Miranda Jarrett - Regency High Society Vol 2 - Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch

Close enough that he could smell her fragrance, close enough that he could see the soft curves of her body through the coverlet—God help him, was she naked beneath it?—close enough to remind him all too well of how sweet she’d been to kiss.…

Blast, did she mean to be so teasing, or was it just another of her unending games? She’d made it clear enough that she loved her husband, and Jeremiah would respect that, not wishing to poach on another man’s well-staked territory. He never had before. But still Caro seemed determined to play the coquette with him, even now, when he should have been concentrating on getting her safely from this house. Any other woman would have been terrified, clinging to him from sheer gratitude, but she was treating the whole business like a lark. Telling him he’d be dancing on a rope’s end for kidnapping her! His sister was right: the sooner he disentangled himself from Lady Byfield’s affairs, the better.

And then at the bottom of the steps to the street, she turned up and smiled at him, a smile so breathtakingly art less in the moonlight that he nearly forgot all his intentions and kissed her. “You did it, Captain Sparhawk, didn’t you? Rescued me from the dragon’s lair like some poor fair damsel?”

“Not quite. The dragon could still wake and eat you up.” He grabbed her by her elbow and hustled her across the street to the little park. She seemed shorter somehow, and then he remembered her bare feet. “Oh, hell, you can’t walk, can you?”

“Of course I can walk. I’m a countess, not a ninny. I’ve told you before I rather like doing without shoes.” She looked around the trees, her curiosity as frank as a child’s. “How far is your carriage?”

“There isn’t any damned carriage.” His frustration growing, he uncocked the pistol and shoved it back into his belt. “Hired carriages are easy to trace. I’d thought we’d walk down near the waterfront and hire a chaise there to take you to your friends.”

“Then I suppose we should begin walking, shouldn’t we?” She hiked the coverlet higher over her shoulders and began striding resolutely off in the wrong direction. He caught her by the arm and turned her around, and she laughed merrily at her own mistake.

“Hush now, lass,” he said uneasily. “Won’t do to call attention to ourselves.”

She clapped her hand over her mouth, then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Forgive me, Captain. I forgot that strolling along Queen’s Court in my shift at midnight isn’t enough to get me—even me—noticed.”

“We’ll find you some clothes soon enough.” Damnation, why had she had to tell him that? She was as good as naked beside him, and he felt his own body responding with alarming interest. “Now tell me the names of your friends here in town I could take you to.”

Her head bowed, she didn’t answer at first. “There aren’t any.”

“All right then, in the countryside,” he said, exasperated by her pickiness. “I forget you fashionable gentry don’t believe in living in towns.”

“No, that’s not it.” Her voice was so soft that he had to strain to hear it. “I meant that I don’t have any friends. Before Frederick married me, none of his friends’ wives would receive me, and afterward Frederick decided we wouldn’t receive them. So you see we’ve always kept to ourselves at Blackstone House, and that’s always been enough. Until now, anyway.”

“Then there must be a someone else. An aunt or uncle, or some business acquaintance of your husband’s?”

“Only George on Frederick’s side.” She smiled bitterly. Once she would have turned to Mr. Perkins, but now she didn’t trust George not to have poisoned the lawyer against her, too, just as he had her own servants. She’d always suspected how little they’d respected her, no matter how much she’d tried to be fair and kind, and now she had the unhappy proof.

Her eyes were troubled, her manner uncharacteristically hesitant, as she glanced up toward Jeremiah. “Your sister Desire lives near Portsmouth. Could I possibly stay with her?”

Jeremiah sighed, unsure of how to answer without wounding her more, but that sigh was answer enough for Caro.

“No, of course not,” she said quickly with forced cheerfulness, now trying to spare him. “Whatever am I saying, inviting myself into her house like that?”

“It’s not what you’re thinking, Caro,” he said. “My sister’s not much for any guests these days, not with her husband just gone off with the fleet and her third child due within the month.”

Caro’s face softened. “Oh, a baby!” she murmured. “How fortunate your sister must be to have a family like that! I’ve always wanted—no, I shouldn’t go wishing for more, not after all the good things life’s given me. Of course your sister couldn’t take in a stray like me at such a time. Please wish her well when you see her again.”

But this time her attempts to be the grand, gracious Lady Byfield failed miserably. Her words might be brave, but the forlorn slump of her shoulders told a different story that didn’t escape Jeremiah.

Gently he slipped his arm over her shoulders. “I’m not about to cast you off alone, Caro. First we’ll find you something more suitable to wear and a decent place to stay, then we’ll consider the rest one step at a time.”

“The poor damsel is most grateful,” she said with more wistfulness than she’d intended. “And I do intend to pay you back.”

“Oh, hush,” he scoffed gruffly. “I’ll hear none of that. My coin spends every bit as well as yours, and since I’ve brought you this far, you’ll be my guest.”

She smiled, thinking how different Captain Sparhawk’s offer of hospitality was from George’s. He didn’t resemble any other gentleman she’d ever known, but she liked him. She liked him very much. “I didn’t mean to pay you with guineas, though your offer is most generous. You’ve done me a great favor, and so, if you’ll let me, I’ll do one for you. Your friend Mr. Kerr—”

“Later, Caro,” said Jeremiah sharply, drawing her closer beneath his arm. “We’ve company.”

They had come to a neighborhood that Caro didn’t recognize, one with narrow streets and ancient, dilapidated buildings whose upper stories jutted crazily over their heads. The paving stones beneath her bare feet had been replaced by hard-packed dirt, and the stench wafting from the street made her long for shoes of any sort. Two sailors were weaving toward them, navy men with long pigtails down their backs and round, flat-rimmed hats with embroidered ribbon bands, and unsteady as they were on their feet, there was no mistaking the eager hunger in their eyes as they stared at Caro.

A lifetime ago, but she’d never forgotten that look in a man’s eyes. Greed and lust, a predator’s cold need, marking her, using her, ruining her beyond redemption. All she had, all she was, to be sold to the man with the deepest pockets.

“Tumbled the chit right out o’ her hammock, sheets an’ all, did you, mate?” asked the first seaman, fumbling in the bag around his neck for another coin as he leered at Caro. “Saints, but she’s finer than any o’ the drabs we seen in the fancy houses on Water Street. How much’ll you take for a turn wit’ her?”

“Not a farthing,” said Jeremiah with a quiet authority that startled Caro.

“Ah, mate, we’s only askin’ to share yer good fortune!”

“The lady’s with me,” said Jeremiah, his voice rumbling deeper. “And she’s not for sale.”

The man raised his hands and backed away, intimidated by the threat in Jeremiah’s voice. “Meanin’ no offense, gov’ner. She’s yours, an’ there it ends. No offense.”

But his companion had had his courage bolstered by more rum, and he lurched toward Caro to snatch the coverlet away. “Come on, lovey, let’s have some sport.”