He stalked slowly toward her, stopping his boots at the edge of the puddle. “Olivia Sinclair.”
“Olivi— Oh.” Her anger-flushed cheeks blanched pale as understanding dawned on her. Then, in a frantic attempt to ward off the argument that was coming, she grabbed for the brush and began to scrub at the floor again. “I’m glad you liked the book. I had to send the tiger to buy—”
“Olivia Sinclair,” he repeated, this time louder and more slowly. “Countess of St James.”
She scrubbed furiously, refusing to look up as she mumbled, “I’ve never met her.”
“And you never will if you refuse the invitation to her ball.” He frowned down at her. “The same ball which is also your introduction.”
She stopped, freezing in place like a startled doe, but he knew her sharp mind was whirling at a million miles a minute to find a way out of this latest mess she’d placed herself into.
Then, drawing a deep breath, she sat back on her heels and folded her hands contritely in her lap. “Now, Robert, please understand—”
“Your own introduction,” he bit out, not allowing himself to be distracted by her use of his given name. Or her captivating mix of innocence and wickedness as she gazed up at him through lowered lashes. “Are you trying to end your season before it’s even begun?”
He squatted down onto the balls of his feet and brought his eyes level with hers. The angry glare she must have seen on his face kept her silent. For once. Wise woman. He was through playing games.
“Lord and Lady St James have been kind enough to allow the use of their ball to introduce you. So you will accept the invitation,” he ordered, his voice far more controlled than he felt. But then, he was rarely in control of himself around her. “And you will send a note to the countess apologizing for the confusion and any distress you have caused.”
Defiance flared in her eyes. “No, I won’t.”
Damnable woman. Challenging and obstinate at every turn. “And my mother?” he pressed, playing his trump card. “Should she be gossiped about because you refuse to attend?”
Guilt flitted across her face, and he felt a small surge of satisfaction. But when she bit her bottom lip and drew his attention to her ripe mouth, he felt something else pulse through him, this time tingling down to the tip of his cock and leaving him achingly unsatisfied.
“You are going to that ball,” he warned, his blood beginning to heat from the irritation she stirred inside him, and from the way her wet clothes clung to her, “even if I have to toss you over my shoulder and carry you inside the ballroom myself.”
Her chin raised stubbornly. “I’d like to see you try!”
He growled out through bared teeth, “Mariah, if you don’t—”
“Miss!” A child’s high-pitched yell cut through their argument, followed by the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs. A wailing cry echoed through the rooms. “MMMMIIIISSSS!”
A little girl raced into the room and sped right past Robert without a glance as she launched herself at Mariah, who caught the child in her arms. She pulled the girl close as violent sobs poured from the skinny creature with mussed blond braids, who couldn’t have been more than four or five. The girl’s left arm wrapped tightly around Mariah’s neck while her right arm gripped a headless doll.
Mariah cooed soothingly and pulled the girl onto her lap. She cradled her in her arms, rocking her softly until the worst of the wailing ceased and the cries gentled into strangled sobs.
Her eyes lifted to meet Robert’s, and she held his gaze for a moment over the little girl’s head. Her concern for the child and her wariness that he was witnessing the incident were both unmistakable.
“What is it, Polly?” She carefully unwrapped the little girl’s arm from its death grip around her neck and set her away just far enough to look down into her tear-streaked face. With a worried frown, she smoothed the girl’s hair away from her forehead. “What’s happened?”
“It’s—it’s Lu-Lucy,” Polly choked out between hiccupping sobs. Her nose glowed red. “The boys took her, and they—they—” She thrust the headless doll at Mariah, as if that said it all. So did the angry “Boys!” that she bit out.
Then Polly glared over her shoulder at Robert, as if he embodied all the most horrible aspects of his sex. The ferocity of her look set him rocking back onto his heels.
“Not all boys are bad,” Mariah assured her, the fleeting glance she spared him inscrutable. “What did they do?”
“They hurt her!” Polly thrust the doll at her again. “See?”
Robert’s chest panged at the girl’s grief over her doll. The boys hadn’t hurt the pathetic little collection of stuffed rags in a dirty blue dress—they’d decapitated it.
“Where?” Mariah asked, her brow furrowing.
Where? Good Lord, it was obvious. But he had to give her credit for her composure in front of the child, the way she lovingly brushed her fingertips over the girl’s hair and calmly soothed away her tears. It was a caring, maternal side to her. And it stunned him to see it.
“Right here.” Polly lifted the mangled doll and pointed to a spot on its arm. “See?”
“Oh dear,” Mariah said with deep concern, taking the piece of stuffed rags gently into her hands. “She’s cut her arm.”
Her arm? The doll was missing its head, for heaven’s sake! But Mariah seemed as nonplussed about the decapitation as the girl.
“They hurt her,” Polly whispered, so intensely that Robert feared she might start wailing again.
“I’m certain they didn’t mean to,” Mariah assured her gently.
And Robert was certain the boys had intended much worse. He remembered every doll of Josie’s that he and his brothers had shaved bald, dragged from ropes behind their ponies, strapped to an archery target to take turns shooting arrows at it…They’d even blown one up with gunpowder. Boys, indeed.
“Will she get better?” Polly wiped the back of her dirty hand across her eyes.
“She needs surgery, but I’m certain she’ll be fine,” Mariah told her softly, kindness lacing her voice. “Go down to the kitchen and show Mrs. Smith. Tell her that I said it was okay if you have a biscuit while you wait for her to stitch up Lucy’s arm, all right?”
The girl nodded with a loud sniff. Mariah hugged her once more, then placed a kiss on her forehead and set the girl on her feet. With a parting glower at Robert, Polly ran from the room with her doll clasped tightly to her chest.
Mariah kept her gaze on the doorway long after the little girl disappeared as a quiet stillness fell over them. “Go on,” she urged softly, not looking at him. “Say it.”
“That doll’s missing its head,” he returned in the same solemn voice.
She sighed heavily. “I know.” Her slender shoulders deflated. “Polly’s father died when the Mary Grace went down last year. That doll was the last present her father gave her. It’s falling apart and lost its head last month, but she refuses to part with it, no matter that I’ve promised her a new doll to replace it.”
Robert understood that. Even now he carried with him the pocket watch his father had given him when he was graduated from Oxford. The same pocket watch that hadn’t worked in years.
“You can say the other, too.” Her gaze found him then, and wariness flickered in her green depths as if she expected him to attack. “That I’m wasting my time and money on this school. That I’m a fool to think that I can make any difference. That one little girl means nothing when so many are on the streets.”
Beneath her defensiveness, he glimpsed vulnerability, and it took his breath away. No one in the ton would have ever suspected that this softer side existed to the Hellion. He certainly hadn’t, and it surprised the hell out of him. So did the gnawing realization that he liked it.
He reached out and covered her hand with his. “I would never say that.”