“I shouldn’t want to seem cross, Julian, but I will be one and twenty soon. You can’t tell me whom I may or may not see then.”
The uncharacteristic challenge in her words shot a bolt of fear right through him. Julian whipped around, covering the ground between them in a few long strides. Sophie started badly, tried to stand up from the chair, but he caught her elbow and yanked her to her feet, holding fast. “Do not think,” he said low, “that you will be allowed to see him even then, little one. You will still be in my house, under my protection, and you will never have my leave to receive him, do you understand me?”
Sophie’s eyes fluttered wide; she jerked her arm from his grasp and stumbled backward. “Why shouldn’t you want me to be happy?”
“Of course I want you to be happy, Sophie! But you will not find happiness with the likes of him. You must trust me—I know what is best for you.”
Her bottom lip quivered. “You know nothing!” she cried, and rushed to the door.
“Sophie!”
She came to a dead halt, her back to him, her hand on the porcelain knob.
“Do not see him again.”
She shot through the door without looking back. Hearing her muffled sobs as she fled down the corridor, Julian sighed wearily—then went in search of his bath.
When Julian’s middle sister, Ann, sent a note the next day inviting him to join a few friends for the evening, Julian fairly jumped at the opportunity, anxious to escape the gloom Sophie’s unhappiness had cast over the entire house. Arriving at Ann’s home, Julian greeted his sister, exclaimed with horror at how fat she had gotten during his short absence, and smiled when a laughing Ann reminded him that she was five months pregnant.
Ann’s “few friends” actually numbered in the dozens, and Julian made his way through the crush to join Victor, Ann’s husband, at the sideboard for a sherry. A full head shorter than he, Viscount Boxworth was a quiet man who sipped his sherry while he covertly watched Ann flit about the drawing room from guest to guest. That was one thing Julian liked immensely about Victor—he adored Ann. And now that she carried his child, he could scarcely take his eyes from her. As the two stood making small talk—Julian actually doing most of the talking—he wondered what it must feel like to know one had put a life in a woman’s belly, to know a quality of love that would result in an image of oneself.
Victor had just posed a question about Julian’s trip to Paris when Lady Felicia Wentworth swept into the drawing room. Julian frowned; Felicia had made her desires for him known on more than one occasion and he was hardly in the mood to put off her advances. On her heels were Lord and Lady Dillbey. Oh, splendid. He had encountered Lady Dillbey once in a dark library; well … his hand had encountered her. Since then, she practically chased him from ballroom to ballroom, and he was hardly in a mood for that, either. He took his leave of Victor, and slowly worked his way to the back of the very large room, pausing often to greet acquaintances.
He was speaking to the sister of the luckless Lord Turlington—whose head, coincidentally, Julian had once shoved into a chamber pot at Eton—when he saw Claudia. In spite of Lady Elizabeth, who was leaning into him, batting her eyes and blocking his view as she rambled on about some insipid thing or another, Julian saw her. Bertie Rutherford was standing with her; the dolt was openly ogling her, his gaze dipping frequently to the décolletage of her pretty plum gown.
Julian made his excuses to a disappointed Lady Elizabeth and sauntered forward.
He smiled charmingly when Claudia’s eyes rounded with evident surprise. “Good evening, Lady Claudia,” he said with a gracious bow, then curtly, “Rutherford.” He promptly ignored any greeting Bertie might have had the presence of mind to make, by turning the full force of his attention on Claudia.
“Ah, Lord Kettering, I see you have found your way home from France.” She smiled irreverently. “I suppose the wind tossed you back to England’s shores?”
Impudent little wench. “Blown in by a storm, actually, and from there I walked the length of the country, as it is quite difficult to hire a coach in Newhaven.” Completely remorseless, the Demon’s Spawn actually laughed at that. The foppish Bertie looked as if he was trying to think of something clever to say, so Julian moved slightly, putting himself partially between Bertie and Claudia. “I trust the flowers found you?”
Her eyes glistened with great amusement. “Why yes! How very kind of you to remember the men who have served our beloved England. The inmates at Chelsea Hospital are teaming together to pen you a proper thank you, as their morning room was brightened considerably by your thoughtful gesture.”
