Free The Scoundrel and I: A Novella by Katharine Ashe Page A

could hardly breathe.
    “Well,” she said, “shall we get on with this little charade?”
    He offered his arm. “My lady.”
    Before the house he handed her up into Seraphina’s carriage, then climbed in. It was dark within, save a glimmer of light from the lamp on the street, and when the coachman cracked the whip even that light vanished.
    “Don’t suppose you speak any foreign languages?” he said in an unexceptional tone.
    “Foreign languages? A little French. My mother was a schoolteacher before she married my father.”
    “Liked him that much, did you?”
    This time she did not resist her smile.
    “The lady’s voice reveals all,” he murmured.
    “I am not a lady, Captain. If you fail to remember that tonight I am afraid you will be horridly disappointed when I prove myself incapable of pretending it.”
    “You are a lady, Elle, tonight and every night,” he said in an altered tone, deeper, sending the nerves scampering back into her stomach. “But tonight you will be more than a lady.”
    “What do you mean?” she said warily, wishing she could see his eyes.
    “Transparent as rain on a spar deck. Open your mouth tonight, and you’ll blow the whole deal to shrapnel.”
    “Blow the— What?”
    “You’re far too direct, Elle. And earnest.”
    “I—”
    “Don’t take me wrong. Dashed fond of your directness. And your earnestness, truth is, it turns me inside out. But my uncle’s a prize snob. Thinks everybody’s a fool, and doubly so if they haven’t got a title. Daresay if he knew who you really are he wouldn’t give you the time of day. And, you said yourself you don’t feel up to it.”
    “What are you saying?” she said somewhat thickly.
Her earnestness turned him inside out?
“That I have spent two days preparing for a ball I am not to attend after all?”
    “No, no. Nothing like that. Just saying that you mustn’t speak tonight.”
    “I mustn’t speak? But how will I ingratiate myself to your uncle without speaking? Are you—”
    “Stupid as a post? Probably. Fortunately, my uncle already thinks I’ve got a brain the size of a pea. Best let me do all the talking. Now, what would you like to be? Russian, perhaps?”
    “What would I like to
be
?”
    “Pretend to be, that is. So you needn’t speak, leastways not overly much. How about Hungarian. That’s it! Unlikely to be anybody who speaks Hungarian at this event. Probably.”
    “But what if there
is
?”
    “Cross that bridge when it hatches, daresay.”
    Elle stared into shadow, lit occasionally by lamplight passing by outside. Arms crossed and leaning back against the squabs, he looked perfectly comfortable, like he was enjoying himself thoroughly. Teetering between dismay and hilarity, she laughed.
    “There now,” he said in that deep, private voice that made her feel unsteady and hot inside. “Knew it wouldn’t take you long.”
    “You knew it would not take me long to what?”
    “To fall in.” Then he smiled, and she was quite certain she knew exactly how he commanded men so successfully. He was simply a big, strong, solid thing who, once determined to accomplish a task, devoted himself entirely to it. This was not a lark for him. He was doing it for her because he was exactly what his half-sister had said: a good man.
    He had called her a lady, which was ridiculous. But he did not seem to understand that. He was nothing like the gentlemen who came into the shops on Gracechurch Street and made Minnie and Adela behave like cakes; not haughty or superior.
    “You do not mind it?” she said.
    “Mind what? Putting one over on my uncle?”
    “Perilous adventure. Living on the edge of insanity.”
    “Not a’tall,” he said. “Life’s more fun when nothing’s certain.”
    “Spoken like a man who has never woken up to an empty larder with no idea how he will eat that day.”
    In the striated lamplight, she saw the crease in his brow.
    “True,” he said. “A few tight occasions when shot ran thin and