To Rescue or Ravish? (3 page)

“If you’re not really engaged, why was that announcement in the papers?”

This was safer ground, or at least less of a quagmire. She explained, haltingly at first, then in a veritable torrent of indignation. She’d forgotten how easy it was to talk to Matthew. “How dare he?” she cried. “How dare they?”

His cool, matter-of-fact voice reminded her that they hardly knew one another now. “Greed does strange things to people. So does lust.”

Yes, she remembered lust. It had driven her to utter folly.

And yet at the mere mention of lust in the proximity of this man, the coals of desire glowed and flickered into flame. Fool that she was, she’d longed for him and loved him, while he’d merely given in to his male instincts with her—a natural reaction of a male to a female and nothing more, as his subsequent behaviour had made perfectly clear.

She envisioned a snuffer extinguishing that foolish flame.
There
.
All gone.

But not really, so she hastened into the safety of speech. “My uncle must be desperate to get the house, to have connived with Sir Reginald in such a dreadful way. Perhaps he has debts, or maybe he finds the terms of the trust intolerable. I know I do. We dislike each other intensely, and since my aunt died it has been worse. Why should we have to wait years and years to go our separate ways?”

“That’s no excuse for what he and Sir Reginald did. They deserve to be soundly whipped.”

“You treated Sir Reginald very roughly.” She clenched her fists. “I wish I could do the same. I wish I could see them both mortified and shunned. Instead, I shall be the one to suffer. I have avoided the marriage, but I shan’t escape the scandal.” She summoned a weak little smile. He’d been a wild boy, the despair of his family, but such fun…. She’d felt safe with him and entirely free.

But she’d left that Arabella behind long ago. When her mother had died, she’d still had her father and Matt. But then Matt had gone away, and a few years later her father had died, and after that her aunt, an insipid woman who’d at least meant well. She’d learned that she could count on no one but herself. “You never cared about scandal, so you wouldn’t understand.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens to you,” he said.

“Thank you, Matt,” she said. “It’s good to know I have one…” She stumbled over the word. “One friend left in the world.”

* * *

“That bad, is it?” Matt said.
Now you know how it feels.
Aghast at his own bitterness, he clamped his mouth shut. At least he hadn’t said it out loud. She was a nob through and through, but she didn’t deserve this predicament, while he had to some extent merited his own. He was a beast to let his own pain worsen hers. Something of his anger must have come through in his voice, for she turned sharply away, shivering in the wind.

“Sorry, love,” he said, longing to put an arm about her and pull her close. It took all his control to keep his hands on the reins where they belonged. “I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said stiffly.

“Yes,” he said, “it does. I understand better than you can imagine.” She sounded as desolate as he’d felt seven years ago.

“How can you possibly understand? You’re a man.”

“A man can be alone and friendless, too.” He didn’t want to discuss himself. “You’ll stay with my mother as long as you need to, and everything will be fine.”

“That’s most kind of you, and I’m extremely grateful—”

“I don’t want your gratitude, damn it!” He moderated his voice. “I’m trying to help. Isn’t that what friends do?”

She stared silently down at her hands. He couldn’t see clearly in the darkness, but were her fists clenched? Yes—after a while he caught the movement as she opened them again. Did she loathe the thought of his friendship so very much?

She took a deep breath and said, “I shall love to see your mother again, as she was always most kind to me, but going to her will only solve my immediate problem. I shall put a notice in the papers, but people won’t believe the announcement was an error. A ruptured engagement almost always reflects badly on the woman.” She sighed. “Perhaps I’ll go live on the Continent. The pin money allowed by the trust should be enough to support me there with perhaps one of my servants.”

Matt shook his head. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Of course I don’t!” she snapped. “But it would be better than remaining here to be ridiculed and possibly shunned.”

“Can’t say I think much of your friends,” Matt said.

“They’re not so bad,” Arabella said. “They’re obliged to protect their own reputations.”

He wasn’t about to argue with this; to the nobs, reputation was king. From his beginnings, he could have gone up or down. When he’d been thrown out of home, he’d been forced to start from the bottom, but once he’d had a choice, for the most part he’d chosen down. “We’ll think of summat, Bella-love.”

