His Wicked Smile Read online

  “You be wantin’ rooms then?” he said, in a voice altogether less cultured than his cook’s.

  “Two of them. For myself and my friend in the courtyard.”

  “I saw them outside,” said the man, pushing coal-black hair out of his eyes. “ ’E’s showing off some fancy buggy to the blacksmith and ’is cronies.”

  “Exactly. Do you have the rooms?”

  The man tipped forward and back on his water-stained boots. “I ’ave one room free. You can share it, or one of you can put up down the street. It only has one bed.”

  Gawain knew he couldn’t tolerate another body moving around the bed. “I’ll take the one you have and send my cousin down the road. Is it closer to Mr. Hammer’s establishment?”

  “Indeed it is, Mr.—”

  “Redcake,” Gawain said.

  “And you’re the one wantin’ them bottles of port?”

  “I do. All of them, please.”

  Haldene shook his head and called out to a younger version of himself, except for straw-colored hair instead of black, skulking in a corner, where he was slowly piling dirty plates onto a tray. “Jeremy! Tell Fern to fetch up some bottles to the first floor! Then secure a room at the Rose and Crown under the name . . .”

  “Noble.” Gawain was glad to hear he would not have to climb to the top floor of the inn. One flight of stairs was probably more than he could manage.

  Lord Judah was just finishing his hasty meal when the regal cook reappeared, a small dish with tablets in one hand and a bottle of port in the other. “Your hansom is waiting, sir. I have the timetable memorized if you need information.”

  “I’ll take anything going north, but Scotland is my destination,” Lord Judah said.

  “Edinburgh?”

  “Gretna Green for now.”

  Gawain opened his bottle and poured port into his teacup, then swallowed one tablet. He’d take one every ten minutes, wanting to get the medicine into his system, but not desiring to become ill. He drank steadily while they discussed timetables, then pushed back from the table when his friend realized he might be able to catch a direct train in half an hour. Limping heavily, he followed Lord Judah to the courtyard and spoke to the cab driver while his friend gathered his possessions from the steam carriage.

  Lewis followed him back into the breakfast room upon being reminded that his food was getting cold. “I have great confidence in Mr. Hammer. He seems a competent fellow. We should be on our way by tomorrow night.”

  “Might be best to wait until the next morning. Less risky to travel in daylight when things are going wrong.”

  “You make a good point.” Lewis sighed. “I feel terrible about slowing down the search for Lady Elizabeth.”

  “Do not trouble yourself, there’s a direct train coming through. Our friend should be on his way with scarcely a delay.” Gawain winced as he put too much weight on his bad hip. They both sat.

  Lewis picked up his fork. “Do you think he’ll find her?”

  Gawain guzzled another cup of port. “That all depends. If they are not expecting pursuit, then yes, I expect he can. But if they are deliberately hiding, one man, or even three, looking for them, unfamiliar with Scotland, will not have much hope.”

  “I cannot stay to aid in the search,” Lewis said. “Eddy, you know.”

  “Oh yes, Eddy.” They shared a smile. Lord Judah had persuaded the former newsboy to leave the streets and the brutal man who housed him in return for all his earnings. He had hoped to educate him with a live-in tutor, but in the end Eddy had been happier living and working in Lewis’s machine shop. One of the most inquisitive lads Gawain had ever met, he frequently blew things up. “You may not have a workshop after a couple of days away.”

  Lewis shuddered.

  “Why don’t I take the train north once I know your carriage is working again? That way you can return immediately. I will hire a horse to give me mobility once I’m in Scotland.”

  “I should finish what we started.”

  “Not at all. Frankly, I’m in no shape to travel today even if you talked your friend into getting the pipe done.”

  “You should take to your bed for the day.”

  “That is my intention.” Gawain poured another glass.

  “I’ll take one of those,” Lewis said, passing over his teacup. “I’ve always heard that men join the army for drink. It does soothe travel.”

