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‘Well, you were wearing my jacket when those oafs jostled it out of the pocket.’
‘What oafs?’ She frowned. ‘Oh. You mean when we came in here?’
He could see her mind going over the scene, just as his own had done the moment he’d realised the purse wasn’t where he’d put it.
‘So,’ she added slowly. ‘You think that is when the purse went missing, do you?’
‘When else could it have gone?’
‘How about when you fell out of the gig?’
‘You mean when you pushed me out of the gig?’
They were no longer walking along the street but standing toe to toe, glaring at each other. Though what right she had to be angry, he couldn’t imagine. He was the one who was having to abandon every principle he held dear. She was the one whose fault it was.
Yet she was breathing heavy, indignant breaths. Which made her gown strain over her bosom.
Her unfettered bosom.
Since her stays were in his hand. At least they were in his valise, which was in his hand.
‘Right,’ she said, and drew herself up to her full height and lifted her chin.
He probably ought to warn her to pull his jacket closed. She could have no idea how touchable and tempting she looked right now.
Tempting? No. She wasn’t tempting. She was not.
No more than she’d been when she’d moaned in ecstasy at the flavour of his steak and onions. There was still something the matter with his brain—that was what it was. Some lingering after-effect from the drug. It explained why he’d spilled out almost the entire story of his adventure at Wragley’s. And why he kept on being afflicted by these inconvenient, inappropriate surges of lust.
Though part of it was down to her. The way she looked all wild and wanton in the grip of anger, so much more alive and vital than any other woman he’d ever known. The way she openly stood up to him in a way nobody had ever dared before.
Though he’d even found her appealing when she’d looked drugged and dazed and helpless. Helpless, she aroused his protective instincts. Angry she just aroused...more basic instincts.
‘Right,’ she said again. And with a toss of her head turned round and strode away from him.
‘Where do you think you are going?’ The insufferable wench was obliging him to follow her if he didn’t wish to lose sight of her.
‘I’m going,’ she tossed over her shoulder, ‘to sort out the mess you have plunged us into.’
‘Mess I have plunged us into? You were the one who got robbed—’
‘You were the one who left the purse in my pocket, though, once it became an outside pocket after you removed your coat.’
‘I—’ Dammit, she was correct. Again. He should have kept hold of the purse himself.
‘In my defence,’ he pointed out resentfully, ‘I had just suffered a stunning blow to the head.’
‘Trust you to bring that up,’ she said, rounding on him. And then, taking him completely by surprise, she reached up and snatched off his hat.
‘You don’t mind me borrowing this, do you?’
‘For what, pray?’
‘To collect the money.’
‘Collect the...what?’
She didn’t seriously mean to go begging through the streets, did she? That would be worse by far than anything that had happened to him yet.
‘Yes, I do mind,’ he said, reaching round her to retrieve his property.
But she twitched it out of his reach. And slapped his hand for good measure. And carried on walking down the street towards the market square.
‘Prudence,’ he warned her. ‘I cannot permit you to do this.’ It was unthinkable. If anyone ever found out that he’d been seen begging... The very thought sent cold chills down his spine.
‘Permit me?’
If he thought she’d looked angry before it was as nothing compared to the way she looked now. She came to an abrupt halt.
‘You have no say over anything I do,’ she said, poking him in the chest with her forefinger. A habit she’d no doubt picked up from that bony aunt of hers. ‘I shall do as I please.’
‘Not with my hat, you won’t.’
He made a move to get it back. But she was still too quick for him, nimbly leaping out of his reach with the agility of a professional fencing master.
‘Prudence,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t you realise you can be arrested for begging?’
‘Begging?’ She gave him a disbelieving look over her shoulder. ‘I have no intention of begging.’
Well, that was a relief. But still... ‘Then what do you plan to do? With my hat?’
‘It’s market day,’ she said, as though the statement should be self-explanatory. And then added for his benefit, as though he were a total simpleton, ‘People expect entertainers to come to town on market day.’
