Page 5 of Much Ado About Hating You (Second Chance Season #2)

Four

B eatrice hated boats. They may have secured her family’s fortune, but nothing made her stomach turn faster than the leaping boards of a boat at sea. Or a rowboat at lake, as the case may be. As the case was that very morning. The guests milled about the lakeshore, inspecting the watercraft and holding bonnets and beaver hats to their heads. The wind was playful, and it tore at ribbons and lifted skirts, much to the delight of gentlemen unexpectedly rewarded with glimpses of stockinged calves and knees and thighs.

They were to have a boat race or some such nonsense that would only leave Beatrice queasy and sequestered to her room for the rest of the day. She’d leave the boating to everyone else. She turned back to the house.

“Where are you going?” Evelina called behind her.

Caught. Qué mala suerte . How terribly unlucky. She forced a smile and faced her friend. “Back to the house. I forgot to work on my translation yesterday.” Not that she needed to. Her father had given the affreightment contract he’d promised her to another for translation. And he’d not told her until she’d shown up at his office asking for the documents the day before they’d left London. Somehow her father’s ability to forget she existed still pained her, even if it no longer surprised her. But work offered as good an excuse as any to avoid boats. And Mr. Clark. “I thought to work on it now.”

“No, no!” Evelina pulled her toward the shore, the gaggle of guests, and the waiting boats bobbing at the shoreline. “It’s too lovely a day to work inside. We’re pairing up. It will be quite diverting.”

“Pairing up?” Sounded rotten. Purposefully rotten. “And who have I been paired with?” Lord Peterson. Please let it be the baron. She’d caught his eye yesterday, and today she meant to test his willingness to liaisons. Subtly, of course.

“Richard.”

Blast. “You cannot do that do me, Evie!”

“I’m doing nothing to you but putting you out to sea—well, lake—with the most accomplished swimmer in residence. I wouldn’t dream of pairing you with anyone less capable. I know how you feel about water.”

Deep water. She suppressed a shiver. “Yes. It’s wet. You should understand why I’d rather be inside. Translating shipping agreements.”

“Let someone else do it.”

“I’m the best at it. And I enjoy my work.”

“Your father’s agreements can wait a few hours. Look.” Evelina pointed toward a boat nearby and lowered her voice. “Lena and Mr. Fisher are going out together. They’ve been quite friendly since their reacquaintance.”

Beatrice narrowed her eyes. “Are you one of those women that insists on pairing everyone up once she’s been happily paired herself?”

Evelina shrugged. “I can try.”

Selena and Mr. Fisher stood closer than they had the day before, snatching gazes at one another, laughing softly. Lena’s cheeks were pink as posies. Beatrice sighed. “Very well. I suppose trapping myself in a boat with Mr. Clark keeps him occupied.” If Selena wanted Mr. Fisher, she could have him. This time, Mr. Clark would not intrude.

Evelina poked Beatrice’s shoulder and pointed through the crowd. “And look there. Richard is not all bad. See how excellent he is with the children?”

There, where the water lapped against the shore, a boat rocked violently to the tune of happy shrieks. Richard grasped the end of it, plunging it first one way and then the other. Water splashed over the edges, and the boat’s smallest occupants, twin toddlers, squealed with delight as the little girl, five or so years old, gripped the edges tightly, her eyes wide. Nothing so enjoyable as being terrified to death.

He was impossibly masculine. Impossibly beautiful. And impossibly dangerous.

“Pair me with Peterson, Evie. Please.” Beatrice hated begging, but for this… she would.

Evie patted Beatrice’s shoulder. “If all partners agree to swap, I suppose that’s fine.” With a too-casual shrug, she joined John beside a boat of their own.

Beatrice slipped back into the crowd, entirely focused on the boat, the man rocking it. So focused, she accidentally bumped the shoulder of a man striding in the opposite direction.

“Careful,” the man growled, hunkering into his greatcoat collar and tugging his hat lower over his eyes. They flicked toward her, then away. “Always were a shrew,” he mumbled as he darted into the crowd.

She swung around, hands on hips. Who was that ? She didn’t suffer insults without retaliation. She took one step after him, but he had disappeared. Reluctantly, she returned her path toward Mr. Clark. No one had called her a shrew to her face since… since Daniel . Yes, she remembered now. The scoundrel. He made Mr. Clark appear a saint. But at least he’d always acted exactly who he was. Unlike his half brother, who pretended to be lovely and sweet but would stab you in the back when you least expected it.

