Forbidden Read online

  “So you were a soldier,” Margery said, resting her elbows on the table and studying him thoughtfully. He looked entirely relaxed as though the unfriendly atmosphere of the Grapes had completely failed to intimidate him. “No wonder you’re not afraid,” she said slowly.

  Henry raised a dark brow. “Were you trying to scare me by bringing me here?”

  “Not scare you, precisely,” Margery said. She dropped her gaze and traced a circle on the top of the table with her fingertip. She had to admit that she had been testing him. She was curious; he gave away so little of himself. There was something watchful and closed about him, as though he held himself under the tightest control. A little shiver edged down her spine.

  “My brothers drink here,” Margery said.

  “Ah. You wish to introduce me to your family.” Henry sat back in his chair, stretching out his long legs. “Our acquaintance proceeds quickly, Miss Mallon.”

  Margery laughed. “No, indeed. You need have no fear of that. I am simply being careful.”

  “Very wise,” Henry said. “In case I fail to act as a gentleman should.” He was smiling but there was something challenging in his eyes that made Margery’s stomach curl and the heat rise through her blood. She tore her gaze away from his. At this rate she would not be able to eat a mouthful.

  “I am relying on you to behave properly,” she said.

  Henry gave her an ironic bow. “Not a cast-iron way of ensuring success,” he drawled.

  “Do your best,” Margery said tartly and saw him grin.

  “So, your brothers are criminals.” He slid his hand over hers where it rested on the table. His touch was warm and sent quivers of awareness trembling through her. “How stimulating.”

  “Are you sure you are not a Runner?” Margery asked sweetly. She drew her hand gently from under his, not because she wanted to but because she knew she had to, if she was going to stick to the straight and narrow.

  “Of course they are not criminals,” she said. Then honesty prompted her to qualify the statement. “That is, Jed is certainly not a criminal. He is a pot man at the Bear Hotel in Wantage. Billy runs his own business buying and selling cloth.” She ignored the other, less respectable things she knew Billy bought and sold. “And Jem…” She paused. “Well, I have to admit that Jem does sail a little close to the wind.”

  Henry was laughing at her but she did not mind. There was warmth and admiration in his eyes that made her feel very happy inside.

  “I like that you defend them,” he murmured. “You see the best in everyone.”

  The Grapes’s three maidservants now converged upon them, squabbling for the privilege of serving them. Margery knew exactly why the girls were competing for Henry’s attention. It seemed that he rated even more highly than Jem, for he was not only good-looking but he looked rich, as well. All three girls were eyeing him with fascinated speculation and more than a little anticipation. Margery felt jealousy stir in her, the same jealousy that had beset her earlier.

  “What would you like to eat and drink?” Henry asked her, while the tavern wench who had won the tussle for their order eyed Margery with ill-concealed dislike.

  “I will take the mutton pie and a glass of ale, if you please,” Margery said.

  The girl turned her attention back to Henry. “My lord?” she asked.

  “I will have the same, please,” Henry said. He passed over a guinea and the maidservant pocketed it faster than a rat moved up a drainpipe. She dropped him a curtsy. “That would buy you plenty more than food and drink, my lord,” she said, opening her eyes very wide to make her meaning explicitly clear.

  Henry raised his brows and smiled at her with such charm that even Margery blinked. “Thank you,” he murmured. “If I require more I will be sure to let you know.” He turned to Margery as the girl strolled away with a suggestive swing of the hips.

  “She thinks me a nobleman and you are not even sure that you rate me a gentleman,” he said.

  “She thinks you ripe for fleecing,” Margery said crushingly. “She is judging the guinea, not you.” She put up a hand and untied the ribbons on her bonnet, laying it aside. Looking up, she saw that Henry’s gaze was on her hair. Her first thought was that it must have got squashed beneath the hat, but when his eyes met hers she saw a spark of something hot that made her heart jerk. Her hair was a golden-brown, fine and entirely without curl, completely ordinary, yet Henry looked as though he wanted to reach out and touch it. She saw him swallow hard. It was extraordinary. She felt hot and bewildered, but excitement tingled in the pit of her stomach as she thought of his fingers slipping through the strands.

