“Facts are such horrid things!”
—JANE AUSTEN, LADY SUSAN
When Max went down to breakfast the next morning he found three of the misses Chance waiting for him. Of course they were pretending to eat breakfast, but they’d long since finished, he saw. They faced him with apprehensive faces.
“I presume Miss Chance is with my aunt,” he said after they’d exchanged polite good mornings.
“It wasn’t her fault,” Miss Jane said as soon as Featherby had served Max some bacon and eggs. “Abby’s, I mean.”
“I know.” Max addressed himself to his breakfast. As he ate, he felt a mild kinship with the beasts in the Royal Exchange, his every mouthful observed by nervous spectators who any moment expected an attack.
“We didn’t tell your aunt any of that tale,” Miss Damaris assured him. “Or ask her to pretend we were her nieces.”
Max knew that. He looked at Miss Daisy to see whether she wanted to add anything. “It was all a lie,” she said, “but we never asked your aunt to tell it, I promise. You mustn’t blame Abby.”
“I don’t,” he said, and buttered a slice of toast.
“And Lady Bea didn’t mean nothing bad by it,” Daisy persisted. “She was just . . . just . . .”
“Having fun,” Max said. “I know. Now, where is Miss Chance? I’d like to speak with her.”
The girls exchanged worried glances. They really were very young.
“I said speak with, not strangle,” he said dryly.
“She’s gone out,” Jane said after a moment. “To the post office, I think.”
“Thank you. Featherby, have my phaeton brought around to the front, if you please.”
After a few moments of indecision and an exchange of silent grimaces and head jerking that they imagined he hadn’t noticed, the girls excused themselves and hurried from the breakfast room.
Max finished his coffee and headed for the front door. The letter he’d left on the hall table the previous evening had gone, presumably posted. Good. When he’d first arrived in England, he’d written to inform Henry Parsloe he’d returned and would call on him at his home in Manchester at his earliest convenience.
Last night he’d written a quick note to Parsloe to postpone his visit. With the situation with Aunt Bea and the Chance sisters, he’d have to delay his trip north, at least until after Aunt Bea was settled in the new house. Whether or not the Chance sisters would be coming with them, he still hadn’t decided.
That Aunt Bea doted on the girls and wanted them with her was undeniable. She was, he suspected, a little unbalanced about them—witness the ridiculous Griselda fabrication last night. Thank goodness he’d been there to scotch that piece of nonsense.
That the Chance sisters sincerely cared for Aunt Bea was also quite apparent to him now—and that was a problem. It seemed they had not a penny between them, other than the allowance from his aunt; they were as dependent on her as she was, in a different way, on them. Impostors or not, he couldn’t just throw them out.
Whether it was wise to allow them to continue living in her house—in Max’s house—was far from clear.
As for how they would all react when Max married Miss Parsloe . . . that was anyone’s guess. But marry her he would, so the sooner he got Aunt Bea happily settled into the new house, the better for everyone.
And to that end, he needed the assistance of Miss Abigail Chance.
At Charing Cross, Max was about to hand the reins to his groom and cross the road to check whether she was still in the post office when he saw her come out of the building. “Wait here,” he told the groom. He was about to cross the road when he noticed something odd.
A man had followed her out of the post office. Max saw the fellow turn to a group of wastrels loitering nearby and jerk his head in Miss Chance’s direction. A shabby-looking man casually detached himself from the group and set out after her. What the devil?
Max had a finely honed instinct for trouble, and he didn’t hesitate; he crossed the road—cursing as the traffic slowed him down—and followed.
Miss Chance turned left down a side street. Her follower did the same. Max quickened his pace.
What was the fellow’s purpose? Miss Chance wasn’t an obvious target for robbery; dressed in that simple gray cloak and plain bonnet, she looked more like a governess than a woman worth robbing. She didn’t even wear jewelry—not so much as a gold or silver chain.
Oblivious of her follower, Miss Chance turned down a narrow alleyway—presumably a shortcut to the market. The man turned down too. Max got there a split second later. Damn! Apart from them, the lane was deserted.
And in those few seconds the swine had almost closed the gap between himself and Miss Chance.
The shabby man tensed and rose on the balls of his feet. Max didn’t wait to see what would happen next. With a shout, he flung himself forward and grabbed the man’s coat. Miss Chance whirled.
“Hey—” The man swung around, a knife in his hand, and slashed out at Max without warning. Max tried to dodge it but felt a glancing blow.
“Run,” he shouted at Abby. He didn’t see her go; he couldn’t take his eyes off the man with the knife.
The man had a pasty, ratlike face. “Stay out of it, ya bastard,” he snarled. “’S nothing to do with you.” The knife glittered in his hand. It was a long, wicked-looking blade with a carved bone handle.
“The woman is with me,” Max growled.
Rat Face gave a grunt and a philosophical shrug. “Fair enough, gov’nor.” He held up his hands pacifically and seemed about to back away; then abruptly he lunged at Max again, going for his throat.
