Page 21 of Barely a Woman (Bow Street Beaus #1)

For a second straight day, Steadman’s path failed to intersect Morgan’s at first light.

Unlike the day before, though, he had planned to avoid her.

He rose before dawn from a troubled night consisting of shards of sleep scattered among the ruins of certitude and visions of a woman’s lips.

A desire to escape the inn drove him from his small room to his horse and along the road, lost in a fog both physical and mental, heading west. Repetitive memories of what had happened the previous evening circled his mind.

His failed surveillance. The appearance of the remarkable woman who was Morgan yet not Morgan.

His flaring jealousy. Her imploring call and his ride to the rescue.

And the kiss.

Every mental road led Steadman back to the kiss.

The astonishing, soul-shaking kiss. What the devil had happened?

Trapped in the throes of an unfolding disaster, he had convinced himself that a reckless maneuver was necessary to save Morgan from Three-Finger Jack’s intentions.

Now, however, as his mount wandered along the road, he began to realize the truth.

He had wanted to kiss her. Desperately. When he had decided to do that, he did not know.

He knew only that the notion had overcome him even as he strode to her defense.

But why? Women of every class had broken themselves against the rock of his unyielding interest for years.

He had kissed many and even liked a few.

Never, though, had he experienced such a visceral need to hold a woman and taste her lips—not since the heady days of his first love, anyway.

And the subject of his desire was Morgan Brady!

His associate in an ill-fitting suit. His erstwhile traveling companion and fellow knight of the road.

Not a paragon of gentle society. Not a delicate lady of high station. Morgan. Simply Morgan.

Three hours passed before the fog lifted and a familiar sight corralled his attention.

The revelation let him understand where he had been headed, even if unintentionally.

He reined his horse to a halt and glared into the distance at Prescombe Manor.

Baron Atwood’s impressive lair crouched in the clutch of two low hills, a sweeping assembly of stone and gables.

He remembered it well, as well as his relief every time he left the place for Longford Castle.

The sight of it came as a slap of freezing water to his senses.

The heat of anger rose as he stared at the edifice and imagined its lord, malevolent and callous, roaming its halls while conjuring malicious schemes.

He gritted his teeth until his jaw spasmed.

“Get ahold of yourself, old boy.”

He wheeled his mount in the road and urged it into a trot back toward Broad Chalke.

The sighting of his adversary’s stronghold spurred him to rededicate himself to his mission, his cavalry charge of justice.

Confusion over Morgan had temporarily distracted him from his long arc toward retribution.

His hand had wandered from the rudder, and that could not happen again.

He encouraged his horse forward at a faster pace.

The sun hung at midday when he arrived at the inn, he having made the return journey in half the time as his outbound leg.

He took the stairs in twos and threes and strode to Morgan’s door before pausing with his fist raised.

Is she here? Or has she slipped away again?

He inhaled resolve and rapped a knuckle twice against the door.

A moment slipped by, sharp with anticipation.

“Who knocks?”

“I do.”

Another moment, silent as the grave. Then the door whispered open.

There she stood, her eyes large with anxious question, her form once again concealed inside the carapace of her rumpled suit.

Her hair again hung down to frame a soft jawline.

However, Mister Morgan Brady, the beardless boy, was gone forever.

He could never again lay eyes on her without remembering the green dress and long neck of Miss Morgan Brady.

He blinked rapidly and once more collected his fraying resolve.

“Miss Brady.”

“Sir.”

“I wish to tell you something.”

She drifted backward a step. The anxiety in her eyes mounted as her hands found each other to meet in a clench. “Something?”

“Yes. I wish you to remain safely in your room while I meet with the band of scoundrels tonight.”

Relief relaxed her features, but then they veered toward an altogether different expression. Disappointment. “Is that all?”

He trapped a further response before it could leave his mouth. “Yes. That is all.”

Her regard fell to the floor. “Very well. And you should probably avoid calling me ‘Miss’ for the duration of our investigation.”

The door closed as softly as it had opened. Steadman stood alone long enough to taste bitter regret. Then he returned to his room, hopeful for some rest before what promised to be a long night, but not confident he would find any.

***

Morgan had waited hours for Steadman’s return, barely daring to move.

Every human emotion played a role in the theater of her imagined scenarios.

Soaring hope and joy if he had meant the passion behind his kiss.

Crushing sorrow if he were to explain away his action as nothing more than playacting for the mission.

When he finally arrived, neither scenario occurred.

Instead, he gave her nothing. No joy, no sorrow.

Just empty air, as if the kiss had been a figment of her fevered imagination.

Stay in your room, he had said. As if he were her father—yet another man determined to keep her locked in place.

The lack of the kiss’s mention left her woefully disappointed, but she did Steadman’s bidding by remaining behind a locked door.

During the long hours of the afternoon, though, her mood began to shift.

As the sun fell toward the tree line, a phoenix began rising within Morgan from the ashes of her self-regard.

And it wanted to fly. With renewed determination, she donned her coat and hat and left the inn.

She settled against the side wall of a shop across the road from the inn to watch for Steadman.

As a Bow Street investigator, she still had a duty to fulfill.

The eyes of officers long dead watched over her, waiting to see if she would rise to the challenge. She vowed not to fail them.

After perhaps an hour, when darkness began bathing the buildings huddled along the road, Steadman left the inn on foot and in disguise.

Calling on every tactic she had learned from him the previous few days, she pursued.

His path carried him to the tavern where he disappeared inside.

She waited again. Within minutes, he reappeared with the same men who had menaced the tavern the previous evening.

A wave of concern rippled through her at the sight.

What if this was a trap? What if they harmed him?

And how could she stand against them? Thoughts of the pistols languishing in Steadman’s room rattled through her head.

