by Maya Rodale
When it came to women—well, suffice it to say his heart belonged to the newspaper and he was intent that no woman should capture it.
These three truths had taken him from being the scandal-borne son of an earl and his actress-mistress to one of London’s most infamous, influential, and wealthiest men.
Half of everything he’d ever wanted.
For an infinitesimal second Knight paused, hand on the polished brass doorknob. On the other side of the wooden door, his writers waited for their weekly meeting in which they compared and discussed the stories for the forthcoming issue. He thought about scandal, and sales, and other people’s drama. Because, given the news he’d just heard—a London Times reporter caught where he shouldn’t be—London was about to face the scandal of the year . . . one that threatened to decimate the entire newspaper industry, including The London Weekly.
Where others often saw disaster, Knightly saw opportunity. But the emerging facts made him pause to note a feeling of impending doom. The victims in this case were too important, the deception beyond the pale. Someone would pay for it.
With a short exhalation and a square of his shoulders, Knightly pushed opened the door and stepped before his team of writers.
“Ladies first,” he said, grinning, as always.
The Writing Girls. His second greatest creation. It had been an impulsive decision to hire Sophie and Julianna to start, later rounded out by Eliza and Annabelle. But the guiding rational was: Scandal equals sales.
Women writing were scandalous.
Therefore . . .
His hunch had been correct. The gamble paid off in spades.
The London Weekly was a highbrow meets lowbrow newspaper read by everyone, but the Writing Girls set it apart from all the other news rags by making it especially captivating to the women in London, and particularly attractive to the men.
To his left, Miss Annabelle Swift, advice columnist, sighed. Next to her, Eliza—now the Duchess of Wycliff—gave him a sly glance. Sophie, the Duchess of Brandon—a disgraced country girl when he first met her—propped her chin on her palm and smiled at him. Lady Roxbury brazenly took him on with her clear, focused gaze.
“What’s on this week, writers?” he asked.
Lady Julianna Roxbury, known in print as the Lady of Distinction and author of the salacious gossip column “Fashionable Intelligence,” clearly had News. “There are rumors,” she began excitedly, “of Lady Lydia Marsden’s prolonged absence from the ton. Lady Marsden is newly returned to town after she missed what ought to have been her second season. I am investigating.”
By investigating, she likely meant all manner of gossip and skulking about, but that was what Weekly writers did. Like the writers at The Times, but without getting caught.
No one else in the room seemed to care for the significance of a debutante’s whereabouts. Knightly barely did, he knew only that it would sell well to the ton. If the news covered one of their own, they talked about it more, which meant that more copies were sold just so people could understand conversations at parties.
To his right, good old Grenville grumbled under his breath. His irritation with the Writing Girls was never far from the surface. If it wasn’t the deep, dark inner workings of Parliament, then Grenville wasn’t interested.
“Annabelle has quite the update,” Sophie interjected excitedly. “Much more interesting than my usual news on weddings.”
Knightly turned his attention to Annabelle, the quiet one.
“My column this week has received more letters than any other,” she said softly. She held his gaze for a quick second before looking down at the thick stack of correspondence on the table and a sack on the floor at her feet.
He wracked his brain but couldn’t remember what she had submitted—oh, it had been late so he quickly reviewed it for errors of grammar and spelling before rushing it straight to the printers. Her work never required much by way of editing. Not like the epics Grenville submitted or the libel Lady Roxbury often handed in.
“Remind me the topic again?” he said. Clearly, it had resonated with the readers, so he ought to be aware of it.
She blinked her big blue eyes a few times. Perplexed.
There was a beat of hard silence in the room. Like he had said something wrong. So he gave the room A Look tinged with impatience to remind them that he was an extremely busy man and couldn’t possibly be expected to remember the contents of each article submitted the previous week for a sixteen-page-long newspaper.
But he could feel the gazes of the crew drilling into him—Owens shaking his head, Julianna’s eyebrows arched quite high. Even Grenville frowned.
Annabelle fixed her gaze upon him and said, “How to attract a man’s attention.”
That was just the sort of thing Weekly readers would love—and that could lead to a discussion of feelings—so Knightly gave a nod and said, “Good,” and inquired about Damien Owens’s police reports and other domestic intelligence. The conversation moved on.
“Before we go,” Knightly said at the end, “I heard a rumor that a reporter for The London Times has been arrested after having been caught impersonating a physician to the aristocracy.”
Shocked gasps ricocheted around the room from one writer to another as the implications dawned. The information this rogue reporter must have gathered from the bedrooms of London’s most powerful class . . . the fortune in suppression fees he must have raked in . . . If information was power, suddenly this reporter and this newspaper held all the cards.
There was no way the ton would stand for it.
“That could explain so much . . .” Julianna murmured thoughtfully, her brow knit in concentration. “The broken Dawkins betrothal, Miss Bradley’s removal to a convent in France . . .”
This only supported Knightly’s suspicions that there would soon be hell to pay. Not just by The London Times either.
“Why are you all looking at me?” Eliza Fielding, now the Duchess of Wycliff, inquired.
