by Cheryl Bolen
“Your accommodations are satisfactory?” he asked. Not an especially clever opening, but at least it was better than resorting to the wretched weather.
Those luxurious lashes of hers lifted, and she bestowed upon him a brilliant smile. “Yes, very. The person you employed to decorate the room has taste identical to my own.”
“Actually I designed it.”
She gave him an incredulous look.
“I travel a good deal—”
“Because of your facility with languages?”
“Yes. That is most helpful in my business dealings.”
“And when you travel, you purchase paintings, porcelains, and fine silks for your home?”
He nodded. “In fact, I have an entire warehouse filled with Grecian and Roman statuary for a country house should I ever settle down long enough to build one.”
Her gaze returned to the pasteboards. Was she afraid he would ask questions about her, questions she did not wish to answer?
They played in silence for a few moments before she turned to her sister. “Are you cold, dearest? If you are, we could ask Thompson to bring your shawl.”
The much-older sister had to be cold, he thought. No meat at all on those bones of hers.
Miss Dorothea Door’s face brightened and she nodded.
He rang for a servant, and when a footman appeared, he requested that Thompson procure the lady’s shawl. William’s gaze skimmed to Isadore. “What color is your sister’s shawl?”
“Black.”
Though Miss Dorothea Door was considerably older than her sibling, it was the younger sister who took the role of a protective older sister. Which William found admirable. Her concern for her afflicted sister must explain her reluctance to leave her sister behind even when Isadore participated in illegal activities.
Thompson soon entered the room and came to present the elder Miss Door her shawl. The sharp features of her face softened when she looked up at his man. It was the most animated he had ever seen the poor creature.
William barely managed to win the hand, but his satisfaction was short lived. Isadore tossed aside her cards and sank her head into her hands. He leaped to his feet, moving to her. “What’s wrong?” He gripped two smooth shoulders and drew in the rose scent of her.
“I don’t know what’s come over me,” she said in a suddenly thin voice. “I’m ever so dizzy, and I’ve a beast of a headache.”
“I’ll send for a physician.”
She shook her head. “I daresay it’s nothing more than exhaustion from the tedious journey.”
“I pray you haven’t taken a chill from the nasty weather.”
“I am decidedly susceptible to chills,” she said in a hoarse whisper, shooting a glance at her sister, whose nod confirmed.
He should not have insisted they come to London today in the near-freezing chill in wet clothing. It would serve him right if she took her death of cold. Anyone could see how delicate she was. He bent to put an arm around her. “Allow me to help you to your chamber.”
When they reached the center hall, he instructed the footman to have warm milk sent up to Miss Door’s room. “My mother swears that warm milk wards off the worst chills,” he told Isadore.
A wane smile on her lips, she went limp against him, her head pillowing on his shoulder. As his arm came around her he realized how truly small she was. By the constant comparison to her skinny sister he had thought Isadore voluptuous — perhaps because of her nicely rounded breasts. But now he realized she was every bit as thin as her sister. Only with curves in the appropriate places — places he would not allow himself to contemplate. Not while the poor woman was so sick.
Miss Dorothea Door ran ahead to light a candle and throw back the covers of her sister’s bed while William assisted Isadore. Fearing she was too weak to climb upon the bed, William lifted her in his arms then set her down on the smooth white linen. His brows lowered with concern. “I’d feel much more at ease if you would allow me to summon a physician.”
She settled a graceful hand on his. “You’re very kind, but I daresay a good night’s sleep will do me wonders.” She turned to her sister. “Will it not, Dorothea?”
The mute nodded.
“Give me your word you will send for me if your condition worsens during the night,” he said.
She fell back into the pillows and nodded. “If the need should arise, I’ll send my sister to pound upon your door.”
“My chambers are directly across the corridor from you.”
He fought the urge to bend down and kiss her brow as his mother had done to him when he was sick as a youngster.
