Page 7 of Seduced by a Scoundrel (Tales from the Brotherhood #1)

Seven

J eremy puttered through the garden throughout the rest of the morning in a state of utter disbelief. He was mortified at the way he’d made such a fool of himself by waking up in a state, rutting against Derrek’s side, if his memory of the moment of waking was correct. He’d warned Derrek that the two of them sleeping in one bed would present problems, but not even he had dreamed that he would throw himself at Derrek like that.

It helped nothing that Derrek was so accommodating about the situation, nor that he had been in the same aroused state. In fact, Jeremy was fairly certain Derrek had found the entire situation amusing, to say the least. In too many ways, that made it all so much worse, despite Derrek’s insistence that these things happened.

These things might have happened, but they did not generally happen to Jeremy, nor did they happen in such a way that made him feel stirrings of affection where there should be only embarrassment, or curiosity where he should be restrained. And those were among the milder of his emotions.

The worst of it was that he could still feel the release that never happened reverberating through him, reminding him that it wanted expression, as he followed Derrek’s lead in the garden.

“Someone has done a small bit of work at some time in the past,” Derrek said, using a spade to dislodge some particularly thick brambles from the garden bed by the side of the cottage before tossing the offending vegetation onto a pile behind him. “There are weeds and brambles everywhere, but they could be much worse.”

Jeremy scooped to pick up the discarded growth so that he could walk it to the refuse pile he’d created beyond the garden in the trees. “You do not suppose whomever did the gardening might come back and find us here, do you?” he asked.

Derrek chuckled, a sound Jeremy was coming to love. “Doubtful,” he said. “Maidstone’s staff likely has far better things to do.”

Jeremy nodded, praying that Derrek was right. They’d only just arrived and spent a single night together in the cottage, but already Jeremy deemed the time they had together in seclusion to be lovely and worthy of preservation. The hours they’d spent there so far were so unlike his ordinary days, but he still felt a sense of rightness in the way he and Derrek worked together, ate together, slept together, and more or less did everything in tandem.

Jeremy could not remember the last time he’d felt as if he had any sort of partnership with anyone. Supervising the boys in his shop was one thing, but it did not feel the way gardening with Derrek did. He’d been longing to find someone to share his tailoring business with for some time, not only because business was thriving and growing beyond his single capacity, but because he liked the feeling of sharing something with someone he liked.

“What is that smile for?” Derrek asked as they cleaned up from their morning’s labor and prepared to venture off to wherever the nearest village could be found. “I did not think the fresh air would agree with a lifelong London man quite so much.”

He was teasing, and Jeremy laughed. “It’s fresher air than I’ve ever had,” he answered, washing his hands at the pump, “but I like it.” He let his smile linger on Derrek’s handsome face and roguish look, which appeared even more roguish with the sweat and dirt of his labors, not to mention unshaved stubble, before continuing with, “I enjoy working with someone at a task. For some time, I have worked alone.”

Derrek hummed, a heat in his eyes like he had taken Jeremy to mean something else entirely. “You have your boys at the shop, do you not?”

“They are good lads, but they are subordinates, not partners,” Jeremy answered. “I think I should like to have a partner.”

Instead of images of toiling away in the shop with another talented tailor, fantasies of him and Derrek getting up in the morning and tidying their bedchamber together, enjoying meals together, and walking about town together sprung to his mind. So did images of the two of them tangled up as they’d inadvertently been that morning.

“It’s a pity I’m ham-fisted with a needle and thread,” Derrek laughed, then clapped Jeremy on the shoulder. “Come. Let’s find a village market and purchase supplies.”

Jeremy sucked in a breath as Derrek’s hand squeezed him, then followed like he was a puppy as Derrek headed back to the house to fetch their coats and some coins. It must have been the wild, country air causing him to lose his senses, but seeing as it was better than fearing for his life at the hands of Conroy and his accomplice, Jeremy wasn’t certain he minded.

The walk into the nearest village was a pleasant one. The skies cleared just before they set out, and the sun beamed down on the picturesque landscape of Kent as they passed from the forest to the fields surrounding Maidstone Close. Derrek knew more about the history of the house than Jeremy would have suspected he would, but the details of the family’s recent history were fascinating.

