AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ashe summoned the waiting hackney, helped her in and put her purchases on the seat. ‘Go around the corner and wait,’ he said to the driver. ‘I’ll be about half an hour. If anyone else approaches, drive off and circle round, I do not want the lady bothered.’
No one approached, but after a few moments Buck strolled out and leaned against the door frame, his eyes fixed on the hackney. He made no effort to approach, but it felt as though his speculative gaze could penetrate the walls and see her, huddled in the furthest corner like a rabbit in a trap.
Twenty minutes later Ashe wedged the box containing his vases on the seat next to Phyllida’s porcelain and swung into the hackney. ‘All right? I had to make a pretence of going for the cash. If they’d had any idea how much I was carrying…’
‘Yes.’
Ashe studied her face and the way she gripped the strap far too tightly, even allowing for the carriage’s lurching progress over the uneven cobbles. ‘That was Buck again, wasn’t it? The man from the quayside.’
‘Yes.’ After a moment she seemed to force herself to add to the stark monosyllable. ‘You might say he’s the local lord of crime. He owns the b-brothels, runs the gaming dens, takes protection money from all the shopkeepers.’ Her voice was as tight as her fingers on the leather loop.
‘You are scared of him.’
‘Everyone with any sense is scared of Buck. Except you, apparently.’
‘Perhaps I have no sense. Why do you come into this area and risk meeting him?’
‘Because this is how I earn my living.’ The look she shot him said clearly that he did not understand. ‘I have to buy cheap and sell high, so I scour the pawnshops, talk to the sailors, buy from warehouses like this one. But if I had known Buck owned it, I wouldn’t have come,’ she admitted. ‘And thank you. I should have said that immediately. You were… You knew exactly how to treat him. I just freeze, he makes my skin crawl.’
‘He’s a bully. He won’t risk being hurt—in his body or his wallet. A man prepared to stand up to him, someone he doesn’t know, armed and unpredictable—he would back down. There is nothing you, or any woman, could have done with him in those circumstances.’
‘Yes,’ Phyllida agreed, her knuckles almost splitting the thin leather of her gloves. She was still desperately upset by the threat of violence, Ashe realised. All this calm acceptance of what he said was simply a cover.
‘Phyllida, it is all right to have been frightened, you can stop being brave about it.’
She shook her head and muttered something he did not catch, beyond one word, feeble.
‘That is nonsense,’ he said sharply and could have kicked himself when her lower lip trembled for a second before she caught it viciously between her teeth. ‘Come here.’ He turned and, before she could protest, lifted her on to his knees. He untied her dreadful bonnet and threw it on to the seat opposite. There was a tussle over her grip on the strap, t
hen she let it go and turned her face into his shoulder. ‘You can cry if you want to, I don’t mind.’
Phyllida took a deep breath, but there were no sobs. Ashe put his arms around her to hold her steady from the jolting and waited. ‘Thank you,’ she muttered.
‘Don’t mention it. I mean it, you may cry,’ he added after a moment. ‘I’m a brother, don’t forget, I have training for this.’
That provoked a muff led snort of laughter from the region of his shirt front. She was not weeping, he realised, although she seemed to find the embrace comforting.
Sara always used to hurl herself into his arms and sob noisily over the frustrations of life, the little tragedies, the general unfairness of parents. But it was a long time since his sister had cried on his shoulder. As Phyllida relaxed, her body becoming soft and yielding against his, the memory of a sisterly hug faded.
The last time he had held a woman like this it had been Reshmi in his embrace and she had been weeping in bitter, betrayed grief because he had told her he would not take her back with him as his mistress when he came to England. And they had both known that he could not marry a courtesan from his great-uncle’s court.
Phyllida stirred, settled against him, taking comfort, he supposed, from his warmth and the strength of the man who had just intervened to protect her. His reflexes, sharpened by the aggression at the warehouse, brought the scent of her, the feel of her, vividly to him. Subtle jasmine, the heat of her body sharpened by fear, the rustle of petticoats beneath the plain woollen fabric of her skirts, soft, feminine curves made to fit his hard angles and flat planes.
His body reacted predictably, hardening, the weight low in his belly, the thrill of anticipation, of the hunt. He would protect her against everything and everybody. Except himself. He wanted her and he would have her.
Chapter Eight
It would be bliss to stay here, wrapped in Ashe’s arms, sinking into the sweet illusion that everything was all right, that she was loved and cared for by this strong man who would sweep her away from all her troubles. I love you, Phyllida, he would murmur. I do not care about your birth or any secrets you keep from me. I will marry you.
Such a sweet fantasy. Just a minute more. Or perhaps not. Phyllida became aware that however gallantly Ashe had protected her at the warehouse, and however brotherly this embrace might have been at the beginning, he was not thinking brotherly thoughts now.
He was aroused. As she snuggled into his lap there was no mistaking the matter, the crude physical reality of male desire. His hands might be still, but his breathing had changed. His body was tense, as though he was holding himself in check. It would not take very much encouragement, she sensed, to shatter that control. She was not the usual unmarried lady, fenced about with rules and assumptions that a gentleman was expected to observe, and she had given him every reason to believe her unconventional and reckless.
The temptation to twist around in Ashe’s arms, to seek his mouth, to savour his heat and passion and strength, fled like mist in the sun. He would, she sensed, be a generous, careful lover, but even if she could subdue her fears about making love with him, she could not hide what had happened to her from a man with experience.
And afterwards? Had she really been thinking of risking that hard-won acceptance in society, her good name, simply for the dream of an hour in this man’s arms? Besides, Ashe might well reject her encouragement, she told herself. Just because his body reacted to a woman on his lap it did not mean that he wanted her.
The shock of the confrontation with Buck, the heart-stopping threat of violence, had disordered her emotions and her judgement.
