A Lady Never Tells Page 3

  He regarded her blandly, and irritation rose in Mary. She knew that he was purposely thwarting her, and she could not help but be suspicious that Sir Royce was lying to her. It was most kind of him, of course, but still …

  “I cannot allow you to leave without repaying you,” she told him stubbornly, planting her hands on her hips.

  He regarded her for a moment, and his eyes began to twinkle. “Well, then, allow me to take this in exchange.”

  And with that, Royce took a step forward and wrapped an arm around her waist, then bent his head and kissed her.

  Chapter 2

  Mary froze in surprise. It wasn’t as if no man had ever tried to kiss her before. She had had a few suitors, even if they did not number as Rose’s did. And there had been men in the tavern who, laboring under the mistaken notion that any woman in or around a tavern was fair game, had grabbed her and tried to steal a kiss—or more. She had taken care of all of them in ways ranging from subtle to painful.

  But she was unprepared for this man’s kiss—not only the smooth way he swept her in, but also the intoxicating effect of the kiss itself. His lips were firm and warm, pressing into hers with soft insistency, opening her mouth to his. The dark, subtle scent of his cologne teased at her senses, combining with the heat of his body, the taste of his lips, the feel of his chest pressing against hers, into a swirl of sensation that left her breathless, even dizzy. Mary felt herself warming, melting, and she realized that she was no longer standing stiffly in astonishment but sinking into Royce. It was, she knew on some level, reprehensible. But right here and now, she didn’t care about anything but what she was feeling.

  Then, as suddenly as he had whisked her into his arms, Royce released her and took a step back. Mary saw mirrored in his eyes some of the same amazement she was sure was in her own gaze, but he recovered more quickly than she.

  Giving her a quick, impudent grin, he tipped his hat a fraction. “There. I think that’s adequate recompense, don’t you?”

  Before she could dredge up a single thought, much less come up with a rejoinder, he turned on his heel and strode out of the inn. Mary watched him go, sagging against the door in sudden weakness. Even after he was out of sight, she remained where she was, her brain a whirl. Whatever was the matter with her?

  It occurred to her that she was standing in the hall of an inn, where anyone could have seen them kiss, and she straightened, quickly glancing up and down the corridor. A blush rushed into her cheeks as embarrassment seized her. She had acted like a common hussy!

  She raised shaky hands to her cheeks to cool the flames that burned there, and tried to pull herself together. She could not let her sisters see her so agitated. Sir Royce had not behaved like a gentleman, and she had responded in a way not at all like herself. No doubt she should have slapped him—or, at the very least, pushed him away. But it had been a very trying day; it was no wonder she had been slow to react. In another moment or two she would have shaken off her strange stupor and pulled out of his arms. Wouldn’t she?

  As for the strange sensations that had flooded her while he kissed her—the heat, the eagerness, the wild fizzing of her nerves—well, she would not think about that now.

  Mary drew a deep breath and smoothed down her skirts; then, lifting her chin, she turned and opened the door, marching back into the room. Her sisters turned to her.

  “What happened?”

  “Where did you go?”

  “What did you say to Mr. Winslow?”

  “Sir Royce,” Rose corrected Camellia. “Now that we are here, we should learn to use their terms.”

  “Sir. Mr. What difference does it make?” Camellia retorted. “He’s the same man whatever title you give him, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, of course,” Mary said. “But I suppose it’s impolite for us to address him as ‘Mr.’”

  Camellia shrugged. “If someone told you to call him Emperor, would you do it?”

  Lily rolled her eyes. “Oh, Cam, honestly, it’s not a crime to have a title. I think it’s romantic.”

  Camellia made a face. “You think everything’s romantic.”

  “All right, girls,” Mary said automatically. “There is no need to fuss at each other.”

  “Why did you go out into the hall with him?” Lily asked.

  “I just … thanked him again for what he did for us.” Mary felt her cheeks grow heated, and she prayed that her sisters did not notice.

