Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) Page 6

  True, with no such need to appear the lackwit, triumphantly claimed a win at the end of the game, despite the distinctly inferior play of Lord Conroy, her partner.

  “Very well, you two win. You had a sharp partner, Conroy,” Drake said with a nod to True as he threw down his cards in defeat. “I will be sure who my partner shall be next time!” He glanced over at Arabella after he said that, and by the look on his face True could tell he had just realized the insult that implied to his partner.

  Arabella had felt it, too. Her eyes widened, and she pouted prettily. “That was not chivalrous, sir.”

  “I say, Drake, that was too bad of you,” Conroy chimed in. He stood and bowed before Arabella. “Miss Swinley, I will be your partner next time we play at whist. If you like, I can give you lessons when we return to Lea Park.”

  True groaned inwardly; Conroy, teach her to play? Arabella was a very clever girl, and could likely best Conroy in any game he chose to play. Her “game” was much deeper, and it was yet to be seen whether she would win with the stratagem she had laid out for herself. True did not think Lord Drake was one to be impressed by frailty or stupidity. He valued honesty, too, above all else. What would happen if he did fall in love with Arabella, marry her, and then find the woman he had been courting was not the woman he wed?

  “I thank you, my lord,” Arabella said, prettily, to Conroy. “That was the speech of a true gentleman.”

  “My apologies, Miss Swinley,” Drake said, his cheeks a deep red. “I meant no slight to your ability, I—”

  “It is time we went up, True,” Arabella said, rising gracefully. “I am fatigued.”

  Willingly, True rose. They ascended to their room, where Arabella dropped her façade of elegant simpleton.

  “What is wrong with that man,” she fumed, regarding herself in the faded mirror and toying with one long ringlet. Though she had not been able to change her gown for the evening, she still looked elegant in a green carriage dress that brought out the color of her eyes. “I have never had a gentleman sneer at my intelligence in such an ungallant manner!”

  “He did not mean it, Bella,” True said, holding up the two nightrails Mrs. Lincoln, the landlady, had provided for them. She picked the shorter of the two and laid out the longer one for her cousin. “He is a competitive gentleman, and he did not think before he spoke. He likes to win and expects anyone with whom he is partnered to make the same effort.”

  “But he is not supposed to like to win over being partnered with me. I didn’t act like a simpering fool for nothing! He should have been charmed and felt protective toward me, as Lord Conroy did. That is how a true gentleman behaves.” She turned from the mirror. “And I suppose I have to wear that fright of a nightrail, that has been worn by who knows who? And we have to take care of ourselves?”

  “Yes, we have to look after ourselves,” True said, letting down her hair and shaking it back over her shoulders. “It won’t hurt us, you know. I am quite used to it, not having a maid at home.” She picked up the brush from the vanity table.

  “That is you,” Arabella returned scornfully. “A real lady does not even brush her own hair!” She swished her fingers around in the bowl of water provided for their ablutions. “And this is not hot! It has not been touched, I swan, since before we went down to dine!”

  True, as fond of her cousin as she was, gritted her teeth as she brushed out her long, soft hair, untangling with her fingers the knots created by the day’s breeziness and a long carriage ride. Bella was at her worst when she was forced to put up with less than ideal conditions. True knew what was coming, and she also knew she was helpless to prevent it, cursed by her own liking for harmony. “Mrs. Lincoln only has one girl to take care of guests, her married daughter, and she has gone home to her family already.”

  Scandalized, Arabella said, “But I need hot water, and someone to brush my hair, and who will help me undress? And I am absolutely famished. I was going to ring for a little tray of cakes to tide me over until morning.”

  “If you had eaten your dinner you would not now be hungry,” True pointed out, reasonably. She tossed the hairbrush on the vanity table. If there was an edge to her voice, she hoped her cousin would not hear it, but it made her angry that the cousin she grew up with, the child who willingly put up with the Spartan living conditions of the vicarage—Spartan compared with Swinley Manor, anyway—to be with her cousins, was now so spoiled.

