A Man Above Reproach (24 page)

And the more disconcerting question: Would her answer be yes?

“And so there we are,” Elias finished, crossing his arms and studying Nicholas and Sebastian. They lounged in his sitting room, both now looking at him dumbfounded.

“Let me summarize to the best of my ability,” Sebastian said. “Your bluestocking was actually raised in respectable society, some scandal made her and her mother flee to Scotland, she returned with a chip on her shoulder against the peerage…”

“And men who dally,” Nicholas added.

“And men who dally, and then she got a position at a whorehouse where she wrote a book decrying the system.”

“Indeed,” Elias confirmed.

“And
then
,” Nicholas continued, after pausing for dramatic effect, “the avenging angel began to help the wounded doves around her, making a poor financial situation worse.”

“A regular martyr,” Sebastian smirked. “I do not like the type.”

“We should not forget that she was also operating under a surname. Nay—two surnames, one at the Dove and one at the Paper Garden. And now her nefarious employers are onto her scheme and they may attempt to get rid of her. The whole thing is quite theatrical, Lennox.”

“Yes, Thackeray, yes. It is all very epical. I am sure you are pleased to no end that I have to deal with a situation that I would not believe if it was written in a ridiculous novel.”

“Rather like a play,” Nicholas agreed. “A farce, even.”

“It is wonderful,” Sebastian said. “It is, in fact, delicious. This story is deserving of a hero.”

Elias frowned.

“Oh, stuff it, Frost. This is not a story. This is my
life
.”

Both of his friends stopped for a beat, looked at each other sideways, and burst into laughter.

“The tortured, lovelorn Duke of Lennox!” Nicholas struggled to continue through the laughter. “The stone-faced statue is felled by the crusading beauty!”

“Do tell any playwrights you may know,” Sebastian snorted. “They could not plot it better than that.”

Elias looked up at the ceiling in exasperation.

“If only there was someone to write you two out of the tale.”

Nicholas stood up and clapped him on the back.

“You would not change it.” He poured brandy for all three of them. “Do not ruin our fun. We have waited almost twenty years to be able to tease you for not thinking logically. To deny us this little comfort would be cruel.”

“He speaks absolute truth,” Sebastian said. “You did not let me off lightly the time that I stole Lord Welles’s carriage to take the barmaid from the village to a carnival.”

“Or when I lost every shilling I had, and then some, on a bet that I could steal the headmaster’s day journal from his chambers without
reproof. That particular act of bravado was born of a desire to impress his daughter’s governess.”

“That was a fool’s errand and you knew it,” Elias muttered.

“We could go on,” Sebastian offered.

“Save your breath; I take your point. Do consider, though, that while you jest, a business proposition hangs in the air.”

Sebastian set his glass on the table with an authoritative clink.

“You want to buy the Sleeping Dove.”

“All of us,” Nicholas clarified. “He wants all of us to buy the Sleeping Dove.”

“As with most business ventures, it is sensible to pool resources so that no one person shoulders all of the responsibility.”

“
There
is the trusty logic again.” Sebastian leaned back into a chair.

“I maintain that it would be profitable for all involved. And Frost, you are doing nothing in London since your return, so why not? It would give Nicholas a reason to spend more time here, as well, and less with the overbearing marchioness,” Elias reasoned, hoping that they would not continue ruminating for long. The truth was, he could do it himself but he didn’t want to. He had spent the majority of his existence lifting responsibility on his own. The thought of drawing his two closest friends into a venture that would require working together was vastly appealing. As annoying as they could be, they were his family. He found that after all this time, he wanted his family around him. He wanted to be among them, not trapped in a tower alone with the weight of the world on his back, like some tortured fairy tale prince.

“Surely you do not want to continue selling girls.” Nicholas’s eyes looked far away for a moment. It was obvious that he was thinking of his Sally. “It is not right; it was never right.”

“No, but I thought perhaps gambling tables would make the same amount of money. Those tables need able bodies to attend them.”

“The lovely ladies go from the beds to the bar,” Sebastian filled in. “They bring the drinks and provide sparkling conversation, making for a pleasant place where it will be quite easy for the gentlemen to forget how much money they are spending. Yet—you cannot be blind to the fact that there will still be transactions for… a little extra entertainment.”

“Not our business,” Elias said. “Their choice.”

“Lennox.” A note of warning entered Sebastian’s voice, which was bizarre to him. Sebastian’s smooth tones were generally employed to charm and Elias was not used to the teasing overtones disappearing completely. “As much as I would love to support you in ruining yourself, this would be a terrible scandal.”

Nicholas had an entirely opposed look his face: ideas were quite visibly flashing across his brain.

“We would not be public owners, Frost. Do not be silly.”

“Exactly,” Elias said, tapping a finger on the table to avoid looking at Sebastian.

