He was something of a messy sleeper himself, thrashing about and snoring. It surprised him she could stay so nicely contained. It made him want to muss her, to take a seat beside her and buss her cheek. But that would be a mistake, no doubt about it.
It had been a mistake to kiss her the first time, to uncover the real woman beneath all that perfection, the one with yearnings and needs.
And the loveliest mouth this side of heaven, warm and tender and kissable. “Bloody hell,” he swore under his breath as his St. Peter behaved less than saintly. The damned thing kept rearing up inside his breeches, thanks to her and her sweet lips. He could still taste them; he wanted to taste them again. More than that, he wanted to taste all of her from her wide brow down to her adorable toes, if only to test her vow not to allow him to kiss her again.
But he couldn’t risk it. Kissing might lead to more—even a well-born virgin could be tempted to err under the right circumstances—and more would lead to nothing but trouble.
No man with sense seduced a woman like Helena, whose rigid ideas about morality made her dangerous. She was the sort to change her mind about what she wanted the minute the seduction was over, and then there would be hell to pay. She could blacken his character to
his clients without ever revealing the truth, all it would take was a few well-placed insinuations that he’d insulted her person. If it came down to choosing her word or his, his wouldn’t be worth a farthing.
No, he’d worked too hard finding himself a profitable niche in London trade to see his efforts destroyed by his unruly St. Peter.
She shifted in her sleep, and something tightened in his gut. Of course, if it was more than seduction…if she’d accept him as a suitor…
His throat tightened. Not bloody likely. She scarcely trusted men of her own rank; she’d never trust one of his. Especially a highwayman’s bastard and erstwhile smuggler.
Besides, why would he marry a woman as distrustful as her simply to assuage his lust? He wasn’t even looking for a wife, and her kind could only bring him grief.
No matter how lonely the prospect, he was better off with fun-loving lightskirts like Sall, who lacked the urge or the ability to harm him. He was better off not indulging any fanciful dreams of a future with the likes of Lady Helena.
The carriage hit a rut, jolting her awake. She stared at him in bewilderment. It took her a moment to awaken fully, and just watching the sleep fade from her fetching features made his blood quicken. How he’d survive the rest of this trip with her was beyond him.
With characteristic grace she straightened and let her hands float down into her lap. “I-I’m sorry, did I fall asleep? How very rude of me.”
And how very like Helena to think in those terms. He smiled. “Not rude in the least. No doubt you needed the rest.”
She smoothed out nonexistent wrinkles in her skirt, then fussed with her bonnet. “Did you sleep some, too?”
“A bit,” he evaded. No sense in her knowing he’d spent almost the whole time watching her with rabid lust. She was already uncomfortable with him, careful to keep even her skirts separate from him, although that took some doing in the close confines of the post chaise.
“What time is it?” she asked.
He drew out his pocket watch. “Half past five.”
She lifted a dainty hand to hide her yawn. “Will we travel all night, do you think?”
“No. I thought we’d spend the night in Tunbridge. We can’t go farther until we know exactly where Pryce and Juliet are headed. They’re likely to have stopped there, too, and from Tunbridge could’ve traveled either east to Dover or south to any number of coastal towns.”
“Did the ostler at the Blue Boar tell you anything helpful?”
“He said Pryce did have a woman with him, and they were bound for Tunbridge. So for the moment we’re on the right road. According to my friend Clancy, Tunbridge has an inn called the Rose and Crown where smugglers sometimes stop on their way to London. I figured we could take rooms; then I could visit the taproom later on and ask questions of any free traders I find. They might know where the pair was headed. They might even know if Pryce has his own cutter and where he keeps it. That’ll help us when we reach the coast.”
She nodded absently. Then she folded her hands in her lap and stared out the window, seemingly oblivious to the jerking of the coach over rutted roads. Her body was fluid, adjusting to the rocky carriage motion as easily as she’d done to the gelding’s pace. It made him wonder if she weren’t physically capable of far more than she thought. Perhaps if she could ease into riding more slowly—
“May I ask you something, Mr. Brennan?”
“I thought you were going to call me Daniel.”
