Page 4 of Cupid Comes to Little Valentine (The Venturesome Ladies of Little Valentine #1)

“Might we go to the haberdashery afterwards?” Izzy asked, surprising Clementine. Of the three sisters, Izzy cared the least for new gowns and pretty things, and Clementine wondered what had provoked the sudden desire to go to a place she normally only visited under duress.

Izzy coloured at the considering glance Clementine shot her. “I want to make collars for the kittens,” she said, sounding a touch defensive.

Clementine laughed. That made a deal more sense. “Yes, of course we may,” she said, linking her arm through her sister’s as they walked.

“I shall never tire of that view,” Izzy said as they turned a corner and the dazzling blue sea was suddenly before them, sparkling in the afternoon sunshine.

Clementine nodded, hardly able to disagree.

She was fortunate enough to have a view of the sea from her bedroom, and she could stare at it for hours.

It was one of the few things that never failed to calm her when she was vexed.

“Yes, and I would love to find a quiet spot and have a paddle, without my boots,” she added wryly.

“But I must get this done before I lose my nerve.”

“Would you?” Izzy asked, curiosity in her eyes.

Clementine glanced at her, frowning. “Would I what?”

“Lose your nerve. I’ve never known you back down before.”

Clementine stood looking up at the jauntily painted sign that proclaimed The Mermaid’s Tale and shrugged. “I’ve never confronted a nobleman in a hotel before,” she replied, feeling a sudden stab of apprehension.

“We don’t have to go in,” Izzy reminded her gently. “We could explain the situation to Papa. I’m sure he’d know how to deal with it.”

Clementine put her chin up, glaring at her sister. “Certainly not,” she said briskly, and strode to the front door.

“I don’t want it, damn you,” Lord Beaumarsh replied wearily, pushing the suspicious-looking cup his valet offered out of his face.

Reclining on a comfortable settee in the surprisingly elegant living room of the suite Kirby had secured for him, Beau contemplated how best to revenge himself on his cousin for his temerity.

How the craven-hearted fribble had got up the nerve to slip poison into his glass, he could not imagine.

“I never asked if you wanted it. I said drink it,” Kirby said, the implacable look on his face boding ill.

“I. Don’t. Want it,” Beau said again, a dangerous note to his voice.

He glared at his valet, smoothed his hands over the heavily embroidered silk of his banyan, and closed his eyes.

Perhaps if he took another nap, his head would stop feeling as though it was being repeatedly bashed against an anvil.

“Fine. Die. See if I care. It’s nothing to me if you turn up your toes,” Kirby muttered, setting the glass down and moving around the room, tidying things that did not require tidying.

“It’s not like I trudged for bleedin’ miles up hill to fetch the water from the spa for you.

Don’t matter if I brought you here for that reason, just to make you better, does it?

So, you trot along to kingdom come. I’ll just be out of a job, won’t I?

Me old mum depends on me, but that’s not your concern.

I expect I’ll find another job just as good what pays well enough to keep her in that nice little cottage.

I mean, every nobleman wants to hire an ex-boxer with a criminal record, don’t they?

Shouldn’t be no bother at all. It’s not as if—”

“Oh, devil take you, Kirby, give me the damned stuff!” Beau snapped.

Left to his own devices, Kirby would lead him through a protracted if imaginary history where he and his mother died in some rat-infested gutter of exposure and malnourishment.

“Though I tell you now, this filthy stuff is more likely to have me pushing up daisies. A nice glass of claret would be better. I’ll even take ale if you’re going to get all mother-hennish on me. ”

“Water,” Kirby said, handing him the water. “The doctor said five times a day. Minimum,” he added, drawing the word out as if daring Beau to argue.

Giving his valet a look that could have etched glass, Beau snatched the cup from him, sniffed it, and recoiled. “God’s teeth!” he exclaimed, blinking. “Are you trying to cure me or finish me off?”

“It’s just the sulphur,” Kirby said, rolling his eyes. “That’s the good bit.”

“The good bit?” Beau repeated, incensed. “The good bit? What’s the bad bit, pray tell? It reeks like rotten eggs.”

“When did you ever take medicine that tasted of strawberries and sugar? If it’s good for you, it’s bound to be rank. Now stop bleating and carrying on and drink the stuff before I make you.”

