she’d ever consumed at one time. He looked so nonplussed. Rather sweet, really . . . Why was he standing there?

Oh, yes! She remembered. He was waiting for her autograph. And now that he was here, he was clearly too embarrassed to ask her for it. It was adorable.

She smiled graciously. “No need to be bashful, my good man. I’ll be happy to sign your. . . .” She looked around for his menu or card or napkin and didn’t see anything she could write on. “What is it you wish me to sign?”

His scowl deepened. “What? I don’t want you to sign anything.”

She blinked, feeling a little muddled. “You don’t?”

Her heart began pattering pleasantly in her chest. He couldn’t be . . . Why, he wasn’t going to ask her to join him at his table? Well, of course he was! How forward! How naughty! But how
deliciously
tempting! She forced herself to remember her great-aunts.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly!” she fluttered as she wondered if perhaps she could.

“Couldn’t what?”

“Accept an invitation to dine from a complete stranger. I mean, I am sure you’re a very nice man and all but—”

“
What?
” Deep color swept up her pirate’s neck, turning his tanned face an even richer color. “Whatever are you talking about?”

She frowned, all interior fluttering abruptly halting in the face of his explicitly
un
flirtatious tone. “What am
I
talking about? What are
you
talking about?”

“My pen.”

“What?”

“You have my pen. I would like it back.”

She stared at him. “Now see here. I may have been precipitous in declining an invitation you hadn’t yet finished—”

“
Finished?
” he cut in, startled into rudeness. “I hadn’t
started
one. Why would you make such an assumption?”

Assumptions? He didn’t . . . ? She wasn’t . . . ?
He hadn’t . . . ?!
Oh, dear. Pride alone allowed her to keep her chin up. “I saw the look in your eye.”

“
What
? There was no look in my eye.”

“There was,” she said. “Which is how I deduced your intention. It’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened to me, you know.” It was the second time. The first had been an invitation from a middle-aged, overweight financier who’d ambushed her at the stage door and which, needless to say, she’d refused in no uncertain terms. But the gorgeous man with the cleft chin needn’t know that. A girl had her pride.

“That was
not
my intention.”

“You’re self-conscious,” she said, with dawning understanding. “I daresay you don’t generally approach strange women in hotel bars.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “No. I do not.”

“You don’t look the type,” she agreed. “Which is why you are now attempting to mask your embarrassment by coming up with an excuse for your impulsive act. One that will, as they say, allow you to save face.”

His frown had disappeared, replaced by an expression of amazement. “Incredible,” he murmured.

“Yes, I know,” she said demurely. “I am good at reading people. It’s what I do, after all.” She fluttered her lashes just to let him know there were no hard feelings. “Certainly this is not the first time nor, dare I say, shall it be the last that a gentleman has sought an introduction through unusual means. But that’s no reason to claim ownership of a very expensive pen that does not belong to you.”

“But it
does
.” He was openly exasperated now, running a hand through his hair. Just as she’d suspected it would, it tousled up into thick, loose curls. “Are you listening to me, young lady?”

She flushed. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t been. “Of course. But if the pen is yours how then could my friend Mr. Margery have loaned it to me, making me promise to look after it?” she asked reasonably enough, because, truth be told, she was becoming a bit annoyed he wouldn’t simply own up to being overwhelmed by a desire to speak to her.

“I have no idea,” he said, by all appearances attempting to master a nearly equal frustration.

“Of course you don’t.”

“But it
is
mine and I would very much appreciate it if you would return it to me.”

This was getting out of hand. “Now see here, this is a very expensive instrument and I am not going to simply hand over my friend’s pen so you can preserve your dignity.”

“
What
dignity?” he demanded through clenched teeth. “Everyone is staring at us. And I
know
it is expensive. It is one of the reasons I am willing to make a public spectacle of myself in demanding its return. That, and the fact that
it was a gift.
”

She looked around. Those in their immediate vicinity had stopped talking and were regarding them with amused interest. A small group nearby had even turned their chairs for a better view.

Heat swept into Lucy’s face and suddenly she was eight years old again and at her great-grandmother’s house, being introduced to the Tartar for the first and only time while Uncle Mikhail stood by, hat in hand, extolling Lucy’s many virtues as a battalion of servants looked on: She could mimic any bird, sing like a nightingale, sit quiet as a cat at a mouse hole through even the longest sermon, even cook. Some.

“Why she can brew up a pot of—” he’d continued.

“Be still,” Gertrude Litton’s voice had cut across Mikhail’s words like a whiplash. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”

She had turned away without another word.

The butler had ushered them out, and they had passed beneath the amused and pitying gazes of the assembled servants.

