Chapter 4

Prudence tried to shove her heart back into her chest. It fairly suffocated, lodged as it was so high in her throat. "Mr. Bailey!" She rubbed the hollow of her neck as rubbing her chest seemed inappropriate, too much like what she'd seen in the garden—Norton's hands on Cora's revealed skin, his lips there, too. "Are you trying to frighten me to death?"

Mr. Bailey tipped the brim of his hat up, revealing more of his face, more of a wide grin—white, even teeth, behind a bushy, unkept beard—and blue eyes that sparkled, only the slightest bit, with mischief. "Not at all." He drawled the words out as he popped off the wall and sauntered over to stand in front of her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her heart finally relaxing into a regular rhythm. Mostly regular. He stood so close. And that did something to her. Made her squirm.

"I realized I didn't have time for an engagement this afternoon, after the breakfast, so I thought I'd walk you there."

"I'm taking a carriage."

"I'll go with you."

"You are not climbing into a carriage with me. Alone," she snapped.

"You've not answered my letter."

"You'll ignore me? Pretend not to hear my very reasonable statement about riding alone in a carriage with a strange man?"

"You've ignored my letter. Besides, I can't be strange to you anymore. Not after what we witnessed in that garden. Together. Many married couples never experience such… intimacy." He chuckled. "Not the safe kind, was it?"

Her bones seemed to be trying to leap out of her skin. She couldn't look at him. What they'd witnessed in the garden… It stole her breath, just the memory of it. So much skin. And in such a public space. And to think… Norton had been after her. It could have been her breast open to the night air, her nipple Norton had kissed. She shivered. The image had been arousing, but the idea of Norton doing the kissing… all wrong. She'd not yet met a man whose lips she could imagine there. Whose touch she'd welcome.

But Mr. Bailey had wrapped his arm around her then, a partner in her voyeurism. She'd not minded it. But had he ripped her bodice open, she would have had to find something nearby to brain him with.

She paced to the side of the carriage, spoke with the driver, and sent him home. Without her.

Bailey lifted a brow as she came to his side. He offered her his arm. She ignored it. Clearly a glutton for punishment, she started down the street toward the Eastwood's London home. Bailey matched her steps easily, shortening his strides and letting her set the pace. Why had she agreed to walk with him? Merely because she felt the need to move? That squirminess he sent rippling through her had latched on to the shadow which had settled over her during the wedding. Something inside her might snap if she didn't put her body into motion.

Or because she'd known, known, that if she'd stepped up into the carriage, he would follow her as surely as if he had the right to. She was too tired to argue him back down onto the pavement. Better for her in all ways to walk, to let him walk with her.

"You owe me a letter," he said.

"I do not. Writing one another is not at all proper, not without an understanding of some sort. If I write to you—"

"You've done so twice." A cheeky grin, barely visible, winked out from behind the bristly hairs of his beard.

"If I continue to write to you, and we are caught…" They could end up like Cora and Norton this morning. Wed. And unhappy about it.

"I don't think you're scared of the impropriety." He rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a cheroot, twisted it between his fingers, the other hand lazy in his coat pocket. "You barely reacted to the scene in the garden. At least not with the sort of shock a gently bred young lady should show. I think what upset you more, then, was your friend's position. Maybe shock that your friend would do such a thing. Not the intimacy itself."

She snorted, a sound to cover up her fear. She'd not been shocked so much as intrigued. She'd never seen such a thing in real life before. She'd wanted to know how it compared to the pictures in the books she'd read. So very different. No comparison. The pictures possessed no sound or movement, no scent. The pictures were dead, but the moment between Cora and Norton had been so very alive. The music floating from the ballroom, the wind rustling the leaves, Cora's little sounds of surprised pleasure, Norton's heavy breaths and unintelligible, deep-voiced whispers. She'd thought herself immune to passion.

But that night in the garden, her body had awakened to life as well, heat pooling between her legs, her breasts heavy and tight, each breath more difficult to take than the one before.

"I think," Bailey drawled, "you're scared of something. But it's not impropriety. What, though?" He tapped the cheroot against his thigh. "What?"

"Nothing. I've nothing to hide, so I've nothing to fear."

He lifted the cheroot, swept its length across his upper lip, and inhaled deeply, closing his eyes for a moment. "Then write to me."

Impossible man. "I am not averse to smoke. You may light it if you wish." She nodded at the cheroot.

He held it upright, holding its long length at the bottom with long, ungloved fingers stained with ink. Some blotches old and fading, others new and stark against his skin. Strong, capable fingers, and they held the cheroot with a gentle touch. "I don't smoke anymore."

"Then why carry one about?"

"I still crave it." He snapped the cheroot back inside his pocket.

"Then why don't you smoke?" She slipped a hand inside her own pocket, feeling the smooth, calming curve of her pocket watch.

"My grandfather cannot abide smoke. Makes him ill." He hunched his shoulder's forward, focused on his boots. "Takes too much effort to refrain when I'm with him if I'm too used to smoking them. Better to abstain all the time. Easier."

"You have a grandfather?"

He laughed. "Doesn't everyone?"

"Yes, but…" She'd rather thought he'd raised himself in the wilds of the Americas. Or perhaps he'd been orphaned and raised by bears or some such untamed thing. "Do you see him often?"

He winked. "Ask me that question in a letter, Lady Prudence. Then I'll answer it."

She huffed. "You're incorrigible."

"You're scared."

"I. Am. Not." Each word as crisp as a snapped sheet. "There's nothing intimate about your letters. All you do is reveal the utter failures of your scheduling methods."

He shrugged. "I get confused. I forget what I've already scheduled, especially if I don't write it down. And I often forget to write it down."

