The Other Harlow Girl

by Lynn Messina

  “Barkley and I have a system by which he looks to me whenever someone orders him to drive to a dangerous part of the city in the dark of night and I countermand it with a shake of my head,” the duke explained, leading his friend toward the door. “It’s a very subtle gesture so I’m not surprised you missed it.”

  Although Huntly was exceedingly annoyed at having his will thwarted a second time, he recognized the futility of arguing with the duke, who was always resolute in his decisions. He had fleetingly considered following his advice and seeking out the duchess, but he knew gaining her consent was even unlikelier, for Miss Harlow’s sister would most definitely apply the term snooping to the benign act of puzzle solving.

  Huntly hoped to continue his conversation with the duke in a quiet corner—futility had never deterred him before—but White’s was crowded with familiar faces and they had to stop several times to greet friends. Even after a week, Mr. Holyroodhouse’s masterpiece was still a favorite topic of conversation, and they both accepted the gentle ribbing of their peers without flinching. Huntly, in particular, refused to be goaded by their teasing, for what he had told Vinnie was the truth: He would not let a mushroomy upstart with a pen have any effect on his behavior.

  Although he had decided before the publication of the offensive drawing that he would cease trying to change Miss Harlow’s mind, he’d been shocked to hear himself decline her offer to withdraw. Only minutes before he’d discovered her on his doorstep, he had been seething at the insult dealt to the British Horticultural Society and cursing her stubbornness in creating an impossible situation. He willingly accepted his own culpability in the affair—plucked indeed!—but what man could be held accountable for the irrational response of an unreasonable woman?

  The Miss Harlow who showed up at his town house that day had been an entirely reasonable creature. Understanding fully the awkward position in which she had put them all, she behaved properly and honorably by offering to remove herself. It was something she should have done weeks before, but no matter. She had finally done it—and with all the bravery he had come to expect from her.

  And then he had turned her down.

  How that came about, he still wasn’t sure. Just that morning, he had been sitting at his desk wishing she would withdraw and then a few hours later she was sitting at his desk actually withdrawing and then just as unexpectedly he was sitting at the same desk saying no. The only explanation he could offer was inadequate, for it extended from some vague discomfort he’d felt in listening to her speech. He knew she was trying to restore dignity to all of them with her act, but all he saw was her shrinking—she, who never shrank. It offended him more than the drawing.

  For days, he’d tried to understand his own behavior and yet all he kept coming back to was Miss Harlow’s comment that her sister broke into Sir Windbourne’s apartments. It was, as far as he could tell, the sole inconsistency in her story and the only indication that perhaps her beloved fiancé wasn’t the paragon she’d made him out to be.

  In seeking out Mr. Squibbs, he hoped to discover—

  The truth was, he didn’t know what he hoped to discover. All he wanted was a better handle on the situation. What he had told Trent was true, for Miss Lavinia Harlow was in fact a mystery to him, but the true puzzle was why he cared to solve it. There was something about her that pulled at him, something that had compelled him to offer her the most lavish gift he had—the opportunity to name a flower—in an attempt to get her to stay in his study for just a few minutes more.

  Felix Horatio Dryden was a man accustomed to knowing his own mind, and he did not appreciate acting in ways inexplicable to himself. Unable to understand his own feelings, he decided action must be taken, and being a man of science, he knew acquiring knowledge was the best way to gain insight into an incomprehensible phenomenon. A dossier on Mr. Windbourne was the logical place to start.

  He had not anticipated Mr. Squibbs, a remarkable gentleman indeed, taking an avuncular interest in the Harlow sisters and refusing to act without approval. He’d assume a London lockpick would be up for sale to the highest bidder, and to discover instead a moral backbone that refused to bend to monetary inducement frustrated him to no end. Nor did he expect Trent to deny him, which, he admitted now, was naïve, for naturally the duke was protective of both his wife and her family. What he proposed was intrusive, he could see that now, and he should have approached the delicate manner in a less direct way to gain his friend’s approval.

