‘Forgive me. I know the answer to this may seem obvious, but to me it is not.’ Peterson paused, his brow deeply furrowed. ‘Am—am I not the only man campaigning for your affections? Am I in competition with someone?’
Competition! As far as Rebecca was aware, the only competition between the eligible men of London regarding herself was who wouldn’t be called upon to dance with her at any gathering. At the moment, all of them were winning; the spinster seats that surrounded ballrooms were well-known to her. She couldn’t resist a bitter smile, shaking her head as Peterson watched. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Then you do not wish to spend time with me?’
‘I did not say that.’
‘Then what are you saying?’
‘That… that I do not know why you are asking me to do these things.’
‘Truly?’ Peterson’s expression was a living question-mark. ‘Do you wish me to be specific?’
‘No. I—I am not highly regarded as a companion in pleasure.’ Rebecca spoke as calmly as she could, even as her words dragged her darkest fears into the light. ‘I am highly regarded in more serious affairs, as you—as you have seen today. But when it comes to… to walking, and talking, and being light? I am not good at it. I am, to be frank, terribly bad at it.’
‘I didn’t say I wished you to be light. I said I wished you to feel pleasure. We can go and feed orphans soup, if you want. We can go and pull thorns from the paws of dogs.’ Peterson’s smile was softer. ‘You can be as serious in your pleasures as you like.’
‘But it will be new. I am not good at doing things the first time I do them.’
‘Had you done what we did on the desk before?’
The sudden, brazen turn of the conversation had Rebecca biting back a gasp. ‘No.’
‘And yet, you were perfect.’ Peterson paused. ‘Perhaps you’ll be perfect at other pleasures, too.’
The room suddenly seemed far too small. Rebecca looked into Peterson’s dark eyes, breathless, wondering why the air felt hot. As if a storm were coming.
‘Tomorrow. Vauxhall Gardens. It’s only a den of iniquity if you make it so. We can find someone to help, or someone to hinder, or… or simply walk, and talk.’ Five o’ clock.’ Peterson paused. Rebecca realised, with a strange touch of tenderness, that he had to be as nervous as she was. ‘Does that sound amenable to you?’
Yes. ‘I—I don’t know.’
‘Why don’t you know?’
‘Because—because… because I do know, and I’m frightened to say.’
‘Ah. You wish to say no.’
‘No. The opposite.’ Rebecca bit her lip. Talking to this man was like making her way into the heart of a maze. ‘I wish to say yes, but do not know how to do so while still appearing respectable.’
‘You don’t need to appear respectable in front of me.’
‘Then… yes.’ Rebecca nodded, first weakly, then with more vigour. She moved closer, her hands trembling with the need to hold Peterson—to fix him in place. To make him understand that she was doing something momentous. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Thank you.’ Peterson smiled properly—the expression was new on him, as if he were unused to doing it. ‘You honour me.’
‘You are not a man who needs more honour. You already carry a great amount of it.’
‘So many compliments.’ Peterson’s gaze travelled over her mouth, her body, making Rebecca feel as if she on fire. ‘You make me want to be dishonourable.’
Such conversation was dangerous. Everything about this was dangerous. Rebecca, knowing she would be overcome if she stayed another moment in the man’s company, moved away with a soft sigh of frustration.
‘Vauxhall Gardens. Five o’ clock.’ She looked cautiously at Peterson. ‘Where will you wait for me?’
‘Wherever you wish.’
‘By—by the pavilion.’ The first time she had ever set an appointment with a gentleman, and she was quivering enough for it to be visible. ‘Please.’
‘As you wish.’
‘I—I have to go, now.’
‘I know.’
‘Goodbye.’
Peterson bowed in response. Rebecca moved to the door, reaching out to open it, before turning back with her heart in her throat.
‘You—you said I was perfect.’
‘On the desk?’
Lord, why did she have to say it? She knew she was blushing. ‘Yes.’
‘Because you were.’
