‘That’s quite enough, Mary,’ Miss Cranmore said sharply.
Amused by the maid’s scolding, his curiosity piqued by what he’d overheard, Crispin was about to interrupt Miss Cranmore’s determined monologue about the early-blooming tulips and enquire what had prompted her maid’s distress when the woman’s next muttering made his levity evaporate. He cast a startled look back at Mary, who replied to his questioning glance with a disapproving nod.
Gripping the hand Miss Cranmore had laid on his arm, he picked up the pace, walking her away from Mary, who for once seemed content to have her mistress spirited away.
‘You had Mary purchase gentleman’s clothing?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Is that true?’
Not meeting his eyes, she said in an exasperated tone, ‘Mary shouldn’t comment about what is none of her business.’
‘Keeping you from harm is her business. You’re not... Please assure me you’re going to try to sneak my sister into Tattersall’s!’ Recalling Lady Margaret’s chatter yesterday about the unfairness of men having exclusive clubs into which they could retreat, he added, ‘Or worse still, try to gain admittance to a gentlemen’s club!’
‘Of course not!’ she replied, her surprise too genuine for him to doubt. ‘I’d never do anything to put your sister in harm’s way.’
Relieved, he retorted, ‘It’s more likely she would try to persuade you into doing something that would put you at risk. Or threaten to do something so outrageous that you felt it necessary to go along to protect her. I know you like her.’
‘I do like her. So I would never let her manoeuvre me into letting her do something rash.’
‘Thank Heaven. Then what do you intend to do with boy’s garb?’
‘What makes you think I shall do anything with it?’
‘So you don’t deny you had her procure some?’
She gave a huff of frustration, knowing he’d just caught her out. ‘It wasn’t good of you to try to trick me. But I assure you, my intentions are perfectly respectable.’
Crispin gave her a disbelieving look. ‘Having you wear male attire anywhere but hidden away in the country—and probably not even there—could never be respectable. Besides, Mary must be quite worried if she let me overhear her scolding. She’d never have betrayed you otherwise. She must hope I might be able to talk you out of whatever it is you are planning. So—what are you planning?’
Still silent, she looked at him resentfully, but he just shook his head. ‘I’m not going to leave until you tell me, so you might as well do it straight away. If I sit on the doorstep for too long, Lady Arlsley will be making enquiries as well.’
‘Oh, very well. But you must promise not to tell anyone.’
‘I can’t in good conscience promise that until I know what it is. But I do promise to hear you out—and not betray you unless I think what you’re planning will truly put you in danger.’
Probably realising that was the best bargain he would offer—and that he would indeed refuse to leave until she confessed to him—she said, ‘I so sympathised with your sister when she complained that men have all the freedom, while women are restricted from going so many places, including venues that are useful and quite harmless, like Tattersall’s. Then...an opportunity arose that was so enticing, I just couldn’t bring myself to overlook it.’
‘If it were an opportunity you could safely take, you wouldn’t need to disguise yourself in men’s garments,’ he shot back.
‘But it would be safe. Entirely safe! There’s a lecture to be held tomorrow at the Institution of Civil Engineers. Unfortunately, as with the Royal Society meetings, only gentlemen are admitted. Papa told me at tea yesterday that George Stephenson himself will be speaking.’
She sighed, her eyes alight. ‘George Stephenson! Imagine, being able to listen to the man who invented the first workable railway carriages and constructed the first commercially successful railway! Who pioneered the design of iron and masonry bridges, developed standards for the correct degree of slope and turn for railway tracks. Who designed the multi-arched skew bridge at Rainhill! Papa had been given admission tickets, but has a consultation with a potential investor and won’t be able to use them. So, when Mr Gilling called him away to answer a question I... I slipped them out of the drawer and put them in my reticule. And had Mary procure me a suit of clothes.’
Crispin shook his head. ‘You can’t be seriously contemplating trying to get into the meeting dressed as a boy!’
‘Why not? I only need to kit myself out properly, present my admission ticket, find a seat at the back of the room and remain unobtrusive. Even you must admit it will be a perfectly respectable gathering.’
She was so aglow with enthusiasm, he hated to discourage her, but he could see nothing resulting from such a rash stunt but catastrophe and embarrassment. Trying to let her down gently, he said, ‘You will have to speak to the doorman who admits you, to the person who takes your ticket, and probably extend polite greetings to other members who happen to be nearby when you come in. Don’t you think someone will ask you where you are from, with whom you work? Any one of those could recognise your voice as feminine. Now, walk ahead of me.’
Looking puzzled, she angled her head. ‘Walk ahead?’
‘Just walk,’ he ordered.
With an exasperated expression, she turned and proceeded away from him.
He shook his head. The idea was madness. Heat flashed through his body at the mental image of seeing the swaying hips now sending her skirts fluttering outlined by a tight-fitting coat. He dared not let himself think what her trim derrière and shapely legs would look like in a figure-revealing pair of trousers.
‘You can stop now.’ As she turned back to him he said, ‘You’d never get away with it.’
‘Why not?’ she demanded.
