“Oh, aye,” Josiah drawled. “Th’ question is, can me an’ Charlie ’ere? Spent th’ night as wet as if we were at th’ bottom o’ th’ ocean if’n ye don’t remember, Matt.”
“I remember,” Matthew replied, slapping the older man on the shoulder. “Figured you would’ve felt right at home after so many years at sea.”
Josiah wheezed a laugh while Charlie merely groaned. “Thought we might stop ’ere, my…er, guv?”
Matthew shook his head, looking at the younger man. “We’re letting off our passenger and then I think it best we try to make the next town at least. We’ll make an early day of it, stop well before dark so both you and the horses can rest. Besides, I’m not eager to spend another night risking highway robbery.”
“Be a mighty sad ’ighwayman t’ try’n stop this carriage,” Josiah scoffed.
Matthew ignored him to walk back to the carriage.
He opened the door to find Her Highness still seated where he’d left her, except now Tommy was curled up on her lap while she stroked the mongoose under the chin.
He raised his eyebrows. Tommy didn’t usually let anyone touch him.
“Is there a mail coach?” she asked.
That brought his gaze up to hers. She looked anxious and somehow young under all that grime. There was that twinge at the back of his neck again.
He ignored it. “Yes. It’ll arrive this afternoon.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Oh, good.”
“Do you have the price of a ticket?” he asked, and then mentally kicked himself. Was he trying to put his pockets to let for her?
“Yes,” she said, and when he looked at her incredulously—he couldn’t figure where she might’ve stowed a purse—she patted her knee. A garter, perhaps? “Truly.”
She stroked Tommy one last time and then gently shoved him off her lap and rose.
Matthew backed away from the door to allow her to descend, then reached back inside the carriage for her tattered cloak.
When he turned back she was standing in the inn’s muddy yard, blinking in the sunlight. She looked bedraggled, small, and very uncertain.
Well, looks could be deceiving, couldn’t they?
Nevertheless he swept the cloak over her shoulders with more tenderness then he’d first intended, pulling it closed at her throat. He hesitated a moment and then tugged the hood up over her muddy hair, then bent to peer at her wide eyes. “Keep that up, understand, Princess? Best not let anyone see how…” Young…vulnerable…female…you are. He scowled and pulled his hands away. “Just keep it up.”
“I…” She seemed to look back at him helplessly for a moment and then her proud little chin tilted up. “Yes, of course. Thank you, Mr. Mortimer. For everything.”
She turned and marched into the inn.
She didn’t need him. She’d made it thus far on her own. She didn’t need him or anyone else.
Matthew climbed into the carriage and banged on the roof, refusing to look out the window as they pulled away. He crossed his arms and slouched in the seat and blamed his foul mood on the lack of sleep from the night before. Tommy took one look at him and leaped to the other side of the carriage, making a nest for himself in the blankets on the seat there.
They bumped along for fifteen minutes or so at a snail’s pace, the hills rolling by, and his neck nearly crawled with foreboding. Which was stupid. She was a beggar. Probably a whore as well. Most likely had been deceiving and using men for the greater part of her life. He’d known her less than a day. It was none of his concern, god-bloody-damn it.
All he could think of was that stubborn little chin, tilted so proudly as she’d marched into the inn like a martyr going off to see the lions.
Oh, sod it.
Matthew leaped to his feet and pounded on the carriage roof. “Turn the bloody carriage around!”
That took fifteen minutes and it was another fifteen or more before the inn came back into sight, and by that time Matthew’s entire back was crawling. He didn’t even bother trying to ignore it now.
He jumped from the carriage before it had stopped and ran inside the inn. “Where’s the beggar maid?”
The innkeeper, a balding man with a great sagging paunch, pointed, wide-eyed at Matthew’s growl. “Told her to stay in the stables until the coach. She was that filthy.”
Matthew didn’t bother remonstrating with the man for being so uncharitable, he just turned and strode in that direction.
