How I Met My Countess (6 page)

But his sharp tone and the arrogant tilt of his brows were enough to spark Lucy back into the safe and comfortable world of detesting him utterly.

“Well, I would think it is quite obvious, my lord,” she said, shaking off her own skirts and marching over to where Rusty and Sammy sat defeated and battered in the dust. As she knelt down to inspect the damage, she said, “These men were hired to test you.”

“Test me?” Clifton towered over her, as commanding as a duke, every bit the pompous, arrogant man she’d so happily dismissed.

But now? She glanced up at his handsome, albeit furious, face. Took a glance at his lips, the ones that had been about to kiss her.

“Yes, test you.” She shuddered as she took stock of the poor fellows before her. “Oh, heavens, Sammy, you’re going to have a terrible shiner,” she told him, reaching out and gently touching his rough cheek. Then she glanced over at Rusty’s bloody nose. “And you’re not much better, I fear,” she told him. Rising, Lucy shook out her skirts again and turned to Clifton. “You’re bleeding as well. And your eye …” She flinched at the sight of it.

He swiped the back of his hand across his face, wincing as he touched it, but, with all the arrogance of a gentleman, he refused to give any ground. “ ’Tis of no matter,” he told her in his usual standoffish manner.

Lucy wasn’t fooled. “You won’t say that tomorrow when your eye is shuttered and you’ve bruises enough to deter even old Gertie’s interest.” She heaved a sigh. “Well, there is nothing left to do but take the lot of you home and get you fixed up.”

She went to help up the still reeling Sammy, but he was too much for her and she landed in a heap beside him. Glancing over her shoulder, she said in a voice as imperious as the earl’s, “Well, you might as well help, my lord, because you seem to be the only one left standing.”

“There now, Sammy,” Lucy said, bustling about the kitchen and holding out a beefsteak for the poor fellow’s battered face. “This ought to help.”

Carefully, she avoided looking over at the earl. For right now she felt as dazed as Sammy looked.

How could she have been so wrong about the Earl of Clifton?

Against her better judgment, she stole a glance at him and found the man watching her with that unnerving gaze of his.

For the life of her, she had no idea what he was thinking, or worse, what he thought of her.

Not that I care. Not in the least.

Sammy groaned a bit, and she shook her head as she shook the steak at him. “I’ve never heard a man fuss so over having his eye blackened.”

“Ain’t had it happen in quite some time,” Sammy admitted, gingerly putting the slab up against his shuttered eye.

Rusty snorted. “Hey there, guv’ner, where did you learn to fight like such a bruiser?”

Lucy stilled, for it was a question she’d been dying to ask since the earl had landed his first blow. Nor did she dare look again over her shoulder to where he sat at the table, a pint of ale before him. He’d insisted she see to Rusty and Sammy first, claiming they’d had the worst of it.

Which they had. And at his more-than-capable hands.

Gracious heavens, never in her life had she actually feared for the French.

“Oh, aye,” Sammy chimed in. “Where did a bang-up bloke like you learn to fight?”

Clifton chuckled. “You could say I had a rare education at the hands of a regular brawler,” he told them. “The cooper’s son in the village near where I grew up was quite the goer. Used to corner me and my brother all the time. We finally had to learn how to best him or spend all our days with one of our eyes shuttered. And worse, explain to our father why we kept losing.”

Rusty snorted. “Spoiling it with the local lad? Thought you were some fancy fellow. Ratter told us you were nothing more than a gentleman.”

Lucy flinched, for she knew what was going to come next.

“Ratter?” The earl’s brow arched.

Oh, yes, he would have to ask that question.

“My father’s nickname,” she supplied, hoping that would be the end of it.

But not so for Rusty and Sammy.

“Aye, Ratter,” Rusty said, raising his glass in a mock toast. “No finer fellow ever made good for himself out of the Dials. Not one to forget his friends, he don’t. Still, not like him to steer us wrong. Never met one of you London toffs, especially no earl, I couldn’t finish.”

