A Man Above Reproach (19 page)

“Thackeray brought me to the Dove to cheer me up, you know. He thought me dour.”

“I think you dour.”

There were the matching footsteps in the hallway, same as at the Paper Garden: Alessandra, light and quick, Sally, wide and bright, Nicholas, loud and convincing. Elias released Josephine with great reluctance as the door opened.

“Well, now, my divine ladies,” Nicholas said, florid as always. “The duke looks as if he has achieved a modicum of respectability. We should face the music back at Ashworth, eh? Someone—Alessandra, you—should come up with a plausible story.”

Sally was making a gesture at Josephine, sort of waving her hand around her face, at once frantic while trying to be discreet. Elias turned to Josephine and realized that her entire soft, smooth face looked as if it had been dragged repeatedly across the carpet. He had to stifle a laugh when she looked back at him with those wide blue eyes, questioning. He simply stroked his beard suggestively.

“Rogue,” she hissed askance.

“Unrepentant,” he sang. “See me. Tomorrow. The Dove.”

“Relentless.”

“Do you want us to leave?” Nicholas asked impishly.

“No, Thackeray,” Elias said a notch louder. “We must return home. Miss Grant has honored my request to continue our conversation about my fate tomorrow and we have already wasted enough time while Mother is at home waiting.”

“I have a genius idea for an excuse,” Alessandra said, full of intrigue and animation. And, apparently, romantic notions… she looked hopefully to Josephine. “So, he will not marry Miss Francis? He
cannot
, look at you two.”

Josephine and Elias glanced down at their hands, still entwined. Josephine dropped the clutch and cleared her throat.

“He must, Lady Addison, but it will be all right.”

“He will not. He will not marry her.” She flounced her skirts into a curtsey. “Good day, ladies, I do thank you for the sanctuary, hospitality, and pleasure of your company.”

Elias thought his sister’s maturity downright disturbing at times. She wore a triumphant, knowing smile when she turned toward the door.

Elias caught Josephine’s chin and held it. “Tomorrow?”

“Fine,” she sighed.

Even her resignation was a triumph. He smiled and followed the rest of his party.

Sally sat down at the tea table and beckoned Josephine to join her.

“Josephine,” she said carefully, pouring tea for both of them. “You need to tell me why you’re acting like a madwoman.”

She accepted the tea gratefully and sighed, lounging into the chair. She had to admit it to herself, perhaps to Sally. She was mad for the man. What had just transpired between them proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“He has turned my life upside down.”

Sally smiled.

“I know the feeling.” She took her friend’s hand and patted it. “But, darling, you are driving all of us crazy. It is apparent to anyone who sees you with him that you don’t simply admire him. Admit it or not, it does not change the fact that you want to be with that man.”

“I am sorry that we argued. I want to admit fault. I cannot… he is making it impossible to think straight.”

“I saw the flowers, thank you. And of course I forgive you.” Sally sipped her tea, peering at Josephine with keen eyes over the lip of the cup. “He is not thinking straight himself. You should have seen him
when he arrived. Still in his sleeping shirt, wild-eyed, frightened—and not at the prospect of marriage, at the prospect of losing you.”

“You should not have given him laudanum.”

“I didn’t give it to him, Nicholas did.” Sally’s lip curled slyly. “He raved something fierce for a half an hour afterward. Your Elias mutters under his breath more than he talks to other people, normally, but he didn’t seem shy about telling us that he adores you. He said, ‘I don’t care if she bathes in virgin blood or turns into a wolf at the full moon, there is not another woman I will marry.’”

“He said that?” Josephine blinked.

“And more, but it got quite tedious. Nicholas threw a pillow at him and we all had a laugh. He calmed down shortly before you got here.” Sally was doing an awful amount of smirking, Josephine thought. “Of course, from the looks of your neck, perhaps he didn’t exactly calm down. He mauled you.”

“Sally!”

“Well.”

“Oh, gods,” Josephine said into her hands.

“The beard does give him a tempting, brooding look,” she continued, watching her reaction sideways.

“Stop, stop.” Josephine peeked through her fingers. “I take your point.”

“You know that he is a good man,” Sally said, her tone turning serious. “I know you thought that good men did not exist, but you cannot continue treating him like he is a myth. He will help you. Tell him everything!”

“I have not even told
you
everything!”

“Oh, I know,” Sally waved a hand. “Woman of mystery. Josie is not your name, etc., etc.”

“He told all of you?”

“I said he was babbling, dear heart.”

“I do… care for Lennox.” It was still difficult to force the words out of her mouth, but perhaps saying them aloud would help ease the heartache. A little pit opened in her stomach. “And I believe he feels the same for me. However…”

“Oh, here we are with the ‘however’…”

“However, there is no telling if he would shoulder the burden of the truth about the Dove, or if it would change the way he felt about me.”

“Well. You cannot know that if you do not tell him.” Sally set her tea cup down, leaving the dregs in the bottom. She had never done that while still living at the Garden, as the tea had been too scarce to waste.

“I do not…”

“… want to risk it? You would rather watch him enter into a loveless marriage and likely a life of regrets? For both of you? How noble.” She snorted in disapproval.

“He would not be in danger, then, and I—well, I am used to it.”

“Or you tell him and he helps and we all escape it together.”

“Sally.” She threw her napkin on the table. “What, happily ever after?”

“Yes.”

“Unlikely.”

Sally sighed a long-suffering sigh.

“All right then, my friend. I tried.”

“Do you really think he would not cast me aside?”

“Darling, I think he would do everything in his power to stop the injustices. I think he would be enraged.” She paused, looking away. “I am not going back to the Dove. Neither should you. Find another way to keep the shop open.”

