Unbuttoning Miss Hardwick (8 page)

Madame’s brow furrowed. ‘You wish to become a confectioner?’

‘No,’ Chloe said slowly. ‘At least, I don’t think so. But a businesswoman—yes, I think that I might enjoy that, very much. I would like to learn, and perhaps to ask you a few questions.’

The confectioner’s face softened. ‘In that case, miss, let us get you out of that long-sleeved spencer and into an apron.’

* * *

Three hours, two cramped hands and a sore back later,
Madame
’s order was complete and at least a few of Chloe’s questions were answered.

‘Well?’ The older lady’s eyes danced as she tied up the last box and raised a brow at Chloe. ‘You wished for an experience. I think we have given you one,
non
?’ She smiled. ‘How do you feel?’

Chloe set down her pastry bag. She licked creamy filling off the back of her hand and considered. ‘I feel pleasantly tired,’ she answered. ‘And incredibly sticky,’ she continued, looking down at herself with a rueful eye. ‘And reasonably sure I could handle the running of a business—provided I found one that evoked the sort of interest and passion that baking clearly does for you.’

One of
Madame
’s assistants, silent until now, made a coarse, heavily accented remark about
Mademoiselles
who made it a practice to combine experience and passion.

Madame Hobert gaped. The other assistant gasped. Chloe giggled—and before long the lot of them had dissolved into fits of helpless laughter. Thoroughly tickled and grateful for the release, Chloe laughed until tears came to her eyes. It wasn’t until the repeated clearing of a masculine throat finally broke through the noise that any of them regained a measure of control.

‘Bon soir, monsieur,’ Madame
called. She moved toward the dark form filling the doorway to the kitchens. ‘I am so sorry, but we have closed for the day.’ She continued to chatter as she went. Still giggling, Chloe wiped flour from her chin and turned to watch.

Laughter died away. About her, the kitchen grew hot, then abruptly and inexplicably cold. Time slowed and her heartbeat with it. Yet something else within her quickened. Hidden deep, tucked somewhere behind her heart, a small and withered hope plumped suddenly with life.

Chloe straightened—and met the stormy gaze of the Marauding Marquess.

Chapter Five

F
or well over a year, Braedon recalled irritably, he’d never had to think twice about finding Hardwick. Half the time, it had seemed, he’d merely had to think of her and she’d appear, springing out of the Northumberland mists as if summoned by his want of her. The other half she’d been either in the new wing or in the workroom, right where he expected—and needed—her to be.

They were a far cry from there now, weren’t they?

Bad enough he’d had to follow her to London, but she hadn’t been safely ensconced in Cavendish Square with his sister. No—he’d had to trek through Town to find her covered in flour and playing at
patisserie
.

A Frenchwoman—the owner of the shop, he assumed—hovered before him. Her nattering might as well have been the buzzing of a gnat. For Braedon was caught, held fast by Hardwick’s great blue eyes, locked in place as her gaze met his and he wondered how the hell he had ever missed the shards of gold that turned her eyes molten and reached out to stab him straight in the heart.

Every other damned person in the world wore spectacles to see. Oh, but not Hardwick. She’d worn them to keep others from seeing her.

The Frenchwoman still talked unceasingly, trying to shoo him away. He should listen to her. Hadn’t he learned long ago to rely on himself? He’d discovered with brutal clarity that it was best not to ask or expect anything of others.

But there was the stalled construction of his wing. And the strange silence or half answers from his usual correspondents and contacts whenever he tried to raise the topic of Skanda’s Spear.

He wanted that artefact, with an urgency that had begun to burn deep in his gut.

So he waved the buzzing Frenchwoman off. ‘Not to worry,
madame
,’ he said. ‘I have not come for something sweet. I am here for Hardwick.’

That broke the spell. Hardwick blinked, frowned and looked away. Manfully, Braedon stiffened his spine and told himself that there was no need to slump in relief.

It was short-lived relief, in any case. For Hardwick was crossing the room. Her cheeks were flushed and her chin smudged. Her hair, arranged in another, softer style, had begun to tumble loosely down to frame her face.

‘Lord Marland.’ Her tone was as cool as the slow, curious look she slid over him.

He heated up anyway, from the abruptly tingling top of his head to the soles of his shining Hessians.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘I’ve come for you,’ he repeated irritably.

One of the women behind her let loose an incredulous, undeniably Gallic snort. The Frenchwoman shushed her.

‘Mairi sent me,’ he said, swallowing a curse. ‘My sister, Lady Ashton,’ he said in an aside to the shop owner. ‘She received the message that Miss Hardwick would be delayed and did not wish for her to walk home alone at this hour.’

‘How very thoughtful.’ Hardwick’s voice was muffled. She was occupied in unwinding the apron that enveloped her. ‘But would not a footman have sufficed?’ With a sigh of relief she pulled the thing over her head and dropped it on a nearby table.

