A Man Above Reproach (5 page)

“Blue.”

She coughed, a rather harsh expelling of air.

“I’m afraid the books are not organized by color, but by author or series.”

“No, Bluestocking. You. Blue. I did not expect to see you so soon. You are irresistible without your mask, even in that atrocious day gown.”

“I do apologize—I think you must have mistaken me for someone else. Being rather plain—”

“You are far from plain.”

“—it happens all the time. Now, you will understand if I return to my shop. It is not proper for us to be alone in this place together.”

“It is not, indeed.”

He had advanced inches while she stammered and now stood in front of her. They were face to face, unmasked, unlike the night before. The cheekbones that had disappeared under the black fabric now directed her attention to the eyes that so vexed her. The passion in them was unnerving, exciting, too much for her to face in stark daylight.

“I like your face much better without the mask. It was in the way,” he murmured. “So, you own a bookstore. Quite surprising, I did not expect that you would be a businesswoman. Are you really a part of that horrid Bluestocking society? Do you stomp about demanding
rights and such? I like the image of you as a crusader. Really, love, I just like the image of you in general.”

“I am sure I do not know what you are talking about.” Josephine nearly fell backward over a stack of books trying to lean away from him. He caught her hand and pulled her in, his other hand snaking around her back to support her. She was stable again, but he did not let go. He kissed her wrist instead of her fingers, lingering. Somehow, his lips on her wrist were a thousand times more intimate than any kiss on the hand.

“I… do not. You. Cannot. You are…”

A rake. Trying to seduce her while his wife browsed for books.

“I am Elias Addison, the Duke of Lennox. And you are?”

She stumbled over a box behind her, wriggling to release herself from the embrace.

“I thank you for your patronage, it is truly an honor,” she sputtered, the words coming out in a rush, each fighting for supremacy over the ones that came before. “I trust that you will bring anything you wish to purchase to the front counter. Thank you.” When she finished, she staggered to the door and closed it behind her, far harder than she intended.

She closed the door in the face of a duke.

Elias had never had a door slammed on him. Never, ever in his life. Wherever he went, doors opened. Looking at the worn wood that Blue had shut against his onslaught, he began to laugh. He laughed long and hard, doubling over, the longest he had laughed since the death of his father. All the irritation he had felt at his mother for insisting on stopping at the tacky little store called the Paper Garden, a ladies’ bookstore, for heaven’s sake, drained from him. He could simply hug her
for it now, that wonderful idea of patronizing this dilapidated bookseller in Cheapside, when there were perfectly good gentlemen’s shops he would rather give his money to. Or so he had said. Whatever stroke of luck brought him here, he blessed it. He had been looking at the eyes of every lady they passed that day, but until the shopkeep turned around, he had failed to find the unique blue-grey. He found it amusing that she would even try to pretend she was someone else. There was no way he could forget the unique antisymmetry of her face, the way that the near-constant furrow in her brow threw off her features, slanted her. It was quite fetching. He wanted to see her when she was not on her guard, to know what she looked like when she was content. He was not fool enough to assume this was on the horizon any time soon.

So the Bawdy Bluestocking was the proprietress of her own shop, selling lurid novels to ladies in the front and more esoteric fare in the back, from the looks of the shelves around him. He spied Pope and Crabbe, Shakespeare, of course, and names he did not recognize at all. He wondered how she chose her stock and where it came from. She must spend her days in endless research. The thought was unaccountably lovely to him. Not exactly reading for delicate sensibilities, all of this—he saw books on Hermeticism to his right—but he was learning that he couldn’t take anything about this woman at face value. It was refreshing for such a mystery to be presented to him. He wanted to unravel her in numerous ways.

Earlier, while his mother looked at dress patterns and lace, Elias had mulled over whether or not to return to the Sleeping Dove in the evening. Thackeray had sent word that there would be a special show they would not want to miss, so he knew where he would be, come nine o’clock. It was a fine respite from days mired in the property, but as a practical man, Elias knew that what was happening between he and Blue was a dodgy thing. He could not seem to stop himself from
baiting her, to see the color rise in her cheeks. Their fingers together on the piano against the black and white keys led his thoughts to moving those digits elsewhere and the interesting positions one could achieve on the bench in his personal chambers…

He gave his head a violent shake. When he was young, he was often chastised for letting his imagination run away from him and now that he was older, he could see the curse of it. Images of the bluestocking consumed his brain, too vivid, from the compromising to the mundane—reading together by candlelight, snuffing those same candles to retire to bed for more physical pleasures.

“Lennox!”

His mother’s voice from behind the door snapped him back to reality.

“I have finished my shopping, so do stop browsing,” she called. “I have a milliner’s appointment at the top of the hour.”

“Damnation,” he muttered, looking down at himself with slight discomfiture. He grabbed an ugly yellow book large enough to shield his fervor for the few moments it would take to get himself under control. He felt like a silly adolescent boy.

The duchess was waiting impatiently outside.

“You were not in such a rush just moments ago, Mother.”