  “Don’t you think we should have told him who we are and what we’re doing here?” Rose asked, frowning. “He probably could have helped us find our grandfather, couldn’t he? Why, he might even know the earl; he seemed a very fine gentleman.”

  “Dressing like a popinjay doesn’t make you a gentleman,” Camellia pointed out.

  “He didn’t dress like a popinjay,” Lily protested. “It was that other silly man who looked like a bird.”

  “A bird in lavender-striped trousers,” Camellia agreed, grinning.

  “What?” Rose looked from one to the other. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, you should have seen him, Rose!” Lily jumped up, her heart-shaped face alight with laughter. She posed, her hand on one hip, her chin tilted up, looking at Rose down the length of her nose. “He stood like this, and he looked so silly, and you could see his coat was padded out to here.” She held her hands out on either side of her shoulders.

  Rose giggled at her antics, and Mary smiled. It seemed as if Rose had hardly smiled since they left America. More than one night Mary had heard her sister crying softly in her bunk on the ship, after she thought all the others had gone to sleep. It was a relief to see her laugh again.

  “He had a flower in his lapel the size of my fist,” Mary added, wanting to keep the smile on Rose’s face.

  “No! Really?”

  “Yes, and his coat was canary yellow,” Mary continued.

  “That’s unkind to canaries,” Lily protested. “It was a perfectly vile color.”

  “You should have seen his face when he saw my knife,” Camellia put in. “I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head.”

  “Sir Royce called him his cousin, but he wasn’t like Sir Royce at all.” Lily shot a pointed glance at Camellia. “Sir Royce is a gentleman.”

  “Perhaps Sir Royce is exactly as he seems,” Mary agreed, bringing the conversation back to its original topic. “But we can’t know that for certain. It’s better not to take strangers into our confidence. If you remember, even Sir Royce agreed with that. That’s why we can’t tell him all about us.”

  “But he was kind to us,” Rose reminded her. “He brought us here, and you told me he stopped that thief and got back your case. I don’t know what we would have done if that man had gotten away with all our papers. How would we have proved who we are?”

  “Yes, he did help us. But it’s one thing to go to the aid of four young women who are clearly of no great wealth or consequence. Even a thief or cardsharp or bamboozler might do so, particularly if it is no great trouble to him. But what if such a person then found out that these four young women were actually the granddaughters of the Earl of Stewkesbury? It isn’t just ourselves we have to consider now. We must think of our grandfather as well. We can’t waltz into his life bringing cheats and scoundrels along.”

  “I suppose so,” agreed Rose with her usual amiability.

  “I don’t know why we should care about the earl so much,” Camellia retorted. “He threw his own daughter out!”

  “Yes, the way Mama described him, he sounds like a disagreeable old man,” Lily agreed.

  “I’m sure he’s stubborn and autocratic,” Mary admitted. “And it was terrible of him to cut her out of his life. But Mama was certain that he would have come to regret his decision over the years. And he is our grandfather.”

  “Besides,” Rose pointed out with the practicality that often surprised people, given her soft, almost angelic demeanor, “we are here to throw ourselves on the earl’s mercy. We have nowhere
else to go, no one else to turn to. We cannot afford to offend him.”

  “I hate that.” Camellia grimaced.

  “I hate it, too.” Mary looked at her sympathetically. “But we cannot escape the truth. It would be different if we could have stayed and run the tavern. But with Mama dead and our stepfather inheriting everything, you know we couldn’t. What else could we do? Where were we to go? You wouldn’t have wanted to stay with Cosmo, would you?”

  “No! Working for that old lecher?” Camellia’s face turned fierce. “He wouldn’t even have paid us. He’d have said we ought to be grateful for the roof over our heads and the food we ate.”

  “And no way to escape except marrying,” Lily put in. “I refuse to marry just to have a house of my own. I want to marry for love, like Mama and Papa. Remember how happy they were?”

  “We all were,” Rose agreed, her voice tinged with sadness.