  Huntly silently admitted that he hadn’t been acting like himself lately, and as soon as he and Trent sat down in comfortable armchairs in the cardroom, he said, “Miss Harlow came to withdraw her application and I refused.”

  Trent waited for the server to deliver their port, then nodded approvingly. “If she had made the offer to me, I would have done the same thing.”

  The marquess laughed faintly. “Yes, but you don’t want her to withdraw, while I, the architect of this mad charade, do.”

  “Then why did you refuse?”

  Realizing that saying it aloud had made it no easier to understand, Huntly shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose the caricature seemed like bullying, and as a gentleman, I find that sort of behavior offensive.”

  Trent nodded as if this explanation was sufficient and in many ways it was, for he felt confident he understood what motivated his friend better than he did. The duke had heard all about Huntly’s recent visit from Emma, who had stationed herself outside the study door for the entire hour she was ostensibly looking for the marquess’s dossier. She claimed it was for the sake of propriety, as if that obscure notion had ever penetrated her brain, but her real purpose was to spy and her so-called fact-finding mission discovered an encouraging rapport between the subjects.

  “He teased her and she teased him,” Emma had reported, “and every so often there was an extended pause during which I could only imagine they were staring deeply into each other’s eyes. I’m also happy to report that he still hasn’t found an assistant to help with his book. Vinnie will be perfect for the job. We must get her to apply.”

  Before Huntly could try to explain himself further, Mr. Luther Townshend interrupted their tête-à-tête to thank the marquess for removing the threat of Miss Harlow. “I had a note from her last week assuring me that she had no intention of using the scurrilous information and encouraging me to vote on her membership according to my conscience. I don’t know how you convinced her that her blackmail scheme was not only immoral but an affront to all womanhood, but I’m grateful for your success.”

  As he had actually done the opposite, Huntly wasn’t sure how to respond and settled on demurring, which was only the truth. “Miss Harlow withstood my arguments and changed her mind for reasons of her own.”

  “Knowing the woman, I highly doubt that,” Townshend said with a sly wink, “but I respect your modesty. In any case, the matter has been resolved to my satisfaction, which I never doubted. Had you not succeeded in reasoning with the hussy, I would have come to an agreement of my own with her using secret information that I had gathered, for she is not the only one who can compile dossiers.”

  Although the idea of Townshend acquiring secret information about Vinnie would ordinarily catch Huntly’s attention, he was too incensed by his description of her to pay it proper heed. His hand constricted tightly around the glass of port as he forced himself to remain seated. It would not do to cause a scene in White’s, for that would only draw further unwanted attention to Miss Harlow. “I must remind you that the lady in question is the duke’s sister-in-law,” he said in icy tones, “and he might not relish hearing her described in such terms.”

  Trent wiped an imaginary white fleck from the shoulder of his topcoat and said with quiet menace, “I do not.”

  Townshend flinched as he recalled Trent’s reputation as a skilled pugilist, but he was far too sensible to be intimidated by the younger man. The duke could hardly strike him in the cardroom of the gentlemen’s club and would certainly n
ot ambush him in a dark alley. That sort of behavior was beneath the both of them. For this reason, he stood his ground, acknowledging the relationship with a stiff bow to the duke. “With all due respect, your grace, you are aware of the family into which you married.”

  Far from riling the duke further, this comment seemed to lighten his mood. “Indeed, I am,” he said with a faint smile.

  As he had not intended to amuse the duke with his intentionally provoking comment, Townshend was at a loss as to how to respond. Deciding he must have made his point so well that Trent could do naught but concede, he chose to walk away while he was still a point up. “I will leave you to your port now. I’m glad we had this conversation, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at Miss Harlow’s presentation. I’m sure it will be fascinating.”

  Naturally, he said the word fascinating with a highly meaningful emphasis that implied it would be anything but fascinating.

  “I’m sure it will,” agreed Huntly, who didn’t doubt that the evening would very interesting, regardless of the quality of Miss Harlow’s presentation.

