A Tale of Two Lovers

by Maya Rodale

  She was a beauty. Auburn hair piled high. Her green eyes turned up mysteriously at the outer corners. Her skin was of the milky, creamy, want-to-lick-it variety, and she exposed much of it, from her smooth brow to her slender neck to the wide expanse of her décolletage.

  There, or at the generous swells just below, Roxbury’s gaze lingered, and though his blood still pumped furiously within him, his rage abated. Slightly.

  “I was expecting you earlier,” she practically purred, while taking a leisurely look at him, and practically giving herself away.

  In an instant he knew who she was: that damned Lady of Distinction. She seemed familiar to him, from balls and soirees and the like. He had certainly seen her out, though they had never been introduced. But what was her name?

  “Mr. Knightly, this irate man is Lord Roxbury,” she said to the man reclining in his chair behind the desk. The proprietor of London’s most popular and profitable paper was a youngish man with black hair and piercing blue eyes. She continued with the introductions: “Lord Roxbury, this is Mr. Derek Knightly.”

  This green-eyed she-devil who smoothly made the introductions like the best society hostess was the architect of his downfall. That she—whatever her name was—was so at ease in this impossible situation rekindled his anger. This was not a matter to be taken so lightly or discussed politely over tea.

  She may have written his demise, but he would not allow her to enjoy it.

  Roxbury focused his attentions solely on Knightly.

  “Fetching secretary,” he said with a nod in her direction, and he enjoyed the flash in her eyes and the hot flush in her cheeks. Irritation warring with vanity was such a pleasing expression on a woman.

  “If you’ll excuse us, we have important matters of business to discuss,” Roxbury said patronizingly to her.

  The ladybird alighted from her perch and stood toe-to-toe with him. She was tall, and almost able to look him evenly in the eye.

  “I am not a secretary,” she said hotly.

  “I beg your pardon?” He feigned shock. “What possible reason could you have for being here? Are you making the confession that I suspect you are?”

  “Oh, how you wish I would,” she retorted, stepping back. She resolutely folded her arms over her chest, which did marvelous things to her breasts. Because of the devastation she had inflicted upon his life, he felt no compunction to look away and instead he treated himself to a long, lascivious gaze until she unfolded her arms and gave him a look sharper than a thousand daggers.

  “Women do have the gift of gab and excel at inane, idle chatter,” Roxbury continued, speaking to Knightly and deliberately ignoring her. He was a quick study of women, and he knew that ignoring her would vex her tremendously. Plus, he could not afford to be distracted. “I’m sure that’s what you were thinking when you hired a female to author the column.”

  “It was a brilliant decision on my part,” Knightly agreed from where he sat behind the desk, his gaze alternating between them. There was an amused gleam in his eye.

  Roxbury was surprised at the quick confession, but the evidence was damning: high society darling in a newspaperman’s office, telling the most talked about man in London she was expecting him, and the flash of eyes when he accused her of such a lowly position as secretary.

  “It was my idea,” she said. Roxbury continued to ignore her. He knew this type: meddlesome, tyrannical, and always right. Probably prude, too. For all of his love of women, this kind was never a favorite of his.

  “Sales have been tremendous. Her column is a smashing success,” Knightly added firmly, and Roxbury understood him. Money was of more importance to him than the wounded feelings of lords and ladies.

  “Yes, my idle chatter makes this paper the success that it is,” she added.

  “Your idle chatter destroys lives and reputations,” Roxbury spoke sharply to her. For a second she seemed taken aback, as if she hadn’t considered that, which was ridiculous because she was clearly not a fool.

  What was her name?

  “It’s just gossip. You needn’t have such a fit,” she said with a delicate shrug, which infuriated him all the more. She could not possibly be ignorant of the consequences of her writing, and yet she couldn’t possibly be so hard-hearted to the suffering her pen wrought.

  “A fit?”

  She could not possibly think a man, such as himself, would suffer from something so trivial, so missish, as a fit.