“So now you have,” Lucy told them, as she was back to carving at the big roast. “Might I remind you this ‘London toff’ is the Earl of Clifton and most likely a magistrate—”

To which the earl nodded in concession.

“—so I would mind your tongues, both of you.”

“Still, you don’t fight like no earl,” Rusty said, taking a drink from the mug of ale before him.

“I suppose I don’t,” Clifton admitted. “But I’ve found life is full of surprises.”

Lucy would have wagered her pink silk gown— the finest one she owned—that he was looking at her, his gaze boring into her back, full of questions and accusations.

Ones she had no intention of answering. Instead, she drove her knife back into the roast before her and carved a thick steak from it, ignoring the way her hand shook.

“And what was a fancy fellow like you doing hanging around the village lads and not up in your fine house?” Sammy asked.

“We—my brother and I—liked to go to the village to visit his mother. He’s my half brother, you see, and his mother ran the local alehouse. I spent a good deal of my youth loitering about the village, much to my tutor’s dismay.”

“No owl-eyed fellow taught you to hit like that,” Rusty said, tipping his glass toward the earl to make his point.

“No, he didn’t.” Clifton poured them both another serving of ale and finished by topping off his own cup. “He considered me his greatest failing.”

“Ah there, don’t you worry about that,” Sammy told him. “No man who can topple the pair of us is a failure. If you ever want, we can always use a third. We do a bit of business, by the by.”

“I might remind you, you’re talking to a man who sits in the House of Lords,” Lucy said. Then, without realizing what she was doing, she stole a glance at the earl. Their gazes met and she was trapped, much as she had been earlier.

His deep blue eyes seemed to have darkened, and she found herself unable to look away. Lucy swore she could hear his commanding voice, what he was thinking as he studied her.

Don’t think this is going to be settled so easily, Lucy.

She wrenched her gaze away and went back to the roast, cutting at it with a dangerous vigor.

Behind her, Rusty chuckled. “Seems to me yer da was paying the wrong fellow to teach you, milord. Should have hired this lad from the village. He sounds like old Bruno back in the Dials. ’Member him, Sammy? Always spoiling for a fight? A meaner cur never walked the streets.”

“Taught you that hook, I’d guess,” Clifton said, catching up the steak she held out for him at the end of a meat fork. Yet when he settled it awkwardly against his swollen eye, much as Sammy had, she reached out and readjusted it, settling it into place and guiding his hand as to how to hold it.

But that was a mistake, for the moment her fingers brushed against his, that spark, that fire she’d felt in the lane when he’d taken her in his arms, when he’d been about to kiss her, flowed through her like a bit of lightning, catching her unawares and shocking her with an awareness that left her breathless.

This time, she knew better than to glance at him. She turned quickly and fled to the sink, where she could wash her hands in hopes that the cool water would quell the unwanted fires the earl provoked.

“Aye, he did,” Sammy said proudly. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”

“No,” Clifton admitted. “But don’t think it will work a second time. Never quite seen a hook like that.”

“Sort of the same bit of magic you used to take down Monday Moggs, eh, Goosie? Chopped him right good, didn’t you, girl?” Sammy slapped his knee. “Ain’t a gel this side of the Dials with a better right hook than our girl Goosie.”

Lucy cringed, her eyes scrunched shut and her back still to the earl. “Samuel Trouncer! I haven’t the vaguest notion of ever—”

Sammy just waved her protests aside. “Ah, how like you, Goosie. Modest as you are sweet.” He turned to the earl and winked. “Don’t let that fair face and those sweet lips fool you, guv’nor. ’Iffin you know what’s good for you, you’ll never cross our girl here. She’ll send you aloft without a second thought. Just ask ’ol Monday.”

“Oh, that is quite enough out of you,” she said, pointing toward the door. “One more word, Mr. Trouncer, and you’ll—” Lucy’s threat stopped in midsentence as out of the corner of her eye she spied Clifton watching her, one brow raised, a sly smile on his handsome lips.

The dastardly fellow. She huffed a bit and turned from him. He would find her mortification amusing.

