by Emily Larkin
As if to underline that he wasn’t like most men, Lord Octavius chose that moment to say, “I want you to know that when I’m your husband I won’t make your decisions for you and I will not think of you as my property.”
Pip hadn’t supposed that he would, not after his indignation on behalf of wives, but she said, “Thank you.”
“And, uh . . .” He blushed, and said, “I want you to know that I’ll never force you to do anything you don’t want. Ever. I promise.”
“Anything” was a very vague word, but the tone of Lord Octavius’s voice coupled with the color in his cheeks told her that he was talking about the marriage bed.
Pip felt a blush rise in her own cheeks. She went back to staring at his waistcoat. “Thank you,” she said again.
Lord Octavius clasped her hands a little more tightly. “I want you to be happy in our marriage,” he said in an earnest voice.
“I want you to be happy, too,” Pip said. It seemed the sort of thing one should say to a man’s face, not his waistcoat, so she looked up at him again, and once she’d looked she couldn’t look away.
If a gaze could be full-hearted, Lord Octavius’s was. If a gaze could be impassioned, his was.
Pip found herself unable to move, unable to speak. She could barely breathe. All she could do was stand and stare up at him.
When Lord Octavius bent his head to kiss her, Pip didn’t hesitate. She kissed him back with everything in her, kissed him with fervor and zeal and vehemence and passion.
“Tut, tut, tut,” a voice drawled alongside them.
Never had three words been uttered to such dreadful effect. It was as if a bathtub of icy water had been upended over Pip’s head. She gave a violent start, wrenched her hands from Lord Octavius’s grasp, and stumbled back in horrified haste.
“Tut, tut,” their interrupter said again. It was Mr. Pryor. He stood alongside them, shaking his head, a particularly wide smirk on his face.
Pip groped for her bonnet and found it still on her head. She felt off balance and befuddled. She looked for the girls and saw them busily hunting for flowers amid the long grass. Newingham was still on hands and knees under the hedgerow.
“Shocking,” Mr. Pryor said. “Simply shocking.”
It was shocking. The most shocking thing Pip had ever done. More shocking than climbing trees or learning defensive techniques or kissing Lord Octavius in an empty schoolroom.
She’d kissed a man in a public lane.
She kissed a man in a public lane within sight of Edie and Fanny.
The girls hadn’t noticed, and neither had Lord Newingham, but that didn’t alter the fact that it had been an appalling lapse of judgment.
“Shocking,” Mr. Pryor said again, shaking his head.
“Do be quiet, Dex,” Lord Octavius said.
Pip was more discomfited than she’d ever been in her life. She couldn’t understand how she’d come to kiss Lord Octavius in so public a place, with the girls and Lord Newingham less than fifty yards away. What had she been thinking?
“Quite scandalous, in fact,” Mr. Pryor said, warming to his theme. “Such a display of ardor—”
“That’s enough, Dex,” Lord Octavius said. He looked as mortified as Pip felt. He clearly hadn’t meant to kiss her in public any more than she’d meant to kiss him.
Mr. Pryor paid no attention to his cousin’s pronouncement. “One would hope that you purchased a special license in town, because such disgraceful behavior can only be rectified by—”
“I did,” Lord Octavius said. “And I bought a sword, too, and if you don’t shut up I’ll use it to cut off your head.”
Mr. Pryor laughed at this threat.
“It’s a very sharp sword,” Lord Octavius told him.
“Good,” Mr. Pryor said, his demeanor switching abruptly from teasing to businesslike. “Let’s go and practice, shall we?”
“What? Now?”
“We want to teach Rumpole his lesson as soon as possible, don’t we?” Mr. Pryor asked.
“Well, yes, but—”
“Tonight, if possible.”
“Yes, but—”
“Then we should practice.”
Lord Octavius looked at Pip, and then at the girls, and then back at his cousin. “Now?”
Mr. Pryor uttered an exasperated sigh. “We can’t stay here forever, Otto. It’s been six days already, and you might not want to get on with the rest of your life, but Bunny and I do.”