Looking a bit confused as per usual, Bertie peered up at Julian. “Beg your pardon? You sent flowers to the inmates at Chelsea Hospital?”
“Not exactly,” he responded smoothly.
“Oh, but he did,” Claudia cheerfully contradicted. “Seems he has a passion for military men.”
“My passion, madam, is really—”
“—quite relentless,” she blithely interrupted. “Oh! I see Lord and Lady Dillbey. Please excuse me, my lords, I should very much like to pay my respects,” she said, and promptly sailed out of their midst. Bertie sighed longingly after her, then looked at Julian. “Military men, is it? I rather fancy the navy myself.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Bertie!” Julian snapped irritably, and strode after the Demon’s Spawn.
Dillbey lit up like a chandelier when Julian approached. “Kettering! You must come join our little debate!” he called boisterously as he extended his hand in greeting. Julian nodded to the men standing with Dillbey, then reluctantly bowed over Lady Dillbey’s proffered hand. She flashed a blatantly saucy smile at him that her husband could not help but see. Claudia certainly did, judging by the way she frowned at him. “Lady Claudia, we meet again.
“Yes, astonishing how that happens, isn’t it?” she muttered.
“Lady Claudia was just explaining to our great fascination that the French are debating the merits of labor organizations for women,” Dillbey explained. “Apparently, she has confirmed what we have suspected all along … the French are imbeciles!” He laughed at his own joke, as did the two dandies beside him. Julian thought it a rather tasteless remark, and he could all but feel Claudia’s discomfort. “My lady, you can be quite entertaining,” Dillbey continued, smiling at Claudia. “I understand young women come away from your drawing room with any number of strange notions!” He laughed again; the two dandies chuckled along with much less enthusiasm.
“My lord!” Lady Dillbey exclaimed, obviously embarrassed. “That’s simply not true!”
“Why it is!” the old fool doggedly insisted. “My dear, even you were quite appalled by her suggestion that women should hold seats in Parliament!” he reminded her. A memory suddenly invaded Julian’s mind of Valerie, sitting on the edge of her chair, her feet swinging above the carpet. Claudia says that Parliament should seat only women, because men argue far too much.
“Why shouldn’t women hold seats?” Claudia asked with a charming smile for the two fops. “Why should men think they are the only ones to know what is best for us all?”
“Because it is true,” Dillbey responded in a surprisingly sharp tone. “Women are ignorant in matters such as affairs of state, Lady Claudia, and men do not want their wives and daughters to be unduly burdened with the hard decisions that must be made when attending to the nation’s affairs. It is hardly the sort of thing one does on the basis of emotion.”
The man did not care for Claudia, Julian realized, and felt a peculiar twinge of anger.
“I beg your pardon, my lord, I should not want to provoke you, but I must respectfully disagree,” Claudia said carefully. “Women are not so simple that they cannot learn, or so fragile that they cannot make difficult decisions.”
That caused Dillbey’s face to turn quite red. Sensing an impending explosion, Julian quickly interrupted. “You are absolutely right, Lady Claudia. In fact, I rather hoped I might entice you to help
me make a difficult decision this very evening.” That succeeded in gaining everyone’s attention, including a murderous look from Lady Dillbey
“What decision, my lord?” Claudia asked coolly.
“I should very much like to make a charitable donation to the Chelsea Hospital”—he glanced at Dillbey—“I’ve quite a passion for military men, you see.” Shifting his gaze to Claudia, he grinned. “But I’m quite uncertain how to go about it. You are a benefactress of the hospital, are you not?”
“Yes.”
“Splendid. Might I impose?”
She hesitated only a moment. “Of course,” she said, and nodding to the little group, walked in the direction of Julian’s gesture.
He nodded to the others and fell in beside her, waiting until they were out of earshot. “He’s an idiot, Claudia. Pay him no heed,” he muttered as they slipped through the crowd.
“But he’s the leader of the moderates, and the moderates are the only ones with the clout necessary to see reforms through both houses.”
