by Merry Farmer
“Do you have any smelling salts? I fear I might need them,” Lady A in the story said to her lusty maid at one point in the story. The line rang more than a few bells in Lenore’s mind. She glanced up in her reading and sent a pointed look Phineas’s way. Phineas seemed more than usually interested in the older gentleman who had just taken up a position by the piano to sing an operatic ballad.
Lenore read on, searching for more clues that would confirm her suspicions. She found one almost immediately when the about-to-be-ravished heroine declared that she was simply doing her duty by her family to find a husband, and that she didn’t mind the gentlemen invading her tower, because she would rather stay at home than go out. Lenore’s eyes went wide. There was no mistaking who Lady A in the story was, though she found it a bit cruel that anyone would write such a story about poor Lady Agnes Hamilton. What startled her even more was that, as far as Lenore knew, excluding herself, only one other person had heard Lady Agnes ask for smelling salts or declare that she would rather have stayed home.
Lenore cleared her throat and handed the journal to Lady Diana. “I find that quite curious indeed,” she said rather stiffly, staring hard at Phineas. “Revealing, in fact.”
“Of course, everyone knows the subject is Agnes Hamilton,” Diana whispered what Lenore had already concluded. She winced. “I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t invited her this evening.”
Lenore’s brow flew up. Strangely, Phineas’s did as well. “Is she here?” Phineas asked.
“Her mother is,” Lady Diana said, standing straighter to survey her guests. She let out a breath and sagged a bit. “I really should organize everyone to listen to the music instead of talking over it. Miss Olson was rather put out that no one listened to her set. If you will excuse me.”
Lady Diana walked away, Lady Beatrice on her heels. As soon as they’d departed, Lenore snapped to face Phineas.
“Mr. Mercer, you sly dog,” she said with a victorious grin.
Phineas had the audacity to look baffled. “Is something amiss, Miss Garrett.”
Lenore crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him. “You have written something I’ve read,” she said, her grin growing.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean,” he said, adjusting his glasses and looking about as innocent as a satyr.
Lenore stepped close to him, probably too close for a public event. “You’re the author of Nocturne,” she hissed, triumphant.
“I can assure you, you’re mistaken,” he replied with a grave look, his blue eyes sparkling.
“I most certainly am not.” She inched even closer to him, so much so that she could smell the scent of his shaving soap. It sent tingles down her spine and pooled warmth deep within her. “You and I were the only two who heard Lady Agnes say those things. You wrote them directly into your story.”
“Perhaps you are the author,” Phineas suggested.
“Oh, no.” Lenore leaned back, shaking her head. “I’ll have you know, sir, that I am a champion in the art of figuring things out. I was famous for it back home. Infamous, some might say. I was the one who discovered who put boot black all over Vivian Bonneville’s saddle, though she deserved it, if you ask me.”
“Did she?” Phineas broke into a smile.
“I was the one who wheedled the truth out of Talia Knighton before she admitted to anyone else she was pregnant, yet again,” Lenore went on, inadvertently shocking the matronly woman standing close enough to her and Phineas to hear her use of the scandalous and unmentionable word “pregnant”.
“How very clever of you,” Phineas said, obviously amused by her stories. “You should offer your services as a detective.”
“I should,” Lenore went on. She turned sober as she finished with, “I was the one who discovered the truth about the murders on Frank Waverly’s ranch.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. They left a bitter taste in her mouth that she swallowed, pressing a hand to her stomach. “Do you suppose there is any wine at this event?” she asked, hating how hoarse she suddenly was.
Phineas went from smiling indulgently at her to frowning in curiosity. “Yes, I believe there are refreshments in the other room. Allow me to escort you.” He rested a hand on the small of Lenore’s back as they started across the room. “Besides, it looks as though Lady Diana was serious about ending the conversations in the room so that her guests will pay attention to the musical performers.”
Lenore’s burst of nerves over recalling her recent past had nearly passed by the time she and Phin reached the hallway. Before they could cross to the parlor where refreshments were set up, though, they were nearly bowled over by the force of nature that was Lady Hamilton.
“Do either of you know anything about this?” she demanded, shaking a crumpled copy of Nocturne at them in one fist. Her rage was so profound as to be comical, and Lenore didn’t know whether to laugh or cower in fear. “Do you?” Lady Hamilton pressed on when neither of them answered immediately.
“Is that the silly journal that everyone seems to be talking about these days?” Lenore asked, playing innocent.
“Don’t pretend you aren’t an avid reader of this filth just like every other young lady your age,” Lady Hamilton blustered on. “I should have exerted my influence to end its publication months ago.”
“I don’t think many people pay it any mind,” Lenore said, feeling rather like she couldn’t keep up, for a change.
“I thought it was harmless filth,” Lady Hamilton said, working herself into even more of a fury. “I believed if I ignored it, it would go away, as so many other things do.”
Lenore was suddenly struck with the idea of Lady Hamilton ignoring everything, even war and poverty, and having it simply vanish in disappointment at not snagging her attention.
