Page 41 of The Scandalous Deal of the Scarred Lady
Now James watched her disappear into that confounded cloak as being swallowed by magic he could not begin to comprehend, much less know how to defeat. Those eyes faded from sight, nervous fingers pulling the hood until it created a cavern from which she could regard the world carefully, as if from very far away.
My Lady, if you only knew how beautiful I find you.
Miss Barlowe had no such compunction to hide though and chattered about how pretty the music was as though it were nothing more than the song of a bird or piece played in a drawing room. To her perhaps it was, as she seemed to have no fineness of soul where music was concerned.
“I found the violins particularly inspiring,” he said finally, with a glance toward Lady Barrington who stood to the side fussing with her reticule, never once looking in his direction.
“Inspiring?” Miss Barlowe frowned a little then found a smile all the same. “I suppose one could call a violin inspiring,” she said, though there was a doubtful tone to the words as though she still could not entirely come to an understanding as to why he would use that word.
James sighed for he was fully able to engage the guardian but not the girl. He glanced around the lobby, unable to find an excuse to delay the journey home, which would be over far too soon
So, it was as he escorted them out to the carriage his attention was on the girl at his side. He desired to steady her with his hand as they descended the stairs, but he had already touched her far too many times to be proper tonight, though he longed to feel her tiny hand resting against his sleeve again.
He never saw the footpads until they were upon them.
The coachman was preoccupied with the horses, who stood restless and anxious to be off in the freezing drizzle that stung James’s exposed face. The footman was hastily handing Miss Barlowe into the carriage, out of the bluster and cold when the two craven cowards came tumbling out of the darkness.
James saw them only when he heard Lady Barrington cry out.
He whirled, seeing her holding with a certain ferocity onto her reticule, which one such thief had already grabbed, the strings cut.
It should have fallen away, disappearing with the thief into the night before anyone had even realized what he was about. But Lady Barrington was made of sterner stuff than James had realized, for she’d quickly caught at the bag, and now stood, fighting for it, beating at the would-be thief with a fist, one dainty foot coming down hard upon the instep of the belabored man.
“You will not have that! My father only just gave it to me!” she shouted and hit him again.
By this point, the first thief was long gone. Miss Barlowe was shrieking from inside the carriage asking what was happening, and both coachman and footman were rushing to her aid, not that she seemed to need any help at all. James got there first, one hand coming to wrench the man from his intended prey, feeling he was as much rescuing the man as ending the battle.
“He RUINED my bag!” Lady Barrington said, stepping forward to kick the thief in the shin for good measure, holding up the tattered bag as proof, for indeed by cutting the strings, he had also cut the delicate fabric which was coming unraveled into so many silken threads.
The thief howled, jerking backward, and would have caused them all to fall on the ice had not the coachman come up to hold the malcontent by the collar while the footman appeared with a constable in tow.
“Helena! What are you on about!” Miss Barlowe called again from inside the carriage, and so it was that Lady Barrington helped herself into the carriage, waiting for no one at all to hand her in, and plumped herself down on the seat opposite and held the mangled bag up for her aunt to inspect.
“Someone tried to take my reticule from my very hand,” she announced. The hood had fallen away from her face, revealing a sweaty triumphant face, animated, her eyes bright.
Thiswas the girl he had met on the stairs at the start of the night. This impetuous, improper young lady who clearly had no manners at all when pressed.
This impossible lady, who was so many things, so frighteningly unsure, so absolutely boisterous, and everything else in between was the very lady he had come to love.
And he knew at that moment that if he were to marry anyone at all, it would have to be her.
Chapter 26
Helena did not need a lecture from either her father or her aunt to know that she had done something most unforgivable. Regardless, she still got both.
“Child, I fail to understand what you were thinking. To put yourself at risk for the sake of a…a…” Her father floundered, searching for the word. It was highly unlikely he had any idea what one called a lady’s bag.
“A reticule, Papa,” she said, though she knew the statement would have been better treated as rhetorical. He was most decidedly angry at the whole affair, for a good reason. The very fact that the would-be thief had used a knife on the bag meant he could have just as easily used it on the lady who resisted the theft. And all for what? A handful of coin and an embroidered handkerchief?
“A…what?” Her father floundered at the interruption. It might have been amusing to see had there not been a vein throbbing in his forehead that told quite clearly of his anger.
“Reticule,” she supplied again, though Phoebe groaned next to her and covered her eyes with one hand in the manner of one much too aggrieved for words. Helena had seen that expression before as well, making her quite an expert in just how sorely disappointed her aunt was in her.
“And to think I trusted my treasure to that…that…scoundrel!” This last word was snarled, a remonstrance so entirely new that both Helena and Phoebe both jumped.
“The Duke of Durham was quite right in his actions, acting with utmost propriety!” Phoebe exclaimed, drawing herself up in a way that was most regal. “It was I who was at fault, for I should have seen that Helena entered the carriage first. After all, in the cold, it would have been better to safeguard her from a chill. It was entirely my own fault in taking the first seat.”
“Nonsense.” Harcourt Barrington waved that particular excuse off as though it was of no consequence. “You were quite right to take a seat. To have you catch a chill would have been a tragedy indeed. Had Helena not been lollygagging along, as she is wont to do, she would have perhaps not been so targeted in the first place.”
