Chapter 4

Four

L ucy guided the baker's daughter into Hawthorne House and up the stairs. Mrs. Beckett waited in an empty room for them both. A baby's crib sat low by the narrow bed, and the fresh bouquet of flowers in a white vase brightened a chamber lit only with the early morning gloom.

Miss Thea Caplan clutched her large belly like it was a lifeboat in a tossing sea, her gaze darting from one corner of the room to the other. Her bright-red hair poked out from beneath her worn bonnet, and she took the hesitant, stumbling steps of a woman terribly unsure. When her gaze fell on the small crib, her hesitance evaporated. She flew across the room and knelt with a grunt beside it, running her fingers along the edges. She glanced up at Mrs. Beckett standing beside Lucy in the doorway. "Thank you, ma'am. Thank you."

Lucy's time to leave. Mrs. Beckett handled things from here. Lucy must head to her brother's home, curl up in bed with a pair of stockings she'd been embroidering, sleep if she could, and attempt—if she could—to forget how the blue-eyed stable boy had looked at her when she'd helped Miss Caplan out of the coach, how his lips had felt crashing into hers a month ago, wet and warm and firm and perfect.

Heavens. A month , and she still could not purge her memory of his kiss. Perhaps this was what turned men into rakes—unhealthy obsessions with pleasure and those things that most quickly provoked it.

Perhaps it was merely her—impulsive and passionate Lucy drawn to yet another mistake like a moth to a flame.

She'd avoided him, mostly. And he'd avoided her. They met only at midnight and dawn, as she left and returned from London. And during those brief moments, she could not look away. He wasn't as lanky and smooth as he'd been when he'd arrived here. A month of country living had put muscle on his frame and whiskers on his chin. His dark hair inched toward his collar, always untamed and falling across his eyes. But when their gazes caught, he would brush it back, sending the muscle of his arm and shoulder tightening against the linen of his threadbare shirt. Without fail, she'd drop her gaze to his lips and feel, even through the distance separating them, their firm warmth.

She had to hide in the coach to break the connection, to avoid her own desires. Tonight, she'd been alone. No Peggy to keep her company. There had been, however, a blanket, a basket filled with bread and cheese, and, curiously, wine. Unusual. Yet, all but the wine had proven useful once she'd had Miss Caplan in her care. She must tell Mrs. Beckett to make the basket and blanket a regular occurrence.

A cry careened down the hallway behind her. She whirled and ran back into the bedchamber she'd just abandoned. Miss Caplan leaned against the bed, her arms wrapped round her belly. Mrs. Beckett stood above her, a hand on the young woman's back, a growing puddle at her feet, dribbling from beneath Miss Caplan's skirts.

"Lucy," Mrs. Beckett said, sparing her a fleeting glance, "Miss Caplan needs the doctor. Quick. The babe's coming."

Lucy fled, her legs flashing against the deep slit in her skirts, her men's boots, fitted to her own feet, pounding hard into the marble and then into gravel as she left the house and sped toward the stables. A light mist had begun to fall from gray skies, wetting tendrils of her hair to her forehead.

"I need a horse!" she cried, skidding around the edge of the doorway. Morning sun had not yet broken through the gray shadows. The air was still with the smell of hay and horse and electric with the startled snorts of its occupants. And with the sounds of running boots.

Keats appeared, wearing only breeches and untucked shirtsleeves. "Miss Jones. What do you need?"

"A horse." Laughter almost broke through the urgency.

He winced but set to work, entering a stall with the mare she usually rode. "You did say that. What's happened?"

"The lady I just brought—her babe is coming."

He froze, his arms dropping to the side as if the bit and harness he held were suddenly too heavy. "God." The single word choked out before his body broke into a frenzy.

"Mr. Keats." She stepped closer. "Are you well? We should make haste, but babes take their time coming. Usually. She's going into labor, not dying."

"Could be dying." Mr. Keats's face had gone pale as a newly laundered shift. He led the horse out of the stall and wrapped his hands around Lucy's middle.

"Wait!" She clasped his wrist before he could release her. "Not a side saddle." She parted her skirts to show the slit, her pantalets and embroidered stockings peeking through.

Lightning stuck inside his eyes. "Bloody hell. You're trying to kill me."

"I'm trying to be practical. A man's saddle, please."

"Very well." He switched out the saddles and wrapped his hands around her middle once more.

She slapped them away. "What are you doing?"

"Helping you mount."

"There's a mounting block." The blockhead.

"I'll do it." His hands tightened, fingertips gripping onto muslin and flesh.

"You can't."

"You're not using a damned mounting block when I'm here to help." His hands tightened further, his arms flexing, muscle screaming against worn linen, and then her feet left the ground, and she gripped the pommel, pulling herself as he lifted. She reached the saddle with ease and with every inch of her body alive to his touch.

