by Juliana Gray
He would hate her. He would thrust her away in disgust. But he had to know the truth.
The awful truth.
She reached up behind her neck and took his hands and held them next to her chest. She whispered, “Hatherfield, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“Little one, there’s something I have to tell you.”
“. . . I shouldn’t have kissed you like that . . .”
“. . . I shouldn’t have kissed you like that . . .”
“. . . I shouldn’t have let you kiss me . . .”
“. . . shouldn’t have let you return my kiss . . .”
“. . . but I couldn’t help myself, because it will never happen again . . .”
“. . . but I had to do it, just once, because now that I know who you are, Stefanie, Your Highness, I can never hope . . .”
“. . . once you know who I am. I’m . . . What did you say?”
He lifted his hand from hers and touched her cheek, her temple. “I can never hope to deserve you.”
“Not that. I mean before. What did you call me?”
“Stefanie. Your real name, isn’t it?”
She stumbled back. “You knew? All this time, you knew?”
“Well, I didn’t know the details until this morning. Until Olympia told me. Obviously I knew something was up; a young lady doesn’t masquerade as a law clerk without a damned good reason—I beg your pardon, a jolly good reason . . .”
“All this time, you knew I was a woman?”
His eyes widened into horrified blue moons, traveling across the sky of her, from the top of her head to the tips of her stocking feet. “You thought I thought you were a man? Just now?”
“Well, yes!”
“Yesterday? In the wardrobe?”
“I . . . Yes. Yes, I did. I felt dreadfully guilty to disappoint you . . .”
A chuckle escaped Hatherfield’s lips. And another.
Stefanie crossed her arms. “Well, if you weren’t so devastatingly handsome, you blasted Adonis.”
Hatherfield threw back his head and roared.
“Be quiet. You’ll wake the house.” But her lips twitched.
Hatherfield’s chest shook with the force of his laughter. He took a step back and collapsed on the bed, making the bedsprings creak in alarm.
“Look here. You’re getting your damp overcoat all over my blankets.”
“I . . . I can’t decide whether to be offended or . . . or flattered!” he gasped, spearing his hands into his hair.
“I can’t imagine why.”
The quivers of chest began to slow. “Offended that you would think me such an imbecile as not to fathom your disguise in an instant.”
“Look here, I believe I make a most convincing young man. My mustache is impeccable, and I managed that cigar tonight with aplomb, Hatherfield. Aplomb.”
“You did indeed. That attempt at a smoke ring was most credible. But I happen to be trained in the examination of human details, princess. The telltale clues. Your hands, for example. Your very charming legs. Or perhaps it was something in the moon-eyed way you gazed at me.” He stared up at the ceiling, still smiling.
Stefanie tossed her head. “Well, then. I see why you were offended. I hardly dare ask why you might have been flattered.”
Hatherfield went up on his elbows and presented her with his most wolfish grin, a knee-weakening display of white teeth and gleaming eye. “That you wanted to kiss me so much, you went on regardless.”
She made an outraged gasp and reached for the pillow.
Stefanie struck quickly, but Hatherfield was quicker. He rolled away and leapt to his feet, knees bent, eyes bright, hands at the ready.
“You are a beast.” She swung the pillow into the empty space that, an instant earlier, had contained Hatherfield. “An insufferable”—another swing—“self-assured”—another swing—“delusional”—up against the wall now, nowhere to run—“beast!”
Hatherfield caught the final mighty swing of the pillow with one hand. He held it above his head and smiled at her.
“Give me that!”
“I think not. Spoils of war.”
She tugged.
He tugged, and she crashed into his chest and forgot about the pillow. “Hatherfield, I . . .”
Knock knock. The door.
A high feminine voice floated through the wood. “Mr. Thomas, are you quite all right?”
Lady Charlotte.
Stefanie’s eyed widened. Hatherfield shrugged.
“Quite all right,” she called out.
“Because you’re making the most dreadful thumping. Your room is directly above mine, Mr. Thomas, and I was beginning to grow alarmed.” Her voice was peevish and curious, both at once.