“That was when Moreland called me in to help bring the whole, sorry thing to an end,” he said as the village came into sight as they crested a small hill, finishing his story of his previous visit to the estate. “Linton was guilty as sin, of course, and his wretched son, Lord Albert, more or less admitted to forcing himself onto Moreland’s sister. Between the evidence Ashton and Billy presented and my charming presence,” he sent Jeremy a sly, sideways grin, “we convinced the both of them to leave England for a long holiday on the Continent.”

“Do you think they will stay there?” Jeremy asked as the sounds and scents of the village grew more distinct. “Might they return at some point?”

“Not if they value their lives and their freedom,” Derrek said, shaking his head. “They haven’t much to come back to at any rate. Linton alienated all of his friends, and I’m not sure Lord Albert had any to begin with.”

Jeremy nodded at that sad statement. It must have been a terrible thing to have no friends. Not that he felt particularly sorry for such horrible men.

His attention was taken minutes later as they reached the edge of the village. It was like something out of a painting, or even a fairy tale, at least to Jeremy’s city mind. The houses were all small and quaint. The shops some of them contained on their ground floors were bright and busy. The scent of baking bread came from one and shaved wood came from another. Everyone around them was dressed far more simply than the people in London, but they fit their surroundings beautifully.

“Looks like it’s not a market day per se,” Derrek said, pausing in the middle of the main street with his hands on his hips, looking around. “We’ll have to find all the things we need from individual shops.”

“That will not be a problem at all,” Jeremy said with a smile. “I should rather like to investigate this place.”

Derrek laughed and thumped his back lightly, letting his hand rest there for a minute. “I’ll make a country boy out of you yet,” he said, adding one of his salacious winks.

Jeremy blushed and beamed with pride, leaning slightly closer to Derrek.

At least, he did until he noticed the narrow-eyed look of a passing villager. The man was roughly dressed and carried some sort of farming implement over his shoulder. He shuffled his steps a bit as he watched Jeremy and Derrek, then shook his head, spit in the dirt, and walked on, muttering something.

Uneasiness pooled in Jeremy’s stomach and he stepped away from Derrek. He cleared his throat and said, “We are not in London anymore,” in a quiet voice. “We need to have a care for how we present ourselves.”

“Because some old man didn’t like what he saw?” Derrek asked.

He was making light of the situation, but Jeremy could see he had enough good sense in him to keep his distance as the two of them walked on.

Most of the villagers they saw as they started their shopping weren’t as suspicious or standoffish as the farmer. Even more people warmed to them when Derrek brought out the sack of coins they’d brought with them and started spending them on necessary supplies. Within half an hour, Jeremy had a large basket filled with essentials looped over his arm and was greeted at each new shop they entered with smiles and expectation.

“Now that we’re well stocked,” Derrek said once the shopping was done and they’d paused to sit on a bench outside a baker’s, eating delicious meat pies for their luncheon, “I need to investigate ways I might be able to get a message to London if and when I need to.”

“Do villages like this have errand boys to hire or coaching inns?” Jeremy asked.

Derrek pinched his face as he looked around. “That is precisely what I need to ascertain,” he said. He took one last bite of his pie, swallowed it with a gulp of the weak ale they’d procured from the small pub at the end of the high street, then clapped a hand on Jeremy’s thigh before standing. “I’ll return these to the pub,” he took Jeremy’s empty glass as well, “and ask about messengers and the like. Will you be alright on your own for a spell?”

Jeremy looked up and down the street. “I do not see Conroy or his accomplice anywhere in the area, so I believe I will be safe,” he said, giving Derrek a smile as cheeky as the ones Derrek usually gave him.

Derrek laughed, met his eyes for a fond, lingering look, then turned to stride off toward the pub.

Jeremy spent the first few seconds of his departure staring at his thick thighs and broad shoulders, and wishing he could see the swell of Derrek’s bum under the hem of his coat. When he dragged his eyes away from that sight, however, he noticed that he was also the object of a few people’s scrutiny.

