The Conundrum of a Clerk

by Sande, Linda Rae

  “You mean, they used to?” Daisy interrupted.

  Elizabeth helped herself to another biscuit. “Oh, no. They are still fencing partners. They spar with one another at Angelo’s Fencing Academy. Mr. Streater is quite adept with a foil, you see.”

  Blinking, Daisy considered the comment. However could a man with only one arm participate in the sport of fencing? “I should like to pay witness to that,” she murmured, the thought of her new employer employing a foil to fend off an intruder causing a frisson to pass through her body.

  The viscountess frowned. “I don’t know if they allow ladies into Angelo’s,” she said with a shake of her head.

  Daisy allowed a slow smile. “Then a disguise may be called for,” she replied with a wicked grin.

  Her eyes widening in delight, Elizabeth was about to ask if she might join the duke’s daughter when there was a knock at the door.

  “I should take my leave,” Daisy said as she moved to stand up. “I’ve movers to arrange and a household to set up this evening,” she added, when she noticed Elizabeth’s expression of disappointment.

  “Well, thank you for coming,” her hostess replied. “I should like us to do this often, if possible. If only because we have ... common goals.”

  Daisy furrowed a brow, wondering to what Lady Bostwick referred. “Common goals?”

  “Why, to keep Mr. Streater happy, of course,” the viscountess replied.

  The door opened and George stuck his head through the opening. “Oh, pardon me,” he managed, about to step back and shut the door. “I didn’t realize you had a guest.”

  “Oh, George, do come in. Miss Albright has paid a call to let me know that she is Warwick’s new headmistress,” Elizabeth said as she stood up and hurried over to him.

  “Already?” he replied, managing to bow in Daisy’s direction and kiss the back of his wife’s ink-stained fingers all while Elizabeth attempted to kiss his cheek. “Congratulations are in order then, Miss Albright,” he said.

  Daisy stood and nodded. “Thank you. I have both of you to thank, in fact, for I wouldn’t have learned of the position if you hadn’t found me yesterday.”

  George turned his attention back to his wife. “I just wanted to let you know I’m off to the tailor’s shop for a fitting. We have the theatre Saturday evening, and I fear my best waistcoat has seen better days. Then I’ve a sparring match scheduled with Teddy,” he added, his brows waggling.

  “Well, do be careful. He left you with an awful bruise the last time you two fought,” Elizabeth complained, one of her hands going to his midsection.

  “We don’t fight, darling,” he replied, his voice kept low in an effort to placate her. “We spar.”

  Elizabeth gave him a quelling glance. “Well, perhaps you could spar a bit less violently,” she suggested, just before she kissed him again on the cheek. “You needn’t allow him to poke you so hard.”

  Daisy averted her eyes, rather stunned at how affectionate the viscountess could be with her husband. She was sure Viscount Bostwick’s ears were bright red with embarrassment.

  “I’ll implore Teddy to go easy on me,” George whispered before he gave her a quick kiss, stepped back and closed the door.

  Sighing, Elizabeth returned to her chair just as Daisy took a step toward the door. “Oh, must you leave already?”

  Daisy nodded. “I’ve some packing and moving to do,” she reminded the viscountess. “I intend to spend the night at the apartment in Glasshouse Street,” she added.

  At the thought of watching Lord Bostwick spar with Mr. Streater, though, Daisy wondered if she might just have time to pay a visit to Angelo’s later that afternoon.

  She could always finish moving in later that night.

  Chapter 14

  Asking for Advice

  Later that afternoon

  “You want me to do what?” George asked in alarm. He stared at his best friend from where he stood in the changing room at Angelo’s Fencing Academy, nearly ready to take on Teddy in a match on the pisté. Due to Teddy’s position at the bank, he was rarely available for a match on a Monday, but the death of his mother had him taking a couple of days off “to settle her affairs,” he had explained to his superior.

  “Help me find a mistress,” Teddy said in a hushed tone. He glanced around, lowering his head before he added, “After today’s interview with Miss Albright, I find I am... frustrated,” he added with a sigh.