‘Yes. But you are not an entertainer. Are you?’
‘No,’ she said indignantly. ‘But I do have a very fine singing voice.’
‘Oh, no...’ he muttered as she made for the market cross with his hat clutched in her determined little fingers. ‘You cannot mean to perform in the street for pennies, surely?’
‘Well, do you have a better idea?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which is...?’ She planted her hands on her hips and pursed her lips again.
Dammit, nobody ever questioned his decisions. If he said he had an idea people always waited to hear what it was, with a view to carrying out his orders at once. They didn’t plant their hands on their hips and look up at him as though they didn’t believe he had ever had a plan in his life.
‘I see no reason,’ he said, affronted, ‘why I should tell you.’
‘Just as I thought,’ she scoffed. ‘You haven’t a plan. Except to pawn your watch and then go crawling back to that nasty landlord, with your tail between your legs, in order to retrieve a horse you despise and a gig that you have trouble steering.’
‘I do not!’
He was a notable whip.
Normally.
‘And I have no intention of crawling. I never crawl.’
‘Really?’
She raised one eyebrow in such a disdainful way it put him in mind of one of the patronesses of Almack’s, depressing the pretensions of a mushroom trying to gain entrance to their hallowed club.
‘Really,’ he insisted.
‘So, how do you propose to treat with the landlord?’
‘Once I’ve pawned my watch—’
‘Look,’ she said, in the kind of voice he imagined someone using on a rather dim-witted child. ‘There will be no need for you to pawn that watch. Because I intend to rectify the situation I have caused by being so careless as to lose the purse you entrusted to my keeping without informing me you had done so. If it was actually there when you draped your jacket around my shoulders,’ she said with an acid smile. ‘For all I know you dropped it at The Bull. A lot of things went missing there. Why not your purse?’
‘Because I distinctly recall paying my shot there—that’s why.’
‘Well, then. It’s clearly up to me to make amends,’ she flung at him, before mounting the steps of the market cross and setting his hat at her feet.
‘Not so fast,’ he said, striding after her and mounting the steps himself.
‘You cannot stop me,’ she said, raising one hand as though to ward him off. ‘I will scream,’ she added as he reached for the open edges of his jacket.
But she didn’t. Not even before she realised that all he was doing was buttoning it up.
‘There,’ he growled. ‘At least you no longer run the risk of being arrested for indecency.’
She clapped her hands to her front, glancing down in alarm. While he stalked away to seek a position near enough to keep watch over her, yet far enough away that nobody would immediately suspect him of being her accomplice.
Once he’d found a suitable vantage point he folded his arms across his chest with a glower. Short of wrestling her down from the steps, there was no way to prevent the stubborn minx from carrying out her ridiculous threat. Let her sing, then! Just for as long as it took her to realise she was wasting her time. They’d never get as much money from what amounted to begging as they would by pawning his watch.
And then she’d have to fall in with his plans, meek as a lamb. A chastened lamb. Yes, he’d wait until the citizens of Tadburne had brought her down a peg, and then he’d be...magnanimous.
He permitted himself a smile in anticipation of some of the ways in which he could be magnanimous to Miss High-and-Mighty Prudence Carstairs while she cleared her throat, lifted her chin, shifted from one foot to the other, and generally worked up the nerve to start her performance.
The first note that came from her throat wavered. He grimaced. If that was the best she could do they weren’t going to be here very long. He’d pull her down off the steps before the locals started pelting her with cabbages, naturally. He didn’t want a travelling companion who smelled of rotting vegetables.
Prudence cleared her throat and started again. This time running through a set of scales, the way he’d heard professional singers do to warm up.
By the time she’d finished her scales the notes coming from her throat no longer squeaked and wavered. They flowed like liquid honey.
