Chapter 6
The information Nick had received over the months during his assignations with the Baroness Carew had proven crucial in his plans for Lord Rutland.
He had learned Justina Barrett had a silly fascination with bonnets. She had a love of gothic novels and romantic tales. She was wistful and fanciful. And she’d taken to visiting The Circulating Library.
That particular detail about the lady’s interests accounted for his presence at the back of said circulating room. Standing in the small lecture hall, Nick folded his arms and assessed the visitors scattered about the neatly arranged chairs. Five dandies, three ancient lords. He zeroed his gaze at the second to last row. And one unattended lady.
Miss Justina Barrett, to be precise.
The generously curved siren sat perched on the edge of her chair, hanging on the lecturer’s words as though he were handing down a lesson on the meaning of life. Of course, the hopeless romantic, she’d be here listening to readings of those great poems. The same ones he’d once pored over in the dead of night until his candlelight flickered out.
Giving his head a cynical shake, Nick started quietly down the thin, makeshift aisle and paused at the second row. “May I claim this seat, Miss Barrett?”
The young lady shifted her attention from the reader to him. She flared her eyes.
Nick winged an eyebrow up.
“Of course,” she said quickly, her words thundering in the quiet.
They earned reproachful stares from the reader, who stumbled over his verse, and the other poetry devotees. Justina blushed, her cheeks turning a stunning crimson hue.
Unapologetic, Nick slid into the vacant chair as the graying man with thick side-whiskers, resumed his reading. Justina sat stiffly at his side; her narrow shoulders tense. Tugging off his gloves, he stuffed them inside his jacket, and then deliberately pressed his thigh against her, crushing the fabric of her yellow satin skirts. The faintest intake of air escaped her lips and a surge of masculine triumph went through him at her body’s natural awareness to him. “You are also an admirer of Shelley’s work?” he asked softly.
The lady looked up, surprise stamped on her features. “You are a fan of Shelley’s work?”
“Shh.” The dandy in purple pantaloons shot a particularly nasty look in Justina’s direction.
Nick inclined his head and then promptly dismissing the young gentleman, resumed speaking. “I am.” A verse flickered in his mind. “‘Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not—’”
“‘Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed—but it returneth,’” Justina interrupted with a smile. All the tension went out of the lady’s shoulders as she shifted closer in her seat; her guards completely crumpled. “Most are admirers of Byron’s work.”
And he had once been, as a boy with his head in his books. Unnerved by that forgotten until now love of verse, he forced a grin. “Bah, Byron,” he said with a little wave of a hand. After his father’s death, he’d attempted to read those works once more, but the pointlessness of those words had made a mockery of his efforts. “I’ve often felt his work as overinflated as his ego.”
If one could witness a person falling in love, then he would wager his ducal title that he captured a slice of Justina’s heart in that moment. And all on a lie.
In truth, Nick hadn’t thought of Byron’s work since he’d been an eager student at Harrow, who’d excelled in his studies. The romantic works. Classical literature. With his father’s death, he at last appreciated all those useless inanities had proven the rubbish people filled their life with to forget how miserable one’s existence truly was.
The lecturer paused in his reading and, shoving his spectacles back on the bridge of his nose, glared at Justina and Nick. Then he continued his reading.
“I arise from dreams of thee.
In the first sweet sleep of night, when the winds are breathing low, and the stars are shining bright…”
“Shelley’s poem, I Arise From Dreams Of Thee,” the lecture went on in nasally tones, “is far simpler than any written by Byron or Wordsworth…”
Once again, Justina stared, riveted by the gentleman speaking.
“I have thought of you since our last meeting,” Nick whispered close against her ear, stirring a single golden curl artfully arranged over her shoulder.
She blinked slowly, and then shifted her attention over to him. “Did you, Your Grace?” Her hushed question barely reached his ears.
