She had been raised as a very proper young lady. She knew the rules of the society in which she lived, and gentlemen climbing into ladies’ bedrooms were decidedly outside those boundaries. And yet, she loved it. Perhaps she wasn’t such a proper lady after all. Perhaps she had one of those rebellious natures that would land her in scandal after scandal throughout her life. She hoped she would be sensible enough not to humiliate her family that way, but if she were so thrilled by something this forbidden, maybe she wasn’t.
After all, what if all her delight with Harry were due to his unorthodox courtship? Would she still find him interesting if he did come to call at the proper time? Would she still be intrigued if she knew his name, his family, his station, and his prospects? Or would she find him as boring and ordinary as all her other suitors if he were to behave in a more…boring and ordinary way?
“Joan,” she hesitantly asked her cousin later, as they walked through the park, “do you think it wrong of me to be so…” She paused, searching for the right word. “…so acquiescent to Harry’s attentions?”
Joan squinted at her from under her bonnet brim. “What do you mean?”
“Well…” Mariah lowered her voice. “It’s so exciting that he climbs the wall to see me. It’s even exciting that I don’t know what he looks like or what his full name is.”
“It certainly is,” her cousin said at once.
“But it’s wrong of him.”
“Oh, yes.”
Mariah frowned. Joan was being very agreeable. “But is it wrong of me to feel that excitement? Ought I not to be horrified, or scandalized?”
Joan snorted with laughter. “But you’re not!”
“I know, but do you think I should be?”
Joan stopped laughing and gave her a sideways look. “What do you mean? How could you help it?”
“I can’t.” Mariah sighed. “I just wondered if it’s truly wrong of me, if it makes me wicked or immoral.”
Her cousin rolled her eyes. “It makes you normal. Who would not be interested in such a man? I cannot think of anything a man could do that would be more intriguing. If I were so fortunate as to have an exciting suitor, I would revel in every lovely, scandalous moment of it, you may depend on it.”
Slowly, Mariah nodded. “Yes, I suppose.” She certainly couldn’t change the way she felt, and surely things like this only happened to a person once in her life. If nothing this exciting were to happen to her ever again, at least she would have this one delicious adventure. “Yes. You are right, Joan.”
“You needn’t sound so surprised. I am right from time to time.” Joan tilted her head. “But now that we’re agreed I’m a marvel of wisdom, will you tell me why, after all this time, you’re pondering questions of propriety? I thought we agreed it was highly improper and therefore utterly exciting.”
She had to smile at that. “No, you thought it was highly improper and therefore highly exciting. I think it’s intriguing and exciting and wonderful, but…can it be right to like something so improper?”
Joan stopped short. “You aren’t getting nervous, are you?” she whispered, her face blank with surprise.
“Nervous?” Her laugh did sound high and thin—nervous. “No,” she whispered back. “Not if by ‘nervous’ you mean ready to give up looking for him or not wanting him to come again. I only wondered what it said about me that I find him mysterious and fascinating instead of shocking and scandalous.”
Her cousin let out a breath. “I think he’s all of those things. And I’ve never even met the man!” Her face brightened. “Now there’s a thought! I could stay over at your house one night and sneak into your room after everyone has gone to bed. Then when he comes to see you, I could be hiding behind the curtains and leap out and catch him!”
Mariah stared at her in dumbstruck amazement before she burst out laughing. A moment later Joan followed, a mite sheepishly.
“Oh, Joan,” Mariah gasped, clutching her cousin’s arm. “Have you gone utterly mad? How did you plan to catch him?” She lowered her voice abruptly at the end, looking around anxiously, but no one was paying them any mind.
“I…I…I don’t know!” Joan said on a hiccuping giggle. “Borrow Papa’s walking stick and rap him around the ankles, or some such thing.”
Mariah wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Well, that would make it harder for him to climb down, I suppose.” The last of her amusement faded. “No, I think not.”
“I liked the idea,” Joan said with a sigh. “I’m quite perishing of curiosity, you know. If only he would come out in public where I might meet him, too.”
Mariah just smiled uneasily. She hadn’t told Joan that Harry had seen her out in public, even though he never approached her. It would be hard enough to keep herself in check, wondering if he might be at every gathering she attended, just out of her sight. It would be impossible if Joan were whispering in her ear about it every night.
And yet…something had to change. It was thrilling and intriguing and vastly flattering, but she simply had to find out more about the mysterious Harry—and it seemed the only way would be to ask him.
Chapter 11
“Tell me about your family, if you will not tell me about yourself.” Mariah clasped her hands in her lap, determined to learn something from Harry that night. He was sitting at the end of her bed, just far enough away that she could only make out the pale shape of his face above his white shirt. She didn’t ask why he wasn’t wearing a coat, even though it was another cool, foggy night. It seemed an artifice now, when she was wearing only her nightdress and dressing gown. And perhaps she had gone past the point of questioning anything he did.