Her wavering smile cut straight to his heart. He hadn’t the faintest what to do for her, but that glimmer of hope in her eyes meant he had to succeed.

He doubted she’d do much glimmering when she saw where he was taking her. They progressed steadily into more unsavoury areas of London. Judging by her rigid posture, she became more nervous as the minutes went by. Her erect head wasn’t held up by her stays. That was pride in the face of fear.

He took a dim view of pride, but if it mattered that much to her, he would do his best to help. If she left for the Continent, he would be obliged to accompany her. He couldn’t allow her to go jaunting off alone, even with a female companion. He wondered if she would take him as a footman.

No, he wondered how he was going to keep his hands off her.

She was shivering again. Damn.

* * *

“Hold these.” Matthew handed her the reins, undid the buttons of his cloak and removed it. He flung it over her shoulders. “Bundle up now, good and tight.” He took the reins again.

“What about you?”

“A little cold won’t hurt me. You’re the delicate flower of society who might wilt. Can’t have that now, can we?”

“I am not a delicate flower,” she said, nettled. “I may have been temporarily overset by events, but I do not intend to wilt.” He wasn’t shivering yet, but he soon would be. “Nor do I wish to be responsible if you catch your death of cold.” She squeezed close to him, spread the cloak wide, and put it over his shoulders as well.

He snickered, muttering something under his breath.

“What’s so amusing? What did you say?”

He shrugged, his shoulder shifting against hers, and settled the cloak around himself. This proximity with Matthew was shockingly familiar, as if not one day had passed since they’d been much closer, skin to naked skin, instead of almost seven years. Beneath the smell of the cold outdoors, she detected the warm, masculine scent of him. Nothing—neither the disdain in his voice nor relegation to the status of mere friend—could stop the traitorous thrills that rippled through her.

She didn’t want to remember that day. She couldn’t afford to feel such sensations ever again. “Tell me.”

“If you’ve forgotten what happened the last time we were this close to one another,” he said, “I certainly haven’t.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” she said, knowing she sounded surly.

“Then you might want to keep your distance.”

“I’m
devastatingly
sorry if my proximity annoys you, but I don’t want your death on my hands.”

After a pause, he said dryly, “It doesn’t bother
me
.” Of course not, because he was male. He didn’t try to move away, and if he thought he could shame her into doing so, he had another think coming. She was only doing this out of necessity. Snuggled next to him like this, she was at least partly warm.

Oh, who was she fooling? She wanted to fling her arms around him and kiss him, again and again. She wanted him to kiss her back until she drowned in his kisses. She’d missed those kisses for years and years. Only pride kept her from resting her head on his arm and bathing her senses in their closeness.

A few minutes later they turned into a dark passage. To one side stood a stationer’s shop; to the other a tavern that, judging by the precarious slant of its upper stories, had seen far better days. Lamplight glowed from within. Boisterous voices swelled in song.

Warmth
, she thought.
I bet it’s warm in there
.

He passed her the reins. “I’ll just be a jiff.” He leapt down, flung open the tavern door and shouted over the uproar. “Rufus! You in here?” The singing paused, someone spoke, laughter flowed and the song began again.

Matthew returned and put up a hand to take his cloak and help her down. She wished she needn’t touch him at all. She yearned to touch him everywhere.

That was impossible, of course. He felt nothing but pity for her. And amusement. Well, she was rather pitiful, wasn’t she? Still in love with a man she’d tried to forget for years, but she was damned if she would let him know. She got her foot on the step, trying to clamber off without his help, but he took her by the waist and swung her down. He set her gently on her feet. His hands lingered on her hips a little too long before he let go. No, that was wishful thinking.

His face hovered above hers, dark and inscrutable. “Bella, why have you never married?”

Panic swelled inside her. Frantically, she tried to think of what to say. Not the truth; never that.

The tavern door opened and he turned away. The frenzied battering of her heart slowed, and her thoughts cleared. She could say it was none of his business. She could say none of her beaux had proven interesting. She could say she didn’t plan to marry at all.