Braedon experienced a sudden and fervent longing for her old attire and its marching line of buttons. Surely they had been charmed, those glossy, gold buttons. They had to have possessed some sort of supernatural power, to have for so long and so effectively hid the graceful swell of that bosom. They’d done the job a damned sight better than the gown she wore now, in any case. Though most conservatively cut, with long sleeves and a high neckline, the rich druggett clung to her ample curves from shoulder to hip and displayed the smooth, feminine curvature of her arms.

‘I volunteered,’ he said past the unexpected dryness at the back of his throat.

‘How kind you are.’ Without meeting his gaze, she turned to take her leave.

He waited at the outer door, fiercely recalling his purpose and watching as she spoke to the women. He was drumming impatient fingers when she finally quit the kitchens, pausing in the shopfront to don a spencer against the evening chill. That garment possessed a line of buttons in the front, but they were no damned use. The cat was out of the bag, so to speak, and there was no going back.

Damn it all to hell, but he wished to go back. He’d like nothing more than to lock Hardwick back behind her stark, bulky clothes, heavy spectacles and severe hairstyle and back into her position as his assistant. Everything would be so much simpler. He’d just snap his fingers and order her to quell the chaos at home and to find that spear here in Town. Instead he must stand here and pretend not to notice her unveiled charms. He was going to have to go against his every inclination and strike up a conversation with her. And somehow he was going to have to find a way to
ask
her to do what she’d already promised to deliver.

‘Shall we?’ Her goodbyes accomplished, she approached him with a tight smile.

He made his bows and they set off. The sun hung low in the west, setting the sky ablaze. Evening made its advance and all along the Strand shopkeepers either barred their doors or lit their lamps in welcome, depending on the nature of their business and the needs of their clientele. From the direction of the river crept tendrils of fog, curling languidly around their feet as if to hold them back.

Ignoring it, they pushed on in silence and Braedon grumped inwardly at yet another discomforting change. He could not count the times he’d sat silent and relaxed with Hardwick in the past, but the ease was gone and the quiet between them felt…heavy, perhaps. Fraught with the expectation of…something.

Clearly she felt it, as well. For the first time in their acquaintance, Hardwick was the one to break the silence. ‘What brings you to London, my lord?’

‘The collection does.’ He breathed a sigh of relief. There. The subject was broached. Now things could begin to progress normally.

‘I see,’ she answered.

He waited. In vain. She made no further comment or question.

Braedon was flabbergasted. At a loss. He’d felt sure that mention of the collection would set things back on to an even keel between them. The collection was what they had talked about—
all
that they had talked about.

‘I hope that everyone at Denning is well,’ she ventured at last.

‘Yes,’ he said shortly, still trying to work out what had gone wrong. ‘Keller and the workmen all send you their best.’

‘How kind of them!’ Her face lit up. ‘I hope you will do me the favour of sending my fondest regards when you return.’

He grunted. He was damned well going to return
her
to Denning and she could tell them herself.

Silence descended again and Braedon grappled with the awkward feel of it. Good God, but he’d felt more at home in the midst of fields of Frenchmen intent on skewering him. He’d moved more comfortably through the conniving machinations of Europe’s heads of state. But he’d be damned before he allowed one changeable chit to unsettle him or to distract him from his objective.

An intuitive chit, too, he suspected. He had to wonder if she suspected his motives, for as they reached the quieter streets of Mayfair she began to pick up her pace. By the time they turned off Oxford Street onto Princes Street she was nearly trotting.

She wouldn’t get away that easily. He cleared his throat.

But she’d caught sight of Ashton House ahead and put on a spurt of speed. She raced for the steps of the house like a thoroughbred heading for the finish.

‘Thank you so much for the escort, my lord.’ Breathless, she refused to meet his eye. ‘How late it has grown. I must hurry up to change. Will you be joining us for dinner, then?’ she asked, taking the first step.

‘No.’

She murmured a platitude and turned to go. Cursing under his breath, Braedon reached out and grasped her arm.

And nearly had his fingers singed off for his
temerity—by a jolt that hit him right through his glove and her sleeve. A jolt that travelled in jagged sparks from his fingertips and along his arm. It took a detour through his chest for the purpose of stealing his breath before striking straight down to set his nether regions to twitching. He snatched his hand back.

Hell and damnation, had he never touched Hardwick before? In all the time they had spent together? He couldn’t recall, but worse was the uncertainty that it might not have mattered—before.

‘Listen, Hardwick. I think perhaps you have an inkling of why I have come.’ He ignored the aftershocks coursing through him and the strain on her face and ploughed ahead. ‘I want you to come back to Denning.’ He tucked both hands behind his back and rocked back on his boot heels. ‘Come back and take up your position again. You were comfortable there, were you not? And damned good at it, too. Come back—and help me finish what we started.’

