by Lily Maxton
She raised her voice to be heard above the din. “It was nice chatting with you,” she called to Mrs. Lockwood and her friends, “but I’m afraid I must be off.”
The same voice that had spoken before about having a mouthful yelled from the back of the crowd again, “Surely, you have more stamina than that!”
More delighted twittering rippled through the crowd. She let it, and the man’s comment, wash right off her back. She tried to turn and leave, but the throng was too closely knit. Someone was standing right in her path, no matter the direction.
She heard a pained grunt, then Adam was next to her, his hand gently clasping her elbow. “This way,” he muttered.
He pushed through the throng, tugging her behind him, and ducked into an alley between two shops. Then they made a sharp turn to the left.
“Where’d she go?” Julia heard someone lament behind them. “I didn’t even get a look at her face!”
Adam stopped at the back door of one of the shops and pulled it open.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
“I don’t know about you,” he said flatly, “but I need a drink.”
“A drink?” she exclaimed as he hauled her into a dimly lit building that was filled with a lot of scratched up tables and smelled like tobacco smoke. It could only be a public house. The door shut behind them and blocked the murmur of the crowd outside.
They took seats across from each other at a shadowed table in the back corner. Julia glanced around the room. Only a few of the other tables were occupied. At one, two men were playing cards. At another, a young man sat by himself, staring morosely into a tankard of ale. None of them paid any attention to the newcomers.
Someone must have spilled gin recently. When Julia shifted in her seat, the familiar piney scent was strong in her nostrils.
Her stomach roiled. Gin reminded her of the East End—dark, dank streets that stank of human waste. It reminded her of rats scurrying, their claws clattering on wood, prostitutes with dead eyes, and beggar children who were as gaunt as skeletons from hunger. It reminded her of mothers who couldn’t even feed their helpless babes.
She fought back a shudder.
Sometimes at night she had heard yells, or screams, and she’d pressed her fists to her ears and tried to pretend she hadn’t heard a thing, even though her pulse was racing and she was wondering if someone was being murdered, while praying that no one would break into their rooms.
But most of all, the smell of gin reminded her of her father. It was cheap and potent alcohol—the perfect fit for Jonathon Forsythe, a man who’d wanted to pretend the outside world didn’t exist. Eventually, her father’s moments of sobriety became as hoped for as a sacred relic. And just as rare. Most of the time, he’d stumbled around with blurry eyes, his speech lazy and slurred. Sometimes he would look at her, his daughter, his only living family, and she was quite sure he didn’t recognize her at all.
And every so often, when he did recognize her, it wasn’t love that shaped his features, but resentment.
Julia swallowed hard, pushing down the throbbing of that old helplessness, and folded her hands on the table. She hoped someone would clean up the spilled liquor. Soon.
A barmaid stopped at the edge of their table, glancing down at them with a permanently bored expression.
“An ale, please,” Adam said.
He looked at Julia. She looked at the bored barmaid. She wasn’t in the habit of visiting these types of establishments, so it took her a moment to realize they were waiting for her to ask for something. “Oh…Madeira?”
The maid laughed heartily, as though Julia was a regular court jester. “Now, really, what do you want?”
Julia frowned. Hadn’t she just said what she wanted?
Adam leaned forward. “They have ale or beer, or if you prefer something stronger, gin, rum, or brandy. And not the good kind.”
“Ale is fine.”
The barmaid flitted off without another word. The service could be a little friendlier, Julia thought. She eyed a few small windows along the front wall that didn’t let in much light, then looked down at a dark stain on the table that could have been anything—water, ale, blood, urine. Maybe that was the purpose of so few windows, so their visitors couldn’t examine the stains too closely.
“Do you come here often?” she asked Adam.
“Occasionally. Today seemed like as good a time as any.” He leaned back in his chair, which creaked loudly under his significant weight. “You shouldn’t leave Blakewood Hall without a companion.”
