Lord Fox's Pleasure

‘He’s not here this morning.’

‘How convenient for you.’ A mildly tolerant smile touched Lucas’s handsome visage, but the glint in his eyes when they settled on Will was as hard as steel. ‘However, I am sure your employer can find more worthy tasks for your attention than abusing his customers. If you do not choose to meet your Maker, I suggest you do not touch the lady again,’ he warned in a tone of icy reproof. ‘Sir Thomas Fairworthy would take it amiss if you hurt his sister.’

Slightly shaken, Will managed to draw himself up with nervous hauteur. The fact that his masculinity was about to be shredded by the older, more powerful and supremely confident Lord Fox, and that he would be brought down by his inability to control his lust for Prudence Fairworthy, overcame all other emotions. ‘What’s it to you?’ he snarled.

‘I’m the man who happens to be a close and personal friend of Sir Thomas Fairworthy. I am also the man who will speak to your employer and have you dismissed.’ Lucas slid his gaze to Prudence, whose glower was hot enough to reduce him to a cinder. ‘Are you all right?’

‘He hasn’t hurt me, if that’s what you mean,’ she ground out ungraciously, mortified that Lord Fox of all people must have witnessed the whole shameful, sordid incident. But then, wasn’t he another who had dared treat her like a common trollop, kissing her in so casual, so cavalier a fashion?

‘It is clear to me that Mistress Fairworthy finds your amorous attentions unwelcome,’ Lucas said to Will. ‘I think you should apologise.’

Will laughed derisively. ‘I would sooner have my tongue cut out before apologise to that doxy.’

Prudence rounded on him, her face a mask of indignation. ‘What did you call me? Why, you—’ she cried hotly, but a sharp glance from Lucas silenced her.

‘Perhaps you didn’t hear what I said,’ Lucas persisted, addressing Will once more, his voice cold and ominous. ‘I think an apology to the young lady is in order.’

Stemming a string of foul curses that threatened to erupt from his mouth, Will glared at the Cavalier whose composure shamed him, the apology sticking in his throat. When Prudence saw he wasn’t going to comply, she stepped back.

‘Leave it,’ she said firmly, unconsciously placing her hand on Lucas’s arm when she thought he would raise it to strike Will. ‘It was his own foolishness that led him to this. Let the matter end there.’

Lucas fell back a step reluctantly, looking down at Prudence. Her face was clear-cut and delicate, her hair all a-tumble about her slender shoulders, and utter contempt for the man who had molested her was manifest in her narrowed, translucent eyes. ‘Am I to understand that you wish to ignore the fact that this man tried to ravish you?’

‘Why, what will you do, Lord Fox?’ she scoffed. ‘Avenge my honour? I think not. No good will come of it.’

She looked at Will. The wretchedness of his family’s existence was not unknown to her. They lived in a rented tenement up a filthy yard at Ludgate. Since the death of Will’s brutal father several months ago, his mother and five young siblings were totally dependent on him. If Mr Rowan heard how he had tried to molest her, he would not tolerate his working at the nursery any longer. Will would never find work that paid so well and his entire family would suffer and be turned out on to the streets to grovel for a living as a consequence. Prudence had no wish for that to happen, and neither did she want to be the cause of it.

‘I shall write to Molly and explain that I will not be coming to the nursery any more because I’m returning to Marlden Green with my brother and sister. To spare your family hurt, I shall remain quiet about what happened today. You were stupid and a fool to do what you did to me. I suppose passion can blind a man but, by my oath, Will Price, if you ever touch me again, I swear I will give you reason to regret it.’

‘You are too kind-hearted by far,’ Lucas drawled mockingly, but he shrugged. ‘As you will.’

He looked at Will and his fists tightened. There was a time, not too long ago, when he would not have let a man off so lightly if he’d caught him molesting a young innocent. He would have killed the ravisher, no matter what. But the intervening years had taught him a tolerance, if not a wisdom, that his nature would once have condemned.

‘Mistress Fairworthy is too forgiving. Consider yourself fortunate. Now,’ he said, sweeping a hand in front of him in an invitation for Prudence to proceed. ‘If you please.’

A trace of indignation still showed in Prudence’s tight lips as she turned from Will and went ahead of Lucas out of the yard.

Standing alone, as Will watched them go he yearned for vengeance. He wanted to go after them and tear into the arrogant Lord Fox, to beat him to a bloody pulp, as he would anyone else of lesser rank who crossed him, and snatch the young woman from his side. But the taste of blood and the tender swelling on his lip where her teeth had punctured the flesh made him pause. Thoughtfully he stared after them. He would let the matter rest, for now, but if a chance arose in the future to get even, he would take it.

The man who stood just out of sight of the gates to Mr Rowan’s nursery, his back pressed hard against the wall, had the air of a cautious animal as his eyes followed the two people who had just left the yard. A dim, wavering light penetrated the alleyway, and the dank smell of rotting vegetables and worse permeated the air. With his teeth drawn back across his lips and his eyes shining with an ugly inner glow, the man stepped furtively into the open, walking with the gait of a sailor as he followed the man and woman with stealth and at a discreet distance, stopping now and then, shadowy and motionless, out of sight of the couple who had no idea of his presence. Not until they stepped on to the Strand did he turn and retrace his steps back to Mr Rowan’s nursery and Will Price.