  Mary nodded. Until their father had died six years ago, their lives had been good. They had never had much money. Miles Bascombe, a charming man full of dreams and plans, had tried his hand at dozens of different things in an attempt to make a living—farming, teaching, even being an itinerant artist—but none of his careers had been successful. They had moved from one place to another, living first in Maryland, then in two or three different areas of Pennsylvania. Their mother, Flora, having been raised an aristocrat, had had little idea how to cook or keep house, much less manage a budget. As a result, their lives were often chaotic, to say the least.

  But Miles and Flora had been fun-loving, kind, and terribly in love with each other. They had given their children warmth and love. If the Bascombes had not had much, at least they had not starved, and they had enjoyed life.

  Their father’s last venture had been a tavern in a small town on the road to Philadelphia. In his usual careless way, he would doubtless have run this business into the ground, but for Mary. Fourteen at the time, she had become adept at keeping the household going, and she had taken over much of the operation of the business as well, not only keeping the books but also overseeing the day-to-day running of the tavern. She could not entirely save the tavern from Miles’s mercurial and usually ill-fated business decisions, but she did manage to keep the place running in the black.

  But then her amiable father had died, and his partner in the business, Cosmo Glass, had arrived, intending to sell out. Instead, smitten by the lovely widow, he had remained, operating the tavern and wooing Flora. Their mother, grief-stricken over her beloved husband’s death and recognizing her own lack of competence in regard to business, had been persuaded to marry him. It had been the only way she could see to provide for her daughters.

  In the ensuing years, Flora had come to bitterly regret marrying Cosmo. He had proved to be an unsavory sort, always involved in some moneymaking scheme or the other. Bad-tempered and given to drinking, he blamed everyone around him for whatever went wrong. Neither a good husband nor a good provider, he had been a dark presence in their lives. Once again, the actual running of the tavern had fallen to Mary, although Cosmo had time and again asserted his authority, insisting on changing a supplier or canceling an order, always with a detrimental result. Often he took money from the till and set off to pursue one or another of his schemes; and while all the girls—and Flora—were glad to be rid of his presence, this habit left the business perennially strapped for cash.

  There had been other aspects to him that Mary despised even more, though she had been careful not to express such views to her mother. However mistaken Flora had been, she had sacrificed her own happiness for the future of her daughters, and Mary could not bear to increase her mother’s feelings of guilt. She had kept quiet about the drunken advances Cosmo made toward her and Rose, taking care of the matter herself with a sharp knee to Cosmo’s groin and a warning of what would happen should he ever try such a thing again. She had also made sure that all the girls slept in the same room and that their door was securely barred at night.

  A few months ago, Flora had fallen ill, and as the weeks went by, it had become more and more apparent that she was not long for this world. She did not mind dying, she told them, for she would be reunited with her beloved Miles. But she could not bear to think of what would happen to her daughters upon her death. They would be at the mercy of Cosmo Glass, for in marrying her, he had acquired the entire tavern. She had nothing to leave her daughters except a few small pieces of jewelry. Finally, one morning she had called her daughters to her and told them about their grandfather.

  Flora had never spoken much about her father or, indeed, about her life before she married Miles Bascombe. But now she explained that their grandfather was a powerful and influential man, the Earl of Stewkesbury. When Flora had fallen in love with Miles Bascombe, the penniless younger son of a minor nobleman, the earl had become enraged and had forbidden the marriage, telling her that if she disobeyed, he would cut her out of the family forever. Flora had defied her father and run away with Miles to America.

  “But you must go to Father now,” she had told Mary, her worried face as white as the pillow beneath her head. “Surely he has forgiven me after all this time, and you are, after all, his granddaughters. He would not turn you away.”

  “No, Mama, no.” Mary and the others had assured her that she was not going to die, but Flora had only smiled wearily, knowing as well as they that they lied out of love.

  “Yes.” Her voice was firmer than Mary had ever heard her. “You cannot stay here with him .” Her emphasis on the word carried all the venom she felt for the man she had married. “Promise me, Mary. Promise you’ll take your sisters to my father.”

