Hero, Come Back (16 page)

Christina Dodd

Wildbriar Inn, on the coast of Dorset, England
September 1847

L
eaning over the high porch railing, Harry Chamberlain looked down into the flowering shrubbery surrounding his oceanfront cottage and asked, “Young woman, what are you doing down there?”

The girl flinched, stopped crawling through the collection of moss, dirt, and faded pink blossoms, and turned a smudged face up to his. “Shh.” She glanced behind her, as if someone were creeping after her. “I’m trying to avoid one of my suitors.”

Harry glanced behind her, too. No one was there.

“Can you see him?” she asked.

“There’s not a soul in sight.” A smart man would have let her go on her way. Harry was on holiday, a holiday he desperately needed, and he had vowed to avoid trouble at all costs. Now a girl of perhaps eighteen years, dressed in a modish blue flowered gown, came crawling through the bushes, armed with nothing more than a ridiculous tale, and he was tempted to help. Tempted because of a thin, tanned face, wide brown eyes, a kissable mouth, a crooked blue bonnet, and, from this angle, the finest pair of breasts he’d ever had the good fortune to gaze upon.

Such unruliness in his own character surprised him. He was, in truth, Edmund Kennard Henry Chamberlain, Earl of Granville, the owner of a great estate in Somerset, and because of the weight of his responsibilities there, and the additional responsibilities he had taken on, he tended to do his duty without capriciousness. Indeed, it was that trait that had set him, eight years ago, to serve England in various countries and capacities. Now he gazed at a female intent on some silliness and discovered in himself the urge to find out more about her. Perhaps he had at last relaxed from the tension of his last job. Or perhaps
she
was the relaxation he sought.

In a trembling voice, she pleaded, “Please, sir, if he appears, don’t tell him I’m here.”

“I wouldn’t dream of interfering.”

“Oh, thank you!” A smile transformed that quivering mouth into one that was naturally merry, with soft, peach lips and a dimple. “Because I thought that’s what you were doing.”

Harry winced. “A good shot.”

“I’ll be on my way,” she whispered, and started to crawl forward. “Warn me if he appears before I am away.”

Harry nodded and looked around. His cottage afforded him a lovely view of the white sand beach, where waves rolled in eternally, soothingly, blessedly. Chalk cliffs rose on either side of the beach, and there the waves battered the rocks. He could hear the piercing cry of terns as they dove for smelt, and a breeze ruffled his dark hair, carrying the scent of brine and freshness. He wanted to sink back into the porch swing, to stare out at the ocean… to stretch his aching shoulder where the bullet had torn through muscles and bone, and wonder what next he would do with his life.

Instead he looked down. The girl was still there, struggling to unhook her bonnet from one of the stiff, clinging branches. “Take it off,” he recommended.

“I can’t. The ribbon is knotted.” She jerked at the bonnet.

He heard a ripping sound. Another shower of petals fell off the rhododendrons, her bonnet dropped in the dirt, and a mass of curly blond hair tumbled around her shoulders.

“Good God,” he whispered. In an instant, the fall of hair transformed her from a frightened English girl to a kneeling houri, waiting to service her master.

He shook his head to dispel the vision. Obviously he’d spent too much time among the sheiks and Bedouins of the East if he was imagining erotic tableaux here in the heart of sunny Dorset. And obviously he’d spent too much time alone if he lusted after such a hoyden.

But the tightening in his groin could not be denied. He did lust. When he got back to civilization, away from this backwater inn with its charming guest cottages and its windswept cliffs, he would have to do something about his condition. Take a mistress, perhaps. Or accede to his mother’s wishes and take a wife. Or both.

Unaware of his wandering thoughts, the girl picked up the bonnet and stared at it, shaking her head. “Oh, dear. Miss Hendrika will be most unhappy about this.”

He didn’t want to ask, but the habits of a lifetime were too strong. “Who is Miss Hendrika?”

“She’s my chaperone.”

“Where is Miss Hendrika?”

“She’s at the inn, finishing her breakfast.”

“Ah.” The inn stood behind the cottage at the very top of the hill overlooking the beach, a white-painted, two-story affair that looked like a larger version of his cottage, with a porch that ran the length of the building and chairs and rockers set out for the guests. That was whence the girl had undoubtedly come. “Aren’t chaperones supposed to…chaperone?”

