Hope Tarr

by Untamed

  The ladies’ retiring lounge, otherwise known as the loo.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I know she is an irksome, brawling scold;

  If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.”

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, PETRUCHIO,

  The Taming of the Shrew

  atching Lady Katherine peel off toward the lobby doors, Rourke hesitated and then started after her. The little snob had drawn him out and then cut him, and he wasn’t having it.

  But more than his pride stood at stake, and in the dim reaches of his soul he owned it. Lady Kate was different, he could feel it. Despite her recent rudeness and generally sharp tongue, she both intrigued and moved him. Before deserting him on the dance floor, she’d looked almost as though she might cry. No, something had happened to send her haring off, something far more serious and distressing than suffering through his abominable dancing.

  Cutting his way through the throng, he was halfway to the doors himself when a hand landed on his shoulder, hauling him back. For a few dizzying seconds, instinct took over, and he was once more a purse snitch pursued by club-wielding officers of the law. He swung about, fists at the ready. A half-dozen furious male faces glared back at him, Lord Dutton and his porcine friend, Wesley, leading up the pack. Remembering where he was and, more importantly, who he was now, he unclenched his hands and dropped his arms to his sides.

  Sweat prickling his collar, he summoned a chuckle. “What can I do for you gentlemen?” He honed his gaze on Lord Dutton.

  Glancing down at Rourke’s hands, dangling benignly from his sides but still big as hams, the lanky lord swallowed hard. He cast an over-the-shoulder glance to his companions, as though making sure they were still there to back him up.

  Apparently assured of their support, he turned back to Rourke. “That waltz was promised to me.”

  Rourke shrugged. “You may have bespoken the dance but no the lady. She’s no your property, mind.”

  Wesley, piped up. “As a matter of fact, they were promised only … Well, the nuptials have been put off in deference to … Lady Katherine’s shy sensibilities.”

  “Shy sensibilities, indeed.” Rourke couldn’t help it. He tipped back his head and laughed. “I’ve no met a less shy woman in all my days.”

  His mind left that thought and pivoted back to the principal point. Dutton was one of the jilted fiancés. Small wonder the man seemed so peevish. Jaysus, what a wean he was. Small wonder Lady Katherine had given him the heave-ho. What surprised him was that she’d apparently considered marrying him at all. Rourke wondered if the other two would-be grooms were also present. Fashionable London, he was discovering, was a wee world.

  He made the rounds with his gaze. “But with all respect, Lady Katherine is a wilding. If a man hasna the—” balls, guts “—skill to tame her, ’tis best he step aside and set her free.”

  Dutton lifted his thin upper lip and snickered. “And I suppose you fancy yourself the better man for the job?”

  Not wanting to give away his matrimonial intentions so soon in the game, Rourke mustered a nonchalant shrug. “Who’s to say?”

  “Care to make a small wager on it?”

  Intrigued, Rourke answered, “That depends upon what you have in mind.”

  This time Dutton shrugged. His expensive evening clothes hung from a scarecrow’s frame, putting Rourke in mind of a more polished version of Johnnie Black. “You have the next five days to coax a kiss from Lady Kate, a kiss in public, with at least one reliable witness present. The loser forfeits a hundred pounds. To keep things aboveboard, we’ll inscribe it in the betting book at White’s.”

  Since coming to London, Rourke had passed by White’s famous bow front window while strolling St. James’s, but a glimpse from the sidewalk was as far as he’d gotten. Membership in the legendary gentlemen’s club was exclusive, meaning closed to the common likes of him.

  “And you can’t force yourself on her,” Wesley interjected. “She must kiss you of her own accord.”

  Rourke regarded the baronet with an icy eye. “I have never forced myself on a woman in my life, and I dinna mean to begin now.”

  “So you accept, then?” Dutton asked, narrow eyes gleaming like a rat’s in the night.

  Rourke hesitated. He had no need of money, and a hundred pounds was a pittance these days. Beyond that, despite her less than civil treatment of him, he had no real wish to humiliate the lady.

  He shook his head. “I’ve nay wish to take your money, gentlemen, nor to compromise the lady.”

