Four Days Later
127 Dower Street
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“Are ye still sleeping? Wake up. I’m starving.” To prove the gravity of her situation – perhaps she wasn’t actually starving, at least not anymore, but she really was quite hungry – Ava plucked up a pillow and brought it crashing down on Heath’s head.
White feathers flew everywhere as he jolted awake. Sputtering, arms flailing, he sat up in his bed and peered blearily to the foot of it where Ava had wisely retreated and now stood with both hands clasped innocently behind her back.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” Heath’s dark hair stood up in tufts and a shadow of bristle clung to his jaw. His mouth was pinched in a hard, flat line of annoyance. His eyes narrowed slits of gray. His nostrils flared.
If his stormy expression was any indication he’d woken in a pisser of a mood, not that Ava could blame him. Had someone woken her up by thwacking her in the face with a pillow she would have screeched to the high heavens. Thankfully, she’d been the one doing the waking instead of the one being woken... and she was enjoying every single minute of it.
“Waking ye up, ye lazy pile of bones. It’s nearly seven. And I’m hungry.” Her stomach chose that precise moment to growl and she pointed at it with a glib smile of satisfaction. “See? Half-starved I am, and here ye are still sleeping.”
Heath did some growling of his own. Pushing his hands into the mattress he sat up higher in the bed, sending the blanket that had been clinging to his broad shoulders slivering down to his waist and revealing a hard, well-muscled chest for all of Queen and Country to see. Sunlight from an open window dappled the chiseled planes of his abdomen, turning his skin a dusky gold. “Get out,” he said flatly.
Not fazed in the least by his surly demeanor or his nudity – she found the latter quite pleasing, to be honest – Ava ignored his command, something she’d become quite adept at doing in the past four days. “If ye didn’t want me to wake ye up then ye should have locked the door,” she pointed out reasonably.
“This is my house!” If Heath’s countenance had been annoyed before, it was thunderous now. He actually bared his teeth at her, which she found highly amusing. No doubt he was accustomed to people cowering before him when he glared so ferociously, but Ava wasn’t bothered a bit, which only served to irritate him further. Draping a hand on her hip she grinned ear to ear and, for the sake of peace and prosperity, managed to swallow a giggle. While she’d quickly discovered that provoking Heath was great fun, she did not want to make him too angry. After all, he was the only thing standing between her and the streets of St. Giles.
It wasn’t the streets she minded so much, but rather the men hunting them. Four days and a night may have passed since Ava witnessed the murder that had put her on the run to begin with, but she knew Collinsworth would not easily give her up. Not when she was the only one who had seen what he’d done, even though she would never be so foolish as to breathe a word to anyone. Right or wrong, she valued her life and wouldn’t take kindly to having it snuffed out for the sake of justice. Especially not when her luck had taken such an unexpected upward swing.
“Are you laughing?” Heath demanded incredulously. “This is not funny. None of this is funny,” he muttered darkly.
“To be sure if ye were standing where I am ye would find it a bit amusing.”
“You shouldn’t be in here. It is not proper.” His fierce gaze dropped down to her body before jerking back up to her face. She might have thought him unaffected, if not for the faintest of blushes that stained his chest a dull red. “You’re not even dressed.”
“I most certainly am.” And she was, in the technical sense if not the practical.
The creamy white nightgown was the nicest thing she’d ever worn. The fabric was soft and floating and felt heavenly against her skin. Pale blue ribbon was woven through the high neckline and wrist cuffs and the trailing hem was trimmed with lace. No doubt to most women the nightgown would have been plain, but to Ava it was as glorious and beautiful as any ball gown. “Ye are the one who isn’t dressed. Naked as the day ye were born, ye are.”
“That is because this is my bedroom,” Heath gritted out. He shoved a hand through his hair, pulling the ends taut. They remained standing on even after he crossed his arms over his chest. “If you are hungry go down to the kitchen and have Mrs. Plum feed you,” he said, referring to his cook, a nice, sweet natured woman in her late forties who had taken it upon herself to fatten Ava up.