Her political acumen startled Julian, and he peered down at her, wondering who had told her that. “Ah … I believe Lady Wentworth is asking for you,” Claudia said. Julian lifted his gaze and winced. Yes, Felicia was asking for him, waving her fan at him like a strumpet across the crowded room. “Lady Wentworth can wait,” he said curtly, and steered Claudia in the opposite direction, toward a sideboard laden with large crystal bowls of wine punch. “He may be a moderate, but he—”
“Shall Miss Early wait, too?” she interrupted. With a silent groan, Julian glanced over his shoulder—Miss Drucinda Early was advancing rapidly on the arm of her cousin, Dalton Early, who was no more than a very casual acquaintance of Julian’s.
“Miss Early,” he drawled.
“Lord Kettering! How do you do?” she squealed like a stuck pig.
“Excuse me, please,” Claudia murmured, and before Julian could catch her, she had slipped through his fingers. Whatever Miss Early might have said after that, Julian had no idea. All he could see was Claudia hugging Ann, then walking out of the crowded room alone, dragging his fool heart with her.
Six
TWO DAYS LATER, Claudia had completely recovered from Kettering’s uncharacteristic appearance at Ann’s gathering and had chalked his attentions up to his being a Rake. Quite certain that this silly infatuation of his would soon pass, if it hadn’t already, she attended church services with her father.
As she stood waiting in the narthex—her father was speaking with the vicar, waiting for the moment he could make an appearance he deemed suitable to his station—she absently admired a large bouquet of roses. As she fingered one red bloom, the blasted thing snapped off in her hand. Dismayed, she glanced covertly about hoping her father had not seen it, as this was exactly the sort of thing that could send him into a fit of apoplexy. Naturally, there was nowhere to dispose of the evidence, so Claudia hastily shoved it into her reticule.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” She froze, recognizing the smirk in that voice, and slowly turned to cast a scathing glance across The Rake. But damn it, dressed in a coat of dark blue superfine and smiling wickedly, he looked especially beautiful this morning, and Claudia’s pulse instantly leapt to a steady clip.
He looked at her little beaded reticule and sadly shook his head. “I wonder why you bother to come to church a’tall.”
Of all the persons in the world to say that to her! “I beg your pardon—”
“Moppet? It is time,” her father said beside her. “Good morning, Kettering. Right glad you can join us every now and then.”
The libertine smiled broadly. “Lord Redbourne, it is my great pleasure to attend every now and then.”
“Yes, indeed,” her father said curtly, and grasping Claudia’s elbow, moved her down the center aisle of the church as he nodded imperiously to acquaintances on both sides, muttering under his breath, “Must be a particularly cold day in hell if Kettering has decided to join us, hmmm?”
Yes, well, not only had he decided to “join” them, he had also decided to sit directly behind her. As a result, Claudia’s skin prickled throughout the service—she could feel him watching her, could feel his eyes burning the skin of her neck, and in the middle of the sermon, she was quite certain she could feel his breath on her nape! His sudden fascination was making her insane, extremely anxious, and making her imagine she felt things she could not possibly feel. She sat rigidly, her hands clamped tightly in her lap, afraid to move even a fraction of an inch lest he think he had affected her somehow.
When the congregation rose for a doxology, his rich baritone voice slid over her like silk, and foolish as it was, she actually felt faint. As they resumed their seats, Claudia could not stand it another moment and stole a furtive look at him over her shoulder. He lifted one brow and nodded politely. Oh! She could hardly endure this! She would not endure it! Perhaps he could persuade other ladies with his charm, but not her. Oh no, not her. When the service at last ended, she marched up the aisle on her father’s arm without so much as a glance in his direction, certain he was laughing, and determined more than ever to end this absurdity once and for all.
Across town, Doreen Conner, a woman with callused hands and failing eyesight, sat in her rocker as she did every day until well past midnight, doing any piecework that she could get. It was hard, tedious work, and at times her back ached more than she thought she could bear, but it was better than where she had been, and she was grateful that she could still work.