Beau fumed but was too weak to put up a proper fight.

Kirby was not the sort of fellow one wished to argue with, but Beau was his employer and that probably meant he wouldn’t actually lay hands on him.

Probably. There again, he had scared the poor bastard half to death by almost dying on him.

He’d been quite anxious himself come to that.

Considering his own mortality had forced him to ask himself some rather uncomfortable questions about his life.

Not that he had discovered any sensible answers.

Beau gazed down at the cup of water and contemplated swallowing the foul stuff.

His stomach, having suffered enough, churned.

A sudden knock at the door seemed like the answer to his prayers, and rather than tell whoever it was to go to the devil, as he certainly would have done two minutes earlier, he called for them to come in.

Kirby straightened, aghast at the idea of anyone seeing the exquisite Beau Beaumarsh looking anything less that his immaculate best, but it was too late.

The door opened and the owner of the hotel, Mrs Adamson, a splendidly curvaceous woman with the most riotous red curls Beau had ever seen, strode in.

“My lord,” she said, her voice apologetic though her expression was cool and businesslike.

“It appears you have visitors. Now, this is a respectable establishment, and I do not allow unmarried female guests to visit gentlemen. However, as the circumstances are somewhat unusual, I have agreed to chaperone. Might I introduce your callers?”

Beau reclined, aware he ought to stand in the presence of ladies, but equally alive to the possibility that he might fall over if he made the attempt. Retreating behind the facade of the indolent nobleman—one he played to perfection—he waved a negligent hand in acceptance and looked bored.

His gaze, however, was drawn to the two young women who stood behind Mrs Adamson, remaining just out of his line of sight.

Well, this was interesting, at least. Whatever did they want of him?

If they had come to invite him to attend a god-awful assembly where the yokels could gape at him like some exotic species they’d never seen before, they were out of luck.

“My Lord Beaumarsh, may I present Miss Clementine Honeywell and her sister, Miss Isabelle Honeywell? Ladies, the Earl of Beaumarsh.”

Beau watched as the two young women drew a little closer, regarding him exactly as if he were some strange and exotic species they had never seen before.

The younger of the two looked fascinated, her blue eyes startled behind her spectacles.

A quick appraisal of her form led him to suspect a splendid figure lay beneath her modest gown, which was certainly five years out of style, but she was far too young for his taste.

Eighteen if she was a day, he thought, before turning his attention to her sister.

He admitted himself disappointed, for though the younger sister wore glasses, she was certainly the prettier of the two.

The elder girl was handsome enough, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Well, if one discounted the contempt that glittered in her eyes. That, at least, was remarkable.

“Miss Honeywell, Miss Isabelle, a pleasure to meet you,” he drawled, wondering if he ought to have just drunk the blasted water. No doubt Kirby would get on at him to do so the moment the door closed behind the ladies, and now he had guests to endure too. Damned fool idea.

“We’ve met,” the elder Miss Honeywell said, holding his gaze.

Beau quirked an eyebrow, an expression that would have most people of his acquaintance scurrying away before he eviscerated them with some stinging comment. Miss Honeywell did not blink. “We have?” he asked sceptically.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “You fell out of your carriage after your coachman almost ran me down and then vomited on my boots.”

There were few occasions in Beau’s life where he had felt truly embarrassed, experiencing the kind of toe-curling horror that woke one up in the middle of the night feeling just as excruciatingly mortified as the moment it had happened.

The worst of those events had occurred when he was little more than a boy.

His vile cousin was usually responsible for them.

Yet it was because of those events, and because he had sworn never to feel that way ever again, that The Beau existed at all.

Still, brazen as he was these days, an unsettling sensation roiled in his guts that had nothing to do with poison, and a creeping sensation of heat that was as surprising as it was unwelcome burned the back of his neck.

After a journey that had felt like a voyage to Dante’s lesser known tenth circle of hell, where dwelt all indolent layabouts poisoned by jealous cousins, he had been exhausted and out of his head.

A long sleep had given him hopes that he had climbed his way back to limbo, a place where he was not quite dead, but the jury was still out.

The events of the hellish journey and the early morning had been erased from his memory, however.

Compelled to verify the woman’s information, though sadly he doubted very much she had made it up, Beau glanced at Kirby, who nodded.

“You did, my lord.”