Page 91 of The Ladies Least Likely

“She might have lived if he could have taken her away somewhere,” Beatrice went on.

“I often think that. Fresh, clean air on a country estate might have saved her. But the duke came looking for his heir, and when he found the lad had set up house with Marguerite, he was livid. He forced the boy to leave her behind, and I brought her here when she started to swell with child.”

Bea sniffed and pressed the back of her hand to her nose. “She lingered a long time, with proper care, but when she learned he’d married…I think that broke her heart. After that, she lost strength so quickly.”

She glanced toward the storeroom with blurry eyes. “She wanted more than anything to see you a grown man, Mal, but her lungs and her heart, broken together—she couldn’t bear it.”

“My father told me once she was the only woman he’d loved.” Mal spoke with his back to them, but Amaranthe heard the stiffness in his voice and guessed he held back strong emotion. “Yet I notice he never came back until well after she’d died.”

“Nay, you can’t blame him if he couldn’t bear to see her so ill,” Bea sniffled. “Not many as could. They’re not all as hale and brave as your Uncle Littlejohn, are they?” She gave her husband a watery smile, and he responded with a gruff rumble of confirmation.

“And he had to wait till his father the old duke died, didn’t he? Methinks he came as soon as he could, Mal. ’Twas you who wouldn’t let him be a father to you.”

“As if I wanted to learn to shoot and ride to hounds with him, and bow to his duchess when it should have been my mother in her place,” Mal said.

“Christine could have been the most generous, noble woman in the world, and I still would have hated her. Though she was a paragon compared to Sybil,” he added.

Beatrice smiled fondly at his tall, broad back. “Aye, you were a tough nut, our Mal o’ Misfortune,” she said. “But at the last you let him send you to school, and you’re doing all right now, aren’t you.”

“If you call being robbed of my income and the children abandoned by their stepmother and servants in their own home all right.” Mal emerged from the storeroom to join them in the kitchen, swiping a handful of pitted cherries from his aunt’s bowl and popping them in his mouth. She swatted at him with her free hand.

“Aye, you’ll sort that, I’ve no doubt. Sounds like our Miss Amaranthe extracted you from a proper scrape. It takes a clever woman, I always say.”

“You always say it takes a strong back, when you want me to do something.” Littlejohn swung across the room, a bundle of wood beneath his arm, and deposited the fuel next to the hearth.

“You always told me it takes cleverness in a lad, which is why I should let the duke pay me through school.” Mal reached across the table and plucked a few pitted cherries from Amaranthe’s smaller bowl.

She didn’t protest, feeling absurdly pleased by the attention.

In the comfort of the family, with his coat off and cravat discarded, his state of undress was unbearably intimate.

She could see every line of his body, and he was as well-made as a man could be.

“Where is she buried?” Amaranthe asked. “Marguerite.”

“Around the corner at Saints Philip and James,” Mal replied.

“The duke was so kind as to give her a memorial in the church, though she wanted to be buried in St. Mary Redcliffe, which is where she swore Vernay pledged his vows to her, though the priest never could produce a record of the marriage, either.”

“We can take her daisies,” Amaranthe said, and his smile filled her with a giddy pleasure from head to toe.

After a pleasant evening she headed to bed in the room she’d been given, one of the nicer rooms overlooking the rear gardens and away from the noisy bustle of the yard.

She’d shared the room with Miss Pettigrew, and it felt strangely empty though the girl had hardly filled it when she’d been present.

She had washed her face, cleaned her teeth, and was braiding her hair for the night when a knock on the door surprised her.

“Come in.”

The sight of Mal’s face, caressed by the dancing shadows of the candle he held, pulled a chord deep in her belly.

Ordinarily it would have shocked her to have a man in her room, even Joseph, but something about working, traveling, thinking out loud side by side with Mal over the past days and weeks made it feel natural for him to be in the room. At her side.

That was a silly thought. She pushed it aside. “Did you need something?”

“I came to see if you wanted a change of linens. Bea says she’ll do the washing tomorrow.”

Amaranthe made a face. She did not look forward to helping with laundry. “I think these are still fresh enough to take with us to Penwellen. I’ll have Favella’s staff launder them while we’re there.”

Traveling with one’s own linens was one of the many small bits of advice from Miss Gregoire’s Academy that had made a lasting impression on Amaranthe’s mind. The Green Man she guessed was subject to far less vermin than many other places, but still, it never hurt to be cautious.

“Very well then. We’re still leaving tomorrow?” he asked.

“If the chaise is ready, and you.”

She tied a strip of cloth around the end of her braid to hold it, then met his eyes.

The breath stopped in her throat. He still lacked a coat, and his powerful body made the room seem small.

His hair had come free of its queue—he hadn’t worn a wig for days—and she longed to run her fingers through the thick mass to see if his hair could truly be as soft as it looked.

