Angel Meadow Read online

  “Miss Brody, will you ever learn to look where you are going, I wonder? You really could have a serious accident the way you dash headlong—”

  “I might have known it would turn out to be my fault. Will you ever learn to look where you are going, Josh Hayes,” she spat at him while all eyes turned with interest to look at him. “Or at least teach that blasted animal of yours to go where you tell it. Every time I step out of doors there you are charging down on me as though you were leading a cavalry troop. No, I’m not hurt, no thanks to you.”

  But when he had helped her to her feet and then, when he found she could not stand erect, picked her up and carried her back to the shop from which she had emerged, it seemed she was glad enough of his strength as her own faded away. Her ankle, which the mare had caught with her sharp hoof, was swelling badly. She needed her boot removing, he told her sternly, and would she for God’s sake be quiet for a moment while he found someone to apply a cold compress.

  “Mrs Underwood can do that, if you would kindly put me down. There really is no need for all this fuss,” though her arms were inclined to cling about his neck and he could feel a small tremor shake her slender figure.

  “And where the devil is Mrs Underwood?” peering about him as though fully expecting whoever she was to be at his elbow where he needed her.

  “In the shop,” indicating the sign above the splendid double-fronted window which said: MRS UNDERWOOD LADIES’ FASHIONS.

  A young woman dressed in black stood behind the counter arranging something in a box. She looked up smiling as the door bell pinged, then put her hand to her mouth in dismay.

  “Miss Brody. Oh dear . . . oh dear, whatever is to do? Mrs Underwood . . .”

  As she gasped and floundered, a large and capable-looking woman came from the back reaches of the shop, her face displaying her own horror at the sight of her young partner in the arms of a strange man.

  “Dear Lord, Nancy, what now?” she began, ready to flutter and wring her hands as her assistant was doing; then, pulling herself together, she drew back a red velvet curtain and led the way into whatever back room she had come from.

  “Stay calm, please, Miss Jenkins,” she called over her shoulder. “Stay here and see to any customers who – or perhaps Nancy needs a doctor. Shall Miss Jenkins run for a doctor?” she asked Josh anxiously.

  He did not answer. Following the woman who was presumably Mrs Underwood, he carried Nancy Brody in arms which, for some reason, decidedly did not want to let her go. And when her ankle was bandaged quite expertly by Mrs Underwood and she had sipped the glass of brandy he had demanded, he told her firmly that he would not hear of her going anywhere without him. A cab would be called and he would see her to her home. It was the least he could do after so rudely riding her down, he told her bent head, his mouth curling in a wry grin.

  And it was as she raised her face to his and he looked up from the neat bandage Mrs Underwood had applied to her ankle that he first got a clear look at her. He did his best not to gasp. He did his best not to stare or reveal in any way how shocked and . . . yes, how grieved he was at the puckered scar that twisted her once smooth cheek but his eyes, over which he had no control, darkened in his distress and compassion. She saw it and at once she lifted her head with quite regal imperiousness, her back, which had been inclined to droop, arching majestically, her look saying she wanted no man’s pity, and certainly not his. What right had he to pity her, her manner asked and he looked away in confusion, which he realised at once was the worst thing he could have done. She would believe he could not bear to look at her which was not true. At once he lifted his head and met her eyes. It must be spoken of at once or it would for ever lie between them, though what exactly he meant by that he was not awfully certain.

  “How did you . . . ? Please, I don’t mean to be rude or unfeeling but . . .” he began and for some reason her eyes became less frosty and he was aware that she was grateful he had asked her and not simply turned away as though he had noticed nothing.

  The wound must have been deep, taking with it the fine flesh that thinly covers the cheekbone, and though it was evident a clever surgeon had done his best the skin had been drawn together in a long pucker. The cheekbone, which must have fragmented, had fallen in and when the flesh had been pulled together it had drawn up the corner of her mouth. It was not unattractive. In fact it gave her a decidedly lopsided but permanent half-smile, whimsical, impish almost, making the observer want to smile too.