Though since then Lucy had turned making a spectacle of herself into a career, she did so on her terms, fully in charge of the role, the stage, and her lines. Now memories of that long-ago encounter washed over her, the feeling of public humiliation biting as acid. Her cheeks grew warm.

“Hey! If Miss Eastlake says thas her pen, then ish her pen.” Charlie Cheddar suddenly reappeared. He’d apparently tucked into a few more drinks in the interim and was now prepared to play knight-errant, which was categorically the
last
thing she wanted. “You better clear out if you know whas good fer you, mister.”

“Oh, for the love of Mike,” the gorgeous man muttered.

“Put ’em up,” her blond champion commanded, raising his fists and wobbling slightly where he stood.

“Would you please tell your young man to put his hands down so we can settle this matter?”

“He’s not my young man,” Lucy said, desperately wanting to escape the growing snickers of their impromptu audience. “And as far as I am concerned the matter is settled. Good evening.” She wheeled around and started to move away. He took a step after her.

Riiiippp.

She stopped dead.

Laughter, surprised laughter, the kind people take care to quickly stifle but that invariably burbles up again in spite of one’s best intentions, rose all around her. With a horrible sense of foreboding, she twisted at the waist and looked down. The seam up the back of her gown had ripped open, exposing the very sheer petticoat beneath. The hem of her dress was caught under one of his highly polished shoes.

“Ohhhhh!” A wail of distress escaped her throat. She looked up and met his gaze. “
Do something!
”

Without a second’s hesitation, he pulled off his tuxedo jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Come on,” he said, taking her elbow in hand and moving her forward.

“You cad!”

Before she realized what was happening, Charlie had grabbed hold of the dark-haired man’s shoulder and spun him around. She turned just in time to see the youngster’s fist collide with the gorgeous would-be pirate’s jaw and his eyes go wide.

He crumbled to her feet.

“Mister! Mister!” A frantic female voice called Professor Ptolemy Archibald Grant from blissful oblivion.

It had to be
her
. The strange young lady in the dark blue dress. For some unknown reason she’d been staring at him earlier and then, when caught at it, pretended to wave at someone behind him. A short time later he’d spotted her sitting atop the hotel bar leading a pack of semi-inebriants in what he assumed was some music hall ditty. And
then
she’d taken his pen.

What a peculiar girl.

He stirred. A sharp pain in his jaw greeted him on the threshold of consciousness and oblivion beckoned him back. Though he didn’t generally consider himself cowardly, he nonetheless decided to accept oblivion’s invitation, it being preferable to what he recalled of the last few minutes before he’d been laid a facer. Or most of the evening before that, for that matter.

That decision, unfortunately, was denied him as the girl calling his name now added a physical element to her insistence by vigorously
shaking his shoulder. Lights exploded across the backs of his eyelids. His jaw throbbed.

“Someone help me with him!”

That brought him fully alert. He had already made a spectacle of himself. “
No
. I’m fine. Just give me a second.”

He opened his eyes and squinted at the face floating above him. A long coil of satiny brown hair had come down and was spilling over her shoulder. Other than that, he couldn’t make out much. Except that she had eyes the color of the green-gold quartz he’d once seen decorating the ceremonial breastplates of an Aztec king.

“You most certainly are not fine. Charlie laid you flat out.”

Charlie must be the young man. “He punched me. Where is he?”

“Gone. Let me help you up.”

“No. Please.” He winced. “Don’t do anything. You’ve done quite enough.”

His vision had cleared sufficiently for him to see her lips press tightly together before, ignoring his refusal, she scooted behind him and slid an arm around his shoulders. What did she expect to be able to do? The top of her head barely reached his chin and if she weighed a hundred pounds, he’d be surprised. At six two and nearly fourteen stone—

She heaved him upright with unexpected strength, the sudden movement making his head throb. “Ow!”

“Sorry. Someone get him a glass of water.”

“I don’t want a glass of water.” Holding his head, he climbed painfully to his feet.

She reached out to steady him but he scowled fiercely enough to make her snatch her hand back.

“If you would just kindly return my pen I won’t trouble you any longer.” He made no effort to hide his sarcasm.

She sighed. “You’re not still going on about that, are you?”

“Yes,” he said. “I am.” The pen had been a gift from Cornelia. He’d hate to think what she’d say if he lost it; he’d lost too many of her other gifts. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t actually
lost
the pen; his having allowed it to be stolen wasn’t going to materially change Cornelia’s reaction. Not that she would cause a flap; Cornelia never flapped. But her disappointment was worse. It was so ripe with fatalistic assumptions.

Now that it was clear he wasn’t in danger of dying or leaking blood anywhere, the crowd around them had begun to disperse. The girl, still draped in his jacket, hovered, probably due to guilt.