Her gaze shot to him, veiled and careful. “Of course. I was wondering…Daniel…will this trip cause you any trouble with your investment concern?”
Bloody hell, did the wench read minds? “What do you mean?”
“You seem to have several clients, and they’ll surely be annoyed that you have left them without explanation.”
Ah, so that’s what she’d meant. “They’ll survive.”
“I’m not thinking of them, but of you and your new business. I would hate to be the cause of its ruin.”
An ironic smile touched his lips. “You won’t be.”
As long as I can keep my John Thomas in my breeches.
“My short absence might reduce my profits for a time, but that’s of no matter.”
“No matter! I realize it’s important, I assure you. If Griff refuses to compensate you adequately, I will do all in my power—”
“Let’s have no more talk about that.” Her worry over his finances amused him enormously. “Rest assured I can afford this trip, whether or not Griff compensates me.”
“You need not keep up appearances with me, you know.” She paused, as if gathering her courage. “I beg your pardon for being so rude as to mention it, and I do not mean it in anything but a friendly way, but I did notice how you live, Daniel. And where. I know that your funds are…probably limited.”
Nobody had ever called him poor quite so politely before. She looked so very anxious over not shaming him that he had to laugh. “I live in St. Giles, so you’ve decided I can’t afford better?”
“Why else would you live there?”
“Because I want to.”
She shook her head. “No one would choose to live in such a slum.”
“You’re forgetting who I am, lass. I belong in St. Giles. What do you think—that I should buy a grand house in Mayfair and set myself up as gentry? Even if I wanted to spend my money so frivolously—which I don’t—it would serve no purpose. A man is what he is, and no fancy lodgings or fine clothes will change that. It’s only when he tries to hide his low beginnings and fool people about it that he gets himself into trouble.”
She stared at him in complete bewilderment. “Then why have you taught yourself to speak properly and behave like a gentleman if not to be one?”
“So I could make the most of the chances for success that Griff gave me. But I don’t need fancy lodgings to be a success at my business. My private life is my own, always has been. And in my private life I prefer not to pass myself off as what I’m not. I only did it once, for Griff, and it didn’t suit me a’tall. Best to be honest. People don’t accuse you of trying to deceive them if you’re honest from the first. If anybody should understand that, it’s you.”
She looked skeptical. “So you tell all your clients—the duke, for example—that your father was a highwayman and you used to work for smugglers?”
“I don’t tell them, but I don’t hide it either. They generally find out, if they don’t already know it. Most of my clients met me through Griff.” He didn’t explain that some had even been involved with smugglers themselves at one time.
Somebody
had to put up the capital for those boats and goods, after all. “They saw how I increased his investment income, and they wanted the same. So long as I make them pots of money, they don’t much care who I
am. My honesty on the subject makes them trust me even more.”
She shook her head. Her ladyship probably couldn’t understand a man choosing to be himself rather than put on a show. She put on a show every day, keeping her true self locked up so tight that scarcely a piece of the real woman peeked through.
But this afternoon, he’d glimpsed the woman trapped inside the brittle glass of her manner, like a lovely figurine imprisoned in a glass dome. Sheer perversity made him want to be the one to break the glass and set her free.
“Besides,” he went on, “living in St. Giles works to my advantage in business. The fortunes of London aren’t made only in the clubs, y’know. Where do you think the mine owners go to hire ruffians when they want to subdue their workers? Where do you think all those talkative sailors with juicy cargoes go when they’re fresh in from sea? To the gin shops of St. Giles, that’s where. And a clever man with an ear for business can use what he hears to figure out when the price of tea is about to soar or when the mines will prove troublesome.”
She gaped at him as if seeing him through new eyes. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Nobody ever does. That’s why it gives me an advantage, lass.”
“Yes, I see.” She ventured a smile. “All the same, I want you to know that I appreciate your going to so much trouble for me and Juliet. After today I wouldn’t have blamed you had you tossed out the whole idea and headed back to London.”
“I said I’d find her, and I will. I don’t renege on my promises.”