She stiffened. “I can fend for myself.”
“You didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it,” he replied flatly. “You shouldn’t have goaded that bounder. He looked like he wanted to strike you.”
“He wouldn’t have struck me,” she said breezily.
“How do you know?” Adam asked.
“Men like Mr. Smith talk, but they never do anything. They’re like goats butting their horns against a fence post. Useless displays of strength.”
“Right. I forgot you’re an expert on men,” he said drily.
“In my line of work, I have to be an expert on men.”
The barmaid returned, plunked down two metal tankards that sloshed half their contents over the rims onto the table, and left. Adam immediately wrapped his hand around the handle, his knuckles turning white. Julia rather imagined he wished it was her neck he was holding, and she couldn’t fault him for that.
But he’d helped her today. He must still care for her, a little. A spark of warmth unfurled in her stomach like a living, breathing thing.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“Don’t thank me,” he grunted, then took a long swallow of ale.
She watched the strong lines of his throat as he drank, unwillingly fascinating. She wondered what those fluid muscles would feel like under her fingers. Which was a dangerous way to think about the man sitting in front of her. She took a sip of ale and grimaced. It was truly awful stuff—she hoped it wouldn’t upset her rather volatile stomach.
Adam suddenly grinned. “Not fancy enough for you?”
“It’s perfectly fine,” she said, and took another defiant sip.
He chuckled, the low sound traveling to hidden parts of her body. “You look like you just ate a lemon.”
She glared at him. “It’s not my fault you have a taste for the baser things.”
“Hmm,” he uttered as she tentatively lifted the tankard again. “I seem to recall sneaking into a public house with you in London, and you drained half a tankard of ale in the five seconds the man’s back was turned.”
Her gaze flickered up to Adam’s eyes, which were crinkled at the corners with silent laughter. With a start, the memory flooded her mind—a good memory of that time in her life to displace the bad ones—and she smiled.
“I was thirsty!” she exclaimed. “It was a very hot day. Although,” she added contemplatively. “I was even thirstier after he chased us into the street, threatening to beat me.”
“I wouldn’t have let him beat you,” Adam said with a certainty that filled her with a foreign warmth. He took another long swig of his ale, and this time she managed not to gawk at his throat.
All the while her heartbeat stuttered.
“What about him?” Adam asked, nodding toward the solitary, morose man a few tables down from them.
She followed his gaze. “What?”
“You said you like to make up stories about people. What’s his story?”
She draped one arm on the back of her chair as she turned to look at the young man, who was totally ensconced in his own private turmoil. “He is betrothed,” she announced after a moment, glancing back at Adam.
He raised an eyebrow. “And he doesn’t want to be betrothed?”
“At first he didn’t care. His parents wanted him to marry an heiress. He’s gentry, but poor—note the threadbare coat. So he did his familial duty, the betrothal was arranged…and then…” sh
e paused dramatically. “And then he fell in love.”
“And not with his betrothed, I’m assuming?” Adam drawled.
She shook her head. “Obviously not. Perhaps with his betrothed’s sister?” she suggested slyly.
“Now that’s just cruel, Julia.”
She liked the way Adam said her name, as though they were still friends. As though there wasn’t a line between them that couldn’t be crossed.
A smile twitched her lips. “I’m very cruel. Yes, his betrothed’s name is Prudence and she’s very prim and proper—”
“Prim and proper Prudence? It sounds like the start to a bawdy poem.”
“We’ll think of one later,” she said. “Now hush.”
Adam smiled and drank his ale, as though he was glad to be in her company, and she felt as light as air. As though she could do anything. Be anything. But that kind of hope made her feel like Icarus flying too close to the sun.
Because she couldn’t be anything other than what she was—Riverton’s mistress. Riverton’s caged pet. Riverton’s—the whole sum of her existence.
“Yes,” she continued, latching onto the escape that her story presented. “Prim, proper, and polite Prudence—”
“Polite!” he exclaimed. “What next? Pale?”