Chapter Four

P rudence lifted her head haughtily and her mouth hardened to an unsmiling resentment as she glanced at Lucas leading his horse a step behind her. ‘I can’t think how you came to be at Mr Rowan’s nursery, Lord Fox. It is off the track, after all. Don’t tell me you are out for a stroll for I will not believe you. You either followed me or you have an interest in gardening. Whatever the reason, do you have to creep about?’

Lucas was incredulous. Good Lord! If the wench wasn’t trying to take the offensive by accusing him of spying on her. ‘If I had come accompanied by the London mob I doubt you would have noticed, Mistress Fairworthy. And, since you ask, it was for neither of the reasons you mentioned. Your brother sent me.’

Her eyes opened wide with alarm. She gasped. ‘Thomas?’

Lucas grinned. Now he had her full attention. ‘You do have just the one brother, I believe,’ he replied with an underlying sarcasm. ‘When he discovered you had left the house he was quite beside himself with rage. Your sister directed me to the nursery to fetch you home.’

His eyes were not without humour, but there was censure in the firm set of his clean-shaven jaw. Prudence bristled at his tone and glared her irritation. ‘I can take care of myself.’

‘After that delightful scene I have just witnessed, I disagree.’

Prudence ignored him and neither of them spoke for a full minute as they made their way down the narrow, deserted alleyway, entering a slightly wider street and going in the direction of the Strand.

‘He’s handsome isn’t he, Will Price?’ Lucas said at length, casually, watching for Prudence’s reaction out of the corner of his eye.

‘I suppose some might find him so, but he doesn’t appeal to me.’

‘Does anyone?’

‘No, of course not,’ Prudence replied, thrusting thoughts of Adam from her mind.’

‘Your brother thinks you need taking in hand—and I tend to agree with him.’

‘It’s none of your business,’ she retorted with cold hauteur, infuriated by his imperious tone. ‘I do not have to explain what I do to you, Lord Fox.’

‘Do you make a habit of leaving the house without telling anyone—unaccompanied?’ Lucas persisted.

‘Sometimes.’ She tossed her head, the chestnut tresses dancing against her back. ‘I do what I like.’

‘Then don’t you think it’s high time you began to consider the consequences of such recklessness and tried harder at being a lady?’ Lucas admonished, fighting the urge to turn her over his knee.

Prudence glanced up at him when he drew level and halted her by taking her arm at the end of the street. He was standing close, and though the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat hid part of his face, she detected a strong note of disapproval in his stance.

‘Mistress Fairworthy,’ he said curtly. ‘When I came upon you just now you were about to be ravished. Your abuser accused you of being a doxy and I do not care to know why. I am here on behalf of your brother to escort you home—under force, if necessary. So let us, in common agreement, strive to be both gracious and mannerly until we reach Maitland House, where your brother will deliver the punishment you deserve, and soundly thrash that most tender part of your anatomy and render you incapable of sitting down for at least a week.’

Prudence’s face burned, shamed and guilt-stricken because she felt she’d earned his condemnation—although the idea of being spanked like a naughty child went some way to shredding her confidence. Nevertheless she opened her mouth to challenge his statement, then closed it hastily. The expression in his eyes had frightened her.

‘Do I make myself clear?’

Dejectedly, she said on a quiet note, ‘Perfectly. Still—I am no doxy—and you, Lord Fox, should treat me with more courtesy and respect.’

‘Courtesy and respect have to be earned,’ he told her, satisfied by the lowering of her eyes and the droop to her soft bottom lip that she was adequately chastened.

‘I confess that when I saw you in the Strand yesterday I mistook you for a female of a very different kind—which was why I did what I did,’ he continued. When she made a move to carry on walking he took her arm once more and forced her to stand in front of him. ‘Come here—and stop dancing about,’ he said when she yanked her arm free and glared at him, mutiny returning to her dark eyes. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to kiss you again,’ he told her drily, producing a handkerchief. ‘You have blood on your chin. You don’t want to face Thomas looking like you’ve been in battle, otherwise he will assume the worst.’

After placing the handkerchief to his lips and wetting it, he proceeded to rub Will Price’s dried blood off her chin none too gently, aware of the effort it was costing her to stand there and let him. When the task was completed his generous, laughing mouth broadened into a lazy smile. ‘I’m flattered you found the kiss I gave you more to your liking and did not feel the need to retaliate so cruelly.’

‘Why, you conceited, overbearing—’ She clamped her lips together in frustrated rage at the mockery playing in his gypsy eyes.

Lucas arched a sleek black brow. ‘I know. Infuriating, isn’t it? I have also been accused of being arrogant, ill bred and domineering. But I can be reasonable, polite and well mannered when the mood takes me,’ he said agreeably, gazing down at her lovely, rebellious face. ‘In fact, I can be rather nice on occasion.’

Prudence was thrown off guard by his unexpected gentleness. But then, with her meagre knowledge of men, she never did know what to expect from them. ‘Did you mean it when you said that when you first saw me yesterday, you mistook me for a woman of a different kind?’ she asked quietly.

Lucas studied her impassively for a long, silent moment, reading her perfectly correctly and sensing that this bothered her. ‘No. That was unfair of me,’ he said softly. ‘Would you really like to know what I saw when I looked at you yesterday?’