Lord Octavius grimaced. “Of course. I beg your pardon. We’ll practice now.” He looked at Pip, and hesitated, and then said, “Miss Toogood, I apologize for . . .” He made an awkward gesture that could have meant a hundred different things but that Pip knew was meant to signify their kiss.
She nodded to show she understood.
Mr. Pryor handed her the flowers he’d picked. “For you, Miss Toogood.”
Pip accepted the posy automatically. It consisted mostly of buttercups and dandelions.
Mr. Pryor headed in the direction of Rumpole Hall with his signature swagger. Lord Octavius made no move to follow him. He stood in the middle of the lane, looking at Pip.
She clutched the flowers and stared back at him, still feeling off balance and discombobulated.
“If you can tear yourself away . . .” Mr. Pryor called back in a sing-song voice.
“We’ll talk later,” Lord Octavius promised Pip, and then he strode hastily after his cousin.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
They visited the Long Gallery, stared at the best portrait of Amelia Rumpole for several minutes, then retired to the privacy of Octavius’s bedroom. Octavius stripped off his clothes, changed shape, and donned the maid’s clothing, then he stood in front of the mirror and practiced Amelia Rumpole’s face and hair while Dex levitated the sword around the room. “Hold your right hand up,” Dex said.
Octavius did. The sword flew neatly into his grip, hilt-first, then the sheath swooped off like a bird taking flight. Suddenly, he was brandishing a naked sword.
“Impressive,” he said.
Dex smirked. “I know.”
They ran through that part of the performance—the sword flying into his hand, the sheath swooping off—twice more, then Dex hoisted the armchair into the air as a substitute for Rumpole. “All right, let’s hear your speech.”
“You vile and contemptible worm!” Octavius cried. He flourished the sword—and then squawked as his feet left the ground.
“You need to be in the air, too,” Dex said. “More menacing if you loom over him, don’t you think?”
Octavius did think so—but that didn’t mean he enjoyed floating. He didn’t like that there was nothing but emptiness beneath his feet, and he especially didn’t like that he had a skirt wafting around his legs and he wasn’t wearing drawers. An updraft would expose his private parts to all and sundry. And, damn it, that was something else he should have bought in London: a pair of boy’s drawers.
He gripped the sword tightly and began his speech again. “You vile and contemptible worm—”
“Your hair needs to be loose,” Dex said. “Let me see if I can . . .”
Octavius hung motionless while the mobcap levitated off his head. The hairpins slid free and were suddenly gone. Amelia Rumpole’s long hair unwound itself from the precarious bun on his head and began to drift behind him, as if he stood in a strong breeze.
“That looks good,” Dex said. “Very otherworldly.”
Octavius pointed the sword menacingly at the armchair again. “You vile and contemptible worm!” he cried, and then gave a yelp as his skirts began to move. “Don’t lift up my dress!”
“I’m not going to, you idiot,” Dex said, frowning with concentration.
Octavius caught sight of himself in the mirror. His heart gave a tiny leap, an instinctive recoil that was part shock and part fright. That person floating in the air wearing a maidservant’s clothes and a dead woman’s face, with her hair and her skirts billowing in a non-existent breeze, that
was him.
Dex was right: he did look otherworldly. Ghostly.
Octavius shivered, even though he knew the person in the mirror was him. No, he shivered because that person was him. That dead woman with the flowing hair.
“All right,” Dex said. “Go.”
Octavius looked away from the mirror. He ran through his speech from start to finish, punctuating his points with threatening slashes of the sword.
“Bravo,” Dex said, when he was done. “I reckon you’ll scare him off women for life.”
