by Willa Ramsey
And that it made her all the more appealing.
“We will have to see what Papa and Mama say, at the end of our tour.”
“It was kind of you to meet with us,” he said as he opened the servants’ stair and waved her through ahead of him.
As they made their way to the lowest floor of the house and into a narrow corridor, she went quiet. And for the first time all day she resembled the woman he had first come upon at the market: withdrawn, tense. Possibly even afraid.
“Miss Crispin, is something the matter?”
She looked up at him. “I have a favor to ask. And if you can help me with it, I promise I will do everything in my power to convince my parents to work on your home.”
“What is it?” He could not bring himself to jest with her, for she looked more forlorn with every second.
“I need you to go to White’s, my lord.”
What followed was a story that made him sick to his stomach: Strayeth and Chumsley had done what? They had said what? He tried not to interrupt her as she relayed what had happened to her on the morning after her last ball. He also tried to cool the outrage that simmered in his limbs, as it was the sort of thing that led a man to put a fist through the wall if allowed to boil over.
“It’s all true, I’m afraid.” She looked him in the eye, all through the telling of what was surely a painful story. He admired Miss Crispin then, for far more than her charitable schemes and her wit and her beauty. He knew that he was looking at someone who was unafraid to reveal something about herself, even if it might bring shame on her. Who was unafraid to be who she was, damn the consequences.
I could learn a lot from such a person.
“What will you do, if you find out the wager is in the book?” he asked, stroking his chin and leaning against the wall, trying to digest what she’d said.
She didn’t answer him right away. Instead, her eyes went back and forth, back and forth—searching for something in his face.
Then he realized: She must be wondering if he thought poorly of her, now that he knew she was involved in such a thing. Oh, dear creature. How wrong you are to even wonder. All he wanted to do was take her in his arms and hold her there until those red-desert eyes of hers had gone dry again, and when he considered what it was taking for him to refrain from doing just that, he felt that he knew the strength in a team of ten.
“I’m not certain yet,” she replied finally. “There’s one thing I’m unclear about: If I were pursuing a woman in such a fashion, I’d be worried that the lady might mistake my intentions. I’d worry she would accuse me of jilting her when she realized I had no plan to offer her my hand. Society condemns men for such behavior, and rather harshly.”
“I suspect they will not allow you to mistake their attentions for courtship, Miss Crispin. I suspect their pursuit of you will be conducted as much as possible in dark corners, and through whispers. They will probably be bold with you whenever they have you alone. Very bold.”
“I see,” she replied over a false smile. She hadn’t stopped wringing her hands since they’d descended the stairs. “I can handle such things.”
Adam banged the side of his fist against the wall; not with any real violence, but with a thud that reverberated into the next room. The scowling face of a young kitchen maid appeared around the corner, but disappeared again as it became clear who was responsible for the racket.
“Well,” said Miss Crispin, looking at him expectantly. “What do you say?”
“I’ll do it.”
“You will?”
“Of course! Why would you suppose otherwise?”
She exhaled, relief gushing out of her. “Since that awful morning, I’ve found myself uncertain about so many things—things that I never doubted before. I’ve even begun to wonder what other people think of me.”
“The horror!” he replied, warmed to his core when she smiled for the first time in many minutes. “Please promise me, Miss Crispin, that you will not do such things. Those men are utter bastards.”
“You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that.”
“Don’t be. Remember? You aren’t to care a fig what I think.”
She smiled again, then reached toward the wall and covered his fist with her hand, a pale starfish atop a darker, rounded stone.
He went still, lips parted, anticipation pulsing through him. Should he pull her close? He was desperate to do so but he stopped himself; she had just confided in him, after all, that two longtime acquaintances found her easy and available. He didn’t want to suggest that he shared their abhorrent views.
He closed his mouth and exhaled through his nostrils, every part of him settling in and battening down for whatever Miss Crispin might do next.
She pulled his fist from the wall and turned it over in front of her, then pulled his thumb away from his hand—slowly and deliberately—and did the same with his index finger. Fingertip by fingertip, knuckle by knuckle, she gently unclenched the fierce grip he had held onto so tightly, and for so long. By the time she finished, the warmth that had seeped through him earlier had grown hot.
And far more than his fist had become undone.
She turned his hand onto its side and slid her own into it, grasping it tightly. When he grasped back, she shook it as any gentleman might do.
“I believe we have a deal, then,” she said softly.
He collected himself, thanking the stars that he had waited to see what she would do. “I have one additional request,” he said, his voice sounding strained again.
“What is that?” she asked, a quick flutter of her eyelids betraying an otherwise calm demeanor.
“If we’re to be in cahoots with one another, would you please call me Adam?”
“I thought everyone called you Ryland.”
“You aren’t everyone.”
Her mouth went taut. “I will. But only if you’ll call me Caro.”
Chapter Nine
When a chit gets well-known for her teasin’
What man can maintain his good reason?