“She’s rather old and a little dotty, and truth to tell, I think my stepmother told her not to bother chaperoning me too closely in hopes one of the suitors would compromise me.”

That frank speech settled it. This girl lifted the malaise that had plagued him since he’d been shot. And although he was not dressed to receive guests—he had discarded his jacket and his cravat as soon as he returned from breakfast—she would have to sit with him for at least a little while. Harry descended the steps and reached into the shrubbery, offering his hand. “Come up on the porch and explain.”

She eyed him doubtfully.

In a commanding tone, he said, “Really. I must insist.”

“So I noticed.” She crawled out and stood, brushing at the dirt caked on her knees and once again affording Harry a lovely view of her bosom. “But Lord Jenour-Redmond will certainly see me if I remain there.”

“Jenour-Redmond?” Harry knew him, and he could scarcely credit that that witless, graceless marquess was a suitor for the hand of this vivacious girl. “Why him?”

In a voice overflowing with tragedy, she confessed, “I have a fortune.”

“Dreadful.” He watched with appreciation as she rose to her full height.

With the precision of a government agent— which he was—Harry summed her up. Five foot four, one hundred and twenty pounds distributed in quite an attractive manner, and blond hair that she was trying to return, not very successfully, to its original position coiled at the back of her head. Her eyes were brown. No, dash it all, they were sparkling amber, of such a vivid hue that he immediately returned to imagining erotic scenarios involving her, him, and a mouth that looked delectable to the extreme.

He would have to be careful with this girl.

She was perhaps a little older than he’d first suspected. Normally he would have never said anything, but he saw nothing normal about this situation. “You’re twenty-two.”

She paused in the act of peeling off her soiled gloves. “Yes! How did you know? Most people think I’m younger.”

The gap between eighteen and thirty—his own age—was insurmountable. The gap between twenty-two and thirty was not so large, and made him feel less like an elderly letch leering at an innocent child’s breasts. Thank heavens, for he couldn’t stop leering—at the breasts and at the narrow waist below, and at the legs that, beneath the petticoats and skirt, must be long. “There is a touch of experience about you that no eighteen-year-old gently bred girl would have.”

Her narrow chin set and lifted, and indignation sounded clearly in her voice. “Sometimes they try and kiss me, but I don’t like it.”

“They?”

“The suitors.”

“Let’s sit on the porch.” Taking her hand, he assisted her up the steps and seated her on the wide swing. “Your suitors try to kiss you?” Smart men.

“Other men, too, but it’s the suitors who seem to think they
must
try.” She wiggled her nose as if that amply expressed her opinion, then expressed one anyway. “I’ll tell you frankly, kissing is not as agreeable as the romantical novels make it out to be.”

More fascinated than amused, he said, “Really?”

“For one thing, any reasonable looking man immediately becomes overly large at that distance, and one may view every fault.”

“You’re supposed to close your eyes,” Harry informed her gently.

“There’s a good idea.” Sarcasm dripped from her tone. “He’s already got me in a clinch, he’s pressing his lips to mine, and I’m to close my eyes so I can’t see what other tortures he has in store? Perish the thought.”

“You’ve been kissed by bunglers. Someone needs to kiss you correctly.” Ignoring her startled intake of breath, Harry went to the door and called his valet. “Dehaan, would you bring a glass of lemonade for my guest?”

“A guest? You have a guest?” Dehaan’s Dutch accent thickened with excitement, and he stuck his head out the door. In a tone of awe, he said, “It’s a woman.”

Harry gave him a push before he could say anything untoward. “Yes, and she’s thirsty.”

“Ya, ya, I will do it right away. And cakes, too, in case she is hungry. We don’t want her to run away and say we are not hospitable.” Dehaan frowned meaningfully at Harry. “Do we, sir?”

“No, we don’t. Now go and get the lemonade.” Damn the man! He had been Harry’s man of all trades for over five years, and he loved romance so well, he should have been a Frenchman. Now Dehaan’s eyes gleamed with matchmaking fervor, and as always, that meant trouble. Returning to the girl, Harry apologized, “Dehaan thinks I spend too much time alone.”

“Do you?”

The lady had a bluntness about her that took his breath away. “I have a lot on my mind.” Like what to do with the rest of his life—which might also be the reason his mother had insisted he come here.