The stables were a dark low building hardly befitting of the word. At first, as his eyes adjusted to the light, Matthew thought the building was deserted. No one seemed to be around save the horses, which in and of itself was a bit odd—where were the stablemen? Then he heard a sound, like a grunt.
It came from the last stall.
He ran to it and peered inside.
There were three men, crouched like wolves around a fresh kill, and in their center was Her Highness with one of their hands clamped over her mouth. Her eyes looked at him, wide and frightened.
Matthew saw red.
Chapter Four
Well, there was naught to do but let the stranger in. He was offered a bath and suitable clothing and when John came down for dinner it wasn’t only Princess Peony who noticed his proud bearing and noble features.…
—From The Prince and the Parsnip
* * *
Hippolyta looked up into Mr. Mortimer’s green eyes, gleaming in the dank, dark stables, and thought, Oh, thank God.
He loomed, big and angry, towering over the three men who’d dragged her into this stinking stall, and his face was twisted into a rictus of rage.
He looked murderous.
And she was glad.
One of the men started to say something, half-standing, but Mr. Mortimer took him by the front of his jacket and shook him as a bulldog would a rat. The man’s head flopped back and forth helplessly before Mr. Mortimer simply threw him aside. The next man he cuffed on the side of the head, throwing him into the stall door and splitting his ear. And the third—the one still holding his hand over Hippolyta’s mouth, perhaps too stunned to move—he punched full in the face with his great fist. The man’s head snapped back and he fell insensate to the straw.
Hippolyta gasped, looking up at her savior, opening her mouth.
“Don’t,” he growled, and leaned down to pick her up. His expression hadn’t changed at all since he’d appeared so suddenly at the stall opening. He still looked enraged—half-maddened with it, in fact. “Don’t say anything.”
His arms were tight around her, holding her close to his hard body as he strode from the wretched little stables into the bright daylight of the inn yard.
She blinked, squinting at the change of light, and realized that she’d begun to shake, which was just silly, really, because the men in the stables hadn’t…they hadn’t…
Mr. Mortimer’s arms tensed as he climbed into the carriage. He sat with her on his lap, disentangling the arm that held her legs to shut the door.
“Go!”
The carriage pulled away from the inn.
Hippolyta lay with her cheek against the wool of his waistcoat, listening to his rough breathing. He’d wrapped his arms around her, cradling her as if she were a child. She ought to get up, at least cross to the other side of the carriage and sit there. Her current position was quite improper.
But she found she couldn’t move—or perhaps she just didn’t want to. And also she was still shaking.
Mr. Mortimer bent to the side and rummaged in his sack, bringing forth the bottle of small beer. He unstoppered it and held it to her mouth. “Here.”
She sipped. “Th…thank you.”
He took a swig himself before stopping the bottle back up and replacing it in the bag.
Her tremors were lessening.
“Did they hurt you?” His voice was abrupt.
“I…” A great shudder racked her. “No. They hadn’t the time. You came before they could.”
She hadn’t realized it
, but he must’ve been coiled taut, his muscles in a state of tension, for she felt him relax at her words.
“I went in the inn as you told me, but the innkeeper said I was too…”—she bit her lip, tears of humiliation stinging her eyes—“filthy to stay inside. He insisted I go wait in the stables for the mail coach. He wouldn’t even let me rent a bath—I don’t think he thought I had the money to pay for one.”
She inhaled shakily and felt one of his big hands brush against her shoulder comfortingly.
“I went to the stables and those…those men were inside. I tried to avoid them, truly I did.” She clenched her fists together, feeling the helpless anger, the terror, the shame of having let herself be caught. “I…I should’ve never gone inside. I know that. If I’d stayed in the yard…or…or…” But her body was racked now, seized with a sob, squeezing at her chest, choking off words and thoughts.
Hot tears overflowed her eyes, spilling down her cheeks as she gasped for breath. Stupid. So stupid!