“No cause for alarm, your ladyship,” said Stefanie. “I was . . . I was only . . . There was a mouse. A very persistent and irritating mouse.”
“To say nothing of delusional and self-important,” whispered Hatherfield.
“What was that?” said Lady Charlotte. “Are you whispering?”
“No. No, that was . . . the wind. I left the window open. A little fresh night air.”
“It’s raining, Mr. Thomas. You’ll catch a chill.”
Hatherfield still hadn’t let go of the pillow, and neither had Stefanie. She stood there against his chest, looking up at his amused face—the wretch—not daring to move. Not wanting to move. His body was so warm. Lovely and warm and firm.
Growing warmer and firmer by the second, if she wasn’t mistaken.
Stefanie gasped out, “Yes. Quite. A chill. You’re quite right. I’ll shut it directly and go to bed.”
Lady Charlotte made a little harrumphing noise, right up against the door. “Well, then. See that you do. No more thumping, Mr. Thomas. If you find another mouse, for heaven’s sake call a servant instead.”
“No more thumping,” said Stefanie. “Call a servant. Right-ho.”
“Good night, Mr. Thomas.”
“Good night, your ladyship.”
The soft tread of Lady Charlotte’s footsteps retreated down the hall.
Stefanie released her breath. Hatherfield lowered the pillow and gave it back to her. “No more thumping,” he said gravely.
Her arms closed around the pillow. It felt cool and shapeless, a poor replacement for the heat of Hatherfield’s sturdy chest.
Stefanie frowned. “Trained.”
“What’s that?”
“You said before, you were trained in human details. What did you mean by that?”
Hatherfield walked across the room and retrieved his hat, which had fallen on the other side of Stefanie’s narrow iron bedstead. “What I meant,” he said, “or rather, what’s relevant to Your Highness’s own peculiar situation, is that you needn’t concern yourself with threats to your person, whilst I am charged with your protection.”
A rather formal speech. Her frown deepened. “I’m not that concerned, actually. I’m the youngest daughter. Not of much account. It’s Luisa they’re after, these anarchists.”
He turned. “What do you know about it?”
“I’m not a fool, Hatherfield. I do listen in, from time to time. I expect it’s this Revolutionary Brigade of the Free Blood, isn’t it? They’ve been meddling in royal successions rather successfully this past decade. Promoting political instability—executing the tyrants, I believe they call it—so they can presumably step in and institute their own ideas, whatever those really are. They don’t seem to agree with each other much over how governments should conduct themselves; they only agree on how bad the existing systems are. Not especially helpful, but there it is. Anyway, if you’re one of his agents, I expect my uncle’s told you all about it already. I expect he had it all planned out, throwing me in your way. Clever, clever uncle.”
“Good God,” said Hatherfield. He stared at her as if she were mad.
“Ha. You’re just like the rest of them, aren’t you? Oh, that Stefanie, she’s nothing but an empty-headed mischief-maker, getting into
scrapes. Well, I’m more perceptive than you think. And I daresay I know a great deal more about what the common man thinks than any of you do. What they say in the taverns and the squares.”
“Do you, now.”
“Yes. Anyway, it’s Luisa they’re really after. She’s the heir, the Crown Princess. Father went and changed the succession laws so she could inherit, and naturally that upset all of that wretched Brigade’s plans. They were counting on Father not having any sons, on the instability of an uncertain succession. So they murdered Father and Luisa’s new husband, and they tried to kidnap Luisa, and they failed. All of which means I’m only in danger if both my older sisters are killed first, and if they are . . . Well, I don’t suppose I’d care much about living anyway.” She threw the pillow expertly into place at the head of the bed, whistling right past Hatherfield’s rigid body. “You see? No danger at all. At ease, soldier. Go home and pour yourself another brandy.”
She knew Hatherfield was looking at her, examining her for—what was it? Human details. The tone of her voice, the set of her jaw. Trying to determine if she was all bravado, or if she meant it. Trying to get to the bottom of her. Stefanie went on fixing her eyes at the pillow, which had landed a bit awkwardly, a trifle askew. Rather like herself.