  “But I wasn’t hungry then. I am now,” Arabella fretted crossly. She glanced sideways at her cousin and her expression softened. “Will you go down and get me something, True?”

  Her tone had changed to wheedling, and True knew she would end up doing it. She sighed. “Look, I will go down and get a tray and bring a pitcher of hot water, but you must brush your own hair and don your own nightrail. And no more complaints!”

  “All right,” Arabella said, satisfied. She began to pull the pins out of her hair even as True headed for the door. True smiled at the flashes of the happy child she used to be, the child who had followed her cousin True like a shadow. If only Arabella would show that sunny side more often! But it did not seem to injure her credit in London that she was petulant and pouting at times. If all the gentlemen were like Lord Conroy, it was not surprising that young ladies were indulged and spoiled. That gentleman seemed to think a female was a delicate flower, incapable of doing the slightest thing for herself. True shuddered. She did not think she could stand to be treated that way, like a Staffordshire shepherdess, likely to shatter at the merest bump.

  The halls were dark as True ventured down to the kitchen, where Mrs. Lincoln bustled around in a voluminous white apron, setting pans of bread dough to proof by the fire while a scullery maid scrubbed pots at the huge sink. The landlady glanced up and dropped a swift curtsey. “And what service may I do for ya, miss?” she said.

  “I dislike bothering you, Mrs. Lincoln, but if it would not be too much trouble, may I get a pitcher of hot water for our room?”

  “Certainly, miss.” She wrapped a towel around the handle of a kettle hanging on a hook over the fire and poured steaming water into an ewer. “Woulda done this myself, if I had known you was finished with the card playing and were wishin’ to retire. Is there anything else?”

  True flushed. How to say this? “I wonder if we might, that is, if I could ask . . . could we trouble you for a plate of biscuits, or bread and jam? We . . . my cousin and I . . . are just the slightest bit—”

  “Ah, lass, do not think to cozen me,” the woman said with a smirk. “That beanpole you say is your cousin is nigh unto famished, as she didna have the courtesy to eat what was set before her. And good sturdy food it were, too, naught wrong with it. Miss High-an’-Mighty stuck her nose in th’air, an’ now her belly be growlin’.”

  True shrugged and nodded. She would not conceal nor try to put a good face on Arabella’s petulance.

  “For you, I will do this, because you had the goodness to come down an’ ask, pretty-like, unlike Miss Nose-in-the-Air.” She cut some slices of soft bread and slathered butter out of a crockery dish, then coated the pieces with apricot preserves. She cut the bread into triangles and arranged them on a plate. “And if the missy does not like our plain country fare, then she can expect no breakfast in the morn! You tell her that, lass! I’ll send her off starvin’ afore she says nay to my cookin’ another time. I’ll not give her another chance to slight me kitchen! Do you need a hand taking that up?”

  “No, Mrs. Lincoln,” True said, grinning. “I can manage.” She tossed her hair back over her shoulder, thinking she should not have taken it down so soon, and then took the plate in one hand and the ewer of hot water in the other. “Shall I bring the dishes down after?”

  “Nay! Set them outside th’door, lass, and Jane will take them in the morning.”

  True made her way up the hall from the kitchen, toward the stairs, thinking that Mrs. Lincoln and Arabella would have a rare battle of wills if they were forced to stay there another nig
ht. Still balancing the plate in one hand and carrying the jug in the other, she opened one door with her foot, and then found she had taken a wrong turn and was headed down the dim hallway toward what was presumably the tap room, from the sound of patrons talking loudly and the smell of pipe smoke.

  She was just headed back the way she came when the door behind her opened and someone came down the hall toward her. She bustled toward the stairs and made it to the first step, not willing to be accosted by a patron on his way to the “necessary” out in back.

  “Ah, Miss Truelove Beckons!”

  It was Lord Drake. True stopped and turned, smiling up at him. She was glad it was one of their party and not a stranger.

