Chapter 1 #2
“Oh, yes. Indeed, I should like that, my lord. That is ... if you are sure you want me to?” She dithered on the spot, her thin fingers clutching at her reticule and looking anxious lest he’d changed his mind.
“I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t want your company, Miss Sparrow,” he replied with a gentle smile, and he watched with amusement as she settled herself on the very edge of the bench.
She was much like a little brown sparrow, he thought, his mouth twitching slightly at the idea.
She was so very skittish, as though the slightest disturbance would make her fly away in terror, and yet there was intelligence and humour in those deep brown eyes.
“What did you mean before?” she asked, looking up at him.
“When you said you were feeling sorry for yourself? Is it because you are hurt?” She gestured to the sling he wore, and he hesitated, wondering what to tell her.
The story put about was that he’d suffered a fencing injury.
He was well known to be an enthusiast, and whilst it rankled that people should think someone had gotten the better of him, it was obviously best that the truth remained hidden.
He nodded. “Yes, in part,” he replied, wondering if he could trust her. He felt the sudden need to unburden himself. To tell someone he’d been a damned fool, but he was sorry for it. That he wanted to be better than that. “The story ... is that I was injured whilst fencing.”
“Oh no!” she exclaimed, tutting with irritation.
He laughed, surprised by her reaction. “No?” he repeated.
“Oh, dear me no,” she said again, shaking her head and looking really rather annoyed. “You’re far too clever with a blade for such a slip. Who on earth is supposed to have done it? No, no. I would never have believed such a tale even if you had stuck to it.”
He gaped at her, astonished. “But ... How on earth ...?” It was true he had a reputation with a blade, and those involved in the sport would know it. But that a lady should know not simply that he fenced ...
She opened her mouth and then closed it suddenly, a guarded look in her eyes.
“Oh, come now. I shan’t say a word, and I’m too curious to leave it at that, I can tell you!” he said with a laugh.
He watched, intrigued by the battle going on behind those frightened eyes. He wished he knew what it was that made her so very afraid.
“Well, it was perhaps twelve years ago,” she admitted. “I was just a little girl and out with my cousin. He had to meet someone at Angelo’s, some business connection. He said it would only take a moment and that I was to sit quietly on the chair in the foyer and wait for him.”
“But you didn’t, I collect?” Beau asked, watching her.
She shook her head and glanced up at him, a shy smile in her eyes.
“There was a great deal of noise and I was curious, so I went to see. It was a fencing match. You were fighting ...” she frowned as she tried to remember, her thin face turned away from him.
“Oh, Lord Reece!” she exclaimed and then said with relish, “It was the most spectacular thing I’d ever seen! You were truly magnificent.”
She sighed and looked up at him and then blushed with fury as she apparently recalled her words and the manner with which she’d said them.
“I did give him a trouncing,” Beau replied, unable to stop himself smiling at her.
“Yes,” she replied, her eyes alight. “You certainly did. You made him look like an amateur. And since then, well sometimes my cousin has business to attend to and leaves myself and Mrs Goodly to wait in the foyer, and sometimes the door is a little open and ... I get lucky.”
He chuckled, imagining her peeking round the door to watch the men fighting.
What a funny little creature she was. He wondered how old she was.
At first sight he had thought her much older, perhaps in her thirties.
But now he realised that was just the outmoded dress and the dreadfully severe hairstyle and glasses.
At closer inspection he doubted she was much more than twenty.
She said she’d seen the match with Reece as a child and he’d been eighteen the year he’d beaten the reigning champion, Lord Reece.
“So, it wasn’t a fencing accident then?” she asked, and he saw a worried frown in her eyes. “It ... it wasn’t ... a duel, was it?”
He shook his head and snorted. “No. Not a duel. At least, only one of us was armed.”
She gasped in shock and clutched at his wrist. “But who? Who did this to you?” He frowned at her, taken aback by her concern. She withdrew her hand from his arm immediately. “I beg your pardon, my lord,” she said, staring at her feet and looking mortified.