  “I was hit . . . by a man,” she said softly, gazing into his face as though she were sorry if it distressed him. “He was a prize fighter. He broke my cheekbone.”

  His face hardened and so did something inside him, something that now felt it could do murder on her behalf. There was something about this woman that had fascinated him from the start, drawn him to her, unwillingly let it be said, but he had told himself that it made no difference, his life was set on its course, with Freddy, and he wanted no more complications. But how could he simply ignore the damage that had been done to her lovely face? Walk away and pretend it meant nothing to him when the simple fact was, it did. Anger was boiling up inside him, a rage so great he could feel it thicken in his throat. Though she was tall with a magnificent bosom, there was a look of vulnerability about her, a slender, swaying frailty like a flower caught in a merciless wind. He knew she was strong. He knew a bit about her by now, for a woman like her was talked about and it had got around that she came from a poor background but by her own endeavours and sheer gritty determination had dragged herself, and her family, to this point in her life, which could only be called successful. But some man had attacked her, for a reason he was sure she would not speak of – and did he really want to know? He was a prize fighter, she had said, which implied a big bully of a man, for that was what prize fighters were. Why should he suddenly think of that swaggering, broad-shouldered lout he had seen her with at the Arts Treasures Exhibition, it must be three or four years ago now? He found he could not bear the images that formed in his mind, violent and sickening, of this lovely girl being battered to the ground by the fists of that brute, but he could not seem to blot them out and it appalled him, as did his own reaction to it. He would be appalled by any attack on any woman by any man, he was aware of that, but this, what had been done to this woman filled him with a savagery that would not be appeased until he had ground the perpetrator into the mud beneath his feet. His jaw clenched and so did his fists until his fingernails cut into the palms of his hands and his breath rasped in his throat.

  He stood up and lurched away from her, leaning for a moment with both hands on a table which evidently was used for sewing, for there were piles of brightly coloured cottons and silks strewn about it.

  “Mr Hayes?” she enquired wonderingly.

  “Who was it?” he snarled at the table. “Who did this to you? If he’s not in gaol I shall personally make it my business to see he gets there by the week’s end.”

  “Mr Hayes!” This time in astonishment and yet in her voice was something that said she was not displeased.

  “The bastard wants horse-whipping and if you will give me his name—”

  Her voice when she spoke, interrupting what he knew to be none of his business, had cooled a little.

  “Really, Mr Hayes, I can hardly think it has anything to do with you.”

  “Perhaps not, Miss Brody, but I would still be glad to hear that he had been punished.” His voice was harsh.

  “Mr Hayes, I am quite capable of dealing with my own—”

  “Has he been punished?”

  “Well, no, as it happens. He—”

  “No, and may I ask why?” He began to stride about the small room, smacking his right fist into the palm of his left hand. Behind Nancy’s chair, where she had been watching the scene played out before her, Hetty Underwood gaped in bewilderment. She knew who he was, of course, since she had accompanied Nancy and Jennet a time or two to his warehouse in Moseley Street. But these were not th
e actions of a concerned but impersonal onlooker to some stranger’s troubles. This was not one male appalled at what another had inflicted on a weak and helpless woman. So what was it? Dear God, what was wrong with the man?

  Nancy evidently had the same thought, for she drew herself up even further, presenting him with a full view of her disfigured face, her frosted eyes telling him that what had happened to her was none of his concern. But Josh Hayes was no longer the engaging, carelessly good-natured, happy-go-lucky young man who had swept Evie Edward off her feet. He had matured, shouldered responsibilities not only as a father but as a man of business with a standing in the community. This young woman was not his responsibility but could he ignore what had been done to her, the deed seemingly gone unpunished, and still call himself a gentleman? He could not.