“Hush,” Mr. Mortimer breathed over her, his palm against her cheek. “Hush now and listen: this is not your fault, do you hear? I should not have left you there by yourself. If anyone is to blame it is I. I’ll not leave you again. You can ride with me for the rest of the way to London. No one will harm you while you ride with me. I promise.”
She sobbed again at that, not ladylike weeping, but deep, ugly convulsions, her mouth gaping with her grief and the lingering aftereffects of her fear.
He held her as she shook and shuddered against his big strong body and for the first time in over a week she felt safe.
That afternoon Matthew watched his little beggar maid as she slept in his arms. Her eyes were red and swollen from weeping, her hair tangled and matted, her face grimy. Oh, and she still stank.
He glanced away, staring out the carriage window. He couldn’t forget the sight of her, frightened and defenseless, at the mercy of those jackals. That those vermin would seek to crush her proud spirit, to stomp upon her quick wit and the dash she pulled around her as surely as her tattered cloak, made something inside him snarl in denial. This shouldn’t be. No one should be able to hurt her. He damned himself for a fool for ignoring his own warning senses and leaving her alone at that sodding inn in the first place.
He carefully thumbed a lock of her hair off her cheek and vowed to himself that he’d guard and protect her until they arrived in London.
Across the carriage Tommy stirred from his nest of blankets, poking a pointed little nose out to sniff the air.
They’d left the inn hours before and no doubt he was hungry. Without disturbing his beggar maid, Matthew reached into the sack and found a bit of chicken.
The mongoose wriggled his way free from the blankets and darted across the carriage to snatch the offering from Matthew’s fingers.
The small movement must’ve jostled her, for the woman in his arms stirred. He watched as she blinked, large brown eyes opening in confusion and a trace of fear.
“It’s all right,” he said at once. “You’re in my carriage and”—he glanced out the window at thatched cottages—“we seem to’ve come to a village.”
“Oh,” she said drowsily. “Will we stop?”
“If there’s an inn we certainly will, or Josiah might very well skin me alive.”
She straightened and moved to sit beside him.
He let her, though he had a strong urge not to.
She glanced out the window and then at him, her eyes clear and bright. “Josiah is your man on the box?”
“Yes.” He smiled wryly. “Charlie’s the younger one. They’re both former sailors and used to speaking their minds. Josiah was not best pleased to’ve driven through the night and in the rain.”
“I can’t say that I blame him,” she said, returning his smile almost shyly.
He blinked at the sight, disconcerted, and opened his mouth.
The carriage jerked to a stop and Matthew glanced out the window to see that they were in an inn yard. “Wait here.”
He climbed down and found the innkeeper, a bantam man with a military bearing, a shock of gray hair slicked into a neat queue, and a missing left arm—probably a former sailor or soldier. There were two rooms left—one behind the stables that Josiah and Charlie could use, and one upstairs. He’d have to share with the little beggar, but that was just as well.
Best he not leave her alone again in a strange place.
Having made the arrangements, Matthew trotted back to the carriage and collected the beggar maid and Tommy as well as one of his bags. He escorted her inside and realized how much better she must be feeling only when they arrived at the room at the top of the stairs.
“But…” She wrinkled her nose as if the neat little room smelled worse than she—which it most certainly didn’t. “There’s only one room—and only one bed. Surely you could’ve procured two rooms?”
Her Highness was back.
Matthew dropped his bag with a thump on the plain wooden floor. “I’m aware that you claim to have mountains of gold, Princess, but some of us haven’t.”
She stared at him, her mouth opening in a small outraged O.
“Besides.” He aimed a sardonic smile at her. “They’d only the one room—unless you wanted to bunk with Josiah and Charlie?”
Her brows gathered together as if she was actually considering the idea. “The company certainly might be more convivial.”
“Now, now.” He stalked closer, watching her eyes widen in sudden alarm as he tapped her on the nose. He leaned over her and breathed in her ear, “Try to keep that sharp tongue under control. I’ve no mind to bleed to death tonight.”
