Most Improper Miss Sophie Valentine Read online

  Somehow he’d learned it was her birthday. Did he also know it was her thirtieth, which officially made her an old lady?

  “Thank you, Mr. Kane.” She accepted his flowers very formally, conscious of the children watching.

  As he smiled at her, his arms braced in the frame of the door, one foot on the step, he appeared to be waiting for something. A kiss? Surely even he knew better than to expect one at that moment, surrounded by children.

  Oh, but she wanted to kiss him.

  Her heartbeat raced around a corner, out of her clutches. The moment she saw this tempting man under her chestnut tree two months ago, she swore she wouldn’t throw herself onto the mercies of the unknown again. Yet she was falling. Now, in that moment, she knew it; she was falling over the edge again. He was no longer just a moving, breathing study of the illustrations in that naughty book. He was real. He was a real man. And when she couldn’t see him, when something happened to prevent their lessons, she missed him terribly. If she never saw him again, she didn’t know what she’d do.

  It was the worst possible moment to lose her head like this, when she ought to keep her distance for his own good.

  “Is there something else you wanted, Mr. Kane?” she uttered stiffly with a frown.

  A slow grin worked across his lips. “Why, yes, Miss Valentine.” He paused. “I thought the children might enjoy a picnic today.”

  No sooner did the children hear the word “picnic” than they were up again, pushing past her, tumbling out into the sun with kites carried overhead and ribbons streaming.

  Momentarily thrust aside by the rush, Lazarus waited until they were all out in the lane, then he lunged forward, one boot crossing the threshold, and whispered, “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “I told you I’ve been busy these last few evenings and had no time for your tutoring.”

  “Busy with Hartley?”

  She wouldn’t answer. In fact, she’d spent most of her time with Ellie Vyne, enjoying her friend’s company while she had it.

  “I don’t know any poetry, but I did bring flowers,” he reminded her with a wink. “Come out and play with me, Miss Valentine.”

  Again, she didn’t know how to cope with the intensity of her feelings, so she was angry and snappish. “Did the children know about this picnic already, by chance?”

  His grin widened. “I might have mentioned something…”

  “How dare you interfere with my school day!”

  “Tuck made sausage pies. Your favorite.”

  “Oh.”

  “They’re still warm,” he added. “But if you don’t want any…”

  She muttered hastily, “I suppose we might enjoy an afternoon out. This once.”

  “Yes. We don’t have forever.”

  It struck her as an odd thing for him to say, and it cast a shadow over his smile just before he turned away and walked off down the path toward the cart. But the sky was cloudless, a blushing expanse of pale blue. It was not the sort of day in which anyone could be morose for long. Besides…sausage pies…

  As she grabbed her bonnet from the hook by the door and followed him down the lane, she wondered idly how he discovered her love for sausage pies. Tuck was already helping the children and their kites into the cart, and the ruckus was supervised by Ellie Vyne.

  Of course, who else would tell Lazarus Kane all her deepest secrets?

  Ellie saw her and waved jauntily, knowing full well she was a meddling menace. Sophie sighed and shook her head.

  Soon the cart was full, the children piled in, Ellie attempting to keep some order over the proceedings and having little success. Molly Robbins ignored old Tuck’s protests and frowns and climbed up to sit beside him at the front of the cart, where she made herself comfortable and chattered away happily about the joys she anticipated in the day ahead. Tuck, generally of the opinion that children should be seen and not heard, was about to toss her into the back of the cart with the other children, when she beamed up at him, showing off the large gap between her front teeth. He then showed her his own gap, and thus a bond was formed and the little girl permitted to stay at his side.

  Sophie tied her bonnet ribbons under her chin and, still holding her posy, stepped up to the cart. Lazarus waited for her, his foot on the wheel. As she glanced left, she noticed a small grey mare tied behind the cart. Its silver mane gleamed, and its ears were pricked. It was the riding horse she’d heard about. Was this another of his schemes to tempt her into bad behavior?

  “I can make my own way,” she said and lifted her skirt over one arm to climb up into the cart.