  “Not so fast.” Dutton’s high-pitched drawl stalled him in his tracks. “If you’re so confident of your prowess, then prove it by putting up some of that shiny new tin from your pockets—or is your Scotch boasting a great lot of hot air?”

  The latter was a less-than-subtle allusion to the fact that Rourke’s wealth was earned and not inherited. In a new nation such as America, being a self-made man was a point of pride, but not so in England. Here an honest, hard-working man was ground up and spit out like so much factory pulp while the most despicable ne’er-do-well was exalted so long as he bore a title.

  Rourke whirled about. “I believe you must mean Scots. Scotch is a whiskey, mind.”

  To a man, they shrugged, indicating it was all the same to them.

  Lord Dutton cast him a sly look. “Dinna say the Bull of Bow hasna the balls for a wee wager.” He grinned, obviously pleased with his cleverness as a mimic.

  So they’d found out about his pugilist’s past. It was hardly a secret, though it was coming on seven years since he’d last stepped inside the ring. Unlike many professional pugilists addicted to the blood aspect of the sport, Rourke had known when to quit. He’d purchased his first few shares of railway bonds with the prize money won by knocking down the reigning contender, Big Jim O’Malley, and then signed on to a railway crew as a navvie and begun working his way up the ranks. He’d bought the railway company lock, stock, and barrel two years before and had since amalgamated a second—and a third.

  And yet to this lot he would never be more than a Scottish guttersnipe from the East London stews. It struck him that perhaps Lady Katherine wasn’t the only one of her kind in want of a working man’s lesson.

  “Verra well, gentlemen, you’re on. I accept your terms, only to make things more … shall we say, interesting, let us not limit ourselves to a paltry hundred pounds. What say you to a thousand?”

  He rested back on his heels to wait. It was no great secret that Lord Dutton lived on his expectations, tied to his papa’s purse strings in the form of the ubiquitous quarterly allowance. To be fair, that state of perpetual dependency was shared by many a society male. In Dutton’s case, however, he had borrowed against his yet-to-be realized installment. In short, his lordship was in debt up to his bulbous eyeballs. Ratcheting up the wager to one thousand pounds changed the stakes considerably.

  Predictably, Wesley’s plump cheeks lost their ruddy glow. “A … thousand pounds?”

  “Aye, unless you gentlemen suddenly dinna feel quite so confident of the terms.”

  “No, no, we’re on. A thousand pounds it is. That is … if you will accept my marker?” Dutton gulped again. A thin sheen of perspiration appeared on his high brow and long upper lip.

  “Of course, milord. We are all … gentlemen of our word, are we not?”

  The supper bell rang. Smiling, Rourke turned and continued on his way. Out in the lobby, he headed for the coatroom instead. Gavin and Harry would have to finish the evening without him. The brief interlude had changed his mind about haring after Lady Kate. No doubt she expected him to do just that. The better strategy—and, indeed, what had started out as a wooing was rapidly segueing to a war—would be to give her the rest of the long, dull evening to wonder where he had gotten to.

  Lady Kate, you may not yet know it, but you’ve met your match in me.

  Face hot, Lord Dutton followed the Scotsman’s departure with his eyes. He hadn’t given up on marrying Kate quite yet, not en
tirely. Ordinarily an earl’s eldest daughter would be beyond his touch, but reliable rumor had it the Lindsey sire suffered from the gamester’s disease.

  As soon as the Scot was out of earshot, Wesley turned his pudgy countenance on him and demanded, “What the devil are you about?”

  Dutton waited for the other three men in their party to drift away before turning to answer. “What do you mean?”

  “Correct me if I’m mistaken, but you’re not precisely flush these days. Only last night you admitted to borrowing against your next quarter’s allowance. You hadn’t enough tin in your pockets to pay the hansom driver.”

  Dutton didn’t deny it. “I couldn’t turn down the chance to tweak that boxer’s broken nose and teach him a lesson in the bargain. Who the bloody hell does he think he is, mixing freely with his betters and calling himself a gentleman as though he is our equal? Stealing away Kate Lindsey stands as the final straw.”

  “He hardly stole her. She might have turned him down, only she didn’t.”