Then he released her and bolted, and she brushed her hands over her sides, trying to rub away the tingling, ghost sensations where his touch still, somehow, lingered.

He returned, leading another horse before she could set her mount toward the stable doors.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he saddled the second horse.

"Coming with you."

"There's no reason to?—"

"I'm coming with you." His jaw flexed, and though clearly his stance on the subject would not flex, hers did. No use wasting her breath to convince him to stay.

In moments, they were gone, galloping through the fields and toward the village. The morning mist had turned into a full-fledged rain, and she had to wipe her eyes to see the road ahead. When they reached her brother's home, Mr. Keats swung her to the ground without question, without hesitation, his hands strong and steady around her. They didn't even linger .

She'd wanted them to.

Before she could catch her breath, Keats was pounding on the door, her brother was opening it, and Keats was giving him all the information he needed. And his horse. To save time saddling another, Keats said.

Lucy watched her brother disappear down the road, feeling a bit… deflated. Beside her, Mr. Keats seemed deflated, too. His hands trembled, and he'd not lost the pallor of his skin. Yet he'd quite taken control of the situation. And of her.

"You are a reliable soul in a crisis, Mr. Keats."

"Pardon? Oh, thank you." He was still watching the road where Hades had disappeared.

"I barely did a thing."

"You led me to your brother's house."

"I suppose. Mr. Keats, are you unwell?"

"Quite. I mean no. I mean… do not worry over me, Miss Jones." He lifted her back up onto her horse and took the reins, guiding them through the rain and back toward Hawthorne House. He wore no cloak, and the rain molded his shirt to the curves of his shoulders, the planes of his back, lovingly over the muscled mound of his backside.

She pressed her center against the saddle to tame the aching there. "We need shelter. Over that way." She pointed toward a stream and a thick copse of trees on one side of it. "That canopy will suffice."

Without a word, he led her there, looped the reins around a tree branch, and held up his arms to her. Once more, his hands on her waist, her body ignited by his touch, her imagination ignited, too, by the strain of his muscle against the wrinkled linen of his shirt.

Under the trees, a large rock jutted out toward the stream, and he sat on it, shoulders slumped, head hanging forward as he scratched his fingers through his hair.

"Hell," he breathed, scrubbing a palm down his face.

She sat next to him. "Would you like to talk about it?"

"I'm not one of your troubled ladies."

"Very well." She threaded her fingers together in her lap. Sometimes, threading a needle required meticulous patience. The clouds moved overhead, gray surging against dim white. The nearby stream rushed forward, crashing out of control with its new, rain-soaked inches. And still she waited.

He took a breath first, seemingly careful not to let his body show too much the rise and fall of an inhalation. And then he said, "My mother died in childbirth."

Oh, what an unexpected blow.

He dropped his hands to his sides and spoke to the sky beyond the tree branches. "My first stepmother, too. My current stepmother is younger than me and will have her second babe in mere months. Hell, she's tiny. And so quiet all the damn time." He squeezed his eyes closed tight. "She has red hair like the lady you brought today. Do you think she's well?" He turned only his head to look at her, and worried fear made his eyes swim a watery blue.

No wonder he'd come here to work. He was not as careless with women as that kiss had suggested. The kiss had been something else. Something outside of the world, just between them two.

Lucy chose her words carefully. "She's likely in a bit of pain. But as far as I know, her pregnancy has progressed normally. And my brother is with her. She will be fine."

"I wish you could tell me if my stepmother will be fine. I know you cannot. I don't like to think about it. How she might die. Truthfully, I barely know her, but that does not matter. I don't want her to—" The words seemed to lodge in his throat.

"She might not. Women have babes every day."

"And they die. Every day. From the same. My sister… she was betrothed. To an old man, and I didn't much mind. I think… I think I thought it safer. If he died soon, as he was sure to do, she wouldn't have to bear many children." He shook his head. "You're not interested in this." He forced a bright smile. "Tell me… this new lady. The one who arrived when I did… she's well? Acclimating… nicely?"

She should not speak of Alex, but he needed distraction, and she wanted to give it to him. "Yes. But she did not have much at home to make her leaving bittersweet."

"Nothing or… no one she loved, that she'll miss?"

"No. A hard father, a cruel betrothed, and a thoughtless brother."

"Perhaps he's doing what all young gentlemen do—sowing his wild oats, living before he must settle down and produce an heir. Perhaps if she'd gone to him, trusted him, he might have helped her."

"What would he have done? Reassured her their father knew best? Looked once at the bruises on her arms and told her she imagined them? No. This is better. This is why Hawthorne House exists."

"You are right. It is a haven, and I am glad to be part of it. In even the smallest way."

She made the leap, then, reached for him, let her fingers test the stubble on his cheek, found that the roughness on her fingertips stole, somehow, her ability to breathe. But she spoke anyway, fingers sitting on stubble. "I am glad you are here, too." She pulled her hand back to her lap and curled her fingers into her palm, trapping the sensation of stubble there for as long as she could.