  “We hardly drank at all on the drive up.”

  “Three flasks of whisky, all empty? And that bottle of champagne? You’d think we were on campaign.”

  Gawain laughed. “We’ll never make a soldier out of you. You don’t have a thick enough skull.”

  Gawain finished off the second and third bottles in his room, along with all the tablets. By then he realized he no longer had a soldier’s capacity for alcohol. Blearily, he let his head drop to the mattress and soon fell asleep.

  When he woke and checked the window, the sky seemed to be leaning toward twilight. Not surprising that he had slept the day through, between staying up all night and drinking so much. He adjusted his hips, making sure the pressure was off his bad bits, and pushed himself slowly into a seated position. His head didn’t ache so he must still be a bit drunk.

  He heard a rustling and forced his eyes open. A girl was seated in front of him. Was she a ghost? Her face was pale enough, and he conjured up a servant girl, strangled by some rotten innkeeper of years past, doomed to haunt the room. No doubt some ancestor of Harry Haldene, who looked evil enough to kill, with his long, unshaven face, shadowed eyes and lank hair. The air was chilled. Had the phantom brought the damp, decayed air of the grave with her? He shivered a little in drunken fantasy.

  She leaned forward and he recognized Fern Haldene. He put his head in his hands and groaned. No tolerance for drinking at all, anymore. Never had he felt less of a military man.

  When she saw him move, she got up from the chair and dashed out of the room. He put his feet to the floor and stood wearily. His leg did hold his weight, but it took a great deal of effort to make his way downstairs to the water closet, then upstairs again. But, when he reentered, it was to more comfort than he’d left. A fire had been lit and the empty bottles cleared away. A pot of fragrant tea and a covered plate of what smelled like samosas waited on a tray beside the bed. The blankets had been pulled back, to air the sheet-covered mattress. He sat on the one chair in the room, a sagging, flat-backed affair, and ate his tea. The flavors took him back in time. Even the taste of the tablets had their effect in whisking him in memory from his current life.

  He had met Lord Judah Shield, called merely Lieutenant Shield then, when he’d been promoted out of the ranks to sergeant and been put in charge of the officer’s mess. With his background as a Redcake, his superiors had assumed he’d know how to manage stores. And learn he did, though as a lad he’d done nothing but work in his father’s factory, while his brother Arthur learned the business. By the time he’d come home injured, Arthur was dead and his father had insisted he learn the money side of the business.

  He’d resented all of it, and it wasn’t until his father was knighted that he realized he wanted anything his father had. A title, that was the thing. He had a goal greater than survival from one day into the next.

  Sir Bartley Redcake was a changed man overnight. No longer a work-obsessed, child-browbeating bore, but a country gentleman, accepted in the local community. A daughter married into the aristocracy. If Gawain had been knighted too, Hatbrook would not have refused him Lady Elizabeth. He pulled out the notebook he always kept in his jacket and began to make some more notes of ways he might come to the Queen’s attention. Didn’t Hatbrook lose a man of business to knighthood because he saved the life of a prince? Hatbrook’s cousin had been knighted as well.

  He needed to learn why. Gawain had studied the lists. The most likely path would be becoming a Member of Parliament. He wondered where best to focus his interest. In Bristol or London? He preferred London, but there were more
men of ambition there. Of course, his family was down in the south now, in Sussex, but his father would not help him into local politics. He wanted Gawain focused on Redcake’s, would get him back if he could. The man did not like daughters in his business. He’d all but destroyed Alys before she’d found her way to Hatbrook. Sir Bartley had a very traditional view of women, for all that women comprised a large part of his work force. And now, he was forced to bring in his daughter Matilda.

  The door opened and he glanced up, expecting to see Fern again. However, the alluring cook stood in the doorway, rubbing a glass jar between graceful, dark palms.

  “Do you want my tray?” Gawain asked. “I am finished.”

