“In your dreams!”
“Because you’re out of luck. Now Marianne here, she knows how to treat a fellow. Don’t you, love?” George gave her an amiable slap on the thigh. “Come on, girl, let’s get out of here.”
Marianne stood up with a languid motion though she kept her hand on George’s shoulder with a proprietary air, her chin high as she sent Callie a gloating smirk. The ex-harlot was clearly loving the chance to gloat at Callie’s loss, but Marianne faltered when she saw Grace come in.
“What is going on here?” Grace exclaimed, as George stood and tucked the ex-harlot’s hand into the crook of his elbow.
Calpurnia spun around and glared at her. “What are you doing here? Somehow managed to pull yourself out of Lord Trevor’s bed?”
Marianne gasped at this revelation.
“Egads,” said George. “Well done, Grace. I expect you’ll soon be married. Felicitations. Fortunately, I myself escaped that fate. Come along, Marianne. Let’s get back to London.”
“Marianne, where are you going?” Grace cried, as the raven-haired woman let him lead her by the hand toward the door. Callie fairly hissed when she brushed by her.
“Back to London,” Marianne replied.
“But why?” Grace exclaimed. “You’ve got a whole new life for yourself here! You’ve been doing so well!”
“Sorry, Miss,” Marianne replied. “I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me, but I’m never goin’ to fit in here. Especially now,” she added, with a withering look at Callie. “I might as well go. A girl’s got to make a living. Besides, I’m sick o’ this place, and Lord Brentford just offered me his carte blanche.”
“George!” Grace uttered in shocked reproach.
He gave a boyish shrug, then swaggered off, taking his new plaything with him. “Au revoir, Miss Windlesham. I hope you have a nice life and find just the sort of husband you deserve.”
“Marianne, please, you don’t have to do this!” Grace insisted, following her as George led her out to his phaeton. “You can’t go back to that old existence. You’ve come so far! Don’t throw it all away!”
“Virtue don’t keep a lass warm in the winter, Miss Grace, beggin’ your pardon. Enjoy Lord Trevor,” she added with a cheeky wink. “Better you should have ’im than little Miss Toplofty.”
“Oh!” Calpurnia uttered, looking her over in withering indignation.
Grace glared at George as he jumped up onto the driver’s seat. “I thought I swore you to secrecy.”
“I’m sorry, couldn’t help it. Well, the truth had to come out sometime! And as for Calpurnia, she’s going to have to live with her choice because I won’t be back.”
He sent his former idol a cold look, then drove off without saying good-bye.
Grace turned to Callie in despair. “Can we talk, please? I didn’t mean to hurt you—”
“Stay away from me! I hate George, and I hate you!” she wailed, then she ran out bawling and fled home to her mother.
Good God, Lady Windlesham! She had temporarily forgotten about the baroness. Grace shut her eyes and knew she’d better batten down the hatches for the full fury of the coming storm.
Meanwhile at the parsonage, Trevor also braced himself, for Reverend Kenwood was seriously displeased by the news of their fornication.
For all his spy skills as a trained liar, Trevor respected her father too much to dissemble when the old man asked what was their hurry.
Trevor stammered his way through a euphemism about their being together and how Calpurnia had walked in.
Then the good minister sat in stunned silence, too furious to speak for a long moment. He glared at the floor, nodding slowly, and tapped his cheek with his finger, one hand obscuring his mouth, as though to stop himself from bellowing with fatherly outrage.
“Let me see if I have this right,” he said at length. “As of this moment, my daughter is a fallen woman. You seduced her. And the whole village is about to know it.”
“Uh, yes. More or less. But I-I do love her, sir, very much. And you have my word I will take excellent care of her for the rest of her life.”
“I see.”
The reverend eventually got his ire under control and grumbled that of course they had his permission, but he was not happy.
Not one bit.
And no wonder, Trevor thought. In his own way, her father was as selfish as George, quite content to let his daughter use up all the years of her youth taking care of him instead of establishing her own life.
Well, no more.
They were going to have a life and a family of their own just next door. This last fact was the only point that mollified the old man when Trevor pointed it out. “She won’t be far from you, sir. You’ll still get to see her every day.”
Reverend Kenwood grumbled, but he gave Trevor a piece of paper to fill out to apply for the marriage license, and that very Sunday from the pulpit, he read the first of three weeks’ banns announcing their upcoming nuptials.
The old tradition gave anyone a chance who objected to the match to come forward and state why a couple could not marry.
Of course, no one did. Not even Lady Windlesham.
Still, Trevor doubted that Grace and he would ever be invited back for another lavish Win-Din at the Hall.
It was a few days later in London when Marianne awoke to a loud knock on the front door of George’s bachelor lodgings.
She lifted her head from the pillow; beside, her, George slept on. The banging came again.
Marianne furrowed her brow. She sat up quietly in his gilded bed, glanced at her sleeping keeper, and slid her mercenary gaze toward the door.
The Wedgwood clock on the mahogany side table informed her it was nearly noon, so of course, George was not awake yet. For her part, she was not yet dressed, still tousled and scantily clad in the new silk peignoir that her doting protector had given her. Depending on who was at the door, however, this might be perfectly appropriate attire . . .
