She’d piled much of it high in a soft coil on her crown, adding to her height, making her even more striking. But the rest of it, oh, the rest of it… It came down around her shoulders in curls and riots, dropped down her back in an ongoing cascade of auburn, and swished around her hips—her curvaceous, womanly hips—to tease against her fundament as she moved.
It was daring, different, and yet, not quite indecent.
Hazlit’s hands ached at his sides, though whether he wanted to get a fistful of her hair or spank her, he couldn’t say.
“I’ve taken a sudden notion to appreciate mature females,” Deene was saying. “Though if her brothers ask, I’m being protective in their absence. Hold my drink.”
And that, the simple fact of Deene’s unthinking response to a gorgeous woman, saved Hazlit from making a similar fool of himself. He supposed he’d make a little different fool of himself later in the evening, after Maggie had had her fun and left a trail of broken hearts all over the room.
When the buffet had been served and a violin soloist had performed along with the quartet, Hazlit understood Maggie was waiting for him to come to her. Her glance swept the room occasionally, as if she were merely surveying the attendees, the same as anybody would do on a social evening. When her eyes passed over him, they kept on moving. No telltale nod or widening of the eyes.
Self-possessed, was Maggie Windham.
So he let her stew, made his own plans, then resigned himself to a late evening.
It was a particular pleasure when she climbed into the dark confines of her coach and sat back with a deep sigh, all without realizing he was sitting in the shadows across from her. She rapped on the roof three times, and the coach pulled away with the horses at a sedate walk.
“Did you have fun, Miss Windham?”
She didn’t scream, which was a point in her favor, though her hand disappeared into her reticule.
“You might hit me at this range, even in the dark,” Hazlit said. “But I really wish you wouldn’t. In such a situation, even a gentleman might be forced to take desperate measures.”
“Good evening, Mr. Hazlit. Not quite a pleasure to see you.”
“You hired me, Miss Windham. Were we to communicate exclusively in notes written in disappearing ink?”
“No.” Her ungloved hand emerged from her reticule. “I meant I can’t quite see you.” She took off her other glove and stuffed them both into her bag. “I suppose it makes sense you’d prefer to meet in private. I wasn’t sure whether to approach you, since you insist on determining the time and place you meet with a client. You did not look to be enjoying yourself.”
“You did.” How could peevishness creep into only two syllables?
In the dark, her teeth gleamed in a smile.
“I did. A little bit, I did. There are advantages to being on the shelf, though I’ve yet to truly appreciate them.”
“One being that you can tease and flirt and carry on like a strumpet all night?”
The peevishness was gone, but Hazlit hardly liked himself for the condescension that had taken its place.
“If I’m flirting and teasing, then the gentlemen are also flirting and teasing, and yet you hardly compare them to streetwalkers. They are being gallant, but you accuse me of being immoral. Hardly fair, Mr. Hazlit.”
“They do not have their hair swinging around their backsides like some dollymop working the docks.”
She went still, as if he’d slapped her, and Hazlit had to wonder if she wouldn’t be justified in shooting him. “That is a gun you have in your purse?”
“A knife.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” He switched seats and settled directly beside her on the forward-facing seat. “Go ahead, try to stab me.”
“You deserve to be deflated, but why attempt a violent felony?”
“So I can show you why you ought not to carry such a thing.”
“But my papa…”
“Is a duke, who hasn’t been in a hand-to-hand brawl since his duchess got her mitts on him three decades ago. Pull the knife.”
“But what if I hurt you?”
“I want you to try to hurt me, try your absolute—”
She got the thing free of her purse, at least, but he had her wrist pinned up against the squabs, his body forcing hers back against the seat so snugly he could feel her breathing.
“I take your point,” she said, her breath fanning past his ear.
He wasn’t finished. He eased the pressure on her wrist just a hair, and while she perhaps thought the demonstration over, he brought the knifepoint up right under her chin, making further speech for her perilous.
