Page 62 of The Ladies Least Likely

CHAPTER FOUR

“ R eally!” Amaranthe said. “I’ve hardly kidnapped them. You are very much mistaken if you think I have.”

Indignation stiffened her spine, but trepidation swirled in her belly. He was very large, and grew larger as he stalked down the hall.

“I’ll press charges. Abduction. Blackmail. I suppose you’ve settled on a ransom? How much do you suppose you could earn for stealing the Duke of Hunsdon and his siblings?”

Amaranthe waved toward the front door, hoping her hand didn’t tremble. “You may leave my house this instant, you insulting person!” She might be nervous, but she refused to be intimidated.

“I will find where you’ve hidden them.”

The man advanced, and Amaranthe stepped back, as if they were dancing.

He was quite tall, his shoulders treacherously wide.

He lifted his chin to glare over her head and Amaranthe noted a strong, square jaw set with determination.

He was not the fleshy, soft sort of gentleman she was used to dealing with, the rare times she dealt with gentlemen.

“Hugh! Ned! Millie! Where is she keeping you?”

“In the parlor, Grey,” Ned called back in cheerful tones. Camilla’s reply, muffled by a mouthful of cake, followed.

The stranger stormed past her and Amaranthe whisked out of his way, certain an explosion would follow if she made the error of contact.

Her pulse clattered in her throat like a mouse in the coal bin.

He pushed into the parlor, and she scurried after him to shield the easel with her body.

The parchment pages were covered with the cloth, but the book from which she was copying stood open.

She planted a hand on her hip to broaden her silhouette and keep him from seeing anything.

His attention fastened on the children. The Duke of Hunsdon lowered his piece of bread and butter, but the younger two kept eating steadily. Perhaps they were used to this strange man and his belligerence.

“How did you get here?” the stranger barked. “Account for yourselves!”

“Ralph brought us,” Ned said with a guilty expression.

“We took the coach,” the duke added, unrepentant.

“But why here?” The man’s gaze swung on Camilla.

“We needed help,” she said simply, fishing a crumb of cake from her lip with a little pink tongue. “And Mr. Joseph was the only one we could think of.”

The man they called Grey flinched at this and turned an accusing stare on Amaranthe. Beneath the scowling brows, his eyes were an unnerving, icy blue. “Where is Mr. Joseph, then? And who is this?”

Amaranthe planted a second hand on her hip in exasperation. “Their kidnapper, of course.” How she hated gentlemen with their insolent manner toward those they thought subservient, which was everyone.

He looked to the children for clarification, but they had none. “She was here when we came in.” The young duke shrugged.

“His wife?” Ned guessed.

“His housekeeper?” Camilla tried.

Amaranthe bit her lip and crossed her arms over her chest. “The criminal mastermind who is holding you ransom,” she replied. “The first step in my villainy apparently being to fill your empty bellies.”

The scowl gave way to a look of bafflement. “Then this is the tutor’s house? Mr.—Islington.”

“This is where the tutor lives, but that is not his name.” Amaranthe decided to help him no further. He was above her in rank, but his manners were decidedly shabby.

“Where’s Ralph?” the man called Grey demanded.

“Out seeing that the coach isn’t stolen before I can spirit the children away in it,” Amaranthe replied.

“Seeing as how my nefarious plan entails traveling through London in broad daylight in a conveyance with the ducal arms emblazoned on the door. How I wish I had thought this through a bit better.”

The stormy eyes narrowed. “All right, Mrs.—Islesworth?—”

She kept her arms folded, meeting his stare. “Do you mean to tell me that you pay my brother’s salary without knowing the first thing about his circumstances? I would expect you to be a bit more diligent about whom you employ to see to the children if you think to call yourself their guardian.”

A look of discomfort replaced the anger with which he’d entered. Amaranthe resisted her natural inclination to soothe. He hadn’t earned it.

“So you would be?—”

“Miss Amaranthe.” Mrs. Blackthorn appeared in the doorway, holding a tray heaped with delicious-smelling bowls and dishes. “If you’ll help me pull out the dining table, mum, we can feed our guests.”

Mrs. Blackthorn regarded the intruder with interest, observing his smart attire. Her gaze lingered on his face, which could by the strictest definition be called handsome, then she turned to Amaranthe with a grin. “Shall I fetch more tea?”

