Dangerous 01 - Dangerous Works

by Caroline Warfield

  “This thing? Thing? He calls our relationship a thing?” The smug tyrant! She nursed anger almost through dinner. Dining alone, however, makes one vulnerable to disordered thoughts. Anger gave way to morose introspection.

  “What would you call it then,” a voice in her head demanded. “Can you give it a name suitable for a London drawing room? I image Dunning could give it a name, but it wouldn’t be suitable.”

  “We’re partners.”

  “I think not.” The voice grew sardonic.

  “He may not think so, but I say we are.” I don’t make love to business partners.

  Internal voices, luckily, don’t make rude noises. They do conjure images of clean linen sheets, disheveled black hair, and laughing ebony eyes.

  The afternoon shook her badly. Jamie knew. Richard’s eyes and ears, Jamie, knew. Worse, Dunning knew. Will he tell his grandmother? She didn’t think he was a gossip, but he was very close to Edwina Potter. How she would look to the people of Cambridge, a woman alone with her books, when rumors about her relationship with Andrew became painfully clear.

  “You think he’ll stay in Cambridge after this?” Internal voices do ask uncomfortable questions. It was one thing to make a pariah of herself and another to ruin his reputation.

  She slammed down her hand. Damn it. Men aren’t ruined by a discreet affair. They are congratulated! That may be so in London, in her parents’ world. She wasn’t so sure about Cambridge with its inbred social structure and middle-class values. She had already sullied his scholarly reputation.

  And if Jamie runs to Richard, what then?

  She looked down the length of gleaming mahogany, empty save for a grotesquely ornate silver candelabrum and her half-empty wine glass. She thought of Andrew’s house, full of his friends, his warmth, and his laughter. Soon Helsington and its splendors will be gone, sold to Colonel Warrington who brought a new bride to this place. Perhaps the Warringtons would give this silent mausoleum life.

  Georgiana pushed away her dinner, half eaten. Soon she would eat her solitary meals on a smaller, rougher table. She wondered if solitude felt less oppressive when it occupied less space. Yesterday the little house on Sheep Street meant freedom. Tonight it just sounded empty.

  “Do you plan to spend the evening leaning on your chair? You can’t avoid the book that way.” The voice again.

  Georgiana pretended not to notice William who pretended not to watch her. He’d be gone in a week along with the candelabrum and the mahogany table. Her maid had left for her sister’s in Surrey the day before. It didn’t matter. Her servants were too well trained to invisibility to provide any sort of human comfort.

  She began to pick up her plate, but William was too quick for her. As long as he remained at Helsington, she wouldn’t carry her own dishes.

  Georgiana ran out of excuses. She climbed the steps with feet of lead to the book waiting in her sitting room where she had left it the day before, her life’s work in a leather-bound package.

  “What are you afraid of? Mockery?” The voice sneered at her now. “It is a book, fool.”

  She wasn’t afraid. Fear was nonsensical.

  Gilt letters shown up at her: “An English Lady of Scholarship.” It seemed as if her life amounted to nothing else but what could be encapsulated in that neat turn of phrase. The leather-bound volume represented her adult life. What if it is terrible?

  She picked it up and caressed the smooth cover.

  “The assistance of A. Mallet.” Andrew. They had done this work together; it was part of both of them. She saw with sudden clarity why she avoided reading it.

  Grief terrified her, not failure. Failure could be faced. When they had the work, Georgiana understood what lay between them. She held the finished product, their creation, in her hand. She didn’t know what they shared now that they had finished it.

  Georgiana brought her solitary candle and the book to her bedchamber. She placed both on the table next to her bed and began to undress. She picked up the book and slipped between the sheets alone.

  “Your intentions?”

  Black eyes radiated death in the general direction of Major Lord James Phineas Heyworth.

  “Honorable,” Andrew snapped.

  “And?” Jamie continued.

  “She won’t have me.”

  “It didn’t seem to me that the lady lacked interest.”

  The look of death intensified.

