Bridal Favors (3 page)

Only after he’d left did it occur to Evelyn that he hadn’t asked
why
she was lying in such a condition on his library floor. Most men would have demanded to know. At the very least, they would have been unnerved by her appearance. But then, she recalled, Justin Powell had no nerves.

She twisted her head, looking about the library. A small, untidy working library, just the sort she’d have loved to explore—and put in order. A pair of deep leather club chairs faced a ceiling-high bookshelf outfitted with a rolling brass ladder. Across the room, a library desk basked in the light pouring in through a now permanently open east-facing window.

She was squinting through her glasses, trying to read some of the titles on the bookshelves, when she heard returning footsteps. A second later Justin came in with a tray filled with medical paraphernalia: a bowl of water, scissors, a brown bottle, a roll of bandages, and a cloth.

Without wasting time fussing about proprieties, he simply knelt beside her and proceeded to cut off the right leg of her nephew’s knickers five inches above the knee. He wadded the ruined material and tossed it into the wastebasket, then dipped the towel into the water. “I’m going to clean you up a bit, all right?”

Before she could answer, he started dabbing at the wound. She took a deep breath and stared bravely at the coffered ceiling.

“Nice wood, that,” she said in a high, thin voice.

“Cherry,” he muttered distractedly.

She winced as the warm water seeped into the cut. “You’re sure it’s not deep?”

“Very sure.”

She sucked in as his dabbing became more pronounced—very like scrubbing, in fact. “It
feels
as though it’s been cut to the bone. Tell me. I can take it.”

“True, you’re slender, but it’s nowhere near the bone,” he replied, sitting back on his heels and tossing the washcloth after the pant leg. “There. All nice and clean. Have a look for yourself.”

“Thank you, no. If you’d be so kind as to put a bandage over it, I’m sure I can finish tying it up.” She began struggling to a seated position but he stopped her, his big hand enveloping her shoulder and gently pushing her back down.

“Not a bit of it, m’dear,” he said cheerfully. “Besides, always finish what you begin. Or so me old granny used to say.”

She breathed a heartfelt “thank you.” She hated being brave about blood. She’d never seen any real value in it, except that it made everyone else feel better just when you were feeling your worst, which was generally the time a girl needed a bit of sympathy.

“You just rest easy and think of something else. I know,” he said, as if a novel idea had only just occurred to him. “Why don’t you tell me
why
you broke into my house?”

“Broke . . . ? Oh. That. The insufferable person who answers your door kept insisting that you were not at home. As I had to see you, I had no choice but to find an alternative entry.”

“Beverly told you I wasn’t in? How reprehensible!” Justin said and then, “I suppose there was some good reason you didn’t believe him?”

“Of course,” she answered. “I saw you.”

“Saw me?” Justin repeated mildly. He opened the little amber bottle and withdrew a small glass wand from it. Carefully, he guided it along the cut.

“Ow!” Evelyn squealed, pulling away and glowering at him with the air of one grossly betrayed. “You
hurt
me!”

He grimaced apologetically. “Sorry. Carbolic acid. Should have warned you it would sting a bit.”

“I should say,” Evelyn muttered bad-temperedly.

“Almost done. Just a bit of bandaging and you’ll be right as rain. Now, then,” he began unrolling a linen bandage, “you were saying how you spied me in the house and thus deduced Beverly to be the lying knave he undoubtedly is. Where did you see me?”

“Through the back window here.”

“Ah.” Justin nodded. “So, having been told I was not at home, you at once became suspicious of Beverly’s villainous mien and decided to walk around to the back of the house, climb the alley wall, and look through the windows. Most enterprising.”

Evelyn frowned. “Put that way, it sounds rather . . . intrusive.”

“No, no,” Justin said affably. “I’d say the actual
intrusive
spot came when you broke into the house. Up to that point I’d call you merely . . .” He looked at her hopefully, as though she would supply the word that eluded him.

“Prying.”

“Ah,
prying,
” he said happily. “Yes. That might do.”

She couldn’t detect the least bit of sarcasm in his tone, but it was there, as was his amusement. She thought over all the reports she’d heard of him through the years, which were few enough.

Eccentric
.
Reclusive,
or was it
exclusive
?
Clever
.
Unflappable
. Some people had deemed him inattentive, others preferred oblivious. Obviously none of them had ever spent any time with him, for clearly a razor-sharp intellect lurked beneath his pleasant, obliging manner.

“And exactly why were you prying?” he asked.

“Because,” she replied, “it was absolutely essential that I speak to you.”

“Me? How flattering! Young girls are so seldom so resourceful. Or persistent.” He clipped off a length of linen and deftly wound it around her thigh, securing it with a piece of sticking plaster. He admired his work. “The medical field will ever feel my loss, I’m afraid.”

She grinned at his nonsense. He definitely had a way of getting around a girl.

He uncoiled with feline grace and she was reminded of another adjective that had on occasion been associated with him. He seemed so gentlemanly, without being the least stiff, that for a moment she’d forgotten the circumstances under which they’d originally met. But being the recipient of his indisputable charm and seeing him move with such fluid ease, it all came rushing back. A dark hall long past midnight, another man’s wife, another man’s room.

He was a Lothario.

Not that for one second she feared
she
was in danger of exciting any romantic efforts on his part. Heavens, no! But that didn’t mean she couldn’t see why other women found him hard to resist.

Though, now that she thought of it, it was odd that since that night she hadn’t heard any sordid stories about him. Perhaps it was because one only heard stories about the incompetent Lotharios, the ones that got caught—

She gasped as he suddenly stooped down and scooped her up in his arms. She blushed, warmed by the notion that he’d read her thoughts.

