by C. J. Archer
"Me?"
"Yes. You."
"Why me?"
Because you have amazing eyes and broad shoulders. She shrugged. "You were standing about, not doing anything in particular and...because you were watching me."
"I thought we cleared that up. I wasn't watching you." Amusement flared in those blue depths again. Min found it irritating, despite her attraction. "However if it pleases your playwright's fancy to think that I was, then go ahead and indulge in that fantasy."
Heat flared from her throat to her hairline. "Your eyes were pointed at me, Sir. And since my eyes are in perfect working order, I do not think I was mistaken."
He sighed and looked heaven-ward as if seeking a sign. He muttered something she couldn't hear then returned his gaze to her. "I wasn't watching you, I was watching your companion."
The sound of her vanity bursting momentarily filled her ears. Her heart dipped. It really was her own silly fault to have assumed he had been watching her. She was hardly the sort of woman to inspire a man like him to spend his afternoon staring at a stranger.
She tucked a stray lock of hair back into her hood. "Style? But why?"
He hesitated, just a little, then said, "I want to join his company."
"Lord Hawkesbury's Men? As what?"
He shrugged. "In any capacity. And it seems, madam, that you have helped my plight."
She didn't believe him. He didn't even know Style was the manager of Lord Hawkesbury's Men until she'd told him and now he wanted to work for Style's company? She wasn't a fool.
But why lie? What did this man have to hide?
And what had she got herself into by using him?
Whatever it was, it seemed only fair that he now use her. That would teach her not to think her schemes through properly before opening her mouth.
The stranger rubbed his stubbly chin, lost in thought. "Are you going to see Style again about your play?"
"Yes."
"When and where?"
"Why?" A sense of foreboding congealed in her stomach.
"Just answer the question."
"What if I don't want to?"
"Then I will follow you and tell your father or husband or whoever is head of your household that you have been consorting with theatrical types."
Her jaw hurt. She forced it to move so she could say: "Consorting?"
"They can put their own interpretation on the word." He blinked lazily.
Min wanted to scratch those too-blue eyes out, wanted to punch him on the chin like an insulted man would. But she wasn't a man and he wasn't like any man she'd encountered. He was much too magnificent a beast to respond to such pettiness. "Is your name Lucifer by any chance?"
His cheek twitched. "No."
She spun round and strode off, hating God, the devil and whatever witchcraft had sent this man to her. Walk away. Walk far away from him now. "I'm meeting Style back here tomorrow at this time," she shot back over her shoulder. By then she would be fully recovered from this girlish folly.
Her dramatic exit was ruined when he fell into step alongside her. "To make our ruse seem authentic," he said, "we'd best exchange names. I'm Blake."
A fat drop of rain exploded on her nose and she swiped it with her sleeve. "Is that a first name or last?" she said, flipping up the hood of her cloak.
"It's what you can call me. And you?"
More drops fell. She picked up her pace and headed for shelter. The overhanging upper stories of the houses and shops lining the narrow street provided perfect cover for London's fickle weather. The paved surface quickly became slippery and little rivulets began to trickle between the stones, bringing with it mud, horse dung and refuse from nearby Leadenhall Market. Min kept her gaze down and dodged the worst in her haste to reach dryness.
Suddenly a solid arm circled her waist and jerked her back into an equally solid body. "Watch it," Blake murmured in her ear. A barrel-sized man stumbled past, too intent on his wineskin to notice anyone or anything in his path.
Min looked once again into the eyes of her savior. No, not her savior. She really must stop thinking of him as that.
But he had just saved her from being knocked over and landing on her rear in the muck. And he was staring at her again, this time with an odd expression that she couldn't decipher.
She smiled tentatively and placed a hand on the arm that still held her snugly against his body. Beneath the leather doublet, she could feel thick muscle. Or was it padding? It was hard to tell so she squeezed. Definitely not padding.
He suddenly let her go with a grunt and glanced around as if looking for any more hazards. Raindrops splashed off his shoulders and plastered his hair to his face. "You should watch where you're going," he said.
She huddled into her coat but it was too thin and had too many holes to be effective against the damp. "Min."
His gaze shifted to her. Water dripped from the ends of his hair and lashes but he didn't seem to care. "Pardon?"
"You can call me Min."
"Min." She thought he would ask her about her name but he didn't. He bowed slightly. "I'll see you here tomorrow, Min." He turned back the way they'd come, his stride leisurely compared to the few remaining people who scurried like ants to get out of the rain.
Min raced off in the opposite direction, resisting the urge to look back at him. She wouldn't give into temptation. She still had enough self-control to resist the blue-eyed Lucifer.
Her resistance lasted all the way to the corner where she weakened and snuck a peak.
Blake was gone.
CHAPTER 2
Min found her father in his study exactly how she'd left him two hours before—bent over a book, his nose grazing the pages. Granted his nose was considerable in length but it looked as if he was trying to inhale the words rather than read them.
"Father, why don't you move closer to the window where the light's better. You'll hurt your eyes reading like that." She didn't suggest he light a candle—they couldn't afford the expense of wax ones and he refused to have any stinking tallow in the house unless absolutely necessary.