‘Nothing but skin and bones!’ she’d declared the moment they met. ‘Not to worry love, we’ll put some meat on you soon enough.’
And she’d been nothing if but true to her word.
Why, Ava had eaten more in the past four days than she had in the past four weeks! The food Mrs. Plum prepared was mouth-wateringly delicious; a sumptuous mix of pastries, cheeses, fresh fruit, and meats so tender they could be cut with a fork.
The first night she’d been violently ill as her body adjusted to being fed something other than mealy bread and watery soup, but since then she had yet to miss a single meal and she had no intention of doing so this morning.
“I would, but I gave her the day off.”
“You did what?”
“Gave her the day off,” Ava repeated with a charming smile. “The rest of your staff as well. With full pay, of course.”
Another growl, this one longer and more ominous than the last. “You are a guest in this house, not mistress of it.”
A guest.
Ava could still hardly believe it.
When she had woken up after fainting, it was to find herself lying in the dark in a bed so soft it felt as though she were drifting on a cloud and for a moment she actually thought she’d died and gone to heaven before she remembered the sins she’d committed were sure to send her straight to hell.
That thought – not to mention the murmur of male voices on the other side of the door – had brought her straight awake. For one awful, heart-pounding moment she’d feared Collinsworth had finally caught up with her... until she remembered the handsome stranger and his offer to help. He must have brought her to his townhouse after all, and when he stepped into the room a few minutes later with a doctor by his side her suspicions were confirmed.
She’d squawked and squirmed and protested, but in the end it didn’t matter. Heath – whose full name was Heath Mason, a fact she’d learned courtesy of the doctor – held her shoulders down while the cut on her foot was cleaned and tended. The doctor left when he was finished, but not before giving firm instructions that if Ava wanted to escape without infection she needed to remain in a clean environment until the wound was fully healed, as the placement of the injury made it impossible to stitch.
A clean environment certainly ruled out the filthy streets of St. Giles, and before she could say a word to the contrary Heath had informed her in a no-nonsense, arrogant tone that she would remain in his townhouse until her foot was fully healed.
Ava did not know where her rescuer’s sense of obligation came from, and she had every intention of leaving – his orders to the contrary be damned – until she woke the next morning to breakfast in bed.
Jewelry may have been the way to most women’s hearts, but food was the way to Ava’s. After stuffing her face with oatmeal, two veal pies, fresh bread slathered in raspberry jam, and enough bacon to feed a small army she decided the doctor’s suggestion had merit and coolly informed Heath she would be staying on as a houseguest.
Since then she’d continued to fulfill her ravenous appetite, often eating four or five meals per day, and quickly learned the benefits of being able to sleep with both eyes closed.
For the first time in her entire life Ava felt completely safe, and she relished the feeling almost as much as she feared it, for she knew it couldn’t last forever. Eventually she would have to leave, but that day was not today, and until Heath showed her the door she had every intention of taking full advantage of the unexpected stroke of luck fate had handed her.
Regarding him now with one brow loftily arched she said, “I might not be mistress of the house, but that’s exactly what ye need. When was the last time ye gave your staff a day to themselves?”
Heath’s forehead creased. “I do not recall,” he admitted after a long pause, leaving Ava staring at him in thinly veiled surprise. A man who told the truth. What a mind-boggling concept.
“Well then it’s high time they got one,” she said, recovering quickly. “They do a fine job of keeping this place neat and tidy, in case ye haven’t noticed.”
While Heath’s townhouse was a bit on the cramped side with only three bedrooms above and a parlor, study, kitchen, and dining room below (a mansion by Ava’s standards, but rather quaint by the measure of the ton), it was immaculately clean without a spot of dust to be found. It was also devoid of all personal belongings and while acceptably furnished, revealed nothing of the man who resided within it.
