A Man Above Reproach (6 page)

“The girls will dance tonight,” Nicholas told him with anticipation, “and certainly not the dances we are used to in stifling ballrooms.”

“Even the bluestocking?”

“Alas, no. Someone has to play the music.”

Elias pushed down the disappointment he felt.

Upon arriving at the Dove, they drank until donning the omnipresent masks. He was as anxious as he had been on the first night, but now with anticipation instead of dread. He could not wait to confront Josephine, if simply to see the look on her face when she realized that
he had read her precious manifesto. Elias allowed himself to get a little drunker than he should, but it had not calmed his nerves one whit. Mother Superior’s cloying greeting was lost on him as he scanned the crowd for a pair of blue stockings.

She was nowhere to be found.

Sally, however, was already on her way to the open arms of Nicholas. She was dressed more elaborately than the night before, gleaming with jewels that were so plentiful that they had to be fake. That did not seem to matter to Nicholas, who embraced her in full view of the crowd. Either he had too much confidence in the masks, or he simply did not care.

“Your Grace!” Sally greeted Elias, her breath half stolen by the grinning Nicholas. “It’s a pleasure to see you again so soon. It’s a special night, our annual Birds of Eden Pageant!”

“How will you have a show without a piano player?” he asked, thinking it a clever way to inquire without conveying his worry.

Her face fell.

“We are a little worried. BB hasn’t shown up yet nor has she sent word, and we’ve under an hour until show time. She’s never late. I do hope nothing’s happened.”

Elias knew that something had happened—the something that passed between them when he kissed the soft skin of her wrist. She would not be coming back to the Sleeping Dove. Not tonight and perhaps never again. Foolishly, he had scared her.

The moment he had come to that conclusion, the woman in question stepped out from behind a curtain that shielded the place where the ladies donned their supposed finery. She looked far from scared; she seethed with unholy rage. It lit her eyes from behind with a new fire as she scanned the crowd, just as he had done previously. When those points of furious blue found him, they narrowed. He had been targeted.

“Thank heaven!” Sally exclaimed. “There she is!”

Josephine towered, glittered, head to toe in flowing silk except the slice in the gown to expose her blue stockings. She was still looking straight at him, making sure that he saw her gaze and expression. Then she turned abruptly and went to the piano.

“Lennox,” Nicholas said carefully. “Did the Bawdy Bluestocking just cut you?”

“Direct.” His voice came out calmer than he expected. “She gave me the cut direct.”

Sally was silent and visibly anxious.

Elias could understand that he had taken liberties where he should not have, but there was no excuse for what she had done. There was no excuse in the world to give the cut direct to a duke. He could not remember a time that anyone had dared to do it to him, but he had seen it many times in ballrooms. It was the worst possible snub, this looking directly at a person and then away. It said wordlessly,
I see you, but you are below my notice.
Elias knew he should not dignify it, but his feet were moving before his mind could rationalize.

Josephine sat down at her bench and let out the breath she had been holding in since laying eyes on the haughty Duke of Lennox in the crowd. She had not been sure he would show up, especially if he had started reading her book. He would know why she spent a great deal of her nights at the Dove, and he could probably infer what she was doing. Many parts of the book alluded to the nefarious aspects of the Dove, though it did not name them nor did it name the establishment. He was a sharp man, for someone raised in nobility. He was not as soft-skulled as the peers of her previous acquaintance, but he was miles more self-important.

Proven by the fact that he was currently stalking over to her.

“Of all the—” he started.

With all the composure she could muster, she faced him, one finger in the air to stop his assault of words.

“Your Grace. I am not being paid to speak with you this evening. I must practice the introduction, as the girls are counting on me to help them present their wares to their best advantage.”

“Hypocrite,” he snarled.

“Hardly,” she returned. She plumped her skirts to settle down and touch the keys. “You are one to talk, in that case. Now, if you will allow me…”

He would not. He was puffed up, fixing to make a scene.

“How. Dare. You,” he roared, using the booming ducal voice that Josephine thought must be a class in itself at Eton. He slammed a twenty pound note on the piano. “That should be enough for a serious conversation, Bluestocking, no more of this idiocy. Now move over.”

Josephine thought for a moment about kicking him in his most sensitive spot and then thought the better of it. Besides, the ever-watchful Mother Superior saw the money and the man. Josephine moved over a mere sliver so that the damned Duke of damned Lennox would be uncomfortable when he sat down.

“Very accommodating of you, Miss Grant,” he scoffed. He played some test chords on the high keys and his face showed his extreme displeasure. “This instrument is just so appalling.”

“You address me by my surname, and oh! Thank you, Your Grace, for your discretion! It is safe to assume that you know the book you bought was authored by me.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, raising a sinister eyebrow. “I most undoubtedly do.”

He kept playing, wincing at the wrongness of the sound. Even warming up, she could tell he had true talent. She had never known
a man of nobility who wished to put in the practice that playing well took, but this man was an oddity in so many ways. Every time he leaned for a farther key, he gained more ground, making sure that he had his share of the bench. Josephine moved another inch to her left so that they were not touching.

“Then you must understand that I cannot continue hosting you in this way.” She lowered her voice. “And you may never come to my store again.”