  She was glad when the ale came. It broke the rather odd silence between them. Henry poured for them both from the pitcher. Margery took a mouthful, looked up and saw Henry’s eyes on her, a gleam of humor in them.

  “It tastes rougher than a badger’s pelt,” he murmured.

  “I prefer it to wine,” Margery said. She could feel the ale loosening her tongue already. It was indeed rough, with a kick like a mule. “Mrs. Biddle tells me I should cultivate a taste for sherry if I am to be a housekeeper in my turn,” she said, “but I find it too genteel a drink.”

  “Do you want to be a housekeeper?” Henry enquired. “Is that not the pinnacle of achievement for an upper servant?” He topped up her glass.

  “Mrs. Biddle says that I could do it if I wished, for I am already the youngest lady’s maid she has ever known.” She sighed. “Truth is, I do not want to be a servant.”

  Henry’s lips twitched into that irresistible smile that always led her into indiscretion. “What do you want to be, Miss Mallon?”

  “I want to be a confectioner,” Margery said in a rush. “I want to have a shop and make comfits and marzipan cakes and sweetmeats. I want to own my own business and sell my cakes to all the lords and ladies of the ton.”

  Once again Henry’s eyes gleamed with that secret amusement. “It is good to have ambition,” he murmured.

  “But I need money to set myself up in business.” Margery drooped. “I save all that I can from my wages—and the money that Billy pays me for collecting old clothes for him—but it will never be enough to buy a shop.”

  Henry’s eyes met hers over the rim of his glass. “You had not thought to…ah…raise funds another way?”

  The spark in his eyes captured and held her. She saw speculation there and desire that burned her and set her heart racing. She also saw exactly, explicitly, what he was suggesting.

  She took another gulp of the ale. “Certainly not. I told you I was not a lightskirt! Besides—” even in her indignation she could not quite escape the force of logic “—I am not certain that I would be in any way successful enough to make the necessary capital.”

  A corner of Henry’s mouth twitched upward into that dangerous smile. “I am sure you could learn.”

  Their gazes tangled, his dark, direct with an undercurrent that made Margery’s toes curl. Then his smile broadened.

  “Actually,” he said lightly, “I only wondered whether there was someone who might give you a loan.”

  Margery almost choked on her ale. “You were teasing me,” she accused.

  “Yes. Although…” Henry paused. “If the other idea appeals to you—”

  “It does not. I told you I was not looking for carte blanche!”

  She had spoken too quickly, intent only on denying the quiver of desire in the pit of her stomach. It was illuminating to discover that her morals were nowhere near as stalwart as she had believed them to be. She thought of Henry’s hands on her body, his lips against her skin, and she felt the tide of warmth rush into her face. Oh, how she wanted him. How seductive it was and how much trouble she could get herself into with the slightest of missteps. She was completely out of her depth.

  Henry was watching her. He knew.

  Margery sought to hide her mortification in her glass of ale and took several long swallows, which only served to make her head spin all the more.
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br />   The pies arrived, fragrant with mutton and dark gravy. Henry refilled her glass. They talked as they ate, which Margery knew was not refined, but suddenly there seemed so much to say. Henry asked her about her childhood in Wantage, and her work there and her family. She told him about Granny Mallon and her dire warnings about London gentlemen and Henry laughed and told her that her grandmother had been in the right of it.

  Margery laughed, too, and drank until her head was fuzzy and the candlelight blurred to a golden haze and her elbow slid off the table, which made Henry laugh some more. A fiddler struck up in the other room, and the scrape of tables being pushed back was followed by a wild jig, the notes rising to the rafters.

  But in their corner of the parlor, it was warm and intimate and felt as though it was theirs alone.

  “Tell me,” Henry said, leaning forward, the candlelight reflected in his dark eyes. “What is the earliest thing that you remember?”