The men seemed not to notice her following as they made a short journey to an old tack shed.

A large hay hauler waited in front, hitched to a pair of nonchalant draft horses waiting patiently while picking at tufts of grass.

She watched as the gang moved bags of what she assumed to be wheat from the shed into the wagon bed.

They worked efficiently and in near silence, short of instructions barked from time to time by Three-Finger Jack.

Within half an hour, the men piled onto the wagon, and it lurched into motion along the western road away from Broad Chalke.

Where were they going? And how far? Though bereft of a horse, Morgan made the impulsive decision to follow on foot.

She struggled in the darkness, stumbling several times on unseen ridges of rut and road as she tried to keep pace.

As the road began to bend, she found Orion in the sky to mark her bearings.

Getting lost in strange countryside at night would be a poor outcome of her surveillance.

Meanwhile, the wagon moved onward, minute by minute.

Her breaths were coming in heaves when the hauler turned off the main thoroughfare onto a lesser road ahead.

She cut through a leveled field to intersect the new course, her thighs burning from the effort.

If the journey were to last much longer, she would not be able to continue.

As if in answer to unspoken prayer, the wagon slowed when it rolled through a small, darkened tenant village.

She entered the stand of buildings behind the men, passing four low stone houses and a small chapel before halting in the deeper shadow of a sprawling oak.

The wagon had stopped before a large barn.

Lantern light from the inside the barn cast a glow through the open door to create a pool of amber around the wagon.

As the men moved the bags from wagon to barn, she kept her attention on Steadman.

He blended in with the others, moving the heavy sacks with the grunting fortitude of a field hand.

The gang leader offered him a respectful slap on the shoulder as he muscled yet another bag into the barn.

As the wagon began to empty, she became convinced of his safety—for the time being.

She backed away from her vantage point, slipped past the chapel and through the abandoned tenant village, and again cut across the field.

She hurried along the road, casting backward glances for signs of the wagon.

After a time, it emerged along the road and began to gain on her.

She scrambled into the stubble of the field and dropped to her belly in the musky soil.

The soft glow of light from the tavern was visible in the distance when the wagon passed by her.

The men were now laughing and joking, their clandestine operation finished for the night.

As the wheels rolled by, not twenty feet from her hiding place, she heard Steadman regaling the men with a story that was likely true.

She followed the laughter into Broad Chalke and circled to the inn.

After a weary trudge up the stairs, she saw no light from beneath Steadman’s door. Good! He had not yet returned.

Once in her room, Morgan washed the sweat and grime from her face and body as best she could. She had just finished when a tap sounded on her door. Throwing a blanket around her, she carefully approached the door.

“Who’s there?”

“Steadman.”

In the breath of a moment before she opened the door, a dismal thought struck her.

What if he shared nothing of what had happened?

What if he dismissed her from the investigation altogether?

With rising angst, she creased open the door to find him standing in the hallway, still wearing his ruffian garb.

“What is it?”

His eyes wandered from the blanket to her face, deep with relief. “I simply wished to look in on you.”

To make sure I remain in my place? Umbrage straightened her spine. “Why did you wish to look in on me?”

He blinked with mild surprise. “I was merely concerned for your safety.”

“Why? Why are you concerned?”

He appeared to catch a dose of her umbrage. “Because I like you, God help me.”

“Oh, you do?” She opened the door further and stepped toward him in confrontation. “You like me? Despite the fact that I am a woman, a creature you have repeatedly pledged to hold at arm’s length?”

His irises glinted in the light of her candle as his eyes widened. His jaw fell open briefly before the alarmed expression relaxed. “You ask difficult questions.”

“So, you refuse to answer?”

“For now, yes. If nothing else than I have already said too much.”

Disappointment settled again into her breast, and she sighed. “At least tell me what happened tonight.”

She waited for him to dismiss the question or invent a tale. He did neither. “I met the gang, and we moved extorted wheat from a location in town to a barn in a tenant’s village some two miles distant.”

Her disappointment abated slightly. He had told the truth. However, he was not finished.

“And I know that village, and to whom it belongs.”

The sharp crease in his forehead told her everything. “Lord Atwood?”

“The very one.”

“Then he is absolutely behind the extortion?”

“Without a doubt.”

She leaned against the edge of the half-open door, considering the revelation. “What next? Do we draw up an arrest warrant and fetch Mr. Jarvis?”

His expression grew grimmer. “We cannot. As we are outside Bow Street jurisdiction, we must apply to the local magistrate for a warrant and have the constable serve it. Jarvis is too afraid to challenge Atwood. And even if we could convince him to do so, guess who the magistrate is?”

She rubbed her forehead. “Do not tell me. Lord Atwood.”

“Unfortunately.”

She cocked her head with confusion. “What can we do, then? We cannot very well abandon the farmers.”

His grim features slowly grew into a hard smile. “We steal back the wheat and hide it.”

She tipped her head sharply to one side. “My confusion deepens. If we steal the wheat, should we not turn it over to the constable or the farmers?”

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons.”

The conviction behind those words reeked of story, innuendo, and vengeance.

She wanted to press him further, but his tone had built a wall and barred the gate to further inquiry.

She wished to challenge him. However, a nagging distraction dislodged her from another attempt.

She recalled what he had just said about stealing the wheat.

“You said ‘we’.”

He chuckled, perhaps recalling how he had relegated her to the inn. “I require your help, but this time as Miss Brady.”

“Miss Brady?”

“In the morning, wear your green dress and pin up your hair, just as you did at the tavern.”

Before she could recover from her surprise and ask him why, he tipped his hat and left her standing in the doorway.

She stood in unmoving disbelief before closing and locking the door.

She remembered what had happened the last time she wore the dress in his presence.

The scorching memory only added to her mounting confusion and promised another restless night.