  As soon as Townshend was out of earshot, Trent leaned forward and said, “It’s not sporting of me to say, but I was actually quite pleased when Vinnie revealed the plagiarism charge to me. Townshend has always been too high in the instep for my comfort, and I liked the idea of his self-esteem being punctured.”

  Huntly sipped his port. “I never particularly minded his superciliousness, but in recent weeks, I’ve begun to find myself annoyed by it. In fact, I tried to encourage Miss Harlow to continue applying pressure to him, but she insisted on stopping all her machinations in the wake of the cartoon. That was, I believe, the compromise we struck, as she is unlikely to gain admittance without using coercion in one form or another.”

  “So it is as good as withdrawing,” the duke observed.

  “Exactly,” Huntly said and thought about the events that would unfold the next night in the lecture hall of the British Horticultural Society. Despite the bravado he showed Townshend, the marquess felt a sense of dread every time he imagined Miss Harlow standing at the podium in the vast room filled with men who had gathered to mock and ridicule her. He wished with everything he was that he could save her from that.

  “Does she have your vote?” Huntly asked.

  “Yes,” Trent said simply. “Does she have yours?”

  “She does,” Huntly said with an abrupt nod, “though I don’t know if that is doing her a favor.”

  The duke considered him silently for several moments as he drank his port, and finishing the glass, indicated with a wave that he’d like another one. He understood how Huntly felt because he felt it, too. He knew their fellow members for the tough-minded, proud men they were, and not a single one of them would consider admitting a female into their club as an equal. Without a gentle finger pressed on the scale to tip it her way, he didn’t doubt Vinnie would be rejected, and if it were up to him to decide, she would bow out of the presentation.

  It was to the good, then, that it wasn’t his decision to make, for if he had learned one thing from loving Emma, it was that you couldn’t stop a person from being who she was. All you could do was stop yourself from being with her.

  Trent didn’t actually know what Felix would do when he discovered the truth about Vinnie. He had a strong suspicion in which direction he would fall, but it was impossible to know someone else’s heart and mind completely. But he knew enough of his friend’s to take the risk, so while the waiter refilled his glass, he told the marquess one more time to ask Vinnie about Sir Windbourne.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was a revelation for Vinnie to discover that the fearless Harlow Hoyden was a complete coward when it came to watching her sister take a risk. She was one hundred percent behind Vinnie’s application, and she knew she would make a staggering presentation that would leave the members of the British Horticultural Society stunned. But she couldn’t seem to sit still in anticipation of the event. The entire day, she jittered and hovered and fussed and at one point she even said she wished she could simply fall asleep at that very moment and wake up when the whole ordeal was over.

  Vinnie, who had spent her entire life jittering and hovering and fussing and wishing she could breeze past the more-tense moments of Emma’s life in an unconscious fog (a certain trip to Dover in the company of a murderer sprang to mind), was torn between amusement and affront at this unexpected development. As the older sibling, it naturally fell to her to protect her younger sister, a responsibility, she felt, that did not go both ways. In contrast, Emma had always considered the nine minutes that separated them an accident of birth, not an allocation of roles, and found her sibling’s point of view to be as limiting as it was offensive.

  An enthusiastic debate followed, which, during its full hour, provided much fodder for the fascinated servants, and when the duke looked into the study midway through to see Emma rattling off a list of occasions in which she had protected her older sister from harm or censure, Vinnie caught his eye and winked. She was doing what she always did—in this case, protecting her little sister from worrying about her.

  When Emma finally figured out what was going on, she halted in midsentence and then cited the current argument as proof of Vinnie’s appalling behavior in their current argument about Vinnie’s appalling behavior. Instantly contrite, Vinnie apologized for coddling her sister to an excessive degree, which Emma took as further proof of excessive coddling.