He smiled in return at the grocer’s wife in the doorway of the shop across from where he sat. The woman smiled uneasily in return before ducking into the shop. He tried nodding to a cobbler who was busy practicing his trade at a bench he must have set up in front of his shop to enjoy the day’s good weather, but the man barely acknowledged him before going back to his work.

The last thing Jeremy wanted was to feel self-conscious or suspicious around people who were supposed to make him feel safe. Admittedly, he and Derrek were being a bit too friendly with each other, but he’d seen ordinary friends treat each other with the same kindness in London and no one had batted an eyelash.

He got up, picking up the basket to carry with him, and decided the best thing for it was to wander around the village, making certain he was seen by its inhabitants in as non-threatening a way as possible. It was as likely as not that the people around him were merely suspicious of strangers and that they had not even dreamed about what sort of men he and Derrek were.

There was much to see in the village, which made his perusal of the place enjoyable. The place was tiny, to his mind, but it contained everything that London could offer, just on a smaller scale. He observed the cobbler for a moment, commenting on the exquisite quality of his wares. He complimented the baker on the deliciousness of the pies he and Derrek had eaten and splurged on a few small cakes for tea later that evening. He watched the blacksmith at work for a while, noting how strong his form was, though it was nothing compared to Derrek’s beauty.

The main object of his interest in the village, however, was the seamstress’s shop that sat halfway down the high street. It appeared to be closed, but there was so much to see through the front window that he paused there to drink it all in.

Women’s clothing and haberdashery had never been Jeremy’s main focus, but he knew the particulars of how it was constructed and he’d kept up with the latest trends and styles, despite being a men’s tailor. The dresses and other items in the shop window were of a surprisingly fine quality, though they were nowhere near as refined or à la mode as what could be found in London. That made perfect sense, however, as the seamstress’s clientele was likely country folk.

He’d leaned into the window to get a better look deep into the shop but stepped back suddenly at the sound of someone approaching behind him. As it turned out, he moved a bit too fast and stepped too far. Without trying to, he collided with a harried woman of an age close to his, upsetting her armful of paper-wrapped parcels. His basket slid off his arm as well, resulting in everything that both of them had been carrying scattering in the dirt of the road around them.

“Lord have mercy!” the woman exclaimed in her country accent.

“I am so terribly sorry,” Jeremy replied, immediately bending to help her pick up her things. “I should not have stepped back so quickly.”

He reached for her parcels first, hoping that by lifting them quickly, he could spare the bolts of fabric that the parcels contained from becoming dirty.

“I should have been better at watching where I was going,” the woman said, gathering up the purchases Jeremy and Derrek had made earlier and putting them back into the basket, which she righted.

“You had quite a load to carry,” Jeremy said as affably as possible. “I know from carrying bolts of fabric myself that it can be a challenge to see while doing so.”

The woman straightened, lifting Jeremy’s basket with her, and stared pointedly at him. “A London accent?” she asked. “You must be one of the men everyone in the village is talking about.”

Heat flooded Jeremy’s face as he adjusted the fabric bolts and other packages in his arms. “People are talking about us?” he asked anxiously.

“Of course they are,” the woman said. “It’s not every day two gentlemen from London arrive in our village.”

“Oh, we are not gentlemen,” Jeremy said, lowering his face modestly.

“That’s what old Michael Croft hinted at,” the woman said with a smirk.

Jeremy snapped his eyes up to meet hers. “We aren’t…that isn’t what…we are friends only.”

The woman laughed, seemingly amused by Jeremy’s panic. “I never said you were, love.” The way she tilted her head and raked him with a glance hinted that he was the one who made the damning implication.

“Derrek is my…my cousin,” he said, inventing a story as quickly as he could. “We’ve come this far into Kent because…because his father has just passed and there is a small matter of inheritance to settle.”

It was a daft thing to say, but he could not think of anything else quickly enough.

