The Other Harlow Girl

by Lynn Messina

  Vinnie felt like her head was spinning, so abrupt and complete was the marquess’s change of heart. She couldn’t accept his offer. He was only one of twenty-six members and surely the remaining twenty-five, excluding Alex, of course, wished she’d cave to pressure posthaste. But she would treasure it always. “I will ruin your club,” she said sadly, thinking of the damage the illustration had already done. If she continued in her quest, more ridicule and mockery would inevitably follow.

  Unswayed by her concern, he simply shook his head. “If a slip of a girl can ruin my club, then it was a paltry thing to begin with and I say good riddance.”

  Not knowing what to do with such outstanding graciousness, for she had never experienced anything like it before, Vinnie sought to make light of it. “Admit it. The only reason you want me to apply is because I said I won’t. You’re trying to thwart me.”

  “Not just you,” the marquess said with a smile, remembering their previous conversation as clearly as she. “Mr. Holyroodhouse, too. And any number of bettors who are aligned against you at Brooks’s. I can’t decide who I’d like to thwart more.”

  Accepting defeat reluctantly, Vinnie offered a compromise, “I will cease my coercive tactics.”

  The marquess managed to look disappointed. “Not the plagiarizing Mr. Townshend, as well! It’s a pleasure watching him squirm on your hook.”

  Despite her agitation, Vinnie laughed. “I have corrupted you.”

  Huntly leaned forward so that his knees were almost touching Vinnie’s and said in a suddenly low voice, “Please corrupt me.”

  His look was so intense, his unsettling aquamarine eyes so bright, that Vinnie immediately flushed to the tips of her ears and hastily jumped to her feet, suddenly aware of the impropriety of her rash visit. “I see you have a lot of work to do, so I will let you get back to it.”

  The marquess stood as well. “I don’t deserve such kindness. Please stay for tea. We haven’t even touched it.”

  Stay for tea? Vinnie thought wildly, as emotion coursed through her. She couldn’t possibly remain alone with him in his study for the length of an entire cup of tea. The idea was far too dangerous. Without question, she was at risk of revealing all her deep, dark secrets, but that concern paled in comparison to the peril posed by the revelation that had just struck her: It had not been the moment—in Mr. Brill’s office, the compulsion that moved her to kiss him, the once-in-a-lifetime confluence of forces. No, it was not the remarkable convergence of events that had compelled her; it was Huntly himself.

  “Thank you,” she said firmly, if a little desperately, “but I really should go.”

  “Are you sure I cannot tempt you with exotic flora from far-off lands?” he asked cajolingly. “The crates in this room are filled with specimens waiting to be cataloged, for I have yet to hire an assistant. You would be doing me a huge favor if you could name one or two. I fear I’m running out of ideas and might start naming a few after myself, which is a practice I heartily disapprove of.”

  At this stunning offer, Vinnie felt something inside her twist painfully, for she would love nothing more than to bestow a name on a rare and wonderful flower. In the whole of her life, she never imagined getting such an opportunity, and everything inside her demanded that she say yes—yes, please, I would be honored and grateful and humbled and thrilled. But how could she stay with this new awareness throbbing inside her? And his offer only made it worse, for it revealed a generosity of spirit that exacerbated the compulsion.

  She had to leave now.

  Ruthlessly tamping down agonizing regret, she said calmly, “I am sure, my lord, but thank you for the generous offer.”

  “So you are just going to cruelly abandon me to my work?” he asked with an eyebrow raised.

  He looked so endearing standing there in the middle of his study with all the trunks and crates, a forlorn explorer amidst the abundance of his adventures. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “I’ll have Fleming show you out.”

  “Please don’t bother. I can find the front door myself.”

  Huntly nodded. “And you’ll send me your treatise?”