“My family.” Harry leaned back against the bedpost and folded his arms. The muscles in his shoulders tightened in protest. Crane had kept him busy all day shelving and reshelving thick reference books on shelves high above his head, according to an ordering system that seemed to change by the hour. Harry’s daytime employment had grown so tedious, his late night visits to Mariah had taken on an importance beyond even his craving for her. At least with Mariah he was himself, just Harry, even if he must conceal so much from her.
But she wanted to know about his family. “What would you like to know?”
“Your sister,” she said. “You mentioned her the other night.”
When her fingers had traced every line of his face. When he had been close enough to see the pulse in her throat and smell the faint lavender scent of her skin. “Yes. Ophelia.” He hadn’t thought about his family in weeks. It was easier if he didn’t; he suspected his father would not approve of what he had chosen to do, and his mother would screech herself hoarse if she knew how many weapons he carried on his person at any time. “She is my younger sister,” he went on. “By five years. She is the wit of our family, and none of us are ever spared. When Ophelia is in a temper, we all run in fear, for she will tease us mercilessly.”
“And she is—is—”
“She was stricken by a fever when she was not quite three,” he said, guessing at the reason for her hesitation. “She was sick for nearly a week, burning with fever, unable to eat, taken in fits…” His voice trailed off, remembering that week. He had been a boy of eight and terrified out of his mind. “My father nursed her.”
“Your father?” she exclaimed.
“My mother was too overset.” He paused. “The doctor told her it was a very dangerous fever, and Ophelia would likely not survive. He recommended they leave and hire someone to care for her. My mother objected.” He paused again; his mother had thrown a pitcher at the doctor. He could still recall the sharp explosive sound it made as it hit the stone wall behind the astonished physician. “But my father took Ophelia in his arms—she was so small—and he carried her upstairs and bolted himself into the room with her. He wouldn’t open the door except to allow my mother to hand him fresh water and linens, and food.”
“That’s very unusual for a father,” said Mariah slowly.
“My fathe
r does not shy away from anything. He knew my mother was too upset.” Harry stopped. He remembered his mother pounding on the door, screaming for his father to let her in. He had hidden at the turn of the stairs and watched, cowed by the doctor’s somber warning and his mother’s hysteria. “He came out when she begged him to open the door and let her see her baby before she died,” he said quietly. “He held her until she calmed down and told her he would not let Ophelia die; and he would not let her in because of the danger she would catch the fever herself or give it to me or my sister, Fanny.”
“Fanny?”
Harry nodded. “She is two years younger than I.”
“Oh. And then—at the end of the week…?”
“Father came out of the room with Ophelia in his arms. The fever had broken at last, but she seemed to have shrunk, from a week not eating, and when she opened her eyes she saw nothing. It was a terrible blow.” Harry remembered thinking she might as well have died, the uncomprehending reaction of a child. He would never forget the sight of Ophelia standing in the middle of the kitchen, crying with frustration and fright because she could not locate her mother. Her blindness had been terrifying to him then. “My father removed everything from the room where she had been sick,” he went on. “He burned it all, even the clothes he wore while he tended her. And after that we had our heads and necks scrubbed every day whether we needed it or not, as a guard against fever.”
“He sounds a remarkable man,” Mariah murmured.
Harry smiled wryly. “Indeed.”
“And now, Ophelia…?”
“Is quite well. She has the keenest ears and most sensitive touch. We none of us can sneak up on her, and my brother George has tried mightily.”
Mariah perked up again. “George?”
Harry laughed. “Yes, the youngest of us all.”
“I always wondered what it would be like to have a brother or sister.”
“It is a great trial,” he replied, and told her all about his brother and two sisters, how they played pranks on each other endlessly, and stood together when an outsider tormented one of them. That was safe enough to share. Mariah would never picture a man who defied his father to join a troupe of traveling players instead of becoming a proper tailor; a woman who was disowned by her wealthy, respectable family for running off with a penniless actor; or four children who were raised in numerous towns across England, sometimes comfortably and sometimes not, sometimes on stage and sometimes working behind the curtain, before their father settled in Birmingham to manage a theater. At least he came by his gift for lies and impersonation honestly, Harry thought; he had been raised to it.
He looked around the shadowy chamber again, a room almost as large as some of the lodgings his entire family had shared at times. The carpets alone cost more than his father made in a year. It was like two different worlds, Mariah’s life and his, two separate planes of existence that never intersected. “Now tell me about your family,” he said, not wanting to think of the gulf that separated them.
“All right.” Mariah could feel his eyes on her, and she straightened self-consciously. It was easier to sit and listen to him talk, letting the quiet tenor of his voice swirl around her. He had a way of putting things that never ceased to make her smile. Once again she thought she could listen to him talk all night long. “My father is a confidant of the Prime Minister. These last few years he has been on government business abroad in foreign capitals. My mother also takes a keen interest in affairs of state, and she wished to go with him. They took me along because I threw a temper fit when they told me they were leaving.” She smiled awkwardly. “I was much younger then, of course.”
“Such a spoiled child.”
She blushed. “Well—perhaps a little. But I am the only child, and am fortunate enough to have very kind and devoted parents.” She hesitated again, remembering how well her parents had taken her refusal of Lord Hartwood’s offer. “But I suppose they do…indulge me more than is usual.”