“They,” he glanced up, looking around the room, causing dozens of eyes to skitter away. “They think me a lovesick fool, coming over here after you cut me, in full view of a quarter of the beau monde. Grant me an explanation, Miss Grant.”

“Explanations are too expensive, Lennox. Even for a duke.” She hoped he would take the use of his title as she intended, as a slight, hear the contempt in her voice. He did: the slender raise of his left eyebrow told her so. “Now, if you will excuse me, the show will be starting soon. I will thank you to take your seat with Lord Thackeray.”

He crossed his arms, like a great thundercloud over her.

“I will not have the assembled crowd think that I play your fool, Josephine, and I do not think your mother would like you pushing me off my perch.” He nodded over to Mother Superior, watching with great curiosity, but at a distance, near the bar. “For both of our sakes, do try to make this look like a lovers’ quarrel.”

“She is not my mother. You impede my reach on the piano,” she muttered stubbornly. “Besides, I doubt you brought enough flush to pay for something like that.”

Elias finally uncrossed his arms with a sideways tilt of his head.

“All you think about is money.”

Her fingers froze on the keys as she tried to contain the rage she felt at the serious expression in his blasted beautiful eyes. She thought it might be sympathy, which repulsed her.

“I am sorry if you find me crass, but I do not have the leisure time as afforded Your Grace. Or any man.” She shuffled through the sheet music in front of her, searching for the intro measures, and found that her eyes were watering. Embarrassed, surely. Burned. The libretto was a convenient excuse to turn her face. “I do not want your censure or your pity.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Shhh,” she cooed, in a tone she usually reserved to pacify drunkards. “The ladies are waiting for me to play the introduction.”

Josephine began the overture and Elias flagged down Digby, to order drinks for the both of them. He made no attempt to move from the bench, but he did lean back a bit to accommodate her playing. She shifted, adjusted her posture, tried to focus. It was dastardly hard to do, knowing that he could see the composition, and in the absolute holiness of his arrogance he would not hesitate to correct a mistake. He was watching her, from what she could make out in her peripheral vision, but she could not see his exact expression. Foul man, who should be home with his wife, instead here he was, making her life ever more difficult. This was the exact reason she railed against the nobility in her book. The men had nothing to do but indulge their basest desires, whether or not they ruined lives in the process.

He flipped the page for her as she reached the end of the intro.

“Can you play and talk at the same time?” he asked, too near her ear.

“In general,” she said, staring straight forward at the bars and notes, not daring to turn. “But this arrangement is a bit new to me, so I need to concentrate.” She obeyed the long rest at the end of the measure, hearing the girls shuffle behind the curtain. Josephine knew to wait until they calmed down to play the opening song. The duke stood up, apparently deciding to honor her request for attentiveness.

“Apologize for cutting me,” he murmured, bending so that only she could hear his words in the silent anticipation of the room waiting
for dancing girls. Or was it silent because everyone was staring at them? She played an innocuous line to try to cover and distract, but Elias’s lips were still next to her ear. “Apologize, and see me after the show. Alone.”

“No,” she said through set teeth.

To her absolute horror, he placed a hand on her chin and turned her face to him. With her sitting and being forced to look up, he seemed impossibly tall and breathtakingly handsome.

“You will,” he all but whispered. “Won’t you?”

“Go. Away. Now.”

His face broke into a smile, a genuine one.

“Are you implying that if I go away
now
, you will see me
later
?”

The man was not going to back down. She would have to lie to him and find a way to escape after the show.

“Fine, Lennox. Fine. Go!”

Mother Superior was waving from behind the makeshift stage. Josephine had to start. Everyone in the place was gaping at them. They had become the preshow.

“Go!” She hissed once more.

She could have sworn he was chuckling when he walked away.

“Are you mad?” Nicholas demanded when Elias returned to the table in front. There was a stifled laugh within the question.

“Quite,” Elias said. He felt light-headed and exhilarated. For a man who lived by rules that were set down ages before he had any say about the matter, and lived them to the letter, to fence with this woman was novel and invigorating. He was not doing it for anyone but himself, a feeling that he had not experienced since being snatched from Oxford three years before. If there was talk, he would have to worry about it
later. He wanted the brief moment of happiness that he felt when he saw the spark in her eyes.

She did not hate him. She just wanted to.

“Lennox, you rakehell. You practically kissed her in front of everyone.”

“An exaggeration.”

Nicholas sighed with happiness. “It does my heart good to see you enjoying yourself.”

“You have always had an exceptional gift for hyperbole,” Elias frowned, noting that ears around their table had perked up. “I needed to put the girl in her place.”

“Which place is that?” Nicholas chortled. “Your bed?”

“She is impertinent, Thackeray,” he said with as much gravity as he could muster, though he was still smiling. “Behave, watch the show. Here comes your Crimson, in fact.”

As Nicholas’s paramour took the stage, Digby set down a much-needed brandy in front of Elias. He drank deeply and then craned his neck to make sure that Blue had gotten her wine. He had paid a handsome fee for Digby’s services and for Mother to leave them alone, and he intended to get his money’s worth. The expensive wine sat on the pianoforte, untouched. Josephine had her head down as she played. He meant to look away, but her loose hair fell over her neck in such a way that he found his gaze locked. He mentally traced the line of her collarbone, so high and defined.