Mistress of Scandal (Greentree Sisters 3)

Chapter 14

Francesca screamed.

The sound didn’t end up as loud as it began. In the split second after she opened her mouth, she recognized him, and it became more of a squeak than a proper scream.

“You!” she cried, and had the bizarre sensation that once again she was trapped in a novel.

“Yes, it’s me,” Sebastian said. “You’re not going to make that infernal squawk again, are you?” he added, his brows snapping together as he frowned.

“What did you expect me to do?” She was angry. She could feel her cheeks growing hot, and her eyes were blazing. “I thought I was about to be kidnapped! Again…”

She didn’t really remember being kidnapped the first time—she’d been so young—but she had heard the story many times, and perhaps on some deeper level she had retained a memory of terror…of loss. Now she was all the more furious because of it.

And because you spent a sleepless night, worrying about him, and here he is, large as life, and without a scratch.

“I could kidnap you if you like,” he said, his wicked black eyes aglow. “In fact that might be a very good idea.”

Damn and blast him, he’d done it again! Her imagination shot off in an entirely new direction, with images of him and her in some safe little paradise, all alone together. This paradise seemed to bear a resemblance to a sultan’s harem, and she was wearing…oh heavens, silken trousers! Francesca had come to the part in her fantasy where he was feeding her plump, juicy grapes, when she came back to the hackney cab and realized he was watching her, smiling, and waiting.

“Are you all right, Francesca? You seemed to go away for a moment there.”

“Of course I’m all right,” she retorted guiltily. “What do you think you’re doing, bursting into my cab like this?”

Mr. Thorne leaned back in the seat as if this was perfectly normal behavior. “I wanted to speak to you privately.”

Francesca tried to cling to her anger, but she felt it slipping away. In a moment she’d be giggling. “If you wanted to speak to me, you should have sent a note. Or you could have called on me at my uncle’s house.”

“You would have torn up the note, and you would have refused to see me. Or Mrs. Jardine would have refused on your behalf. I’m not the kind of man they want sniffing around your door.”

But she knew that was part of his attraction for her.

“You’re in danger, and you need to understand that. I’ve just taught you a valuable lesson.”

“A valuable lesson?” she repeated angrily.

“Anyone who wished you ill could easily pay your driver to stop his vehicle, so that he, or she, could then accost you in some deserted street. You have no maid, no friends on hand. You’d be helpless to save yourself.”

Her anger was definitely draining away—he seemed so sincere. And she never seemed able to sustain it for long, not when she was with him. “Thank you,” she said in a cool voice. “I’ll remember to be accompanied by someone at all times, and to carry about a—a pistol with me, so that I can shoot any persons I don’t like the look of. Now please get out of my way, Mr. Thorne, and allow me to continue on my journey unmolested.”

He grinned as if he found her very amusing. “Not yet. I haven’t said all I came to say.”

She closed her eyes and held her breath. Her lips moved, counting. After a long moment she opened her eyes again. “Very well, Mr. Thorne. What?”

“Where is the girl? Rosie?”

“I’ve taken her to my mother to be cared for until my sister returns to London.”

He groaned.

“What’s wrong with that?” she asked quickly, her eyes widening anxiously.

“What’s right with it?”

Her eyes narrowed again at the perceived insult. “I assure you Rosie will be perfectly safe with Aphrodite. She will come to no harm there.” Her voice changed, grew ragged. “I had to do something. Mrs. March, my uncle’s housekeeper, called Rosie a guttersnipe and threatened to tell my uncle. He’d make a terrible fuss, and right now the last thing we need is one of Uncle William’s rages.”

“Of course, we mustn’t have one of William’s rages.”

“You’re being sarcastic. You don’t understand. What would you have done in my place, Mr. Thorne? Left Rosie to her fate? I couldn’t do that, no matter how much it might inconvenience me.”