“Please don’t be foolish. I am most grateful for your concern. But I am afraid I don’t deserve your pity. I got off lightly in truth. I deserved what was coming to me and if my fate had been blessed with a better shot, I would have undoubtedly been well served.”
“I don’t believe that.” She sounded quite mutinous and he looked at her with growing affection.
The strange little drab had obviously formed a tendre for him.
It was by no means the first time Beau had been afflicted with females fancying themselves in love with him, believing they knew him simply because they’d fallen for his beautiful face.
Usually he extricated himself from their presence with all haste, but he found the girl amused him.
Perhaps it was merely because his ego was bruised.
“Why were you shot?”
He looked down at her, seeing no judgement in her eyes. He hesitated, finding he wanted to tell her.
“Can I trust you, Miss Sparrow?” he asked, his voice quiet.
With more boldness than he would have credited her for, she placed her hand on his for a moment.
“Anything you tell me I would take to my grave, my lord,” she said, with the utmost sincerity.
Then, a little glimmer of humour warmed her eyes and she added.
“Besides, who on earth would I tell? No one talks to me!”
She gave him a little mischievous smile which was terribly endearing.
But that was more because she didn’t hear the appalling loneliness behind the words than because she’d made a joke.
Beau found he couldn’t smile with her, too full of pity for her predicament.
What a life for a single female with neither fortune nor beauty.
Cast upon the charity of her relatives to be used or abused as those individuals deemed fit.
And Beau felt very strongly that someone was abusing Miss Sparrow.
“Then the world is a very cruel and foolish place, Miss Sparrow. For I can think of no one I would rather speak with.”
It was prettily said, and he was pleased with the glow of pleasure that lit her eyes at his words.
More than that, he realised it was true.
He was surrounded by acquaintances, he had replaced Beau Brummel as the most fashionable man of the ton, and yet .
.. he was utterly alone. Sebastian had been his closest, and his only true friend.
It would have been him he’d run to if he was in trouble, but now that friendship was over. And it was entirely Beau’s fault.
He gave a sigh and sat back on the bench, wincing as his shoulder pained him at the movement. “The truth is I was shot by my best friend because I abducted his fiancée. I planned to take her to Gretna Green and force her to marry me.”
He looked back at her, expecting to see condemnation and disgust in those frightened eyes, but instead she nodded, her expression placid.
“Yes, I thought perhaps that was it,” she mused, apparently unperturbed. “Miss Georgiana Dalton was an heiress of course and you’re up to your neck in the river tick and desperately need funds, so I suppose it was the only thing you could do.”
He stared at her, blinking as she gasped and clapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh, curse my wretched tongue. I never could keep it between my teeth. I do beg your pardon!” she said, looking mortified.
Beau laughed, quite perplexed by this funny young woman. At one moment she was stuttering and looked as though she was terrified he would strike her, and at the next she said something perfectly outrageous.
“Not at all, Miss Sparrow. You have it in a nutshell but ...” He turned a little and stared at her, fixing her with his undivided attention.
It was a look that was guaranteed to make most women tell him anything he liked, providing he kissed them in payment.
“But why aren’t you disgusted with me, Miss Sparrow?
Because I can see that you aren’t. You ought to be, you know.
I’m disgusted by me! So, it is most unnatural that you . .. are not.”
She flushed a little again but didn’t seem unduly agitated by his observation. Instead she just shrugged, the movement highlighting her bony shoulders. Beau wondered when she last ate.
“I think perhaps you’re right,” she said, a slight frown in her eyes.
“I never seem to do or say the things I ought to. And of course, I see that you simply cannot go around abducting unwilling females. Not that it would be an abduction of course if they were willing ...” she added with a thoughtful expression.
“And you should never have done it of course, I know that but ...” She paused, apparently thinking it over.
“But?” he prompted, feeling absurdly entertained by her words and the serious little frown that crinkled her brow.
“But I do see why you felt you must,” she said, shaking her head and looking up at him with such sorrow in her eyes he was quite touched. “Are ... Are things so very bad?”