“Because you were just famously disguised as a servant in a duke’s household,” Alistair Grey, theater reviewer said, with obvious delight. Eliza grinned wickedly.
“I’m married to him now, so that must grant me some immunity. And I am not the only reporter here who has gone undercover for a story. What about Mr. Owens’s report on the Bow Street Runners?”
“That was weeks ago,” Owens said dismissively.
“You were impersonating an officer,” Eliza persisted.
“Well, has anyone asked Grenville how he obtains access to Parliament?” Owens questioned hotly. All heads swiveled in the direction of the grouchy old writer with the hound dog face.
“I don’t pretend anything, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Grenville stiffly protested. “I sit in the gallery, like the other reporters.”
“And after that?” Owens questioned. “Getting ‘lost’ in the halls like a ‘senile old man’? Bribes for access to Parliament members?”
“We all do what needs to be done for a story,” cut in Lady Roxbury, who had once disguised herself as a boy and snuck into White’s, the most exclusive and male enclave in the world. “We’re all potentially on the line if authorities start looking into the matter. But they cannot possibly because then every newspaper would be out of business and we’d all be locked up.”
“Except for Miss Swift. She would be safe, for she never does anything wicked,” Owens added. Everyone laughed. Even Knightly. He’d wager that Dear Annabelle was the last woman in the world to cause trouble.
Chapter 3
What to Wear When Attracting a Rogue
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
I deplore today’s fashions for women, which play to men’s baser instincts. Unfortunately, Gentlemen do not seem to share my dismay. I fear for the civilized world.
Signed, A Lady
The London Weekly
IF there had been the slightest doubt in Annabelle’s mind about the dire need to enact her campaign for Knightly’s attention, this afternoon’s events had dispelled it. Even if she’d been quaking with regrets, consumed by doubts, and feverishly in a panic about her mad scheme, her exchange with Knightly would have cleared her head and confirmed her course of action.
Mission: Attract Knightly must now commence, with every weapon at her disposal. It was either that or resolve herself to a lifetime of spinsterhood. The prospect did not enthrall.
The rest of the staff had quit the room; the Writing Girls stayed. Annabelle remained paralyzed in her place.
“He hadn’t read my column,” she said, shocked. Still.
She needed to say the wretched truth aloud. If she needed any confirmation of what Knightly thought of her—or didn’t—this was all the information she needed. Her own editor, a man paid to look at her work, didn’t even read it. If it weren’t for the thick stack of letters from readers, she might have flung herself off the London Bridge, that was how lonely it felt.
Lord above, it was mortifying, too. Everyone else knew why she sighed when Knightly walked in the room. She was sure they all knew about her inner heartache during her brief exchange with him. How could Knightly not see?
He hadn’t read her column, and it had been about him!
“Annabelle, it wasn’t that terrible. I’m sure he doesn’t read all of our work either,” Sophie said consolingly. “Certainly not my reports on weddings.”
“It’s not just that,” Annabelle said glumly. “No one thinks I am wicked.”
Julianna, who was very daring and wicked, grinned broadly. “So they shall be all the more speechless when it turns out you are! I loved your column on Saturday. Knightly may not have read it, but the rest of the town did. Your next course of action is being fiercely debated in drawing rooms all over town.”
“Indeed?” It was strange to think of strangers debating her innermost vexations.
“There seems to be two schools of thought,” Sophie replied. “One suggests that you simply confess to him your feelings.”
“I am terrified at the thought,” Annabelle replied.
“Then you may be interested in the other method . . .” Sophie paused dramatically. “Seduction.”
“I couldn’t possibly,” Annabelle scoffed. “That would be wicked, and you heard Owens; I never act thusly.”
“He’s an ass,” Julianna retorted.
Usually Annabelle would have admonished her friend’s coarse language. Instead, she said, “No, he’s right. I am Good. Therefore, I am not interesting. Why should Knightly take notice of me? There is nothing to notice!”
Wasn’t that the plain old truth!
The mirror dared to suggest she was pretty, but all Annabelle saw was a riot of curls that were best restrained in a tight, spinsterish bun atop her head. She did have lovely blue eyes, but more often than not kept her gaze averted lest she draw attention to herself. Furthermore, her wardrobe consisted entirely of brownish-gray dresses made of remnant fabric from her brother’s cloth-importing business. To say the cut was flattering or fashionable was to be a liar of the first order.
She might dare think people would see beyond her disastrous hair and hideous dresses. Most of the time she couldn’t.
“Oh, Annabelle. You are rather pretty—so pretty that he, like any red-blooded male, should notice you. Unless he’s not . . .”
“See, I am blushing at your mere suggestion!” Annabelle squeaked.
“We do have work to do,” Julianna murmured.
“What do your letters say?” Sophie asked, picking one up.
Annabelle scowled and grabbed the first one, reading it aloud.
“ ‘Dear Annabelle, in my humble opinion a low bodice never fails to get a man’s eye. It plays to their rutting instincts, which we all know they are slaves to . . . Betsy from Bloomsbury.’ ”
“A trip to the modiste! I love it.” Sophie clapped her hands with glee. But Annabelle frowned. Beggars ought not be choosers, yet . . .
