A Man Above Reproach (11 page)

On the morning of the third day, Sally knocked softly.

“Josie? Perhaps I should send for the doctor.”

“No, thank you. It is just a sniffle. Not too close, dear, I do not want it spreading.”

She came into the room a bit more, her hands clasped behind her back.

“Dryden. The Duke of Lennox’s valet. He has been here.”

She placed the same crisp envelope with the seal on the very edge of the table.

“Did you tell him I was sick?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the dratted paper.

“He did not ask to see you. Just gave me this.”

“Thank you,” she nodded. “You should take a break, Sally. Close the store, sit, and eat.”

“Ring if you need anything,” she said, backing out of the room.

She did not even wait for Sally to close the door, she tore into the envelope.

Not-Miss-Grant
, it read.
If you take issue with me addressing you in this way, again, you are free to burn this letter after you have read it.

Ye gods, he was infuriating even when he was not present.

My research is taking longer than expected, so I regret that I cannot call you by your real name, as yet.

Cad.

Finding information on the subject we discussed a few days ago has proven nettlesome. I do hate when a puzzle goes unanswered, but I am tenacious. My sources tell me that you have not been back to our meeting place. I understand this, but I do hope that you can accommodate a visit from Lord Thackeray, my sister, and I on this Thursday afternoon. I would like to talk more about your publishing ventures and my sister hopes that Sally can help her find some appropriate novels for her personal shelves. Nicholas is simply always bored. If it is agreeable that we come, you need not reply to this letter.

I cannot stop

He had left the crossed-out phrase in, instead of rewriting the letter. She thought it out of place, since he seemed so fastidious, from his frocks to his measured speech.

I have been overly occupied thinking about you. Now you surely must burn this. –L.

With much satisfaction and without a second reading, she put the end into the flame of a candle and set it in an empty bowl. Josephine watched the thing burn to ashes as she tried to decide whether or not to reply.

She kept coming back to the fact that he had said he had forty-eight copies of
On Society’s Ills and the Real Price of Prostitution
in his foyer, after the wretched mistake of the kiss. Obviously, there had been one copy in the room with them. She had sent fifty, the whole lot. No one had ever bought it before. That left one book unaccounted for. Where was that book? What if it was missing? Or worse, what if it was in the hands of someone from her youth, someone from Staffordshire?

Blast it all to hell; she would have to let him call on Thursday.

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

“If it makes you uncomfortable to think of a world of educated women, then I suggest you might instead examine your fear as a deficiency in yourself. What about an educated woman makes you feel less secure about your own person? What harm would it be for you to give the fairer sex a fair shake? What, gentlemen, are you afraid of?”

—F
ROM
O
N
S
OCIETY
’
S
I
LLS AND THE
R
EAL
P
RICE OF
P
ROSTITUTION
BY
J
OSEPHINE
G
RANT

“This book is outrageous,” Nicholas seethed.

Elias was shaving and he regarded his friend through the looking glass, rinsing his razor in the bowl of water beside him.

“Pardon?” He ran the razor carefully down the edge of his cheek. Dryden still tried to shave him every so often, the same way he tried to tie Eli’s cravat, but it was the principle of the thing. Elias had never been completely comfortable having a valet, but Dryden had been with the family for years; he was a part of it. Thusly, Elias tried to do whatever he could with his own hands and enjoyed it. Men of leisure’s brains rotted, as his favorite professor at Oxford had always told him. Elias would have taken his letter to Miss-Lady-Whomever-Grant on his own, if he wasn’t so conflicted about setting eyes on her again.

“This book that you gave me, Lennox. It is shocking.”

“You will have to be more specific, Nicholas.” He tapped the razor again, before turning his attention to the other cheek. He probably shouldn’t have let himself go two days without shaving. He was irritated, all around, and they would soon have to get in the carriage. Alessandra was very excited to go to London with her big brother. “I have 1,235 books in my library, ranging wide in era and points of origin, exactly which one are we talking about?”

“This Miss Grant tosh. The one there are fifty copies of, the lot sitting downstairs. Don’t suppose you have counted them in your scholarly total yet.”

Oh.
Elias had forgotten that he had given the copy to his friend in the first place, and he most definitely had not expected him to read it. Nicholas did not like reading anything but the gossip pages and even then, he would rather a pretty lady read them aloud.

“You read the whole thing? I realize it is not very lengthy… a thesis, really, but… well. I am impressed, Nicholas.”

“Well, not the whole thing. Enough. Enough to know that it is ridiculous.”

“Do give me your criticism on the subject. I can barely contain my eagerness for your wisdom.”

“The upper class is thoughtless, women, children, and poor men are slaves to them, and by God—women should be allowed to attend university?” Nicholas huffed. “You bought these books to burn them, correct?”

“I have not decided.” He splashed water on his face and patted it with a cloth, then swung it over his shoulder. “Dryden, where is the duchess this afternoon?”

“Personal calls, Your Grace,” he said from near the door. “The household does not expect her back until dinner.”

Elias’s eyes darted to Nicholas, then back to Dryden.

“I may have suggested to her that today would be a lovely day to fulfill one’s social obligations,” the valet added with the slightest of smiles.

“Conspirator.” Elias shook his head. “I thought that my mother might give me a convenient excuse to back out of this idiotic plan.”

“You are acting very strange,” Nicholas said, tapping the yellow book rhythmically beside him. “You want to go see her; you do not want to see her. You say you are not thinking about her, yet you are
silent all the time. You bought fifty nonsense volumes from this bookshop right after you spent weeks telling me that your finances were hopelessly botched.”

