by Abigail Agar
Lord Linfield allowed an exacerbated sigh to escape his lips. He turned around, ensuring that nobody was listening. The only person anywhere close to them was a teenage boy, sitting atop the carriage, chewing at something. His eyes were glazed.
“Lady Elizabeth, if you would please open your mind to conversing with me without bounds,” Lord Linfield said, choosing his words carefully. “I’m not in the interest in mucking up the conditions of our contract.”
“Then why on earth did you choose to charge your way into my place of business and make a fool of me? What did you think my colleagues would think, with you standing over my desk and demanding answers? You know it’s incredibly important for me to keep my name hidden,” Lady Elizabeth murmured, her eyes glistening with anger.
In fact, it occurred to Lord Linfield, at this moment, that she was moments from tears.
“I’m sorry,” Lord Linfield said. He took a small step back, sensing he was standing a bit too close to the much shorter woman. He swallowed, bringing his hands to the chest of his suit. He suddenly felt on full display, perhaps more seen than he’d been during his speech the previous afternoon. Something about her eyes seemed to penetrate all the way through him. “I really didn’t think that through, I suppose. I just. I read through your essay and wanted to come to speak to you immediately.”
Lady Elizabeth brought her chin higher. “I’m upholding our agreement,” she said. “Know that. It involves writing your speeches to the best of my ability—something, it seems, you don’t care a lick about. What on earth happened with the pages? You were all over the place.”
“They were disorganised,” Lord Linfield stammered. “It wasn’t my fault …” Even as he spoke, he sensed how stupid he sounded. He remembered the pages flung across the study, dripping with rain.
What an imbecile he was.
“Regardless, I wrote the speech,” Lady Elizabeth continued. “And I’m in the midst of writing your next one. You don’t make it easy. It should be easy, given your remarkably good looks and your height and your deep voice. People should look at you immediately and want to bring you to Parliament, without a single glimmer of doubt. But when you get up on that stage, it seems you fall into some sort of childlike shyness.” She paused for a moment, sensing she’d gone too far. “I will be maintaining my position as Political Opinion writer at The Rising Sun. And I wrote my honest opinion regarding your speech. I will continue to write honestly. It’s up to you to show me something that impresses me. I have responsibility to my readers to tell the truth.”
Lord Linfield’s head spun with shifting opinions. On the one hand, he wanted to tear apart the contract he had with Lady Elizabeth. Tell her he didn’t need her. Tell her to go back to her frivolous writing as L.B. and say whatever she wanted to say about him. But on the other hand, he knew she would craft excellent speeches for him. He knew she was the kind of tool he so needed to propel himself forward.
And, really, it had been her words that had already done wonders to his run to Parliament. He’d been invited to the ball. He’d been lauded by countless of his father’s friends since the previous day. There had been a shift in the popular opinion of him.
“You seem to be the only person I can’t impress,” Lord Linfield finally said, his voice softer, now.
Behind him, the horses shuffled in front of their carriages. Lady Elizabeth looked into Lord Linfield’s eyes for just a moment. The gaze seemed to translate so much that Nathaniel couldn’t possibly verbalise. He longed to dive into Lady Elizabeth’s mind, know what on earth she was thinking.
“I have an offer for you,” Lady Elizabeth said.
“Another offer? My, what a lucky man I am,” Lord Linfield said, grinning broadly. How had the mood shifted so quickly from one of anger to one of promise? His heart pumped in his chest, a reminder that he was at the mercy of whatever Lady Elizabeth said next.
“I’d like to offer my services for public speaking,” Lady Elizabeth said, lifting her chin. “You need to be trained on how to address a crowd. On how to lift your phrases to ignite excitement. You need—well. You just need help.”
“And I suppose you’re the one to help me?” Lord Linfield asked, sounding doubtful. “You who, I assume, don’t spend much time in front of a crowd. You who hides behind a pen name.”
Beside him, Richard cleared his throat, appearing to reprimand Lord Linfield for speaking in such a manner. Lord Linfield paid him no mind.
“Of course I’m the person for the job. For I, Lady Elizabeth, was a trained debutante, in my day,” she said, her eyes flashing. She seemed to be playing with him. “As a man, there’s very little you must do to get through the Season. I know that. All you must do is appear.” Lady Elizabeth sighed. “And do the dances, and bow the bows. But ladies are trained. We’re trained to talk and to present ourselves in the best and brightest manner. And I can give you this training, if you want it.”
Lord Linfield hesitated. In the back of his mind, he again wondered why such a “trained” debutante didn’t have a husband of her own. Was she truly as good as her word? He began to articulate this question, before Richard, again, cleared his throat.
“I suppose I have no other answer than to agree,” Lord Linfield said. He reached forward, taking Lady Elizabeth’s hand and shaking it.