He didn't answer her, didn't even acknowledge her entry. She placed a hand over the book.
Sir George looked up, a frown on his forehead and a chastisement on his lips. Then he saw her and smiled. "Oh, it's you, Minerva."
"Who did you think it was?"
"Jane, telling me dinner is ready. That's how she usually attracts my attention."
"I've just seen Jane in the kitchen. Your dinner is there for you, where it has been for hours. She already told you it was ready, as did I before I went out."
"You've been out?" He removed his spectacles and scrunched up his eyes. "Where did you go?"
She removed a glove, careful not to spray droplets of rain over his papers. "I had a few errands to run."
"I trust you took Jane."
"She has enough work to do here. And anyway, I wasn't at the market so there was nothing for her to carry."
"Minerva. We've spoken about this." He rose and came round his desk to face her. Concern edged his tired eyes. "If you wish to go out, you must take a servant."
"Father, we only have one servant left and she's overworked as it is."
"Her work will be here when she returns." He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "What's got into you lately? You never used to go out alone."
True. She didn't. But so much had changed in the last year and the greatest of those changes had been to Min herself. "I'm older now and I wish to go out without a chaperone on occasion. Besides, we simply cannot spare Jane." Not since they had to let four other servants go. And certainly not since Min started going to the theatre as often as possible.
Her father's income from his one remaining benefactor simply couldn't stretch to five servants plus the large Blackfriars house. Retaining only one maid and moving to a smaller residence near Gracechurch Street had eased the burden, but for how long? What more could be done? Min made economies wherever she could and helped Jane with
her duties. The maid was in her mid-forties, advancing years for a domestic servant, and yet she was doing more than ever. It broke Min's heart to see Jane rub her back only to stop and smile at Min whenever she caught her watching.
They needed more money, but with only one patron, her father would never be able to fund the entire household. And Sir George wasn't likely to find any more noblemen willing to endorse him after he lost his own fortune plus the fortunes of several investors when the Lucinda May foundered on a reef on its maiden voyage with her father's latest invention on board. An invention that was supposed to determine a ship's position with absolute certainty and thus avoid such reefs. Of course, Sir George claimed his invention was accurate but the location of the reef on the maps was not. His investors weren't quite so eager to disparage the queen's map makers and so all funding came to an abrupt halt. Almost all. Min thanked Heaven for Lord Pilkington every day, even though he was unwilling to give more.
Once favored by the queen and touted by Drake as the man who would save thousands of lives and fortunes from sinking into foreign seas, Min's father was now considered a "high risk". As such, funds for his research dried up. In a world where the New Sciences were the latest fashion, her father was the hat that everyone wanted to wear last year but was now gathering dust in the bottom of a chest beneath newer, fancier hats. If it wasn't for Lord Pilkington, a somewhat stuffy and pompous viscount and her father's only remaining friend from their old life, they would be destitute.
"Have you been to the theatre again?" Sir George pointed his spectacles at her. "I've told you, it's a dangerous place for a lady."
"Many ladies attend the theatre, Father." Some of them are even respectable.
He tipped his head to the side. "Alone?"
She sighed. He was right. Why was it that the only thing to draw him away from his calculations and paperwork was something she'd wanted him not to notice? Fate was being particularly cruel—first Blake and now her father. What next?
"I do not entirely discourage you from attending the theatre, Minerva. I am an enlightened man and despite what some of the City's aldermen think, I believe the theatre is an innocent enough pastime for people of all ranks and sexes. But need I remind you, you are the daughter of a knight, and as such you should be accompanied to places like that?"
She should have known there would be a "but". There usually was when they spoke about the theatre or her writing of plays.
"So if you hadn't been knighted," she said, "I could have gone to the theatre alone?" She crossed her arms. "That is hardly fair."
"That is not what I'm saying. Do not twist my words." He sighed and shook his head. "Child, the theatre is full of vagabonds and disreputable men looking to stir up trouble."
"It is also full of nobles and knights and their daughters."
He put his spectacles back on and regarded her down the length of his nose with a stern eye that showed no signs of its former tiredness. Oh dear. She'd overstepped the boundary, the invisible line that once crossed, reminded her father that he was the master of their little family unit, even if an absent-minded one at times.
"I do think your time could be better spent here writing up my notes," he said, "but if you must go to the theatre on the odd occasion do not go alone anymore. I forbid it." He suddenly brightened. "Why not go with Ned?"
"Ned?" she spluttered. "But I'm not wed and he's neither my relative nor a servant. How is that appropriate?"
"I trust him."
He obviously hadn't seen the way Ned looked at her. Not surprising since her father was usually buried in his study when Ned came to pay his respects.
She shook her head. That wasn't entirely fair. Ned might have a tendency to speak to her breasts and not her face, but Sir George was right in that Ned was harmless enough. Perhaps that was his problem. He simply wasn't...interesting.
Now Blake was Interesting with a capital I. Interest throbbed from every inch of his flesh. She would be seeing him again tomorrow, with Roger Style. A little tingle whispered across her skin but she couldn't be sure if it was in anticipation of seeing Blake again or hearing what Style had to say about her play.