He smiled at her, not wanting her to worry on his account. He had a feeling she had troubles enough of her own. “Oh, not so very bad. After all, if it’s good enough for Brummel, I dare say it’s good enough for me.”
“France!” she exclaimed, her face the picture of horror. “Oh no! Don’t say you’re leaving?”
He was at a loss for a reply for a moment, too taken aback by the real disappointment in her eyes. Well at least someone would miss him, he thought with a wry smile.
“Sadly, yes. Miss Sparrow. Circumstances are such that ... well France should prove a little more comfortable than debtor’s prison at all accounts. But I promise you I’ll be back. I shall come about, sooner or later.”
“Oh.”
He watched as she looked away from him, blinking rapidly.
“Please don’t upset yourself on my account, Miss Sparrow. I will be quite all right, I promise you.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t on your account at all,” she said, disconcerting him once again. “It’s on my own.”
“Oh?” he replied, wondering what on earth she would say next. She looked back at him and laughed, apparently amused by the expression on his face. It was a surprisingly deep sound from such a tiny frame, and he couldn’t help but smile in response.
“I’ve done it again haven’t I?” she said with a rueful expression. “My dreadful tongue. Only ... well I have been following your exploits for such a long time and now to meet you, and speak with you ... Oh, Lord Beaumont, England will be such a very dull place without you in it. Indeed, it will.”
He stared at the woman in front of him. She was everything that was drab and brown and unremarkable, and yet she had such spirit once she had cast away her fears.
“Well now, that will never do,” he said, his voice soft.
He wondered what on earth he was doing but .
.. if he could at least make one person happy, perhaps it would go some small way towards wiping his slate clean.
“I cannot have you bored to tears without my scandalous affairs to entertain you, now can I? What kind of gentleman would that make me?”
“My lord?” she replied, looking perplexed.
“Miss Sparrow, would you allow me to write to you, and perhaps do me the honour of writing in return. I should be glad to know of everything that is happening over here, and I fear there is no one else who will trouble to do so.”
He was gratified by the look in her eyes. “The honour would be mine entirely, my lord,” she said, sounding quite breathless. “I-I would be delighted to, if ... If you are sure it is what you would like?”
“I promise you it is,” Beau replied, finding he was perfectly sincere. “And I know that ... perhaps I shouldn’t ask you. In fact, I know I ought not to. Unmarried as you are and writing to me of all people ...”
“Please think nothing of it!” she said in a rush, shaking her head, obviously desperate to reassure him.
“I am quite able to post the letters with no one any the wiser and ... And if you would perhaps address the letters to Mrs Goodly? She has an elderly aunt who lives close by, you could send the letters to her address and no one would be any the wiser.”
She scrabbled in her reticule and withdrew a small notebook and pencil, jotting the address down for him.
Beau grinned at her, shaking his head. “Miss Sparrow, I feel your talents have been quite wasted. You should have worked for Wellington during the war. You have a mind that bends easily to intrigue and I feel you would have made the most accomplished spy.”
She gave that deep little chuckle again as she handed him the address and he couldn’t help but grin in return.
“Well, sadly I must leave you now. I’m so sorry that we shan’t meet again for a while. But I do look forward to hearing from you soon.”
He got to his feet and held out his hand to her.
“Are you sure?” she said, her face suddenly grave as she took his hand and held it between hers. They were tiny and cold against his larger, warmer hand. “You’re sure you’re ... not just being kind to me?”
“I can assure you I am being entirely selfish,” he said, squeezing her fingers a little before he released her hand. “You see, I am relying on you to entertain me, for my French is appalling and I have no idea how I shall go on.”
She cast him a mischievous look from under her eyelashes. “Oh, come, my lord. You don’t need words to find entertainment. I’m quite sure of that!”
Startled once more into giving a bark of outraged laughter, Beau shook his head.
“Watch that tongue of yours unless you’re writing to me, Miss Sparrow. I feel it will lead you into trouble!”