When he drew back, her chin was tilted so high in the air he was surprised she didn’t overtip herself. “I’d no idea your skin was so tender.”
He rolled his eyes. “I said I’d protect you until we get to London and so I shall. And even if I were a cad who would forswear myself, I assure you I would not bed a woman who stinks of shit. You’re more than safe with me, Princess. Now stay here with Tommy while I see to the horses. Charlie and Josiah are nigh asleep on their feet.”
So saying, he banged out of the room and clattered down the inn stairs.
He sent both drivers to bed and then spent the next hour grooming the carriage horses. He hadn’t the funds to spare to rent another pair of nags—he hadn’t access yet to the earldom’s credit. Even if he had, unless matters had changed drastically while he sailed the Indian Ocean, he was inheriting debts and a country manor in need of repairs as well as a title.
Matthew sighed and concentrated on the horses. They’d been working for a day and a night. He checked them over thoroughly, making sure they hadn’t any sores from the tack, and paid extra for a scoop each of oats in their feed.
Then with a last pat for both horses he made his way back into the inn.
The inn was redolent with the scents of cooking when he entered and he ordered a tray of food made, waiting by the common room fire while it was prepared. He took it up himself, figuring that it was safer for Her Highness to eat in their room than in the common room.
He propped the tray against his hip, knocked once at the door to their room, and then tried the handle. A surge of irritation swept his chest when it turned easily beneath his hand.
“What were you thinking leaving the door unlocked?” he growled as he entered and kicked the door closed behind him. “Anyone could’ve…”
The words died abruptly in his throat.
There was a battered tin hip bath set before the little fireplace and Princess was in it, facing him. Her sopping, inky hair draped down her smooth gleaming shoulders and into the water. Her breasts hung, plump and wet, just above the water’s surface, the nipples large, brown, and gathered as if waiting for his mouth. Her eyes were wide and startled, her nose straight and proud, her lips a dark, erotic cinnabar.
She was beautiful.
Jesus.
He turned his back, feeling as if he’d been kicked in the sto
mach. “Your pardon.”
“I…I should’ve locked the door,” she said from behind him.
“Yes, you should have.” He crossed to the bed and set the tray of food on it without turning. “Anyone could’ve come in.”
Behind him he heard a small splash.
He cleared his throat. “Did you send your clothes down to be cleaned?”
“Oh. I didn’t think to do so.” Another splash.
He gripped the edges of the tray, frowning down at the plates of stewed chicken and dumplings, trying not to remember what she looked like behind him, naked, in her bath, droplets of water on those sweet, glistening, tempting tits.
The edge of the wooden tray cracked under his right hand.
She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure my clothes would withstand washing, frankly.”
“I’ll see what I can find.” He strode to the door, making very sure not to look her way. He paused, his hand on the knob, and noted absently that his knuckles were white. “Be sure to bar the door behind me this time.”
He closed the door and then ran down the inn stairs as if the hounds of hell were after him.
Chapter Five
John was seated next to Princess Peony for dinner. He held his own in conversation—even when the king tried to trip him up with obscure historical references—and the way he handled his knife and fork made something flutter in the pit of Peony’s stomach.…
—From The Prince and the Parsnip
* * *
Hippolyta let out a long breath and pressed wet hands against her burning cheeks. Oh, Mr. Mortimer must think she was a ninny—or worse! Whatever had possessed her to forget to lock the door? But she’d been so glad to finally have a lovely hot bath that she really hadn’t been thinking about much else.
Still.
She’d rarely been so…embarrassed in her life. Yes, embarrassed. That was the reason she’d felt so very hot under Mr. Mortimer’s intent gaze as he’d stood there staring at her nude breasts. Those green eyes had narrowed just the tiniest bit as he’d looked his fill, and she’d felt her nipples actually ache.