‘You walk like a woman, for one,’ he said shortly. He took a step accompanied by an exaggerated swing of his hips and watched as her face coloured.
‘Oh. I see.’
‘It’s not just your walk. Only consider. You appearing there, a person unknown to any of the members, a stranger who doesn’t attempt to speak with anyone, would immediately draw attention and excite speculation. Being scientific gentlemen, the members would almost certainly wish to satisfy their natural curiosity, forcing you into conversation, with every word you utter and every half-truth you invent about your background bringing you closer to discovery and disaster. Think of the embarrassment—for your family, if not for you. The humiliation to your father.’
She stopped beside him, her eager expression fading as his arguments sank in. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said dully after a moment. ‘Ah, but how much I’d like to go! It would be an experience I would remember for ever, the highlight of my life. It’s only a lecture, a few hours of time. But for one who will never be allowed to study at university, never permitted to practise as an engineer herself, could I not have at least those few hours to treasure?’
As tears formed in the corners of her eyes, Crispin felt terrible. He wouldn’t change her into a man even if he could—what a waste of beauty that would be—but he did wish with all his heart that it wasn’t imperative to prevent her from committing this folly. That there was a way to allow her the treat she longed for.
Knowing there was nothing he could offer to make up for its loss, he was struggling to think of a sympathetic reply while she impatiently swiped the tears from face. ‘I suppose that’s it, then. Unless...’
She rounded to face him, her eyes once again bright with excitement. ‘You are probably right. If I were to go by myself, I’d be forced to have a minimum of conversation. I couldn’t just slip in and remain unnoticed. But if I were to trail along behind someone else... Someone with a well-known interest in railways, someone of importance who would become the focus of everyone’s attention, the obscure young clerk attending with him would be ignored.’
‘No,’ he said flatly.
‘At least consider it!’
‘I wouldn’t bring a mere clerk, who could have little interest in the lecture.’
‘I could be...your young cousin from the country, who’s become interested in railways because of your investments. Your bashful country cousin who has little to say for himself.’
‘No.’
‘Please! I’ll practise in front of a mirror so I can stay straight as stick as I walk. I’ll keep my head down and mumble and slip into the background. The other engineers will be curious to meet you, talk with you. They’d have no interest in a bumbling young cousin who has neither expertise nor money to invest. And...and if the ruse were discovered, you could say you’d done it on a lark. Or a wager! Everyone knows society gentlemen agree to do all sorts of outrageous things on a bet. Even then, no one would discover who I really am. And none of the engineers travel in your social circles, where they might comment on the escapade to someone who knows you. They might shake their heads over you showing such a lack of respect for their organisation, but no one would be offended enough to refuse accepting your investment in their next venture. It could work!’
‘Even if I agreed, how do you think you’d manage to don your “costume”? You could hardly dress in gentlemen’s attire in your own bedchamber—assuming Mary would let you out the door—and then waltz down the stairway and out into the street without some gawking servant noticing you.’
‘I intend to bring the garments to Father’s office. Walk out with him when he leaves for his consultation, circle around to the back entrance and change in the storeroom, then exit the same way. The room contains just surveying equipment and measuring rods, so unless there is an active survey going on, no one goes into it. Please say you’ll do this! Whatever happens, even if I should be discovered, no harm will come to you, and there’s only a very small chance that my true identity would be discovered to embarrass my family. I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want this, perhaps my one chance to attend a scientific lecture. Please?’
Her pleading face was hard to resist. What he’d read of Miss Jacson’s book and her eloquent comments about the discrimination against education for women made it impossible for him not to sympathise with the restrictions that restrained her. It would be such a small thing—one lecture stolen from the whole realm of study denied her.
He was an idiot to even consider it.
While he dithered, trying to get his tongue to produce the refusal his common sense told him was imperative, her expression altered again, from eager to guarded. ‘Never mind, Dellamont. I shouldn’t have asked. Please forget that I did.’
Her swift change from entreaty to capitulation set alarm bells clanging in his head. ‘Promise me you’re not going to attempt this on your own.’ When she said nothing, merely gazed into the distance, he repeated, ‘Promise me!’
‘I can’t,’ she burst out. ‘It’s bad enough that my options are reduced to marrying someone in order to remain close to the work I love, that I’m barred from practising the trade even though I know I would do an excellent job, as good as Austin or any of Father’s engineers. It’s one small chance to seize something for my own. Besides, I don’t see how it could be that disastrous. Even if I were discovered and word of it reached my sponsor—though I can’t imagine how it could, since no one from the ton would be attending the lecture anyway—if my Season were to be abruptly ended, that would be fine with me. If I were caught out, I’d probably just be escorted out with heavy disapproval. No one there knows me and I doubt I’d be forced to reveal my name, so my family wouldn’t be shamed. But instead of being passive, responding only to what others do, for once I could take the initiative and do what I wanted. I might even succeed.’
‘You’re going to do it anyway.’
She nodded. ‘I think I will. I think I must.’