  In order to facilitate her leaving, she agreed to have it brought over right away, but in fact she knew she needed to write several more drafts before it was ready for perusal. There were sections she was pleased with—sections that had a lot of energy and focus—but overall the paper was too dry and academic. Maybe she would rework the introductory passage to start with the Stolen Trent, which was the orchid she’d made by hybridizing the Rhyncholaelia digbyana Emma had stolen from the duke with her own Altensteinia nubigena, to demonstrate the collaborative nature of horticulture. Or was that point of view too personal and—God forbid—too sentimental?

  Vinnie kept her mind stubbornly focused on the question the whole way home, and when she finished the introduction to her satisfaction, she moved on to the next section. She spent the rest of the day and much of the night revising her treatise, and by the time she stopped, somewhere a little north of midnight, she was too exhausted to think of anything save sleep.

  But in the morning, when she woke up, the first thing she thought of was the Marquess of Huntly’s aquamarine eyes begging her to corrupt him.

  Damn it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Huntly had been so determined not to seek out the Duke of Trent that when he finally found him—playing hazard at the Elder Davis on King Street—he was angry at the both of them.

  “You’re not at Mrs. Pleydell’s musicale,” he said accusingly as he came to stand behind him at the crowded baize table.

  Trent kept his eyes trained firmly on his cousin Philip, who was shaking a pair of dice in his right hand. “No, I’m not.”

  “Neither are you at Covent Gardens.”

  Philip blew on the dice twice, jiggled them once more and tossed them onto the table. The crowd cheered as the main of six was established. “Likewise correct,” the duke said.

  “Nor are you at Lady Malmesbury’s rout or Viscount Onslow’s card party or any of your clubs,” he said crossly.

  Trent looked at his friend with an impatient glare and said, “No, I am here. My greenhead cousin has decided it was time he learned how to callously lose his quarterly income just like every other young pup in town, so I am here, at this hazard table, keeping an eye on him, a task that was already a dead bore before you started this tedious conversation.”

  The crowd grumbled, indicating that Philip had thrown out, and the duke turned back to the table in time to watch his cousin handing the dice to Lord Fellingham. He waited to see if his cousin made any side bets and was relieved when he walked away from the table.

  Not put off by his friend’s show of temper, Huntly persisted. “We need to talk.”

  Trent took a step back to make room for another misguided hopeful. “Now is not a good time,” he said, wondering what game Philip would play next. He’d already been dunned at faro and vingt-et-un. Fortunately, the lad seemed to have little tolerance for losing and kept moving on in hopes of finding the game at which he could prevail. As the duke knew this was very unlikely to happen, he assumed they would be leaving soon.

  “Now is the perfect time,” Huntly said forcefully, clutching Trent by the elbow.

  At the rough handling, temper flashed across the duke’s face, but when he looked into his friend’s eyes, he saw something like desperation and said, “All right. Let me talk to Philip.”

  No sooner had Trent made that statement than his cousin came over to announce that he was leaving with his friend Major Timothy Powis of the 10th Hussars. “Wants to show off his velocipede. I don’t think it will be more impressive than my hobbled-horse because it’s French and the Frenchies don’t know how to build anything, but I don’t want to be rude. Besides, this place is as boring as a yard of tin.”

  As Philip walked away, Huntly said with some of his old composure, “I’ve never known you to cub-sit before.”

  “And I hope
you never will again,” Trent assured him. “Emma is fond of the pup—he helped her out of a scrape a while ago—and she insisted I come. Actually, she insisted she come, but I thought it was wiser if I took the helm. Otherwise, we would no doubt have two new Mr. Holyroodhouse prints in the family. Now that we’ve gotten rid of the cawker, let’s go to my club for a glass of port and you can tell me what has you in a high dudgeon.”

  Huntly gratefully followed him to the door, but as soon as they were outside, he said, “We don’t have time for your club. We’re going to the Rusty Plinth, where I’m sure you can get port, though, admittedly, it might do more harm than good.”

  The duke halted. “The Rusty Plinth? Is that a new hell?”

