Page 25 of The Lady Makes Her Mark

A not entirely inaccurate surmise, to which Constantia nodded.

“Well, here’s gloves.” She waved with one arm to a display of narrow boxes.

“Ooh, lovely.” It had felt strange, to say nothing of chilly, to go about without gloves. Eagerly, she stretched out her hand, then snatched it back when she glimpsed her own fingers black with charcoal.

Thankfully the girl, who had turned away to consider what else she might offer her customers, did not seem to have seen.

But Constantia’s predicament had not gone unnoticed.

“Allow me.” Lord Ryland’s voice was gentle, as it had been last evening. She heard a shuffle behind her—the sound of him laying aside her sketching implements—and then he appeared beside her, handkerchief in one hand and the other outstretched, palm upward. As if he intended for her to put her hand in his.

Instinctually, she wanted to protest. But her bandaged hand was an impediment to cleaning up. As with so many things at the moment, she could not easily manage on her own. Still, she hesitated, glancing upward, her gaze landing first on his cravat, which was slightly askew, having been tied that morning without benefit of valet or mirror. At last, she looked into his face and found it unperturbed. Resigned. Perhaps ever so slightly amused.

This was not, in her experience, an expression rakes often wore.

She recalled what he had told her about his mischievous sisters—or rather, not what he had said, so much as how he had said it. With affection. And good humor.

Gnawing surreptitiously on the inside of her lower lip, she surrendered her hand to his ministrations. His touch was gentle and comparatively warm as he curled his fingers around the breadth of her palm and began to swipe at her blackened fingertips.

There was nothing suggestive in his touch, nothing at all to remind her of that morning’s embrace, however unintentional—or unintentionally libidinous—it had been. All the same, heat rushed into her cheeks and she had to make some effort not to allow her fingers to tremble in his grasp.

“Your handkerchief will be ruined,” she warned.

He rubbed a bit harder at a particularly stubborn spot. The charcoal had embedded itself around the callus on her middle finger, where countless pencils and paintbrushes had rested. “You can buy me another,” he suggested, a faintly wry curve to the corner of his lips.

Would that be an inappropriately personal gift? Or an eminently practical one?

When he released her hand, still rather stained but no longer likely to dirty whatever she touched, she hastily set about examining the gloves while he stuffed his ruined handkerchief into his pocket and turned to look at items on another shelf—almost as if they both knew that it would be best to put the intimacy of the moment behind them.

By the time the girl returned, Constantia had settled on a pair of kid gloves in a shade of dove gray that would not show wear, but which were still suitable for her present masquerade as a lady and a new bride. Then, after a quick peek over her shoulder to confirm that Lord Ryland was otherwise occupied, she chose a bar of perfumed soap for herself and a gentlemen’s handkerchief of narrow-hemmed cambric.

“What I should really like,” she told the girl, “is a bonnet. Mine was such a silly frippery of a thing,” she went on in a slightly louder voice, so that her supposed husband might overhear and their stories would not contradict, “would you believe it blew right away?”

The girl looked suitably surprised—or perhaps suitably disbelieving. “No. Nothing like that, ma’am.” A glance toward Lord Ryland’s similarly bare head. “Neither for ladies nor gentlemen.” She gave another searching look around the little shop, then a light flickered in her eyes. “Wait. I have an idea.” She bustled away and returned with a paper-wrapped bundle, which she opened to reveal a hooded mantle of moss green wool, lined with tobacco-colored silk.

In spite of herself, Constantia gave a little gasp of greedy pleasure.

“I suppose it’s not the sort of thing a fine, elegant lady such as yourself would usually wear,” the girl said, misinterpreting Constantia’s reaction. And perhaps she was right; Constantia hardly knew, because she had never before pretended to be a fine, elegant lady. “The barkeep’s wife ordered it for herself—came just yesterday. But you’ve the greater need, ma’am. If you like it well enough, I’ll just tell her it hasn’t come yet and order another.”

Guilt needled her. To take such a lovely garment from the poor, put-upon sister of the proprietor of the Coach and Cask . . .

But she has Jem to keep her warm until a new one arrives, Constantia rationalized. While she herself must face cold rain and a drafty carriage and who could predict what else in the wilds of Devon—or wherever she ended up, once she could no longer hide that there was nothing wrong with her memory and Lord Ryland either seduced or abandoned her. Or both.

Footsteps heralded his approach. He fingered the material, appraising its quality, then lifted the garment from its wrappings, shook out the folds, and draped it over her shoulders.

Warmth settled around her, but was it the wool? Or his touch?

He raised the mantle’s hood to cover her head, then tucked in a few stray curls here and there. “Perfect.”

Constantia knew she wasn’t pretty. She had freckles, an angular face, and a stick-straight figure. She didn’t need a looking glass to tell her that an assortment of scrapes and bruises, surrounded by hair made frizzy by a morning stroll through the damp air, were unlikely to have improved matters.

But in that moment, under the warmth of his gaze, she felt that she could be pretty—when viewed from the proper perspective.

Two days past, she would have regarded the look in Lord Ryland’s eyes as proof of his duplicitous nature.

Now, though, she found herself wanting to believe that he was kind and generous, the sort of man who valued practicality over fashion, but who also knew that young women sometimes needed to feel beautiful. Even when they really weren’t.

She understood the dangers of London and had done what she must to escape them.