"Anyway," she added, "Ned doesn't approve of the theatre."
"That's why I find him a suitable companion for you. He'll be a steady influence."
Meaning she was prone to fancy? She was about to argue the point but, once again, he was right. She could sometimes be a very practical person like her father, but she had a strong poetic streak embedded deep within her. She could happily spend hours dreaming up stories. When once she used to sit by the window, now she helped Jane with the dishes or laying fresh rushes, any repetitive task that didn't require her mind to be present. Instead, it could wander to foreign lands and save kingdoms or meet princes. It certainly made the chores go faster.
All except the chore of writing up her father's notes, the one task she had to think about and the one task he noticed when it wasn't done. The dust could be as thick as her forefinger on the furniture and he'd say nothing, but if she failed to write up his notes from the previous day, he would subject her to a lecture about the duties of an educated daughter.
In the absence of a son, he had seen fit to have his only child tutored in the works of Ovid and Cicero amongst others. She'd been able to read Latin and Greek as well as any boy and had a solid understanding of mathematics by the age of thirteen. By eighteen she knew the works of astronomers Copernicus and Werner backwards. Sir George often reminded her that with an education and brain exceeding that of most men her duty was to use it to assist him in his research. God, and Sir George, would be offended by the waste otherwise.
Sir George returned to his chair, a sign he was finished with the conversation and wished to return to work. He picked up his book, scrunched up his eyes and peered at the pages. With a click of his tongue, he shifted his chair closer to the window but the light had faded considerably since Min's entrance and he tossed the book back onto the desk in disgust.
"Jane!" he bellowed. "Fetch candles. Wax not tallow. Min," he said, softer, "have you finished the paper I asked you to copy?"
The paper! Oh no. Min swallowed. "Not quite, Father."
"But you've had it for days." He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Very well, fetch what you've done and we can go through it together. I'm not entirely happy with it. Perhaps your fresh mind can see problems in the theory where mine can't."
"Ah... Yes. I mean, no, perhaps it'll be best if we go through it all when it's done. I'll have the complete picture then and it'll be easier to—."
Sir George's hand slammed on the desk. Min jumped. A scroll rolled onto the floor and ink sloshed over the side of an inkwell. "You haven't done it, have you?"
Min swallowed her retort about not being his slave. Her father's rare rages didn't frighten her the way they had when she was a child, but it wasn't wise to fan the flames. Best to let it blow over. He was usually as quick to calm as he was to flare, especially these days. He was simply too tired to stay angry for long. Or perhaps he knew that his temper wasn't as effective on her as it once was.
"That's twice now, Minerva."
"Twice? Twice what?"
"Twice that you've failed to deliver your work within a suitable time frame. And this time it appears you've not even started it."
"Father," she said in a placating tone, "I've been busy helping Jane with some of her chores and..." She bit the inside of her lip. It wasn't right to hide behind Jane. This was Min's doing, no one else's. She needed to own up to her passion, especially now that Style had agreed to read her play. "I've been writing."
"Writing! Ha!" He shook his head. "Poetry again I suppose?"
She linked her hands behind her back, twisting her fingers. "A play as it happens."
"Poetry, plays..." He pressed both his palms on the desk and half rose from his seat. Min expected an explosion of temper the likes she had never seen before. It didn't come. Instead he sat down again and sighed. "Minerva, you disappoint
me," he said heavily. "I had you educated by the finest tutors in modern thinking so you could understand my work and assist me when I needed it. And now that I need it," he removed his spectacles and rubbed the deep grooves of his face, "you choose to squander your time and intelligence on plays. If your mother had borne me a son, he could have continued my work after I depart this earth."
But a girl could not. And certainly not this girl. She simply didn't have his passion, his drive, for the New Sciences. Min willed her eyes not to moisten. When she knew her voice would be stable, she said, "Father—."
"No! No more excuses." His face flushed a dangerous shade of red. "I have been patient. I have allowed you your freedom, more than other fathers would. I have indulged your flights of fantasy but I will not do so anymore. Not to the detriment of what is important."
"Important?" Min nearly choked on the word. "My poetry is not important?"
"Will it change the course of the world? Will it save the lives of men? Will its benefits echo down the years?" He stabbed a finger on a map of the world spread out on one side of his desk. "My work will." He picked up a handful of notes and shook them at her with more vigor than he'd shown in months. It would have been heartening if it wasn't directed at her. "These pages will make history. Scientists will pore over my work long after I am gone and use them to leverage their own theories. My work will change the way future generations think."
Not a word about putting food on the table, paying Jane's wages or keeping a decent roof over their heads. It was about the world, and making his mark in it, and about the future.
But what about me? she wanted to shout. What about the present and the daughter who should have been wed by now? The one who'd been quickly forgotten by dozens of suitors only a year ago when her father lost her dowry and his reputation somewhere in the ocean off Newfoundland. The daughter who could still have been wed to safe, dull Ned Taylor but wasn't because her father wanted to keep her at his side as his assistant.