Especially if it was one of his rich, young, aristocratic, fellow rakehells.
She rolled out of George’s bed and set her bare feet on the floor. Pulling on the matching silk robe, she padded out of the bedchamber and down the little hallway to the sitting room at the front of George’s fashionable apartment.
Beside the front door, an elegant pier glass hung on the wall above a slender console table.
Marianne paused and glanced at her reflection, fluffing up her hair a bit and licking her lips to make them shine. She hoped with all her might that it was one of George’s pretty fellows coming to call on their fashionable comrade. It was important for her survival that his rich friends get a good look at her wares, for she had a feeling that although George was fond of her, he would not be keeping her for long. He was too humiliated by the fact that his man parts hadn’t worked with her again last night. Whatever that Windlesham wench had done to him this time, it had affected him in a most distressing way.
Marianne, with all her tricks, had been astonished at how his formerly randy member had refused to cooperate.
Honestly, a girl could be insulted.
She had assured the poor lad it wasn’t his fault, but nevertheless, George had proceeded to get drunk and curse Callie Windlesham for this shocking new affliction.
All Marianne knew was better safe than sorry.
She straightened her posture, opened her robe just enough to give a glimpse of her cleavage, then continued languidly to the door.
When she opened it, however, and saw who was standing there, she gasped in horror and immediately tried to slam it shut.
“Hullo, love. Miss me?” Jimmy Lynch planted one tattooed hand on the door. His eyes glinted with cruelty as he smiled, one foot thrust in the doorway, clad in his usual snakeskin boots.
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I’m s
ure you already know.” He forced the door open a little wider as his greedy gaze trailed over her. “Well, look at you. Lookin’ finer than ever. Where you been, Stella?”
“Go away,” she uttered, instantly starting to shake from head to toe.
“Come, now, you weren’t goin’ to cut me out of your windfall, were you, love? I always knew you’d do well for yourself, and now, look at you. A proper high-class courtesan.”
“Get out of here,” she whispered fiercely, trying to hide her dread of him. “I don’t want to see your face ever again.”
“Wot, after all we been through? I’m hurt. News just hit the rookery you’re back. I don’t know where you’ve been hidin,’ but the boys told me they saw you ridin’ in some rich man’s carriage in Hyde Park. So I did some askin’ around. Heard some young lord has given you carte blanche. Is he here?” the infamous flash man asked, glancing past her into George’s fine apartment. “Because if he is, he needs to pay.”
“You don’t own me,” she vowed. “Whatever I earn, the money’s mine.”
“Now darlin’, you know better than that.”
“You’d better get out of here before he hears you. Believe me, you don’t want to tangle with him,” she warned, but he saw through her bluff and snickered.
“I’ve missed your sass.” He cupped her cheek; she smacked his hand away.
“Don’t touch me!”
“I’m sure he doesn’t give it to you like I do,” Jimmy whispered. “You do look mighty fine in that gown.”
“I say, what is going on here?” George came shuffling out in his long drawers, bare-chested, his hair sticking out in all directions, his eyes full of sleepers. “Who is this?”
“My, my, is this the lucky fellow? Lord Brentford, ain’t it?”
“That’s right,” George said proudly, glancing from Marianne to their cutthroat visitor in the purple coat. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“Name’s Lynch. I’m our lovely Stella’s business partner.”
“Stella?” he echoed.
Marianne dropped her gaze. That was the old stage name Jimmy had given her when she had first got started in the business of taking off her clothes for an audience.
“Sir, whatever your business here,” George said in a tone of aristocratic hauteur, “this is not the hour to conduct it. I can’t even think how you got past the guards at the gate. Marianne will have to see you later. For now, I’m afraid you have to leave.”
“Marianne?” Jimmy echoed with a smirk, making no move to go. He looked askance at her. “Why, he must mean a lot to you if you let ’im use your real name.”
George frowned. As sleep and the groggy aftereffects of too much drink the night before began to clear, he noticed the stranger’s flamboyant yet shabby clothes, tattoos, and snakeskin boots, and it dawned on him what manner of man this was.
And suddenly he was outraged.
How dare this low piece of filth come to his very doorstep?
Keeping an admirable check on his fury, George sauntered over to the wall and casually picked up his dress sword. “Leave. Now,” he advised as he stalked toward the door. “You have no business here.”
“My business is standin’ right in front you, milord.” Lynch gestured at Marianne.
“George,” she cautioned. “Jimmy controls a gang in Seven Dials, called the Rooks.”
“I don’t give a damn,” George replied. “Begone now and don’t come back.”
“If you want my merchandise, you going to have to pay for it.”
“Of course I’m going to pay her,” George replied through gritted teeth. “It’s none of your affair.”
“No, you horse’s arse, you pay me. Now, we either need to come to terms, or she’s comin’ home with me. Where she belongs,” Lynch added coldly.
Marianne whimpered when the flash man grabbed her arm and started to pull her outside.
“Take your hands off my mistress!” George roared with Callie’s accusation ringing in his ears.
