Page 257 of Ten Lords for the Holidays

“Oh no!” She gave a light, rueful laugh, clasping her hands in front of her scarf. “Nay, tell me he did not.”

“He very well did. With verve and vigor. Toppled my hard-earned display straight onto the floor into a smashing array of broken pieces.”

With verve and passion.

The words, so recently spoken and savored, echoed in his mind. Brought forth an image of the particular female who had consumed his thoughts the last day.

“Naughty of him,” Mrs. Hurwell commiserated before brightening. “Sir Barnabas. Did I tell you—he brought me two mice and a beetle last week.”

Brier chuckled, his ungloved fingers rubbing idly over the ropes he still held, damp and chilled and rough against his fingers. How had hers fared against the prickly twine, with naught but thin gloves that looked threadbare and lacking? A vision of other hands, newly bandaged, and so recently injured, filled his senses, beckoning him back to his abode, even as he focused on the female before him. “Aha. Now I know why he’s been rumbling about at home, then. Giving you all of his best hunting efforts, he is.”

With verve and passion…

“Mrs. Hurwell. I have a…” How did he describe her? His Fascination of the divine scent and delightful humor. “A visitor, at the moment. A female guest.”You sound as though you have just announced to the respectable Mrs. Hurwell you have a tart living under your roof.“A-a genteel woman whose traveling trunk”—there! Tarts didn’t travel with trunks, at least not that he knew of—“was destroyed when her carriage”—he applauded himself for remembering not to saycoach—“was involved in an accident. There hasn’t been time yet to have anything sewn up for her. Might you have a single day dress she could borrow? Or I could purchase from you? Aye, that would be better. You are much the same size. Anything would work, your oldest frock perhaps. It need not be elegant or of highest quality.”

“Elegant,” she all but snorted, gesturing to the outdated, voluminous coat cloaking her form. “You need not worry about that. Of a certainty, I will be happy to provide something. And there is no need to pay me for it. Let me return home and gather—”

“Oh no you don’t.” Dropping the ropes, he placed two fingers upon her forearm with only enough pressure to be felt past the heavy men’s coat—likely pilfered from her scrub of a husband. “You will not be returning anywhere by your lonesome. Let me accompany you back to your abode”—like most others along their street, she and her mister resided above their shop—“and I shall count myself fortunate to be granted whatever dress you may spare. No matteryourcomfort in traversing such, I could not live with myself if I allowed a female to embark upon these alleys alone.”

Yet you were ready to cast out not-loose Lucinda?

And that truth had him cringing inside as he checked his pocket for the key and knocked aside the brick holding the door open to allow it to shut securely before he escorted his companion home.

* * *

“Mr. Chapman?” Lucinda couldn’t halt the relief that coated her words and coasted over her heart the moment he unlocked and nudged open the back door. He’d been gone an age.

Upon hearing his approach—or perhaps only sensing it—she’d soared toward the door, hesitant feet be damned. The second she knew it was Mr. Chapman who ventured inside, she revealed herself. He’d left two candles burning in the narrow hall—one lit in a sconce along the wall, the other on a small table beside the door—allowing her to see the fatigue lining his hard-jawed face; dark hair, mussed and spattered with rain; and a fresh scratch along one side of his nose.

“Luce! What are you doing up?” He looked stunning to her as he rose from anchoring the door wide with a brick or two. “Please tell me I did not wake you.”

“You didn’t. I could not sleep.” He placed a paper-wrapped bundle just inside and then angled back out for a heavier load. “Here, let me help.”

Together, they lugged a large crate over the threshold, but only after tipping it onto its narrow side, and shoved it up against the empty wall.

“Blazes,” he exhaled, not quite out of breath. “Normally I would have left that outside and opened it there, not risked bringing inside any mice or other vermin that may have embedded themselves in the straw padding, but not at this time of night.”

“You have been gone a rather long time.” She worked to sound curious, not accusatory. “And heavens, where is your coat?”

He turned back from bolting the door and gave her an assessing look. “You heard me leave? How long have you been awake?”

“I have not yet slumbered. Not for a moment. Not since…” Did she say it? Did she bring it out into the open? “I have thought of nothing else save your lips since you titillated me with the promise of a kiss, Mr. Chapman.”

“A promise, did I?” He wiped one forearm across his damp brow. “Please, not-loose Luce,Mr. Chapmanis for children and neighbors and considerate customers who do not simply herald me with a snap of their fingers. I would have you address me as Brier, if you would.”

A fierce sort of pleasure took hold of her, for had she not heard the female voice identify him asMr. Chapman?

“No coat, for I did not expect to be gone but a moment. And my neighbor pressed this upon me.” He indicated the scarf snugged around his neck and shoulders, liberally speckled with scattered drips.

Avoiding calling him anything altogether—forBrierseemed so very intimate—she observed, “The drizzle has halted finally?”

“It is no longer coming down, only trickling from the eaves as the temperatures cannot make up their mind whether to freeze again or not.” He unwound the scarf and draped it across the crate.

She stepped forward and brushed her fingers through his thick hair, dislodging several stray droplets. “Aye, the eaves caught up with you here.”

And he caught her up to him, with strong arms around her waist, the chill of his fingers seeping straight through the borrowed nightshirt.

“Eek!” Stars and stockings, how strange and welcome his secure hold felt around her. How very odd yet alluring to have his muscular front against her softer one. The never-ending scents of the city under deluge—the rain dirtied by fumes and smoke, the soot and grime lining so much of the alleys—couldn’t begin to overtake his personal fragrance, the one that drew her to him like the sun did blossoms.

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