  “What, hungry? Was dinner not enough? You shall be as plump as a pigeon if you take to late night meals this way. Not that I object to a little plumpness in so pretty a pigeon.”

  His voice was rich and deep, and his tall, broad presence looming above her set True’s heart to thumping. “We needed some hot water for our washing up, and the bread and jam—”

  “Do not explain,” Drake said, his voice just a little thick from a glass or two too much of ale. “I wonder if you are fetching and carrying for Miss Swinley. Are you really a companion then? Is that your secret? And is she using you as her handmaid?”

  “We shall both make use of the water. I must go up.” True started up the stairs, but with surprising agility, Drake stepped up before her and barred her way.

  “Now, you must know that the serving wenches at every inn must learn how to rebuff the attentions of their patrons who have had a little too much vino.”

  At first True did not think she had heard him correctly, but the next instant she felt his large hands spanning her waist and pulling her close to him. She could smell the ale on his breath and the tobacco smoke on his clothes, but before she had the time to gather her wandering wits, she felt his lips on her cheek.

  Drake bussed her quickly and stepped back. She would slap him now, and rightly too! No matter if she was acting as a serving wench, she was a lady down to her toes. But in the dim light offered by the candles in wall sconces, he could see her bright blue eyes opened wide in shock. The look in her eyes was not one of revulsion or alarm, but of question and sweet confusion.

  Drawn by that innocent expression, entranced by the delicate softness of her skin and the tumbling dark waves of fine, silky hair, he pulled her back to him, resting her against his length and gazing down at her in the dim light of the stairwell. She clung to the ewer, and the plate of bread and jam threatened to slide from her grasp, but he didn’t care. He was aware of her softly rounded breasts against his waistcoat, and the slim outline of her legs against his breeches.

  He raised one hand to caress the catkin velvet of her brown hair and he spanned the back of her head, holding it firm while he lowered his face toward hers. Her eyes fluttered closed, and when his lips touched hers and they parted beneath him, he felt a surge of dizzying desire he had not experienced in years. It seemed an eternity, but he awoke to the feeling of her struggling in his arms, and he released her carefully, not wanting her to tumble down from the force.

  “Miss Becket . . . Truelove, I am sorry, I forgot myself.”

  Face flaming, she turned from him and raced up the stairs, losing a jam-smeared triangle of bread in her haste.

  Chapter Six

  “What took you so long?” Arabella snapped.

  She was always like that when hungry, and True resisted the urge to snap back. Laying the plate of bread and butter on the vanity table, she crossed to the washbasin, dumped the cold water into a pail by the door and refilled the china bowl with steaming water from the ewer. It would do neither of them good to quarrel, and she wanted quiet and solitude to ponder what had just happened. It had been seven years since she had kissed a man, and God help her, but even Harry’s kisses had never ever made her feel as though her body was aflame, or like her bones were turning to gruel.

  Fussing with the hot water, and then washing her face, she kept her back to Bella, sure her cheeks must be bright scarlet. Her cousin was occasionally selfish and always self-involved, but she was also surprisingly shrewd about some things. True would not risk being questioned.

  “I have brought bread and jam,” she said, patting at her face with a cloth. “It was all Mrs. Lincoln had. I’m tired. I’ll leave the candle for you.” True undressed in the shadows, laid her clothing neatly over the chair by the bedside and slipped the nightrail on over her shift, shivering a little in the damp chill of their room. She didn’t really think she would sleep, but neither did she want to talk. “Good night, Bella.” She slid under the covers and turned on one side, facing the wall.

  • • •

  Arabella stood staring at the dark hump in the bed that was her cousin. She bit her lip. Had she been peevish enough that she had offended True? Not possible! If there was one thing in her world that was a rock, one person whom she could trust, it was Truelove Becket. True was gentle, complaisant, sweet-tempered to a fault. Arabella tried not to take out her peevish humors on her cousin, but the trouble was, she knew True would forgive her after, and so she did not always guard her tongue as she ought. She considered apologizing, but it looked as if True was asleep already, and she supposed she shouldn’t disturb her.