There he was, bouncing the children about as if it was his sole delight.

“Mr. Clark,” she said when she stood behind him.

He froze, then straightened as the young sailors objected and faced her. “Miss Bell.”

What had she come over here for? His forearms? Uncovered, sleeves rolled above the elbows, crisp hair ranging across the muscled length of them.

No! Not that. One didn’t go in search of forearms.

Unless they were perfect forearms like?—

No! “I have a few questions for you,” she snapped. “Do you have time? Are you done tormenting the children?”

“I do not have time. I am currently a pirate.” And didn’t he look it, a bead of sweat on his brow just beside a rakish curl…

The little girl screamed, and one of the boys climbed on top of a seat, tilting the boat sideways.

Somehow Richard knew, and he whipped around and grabbed the boy before he toppled into the water. “Everyone out!”

“No!” That, the little girl.

“Walk the plank, girlie, and that’s an order.” Richard propped the toddler on one hip and held the boat steady with his free hand as the girl stomped her way off the craft. Then he picked up the second boy and propped him on the other hip.

Oh my. Beatrice squirmed. Forearms straining against wiggling toddler limbs, lock of dark hair falling rakishly across one eye. She tingled. In places she shouldn’t. “Ow!” She looked down at her throbbing foot, at the little girl glaring up at her. “Did you stomp my foot?”

“Did you ruin my fun?”

She had a point. Beatrice knelt. “I did not mean to. I think that was your brother. And possibly your uncle. I’ll extend my apologies anyway. Do you need help guarding your boat from pirates right now?”

“You know how to fight pirates?”

“She does,” Richard said, settling the boys—twins—on the ground beside the girl. “She’s been fighting marauding evildoers since I’ve known her. But it’s time for you to run off now. Bishop and Pope are waiting for you.” He nodded toward the back of the crowd where two nursemaids of a same size in frilly white caps and aprons stood side by side in identical postures.

The girl groaned, but when the boys ran, she followed. Each nurse scooped up one boy, and then the group was gone, trudging up the hill to the house.

“Who are they?” Beatrice asked.

“My niece Lucy and my nephews William and Henry—or Willy and Henny, as Lucy calls them. Daniel’s children.”

Ah, yes. “Evelina wrote of them.” The young girl had, apparently, been conceived just before Daniel’s exile from England. And the twins had come to them from the Continent. No matter how far he roamed, Daniel’s actions rippled back toward home.

He seemed to be dissecting her with his gaze, as if he could see beyond her flat tone to her true feelings beneath. “Different mothers.”

Like him and his brothers. “Your brother and your father have much in common.”

Mr. Clark exhaled sharply. “John is afraid there are yet more children out there waiting to be discovered.”

“He doesn’t seem to mind.”

“He wants them all. If no one else wants them. We found one who was in a lovely home, well cared for and happy. Another little girl. He wouldn’t dare move her for the world. She didn’t want it, and her parents didn’t want to lose her, either. But he’s set up a fund for her. A dowry for her use only. And the mother receives a yearly sum as well.”

“John always was a knight in shining armor.”

“To Daniel’s devil. How any man could abandon his children as he has—” Anger bit Richard’s sentence in two, swallowed it in a single gulp.

She understood well how men could do such a thing, even if Richard did not. When men—like her father, for example—had no use for a child, they simply ignored them, gave them away, and did as they pleased. And what her father pleased was not acknowledging her existence. Until he needed something.

The old pain still clawed at her heart. Useless and ugly. Her nose and ears too big, her body too small, her face too little like her dead mother’s. She’d served no purpose to her father. He’d sent her away before they’d both been done wearing black, then welcomed her back when she’d become proficient enough at Spanish to benefit his business.

“Beatrice.” Richard’s voice could be like bathwater, warm and soothing. She remembered that now. “Are you unwell?”

She shrugged his concern away. “Daniel always called me a shrew. Among other things.”

“If he wasn’t already deported, I’d have sent him away myself.”

“Is it true what I heard? What I read in the papers? Bigamy?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, nodded. “Poor girl. The second wife. Ruined. She disappeared after. A man like my half brother has no right calling anyone names. Especially not intelligent women like?—”

“Are you trying to charm me, Richard Clark?”

His gaze on her suddenly intense, hot. “If I tried, would it work?”

