Peg Sutherland - All-American Baby

His face was kind and his dress impeccable. And his gold-on-green eyes held just a hint of the rogue in them. Oh, yes, she might just be in love. “Mr. Thorndyke, how very kind of you.”

He moved a little closer then, looking over her shoulder at the address she’d written on a slip of paper. He was tall, too. An all-American hero. No doubt about it. Melina’s heart tripped wildly.

“A pawnshop, Miss...?”

Melina opened her mouth, then clamped it shut. Oh, my. What now? The last thing she’d counted on was meeting someone.

Not someone.

Her all-American hero.

How could you be incognito when your all-American hero walked up?

“Mel,” she said. “S-Summersby. Mel Summersby.”

“Mel?”

“Mmm, yes. Melinda, actually. But I’m much more the Mel type, don’t you think?”

His eyes had roamed her up and down. Melina felt the caress of his eyes clear from her toes to the roots of her hair.

“Mel suits you quite well,” he said, smiling. “What doesn’t suit you is a pawnshop, I’m afraid.”

Melina felt herself flush. She lowered her eyes. “Oh. Well, I have this...item. And I’d very much like to be rid of it.” She had to think fast. Wouldn’t do to have him think of her as destitute. “Bad associations, you know.”

“An...item?”

“A bauble, really. It would... It would give me satisfaction to simply be rid of it.”

“Well, then, we’re off to the pawnshop.”

“Oh, really. I couldn’t—”

“Nonsense. I wouldn’t dream of sending you off to such a place on your own.” He took her by the elbow. “But please, allow me to treat us to a taxicab.”

“Oh, no, please. I’d really like to ride the tube. I’ve never ridden the tube, you see. It’s part of the adventure, don’t you think?”

“Adventure is precisely the word I might have chosen, Mel Summersby.”

He’d guided her through the maze of the London underground, teaching her the etiquette of standing to the left on the long, steep escalators so those in a rush could pass on the right. He taught her how to hang on to a pole and plant her feet before the train left the station so she didn’t lurch against others or land on her backside when the train screeched to a halt at the next station. He explained the map to her during the ride and signaled her when it was time to get off.

By the time they reached their destination, Melina was quite hopelessly in love with American Ash Thorndyke.

At his urging, she allowed him to guide her to a different establishment than the one whose name she had been drawn to in the telephone listings. The narrow lane, it turned out, was awash in pawnshops, and Melina felt a thrill at the slightly shabby row of businesses.

She also allowed her new American friend to handle the bartering with the gentleman who operated the place. The negotiations sounded quite civil to Melina, but she could tell that Ash was happier than the elderly shopkeeper when the bargaining was completed.

Melina, too, was quite happy with the neat stack of pound notes he pressed upon her at the end of the transaction.

“Thank you ever so much,” she said. “I would have been hopeless without your help.”

“My pleasure. It would also be my pleasure to have your company for dinner.”

“Oh, that would be lovely. My treat.” She saw him ready to protest. “At a pub. Oh, please say yes. I’ve never been in a pub, you see.”

They found an authentic-looking pub in the neighborhood and ducked in out of the drizzle, which was growing colder still as the sun sank out of sight behind the dingy gray buildings. The bar was dark, infused with the mingled scents of ale and damp umbrellas. They chose a table near the fireplace, where the embers glowed and flickered. He ordered two pints of dark ale and she chose their dinner—shepherd’s pie.

“Tell me this, Mel Summersby,” he said, touching the rim of his mug to hers when the lukewarm ale arrived. “How does it happen that a young woman who’s never ridden the tube or eaten in a pub is running around London alone looking for pawnshops?”

She sniffed the ale and took a tentative sip, buying time. She had the foolish urge to confide in him. He had the face of an honest man, and he had certainly proven himself trustworthy. But she was clearheaded enough to know that she had to be careful. The wrong word from her and she could wind up back with her father, confined to a life that was nothing more than a prison.

Besides, she wanted to know if a man like Ash Thorndyke could possibly like her for herself, and not because she was heiress to one of the world’s largest fortunes. She tamped down the bitter thought that her father would probably attach strings to his will, keeping his ironclad hold on her even from the grave. She would probably inherit only if she took a vow to be a lonely, celibate recluse in Siberia for the rest of her life.

No, she couldn’t tell Ash the truth yet. She wanted nothing to spoil this time, however short it might be.

“I’m a student,” she said. “An American graduate student. I was to visit a...a friend. But when I arrived, things had ... changed.”

“Ah. The friend who made the gift of the item that’s financing our dinner tonight.”

“That’s right.”

She smiled brightly, looking for some sign that he didn’t believe her story. Shadows fell across his golden skin, highlighting his full lips. Raindrops glistened on his slightly rumpled hair. He sat back casually in his seat, loose-limbed and at ease. A man with the confidence to be in command of the world.

She wondered if there was a way to make a man like that fall in love with a woman who knew precious little about the world.

“So I’m on my own, you see. I should probably go home ... to ... Omaha.”

“It seems a shame to go without seeing some of the sights.”

“That’s precisely what I was thinking. Do you ... do you think I can manage it? On my own?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t?”

“I think you need a guide. Someone who knows his way around.”

She longed to believe there was a hint of innuendo in what he said. She tried her best to find an easy, flirty tone. “Where would I find someone like that?”

“I’ll give it some thought while we eat,” he said with a faint smile.

They sat in the soft glow from the fireplace, ate foul-tasting shepherd’s pie and drank a little too much of the dark, bitter ale. He told her about his family back home in the States—a kindly grandfather and an ailing father. Without going into the boring details, he mentioned their investment business, which had brought him to London. And she made up a lovely family, in which she was the oldest of three children living in a large two-story house. Her brother, sister, mother and father looked remarkably like the family in Father Knows Best.

She didn’t make that comparison aloud.

She told him she was studying classical literature in graduate school, the only subject she’d managed to learn much about in the years she’d flitted from one convent school to the next. She confessed that she’d never driven a car before she remembered that revelation might label her as unusual in America.

And when he learned that she didn’t yet have a place to stay, he took her to the home of a friend who operated a bed-and-breakfast out of her home. Mrs. Wentwhistle was a silver-haired lady with a hitch in her walk, and her home was a narrow, three-story Victorian in Parsons Green. It was three flights up to the refurbished attic.

Ash insisted on carrying up her valise for her. “It’s a good thing you’re not staying,” she said as he ducked the sloping ceiling.

He placed her valise in the chair beside the narrow bed tucked beneath a dormer window. “Is it?”