  Perhaps she wasn’t feeling well.

  Sitting at the vanity table, Arabella picked up one of the slices of bread and jam and bit into it. Instantly the homely taste brought back vivid memories of childhood stays at the vicarage, and of True smuggling late night feasts of bread and jam from the kitchen as they giggled and gossiped with Faithful, True’s younger sister. Tears started in her eyes.

  It was strange that even though she had spent three glittering Seasons enjoying London, the memories of the vicarage were still sharp and clear, and could still raise a lump in her throat. For all those years she had never thought that her mother really loved her; she could not and abandon her daughter at the vicarage for every school holiday with excuses of travel and commitments. And yet with True and Faithful as her friends, and the gentle vicar as a substitute father, she was not the lonely little girl who had first arrived there at eight years of age.

  She would never stop loving her cousin for that, even though now her mother seemed to value Arabella as she should. True had made the vicarage what she would always think of as her childhood home. Arabella glanced over at the bed, took a deep breath and whispered, “I’m sorry, True, for being snappish,” she whispered. “Good night.”

  She had to learn to curb her tongue. Sometimes she longed for the old days, the simpler days, but that part of her life was over. Now she was engaged in the serious business of finding a husband, a wealthy, titled, and hopefully attractive husband, and it must absorb all of her concentration. Her mother had been unusually insistent about the necessity of attracting Lord Drake and getting a proposal out of him. She would have to watch the man, and decide how best to flatter and tease him into love.

  Meal done, she blew out the candle and crept into bed beside her cousin. Within minutes she was deeply asleep.

  • • •

  Drake, recovered fully from the slight tipsiness he had experienced, was in a mood for solitude, and so he strolled the stable yard “blowing a cloud,” as his fellow officers called smoking a cigar. He had become addicted to the weed in Spain, where small, dark, slender cigars were plentiful. Smoking calmed his frayed nerves and gave him something to do, he supposed.

  Truelove Becket. What on earth had possessed him to grab her in the stairway and kiss her as if she were a serving wench? Drunkenness was not an adequate excuse, though some men chose to employ it. It was usually what men in his regiment used as an explanation if they were caught being unchivalrous to the local ladies in Spain or Portugal or Belgium. It did not matter to him if they were drunk or stone-cold sober, he told them. He expected them to treat the local ladies as they would English ladies, with chivalry and good manners.

  So he would n
ot use his drinking to explain that lapse from propriety. The first kiss had been meant to tease her, as a jest. He had fully expected a slap across the face for his efforts. Of course her hands were occupied and so she was helpless. But then, that bewildered expression of . . . of what? What had that look meant? Her blue eyes had widened and she had gazed up at him, her plump lips parted, and urged on by insidious desire he had taken that berry-sweet mouth with a ravenous kiss, feeling even as he did it that he was very much in the wrong to take advantage of her surprise in such a caddish manner.

  That second kiss; if he was very lucky he would dream of it, feel again her soft mouth under his, the pounding of his blood through his veins, the powerful surge of desire. And he would experience the delicious sensation of his fingers sliding through fine hair as soft as a cloud. He did not think he would be so lucky. He had dreamt of nothing but battlefields since “That Day,” as Waterloo had become in his memory. He turned to pace the length of the stable yard again.

  • • •

  Arabella was snoring softly. It had only taken her minutes to fall into her usual deep sleep, but True had not even been able to close her eyes. She had heard her cousin’s whispered apology and soft good night but had not replied, fearing Arabella would want to talk if she knew True was awake. She slipped from the bed they shared and crept around it to the window, curling up in the narrow window seat and tucking her bare toes under the hem of her borrowed nightrail. Their room looked down into the stable yard—Arabella had complained, but it was all that was to be had—and even at this late hour someone was awake and strolling the yard.