“But this is the end,” Lady Hamilton went on in a dire tone. “My poor, sweet, innocent Agnes has been dragged into the muck and filth, and I will not stand for it.”
“I’m sure any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental,” Phineas said, as deadpan and considerate as anyone could be under the circumstances.
“It is most assuredly meant to be my daughter,” Lady Hamilton insisted.
Lenore shot Phineas a sideways look, knowing the woman was right.
“I will not let this stand,” Lady Hamilton repeated. “I will be contacting my solicitor tomorrow. I will enlist the services of Scotland Yard if I have to. I swear to you and to all, I will bring the law down on this pitiful excuse for a publication. I will have the head of anyone involved in it. I will avenge my daughter and prove her innocence if it is the last thing I do.”
Lenore’s mouth dropped open, but Lady Hamilton stormed on to the conservatory before she could say anything. As Lenore and Phineas continued to the refreshment room, they heard Lady Hamilton interrupt the music to repeat her threats.
“Heavens,” Lenore exclaimed as they stepped into the relatively peaceful parlor. “Isn’t it a bit of an admission of guilt for Lady Hamilton to go on like that? Belaboring the point is just going to prove to anyone who read it that Lady Agnes is the subject of the story. Isn’t it much wiser to deny everything?”
“I think I need a drink now too,” Phineas said, looking more than a little ill.
That was all the proof Lenore needed to know he was, in fact, the author of Nocturne.
“You should come clean and apologize,” she whispered to him as they approached the table where a footman was pouring wine. “It’s the least you could do at this point. It might be the only thing you can do to save your hide.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Phineas said, taking a glass of red wine and handing it to Lenore before grabbing one of his own and downing half of it.
Lenore wasn’t at all impressed by his continued evasion. She was, however, thrilled by the prospect of attempting to wheedle the truth out of him in spite of the way the stakes had been raised. “The only man who behaves as you are behaving in this moment is a guilty
man,” she said with a mischievous grin, gazing over the top of her wine glass at him. “Whatever shall I do to make you confess?”
The color was back in Phineas’s cheeks in an instant, and not from the wine. “What indeed?” he asked.
“There the two of you are,” Freddy said a moment later, before anything truly interesting could happen. He sent a look of dread over his shoulder. “Things have gotten a bit heated in there.”
“Yes, we heard Lady Hamilton’s speech before she delivered it to the rest of you,” Lenore said. “I was just telling Mr. Mercer here—”
“I’ve suddenly had an idea,” Phineas interrupted her. He set his empty wine glass—he must have downed the last of his wine when Lenore turned to speak to Freddy—on the table and took a step toward Freddy. “I would love to host you and your charming fiancée for supper next week.”
“Supper?” Freddy blinked in surprise, sending a questioning look to Lenore. “Next week?”
Lenore set her half-finished glass of wine on the table and stepped over to Freddy’s side, slipping her arm into his. The butterflies that had been playing in her stomach since she first started talking to Phineas doubled their activity. She wasn’t ignorant of Phineas’s aim in issuing the invitation, both in terms of cutting short the previous conversation and in getting her alone in private.
“Of course, we’d love to come,” she said with a smile directed like an arrow at Phineas. “I relish the chance to get to know you and all of your secrets so much better, Mr. Mercer.”
“I’ll send a note around with the details then,” Phineas said, then followed that with a bow. “If you will excuse me.”
He dashed out of the room without any more of a goodbye.
“What the devil has gotten into him?” Freddy asked, twisting to watch Phineas’s retreating back.
“I suspect he needs to pay an emergency call on his solicitor,” Lenore said, her smile widening as she reveled in the victory of discovering the truth about the man. She drew in a breath and grinned up at Freddy. “You will, of course, suddenly find yourself with a head cold on whatever day he invites us to supper.”
“Oh, of course,” Freddy said without pause, sending her a lop-sided grin. “I can feel a tickle in my throat already.”
“Good,” she said, steering him out of the parlor and back across the hall to where the entertainment had resumed in the conservatory. “Because I think I might be in for a rather interesting evening next week.”
Chapter 4
He should have listened to Lionel. It wasn’t the first time Phin found himself thinking those words. Many had been the times in his life when he should have listened to Lionel, and many were the times that Lionel should have listened to him. But like true brothers, they disregarded each other’s advice as often as they took it, choosing the most enjoyable outcome, rather than the most prudent.
In this case, however, as Phin hurried along the street to Jameson’s printing office, buffeted and blasted about by a strong, autumnal wind as he walked, he most definitely should have listened to Lionel and thought twice about publishing a story based on Lady Agnes’s exploits at the theater the week before. The way the cold wind tore at him, flapping his coat around his legs and making it necessary for him to walk with a hand clapped to his head to keep his hat from blowing away, seemed to be Nature’s way of punishing him for his foolishness.
But more foolish than writing about a young lady with a mother as intent on destruction as Lady Hamilton was, Phin had included one too many details that Lenore had picked up on. She knew. He could deny it all he wanted, but Lenore had guessed his secret. Which was why he was having her for supper that night. He needed somehow to assuage her curiosity and convince her not to say anything to anyone, at the very least.