“The gun,” he said, “will at least make a hell of a noise and bring help. If both barrels are spent, it’s harmless. The knife can be turned on you over and over again, and if you don’t bleed to death, then infection will likely carry you off eventually.”
“I understand, Mr. Hazlit.”
He stayed for a moment, his weight still pressing into hers, lowering the knife only slowly. In the darkness, he couldn’t tell if she’d gone pale, but she wasn’t crying. Her breathing told him that.
And the scent of her, God in heaven the scent. Cinnamon and mille fleurs, maybe. A little lilac, some hyacinth, even a touch of rose, a whisper of jasmine, and it all twined through a man’s senses and made him want to linger near, teasing fragrance from fragrance until he was drunk on an olfactory catalogue of sweetness.
She said nothing. Hazlit felt her hands on his chest, not pushing, but maybe ready to push.
Prey went still like this sometimes when a predator spotted them. It was an attempt to become invisible, a futile attempt. He shifted to sit beside her, fished around for a few moments, then reached in the dark for her hand.
“Get rid of it,” he said, settling the hilt of the knife in her palm. “I’ll get you a lady’s version of a pocket pistol and teach you how to use it, unless you’d rather approach one of your brothers to see to it.”
“My brothers?”
“St. Just would be best suited to the task.” Devlin St. Just was a decorated cavalry officer, one who’d been awarded an earldom for his exploits in the Peninsular War.
Or for being a duke’s firstborn bastard.
“He’s gone back North, where he’s likely to stay,” Miss Windham said. “If you can spare the time, I will take my instruction from you. But I hardly think your purpose in meeting me tonight was to accost me with a knife.”
“Of course not. We’re to begin your investigation, assuming you still haven’t located this reticule?”
“I have not.” She sounded tight-lipped about it, though her reply brought Hazlit an odd sense of relief.
“Then let’s begin with the obvious. When did you last see it?”
She turned her head to regard him by the light of the occasional porch lamp.
“I could write much of this down for you. When I last saw it, who works for me, what was in it.”
“And then there’d be a written record, which could also be stolen, copied, distorted, or lost. We haven’t much time, Miss Windham. I suggest you answer the question.”
“I last recall having it when I returned from visiting with Anna out in Surrey. That would be four days ago.”
“What does it look like?”
“It’s beaded, white, brown, and turquoise.”
“What shape?”
“Bag-shaped.”
“Miss Windham.”
“Well, it is. It’s a drawstring design and about fifteen inches square.”
“Fringed?’
“Yes, fringed at the bottom.”
“What all was in it?”
Silence, and Hazlit let his fingers close around the lock of hair he’d been slipping over his knuckles in the dark. Her hair was so long, she hadn’t felt him toying with it.
Or she was that distracted by his interrogation.
“Miss Windham, perhaps you didn’t hear the question.”
“I’m thi
nking.” She was the peevish one now, but he didn’t mind if she wanted to keep them trotting around Mayfair all night. “I forget.”
“Perhaps you can recall this: You threatened to try me in the court of public opinion, Miss Windham. Did you think I’d find your purse through divination? You’re going to have to trust me a little, and if you can’t, then I’ll return your money to you, and we’ll forget this charming interlude over knives in the dark.”
“It was only one knife, and you started it.”
Did not. She’d started it when she’d come down the stairs to the ballroom looking… tumbled. Or worse, willing to be tumbled.
He was certainly willing to be tumbled, by her, anyway. The evidence of same was literally growing in his breeches, and that would never do.
“Do you want my help or not, Miss Windham?” The question cost him, for she’d be smart to cut him loose. He was enjoying their chat in the dark entirely too much.
He let her stew in silence while he offered his unruly parts a stern, silent lecture. He pictured his favorite vistas up at Blessings, recited the Lord’s Prayer in Latin, and—most productive of all—dropped the silky coil of hair he’d been tormenting himself with for the past five minutes.