“Ah, but I thought we’d agreed to refer to one another by our Christian names.” The fragrant scent of honeysuckle and lavender that clung to her skin wafted about his senses, flooding them with the rich, vibrant smells of summer. A wave of desire went through him and he forced himself to speak. “Would you not agree, Justina?” he asked on a husky whisper.
“How would you have me reply to that, in public?” she asked, giving the small crowd absorbed in the lecture at the front of the room a deliberate look. “Given the rules of propriety, most all Polite Society would disagree,” she murmured, her bold challenge raised a faint grin. She held his gaze with an unexpected show of strength and boldness, which defied the reports he’d been handed by the baroness and gossip columns.
Surprise slammed into him. When he’d crafted his scheme, with the plans of using Justina, he’d resolved to suffer through her company in order to woo her and win her. Who could have imagined that he, Nick Tallings, a man shaped in Rutland’s image, should actually enjoy being with her? “I daresay, a lady who’d take up a seat in a lecture hall about Shelley’s work would not be overly impressed with Society’s foolhardy opinions on what is proper.”
Justina searched her gaze over his face. Did she seek an underlying hint of disapproval? If so, the lady would not find it. He gave two damns on Sunday what a single member of the peerage thought.
“Ahem.” A loud coughing at the front of the hall drew their attention as one to the stern-faced lecturer.
Again, Nick lifted his head in acknowledgement. “I am surprised to see you here,” he said when the older gentleman resumed his talk.
And where she’d once devoted her every attention to the words being recited by the portly gentleman at the front, Justina glanced up at him. “Are you of a mind of Lord Byron’s and all others that I should not have an interest in poetry merely because I’m a female?”
“Hardly,” he protested. “There is a difference between reading and reciting poetry, and…” He angled his head toward the man rambling on monotone at the front of the room, “…being lectured to on specific verse chosen by a pompous prig. Would you not agree?”
“I would not.”
At that bold challenge, he angled his head. Who had been the baroness’ contacts that they’d drawn such an erroneously empty sketch of the woman before him?
Justina tipped her chin up. “I expect, in contradicting you, I’ve either shocked or horrified you.”
No one had noted Nick Tallings when he’d been a merchant, scrabbling to rebuild his family’s wealth. As a duke, the world bowed and cowed before him. And they certainly did not challenge him. There was something so wholly refreshing in this woman’s honesty. “Hardly,” he said in a hushed tone, giving her the truest words he ever would. “You’ve intrigued me.”
“Well,” she went on, to clarify. “With the depth and wealth of meaning in a poem, a person connects emotionally to each stanza or verse. Ascribes feelings or thoughts to it, either deliberately or by the natural progression of one’s wonderings. Do you not feel that way about it, Your…Nick?” she amended at his pointed look.
By rule, he was passionate about nothing beyond the goals that had driven him for thirteen years. His hatred, as Rutland had predicted all those years ago, had sustained him. Made him stronger. But who was he, without it? Who would he be when he’d at last destroyed that man…and destroyed this woman with expectant eyes before him? “I believe we all connect with words in different ways,” he settled for, unnerved by t
he questions she’d inadvertently roused.
“Precisely,” she said too loudly, earning another reproachful look from the gentleman at the front of the room. “It is not this man’s utterances,” she gestured to the lecturer, “that move me. But rather, he makes me think about verses in a light I’d not previously considered, possibly opening up a new meaning that resonates in here.” She tapped her fingers to the center of her chest, bringing his gaze downward, and then he forced his stare back to the passion in her eyes.
Despite his earlier-drawn conclusions based on the information he’d received on the lady, he’d expected her to be the same title-hungry miss as the next. Only to find, the truth so quickly at the front of an empty lecture hall. The lady was a free-spirit with powerful thoughts that moved beyond bonnets and baubles and, in that, unlike any other woman he’d known in thirteen years.
And she will rightfully despise me when this is done.
The nasally whine of the lecturer’s recitation crept eerily into Nick’s conflicted musings.
Once, early in the morning, Beelzebub arose,
With care his sweet person adorning,
He put on his Sunday clothes.
