Sinfully Ever After (Book Club Belles Society) (2 page)

The man finally lost his grip on a deep, hearty laugh that seemed to take him by surprise. “My ears? Usually other parts of mine get threatened. More vital parts, if you get my drift.”

“I assume you refer to the grape and two plums in your breeches? You
would
place greater significance on those soft fruits than you do on anything else.”

His eyes gleamed, some of the darkness broken now by dancing light as he studied her face. Each pass of his gaze over her cheek felt like the caress of a rough hand, but one that tried, surprisingly, to be gentle.

“I’m beginning to regret my stay here is only brief.” He paused, considering her with his head tipped to one side. “I’ve avoided these shores for a great many years. A storm at sea forced the captain to make port unexpectedly, but in the morn I’ll be off again with the tide.”

How strange that he told her that much, explaining himself to a woman, but his words were loosened now, as well as his smile.

“Is there a price on your head?” She wouldn’t be surprised.

“Perhaps. Worried for me?”

“No. Why should this matter of your transient nature concern me?” Becky demanded.

“You ain’t the sort of wench I can enjoy for a single night’s tryst.”

“I certainly am not and—”

“I’d want to savor you for longer than that.”

She wasn’t usually lost for a reply, but this man made her thoughts change course, made her tongue stumble.

“I’d teach you a few things you don’t know about men,” he added. “You and me—we’d set the bed afire.”

He had a brusque honesty, a gruffness she couldn’t help but appreciate, even when he made the most improper remarks. After all, she’d warned him that she preferred straightforward conversation, so it would be foolish to complain now that he told her exactly what he was thinking. Not that she needed his words to confirm it. His eyes were eloquent enough.

“I tell you what,” he said. “You’ll owe me…a kiss.”

Becky stared, lips pursed. At that moment, she couldn’t answer, because a heavy pulse had begun deep inside her body and taken over all her capacities. It put her blood under unusually excitable pressure.

“One kiss from you,” he repeated, “will clear your brother’s debt to me.”

“That’s all?” The words exploded out of her on a wave of startled breath.

“That’s
all
, Gin—
Miss
Sherringham.” He paused, eyes laughing. “Disappointed?”

She lowered the pistol and glanced over her shoulder to see that Nathaniel had dozed off in his chair.

Lucky didn’t move an inch, but an invisible energy was somehow transferred from his body to hers, felt in a ticklish sensation that made the curls at the nape of her neck tremble. “Get on with it then,” she snapped. “
Lucky
.”

For her, giving a kiss away had less sentimental consequence than losing that music box of her mother’s, and as for the matter of a reputation, the antics of her family made it impossible to maintain dignity. Her father’s latest escapade, involving a runaway bathing machine, his buttocks, the bracing air, and a shocked, titled gentleman with whom he had a long-running feud, was enough to undo them all.

But that was next on Becky the Bold’s list of problems to sort out. “Will you take your payment, sir, or not?”

“Nah. You’re too young for me yet. But I can wait. You’ll owe me.”

She gasped, scornful. “Too young?” The pressure now released, her words escaped at speed like steam from a teakettle. “Too clever for you is more likely.”

“No doubt you think you know everything already at your age,” he muttered, shaking his head. “All learned from daft bloody books.”

“At least I know prudence is not just a girl’s name.”

“So says the young maidy who beards the lion in his den with only a pistol in her tender hand.”

“I’m a crack shot,” she replied proudly. “And there’s nothing tender about me. So I’ve been told.” The majority of her companions and relatives growing up were male, and whenever teams were picked for cricket, she was a valuable commodity, treated just like one of the boys.

Lucky’s eyes glimmered and then dimmed. “Whoever told you that just didn’t know where to find the tender parts. Or what to do for them.”

Oh lord, he was trying to make her blush again. Apparently he didn’t like to concede defeat, despite the hopelessness of his cause. Stubborn, cocksure fellow!

But Becky’s palm, inside her glove, was damp. Her heart bounced and bumped all over the place—as if someone had knocked a collection of drums and cymbals down a staircase.

“You’ve caught me on a good day, young lady. Impressed me with your pluck.” He signaled to the tavern-keeper, who scuttled over at once with pen and inkpot on a tray. Lucky took a playing card from his sleeve and inscribed five words across it. As he blew on the ink, his eyes met hers again, regarding her with that heated stare until she felt slightly melted around her edges. He handed her the card. “Now take your brother and leave. Before I change my mind.”