Doreen had come to London from Ireland more years ago than she could remember, before the Catholic Emancipation and before her papa discovered she was carrying Billy Conner’s child. She and Billy had come so they wouldn’t have to work the land like their parents, who struggled just to put food on the table. They married at a small church near the Billingsgate fish market, and with the coins they had saved—supplemented by a few from the kind vicar—they had rented a room above a cobbler in St. Giles.
Billy left every morning in search of work and came back every night, sometimes in his cups, other times just plain sullen. Doreen tidied the little room, washed their linens and took them down to the communal pump to rinse, bought their daily portion of bread and tried to make a meal of it. Sometimes, when the baker was feeling generous, he’d give her a potato for soup. By the time little Neddie was born, Doreen had figured out Billy would never find work. He had fallen in with some bad-blooded Irish lads, but it made Billy mad for her to say so, and when he had drunk a glass or two of his favorite Irish whiskey, he’d hit her if she even thought it.
Whatever those useless lads did during the day, it was not enough to feed them, let alone provide for Neddie. So Doreen began taking in piecework from the textile factories. That barely paid enough to feed them, so when a new factory opened, Doreen hired on there to be a weaver. She brought home a few shillings each week, hiding what Billy didn’t drink, and it seemed to her that she worked from dawn to dusk so that Billy could have his Irish whiskey.
One night, Billy didn’t come home. Doreen was frantic when one of the laddies told her he had cocked his toes up down on the banks of the Thames. In near hysterics, she rushed down to the place they buried paupers. A kind old man took pity on her, and led her around to the back where they laid them in one big hole, and she and the man had wrenched the boots off Billy’s stiff feet. Clutching the boots to her chest, Doreen had headed home. In the end, she could thank Billy for two things: giving her Ned and a sturdy pair of boots.
She still had the boots.
After Billy was gone, the cobbler didn’t want a woman living in a room for which he could get a pound or two more from a family man. So Fanny Kate, a woman she had met at the pumps, took her in for awhile. Doreen shared part of her weekly earnings with Fanny Kate in exchange for her watching little Ned along with her own children while Doreen worked her hands to the bone as a weaver, putting up with the overseer’s roaming hands and lewd suggestions. She despised that man, with his big belly and his bad teeth
, but she had no choice except to endure it, because it was the only work she could get.
One day, when Doreen returned from the factory, Ned wasn’t at Fanny Kate’s to greet her. Fanny Kate lifted her head from her piecework long enough to tell her that Ned had run off with some ragamuffins. For the first time in her life, Doreen had known real panic. She had set out in her dead husband’s boots, walking every street in St. Giles, looking in every doorway and every alley for her six-year-old son. With each step she took, the more she realized she could not raise her son to manhood, not like this.
She found Neddie down on the docks begging fancy lords for a ha’penny as they climbed onto their fancy boats that would take them upriver to their big fancy homes. Doreen took Neddie back to Fanny Kate’s and sat up all night thinking about what she had to do. The next day, she and Neddie called on the overseer at his room near the factory. Doreen offered the use of her body in exchange for a place to sleep and keep her Ned.
That arrangement worked as well as could be expected until the old goat got a child on her. He didn’t care so much for her then, and when she got big, he threw her out. Doreen found her way to a workhouse, where she and Ned were allowed to stay because Ned was eight and old enough to work. The two of them worked side by side in the carding room of a factory until her water broke, and Doreen gave birth to a perfect little girl she named Lucy. It was God’s will, she supposed, that she managed through those years to keep food in her children’s bellies. She went to other men as necessary, but fortunately, none of them got a child on her.
When Ned grew tall and lean and handsome, he wanted nothing more than to be a sailor. He’d watch the boats come up the Thames and brag that one day he would see the world, and that he’d bring a handsome sailor home to marry Lucy and fancy dresses for his mama. Doreen wanted nothing more than for Ned to have his dream, and she worked every day, even when she was so sick with fever she barely knew her own name. She scrimped and saved and finally had enough coin to buy him a pair of fine new boots and two good woolen shirts so that he could go off and be a sailor. Her Ned left her one bright morning when he was fifteen years old, and Doreen knew as she watched him walk away with his cotton sack slung over his shoulder that she’d never see her boy again.
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