Focus rushed back into his face with sudden, cruel clarity. “My father’s, do you mean?”
“I’ve heard the gossip.”
“No,” he said flatly. “I’ve never wished him dead. He deserves to live on—in more misery than even your cousin could imagine.” He gestured. “Sir Harold shows signs of leaving. I’d best fetch those drinks.” He moved away, but paused in the doorway. “Thank you,” he said over his shoulder. Then he was gone.
Unexpected emotion welled inside her. She’d done it. It had come back. That story of the princess had popped up, perfectly suited to the circumstances and a joy to tell. Pleasure, relief, gratitude—they lifted her soul as she watched Vickers go—and hey brought with them a rolling swell of rich and vivid scenes. Like waves they rushed her, one after the other. A man staring far out to sea, a boy straining to make his father look at him, a girl in a corner, wrapped up in a book of poetry. New people, new characters to perhaps coax out the old.
“No,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
Vickers did tread gently with Lady Mitford. They laughed together as they shared the drinks he’d brought. He dusted off his roguish charm and kept the conversation light as they compared outrageous stories and gossiped about mutual acquaintances. When guests began to trickle back in, taking seats for the next round of literature, he carefully broached the subject of his father.
She grew a bit pink. “Yes, there was talk earlier this year, I know, but it was mostly unfounded,” she hurried to assure him. “We did spend a little time together, but it was mostly in pursuit of a . . . project.”
“Project?” he frowned.
“Just a small thing, really.” She grew more visibly nervous. “Just the connection of some of his acquaintances with some of mine.”
Sir Harold returned then and eyed the seat Vickers occupied.
He wanted to howl in frustration—or plant the interfering ass a facer. Scowling, he stood instead. “Yes, of course.” He bowed to Rosamond. “Perhaps we could meet again. I would like to hear more about your project.”
She shook her head. “You must discuss if with your father, if you wish to learn more.” She tossed him a dismissive nod.
Disgruntled, he turned to go.
“Mr. Vickers,” she said suddenly. “I did enjoy our conversation.”
“As did I.” He didn’t linger. Making his way against the incoming crowd, he exited the performance area. A casual glance failed to show any sign of Miss Stockton, and he wondered if that was deliberate.
Damnation. A few minutes more and he might have discovered something of value.
His father was agitated. The countess was nervous. There was definitely more to this than appeared on the surface. Frustrated and knowing that he could accomplish no more tonight, he called for his coat and left. A footman offered to find him a hack, but Vickers shook his head and set out on foot, breathing great draughts of the night air to help to clear his mind.
A setback then, but not an entirely unexpected one. He calmed as he walked. He’d learned to be patient, to play the long game. He would persevere.
And something else distracted him—the sting of Miss Stockton’s rebuff. So the Celestial could not be seen spending time with the wicked Vickers, eh?
It shouldn’t bother him. He should be grateful. His reputation had cost him a great deal of wasted money, a good portion of no-doubt-pickled-liver, and more miserably hung-over mornings than he cared to count. But it had its uses. The preventative fending off of innocent misses had always been one of the most valuable.
Until now.
She’d spoken of plans. He wondered what she meant. Marriage, no doubt, but to whom? A high stickler, perhaps. He stifled the urge to throttle the unknown fellow.
He would need to speak again with the countess. Doubtless that would mean also speaking again with Miss Stockton. Watching the sky over the park in Bedford Square, he saw not the grey expanse lined with the shadowed outlines of trees, but blue eyes rimmed with black—and knew he did not feel nearly as irritated as he should.
He waited impatiently for a glimpse of those blue eyes two days later, when he picked Miss Stockton up in a hired hack. He’d had a note delivered, via a grubby young acquaintance, asking her to slip away early this morning, and to meet him on the corner of Bolsover and Margaret Streets.
He fretted until the hired carriage arrived, worried she wouldn’t make it, or that she’d have to be convinced to ride out with him, but there she was, waiting. Seeing him in the hack, she hopped right in. In under a few seconds they were on their way.
He had to admit, after her unwillingness to be publicly associated with him, her easy trust called up a wave of surprisingly warm gratification.
“I have to thank you for the notion of the plain brown cloak and basket over my arm. I vow, not a soul looked my way the entire two blocks! How did you learn such a neat trick?”
“A friend described it—or a friend of Hestia’s, I should say. But you must take care. You might be ignored as a servant in Mayfair, but anywhere else in the city you’d just be a girl alone.”
She nodded.
“How did you get away?” he asked.
She grinned. “The groom my cousin assigned to go about with me has a fondness for dice.”
He snorted. “A great many of them have a fondness for dice.”
“Well, Henry is shockingly indiscreet about it. He gets up a game everywhere we go. I once had to wait outside my modiste’s for nearly thirty minutes because he was ‘on a streak.’ I won his gratitude when I didn’t say anything about it at home.” The bottom corner of her mouth, wider by just a bit than the top, quirked upward. “This morning I slipped out to the mews, where there always seems to be game going. I gave him half a crown and told him I’d appreciate it if he could double it for me, and that I’d share the profits.” She gave a little laugh. “I could walk to Portsmouth and back today and he’d have no notion.”