They may have been living under the same roof together for nearly a week, but Heath continued to remain a mystery. Except for his name, Ava knew little else about him. What he did for work. Where he went every day. Why he came home so late at night. How he came by his money. Why he would ever bother helping the likes of her. Yes, he certainly was a mystery.
A mystery Ava had every intention of solving.
“Where do ye go every morning at the crack o’ dawn?” By her measure, it was the fifth time she’d asked.
“You are not to give the staff orders without my consent,” he said sternly, ignoring her question. Stubborn man. “Do you understand?”
Ava fought the urge to stick out her tongue. “I was only trying to help.”
For an instant so quick she nearly missed it his expression seemed to soften, but then the corners of his mouth tightened, his thick eyebrows drew together over the bridge of his nose, and a hard light entered his eyes. “That is not your job.”
“Then what is?” she challenged, propping both hands on her hips. Was it her imagination, or did they already feel less bony? She pressed her fingers more firmly into her flesh and was inordinately pleased to discover her waist no longer resembled the hard, long lines of a milking cow.
For the first time in twenty-one years Ava was receiving proper nutrition and it showed in the glow in her cheeks and the slow but steady blossoming of curves. Her cheeks were less gaunt. Her hair shinier. She no longer felt the constant ache of hunger, nor the faint tinge of desperation from wondering where her next meal would come from. She even had new clothes to wear: two hand-me-down dresses courtesy of one of the maids and two wool cloaks to match. The dresses were slightly too big and horribly plain, but she’d never worn anything so fine in her entire life. With her belly full and her hair combed and her face clean Ava felt as fine as any lady and was as content as she’d ever been. Except for one tiny, inescapable detail. “I can’t keep skulking about doing nothing. I’m bored to tears.”
For someone accustomed to working herself to the bone from dawn to dusk, lounging about doing absolutely nothing was out of the question. How noblewoman managed to do it she hadn’t a clue. They worked on their silly embroidery patterns, she supposed, or met for tea and regaled each other with stories of how positively thrilling last evening’s ball had been (Lord Harold nearly touched my hand! Oh, how scandalous!), two things which Ava had positively no interest in doing. Sit in one spot and gossip for hours on end? She would rather be stabbed with a hot poker.
Heath looked at her without an ounce of pity in his gray eyes. “Then find something to do that does not include barging into my bedroom or bossing my servants around.”
“I did not barge and I wasn’t bossing,” she said defensively.
“Oh really?” he drawled, glancing past her to his open bedroom door.
Ava twirled a freshly combed curl around her finger. It had taken nearly two hours to untangle her mop of hair. She’d been forced to cut out the worst of the snarls and now had an uneven bob that barely skimmed her shoulders. Had she been a vain woman she would have no doubt hidden the chopped up mess beneath a hat, but although Ava possessed her fair share of vices, vanity was not one of them. After all, who was she trying to impress? The man lounging about before her on the bed? Certainly not. Or so she told herself. “It wasn’t locked.”
“An unlocked door does not give you permission to enter!”
“It does in St. Giles.”
Heath’s nostrils flared as he took a deep breath and Ava’s lips twitched as she suppressed a smile. She may not have known much about her mysterious benefactor, but she was willing to bet a solid shilling he was not accustomed to be talked back to. He struck her as a man who, while fair, got what he wanted when he wanted it. She almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
Sauntering up to the edge of the bed she perched on the furthest corner, crossing her legs at the knee and stretching her upper body along the bottom of the mattress. “Soft as a baby’s bum this is,” she said, giving the bed a hard thump with her hand.
“What are you doing?” Sounding wary Heath sat up straighter, muscles coiling and eyebrows pinching until they formed an ominous bridge over his nose.
He really was a handsome bugger, Ava mused. Tall, dark, and dangerous, just like the heroes in the penny dreadfuls her best friend Lucy devoured like chocolate. She would read them too, if she had a spare penny... and she knew how to read. Instead she had to suffer through Lucy’s reenactments, which, while at first amusing, were now bordering on the obscene. Lucy would absolutely die when she found out about where Ava had been and whom she’d been with. Just die. Close companions since childhood, they’d grown up side by side, more sisters than friends. There were no secrets kept between them, and anything that happened to transpire between Ava and Heath would be no exception. So why not do something worth talking about?