“What is the usual indulgence, pray?”
He was teasing her again. She fiddled with the lace on her dressing gown, not in the mood for teasing. “I received an offer of marriage today,” she blurted out. “From a very eligible man.”
That silenced him. Mariah glanced up, even though it was too dark to see his expression.
“Should I offer my congratulations or condolences?” he said at last, all amusement—all inflection, in fact—gone from his voice. It was a flat, impersonal tone she had never heard from him.
She frowned. “Neither! I did not wish to marry him, nor even to have an offer from him. But it would have been a very eligible match, and my parents were both quite sanguine about my refusal. My father even laughed about it, afterward. That is how they indulge me. Not every parent would be so easy about it.”
“Perhaps they had some objection to the man and were relieved.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so, although my father did admit he was a bit of an idiot.”
“If they knew that, they must have known he was not right for you.”
“Many parents do not care,” she told him. “A title, a fortune, an illustrious connection…That is what they want in a daughter’s marriage, particularly when a daughter is as old as I am.”
“Perhaps they feel you are old enough to know your own mind.”
She smiled ruefully. “I have known my own mind since I was a child. ‘Willful,’ my governess once called me.”
“And why shouldn’t you know your own mind? Should you believe yourself incapable of it merely because you have a father to look out for you?”
“No,” she said slowly. “Of course not.”
“Did you not tell me yourself a woman is not a prize to be won? Wives should not be gotten by bargaining with the father, offering so much in settlements and requiring this much in dowry, when all that is wanted is her family alliance, her bloodline, and the heirs she can bear. A woman has hopes and dreams and affections just as any man does.” Mariah’s eyes widened in surprise. His white-sleeved shoulders rose again in another shrug. “Why should her desires not be as important as her family’s, or her suitor’s?”
“I—I am sure my parents do want me to be happy,” she stammered. “They would have been pleased, had I accepted him…”
“Why did you refuse?”
She stared at him. How could he not know? “Because I don’t love him.”
“How do you know?”
“Because—” Because I never longed to see him the way I long to see you. “Because I just know.”
“Ah.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m sure I’m very sorry for the fellow, but if he had not won your heart, it was a mercy that you refused him.”
Mariah thought about telling him it was his fault she had refused Lord Hartwood, that it was his fault she couldn’t begin to think of another man. But that would be a confession of feelings she wasn’t ready to admit. She found Harry intriguing and exciting and amusing, and she wanted him to keep visiting her—but beyond that she would not let herself think. She had no proof of his affection for her, and was just reserved enough to keep her uncertain affection to herself. In fact, she didn’t even know what she felt for Harry. How could it be love, when she didn’t know his name or anything about him? And yet, she did know it was more than mere interest or liking. If only she had some thought of his true intentions toward her.
“Don’t you think you’re a bit—a bit wicked?” she asked. The question had been burning inside her all day. If Harry thought his visits wicked, then she would have to be wicked for taking such pleasure in them. But if he could offer her any explanation that didn’t admit wickedness, perhaps her own conscience would be more at ease. And perhaps, just perhaps, it might prod him to reveal something more about his motives in coming to see her.
“Wicked? On what grounds?”
“Yes, wicked. To come see me like this.” She leaned forward and raised her chin in challenge.
“Ah.” He shifted
his seat on the mattress with a faint creak of the bed ropes. “I think ‘wicked’ is a word flung about with distressing ease. Our amiable conversation cannot compare to all the true wickedness in the world.”
“Then what do you think this is?” Mariah waved one hand to encompass her darkened room, their nearness, the intimacy of the situation. She felt driven to compel some declaration from him, of anything. Amiable conversation? What did that mean?
“I find it quite pleasant.”
“You enjoy climbing the ivy?” she said with a disbelieving huff.
“Especially climbing the ivy,” he declared. “I searched all London for an ivy-covered wall with a beautiful woman at the top…”
“Then what would be really wicked?”
“Why, wearing a waistcoat that doesn’t suit one’s complexion, I imagine.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “Something else you cannot tell me.”
He was quiet for a long time, then spoke again, more seriously. “What is wicked, you ask? A great deal, I answer. To say a man may not vote if he isn’t wealthy enough, and yet still expect him to support the government that gives him no voice. To pass laws keeping the price of wheat high for the benefit of landowners, when people in the cities are starving for want of bread. To declare swaths of society immoral and indecent because they are poor, and then do nothing to help them out of poverty. All those things are much more wicked, to my mind, than anything you’ve done.”
That was not what she had expected to hear. “You said you are not a reformer.”
He shrugged, a quick, slight action. “I dislike unfairness.”
“What would you change, then, if you could?”
“Many things.” His voice vibrated with an undercurrent of passion. Mariah leaned forward, wishing she could see him better. At the same moment, he moved forward, raising one hand, and she froze at his gossamer-light touch on her skin.
“Why were you in Whitechapel the other night?” she whispered. “When you saw that poor girl. Because you dislike unfairness?”
Harry’s fingers stilled on her cheek. “I was watching after someone.”
A View to a Kiss Page 12