  George glanced around the room, wishing the other two fencers would finish dressing and take their leave. He knew Daisy Albright had already paid a visit to the finishing school and secured the position of headmistress. She had paid a call on Elizabeth earlier that morning with her good news.

  Meanwhile, Teddy mentioned he had spent the afternoon shopping before making his way to Angelo’s. “What exactly happened with Miss Albright?” George asked. Good God. Had the duke’s daughter said something? Done something? Whatever she did seemed to have Teddy rethinking what they had discussed just the day before. He thought Teddy would be in search of a wife—not a mistress.

  “Nothing,” Teddy replied, his head shaking as he pulled a loose shirt over his head. “Nothing, except that I hired her, and for the fact that my cock decided it rather liked the woman.” He sighed. “Still does,” he added in a hoarse whisper.

  Blinking in attempt to keep from grinning, George finished preparing for their match and sat down on the bench next to where his clothes lay folded. “I take it you found her... attractive?”

  Teddy sat down on an adjacent bench—hard. “I would have to be dead not to,” he countered.

  “Did you... interview her?” he asked. “Or just offer...?”

  “Of course, I spoke with her. I hired her. Showed her my mother’s old apartment. She’s moving in this afternoon,” Teddy said, acting almost as if he was regretting having met with Miss Albright. “She starts tomorrow morning.”

  This last comment was a bit of a surprise. George hadn’t given a thought as to Miss Albright’s availability. “That’s marvelous news,” he replied, thinking Elizabeth was probably feeling a great deal of pride at having remembered Miss Albright’s application and for arranging the interview. That meant she would be especially happy when he returned home. Perhaps they could steal a few moments alone before dinner and repeat what they had done the night before.

  He had to erase that memory almost as soon as it appeared in his mind’s eye, lest his own cock begin behaving as Teddy claimed his was doing.

  “I’m beginning to think it’s not,” Teddy countered. He thought of what it would be like should he ever find himself in the office, knowing the comely Miss Albright was living just beyond the connecting door.

  He would have to avoid visits to Warwick’s as much as possible.

  George furrowed a brow. “But, you were desperate to find a headmistress, and now you have one,” he argued.

  “I would rather have hired her to be my mistress,” Teddy replied in a whisper. “Which is odd, because... I can’t say I’m usually attracted to the prim and proper ones,” he murmured as he changed clothes, wondering if his reaction to Daisy Albright was because he hadn’t been with a woman—any woman—for so long.

  George frowned, wondering if they were talking about the same young lady.

  “You are still speaking of Miss Albright?”

  “Yes,” Teddy agreed. “She was sporting a pair of wire spectacles perched on the end of her nose, and she was wearing one of those despicable… fichus, I think they’re called, that covered everything up to her neck.” He lifted his head as his one hand went up to his own neck, as if to illustrate his meaning.

  His brows furrowing deeper, George was about to ask if maybe a different woman than Daisy Albright had appeared at Warwick’s that morning. Then he remembered what he was fairly sure she had been doing for King and country not so long ago. “She’s merely playing the part, Teddy,” he replied, a sly grin replacing his frown. Perhaps the fichu was also meant to hide the evidenc
e of her collarbones. Although she wasn’t terribly thin, she wasn’t well-fed, either. No one would mistake her for an aristocrat’s daughter.

  He could imagine Miss Albright having her way with just about any man if she chose to do so. He could also imagine her acting deferential. “It’s possible she’s a passionate firebrand just waiting for a man like you to take on as her cause,” he teased.

  Teddy’s eyes widened before they rolled in mock disgust. “Ha ha,” he replied.

  All the air went out of George in a whoosh. He had been about to add something more teasing like, Why didn’t you ask her to be your mistress? when he remembered to whom the young lady was related. It would have been a disaster had Teddy offered carte blanche to the daughter of a duke. “Are you aware of Miss Albright’s relation to a member of the aristocracy?” he asked instead.