Hatherfield spoke quietly. “They won’t harm a hair on your head, Your Highness. I swear it.”
“Don’t call me that. Anything but that.”
“Stefanie, then. But you can’t deny who you are, you know. You can’t pretend to be a clerk forever.”
She looked at him sharply. “I’m not pretending.”
Hatherfield let out a long sigh and shook his head.
“I mean it. I was angry at first. I wanted revenge. But now, I don’t care. They can have my castle and my country, if they want it. I don’t care. I’ve never wanted to be a princess. I hated it. This is who I am now, and the truth is, I’m happier. I happen to like the law. I happen to like you.”
“Stefanie . . .”
She took a step toward him. Her body craved him, craved the return of his solid flesh against hers. His sensuous brandy mouth, kissing her deliciously. “And now that the air’s clear, now that the secrets are out, I think we should pick up exactly where we left off.”
“How, exactly? Sneaking about town, with you in your disguise, working all day in law chambers? For how long? To what end?”
“I suppose we’ll find that out together.”
He shook his head again. “Stefanie, no.”
She took another step, and another, until she was right up bravely against his chest again, looking up at him. Trying to reclaim that look of his, that look of concentrated desire in his blue eyes. That look that made everything inside her heat and heat until it melted and reshaped itself into something altogether different.
But the expression on Hatherfield’s face remained bleak and distant.
Undaunted, she placed her hands on the lapels of his overcoat and looked him squarely in the eye. “Are you worried about my honor? Because there’s no need. I was telling the truth, back in your hansom. Last night. I’m no innocent.”
He didn’t blink. “Neither am I.”
“You see? There’s nothing in the way. No stupid old-fashioned notions. I’m not a princess any longer, I’m not a pristine marriageable young lady. That’s all gone now. We’re just two people, a man and woman, who . . . who find each other . . .” She lifted her face to kiss him. “Irresistible.”
Hatherfield’s large hands closed atop hers, and gently he set her away. “No, Stefanie. Not irresistible. I can resist you, and I will. Because you are a princess, you have a birthright. A birthright to which I intend to restore you, not to render you unfit.”
She whispered fiercely, “I don’t want it. I don’t want my birthright. I’ve always wanted to be free, Hatherfield. Don’t you understand? Don’t you have any idea of what it’s like? All my life I spent trying to escape from that damned castle, that bloody edifice, sneaking out night after night, and now I’m free, by God, and I intend to live my life the way I want to live it.”
“What, by taking a lover?”
“Not any lover. You.” She was hot and blushing, but she went on anyway. “Don’t tell me you don’t want it, too.”
“Of course I do. My God. But it’s not right, you know it’s not. Not for either of us.” He put his hat on his head, as if placing a barrier between them, and edged past her to the window.
She turned and stared at his back while he slid up the window sash. “I suppose you think I’m improper. This. All of this, the disguise and the clerking. My mustache. The bawdy house, the brandy and cigars. My . . . my unchaste state. Throwing myself at you, offering myself as a lover. You’re disgusted. Any gentleman would be.”
He whipped around. “Don’t talk rot. When I’m barely holding myself together right now.”
“You look composed enough.”
“Because that’s what I do, Stefanie. I look composed. Everybody’s favorite chap, that Hatherfield, such a charming lighthearted fellow. Bloody hell. Disgusted by you? I want to strip you to your skin and take you to bed and make love to you until neither of us can stand. You incandescent woman. I’m blinded, I’m entranced, I’m . . . damn it all, I’m falling in love with you, the one thing I can’t afford to do. For my sake, for your sake. Don’t ask me again.” He gripped the window frame behind him, with such force she could count the bones of his knuckles, if she could have torn her gaze away from his face.
“Then why did you kiss me like that?” she whispered.
“Because I’m only a man. Because I had to do it, just once. To kiss you once.” He turned to duck through the window. “I’ll see you at breakfast. Sleep well.”