“Your brother, does he know how to do that left cut of yours?” Rusty asked, changing the subject.

Clifton paused, pulling his gaze away from her. “No, he doesn’t. But I would be quite remiss if I didn’t tell you that he favors his right side,” he said with a grin, and all three of them raised their glasses in a conspiratorial toast.

Lucy wiped her hands on the towel, then fisted them to her hips. “Oh, now I’ve seen everything. A pair of dodgers like you, looking for the advantage to take down a pigeon. You should both be ashamed of yourselves. Why, you sound like a pair of old men.”

“Old men?!” Sammy protested. “Do you think I want to go back to the Dials looking worse than I already do? I’ve got me reputation to keep.”

“And me as well, Goosie-girl,” Rusty said. “Can’t have it getting out we got beat. Not something a man likes to remember.”

“Aye, and has a devil of a time forgetting,” his partner added. “Not when the evidence is right there on his mug for all to see.” He tapped his cheek, then winced in pain.

“Exactly, Lucy,” Clifton chimed in. “No man likes being taken advantage of. Nor does he forget when he is.”

He raised his glass to her, but she had to imagine he wasn’t toasting her. He’d told her exactly how he felt about her part in all this.

And that he wasn’t the type to forget either.

With the pitcher emptied, the earl excused himself, shaking hands with his former adversaries and wishing them well before returning upstairs.

As for her part in all this, Lucy noted, he didn’t offer her the same courtesy.

But once he was gone, she shook her head at the pair of dodgers before her. “Should I tell my father you got beaten?”

Sammy’s eyes narrowed. “Should we be tellin’ your da what you and that toff were about to do afore we stopped you?”

Wretched bastard.
He had her there.

“That won’t be necessary,” she replied, feeling her cheeks grow hot.

“Think you might owe us a bit more than our usual fees,” Rusty told her. “You know, for our troubles and all.”

Lucy wanted nothing more than to hold her ground, but she knew there was no bluffing these two rats. They smelled a chance to line their pockets, and this time they weren’t going to lose.

Heaving a disgruntled sigh, she went over to the cupboard and got down an old blue sugar pot. Reaching in, she collected a few coins more, then made a note to move the sugar pot before they came back to visit again.

“Thought as much, Goosie-me-girl,” Sammy said as she dropped the yellow coins into his open hand. “Not your type anyway, if you don’t mind me saying. Yer a sensible gel. Not the sort to let a fancy bit of fine words and sweet talk tell you different. But I’ll remind you here and now, he’ll never love you like one of us would.”

She pointed to the door and they went to leave. She didn’t need any lectures from the likes of them.

“Aye, Goosie, just say the word—,” Rusty said, doffing his hat and giving her a saucy wink as he picked up the earl’s discarded steak and dropped it into his pocket before she pushed him the rest of the way out the door.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” she told them as they lumbered down the garden path. “I know the likes of him will never offer a girl like me naught but empty promises.”

Oh, but for a moment there …

For a moment she could have forgotten such things and let herself believe that the Earl of Clifton would look twice at her.

That he’d see beyond the walls she’d built around her heart, be the sort willing and daring enough to breach them.

Still, even as the garden gate shut behind them, clanging in her ears much like Sammy’s warning, her gaze rose unbidden to the window of her father’s map room overhead.

But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t fall in love with him.

Clifton came down from Mr. Ellyson’s map room a quarter past midnight, his head pounding with all the information his taskmaster was trying to cram into the confines between his ears.

That, or it was the lingering effects of meeting up with Rusty and Sammy.

And Lucy …

There was no denying it now. She was Lucy to him.

He set aside that thought. At least he tried, as he had most of the afternoon, moving from anger over being tricked by that cheeky bit of muslin to regret that he hadn’t taken advantage of her just a bit quicker.

At least then, in addition to a headache, he could claim to have tasted her sweet, lying lips.

“We haven’t studied this much since Cambridge,” Malcolm was muttering behind him. “I don’t remember Temple or Jack mentioning all this work when they came calling to recruit us.”