“You’re a coward.”
He’d show her.
“Unhand her or die!” he ordered, bringing the tip of his sword up to Lynch’s throat.
The whoremonger instantly reached into his waistcoat for his pistol. Marianne screamed and George reacted with his blade, slicing downward at Lynch’s right forearm.
Lynch dropped the gun with a furious yelp of pain. The pistol fell and slid across the polished parquet floor of George’s apartment. Marianne lunged after it and picked it up in shaking hands, aiming it at her longtime tormentor.
Whose arm was bleeding profusely.
“You little bastard,” Lynch said to George. “You’re a dead man!”
“Jimmy, wait,” Marianne started, lowering the pistol as her former flash man turned away from the door.
“Look what he’s done to me!” he bellowed. Then he headed back to his carriage, throwing George a glare over his shoulder. “I’ll be back soon, milord. Don’t doubt me. I know where you live!”
“Jimmy, please! Let me come with you. I can bind the wound—”
“Are you mad?” George stopped her when she started to follow him. “Let him go!”
“You don’t understand!” She turned to him with terror in her eyes. “Jimmy doesn’t make idle threats, George! You need to get out of London before he comes back here with an army—probably tonight. I’ve seen this too many times, George, please. You need to get out of Town and hide! I’ll try to talk to him. Maybe I can calm him down. Otherwise, believe me, you’ve insulted the wrong man; for his reputation’s sake, he won’t rest until you’re dead.” She handed Lynch’s gun to George, then rushed out the door.
Chapter 23
Dinner at the Kenwoods’ that night held an atmosphere of forced cheer. All three of them—Papa, Trevor, and she—were trying very hard to put things back to normal.
Nobody spoke of it aloud at the table, but Callie had made sure to tell the entire village about finding Lord Trevor and the rector’s daughter en flagrante delicto at the Grange. And no wonder. It was the biggest scandal to hit Thistleton in decades.
Grace barely knew what to do with herself. She had never been the subject of gossip before, did not know how to feel with so many people disapproving of her.
Lady Windlesham was the angriest, of course. Her Ladyship had taken time out of her busy day to track Grace down and give her a memorable tongue-lashing.
Lady De Geoffrey had pursed her lips in prim disapproval when she saw Grace at church. Even Mrs. Bowen-Hill had seemed pained to greet her.
Most devastating of all were Papa’s stern private words about sin and carnality and having raised her better than that. Could she not have waited until marriage? he had thundered. Thankfully, it was a rhetorical question, one too humiliating to answer.
In any case, she had no reply. It was not the sort of thing she could explain, especially to her clergyman sire.
With so many people disappointed in her—a bewildering state of affairs after having been universally admired for her virtue—it certainly caused her to see herself in a new light. True, she had failed miserably in her role as a good example to others.
But Grace Kenwood: passionate? Scandalous?
Disapproval seemed absurd when loving Trevor came so naturally.
All she knew was that no amount of public censure could truly make her regret what she had done.
If anything, it was oddly liberating. One thing was certain—being painted as a scarlet woman gave her a whole new respect for her failed “project,” Marianne.
She understood now more than ever how much courage it took for a woman to hold her head up when the whole world disapproved. To be sure, the fear of that disapproval had been a large part of what had held her back from going to Trevor sooner.
Whatever happened, he was worth it.<
br />
Fortunately, a lifetime of service and good behavior coupled with Trevor’s extraordinary efforts to help the village meant that Thistleton’s disapproval did not equal banishment.
Anyone could see that as a couple, they were very well matched. Most people were happy for them, just not entirely pleased with how they had gone about it.
Not that it was anybody’s business.
Callie, however, sadly showed no signs that she’d be forgiving her anytime soon. Grace felt awful that Callie had been hurt, though she was hurt, as well, by the girl’s determined effort to ruin her reputation and turn the village against her.
As for George, well, Grace was angry at him, too, for revealing her secret against her specific instructions.
She could only blame herself for trusting an immature rake in the first place. She had been a fool to pin her hopes on the idle wish that somehow George’s actions, reconciling with Callie, could magically solve her problem for her.
Instead, it had only made everything worse.
In any case, with all of the tears and painful reproaches of the past few days behind them, at last, the village, and especially Papa, seemed ready to let her and Trevor look ahead.
They had a wedding to plan, after all.
Only Trevor himself had taken everything in stride this week. The ex-spy was unflappable.
Indeed, she thought, the man was a rock. She supposed that when you had spent years of your life with enemies trying to kill you, a little disapproval from the local villagers was nothing to make a gentleman sweat. Dirty looks and whispers were easier to shrug off than bullets. He truly didn’t care what anybody thought. It was inspiring to her, actually.
At length, Mrs. Flynn brought out the roast beef that had been cooking for hours in the oven and filling the parsonage with wonderful smells.
The dog, Nelson, followed at her heels, and ignored Trevor when he ordered him to sit.
The dog went everywhere with him now, which Grace’s cat did not at all appreciate. The oversized red tabby was hiding under Grace’s bed upstairs behind the closed door of her bedroom.
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