A Bit of Rough

by Jackie Barbosa

  “She is,” he confirmed for Rahul’s benefit.

  “So for all her talk of reform and equality, she’s really just another greedy swell. That’s disappointing, I must say.”

  Since Lucas’s reaction upon locating her name in Debrett’s had been much the same as his friend’s, he probably should not have felt a surge of righteous indignation on her behalf at the insult. But he had since taken the time to review their interactions—in the most meticulous mental detail—and to reread a large number of her essays, and he had come to the conclusion that she was completely sincere in the beliefs she espoused in her work. “You are holding against her the very thing the British nobility hold against us and every other member of the working class: the accident of her birth,” he observed. “When did you become so narrow-minded?”

  “My God, you truly are smitten.” Rahul shook his head sadly. “If she is as genuine in her beliefs as you claim, then the accident of your birth should be no impediment. Yet she does not welcome your suit.”

  “I explained that she does not intend to marry.”

  His friend’s eyebrow arched in the way that made him look particularly patronizing. “Surely you don’t just accept that because it is what she told you.”

  A ribbon of distrust slithered through Lucas’s midsection. The assertion would be a convenient way to put him off without showing her true colors. But no, he decided. There was no way she had fabricated her objections to put him off.

  “No, I do not accept it simply because she told me.” He mimicked Rahul’s skeptical tone. “I accept it because she has argued for years that the legal status of married women is unjust and dangerous. Her personal position is completely in keeping with her public statements.” Not to mention that she was twenty-five, lovely, and still unwed. This did not suggest hypocrisy.

  With a grudging sigh, Rahul nodded. “Very well. I’ve certainly read her essays on the subject and she is consistent, I will give her that. But marriage? You met her yesterday, and already you must either have her to wife or not have her at all? That seems rather…precipitous, don’t you think?”

  “What do you suggest as an alternative?” Lucas asked caustically. “That I install her in my flat as my light-o’-love as you have Magdalene? I’m sure that would go over well.”

  His friend rolled his eyes. “If I had your attitude, I would still be ogling my Maggie from the pit instead of holding her in my arms every night.” Rahul leaned forward, his expression earnest. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained; fortune favors the bold; et cetera, et cetera. You’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been if you don’t go after her.”

  “I can’t—”

  Rahul held up his palm to halt the words. “You may not succeed. But you can try. I’ve never known you to shy away from an obstacle. Why are you so willing to give up on this woman before you’ve even begun?”

  Because the stakes were too high. And not simply because he’d be a fool to marry anyone, given the illegality of his chosen occupation, but because rejection would wreck him. Easier to live with regrets than with confirmation that he would never be smart enough, rich enough, good enough for her. He’d learned not to expect too much from the British—be they rich and titled or poor and common—when it came to the color of his skin and the foreignness of his accent. And no one should understand that better than Rahul.

  Lucas remembered the day the two of them had met in the yard at St Paul’s School. Both of them scrawny, dark-skinned thirteen-year-olds, they drew attention to themselves simply by existing. The abuse from their English classmates had begun almost immediately and had escalated from taunts to physical violence when it had become clear the two “mud boys” were the academic superiors of their native-born peers. Rahul had excelled at mathematics to such an extent that the headmaster had been forced to place him in the fifth form, while Lucas’s command of the written word had been good enough to keep him at the top of their class for the next five years. But not only had this failed to earn them accolades from their fellow students, it had not even won them praise from their instructors who, rather than rewarding their accomplishments, would scold the other pupils for being too lazy or too feckless to outstrip the performance of “low-born foreign savages.”

  It had been natural, under the circumstances, for Rahul and Lucas to band together for both moral and physical support, but the friendship had deepened into blood brotherhood. No one on earth understood Lucas better than Rahul, not even Lucas’s own parents, and he would have said the same was true in the reverse…or had been, until Magdalene had come into his friend’s life. And perhaps she was the reason Rahul had forgotten what they’d both learnt in St. Paul’s schoolyard: they would never, ever be as good as even the lowest Englishman. For as downtrodden and abused as the poorest British citizen might be, he was still white and therefore superior to an Indian of either the Mexican or Asian variety.

  “When are you going to marry her, then?” Lucas heard himself ask.

  Rahul’s brown eyes shuttered, and he sighed. “Maggie wants to marry this summer. She has a beautiful voice, but she will never escape the chorus and she knows it. Now that my position with Cubitt seems secure, she wants to quit the opera, stay home, and have babies.”

  “And you don’t want that?”

  “There is nothing I would love more!” Rahul nearly shouted. When conversation at several other nearby tables went silent and heads swiveled, he flushed and lowered his voice. “You know my parents. They are still determined to arrange a marriage for me with a good Marathi girl from home. I’ve been putting them off for years, telling them my career and income were too unstable for me to consider taking a wife. Can you imagine their reaction if I brought Maggie—not just a Christian and an English girl but an opera singer—home and told them I plan to marry her?”