  “Am I correct in my assumption that our Georgie is utterly compromised?” Jamie went on.

  “Only if she chooses to be,” Andrew replied. It came out as a growl.

  “Or if word were to get out,” Jamie pointed out.

  “It won’t. Not from me, not from Harley, and not,” Andrew spat, “from you. I would see you dead first, slowly and painfully.”

  “You would too. Do you plan the same fate for Dunning?”

  Mallet’s curses would have been at home on the docks of any Mediterranean port. He had tried to overlook the detail that Geoff, though not a malicious gossip, was careless. Georgie couldn’t avoid this. She would have to marry him. Still, Geoff had come at the very end. He saw that they had been alone, but perhaps he thought they were working. Fool! The truth was clear all over Georgiana’s face.

  Andrew felt as though a large pole had hit him over the head.

  Jamie looked more amused than sympathetic. “Banns on Sunday?”

  “Georgiana informed me that banns are tantamount to shouting to her parents. She believes they’ll bring hell to pay on the shire.”

  “There’ll be hell to pay, in any case.”

  “I know that. She knows that. She wishes as little humiliation from her parents as possible. You know the Haydens. Picture the kind of humiliation she fears.”

  “Special license?”

  “To paraphrase the lady, the Archbishop of Canterbury is a cousin. York is her uncle, and Winchester her father’s boon companion. Special license is tantamount to banns.”

  “Gretna?”

  “Cowardly, cold, and undignified at our age.”

  “License it is.” The little baron stretched his shoulder, an uncharacteristically smug expression spreading slowly across his face. “It will feel good to be of some use for once.”

  Andrew looked at him quizzically.

  “Allow me to introduce you to my grandmother’s brother, the Bishop of Ely,” Jamie said through a widening smile, “who dislikes Sudbury sufficiently to enjoy thwarting him and is advanced enough in age not to care what Canterbury might say or do.”

  Andrew greeted this marvelous speech with a hoot of laughter. He hadn’t intended to enact his personal drama for an audience, but it seemed there might be advantages. A smile began to evolve deep in his dark eyes.

  Jamie’s self-satisfied grin answered back. “Shall we leave tomorrow or allow the lady one day to reconsider?”

  Andrew’s face fell. “Let’s allow her a day to get comfortable with it. It has to be her choice. Georgiana’s stubbornness might be a hurdle, but she will come around. She has no choice.” Andrew shuddered at the thought.

  Glasses clinked in agreement. Companionable silence stretched a while before the baron spoke again.

  “Hell to pay for certain, if not before then after. I presume your funds are safe?”

  Mallet nodded. He was a careful man. “Sudbury can’t touch me. I’m unlikely to be considered for a University post in any case, so he can’t harm me there. I can afford a wife.”

  “Humiliation is a Hayden specialty usually reserved for sworn enemies and family members. I can see where she’d want to avoid it. Is that the rub then?”

  “That and marriage itself I think. Mostly she is angry with me and with Richard for things that happened long ago.”

  “Your sudden wish for an army career?”

  Andrew didn’t expect insight from Jamie. “That, yes. Claims we arranged her life for her.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “There wasn’t any choice at the time, but she thin
ks she should have been given one.”

  “No logic. Females don’t have choices. May not be right, but it’s the way it is.”

  “We don’t either, come to that, not all the time. Still, they have a right to their own lives. She has a point. She also has some maggot in her brain about our love being something rare, fragile, and on some illusive higher plane than marriage.”

  “Isn’t it? Passions don’t last.”

  “Fragile doesn’t equate to long-lived, I agree, but she can’t see past it. I want old age by the fire, care for one another, and work we share—the entire thing, not just a piece of it.”

  “If she’s going by what passes for marriage for her parents and their crowd, she probably doesn’t know there is such a thing. Hell, I’m not sure I know there is such a thing. Still, if it is what you want, I’m ready to fetch the license. Just say when.”