“It is not as bad as I thought,” Elias said, shrugging into the overcoat that Dryden held. “All that is left is to visit more notorious places and see that Father did not have anything outstanding that he was embarrassed to put in a ledger.”

“You have gotten a lot of work done. More than in the entire past year.”

“Yes, well. I needed an occupation.”

The carriage ride was bumpy. Elias hated the streets of Cheapside. They were clogged and neglected. Progress and population were overrunning the space itself. When they stepped onto the street, the air was thick and stifling. Alessandra, bless her heart, bounced up and down with excitement. At fifteen, the little blond girl was itching to get out into society. Part of the reason Elias was working so hard to put everything in order was so that he could give her a proper London debut and be assured of her future. Nothing in the streets of Cheapside, filthy and odorous, could help them with that.

The Paper Garden was dark and cool. It smelled of books and women.

Sally was at the front desk and looked up pleasantly as they entered. When she and Nicholas saw each other, they both bristled.

“Crim—” he started, moving forward.

“No,” she said at the same time, scurrying toward the back. “Excuse me.”

When she’d left the room, Nicholas turned to Elias. Elias stayed as still as possible. He knew he wanted to just let it unfold. His friend’s eyes widened slightly, after darting to Alessandra.

“You should have warned me,” he said in an undertone. “And you should not have brought your sister.”

“I wanted her to meet them,” Elias said, which was the simple truth.

“Are they not going to greet us?” Alessandra asked, her eyebrows drawn into a quizzical look that made her resemble her brother. “Was that not the Sally you spoke of?”

“You
told
her?” Nicholas demanded, sounding scandalized. It was amusing to Elias that Nicholas could ever feel scandalized.

“Of course I told her,” he said, keeping his voice even. “I did not tell her… everything. I just told her that we both met beautiful women.”

“Elias,” Alessandra sighed. “I am right here.”

Sally returned from the back, but she was practically hiding behind Josephine’s skirt. Josephine was prepared, her head held ridiculously high. Elias smiled at her pointy nose, making a statement without a word.

She curtseyed.

“Your Grace, Lady Addison, Lord Thackeray. What a distinct pleasure.”

“Miss Grant,” Elias bowed his head in return. “We thank you for hosting us.”

“Miss Grant!” Nicholas exclaimed, pointing a rude finger at her, taken aback. “
You
wrote that disgraceful book. The
bluestocking
wrote that book!”

“Ah,” Josephine said with realization. “That’s where the other copy was.”

Alessandra stepped forward, employing her trademark soft smile that calmed nerves.

“You are Sally?” she said, leaning toward Sally as if she were a skittish deer. Elias always marveled at his sister’s self-possession. “My brother told me you might be able to give me some recommendations of modern literature. My mother is not the most voracious reader and
finds that the books I usually choose are, in her words, too advanced for me to purchase. Would you mind browsing the stacks with me? I am certain Nicholas will accompany us as well, won’t you, Nic?”

Sally found her voice. “I think we may be able to introduce you to some Shelley. If you would follow me?”

The three started to the stacks together and Nicholas leaned down to Sally. He spoke with a slanted smile. “Shelley. It would figure, Sal. So sentimental.”

The last things they heard were “shush” from Sally and the swish of Alessandra’s muslin against stone floor as they disappeared into the shelves.

“I would have given her Byron,” Josephine said, coming out from behind the desk.

“I know,” he said, forcing himself to maintain a proper distance.

His plan could not be working out better: they were alone.

Drat, they were alone. Josephine had hoped that she could avoid that, but once Sally and Nicholas saw each other, she knew she was foiled. The duke stood straight-backed and staid. It was impossible to look at him now without thinking of touching him. She clenched her fists in her skirts and cleared her throat.

“Ahoy,” she said, stupidly.

“I did try to stay away, I’ll have you know.”

He was not a man who dithered.

“You let your fancy friend read my book, Lennox.”

“In all honesty, I was sidetracked when he took it, and he does not usually read.”

“He is angry. He will expose me.”

“He is a kitten, Josie-not-Josie,” Elias leaned against the front of the desk beside her and their sides exchanged warmth in the same stimulating way they had at the piano bench. “He is not a threat, and he is in love with your ward.”

“She is not my ward.” She stopped and turned her face toward his, too quickly. Her vision swam momentarily and then his face came into sharp focus. “He is in love with her?”

“Yes, I believe so. He is addlebrained with adoration.” His keen eyes swept her face from crown to chin. Each time it seemed that he was looking at her tenderly, something inside her twisted and a crack opened in the shell that held her back. She bit her lip, anxious.

“Elias,” she started, directing her gaze over his shoulder. She could not bear to look at him any longer. “I cannot afford to let this go any further. I know that society ladies are tedious to you—you, the Uncatchable—but I do not live in that world. I have more responsibility on my shoulders than those women could ever conceive of and I was not made for a dalliance with you. It is all very interesting and you are very—”

Josephine never got to finish her sentence, which she intended to end with “… dashing, but you must return to the ballrooms.” He pulled her into him and ate her words.

When he broke the embrace, he shored her up by the shoulders. It was a gesture she had seen men do in the boxing ring, a good sport, “get on your feet” kind of thing.

“I have questions, but I cannot concentrate around you, waiting to find the next moment I can touch you. Think logically, darling, you have proven you can.” He smirked and she felt a stunning mix of fury and lust. “Allow me to kiss you when I am so moved and perhaps we can actually begin to understand each other. It does not have to signify anything but the fulfillment of an urge we are both experiencing.” He
gave her a lazy smile. “You cannot deny you feel the same tenseness toward me.”