My Lady's Choosing

by Kitty Curran

  “I cannot believe you became a spy!” you say with a sigh. “That is so…romantic. And thrilling.”

  Ollie releases your ear. “No, no, NO,” he says, “this really isn’t as attractive as it sounds. It’s dark work I’ve had to do. Dark work, for the sake of my country.”

  “But…” you say, starry-eyed. Ollie groans and massages his temples.

  “Listen, I’ve only revealed myself because you have taken a job with someone very dangerous. I’ve been trailing him for quite some time. When you turned up in London, I couldn’t believe it. But I couldn’t let you just stumble into this lion’s den without warning you.”

  His tone and words are the metaphorical bucket of water you needed. “What?”

  “My entire cell was killed!” He grabs you by the shoulders, his dark eyes like those of a cornered animal. “All of them, within the space of a week, on several separate missions! Each time, the French were ready and waiting for us. They picked us off one by one like stray dogs. And I—I was the only one who made it out alive, for I had gotten so drunk mourning for the woman I loved that I missed the appointed time of my mission!”

  You stare at him, eyes wide in horror.

  “Don’t you see?! Someone must have sold British secrets for them to have known exactly where we were. And after much investigation I realized who the mole must be!”

  “No,” you whisper.

  “Yes,” he says, shaking you slightly. “It could only be one man. Captain Angus MacTaggart.”

  Uh-oh. Turn to this page.

  You again turn on your heel to give that insolent man one last piece of your mind—but instead you crash straight into a hot, hungry, well-dressed body. You blush. Of course he would see reason. A smile spreads across your lips as you look up and into the handsome, welcoming face of—

  “Cad?” you say, incredulous.

  For there, in all his rakishly handsome glory, is Rafe Caddington. He has the good looks and cynicism of the world’s finest dandy and the eyes of the world’s hungriest wolf. His smirk gives you ideas, which your other ideas must threaten with a stern talking-to in order to keep them in line.

  “Why, when the madam said to have a look around and choose the woman of my heart’s desire, she really meant it.” His voice is as painfully luscious as a bite of rich trifle, and his hands run over you with as much relish as his gaze.

  “Unhand me, sir! I am not your plaything, just as the rightful Granvilles are not your playthings!” You wrest your breast from his groping, gloved fingers. “I am merely in this house of ill repute to confirm that your repute is the illest of them all.”

  “It most certainly is,” he growls, using his rock-hard thighs to trap you against a large Grecian urn inscribed with the filthiest of odes.

  You knee him. Hard. He gasps, but grips you tight about the shoulders.

  “I take pleasure in pain. And I take what I want! Wealth! My name! YOU!” His cry is savage, hungry, and cut short by a yank to his fashionably unkempt mane.

  “You will stop taking this instant, you leech!” It is none other than Benedict. He cuts his eyes at Cad, then throws a tenderer gaze to you. “Please forgive my cruelty,” he whispers. “I have been brutish to you because I am brutish to myself. I didn’t think I would ever need worry about love, or desire, and you have swept into my life like a wildfire, making me suddenly concerned for the safety of things I took for granted. The safety of my solitude. The safety of the way things are. I see now that there is nothing safe in being so miserably unhappy that I am willing to let my life be colorless and cold without…you.”

  “Cad launches a fusillade of watercress sandwiches at Benedict before clocking him with the fine silver tray they were laid upon.”

  A thousand emotions and desires cross your mind at once, and you struggle to come up with a quip that could express them all.

  “Oh, darling, let me save you the trouble,” Benedict says, and he drops Cad long enough to draw your face to his and bury your mouth in a kiss that would be everlasting—if Cad didn’t interrupt it by tackling him.

  “Damn my eyes!” he yells. “The mighty son of Lord and Lady Granville, heir to everything he has never earned, kissing a common maid in a whorehouse like the bastard he truly is!” Cad’s eyes and voice are charred with jealousy.