  Without a word, he walked up to her, put his hands around her waist, and lifted her easily up over the side.

  “Well, really!’ she exclaimed, merely because she ought to complain, not because she was at all put out. He swung himself up beside little Molly, and the cart lurched forward into a bumpy, rattling journey up the lane. The grey mare trotted merrily behind.

  “You put him up to this,” she accused her friend.

  Ellie blinked innocently. “I cannot think what you mean. It was all his idea. Besides, no one should be shut inside on such a lovely day, even an old curmudgeon like you.” She wagged her finger. “Remember, we shall never be younger than we are today!”

  Only a short while later, they rumbled to a slower pace and joined a second, smaller cart, this one holding two passengers and a large basket of provisions.

  “Aunt Finn?” Sophie exclaimed in amazement. Her aunt seldom ventured so far from the fortress on hot days, but there she was, the lace lappets of her bonnet blowing in the playful breeze as she sat beside the giant Chivers and chattered excitedly.

  The carts turned off the road and took a slender, bumpy, winding lane for about a mile before Lazarus climbed out to open the gate into his meadow. Once they arrived at a pleasant spot, strewn with daisies and buttercups, which overlooked the valley and the village below, the cart came to a halt and was unloaded. While Sophie and her friend spread out the blanket, Lazarus took the horses into the shady covert where a pleasant little brook rambled lazily by. She observed his quiet, gentle way with the horses and felt a sweet yearning deep inside. Perhaps his gentleness meant so much more because he was not soft by nature, and when he laid a kind, compassionate hand to anything, it was done with a true desire to show tenderness, not because it came easily to him. His rough, callused hands could be remarkably soothing, as she knew.

  Once he was done with the horses, he gave the children their kite-flying instruction, but as the sun reached its peak, the breeze died away, and several kites came to a sad end, nose down in the tufted grass. Undaunted, Lazarus and his friend soon had other games underway to make up for the disappointment, and there was much shrieking, screaming, and tearing about. But even Tuck didn’t seem to care about the noise. He sat under a tree and showed Molly Robbins how to make a good whistle through that gap in her teeth.

  Sophie was the quietest of the group on that glorious, sunny afternoon. As she felt a great, heavy weight pressing on her chest, she stifled tears that hovered constantly on the brink and sat silently on the blanket, her face half-shaded by the brim of her straw bonnet, with no sign of the bubbling commotion within.

  We don’t have forever, he’d said to her. Did that mean he planned to leave after the harvest? He’d told James, in her hearing, he considered no place home for long.

  Or it could mean he planned to marry that twittering ninny Jane Osborne. Any wife, it seemed, would do. After all, this was a man who came in answer to an advertisement, knowing almost nothing about the woman who wrote it. He was a well-traveled man with a mysterious past, a jack-of-all-trades, a trickster who knew how to play her like an instrument.

  But he’d warned her that day when they picked mushrooms he wouldn’t ask her to marry him again. Once a man’s been rejected, he should know better than to make a fool of himself and mention it again.

  He was a man who never stayed anywhere for long, never set down roots, probably
never formed deep attachments with women. He would leave her, just as the captain left Aunt Finn alone with her gin and her memories.

  So many doubts and fears swirled about her mind, and she couldn’t concentrate for long upon any; therefore, none were satisfactorily resolved. Some of the things James had said about enlisted men stuck in her thoughts like a spur of goosegrass. Lazarus could come and go with ease, leaving people behind as he went. Look how easily and quickly he settled in the village and won over its residents. Only a man accustomed to meeting new people in new places could adapt so smoothly.

  Sophie had no appetite for the picnic. Her head ached, and she considered moving to sit under a tree, but when Lazarus trotted over and dropped to the blanket beside her, she no longer wanted the shade. He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle, and leaned back on his elbows.

  “On a day like this,” he said, “a man can almost forget his worries.”

  “Do you have many of those, Mr. Kane?” He never seemed to let anything bother him unduly, or for long.

  He must have caught the sharpness in her tone, for he squinted at her, nostrils flared slightly. “Just a small one that vexes me.”