  “Her sister?” Teddy countered. “Yes, of course. Diana is the one who accepted a position of another kind just a few weeks ago,” he said, referring to Diana Albright and her new title of viscountess. “Which is why Miss Daisy Albright will be teaching arithmetic and dancing until another instructor can be found,” he added.

  George was about to mention the Duke of Ariley, but a footman entered the changing room and gave him a nod.

  “Our pisté calls,” he said as he moved to stand up.

  “About time,” Teddy said as he regarded his chronometer. “I have never needed a good, hard match as much as I do right now, but I do have to pay a call on the coroner when we’re finished. I still have to make arrangements for mother’s burial,” Teddy replied. “Don’t go easy on me, George.”

  “I never do,” the viscount replied, leading the way to the pisté. The two saluted one another with their raised foils and then took up positions opposite one another.

  From where she stood off to the side, Daisy crossed her arms and pretended boredom. Garbed in men’s breeches, an elaborately embroidered waistcoat, a puce topcoat and shoes featuring two-inch heels, she wondered how foppish men managed to keep their high wigs from tipping off their heads. She had powdered this one until it was nearly white, cringing at the thought of how difficult it would be to get the powder out should she ever decide to use the wig again.

  Large gems made of paste decorated several fingers, although she had begun to regret having worn them. Her hands were far too small and feminine to be mistaken for a man’s. Better to have worn a pair of leather gloves.

  Her disguise had come straight from the valise she had retrieved from the hotel after leaving Warwick’s that morning. She had checked out and then arranged for her trunks and furnishings to be delivered to the school, rather dismayed when she spent most of her available coins on the drayage.

  A glance in a cheval mirror in her room at Ariley Place confirmed she could pull off the look of an effeminate man with ease—as long as she didn’t speak. Even the beauty mark high on her cheek matched one she had seen on a dandy she had passed while on her way to the fencing academy.

  The others who stood watching the match paid her no attention. A few engaged in placing bets, despite the fact that Viscount Bostwick was merely sparring with her new employer.

  She’d had to suppress the urge to gasp upon seeing Theodore Streater on his way to the pisté. Minimally dressed for the match, he wore breeches that were a bit loose about the thigh but were cuffed just below it. His stockings outlined muscled calves. His snow-white shirt might have been ready made, but the right arm had been shortened and sewn closed just beyond where his upper arm ended. The left sleeve billowed a bit as he dropped into his first stance.

  And that stance is what had Daisy most impressed. Despite missing most of his right arm, Mr. Streater was able to balance on a center of gravity far different from a usual fencer. His bent front leg, not extended as far as his opponent’s, seemed to strain against the fabric of his breeches just before he danced backwards, parrying an opening attack from the viscount.

  The scrape of metal on metal echoed off the walls as the two finally engaged for several parries and thrusts before Lord Bostwick retreated. Daisy knew he said something to his opponent, but from where she stood, she couldn’t hear it. It must have been a compliment, though, for Mr. Streater gave a slight bow and returned to the middle of the pisté.

  For the next twenty minutes, she continued to watch as the two advanced, Mr. Streater employing the balestra—short, sharp jumps that carried him into a lunge when attacking—while Bostwick made his advances with larger, smoother moves. Given the quiet that surrounded her, Daisy realized many watched as if they thought this a true bout. They had been conversing during the last sparring match, barely paying it any mind.

  By the time the two had engaged, parried, and disengaged at least a dozen times, Daisy realized the lack of a right arm did little to hamper Mr. Streater’s abilities. His lean but muscled frame was a study in contrast with Viscount Bostwick’s larger shoulders and thicker legs. While the viscount excelled at power and longer strides, Mr. Streater was quick, his moves economical. Had the two been engaged in a bout, she was quite sure her employer would have been the winner.

  At one particularly clever series of moves, Mr. Streater had his opponent all the way to the end of the pisté and completely off-balance. The attack had her holding her breath, the excitement sending frissons through her lower body. She was imagining what her new employer might look like stripped of his clothing. How his lean, sculpted body might look with a sheen of perspiration covering it. How he might cover her body with his own, his manhood seeking the heated space between her thighs...