She’ll be my chère-amie
Or that fellow’s, may-be
Says our blunt, by the end o’ the season.
Good God.
The imbeciles had put their wager in the betting book, all right. They had written it in the form of one of those newfangled children’s rhymes. What were they called? The Irish ones?
A limerick—that was the thing.
Damn it.
Adam put his hand on his forehead and rubbed hard, thinking. He didn’t know whether to be horrified or impressed that Strayeth and Chumsley had managed to come up with something moderately clever—just clever enough to catch the attention of the gentlemen who came through White’s, browsing the betting book in search of something diverting.
He had not expected so much of them.
What he had expected was a quick, dashed-off line, stating little more than their names and the amount of the wager. That had been recorded too, of course, but the damned fools had gotten cute with the rest of it.
Not that he thought their horrendous behavior was “cute”; it was just that Strayeth and Chumsley hadn’t treated the task as a simple matter of accounting, as he’d anticipated. They had treated it like a game.
Caro was a game to them.
He paced about the hall. An older member with a stiff gait and a monocle passed by, and Adam was relieved when he appeared not to notice him. He flagged a servant and asked for a table somewhere out of the way, and was led to a spot at the edge of the morning room. Preparing to sit, he noticed that the portrait hanging above the chair and small table was of Father.
He stared at it a moment. It depicted Father when he was about Adam’s age, and while Adam had become the taller of the two many years ago, they still shared an astonishing resemblance—the same glossy black hair, the same focused blue gaze. It was uncanny.
He sat with his back to the wall—and the portrait—and rifled through the latest papers. He tried t
o scan for news of upcoming talks and exhibitions but realized after some minutes that he had read the same sentence at least a dozen times. He was wound up like a pocket watch, tense and ticking, and he couldn’t stop ruminating over what he had read in the book.
Many of his peers would take a special interest in Strayeth and Chumsley’s wager; the rich men who came in and stood over it, laughing with a cheroot and a glass of claret, would be fooled by its lilting lines, thinking it nothing more than some harmless fun. They would fail to see that it carried with it a terrible sting—the pain of which was headed straight for an innocent third party―a young woman who could not be in this place to defend herself, and who was not protected by a title.
He asked for a coffee and palmed a small book in the outer pocket of his coat, the way he often did when anxious.
He supposed he ought to be glad the damned fools hadn’t put Caro’s name in the book. Thankfully, she had been right when she explained to him that they wouldn’t dare; Stray and Chum would find themselves shunned, she’d explained, and they valued their social life far too much to risk such an outcome.
But what if her identity were revealed by someone else? Someone might solve the mystery and her name would leak out, perhaps by word of mouth, or perhaps in a popular gossip column. Society would shun her then, as they couldn’t allow anyone in their midst to be a proven participant in a type of relationship they professed to despise.
“Ryland! What brings you here, you old Corinthian? Trying to get civilized?”
Adam fumed. Monocle Man was back. He should have done a better job feigning interest in his papers. “Good morning, Sutcliffe.”
“What’s the latest from ol’ Luke’s, then?”
“I have no information to impart about the world of boxing, sir. My apologies.”
“What? Come, now. Tell me all the news.”
Adam sighed. People believed what they wanted to believe, didn’t they? About himself, Caro—whomever!
Sutcliffe was harmless enough, but right now he just wanted to think about Caro. So he lifted the broadest newspaper in his pile and held it in front of his face, trying to give the man a hint.
“How about the racing, then?” he heard over the pages.
“I can’t speak to that, either,” Adam replied without lowering it.
“Fencing?”
“No, sir.”
“Cock fights?”
“No.”
“Dogs, then.”
Adam lowered his paper. “Most definitely not.”
When he raised it again, Sutcliffe appeared to get the hint. The man settled into the chair opposite him with a coffee and a paper of his own, and Adam was able to turn his thoughts back to Caro.
He balled up his fist, recalling the way she’d laid her hand over his. And right then and there he felt it again—that frisson of pure joy, all the way from his fist up through his arm, and somewhere in his middle, too. Just from thinking about it! He had known from their first encounter that he found her unusually appealing. But this had gotten to be something else entirely. He was hauling fruit, practicing witty remarks in his looking glass, and fretting over the betting book at White’s.
Their encounters altered him on the most fundamental of levels. To wit: When he thought of what she’d told him in the servant’s corridor? How she’d seemed to pull from some unseen reserve of strength, just to say the words to him? He wanted to overturn the table next to him—and that was entirely unlike him.
They called me a whore. They implied that I was too base to socialize with, then wagered over which of them could make me their lover by season’s end.
Clearly, neither of those men knew “base” when it stared back at him from the looking glass.
He wondered why they had singled Caro out in such a way. Why select a woman of lower birth to pick on? Were today’s young men so desperate for some new sport?