  Lucas stifled a laugh that would have been more sympathy than amusement, but which he knew his friend might not recognize as such. The Joshis were among the kindest, most welcoming people he knew, but they were strictly faithful to the traditions and beliefs of their homeland and had little patience for their son’s more relaxed attitudes and sensibilities. They would view his desire to marry any Englishwoman as a slap in the face; the fact that she was the sort of woman even English parents would reject as a daughter-in-law only made the insult more grievous.

  Grinning wryly, Lucas observed, “Under the circumstances, you’re a fine one to be handing out romantic advice. Or is it just that you’d like to see me in as devilish a predicament as you are?”

  Rahul grinned back. “Misery loves company.” His expression sobered. “But so does joy. I would like to see you as happy and blessed in love as I have been, even if there are hardships along the way. After all, what is the value of a prize that comes cheaply or easily?” Reaching into his waistcoat pocket, he drew out his pocket watch and flipped it open. “And my time is up.” He drained the last of the liquid from his cup, rose to his feet, and clapped a hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “I’ll expect an update next week, my friend.”

  As he watched his friend saunter from the coffee house, Lucas reflected that Rahul had a point, at least insofar as the only things worth having were the ones that came with trials and tribulations. But there was a difference between hard work and hopelessness, and Lucas could see no way in which any pursuit of Lady Honora Pearce could result in anything but heartbreak. He was already half in love with her; if he allowed himself the opportunity to tumble all the way, he would never be happy again. For even if she loved him in return, even if she wanted to spend the rest of her days with him, she had too much to lose to wed him.

  Given these ruminations, he should not have taken the minibus from Russell Square to Poland Street. And he certainly should not have headed west on Poland Street instead of turning east toward home. But some impulse propelled him—a desire, perhaps, to see the veritable palace where she lived and once and for all dash the hope he foolishly continued to harbor.

  He might a
lso, he supposed, have been holding out for the possibility that she would simply happen to be on her way out when he walked by. A chance meeting at which he could evince surprise and delight while not actually being so forward as to press his suit.

  What happened when he reached the address he’d memorized the night before when she’d provided it to the hackney driver was something else entirely, however.

  To begin with, the façade of the Earl of Ormondy’s London residence was considerably less ostentatious than Lucas had anticipated. Instead of the shiny white veneer, sweeping staircase, and wide frontage he had imagined, 12 Clifford Street was a conventionally narrow terrace constructed of plain red brick and free of ornamentation, aside from a Grecian-styled pediment that shaded the front stoop. A townhome in the heart of Mayfair was still worth more than Lucas would earn in a hundred lifetimes, even if he returned to practicing law, but its relatively modest appearance did not give him the gut punch of unworthiness he’d been expecting. In fact, he had to fight the temptation to mount the steps and knock on the shiny black-paneled front door.

  And then what? He had no calling card to present and no rational reason to present himself. Yet the urge had him taking several steps in that direction when a liveried coach drawn by four gray draft horses pulled to a stop at the curb in front of the Ormondy residence. The footman who rode in the back leapt to the pavement and opened the door to permit the occupants to exit. Lucas was expecting several people, all garbed in elegant splendor, to emerge, but instead, the only passenger appeared to be a man who towered almost comically over the footman, especially once he had set his top hat upon his head. At some twenty feet distant, Lucas could see that the gentleman—for he must be one to be ferried about in such a fine conveyance—was broad in the shoulders but slender through waist and hips, very handsome, and quite young.

  Suspicion rocketed through Lucas’s chest as the fellow walked to the front door of number 12 and gave three sharp raps of the knocker. Was Rahul right? Had Lady Honora lied to him about her opposition to marriage? The door opened, and the caller was immediately ushered inside by an unseen servant. Clearly, he was a known quantity in Ormondy’s household, an intimate friend. Was this coxcomb her suitor? Or even her betrothed?

  Lucas’s stomach churned with emotion—anger, betrayal, grief. Fool. Rattlepate. Nincompoop. She had never been his to lose, but somehow, he had managed to convince himself there was a chance. Now he knew better. Even if he was jumping to conclusions—and he knew he was jumping to conclusions, for there was no evidence whatsoever that the tall, handsome, young gentleman was there to see Lady Honora, let alone courting her—this was why he could not afford to maintain the fantasy of any sort of future. Because he would always know she could have done better, should have better.

  He pivoted on his heel and walked away. Some dreams were never meant to become reality.

  Chapter Six

  “The two of them lay on the grass, gasping and panting, as acrid smoke billowed from Hallsbury Hall, now fully engulfed in flames. The crash and clatter of glass as another window burst behind them caused Jones to hunch his shoulders to shield her from the flying shards. Why had she never noticed before, Persephone wondered, how very broad those shoulders were, or how very taut and shapely were the muscles of his nether limbs?” – M. Honeywell

  Honora reread the last paragraph she had written and sighed. This would never do, she thought irritably. The readers of M. Honeywell’s The Adventures and Misadventures of Miss Persephone White would not take kindly to their wholesome and plucky heroine musing over the bulge in Bow Street Runner Gabriel Jones’s breeches. Nor would they much care for her stalwart and perfectly proper protector suddenly demonstrating anything but a platonic interest in the lady’s person.