Prudence hadn’t exaggerated. She did indeed have a fine singing voice. In keeping with the husky, rather sensuous way she spoke, she sang in a deep, rich, contralto voice that might have earned her a fortune in London.
Blast her.
Every time he looked forward to gaining the advantage she somehow managed to wrest it back.
So why did he still find her so damned attractive?
* * *
Oh, Lord, if Aunt Charity could see her now! She’d be shocked. Horrified. That a Biddlestone should resort to singing in a public street... Although, had Aunt Charity not abandoned her in The Bull, there would have been no need to do any such thing. Or if Mr Willingale hadn’t lost his purse and chosen to blame her instead of shouldering it like a gentleman.
No, she mustn’t get angry. Anger would come out in her voice and ruin her performance. One of the singing teachers she’d had intermittently over the years had told her always to think pleasant thoughts when singing, even if the ballad was a tragic one, or it would make her vocal cords tense and ruin her tone.
So she lost herself in the words, telling the story of a girl in love with a swain in the greenwood. She pictured the apple blossom, the rippling brook and the moss-covered pebbles about which she was singing.
She would not look at Mr Willingale, whose expression was enough to turn milk sour. Or at least not very often. Because, although it was extremely satisfying to see the astonishment on his face when she proved that not only could she sing, she could do so to a very high standard, it made her want to giggle. And nobody could sing in tune when they were giggling. It was worse than being angry, because it ruined the breath control.
Far better to look the other way, to where people were starting to take note of her. To draw near and listen. To pull out their hankies as she reached the tragic climax of the ballad and dab at their eyes.
And toss coppers into the hat she’d laid at her feet.
She did permit herself to dart just one triumphant glance in Mr Willingale’s direction before launching into her next song, but only one. There would be time enough to crow when she could tip the shower of pennies she was going to earn into his hands.
She’d show him—oh, yes, she would. It had been so insulting of him not to trust her to pawn his watch. He’d looked at her the way that landlord had just looked at him. How could he think she’d run off with his watch and leave him there?
He’d assumed she would steal his gig, too, earlier, and leave him stunned and bleeding in the lane.
He was the most distrustful, suspicious, insulting man she’d ever met, and why she was still trying to prove she wasn’t any of the things he thought, she couldn’t imagine.
Why, she had as much cause to distrust him—waking up naked in his bed like that.
Only honesty compelled her to admit that it hadn’t been his doing. That was entirely down to Aunt Charity and her vile new husband. There really could be no other explanation.
She came to the end of her second ballad and smiled at the people dropping coins into Mr Willingale’s hat. How she wished she had a glass of water. Singing in the open air made the voice so dry, so quickly. Perhaps she could prevail upon Mr Willingale to fetch her some? She darted a hopeful glance in his direction. But he just grimaced, as though in disgust, then turned and strode off down a side street.
He had no intention of helping her—not when he was opposed to her plan. The beast was just going to leave her there. Probably hoping she’d become nervous once he was out of sight and run after him, begging him not to leave her alone.
Well, if he thought she would feel afraid of being alone in the middle of a strange town then he didn’t know her at all. Why, she’d been in far more dangerous places than an English town on market day.
Though then she’d been a child. With her parents to protect her. Not to mention the might of the English army at her back. Which was why she’d never felt this vulnerable before.
Not even when she’d realised her aunt had abandoned her at The Bull. Though that had probably been largely due to the fact that she’d been numb with shock and still dazed from the sleeping draught at that point this morning. But now she was starting to think clearly.
What was to become of her?
She had no money. Only the few clothes she stood up in. And no real idea where she was or where she was going. In just a few short hours she’d become almost totally reliant on Mr Willingale. Who’d just disappeared down that alley. For a second, panic gripped her by the throat.
But she was not some spineless milk-and-water miss who would go running after a man and beg him not to abandon her to the mercy of strangers. She was a Carstairs. And no Carstairs ever quailed in the face of adversity.
Defiantly, she lifted her chin and launched into her third ballad.