  “Miss Brody, I cannot rest . . . I beg your pardon, but I cannot rest easy in my mind knowing that a madman is still on the loose. You say he has not been—”

  “He ran away, Mr Hayes, so there is really nothing to be done about it.” Nancy’s emotions were racing from her head to her chest and even down to her knees which, though she was sitting down, felt curiously weak, no doubt due to her fall, she told herself firmly without believing it. Some contrary female part of her, even while she was arguing with him, was noticing the firm but pleasing shape of his mouth, the clefts at either side of it and, whenever he stopped to glare at her, the black lines that striped his silver grey eyes from the pupil to the outer circle. But this wouldn’t do. She had no time to play games with this fine gentleman who seemed determined to do battle on her part, which she supposed was what gentlemen of his class did for ladies. But she was no lady and though she would dearly like to see Mick O’Rourke brought to justice he – and Rosie – had been gone for the best part of a year.

  Firmly she told him so, though she did not mention Rosie.

  “Nevertheless I would like his name, Miss Brody. My family has some influence in Lancashire, contacts in all the cotton towns. If he is working hereabouts he would easily be found.”

  She sighed, for there was nothing she would like more than to have news of Rosie, and where Mick was there surely would be her sister.

  “Very well. His name is Mick O’Rourke.”

  “Aah . . . Irish!”

  “As I am, Mr Hayes. Or of Irish descent.”

  “I apologise, Miss Brody. I meant no slur to you. Now then, I think we had better get you home. You might have concussion, or worse.” He was firm, sure in his male arrogance that, as a woman, she was incapable of getting herself anywhere without a male arm to support her, particularly now she was injured, not at all concerned about his mare which, apparently, was blocking the pavement to the annoyance of a constable. “I shall call a cab. Mrs Underwood, I presume you are Mrs Underwood?” And when Hetty Underwood, who had outfaced many a gentleman in her time, meekly said she was, he sent her scurrying into Market Street to hail a hansom cab.

  “Really, Mr Hayes, this is ridiculous.”

  “Why is it ridiculous, Miss Brody? Accidents happen.” His eyes were an incredible soft velvet grey and he was smiling as he knelt before her.

  “You weren’t looking where you were going.”

  “And neither were you.”

  “Oh, damnation.”

  “What is it now?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel so . . . so annoyed.”

  “With me?”

  “I suppose so, and with myself.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I can’t help it. I’m not usually such a fool.”

  For a brief second she drifted against him, her head drooping to his shoulder. His arms rose and his hands gently gripped her forearms and when she lifted her head their eyes met and acknowledged something that was there between them. He thought he might have kissed her and so did she but there was a bustle at the door as Mrs Underwood and her assistant came to help her to the waiting cab. He picked her up and cradled her to his chest, neither of them aware of anyone but each other.

  “Your horse, Mr Hayes?” Mrs Underwood said faintly and was not surprised when he did not seem to hear her.

  19

  She knew something unthinkable had happened. She had felt it, she supposed, years ago, when they had exchanged angry words in the mill yard. She had felt it in the ruins of the castle where she had gone, in her devastation, after Mick O’Rourke had raped her, making her pregnant, and Josh Hayes had thrown his good warm cape about her shoulders. There had been some essence of him in the cape which had enfolded her, entered into the place that had been so sorely hurt: her heart, was that it, or the flesh and bones of her which had ached with weariness, and she had felt comforted by it, soothed; and something else that she had not been prepared to recognise. Deep down, unacknowledged, she had felt it again at his warehouse in Moseley Street when he had given her, for a reason she had told herself was merely kindness, though of course it wasn’t, the key that had opened the door to her new venture with his willingness to sell her his cotton. Every time they had met something had flowed between them. Something she, at least, did not want and, she believed, neither did he if the coolness of his manner was anything to go by. And that afternoon when she and Mary and Jennet had taken Kitty for a picnic and he had come upon them, accompanied by his little son. What a bloody fool she had made of herself then. She could have bitten out her own tongue when she heard herself ask him about his wife, a question that had come from somewhere inside her that she had not even known existed. And with what incredible gladness she had received his answer. He had no wife, he had told her, looking at her as if to ask what the devil it was to do with her, which was as it should be, for what had it to do with Nancy Brody?