  “Storming in here, slamming doors,” she carried on. “I warn you not to cry, for that is surely newsworthy. What will the ton think of you then?”

  A sissy, weepy, Nancy dandy.

  Vaguely, he was aware of his hands balling into fists, and shooting pains in his right hand reminded him that he’d already used it for enough damage today.

  “What will the ton think of you, Lady Somerset,” he questioned, relieved to have recollected her name, “when they learn of your secret life?”

  The lady paused. Then she blinked rapidly in succession, suggesting a slight panic. And then, with another one of those insouciant shrugs she replied.

  “It’s an open secret.”

  “That cloud of suspicion and mystery does wonders for you, I’m certain. But what happens when Lady Carrington has confirmation that you are the one that exposed her daughter’s elopement? Or that you told the ton of Lord Wilcox’s penchant for wearing women’s undergarments? What of your reputation then?” He punctuated all this with a suggestive raise of his brow.

  “You have no definitive proof that I am the Lady of Distinction.” She smiled prettily at him, and he was angered to discover that her mouth was stunning, the way it curved suggestively yet sweetly at the same time. He was horrified that thoughts of kissing crossed his mind—here, and now, and with her.

  She moved away from him. He blocked her, standing up straighter and squaring his shoulders to impress his size upon her.

  Lady Somerset barely had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye—and she did, fiercely, daringly. His own eyes narrowed.

  “I have been publicly humiliated. The repercussions are massive and irreparable,” he said firmly. She blinked.

  He took a step forward. She took a step backward. A few more steps back and they’d be up against the windows overlooking Fleet Street. For some strange reason, his heart was pounding.

  “I sent you a letter prior to publication offering to withhold the information in exchange for a sum. You ignored it,” she said.

  Newspapers earned a fortune in suppression fees. He would have paid ten fortunes for this item to never see the light of day. But he never had the chance.

  She must have sent it to his home, a place he rarely frequented. It was probably still there, unopened, with all the invitations and summons from his father and bills. For a meager sum, this could have never happened.

  If the phrase “to see red” indicated anger, then at this moment he was seeing a violent explosion of crimson, vermillion, and burnt sienna.

  “You’ve been out in society for quite some time now, Roxbury. You know these things just blow over in time,” Lady Somerset said breezily, stepping away from him. Without a second thought he moved closer to her.

  “I don’t have time,” he said through gritted teeth. Scarlet. Ruby. Wine. Blood.

  “Oh? Why is that?” She tilted her head and peered up at him curiously. There was a touch of innocence to her, too, but he assumed it was feigned, given that she was a widow and a gossip and in a man’s office.

  “You mistake me for a fool, among other things,” he told her.

  “As much as I am enjoying this display of—God only knows what—I do have work to attend to,” Knightly said, bored, from the other side of the room where he remained behind his desk.

  Roxbury turned his back on the she-devil and addressed Knightly.

  “I came here for satisfaction. My honor has been grossly insulted. I will not duel with a woman. That leaves you.”

  “A duel! You cannot fight a d
uel over this!” Lady Somerset exclaimed.

  Knightly sat forward in his chair, his expression now intensely serious.

  “I accept,” he said gravely.

  “I would almost respect you, Knightly, if we met under different circumstances. As for you,” Roxbury continued, turning back to the buxom villainess, “you will print a retraction, and an apology.”

  “Oh will I?” she challenged, with a lift of her brow and arms akimbo.

  Oh, yes, he definitely knew her type: The female know-it-all. Most often found amongst the married, mothers, and widows, though some females seemed to be born bossy. This variety of female was mostly just irritating, but when combined with wit and beauty—admittedly Lady Somerset possessed both, in spades—she could be incredibly dangerous.

  From his limited experience with this type—he tended to the pleasure-seeking, carefree, fun-loving sorts—he knew that to tame this sort of female was a tremendous trial, though it could be well worth it.