Becky didn’t question her reprieve. She tucked the pistol into her muff and helped Nathaniel to his unsteady feet.

But when she took one last glance at Lucky, she saw, finally, what he kept inside his coat. Above his collar, a small pair of black ears appeared, followed by a scrunched face with large, wide-set eyes that surveyed Becky with interest.

It was a pup nestled against his chest, not a fat purse of money as she’d expected. For a woman who thought she knew all about men, this was a startling discovery.

Catching her curious, bemused eye, he scowled. “I’ll find you again, one day,” he warned gruffly. “I always collect.”

“I quake in my boots at the prospect.”

“Aye.” That frown cleared again as quickly as it was tried on. He winked suddenly. “So do I.”

Nathaniel slurred for her to make haste. Humming drowsily, he stumbled through the tavern ahead of her, probably already forgetting he owed this rescue to his little sister.

Trailing after him, she looked at the playing card and saw it was the knave of hearts. Across it, with a messy scrawl, were penned the words
Gyngersnappe
Ohs
Lucky
Wonne
Kisse
.

Well, there are two more things I know about him
, she mused. He was an animal lover and a terrible speller—clearly no student of “daft bloody books.”

Five years later, London, 1815

The worn, sagging wood planks moaned under the force of Lucky Luke Wainwright’s tall, lurching weight as he attacked the stairs with a determined but uneven stride, disposing of three steps at once. His dog galloped ahead, skillfully dodging the thrust of his walking cane. Together, man and dog made enough noise and vibration to shake the building.

Somewhere behind them, at the foot of the stairs, a pin-slender clerk still wailed redundantly that he should wait, but Luke had a tendency toward deafness when the words he might have heard did not suit his purpose.

Besides, he did love to make a surprise entrance.

Reaching the top floor, he whacked his walking cane against a door panel and then kicked it open with his bad leg.

“Go on in, Ness. Seize ’em!”

The short, square mutt barked enthusiastically and pounced inside to where three wigged men were seated at paper-strewn desks, none of them having the time to hide.

Luke slammed the door shut behind him, shaking the damp, peeling walls. “Well, gentlemen, I expect you’ll want to offer me a brandy, since you’re so bleedin’ pleased to see me.”

They stared, open-mouthed, as he tossed his tattered, broad-brimmed hat for one of them to catch and then dropped into a groaning chair, propping the boot heel of his aching leg up on the nearest desk. One of the men had jumped so abruptly that he lost his wig and the dog instantly captured it in his broad, salivating jaws, shaking his prize like a dead rat.

“I daresay you’re shocked. After all,” Luke added with a lusty sigh, “’tis not every day a man comes back from the dead, eh?”

“Colonel…Colonel Lucius Wainwright? Could it be?”

“In the flesh. Although most folk call me Lucky Luke these days.”

The man gingerly holding his thrown hat exclaimed, “But you’re dead.”

“Yes, funny that, ain’t it? So what have I been up to these last twelve years, you ask? What happened after I was wounded and no longer of use to the Dragoons?”

They didn’t ask, of course. He knew they were too busy scrambling to think of what
they’d
been doing in all that time. With the earnings he’d entrusted to them.

“Well, I’ll tell you, gentlemen. Since then, I’ve won and lost several naughty wenches, a damn good pair of boots, and a small fortune on bad wagers. I’ve traveled from India to Andalusia and from Ireland to the Argentine. Now I’m an old man and it won’t be long before I meet my maker. Time then to settle accounts.”

The three faces stared at him warily, as if he might be a spectral vision and not a real man at all. He may as well get used to that welcome, he supposed.

“Truth be told, I was disappointed in my last funeral. I mean to make certain the next one is memorable.”

“But there was no funeral, Colonel. Not…exactly.”

They hadn’t had a body to bury, of course. Luke knew he was declared missing and presumed dead. A pair of his boots were discovered in a shack destroyed by cannon fire shortly after his discharge from the army, and since it was assumed he’d been blown completely out of them—it was well known that he never went anywhere without his favorite pair of Hessians—they were sent home to his family in place of a corpse. Luke had chosen to go along with the mistake. After all, he’d never really fit in with his family. They would appreciate not having to put out his fires, and perhaps, he’d thought, he could start anew, build another life. Become someone better without the burden of past sins being known to the people he met.