  Impatient, the marquess gave Trent’s shoulder a gentle push. He’d spent the last week resisting the urge to investigate Vinnie’s fiancé—six bloody days of fighting a single overwhelming compulsion—and now that he’d given in to it, he was eager to start. “It’s a tavern on the docks where we have an appointment—or, rather, did, several hours ago. I’ve had the devil’s own time tracking you down, your grace. Next time, go to Mrs. Pleydell’s musicale.”

  “Felix, I would swear you were tap-hackled, but I can’t detect a whiff of alcohol on you,” the duke said.

  “I am not the least disguised, though I did have half an ale at the Rusty Plinth, so I am a little bit crooked. We’ll take your coach,” he said and gave Trent’s driver the direction.

  Curious now, the duke climbed into his carriage and waited for Huntly to settle across from him before asking why they were going to a tavern on the docks.

  “I am trying to commission a dossier on Sir Waldo Windbourne from Mr. Squibbs, and he will agree to accept the assignment only with the consent of you or your wife,” he stated boldly. “As I assumed you did not want me to take your wife to a taproom on the docks, I’ve requested your presence. If I am wrong, please tell me and I will drop you at your club while I pick up Emma, who is, by the way, at Mrs. Pleydell’s musicale, exactly as she’s supposed to be.”

  Although this was an extraordinary speech to be sure, the only thing that truly surprised the duke was that his wife stayed at Mrs. Pleydell’s musicale for more than five minutes. Having heard her daughter perform on an earlier occasion, he knew how quickly her voice made one’s ears bleed.

  That Huntly wanted to know more about Vinnie’s recently deceased fiancé was only to be expected, as it was probably most disconcerting to find oneself enamored of a lady who was in mourning for someone else. Trent knew that if he had been in the same situation with Emma, he would have been jealous of the dead man and annoyed at himself for being jealous of a dead man and angry that he could do nothing about either. For this reason, Huntly’s interest in Windbourne was understandable and not at all remarkable. What was remarkable was the route he had taken in asking Mr. Squibbs to compile a dossier. That development was certainly surprising, and he appreciated the clever lockpick’s caution in requiring his permission first.

  Of course, the duke would not give it. It was not that he thought his oldest friend was unworthy of knowing the truth, for he trusted Huntly as he trusted himself. In fact, nothing would delight him more than to share the whole story, as it would give him an opportunity to boast of Emma’s bravery and quick thinking and striking resourcefulness. Nobody was better at getting out of a scrape than his wife—though, to be fair, nobody was better at getting into one, too.

  But the entire tale hinged on Vinnie and Trent knew what difficult waters those were to navigate. As she refused to talk about it, he could not pinpoint how she felt about the debacle that was her engagement, though he suspected she still felt the humiliation of being a dupe. It was natural to blame one’s self for being taken in too easily, but it required a particular kind of resolution to remain indifferent to a person bent on earning your good opinion. He knew this from personal experience, as he himself had fallen prey to determined flattery when he was a callow youth like Philip.

  Even if her ego had not succumbed to that shameful sting, there was still the matter of her fiancé’s bloody death at her hand. Vinnie claimed to feel no remorse and he sincerely hoped it was true, for Sir Windbourne had been a villain who had betrayed every kindness of king and country and had compelled Vinnie to take his life in order to save her own. But there, too, he knew the issue was not that simple and could well imagine how challenging it was to reconcile the cold, hard necessity of ending a life with the soul-crushing reality of taking one. The process could not be without its emotional ramifications, and he worried that in refusing to acknowledge them, Vinnie had made them worse.

  Being forced to pretend to mourn for the man she killed did not improve circumstances, for it required her to publicly pay tribute to a human being she thoroughly despised. Nor did lying sit comfortably with her. An essentially honest person, she chafed at the pretense of false grief and longed to shout the truth from the rooftops.

  Emma, feeling similarly stifled by the lie, had made up that absurd story about Sir Windbourne and the corset, which gave vent to her spleen but had the unfortunate effect of making Vinnie the target of speculation and ridicule. She went from being the almost-widow of an obscure baron to the almost-widow of that comically vain man who squeezed himself to death.