  “Oh, come now!” Benedict says, deflecting Cad’s next punch and throwing his own. “You’ve done worse in whorehouses!”

  “You dare mock me!” Cad launches a fusillade of watercress sandwiches at Benedict before clocking him with the fine silver tray they were laid upon.

  “Please!” Benedict sneers, breaking a candle from its elegant pewter taper to use as a death baton. “I mock everyone!”

  “Your name! Your fortune! Your station, your love”—Cad manages to sneer at Benedict and spit on you at the same time—“will do you no good where you’re going, man. No one’s life is respected, noble or no, when it is over!” Cad raises the sandwich tray high above him, murder in his eyes, emptiness in his heart, watercress sandwiches on the floor.

  “Cad, no!” you scream.

  “Slattern, yes!” he screams back.

  Can Cad be reasoned with? If so, turn to this page.

  Or is he nothing but a lecherous weasel who needs to be taken down immediately in as violent a manner as possible? If so, turn to this page.

  Before anything can be said or done, the handsome postman nods at you, shuts the carriage door, and climbs into the driver’s seat. You are rumbling off to your date with destiny without another moment’s hesitation.

  You try to sleep, but your mind races with thoughts—thoughts that may belong to you or to the wild night, you are not sure. Just as you are wondering how a man could be so monstrous as to inspire such a repulsed, repressed curiosity throughout the ton, your carriage lurches to a stop. A beast in the distance keens into the violet, moonlit sky. Your heart thrums. When you took your meal at the Slaughtered Lamb, there was much talk about a barghest creature the locals swore haunted the moors around Hopesend Manor. Can this far-off call be the demon dog’s heartless cry, as it stalks the night for prey?

  No! You steel yourself and shake all qualms from your heart. You’re not some silly chit who fills her head with the nonsense of gothic novels. The carriage door opens, and you take your valise—and, with it, the situation—firmly in hand.

  In the weak morning light, you approach the great carved portal of Hopesend Manor clutching the letter from Lord Craven. The house sighs like a dying maiden as the door swings open, revealing a specter with the body of an old woman and a face like a stone gargoyle whose finer features have been worn away by the harsh elements of nature. This person is missing one arm, and its other boasts a clawlike hand. You lose your grip on your valise—and, with it, your composure—and scream for your life.

  “There, there, love, let’s get you inside.” It is a more comforting tone than you have ever heard a hellbeast emit. “You must be who the master sent for.” She—for she must be a she—gathers your valise and letter into her one pleasantly plump arm.

  Temporarily struck dumb, you nod slowly.

  “Oh, my, are you simple, love?” Her voice is warm with patience and understanding.

  “No! No, I—” You shake your head, at a loss for words. The woman hangs her head in a moment of apparent bashfulness.

  “I have given you a fright. I see. Well, no offense taken, love! It isn’t the first time and surely won’t be the last that I give someone a scare!” Her voice is as kind as her visage is frightening. You take another curious look at your greeter: a woman of advanced years, whose face, remaining arm, and hand are roped with scars from long-ago burns. Your stomach drops at your coldhearted reaction to her appearance.

  “I am so very sorry,” you say, desperate to make up for your horrifying faux pas.

  “No mind, love. I’m Mrs. Butts, the housekeeper round here,” the c
reature assures you in an even kindlier manner than before. Still, you see her hand brush her scarred cheek ever so briefly. You sink under the weight of your own shame as she nudges you conspiratorially with her motherly shoulder. “Ready to meet the master?”

  Your heart flutters in your nicely endowed chest. After Mrs. Butts leads you to your chambers, you quickly change into your one fine black dress and hope that the handsomeness of your figure distracts Lord Craven from the fact that the garment is at least an inch too tight and a touch too frayed to be considered fine anymore.

  Thus attired, you smooth your hair, raise your chin, and descend the stairs to meet—

  “Master Alexander!” Mrs. Butts cries, and you are confronted by a boy no older than eight years of age with murder in his eyes and a hoop and stick in his hands.

