The Virgin's Auction (25 page)

James was upon him in an instant. This time the man dashed his head on the floor as he went down and was knocked senseless. Together they worked to tie him, James pulling the makeshift ropes mercilessly tight, binding Black Jack’s arms together behind his back and then his legs.

“The moment he wakes we must find out where he’s keeping Peter,” she told James.

“I have him. He’s safe,” he
said to her, and she looked at him with such joy she could almost feel it oozing from her pores, certain once again that he was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen in her life.

“Thank God!”

The ginger-haired Runner entered, panting slightly.

“It’s a very nest of vipers, so it is. Is this the man you were after or is he still at large?”

“This is him,” assured Melissa, drawing back and giving Black Jack a solid kick in the side. The unconscious man groaned and writhed but did not wake.

The Runner looked startled at this ferocity, though not disapproving. James rubbed her gently between the shoulder blades and she turned to him, cuddling into his welcoming arms and resting her head on his shoulder just exactly as she had
imagined. He dropped a kiss on her hair and his arms tightened convulsively around her.

“Yes. Well.
Aherm. I shall just take this miscreant downstairs, shall I,” asked the officer rhetorically, grasping the inert man by the ankles and dragging him out of the door. Melissa heard the thump thump thump of his head as he went down the steps, and hoped he woke with a terrible headache.  

She stood still, letting the tension slowly seep from her limbs, feeling the trembling start. She longed to strip his clothes off, take comfort by losing herself in the pleasures of his body. She wanted it so strongly she could almost taste the desire. But this was neither the time nor the place. He knew it too: though she could feel him becoming aroused his touch offered only comfort.

“I am glad you came, Mr Carstairs,” she murmured.

“I think we might be on a first name basis by now. I would be charmed if you would call me James.”

“And you may call me Melissa,” she replied.

“Delighted.
Shall we repair to my house? With your brother there, I can entertain you in complete propriety for a change.”

“
Thank God you found him. Unharmed?”

“Almost c
ompletely unharmed, and I think at least a little chastened. Which is all to the good, I suppose.”

“But we must go to him at once! Take me please, this instant.”

“Of course.” He took her hand and led her from the room. She left without a backward glance.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Her reunion with Peter was joyous. Once in the privacy of one of the Carstairs guest bedrooms she took a moment to give him a thundering scold about duty and obedience and both thinking and talking to his sister before acting. Not to mention the grave crime of rifling through her belongings. Then she forgave him magnanimously and explained the entire Black Jack debacle, delicately implying the money Peter had stolen from her came from the sale of father’s chattels.

He demanded a
more full and frank disclosure of their circumstances in future and she airily agreed, privately thinking she would
never
horrify him by sharing such details as the exact nature of her connection with James.

On the way from Peter’s room to her own she heard an almighty commotion in the front hall. She came cautiously to the hallway and peered down the stairs, trying to keep out of sight.

The door out to the street swung wide and a slender girl wearing an extremely fashionable riding habit stood in the centre of the foyer like a
prima donna
on the stage. Next to her a middle-aged manservant wrestled with the leashes of two dogs who were barking their heads off and leaping up and down in agitation.

“Bruno! Lawrence! Down!”
she commanded with absolute authority. The dogs instantly sat, panting and whining a little in their eagerness. She stroked their muzzles with an absent hand. “James!” she called loudly. “JAMES!”

“Hello pest. What are you doing here?” asked James with a slight frown as he emerged from his study.

“Leave me to rot in the countryside, will you? You’re an absolute beast! I won’t stand for it. Your Mr Mayhew was making the most appalling sheep’s eyes at me, you know; positively nauseating. So I had Buttercup saddled and fled home. Oh, you needn’t scowl so. I did all that was correct, bid my farewells. Wilson rode with me the whole way. What were you about, taking off with the carriage like that?”

“Oh, just some odd notion,” murmured James, rocking on his heels.

“Odd? Bizarre, belike! Why . . . Hello, who’s this?” Melissa tried to draw back but it was too late. The young woman had seen her. “I thought I was supposed to be in charge of hiring new staff. Learning responsibility and all that rot. What’s her name? Hello. Hello!”

“Actually she’s not–” started James.

But Stephanie had bustled past him and was coming up the stairs towards Melissa, ignoring him completely

“Hello. Welcome. Who are you?”

Melissa cast an uncertain look at James, wondering if he expected her to pass herself off as a staff member.  His still face gave her no clues.