  In the case of Lady Somerset, he would not bother. That did not mean, however, that he would let her run roughshod over him—any more than she already had, that is.

  “You will,” Roxbury told her.

  “Or what will happen?” she taunted. She stood with her hands on her hips now, drawing his eyes to her hourglass figure. His mouth went dry. Her head was tilted slightly to the side, tempting him to feather kisses along her neck and shoulders, down to the full, generous swells of her breasts.

  Tempting. So damned tempting.

  But this was war, and he would be victorious.

  “You will print an apology and a retraction, or your secret will be out, and I shall wish you the best of luck filling a column about the happenings of high society when you are no longer received.”

  Then he was treated to the rare experience of Lady Somerset speechless.

  Even after Lord Roxbury slammed the door behind him on the way out, Julianna Somerset was still openmouthed and silent, and that was a rare thing indeed. She crossed her arms over her chest and turned to look out the window, as if pondering the view of Fleet Street it afforded. But she couldn’t focus because her nerves were humming, her heart racing, and her thoughts were a tangled mess.

  Roxbury’s behavior to her was appalling, insulting, and deliberately provoking. She had never met him before, but she knew his sort, intimately, and did not care for it. He was a known rake, with a preference for other men’s wives, merry widows, and the occasional actress and opera singer to liven things up.

  There was, too, the possibility that he enjoyed other more unusual inclinations when women bored him.

  She had expected Roxbury to come storming into the offices after he saw the item. Irate readers and embarrassed subjects of “Fashionable Intelligence” frequently came huffing and puffing to plead their cases and make demands of Knightly. But Roxbury had been one of the few to get past Mehitable Loud and the first to demand a duel.

  Yet, Julianna had not been prepared for the tall, arrogant, tyrannical, strikingly handsome man that had stormed in. Oh, they had mingled at parties and she’d followed his exploits, but she’d never been in such close proximity to him.

  Julianna now had an inkling of what legions of women felt around him: racing pulse, breath caught. He was a formidable presence with his height and his obviously muscled physique. His features were those of a peer—all noble and strong, though she had to admit he was particularly handsome. His eyes were dark, velvety brown—and the intensity of his gaze was practically palpable.

  And Roxbury had spoken to her as no one ever dared. He made demands upon her, when she was the mistress of her own self. Julianna answered to no man—except for Knightly, some of the time, when it suited her.

  Roxbury gave her orders, but she was under no obligation to him and delighted in pointing that out to him. It was oddly thrilling to be told what to do, and even more so to flagrantly disobey.

  She turned from looking out the window at Fleet Street below to speak to her employer.

  “I shall not write the apology or retraction,” she told Knightly. He looked up from his work, editing articles for the next issue.

  “You will,” Knightly said, and then he returned to his work.

  She scowled at him.

  “I’d rather see your pride wounded than my person,” Knightly added, setting his pencil down and giving her his attention.

  “You cannot possibly mean to attend the duel. Over a little thing in the newspaper!”

  “For the reputation of this newspaper and of myself, I will fight.” Everyone knew that this newspaper was everything to Mr. Knightly. He had his mother, Delilah, but no other family and certainly no wife. More often than not, he slept in his office. He would fight for The Weekly, to the death, without a second thought or shadow of doubt.

  “He’s awful, isn’t he? So very rude, storming in here like that and—”

  Mr. Knightly laughed.

  “Might I remind you, Lady Somerset, that is exactly how you made your entrance?”

  A little over a year ago, Julianna had indeed dropped in uninvited and announced that she knew he was hiring women (for he had hired her dearest friend Sophie to write about weddings the day before) and that he ought to hire her as a gossip columnist.

  Though she was not a shy, retiring person, to say the least, she had been quaking in her boots for that interview. It just wasn’t done, she was unsure of the outcome, and she was desperate.

  Most men left the bulk of their fortune to their wives, with small annuities to a favorite mistress or by-blows. The late, great Harry, Lord Somerset had little left over for his wife after providing for his numerous mistresses and bastards.