  Mary had promised.

  She had hated to leave the home they had known for the last twelve years as much as her sisters did—Rose was not the only one who had shed a few tears in the middle of the night. But she had given her word to her dying mother—and she knew her mother was right. They could not remain with Cosmo.

  He had never been a good man, but after his wife’s death, he had grown worse. He took to drinking more heavily and at all hours of the day. He had turned his leering gaze on all the Bascombe girls and seized every opportunity to brush up against them, so that the sisters made sure never to be in his presence alone. He was apt to fly into a rage about the slightest thing—and sometimes about nothing at all. Once he had even swung at Camellia in a fit of temper, and it was only her quickness and his drunkenness that had kept her from being injured. She had picked up the closest thing to hand, a cast-iron skillet, and chased him from the kitchen, but it was clear that Cosmo was becoming a danger to them all.

  Worst, when he returned from one of his weeks-long trips, he had brought with him a man named Egerton Suttersby. Suttersby was pale and quiet, with the dark flat gaze of a snake. He wanted to marry Rose, an idea Cosmo thoroughly endorsed. Suttersby had courted Rose assiduously despite her clear attempts to avoid him, and Cosmo had harangued her about it at every opportunity, alternating between threats and descriptions of the wonderful world that would await Rose if she accepted his suit. The two had been so insistent that Mary had begun to fear that they might try to spirit Rose away and force her to marry the man.

  So Mary had scraped together all the money she could and sold her mother’s bits of jewelry, and as soon as Cosmo left on another of his trips, the girls had run away from Three Corners, taking their mother and father’s marriage certificate, the girls’ birth certificates, and a sealed letter from Flora to her father. Mary did not know what was in it, but she suspected that her mother had tearfully thrown herself on her strict father’s mercy, begging him to take in her children.

  It galled Mary that her mother had had to beg for anything. She wished she herself did not have to face the man and ask him to take them in. But her mother had put her in charge of the girls, and Mary was determined to carry out her mother’s wishes.

  “Approaching the earl is the only thing to do,” Mary reiterated now, casting a look around at her sisters. “You know as
well as I do that we can’t stay together any other way. What could we do to earn money? None of us would qualify to be a governess; we haven’t enough education. We could sew, perhaps, or be servants somewhere, but we’d never all be hired in the same house.”

  “Besides,” Rose put in quietly, “we promised Mama.”

  There was a moment of silence after her words, all of them feeling again the pain of Flora’s passing.

  Mary nodded. “Mama was certain that he would have come to regret his words. And he could not be so heartless as to throw out his own granddaughters.”

  “I don’t know.” Lily shook her head. “How could anyone be so heartless as to cut someone like Mama out of his life just for going against his wishes?”

  “He’s an old autocrat, obviously. But living with him would have to be an improvement over starving to death. Or being dependent on Cosmo Glass.”

  “Or having to marry that odious Egerton Suttersby,” Rose added with a shudder. She glanced over at Mary a little worriedly. “We are well away from him, don’t you think? He wouldn’t follow us, would he?”

  “No, don’t be silly. I don’t think even Mr. Suttersby would be so ardent as to cross the Atlantic in pursuit of a woman who doesn’t want him.”

  “I would have thought any man would have taken the hint that she didn’t want him weeks ago,” Camellia put in, rolling her eyes. “He must have seen her slip out whenever he entered the tavern. Sometimes I thought I must be struck down for the absolute whoppers I told him about why she was not there.”

  Lily snorted. “As if those were the worst lies you’ve told.” She turned to her oldest sister. “So what are we going to do now? How are we going to find our grandfather?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary admitted. She sighed and flopped down in a chair. “I had not expected London to be so big . I mean, I knew it was a large city, but I thought it must be something like Philadelphia. But this …”

  “That is why Sir Royce could have helped us,” Rose pointed out. “He might know where the earl lives.”