“And who is your figurehead? You both evidently have this all worked out already. Forgive me for having just returned from traveling, I do not know the history here, and am at a disadvantage in it. Nor am I so blinded by love that I am willing to stake my fortunes on it.”

The smirk had returned to his voice.

“Sally is the figurehead, of course,” Nicholas said. His voice rang with pleasant surprise. “It is rather neatly tied up. Impressive, Elias.”

“Well?” Elias asked. “What say you?”

“I will give it some thought,” Sebastian hedged.

“I am done thinking,” Nicholas gave a wide smile. “I am your proud partner.”

“All right. Fine.” Sebastian sighed a long-suffering sigh.

Elias felt himself grin. He stuck out his hand to each man in turn and they shook. Sebastian punctuated the transaction in his incomparable way.

“This will end badly, but I am certain it will be interesting.”

Analise returned to the Paper Garden feeling shell-shocked. The dress that made her feel like a duchess would arrive later; it needed minor alterations, but Elias apparently expected her to dress for dinner. She had not done such a thing since she was a teenager. It seemed ridiculous. The Paper Garden had undergone even more changes since she was gone, including two intimidating guards outside of the front door. Mother Superior would not dare try anything now.

Sally had gone back to her posh flat and Sapphire—whose real name was Georgina—was having lunch when Analise walked through the door. Georgina was very young, only nineteen, and she had taken to the bookstore gratefully. It allowed her to quit the Dove and oversee the cleanup of the place. She did not ask many questions, but Analise suspected she thought that the duke had ridden in on a white horse to save them all, which needled her pride. But, since the explanation was far more complicated, she chose not to discuss it.

“Hello, Miss Grant!” Georgina said brightly.

She also chose not to discuss the issue of her name.

“Good afternoon, dear.”

“We’ve been so busy! I had to lock the door in order to eat.”

“That is wonderful,” she said, as flat as the covers of the books surrounding them. It was wonderful in a sense, but confusing in all others. She would never be able to give up the way that she lived—revolutionary ideas and all that went with them—and the duke did not seem to realize that she was dooming him to a life of scandal. The downfall
and humiliation of the duchy of Lennox would be on her head. If Elias expected her to become a respectable duchess, he would be a sorely disappointed man.

“I’ll reopen now,” Georgina said hastily, folding her napkin. Analise became aware that she had probably been silent longer than socially acceptable.

“Finish your lunch,” she said, waving her hand. “I am not displeased with you; it has simply been a trying day. Thank you for dealing with this upheaval.”

“Thank
you
, Miss Grant. I cannot express how happy I am to be here.”

“Do not mention it,” Analise said. “I will be in my room. My head is throbbing.”

“Do call if you need anything.”

She nodded and ascended the staircase as if she were dragging her body in a sack. She was tired in her bones. The spiral, in most instances a comfort, seemed like an unnecessary complication. She tried to lie down to clear her head, but she was restless. Elias would return that evening, still under the impression that she was amenable to a union between them. There was no more time to stall about making a decision: she had to either tell him she was leaving or give in to being swept off her feet and into a different life.

She heaved a traveling chest out of her closet and flipped the lid open. She was a woman who liked to be prepared, so she began to pack even though she was not sure it was truly her wish to go. Her doubts about their relationship were so deep that she had not even expressed them to herself. She had been selfish; she wanted every moment with him until she had to admit that she could never be his wife.

She emptied the contents of one of her drawers into the chest, folded summer dresses that she had not been wearing. Some were so old that they were covered in patches where they had been mended
over and over. She added her jewelry box to the pile, what little baubles she retained. She had only kept her mother’s favorite pieces and family heirlooms; the rest were pawned long ago to pay the bills and help the girls.

She stopped, stared at the inside of the luggage—what was she doing? Elias deserved better than her running away. In the same breath, he deserved better than attaching himself forever to a woman that would shame his family.

She opened an armoire to pack her warmest clothing—as she remembered Scotland, it could be heartlessly cold. It would be a fitting exile. She had not meant to toy with the duke, but she had let him believe he could construct a happy ending. Analise had known from a very young age that the nobility would never accept her and that fairy tales were just that: fairy tales. She stood with a pair of boots hovering over the chest, thinking. If she were to leave, she could not tell him; it would not work. He would not let her.

She sat down at her desk and began to draft a good-bye letter, which kept coming out all wrong and consisted mainly of scrawls and strikethroughs. She would rewrite it later, if she made the decision to leave.

By late afternoon, she had packed all of her necessities and covered them with a sheet in a corner downstairs with the insufficient letter, but she had still not come to a decision about whether she should stay or go. The tower of chests stood in memoriam to her indecisiveness and the unanswered question that had taken root in her heart.