“I’m impressed,” he said with a nod.
He was pleased that she didn’t ask a lot of questions, too, although his note had mentioned the meeting she’d requested and he supposed that was all that truly needed to be said.
Instead she bounced about on her seat for a few minutes, watching out of the window, then she’d settled back, sitting very straight and inexplicably closing her eyes.
She wasn’t asleep. He sat back to watch her, trying to pin down all the things that made her different from so many other Society girls. Even now, despite the rough ride and the indifferently sprung carriage, she charged the very air, made him feel . . . stimulated. Present and interested in a way that he usually only felt when he was engaged in some battle with his father. He didn’t even know what she wanted with Hestia, but he was content to have helped her, secretly pleased to be sitting here amidst the swirl of her fresh scent, a part of the anticipation and light and color she brought with her.
He leaned forward suddenly. Her eyes were still closed, but her mouth was silently moving. He watched closely, listened hard and eventually made out a word here and here.
Fraught, she mouthed. Heavy. And a few minutes later . . . Laden.
He frowned, wondering. It felt odd to think that a mere few days ago he hadn’t known her.
He still didn’t know her.
Oh, but he wanted to.
“Would you answer a question?” he asked suddenly.
Her eyes popped open. “I think so,” she said cautiously.
“What—in the name of all the circles of hell—are you doing?”
She bit her lip.
He wished she wouldn’t. Beeton had been right, it was such a continual distraction, that sultry pout in the midst of her innocent face. It kept reminding him of all the dark and lascivious things a mouth like that was meant to do.
“I will answer,” she said slowly. “But only if you promise not to speak of it to others—or to judge me too . . . silly.”
“I won’t speak of it,” he promised. “But do you want an hon
est answer about the rest?” He shrugged. “I’ll try not to.”
She struggled a few moments and he watched, fascinated, at the antics her eyebrows got up to as she made her decision.
“Very well. But first, let me ask you . . . Have you ever felt like the very air about you was full—filled with something besides the normal gases—almost alive with emotion . . . or potential?”
Vickers kept his face blank. It was how he felt whenever she was in the vicinity. He nodded.
“That’s what today is,” she said in a rush. “It’s . . . significant. Maybe the beginning of something. Perhaps the end of other things. Definitely a day to remember. So I am thinking . . . trying to find the right words . . . so I can tell the story.”
She looked so earnest, and a little shy. Here it was, another layer, another fascinating aspect to the girl. Why did she have so many, when every other girl appeared to be exactly the same beneath the surface?
“The story?”
“The story of today.” She grew a little wistful. “I sometimes think I should have been born into a native tribe in the Americas, or perhaps long ago, in the days of the minstrels and the bards.” She smiled a little sadly. “I believe stories are so important. Since I was little they’ve been my passion, my escape, the viewer that helps me see the world and sort it into place. More than that, our stories tell us so much, about ourselves and others, our history. They are mirrors, and they reflect the most important aspects of an event or a person.”
After a moment she continued. “For a time, I lost them. But the hurt and the numbness are fading. At last the words are coming back, the scenes and the ideas.” She reached across to grip his hand. “Today’s story is going to be important to me—and I’m very glad you are a part of it.”
He held still, not wishing to frighten her, but he wanted suddenly and quite fiercely, to hear her tell a story. He didn’t care what sort. He’d listen to anything.
He didn’t ask her, of course. He merely visualized it, imagined sitting at her feet, watching that expressive face convey as much as her words must, growing quite envious of the entertainment, the pleasure and the escape anyone privileged enough to hear her must feel.
His reverie was broken, thank goodness, when she leaned forward with a cry of surprise. “Kennington Lane?” She glanced over at him with a strange mixture of pleasure and pain. “Are we going to Vauxhall?”
“Yes.” He’d wondered at Hestia’s choice. “Do you know why?”
Her eyes shone. “It’s part of the story.”
He held his breath as she cocked her head. “Would you like to hear it?”
He nodded, not trusting himself to reply.
“Very well, but I place my trust in you.” she said with a tilt of her head. A blonde curl escaped at the movement and draped along the curve of her nape. “My parents are infamous enough. I would rather not have the intimate details of their scandal making their way around Mayfair.”
He raised a brow. “I’ve acted in more unsavory ways than I care to count, in pursuit of my goal, but I have never broken my word.” His gut tightened at the sudden image of another trusting girl, and the flash of memory and pain that went with it. “Not intentionally.”
She nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”
The knife in his belly twisted. Such simple words. Why did they stab so unexpectedly deep?
‘I’m sure you know some of the tale. It was famous enough in its day and it gained new life when I arrived in Town this spring.”
“I know your mother was betrothed to Lord Rowland, a man much older, with a title as well as a fortune, but that she had already fallen in love with your father. She ran away, did she not? There were rumors of Gretna.”
Her mouth quirked. “They were much more clever than that.” She paused for effect. “Or Hestia Wright was, I should say.”
“Hestia? I’ve never heard her name linked with this particular gossip.”