“Whatcha want, gov?” A short, bandy-legged man with a well-weathered face and few teeth grinned at them. “Evening, miss.”

“There’s a guinea for you if you stable Will’s nags,” Matt said. “I have other business to take care of.”

“I can see you do.” Rufus ran an appreciative eye over Arabella and gave a grotesque wink.

“Mind your manners,” Matt retorted.

“Don’t reprimand him,” she said equally sharply. “What else is he to think? If I don’t care, I don’t see why you should.” Strangely, his ogling didn’t bother her nearly as much as that of several men of her own class. “Thank you for helping out, Rufus.” She wondered if she was to provide the guinea. Matt looked as if he had no more than a shilling or two to his name at any one time.

“Always happy to oblige young love.” Rufus scrambled up to the box and drove off.

I will not be embarrassed
, Arabella decided.
I will not be mortified at people’s obvious conclusions.

“You must have had offers,” Matt said. “Pretty heiresses always have offers.”

“I refused them.” She was shivering again, and he wanted to stand outside and talk about her suitors! Was he trying to marry her off, too? “Are we going into the tavern?”

“No, we’re going to visit a printer just up the street. The tavern’s not your sort of place.”

Fury gripped her. “How do you know what’s my sort of place? You know nothing about me!” She was sick and tired of his stupid assumptions, and as for his pity, he could…he could… There must be some crude and colourful expression to convey precisely what she wished, but being a delicate, wilting flower of society, she didn’t know what it was. “Where are we?”

His eyes never left her face. “Grub Street.”

“Writers?” she said. “Artists?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“I read novels and poems. I enjoy paintings. Why shouldn’t I like the people who produce them?”

He watched her silently for a few seconds more. “No reason, but it’s not a good idea tonight.”

Freezing to death wasn’t a good idea, either. She pushed past him into the tavern. A delightful gush of warmth greeted them.

He took her arm. “Bella, I don’t think—” He cursed under his breath and let her go. “I’d forgotten how stubborn you are.”

They went into the taproom. Gathered around a table were men in all stages of drunkenness and—good God—some women, too. “And ploughed her field again-o!” the voices rang out, ending the song. A man banged his flagon hard on the table. Ale sloshed out, splashing his neighbour, who soundly cuffed him. Everyone laughed.

“Ho, Matt!” cried a big, jolly-looking man. “Who’s the lovely lady?” He leered at her with such good cheer that she couldn’t help but smile back. The place smelled of sweat, ale and tallow candles, but everyone seemed so friendly—so welcoming and warm—that somehow she didn’t mind.

“A friend,” Matt said, whipping her about to face him. For the first time, Arabella got a good look at his face. He was older, of course, but there was also a hardness in his eyes, an implacability about his ruggedly handsome features, that hadn’t been there years before. He growled in her ear. “Seen enough?”

She peeked around him. Oh, heavens! One of the women was perched upon the lap of a man who unabashedly fondled her breast. Wistfully, Arabella remembered being fondled. Remembered how amazingly sweet it had felt. How had she managed to survive without it for so many years? Why
should
she survive without it?

Unfortunately, she could think of many reasons, the most important being that the only man she wished to fondle her had no intention of doing so. Very well, but
she
had no intention of leaving this cozy, welcoming place right away, no matter how vulgar its occupants might be.

And she would die rather than let Matt know she felt the slightest bit uncomfortable. She stepped around him, took a deep breath and screwed up her courage. “Good evening, everyone,” she said. “My name is Bella. Have you room for us at the table?”

The ogling man hooted. “Always a place for a lady.” He stood, grabbed an empty chair and adjured the couple to leave off and move over. “Come sit next to me, darling.”

“Not on your life, Bird,” Matt told the ogling man, pulling her around the table and shoving another chair in between. It was rather disconcerting to sit next to the couple but undoubtedly safer, seeing as that man’s hands were fully occupied.

Matt signaled to the wench at the tap. “A heavy-wet for me, Moll, and…” The hard look vanished from his eyes, and he smiled at her, that sweet, mischievous smile of old. “Mulled wine for the lady.”