Her swift glare silenced him. “She has mousy brown hair. She’s small and her voice is quiet, and yes, she’s pale, as well. In all, a very mousy girl. Now, her younger sister Ophelia is a hellion. She runs wild. She’s tempestuous. She’s passionate. She is…red-haired,” she added significantly.
He blinked. “Red-haired?”
“Red-haired women are the most passionate. Have you been living under a rock?”
“I don’t know if that’s true.”
“Have you ever been with one?”
“No,” he said.
“Courtesans talk amongst themselves,” she said wisely. “The red-haired women have the most unorthodox stories to tell. Why, one told me all about an orgy she’d attended. She says she made love with three men all at once, if you take my meaning.”
Adam stared at her silently, his lips looking more thin than usual.
“Really, it just sounded uncomfortable to me. I think—”
“I’d rather hear about Ophelia and Prudence,” he said sharply.
“Oh! Of course, where was I?” She leaned back in her chair, holding her tankard in both hands and sipping slowly. “So, our gentleman over there—we’ll call him George—is a rather staid, dutiful fellow. He called on Prudence and chatted with her about the weather for the appropriate fifteen minutes, then took his leave, but as he was walking out the front door, he saw Ophelia.”
“Do we have any words for Ophelia?” Adam mused.
“Outstanding,” she said. “An original.”
“Ornery?”
Her eyes narrowed. “She is tempestuous, not ornery.”
“Sounds like the same thing to me. And tempestuous doesn’t start with an O.”
“Do be quiet!” she said loftily, though a part of her was struggling not to laugh. “He saw Ophelia walking across the front lawn with the hem of her dress muddy and her bonnet hanging down her back by its ribbons and her hair falling out of its pins, for she likes to take long, vigorous walks around the countryside. The exercise makes her eyes look bright and handsome.”
She’d borrowed part of that from a description of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. She’d always enjoyed Mr. Darcy’s admiration of Lizzy’s fine eyes.
Adam continued to stare.
“He greeted her politely, as any gentlemen would, and she curtseyed politely and said, ‘You are the man my sister is going to marry? I thought you would be taller.’ And that,” Julia finished triumphantly, “is how our pitiful George first fell in love.”
Adam’s eyebrows dove down to a sharp point. “How?”
She glared at him. “What do you mean how?”
“He fell in love with her because she insulted him?”
“Yes.”
Adam set the tankard down on the table with a loud clank. “That doesn’t make a jot of sense.”
“It makes complete sense,” she said, leaning forward. “A man who is staid and proper will always be drawn to a woman who’s the opposite of him—a woman of spirit! He’ll be fascinated because she is everything he is not.”
“Or he’ll be repulsed.”
“Mr. Darcy was not repulsed by Miss Elizabeth Bennet!”
“Who is Mr. Darcy?” Adam asked, sounding as confused as he looked.
She waved him off. “It’s of no consequence. What it comes down to is that people are drawn to those who have qualities they wished they had.”
“Or they’re drawn to people who would fit nicely into their lifestyle.”
She rolled her eyes. “If they’re dull.”
“That’s not dull. It’s intelligent.”
“Oh Lord,” she said, falling back in her chair and folding her arms across her chest. “Very well. If you are so knowledgeable, you tell me George’s story.”
Adam settled into his chair with his hands flat on the table like a grandfather about to impart all of his hard-earned wisdom to his descendants. “George was repulsed when he met Ophelia. He didn’t know how anyone could be so improper, and he was very glad that he was betrothed to the mousy one. He’s looking forward to a dull life with Prudence.”
“Then,” she prodded, “why is he so melancholy now?”
“Because…” Adam said, tilting his head back thoughtfully. “Because he doesn’t have any money so he can’t buy her a nice ring.”
Julia stared. “That is highly disappointing.”
Adam laughed. “That’s practical.”
