A Most Unconventional Match. Julia Justiss
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would expect his best friend to assist her until he returned himself.
Though Mr Waterman had seemed almost…hostile when David first brought him in, her heart warmed as she recalled the scene. Even if she’d not heard glowing avowals of his character from her sister and brother-in-law, she would have trusted Hal Waterman based simply on the way he’d treated her son.
He’d knelt down to David’s level, coaxed a smile to his solemn little face, then actually made him giggle. How her heart had leapt to hear it! After this awful, interminable month, poor David was desolate for attention, hungry for the company of a man upon whom he could depend.
Even as she was.
She did feel she could depend on Hal Waterman to handle the distressing matter of Mr Smith and the loan. Now that she thought about it, she recalled Nicky telling her Mr Waterman had a keen mathematical mind and was an expert in matters of finance and investment. Quite likely not even Nicky himself would be better situated to resolve whatever tangle Everitt had left in their financial affairs.
So she would be seeing Mr Waterman again. The idea made something stir within her. Though she’d felt nothing but grief and regret for so long, she wasn’t sure just what.
Probably it was that he presented such an arresting figure—she could almost feel her fingers itch with impatience to find a brush. Though he was taller and broader of shoulder than any man she’d ever met, he carried himself with an athlete’s easy grace. The muscles of his thighs and calves revealed by his knit breeches and form-fitting boots attested to time spent in the saddle, while the abdomen beneath his plain waistcoat appeared firm and flat. As for his face, with his golden hair worn just long enough to curl over his brow, a high forehead, well-formed nose and square jaw, he reminded her of the Roman bust of Apollo her husband had recently acquired.
Although with his size and air of authority, she would rather paint him as Zeus, king of the gods. For a moment, she smiled at the idea of ordering him to strip off his garments and dress in a toga, the better for her to capture the likeness.
Something about the image made her feel suddenly overwarm. She reached up a hand to fan herself. Hal Waterman was quite as attractive as he was arresting, she realised.
He found her attractive, too, she knew. By now she was used to seeing the interest flare in men’s eyes when they looked at her. She could identify every degree of attraction, from the gentle love and respect that had always shown in Everitt’s, to the slavish eagerness to impress of some of the young men he’d sometimes brought to dinner, to the hot-eyed lust in Mr Smith’s that she’d found so disconcerting and repellent.
That might have made her current situation more difficult, except that the masculine appreciation in Mr Waterman’s eyes had not made her feel at all uncomfortable, overlayed as it was by a quaint shyness and a respect bordering almost on reverence. With utter certainty she knew that admire her as he might, he would never say or do anything to distress or discomfort her. Even the clasping of her hand that she’d found so oddly disturbing had been meant only to reassure.
Yes, she could depend upon him utterly. And if something else tickled at the edges of her consciousness, some little niggle in the pit of her stomach she couldn’t quite identify, she needn’t regard it.
Mr Waterman promised to keep her and David secure until Sarah and Nicky returned. For that favour, she would owe him her warmest appreciation.
Chapter Four
Still shaken from his encounter with Elizabeth Lowery, Hal returned to his bachelor quarters on Upper Brook Street. Feeling the morning’s events called for stiffer reinforcement than a glass of wine, he headed straight for the brandy decanter in the library.
The satisfying bite of the liquor burning its way to his belly helped relax the knots in his nerves. Breathing easy for the first time since leaving the widow’s presence, he tried to shake his mind free of her lingering spell.
All right, so she was still beautiful. Dazzling, even. And, yes, he burned as fiercely to possess her as he had the first time he’d seen her. Except now, moved by her plight and that of her fatherless son, he also wanted to protect them and ease the small boy’s misery.
He could handle his lust. For six years now he’d had a comfortable, mutually agreeable arrangement with a big-hearted lady he’d met at one of London’s most exclusive brothels and who now resided in a discreet house on Curzon Street he’d purchased for her. Sweet Sally would keep his masculine urges slaked.
He’d just have to work on leashing his emotions.
It was unfortunate that Lowery hadn’t entrusted his business affairs to someone capable of managing them. It appeared that Hal was going to have to tap his contacts and do some investigating to determine exactly how things stood so he could restore the Lowery finances to good order before turning everything over to Nicky upon his return.
Which meant he would probably see a lot more of Elizabeth…far more than was good for his heart or his senses. Hearing himself sigh at that conclusion like an infatuated moonling just up from Oxford, Hal straightened and squared his shoulders.
All right, so it was unlikely, given her professed dislike of shopping—a description Hal still had a hard time believing—that Elizabeth Lowery had got her household into financial difficulties. But just because, unlike his own mama, she didn’t visit the shops more regularly than she did her son’s nursery didn’t mean she was born to bear his children.
If he tried to focus his visits to Green Street on spending as much time with the boy and as little as possible with the widow, he might still escape this tangle intact. Surely he could manage to remain sensible for the two-or-so months remaining until Nicky came home?
He had just knocked back the last measure of brandy when a tap sounded at the door and his valet Jeffers entered, bearing several boxes.
To the unspoken question of his lifted eyebrows, Jeffers said, ‘Your lady mother called while you were out.’
Hal groaned. ‘Praise God I was out.’
Jeffers smiled. ‘Having called so early on the expectation of finding you at home, Mrs Waterman was…less than pleased to discover you away. It took a glass of Madeira and some of Cook’s best biscuits to convince her you’d not deliberately conspired to have her quit her bedchamber at nearly dawn and go out in the early morning damp so prejudicial to her complexion, all the while knowing she would fail to find you here. Though she did condescend to leave these packages, I believe it would be accurate to infer that you are still in her black books.’
‘Always am anyway,’ Hal mumbled.
Jeffers nodded sympathetically. ‘Quite.’
‘What’s in ’em?’ Hal gestured to the boxes. ‘Know you’ve looked.’
Jeffers cleared his throat. ‘Mrs Waterman purchased some garments that she felt might assist you in updating your wardrobe to present a more fashionable appearance.’
Hal rolled his eyes. ‘How bad are they?’
Jeffers opened the first box. ‘Wellington pantaloons are quite stylish now,’ he said, shaking out the garment and holding it up.
Grimacing, Hal inspected the long pants that featured side slits from calves down to ankles, where they fastened with loops and buttons at the heel. ‘Not so bad, but keep my breeches.’
‘Very good, sir.’ The valet opened the next box, and with a determinedly straight face, held up a waistcoat.
Alternating blue and yellow stripes, each nearly three inches wide, met Hal’s incredulous view.
‘Mrs Waterman said it was all the crack,’ Jeffers informed him.
Hal snorted. ‘Don’t doubt. On man my size, look like curtains out of bordello.’
The valet’s lips twitched. ‘I believe this last item meant to avoid that by giving you a more…slender look.’ He removed the garment from its box