But he’d discovered that however far a man traveled, he could not escape himself, his conscience, and a heart full of regret. “When I cock up my toes for good, I want it done properly with a few wailing mourners, horses with black plumes, and a good-sized headstone with elegant bloody words carved into it. Something fancy. In Latin.” He paused. “Where’s that brandy then?”

One of the men belatedly scrambled to retrieve a bottle from a cupboard behind him.

“No glass needed,” Luke bellowed, swinging his walking cane up and making them all jump again as he cracked it smartly against the desktop by his foot. “Now, gentlemen, when I left for India many years ago, I gave you clear instructions for the management of my affairs.” He snatched the timidly offered brandy bottle. “Instructions that were ignored, no doubt, once you thought I was never coming back.”

One of the men finally gathered wits enough to respond. “We did the best we could with the funds you left, Colonel.”

“After you’d taken your fee, I’m sure. Never expecting to see my ugly face again, you felt free to misuse those funds to feather your own blasted nests.”

“There were expenses incurred.” Another solicitor stood awkwardly, adjusting his wig while eyeing the growling mutt still in possession of his companion’s hair. “It took us considerable time and effort to chase down the ladies you intended us to help.”

“I don’t know how it could,” Luke muttered. “I always found ’em readily enough.” Or they’d found him. Sweet, amiable women of the loose and lusty variety. There were five in particular of whom he was especially fond, and he’d arranged for each of them to receive financial help when he left.

“But two of them married, Colonel, and—according to your terms—no longer received an annuity. One was arrested for public lewdness and deported, one became a favorite of the prince regent, and lastly, Miss Sally Hitchens took it into her head to travel about the country. She appeared to have restless feet, and not only when performing on the stage. A thief anxious to evade arrest could not have disappeared as often.”

Luke sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead where it still felt tight after a night of too much ale. Yes, he knew little Sally Hitchens had something of a wandering gypsy heart, as he did, but he’d hoped the coin he left her would persuade her to settle down, get off the stage, and take care of her baby.

“Where is she now?”

“I’m afraid, Colonel, Miss Hitchens passed away soon after you left for India.”

He was grieved, angry, and vexed, all at the same time. After so long abroad, he’d suspected they might not all be waiting for his return, but he hadn’t expected every one of them to be gone. Dear, sweet little Sally! Well, he would soon follow her to the afterlife. His dreams recently had been filled with flames and he knew what that meant. Luke’s dreams, he was convinced, always held heavy portent.

“So my money went into your pockets and bellies instead, I see!”

There was no immediate reply to that as the accused looked sheepishly around the cluttered room.

“What ho, gentlemen? You must all have been born in the middle of the week as your eyes keep looking both ways for Sunday.” He sighed. “Seems these boots had better last me a while yet.”

“You are not without funds, Colonel,” one of the solicitors ventured. “There is the family business, of course, and your father left a considerable fortune of which you, as the eldest son, would have received the lion’s share. There is also the manor house in Buckinghamshire, recently passed on by your great-uncle Phineas Hawke. In compliance with his will, it would have come to you, as the eldest male heir. Since you were presumed deceased, your brother became the sole beneficiary. But you are, now, returned. You are…the rightful heir.”

There was a solemn pause as they all pondered the implications.

Truth was, Luke hadn’t given a thought to the money when he decided to return from his self-imposed exile. In fact, the Wainwright fortune hanging over his head was one of the reasons why he left the country so long ago and let himself be lost. His only intention now was to set past wrongs to right before he met his end. So he’d set off for England, thinking he’d sort out the details later.

He could almost hear his father’s ghost muttering wearily, “Trust you not to think ahead or consider the money, Lucius. You never did have a head for finances.” But a great deal of money never made anyone very happy for long, as far as he could see. When he gambled on outrageous wagers, he did it not for the coin but for the thrill.

And there was the fact that the lure of money made people—women, for instance—do very bad things. Suddenly he thought of Dora Woodgrave, a pretty but empty-headed girl who once declared herself deeply in love with his younger brother and then switched her affections—as well as her seductive efforts—to Luke upon realizing that he was the one who would inherit everything.

He could still hear her plaintive voice, “But why would your father not split the fortune equally between his two sons?”