‘Thank you.’ Rebecca nodded primly, knowing that she was moving into treacherous waters. Things she could never explain to Mary Atterson, or her own higher self. ‘You were… you were more than satisfactory.’
Peterson blinked, his smile widening. ‘Such praise.’
‘Oh, don’t make fun.’ The man’s humour was infectious. ‘I do not know how to give compliments in reference to—to—’
‘I’m glad I could satisfy you.’
‘Thank you. Did… did I…’
Peterson’s voice softened. ‘Did you satisfy me?’
‘Yes.’ The more she spoke, the more she was sure that she was hell-bound. Still, the words kept coming. ‘I—I am aware of the basic mechanics, I believe, but it was never explained to me with the addition of pleasure. Of satisfaction. I do not know how one can tell if one’s partner is—’
She stopped, wordless, as Peterson took her hand.
‘If we keep speaking about this here and now, I’m going to be disreputable. As much as my past actions would argue the opposite, I’m not in the habit of letting my wants overcome my duties.’ His lips moved to her hand; Rebecca gasped as he kissed her just above her knuckles. Her gloves felt like gossamer, the heat of his mouth wicked against her skin. ‘All I can reasonably say, while keeping full control of my faculties, is that you are infinitely satisfying just as you are.’
Her body felt like it didn’t belong to her anymore. ‘Truly?’
‘Yes.’ Peterson let her hand go; Rebecca fought the urge to clutch at his fingers. ‘Goodbye.’
However hard she had tried to keep control of the conversation, she had ended up under his command. Rebecca wished she could be irritated—as irritated as she had been before. But as much as she attempted annoyance, it collapsed into the most ridiculous sort of rapture.
She left the room with dreaming, shuffling steps. It was only when she was out in the darkening street, a cold breeze on her flushed cheeks, that Rebecca felt as if she were back in the real world.
Vauxhall Gardens, at five o’ clock. An appointment with John Peterson—an appointment that should not be countenanced, let alone longed for. A chance to walk, and speak, with the man who had brought her to this distracted state.
She didn’t think she had ever wanted anything so much.
With a brief shake of her head, fear clouding her thoughts, Rebecca wondered if her courage could ever match the level of her want.
Clothes didn’t make the man, but they certainly made up a large portion. Peterson chose his garments with particular care the next day, delegating boot-blacking duties to an underling at the Knight’s Circle property in order to escape to his rooms ten streets away. Looking in the mirror at his own face with a suspicious glance, he found himself already ruing his unaccustomed bravery.
He was too old for games like this. Not old enough to make the appointment sordid, but too old to be this nervous. Nervousness was for boys still wet behind the ears, not men nearing forty—and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t already made quite an impression.
Perhaps it was the wrong impression. He’d presented himself as a cocky fly-by-night, talking of serious things while presenting himself as anything but. She was frightened enough as it was—it wouldn’t have done any good to start speaking of intentions, decisions, the future…
‘How desperate are you?’ He examined his reflection with a grunt of weary disappointment. ‘You barely even know the woman.’
His reflection, smugly silent, said everything with a glance. You’re not desperate. That’
s the frightening thing. You simply know that Rebecca Westbrook is special—and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
Instead of conducting an honest assessment of his character and motivations, Peterson decided to glower. He glowered through the rest of his preparations, glowered as he stepped out of his modest bedroom, glowered as he walked out into the street—and almost growled when a gentleman nearly ran into him.
For goodness’ sake. He glared at the stranger’s retreating back. Control yourself.
He managed to control himself for the entire journey to Vauxhall Gardens. He controlled himself with relative ease as he walked to the pavilion, standing by the elegant structure. He controlled himself as a passing flower-seller offered him a paper cone of tulips—yes, tulips would be an acceptable gift for Rebecca. He would buy only one bunch, ignoring the temptation to buy an armful.
He controlled himself as the first thirty minutes went by. It was only as thirty minutes became sixty, slowly approaching ninety, that his shoulders slumped.
No point being worried. No use being angry. It was coldly evident that he had polished his fragile hopes for something that wasn’t going to occur.
