by Maya Rodale
“I thought ladies wanted to be popular.”
“Oh many do. They fret over what is said in the gossip columns and simper with only the most eligible bachelors and make it a point to cut the ladies who are not popular. It is very dangerous being a lady in society.” She caught herself. “So I am given to understand from my reading of the gossip rags, because I am in finishing school and would not know firsthand. Why, I’ll bet we could prove my point by reading that gossip column in that very newspaper.”
She started to reach for Jenkins’s paper. Alistair couldn’t let her see the horrid cartoon on the front page. So he accidentally tipped over his cup of coffee.
“Oh!” she cried out as coffee soaked the newspaper and spilled across the table.
“You mustn’t be so clumsy Jenkins,” Alistair admonished.
Jenkins looked as if he wished to swear vehemently. But there was a lady present so he bit his tongue and shot daggers with his eyes instead.
“Hell and damnation,” Alistair swore. “Well, it seems I shall have to take your word for it. I don’t have much experience with ladies myself.”
Jenkins snorted.
“Somehow I don’t believe that,” Miss Amy Dish said. “And I share Mr. Jenkins’s response. Even though ladies are not supposed to snort.”
“You wound me. Both of you.” Alistair pressed his hands against his heart for effect, drawing eye rolls from his companions.
“Well if you invited me out to flatter your delusions, you are sorely mistaken,” Jenkins said flatly.
“Ah, Jenkins. Ever faithful friend.”
“Friend.” His voice verily dripped with sarcasm and irony and all that.
“Yes, my dear old friend.”
“Last I checked people didn’t p—” whatever he was about to say—and Alistair was certain he was about to say something about friends aren’t usually employed—it was lost. Alistair had hooked his boot under Jenkins’s chair and easily flipped him over. The old man went sprawling on the floor and the chair followed.
“Oh!” Amelia shrieked. “Mr. Jenkins, are you all right?!”
She fled to his side and helped him up. Jenkins looked murderously at Alistair. Since he couldn’t very well explain, Alistair grinned and shrugged while Amelia performed some bastardized version of a doctor checking for injury on a very unhappy Jenkins.
“I’ll just go,” Jenkins said, standing.
“No, do stay,” Alistair said. “Stay.”
Glaring, Jenkins took his seat. Alistair turned to Amelia, back in her chair, sipping tea and that laughing sparkle in her eyes.
“So tell me, Miss Dish, what would you be doing right now if you weren’t here?”
“Daydreaming about being here, probably.”
“Is that so? Here? I find that hard to believe.”
Here was a second-rate pub on the fringes of a fashionable neighborhood. It was not the stuff of daydreams.
“If not here per se, at least out. I spend far too much time . . .” she paused, searching for exactly the right words. “Indoors.”
“I understand. Blink twice if you are being kept in a tower against your will, waiting for Prince Charming,” he said, and she laughed. “But how are we supposed to climb up and rescue you, Rapunzel, if you chopped off your hair?”
“You noticed.”
“Hard to miss. Rather fetching.”
Jenkins snorted again, but everyone else ignored him.
“Thank you. The truth is, I’ve actually recently escaped from being held captive in the Tower of London.”
“Miss Dish, are you saying that Jenkins and I are harboring a fugitive?”
“Do you have a problem with living dangerously, Mr. Finlay-Jones?”
“I have a problem with harboring a fugitive of the Lady variety,” Jenkins said flatly.
“C’mon now, Jenkins. Where is your sense of fun?”
“I haven’t seen it in quite some time now.”
“I haven’t seen it either,” Alistair said. Jenkins was not employed because he was amusing. But that mattered little when Alistair’s future happiness sat to his left. “Miss Dish, now that you’ve escape from the Tower of London, how would you like to spend the day?”
How would she like to spend the day? Some girls would have said shopping on Bond Street or parading along Rotten Row (especially with such a handsome gentleman). A stupid, simpering miss would say, “Oh! I haven’t thought about it!” mainly because such a stupid, simpering miss probably didn’t think about much at all, ever.
Amelia sipped her tea, considering. She was not certain that she would spend the day with the handsome and charming Mr. Finlay-Jones—a sentence that sounded ridiculous as she thought it. Until this very moment, she had presumed that she would return to Durham House immediately upon the conclusion of this breakfast.
But now another possibility had presented itself. A very, very attractive possibility. Given the freedom to roam around London and explore, Amelia knew exactly what she wished to do.
Upon her arrival in London, she had purchased a guidebook and had spent hours reading all about the sights, treasures, and pleasures of the city. She had marked down the pages of things she wished to do. Alas, she hadn’t brought the guidebook with her—suggesting she had departed in haste last night—but she remembered enough.
“I would like to see a show at Astley’s Amphitheatre. I have heard it is marvelously entertaining.”
