Talk of the Ton (Free Fellows League 5)

When he’d done all that he could do to provide for his horse’s comfort, Jonathan gave thought to his own.

He was so tired he briefly considered bedding down in the stable with the horse, but he craved a warm fire, a hot meal, a glass of brandy, and a bed big enough to allow him to stretch out for the first time in days for a few blissful hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The stable was warm and dry, but it offered none of the other amenities and while Jonathan had grown rather fond of the big bay gelding, he didn’t relish sharing sleeping quarters with him. Not when there was a cottage and clean sheets nearby.

“Good night, fellow,” Jonathan whispered as he slung his leather saddle pouch over his shoulder and extinguished the lantern. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Closing the stable door behind him, Jonathan made his way down the path to the back door of Plum Cottage. He looked back over his shoulder, then glanced around the back door before removing the key from inside his coat pocket and inserting it into the lock. Jonathan didn’t expect to find the parcel outside. Lord Davies had told Colin the parcel was inside the cottage, but Jonathan checked his surroundings just the same. He unlocked the door, nudging it with the toe of his boot before pushing it open. Recalling Colin’s warning to mind his head when he entered the back door of the cottage, Jonathan ducked under the lintel and stepped over the threshold into the kitchen.

He took off his hat, then shook the rain from his coat and hung it on a peg beside the back door.

He felt the movement, the whisper of air, as the fine hairs at the back of his neck prickled in warning. But his senses were dulled with fatigue, and the warning came a fraction of a second too late. Jonathan struggled to keep from tensing his body at the feel of the cold steel of the curved blade at his throat.

“Move and you die, infidel.”

The high-pitched whisper was spoken in heavily accented French.

Jonathan wondered fleetingly if this was what Colin meant when he’d warned him to mind his head. Had Colin installed a French-speaking Saracen with a curved blade on the premises to protect the property? And there was no doubt that the man gripping his shoulder and holding a blade to Jonathan’s throat was a threat. Or a Saracen. A giant of a Saracen who wore flowered brocade robes that smelled of heavily scented oil and Turkish tobacco. For who else but a follower of Muhammad would call him an infidel? And who else but a giant could hold a knife at his throat so effortlessly? Jonathan stood an inch over six feet without shoes or boots and weighed thirteen stone, and the Saracen stood half a head taller and outweighed him by fifteen stone or more.

He hadn’t moved an inch, but the blade bit into the tender flesh of his throat just the same, and Jonathan gritted his teeth and cursed the fact that he was unable to reach the firearm concealed in the inner pocket of his coat.

Chapter Three

“Mustafa?”

The Saracen giant turned at the sound of the softly spoken query. And Jonathan was forced to turn with him.

A woman carrying a small oil lamp entered the kitchen and hesitated in the doorway when she realized the man she called Mustafa wasn’t alone.

She stared at him, and Jonathan returned her gaze, barely registering the pain as the curved blade drew a thin line of blood just below his ear as he got his first look at his savior.

Half of her face was shadowed, but the visible half was extraordinary, and her figure . . . Jonathan sucked in a breath. Her long, dark hair was loose, flowing down her back, caressing the curve of her waist. Her bare waist. Jonathan sighed. He’d never seen so much exposed flesh on any woman with whom he hadn’t been intimate. And while this young woman wasn’t entirely naked, she wasn’t wearing a nightdress, either. She was wearing an abbreviated blouse that left her midriff bare and a pair of trousers with a waistband that dipped low, hugging her slim hips and covering the essentials, while surrounding her long, shapely legs with sheer blue fabric. Half a dozen tassels hung from the hem of her short blouse, and Jonathan notic

ed that the tassels swayed provocatively each time she moved, caressing her skin and releasing tantalizing whiffs of the light, appealing fragrance of delicate spices and lilies. Her feet were as bare as her middle, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot, clenching her toes against the cold stone floor, filling the small room with the scent of her perfume and the musical sound of bells. Jonathan searched for the source of the music and discovered it originated from a chain of tiny gold bells encircling her right ankle. She literally brought beauty, music, and perfume into the room, and the potent combination teased the senses, capturing his imagination as firmly as her alluring clothing. It was, quite honestly, the most captivating costume he’d ever seen.

And likely to be the last. Jonathan closed his eyes and expelled the breath he’d been holding. He didn’t understand all of Mustafa’s words, but he understood “infidel” and the Saracen’s intent. Jonathan winced as the blade at his throat bit deeper into his flesh.

“Non!”

Jonathan opened his eyes once again, watching and listening in rapt fascination as the young woman began a heated discussion with Mustafa in a mix of French and a language Jonathan could only assume was Mustafa’s native tongue.

“Non!” she repeated, shaking her head for emphasis.

“For God’s sake, stop antagonizing the man,” Jonathan muttered beneath his breath, catching enough of the French to understand that Mustafa considered it his duty to dispatch the infidel and be done with it. “Or he’ll slit my throat just to have an end to the argument.” She hadn’t seemed to notice Mustafa’s irritation, but Jonathan was well aware of the fact that Mustafa increased pressure on the blade at Jonathan’s throat in direct proportion to the young woman’s argument.

Suddenly, she broke off her argument and directed her next words at Jonathan. “You’re English?”

“Yes.”

Her face lit up in delight. “So am I.”

Jonathan stared at her unusual garments and in a rare, unguarded moment said the first thing that came to mind. “I would never have guessed.”

She caught the teasing note in his voice and smiled. “What would you have guessed?”

“An Arabian princess. Or a Greek goddess . . .”

“Then you would have been wrong,” she pronounced. “For I’m English through and through.”