  “The lady is here to play with ME!” cries young Master Alexander, and he sets about to smacking you with the stick element of his hoop and stick set.

  So begins your career as governess to the most horrible child you have ever had the poor fortune to meet.

  “Call me Master Craven! I command you!” Master Alexander now strikes you with his hoop as well as his stick. Oh no, you think, this will not do. You deftly intercept both hoop and stick during the wind-up to young Master Alexander’s next fusillade and use them to expertly box the boy’s ears.

  Master Alexander is almost too shocked to cry. Almost. And then, quite masterfully, he wails.

  “When you are done crying,” you say in your most character-improving governess voice, “I shall explain the folly of your actions. Then you will apologize for your impudence. And then, since you are clearly a man of action, we can learn a brief history of fencing before we take our morning constitutional.”

  Master Alexander suddenly quiets, studying you through a mask of his own tears. “You know about fencing?”

  “Of course I do, dear boy!” You laugh delightedly, half at the sweetness of the child’s inquiry, half at your own satisfaction of having read a good deal about the history of jeu d’escrime in your youth in order to one day use it to silence a self-satisfied gentleman. “I even know how to fence myself. I will love to teach you if—”

  “SILENCE!”

  Your private, self-congratulatory reverie of how grand a governess you are becoming is immediately cut short by the angry boom of a voice so deep you could drown in it.

  You look up from Master Alexander’s small form, past the trembling Mrs. Butts, and into the eyes of a man you could swear was cut from stone if not for the fire burning in his sin-green eyes. Suddenly, you see what the hushed tones at the tavern were about when the locals were discussing Lord Craven. He is the epitome of manly strength, drawn with a fine hand and painted with a rage-red brush. He is as handsome as he is angry, and he is very angry.

  “I hired you to keep the peace in my household, woman. Not,” the beastly man seethes through gritted teeth, “disturb it.”

  You know you should show deference, but the lord is being more than a touch impossible with respect to his expectations, not to mention hopelessly rude.

  “Pleased to meet you, sir. You must be Lord Craven. I do hate to be insulting, but I scarcely gathered that as governess I was hired solely to be a dampener of sound. I was merely attempting to improve the child—”

  “There is no improving him,” Lord Craven roars. “There is no improving anyone. We are the way we are, and that is all!”

  “Greeting a woman by hitting her about the body with hoops and sticks! One would think he was raised by wolves!” As soon as the words escape your mouth, you regret them. You are speaking too boldly, but being in this man’s presence awakens all your senseless passions.

  “Wolves,” says Lord Craven, crossing the length of the chamber in two easy strides, “would likely be a better choice of governess than you.”

  “Yet you didn’t hire a wolf, Lord Craven,” you say, astounded by your audacity. “You hired me.”

  The man is so close that you find yourself nearly swooning at the woodsy, musky smell of him. Though you don’t know where you find the strength to do so, you return his burning gaze with fiery strength. He gives you a once-over so savage that you can’t repress the shudder it produces. You attempt a more tender tack.

  “He is your son, my lord. Your son.”

  And with those words, the life falls from Lord Craven’s face.

  “He has his mother’s eyes,” he says, cold as a crypt. Then he turns on his heel and is gone.

  A full minute passes before you are able to regain a sense of equilibrium. “What—” you start to ask Mrs. Butts, but she waves you off, not unkindly.

  “The lord has his ways,” she says. “Never you mind. Give him his distance, follow his rule, and everything will be fine. Now, miss, to meet the staff!”

  Feeling like you don’t have a choice? You chose to be a governess in a mad lord’s mansion flung far on the moors. Get used to it. Turn to this page.

  Damn him. Once back in Derbyshire, you storm to your quarters and pack your bags in a rage. This is most certainly goodbye…for now.

  Do you make your escape to the East End to do good works with a certain rugged Scotsman, and maybe get pickpocketed? Turn to this page.