“I am a – slight acquaintance of your brother’s. He has been kind enough to offer me some assistance in a troubling family matter.”

“Oh. Oh he has, has he?” asked the young woman, stopping halfway up the staircase to look speculatively between Melissa and James. “Well. I’m certainly glad he’s behaving so nicely. You don’t live in London?” Melissa shook her head wordlessly. “So delighted you could come to visit. Why don’t you come with me while I get changed out of all my dirt, and tell me all about yourself.” She mounted the remaining steps two-at-a-time, took Melissa’s unresisting hand and pulled her along the landing. “You stay there James. We don’t need you,” she commanded imperiously.

Melissa went with her, feeling a little dazed by this bossy chatterbox.

“I do beg your pardon, but I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name . . .” she said.

Oh, I am Stephanie but call me
Stephie. Everyone does. More importantly, who are you?”

“I am . . . Melissa Spencer.”

“Oh, what a pretty name. Just lovely. I may call you Melissa, may I not? Tell me how you met James. He must be very fond of you.” She drew Melissa to the pair of chairs by the window, set close together as if to welcome confidences.

“I’m not certain fond is the right word, but he’s been very kind. Though I’m sure you know how kind he can be.”
Melissa sat down, feeling this was a very dangerous situation and not sure quite what to do about it.

“He’s the strictest martinet in all creation. I go
mad
several times a week because I have to do what he says. More or less. Miss Spencer, I have had a brainstorm! Do you like balls?”

“I . . .
cannot say I have been to many. I suppose I would like them as much as the next person.”

“Oh, famous!
There is a ball tonight. We are invited, James and I. Mrs Leighton’s cotillion ball and I was thinking on my way back to London how nice it would be to go. In fact it is particularly why I came back, though we shan’t tell James that. He doesn’t like me to be too frippery. By which he means I should not obsess over dances and clothes and be sedate and go slowly and think think think and all that is most tedious.

“
I was presented last week so now I may go to balls but not alone of course, and James is not like to go if you are here. But if you go – and I don’t see why you shouldn’t, since you do not need his permission – then you can escort me and we will have such fun! Oh say you will! Please,
please
do!”

She bounced up and down in excitement at her own plan, her eyes beseeching, her mouth already smiling as if she was certain Melissa must say yes. Melissa thought this was a young woman who was used to getting her way entirely too often.

“I’m afraid I brought nothing that would be suitable to wear. Otherwise I should have enjoyed it immensely,” she murmured, speaking nothing but the truth yet feeling guilty as if there was something she should have done to remedy the situation. Though of course there as no real reason why James could not go out with his sister. It was not as if she expected him to stay home and entertain her as if she were an ordinary guest. He could do just as he pleased.

“Oh, well but that is no obstacle. I have a dozen new gowns made up for my season, and we’re not so dissimilar in height and girth. A few stitches and no one would guess it wasn’t
made for you.” She dismissed objections with a wave, as if they did not even exist.

“I do not think James would like for you to be seen in my company,” said Melissa depressively, completely certain this would be the case.

“Oh, but why ever not? You are lovely. Anyone must say so. And you are a gentleman’s daughter, are you not?”

What could she say? She could not explain to this innocent Miss exactly what her connection with
Stephie’s brother was, even if she were inclined to explain it at all; which she certainly was not. Nor would she admit to being a fallen woman simply for the sake of accuracy. “I am.”

“Well then I don’t see the least reason why you should not go with me. Unless you are not quite respectable?” she enquired naively.

Melissa hesitated, trying to decide how to respond. Anyone who knew the true events of the situation would not hesitate to condemn her out of hand. She was no fit companion for this girl. Yet as young as she seemed, this girl was her peer. Oh, richer by far, and fashionable in a way Melissa had never had the opportunity to be. Yet still, if the world had fallen out as it should, there would be no bar to them being companions. She hesitated to shut yet another door of opportunity, no matter how fitting it was she do so.

Into her pause came James, stepping through the door left open. “I do think it best if Miss Spencer does not trouble herself with your company. It will be most wearisome for her to be gadding about with you,
twitterhead. Leave her be.”

Melissa heard him phrase himself as if he did her a favour, yet was certain his sister was his true concern.

Stephie dismissed him out of hand. “Oh, she is not at all fagged. Look at her. She is in great good spirits. Aren’t you, Lissa?”

“I am,” said Melissa, staring at James with a cool challenge. Until he stepped in she had been perfectly clear on her own role as agreed between them, and happy – or at least prepared – to cling to it. Now he was here facilitating her disentanglement she was not so sure.