“This place is so very dusty,” she sneered, her skirts swooshing as she made her way back to the large front room.

Blue was nowhere to be found. Likely she had fled to an inner sanctum or left the premises. He was grateful for that, being that his ardor had just cooled and he doubted he could keep it that way if he saw her again. They paid for their books by way of the friendly sales girl, who was also the legendary Crimson. He gave her a secret smile, but she was chirpy and nervous. Elias let his mother exit before turning briefly backward.

“If you would, miss, may I have the name of your employer? I would like to send along a note of thanks for all of her help.”

The girl giggled.

“I thought you knew, Your Grace. You bought her book.”

Elias looked down at the title in his hand:
On Society’s Ills and the Real Price of Prostitution
, by Josephine Grant.

“He did what?” Josephine demanded.

“He bought your book, lovey. But I don’t think he even knew you were the author until I told him.” Sally appeared nonplussed by Josephine’s rage. “I really don’t understand the problem. You wanted more people to read it, you put it with the more serious books. So, if a duke reads it and agrees, perhaps he will tell others.”

Josephine sank into a reading chair, finding no comfort in the cushions that were designed precisely for that purpose.

“Oh, Sal. That man is exactly the irredeemable rake I wrote the book about. Bored, stuck in an arranged marriage, a patron of houses of ill repute. You saw him at the Dove last night.”

“Flirting outrageously with the piano player!” Sally clutched her hands together at her chest, theatrical as always. She had aspirations of Drury Lane, that one. “Oh, dear! I’ve told a handsome and fabulously rich duke who is interested in your charms who you are. Heaven save us!”

“He recognized me.” Josephine slammed a fist on the arm of the chair. “Bloody hell, he knows who I am. He knows my blasted name.”

“I always said you’d better use a nom de plume.”

“You know my opinion of that. There are too many books by ‘A Lady’ circulating now. I have no idea how to even catalogue them anymore.” She tugged on a piece of her hair, nervous.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t go to the Dove tonight,” Sally said with a tinge of worry.

Josephine sighed the fat sigh, the one she reserved for dire situations, the one that expanded to fill entire rooms. This room, for certain, and perhaps the whole block.

“That is impossible. I have to play tonight for Mother Superior’s annual pageant; she would murder me if I missed it. It is a highly anticipated event. You know we both have to go.” She stared at the wall, the weight of her actions finally settling in her gut. “What a fool I am.”

“No, no, Josie! Never say that! You are the bravest woman I have ever known. You do
real
good. Most so-called accomplished ladies simply play at charity work.”

Josephine never felt like it was charity work. It felt strange that Sally should call it that. Women’s lives were on the line and Josephine had found a way she could help. Over time, it had become obvious that the mysterious disappearance of girls from the brothel was connected with the appearance of certain groups of men that Mother Superior fawned over. If you watched the crowd, which Josephine did, you could figure out what girl they set their sights on. Always an orphan, always homeless, always without family or friends. It was nearly guaranteed that if a susceptible girl spent the night at the Dove when those men visited, she would be gone on the morrow and Mother’s pockets would be flush.

From what Josephine could glean, Mother Superior had at least three groups of gentlemen with whom these transactions occurred, gentlemen with noble titles and exotic proclivities. She didn’t know what they were doing with the girls, but since none were ever heard from again, she had to assume that they had not met a good end. So, Josephine did what she thought anyone with the means would: she started taking in girls who had nowhere else to go. The Paper Garden was cramped, stifling, and smelled of rotting books, but it was a place to stay.

She had begun writing
On Society’s Ills
as she slowly learned of Mother Superior’s hidden purposes. It was written from a place of anger at the world she lived in and published in a foolish fit of optimism. Josephine had never thought that a patron of the Dove would read the book, but now it was in the duke’s hands. He knew where they lived and worked.

“This has to stop,” Josephine declared. “We cannot allow Lennox to sniff around here. Who knows if he is connected to one of the gentlemen Mother works with?”

“That seems unlikely,” Sally said, brow furrowed. “He’s Nicholas’s friend and we know that Nic is not one of them. Besides, if he wants to pursue you, how would you presume to stop him?”

Josephine picked up her cup of tea and started up the staircase. “I’ll think of something.”

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

“The men of the nobility often become bored with their lives of leisure and excess of money, so they must find an outlet to manufacture drama in their lives. Instead of working to improve our great country, they waste away, drunk on both liquor and power in houses of ill repute. But what of the women that serve them in these establishments? Much is said of the plight of the noble lady, but what of her sister in the gutters within earshot of the bells of St. Mary’s?”

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

Elias left his mother at the clothier’s and went back to Ashworth Hall. He spent the majority of the afternoon reading the high-and-mighty ideas of one Miss Grant, a bluestocking indeed. He doubted she was actually a member of the society, but she had some radical social ideas. He was surprised that this tome had not caused a scandal upon release. He realized why when he looked at the imprint—Paper Garden Press. Bold little Blue was publishing by herself.

Thackeray called on him promptly at eight o’clock, in an unmarked carriage they had used for raking hell back before Elias became the duke.