Before he did that, though, he had to take care of business. He breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped into the building housing Jameson’s discreet office, shook a few stray leaves from his hat and coat, checked to be certain he hadn’t somehow lost any of the handwritten pages he’d tucked away inside his jacket, and proceeded to the unmarked door at the end of the hall.
“Come in,” Jameson’s voice sounded from the other side when Phin knocked. As soon as he entered, he knew Jameson was in a foul mood. The man practically paced behind his desk, and his hair stood up at odd angles, as if he’d been tugging at it. “Oh. You,” Jameson greeted Phin without enthusiasm.
“I’ve come with another story, though I know it’s not yet time to print a new issue,” Phin said without a more formal greeting, unfurling the pages in his hand and holding them out to Jameson.
Jameson stared at him as though he’d grown another head. “You expect me to print more of that so soon? When I already have the devil breathing down my neck?”
Phin’s heart sank as he stepped over to Jameson’s desk and deposited his latest story on top. “I take it word of Lady Hamilton’s fury has reached you,” he said, feeling guilty. He wasn’t going to stopper up that guilt either. He deserved to feel every bit of it after the misstep he’d made.
Jameson shook his head and let out a heavy breath. “The harpy hasn’t come after me yet,” he said, jerking a hand through his hair. “But word in my circles is that she’s going after each and every printer she finds out about, trying to figure out who publishes Nocturne. She’s made no secret of the fact that she intends to sue for libel, among other things.”
“She won’t,” Phin said, though he didn’t believe it himself. “To sue would mean an admission of guilt. It would positively identify the character in the story as her daughter, and doing so would ruin the young woman’s chances of any marriage at all.” Which was exactly what Lenore had hinted at the musicale. She was as right as she was beautiful.
All the same, Phin felt sick as he spoke. He had been a blind fool and an idiot not to think everything through before publishing. But every other subject of his stories had staunchly denied they were the basis for any of his characters. Lionel had tried to warn him, but all he’d been thinking about was buying winter coats for Hazel and the girls.
“The solution is to print another issue with an even more intriguing story,” he said, jabbing his finger on the pages he’d put on the desk. “Memories are short, and the sooner London society has something else to gossip about, the sooner they’ll forget last week’s scandal.”
He had listened to Lionel on that score. It had been his brother’s idea to rush a new story into publication, and it had also been Lionel’s suggestion to make it a tale of three lovers, two of which were men, so that Nocturne’s audience would be so stunned by its audacity—perhaps even causing a stir about its legality—that not a soul would remember Lady Agnes existed, let alone that she was the subject of the prior issue.
Jameson picked up the sheets of paper with a skeptical look. As soon as he glanced over them, his eyes went round. “Are you trying to have me arrested, sir?” he demanded.
“If you haven’t been thus far, you won’t be,” Phin reassured him. “And you wouldn’t be the only printer in London publishing this sort of thing, believe me.”
“I have a wife and children,” Jameson reminded him, his jaw clenched and his body practically radiating tension. “I have to provide for them.”
“And the reason you’ve been risking so much to publish Nocturne is because I generously share the profits with you,” Phin reminded the man as kindly as he could, even though he felt as though he’d dug himself into a hole that would be next to impossible to get out of. “Things will be all right,” he insisted. “You’ll see when you read through the story that I’ve been excruciatingly careful with descriptions. It’s all innuendo and suggestion, not explicit detail, much more so than other things I’ve written.” The fact that it was all based on his direct experience was a fact that he would leave out, lest Jameson throw him out entirely.
Jameson growled, but continued reading the story. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. His frown shifted to a look of calculation. “We
could increase the price by a penny or two. That would cause a stir as well, and it would provide a certain degree of insurance, in case Lady Hamilton sniffs us out.”
“I fully endorse your plan to increase the price,” Phin said with a nod. “And I invite you to keep all of that profit to mitigate your risk.” He’d give Jameson the shirt off his back as well, as long as Hazel and the girls and his father all still had shirts on their backs.
“It’s a deal, then,” Jameson said with a heavy sigh. “Now, you’d better get out and leave me to my work before I change my mind.”
Phin plopped his hat back on his head. “Immediately, sir.”
He turned to leave the office, unsure whether he felt relieved at his attempts to make things right on Lady Agnes’s account or if guilt would continue to eat at him until Lady Hamilton gave up her fight and Lady Agnes was safely married to some duke or other. Perhaps Lionel could help on that account. His brother knew everyone in London and then some.
But before he spared his thoughts for Lady Agnes Hamilton’s problems, Phin had a few more concerns of his own. He stepped back out into the blustery morning and turned his steps toward Oxford Street. Lenore was coming for supper that night—ostensibly with her fiancé, though if Phin knew anything about anything, he would be vastly surprised if Freddy Herrington had any intention of dining with them—which meant he had to make the evening a night to remember.