The next thing she knew, Puck had pulled her against his chest, his arms around her as he rested his chin on her hair, rocking her slightly as if she were a child he was attempting to comfort. She wrapped one arm about his waist, holding on, hoping for strength.
And felt something else stirring inside her, something she shouldn’t have felt. Not now, with her cousin in such dire straits. Not ever.
Regina had never had anyone to cling to like this. Certainly not her mother, whom she loved dearly but who was as useless as a parent as ears would be on a turnip. Certainly not her father, who had made it clear he saw her as a commodity to be, as he’d baldly told her, “bought low and sold high.” Why, she’d never even had a pet that she was sure would have loved her unconditionally.
At last, as his coach slowed, she pushed herself away from him. “I have to stop this. I’m feeling sorry for myself, and that’s ridiculous because it is Miranda who’s in danger. Oh, and you’re horrid, Mr. Blackthorn, because you were about to take advantage of my overset state, weren’t you?”
“The thought had danced fleetingly across my mind, yes. Are you certain you’re totally against it?”
Regina glared at him, but then her bottom lip began to tremble, and she laughed. “You’re incorrigible. A true Puck.”
He put his bent index finger beneath her chin to hold it steady and then leaned in and placed a short, chaste kiss on her mouth. “For courage,” he said when he withdrew just far enough to look into her eyes.
Regina realized that the coach had come to a halt. She was home.
“I think I probably need it. Will you come inside?”
He shook his head. “I believe it would wiser if my name were kept out of any explanations you will offer your parents. I’m convinced the viscount won’t be mentioning it, at any rate. But don’t worry. Your father will be much too overjoyed to know that his daughter is safe and will not be asking for too many details. As for your mother …?”
Regina winced. “She won’t be a problem.”
“I’m sorry,” Puck said, stroking her cheek.
“Why? You aren’t the cause of any of this.”
“No. I’m sorry we have to say good-night. By tomorrow, you will have remembered just how unsuitable I am.”
She lowered her head. He was right. He was nothing she could think about the way she was thinking about him now. Her father wouldn’t allow his commodity to be thrown away on a bastard son, no matter that his sire was the Marquess of Blackthorn.
“We … we are only caught up in the moment,” she told him, still not raising her chin. “I have suffered a considerable—several considerable shocks this evening. And you …”
“I am a very bad man,” he finished for her.
“Sir,” a footman said, having opened the door and put down the steps. “We have arrived.”
Puck grinned, looking young and silly, so much so that it startled her. He had so many different sides to him, and she knew she was compelled to learn about all of them. “Some people find it necessary to state the obvious, don’t they? My footman will escort you to your door and make certain it opens to you.”
Regina nodded and then made a decision. She raised her hand to his cheek, lifted her head and kissed him, squarely on the mouth, and then withdrew before he could react.
“Tomorrow at eleven. In the park,” she said, quickly gathering up her reticule and all but stumbling out of the coach, his laughter following her.
She hiked up her skirts rather inelegantly, belatedly remembering that her shawl was still inside her uncle’s coach, but hopeful none of the sleepy Hackett footmen or the butler would notice.
And she probably would have made it to her bedchamber, where she longed to be alone and think back over every moment of the evening, save for the fact that she heard her father’s voice calling to her from the drawing room. The last thing she’d expected, considering what he had been about the last time she saw him, was for him to have returned home so early.
Her shoulders sagged; truly, her entire body sagged, suddenly exhausted. But she dutifully turned and headed toward the sound of his voice.
“Good evening, Papa,” she said, dropping into a small curtsy, because that always seemed to please him for some unknown reason. Besides, it was either that or kiss him on the cheek. After where he’d been tonight and what he had been doing, she would rather kiss the fireplace grate.
“Where’s your mother? No, never mind that nonsense. We’ve more important things to discuss.”
Reginald Hackett was still a relatively young man, and tall, towering over most other men (although not quite so tall as Puck, she realized with a ridiculous spurt of pride). He was thick in his body, most especially in his chest and shoulders, for he had spent many years laboring alongside his crews, climbing rigging, loading cargo. Regina knew this because her father had told her the stories, taken her to the docks, showed her what he had achieved and recounted again and again how hard he’d worked for his success, how grateful she should be for the fine clothes on her back, the food on her plate, the roof over her head.
And then he’d tell her how she would repay him. “Nothing less than an earl, girl, you hear me? Then squirt out a brace of sons for him, make me grandda to the heir, and nobody’ll dare remember Hacketts were ever in trade. Two generations from the docks, girl, that’s all it takes. And you name the first whelp Reginald somewhere in his string of names. I’ll go the blunt for that, as well. I promised m’mother as much, and that’s how it’s going to be, understand?”
His mother. Grandmother Hackett. To her father, everything that was right and good about the world. To her mother, who had been forced to have the coarse, domineering Alice Hackett live in her house until the woman died, the bad angel who sat on Regina’s shoulder. Her mother loved her daughter, but Leticia could never quite hide the fear that Regina had the makings of a lowborn peasant deep inside her, just waiting for some inopportune moment to pop out and sully her and her family escutcheon.
“Papa, I have terrible news,” Regina said as her father had recourse to the gin decanter, the only thing that bonded him to her Uncle Seth. She had hoped to be able to put off the telling until the morning, but that was impossible now. “Our coach took a wrong turn tonight and brigands attacked us. I’m fine,” she added quickly, as her father had whirled about to look at her, his face a thundercloud. “But Miranda was …”
“Well? Spit it out, girl. The idiot girl was what? Beaten? Shot? Raped?”
Regina sought out a chair and sat down. “No,” she said. “Taken. Miranda was taken.”
He raised one inquisitive eyebrow at her. No sign of caring, of compassion. Simply inquisitive. “Is that so? Taken where?”
“She was abducted by the brigands.” Regina hated that her voice was shaking, hated that she was afraid of her father. But she was. He was so large, so physically imposing. She reassured herself that anyone with half a brain in his head would be afraid of her father. “Uncle Seth has already begun making inquiries,” she lied quickly. “There is a great fear that Miranda has been kidnapped in order to be sold somewhere. I was left alone because I’m not what they wanted. It’s just as you told Mama and me. Terrible men, buying and selling people as if they were bolts of cloth.”
“I see,” Reginald Hackett said slowly. “And you’re not lying to me? She hasn’t talked you into going along with some farradiddle about slavers to cover that she’s run off with some idiot young pup who thinks he loves that penniless twit?”