“Very well, then,” Lady Elizabeth said. “Propose a time and a place. I will arrange for Irene to accompany me.”
“Why not come tomorrow evening?” Lord Linfield asked, remembering that his mother had arrangements with a friend. Again, he felt strange about showing his hand to Lady Eloise as if it betrayed something in himself. As if it betrayed his abilities, or showed him to be weak. “I don’t want to lose another day if I’m to finally have these debutante presentation abilities of which you speak.”
“I hear your sarcasm, sir, but I tell you, you won’t regret this,” Lady Elizabeth said, giving him a daring, cutting smile. “I’ll see you at six o’clock sharp if it pleases you. Although at that time, we must give new thought to my payment. This wasn’t in the original agreement.”
Lord Linfield smirked, watching as Lady Elizabeth cut beyond him, giving them a final, side-long glance. Her skirts swept behind her, muddying in the cobblestones below. Beside him, Richard crossed his arms and then uncrossed them, seemingly perturbed.
“What is it, Richard?” Lord Linfield asked when Lady Elizabeth disappeared within The Rising Sun offices. “What are you sighing about?”
“She talks in circles around you, My Lord,” Richard said, his eyes glittering with humour. “It’s almost like watching a slaughter. I don’t think you’ll possibly win.”
“We’ll see, Richard. We’ll see,” Lord Linfield said.
Chapter 12
Lady Elizabeth returned to her desk, her cheeks flushed from the chill of the air and the volatility of the conversation. Outside, she could see Lord Linfield and his right-hand man, Richard, walking across the road, their black hats shining in the sunlight. Bess gripped the edge of her desk so hard that all the blood left her fingers.
“What’s gotten into you?” Irene hissed as she whirled past, her hair in mad curls and papers shuffling in her hands. She winked at Bess, before dropping several of the pages onto one of the writer’s desks. “You can’t possibly think this is fit for publishing, do you?” she demanded. “You’ve made three grammatical errors in the first line. Do you really think me a fool? Hmm?”
Bess grinned broadly before turning her eyes back to the blank page before her. Behind it were the notes she’d been making for Lord Linfield’s upcoming speech. She flipped her quill around in her hand, waiting for a wave of creativity to fall over her. But again, her brain was alight with thoughts of Lord Linfield: his seemingly quick wit, his beaming eyes, and the way it seemed she enraged him and thrilled him, all at once.
Of course, Bess knew that she couldn’t possibly allow herself to feel anything for him. She was a single woman, a disgraced woman. A woman without any merit in society. An
d allowing herself to think of Lord Linfield as anything but her employer would surely result in not only heartache, but embarrassment.
Deep into the afternoon, as the sun began to tilt over the rooftops, Bess finished writing the essay. She blinked at the window, incredulous that time could have passed so quickly. She’d given herself over fully to the beauty of this creation, had lost herself in the words.
Across the office, the other employees had begun to squander their time, bantering amongst one another and leaving their quills to rot. With all of Bess’s secretarial responsibilities completed, Bess rose and took tentative steps toward Irene’s office. When she reached the doorway, Irene shot a single finger into the air. “One moment!” she cried.
Irene made several last jolts with her pen across the pages before her before blinking up, looking as though she was a full hallway away, rather than just a few feet. “Oh, it’s just you.” Irene sighed. “I thought surely you were one of those imbeciles I hired out there. You know, it’s really true. Everyone says that only a man can write, read, work. But people are more apt to read our writing, Miss Bess, than any of the other writers at this publication. Sure, they don’t know you’re a woman. But shouldn’t the writing speak for itself? And in fact, it does …”
Irene blabbered on for a few moments as Bess clipped the door closed behind her. She pressed her finger against her lips, allowing her shoulders to drop. “Please, keep your voice down about that.” Bess sighed.
“Oh, Bess. Come on.” Irene sighed back.
“You know as well as I do that having my name tossed around this city again won’t result in good press for the paper,” Bess said.
“It was years ago, now, Bess,” Irene said, her voice low. “You don’t have to let it haunt you for the rest of your life.”
Bess paused for a moment. Everything within her hesitated, wanting to blare out to Irene that she was incorrect. That she could never, ever, not in a million years forget what had happened. Couldn’t forget that her father and her fiancé had gone above her head, working together to swindle a large number of their peers with the tale of that horrific falsehood.
How was it possible that she could have believed them?
How had she been so stupid?
With Conner’s cunning business smarts and her father’s greed, they were a recipe for disaster. And Bess had been too in love, floating in the air, somewhere above the clouds, to readily notice. At least, she hadn’t noticed until it had been too late.
“Anyway, what was it you wanted to say?” Irene sighed, crinkling her lips.
“I wondered if I might take my leave early this evening,” Bess said.
