The Tantalizing Miss Coale (The Notorious Coale Brothers) by Sarah Mallory Page B

of shaking out her
skirts.
    ‘Then you will wait in vain.’
    I think not,’ he said softly. ‘If you do not appear then I
shall come knocking at your door. We will see how you explain my presence
to...Henry.’
    Smiling, he ran one finger along her cheek. His very touch
burned her skin and she shrugged him away. She saw the flash of white teeth
through the black growth of beard. Piratical.
    ‘Midnight,’ he murmured. ‘Do not be late.’
    He sauntered to the door, his greatcoat swinging jauntily as he
walked. The next moment she was alone.
    With a small sob Sally flung herself down on a chair. She was
trembling and unusually tearful at having her memories ripped up so violently by
a man who should have been dead to her. A hasty step sounded outside the door.
Was he coming back? She tensed as if in anticipation of a blow, only to
experience a searing disappointment when Henry came in.
    ‘That rascally landlord wanted to charge me extra for having
our meal sent up. If he knew who I was he would not dare—my dear you are looking
very pale. Has the journey been too much for you?’
    ‘I am a little tired.’ She forced a smile. ‘I shall be better
once we have had something to eat.’
    Yet, when at last Henry led her to the table, her appetite had
disappeared.
    * * *
    The razor rasped as it cut a swathe through the black
hair covering Ben’s cheek. It had become his habit to leave the beard in place
until he reached his home. In his line of work a rough, bearded traveller
attracted little attention, but Sally’s look of disdain had touched his pride.
He had called for hot water to be sent up, and with the aid of extra candles and
a cracked mirror, he set about making himself presentable.
    Over a mug of ale in the taproom he had learned that the
servants thought little of Mr. and Mrs. Woods. Merchant types, they said, trying
to ape their betters with separate bedchambers for husband and wife. Odd, that.
Would the Honourable Serena Coale, a Viscount Markham’s daughter, stoop so low
as to marry a merchant?
    If she loved him.
    The thought speared through Ben, making his hand shake, and the
razor nicked his skin. Damnation, he had not expected to feel like this. Serena
Coale was dead to him, or she should be.
    Remember the tears, Ben. Remember the
humiliation.
    But still the idea of her marrying that foppish merchant
rankled. Hell, he might not have a title, but his family was connected to some
of the most prestigious in the land and his fortune was not inconsiderable. If
she could cast him aside as unworthy, what, then did a mere Mr. Woods have to
offer?
    * * *
    When he made his way to the orchard at midnight, his
face was clean-shaven and his hair brushed and caught back at the nape of his
neck with a black velvet ribbon. A snow white cravat and fresh linen shirt
completed the transformation from journeyman to gentleman traveller. Not,
perhaps, as fashionable as that overdressed popinjay she had come in with, and
nothing like the young buck he had been when they first met. Then he had been
full of dreams for the future. Would she remember that? Ben’s stomach churned.
Of course not. Yet she had responded when he kissed her. For one, brief, heady
moment she had been yielding and pliant in his arms, bringing all the old
memories flooding back to him. And the pain.
    ‘You are a fool, Ben Hensley,’ he muttered as he buttoned up
his silk waistcoat. ‘You should stay away from her. She punished you once. That
should be enough.’
    But it wasn’t. Seeing her again so unexpectedly had caught him
off guard. That was why she had affected him so badly when he kissed her. But he
had to be sure. He had to prove she no longer had the power to hurt him.
    * * *
    The orchard was silent, save for the soft wind sighing
through the trees, and a full moon hung overhead, bathing the world in a soft
silver-blue light. A cloaked figure was moving back and forth between the trees.
At his approach she swung round to face him.
    ‘I cannot