Fortunately for him, Derrek arrived just then and had evidently heard his fabrication. “That is correct,” he added, stopping and staring at the woman with his arms crossed, daring her to contradict him. “My father just passed, and Cousin Jeremy here, who has more of a head for business than I do, agreed to accompany me for the reading of the will and settling of Da’s property.”

“Is that so,” the woman said, looking utterly unconvinced. With Jeremy’s basket looped over one arm, she crossed her arms and stared at Derrek. “And what village is your father from?”

“Aylesford,” Derrek answered without pause.

“What’s his name?”

“Robert,” Derrek replied.

“Why are you staying here instead of up there?”

“We’re not,” Derrek said. “We are staying at my brother’s cottage between here and there while my sisters clear out Da’s place.”

“Staying together?” the woman asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Would you care to share that implication aloud?” Derrek challenged her.

The woman stared at him for a few seconds before bursting into a laugh. “I’ve a brother who’s the same way,” she said, reaching into the pocket of her apron and pulling out a key, then turning to put it in the door of the shop. “Mind you, he had to leave here for London, and the two of you might do well to do the same.”

“It isn’t like that at all,” Jeremy insisted, fumbling the bolts of fabric. He was glad when the woman opened the shop and he was able to carry them inside. He was also glad to be able to change the subject once he was inside the small, crowded shop by saying, “Are you the seamstress?”

“I am,” the woman said, setting Jeremy’s basket on the floor, since there were hardly any empty spaces on the tables or counters. “Clarissa Jones, at your service.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Clarissa Jones,” Derrek said, taking the bolts from Jeremy’s arms and lining them up along the edge of one of the counters. “Are you the only seamstress in town?”

“The only one with a shop,” Miss Jones said.

“It is a lovely shop,” Jeremy said, glancing around eagerly, now that he was on the inside. “I was admiring your work from outside just now.”

“Jeremy is a tailor,” Derrek pointed out.

“Are you now?” Miss Jones asked, looking surprised. She quickly added, “Are you looking for work? Because May Day is fast approaching, and anyone who can has commissioned new togs for the celebrations.”

“I wouldn’t want to impos?—”

“I believe that is a stellar idea,” Derrek interrupted before Jeremy could finish his apologies.

The three of them stood still for a moment, glancing at each other in surprise. Miss Jones could not have expected an affirmative answer to her likely jesting question, and Jeremy certainly didn’t expect Derrek to approve of the idea of him working while they were in hiding.

“There’s no telling how long our business here might last,” Jeremy told Derrek in a low voice.

Derrek shrugged. “One day, one week, or one month, you are a tailor. Were you not just telling me that you longed to have someone to work with at your craft?”

Jeremy blinked. The idea of working for a country seamstress for a time should not have filled him with such inspiration. “I was,” he began hesitantly.

“If you are offering, I would gladly take you up on that offer,” Miss Jones said. “As you can see, the place is packed to the rafters with trade. But if this modest, country shop is too far beneath you?—”

“It isn’t that at all,” Jeremy said, feeling like he’d been caught in a whirlwind. “I would be more than happy to lend my assistance, but I truly do not know how long we will be here.”

“Beggars cannot be choosers,” Miss Jones said, stepping close to Jeremy to take the final parcel from his arms. “I need an assistant to help with the May Day orders, and it would seem you are in need of work while your cousin finishes his business about his father.” She sent Derrek a cheeky look.

“I—”

“It’s settled, then,” Derrek said, overriding whatever protest Jeremy might have made. “While we are here, you can help Miss Jones with her May Day orders.”

Jeremy closed his gaping mouth and pressed his lips together. He narrowed his eyes slightly at Derrek, uncertain how he felt about being ordered about.

Then again, it was as likely as not that Derrek had some sort of ulterior motive that he could not share in front of Miss Jones. Perhaps he had discovered something at the pub and felt Jeremy would be safer, or use his time better, employed at Miss Jones’s shop.

“I suppose the matter is all settled, then,” he said, blowing out a breath, then turning to Miss Jones with a smile. “If you’ll have me, I will gladly be in your employ for as long as I can.”

And as soon as he was able to corner Derrek alone, he would demand to know what else was going on.