  With a nod, she put down her jar and picked up the tray, then walked out of the room. He blinked when he realized he’d watched her swaying hips all the way to the door. Her movements were mesmerizing to a man in his condition. He picked up the jar and pulled the stopper. Sesame oil infused with lavender filled his nostrils. The astringency of the herb cleared his head a bit.

  “I saw you downstairs. You were limping right badly,” the cook said, returning.

  “I don’t think I heard your name before,” he said.

  “Mrs. Haldene. Ann Mai Haldene.”

  “You are married?” Surely she wasn’t married to that appalling innkeeper.

  “Widowed. I was married to Harry’s brother.”

  “You aren’t in mourning.”

  “No, he died two years ago. He was the older brother, and survived more than a decade in the army, only to die here in Leeds.”

  “Were you married long?” He handed her the bottle and she began to roll it along her palms again.

  “Four years. He was in the army most of that time, but stationed in Ireland, thankfully, so I did see him sometimes. He inherited this inn from his uncle the year before he died and we came to work here. Me, Harry, Jeremy and Fern.”

  “My family is business-minded as well.”

  “It’s nice to work with family. Not everyone has that luxury anymore, but I think it’s best.”

  The motion of her hands along the bottle was making him harden. How could any man not think of those long fingers and flexible palms doing the same with his manhood?

  His voice came out gruff. “Were you bringing that oil for me?”

  She smiled, her lips parting to expose perfect white teeth. “You need a massage and I am trained to do it properly.”

  “By your mother?”

  “Aye. Her cousin was a famous Indian physician and she taught my mother well. In her first marriage our cousin had no children. She was often in the zenana, the women’s apartments, caring for the women of the household, and taught my mother a great deal.”

  “How interesting.”

  “Aye, missionaries sent our cousin to school. She was from a very good family, but her parents died and the missionary school saved her from an early marriage. After she finished school, she studied traditional Indian medicine as well, which was more acceptable to her patients.”

  “All that leads to me benefitting here in Leeds.”

  “Strange, the paths that life takes us on,” she said. “I come from a line of strong, adventurous women. But you, you cannot be comfortable in that chair. The seat is sagging.”

  He was afraid to stand, since the bulge beneath his jacket might be revealed. Turning his head away from her always-moving hands, he thought of factory ledgers, rows and rows of numbers all needing to be re-tallied. His Grandmother Noble, complaining. Hatbrook telling him he wasn’t good enough for Lady Elizabeth.

  That did it. He stood and moved to the bed, then sat down on the edge.

  “You’ll have to disrobe.” She handed him a towel. “Place this beneath you so the sheets are not stained.”

  “Disrobe?” He felt stupid. Also, aroused again.

  Her lips tilted up again. “I’m a widow and a healer. Don’t concern yourself with propriety.”

  His gaze was pulled inexorably toward her fingers rolling the bottle but he forced himself to untie his shoes. She turned away, allowing him to disrobe, place the towel on the bed.

  “I am ready,” he said, keeping thoughts of ledgers in mind. Also, the thought of how she might react to his scars. They were not for the faint of heart.

  “I’m going to drape this towel over your waist for now. Then, I’ll do a general application of oil over your body. It’s good for health.”

  “Do you massage your relatives?” he asked, unable to imagine her hands on any of the Haldenes.

  “No. In truth, I rarely have male patients, but I’m not afraid of them. Some of the men from my husband’s regiment still come to me.” She placed her hands on his shoulders, then he heard the stopper of the jar being pulled. He smelled the astringency of the oil again. The first drops hitting his back were warm and soothing.

  He floated in a pleasant reverie while her hands worked. Her touch seemed disinterested somehow, but he could feel his muscles relax. She clucked her tongue when she saw the scars on his hip and leg.

  “You must be in a great deal of pain.”

  She hadn’t pulled away. “I can forget them most of the time.”

  “Except when you walk or sit for long periods?”

  “I cannot stay in the same position for very long,” he admitted.