  Daisy was jerked from her reverie when the crowd suddenly gave a collective shout. An “oomph” erupted from Bostwick as his opponent’s button-tipped foil poked him between two ribs, and applause broke out from the gallery of onlookers. Money surreptitiously changed hands as Bostwick could be heard saying something about another bruise, his voice betraying his annoyance.

  So provoked was he by the poke, Bostwick lunged and set about attacking Mr. Streater, who managed to retreat until he was nearly off the pisté. “Enough!” he shouted, just as Bostwick’s foil caught his right shirt sleeve—or what was left of it—and nearly tore it from his body.

  Bostwick’s eyes widened at the same time Mr. Streater said a mild curse followed by, “Not again.”

  “My apologies. I’ll see to having it repaired,” Bostwick offered as he stepped up and saluted the one-armed man. “And laundered, of course.”

  Reluctantly, Mr. Streater followed suit with his foil and, at the smattering of applause from those who watched from the sidelines, they both gave exaggerated bows before heading for the changing room.

  With the show over, several took their leave of Angelo’s, while others wandered off to another pisté to watch a different pair of gentlemen complete their sparring.

  Before she took her leave, Daisy made her way in the direction of the changing room, thinking she might simply walk in. Curiosity had her wondering if Mr. Streater might change into a different shirt, given Bostwick’s offer. She thought of seeing just how injured the clerk had been during the war. Did he sport wounds beyond the missing arm? Had he taken a bullet? Or been stabbed by a bayonet?

  She was nearly to the door when a footman stepped in front of it. More like a bouncer, the barrel-chested man said, “Apologies, sir, but only those scheduled to spar are allowed.”

  Daisy angled her head. “Of course,” she said, pitching her voice to a low timber. “I’ll speak with Lord Bostwick at White’s.” With that, she took one last look about the academy and made her way out the front doors.

  She was nearly to a hackney when an arm hooked into one of hers. The familiar scent of her father’s cologne gave him away before his whispered, “Whatever do you think you’re doing?” sounded in her ear.

  Shaking his arm from hers, Daisy continued toward the hackney. “How did you know it was me?” she whispered, obviously annoyed he had once again seen through one of her disguises.

  And just where ha
d he been during the match? Had her attention been so focused on Mr. Streater that she completely missed his presence among the onlookers?

  I’ve lost my edge, she thought with some dismay.

  “We’ve been through this,” James, Duke of Ariley replied, directing her to his coach, which was parked behind the hackney. “And why, pray tell, is there a drayage cart in front of my house?”

  Daisy climbed into the duke’s town coach and took a seat in the velvet squabs, facing against the flow of traffic. Her father followed her in, and gave a grunt when he realized she had left the other side for him. “Truth be told, I wasn’t positive it was you,” he said as he took a seat, his hands moving to grip his knees as a groom shut the door. “You look like a damned dandy,” he complained.

  “Which was the point,” Daisy replied, pulling the wig from her hair. Her dark locks fell well past her shoulders, a sight that had her father’s eyes widening. “And the drayage cart is there because I am moving into an apartment in Glasshouse Street. At Warwick’s,” she added. “I was hired by Mr. Streater this morning.” She paused as she stripped the rings from her fingers. “Thank you for seeing to it my things were brought here to London from the house in Kent.”

  A combination of shock and sadness fell over the duke just then. “You’re already moving out?” he asked in a quiet voice. “I thought... I thought you would—”

  “Although I do appreciate the hospitality—my bedchamber is the most beautiful I’ve ever had the pleasure of sleeping in—I cannot very well be the headmistress of Warwick’s and live in your house. I must live on the premises of the school,” she explained.

  “Today?” he countered, his voice a bit louder.

  Daisy sighed as she undid the buttons of her topcoat and waistcoat. “I begin my position in the morning,” she argued, before removing the garments. “I don’t wish to be late on my first day.” She pulled the large, white shirt from her body, eliciting a look of shock from the duke. “Daisy!” he scolded, one hand moving to cover his eyes.