He thought back to his last interaction with Strayeth and Chumsley, the night of Caro’s ball. Had there been any clue then of what they were up to? He tried to remember the gist of their exchange, but as usual it had been so banal that he struggled to recall even a snippet.
He remembered that Strayeth had poked him in the shoulder, and they had probably mentioned boxing, because they always did. They had called Caro “opinionated,” which had struck him as the sort of thing only a half-wit would find fault with.
What else had they said?
Ah yes: They had also suggested she did not deserve to be called a “lady.”
At the time, he’d assumed they were being snobbish about Caro’s birth. But now he wondered: had Caro done something to bring on such a remark?
He stood up abruptly, sending his papers to the floor in a noisy flutter. Sutcliffe looked up, but Adam held out his palm to stop him from speaking. Then he marched toward the door, scolding himself under his breath.
He loathed it when he succumbed to believing what was said about someone, instead of what they showed him of themselves. He of all men should know better, as that was precisely what had led to his own predicament. Many years back, his classmates had talked widely of the only real bout he’d ever taken part in. They had told and retold the story until it became many different stories, and eventually those stories were told and retold until the groundwork had been laid for a legend that reached far beyond their schoolyard.
It didn’t help that the story involved a duke. And his beating a duke, very badly.
And when the town gossips had got hold of it? They quickly convinced wide swaths of the ton—and anyone else who followed the fancy—that the new Earl of Ryland was savage. The remainder simply thought him an informal champion of sorts—and the rightful heir to his father’s boxing legacy. He quickly lost sight of who believed what of him, finding the very thought of such erroneous distinctions disturbing and exhausting.
Perhaps, like him, Caro was not what her reputation suggested. It was unlikely that she’d behaved any differently than any other young lady who enjoyed dancing, parties, and flirtations. And even if she had, what could he possibly say to it? I am sorry, Caro, but I believe you earned this wager when you chose pink as a favorite color for your gowns, and also when you pressed yourself against that gentleman. Shame on you. Now enjoy your punishment.
No, he scolded himself. That won’t do at all.
He found a man and asked for his hat and cane.
He would have to find a way to be patient until he could see Caro again, and come to know her further. And he would have to get to know her further if his mind were to be settled at all.
That decided it: He resolved that at their next meeting—at her father’s lecture, the following evening—he would tell her he wanted to spend time with her, and inquire about ways he might do so.
He’d never wanted to spend time with someone so badly in his life. He couldn’t ignore the compulsion any longer, not if it was possible that his feelings were reciprocated.
He would need to be forthright about such intentions and what led to them, then gauge her reaction. Perhaps she, too, felt there was something extraordinary happening between them. The possibility left him breathless. Perhaps knowing that he felt similarly would soften her beliefs in marriage. If it didn’t, he would honor those feelings.
He took a deep breath and descended the steps of White’s, into a gray noon.
A portly gentleman holding a tiny, hairless dog, both of them dressed in deep purples from head to toe, stepped down from a carriage and greeted him. “What’s the latest on the racing, Ryland? What’s the best bit of horseflesh these days?”
Adam didn’t even know the man. But he was so widely recognized on account of his father’s achievements, so plagued by stories of his own fighting ability, that gentlemen sometimes broke the rules of etiquette to engage with him. He gave the fellow the swiftest of nods and kept walking. “Put all your coin on…Twiddling My Gobble-Cock,” he blurted out.
It was the most absurd thing he could think of on the spot.
“Yes, sir.”
“’Struth? Twiddling My Gobble-Cock is a sure thing, then?”
“The surest. Tell all your friends.”
There were only a few weeks left in the Season. Strayeth and Chumsley would be chasing Caro, and the ton would be watching.
Moving in society was about to get especially thorny for her. And while he suspected she could handle herself in whatever bramble the world threw her into, he intended to be around anyway, to help her take a hatchet to it.
Chapter Ten
“Goodness! That’s a lot of snakes,” Caro said.
The woman straightened and looked at her defiantly. “Your advertisement said that all subjects were welcome, Miss Crispin. This is six volumes on the snakes of the central Americas, and I want in.”
“I am only teasing you, Mrs. Moss. I love a unique passion when I see one. But why are you giving up your snakes, then?”
The woman lowered her voice and leaned in. She was dressed in a drab brown dress and clasped her reticule tightly. “I am only giving up on one snake,” she whispered, nodding behind her, where her husband could be seen just outside. They were in the reception area of the society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, where Caro was welcoming guests and accepting their books, and where she could see those entering from the street. She could see that Mr. Moss, for example, was conversing with a pair of Cyprians. They were probably passing by in search of wayward academics who could be persuaded that a lecture on the History of Classical Forms in Britain was far less intriguing than a tour of their own lovely forms, in the present. And it looked like they had found one.
“And don’t worry,” Mrs. Moss added with a tremor. “They may be my husband’s books, but he knows I brought them.”