  Dutton scowled. “The bitch is merely playing hard to get. She’ll come ’round, you’ll see. In the meantime, I’ve no intention of letting a bounder like Patrick O’Rourke have the first slice of a yet-to-be-cut cheese—my cheese.”

  Wesley’s eyes bulged. “You’re likening Lady Katherine to cheese?”

  Dutton felt his mouth forming a grin. “Soft, ripened cheese, for she’ll melt in my arms—and my mouth—just as soon as I come in hers.”

  It seemed Kate was not the only one having a bad time of it at the ball. She stood within the enclosed lavatory stall, blotting her eyes, while outside in the main powder room the row between four women spiraled to climax. Grateful to have gotten inside the stall before they’d started up, she was nonetheless trapped into waiting out their leaving.

  Peeking out the crack of the mahogany door, she confirmed that two of the four combatants were the Duncan sisters, Isabel and Penelope. A pair of nastier bitches one would be hard-pressed to find. The smirking blonde in the pale pink that matched the faded fabric covering the settee, Kate recognized by her sallow face only. The statuesque brunette was Caledonia Rivers, of course, president of the London Women’s Suffrage Society and one of Kate’s personal heroines. She’d spotted her earlier in the evening making the rounds with Hadrian St. Claire, her escort for the evening and, judging from the intimate gestures and warm looks passed between them, perhaps quite a bit more.

  Sounds coming through the stall door were muffled, but Kate heard sufficient to gather that Isabel had made some snide remarks about Miss Rivers’s form and apparel, both of which Kate found to be exceptional. The sleek black gown with its jeweled evening straps was clearly inspired by Sargent’s portrait of Madame X. Its classical simplicity made a stunning statement, of which Kate heartily approved. For herself, she’d always avoided frills and bows and flounces, feeling as if such fussiness made her look not only childish, but frumpy and, above all, short. As for the suffragette’s full figure, Kate would do all but murder for such lovely height and curves. Clearly jealousy was the driving force for the Duncan sisters’ attack. They were not the most attractive of girls. Still, three against one was hardly fair odds. Were Kate’s eyes not still damp and her face flushed, she wouldn’t have thought twice about bursting out from her hiding place to provide the suffragette with backup. Fortunately, it seemed the otherwise soft-spoken lady could more than fend for herself.

  Miss Rivers swung about to the viperous trio like an avenging Valkyrie. Kate missed the start to what the suffragette said, but as her throaty voice rose to crescendo, she caught the splendid finale. “And so I am allowing myself the liberty, the pleasure, of telling you all to go to the devil.”

  Isabel—or was it Penelope?—sniffed. “Well, I never …”

  Several pairs of feet padded across the tile work toward the exit door. Kate waited for the lounge door to bang closed. It did. She pulled down on the brass chain to announce her presence to the room’s remaining occupant and stepped out.

  “Brava!”

  Miss Rivers swung around from the mirrored counter where she was dabbing at slightly watery eyes with a bunched handkerchief. “Excuse me?”

  Wondering how her own face fared, Kate walked over to the marble-topped sink to wash her hands. “What a pack of bitches. Were I you, I shouldn’t mind a single word any of them said.”

  She glanced into the gilded mirror, checking her reflection. Her eyes weren’t as swollen as she’d feared, nor her cheeks especially spotty. Until the flames faded, she suspected most people would assume she’d simply been overgenerous with the rouge.

  Feeling more confident, she accepted a linen hand towel from the attendant. She blotted her hands dry, tossed the used towel into the receptacle, and turned to Miss Rivers.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Katherine Lindsey, only do call me Kat. That is how my family and friends address me, and I have a suspicion you and I will be great friends, indeed.” She extended her hand.

  The tall woman hesitated and then dropped the hankie and clasped Kate’s hand in a reassuringly firm shake. “I’m Caledonia Rivers, but I prefer Callie. Caledonia sounds rather fierce, I think.”

  Breaking hands, Miss Rivers crossed to the settee and sank down on the velvet-covered cushion. Eying it, Kate confirmed it was, indeed, the same drab pink as the smirking blonde’s ugly gown.