He drew on a boot to hide his hoof,
He drew on a glove to hide his claw,
His horns were concealed by a Bras Chapeau,
And the Devil went forth as natty a Beau
As Bond-street ever saw.
The older man picked his head up and his gaze landed on Nick, sending disquiet rolling through him. He then resumed his reading of those eerily accurate verses that Satan himself could not have better picked for him and his intentions.
“What is it?” Justina whispered, pulling him back to the moment, unguarded with her questions and her eyes.
Remember who she is. Remember your goals for her family. And Rutland. He battled down the unwanted stirrings of guilt. “What are the chances of all the women I could have met in the streets of Gipsy Hill that day was one who shared my love of Shelley’s work?” Despising the pathetic guilt that pebbled at that lie, Nick dipped his head lower. “Though, I will be forthright in saying when I came today, I was unaware of the discussion taking place,” he lied.
“You weren’t?” Justina drew back, eyeing him with an unexpected and healthy modicum of wariness. Had the lady heard whispers of his reputation as a rogue? “Then, what brought you here this day, Your Grace? I expect you have a well-stocked library.” Which suggested that she was not one of those peers whose family’s library was as vast as their wealth.
“Nick,” he reminded her. The lady followed his movements as he withdrew the book she’d gotten from The Circulating Library that he’d rescued from their first meeting. “I recovered this and merely came to return it when—”
Another young dandy swiveled in his chair. “Shh.”
“—I saw you enter,” he continued over the fuming man.
Justina accepted the book and their fingers brushed. Even through the fabric of their gloves, a sharp charge passed. Folding her arms around the leather volume, Justina looked to the front of the room once more. Nick could have returned both titles when he’d visited yesterday and yet he hadn’t. It was a deliberate move on his part. Another carefully orchestrated meeting. Did the lady have the sense to wonder about it? Yes, his plans should be foremost in his mind and yet…
Unbidden, Nick’s gaze went to that book she hugged close to her chest and his eyes went to the generous swell of her breasts that challenged her modest décolletage. An unexpected bolt of lust shot through him. The plan he devised had included wedding and eventually bedding this woman; and not necessarily in that respective order. Simpering, doe-eyed ladies had never held an appeal for him. He’d only sought women whose hearts were as empty as his own. As such, he’d not given thought to having Justina Barrett in his arms.
Until now.
Now, with the fool at the front of the room running on with the verses of Shelley’s words, Nick stared at Justina with a potent need to lay her down and make her his for reasons beyond revenge, driven by a man’s wanting. For the hunger raging through him, the lady attended the bewhiskered fellow at the front of the room with a singular attention that he was hard-pressed not to envy.
Despite the baroness’ reports, Justina Barrett was not the pampered miss hungering for the highest title and fripperies. Rather, she had interests. Genuine interests that moved beyond the material; a rarity he’d believed didn’t exist among the ton.
“Shelley, much as Byron, sees the perils in educating a woman.” Ah, so they’d moved away from poetry and into a lecture on the poet himself. “Sees women rather,” the older man looked pointedly at Justina, “as things of beauty to be revered and properly cared for, as all beautiful things are.”
As those words resounded about the room, Nick attended Justina more closely while murmurings of agreement went around the scarce attendees present. The lady’s lips tightened at the corner and if a woman could set fire with her eyes, the pompous bastard would be a pile of tinder at his podium.
“Shelley is nothing like Lord Byron,” Justina challenged.
Silence rang in the small room and Nick looked to her. The wide-eyed young lady glanced about as though shocked by her own outburst.
And for the first time since Rutland had ruined his family, his lips twitched in an honest expression of mirth. The baroness and all the gossips in the whole of England had been wrong where Justina Barrett was concerned. There wasn’t a thing fragile about her. No, she didn’t fit with the words whispered in his ear by the baroness or written about in the papers. In crafting his scheme, it had been vastly easier to ruin a woman who didn’t give a jot about anything beyond rank and wealth.