Across the corridor to his bedchamber, he settled at his desk to pen those letters left unfinished that afternoon. The room seemed permeated with the scent of roses. Isadore’s scent.
Even though it was not yet nine o’clock, William knew he would not see Diane later that night.
Isadore might need him.
* * *
She listened as his footsteps disappeared into his bedchamber, then she undressed and, with assistance from Dottie, put on her night shift. She stood before the fire, hugging her bare arms and thinking about Mr. Sublime. Soon, a tear meandered along her cheek.
Dottie rushed to her. “Oh, milady! Whatever is wrong?”
“I’m cursed, Dottie. Completely cursed. Why could I not have met the Paragon before I made the disastrous decision to wed Lord Finkel?”
“I don’t know what a paragon is, me lady, but I perceive yer speaking of Mr. Birmingham.”
Sophia sniffed. “Indeed I am. He’s everything I looked for in the seven and forty men I rejected. He’s so. . . magnificent.”
Dottie put hands to hips. “Ye said yerself he could be a highwayman.”
Sophia glared at her. “And you countered by saying you were convinced he was a gentleman. A very wealthy, fine gentleman. And, you must own, you’re always right about people.”
Though reason told her Mr. Birmingham made vast amounts of money on the wrong side of the law, her heart told her he was a good man. A gentleman. She collapsed into her bed, initiating a fresh torrent of tears. “Why did I not listen to you when you warned me about Finkie?”
A knock sounded at the door, and Dottie opened it to take the warm milk. “I’m sure Mr. Birmingham’s right about warm milk,” Dottie said as she brought the glass to her mistress. “Drink it up, milady, and ye will feel better.”
“But I’m not taking a chill.”
“It’ll still make ye feel better.”
“Nothing will ever make me feel better. Lord Finkel will never let me go. I feel it in my bones. And I most decidedly do not like the man. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as Lady Finkel.”
Dottie, dear soul, refrained from saying "I told you so." A few minutes later, after she herself had dressed for bed, the maid announced she had a plan to rid her mistress of the unwanted husband.
Sophia swung around to face the maid, her dark eyes glittering.
“Ye must allow Mr. Birmingham to ruin ye. Surely then Lord Finkel wouldn’t want ye back.”
“That is the most devilish scheme I’ve ever heard of!” Even if it was terribly alluring. “I doubt Mr. Birmingham would be remotely interested in seducing Isadore. I don’t know what he wants from the odious woman, but it certainly isn’t sex. You heard him vow to be a gentleman, and I know he’s a noble man incapable of breaking a vow.”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at ye.”
Sophia bolted up. “What way?”
“With desire. Sexual desire.”
She dared not ask how Dottie knew about things like sexual desire. A tingling infused her body as she contemplated what her maid had just told her. “While I’ll admit you’re always right about men, this once you must be mistaken.”
Dottie shook her head. “I know what I see.”
“You’re a pea goose. Blow out the candle and come to bed.”
As Sophia lay in the darkness, soft rain falling on the c
asements, she wondered what it would be like to lie with Mr. Birmingham. The very notion did strange things to her body.
And robbed her of sleep.
* * *
Mr. Birmingham delivered her breakfast tray himself the following morning. Freshly shaven and cheerful, he at least must have had a good night’s sleep. Unlike her. “How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.
“Better, but my head feels as if a regiment of grenadiers danced upon it throughout the night.”
His gaze raked over her, sifting down to the white lace robe she had just donned. “I’ve brought something to help with that. Thompson has a wonderful concoction that works wonders for a bad head.”
She had to remember to speak as if it were a great effort. “Then I pray that it helps,” she said in a barely audible whisper.
He situated the tray to span her lap, then he stood back and directed his comments to Dottie. “I’ll stay with your sister for a spell if you have other matters to see to. You cannot have rested well last night.”
Sophia could not be left alone with him. He would be sure to ask “Isadore” something that Sophia could not possibly answer. She stiffened. “No!”
A quizzing look on his face, he spun around to face Sophia.