  But he had put his hands on her outside Mrs Underwood’s shop, allowed her to feel the warmth and masculine vigour of him and from that moment she had accepted it, gloried in it, despaired over it and known it was too late. He had lifted her against his chest, lean and yet strong, held her close to him as he carried her into the shop, bent his head to her so that she had felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek and smelled the fragrance of expensive cigars mixed with his own particular male odour which seemed to be a combination of cologne and fine cloth. He had been alarmed and had wanted to curse her but his eyes had given him away, for they had been a soft, smoky grey, narrowed with his male impulse to hold her more closely than was necessary. His lean, dark face with its oddly slanting smile bewitched her and she felt her flesh warm with what could only be called desire as her hands felt the ripple of his muscles beneath the impeccable cut of his jacket as he lifted her effortlessly from the pavement. She had wanted the moment to go on for ever, for she had experienced a strange languor, warm and sweet and deep, cradling her in a most unusual need to be carried wherever he fancied taking her.

  In the hansom cab he had arranged her to his own satisfaction against the faded, rather worn upholstery, keeping his arm about her shoulders as though to steady her and she had not objected. Telling the cab driver to go carefully, which was something of an impossibility in the midday traffic, he had directed him to take them to Grove Place, making no secret of the fact that he was well acquainted with her address. She had not explored the reason why, since she felt herself to be drifting in a hushed world of enchantment which lulled her into a state she had never before known. It filled her entire being, and his too, she knew that, erasing their busy, complicated lives with the one all-absorbing pleasure of looking at one another, of taking in odours, of hair and skin, the feeling of closeness, of female softness and male toughness so that the jolting ride from Market Street, along Victoria Terrace past the Collegiate Church and Victoria Station on to Bury New Road passed by them unnoticed.

  The cab stopped at the front gate of her home and they dragged their eyes away from one another to stare foolishly about them.

  “Oh, are we there?” she asked with slow dragging reluctance, for how could she bear the moment to be over.

  “I’m afraid so,” he a
nswered without thinking, both of them knowing exactly what he meant. It was not the time for speaking, for promises or declarations, but when his hard hand touched hers it burned her with a strange fire and she wanted him to go on touching her for ever. She felt drugged with happiness, a rare feeling; indeed she could not remember ever knowing it before. And in the midst of it all she found herself noticing what she had not seen before: the sweetness and humour in his firm lips, the quiet amusement behind his alert gaze. He was, quite simply, a beautiful man.

  “I’ll carry you in,” he had told her and her heart had leaped, for his hands were a caress about her, going through her flesh to the bone, the length of his lean body an inch from hers, his slanting, enquiring smile like the sun warming her skin. His face was close to hers as he lifted her from the cab and, so separated had they become from the world in which they lived, again he might have kissed her, despite the fascinated stare of the cab driver, had not Annie, Jennet and Mary come hurrying down the steps and along the path. Kitty and the barking dog tumbled at their heels so that pandemonium reigned for several minutes. They surrounded her with cries of “what’s to do now?” and “what next?” patting her, begging to be told what had happened, eyeing Josh Hayes with some trepidation as though whatever it was must be his fault.

  It brought them both back from that dangerous bewitchment with a rapidity that made her gasp and she could see the confusion in Josh as he carried her up the steps and into the kitchen where, turning for directions to Annie, he placed her gently in the chair indicated. The dog at once jumped up and put her paws on her knee and Josh frowned.

  “Miss Brody suffered an accident to her ankle,” he told the twittering group of women, his voice suddenly distant. “Mrs Underwood kindly bandaged it but I . . . well, you might want to call in a doctor. Must that animal leap about at Miss Brody’s knee like that?” They were astonished by his irritation, wondering what had caused it, though Nancy knew, naturally. “No,” he continued, “please, it was no trouble. I must get back, my mare is still . . .” and he had gone.