Kasey Michaels - The Passion of an Angel

Banning raised his cane, resting its length on his shoulder. “Dear me, yes, I can see how gratified you are. And all it cost you was the life of your grandson and the affection of your granddaughter. Henry went to war and to his death, to escape you, and Prudence can’t wait to see the back of you as she leaves this place. You’ve a fine legacy, MacAfee. I can see why you must be proud. And what a comfort all that money will be to you in your old age. Or are you planning to have your coffin lined with it?”

“Henry was a wastrel and a dreamer, like his father before him, and gels ain’t worth hen spit on a farm,” MacAfee stated calmly, moving from side to side, readjusting his layers of fat. “This land is no good anymore, Daventry, any fool can see that, even you. And a house is nothing more than a house. It is a man’s body that is his main domicile, his castle. Why, in the teachings of—”

“She’s been allowed to run wild,” Banning interrupted, not wishing to hear a treatise on dirt baths or purgatives. “She’s grown up no more than a hoyden, although at least your wife was with her long enough to give her something of a vocabulary and a sense of what is proper, for which I am grateful—even if the girl delights in her attempts to shock me. She’s lonely, bitter, mildly profane, purposely and most outrageously uncouth—and I lay the blame for all of it at your doorstep, Shadwell.”

“She’s one thing more, Daventry,” MacAfee said, smiling his near-toothless grin. “She’s yours. Now, go away. Hatcher will be arriving shortly with my purgative. I prefer to evacuate any lower intestinal poisons out of doors, you understand.”

Longing to beat the man heavily about the head and shoulders, but adverse to touching him even with his cane, Banning turned on his heel to go, saying only, “I hope you’ve had joy of Prudence’s allowance, for you’ll not see another groat from me.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong, my boy. I will see it every quarter, like clockwork, if you hope for Prudence to inherit any of my considerable wealth,” MacAfee warned, causing Banning to halt in his tracks. “Ah, that stung, didn’t it, Daventry? So upright. So honest. So much the responsible guardian. But you hadn’t thought of that, had you? All that lovely money. It’s up to you now. I’m to cock up my toes someday, as we all must, and worthless little Prudence is now my only heir. Do I leave my lovely blunt, my security, to the chit, or do I give it all over to the Study for Purgative Restoration?”

His grin widened to disgusting dimensions. “What to do, Daventry, what to do?”

“I’ll want your solemn word as a gentleman,” Banning said, hating himself for bowing to the man’s demands but unable to cut Prudence off from funds that rightfully should be hers. “Now, this morning, before I take my leave of this hellhole.”

“Of course, Daventry. You have it,” MacAfee said soothingly as Hatcher appeared, carrying a large jug of some vile-smelling elixir and a single glass. “A small quarterly pittance now against a fortune in the future. It seems fair. Care for a sip? ’Course, I’d recommend unbuttoning your breeches first, as it works quickly.”

Unable to resist impulse any longer, Banning snatched the pitcher from the servant’s hand and dumped its contents over MacAfee’s plucked pate.

Three hours later, her pitifully small satchel of personal belongings tucked up with the luggage, Prudence, wearing her best pair of breeches, climbed into Banning’s traveling coach behind a pinch-lipped Miss Prentice, without so much as turning about for one last look at her childhood home.

Ah! happy years!

Once more who would not be a boy?

George Noel Gordon,

Lord Byron

PRUDENCE HEARD THE KNOCK on her door, but ignored it, as she had a half hour earlier; just as she was prepared to ignore it for the remainder of the day.

How could anyone ask her to rise when she was so bloody comfortable? She could not recall ever feeling so clean, or lying against sheets so soft and sweet smelling. How long had it been since she had listened to a gentle rain hitting the windowpane without worrying that the roof might this time cave in on her? At least not since she had been a very young girl.

There was a small fire still burning in the grate across the room, her appetite was still comfortably soothed by the roast beef and pudding she had downed last night when first they had arrived at the inn, and if she felt a niggling urge to avail herself of the chamber pot, well, that could wait as well.

Giving out a soft, satisfied moan, she turned her face more firmly into the pillows and settled down for at least another hour’s sleep, a small smile curving her lips as her naked body sank deeper into the soft mattress….

“Rise and shine, slugabed! The sun’s shining, the air smells fresh as last night’s rain, and I’m in the mood for a picnic. It’s either that or I’ll have to hide out in the common room, away from Rexford’s incessant groaning now that I’ve told him we don’t travel again until tomorrow.”

Prudence sat bolt upright in the bed, clutching the sheets to her breasts, her eyes wide, her ears ringing from the slam of the door against the wall inside her room. “Daventry!” she exclaimed, pushing her badly tangled hair from her eyes and glaring impotently at the idiot who dared barge in on her just as if he were her brother Henry, come to tease her into a morning of adventure. “Are you daft, man? Go away!”

Banning turned around—not before taking just a smidgen more than a cursory peek at her bare back and shoulders, she noticed—and said, a chuckle evident in his voice, “Sleep in the buff, do you? Is this a natural inclination, or wouldn’t Shadwell spring for night rails, either? I suppose I should be grateful you have boots.”

“You’re a pig, Daventry,” Prudence spat out, tugging at the bedspread, pulling its length up and over the sheets in order to drape it around her shoulders. “And consider yourself fortunate I didn’t sleep with my pistol under my pillow, or you’d be spilling your claret all over the carpet now rather than making jokes at my expense.” And then her anger flew away as she leaned forward slightly, asking, “Did you say something about a picnic?”

Still with his back to her, he nodded, saying, “As long as we’re forced to make our progress to London in stages, taking time to find you some proper clothes and allowing Lightning to gather strength, I thought it might be amusing to indulge in a small round of local sight-seeing. I haven’t picnicked since I was little more than a boy, but for some reason I awoke this morning with the nearly irresistible urge to indulge in some simple, bucolic pleasures. However, if you’d rather play the layabout…”

“Give me ten minutes!” Prudence exclaimed, her feet already touching the floor as, the bedspread still around her, she lunged for her breeches. “I’ll meet you downstairs, and we can be off.”

“Agreed,” Banning said, heading for the door. “Only remember to tie back your hair and wear that atrocious straw hat you insisted upon bringing with you, or otherwise we’ll be forced to drag Miss Prentice along as chaperone, a prospect that leaves me unmoved. Dressed as a boy, you and I can tramp the countryside quite unencumbered, perhaps even dabble our bare feet in some cool stream while we lie on our backs and search out faces in the clouds. There will be time enough tomorrow to begin your metamorphosis.”

“There are moments I really could like that man,” Prudence told herself as she searched in her small valise for fresh underclothes. “Of course, he is still arrogant and overbearing, deucedly bossy, and takes this guardian business entirely too seriously,” she added, remembering that he had all but broken into her bedchamber. “Oh well, Angel. Think of it this way. It won’t be for all that long, and he has promised to buy you some gowns.”