Should he participate in this folly, if he couldn’t dissuade her? If he were present, he could at least protect her from abuse if she were discovered. He had to admit, he too would be interested in hearing Stephenson speak. He could do as she suggested, grandly announce his presence, make a short introduction of his ‘cousin’ and then monopolise attention, letting her recede into the background.
He was still an idiot to consider it.
But in the end, he was too worried about what might happen to her if she went on her own. While prudence screamed in protest and every instinct for self-preservation argued against it, he said, ‘Very well. I’ll attend and do my best to deflect any attention from you.’
She’d started walking back towards the house, but at that, she stopped short and turned to face him, her eyes going wide. ‘You will? Truly?’
‘Haven’t I told you several times—?’
‘That you never say anything you don’t mean?’ she interrupted. Running back to him, such a look of joy on her face that for a moment he forgot the enormity of the folly he’d just committed himself to, she cried, ‘Oh, Dellamont, thank you! I’ll never forget this!’
‘I should be clapped up in Bedlam. But if we’re going to do this thing, we’d better figure out how.’
Placing her hand back on his arm, she said, ‘Let’s walk, then.’
* * *
For the next half-hour, they considered and discarded plans of action, finally coming up with one he thought had a reasonable chance of not ending in disaster. As they finished the final circuit, she turned to him, smiling. ‘I’ll see you outside the back entrance to Father’s office tomorrow afternoon at three.’
‘I’ll wait until four. If you haven’t appeared by then, I’ll know something came up to prevent you.’
‘Yes. Any later, and we would miss the beginning of the lecture.’ She shook her head wonderingly. ‘I can hardly believe it. I shall actually be able to attend a meeting of the Institution and listen to George Stephenson speak. It’s a dream come true. I cannot thank you enough!’
Throwing her arms around Crispin, she went up on tiptoe and kissed him.
What she lacked in expertise, she made up for in enthusiasm. Response roaring through him, he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss, captivated by the honeyed taste of her, the rapture of pulling that luscious body close to his.
From a distant somewhere, a voice pitched with outrage seemed to be hailing them. As if suddenly awakening to what she’d done, Miss Cranmore stepped back abruptly, requiring him to release her.
‘Now, Mary,’ he heard her say, his wits still foggy with passion, ‘you mustn’t rail at Lord Dellamont. It was my fault.’
‘Sure and it was,’ the maid scolded, watching them from the turn in the pathway. ‘What will his lordship be thinking of you? If you wasn’t a lady grown, I’d take a switch to you. You come in now and let me fix your hair before it comes altogether unpinned.’
The glare Mary gave Crispin told him that Miss Cranmore’s accepting blame for the kiss hadn’t exonerated him completely. Standing with hands on hips, the maid waited for her charge to accompany her.
‘I’d better soothe Mary’s ruffled feelings, or she’ll not let me out of the house tomorrow,’ she told him softly, a thrill in her voice. ‘What an adventure it will be!’
‘I only hope it won’t end with me clapped up in Newgate,’ Crispin muttered. ‘Very well, I’ll bid you good day, Miss Cranmore,’ he said more loudly. Nodding to the maid, he walked towards the house.
As he passed Mary, she murmured, ‘You will protect her, won’t you?’
Surprised, he checked his step long enough to murmur back, ‘You can count on it.’
Giving her head a satisfied shake, the maid walked over to collect her mistress.
* * *
Still somewhat astounded by what Miss Cranmore had induced him to agree to, a few minutes later Crispin found himself back outside on the street. Their careful planning having ensured as much as possible that disas
ter would be avoided, he would worry no more about it.
And despite the risk of all the things that could go wrong, he felt himself catching Miss Cranmore’s enthusiasm, his thoughts turning instead to what a grand adventure it could be if all turned out right.
As long as he was able to steel his response to seeing her lovely body revealed in breeches. Fortunately, travelling to and from the meeting in his phaeton with his tiger up behind and sitting in the midst of a group listening to a lecture on bridge construction—with his ‘cousin’ dressed in male attire—ought to hold in check his desire to kiss her again.
Chapter Twelve
Precisely at three the following afternoon, Crispin pulled up his phaeton on the narrow alleyway behind Richard Cranmore’s engineering office. Telling his tiger to walk the horses back towards the street, he hopped down from the carriage and walked to the door to the servants’ entrance.
He trusted his tiger, but he’d rather the boy not know precisely where his passenger had come from—and have as little chance as possible to observe her walking.
A few minutes later, a slim figure emerged through the doorway. He halted, watching her as she walked towards him.
Even her brilliant smile couldn’t distract him from the effect of seeing her in male garb. Saints preserve him, she looked every bit as fetching as he’d feared.
The fashionable coat nipped in snugly at her waist, and though the tails belled out in the back to end below her thighs, masking her derrière, it was open in front to reveal trousers that hugged her belly and showed tantalising glimpses of her legs—her long, lovely, shapely legs. His mouth drying, his gaze traced them down to where the trouser legs topped polished shoes.
While he tried to unstick his tongue from the roof of his suddenly dry mouth, he noticed how stilted she was as she advanced towards him, obviously trying to remove the natural sway from her gait.
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