  Margery wrinkled up her nose. It seemed an odd, fanciful question, but then she supposed they had been discussing their childhoods. Or rather they had been discussing her childhood. She could not recall a single thing that Henry had told her in answer to her questions. She knew she was a little cast away, so perhaps she was not remembering. Henry was drinking brandy now and she had a glass of cherry brandy, sweet and strong.

  “I recollect a huge room,” she said slowly, “with a checkered floor of black and white and a dome high above my head that scattered colored light all around me.” She looked up to meet an odd expression in Henry’s eyes. It was gone before she could place it.

  “I have no idea where it was. I have been in many great houses since, but have never seen anything like it. Perhaps I imagined it.”

  There had been other memories, too; people whose faces she could see only in shadow, scents, voices. She thought she remembered a carriage, a flight through the night, raised voices, cold and tears, but the memories were overlaid with others of her childhood in the tenement house in Wantage and the rough-and-tumble of life with her brothers.

  Henry was watching her and the expression in his eyes was intent and secret.

  “Sometimes,” she said slowly, knowing that the drink was prompting her to be indiscreet, “I do think my imagination plays tricks on me. It disturbs me because I remember things that seem quite fanciful—silks and perfumes and such soft beds, yet I am not a fanciful person.”

  “And yet you do have a romantic streak, do you not, Miss Mallon?” Henry said. “I know, for example, that you read Gothic romances.”

  Margery jumped. “How could you possibly know that?” It was unnerving the way in which he appeared to know so much about her. No one, not even those people who had known her for twenty years or more, realized that she loved those stories of beautiful heroines and handsome heroes and haunted castles.

  Henry raised his brows. “I saw that you had a copy of Mrs. Radcliffe’s book The Romance of the Forest in your reticule. I assumed that it was yours, unless you are taking it home for the admirable Mrs. Biddle.”

  Margery was betrayed into a giggle. “Mrs. Biddle reads nothing other than books on household management,” she said. “She thinks fiction is frivolous.”

  “We won’t tell her your secret, then,” Henry said with his slow smile. “For fear of damaging your future prospects.”

  The music was becoming wilder still, the customers more raucous and amorous. One of the tavern wenches was enthusiastically kissing a tall fair man who had her pressed up against the plaster wall and looked as though he was about to ravish her there and then, in full view of the customers.

  “He’s a scamp,” Margery said. “A highwayman. Jem says he works the Great West Road.”

  Two men at the next table were coming to blows over a game of shove ha’penny. One planted a punch on the other; the table rocked and overturned and then they were locked in grunting combat. A knife flashed.

  “Time to go, I think,” Henry said. He stood up, drawing Margery to her feet, one arm about her waist as she stumbled a little. “You may have a taste for dangerous company,” he said, “but I have more care for self-preservation.”

  “I’ll protect you,” Margery said, smiling up into his eyes. She felt happy and a little dizzy and more than a little drunk. Fortunately, Henry’s arm felt exceedingly strong and reliable about her. It felt perilously right, as though she belonged in his arms, a foolish, whimsical notion that nevertheless she could not dislodge.

  She turned toward the door—and found herself face-to-face with her brother Jem.

  “Moll!” Jem’s voice snapped like a whip and the sweet, heady atmosphere that had held Margery in its spell died like a flame doused with water.

  “Hello, Jem,” she said, disentangling herself from Henry, who seemed inordinately and provocatively slow to release her.

  “Who’s the swell?” Jem said, cocking his head at Henry. There was an edge to his voice and an ugly look in his eyes.

  “Henry Ward,” Henry said, stepping between them. He offered his hand. Jem studiously ignored it. Henry looked amused.

  “Jem,” Margery said reproachfully.

  Her brother flicked her look. “You should be careful, Moll,” he said. His gaze returned to Henry. “You can pick up all sorts of riffraff in here.”

  “And you should mind your own business,” Margery said, furious now. She felt Henry shift beside her. She could sense the sudden tension in him, an antagonism that matched Jem’s except that Henry was watchful and controlled, appraising her brother with coolly assessing eyes. She remembered that Henry had been in the war and felt a shiver of alarm. Jem was hotheaded, a street fighter, but he was no match for a trained soldier.