  Her skillful hands worked into the muscles of his hip and leg, bringing pain, but also relief. He gritted his teeth and tensed instinctively, then forced himself to relax so she could help him. After a long while, she sat back in the chair with a sigh.

  “You must be thirsty after all that hard work.” He hastened to sit up, then felt the room spin.

  “We should both drink something.”

  He gestured to the three port bottles still unopened. “This is what I have in the room.”

  She yawned and opened one, then poured the liquid into glasses. They must have thought he’d be drinking with Lewis since they had supplied two originally.

  “Do you know what happened with my cousin?” Gawain asked. “Mr. Noble?”

  “Oh, I forgot to give you this.” She reached into her apron and handed him a note.

  He opened the brief missive. “No relief until tomorrow. Mr. Hammer really can’t make the pipe today.”

  “That’s best for you. You shouldn’t travel tonight.”

  “Is that a medical opinion or a request?” He grinned at her.

  She took a sip from her glass. “You, sir, have the most wicked smile.”

  He realized he wore only the towel, draped across his lap, and the linen was starting to tent. “You have me at your mercy.”

  “I’m a healer,” she protested.

  “You said that before. But you have discharged your duty to me, and yet here you are, still in my room, with no thought of leaving.” He put a hand on his good thigh, increasing the sight of the bulge.

  Chapter Three

  Despite her dark skin, he could see her cheeks flush. “Fern’s preparing the evening meal, with the kitchen maids. We don’t have very many diners, what with all the rain.”

  He listened and was rewarded with the sound of raindrops hitting the pavement outside. “I didn’t realize it was raining. It is quite an oasis in here, with the wine and candlelight.”

  “Massage can put a body into a stupor,” she observed. “It’s very relaxing.”

  He watched her gaze dart to his groin, then move away quickly. She bit her lip. He smiled again, noting that she seemed to have no urge to go. Was the lady as intrigued by him as he was by her?

  “As does wine.” He put down his glass and took one of her hands in his. “Your hands must be tired.” He rubbed his thumbs into her palm.

  She curled her hand around him. “I’m used to it. This was nothing compared to what I perform when I act as midwife.”

  “But it is still tiring,” he murmured. He scooted to the edge of the mattress, shifting his towel up his thighs, and took her other hand away from her wine glass so he could massage the pa
lm.

  She let out a breath somewhere between an exhalation and a moan.

  “It feels good?”

  She let her head drop to her chest, then stretched it from side to side. “I touch other people. No one ever touches me.”

  “Aren’t you training Fern?”

  “She doesn’t like to be touched.”

  “Poor wounded soul,” Gawain said. His fingers moved to her wrists, then up her arms. Her cuffs were unbuttoned and turned up. When he found a particularly tender spot, her eyes closed and her head tilted to the side. He switched to the other arm, curious to see if the same tender spot would be found on both, but in doing so he leaned in until he could smell her, not just the lavender oil, but sandalwood too, and cooking, and the scent of her hair.

  He wanted to kiss her. Her mouth, her slender neck, her full breasts. He wanted to see the color of their tips, find out how tiny her waist was, how voluptuous her hips. His fingers moved to the buttons at the neck of her dress. Her eyes widened but she, astoundingly, didn’t stop him as he unbuttoned, just drank steadily from her wine glass.

  Eventually, her glass was empty. He took it from her and placed it on the bedside table while she finished taking off her dress. Then, as he watched, his manhood throbbing with need for her, she disrobed fully, until she was as naked as he.

  He could see her swallowing and he didn’t want her nervous. Standing himself, he limped toward her. She parted her lips and watched. When he pulled her body against his, he could feel his oil-slick skin sliding against her flesh.

  “You have the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen,” he said, quite honestly, moving his fingers to her hair.

  “Don’t unpin it,” she said, pulling back.

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll get oil on it.”

  “Ah.” He spread his fingers down her back instead, and nibbled at an earlobe. She shuddered against him.