Page 3 of Rival to Resist
Frederick stopped in front of a chandler’s shop, where a number of items were displayed in the window: candles, soaps, rope, flour, even some haberdashery.
Gads, but he was far from London.
He went to continue his walk, only to find himself stuck, his right boot mired in a large puddle between cobbles.
He lifted his foot with more force, but to no avail. The mud had no intention of releasing it.
Frustrated but not deterred, Frederick gave a forceful heft to his foot.
He stumbled backward, then took to hopping when his stockinged foot met with the road. His boot remained in the puddle, unmoved by his efforts.
Two young girls walking by with baskets full of fish covered their mouths with their hands and laughed.
Frederick forced a smile at them, then hopped back to his boot with as much dignity as he could muster. As he reached his boot, the jingle of a bell from the door of the chandler’s shop brought his head around—and there it remained.
In his years in London, Frederick had seen more beautiful young women than he could count, so he could only assume it was the unexpectedness of seeing one emerge from a chandler shop in the far reaches of Cornwall that took him by such surprise. Or perhaps it was the confidence with which the woman held herself. Or the kind and generous smile she wore as she bid good day to the chandler.
The door closed behind her with a second but muffled jingling, and her gaze met Frederick’s. It lingered for a moment, then dropped to his hovering, stockinged foot and the empty boot.
“Oh dear.” She came toward him with a captivating smile. “It looks as though you have fallen victim to last night’s storm. May I help you?”
Remembering that he was currently balancing on one foot in the street, Frederick gave a chuckle and took the boot in hand. “It is very kind of you, ma’am, but I need not trouble you.” He tugged at the boot, but it may as well have been Excalibur—and quite obviously, he was not Arthur.
“It is no trouble at all, I assure you.” She came up beside him without even bothering to hold up her skirts, underlining once again how far he must be from London for a well-dressed young woman to offer such a service. “If you do not wish to leave this fine boot of yours in Cornwall, it may well require the strength of us both to extricate it.” She gripped the boot and looked over at him. Her brown hair peeked from beneath a straw bonnet, its blue ribbon a shade or two lighter than her eyes. “Shall we pull on the count of three?”
Frederick forced his focus to his present predicament. “Ma’am, I truly do not think?—”
“One. Two. Three.”
Frederick pulled with all his might, and the boot dislodged, sending the two of them scrambling backward amidst ashower of mud. He grabbed the woman by the arm to keep her from falling onto the dirty, damp cobbles, barely managing to stay upright himself.
The boot, meanwhile, had been released in the chaos and lay a few feet from the puddle.
“Oh, dear!” the woman said.
Her blue eyes met Frederick’s, her face splattered with mud like a robin’s egg—as was his, he could only assume.
He fished out a handkerchief from inside his tailcoat, then offered it to her, only to find her hand outstretched toward him with her own handkerchief.
They broke into simultaneous laughter.
“We have met the same speckled fate, I take it.” She pressed her handkerchief to her face as Frederick did the same.
“Indeed,” he said. “And the blame lies at my feet.”
“Quite literally,” she said with another twinkling smile.
Frederick glanced down at his bootless foot, then reached for the Hessian on the dirty cobbles, looking as though it had been worn at Waterloo. “I apologize most sincerely, ma’am. I would not for the world have had such a thing occur.”
“Oh come now,” she said, dabbling at her face more. “If a bit of mud was enough to overset me, I would hardly be suited for life in Cornwall, would I? There. Have I got it all?” She turned her face from one side to the other, watching him for confirmation.
“Very nearly. There is a spot on your cheek—” He indicated his own to demonstrate where.
She pressed the dirtied handkerchief there, only to smudge it. “Is that better?”
Frederick tried to suppress a smile. “Erm…it is…different. May I?”
She nodded, and he refolded his handkerchief so that the dirtiest bits were turned inward, then took a step toward her.