She lowered her voice. “It’s just that my sister worries excessively whenever I am ill. She positively won’t let me out of her sight.” She lowered her voice even more. “Residual effects from Dorcus’s tragic death, no doubt.”
He shot Dottie a kindly glance.
“Besides,” Sophia added, “as a maiden, I cannot possibly entertain you in my bedchamber.”
His eyes went hard. “Then you don’t trust me?”
She shrugged. “Actually, I do. I believe you are a gentleman.”
“Then since your sister is unable to read to you, allow me. It will help pass the time, take your mind off your discomfort.”
How flattered she was that he would devote himself to her when so many other matters must have a claim upon him after his absence from the city. And how incapable she was of allowing him to walk away when she wanted nothing but to spend every minute with him. “Poetry answers very well for my blue devils.”
He offered her a lazy smile. “Have you a request?”
“Cowper or Blake. I like them both very much.”
He raised his brow. “What, no deathbed stanzas? I thought all ladies were enamored of poems that can only be read with handkerchief in hand.”
She shot him an amused gaze. “Oh, I adore that kind of poem,” she lied, “but I assumed a gentleman such as yourself would not have such in his library.”
“I don’t.” He excused himself to go to his library.
He was more convinced than ever that Isadore was a well-borne lady. Instead of the insipid, flowery love poems of third-rate poets embraced by women of society’s lower rungs, Miss Isadore Door had superb taste in poetry. As in everything else.
Save her penchant for embroiling herself in danger.
It occurred to him when he was perusing the volumes of Blake and Cowper and Pope that he and Isadore had a great deal in common. If she had added Pope’s name to her list of favored poets, it would surely have been a sign from the Almighty that this woman was his fate. Even if she was a shady lady.
The moment he reentered her bedchamber and beheld her considerable beauty he grew angry that she was endangering that lovely, lovely neck of hers. By God, he would not have it! He would make her turn straight, even if he had to give her, gulp, eighty thousands pounds from his own pocket.
“I brought Cowper,” he informed her.
Her only response was a flutter of her lashes and a faint smile.
He brought a chair to her bedside. “Do you have a favorite?” he asked, opening the book.
“You select.”
He began to read from The Winter Evening. She smiled at his selection, and though it was a long poem, she mouthed along with him several lines.
And when he finished, she said, “This Sylvan Maid thanks you deeply.”
Good lord! Sylvan Maid was from an obscure line in Pope’s Windsor Forest.
She must be The One.
Even if she was a shady lady.
Chapter 5
As thoroughly as she had enjoyed sharing her morning with Mr. Birmingham, whom she kept thinking of as Mr. Perfect (except for the problem with him likely being a criminal), she'd been impatient for him to leave. She simply had to speak to her brother about the difficulty with Finkie. Devere would know how to go about dissolving the silly marriage. And, of course, she had to see that her . . . ahem, husband did not get his hands on her dowry.
As she and Dottie walked the several blocks from Grosvenor Square to Half Moon Street, she kept thinking about Mr. Birmingham and cursing the fact she had not met him before that single act of lunacy which joined her to Lord Finkel.
The sooner that absurd marriage was dissolved, the sooner she could hurl herself at the feet of the Divine Mr. Birmingham. Even if he was earning his substantial riches on the wrong side of the law. Perhaps her dowry could entice him to give up his wicked ways.
For in the past four and twenty hours she had found what she had failed to discover in seven and forty proposals of marriage and seven and twenty years: her perfect mate.
She wasn't at all sure he would even want her.
"A sweeter man there never was," Dottie gushed as they continued along Piccadilly, impervious to the clopping of hooves and the rattle of carriage wheels along the busy street. "Can you imagine a manly man like that sittin' and reading poems to the woman he loves!"
Sophia's eyes narrowed. "I am not the woman he loves!" Then, with lowered voice, she added, "Though, I must own I have discovered that I wish I was the woman he loves."
