Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women. Kasey Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ wonderful!—the warm water she’d found in the pitcher.

      Although even the presence of that warm water bothered her. How had the servant who’d brought it done so without waking her? Did the servants in this household wrap their footwear with strips of blanket to muffle the sound?

      “Stop it, Julia,” she told herself as she rummaged through her bag for her brush. “You’re being fanciful. You were exhausted and you slept like the dead. Someone could have run through this room shouting that the Frenchies were coming and you wouldn’t have budged.”

      She sighed, decided she’d convinced herself, and then brushed her hair, smiling at the thought that straight-as-sticks pale hair could possibly be better than Callie’s marvelous tumble of warm golden-brown curls.

      She pulled back her hair with both hands, preparing to twist it into a bun, then stopped. If she put up her hair, Chance—dear Lord, she was now very easily thinking of the man as Chance, not Mr. Becket!—might decide to tug it all loose again.

      Was that a good thing or a bad thing? And would she go straight to hell for even asking herself that question?

      Hastily tying her hair at her nape with a green grosgrain ribbon that matched those on her three-year-old gown, Julia made up her bed and packed up the remainder of her belongings, not much caring for the idea that anyone else would see her meager wardrobe with its discreet patches and darns.

      Before heading downstairs, she then pulled back the heavy drapes on one of the large windows, her breath catching as she saw the sand-and-shingle beach not one hundred yards away and the Channel beyond, brilliant sunlight dancing on the water and not a hint of mist in sight.

      How beautiful. How wonderfully, wildly beautiful.

      She leaned closer to the glass. Yes, that was a ship out there, moving parallel to the shore. “I can almost make out the flag….”

      “It’s French. But not to worry, we’re not about to be invaded. They just like to sail back and forth out there beyond the range of our guns and make a grand show once and again.”

      Julia spun around, one hand to her chest, to see Chance Becket standing not three feet from her. “Does everyone tiptoe here?”

      Chance smiled. “Your eyes look even more green this morning. I imagine it’s the gown. Pretty. Did you rest well?”

      “I did, yes, but I will probably never sleep again, unless I find a key for the door,” she told him, doing her best to ignore the fact that Chance had forgone his city attire in favor of fawn nankeen breeches above shiny black top boots, his full-sleeved white shirt open at the neck. He wore a dark brown leather vest he’d left unbuttoned. It looked as soft as newly churned butter.

      She could see a thin strip of well-worn dark leather hanging around his neck and wondered if an alligator tooth hung at the end of it, then realized she’d been staring. Would like to continue staring. She folded her hands in front of her, then looked at those hands with some intensity.

      Chance watched as Julia bowed her head, the sunlight streaming in through the window setting off small sunbeams in her hair. No bun today, which was a large improvement, but all her glorious hair still, alas, swept tightly away from her face. His fingers itched to release that confounding ribbon. Amazing how women could drive a man nearly wild by showing themselves to be so obviously chaste.

      He’d been too long without a woman. Either that or Julia Carruthers was a witch.

      “Yes,” he said, turning his thoughts away from treacherous territory, “I know you had a visitor. I stopped to see Cassandra on my way up here. She told you Ainsley has stuck his thumb in my business?”

      Julia busied herself in taking off and folding up her paisley shawl that she’d believed she might need downstairs. Silly. It was warm in Becket Hall. Excessively warm. At least in this suddenly very small room. “I’m to be moved to a bedchamber downstairs, where I, as your very good friend, will be treated as a guest while I amuse your sisters. Yes, I know. Will you provide me with a tambourine? Trained monkeys usually have those, I believe.”

      “Such a sharp tongue. I don’t know what made either of us believe even for a moment that you had the makings of a nanny.” Chance sat down on the edge of the bed, patted the smoothed coverlet. “Didn’t you sleep in here last night?”

      She rolled her eyes. “Some people take care of their own needs. I slept in that bed and I made up that bed this morning. I’m more than capable of caring for myself. And while we’re on the subject of acceptable manners—you don’t belong here.”

      “Here being this room, sitting on this bed? Or here being Becket Hall?” He stood up. “No, don’t answer. I’ve come up here to tell you that Dickie and Johnnie, their mother and the remainder of her brood are already traveling north to my estate. They were escorted on their way after a fine but necessarily short moonlight service for the departed Georgie, who now resides in an unmarked grave on the Marsh. Harsh but unavoidable, for planting him in the local churchyard would raise too many questions. Better they all merely disappear.”

      After all, Chance thought fleetingly, that had worked well enough for the Beckets. Up until now, at least.

      “That…that was both cruel and good of you, I suppose,” Julia said, knowing how much her father would have disapproved. “Thank you for telling me.”

      Chance tugged at his earlobe. “I’ve more to tell you, although you’ve already guessed, with Cassandra’s help. Thanks to Jacko’s eavesdropping ways and, yes, my impromptu thought to divert him, Ainsley believes the two of us are…shall we say, involved. Because that misconception places you under my protection, I’ve decided to allow him to continue to think that way. You’ll be safer here at Becket Hall than you were in your mother’s arms.”

      “My mother handed me to my father when I was but three months old and ran off to France with her second cousin,” Julia told him, the memory too old to cause her any pain. “Perhaps you have another comparison?”

      She held up her hand. “No, please don’t bother. And please don’t tell me I’m being treated as a guest as a result of your very deliberate lie. I’m being kept where I can be watched, to make sure I don’t go haring off to the local Waterguard to turn you all in for a king’s reward. Feed me well, house me royally and gain my silence. I suppose nobody wanted to dig a second grave on the Marsh today?”

      “My, what a fertile imagination for a vicar’s daughter.” Chance shook his head, wondering if he could have made a worse choice of nanny for his daughter if he’d hired a Bow Street Runner for the job.

      Then again, how could he have known Courtland would turn into an idiot?

      “And what would you tell the authorities, Julia? That you helped a dastardly family of smugglers to flee the Marsh? That your host employs old seamen on his estate? Ainsley’s well-known here and well respected. Who, of the two of you, looks guilty?”

      Julia bit her bottom lip for a moment, then said, “You. You look guilty.”

      Chance threw back his head and laughed. “My God, woman, you’re right. Do you think it’s too late to ride after Dickie and his brother, turn them over to the lieutenant at Dover Castle? That may be the only way I can save myself.”

      “We’re talking in circles,” Julia said, then sighed. “I’ve nowhere else to go at the moment and СКАЧАТЬ