Octavius lowered the sword. He hoped Dex was right.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Pip had almost regained her equilibrium by the time she, the girls, and Lord Newingham returned to the house. She still couldn’t understand how she’d come to kiss Lord Octavius in a public lane, but her brain had resumed functioning and she was able to tell Edie that yes, both moths and butterflies spent time in cocoons, and to assure Newingham that yes, he’d be more than welcome to dine in the nursery that evening. Newingham parted ways with them in the entrance hall. Pip climbed the main staircase with the girls. The first two flights were carpeted, but the third flight, up to the nursery, wasn’t and their footsteps were suddenly loud on the bare floorboards. Pip was so busy explaining caterpillars and cocoons to Edie that she almost didn’t notice that someone was descending the stairs.
She glanced up, and stopped in mid-sentence.
What was Mr. Donald doing on this staircase?
The girls clattered past their father’s valet without appearing to notice his existence. Pip moved swiftly past him, too, the words she’d been about to utter frozen on her tongue.
The main staircase was much wider than the servants’ stairs but even so, as she passed the valet, their arms brushed.
A shiver ran up her spine.
How could something so innocuous, so seemingly casual and innocent, feel so threatening? How could it make every hair on her body stand on end?
Pip gathered her wits and found her voice. “Not all caterpillars become butterflies. Some become moths.”
At the half landing, she glanced back. Mr. Donald was gone from sight, but that didn’t stop her shivering again.
Why had he been on these stairs?
Had he been waiting for her?
Lord Octavius, Mr. Pryor, and Lord Newingham joined them for dinner again. The two cousins were in good spirits, but Newingham was uncharacteristically quiet. His jaw was tight, his lips were thin, and there was a sharp little crease between his eyebrows.
Pip wondered what had happened to put him out of temper.
Lord Octavius and Mr. Pryor didn’t appear to notice Newingham’s quietness. They kept up a cheerful stream of conversation, joking and teasing across the table, making the girls laugh. Pip braced herself for some sly digs from Mr. Pryor, but they didn’t come. It would seem that he’d forgotten what had happened in the lane.
Pip wished she could forget it, too. She felt hot with mortification every time she thought of it.
Lord Octavius pushed his chair back as soon as the meal was finished. “I have some affairs I need to discuss to with my cousin. Family business. If you’ll excuse us?”
If Newingham was curious as to what family business his two friends needed to discuss at Rumpole Hall, he didn’t show it. He was lost in thought, the crease between his eyebrows even sharper than it had been before.
“You’ll stay and play jackstraws with us, won’t you, Uncle Robert?” Fanny asked pleadingly.
Newingham lost his frown. “Of course. There’s nothing I’d like more.”
Pip watched Lord Octavius and Mr. Pryor depart. She wished she could go with them and observe, but she couldn’t. All she could do was tap the table three times and wish them a silent Good luck.
It was difficult to concentrate on jackstraws that evening. Pip played abysmally. So did Lord Newingham. The Pryor cousins hadn’t returned by the girls’ bedtime. Pip wondered what that meant. Had they found Baron Rumpole? Had they carried out their plan? Had it worked? Or were they still waiting for an opportunity?
The girls said their good-nights. Pip began to tidy away the jackstraws. Newingham picked up several and crammed them into the wooden box they came from. His movements were jerky, almost angry.
“Forgive me for asking, Lord Newingham, but . . . is something wrong?”
Newingham’s mouth tightened and it seemed for a moment that he wouldn’t speak, then he gathered up some more jackstraws and shoved them into the box. “I spoke to Rumpole before dinner, about the girls, and he said . . .” He shook his head sharply. “I can’t repeat what he said. It’s too offensive.”
Silently they collected the last of the jackstraws and placed them in the box. Newingham closed the lid with a snap. “He thinks of them as livestock,” he burst out. “And once they’re of marriageable age that’s how he’s going to get rid of them: like cows at a marketplace. Cows! He actually said that.” His jaw clenched and his hands clenched and for a round-faced and cheerful young viscount he looked astonishingly savage.
“I’m certain it won’t happen,” Pip said, wishing she could tell him that he’d soon be the girls’ guardian.