But Max was ready for it. As the knife flashed toward him, he dodged and at the same time chopped down on the man’s wrist hard. The blade clattered to the cobblestones. Max followed through with a swift punch to the gut and another to the throat and, while the fellow was still gasping for breath, shoved him hard against a wall.
“Why are you following her?”
The man struggled and spat an obscenity. Max punched him again.
“Look out!” Miss Chance screamed. Blast it, what was she still doing here? But he had no time to think. Another man threw himself at Max.
Max whirled, dragging Rat Face with him and thrusting him into the onrush of the second attacker, a thickset brute in a cloth cap. They crashed. Rat Face tripped and went sprawling on the cobbles. The second man came on, swinging a cosh at Max’s head. He ducked it.
The second man closed in. He and Max wrestled. From the corner of Max’s eye he saw Rat Face struggle to his feet and head again at Max.
Max braced himself for the attack, but to his astonishment Miss Chance jumped on Rat Face from behind, screaming like a vengeful banshee, battering him around the head with her reticule. She wrapped her arms around the man’s neck, clinging like a monkey, trying to drag him down or choke him. He reeled and swore, trying to fend her off.
Max, wrestling with the second attacker, didn’t see what happened next, but he turned just in time to catch the glitter of a blade as Rat Face stabbed behind him at Abby. The blade was buried in a swirl of fabric. Rat Face had to pull hard to get it free.
Abby’s grip around the man’s neck slackened. Rat Face twisted and flung her violently to the ground. There was a sudden, shocking silence as her scream was abruptly cut off. She lay sprawled on the wet cobbles, unmoving.
“Abby!” Max hurled himself across the gap, grabbed Rat Face by the scruff of the neck and slammed him hard against the wall. Again he dropped the knife. This time Max snatched it up and placed himself between Abby and the villains. “Now let’s see what you’re made of.”
Rat Face and his accomplice exchanged glances, muttered something and fled.
The moment he was sure they really had gone, Max flung himself onto his knees beside Miss Chance’s prone body. “Miss Chance! Abby!” She wasn’t moving.
“Abby!” Heart in his mouth, he gently turned her over, and saw to his relief she was gasping like a fish, soundlessly, helplessly. Her eyes were wide and panicked, her face contorted as she fought to breathe—and couldn’t. But there was no sign of any blood.
Relief poured through him. She was winded, not wounded, thank God.
“You’re all right; you’ve had your breath knocked out of you, that’s all,” he told her. The first time you had your breath knocked out of you was terrifying, he remembered. Those first few moments where your lungs simply did not work.
He lifted her off the cold, muddy cobbles and pulled her across his knees, supporting her against his chest as he rubbed her back in a soothing rhythmic movement, rocking her gently, murmuring, “There, now, you’re safe; you’ll be all right in a minute. Just relax and your breath will come.”
Her fingers clutched at his lapels; her gaze locked with his in agonized entreaty as she struggled fruitlessly to breathe. The effort seemed to last forever, but at last a great, sobbing gasp sounded and her body shuddered against him as she gulped in her first blessed lungful of air. Again and again she dragged in great breaths of air, until the panicked reaction began to fade.
Max held her close, not ceasing the rhythmic rubbing of her back, though whom exactly he was soothing he wasn’t sure. That moment when he saw the knife go in . . . the still, small figure sprawled on the cobbles . . .
His arms tightened around her. He needed to feel her warm, living body against him.
She rested quietly, trustfully against him, her eyes closed, catching her breath, fighting to calm the shivers that racked her body.
“They’ve gone,” he told her. “You’re safe. I have you now.” He looked down at her. She looked white and shaken, her small, sweet face pinched in a way that put an ache in his chest.
She’d lost her bonnet in the affray. He carefully smoothed the hair back from her forehead. A bruise was darkening just above her eyebrow. There was a raw-looking scrape on her chin.
But there was no blood. He’d checked as thoroughly as he could, but could find no sign of a wound. It was a puzzle: He was sure he’d seen the blade go in, and Rat Face had definitely had to pull to get it out. But somehow, by some miracle, he’d missed her. Thank God.
Abby knew she should make an effort to move. She should; she really should. She could breathe again now, and the trembling had subsided to a manageable level, and her heartbeat . . . oh, her heartbeat . . .
There was no controlling that.
He’d saved her. Fought two men for her, stood over her with a knife, facing them, her Viking protector. And now, the way he held her . ..
She didn’t move; she couldn’t—couldn’t even make herself want to move. Like a child who squeezed her eyes tighter shut, not wanting to wake from a dream, believing as children did that the dream could be made real if only she kept her eyes closed and just . . . didn’t . . . move.
The rhythmic soothing of the jangled nerves of her spine: tangible warmth, tangible reassurance. The deep murmuring voice, a bedrock of security.
She pressed her cheek against his chest. It was so broad and strong, she wanted to climb right inside it and stay there forever, stay like this forever, in his arms, breathing in the scent of his body—damp wool, a hint of cedar, fresh linen and the dark, entrancing scent of man, the warm breath of him stirring against her skin.