“That’s because she’s clever, as I said—and because she had no wish to be linked.” She grew serious. “My mother met her in Vauxhall. She’d come with her family and with her betrothed, but she was alone and in tears after confronting Lord Rowland and begging him to release her. Unfortunately, he was determined and insulting and even a bit cruel. Mother ran away down the South Walk and hid, sobbing behind a tree. I don’t know how it started, but she met Hestia, and poured her heart out. Before the night was out, their plan was born.”
“I can only imagine, given it was Hestia at the wheel.” He shook his head.
“Mother ran away. Everyone knew she was pining for Father, but when it became clear that neither her betrothed nor her father would budge, he had left Town. Nevertheless, something she said to her maid convinced the girl that they were for Gretna. My grandfather took off in a rage, following.”
“But he didn’t find them.”
“No. Hestia had hidden Mother safely away. She never would say where, no matter how I asked. They waited for her father to come back. He did, still angry and frustrated, and he rode straight for my Father’s estate to confront him.”
“Let me guess.” Vickers knew how Hestia’s mind worked. “He knew nothing of the scheme.”
“He hadn’t even had word that Mother was missing. Soon they were both frantic with worry.” She grinned. “And that’s when Hestia began to deliver Mother’s demands.”
He choked back a laugh. “Her demands?”
“Yes. She refused to come home until Lord Rowland acknowledged that he’d been jilted—and she’d been given permission to marry Father.”
“And it worked?”
“After a bit of time passed. My grandfather finally capitulated, but he also washed his hands of her. I never met him before he died.” She looked out the window, suddenly sober.
“Tell me about your parents,” he asked quietly.
Swallowing heavily, she did. She kept the topic light, speaking of her mother’s interactions with the nearby villagers and the ongoing, escalating war of pranks she engaged in with her father. He laughed at her charming tales, and he felt her pain when she spoke of her mother and the sister that lived now with that estranged part of her family. She lost herself in the telling, and he gladly followed, as she brought all the love and sorrow they’d shared to life as she spoke.
When she’d finished, he shook his head, coming back to reality as if he’d been dreaming.
She misinterpreted the motion. “Oh,” she exclaimed, stricken. “How I’ve been prattling on! I do apologize. It just . . . it felt good to be reliving those memories and sharing that way once again. I suppose this was an example of telling the story the teller needed to hear, instead of the listener.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said roughly.
“But I’m sure you’ve no care for a girl’s meanderings.”
“No. Please . . . You have a gift, Miss Stockton. I feel privileged that you would share it with me.”
Her cheeks reddened quite fetchingly.
He scooted on his bench until he sat directly across from her and then he leaned in close. Her color deepened again, but he was intent upon his message.
“I mean it. Don’t apologize for making use of your talents. I saw what you did for that child at Lady Lisle’s salon. You eased her fears and took her mind off of her transgression and distracted her until she could see the way out of her predicament.” He let loose a quick, ironic breath. “All the fates know that I’m a man with more than enough troubles on my mind—but you just made me forget them. You painted a lovely picture of innocence and caring and I stepped right into it with you. Not only did I see your youthful happiness, but you took me back to the joy of my own.”
He sat back. “I thought I’d forgotten. I thought all the happiness of my youth had been destroyed by what came later. It is a very great gift to find I was wrong.”
She gave a rueful laugh. “Not everyone feels that way about my stories. My tendency to drift off into my head was often a trial to my parents.”
“Nonsense. It’s a wonder. You create ease and pleasure and joy out of nothing but your own thoughts and imagination. It seems a miracle to me—but perhaps that is because I have no creative talents myself.” He looked away. “Or because my focus is so often aimed toward destruction, rather than creation.”
She sat back as well—and crossed her arms in front of her, in a way that lifted and framed her bosom quite fetchingly. “Now I cry nonsense.”
He blinked—but didn’t look away.
“You asked about me, found out what you could, when we made our bargain, did you not?”
He didn’t confess that he’d done just that—even before she’d made her proposal.
“Did you think I would not do the same? Everyone is perfectly willing to gossip about you. With delight, they whisper of your women and your gambling. There are rumors of duels and many anecdotes of your deliberate attempts to antagonize your father.” She tilted her head. “I paid close attention. Those stories have grown rather dated, haven’t they?”
He said nothing.
“The only recent stories I heard were from Jane Tillney. She told me how you’ve helped Hestia in her charitable efforts. Her delight came from a story of you turned hijacker—when you stole a carriage of young girls, children, from a procurer who meant them for the brothels.”
The warmth that she’d sent flowing in his veins began to feel prickly and uncomfortable. “She should not have told you that.”
“Why? Because you only wish the world to see the most tarnished version of yourself?”
“I have my reasons.”
Her arms unfolded and she leaned in, much the way he had done to get his point across. “I’m sure you do. I won’t pry into them. But there’s something I wanted you to know.”
The heat inside him was turning sultry again. She sat so close and the fresh, sweet scent of her drifted over him. The ice had vanished from her eyes. They’d gone wide and soft and he had the stray thought that he might fall into such inviting, dangerous waters.
“You speak of my talents, but I see that you possess a few of your own. You speak of reading the nuances of a room, but I believe you are a far better judge of people. You have a remarkably clear eye. You see a person for who he really is.”
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