himself for giving her a clue if she ever wanted to track him down.
At least the Admiralty hadn’t ordered the breaking of the sword now resting in Kit’s larder, or his speedy expulsion from the Service. He almost wished they had, so it couldn’t follow him like a symbol of all he no longer was, but couldn’t quite discard.
‘Don’t bother visiting the Admiralty to find out how and when they lost or mislaid one of their junior officers, will you? Their lordships don’t encourage idle curiosity.’
‘Who says it would be idle? And you’re very defensive about a career you pretend not to care a fig for, Captain Darke,’ she said shrewdly.
‘Perhaps I hate having my life picked over for the amusement of others?’
‘And I don’t have time or inclination for idle gossip, Captain Darke.’
‘Then you must be the most unusual female I have ever met.’
‘Please don’t think me artless enough to mistake that for a compliment,’ she countered smoothly, yet he felt he’d annoyed her by lumping her with the more curious of her kind and tried to be glad of it.
‘I don’t think you in the least bit artless, I assure you, Miss La Rochelle,’ he said with a cynical almost-smile she didn’t bother to return.
‘Clearly,’ she told him, but he thought he saw a shadow of pain in her blue eyes before she gathered up their dirty crockery and bore it off to the scullery.
‘You hardly need to be with so many charms already in your armoury,’ he explained clumsily—why must he follow her into that utilitarian room when she’d given him an ideal escape route?
‘Look what you’ve made me do now,’ she chided fiercely as she jumped on finding him so close to her, splashed herself, then swatted angrily at the large wet patch plastering her dusky shirt to her torso with a glass cloth.
He did just what she asked and the cool scullery was suddenly close and stuffy as his gaze lingered on wet dark linen, clinging emphatically to wet woman and almost as closely plastered to her fine breasts and tightly furled nipples as he’d like to be himself. Hard and fierce and instantly emphatic, his painful erection would have informed him he wanted her any way he could get her, even if his hungry eyes weren’t busy devouring her like a lover. Want flared hot and heady between them again, but on its heels came a dark memory of his younger self, home from the sea and pitifully eager for the woman he thought was his. At least his wife’s betrayal had armoured him against mistaking lust for anything else. He assured himself that his annoying reaction to Eloise La Rochelle, or whatever she cared to call herself, was a physical thing he’d learn to ignore and nothing deeper.
‘I wish you good day and expect you to be gone by the time I get home, madam,’ he informed her stiffly and turned to pick up his coat from the chair he’d flung it on to earlier, shrugging into it as he cravenly bolted for the front door and freedom from wanting what he couldn’t have.
At least it should have been freedom, except he had to halt stock-still on Kit’s doorstep to breathe deeply and steadily as he thought hard about desolate arctic waters and relentless storms at sea. At last he was respectable enough to proceed through this confoundedly civilised neighbourhood without his very obvious need for Miss Eloise La Rochelle and her magnificent body instantly causing a scandal.
Not just her body either, he couldn’t help but recall as he marched rather blindly along the wide streets to his destination. She had that acute, questing mind and an unexpected sense of humour to render her almost irresistible as well. He let himself consider the unique charms of such a contrary, intriguing woman for a moment and would have been horrified to know an unguarded smile quirked his mouth as he did so. Most of the time she was as knowing as any street urchin, full of self-reliance and used to hardship almost from birth, then she’d astonish him with an eager enthusiasm for life and suddenly seem as coltish as any ingénue. No, he assured himself, he was long past being a fit companion for any sort of innocent, even if it was Eloise the buccaneer. Once again, he fought his over-active imagination as he pictured her in that black shirt aiming a pirate ship at his sturdy merchantman, and discovered how much he’d relish capturing and taming such an unlikely opponent when she failed to overrun him.
‘Idiot,’ he chided himself as he nearly walked into a lamppost. A little restored to his usual stern self, he strolled towards Stone & Shaw’s offices in the City, but was still too preoccupied with his eventful evening, sore head and unwanted visitor to sense that he was being followed.
Louisa paused when he did and wondered why she’d impulsively stuffed her cap on her head and shrugged into Coste’s overlarge jacket, then ventured out in broad daylight to see where rude and disobliging Captain Darke was bound. She watched her own reflection in a shuttered window and tucked a giveaway strand of hair under the hatband of the silly hat she’d stolen last night. At least Charlton could live without his very odd suit of clothes, but she promised herself she’d replace Coste’s jacket if she damaged it, then all her senses suddenly sharpened as she considered a wiry young tough who seemed as intent on staying on Captain Darke’s tail as she was herself.
He was good, she grudgingly admitted that much to herself as she lurked in a doorway and eyed the innocuous-looking youth pretending to watch a street vendor chase off a starving little would-be pickpocket. Luckily she’d trained herself to be even better once upon a time and felt her old skills return as she fell into step behind both the Captain and his follower and neither of them even had a suspicion she was there. Spying a fancy footman, she was grateful Kit didn’t insist on Coste going about in some fanciful livery, though, for she’d certainly attract attention if she’d been forced to steal a chapeau-bras and gold-laced blue jacket. She slouched towards the unfortunate dressed so ostentatiously and he gave her a pained snarl and shuffled his feet self-consciously, obviously believing her another annoying idler, silently jeering his ridiculous uniform.
Grinning at this confirmation that she looked nothing like fashionable Miss Alstone, or even Miss Eloise La Rochelle, Louisa swaggered a little in her disreputable breeches and worn and ill-fitting coat and pretended to be absorbed in the noise and bustle of Cheap-side as follower and followed moved onwards. Hands in her pockets, she sauntered along at a distance from Captain Darke and his shadow, keeping enough space between herself and them to look as if she was aimlessly passing the time until more promising mischief offered.
She mused on the quality of the Captain’s enemies and decided the boy was very good, and at the next crossroads she cast a disguised gaze about her to see if she was being followed in her turn. All was clear and as innocent as London streets ever were, so Hugh Darke’s foes weren’t that canny. Suddenly she wished more fervently than usual that her big brother would come home. Kit would soon find out who was so interested in his infamous captain and she suddenly felt inadequate for this suddenly very serious task, as well as uncertain why it seemed so vitally important that Hugh Darke should not be hurt by his enemies.
She’d followed him on impulse, unable to think of another way to fill in her time until Kit came back without sitting tamely in his kitchen, waiting for Charlton or her uncle to come and march her up the aisle. Now her impulse had changed from a way of idling away the day into a quest to protect the ungallant Captain’s back. She wove a cautious track over to the other side of the street and blessed Hugh Darke for being tall enough to stand a little above the crowd and show her the way, even if he was several inches shy of her brother’s lofty height and Ben Shaw must tower over him like a giant, as he did over everyone else she had ever come across outside a fairground sideshow.
Now Hugh Darke was entering the quieter street where her brother and Ben had their offices and she had to walk past it and head down
