The Songbird's Seduction (30 page)

He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, bending her backward over his forearm, his mouth slanting urgently over hers. He cradled the back of her head, his fingers spearing through the thick, glossy hair. God, she tasted good. She smelled, she felt, she was . . . Impossible to find words while a tidal surge of sensation and desire swept through him.

Long, long minutes later he became dimly aware of some ill-mannered idiot poking his back . . . Damn! Here he was, once more putting on a show for the locals. He broke off the kiss and snapped upright, carrying her with him. What must she think?

She didn’t seem to think anything.

She wobbled on her feet, dazed, her eyes soft and unfocused. He steadied her with a hand on her elbow. She stared down at his hand with an unreadable expression. Any second now she would slap his face in the time-honored tradition of a lady insulted. He richly deserved it.

But instead she looked up at him and gave him a barmy sort of half smile.

Silly, silly, unwise girl. The rabbit hole he’d entered five days ago turned into a bottomless abyss, one from which there was no return.

“Here now, lad,” a hearty English voice said from his side. “It’s still daylight, for the love of Mike!”

A pot-bellied, redheaded bantam of a man with bright blue eyes grabbed his hand and shook it violently. “Bless you, lad. You just won me a tidy sum, a tidy sum indeed! I knew you were a contender, the minute I saw you lift your fists. ‘There’s a stylist, Ned,’ I said to meself. I recognized it, you see, counta I went a few rounds on the canvas meself when I was a youngster.

“So I hightails it over to where the boys are takin’ odds and hands over me whole month’s earnings. Eighteen to one.
Eighteen to one!
” He broke off in delighted laughter. “Come along! You and your sweetheart.”

“Come along where?” Archie asked, feeling stupid.

“To me pub, lad! The Wayfarer.”

“You have a pub?”

“More of an inn. Lost me senses over a French girl and followed her here. She inveigled me into marrying her and working on her dad’s farm. Turns out I’m not so good at farming. Luckily, I am good at running an inn. But I missed the taste of good ale so much I turned the bar into a proper pub where a man can enjoy a pint. And you’ll be my guests there for the night.”

He caught Archie around the shoulders with one arm and Lucy with the other. Then, shouting, “
Suivez-moi, mes amis!”
to the spectators who still milled about in disappointment, thus instantly
heartening their mood, he shepherded Archie and Lucy off the field, trailed by a large and growing crowd.

Merrymakers and fairgoers, regulars and first-timers, witnesses to the fight and those who had just heard rumors that Ned Cleary was standing drinks to anyone who could make their way through the tight press of bodies in his bar to collect, filled the Wayfarer Inn, spilling out the wide-flung doors and into the street. Ned, flush in more ways than one, sent his barmaids to buy “whatever’s left that looks good to eat” from the booths around the field before they closed down. When they returned he set it all out as a free feast.

The festival air in the Wayfarer grew and expanded as people drank and ate, laughed, and enjoyed themselves. Someone called for a fiddler and soon couples old and young, and a few who were one of each, were stomping the floorboards. The women raised their skirts; the men, a cloud of dust. Tall tales, squeals of laughter, and congratulations passed freely. Within seconds of Archie’s glass being emptied, someone refilled it with a clap on the back or a nod of his head. More often than not it was his erstwhile opponent, Denis, who turned out to be a very pleasant baker with a philosophical bent.

“I only won for so many years because I am strong,” he confided reflectively from across the table they shared. “The strongest. I have no idea how to fight. What sort of person goes about trying to learn how to pummel another man more efficiently? Not that I begrudge you the knowledge, monsieur,” he hurriedly added. “We have all heard of stories about your English boarding schools. Had I gone there, I, too, would have learned the art of pugilism. But here? In France? Phff.”

“Ish true,” Ned agreed stoically, if a little blearily. “Only Englishmen and Americans have schools to teach fisticuffs.”

Archie, his thoughts having grown a little muzzy and filled with bonhomie, smiled sympathetically.

“
But
”—the giant wagged his finger playfully under Archie’s nose—“had we been involved in a weight-lifting competition, my friend,
then
I would have won the beautiful girl’s reward.” His eyes danced to where Lucy perched on the end of the bar, her legs swinging merrily. And lovely legs they were.

All three men fell into a silent, cow-eyed appreciation that lasted until Lucy felt their scrutiny and turned her attention their way. She’d been laughing at something someone said and her lips were parted in a broad grin, her eyes sparkling, her skin pink with warmth and ale.

“No, you wouldna,” Archie said, his eyes never leaving Lucy’s face. She tipped her head inquiringly, a mocking lift to her brow. She knew they’d been imbibing. And when he couldn’t think how to respond, his thought processes having been temporarily disabled by her beauty, his drunkenness, and a multitude of other factors for which he couldn’t account, she gave him a saucy wink and went back to listening to the old geezer filling her ear from the bar stool at her side.

“Ah. So it’s like that, is it?” Denis said knowingly.

“Yes. Like that.” He didn’t even try to deny it. But neither did he explore too closely what “like that” meant.

He’d never met anyone like Lucy. He wouldn’t ever meet anyone like her again. She filled his mind, crowding out his every resolve to act sensibly. It was like being drawn to the edge of a waterfall. No matter how dangerous you knew it was, you couldn’t keep from looking over the edge.

As a lad, he’d always had a hard time “not looking over.” He’d imagined he’d gotten over that tendency.

It appeared he hadn’t.

“Then, because I am Frenchman and you are only a poor Englishman but a damned fine boxer, then perhaps I will not try to steal her from you,” Denis stated magnanimously. He quaffed down the rest of his beer. “She made eyes at me, you know.”