“Any reason?” Irene asked.
“It’s terribly selfish, the reason, if I may be so bold to say,” Bess said. She leaned closer to Irene, allowing herself to giggle slightly. “It’s just that I finally have this pay cheque from you-know-who. And I’d like to do something with it.”
“Don’t tell me,” Irene said, her eyes gleaming. “The shoes.”
“You know me too well.” Bess sighed, rolling her eyes in a playful way.
“Go on,” Irene said, pointing towards the grey evening. “Please. If you don’t buy yourself those shoes that you’ve been eyeing for the past, I don’t know, six months? A year? I’ll boot you out of this office myself.” She paused, cutting her teeth over her lower lip.
Bess’s heart swelled. “Just another thing,” she said, tilting her head. She stretched her fingers across the door, preparing to press it open. “Lord Linfield just stopped by the offices. I, of course, intercepted his arrival, not wanting any of the writers to see him.”
“Again, always hiding from the truth,” Irene said.
“Anyway,” Bess said, ignoring her comment, “I’ve offered my services in helping him present himself better. You know, using some of the tactics we learned as debutantes. How to speak properly. How to get himself out of embarrassing situations …”
“So, all the things he seems entirely incapable of doing?” Irene said, tittering.
“I don’t think he’s incapable. I just simply think he’s nervous. You remember the first few months when we were debutantes, don’t you?” Bess said. “Gosh, I was such a girl, back then. So bright-eyed and optimistic. I didn’t think anything in the world could hurt me.”
The words rang out for a moment. Bess wished she could snatch them back into her mouth. She wasn’t seeking pity. She was simply more emotional, perhaps, in the wake of these fresh events: becoming a writer for the first time, and interacting with such a handsome, pompous man.
“Anyway. You were about to ask me something?” Irene asked. “Something about, perhaps, accompanying you …”
“If it isn’t too much trouble,” Bess said, allowing her chin to drop. “Tomorrow evening. At his estate.” After a pause, she added, “I’ll split some of the money with you, of course. I know it’s entirely out of line to demand so much attention from you.”
Irene began to shuffle papers on her desk, sweeping her curls behind her ear in an abrupt motion. Bess watched, aghast at the ferocity of her motions. When Irene spoke, however, she did it with good humour, showing Bess that she hadn’t anything to worry about. That she could ask anything of Irene, at any time.
That Irene was essentially the only family she had in the world.
“I would give anything to be there, Bessie.” Irene chuckled. “Anything to see that look in your eye again.”
She crafted another pile of papers on the corner of the desk, whirling towards another. Bess began to press upon the door of the office, sweat pooling at the base of her neck.
“What look?” Bess said. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, nothing.” Irene sighed. “Go on. Buy your shoes. I’ll be ready tomorrow night. Six o’clock?”
“Six o’clock,” Bess affirmed.
Minutes later, Bess marched through the dismal streets of an evening in chilly autumn, slipping through the racing crowd and listening to the chaos of the pedestrians around her. They seemed agitated, trying to forge their own path through a kind of jungle of downtown. Bess pressed herself forward, not wanting to allow anyone to cut in front of her. In her mind, this was how L.B., the writer, would walk. With certainty. Not like the girl, Lady Elizabeth.
Bess stopped at the shoe store’s front window, peering in at the slightly heeled, brown boots she’d been eyeing for the better part of the last year. She’d always been of the mindset that she needed to save money, to keep growing her bank account, lest something horrific happen to her all over again. In fact, she’d been rich, once, but had had to give all of her father’s money, her family’s money, to the government, in the wake of Conner and her father’s swindling.
Lord Linfield’s money burned brightly in her wallet, a kind of representation of Bess slogging through the hardest years of her life. Did she deserve this present to herself? She didn’t know. But as she slipped the shoes upon her feet within the shop and whirled towards the mirror, she felt tears glimmering in her eyes. It was almost like the emotion was too much, a punch in the face.
“They look stunning on you,” the shoe salesman said in the corner, crossing his arms above his bulbous belly.
“Really?” Bess asked. She hated how youthful she sounded, even in her own ears. Plus, it wasn’t like he would tell her if they looked ridiculous on her. Why was she looking for compliments from the man who wanted the cash in her billfold?
But the man just nodded, arching his brow. “It’s clear you have stellar taste,” he told her.
Bess set her chin, remembering the years of cultivating her personal “brand.” She’d been at the height of fashion, back in her debutante days: had known the proper shoes to wear, the best colours that brought out her eyes, the way to move and smile and dance to please a man. Although she was grateful that her life wasn’t entirely tied up in men any longer (or in the concept of becoming someone’s wife, above all), she still missed those tiny details that made her,
well, the grand “Lady Elizabeth.”