The lecturer opened and closed his mouth several times. “I beg your pardon?”
Justina’s cheeks fired red and she glanced down at her tightly clasped fingers. “I…”
He’d been that hesitant person once. Silent, as Lord Rutland had infiltrated his home and Nick had stared at the heartless bastard, afraid to speak. Afraid to challenge. For the hatred he had and would always carry for that man, the marquess had liberated him in other ways that long-ago night. “Look at me,” he commanded quietly and the lady shot her head up. “Never make apologies for who you are or what you have done,” he said quietly.
Her breath hitched loudly. Such adoration spilled from her eyes that he was forced to look away. Something in this moment had become too real. For his encouragement hadn’t been born of a desire to trap or trick, but rather a need to set her free from Society’s constraints. He silently castigated himself for that dangerous slip that made more of their connection.
Justina looked to the lecturer and cleared her throat. “Mr. Shelley is a champion of Social justice for the lower classes. A man who once said, ‘A husband and wife ought to continue united so long as they love each other. Any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affection would be a most intolerable tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration…’” She turned her palms up. “As such, I believe Mr. Shelley would never dare speak against educating a woman.” Her words were met with loud whisperings.
An unexpected appreciation for the lady he’d seen as nothing more than the Diamond the papers purported her to be gripped him. In this instance, he no longer knew what was game and what was real. “Brava, Miss Barrett,” Nick whispered, in honest admiration for her clever retort.
The lecturer’s gaunt cheeks flushed a mottled red. “Do you presume to know what Mr. Shelley believes about anything, my lady?”
At the condescending sneer on the man’s lips, Nick narrowed his eyes and leveled him with a hard look. Rutland’s relationship to the lady be damned. Before he’d landed the title duke, Nick himself had been the recipient of that same disdain. He’d not see this self-important prig cow this lady or anyone.
The man gulped audibly and glanced about.
Justina, however, tipped her chin up in an impressive display of s
pirit. “It is just… a man who is friends with a schoolmistress would certainly not look unkindly upon educated females.” The lady required little help from him. And despite himself, she rose in his estimation.
“A schoolmistress?” the man repeated, his brow furrowed.
“Elizabeth Hitchener,” she elucidated. “His confidant and the muse of his poem Queen Mab.”
The lady was… a bluestocking. A new interest that moved beyond her relation to Lord Rutland awakened inside him. It stirred a long-forgotten, deeply-buried appreciation of learning and books. An appreciation he’d believed himself incapable of any longer for the course he’d charted in his life.
The old lecturer was unflinching in his debate. “Shelley’s closest friend is, in fact, Lord Byron. And Lord Byron is quite clear on the roles of women, my lady.” He looked to the other gentlemen scattered about the room, who nodded in a brotherly approval.
Justina’s cheeks pinkened and she fell silent.
A muscle jumped at the corner of Nick’s mouth.
With a pleased nod, the older man opened his mouth and proceeded to spew more nonsense.
By God, the stuffy prig at the podium wouldn’t stifle her spirit. “Let us not forget,” Nick called out loudly, interrupting the pompous fool. “Lord Byron also said those who will not reason are bigots, those who cannot are fools, and those who dare not are slaves. Lord Byron did not, however, differentiate men from women, lords from ladies or street urchins in his musings.” His skin pricked with the heat of Justina’s eyes on him.
Crimson color suffused the man’s pale cheeks and he shuffled through his notes, mumbling to himself. With a thump on his podium, he adjourned his lecture to the polite applause of the attendees, and raced from the room as though his heels were on fire.
As the smattering of guests climbed to their feet and shuffled from the room, they cast annoyed looks at Justina. Then they left Nick and her—alone.
She fiddled with the book on her lap. “That was… You were…” she swiftly amended, “marvelous.” A pleased smile turned her bow-shaped lips upward. “You do know Byron.” A faint accusation rang there.
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