In the light of the small candle beside her bed his face looked harsh and handsome, planed by the stubble covering his jaw.

His lips were warm and firm and curved into a smile as she stared.

“I think your mother’s name is in my book,” Amaranthe blurted, undone by his presence in the small, darkened room where she slept. What fortune that she hadn’t stripped down to her shift yet. She’d never have let him in the room if she were undressed.

Would she? Some part of her wanted to tempt Malden Grey. Wanted him to look at her again the way he had in the coaching yard when she saw Joseph off. When he meant to show her, presumably, how a man looked at a woman he truly prized, and she’d shied away, too afraid to hold his gaze.

A curiosity was growing beside her fear. A curiosity to know where such things led.

His eyes were veiled in shadow, their bright blue muted by the dark.

The scent of flowering quince drifted through the open window, a welcome change from the ever-present coal smoke of London.

Behind it swelled the damp reek of the sea, the scent that suffused her childhood.

Something about that smell and its memories made Mal in her room, he undressed and she ready for bed, feel perfectly natural and right.

“In the book your cousin stole from you?” His voice was low and soft, a caress that curled around her. She lifted her shoulders to her ears.

“Yes. I cannot say why, but I’m sure of it. Her name is in there. Marguerite, Lady Vernay. She would have styled herself such if she thought they were truly married.”

How she hated conjuring Reuben in this intimate space. He was a draught of cold, dank air dousing the warmth.

“I’ll help you get your book back simply because you want it, Amaranthe,” he said softly.

He stepped forward and took the end of her braid between his fingers, rubbing the dark curls.

She watched, fascinated, warmth spreading through her body.

Yet she shivered when his eyes met hers, dark, unfathomable. “I don’t need any other reason.”

“I do wonder how she came by the book, and how it traveled to Callington. But if I can get it back from him, you’ll have a piece of her. Or something that was hers, I mean.”

His mother’s name in her book was a way to bind him to her. As if his hand in her hair wasn’t entanglement enough. She was bound to him already, like it or not.

“I think my mother would have loved you as much as Beatrice does. You’ve won them over completely.

” He laid her long braid against her shoulder, the thick mass touching her breast, and let his fingers trail across her cheek as if he were exploring that texture, too.

His thumb traced beneath her lower lip and her knees buckled.

He said nothing to suggest that he was won over. He was staring at her mouth, but she couldn’t be sure what that meant. Reuben had pressed his body on hers without passion or love or care, only the will to dominate.

The swift pulse of blood in her ears felt different than when Reuben had held her tightly.

The tremor in her body was of a different nature.

But it shared something with fear, perhaps fear of the unknown, or fear of what she might learn if he kissed her.

As Mal leaned close Amaranthe smelled again Reuben’s rank beery breath, felt the fleshy press of his stomach against her belly.

Heard Eyde’s whimpers of pain as she knelt on the floor, beaten raw.

She stepped back and sucked in a long breath. Mal blinked with surprise and let his hand fall. She saw hurt flash through his eyes before he guarded his expression. He too fell back, putting distance between them.

“I apologize if I’ve imposed.”

“You haven’t,” she said quickly. “I appreciate your concern. About the linens. I—” She turned away to regard the trunk against the wall, the valise on the single chair. “I suppose I must pack for tomorrow.”

Her things were already packed, that was plain. “We should be there in a day or two, I should think,” she said. “And then we can talk to Reuben. I very much want to show you my book.”

He withdrew into the shadows by the door, and a small ache unfurled in her middle, watching him move away from her.

She wanted him close. If only she could master this urge to flinch.

She wanted him to touch her. She wanted not to think of Reuben every time he drew near.

She wanted her wish to be close to him to overcome her fear that the reality would be a disappointment, nothing at all like the luscious feelings that wove through her thoughts and dreams.

“I wish for you to have what you what, Amaranthe,” he said quietly.

Him . She wanted him. There was no doubt now what the response in her body meant, despite the flinching.

Perhaps it was always this way to be close to a man, the combination of wariness and desire, the fear that passion would lead to abandonment and hurt.

It had for Eyde. It had for Mal’s mother.

It had for women the world over, for centuries.

How could she trust that the gentleness of his touch, the steadiness of his eyes, the promise in his smile meant he would cherish her?

How could she trust that he would understand and forgive what she had done to support herself and the people she loved?

That thought kept her from calling his name as he stepped through the door and left her.

She’d not needed to see him among his family to know Malden Grey was a good man, decent and generous and steady to the bone, whatever wild fits he’d shown in his youth.

She’d not needed the thrill of his nearness and touch to tell her she longed to reach out for him and never let go.

It would harm him to marry her. But he didn’t know that. And one rising, rebellious part of her wanted to explore what might happen between them before he found out.