“I want him to notice me for me; who I am as a person. Not just bits of me.”
“You have to start with certain parts. Then he’ll attend to the rest,” Julianna replied. “Come, let’s go get you a new dress.”
“You must wear it for my party later this week,” Sophie said, then adding the most crucial detail: “Knightly has been invited.”
The opportunity dangled before her like the carrot and the horse. Never mind that the analogy made her a horse. The facts were plain:
There was something she might try (thank you, Betsy from Bloomsbury) and an opportunity at which she might do so (thank you, Sophie, hostess extraordinaire).
She had made that promise to her readers, and it would be dreadful to let them down. She did so despise disappointing people.
Annabelle twirled one errant curl around her finger and mulled it over (Swifts were not known for their quick decisions). She supposed there were worse things than a new gown and a fancy ball. For her readers, she would do this.
Not one hour later, Annabelle was standing in the dressing room of Madame Auteuil’s shop. A previous customer had returned a lovely pink gown after a change of heart, and Annabelle wore it now as the seamstresses took measurements for a few alterations.
“I don’t think it quite fits,” she said. It wasn’t the size per se, for she knew it would be tailored to her measurements. It was the dress itself.
It was silk. She never wore silk.
It was pink, like a peony or a rosebud or her cheeks when Knightly spoke to her. She never wore pink.
The pink silk was ruched and cinched and draped in a way that seemed to enhance her every curve and transform her from some gangly girl into a luscious woman.
Annabelle wore simply cut dresses made of boring old wool or cotton. Usually in shades of brown or gray or occasionally even taupe.
The Swift family owned a fabric importing business, which dealt exclusively in plain and serviceable cottons and wools guided by the rational that everyone required those, but so few indulged in silks and satins. Blanche generously provided Annabelle with last season’s remnants for the construction of her wardrobe.
This silk, though, was lovely. A crimson silk sash cinched around her waist, enhancing what could only be described as an hourglass figure. It was a wicked color, that crimson.
Madame Auteuil stepped back, folded her arms and appraised her subject with a furrow of her brow and a frown on her lips. She had pins in her mouth and Annabelle worried for her.
“She needs a proper corset,” the modiste finally declared. “I cannot work without the lady in the right undergarments.”
“A proper corset fixes everything,” Sophie concurred.
“And lovely underthings . . .” Julianna smiled with a naughty gleam in her eye.
Annabelle began to do math in her head. Living as glorified household help for her brother and his sister meant that her Weekly wages went to her subscription at the circulating library and a few other inconsequential trinkets, and then the rest went into her secret account that Sophie’s husband had helped her arrange. It had been her one small act of rebellion.
“I’m not sure that underthings are necessary . . .” Annabelle began to protest. Silk underthings sounded expensive and no one would see them, so how could she justify the expense when she could have a few delicious novels instead?
“Do you have the money?” Eliza asked softly. She was a duchess now, but she’d had anything but an aristocratic upbringing or connections. She understood economies.
“Well, yes. But I feel that I should save,” Annabelle said frankly.
“For what?” Eliza asked.
“Something,” Annabelle said. Something, someday. She was always waiting and preparing for an event that never came—or had she mi
ssed it, given that she didn’t know what she was waiting for?
“Annabelle, this is that something,” Sophie said grandly. “You want Knightly to notice you, do you not?”
“And you have an occasion to wear it,” Eliza said, adding a dose of practicality.
“But he won’t see my unmentionables. Those needn’t be—”
“Well he might, if you are lucky,” Julianna said frankly. And lud, didn’t that make her cheeks burn! The thought made her entire body feel feverish, in a not altogether unpleasant way.
“Annabelle,” Sophie began, “you must think of fashion as an investment in your future happiness! That is not some silk dress, but a declaration that you are a new woman, a young, beautiful woman interested in life! And love!”
“But the underthings?” Annabelle questioned.
“I promise you will love them,” Sophie vowed. “You’ll see . . .”
In the end, Annabelle was persuaded to purchase one pink silk dress, one blue day dress, one corset that enhanced her person in ways that seemed to violate natural laws, and some pale pink silk unmentionables that were promptly stashed in the back of her armoire.
Chapter 4
Misadventures in the Ballroom
TOWN TALK
One is hard pressed to determine who is the more perfect specimen of an English gentleman: Lord Marsden or Lord Harrowby. Both are widely regarded as the catch of the season. Again.
The Morning Post
Ballroom of Hamilton House
ON the terrace, Derek Knightly leaned against the balustrade, gazing at the party raging within. This morning he had been in the warehouse hauling and tossing reams of paper upon which the next issue would be printed until his hands were filthy with dirt, dust, and ink and until his muscles ached from the exertion and his skin was damped by sweat. Damn, it felt good.
This evening he wore a perfectly fitted, exquisitely expensive set of evening clothes, made by Gieves & Hawkes, his tailor on Saville Row. He sipped the fine French brandy—the only thing the French were good for—and noted that it was a rare and excellent vintage.