Archie burst into laughter. “Yeah, in order
to save my life.
”

As flirtatious as Lucy was, and she was flirtatious, he didn’t for a minute believe she was interested in Denis. Or any other man . . . The thought gave rise to another notion—one not yet fully realized—that clamored on the edges of his consciousness, shouting to be heard. Something important, very important, that he should stop to consider.

But then Denis, after trying unsuccessfully to look offended, joined in his laughter, clapping him on the back.

Archie peered around at the revelers, the dancers, the fiddler, the piper, and the barmaids swatting at hands. Farmers swayed in unison to some old drinking song, children skittered in and out amongst the tables, dogs barked, and Lucy, always Lucy, now sang some naughty music hall ditty, and he realized he was having the time of his life.

“This is fun,” he said, apropos of nothing.

Denis nodded.

“Ya know, I’m a profeshor.”

“I should say so,” Ned agreed. “Professor of the Right Uppercut.”

“Well, that, too,” Archie admitted modestly, “but I’m also an anthra . . .” No, that wasn’t the word. His mouth was having a hard time forming what his brain wanted it to. “I’m an anthree . . . I study culture. I’m a trained observer.

“ ’N one of the first things an anther . . . an antro . . . a guy who studies cultures learns is never to become involved with your subjects. Leads to all sorts of meshy, unscientific stuff. Right?”

His audience regarded him with gratifying—or was that stupefied?—attention.

“Mustn’t interact, ya know? So, I haven’t. Always been careful to stay detached. Objective. Like a well-mannered audience member. Observin’, not participatin’,” he finished sadly.

“Sounds deadly dull,” Ned opined.

“It is!” Archie cried in agreement then immediately reversed himself. “I mean, no. No. It’s fascinating. But”—he leaned across the table and motioned his two companions closer—“observin’ isn’t
fun
.”

He sat back as though he’d just delivered the answer to one of life’s crowning mysteries. “
This
”—he slapped his palm on the table—“is fun.”

“Hear, hear!” Ned raised his tankard in the air.

“Tonight . . .” Archie started to say and then thought a second and made an amendment, “today,” he thought again, “well, ever since I jumped from the wharf onto that ferry—”

“You jumped onto a ferry boat?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“To get to her.” He nodded toward Lucy.

“Oh.” Both men nodded as though this made perfect sense.

“Anyway, ever since I jumped on that ferry and straight into the maw of madness,” he paused, rather liking the poetical sound of the phrase, enough so that he repeated it, “straight into the maw of madness, I’ve been smack-dab in the center of things.

“You know, Lucy’s right.” He looked from Ned to Denis. “She is. You can’t understand something unless you live it. Or a person.”

“You can live a person?” Denis asked doubtfully.

Archie nodded owlishly. “Inhibit, I mean,
inhabit
their skin. Walk a mile in their shoes. That sorta thing.”

“But of course,” Denis said.

“Your shoes,” Archie said, “are fun.”

“The night is still young, my friend. There is much more fun to be had.”

“Oh, I think he’s had plenty of fun for one evening.”

At the sound of Lucy’s smoothly amused voice, Archie looked up, blinking as the room seemed to swim around him.

“Lucy!” he cried rapturously.

“That’s my name,” she said, taking his hands and hauling back on them so that he was forced to stand. “Come on, Champ.”

“Are we going somewhere?”

“Uhm-hm,” she said.

“Where?”

“To bed.”

Lucy hadn’t intended to do anything more than guide Archie to his room, topple him onto his bed, pull off his boots, and leave him in a beer-induced slumber. Though because they’d spoken in French, and fairly slurred French at that, she hadn’t been able decipher what the ex-champion, the Irishman, and Archie were talking about. But from the overly friendly exclamations, the pledges of lifelong friendship, manly slaps on the back, and slow-blinking affability, she had a pretty good handle on one thing: Archie was blotto.

But apparently not as blotto as she’d thought.

Once she maneuvered him through the door, he wheeled around to face her, grinning with a sort of boyish disingenuousness that she couldn’t help but find appealing.

“That was fun.”

“It was,” she agreed, manhandling him around again so she could start peeling off his jacket. He looked over his shoulder at her. He smelled of ale and sweat and, well, Archie, and it shouldn’t have appealed to her nearly as much as it did.

“
You’re
fun,” he said as though he’d just awarded her the highest of compliments.

“Why, thank you. I think.”

He frowned. “Whaddaya mean ‘You think?’ ”

“Well, in certain circles, a ‘fun girl’ is the same as a ‘fast girl.’ I hope you don’t think I’m fast?” She gave him her best big, reproachful doe-eyes. She didn’t really think he’d buy it—Archie had unerring sense of when she was putting him on—even though those doe-eyes had sold a lot of tickets to a lot of shows.

But she had reckoned without taking into consideration how much he’d drunk. An expression of such shocked contrition filled his handsome face that she couldn’t bear to play the scene out. “Maybe just a trifle racy,” she amended.

“I don’t think you’re racy,” he said earnestly.

She’d finally wrestled his jacket off and propelled him toward the bed. Once there, she carefully positioned him facing her with the backs of his knees against the mattress. Then, with an impish grin, she set her hands against his chest. “Oh,” she breathed, “but I am,” and pushed.

Nothing happened.

He stared down at the hands splayed over his very hard, very masculine chest. She put a bit more weight into the endeavor. Nothing. Except now a loopy grin had appeared on his face, a grin that, were it just a tad less loopy, would have been brutally sexy. He covered her hands with his own, flattening her palms hard against his chest. His smile crooked up just a little more at the corners, making her breathlessly reassesses her former opinion. Goofy smile or no goofy smile, he was incredibly sexy.