Had he really thought they would walk together through this park as if they had met in a normal way? Ridiculous.
The first thing to do was get rid of these stupid flowers. Peterson found an obliging patch of earth, putting the tulips down as an unassuming voice came from nearby.
‘Mr Peterson? My goodness! Mr. Peterson!’
Of all the people to meet at this particular moment. Reverend Calcourt, the priest at St. Peter’s Church. A church that Peterson didn’t visit often enough—a fact that Calcourt often reminded him of, if he was ever unlucky enough to catch the man in passing.
‘What are you doing here? I’ve never thought of you as a Vauxhall Gardens man.’
‘I’m not.’ Peterson spoke shortly, hoping he didn’t have any flower petals clinging to his fingers. Reverend Calcourt seemed like a kind man, but had been irritatingly perceptive in the past. ‘I’m passing through. I have business in Mere Way.’
‘Oh, I see. Something for Sir Marcus.’ Calcourt smiled, his eyes still slightly puzzled. ‘Is everything all right? Is Helen well?’
‘Yes.’ Peterson glared. ‘But I am in a hurry.’
The vicar finally relented, his smile fading a little as he bowed. ‘Well. I won’t keep you.’
‘I thank you.’ Peterson tried to push away the guilt that rose in his chest. Wasn’t a man allowed to nurse his unhappiness in peace? ‘Be well, Reverend.’
‘I will.’ The vicar looked back as he turned, his brow slightly furrowed as he stared at Peterson. ‘Apply the same injunction to yourself.’
Typical man of God—never allowing anyone else to have the last word. Grimacing as he nodded, Peterson walked away from the gate to the Gardens as quickly as he could.
His street was always blessedly silent. The chill in the air ran down the back of his neck as he faced his house, wondering if he needed food. There was a chophouse nearby, but it was late… and he hadn’t thought he would be eating alone.
The chill was intense. As if someone had gripped the back of his neck with an icy hand, or—or as if someone were looking at him.
‘Wait.’
Biting his tongue, determined to hide the shock that leapt through him at the sound of her voice, Peterson turned to face Rebecca Westbrook.
Rebecca had tried to leave her house a dozen times, only to run back to the safety of her bedroom with a sinking heart. She had upbraided herself as a monster, a sinner, a wretch—all the while looking at the clock, hoping that she would find the bravery to go against everything that she had been taught. Everything that she had built, and become—based on a rejection of the very desire that moved through her like lightning, like the most beautiful and pernicious kind of pain.
Only when she thought of all hope of meeting him at Vauxhall Gardens was lost did she leave the house, sick at her own cowardice. She tried to pretend that she was going to do other things—run errands, meet friends, stare at the trees in Harmouth Square. Anything other than slowly circling the streets of the metropolis, each step growing heavier and heavier with guilt.
It wasn’t meant to feel this way. She had done the correct thing—she had refused to meet a man with whom she had done unacceptable things. This was meant to feel pleasant—feel righteous. Like taking a charity basket to someone in need of it, or seeing a woman destined for a pleasure-house begin a decent working life elsewhere.
She wasn’t meant to feel a swift, devastating blow to her very soul when she saw him from the end of the road. She wasn’t meant to feel tears gathering in her eyes as she saw him, John Peterson, dressed with the understated elegance of a man proud to meed someone he thought highly of.
He didn’t think highly of her anymore. His face was dark with anger as he turned to look at her, the cold air blowing between the both of them.
‘I would say you’re late, but I don’t think this is you arriving.’ He swallowed. ‘I hope you’re not going to insult me with excuses.’
‘Being frightened is my only excuse.’
‘You’ve never needed to be frightened of me.’ Peterson’s eyes widened. ‘Have I frightened you?’
‘No. You—you fon’t frighten me.’ Rebecca’s tongue felt thick in her mouth. ‘I didn’t meant that.’
‘I asked you there in good faith.’
‘I know.’
‘And you left me waiting.’
Rebecca swallowed. ‘I know.’
‘It wasn’t a kind thing to do. Not at all.’
