Page 4 of Lady Elizabeth’s Winter Stranger

“Help! Help!”

A towheaded boy of about six was stuck up a tree. He’d climbed so far that the thought of falling now gripped him with paralyzing terror. His earsplitting shrieks echoed around the almost empty park.

When Elizabeth caught up with Tom, he was standing beneath the oak and staring up at the child. “What’s all this noise, my good fellow?”

“Help! Help!” The boy was so hysterical, he didn’t seem to notice that rescue had arrived.

“Stop that now,” Tom said in a tone of such authority that Elizabeth was startled. So far, he’d come across as an amiable stranger, but that voice could command armies.

It worked with the child. There was an audible sob, but the pleas for assistance stopped. His face red and shiny with tears, the boy stared down at Tom. “Who are you?”

“I’m the man who’s going to climb this tree and get you back onto the ground, if you promise you won’t yell anymore.”

To Elizabeth’s relief, the boy took the instructions to heart. “I’m very high.”

The lad perched on a thick branch, and he seemed to have a firm grasp. As long as he didn’t do anything rash, he seemed safe enough where he was. But he was right. It was very high.

“Yes, you are. But I’m an excellent climber, and this lady is going to help me.”

“I haven’t climbed a tree since I was twelve,” she muttered at a volume that wouldn’t reach the child.

Tom muffled a laugh. “I’d like to have seen that. Don’t worry. I’ll do the climbing. But I’d like you to be ready to catch him when I get him within reach. God knows how he got all that way up. That’s not an easy ascent.”

Elizabeth considered the tree and couldn’t help agreeing. “Do you think you can manage it?” She wished she didn’t sound so doubtful.

He reacted to her question with amusement, not a fit of male pique, she was pleased to note. “We’ll have to see.”

Tom took off his hat to reveal a thick head of disheveled black curls.

He set his hat on a bench that was close but unfortunately not close enough to help him scale the tree.

He tugged off his gloves to bare long-fingered, capable-looking hands.

Quickly he unbuttoned his greatcoat and draped it over the seat.

“Hurry up. I’m getting cold,” the lad said in peremptory tones. Elizabeth couldn’t resist a pang of sympathy for whoever his mother was. This boy was clearly a handful, and Elizabeth had only known him for a few minutes.

“I’m doing my best,” Tom said with commendable mildness. “My name’s Tom. What’s yours?”

“Cyril. Cyril Polkinghorne.”

Tom’s lips twitched. “That’s a big name for such a young man.”

“I’m not a young man. I’m six.”

“My apologies.” A scatter of snow descended onto Tom’s head. “Are you wriggling up there like a worm, Cyril?”

“No-o.” He didn’t sound sure. “Not like a worm.”

“I don’t want you wriggling at all,” Tom said crisply. “I’ll be most displeased if I go to the trouble of climbing this tree and you fall out of it before I get to you.”

He shrugged out of his snug-fitting dark blue coat to expose a cream silk waistcoat and white shirtsleeves. The generous greatcoat had revealed his height but not his impressive physique. She’d never been so conscious of a man’s sheer physical presence. She hadn’t known she could be.

“My bum’s cold,” Cyril said with a hint of a whine.

Tom’s eyes, bright silver with repressed laughter, met Elizabeth’s.

Warmth flooded her, despite the cold air, and made her fingers and toes tingle.

She couldn’t help smiling back, while deep inside her, something bloomed like a rose.

The sensation was extraordinary. She didn’t know what all this inner disturbance meant, but she was sure that she’d remember this moment when she was old and gray and reviewing her life’s significant events.

“I’m sure you know better than to use crude language in front of a lady, Cyril,” Tom said.

“But I’m freezing my arse off up here,” Cyril said. “Hurry up.”

Elizabeth couldn’t contain a muffled snort of amusement. “Say please, Cyril. A gentleman shows his quality by demonstrating grace under pressure.”

As she raised her head to address Cyril, her hood fell back. When she glanced at Tom, he was regarding her with an arrested expression that made that core of heat in her middle expand in a most disconcerting manner. “What is it?”

He blinked as if he came back from somewhere far away, and a tinge of color edged those spectacular cheekbones. “You have golden hair,” he said softly. “I wondered.”

Elizabeth had played a part in Cumbria’s local society since she was seventeen, and she’d enjoyed a string of London seasons.

Through those years, she’d received a thousand compliments, most of them considerably more flowery than this.

