Page 6 of The Lady is Trouble
As that was not Julian’s gift, he read her expression. “Fine. Any way you would like to interpret.” The scent of him drifted to her, subtle, woodsy, close to the ground but not rooted. Like something earthy your boot released as it hit a patch of moss in the forest. Enticing without effort. So like Julian, it physically hurt.
Dashed, she could get lost in that scent.
Julian swiped the flat of his hand across the expanse of velvet between them. “You’re the crown jewel in our tiara, Yank, whether any of us like that fact or not. And one must protect what is most valuable.”
With a huff, she turned to face him, preparing for battle. His gaze swept her body, lingered, then returned to capture hers. Heat lit his eyes, and his aura blazed like a brilliant sunrise splitting the horizon. The wash of color nearly made her forget her point. She placed her curled fist, gloveless and soot-stained, next to his without touching him. “Send the crown jewel back to Gloucestershire. I can beg to be housed as a destitute relation, sharing that no unentailed properties or assets flowed from my father as they were all gambled away. That my cousin inherited my grandfather’s title and cleanly abandoned me without provision.” Grabbing the filthy handkerchief on the seat, she tossed it at Julian’s head. He ducked, and it sailed out the open window. “Or, leave me at the next coaching stop. Or back at the charred hotel!”
“And be the responsible party when they find you?” He sat back with a muttered oath, his stained linen shirt still tucked neatly in his trousers and straining over muscles she didn’t remember him having. His silk waistcoat lay open, the dangling ends brushing his hips. Her crisis had sent him fleeing without the benefit of a topcoat, cravat, or gloves. Her stomach tensed to imagine where he’d been in such a state of undress.
Masculine fury had never looked so magnificent.
His gaze held hers as she studied him, his tightly leashed intensity sending his aura rippling from his body in waves, like a stone had made a disturbance on its calm surface. Awareness pulsed between them, the same she remembered from long ago.
“Jules,” she whispered without thought.
His gaze dropped as his expression shuttered. Ignoring her plea, he bought his hand to his brow, rubbing hard. Headaches apparently still beleaguered him. “I think you’ve forgotten what happened to your grandfather in the quest to find his chronology. To findyou. How very precarious our existence is.”
Piper turned to study the pinch of sky visible above the treetops. The air in the carriage crackled with tension and, as usual, her temper and impulsivity had trumped good sense. She swallowed past the apology she wanted to make.
Oh, how she wanted to bedifferent. Prudent. Capable. Composed. Like Julian. Only, she didn’t know how to rise above the Scott predilection for trouble.
She heard the strike of a match as Julian lit a cheroot, and the scent of sulfur drifted through the carriage. How could he desire this when the taste of burnt wood and fabric must be stinging his throat as it was hers? Rather rude in the confines of the brougham, too, but with the mess she’d created, she couldn’t complain about a minor bit of indelicateness on his part.
She slid lower in the seat and chanced a glance at him as a shaft of moonlight highlighted his face. Piper wished he looked more like the gentle young man of her remembrance and less like one set on fighting a tiger with his bare fists. The tip of the cheroot glowed, bobbing with his inhalation.
When the silence had grown unmanageable, he said, “Bizarre coincidence that Marianne Coswell, of all people, ended up with your advertisement.” He gave the sheet peeking from his pocket a firm tap.
She kept her expression composed even as her stomach pitched. The advertisement making its way to Lady Coswell meant every salacious tidbit whispered in polite and not-so-polite drawing rooms was true. ShewasJulian’s mistress. That he’d introduce this topic was dreadfully cavalier. Not for Piper Scott, but certainly for Julian Alexander. “Coincidence? Yes, very.” Which it wasn’t. Piper had tucked that sheet in Lady Coswell’s hands with every intention of letting Julian know she was back in London.
“You know what, Yank?” His shoulder flexed as he flicked the smoldering cheroot out the window. Air blew up his sleeve, puffing the material like a sail above his broad forearm. “Honest to God, I’m feeling inclined to leap from this borrowed carriage just thinking about the mess you’ve created. I could locate Finn’s discarded handkerchief in the process. A two for one victory.”
“Leaping from a swift-moving vehicle? That’s your plan?”
“No, myplan”—he slouched, long legs stretching the length of the interior—“was to keep you safe, albeit hidden, in Gloucestershire.” His clipped words drifted like snow, chilling her. “Temporarily.”
She blinked away another salty tear-prick. “I think the gossipmongers have it right, Jules. You’re quite terrifying in your fury. What is it they call you?” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Beauchamp the Lionhearted. My, having a sobriquet doesn’t exactly speak to lying low.”
He kicked one foot atop the other, closing his eyes and his mind to the conversation. “Well, Scandalous Scott, the half-dozen attributed to you are extremely flattering.”
“Enough!” Finn came halfway off his perch, his boots slapping the carriage floor.
Piper flinched, in all honesty forgetting Finn sat on the foldaway seat.
Slumping back, he continued in a resigned tone, “Truce, please? You’ve both earned everything you have, including your legendary reputations.” He threw his arm over his eyes as if to block out the light from the coach lamp and their inane argument. “Somehow, we’ll make a plan. We always do. We’re a team, remember?” Finn’s temper blistered when it flared, but it startled due to his carefully crafted façade. He’d polished himself as sharply as a jewel, and by some odd circumstance, a ruffian from London’s roughest rookery fit in their world better than Piper or Julian could ever hope to. “Let’s get to the inn, and we’ll discuss this in the morning.”
Piper perked up at this. “Inn?”
“The Cock and Bull,” Julian said, his voice a fatigued rasp. “Workingham. Back entrance with a healthy monetary bonus, because you and I look like something a cat with his tail on fire dragged in. And unless you have a chaperone hiding beneath your skirts, you’re already compromised.” He added in a low voice, but she caught it: “Like that would surprise anyone.”
So, theywereheaded north. “Where—”
“Harbingdon.”
“Harbingdon,” she repeated, confused, and hoping someone would enlighten her. Perhaps this was the estate Julian had found for the League. She looked to Finn, but he avoided her gaze, the coward. “I’m not to be dropped off? Hidden away? Tucked out of sight? I’m going with you and Finn?”
Something in her tone must have alerted him. “Don’t smile, Piper Scott, don’t you dare smile,” Julian grit between clenched lips.
But she did.