Ava chewed her bottom lip. Could she be that bold? Taking note of her current position – splayed across the bottom of a veritable stranger’s bed in nothing more than a filmy white nightgown – she controlled the sudden urge to smirk and decided why yes, yes she could. After all, she had nothing to lose.
She wasn’t a respectable lady with a sterling reputation to protect. She wasn’t some shy, meek country miss with eyes for the blacksmith’s son. She was nothing. She was no one. If she died tomorrow no one would miss her (except for Lucy, but only because she would have to find someone new to act out her penny dreadfuls for). No one would mourn her. A rather depressing notion, but then most of Ava’s life was depressing.
While most girls grew up dreaming of a prince to marry, Ava always had much simpler wishes. A mother who wasn’t drunk, for one. A father who didn’t show her the back of his hand when he grew angry for another. Loving parents they were not, which was why she had run away at the age of thirteen. Hacked off all her hair and then run away, Ava corrected with a rueful smile. She’d cried weak, foolish tears as her beautiful brown locks fell to the grimy floor of their lice-infested flat, but shearing herself like a sheep had served two purposes. First and foremost, it had gotten rid of the lice (pesky little buggers). And secondly it had allowed her to pass herself off as a boy; a far safer thing to be on the dangerous streets of St. Giles than a young, naive girl.
“Stop that,” Heath said sharply, drawing her abruptly from her thoughts.
Tilting her head to the side, Ava perched her chin in her hand and blinked up at him. Her long, shapely legs she kicked up behind her, bending them at the knee. Still tightly bandaged, her injured foot itched like the very devil. She yearned to rip off the white linen and scratch like mad, but she held the urge at bay. “Stop what?” she asked, all big-eyed innocence.
“Doing that,” he growled.
“Doing what?” As though she didn’t know precisely what she was doing.
“That... that thing.” He gestured vaguely at her mouth with one hand. The other, Ava was pleased to note, had the sheets tangled up in a grip hard enough to bend iron. “That thing you’re doing with your mouth.”
The dangerous thrill of playing with fire heated Ava from the inside out, making her feel as though she’d just taken a shot of brandy and the liquid was burning a fiery path down her throat and into her belly.
Even though they’d been living under the same roof for four days, Heath had been going out of his way to pretend she didn’t exist. Oh, he was always unfailingly polite, but she could count on one hand the number of complete sentences he’d spoken to her since her arrival and then they were only to ask about her comfort. How are you feeling, Miss Ava? Does your foot pain you, Miss Ava? Are you satisfied with the food selection, Miss Ava? The man was about as personable as a dead fish, but Ava wasn’t deaf or dumb, and try as he might to hide it, she knew Heath was attracted to her.
He did a good play at acting all high and mighty, but she’d caught him staring at her on more than one occasion. Of course that was only because she had been staring at him first, but that was neither here nor there. The sexual tension between them was undeniable; the force of it unlike anything Ava had ever felt before.
She wasn’t overly experienced with men, but nor was she a quivering virgin either. Her first lover had lured her in with sweet promises that dissolved like smoke in the wind when he’d taken what he wanted, and the second had proved to be both fickle in heart and body. Poor decisions both, but she’d lived and she’d learned and since then she’d sworn off men all together... a promise she was seriously considering breaking.
“Oh, do ye mean this?” Her tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip in a tiny, teasing stroke. Heath’s eyes darkened to slate, and when he spoke there was a rough edge in his voice she’d never heard before.
“Yes,” he said. “That. It is not appropriate.”
Ava didn’t bother to contain her snort. “And what makes ye think I care for a whit for propriety?” Her eyes narrowed as a sudden thought occurred. “Is there a Mrs. Mason? I don’t dally with married men.”
“So there are some things you do not do.”