  Richard Hayden, the Marquess of Glenaire, was an orderly man. He arrived at his desk at Whitehall precisely at seven-thirty, just as he did every morning. He reveled in the quiet at that hour, and he used it to read dispatches. By ten, those seeking his good will began to fill the halls, and the importuning began. He listened to most, giving ear to the problems of returning soldiers first and the ambitions of fribbles last.

  He left Whitehall precisely at one to walk to lunch at his club. He stepped out of Horse Guards into the dull sun of a brisk autumn day and began his familiar walk to Saint James Street, exactly as he did most days.

  Today, he skirted the canal along its north edge and noted with disapproval the urchins playing in its dirty water. Saint James was a royal park. Urchins didn’t belong there; he disapproved. The walk to the Marlborough Gate, he noted with satisfaction, had been cleared of leaves and debris this morning. Glenaire was a careful man. All men should be careful about their work. In a world well run, they would be.

  He climbed Saint James Street, thin of people as it often was in early afternoon. A small cluster of young men gathered in front of a storefront which was unusual. It appeared to be Franklin’s bookstore, just below White’s. A modest little store, it never attracted much notice until now. He began to step into the street to avoid the unseemly scuffle when a young man emerged from the store with a familiar looking volume under his arm. His fellows gave up a cheer. “You got one!” One shouted, “M’mother insists on a copy. Say you’ll sell it to me.”

  Glenaire looked more closely at the book with its leather cover and familiar gilt letters. Poetry by Women. Damn!

  Moments later he was in a hackney on his way to Fleet Street. A very red-faced clerk greeted him. Mr. Bailey was out. The clerk blurted out a confession without waiting to be asked. He incoherently confessed to misunderstanding the situation.

  The clerk had put most of the books in storage as requested, but he assumed Bailey only did that because he thought it wouldn’t sell. Print copies were never held back. He had sent a small batch to Hatchard’s Bookstore and been startled when they requested more copies. Several other stores requested copies the same morning, and he didn’t discover his error until he went in to tell Bailey about their success.

  “Mr. Bailey was right angry. He said it was my job if the client wants me fired.” The man looked at Glenaire with fear. Bailey had already gone to Cambridge. Prefers to face Andrew rather than face me. Glenaire smiled grimly. Wait until he meets Georgiana.

  Glenaire loathed having his orderly existence disrupted, but he had little choice this time. He would assess the situation at Mountview and then go to Cambridge himself.

  Chapter 25

  Georgiana leaned against the crisp linens of her narrow bed. The candles burned low when she finally finished reading and ran her hands along the gilt edges of the pages. She read the gold letters on the cover one more time in the sputtering candlelight, Poetry by the Female Authors of Ancient Greece. Her book. Her work. Truly. Andrew hadn’t lied.

  A small smile teased the edges of her mouth.

  Every word in every verse, showcased in Mr. Bailey’s exquisite print face, was the same carefully honed translation she had completed. The light of their conversations had finally given her what she needed to bring years of struggle to perfect flower. The choice of words, even Nossis’s roses, was left exactly as she had decided it would be.

  She recognized the commentary at once. They were her notes, his thoughts, and their discussions tied together with delicately crafted words that sounded like her own voice. The editor, Andrew, made his influence invisible, yet the words reflected their combined wisdom. She could no longer tell where she left off and Andrew began.

  Georgiana read the title page out loud to the silent room. “An English Lady of Scholarship.” Her graceful finger ran over the words. “Lady of Scholarship.” Years of her life captured in three words. “Scholarship.” She expected to be filled with contentment. She was not.

  Better by far to be “scholar” than “eccentric” or “oddity.” Better even than “Lady of Intelligence and Refinement,” but she feared that that was how her entire life would now be defined.

  She read on. “With the assistance of A. Mallet, gentleman scholar of Cambridge.” Without Andrew her work would be a paltry collection of half-baked notes and schoolboy translations, a private eccentricity. Without Andrew, she would still sit alone in Helsington’s cold rooms, seeking work to fill her days and hours.

  Just as she did now.