“Who are you trying to deceive? You never studied at school to begin with,” Clifton said over his shoulder. “Let alone be able to recall what Temple and Jack said that night.”

Malcolm grinned. “Oh, that was a fine evening. Temple has the best taste in claret. Probably would have agreed to anything he set before us, as muddled as I was.” But then Malcolm’s interest turned to more immediate concerns. “Bloody hell, I’m starved and parched. I don’t know which I want more.”

Clifton agreed but didn’t say it aloud. The house was eerily silent—for much to his surprise, he found he’d gotten used to the nearly constant cacophony of the Ellysons, which made the silence all that much more unnerving.

And it was that stillness that made their stealth all that much more imperative, for one misstep could awaken Ellyson, who had finally dozed off in his chair by the fire.

If the man awoke, the earl wouldn’t put it past the fellow to rise up with another long list of “must knows” and “have we gone overs.”

No, this was the opportunity Clifton and Malcolm had been waiting for, and, after sharing a glance that spoke volumes, they had made their escape the first moment the man snored.

Demmit, I hope that innkeeper still has a pot of soup on the fire.

Clifton nodded.
And a good bottle of claret.

If they were lucky, the earl thought. He was exhausted enough that more than likely half a bottle would put him into a deep, sound sleep, where worries over coming home alive wouldn’t compete with visions of Lucy and her luscious, kissable lips.

For in those moments, as they’d ambled up the lane, her capable hand on his sleeve, her witty repartee challenging him to think beyond the usual limited subjects one had to draw from to converse with a lady, he’d found himself … well, not captivated, certainly not that, but something else …

Just as he didn’t understand whatever had compelled him to think of kissing her. Well, the fact that she was a pretty bit of baggage might have had a hand in that.

A fiery, passionate, beautiful woman lurking beneath her fierce bravado.

So Lucy, have you ever been in love?

No. Most certainly not.

It wasn’t just the denial in her voice that still resonated through him but the challenge behind her words as well.

As if she dared him to try. To try and seduce her, to uncover her secrets, unlock her lips and ignite the passions lurking beneath her unfashionable gown.

Not to just let her be his faux mistress in this deception but to actually take her to his bed and make her his mistress by deed.

With his heart and his body.

Clifton took a deep breath and did his best to shake off that notion, but when he opened his eyes and took a glance down the rest of the steps, who but Lucy herself stood there in the foyer, waiting for him.

Tray in hand, that wry, challenging look on her face, and her glorious black hair tumbling from its pins.

“Well done, gentlemen,” she said. “Am I to surmise that you are practicing an escape and found the right moment when Papa finally fell asleep?” She glanced over her shoulder at the mantel clock.

“Yes, and right on schedule. He usually does doze off about now. Have a care as you come down the stairs, the last one is a bit uneven,” she said with that saucy air of importance of hers, “or you’ll be eating your dinner from the floor.”

“According to your father,” Malcolm said, “that may be the best we can hope for in the days to come.”

“Frightening you with tales of starvation, is he?” she asked. “
Tsk. Tsk.
He usually doesn’t start scaring recruits with stories from Egypt until the end of the second week.”

“We are not easily frightened,” Clifton told her.

“You would be if you had any sense,” she shot back. Her gaze flitted up and just as quickly glanced back down at the tray in her hands. “Besides, you have no worries of an empty stomach tonight. I’ve seen to that.”

“Is that what I think it is?” Malcolm asked, elbowing past Clifton and reaching out to take the tray from her, relieving Lucy of her burden.

For which he was rewarded with one of her rare, bright smiles.

Clifton cursed himself for not thinking of it first.

But then again, good manners didn’t seem to come right to mind when she was in front of him—for a thousand different reasons.

“We were just leaving,” he told her. “You needn’t have gone to any trouble on our account.” For suddenly he wanted to be gone from this house, from her.

“Oh, do shut up, Gilby,” Malcolm said, apparently immune to Lucy’s charms. “If you’re thinking I am taking potluck over at that scanty inn, when I can smell”—he inhaled deeply again—“stew?”

