Page 19 of The Scoundrel of Drury Lane
“You all right, sir?”
Kit opened his eyes and saw a young boy staring at him in concern, no older than twelve or thirteen. He wore decent clothes for a lad wandering the streets. Likely, the boy ran messages around town.
“Er... yes. I am.” Kit’s words couldn’t have been farther from the truth. He had to think quickly to cover his mistake. The boy was still staring at him in mild concern, and that gave him an idea.
“Lad, I will pay you handsomely to deliver a message to a house for me. You may tell the man there to pay you another shilling for your trouble once you’ve given it to him. But you must be quick about it.”
He gave the boy instructions and then paid for a hackney to take the lad to his home. He should arrive before he and Suzannah did. He could only hope that the instructions were understood and followed correctly.
So much for rational plans, he thought with a grim sigh. He was leaping headlong into folly with this contrived plan for a portrait. He should be focusing on Walsh and Balfour.
Once the boy was safely on his way, Kit remained by his own hired coach, counting the minutes to steady himself. His heart beat a staccato rhythm. His spur-of-the-moment plan to have Suzannah paint him was mad, but it would give him time to study her and to learn how much she knew about him, his trial, as well as her father’s role in it.
Time would tell if she was as innocent as she seemed to be. If she wasn’t, then his original plan of seduction and heartbreak would be his goal. If she was innocent, he would let her go, with payment as promised. That would be the gentlemanly thing to do. He’d thought that part of himself long dead, but it seemed not all of him had died when crossing the sea seven years ago.
He tensed when he saw Suzannah and the young man exit the theater. She had a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. Kit nearly reached for it on instinct, but stopped himself.
“Mr. Kit, this is Henry Lovelace, my friend.”
Kit held out a hand to the lad. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Lovelace.”
Henry squared his shoulders and did his best to pretend to be older, like most boys his age would when given a task. “Same to you, Mr. Kit.” Something pricked at Kit’s heart. He had been only a handful of years older than Henry when he had been forced onto that transportation ship.
Kit opened the coach door and held out a hand to Suzannah to help her up. Instead, she slung the canvas bag off her shoulder and let it down onto his outstretched arm. He’d intended to help her into the coach, but he’d take her bag if she trusted him with it. Then she lifted her skirts, revealing scuffed leather boots as she climbed into the coach without assistance.
Henry stifled a chuckle as he claimed the bag from Kit and climbed into the coach after her. Kit then joined them, sitting opposite them both, and pounded a fist on the roof of the coach to signal to the driver that they were ready to leave.
“Is it true Suzannah’s going to paint you, sir?” Henry asked after a few minutes of silence in their ride.
“Yes,” Kit said. “I’ve been away from London for a long time, and I need a new portrait.”
The lad’s head tilted slightly in puzzlement. “Is that one of those silly things rich men do?”
“Henry!” Suzannah warned in an affronted gasp.
“No, he’s quite right,” Kit said. “It isabsolutelyone of those silly things rich men do.”
Henry leaned back against the coach cushions, satisfied with Kit’s answer. No one else spoke for a long moment. Then Suzannah cleared her throat.
“What... er... what sort of portrait did you have in mind?”
“Something that will stir gossip,” Kit admitted freely. “I want you to paint me in a way that shows London who I truly am.”
He half expected her to demand that he explain what he meant by that, but she remained quiet, simply staring at him as though he were an intricate puzzle box she was attempting to solve. The thought of her hands, small and feminine, stroking over his body, seeking places to caress, to find ways to open him up and reveal the inner secrets of his soul, set his blood ablaze. It should have terrified him, angered him. But, surprisingly, it didn’t.
When the coach stopped in front of his father’s house…now his house he had to remind himself, Kit exited first and once again held out a hand. Suzannah started to hand him the canvas bag, but he nodded to Henry behind her.
“Give your bag to the lad.”
For a moment, her gaze locked with his as she came to realize what he wanted. An excuse as a gentleman to touch her, even so innocent a thing as her hand. He could tell she was trying to figure out the smartest response to his challenge. Accept his hand and see it as weakness, or meet him directly by daring to refuse?
Finally, she surrendered, whether she realized she had or not, but he hid his desire to smile in victory.
Suzannah reluctantly passed the bag to Henry and placed one hand in Kit’s so he could help her down. She wore no gloves, and he felt her warm fingertips touch his. They were soft but bore slight calluses in places where she used her brushes and pencils. Kit wasn’t sure what he expected to feel now that he knew she was the daughter of a man who’d sent him off to die. But what he did feel, a quickening of his blood and a flutter in his chest that wasn’t rooted in plans for revenge, was unexpected. Suzannah’s fingers squeezed his as she balanced on the carriage step.
She attempted to pull away once her booted feet were on the ground, but he didn’t allow it. She lifted her face up, her flushed cheeks and flashing eyes only making her more damnably attractive. He liked ruffling her pretty feathers. How would she react if he stole a kiss? If he pinned her against the wall and showed her the talentshis handswere capable of?
Instead, he slid her arm around his in a courtly gesture that he was surprised he could even remember after all these years. So many habits of his old life had been drummed out of him.