“I can’t go to my brothers.”
It was an admission; he gathered that much and went carefully as a result. “Over a misplaced reticule?”
“There’s more to it,” she said, sighing in the dark. Hazlit wasn’t sure, but he thought perhaps she leaned a little on him. “I have a half-dozen reticules and could buy a dozen more tomorrow.”
“Are you concerned you left it in an incriminating location?”
“You’re back to my wicked love life.” She sounded amused. “Think what you will about me, Mr. Hazlit, but it will be a waste of time. I don’t go places I’m not supposed to be. I don’t dally with men who aren’t available, and I know better than to deal in the vices that condemn a lady beyond recall.”
“What vices would those be?”
“Gambling, opium, cockfights, university boys, the usual list. Given my antecedents, I cannot afford even a whiff of association with any of it.”
He sat beside her in the dark, breathing her scent and yet feeling a little ashamed of himself. Her voice rang with truth, underlain with sadness. She was either a consummate liar or she was confessing to a little loneliness.
Maybe a lot of loneliness.
“Would you want to make those associations, Miss Windham?”
It wasn’t a fair question, not within the realm of his investigation. It was just him, admitting to a little curiosity about the woman beside him.
“I would want the option to make them,” she said, the honesty of her answer surprising him. “The freedom. I have no desire to see two roosters reduce each other to masses of bloody feathers. I have no wish to lose money or even gain it on the turn of a card. I certainly have no wish to lose my wits to opium, but maybe I’d like to think I could if I felt like it.”
“You can, but it’s risky, as you say.” And for reasons that did not bear examining, he would be damned if he’d let her be exposed to such risks.
“I am prudent. My family values this in me; it has been a relief to them.”
“They’ve said as much?”
“Her Grace has.” She glanced out the window. “We’ll be back to my house soon. Shall I have the coachman drop you off at your own address?”
“We still have much to discuss.”
“And yet we’ve been in constant conversation.”
Unfortunate word choice.
“I can call on you tomorrow.” But God in heaven, where had that brilliant notion come from? He seldom called on women, and it would be remarked by all and sundry if he started with Maggie Windham.
“I don’t generally have callers outside my family.”
“None?”
“Helene, a few other women, but not… not gentlemen, and certainly not handsome single gentlemen with polished address.”
She thought he was handsome?
“Make an exception for me. We were seen waltzing; a follow-up social call wouldn’t be that unusual. I could meet you riding in the park, if you’d rather, but there’s less privacy.”
“I do not keep a riding horse.”
“Then I will call upon you at two of the clock. I will expect you to be a little more forthcoming than you were this evening.”
“I will try. You never answered my question: Shall I have John drop you at your home?”
“God, no. You might think he’d keep such a thing to himself, but I’ve yet to meet the coachman who didn’t enjoy his pints at the local watering hole, and that’s a situation rife with opportunity for hanging a lady’s laundry in the street, so to speak. He’ll slow on the turn into the alley, and I’ll be off.”
“Like a thief in the night.”
“Like a gentleman in the night.”
He tucked into his pocket the lock of hair he’d surreptitiously cut with her knife, and as soon as the coach slowed, darted out the door without another word.
***
“You think my wits have gone begging,” Maggie said. She didn’t blame Alice for a look of exasperation, not in the least. “I just haven’t had a caller outside family in ages, and I’m… nervous.”
Standing in her corset and stockings, Maggie was undecided.
“Anything in your wardrobe will be above reproach, mum. You’ll feel most confident in something you like wearing.”
“Good advice. The bronze silk and the cream gloves.”
“You’re stepping out with your caller?”
“I’m not.” Maggie took the dress from Alice and pulled it over her head. “But there’s no need for informality.”
“A coronet, then?”