Suspicion flickered in her hazel eyes. “Be that as it
may, you were not so eager to set off on this trip before. What made you change your mind in London? You’re not keeping anything from me, are you? About Mr. Pryce, I mean.”
Mr. Pryce. Now that was a subject that made him sore uneasy. “No. I’ve told you all I learnt. But I confess that it gnaws at me that he’s a free trader. When you first told me of it, I thought for sure you were mistaken. I was wrong, and that’s worrisome.”
She lifted one delicate eyebrow. “You don’t like to be wrong, do you?”
“No more’n you, I expect.”
“True,” she said gamely, and added a smile to boot.
What a smile she had. He saw it seldom, but when it made its appearance, it was like finding the ring in the wedding cake—an unexpected delight amidst what was already the pleasure of looking at her.
A pity it was so fleeting. She shot him an anxious look. “You don’t think Mr. Pryce will hurt her, do you?”
“No. Smugglers are only interested in one thing—money. Even if he’s marrying her for her fortune, it won’t serve his purpose to hurt her other than to—” Bloody hell, he should’ve shut his trap sooner.
“Other than to ruin her,” she finished.
He sighed. “Yes.” Nor was little Juliet the only one in danger of being ruined. “Now let me ask you a question. Why are you so bent on this wild attempt to stop her? Why risk so much merely to save Juliet from marrying badly?”
“She’s my sister,” she said as if that were all the explanation he needed.
“And a grown woman old enough to know her own mind. But your reputation might also be ruined if anybody finds out you were traveling alone with me.”
“No one will.”
“You can’t be sure. And if they do…well, I may not move in your ‘refined circles,’ but I know what happens to a woman of your position when she spurns the proprieties. She can be ruined without ever losing her virtue, and well you know it. Then no decent man will offer for her, let alone anybody of rank or wealth.”
To his surprise, she laughed, though with some bitterness. “Don’t worry—I long ago relinquished any expectation of marrying well.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
Her eyes widened. Apparently, nobody had ever questioned her assumption. “It should be obvious.”
“It’s not.” Not to him, anyway. Oh, he was fairly sure what
she
thought was the reason, but he couldn’t believe that was the cause of her being a spinster.
“There are lots of reasons,” she said evasively.
“What are they?” he pressed.
“For one thing, I’m the daughter of a man who’s not really an earl, but merely the one who stole the rightful earl’s title. Once Papa dies, everyone will know it.”
“Griff will keep the details as quiet as he can.”
“I know, but if he’s to inherit, there’s no way of avoiding revealing the truth, and it’s to all our benefits for him to inherit.”
“You said there were lots of reasons. Name another.”
She tipped her chin up. “I am well past the age when women marry—”
He snorted. “You can’t be more than twenty-five.”
“I’m twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven. I’m on the shelf.”
“Then the shelf is too low in my opinion, but go on. What else makes you so unmarriageable that you take no care for your reputation? Griff did give you a nice dowry.”
She shot him a searching glance. “That merely means I have my pick of the fortune hunters.”
“And we both know how you feel about fortune hunters,” he teased.
She did not smile. “Exactly.”
“What else?”
Say it,
he thought.
Say it, so I can tell you you’re wrong.
“I am not the wifely type.”
He laughed outright. “And what is the ‘wifely type,’ pray tell?”
“Compliant and sweet-tempered. I’m neither.”
“I’d have to agree with that.” When she glared at him, he leaned forward to whisper, “Except when you’re kissing a man. That’s enough to make me suspect you have a bit more sweetness in you than you let on.”
“Don’t be so sure,” she said archly.
“I’d lay odds on it. I’m a fair judge of character, y’know, especially in women.”
“Because you spend so much time with so many of them.”
“Probably.” The jealous edge in her tone pleased him despite himself.
So did the way she reacted to his answer. She frowned very prettily. Then a tense stillness came over her as she turned to stare out the window. “Did you know I was engaged to be married a few years ago?”
That brought him up short. “No, I didn’t. Who was the man?”
“A viscount named Farnsworth.”
He thought a moment. “Heir to the Earl of Pomfret? Isn’t Farnsworth the one who married a rich coal merchant’s daughter last year?”