* * *

Chloe heaved a sigh and ducked her head, unable to meet Lord Marland’s expectant gaze. She shouldn’t have tried to outrun his request. She’d known it was coming, almost as soon as she’d turned to find him glowering at her over Madame Hobert’s kitchen door, but she’d been too distracted to come up with a polite response.

They’d all been distracted, she rather thought, by the startling contrast he made, looming darkly against the delicate pastel background of the shop. Good heavens, but she’d only been gone a few weeks and already she’d forgotten his utter masculinity, the sheer height and breathtaking width of him. Even dressed more formally than she was used to—in Town, she supposed, he could not get away with leaving a trail of neckcloths and waistcoats behind him—he took her breath away. A hundred other gentlemen might be wandering the streets of London this moment in buff breeches, black superfine and shining Hessians, but none of them made fashion so superfluous, or made a woman look past it to the powerfully elegant form beneath.

None of them moved in quite the same way he did, either. Not a wolf set among the sheep of the city’s populace, but something more primitive and sleek. A jungle cat, perhaps, prowling toward the West End. Walking at his side, she’d felt at once supremely protected and in undeniable peril.

He shifted and she realised that he waited, still, for her answer. And grew more impatient by the second. She recalled her wandering thoughts and looked him in the eye. ‘I thank you for the compliments, my lord, and for the offer, but I am afraid that I cannot agree to it.’ Turning, she made to enter the house.

‘Wait.’

She glanced back to find his expression fixed. ‘If the issue is how you have…changed…’ he waved a hand ‘…then of course you may continue to please yourself.’

The set of his jaw told her that pleasing herself in this case would be akin to punishing him. The realisation helped to harden her resolve.

‘I’m afraid you have it backwards, Lord Marland,’ she said quietly. ‘It is because of all the ways that I have not changed that I must decline.’

She glanced away. At all costs, she had to keep him from realising the terrible truth of that statement. For parts of her were rising in rebellion, urging her to give in, to make him happy and go back to the security of Denning and her role as Hardwick.

She shook her head. Watching him closely, she took a step up. Away. She could not go back. Would not.

He let out a huff of irritation. ‘Fine. But plague take you, Hardwick. I wish you would stop looking at me like that.’

She frowned. ‘Like what?’

‘Like I’m about to devour you. Like you are afraid of me,’ he said roughly. ‘All I am asking for is a conversation.’ He placed his fingers to his temple and pressed. ‘I don’t suppose it will kill either one of us.’

She swallowed.
Now
he wished to talk to her? The irony was painful, but she supposed it was the least she could do. ‘I suppose not.’

‘Not in there.’ He scowled at the house. ‘I don’t want Mairi sticking her nose in again.’

Chloe bit back a laugh. ‘Where, then? And when?’

‘Now.’ He cast a despairing look up and down the wide street, but brightened as a lady opened the gate from within the circular garden in the middle of the square.

‘Just a moment,’ he called to her as she struggled with her easel and canvas. ‘Allow me to assist you.’ He left Chloe and rushed to hold the gate wide and help the lady balance her load. Brushing off her thanks, he cast a cheeky grin in Chloe’s direction and swept a bow to indicate she join him.

She went and, nodding her head, took the arm he offered.

‘Come along, deeper in,’ he urged. ‘I don’t want my sister catching sight of us and interfering.’ He cast a disparaging eye upon her new bonnet. ‘And she’ll know those feathers and furbelows at once.’

Chloe tugged her arm away and glanced around. The evening light was fading and shadows deepened the gloom here beneath the trees. ‘I hope you are not bringing me in here merely to malign my millinery choices, my lord.’

‘What? Lord, no.’ He gave her hat another dubious glance. ‘As far as I’m concerned you are free to don breeches and boots and masquerade as a Bond Street Beau, should you wish.’

‘Thank you, no. I don’t wish.’ She’d had enough of masquerades, though she didn’t know how to make him understand it.

‘Ah, this should do.’ They’d reached the centre and the equestrian statue of the Duke of Cumberland. Several stone steps surrounded the plinth. Lord Marland stood on the first one and tucked his chin into his chest. Chloe watched, fascinated, as he began to squirm. A minute of struggle and a few gratifying flexes of his broad chest and he had wiggled out of his coat, unaided. ‘For you,’ he said, flourishing the garment and spreading it over the middle step. ‘Please, have a seat.’

His scent drifted over her as he repeated his earlier sweeping gesture of invitation. They struck her hard, those hints of bay and citrus and something vaguely alcoholic. She shivered even as his grin lit up the dusky clearing.

‘Good God, but it feels good to be rid of that thing.’

She laughed at his fervent tone and sat. Her heart pounded, sounding loud in her ears as she watched him settle next to her. Was this not exactly what she’d wished for a thousand times, during those months at Denning? The chance to talk—to
really
talk to Lord Marland?