  “Only one? You’re fortunate.”

  “It’s been avoiding me of late, a stubborn, secretive creature, but I’ll get the better of it.”

  She scowled and looked away. Chivers, Ellie, and Aunt Finn joined them on the blanket, chatting and laughing together.

  “You ought to sit in the shade,” Lazarus said to her. “You look hot.”

  “I’ll do as I please!” she snapped. “I managed very well without your advice for thirty years, and I daresay I can manage again. When you’re gone.”

  “Why? Where am I going?”

  “How should I know? You have the freedom to come and go as you please, unlike some of us.”

  “Nothing stops you from taking flight, Miss Valentine, but your own cowardice.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Pity I didn’t know you before you jumped off that balcony. Then, I daresay, things were different.” He leaned over to tickle her cheek with a long grass. “You lost your gumption.”

  She batted the grass away and glared at him from the shadow of her bonnet brim. “At least I’m not an arrogant, thick-headed man who gets distracted by a passing butterfly and cannot sit still for five minutes together, or devote himself long to one idea.”

  “What the Devil…?”

  “I’ve heard you boast you’re a jack-of-all-trades, always traveling and learning something new.” Her temper mounted under the midday heat. “I suppose you’ve never stayed long enough in one place to finish what you came there to do. I daresay, wherever you start a new life, you soon grow bored and abandon it.”

  He studied her for a moment as he chewed on that long blade of grass. “What brought this on? Oh, I see—I’m not going anywhere. You can let your brother know that, and your fine and fancy dandy too. Whatever they try to dig up about me.”

  “Do as you please. I’m sure I don’t care and never did! Dreadful, impertinent man.”

  Aunt Finn’s eyebrows flew skyward, Ellie began to hum rather tunelessly as she poured out the cider, and Chivers fidgeted with his piecrust. Lazarus reached for a plum and bit into it with rather more savagery than necessary. Ha! She’d finally made him angry.

  “Your brother not likely to join us today, ma’am?” Chivers asked.

  “Henry Valentine would never approve of a picnic. He would think it uncivilized,” Lazarus muttered. “Henry Valentine prefers games with high stakes to kites and cricket.”

  Chivers looked interested. “A sharp or a flatt?”

  “A flatt. Definitely.”

  “What do you mean?” Sophie demanded.

  Chivers explained, “There’s two kinds of gamblers, ma’am. A sharp what wins, and a flatt what always loses to a sharp.”

  She glared at Lazarus. “How do you know my brother loses?”

  “Because I once overheard a conversation about his debts your brother wishes I hadn’t.” He tore off another lump of fruit and chewed it angrily. “I wish I never heard it either, since it set him against me from the start.”

  Sophie understood then why Henry had taken such a fierce dislike to Lazarus. That dreadful pride would always be Henry’s downfall. Her temper quelled for now, she searched the grass by her hand for a four-leaf clover. Despite the tone of their conversation, her body still leaned toward Lazarus. Like a flower toward the sun.

  She decided she’d sat there long enough, suffering the closeness of his body and all the temptations that entailed, and leapt up and ran across the grass to organize the children in a dance.

  ***

  Lazarus closed his eyes tight against the sun and leaned back on his elbows. Evidently, Henry or that arrogant peacock, James Hartley, had been whispering doubts in her ear. Well, they wouldn’t chase him out, no matter what they threatened. Let them uncover every crime in his past. He’d face it. This was the end of the road for him; he was done with traveling, done with running. Now he’d do whatever it took to hold on to what he had, what he wanted more than anything in this world.

  Sophie.

  Chapter 26

  When it was time to return to the village, Aunt Finn had wandered off into the grove of trees and couldn’t immediately be found. It was decided Tuck and Ellie should supervise the children in the cart while the others split up to look for her.

  “I should have hidden your gin today,” Sophie muttered as she swung her bonnet by its long ribbons and stomped through the bracken. She was well aware of her aunt’s love of games, particularly hide-and-seek.

  She heard a twig snap behind her and stopped to look over her shoulder. There was Lazarus, just a few steps away, leading one of the cart horses and the little grey. “We were supposed to split up and search,” she exclaimed.