  The last candle finally sputtered out. She sat alone in the dark. What a fool I’ve been! The book was his gift to her, a labor of love, and the true product of collaboration. It had been their gift to each other, just as making love was a gift to each other. She gave him pleasure. This afternoon she could see his pleasure, and the giving of it brought her tears of joy. She wondered if it was the same for him.

  Georgiana slipped deeper under the covers, but sleep eluded her. She turned once and then again, both agitated by and fixated with the thought that Andrew took joy in her pleasure.

  Gift and giver, neither was complete without the other. He had given her the book as a gift and with it an even greater gift. He had given her a choice. He presented her with the choice of whether they would sell their book or not. He would allow her the freedom to suppress the work that was as much his as hers.

  She ought to be elated, but the quiet pleasure she felt left no real contentment. He also offered her another choice, a harder bargain. He offered her his very self, but he would accept no less from her. Gift and giver, he demanded both. He wanted her life, but he wanted to give her his in return.

  Only a fool would spurn the pleasure he gave; only a fool would push away the promise of love and joy, only a fool would– Georgiana wasn’t a fool. She sat bolt upright in the dark, pushed back the covers, and leapt from the bed.

  The cold floor brought her to her senses. She couldn’t run off to his house this time, not with Jamie in residence. She couldn’t be sure of her welcome. She feared she may have waited too long. She didn’t know if his offer would still be open. For both of their sakes, it must be.

  Georgiana thought feverishly. Memories of their fierce, frantic passion flooded her. He wanted her that much was certain. “I don’t make love to business partners.” He wouldn’t go back to the way things were before, but he hadn’t proposed again. “You have to decide,” he had said. He wouldn’t ask again; she would have to do it.

  Shivering in the cold dark of her bedroom, she could almost feel his breath on her neck as it had been when he saw her to the door that afternoon.

  “Oh, it’s you, is it?” Harley’s grin undermined his attempt at severity. Her best glare, calculated to set down all encroachment, caused the grin to spread more widely. “Best come in and join them then.” Traffic to old Mr. Mallet’s house had been heavy.

  Breathe deeply! Georgiana followed her own advice, took a deep breath, and followed him in. She prepared herself for Jamie’s curiosity. There would be more where it came from.

  “The Lady Georgiana Hayden.” Harley’s voice did a
canny imitation of Chambers. He obviously enjoyed this.

  Four gentlemen rose to their feet and bowed in varying degrees of familiarity and respect. She took in the presence of Geoff Dunning, but her attention was diverted by a copy of Female Authors of Ancient Greece open on the rough brown table in front of a total stranger.

  She hoped she would find Andrew alone, hoped Jamie would have taken himself off to find her brother. She had been certain that she had the only copy of the book. Her eyes made that a lie. Andrew showed the book to Dunning and some stranger. The wretch!

  Andrew flashed a pained look her way and attempted to speak. “Lady Georgiana, may I present John Bailey. You know Dunning, of course,” he croaked in a cracked voice. “Bailey is—”

  “Honored to make your acquaintance.” The little printer beamed at her. “Mr. Mallet and I were just discussing this wonderful work and the unfortunate accident. I have come to offer my apologies.”

  Apologies? Whatever for, and what is he doing with my book? Wonderful! He found it wonderful? Her head spun; she sat down carefully, afraid she might fall. “I’m sorry, I–my book Mr. Bailey? How do you have my book?”

  “Sorry, sorry. That’s the point, isn’t it? I need to apologize.”

  “Bailey is the printer, Georgiana.” She remembered. Five hundred copies in Mr. Bailey’s warehouse.

  “My clerk, my lady, misunderstood. He thought we held the copies back to gauge the interest.”

  “He thought there would be none.”

  “Perhaps.” Bailey shrugged ruefully. “In any case, he sent a small batch of copies to Hatchard’s Bookstore the morning they were printed. By afternoon the store requested more, and other stores clamored for copies. He sent them all! The poor man was quite proud of his success and most remorseful when I explained what he had done. I set out right away to bring apologies, and warning.”