‘I know. I know all of this. But please—please speak to me now.’
‘I do not see why I should.’
‘Because I already feel as if I know you.’ Rebecca spoke quietly, feeling acutely alone in the cold air despite Peterson’s dark eyes trained on her. ‘As if I know you completely. It—it unnerves me.’
‘We do know one another. Or rather, we move in the same circles. I know you by reputation, and you—well. You know me better than most, after hearing my speech. If anything, we—’
‘No. Not like that. I don’t feel as if I know you like—like a friend.’ Rebecca studied the road intently, trying to find the words to express the fierce, overwhelming sentiments that had been moving through her ever since their first encounter. ‘I feel as if I know your soul. Your innermost self.’
‘That… that can happen, after what we did.’ Peterson’s softer, lower tone sent a shiver down her spine. It was as if they were back in the study of the Cappadene Club, with him telling her what to do. Telling her she could let go. ‘It—it doesn’t have to mean anything.’
‘Grant me the wisdom to know when something has meaning, and when it does not.’ Rebecca held her head high, suddenly angry. ‘I know that how I feel goes beyond that. I suspect it does for you too. Or I wouldn’t have hidden from you today, and you wouldn’t be so very angry about it.’
She had never spoken with such frankness to a man. She shivered at the power of it—at the potency of her words, her sentiments, that made Peterson’s eyes flash as they stood in the empty street.
‘I know that it frightens you. The idea that we have an affinity beyond the elemental—that what we did in the Club could have a relevance, a weight, on the things we choose to do in our daily lives.’ Peterson paused. ‘I know that.’
‘You cannot know the fear.’ Rebecca shook her head, beginning to shiver in the cold. ‘It is impossible.’
‘Not impossible.’ Peterson’s voice softened. ‘I know it. I feel it.’
Another strange, tense moment of expectation. As if a storm was building up around them, rain lashing, wind blowing… but all of it, every drop of rain and howl of wind, was happening in their two separate hearts.
When Peterson turned away, the sudden absence of his gaze was as harsh as a blow. Rebecca waited, fighting the urge to ring his hands, as he walked towards the modest terraced house.
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‘What are you doing?’ Oh, why did she sound so faint? She deserved nothing more than his opprobrium—his cruelty. ‘Don’t leave me here.’
‘I’m not leaving you there.’ Peterson kept his back turned, but Rebecca could hear the tension in his voice. The same storm that brewed in her. ‘My rooms are on the second floor. Come in.’
Sparse. Clean. Few personal objects, but the ones on display were of the quality befitting a valet of one of England’s richest men. Rebecca, deeply aware that her presence in a single man’s rooms was already a most atrocious sin, observed everything with the fascinated air of a traveller visiting a distant land.
She didn’t know what she had expected. Perhaps she hadn’t expected anything at all; she had been so focused upon the vivid recollection of Peterson’s face, his body, that she hadn’t given any thought to the man’s immediate surroundings. Valets normally lived where their master did—although with Sir Marcus’s wife expecting, there was probably less need for his duties now. So he came here, to this small, neat set of rooms on the third floor of an unprepossessing house, with its wooden table and battered books, its single flower wilting in a vase…
‘I’m sorry. I would have removed the flower, but I didn’t know if you were coming. I—I assumed you wouldn’t be coming here.’
‘Quite.’ Rebecca bit her lip, knowing she should be flattered by the assumption of her morality, but feeling obscurely insulted all the same. ‘It—it is a pleasant space.’
‘Don’t be too flattering.’
‘There is no need for sarcasm.’
‘And there was no need for you to come to me in the street after missing our appointment, expecting—I don’t know what you were expecting.’
‘You are right.’ Rebecca tried to look at the flower again, at the table again, not wanting to meet Peterson’s eyes. Not wanting to see the truth that lay there—how poor her conduct had been. ‘You… you are perfectly right…’
She couldn’t cry. Not here, in his house, after practically begging to be let in. Not in so many words, but he had read her thoughts.
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