“Beef stew?” Clifton blurted out. He had visions of the thick steak up against Sammy’s pocked face.

She must have seen the horror on his expression, for she blew out a loud breath, her gaze rolling upward. “I didn’t use the steaks from this afternoon,” she told him. “Those went home with the boys … extra compensation for their troubles.”

“Yes, of course. I never would suggest—”

But then again, he had, hadn’t he? Oh, good God! What had happened to his manners?

Turning her back to him, she returned her attentions to the more appreciative audience of his unwitting brother. Moving aside so Malcolm could go on into the parlor, she ticked off the contents of the tray. “It isn’t much, just some fresh bread. A pudding Mrs. Kewin made up, and some cheese. And in a moment I believe Mariana will be around with a bottle of claret. You do like claret, don’t you, my lord?”

While Malcolm happily carried her offering into the parlor, Clifton took a step back, wary of her sudden thoughtfulness.

Just as he should be wary of her lips.

“His favorite,” Malcolm said as he set the tray down on the table. “When he isn’t being a pompous ass.”

Lucy smiled again. “He won’t be so stuffy when he tries it—for it is an excellent vintage, or so Mad Jack claimed when he sent it over.”

Stuffy? There it was again. He didn’t know why he cared—for he certainly didn’t—but each time she made her pert opinion known either through her words, deeds or that dismissive glance of hers, he had the overwhelming urge to prove her wrong.

Very wrong.

“And the delay with the claret?” Malcolm was asking. “Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

She waved his question off. “I doubt it. That is unless you have a passing knowledge of locks. For Mariana is having a devil of a time picking the one on the wine cabinet.”

That statement was enough to clear Clifton’s distracted thoughts. “Your sister is picking the lock?”

Her bright eyes sparkled. “Yes, Papa likes to change the locks from time to time so she keeps her skills up. He recently put in a rather ingenuous Swiss design that has eluded her so far, but perhaps you shall get lucky.”

No Bath school with dancing masters and lessons on menus in this house. The man actually wanted his daughters proficient in larceny?

Meanwhile, Lucy swept into the parlor and shot him a glance over her shoulder. “What will it be, my lord? Your pride or your stomach?”

“Never pass up a meal, for you don’t know when you shall get another,” Malcolm called out from the table inside, quoting the bit of advice Ellyson had given them this very afternoon. Advice Malcolm was taking to heart, for he had a napkin tucked under his chin and a spoon at the ready.

The cozy-looking chamber boasted a table set for two, and the empty seat across from Malcolm begged to be filled. Another table sat in the corner near the Franklin stove, the faded and well-used boards of a card game sat atop the green baize waiting for the players to return and finish the hand. Candles burned low, as if they had, like Miss Ellyson and Lucy, waited for him and Malcolm to come down.

“It wouldn’t be proper,” he managed over the protests of his stomach, which was growling in impatience as the aroma of the stew curled into his senses, as beguiling as the woman offering it.

“Proper? Not to eat a meal set before you?” she asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “This—” He shook his hand at the softly lit room. It was the sort of late-night setting that would have a London matron in horrors. “We couldn’t dine without some sort of—”

“Without some sort of what?” she asked, her hands going to her hips.

Clifton drew a deep breath and glanced over at his brother. No help there, for Malcolm was already buttering a thick slice of bread. “It isn’t proper for young ladies to dine alone with gentlemen. It might impugn your reputation.”

She stared at him. No, rather she gaped at him as if he’d grown a second head. “Are you suggesting I go wake up Thomas-William or my father so you can eat your supper?”

Well, when she put it that way it did sound rather ridiculous. But couldn’t she see that he had her best interests at heart?

Behind Lucy, Malcolm sat back negligently in his chair, arms folded over his chest and a devil-may-care smile on his face.
Oh, you’ve fallen into deep waters there, Gilby. Good luck with that.

But before he could formulate a response, a slender hand tucked into the curve of his arm and towed him forward, leaving him no choice but to enter their comfortable den.