  “Then it suits you. You were fierce—and splendid.” In no hurry to leave her hideaway to return to the madding crowd, Kate settled onto the cushion beside her. “We’re both rebels in our way, you because of your politics and I because of my refusal to become leg-shackled to some man simply because every woman of a certain age and station is told she must marry.”

  Shoulders drooping, Callie admitted, “True enough, only I feel such a fool. I shouldn’t have lost my temper as I did.”

  Kate resisted the impulse to wrap her arm about the woman’s shoulders as she would have done her own sister. But alas, they were British, after all, and the nearest thing to strangers.

  “Nonsense, you’d every right to give that lot the dressing-down you did, but then again, I’m known to have a bit of temper myself.” There was an understatement. The past month, she’d smashed a crockery bowl and two vases after learning of her father’s latest spree. “As to the rubbish about your gown and looks, pay it no heed. You’ve managed to draw the undivided attention of every male in the room—the breathing ones, at any rate.”

  Turning to face her, Callie sent her a knowing look. “Not quite every male, I should think.”

  Kate felt warmth rush to her cheeks and knew the flush had nothing to do with her earlier tears. She was blushing.

  “If you’re speaking of Mr. O’Rourke, I assure you I’ve done nothing to encourage him.” It seemed being a mature woman of almost twenty-seven hadn’t yet afforded her the invisibility she’d hoped.

  Callie shook her head and smiled. “It would seem you need do nothing at all. He is quite clearly smitten.”

  Kate tapped her gloved finger against her lips, thinking yet again about how nice it might be to kiss him, only not in the middle of a ballroom floor, but rather someplace private—and dark. Rather than risk betraying herself, she shifted the subject to her new friend. “Hmm, I rather think the same could be said of Hadrian. Mr. St. Claire, I should say.”

  The suffragette’s green eyes widened, the irises a slightly paler shade than Mr. O’Rourke’s, more of a jade color, whereas the Scot’s were a deep, rich emerald. Dear Lord, was she truly mooning over a man’s eyes? How unlike her. She could almost believe he’d used their brief time on the dance floor to hypnotize her. She wasn’t acting at all like her capable, practical self.

  “That’s why you look so familiar. Why, you’re one of his PBs, Professional Beauties, aren’t you, his best seller?”

  Kate shrugged, not sure whether to be flattered or embarrassed at being so recognized. A bit of both, she supposed. “It’s a great deal of stuff and nonsense, but
then again, it pays the accounts.”

  Uh-oh. She must be off her game, indeed, to let that last bit slip out. Ladies in her position weren’t supposed to permit sordid matters of custom entry into their pretty, empty heads. Fearing she might give more of herself away if she lingered a deux, she popped up from her seat. “Shall we go back in? I for one could do with a drink.”

  Once she’d gotten home and deposited her father, fully dressed, into bed for the night, Kate had hoped to find solace behind the closed door of her bedroom, but such was not to be. Crossing the threshold, she found Beatrice, Bea, waiting for her inside.

  Long legs tucked beneath her night rail, her sister scowled at her from the foot of the bed. “It’s not fair that you got to go and I didn’t.”

  Resisting the urge to point out that life, strictly speaking, wasn’t required to be fair, Kate bypassed the bed and crossed to the bow-front dresser. Peering into the mirror atop, she said, “We’ve had this discussion until I at least am blue in the face. You’re not out yet. You have four months before you turn eighteen, and then you may attend all the dreary formal functions you desire.”

  “But four months is an eternity.”

  Kate smothered a smile and reached up to remove her earrings. “It seems so now, but the time shall fly by before you know it.”

  In the interim, there was at least one more payment due her from Mr. St. Claire. Sales of the cartes postales continued to be brisk, and of the PBs whose photographs he stocked, she remained his best seller. She hoped that would continue. Those yet-to-be realized funds were already marked for the dressmaker. To come out, a young lady must be properly turned out. Even if family pride was not at stake, she wouldn’t see her sister go about looking like someone’s country cousin or poor relation. The good news was she doubted Bea would require more than one season before a match was made. Coltishly tall, slender, and blond like their mother, Bea was a pretty girl who promised to bloom into a beautiful woman. If only she might grow some sense to accompany her fine looks.