  Or do you make your escape to do some gothic governessing in Yorkshire? You hear the rain is quite lovely this time of year. Turn to this page.

  As you step off the barge, you pause for a moment in wonder that this is really happening. After all, just a short time ago you were but a humble lady’s companion. And now…well, admittedly, you are still a humble lady’s companion.

  Still, it is a far more companionable lady you find yourself traveling with. A very beautiful and exciting lady, who has taken you to the very heart of Cairo. Your own heart wells with excitement, for all around you are sounds, sights, and feelings that you do not recognize…least not when such feelings are for the lovely Lady Evangeline.

  The boat lurches suddenly and the gangplank pitches you forward. You are about to fall into the murky waters of the Nile when in one swift, liquid movement Lady Evangeline deftly catches you. “Careful,” she says with a smile, holding you tight for one thrilling second before setting you back on your feet.

  You shake your head, hoping that will clear the sudden dizziness that has overtaken you. This is madness, madness and possibly heat stroke. Rather than dwell on such confusing emotions, you hurry to keep up with the lady as you both make your way through the bustling metropolis. Still, you cannot stop yourself from starting as she turns and grins rakishly at you, out-dazzling even the blazing African sun.

  “Where are we going first?” you ask nervously. Something between you has changed on the journey, and what was once easy friendship now feels like something you can’t quite put your finger on. Something fraught and raw-edged and ready to explode—at least on your part. Now you are constantly finding yourself nervous and tongue-tied in her presence.

  If Lady Evangeline has noticed the shift, she does not let on. Rather, she continues with the same self-assured ease that has set your foolish heart aflutter as if you were but a schoolgirl.

  “The museum, my dear girl,” she says. “Of course.”

  Not knowing what she means by “the museum,” you are momentarily struck dumb, partly from shame at your ignorance and partly from her exquisite beauty. She seems to understand your confusion and rubs your shoulder. You shiver despite the intense heat.

  “The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, I mean. Run by my dear friend Kamal Abu Habib bin Hasan al-Munawi. Such a sweet man, and quite brilliant, too. He has dedicated his life to preserving the treasures of the pharaohs and making sure such wonders remain in Egypt.”

  “Th-that’s very good of him,” you volunteer shyly.

  “Oh, it is.” She nods. “Just wait until you see the museum. It will take your breath away.”

  And indeed, what greets you when you enter the m
useum does take your breath away, though not in the manner intended. The white marble floors of the great central room are scattered with hundreds upon hundreds of treasures from Egypt’s golden age. At the center of the chaos stands a bookishly handsome, bespectacled young man. His dark hair sticks up in all directions from nervous rubbing.

  “Kamal!” gasps Lady Evangeline. “What the devil happened?!”

  “Oh, my lady!” the man cries. “Intruders broke in last night! They shattered a window, knocked my best guard unconscious, and—and then…” He gestures in despair at the destruction around him.

  Lady Evangeline steps delicately over the rubble and manages to find a seat for the trembling Kamal, before gesturing to a servant to bring tea.

  “Did your guard see what they looked like?” she asks gently. Kamal shakes his head.

  “No! They wore masks and hoods! And this is such a large city. It will be impossible to find them.”

  Lady Evangeline places an elegant hand on her friend’s slumped shoulders. You watch with fascination as she gently rubs the back of the surprisingly attractive young man and are shocked to find your heart clenching with something not unlike…envy?

  No. This cannot be. Surely the unaccustomed climate is causing your face to flush and your pulse to race. Shrugging off this unnerving feeling, you hand Kamal the tea that has just been brought in and force yourself to speak.

  “I am so sorry, sir. Did they take many things?”

  Kamal turns his large, soulful brown eyes—now wide with confusion—to you.

  “No, and it is very strange. I have gone through my inventory all morning. We have many fine things, but it appears the thieves took only one object: the turquoise scroll canister.”

  Lady Evangeline stands suddenly, her jaw tight.

  “Delphine St. Croix!” she hisses.