“I perceive the children’s guardian means to collect them, so I expect they’ll be leaving soon,” Amaranthe replied. The man’s mouth twitched with a reply that was drowned out by the immediate and vocal dissent of his charges.

“We’d be ever so grateful if you let us stay for dinner,” Ned said at the same time Camilla cried, “Oh, indeed yes, more tea! And any cakes if you have them?”

The man’s eyes flicked to the young duke, who stiffened his shoulders, but the way he stuffed the last bit of bread in his mouth betrayed him. “We’ll leave if you wish it, Grey,” the duke mumbled.

“It appears tea is in order,” Grey said grudgingly, and looked about for a chair.

As Amaranthe was obliged to attend to the tea tray, the interloper took the chair before her easel, his frame too large for the delicate Queen Anne piece.

She prayed he would not knock over one of the pots of color or lean on her canvas and smear the morning’s work beyond repair.

His gaze flickered to the prayer book, and he studied the open manuscript as if he could decipher it.

Amaranthe clinked the tongs against the china bowl to divert his attention.

A man who stormed into her house because he had lost track of his charges couldn’t be accused of deep perception, but his clear blue eyes looked altogether too intelligent.

“Sugar?” she inquired with false politeness.

“Sugar is produced by slave-holding plantations in the West Indies,” Camilla said around the generous slice of seed cake that Mrs. Blackthorn put before her. “If we were to cease eating sugar, we might at last break the back of that pernicious institution.”

“That is true.” Amaranthe regarded the liquid in her own cup as it closed gently around a lump of sugar crystals. In deference to Camilla she added only cream to Grey’s tea.

“I beg your pardon, Camilla, but who has been exposing you to abolitionist causes?” Grey wanted to know.

He accepted the dish Amaranthe passed to him, but his gaze was on Camilla as he did so, and Amaranthe startled as his fingers brushed hers.

He had dispensed with his riding gloves, and she of course was not wearing mittens, which got in the way of her delicate work.

His hands, a man’s hands, were firm, well-shaped, and warm.

A familiar pattern of ink stains marked his fingertips.

She couldn’t recall the last time a man not her brother had touched her.

Reuben. Reuben with his insinuating sneer was the last man who had touched her. A heavy flush moved through her chest as Amaranthe pushed away the unwelcome memory.

“I don’t intend to censure you for your beliefs,” Grey added when Camilla looked wary. “But I would like to know who has been conversing on these topics around you.”

He ought to have known already, Amaranthe thought, but bit her lip.

Rather high-handed of the man to accuse her of wrongdoing when he was clearly the most negligent guardian alive.

She wondered what sort of activities left ink stains on the hand of an idle dandy.

Writing love letters to various ladies of ill repute?

Scribbling vowels when he dove too deep into his pockets at the gaming table?

“Mr. Joseph let me read some of the pamphlets his friend gives him,” Camilla confessed. “She is a Quaker. I wish he might take me to one of their meetings.”

“A Quaker!” Grey recoiled. He glared at Amaranthe as if she were responsible for this. “Pamphlets! I thought he was teaching the boys Latin.”

“It would appear you have not been supervising the boys’ education very carefully.” Amaranthe had no idea her brother was consorting with Quakers, either, but she leapt by instinct to Joseph’s defense. “What else has escaped your notice, I wonder?”

He glared at her, his ice-blue eyes narrowing. “What else is there?”

Amaranthe cut two more enormous portions of seed cake and passed them to the boys. She lifted her gaze to meet Grey’s glare head-on, waiting for him to notice the obvious.

Clearly the gleam in his disturbing blue eyes was deceptive. No one could be denser than he was.

“Your art is very interesting.” The young duke broke the frosty silence. “You are to be addressed as Miss Illingworth, I take it?”

Amaranthe supposed her small parlor appeared quite poky to children used to a ducal home, but it suited her perfectly.

She’d lightened the dark, solemn interior of the watchmaker’s shop with a bright wallpaper hand-painted with her own design.

She’d chosen a motif of scrolled vines recalling the front pages of her lost Book of Hours, to remind her daily of the dream to which she aspired, and the precious book she was resolved to recover.

Here and there hung reproductions she had made of various illuminations that struck her fancy in the manuscripts she copied.

She altered them as she saw fit and displayed them on her walls the way landed families displayed their ancestors, evidence to future customers of her skill.