  However, he had left her with a name so scandalous that it discouraged all but the worst suitors, which didn’t quite matter since Julianna had no intention of marrying again. Her heart, mind, body, and livelihood were too precious to trust to another.

  Thus she, a lady, needed to work. The opportunity to write a gossip column was a rare one indeed—it would allow her to supplement her meager annuity, while maintaining and improving her place in society. So Julianna brazened out the terrifying interview.

  To her shock and relief, Mr. Knightly agreed. It was Mr. Knightly who had transformed her from Lady Somerset, the pitiable widow of one of London’s more notorious cads, to A Lady of Distinction, the feared and awe-inspiring author of “Fashionable Intelligence.”

  Chapter 5

  The outskirts of town, dawn

  A duel! Over a little thing in the newspaper! After all, she hadn’t said for a fact that he preferred his own sex. Julianna had even offered a more plausible explanation for why he appeared to be embracing a person in a gentleman’s attire. Could she help what the ton chose to believe? No, she could not.

  It was truly ridiculous that he was dueling with Knightly.

  Men were such hotheaded idiots.

  Thanks to her ever-faithful maid, Penny, and their network of housemaid informants—Penny’s six sisters, all servants in the best houses in London—they were able to determine the time and location of the duel.

  Julianna had not been invited, which had never stopped her from attending an event before.

  The hack she hired stopped some distance from the dueling field and she alighted, followed by Miss Eliza Fielding, fellow Writing Girl and the only other woman daring enough to attend with her. Once upon a time, Julianna’s best friend, Sophie, might have joined her on such an expedition, but now she was a married woman and a duchess, to boot, so she couldn’t go gallivanting around far-flung corners of town at dawn witnessing duels.

  Julianna and Eliza took cover behind a hedgerow and peered through the branches. The gentlemen would be livid to discover their serious business viewed by women, particularly the one who had caused it all.

  The sky was already a pale, clear blue. The grassy field shimmered with dew. The air, crisp and sweet, promised a warm summer day. The sun was bright, the birds sang, and the breeze brushed over t
he trees.

  “There’s the surgeon,” Eliza said, pointing to a man in black, leaning against a black carriage on the far side of the field. It was a jarring juxtaposition—something so dark and deathly on such a beautiful summer morning.

  A small brown rabbit hopped across the field, blissfully unaware of the gruesome activity about to unfold around it.

  A duel! The men might just stomp around and fire their shots into the air and call it a day. But there was a very real chance that one of them might get shot, or even die. Julianna had never considered that when putting pen to paper; she thought only of besting the Man About Town with delicious, exclusive gossip.

  She had also considered Knightly’s mantra of scandal equals sales, and she needed to keep her employer satisfied with her work.

  But what if Knightly lost his life today? Julianna could not even wrap her head around it. She would grieve for a man who gave her an opportunity no one else would consider, and a man she respected. So many people depended upon him—the Writing Girls, particularly. If he died . . .

  Julianna felt sick at the thought.

  And what if Roxbury’s life ended today? Her heart began to pound, which was strange because why should she have a care for him? He was nothing but a careless, carefree rake. That sort of man had never done her any favors.

  “There is Mr. Knightly with Mehitable Loud,” Eliza whispered. Their employer was calmly inspecting a set of pistols held by his second.

  “What if he doesn’t survive?” Eliza asked quietly, because the question was so grave. Who would take over the paper? Would the new publisher be so supportive of the Writing Girls? What if Knightly died because of something she had written? And then if they all lost their positions because of that? Julianna’s mouth went dry, her palms became clammy, and the urge to cast up her accounts nearly overwhelmed her.

  Julianna wrote because she loved to, but also because she needed the money. Eliza and Annabelle, too. It was an unspoken truth between the women that earning money meant they did not have to marry if they didn’t want to. After her disastrous marriage, Julianna certainly had no wish to.