  The atmosphere was as thick as smoke now. The music had died away; everyone was watching, apart from the highwayman who was fumbling with the barmaid’s bodice, his face buried in her cleavage. Even the men from the next table had abandoned their fight in anticipation of one that promised to be more deadly.

  Jem put his hand on Margery’s arm. “I’ll take you home,” he said. “Come on.” He nodded toward the door. “I’ll not have my sister treated like a fancy piece.”

  “No,” Margery said stubbornly. “I’m not going with you.” She shook him off. She felt humiliated and upset; she wanted to cry because Jem had taken all the fun and excitement from her evening and torn it to shreds. Everything looked tawdry now and Jem was making her feel like naive fool and worse, like a whore whose favors were up for sale for the price of a mutton pie.

  “Don’t confuse me with the sort of women you consort with, Jem Mallon,” she said sharply. “I’m no lightskirt.” She bit her lip against the sting of tears. “You’ve spoiled my evening,” she said. “I was having such a nice time.” She felt forlorn, like the little girl she had once been, stamping her foot with anger and hurt when Jem or Jed or Billy had broken one of her precious toys.

  “For God’s sake, Moll,” Jem said contemptuously. “Can’t you see all he wants is a quick fumble down a dark alley and he’s just loosening you up for it?”

  Henry stepped between them then with so much intent that Margery grabbed his sleeve in urgent fingers. The atmosphere had changed now. It was deadly.

  “No,” Margery said. “Please.”

  Her eyes met Henry’s. There was such protective fury in his that she was awed to see it. Something sweet and warm settled inside her. Here was a man who cared about her good name and would do all he could to defend it and her against the world. She had never felt so cherished before.

  “Your sister does not want me to hit you,” Henry said, his voice lethally soft. “Out of respect for her, I will not. Don’t insult her again.”

  There was an ugly look on Jem’s face. He would not back down. “I don’t trust you,” he said. “If you touch her I will kill you.” He turned on his heel and stalked out of the inn, sending a glass tankard spinning to smash on the floor and pushing a drunk out of his way.

  There was a long, heavy pause and then the music
struck up again, raucous as before. The sound of voices rose above the din, and everyone moved, resumed whatever they had been doing and pretended that they had not been watching and hoping for a mill.

  “I’m sorry,” Margery said. She was shaking. She felt Henry take her hands in his. His touch was very comforting.

  “He only wanted to protect you,” Henry said. “I would have done the same.”

  Margery gave a little hiccup halfway between a sob and a laugh. “I doubt you would have threatened to kill anyone,” she said.

  “I might have expressed myself slightly differently, but the sentiment would have been the same.” His lips grazed her cheek in the lightest and most fleeting caress. “I’ll take you back,” he said. “Completely untouched, so that your brother does not come looking for me to slide a knife between my ribs.”

  He took her bonnet and tied the ribbons beneath her chin with quick efficiency. His fingers brushed her throat. Margery repressed a shiver. She felt shaken and upset but beneath that was a deeper emotion, something so precious and tender she trembled to feel it.

  The street was silent and dark, the leaning houses pressing together, their windows blind, their shutters closed. High above the sloping roofs, Margery could see a sky spangled with stars. She felt tired all of a sudden, as though the pleasure she had taken in the evening and in Henry’s company had drained away, leaving her empty. She sighed. “I did not want the evening to end like this.”

  Henry stopped walking and turned to her. “How did you want it to end?”

  The quiet words made her heart skip a beat. She glanced up at him but in the dark his expression was unreadable.

  “I wanted to go to Bedford Square Gardens,” Margery said, in a rush. “I wanted to look at the stars and feel the breeze on my face and hear the sounds of the city at night….”

  “We can still do that,” Henry said. “Since that is what you would like to do.”

  Margery paused. They were alone and the night pressed in about them, silent and secret. Somewhere, streets away, a clock chimed the quarter hour. She could hear Henry’s quiet breathing and feel the heat of his body where it brushed against hers. He said nothing more. He was waiting for her to decide what she wanted.