They didn't touch, despite sitting so close together, and the sliver of space between them sizzled into something living, something impossible to pass through.

He cleared his throat and spoke with a laugh. "I fear my ego is overly inflated, thinking I can be of any help to you at all. You, after all, are quite perfect."

She inhaled, the air hissing through her teeth. "Hardly."

He gaped, mouth hanging open. "Miss Lucy Jones, my angel, my countess, say it isn't so." Clearly, he was feeling better. Or hiding the raw truth of his heart behind careless teases.

"I did something quite stupid once. I interrupted a mission for Hawthorne House. Tried to complete it myself. I had no training, no idea. We were almost caught. Things turned out well enough, I suppose." She wiped a stray raindrop off her cheekbone. Not a tear. Not at all. "After that night, my mother looked at me differently. She's always wanted me to be better than her. I proved I was not." You're a passionate girl , she'd said, as if that were not a compliment, and you must not give in to your impulses . Lucy had always wondered what she'd left unsaid. Two little words maybe?

Like me. Do not give into your impulses like I did.

Lucy would never do that. She'd abandon passion for duty.

"Was anyone hurt?" Mr. Keats asked.

"Pardon?"

He elbowed her arm. "Was anyone hurt? On your first mission?"

"No."

"Was anyone helped ?"

"Yes."

"If you have only done one foolish thing in your life and it turned out well, then I admire you. Greatly. You are a more perfect being than I shall ever be. I've done a thousand foolish things. Not a one of them helpful."

"You helped today. In retrieving my brother."

His mouth curled into a grimace. "Apologies for hauling you about. I was not thinking. At all. Apologies, as well, for… what happened at the lake. I should not have kissed you." He clasped his hands between his knees. "It was a rather unique circumstance, and I am not known to behave in the most proper of those. I was bucking against the truth, denying it." He picked at a fraying hole in his trousers.

"And what truth is that?"

"That I can never go back to who I was before."

"And who was that?"

He tilted his head, and through a soft curtain of dark hair, he studied her, parted his lips, then shook his head. "Trouble. That's who I was."

She hopped off the rock and stood at the edge of the stream, the lightening rain melting into her already soaked cloak. Clear water tumbled over polished stones, and she picked up a small one that had washed onto dry land. She tossed it, and it landed with a plop and a splash.

He joined her, towering above like a strong oak, hands stuffed into pockets. "Did you use the basket? The blanket?"

"Pardon?" She looked at him over her shoulder. "The one in the coach? Yes, I did."

"I thought you might find those things useful."

" You thought? But Mrs. Beckett put those…"

He grinned, pink slashing over his high cheekbones.

"You?"

He shrugged.

"They were quite useful."

"Good." He stepped around her to stand between her and the stream. "Do you forgive me? For the kiss?"

There was nothing to forgive. The kiss did not hound her—lies she told herself. She cherished it. Relived it over and over because it sang through her blood like a perfect melody. It may be the only memory of passion she'd have to look back on after she let a husband she did not love into her bed.

The only memory? How sad, how pitiful. "How can I grant forgiveness when I want nothing more than another kiss?"

Every sound around them fizzled into silence—the rush of the stream, the patter of the rain, the hush of their separate breaths. Then he stepped closer, his thighs brushing against her skirts, and his hand nestled beneath her chin, lifting it, forcing her to meet his gaze.

"Do not say it if you do not mean it."

She was soaked and sad, lonely, and the adrenaline of her nighttime mission still buzzed through her. "I will likely marry soon and?—"

"It is already arranged?"

"Not yet. Soon. But it is not likely I'll know passion."

"A true tragedy."

"Not if I explore passion now." Give into impulse one more time. "Before I marry a man who will never know me." Not truly. What man could she ever share all of herself with? What man would love her knowing why she'd married him?

"What are you saying?" he asked.

He was flippant and charming. He took liberties and he teased. But he cared, too. He was no thoughtless aristocrat using her as a plaything. He was a working man with calluses on his palms. This the kind of man she wanted, but not the kind of man she'd have in the end. At least she'd have the memory of his touch, of the desire hot in his eyes, when she married herself to cold duty.

"I'm asking you to show me what passion is like. I wish to learn of pleasure before it is too late."

His jaw shifted side to side for a moment as he looked through the trees to the road in the distance. Then it softened, and so did his lips, and his hand beneath her chin smoothed around to the back of her neck, pulling her tight against his hard body. "If I go to hell for kissing you, so be it. The taste of your tongue is worth eternal damnation."

When he crashed his mouth against hers, the flames leapt to life, consuming, raging, ruining. Sinning was a sweet thing, and instead of falling into hell as she fell into this man's lips, she found heaven quite reachable on earth.