  But that was what kept coming out on the page. All because she could not stop thinking about Mr. Delgado. About the kiss. About the hard ridge of his erection pressing against her belly and making her weak and melty inside.

  With a frown, she lifted the paper from her desk, prefatory to balling it up and tossing it in the waste bin with the dozen or so others she’d already disposed of today, when a polite scratch on the door interrupted her.

  “Come,” she called, expecting one of the housemaids to enter on some task or errand.

  She was surprised, therefore, when Collins, the butler, appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Noel Langston to see you, milady,” he announced with great formality.

  Honora was on her feet with a squeal of delight before Collins had even backed far enough from the door to allow her cousin to enter the private sitting room that adjoined her bedchamber. Owing to his prodigious height, Noel had to duck his head before crossing the threshold, which gave Honora time to cross the floor and leap into his arms once the butler had shut the door behind them.

  “Noel,” she said as he lifted her from the floor and gave her a brotherly hug, “what a wonderful surprise!”

  Noel was the youngest of the children her Uncle Walter and Aunt Artie had rescued from an orphanage run by two thoroughly nasty women who mistreated their charges and falsified records to collect more than they were due from the parish. Despite the fact that the family lived in a small town in Cumbria, where her uncle served as vicar, Honora was closer to Noel—and to Annabelle, who was nominally his sister—than to anyone else she knew. Partly, this was because Noel was a year younger than she, while Annabelle was a year older. The three of them had been inseparable during Christmas holidays in London and Easter and summer holidays in the country. But the other, more essential reason was that the three of them had been nonconformists from the cradle. They were none of them related by blood, despite the familial connection, but their bonds went far deeper than a mere accident of birth could account for. As they’d reached adulthood, however, they’d found fewer and fewer opportunities to spend time together.

  After the publication of the last Mary Weather book three years past, Annabelle had embarked on a grand tour of the continent to study the masters and develop her craft as a painter. She had come back to England at the end of 1829, but left the following spring after securing an invitation to join the studio of Tommaso Minardi in Rome. Since then, she had not been home, and she was a woefully irregular correspondent.

  As for Noel, he had been taking a more active interest in his mother’s concerns—which was to say politics, not courtesanry—since graduating from Cambridge, and while this meant he often came to London, it also meant his time tended to be spoken for. She supposed she should have expected he might be in Town now, with election for the new Parliament beginning tomorrow, but that made it all the more startling that he should have found the opportunity to visit her. And in the middle of the day, no less.

  When he had set her feet back on the floor, she stepped away and looked up at him. He had filled out a good deal since she’d seen him at Christmas, for his shoulders appeared wider than she remembered and his frock coat nipped tighter at the waist but flared broader across his hips. All in all, he made quite a handsome picture, though he lacked Mr. Delgado’s rugged, earthy appeal.

  And why in heaven’s name should she think of him now? Scolding herself for her wayward thoughts, she gestured for her cousin to take up the armchair nearest the grate while she settled onto the settee diagonal to him. “I am delighted to see you, but I cannot imagine to what I owe the pleasure of your company.”

  Noel pressed his palm to his heart, feigning injury. “You cut me to the quick, cuz! Do I need a reason now to pay you a call?”

  Rolling her eyes, Honora repressed a grin. “You have been in Town no less than three times since Christmas, but not once have you come to see me. I know my father and Uncle Nash and all your other contacts in government keep you fully engaged when you are here, and I do not begrudge them your time, but do give me the courtesy not to pretend you don’t appreciate my surprise.”

  His mouth dimpled at one corner, and he sighed in capitulation. “Alas, I do, and I regret that I have made a stranger
of myself, but you know how tumultuous everything has been for the past few months. And now we must ensure a liberal majority in these elections, or we’ll never get the Reform Bill passed.”

  Ever since the Wellington government’s fall last November in the wake of the Swing Riots, Earl Grey and his allies—including her father and Uncle Nash—had been working without success to pass legislation reforming the electoral system. The shortcomings of the present system had been evident for decades if not centuries, for the current apportionment of seats in the Commons had led to numerous rotten or pocket boroughs that gave far too much power to their representatives relative to the size of the population. And then there was the question of the franchise, and who should have it. Grey and the Whigs wanted to expand the right to vote beyond those who owned property worth forty or more shillings—though their proposal didn’t go nearly far enough in Honora’s opinion—while Wellington and the Tories were divided on whether to make any changes at all.

  In any event, the bitter and tumultuous struggle between the factions had ended five days ago, when the King had appeared in person to dissolve Parliament. Honora had written several articles about the events of that singular day for various publications, leaning rather shamelessly on her father’s descriptions at the dinner table that evening for details. And now, elections for a new seating would begin in some constituencies as early as tomorrow and carry on through the end of May.

  “Given my professional pursuits, you must be aware you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” she chided. He and Annabelle were the only people who knew she was Polly Dicax as well as Mary Weather and M. Honeywell. Although, she supposed Mr. Delgado knew now, too—though not about M. Honeywell, author of thrilling yet chaste serials.