In fact, it wasn’t even a compliment. Not really.

More a statement of fact. Perhaps it felt like a compliment because of Tom’s rapt expression.

Nonetheless, he wasn’t the only person blushing.

“I…” she started, at a loss for an answer.

“Come on!” Cyril said from above, breaking the spell.

“You should start climbing before you freeze to death,” she said.

“And before Cyril writes a letter to the Times complaining about the poor standard of rescuer in this day and age.” Tom turned toward the tree. Elizabeth’s heart, that had shown a lamentable urge to stop altogether, started up again.

Only to begin racing when her gaze dropped to the narrow hips under the tight buckram breeches. That arse – or bum, as Cyril would put it – was fascinating. Tight buttocks that flexed with every step. Her hands closed to fists at her sides, as if they curved around that taut flesh.

Good heavens, she’d had no idea that a man’s body was quite so interesting.

What the devil was her problem? She was a sophisticated woman. She didn’t go around ogling attractive men and their rippling hindquarters. Except it seemed that she did.

Without warning, Tom glanced back at her and her color surged once more, as she hurriedly fixed her gaze on Cyril. Had Tom noticed her wanton attentions to his rear? How humiliating if he had.

“Will you be ready to take him once I get him down far enough?” The question was serious, the tone wasn’t. It reminded her how much she liked that warmly amused baritone. Although perhaps not just after he’d caught her leering at him. “Miss?”

She started and made herself look at him. “Of course.”

At least he didn’t know her name or anything about her. With a bit of luck, he was only passing through London and she’d never have to see him again. That was altogether the best outcome for today and its adventures.

She needed to tell herself that again and mean it this time.

“Come on!” Another fall of snow hinted that Cyril was getting impatient.

“You need to get him before he breaks his neck,” she said, hoping that concentrating on the matter at hand would divert Tom from her faux pas.

“I think that’s a good idea.”

If she was trying to distract Tom from her gaffe, and she was, even she could tell it was an abject failure. Laughter sparkled in his gray eyes. He’d definitely noted her curiosity about his body.

Her voice emerged high and breathy. “What do you want me to do?”

She ventured nearer, near enough to catch the scent of his skin in the sharp air. She’d been close to men before, dancing or in carriages or walking arm in arm. She might be yet to choose a husband, but she’d thoroughly enjoyed a few flirtations.

Standing just behind Tom, she shouldn’t be bowled over by the spicy scent teasing her nostrils. It wasn’t as if he didn’t smell like most other men she knew. At least the ones who took care about bathing regularly and wearing fresh linen.

There was the smell of leather and clean male skin and a tinge of the outdoors. It was a mystery that in Tom, this banal mixture should combine to create a perfume as heady as any priceless blend from the Orient.

He turned to her with another smile. “Wish me luck.”

The smile started up the flutters inside her again. “Good luck.”

His attention narrowed onto her face. She noted his sudden tension. The air gave an odd shimmer, as if the world held its breath. Elizabeth even had time to move away.

She didn’t want to move away.

So she remained just where she was. She might even have leaned forward when he bent his tousled head and brushed his lips across hers.

There was a surge of tempting heat. Then the contact was over.

She released a soft sigh as he drew away, sorry it ended so soon. It seemed she was a hussy. It wasn’t her first kiss. But it was the first kiss in a long time that left her hungry for more.

“Hurry up!” Cyril insisted from above them. “There’s no time for all that slop.”

Tom’s brief smile conveyed regret that the kiss had ended. He peered at her with a concentrated focus that made her pulses rush. When she read approval in his eyes, another wave of warmth washed through her. “If I’m about to break my neck, I’ll die a happy man, at least.”

She responded with a throaty giggle, when she should be telling him off in no uncertain terms. Or running for her life.

Cyril released an audible sigh from above. “A fellow has better things to do than watch you two bill and coo.”

Tom tilted his head. “If you expect me to risk life and limb to come to your aid, I’d stick a sock in it, you troublesome brat.”

“I told you about my arse.” It was clear Cyril found the word extremely pleasing to say. Elizabeth supposed he was that age to find pleasure in shocking the grown-ups. Although her experience indicated that some men were always that age.

“You did indeed.”

“Then come and get me.”

Tom sighed and made a jump for the lowest branch, which to Elizabeth’s worried eyes seemed a long way from the ground. His hands failed to find purchase on the damp wood, and he dropped back to earth with a muttered curse.