He ought to stay away from her. He was far too attracted for his own good, which could lead absolutely nowhere. Until he helmed a successful kitchen, he could not reenter the world of courtship. If he had learned anything in the past fortnight, it was that there was no margin for error. Once he bid farewell to these ladies, he would concentrate on planning his tea room until there was no possible way for its acquisition to go wrong.
But first, there was the question of a visibly mortified goddess.
John hated to leave her in such a delicate state. After all, there was no harm done, was there? A dangerous and dramatic near miss—his poor fortune—in which no bones were broken, no blood spilled, no spontaneous billowing explosions of fire bursting into the sky.
No doubt he owed his life to her fine luck prevailing. The least he could do was play knight errant for a brief moment, and send her on her way without further embarrassment.
“It’s nothing,” he called up to the women. “I’ve survived much worse.”
“Oh, we know,” replied the blond-haired poppet.
They…knew? How would they know?
“Is everything Allegra said about you true?” asked the one with a snub nose and freckles.
The goddess turned crimson. Allegra. It was a lovely name and quite apt. One could not look at her without a warm sensation of happiness unfurling in one’s—
Everything she’d said about what?
They were strangers. What could she know about him? To his immense regret, John had never seen this woman before in his life. She had never walked into his office. He would have remembered the occasion. And he never went anywhere but his office and home, except for…
Except for the pâtisserie.
Had she been there when it burst into flames? Was she one of the customers fleeing the thick smoke? Or perhaps a neighbor, drawn from her home by all the screaming, who stood watching in horror as the firemen threw pails of water at what had once been the best pâtisserie for miles?
Now it was John’s turn to feel his face go uncomfortably red.
“Yes,” he said with a sigh. “It is me. And it’s all true.”
This time, the goddess blanched.
Blond Ringlets gaped at him. “All those things really happened?”
“Yes,” John said. “But I can explain—”
“It seemed so unlikely,” Pert Nose interrupted. “I would never suggest my dear cousin had exaggerated your adventures…”
“It was unlikely,” John agreed. “Every minute of it. No one was more shocked than me, let me tell you. If anything, your poor cousin doesn’t know the half of it. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not discuss the…colorful incidents in my past. I wished to assure you that I am alive and well, and that I—”
“—only have eyes for Allegra,” Pert Nose finished, her own eyes sparkling. “We noticed.”
“Um,” John said.
“He’s just as handsome as you said he was,” Blond Ringlets said to the goddess. “And just as humble.”
“Er,” John said.
While he was gratified and flattered that his goddess had apparently noticed him and commented on his fine looks this morning before almost trampling him with her carriage, he wasn’t certain a word like humble accurately described the hubris that had led to the pâtisserie debacle.
He was also quite distraught to learn that word of his culinary humiliation had traveled this far already. He had so hoped to have a few weeks’ holiday in blissful anonymity before he need return to London and face the criticism of his peers.
“You needn’t…agree…to anything I’ve implied or said,” his goddess managed.
“I’m sure you’ve only spoken the truth,” he told her. “Though to be honest, I did not expect to run into you here—”
“You didn’t come here for her?” Pert Nose said in surprise.
“For her?” he repeated in confusion.
Even if he would have had the presence of mind to add the names and directions of disappointed customers to his journal for the purpose of sending personal notes of apology later, he would not have gone so far as to chase them down individually to beg forgiveness in person in the middle of their holiday.
“To marry her,” Blond Ringlets said. “As you’ve yearned to do.”
“I yearn to marry her?” John swung his gaze to the goddess, who looked as though she wished to melt through the seat and on down into Hades rather than continue the conversation.
“I thought your French accent would be stronger,” said Pert Nose. “I’m rather sad to hear that you’ve lost it.”
“Lost my…French…accent?”
Ha! It was a case of mistaken identity! John did not know whether to be delighted or disappointed. He was glad that news of his disastrous debut had not left London, but regretted not being the long-lost suitor whose return his goddess had apparently been waiting for.
He smiled at the ladies. “I’m afraid there’s been a terrible misunderstanding. My name is—”
“We know your name,” Blond Ringlets said with a laugh. “You’re Captain Hamish L’Amour.”
Captain…Hamish…L’Amour?
“We know everything about you,” Pert Nose added. “Everything except how you lost your leg.”
His leg?
Blond Ringlets listed the salient points on her fingers. “Father from France, mother from Russia, a decorated career in the Navy, after which you became a privateer, sailing all over the world and in and out of pirate ships as you battled enemies high and low, from the lawless to the highest kings of Europe, all the while pining for Allegra—”
“She never said ‘pining,’” Pert Nose interrupted.
“Obviously he’s been pining. Can’t you see how much muscle he’s lost? The poor man must barely have eaten in his hurry to make the long journey home.”
John stood up as straight as he could, one hand on his walking stick.
“Penning poems to her,” Blond Ringlets continued. “Commanding your bard to compose operatic sonnets in honor of your love for her—”
Operatic…pirate…bards? Who sang vicarious love songs in iambic pentameter on command?
He mentally calculated the probabilities and came to the only logical conclusion.
This was not a case of mistaken identity. John would eat his rakishly angled hat if there was any such person as Captain Hamish L’Amour.
Unfortunately, he’d already agreed that he was who they thought he was…and involved them in the lie. Involved the goddess in her own increasingly improbable lie. That John had now perpetuated and implicated himself in.
Yes, that’s me, he had said. Every word is true.
Curse his damnable luck! The goddess could have carried on telling tall tales with her young charges none the wiser, had a certain hapless solicitor not blithely claimed to be a figment of her imagination. To call her a liar now, after she specifically warned him not to agree with anything she had previously said or insinuated…
So much for his courtly behavior. He had sallied forth to save his damsel from embarrassment, and now look at the mess they both were in. This was what came of insufficient planning! When would John learn that sallying forth was never a bright idea?