He met her gaze with a frown.

“See. You need not trouble to protect her from
me.,” said Stephie happily, oblivious to the undercurrents. “She shall be in alt when she sees Letty’s drawing rooms. Letty is having them made over like a circus tent. She told me all about it. Dozens of yards of silk in the most ravishing colours. I am dying to see it, and I know Lissa will love it too.”

“Mrs Leighton has not invited Miss Spencer –”

“Oh, pish for that. You needn’t mind it at all,” she said confidingly to Melissa, “for we are great good friends and she would invite you in the instant if only she knew I wanted you there.”

“I do not think Miss Spencer will be quite comfortable to mix with such company.” Melissa heard an edge developing in his tone, and refused to duck her head or skitter away subserviently.

“We are a sad bunch of rascals, it’s true, but we shall become more elegant with Lissa in our midst, I am convinced.” Stephie misunderstood him completely, assuming the questionable company was her own. “Why look at her, all pretty posture and a delicately turned ankle. If I had only sat like that my governesses would not have despaired.

“
You cannot imagine how many hours I spent strapped to a backboard,” she gurgled engagingly to Melissa, “and still I am like a wilting flower. That’s what Mr Fogherty said to me last week at Mrs Edgecombe’s soiree. A wilting flower. And when I laughed at him he stammered and said he meant drooping and I laughed again and then Mr Portman said I must be in need of some water if I was drooping, and if Mr Fogherty was going to make a nuisance of himself he could at least go get some water, and off he went. Oh, I laughed so hard I could have died.”

“Hush now
, Stephie. What I mean is I do not think Miss Spencer is quite up to scratch for a fashionable party.” James’ lips had tightened and as she looked into his cold face she felt a terrible pang of disappointment and resentment.

“She said she has not come prepared for company, and I can see it is so,” said
Stephie, eying Melissa’s plain round gown with a critical eye. Melissa was unspeakably glad she had changed from her other filthy, battered dress into this one, her very last option, crushed as it was from the journey in her portmanteau. If something should happen to this one she would be naked. “But that’s not of the least consequence. I shall be most happy to lend her anything she wants of mine.”

“That is very generous of you,
Stephie, but it simply will not answer.”

“I say it shall, and I am going to the ball, and
Lissa is going with me, and that’s the end of it,” declared Stephie, standing and giving a stamp of her foot, completely unafraid. “And you need not peer and scowl at me so, and don’t you dare do it to her either, you dragon. You cannot bully us. If you do not want to watch us in transports then you need not come at all, for I am certain I do not want you, and if you will look at Lissa like that then I’m sure she does not want you either.”

James’ mouth was set grimly. “If I may have a moment of your time, Miss Spencer,” he said, indicating the door with a sweeping gesture. Melissa got to her feet and walked past him with her head in the air while misery curled quietly inside her.

“Don’t you listen to a word he says, Lissa. I am depending on you!” Stephanie called after them as James closed the door behind him, cutting off anything else she might have said. James put his hand on Melissa’s upper arm and drew her to the other end of the hall where there was a small alcove.

“You must know of course that it is not at all the thing for you to attend this ball. My sister is quite wrongheaded to have invited you.”

“Is that so, indeed?” asked Melissa with dangerous calm. She did not know what she wanted exactly, she only knew she was angry with him, for some reason she couldn’t define. He said everything she expected him to say, everything that made perfect sense; why was it so painful?

“You
are much too sensible to think otherwise. I know I can depend on you not to expose her in the eyes of the world.”

“Expose her to what, exactly?”

“Well . . . er . . . to your . . . society. My sister is a gently reared girl –”

“As am I.”

“Oh, hardly,” he scoffed, then almost visibly repented as Melissa drew herself upright, fire kindling in her breast. “That is, I’m sure you can see the wide gulf that must needs exist between people of your type . . . much as I admire your . . . er . . . forthright approach to the world . . . it would not be appropriate for a gentlewoman to be on first name terms with you, to draw you into her society.”

“Just what sort of woman do you think I am, Mr
Carstairs? What is my
type
, exactly?”

“You are my . . . that is to say . .
.we have enjoyed –”

“What have we enjoyed? Have we enjoyed the same as your gently reared sister might be forced to
enjoy
if she found herself penniless and friendless, deeply in debt to a man like Black Jack?” She stalked towards him, fists clenched at her side, lip curled back from her teeth, rage rising within her like magma within a volcano.