The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,23

everybody’s a fool, and doubly so if they haven’t got a title. Daresay if he knew who you really are he wouldn’t give you the time of day. And, you said yourself you don’t feel up to it.”

“What are you saying?” she said somewhat thickly. Her earnestness turned him inside out? “That I have spent two days preparing for a ball I am not to attend after all?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. Just saying that you mustn’t speak tonight.”

“I mustn’t speak? But how will I ingratiate myself to your uncle without speaking? Are you—”

“Stupid as a post? Probably. Fortunately, my uncle already thinks I’ve got a brain the size of a pea. Best let me do all the talking. Now, what would you like to be? Russian, perhaps?”

“What would I like to be?”

“Pretend to be, that is. So you needn’t speak, leastways not overly much. How about Hungarian. That’s it! Unlikely to be anybody who speaks Hungarian at this event. Probably.”

“But what if there is?”

“Cross that bridge when it hatches, daresay.”

Elle stared into shadow, lit occasionally by lamplight passing by outside. Arms crossed and leaning back against the squabs, he looked perfectly comfortable, like he was enjoying himself thoroughly. Teetering between dismay and hilarity, she laughed.

“There now,” he said in that deep, private voice that made her feel unsteady and hot inside. “Knew it wouldn’t take you long.”

“You knew it would not take me long to what?”

“To fall in.” Then he smiled, and she was quite certain she knew exactly how he commanded men so successfully. He was simply a big, strong, solid thing who, once determined to accomplish a task, devoted himself entirely to it. This was not a lark for him. He was doing it for her because he was exactly what his half-sister had said: a good man.

He had called her a lady, which was ridiculous. But he did not seem to understand that. He was nothing like the gentlemen who came into the shops on Gracechurch Street and made Minnie and Adela behave like cakes; not haughty or superior.

“You do not mind it?” she said.

“Mind what? Putting one over on my uncle?”

“Perilous adventure. Living on the edge of insanity.”

“Not a’tall,” he said. “Life’s more fun when nothing’s certain.”

“Spoken like a man who has never woken up to an empty larder with no idea how he will eat that day.”

In the striated lamplight, she saw the crease in his brow.

“True,” he said. “A few tight occasions when shot ran thin and Boney’s boats weren’t yet all in the drink. But no starvation to speak of, thank God.”

Abruptly she understood his words. She gasped. “I beg—”

He waved it away. “I prefer a bit of uncertainty, Elle. A man can plan and strategize, stockpile cannons and gunpowder for months. But when the battle’s met he’s got to fly with the instinct of the moment or he’s likely to be sunk.”

“Not everyone has good instincts.” She had not with Jo Junior.

“Spoken like a woman who don’t trust hers.” She felt his gaze upon her in the darkness and decided that the captain’s devil-may-care exterior hid a profoundly thoughtful interior.

“A woman who does not trust hers,” she murmured.

“Made a mistake or two based on faulty instincts, have you, Elle?”

“Borrowing the type, of course.”

“Not that sort of mistake.”

Of course not. The astonishing thing was that she found her lips opening and her tongue forming the word, “Once.”

“Josiah Brittle Junior?” he said mildly.

“Yes. I thought I understood his intentions.”

“Come to find you didn’t after all?”

“No. My instincts did not prove trustworthy in that instance.”

“What did he do to you, Elle?” he said in an altered voice. His eyes gleamed like opals in the darkness.

“Nothing that I did not foolishly allow. We worked together every day. I thought I knew him. I trusted him, and he took advantage of that.”

“A man who preys upon a woman in his employ ain’t worth the dirt on his boots.”

“Isn’t. But I was naïve. I should not have believed him.” She crunched her hands together in her lap. “I have no idea why I am telling this to you.”

“Because you know your instincts with me aren’t wrong.” He turned to look out the window and the carriage was drawing to a halt.

The Mayfair mansion of Lord and Lady Beaufetheringstone was gigantic, with a magnificent entryway of classical proportions jammed with guests and a vast foyer full of people festooned in sparkling gowns, starched neck cloths, and priceless jewels. The ballroom was even grander, a panorama of England’s most