Stay. Please stay. I need you.
You need me.
But the old regal pride returned most inconveniently to stiffen her neck, and the words remained unsaid while Hatherfield slipped from her room to the roof, and she closed the sash behind him.
For the second night in a row, the Marquess of Hatherfield returned late and discomposed to his rooms at the Mansions. This wretched affair was going to be the death of him.
On this occasion, however, misery had company.
“Why, hello, Father.” Hatherfield tossed his hat on the stand before Nelson could stagger across the room to perform the office. The overcoat, however, was forced to endure a proper divesting. “What an unexpected delight. Does Her Grace know you’re here? I daresay she won’t thank me for stealing you away at such an inconvenient hour, when every chap in his right mind should be home in bed with his wedded wife.”
The duke remained in his chair, next to the fire. “Don’t be impertinent.”
Hatherfield shot a look to Nelson, which might best be interpreted as Do yourself a favor, mate, and light on for the far side of the world.
Nelson hurried away through the swinging door to the dining room.
“I daresay a fellow’s got a right to be impertinent, at such an hour.” He yawned extravagantly.
“I suppose you were in bed with your lover.”
“My lover? I beg your pardon?”
“That boy. That . . . that clerk of Sir John’s. I could see it, all through dinner, the way you were looking at him. The way he looked at you, damn it all.”
The duke spoke in a fury of disgust. Hatherfield narrowed his eyes for a closer look. His father’s face, ordinarily a flushed sort of object, now presented itself with something of the aspect of a freshly plucked tomato. His hands fidgeted in his lap, of which the legs were decidedly crossed. Even his hair had come unhinged from its pomade vise, swinging down in a metal gray sheet to meet his cheekbone.
“My lover,” Hatherfield repeated slowly.
Southam jumped to his feet and rushed to the window. “I should have known. The signs were all there. Not a single whisker on your face. No desire for a wife. No mistress, not a hint of a doxy of any kind, high or low. This baffling obsession with physical exercise. Your bloody dam
ned beauty.” As he might say your weeping abscess. He whipped out a slim gold cigarette case from the inside pocket of his tailcoat.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“And I wondered why you wouldn’t have her. Wouldn’t even entertain the idea. Ha-ha.” He lit a cigarette with shaking hands. “The prettiest girl in London, and two hundred thousand pounds to go with her, and you wouldn’t hear of it. My God.”
Hatherfield leaned against the wall, just beneath a framed engraving of the start of the 1876 University Boat Race—“ARE YOU READY?”—and crossed his arms.
“Of all the problems in the world. Of all the ways for everything to come undone. This. Damn it all. I can’t even look at you. Sodom and bloody Gomorrah. My own son.” The duke sucked on his cigarette and stared out the window.
“Come, now,” said Hatherfield. “There’s no need for melodrama.” A feeling was beginning to invade his chest, a lighter-than-air feeling, and he hardly dared to say a word for fear of disturbing it. Or laughing aloud. Or doing anything that might hinder his enjoyment of this extraordinary moment.
“Every plan, every hope. Ruined. My God. A dynasty, the great dukedom of Southam, brought to its knees because you—my son, mine!—because my own son prefers pretty young men to a pair of proper English tits.” His fist slammed against the window frame, making the panes rattle against the rain.
“The shame of it,” Hatherfield drawled. “Whatever will you say to the chaps at the club?”
The drizzle rattled softly against the window. Southam went on smoking in jerky little movements. Hatherfield pulled his watch out of his pocket. Eleven o’bloody clock. In another minute, he would fall face-first into the carpet.
The duke said, in a low voice, “Just tell me this, Hatherfield. Do you not think you can marry her at all? Bed her at all? Not at all? Just once a month, for God’s sake, a cock’s a cock, it just needs . . . needs a . . .” Words failed him. He stubbed out his cigarette on the glass and buried his face in his hands.
Hatherfield plucked his father’s coat and hat and cane from the stand, walked over to the bent figure at the window, and held them out.
“No, Father,” he said. “I really don’t think I can.”