  In the end, Vinnie was relieved to have spent one full hour when she wasn’t compulsively practicing her presentation in her head. As soon as she and Emma resolved their dispute, the compulsion resumed and she discovered that the more she reviewed it, the more mistakes she made. Seeking a distraction, she tried to get the dowager to chastise her again for inappropriately applying for membership, but her grace, being of the what’s-done-is-done school, insisted on supporting her decision by thoughtfully lecturing her on how to improve her speech. In total, she provided twelve tips, which ranged from actually helpful (“Do not grasp the podium so tightly that your knuckles turn a frightful shade of white”) to discouraging (“A woman should never raise her voice above a whisper”).

  Desperate, Vinnie considered challenging Trent to a boxing match in hopes that he would knock her out for a few hours.

  Eventually, however, the tense, interminable day ended, and Vinnie, riding silently with Trent and Emma in the coach, found herself wondering why she had wished the hours away. If only it were morning again and she was trying to eat a plate of greasy kippers.

  When they arrived, Emma, who was not invited to attend the presentation, announced she would spend the whole evening waiting in the coach. Vinnie exhorted her not to be absurd but gave up trying to convince her sister to be rational when Sarah arrived in her own carriage to keep Emma company.

  “Save your persuasion skills for those who really need persuading,” her sister-in-law said.

  Vinnie sighed and told Emma not to throw objects at or call names to or in any other way harass arriving members of the organization. Her sister blinked at her with her famous who-me expression. Vinnie wasn’t fooled but nor was she worried with Sarah there to restrain her more crude impulses, and as she entered the venerable building, she felt oddly calm.

  Her calm carried her through introductions with several imposing figures, her only contact with whom had been polite notes promising the fulfillment of long-deferred goals in exchange for their support, and a conversation with Mr. Berry in which he quickly ran through a list of society protocols that all aspirants had to follow. Her composure deserted her, however, as soon as she stepped into the lecture hall, an immense rotunda beneath a towering dome supported by a dozen columns in the Corinthian style. There were two sections of tiered leather-bound seats and a standing-room-only gallery high overhead. The room was magnificent, the site of soaring oratory and of the birth of great ideas, and, seeing it, Vinnie felt small and insignificant. Any confidence she had was crushed by th
e massive and ornate space, and she stood on the threshold, gawking like a chawbacon, as Mr. Berry urged her forward. Reluctantly, she stepped inside.

  Mr. Berry continued his narration as he led her to the podium and indicated where she should place her notes. “The acoustics are very good, and we’ve never had a single complaint about the speaker not being heard properly,” he assured her before adding with an accusatory note, “However, we’ve never had a female speaker before so I don’t know how that may affect matters.”

  His tone clearly implied that any problems she encountered were of her own making, and as such, she would have to devise a solution, as he had neither the experience nor the inclination to solve them himself.

  Feeling quite alone, she stared up at the beautiful dome. Her heart, which had been steady only a few minutes before, now beat with the insistence of a team of horses racing across a field, and she felt her breath growing shallow. If she could not bring herself to breathe properly, she would faint and that must not happen. She knew she was no groundbreaking reformer blazing a trail of vindication for all women everywhere, but she was enough of a pioneer to realize fainting at this moment would be a betrayal of her entire sex.

  She needed to think of something else, and, turning to ask Mr. Berry about the rotunda’s architecture, discovered the clerk had beaten a hasty retreat at the first opportunity. She barely caught a glimpse of his departing back as the door closed behind him.

  “Coward,” she muttered, not sure if she was talking about herself or the clerk. All she knew for certain was that the case was dire. Being literally abandoned by Mr. Berry, who, admittedly, had not been a particularly staunch ally to begin with, intensified her anxiety, and she very much feared she might actually collapse on the spot. If she was fortunate enough to fall forward, the podium should break her fall.

  Unable to bear being alone in that magnificent empty room a moment longer, she resolved to find Alex, who had left her in the unreliable care of Mr. Berry, and ask him about the architecture or the acoustics or the weather—anything to keep her mind focused on something other than her own impending disaster. Before she could take a single step, the door opened again to admit Huntly.