“It happened to Amelia,” Newingham said bitterly. His knuckles whitened as if he wanted to punch something. “And after he said that about the cows, he said . . .” His knuckles grew whiter. “But I can’t tell you that.” Color flooded his cheeks. He unclenched his hands. “I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have said any of that. Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Pip said. “Your sentiments do you great justice. The girls are lucky to have you as their uncle.”
Newingham flushed even redder. He made her a hasty bow and departed.
Pip didn’t depart. She stayed in the empty nursery and let the viscount’s words play over in her mind.
Livestock.
A marketplace.
Baron Rumpole intended to get rid of his daughters as if they were cows.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Octavius tiptoed down the main staircase in the guise of a very pretty housemaid. Dex followed a few steps behind, the sword held inconspicuously at his side. They scouted the ground floor. Rumpole was nowhere to be seen, but candles were lit in the dining room and the long table was set for one person. They narrowly missed being spotted by a footman who was clearly waiting for the baron to come down to dinner.
“He must be upstairs dressing,” Octavius whispered.
“Must be,” Dex whispered back.
They retreated to the library to wait. Dex hid the sword behind an armchair and sat down with a newspaper. Octavius concealed himself in a shadowy alcove, in case anyone should come.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Octavius gave in and sat on the floor—which wasn’t easy wearing a dress. He couldn’t sit cross-legged unless he pulled his skirts up to his knees.
Damn, but he missed his breeches.
Another ten minutes passed. Octavius grew bored. The footman waiting in the dining room must be bored, too.
Finally, he heard footsteps and a voice. The footsteps could have been anyone’s but that petulant voice could only belong to one person.
Dex lowered the newspaper.
Together, they listened to Baron Rumpole enter his dining room.
Octavius left his alcove and went to stand at the half-open library door, to hear better. He thought he caught the sound of wine being poured from a decanter and the soft clink of silverware. Footmen came and went for several minutes, bringing the baron his dinner, enduring his sharply voiced complaints. Finally, the servants departed. The only sound that reached the library was the almost inaudible scrape of cutlery on a plate.
Octavius hoped the bastard would eat fast. “You hide in that alcove,” he told Dex. “With any luck, Rumpole will come in here afterwards to drink.”
“The things I do for you,” Dex said, but he crossed to the alcove and lowered himself to sit. From where Octavius stood, Dex was invisible.
>
“Here.” He rolled up the newspaper his cousin had been reading and tossed it at him.
Dex caught it one-handed. “Where are you going to hide?”
“Across the corridor.” Octavius peeked out the library door, checking for servants, then slipped across to the empty breakfast parlor.
Fortunately, the baron took less time to eat his dinner than he had changing clothes. Octavius was almost unprepared for the sudden bustle of footmen removing the covers. He watched through a crack in the door as ashets, tureens, and platters were taken back to the kitchen.
Finally, the footmen stopped scurrying to and fro. The baron didn’t emerge from the dining room. Was he going to do his drinking at the table tonight?
Octavius waited, peering through the crack.
Just when he’d decided that the baron was going to stay in the dining room, he heard the sound of a chair being pushed back. Rumpole appeared in the corridor, belched loudly, and headed for the library.
Octavius watched him enter. His heart, which had been doing a steady trot, began to canter.
It was time to do this mad, outrageous thing.
He picked up a vase of flowers from the mantelpiece, took a deep breath, and left the breakfast parlor.
He crossed the corridor, holding the vase in front of him. Another deep breath, another half dozen steps, and he reached the library door.
Rumpole was at the sideboard, pouring himself a glass of port. He didn’t notice Octavius standing in the doorway.
Octavius gave him time to finish pouring and to choose an armchair—the very one Dex had been sitting in earlier—before he slipped into the room. The baron still didn’t notice him. He leaned back in the armchair and gave vent to another loud belch.
Octavius closed the library door as quietly as he could and turned the key. The baron didn’t notice the quiet snick of the door locking; he was too busy slurping his port.
Octavius advanced into the room, holding the vase of flowers. He glanced at the alcove and saw only shadows, but he knew Dex was there, just as he knew there was a sword behind the armchair Rumpole sat in.