They had reached the corner of Piccadilly and Half Moon Street as Dottie stopped dead in her stride and faced her mistress, a huge smile on her narrow face. "Milady! I never thought to ever hear you utter them words. You're really and truly in love for the first time in your seven and twenty years. I knew when I laid me eyes on him night before last he was the very one for---" Dottie screamed.
Sophia had been so intent watching Dottie's lips, she had failed to see the liveried Finkel servant come up behind her abigail and accost her. Poor Dottie was screaming and kicking the man, who was well over six feet tall, as he attempted to make off with Dottie as if she were a poached quail.
"Where's the valise?" the horrid man asked Dottie.
"Unhand my servant!" Sophia shrieked as she aimed a kick in the vicinity of the wretched man's unmentionable anatomy (as her brother had once instructed her).
Then, like ants converging on a blob of honey, three more Finkel servants collapsed around the two women.
How stupid of me! Finkie had obviously ordered his servants to watch her brother's house. She had thought to be safe from Finkel's long arm in broad daylight. In the midst of her blood-curdling yell, a huge hand cupped around her mouth with great force. She felt as if she were suffocating. As her breath waned, her panic set in. These . . .these animals were treating a well-born lady with the utmost discourtesy. In fact, their behavior was that of the worst sort of guttersnipe.
She would certainly see to it that Lord Finkel was informed of their great barbarianism. Why, he would turn out the whole lot of them for daring to treat Lady Finkel in such a manner!
If the men did not kill Dottie and her first.
A horrid man pinned her arms behind her, but her legs were still free. She managed — with one well-placed swift kick — to cause one of her assailants to double over in pain.
Why wasn't a passer-by attempting to rescue her? Could they not tell she was Quality? This was, after all, Mayfair. Ladies of good birth were never accosted upon the streets of Mayfair in broad daylight.
No sooner had those thoughts flitted through her panicked brain when she heard His voice. Her Savior. Mr. Birmingham. "Get your filthy hands off that woman, or I'll kill you!"
Almost si
multaneously, she heard . . .well, she couldn't precisely remember his name, but she did know it was the voice of Mr. Birmingham's valet (who was nothing like any valet she had ever seen) warning the beastly men away from Dottie.
Suddenly those thick fingers were removed from her mouth, and she gulped in mouthfuls of air while those hands which had so recently covered her lips were now fisted and directed at Mr. Birmingham's exceedingly nice face.
She needn't have worried about her Savior. He could well handle himself against twice as many burly footmen.
As did his valet.
Almost as easily as boots crushing broken glass, Mr. Birmingham and his man disabled the Finkel servants, and once again she and Dottie were obliged to remove sashes from their dresses so the evil men's hands could be tied behind them.
Mr. Birmingham bent over Dottie's captor and spoke in an almost sinister voice. "Who do you work for?"
Sophia's gaze clapped upon the horrid man. A trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth, and great rivulets of perspiration criss-crossed his ruddy forehead. But he refused to answer Mr. Birmingham.
She could see fear in his eyes. Were he afraid of Mr. Birmingham, he would have answered. Which meant he must be terrified of Lord Finkel.
"If you value your teeth, you'll answer me," Mr. Birmingham warned through gritted teeth.
Still, the man remained silent.
Despite her anger at the odious man, she took pity on him. "These men are in the employ of Lord Finkel," she said.
At the mention of Finkie, Mr. Birmingham's eyes flashed, and an expression of decided distaste swept over his very agreeable features. "I will see your master ruined if it's the last thing I ever do. Now I can add the abduction of fine ladies to my list of grievances against the man."
She'd as lief not let Mr. Birmingham know she even knew the despicable Lord Finkel. It was obvious Mr. Birmingham disliked Finkie excessively. As she was beginning to. Had Finkie authorized these ruffians to abduct Dottie and her? Twice?
The man's gaze swept from Mr. Birmingham to rest upon her. "Lord Finkel will be wantin' to know the name of the man you've run off with, Lady Finkel."