“Some things,” she acknowledged with a wide, wicked smile meant to send Heath’s blood to boiling, “but not many.”
He regarded her intently, dark emotions she could not decipher swirling in his piercing gray eyes. Just when Ava was about to give up and roll off the end of the bed he moved with the speed of a lion she’d seen once at a traveling zoo. One moment the great golden beast had been slumbering with its eyes closed. The next it had been at the bars, it’s roar echoing through the dingy streets.
Heath’s hands closed liked iron manacles around her shoulders and he hauled her up the length of the mattress as though she weighed no more than bag of feather down. She half expected him to secure her against his chest and begin kissing her senseless but to her surprise (and disappointment, though she would never admit as much) he scooped her up in his arms and, before she quite knew what was happening, carried her swiftly across the bedroom and deposited her on the other side of the door. Her bare feet hit the wooden floorboards with a jarring thud, and even though she gave an exaggerated wince there was nothing save annoyance gleaming in his stormy gaze.
“I said to get out,” he snarled before he slammed the door in her face.
Heath waited until he heard the angry stomp of Ava’s feet retreating down the hall before he released his grip on the doorknob. If she had tried to get back in... He shoved both hands through his hair, fingers digging into his scalp. The devil help him, but if she had tried to get back in he would have let her.
On a frustrated hiss of breath he went to the nearest window and drew the curtain aside with a rough yank, spilling morning sunlight into the room and exposing the street below. Traffic was already moving at a steady, deliberate pace in the form of rickety carriages and overburdened carts and people walking briskly with their heads tipped down and their arms swinging woodenly at their sides.
In Grosvenor Square the lords and ladies of the ton would still be abed, but in the working district of East End men, women, and even children were up and ready to face yet another exhausting day filled with grueling work and just enough pay to keep them teetering on the brink of starvation.
It was a nasty business, being a member of the working class. A business Heath knew only too well considering he’d been born only three blocks away, the fourth child in a family that was already struggling to make ends meet. His poor mother had borne two more children before she died at the age of thirty-one. The doctor claimed her unexpected passing was due to sickness and disease, but Heath always knew the real reason: a broken heart.
As a solemn boy of seven he’d stood over her bed, clasping her cold, dry hand as she struggled to sit up. Once a bright, vibrant woman she’d turned into a shell of her former self. Even the effort of breathing was difficult, and he would never forget the sound of air rattling inside her chest as it struggled to seep down into her lungs.
“Mama what’s wrong with you?” he’d asked in the shrill, frightened voice of a child who could tell something was terribly wrong but did not yet know enough of life to pinpoint precisely what it was.
She smiled at him, her chapped lips peeling back to reveal teeth that were stained red with blood. “Nothing that cannot be fixed, my sweet boy.” She reached out to ruffle his hair as she used to, but winced in pain instead and let her pencil thin arm drop weakly onto the mattress. Dust floated up, and with it the stale scent of urine. “Is your father home yet?”
Heath slowly shook his head from side to side and watched the light dim in his mother’s eyes. “I can find him for you Mama,” he said despite the fact that he hadn’t seen his father since yesterday morning. He squeezed her hand tight, desperate to do anything that would bring his mother back to him. “Maybe he’s out getting you flowers.”
Whenever Heath’s father vanished for days at a time he always returned smelling like flowers, which confused Heath because he never brought any back with him. Only when he grew older would he come to understand that his father had been spending all his money, not to mention his time, at one of St. Giles’ many whorehouses.
“Maybe he is.” His mother managed one more smile before her eyes drifted closed and she released a long, raspy sigh. “I need to rest now, darling. Can you be a sweet boy and watch your sisters? I know you don’t like to, but you are the only one they will listen to.”
In a matter of seconds she was asleep and he felt the burning heat of her fever when he pressed his tiny mouth to her temple. “I’ll find him for you, Mama. I’ll bring him home.”
Heath never found his father that night, but he did find something else.
A reason never to fall in love.