Actually, if he really wanted to know why his mother had insisted he come here, all he had to do was read the letter. He’d found it packed in his clothing, but he hadn’t read it yet—these letters were his mother’s usual method of breaking bad news to him. Just so she had told him, the first time he went off to school, that she had asked his godfather to watch over him—and watch over him Lord Atlay did, much to the youthful Harry’s embarrassment. The first time he went abroad, she told him to bring her a damnable hat from Paris, and so he had, although he’d been forced to stuff a flower in the bullet hole near the crown. This time…there was no telling what she wanted this time, but it could wait while he relaxed with this girl.

And gave her advice. “Next time you have no wish to be kissed by a suitor, before he closes in, kick his knee—hard.”

“Ouch.” She rubbed her own knee in sympathy.

“Yes. That will discourage him. If he’s close, use the flat of your hand and smack his nose.”

“What does that do?”

“Breaks it, if you do it right. Allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed and gave her the pseudonym he’d used to check into the inn.“I’mHarry Windberry of Windberry Court, in Derbyshire.”

She rose and curtsied. “I’m Lady Jessie Macmillian, daughter of Viscount Macmillian of Suffolk.”

Harry lowered his brows. Macmillian. Macmillian. The name was familiar…Viscount Macmillian must be one of his mother’s many acquaintances, for somewhere back in the recesses of Harry’s mind, memory stirred. But the memory was old, and Harry could drag nothing forth except the sense of unpleasantness. Nothing treacherous, just…unpalatable.

“Please, may we be seated?” she begged. “I’ve been on the run all morning, and I’m exhausted.”

With a shrug, Harry gave up searching for remembrance, and returned his attention to Jessie. “On the run from Jenour-Redmond?”

“Yes, and he’s just the first of three.” She rubbed one slippered foot against the back of her leg, giving him a glimpse of her shapely ankle. “My father gave me an ultimatum. Choose one of them, or he’ll choose for me.”

Dehaan bustled out with two glasses of lemonade on a tray and a plate of the tea cakes they served at the inn, and with a bow and a gleaming smile, offered them to Lady Jessie.

“Thank you.” She took the glass and put it on the small table at her elbow. “Mr. Windberry, I know that, as a lady, I’m supposed to pretend to have the appetite of a bird and leave you the most”—she piled fully half the cakes on the small plate—“but I’m starving.”

This time Harry’s grin took over his face. “Please, take all you like. I’m not so great a fool as to judge a miss by the number of cakes she eats.”

“You’re very handsome when you smile. I do think it ridiculous that ladies are held to such an arbitrary standard. My stepmother scarcely touches a crumb in front of my father, but you should see the trays she has sent to her bedchamber.”

Harry thought he detected a compliment in the gush of words, but he wasn’t quite sure, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. This woman had already despoiled his morning without even trying. What she could do if they discovered a mutual admiration, he didn’t dare imagine. So he seated himself in the chair against the wall, the one that gave him the broadest view of the grounds. He took the glass and two of the cakes. When Dehaan put the plate down at Jessie’s elbow and disappeared back into the cottage, Harry said, “Tell me about these suitors, and why they’re seeking your hand here rather than at a society party supervised by your parents.”

Lady Jessie chewed, swallowed, and blotted her lips. “I have been out for four years, and after only one Season Papa announced he was tired of paying so much for a lost cause. You see, Papa is rather thrifty.”

Harry suspected that was a euphemism of unusual tact.

“So I’ve not been in society these last three years. Then Papa married again, and my stepmother convinced him sending me here would be an economical way to establish my betrothal, and heaven knows she doesn’t want to be seen at a party with me. She says it’s because I’m tactless. I think it’s because I may be twenty-two years old and a spinster on the shelf, but compared to her, I’m a babe in the cradle.”

Throwing back his head, Harry burst into laughter. Tactless? This girl was as blunt and direct as a cudgel!

“I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.” But Lady Jessie didn’t seem to suffer undue remorse, and she watched him with a tiny smile on her lips.

“I suppose not.” Still he chuckled. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed like that. His job was grim and dangerous, so he had become grim and dangerous. Now, as he watched her consume another cake, he experienced a loosening of tension, a desire to laugh and talk—as long as it was with her.