“No.” Not after all that had passed between them. No matter that, when he looked at her that way, she couldn’t quite breathe as easily as she should be able to.

“Do you let Peterson charm you?”

“Who?”

“Good.” His voice sounded like a smile.

Not good! “Oh, yes. Lord Peterson. He is charming. We’re to go out in a boat together.”

“You’re to go out with me. Evie said.” He turned back to the boat, pulled it higher on the shore until it was stuck tight, and God help her, she tried not to watch his waistcoat strain across his broad back.

And she failed, her mouth dry, the tingling between her legs returning. “Ah, yes. But that’s why I sought you out.” This was why she must take a lover. If she knew the pleasures shared between a man and a woman, this man’s forearms wouldn’t make her knees weak. She’d tried to once, to take a lover. After she’d returned from Evie’s husband’s funeral, after Mr. Clark had kissed her. Her father’s secretary had been willing, and she’d educated herself well, but she’d not been able to go through with it. Too many horrid things could have happened. To her. Not to him. A grim and unfair reality.

She would not let fear limit her this time. She’d brought a French letter. A deuced difficult thing to come by as a woman, but she’d done it.

Now she needed Peterson in that boat.

“Bell…” Clark’s voice low and so very near her ear. “Quit looking at me like that or I’ll think you like me. And”—he straightened, looking quite pleased—“use more detailed language to tell me why you’re over here undressing me with your eyes.” He dusted his hands on his thighs and grinned. “Or don’t. And continue admiring my arse.”

A couple approached before she could do more than sputter an inarticulate sound, and he helped them into the boat. Then he turned to her, and it felt like the simple quarter spin of his body through space sent all the air flying off. She was breathless beneath the magnificence of his smile, the width of his shoulders.

And yes, she had been busy admiring his arse.

She was talented enough to admire and be irritated at the same time. He had no right to be so magnetic! To cause women to imagine what his neck looked like beneath that cravat, to wish to feel the bone of his scruffy jaw. He’d clearly not shaved that morning. She’d always had a bit of an appreciation for a man’s jaw with two days’ worth of scruff. A bit of a beard, though unfashionable, showed he was a man, showed he was different from her, rougher. And she… she liked that.

“Que bruto,” she mumbled, rubbing her hand up and down her arm, trying to erase the tingles traveling across her skin.

“What does that mean?” A quirk of his lip.

“A beast.”

“Me?”

“Naturally.”

The other side of his mouth joined the first. A smile, broad and true. “So clever. I have never learned a second language, try as I might.”

Oh no. A sincere compliment. Her weakness. But also a reminder. She’d promised to teach him another language. Every good thing between them dead before their first lesson.

“Why are you being nice to me?” she demanded.

He looked out across the water, hands on hips. “For John and Evelina. Shouldn’t we make nice for them?”

“Humph.” He had her there.

“Looks like they cannot resist one another.” He nodded toward the middle of the lake where Selena rowed with Martin.

“Leave them be.”

“I will.”

“Last time you supported Martin’s rejection.”

He ruffled a hand through his hair. “Circumstances are different than they were. It all depends on your cousin.” Disapproval set his jaw.

“My cousin has done nothing wrong.” She wanted to stomp his toes. “I would prefer to row out with Peterson. Will you switch?”

His chin tipped down, and he finally met her gaze. His eyes flashed. “No.”

“You cannot tell me who to row with!”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not. Evelina is. Why him?”

“Because unlike some men, he looks like he knows how to make a woman happy.”

Was that a growl? He stepped forward, his tall, taut body as menacing as that gruff sound. “Happy how, Bell?”

She shouldn’t.

She really shouldn’t.

Do. Not. Do it. Beatrice. Bell.

She bounced her eyebrows up once and licked her lips. “In the only way that matters, Richard Clark.”

Absolutely no question about her meaning.

Fury ticked in his jaw.

“Now,” she said, “will you switch with me, or?—”

“Or.” He picked her up and swung her into a nearby boat.

“Don’t you dare!” She gripped the sides of the swaying vessel, her heart hammering in her chest.

He pushed her out into the water, then jumped aboard, and the boat tossed wildly for a moment. She was going to die, and she held her breath and slammed her eyes closed against the inevitable biting water.

But the boat calmed. It lurched forward, but with controlled precision. She ventured to open an eye.

Her nemesis sat across from her, rowing, each stroke testing the strength of the linen that hugged his bulging arms. Testing the strength of her own cursed fortitude.