“As I said, disappointing. Romance is not about being practical.”
He shook his head. “But if you’re not practical, you leave yourself open to pain. Say our George actually does love Ophelia, because he admires her and she’s everything he’s not. If he lets her know how he feels, she’s just going to break his heart.” Adam cast a glance at the glum man they were weaving their tale about. He was on his third tankard of ale already and looking glummer by the second. “It looks like she already broke it.”
Julia had the strangest feeling they weren’t talking about George anymore.
“Well, yes,” she admitted cautiously. “It seems that way now. But if Ophelia has rejected him, it’s only because she’s scared of her own feelings. There are extenuating circumstances—his betrothal to her sister, for one. Her rejection doesn’t mean she doesn’t care.”
“Doesn’t it?” Adam asked, looking at her contemplatively.
“Of course not,” she said, treading carefully. “She probably hates herself when she thinks she might have hurt him. She wouldn’t have done it if she didn’t truly believe they’d both be better off apart.”
“If that was how she felt, maybe she should have told him,” Adam said quietly.
She glanced at him, and for a second, they just stared at one another. Her heart thudded as though she’d drunk too much strong coffee, but her limbs felt heavy and lethargic. She forced a bright smile. “George will be perfectly fine. I’m sure that Prudence will find someone dashing to fall in love with, break off the engagement, and then there won’t be any obstacles between George and Ophelia any longer.”
“Or,” Adam said a bit drily, “George will marry Prudence and be safe and happy. And Ophelia will find someone as Outstanding, Original, and Ornery as she is. Someone who won’t disappoint her.”
“Tempestuous,” Julia automatically corrected, but her heart wasn’t in it. In fact, the organ in question felt rather tender, like the slightest touch might bruise it. She didn’t care for this topic of conversation. Not at all.
She looked down, tracing one of the deep grooves in the table with a finger then going back and tracing it again.
Had Adam truly believed she didn’t care about him? Had he truly felt like he was a disappointment to her?
Her he
art clenched painfully. She could live with his resentment, but she would rather it not be for something that was so far from the truth.
If things had been different between them—if they’d met in another life, or when they were older, or even when they were young if they hadn’t been poor—she could have fallen in love with him. At fourteen, living in run-down rented rooms with a father who was killing himself with liquor—even then she’d been so close to that precipice. If any of those circumstances had been the slightest bit different…
But they hadn’t been different. And now it was too late. Because she was Riverton’s mistress, carrying his child, and Adam was Riverton’s head gardener. They shouldn’t even be drinking ale together.
“You should stick with the Irish tales,” she muttered, desperate to change the subject.
He paused, arrested in the motion of lifting his tankard to his mouth. “You remember them?”
“I remember.” She remembered everything he’d ever told her. Every word.
His mouth tilted at the corner. He didn’t look away.
She cleared her throat. Damnation! “Shouldn’t the head gardener be working instead of sitting idle in a pub?”
“I should,” he allowed. He drained the last few gulps of his ale. “May I escort you back to the estate?”
No, her racing mind whispered. But he’d be helpful if they needed to force their way through a crowd. Mr. Smith might still be hanging around, sulking, and she’d rather not run into him without a companion.
“Of course,” she finally, reluctantly, agreed.
“You haven’t finished your ale,” he noted as he stood.
She’d been sipping at the beverage as slowly as possible. “I don’t want the rest.”
To her surprise, he reached over and plucked the tankard from the table, lifting it to his lips. She watched as they touched the metal rim, and she wondered if it was still warm from her mouth. If it was, it was sort of like an indirect kiss.
She sucked in a breath and touched her fingers to her lips, remembering the long-ago moment that was never too far from her thoughts these days.
It had been the night of her father’s death. She’d been more numb than sad. Her sorrow and anger had all been used up in the weeks before, when she’d realized her father’s health had taken a drastic turn but he still wouldn’t stop drinking.