  It was an intolerable situation for everyone, but giving Mr. Squibbs permission to dig up the entire story would not alleviate it. No, the only thing that would help was Vinnie finding the courage to confide all to Huntly. If she could not, then the two would never have a future together.

  That Huntly and Vinnie should have a future together was something he was now willing to concede. When Emma had originally suggested a match on the flimsy pretext of Vinnie’s dislike, he’d thought his wife was building castles out of clouds. But then the marquess called Vinnie difficult and he realized his friend was similarly afflicted. Now he could only conclude that his friend was top over tails, for why else would any sane-thinking man venture out to a shoe factory in the wilds of Acton Vale?

  Having survived a courtship of the Harlow Hoyden, Trent knew the many twisted turns the path of true love could take and was fully sympathetic to his friend’s plight. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t needle him a bit.

  “Before I consider your request, please explain to me your interest in Sir Windbourne,” Trent said.

  Huntly, who had not intended to request anything, glared balefully at the duke and growled angrily.

  “I’m sorry, I did not hear that clearly,” Trent said.

  Knowing he was on the ropes, the marquess clenched his fists restlessly and repeated himself. “The puzzle.”

  The duke had no idea what this meant, but he recognized the dodge of a man in love and respected the effort. “The puzzle?”

  “Yes,” he said impatiently. “Several things in regard to Miss Harlow’s engagement do not fit together, and I would like to solve the puzzle.”

  “To what end?”

  The marquess sighed loudly. Damn Alex and his sudden curiosity! Once Huntly had come home from a night of carousing with eight green lines drawn on each of his cheeks and Trent didn’t say a word. Now he was asking more questions than a Bow Street Runner. It was insupportable! “My own edification,” he said mildly.

  “Well, then, for your own edification, I can assure you that the facts of Miss Harlow’s engagement fit together perfectly. Do not tease yourself further.”

  If anything, Huntly’s baleful glare grew more malevolent. “If you truly believe that, Trent, then you are a fool. Miss Harlow is one of the most honest, intelligent and sincere people I’ve ever met, and by all reports her fiancé was a pompous windbag who loved the sound of his own voice and was so vain he crushed himself to death with his own corset. The story of his demise is so preposterous, I cannot credit it. Are we really to believe a grown man would behave so outrageously? Then there’s the matter of the duchess, your wife, breaking into the apartments of her own sister’s fiancé. What cause could she have for takin
g such an extraordinary measure? Clearly, there’s something havey-cavey afoot and I mean to discover what it is. If you are not willing to concede the validity of my questions, please be kind enough to give me permission to pursue them with someone who will.”

  The only thing Trent was willing to concede was that Huntly’s pretext of knowledge for knowledge’s sake was the most preposterous thing he’d ever heard. “If you have questions, you owe Vinnie the courtesy of answering them herself. Snooping behind a person’s back has never been known to further a relationship.”

  Huntly, who did not consider it snooping—such an intrusive word—to commission a dossier, professed not to understand why his friend would describe his intermittent interaction with Miss Harlow as something so constant as a relationship. “As I said, my interest is merely in solving the puzzle she presents.”

  Trent hid a smile as the coach came to a stop. “Of course. I meant to say that snooping has never been known to further the completion of a puzzle. I suggest you consult Vinnie.”

  As he had never doubted the outcome of the conversation, Huntly could scarcely believe what he was hearing, and he fixed the duke with another angry glare just as the door to the coach opened. “Are you denying my request?”

  “Yes, and I expect Emma will do the same should you decide to return to Mrs. Pleydell’s musicale to ask her. If you do, I caution you to bring cotton for your ears. Her daughter singing an Italian aria sounds oddly like two tomcats fighting in an alley, which, for all I know, might be your taste in music, in which case, forgo the cotton,” Trent said unhelpfully. “Alternatively, you could decide to stay and we can have that port you promised me.”

  Determined to argue his case further, Huntly followed the duke out of the carriage and spun around in surprise as he spotted the famous bow window of White’s. “Why are we not at the docks?”