“But the girls…”

“You can’t save all of them. You can’t even save yourself, as it stands. Mother is increasingly suspicious of you. What if she learns you’ve been
sheltering girls? If she finds out, she will bar you from the club—or worse.”

The bluntness of the statement seemed to hit Josephine in the chest.

“You mean she will kill me.” Josephine let out a long breath. “I ought to speak with Elias.”

Sally just nodded.

“Good. More tea?”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

“It is, of course, much easier for a literary character to take a risk for love. The realities of social strata and responsibility mean nothing but a plot point in today’s modern literature, but outside of these stories we are not pushing for change. The ideals we embody in our art rarely play themselves out in our lives. What would happen if we took the example of our fictional heroes; what if each of us was a Don Juan?”

—F
ROM
T
HE
C
OLLECTED
E
SSAYS OF
L
ORD
E
LIAS
A
DDISON

Elias managed to avoid his mother’s ire by way of a little white lie—“I most certainly told you that I would be away from Ashworth this afternoon; I had a meeting with the solicitor regarding one of the country estates.” He had blinked like an innocent at her wrath, insisting that he could not be expected to know that Lord Francis would be visiting when he had not been informed. That much was the truth.

Still, Sophia stared daggers at him all through the meal. Lord Sebastian Frost, his cousin and heir of the Earl of Harrington, prattled on about the lovely time he spent in India and how good it was to be back in “civilization.” He knew Sebastian was lying through his teeth. Elias had received letters to the contrary:
“Cousin, it is stiflingly hot here. In stark contrast are the women, who are lukewarm at best. They seem immune to my charms and are too smart by half. Could you send me a decent brandy, by the by?”
, but as long as he dominated the conversation, Elias only had to smile and nod at Miss Francis on occasion, who sat obediently at his shoulder. For her part, she looked as if she was paying even less attention than he was.

By the time guests began arriving for the ball, Elias, Nicholas, and Sebastian had installed themselves in a corner, hoping to fend off the marriage market by presenting a united trio of backs.

Frost’s grand ballroom was beyond magnificent—it was decadent to the point of embarrassing. His parties, which had been sorely missed while he was abroad, were ever in demand. Even though the patronesses thought him an unmarriageable rake, invitations to his events were sought after for matchmaking and gossip. Elias had seen a woman vomit in a potted plant at one of these ordeals and then go on her merry way with no one the wiser, a testament to how many interesting things were going on at once. Tonight, however, he cursed it. Half of the whispers revolved around his rumored engagement.

Sebastian read his face.

“We can hide in the gaming room, if you wish,” he suggested.

“My mother is watching me like the peak-nosed hawk that she is.”

“Where do you think you got your nose?” Nicholas jabbed. “Dance with Miss Francis, Sebastian, so that Lennox can have a moment of peace.”

Sebastian guffawed, steadying himself on a marble bust of some ancestor.

“I would frighten her to death,” he declared. It was true. Sebastian was overly tall, his dark brown hair nearly shorn to his scalp, and he still had an excessive tan from his travels, which gave his skin an imposing leathery look. He cut quite a figure compared to the ghastly pale Englishmen who rarely saw the outside of a club.

Elias craned his neck, sweeping the room to find Miss Francis. Poor bird, she was just about as helpless to the fate of their marriage as he. She was being twirled about by a viscount of minor importance. In that case, it would not be until the next waltz that he must dance.

“Yes, let’s escape to the gaming room for a spell.”

The darkness and smoke in the men’s-only room was a welcome respite from the bright ballroom. Nicholas peeled away from the room to peer over the card tables, looking for a worthy opponent. The two cousins found another corner to occupy. They were brought drinks
immediately by Frost’s observant staff, drinks much stronger than they would have gotten in the main room. Sebastian took a drink and exhaled happily.

“Oh, much better. Now—I am getting the impression that Miss Francis is not a love match, Lennox.”

“Astute of you.”

“In love with your mistress, eh?” Sebastian set his drink on a mantle and shook his head at Elias’s censorious glare. “Come now, Nicholas told me, and you would have said so yourself soon enough. Are her stockings really blue?”

“Only at the club.”

“Which, speaking of, I am quite bereft that you have not yet invited me to the Dove.”

Elias grinned. “I am sure that Thackeray would agree with me on this account… we would like to keep our women.”

“Len-nox,” he groaned.

“In all seriousness, Sebastian, you only just returned. And now that Thackeray’s bird is safely in a cage, I do not know how much time we will be spending there.”

“What of yours? Safely in her cage?”

Elias drained the rest of his brandy at that sentence.

“She is not mine.”

“The whole male segment of the
ton
thinks so.”

“They should inform her, then,” he said, feeling the bitter expression that pinched his features. “For I am having no luck convincing the harridan.”

“Really now?” Sebastian’s eyes danced. There was nothing he liked more than a little intrigue. “Even with the piano and the restored courtyard and the afternoon bath?”

“Gods, how do you know all of that?”

“I have my sources, Eli. You cannot possibly think that your actions have been secret. The staid and scholarly Duke of Lennox loses his wits over a lightskirt? They could not make up better gossip.”

“Loses his wits?” Elias objected.

“Some say you have gone mad,” Sebastian said pleasantly. “I love it. Makes you a trifle more noteworthy, like perhaps you are a human being after all.”

Elias regarded his cousin with reproach.

“Come now,” continued Sebastian, “you must admit that hunkering down at Oxford and building walls of books around you was a pointless activity.”

“Right,” Nicholas agreed, returning to the group to clink his glass with Sebastian’s. “So very boring.”

“There is part of me that agrees with you,” Elias said.

“He has even been displaying a sense of adventure,” Nicholas told Sebastian.

“No!” Sebastian put a hand to his heart in jest. “Impossible.”