  “I didn’t want to lose you, too.”

  She thought he looked remarkably handsome under the dappled shade of the trees, almost too much to take in. Their brief quarrel had changed something between them. She sensed it, read it in his face. Whether it was good or bad, she had yet to decide.

  “Tuck has taken the children back to the village in the big cart. Chivers will find your aunt,” he said calmly as he came closer through the bracken. “He can track anything. Nose like a bloodhound.”

  “Your friend is a gentle fellow.”

  “Looks can be deceiving. Like yours.”

  That made her smile…just a little.

  “You ride sidesaddle, Sophie?”

  Now she realized he’d saddled the little grey for her. So he did keep saddles! She felt nervous suddenly. “I…I haven’t ridden in years.”

  Without another word, he helped her up onto the horse, her right leg over the pommel, left foot in the stirrup.

  “I’ve missed having a horse to ride,” she said. “We can’t afford to keep animals unless they work on the land.”

  “That’s why she’ll stay at Souls Dryft.” He smiled and flicked hair out of his eyes as he handed her the reins. “Come and ride her whenever you fancy.”

  He was staying, then. Had he found a wife?

  She dampened her lips and cleared her throat. “Miss Osborne will not be pleased you keep a horse for me to ride.”

  “Is that all you ever worry about? Who will and will not be pleased?”

  “I believe someone should be concerned about Miss Osborne.”

  “But why should it be you?”

  He was pushing her, she realized, trying to expose her jealousy. Apparently he thought he could flirt with every unmarried woman in the village and owe no one any explanation. Not even the woman he tutored privately in matters of the flesh. “Do you not dine often at the Osbornes?”

  “To meet with Mr. Osborne,” he replied easily. “I like the old fellow.”

  “Oh.”

  “As for Miss Osborne, since Chivers arrived, she’s kept her distance.”

  She petted the horse�
��s neck, drawing her fingers through the silver mane. “I’m sorry people can’t accept your friend without judging on appearance.”

  He swung himself up onto the other horse and sat well, at ease on the big mount even without a saddle. “Shows me the true colors of some folk. That’s all.”

  With a nudge of his heels, he steered his horse forward, ducking under the lower branches, and Sophie followed through the dappled sunlight. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ridden a horse. It must have been before she and Maria were sent away to that wretched ladies’ academy. Back then, there was no greater pleasure than to ride out alone through the shady covert. In the spring, the ground was sprinkled with bluebells, as if little bits of sky had fallen to earth, and in the autumn, under the gilt-draped chestnuts, she and Henry once enjoyed mock sword-fights with sticks they found.

  Sophie rode along at her own pace, and enjoyed a wondrous sense of freedom and independence—a very rare and precious gift, indeed. For a while, there was no conversation, just the shiver of a slight breeze through the leafy canopy, the sleepy coo of wood pigeons, and the steady thud of hooves. The sunlight was heavy today, thick and damp with nature’s perfume, and the atmosphere heavily laden with pine from the tall evergreen columns that bordered her brother’s property in the distance. But the air pooled here under the chestnut trees and lost its stinging heat.

  She urged the mare forward in a quick trot, and as they came out into a wider lane, she drew alongside Lazarus. As she’d noted before, he was not a man who required noise and chatter to pass the time, but was perfectly content to ride along, admiring this beautiful day and sharing her company. They were riding back toward the lane and the cart, she realized, but they were traveling the long way round, and he was in no hurry. Neither was she.

  She pulled ahead of his horse and turned left, leading the way off the path and back under the trees. He followed. Her breath quickened until there was almost no difference between the in and the out. Farther into the trees she took him, remembering the way she used to ride alone when she came here to get away from chores or hide from punishment. Once she’d called it her “emerald cave,” for it was jewel green from floor to sky, a mass of leaves and moss and soft grass that seemed to curl around her like an eggshell. Whatever possessed her to take him there, she didn’t question it for long. The need to show him was too great, the desire to share that secret with him almost overwhelming.