“A tidy coronet, one braid, no jewelry.” As plain and severe a toilet as she could politely manage for a morning call. Hazlit was coming to talk business, and yet Maggie’s insides were jumping around as if she were seventeen and permitted to dine at table for one of Her Grace’s formal dinners.
There was no need for this. None.
She sat at the vanity and passed a brush back to Alice, who went to work on the thankless task of brushing out Maggie’s hair.
“Did you catch your hair on something last night?”
“I did not. Why?”
Alice dangled a coppery skein over Maggie’s shoulder. “You must have snagged it. This length is a good three inches shorter.”
“I doubt that. The whole business is in need of a good trim, and it’s probably just getting uneven.”
“Yes, mum.”
Alice fell silent, her fingers deftly pinning a fat braid into a circle that coiled one and a half times around Maggie’s head. Alice loaded the thing with what felt like several dozen pins, then handed Maggie cream knit gloves.
“Will I do?”
Alice’s homely face creased into a smile. “Aye, mum. You’ll do. Whoever he is, he’s in for a treat.”
“How did you know it’s a man?”
“Because I’ve not seen you this flummoxed since your first season,” Alice said, hanging a discarded gown back in the wardrobe. “About time, if you ask me.”
“Alice…”
“I know.” Alice waved a hand and picked up the second dress and the third. “I’m not to be braying your business about should His Grace’s footmen get to visiting in the kitchen, or Her Grace’s lady’s maid, or your sisters or brothers. Your business is yours and yours alone.”
“You don’t agree?”
Alice had been Maggie’s maid since Maggie had turned sixteen—roughly half Maggie’s lifetime. She was permitted a certain familiarity, in part because she never took advantage of the privilege.
“I’m thinking a woman with as much decent family as you have, mum, shouldn’t be trying so awfully hard to keep her distance from them.”
Alice might have said more, might have let Maggie have a rare piece of blunt Irish common sense, but the tweeny rapp
ed on the bedroom doorjamb.
“Beg pardon, mum, there’s a gentleman here to see you.” She passed over a silver tray, upon which lay one calling card.
Cream linen, green ink, and all it said was: “The Hon. Benjamin Hazlit.”
Honorable? Was he in line for a title, or did he truly have one? Maggie decided to put the question to her papa, who knew as much about the business of the Lords as Her Grace knew about the order of precedence. This would involve a trip to the ducal mansion, but needs must.
“Put him in the family parlor, Millie, and get the teakettle going. Sandwiches and cakes both on the tray.”
“Yes, mum.” Millie bobbed away toward the servants’ stairs, leaving Maggie feeling an odd giddiness.
“Let him wait five minutes,” Alice said from the depths of the wardrobe. “You’re worth that much of his time.”
“But the sooner I greet him, the sooner he’ll be gone.” Maggie squared her shoulders and prepared to meet her caller. Her first gentleman caller in fourteen years, and all he’d want to talk about was her very sorry personal business.
***
“You’re studying my garden,” Miss Windham said. “It isn’t very far along yet, but the Holland bulbs are making a good effort.”
“I grew up in the North,” Hazlit replied. “We appreciate any gestures in the direction of spring, from any quarter. Good day, Miss Windham, a pleasure to see you.”
He bowed very correctly over her hand, and she curtsied with equal punctilio.
“Where shall I put…?” A little maid stopped in the doorway, all but hidden behind a large bouquet of bright red carnations.
Alas for my heart. Hazlit knew the sentiment associated with red carnations and had had them delivered anyway. He certainly wasn’t going to send the woman roses, for God’s sake. Carnations were durable, and they had a fresh, spicy scent that put Hazlit in mind of his hostess. She didn’t strike him as the type of lady to waste time decoding bouquets in any case.
“On the sideboard, Millie.” Miss Windham’s lips turned up in a smile more sweet than any Hazlit had seen on her. “My youngest brother is temporarily returned to Town,” she said, taking the card from the bouquet. “Of all my siblings, Valentine is the one most likely to make the gallant gesture…”
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