“It is the rule of primogeniture, Dora,” he’d told her, “and our dear father is very old-fashioned, very keen to rise up in the hierarchy.” She’d looked at him blankly, so he explained further. “It helps to keep a sizeable fortune and an estate together. Land and money are power, so sharing all that’s been amassed between siblings would mean weakening the family’s power in the next generation.” That was how it had been explained to him. He was rather surprised he retained the information long enough to pass it on. But pass it on he did, with catastrophic consequences. At first, when Dora began following him about after that, he was too slow to realize why. He hadn’t paid that much attention to her. She was the daughter of his younger brother’s tutor, and Luke, home on leave from the army, had too many other irons in his fire when it came to female company. Eventually Dora abandoned all subtlety, threw herself at Luke, and he, in a moment of utter foolishness—probably out of boredom—caught her. He didn’t learn until later that his brother had contemplated an engagement to the girl. Of course, Darius was such a shy boy that it took him forever and a day to pluck up courage when it came to women and he never told anyone what he was thinking. “She wouldn’t have been right for you,” Luke had tried explaining to his brother. But Darius didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to believe what sweet, demure little Dora really was.

Luke looked around at the solicitors. “Rather puts the cat among the pigeons for my little brother now that I dug myself out of the grave, doesn’t it?”

His dog grumbled, shook the captured wig once more, opened his jaws, and let it fall to the floor. The nervous fellow to whom it belonged bent carefully, reaching for the wig, but the dog poised to pounce, growling. The solicitor hesitated, then thought better of taking the risk and quickly stood upright again. “There is, however,” the stout fellow muttered, “a stipulation in your father’s will.”

“Do tell.”

“In order to inherit the Wainwright fortune, you must prove yourself settled down, Colonel, your sins behind you.”

Of course. He might have known. His father was the most tightly laced, thoroughly starched old man he’d ever encountered, and his brother Darius came a close second. Two peas in the proverbial pod. Luke was a great frustration to them both because of his carefree attitude, his determination to enjoy all life’s vices, and his complete disregard for making money.

“You are an unstoppable force, Lucius,” his father once remarked dourly. “I daresay, like all such heedless forces, you will one day meet a solid object that will bring you to a permanent halt.”

While young Darius always had his nose in a book, studying every word, Luke preferred learning his lessons from life itself. As a boy, he never paid attention to tutors—in fact he usually drove them to resigning their posts. As soon as he was old enough, he spurned the idea of university and chose the army for his escape. This desire for action over study was mystifying to his father and his brother, and since they would never give up trying to mend him as long as he was within their sights, Luke thought it best to remove himself from their vicinity and save all parties a vast deal of trouble and anguish. Especially after the Dora Woodgrave debacle.

He tapped the brandy bottle on his thigh. “Looks like the old man may finally get his wish then, doesn’t it? For here I am, in the flesh, back to settle all accounts before I go to my maker.”

“Are you ill, Colonel?” The other men looked bewildered as they surveyed his long form sprawled in—and mostly out of—that chair.

“I may not be in my dotage yet, but everyone has to go sooner or later,” he muttered impatiently. “I’ve had my dress rehearsal and I see where much can be improved for the actual event.” And he wasn’t going to tell them about his dreams. Folk had a tendency to look at him—at this tall, solid, fierce-looking bulk of a man—and laugh when he told them about his belief in the prophetic quality of dreams.

He clasped the brandy bottle to his chest and waited while the three men before him shiftily exchanged more rolling-eyed glances.

“Out with it!” he bellowed, shaking the cobwebs that hung from the timbers above. “I see there’s more to the old man’s will, as you stand before me with faces like three spanked arses.”

“You must marry, Colonel. A decent woman of good family. Or you get nothing.”

Oh, he should have seen that one coming. After a heavy pause, he suddenly tipped back his head and roared with laughter. “In the name of all that’s unholy, who the devil would marry me?”

They had no answer to that, for it was an idea too ridiculous for anyone to contemplate. But his dog, excited by the sound of Luke’s laughter, resumed the hearty terrorizing of that dropped wig.

Reaching down, he gave the animal’s head a quick pat, and as the dog looked up at him, he suddenly remembered another face, similarly gargoyle-like in a way that appealed to his preference for the eccentric and absurd. A tiny, wrinkled face with puffy eyelids and no teeth. “And Sally Hitchens’s babe? What became of the child?”

“You did not know, Colonel? Little Sarah has been raised by your brother.”

“My brother?” He sat bolt upright, both feet now on the floor. “What the figgy pudding?”

“Miss Sally Hitchens took the child to your brother soon after you left England.”

“Why would she do that? My brother knows naught of raising children. He was never a child himself. He was a grim, bookish old man the moment he was born.”

Yet again the three solicitors exchanged significant glances.

“
Well?
Spit it out, for the love of hot buttered titties!”