“You can put me down. I can easily walk.”

“Of course you can, if you want,” he replied in the tone one would use on a recalcitrant child. He didn’t stop, however. He strode into the narrow, carpeted hall, heading for the back of the town house. “But why should you? A lift is the least I can offer you by way of making reparation for owning such shoddy, easily broken windows, as well as for employing such a scoundrel for a butler.”

She searched his face. “You’re mocking me.”

“Never!” he denied. “I’m perfectly serious. I’m just thankful you aren’t this very minute sending for your parents’ lawyer in order to press suit, and I wish to express my gratitude by offering you a nice glass of lemonade. Which is in the kitchen. Which is where I am taking you.”

Gads! Listening to him she could almost believe she
was
in the moral right and he
ought
to be making amends, when she knew very well that she should be offering him every apology she could think of to keep him from ringing up the local constable and having her carted away to the jail for breaking into his home.

“Besides,” he was saying, “I should dearly love to hear why it was ‘essential’ that you speak to me.”

She hesitated, knowing she should protest further. But he didn’t seem to mind carrying her and she didn’t seem to mind being carried, not in the least, so she relaxed in his arms and sank comfortably against his chest.

It was a nice broad chest. And warm under the starched, white shirt. He smelled fascinating, too: sharp astringent soap, earthy warmth, and something else, something unique.

She closed her eyes, trying to pinpoint the aroma and finding instead a whole new vista of sensations opening before her. The easy, rhythmical motion of his stride carrying her, the gentle swing of her legs in counterpoint, the soft feathering of his breath on her face. She held herself still, soaking up impressions. Lovely.

She smiled and opened her eyes just as he looked down and knocked her glasses askew with his chin. She shoved them back into place, the movement causing her to shift in his embrace. He jounced her up, settling her more comfortably and in doing so his hand slipped up her rib cage and his fingers brushed the curve of her breast. His hand jerked back. His brows suddenly dipped in a scowl.

“You’re not from Mrs. Boyle’s school, are you?” he asked in a voice tinged with accusation. He looked down into her upturned face, peering past the faintly smoked lenses, touching on her mouth and moving to the dark tumble of hair that had come undone during her escapade and now swirled like a gorgon’s tresses around her shoulders. “Why you’re not a
girl,
at all!”

“I beg your pardon.” Evelyn stiffened.

“You are a
woman
.”

By God! He’d thought she was . . . a
child
! That’s why he hadn’t castigated her, or sent for the authorities, or treated her as a real person at all. He’d thought she was from this girls’ school he’d been babbling about, and that this was some girlish prank!

Evelyn, who had spent the last decade fighting the prejudices roused by her youthful appearance, who was always, in spite of her best efforts, a
little
too aware of her lack of female curves and thus a
tad
defensive about her womanliness, spoke before she thought. “Heavens, you’re perceptive! I bet that you might even be able to find your way to the front door!”

Chapter 2

JUSTIN WINCED. “I suspect I deserved that.”

He backed his way into a small kitchen, looked around, and deposited her on a kitchen chair.

“Yes, you did,” Evelyn replied, chancing a glance at the bandage around her thigh. It was utterly unstained, she noted with an eccentric mix of disappointment and relief. She felt every sort of fool. Had she really claimed she’d been lying in a “pool of blood”?

“Do you have the odd sensation that this has happened before?” he asked as he opened the icebox and withdrew a pitcher. He didn’t wait for an answer but poured two glasses of lemonade and handed her one. “Cheers,” he said, clicking his rim to hers.

She took a sip, furtively watching him studying her, his frown back in place. Any minute now, he’d remember the unfortunate circumstances of their initial meeting, and who knew how he’d react then? Men, in her admittedly limited experience, dearly hated being reminded of having been caught in some misdeed. He might throw her out before she had a chance to explain why she was here.

“You asked why I was here. I would like to tell you.” She set her glass down. “Five months ago my aunt, Lady Agatha Whyte, eloped to France with a Frenchman.” She waited to see if the information struck a chord. It would for most people.

“Then it’s fortunate they are in France,” Justin finally said. “At least the bloke should know some decent restaurants.” He paused. “But then, that isn’t always the case. Once, when I was traveling in Austria, I had for a guide a fellow who had the most underdeveloped palate it has ever been my misfortune to—”

She cleared her throat.

“Excuse me. You were saying?”

“My aunt eloped. That the fellow she eloped with is French is of no consequence.” Evelyn hesitated as the lack of veracity struck her. She disliked dishonesty above all things. Particularly dishonesty with oneself. “Well, actually, it is. He managed to undermine my aunt’s sound judgment and her sense of duty to her clients to a spectacular degree.”

Seeing Justin’s brow lift inquiringly, she explained. “Frankly, I can’t see any Englishman achieving a level of fascination that could so overwhelm a lady that she would forget everything, in her desire—”

She broke off. Judging from his odd expression she had misstepped, either in her use of the word “desire” or her charge that an Englishman couldn’t engender much of it.

Maybe Lotharios took pride in their—what would one call it? Conquests? Perhaps she should reassure him that she was quite certain he could give any Frenchman a run for his money? Or was he offended by her choice of the word “desire”? Though it would seem peculiar for a masher to take exception to such a simple word.

But then she’d done it before, offended people because of her unfortunate predilection for choosing an appropriate word for an inappropriate thing. Happily, Justin only looked a little dazed. That look, too, was unfortunately not an entirely unfamiliar experience for her.

“Well, the French
are
renowned for their, er, beguiling ways, are they not?” she asked defensively.

“Are they?”

His query sounded sincere, and as Evelyn was always happy to dispense information, she replied. “Yes.”