She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "I should not be surprised. You are absolutely without purpose in every other part of your life visible to the onlooker. Why not this area as well?"

"I'm not without purpose, Lady Prudence." His voice possessed a dark edge which challenged her to continue, promised she'd regret it. "It's the exact opposite. My purpose drives me. I don't have time for things like lists."

Her own list burned a hole in her pocket. "I could help you, teach you." That put a bounce in her step. Of course, she didn't necessarily want to spend any time with this man, but the thought of putting his life in order—oh yes. To take a man who embodied chaos and organize him—how marvelous.

"Oh no, Lady Prudence." He turned on his toe and walked backward with longer steps, studying her face. "I know that look. You want to change me."

"Not you. Just your schedule."

He turned back around to walk at her side. "I've resisted change since I stepped foot on this island. I don't think you'll have much luck."

She shrugged. "I won't try anyway. You are not worth my skills. Whatever I sought to teach you would bounce right off your hard skull. Besides, you're Kingston's partner. He should whip you into shape."

And she'd meant it when she'd said she would not seek to change him. Not only did that seem an entirely futile project, but also an unnecessary one. He was chaos, but he was also… Well, he made her feel rather safe. Any footpad would think twice, three, four, a handful of times before attacking her with Mr. Bailey by her side. He possessed a rather wild quality which she found… appealing? No, surely not that. But perhaps then… comforting? Yes. Better, that. Who knew, of course, what he looked like beneath the hair and the beard, but it didn't matter. Because this man showed the world exactly who he was, and to hell with what they thought. And she admired that. She needed no second moment to figure out that feeling. A third point in his favor—he quit something he craved for the sake of a man he rarely saw. He loved his family. She understood that quite well indeed.

Yes, the man could stay as he was. The schedule…

"Perhaps," she ventured, "you might keep a small notebook and pencil in those pockets instead of a cheroot. The former will help you. The latter, I fear, only torments you."

"I like the smell of it."

"Be that as it may, a notebook—"

"I'll consider it. If you write to me. Then I'll have more to compose in the notebook than just my obligations." A grin flashed through the bushy beard.

Was he trying to charm her?

"What advice from the Guide are you following now?"

"Cultivate safe intimacy. I told you. Is it working?"

She sighed. Why not let him write? She'd be in the country soon enough, and his letters would not reach her for weeks. She could deal with them when she returned. "Very well, you may write to me."

He swung in front of her, stopping her, and she had to rock back a step to keep from bumping into him. From this position, he seemed bigger than before. He always seemed rather small, perhaps because his clothes were much too big for him. But now, towering over her, she understood the true size of the man. He blocked out the sun. She had to crane her head back to look at his face, and his shoulders seemed twice the width of hers.

He did not seem disposed to moving out of her way, either. In fact, his fingers found her wrist, bare and warm against the sliver of her skin revealed above the edge of her glove, below the hem of her sleeve. "And you'll write back, Lady Prudence?"

Her stuttering heart shook up her simple answer. "Y-yes." Eventually.

He leaned low, narrowing the world to them two. "And you'll spill all your secrets?"

At her wrist where his fingers lingered, her pulse raced uncontrollably. What was this? She'd never felt so shaken before, so much like she stood on uneven ground and the slightest wind might topple her. Right into his arms.

Which, now she understood the breadth of his shoulder, she trusted to catch her easily.

Blast.

She stepped away from him, around him, and raced down the street.

"Is that a no on the secrets?" he called after her, a laugh throwing his words sky-high.

She ran until she was certain he did not follow, slowing and looking behind her once she rounded a corner. He'd left her alone. Excellent. Yes, quite. The Eastwood's house was around the next corner, and she did not wish to arrive at his side. Cora would have questions.

She managed a more sedate pace, drawing in slow, calming breaths with each step until she reached their doorstep. The guests were all inside. She saw them through a window. No large smiles and revelry there. Bodies as still as paintings, faces as somber as a funeral.

She leaned her head against the door before knocking, closed her eyes. At least this renewed deluge of guilt washed away the undefinable, shaky, wild feeling Bailey had left her with. Neither feeling good, though.

She rolled and leaned her back against the door. Why did Bailey so insist on writing to her? Did he truly enjoy her company? Truly wish to marry her? Impossible. No man wanted that, not without ulterior motives. And why did he continue to ask about her secrets?

Did he… know?

Her heart kicked into a race again. Blast, it might never settle down. Because he was a newspaper man, and she had secrets, and he wanted them. Everything clicked into place. Her sisters had the right of it. She courted ruin with every book she handed off to another woman, with every marker she set up guiding them toward a dark room and Cora's rich voice rising high with naughty words. Did she care? Did she wish to be infamous, all her marriage prospects gone in an instant? Just as they had been last summer when Lottie's reputation had hung on the precarious edge of Lord Noble's good will.

No, she did not want that. She did not particularly wish to marry, but she did not want to lose the option entirely. She did not wish to ruin her family, bring shame to her brother, irritating as he could be. He'd only ever tried to do his best without their parents to guide him.

But could she give it all up? The intrigue, the excitement, the purpose?

Her head shook on its own, giving her an answer. She could not give it up.

So, she must be safe. And that meant distancing Bailey, taking precautions. And both could be achieved by making Cora happy and following her to the country. A boring, tame proposal.

No. An opportunity. She would use the time to devise a new, safer business model, to prove to Cora and her sisters that the library and the poetry readings did not have to die. They could live on. With the right organization and system. And that, more than anything perhaps, would give Cora back a bit of happiness.

And Prudence owed Cora much more than momentary glee. She owed her a life. And that's just what Prudence would give her.