Miss Mariana Ellyson. With the grasp of a stevedore.

Hard to believe of the willowy form beside him, but she carried him along with the same stubborn determination that her sister exhibited more vocally.

“Oh, don’t be so reserved, my lord,” she told him merrily, hauling him into the room. Mariana settled him into the chair opposite Malcolm’s and then proceeded to dish him up a bowl of stew.

Only then did she turn and look at his face. “Goodness! Lord Clifton! Lucy didn’t mention that you’d been set upon. No wonder you are so put out this evening.”

Malcolm glanced up at him. “Who would have thought that ruffians could be found here in Hampstead. And all this while, I’ve found it quite dull, Miss Ellyson.”

“Oh, Mr. Grey, I thought we were past such formalities. Mariana, if you please.”

“Only if you call me Malcolm,” he said.

“Delighted! As for Hampstead, it is dull no longer, sir,” Mariana told him. “For I have successfully broken into father’s cabinet and liberated a very fine bottle of claret. We must celebrate, for Papa will be quite vexed in the morning that I’ve outwitted his new lock and that his claret has been drunk.” The pretty little minx handed the bottle over to Malcolm, who uncorked it quickly and filled the four glasses on the table.

Mariana took up hers and, after a taste, grinned.

Malcolm did the same, and his eyes lit up after the first sampling. “I would like to have my turn with those fellows who dared jump you, Gilby,” he said. “Give them another trouncing, eh?”

“Oh, I’m sure you will … see them, that is,” Mariana told him in her own flighty fashion. Then she paused to take a drink, and, as if realizing her faux pas, quickly diverted the conversation. “That is, if you stay long enough. Oh, how dull it would be here in Hampstead if it weren’t for the occasional incident. Like last spring when Monday Moggs tried to marry Lucy.”

“Ah, the illustrious Monday Moggs!” Clifton said, perking up at this bit of news.

“You’ve heard of him?” Mariana asked.

“Just in passing—but not that he was in love with your sister.” Clifton turned his gaze on the lady who had declared herself immune to love. “You’ve been holding out on me, Lucy. I thought you said you’d never been in love.”

Her face turned a bright pink.

Mariana failed to notice—or ignored outright— her sister’s embarrassment. “Gracious heavens, my lord, Lucy wasn’t in love with that rumpot. He just got it in his head to marry her.” She paused and said in a not-so-quiet aside, “He was, as Mrs. Kewin likes to say, ‘corned, pickled and salted.’ ”

Clifton laughed. “The man was drunk?”

“Completely tossed!” Mariana said. “Threw Lucy over his shoulder and carried her from one side of the Mayday fair to the other where there was a pater-cove—one of those traveling curates— marrying couples.”

“Mariana!” her sister finally managed to protest. “No one wants to hear this story!”

“I disagree,” Clifton said, refilling Mariana’s glass and handing it back to her. “Miss Ellyson, pray continue. I am riveted. How did your sister escape this unscrupulous Mr. Moggs?”

“Oh, yes, do tell,” Malcolm encouraged.

Thus cheered, the girl continued. “Well, eventually Monday Moggs had to put Lucy down. The curate insisted—”

Lucy threw up her hands and fled to the other side of the room, albeit to add more coal to the stove, though the set of her jaw suggested she wouldn’t mind consigning her sister to the flames.

Mariana continued unabashed, “Then the fellow asked Lucy if she wanted to be married to Mr. Moggs and she said no.”

“But that wasn’t good enough?” Clifton asked.

“No, for Monday Moggs had given the man extra coins to ignore her protests. So Lucy had no choice,” Mariana said. “She hit him right in the nose and knocked him over.”

“You floored this Mr. Moggs, Lucy?” Malcolm asked.

Mariana laughed. “Not to begin with. She flattened the curate first.”

“The curate?” Clifton gasped, twisting around in his chair to look at her. Why he’d never heard the likes of such a thing. At least not involving a lady.

From her spot at the stove, Lucy rose to her own defense. “He was about to pronounce me married! I had no choice but to stop him.”