“How are you feeling now?” he asked, and she wanted to weep, wanted to laugh, to cling to him in undignified desperation, to prolong the moment, the dream, the illusion.
“Miss Chance?” He leaned back to look at her, his arms loosening their hold on her. The cold drafts of self-awareness slipped between them, chilling her body, and she was once more the spinster governess.
“Your forehead is bruised, and you have”—cupping her jaw in one hand, he gently tilted her face—“a scrape on your chin. But is that all?”
A pulse throbbed in his cheek. It drew her gaze like a magnet. She couldn’t look at him, not yet.
“Abby?”
“You saved me,” she whispered. And glanced up. And found herself drowning in the smoky mystery of his gaze.
His eyes darkened; he seemed to hesitate; then slowly, agonizingly, almost as if it were against his will, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Their lips brushed. It was just the faintest breath of a touch, barely a caress, but she felt it clear to her toes. A deep shiver passed through her.
He drew back with an arrested expression. He muttered something under his breath that she didn’t catch, and then he was kissing her deeply, ravenously, pulling her hard against him, cradling her head in his hands, tilting her face the better to . . . sear her soul.
His mouth was hot, the taste of him dark and intense. Addictive.
She clung to his shoulders, kissing him back with everything in her, years of aching loneliness burning away under the assault of his passion, savoring the taste, the feel, the power of him. The hunger in him to match the hunger in her.
His kisses were rough and tender at the same time, deep, as if he were taking her inside him the way she’d gulped in air a few moments before, as vital and necessary as life.
She speared her fingers into the thick, cool darkness of his hair, still damp from the rain. She was afire, heat shimmering across her skin, coiling in hot shudders deep within her.
Then, with no warning, it was over. He wrenched his mouth from hers, a stricken look in his eyes. “I apologize. That shouldn’t have happened.”
Abby stared at him in dazed disbelief. For a moment all was still, silent, no sound except for two people breathing hard. And the thud of her hammering heart.
She felt raw, new-hatched, her skin so sensitive it was as if the moist, cool afternoon air could pass right through her.
And then suddenly they were sitting on the damp cobbles of a laneway in the middle of London. The sounds of traffic, of wheels rumbling over cobbles, of hawkers crying out—of reality—rolled over them like a wave. Gulls screamed overhead, following the river, fighting over scraps.
“This . . . it can’t happen,” he said. His chest was heaving. He was panting, his lips still slick from her kisses. He pushed her away just a little, enough to put a few inches between them, but it might as well have been a mile; the shuttered flatness of his gray gaze told her that.
“I’m betrothed,” he said tightly.
Shame scalded her. Shaking, clumsy, she scrambled to her feet, brushing herself down, picking up her bonnet, her reticule, tidying herself with shaking hands, looking at the walls, at the cobblestones, at the gulls wheeling and screaming to the sky. Anywhere but at Max, Lord Davenham.
The neediness in her, the way she’d clung to him. What must he think?
It was just a kiss, she told herself. It meant nothing. She was lonely; that was all. She was unsettled by the attack; she’d overreacted. And he . . . well, men were like that, taking what was offered. Even if you didn’t mean to . . .
“You’re hurt.”
“No, no, of course I’m not. It was just a kiss; I know,” she managed to say with a fair attempt at worldliness.
“No, I mean . . .” He gestured. “There’s blood on your back.”
She tried to look, found a smear or two of blood on her skirt at the back. But she didn’t feel injured. Not unless mortification drew blood.
“Let me see.” He twisted her around. “There’s blood on your back, but I can’t see any wound.”
“I can.” She carefully lifted his sleeve. “You’re the one who’s wounded, not me.”
“Me? Nonsense!” And then he saw it, the slash in his sleeve, the blood soaking it, dripping slowly onto the cobblestones now that they were standing up.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” It was the hand he’d rubbed her back with. He’d bled all over her back and hadn’t even noticed.
“Didn’t you feel it? Doesn’t it hurt?”
He shook his head. “It didn’t before, but now . . . yes, I can feel it now.”
She began to unbutton his coat.
He fended her off. “What do you think you’re—”
“I’m going to check your wound. I can’t see it with the coat on.”
“It’s nothing, a mere scratch.”
“You’re bleeding.” She started to tug at his coat, trying to ease it from his shoulder. She felt better now she had something practical to concentrate on.
“Stop that.” One-handed, he pulled his coat back into position.
“Don’t be silly. How can I help you if I can’t see your injury?”
He dragged a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her. “Tie that tightly around the cut—from the outside. I’ll get the wound seen to later.”
It was pure male stubbornness, but Abby didn’t argue. She shook out his handkerchief, folded it diagonally, pleated it to form a bandage and tied it around his arm, over his coat. “There,” she said, pulling it tight enough to make him gasp. “That should slow the bleeding enough until we get home.”