In fact, she had suggested to the duchess that they hire acrobatic performers from Astley’s for the ball that they were planning to host and which was scheduled for . . . Amelia felt a flare of panic . . . a few days hence. (Phew, she need not rush home to decorate the ballroom. Yet.) But, it went without saying, that was not the sort of entertainment that the duchess considered proper.
“What else would you like to do?”
“I should like to stroll through the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall.”
“A classic London adventure.”
“Yes. And I would also like to see a play.”
“You haven’t yet been to the theater?”
“Allow me to clarify: I would like to go to the theater and stand in the pit.”
“That is not an unreasonable list.”
“Thank you. I didn’t think it was either.”
But the duchess, on the other hand, had been aghast at all the suggestions. She said that when Amelia was married, she could seek her husband’s permission and escort to attend the theater in such a compromising manner. She had a feeling he, whoever he was, would have the same conventional opinion as the duchess.
“In fact, I think if one put their mind to it, one could easily do all of those activities. In just one day,” he mused. Then he leaned in close to her and treated her to the kind of smile that made a girl throw caution to the wind and said, “The question is, shall we do it today?”
Of course they should not. Ladies and gentlemen did not do anything, not even breathe in the drawing room, without a chaperone or six. Jenkins hardly counted, though he was doing an excellent job of silently disapproving of the entire conversation.
The right thing to do was thank him for everything thus far—rescuing her from a dire fate, allowing her to sleep in his comfortable bed whilst he spent the night on that dreadful settee, and this lovely breakfast—and hire a hack and return to her family. Immediately.
She wasn’t sure of the time but it was certainly late enough in the morning that everyone would have noticed that she wasn’t home. She never missed a meal and breakfast at Durham house had surely come and gone. The sooner she returned, the better. Everyone would be livid, they would yell at her, and banish her to her room. Or force her to write thank-you notes, have her hair arranged, and change her dress at least three times.
But she had made it this far. She had managed to escape. Everyone was already mad at her. Amelia had this half-scrambled idea of graphing the intensity of her family’s anger against the duration of her time out and gave up—Claire would kno
w exactly how to plot the points and draw the line to show that one could only be so angry, so what then did it matter if she was gone twelve hours or twenty?
Or something like that.
There was also the matter of Mr. Alistair Finlay-Jones.
He has a handsome devil, there was no doubt about it. He wasn’t like all the other poncey, stuffy lords she’d met so far. He was younger, and leaner. His gaze was sharper, his grin more charming, his humor like hers. His dark hair fell rakishly toward his eyes—those warm brown eyes with just a hint of sadness to make her wonder about what secret pain and tortured secrets he might possess.
Sometimes she got bored and read Bridget’s novels about heroes with secret pains and heroines with the perfect, tender touch to heal all emotional wounds. They were vastly more entertaining than Claire’s mathematical papers or James’s agricultural treatises.
But never mind all that. There was a handsome man who made her laugh and was inviting her to spend the day exactly as she wished.
There would be hell to pay. And she would gladly pay it—later.
“Yes,” she said. His eyes brightened. “Yes!” She laughed now. “Let’s go have the perfect day.”
“That is a terrible idea,” Jenkins said flatly.
“I know!” she said excitedly. “But let’s do it anyway!”
Chapter 8
In which a walk in the park is not merely a walk in the park.
Nearly one o’clock!
After leaving Jenkins to settle the bill, they stepped out of the Kings Arms and onto the street. Amelia—rather, Miss Amy Dish—craned her neck, looking here and there and taking in everything. If there was any doubt that she was new to the city and eager to see it, she dispelled it.
Alistair realized that the ton—a collection of people known to throw the most fabulous and expensive parties at which they stood around in satins and jewels and declared how bored to death they were—must be horrified by Amelia and her unbridled interest in the world around her. All that enthusiasm must confound them terribly.
She intertwined her arm with his and looked up at him.
“Shall we hire a hack to take us to Astley’s?”
“We could. But it’s a beautiful day—shall we walk?”
“That would be lovely.” She smiled at him.
Arm in arm they strolled a few short blocks until they came to St. James’s Park, in the southeast corner of Mayfair. It was smaller than Hyde Park and often less crowded. It had been remodeled since he’d last been; there were large swaths of grass interspersed with gravel paths and large oak trees providing patches of shade.
“I must admit I’m also keen to see the city. It’s been so long,” he said. Six long years without a stroll through the park, a ride along Rotten Row, a London ball, a drink at White’s or an afternoon at Tattersall’s.
“Why did you leave?”
It was an accident. I don’t want to talk about it.
“Everyone goes on a Grand Tour,” he explained. “It’s the done thing amongst a certain set to take a year to see the sights of Europe and acquire a little continental polish.”
“Why did you stay away? Six years is much longer than just one.” She was quick, that one. He hadn’t even realized what he’d said to give himself away and she’d pounced on it, asking the question no one dared ask because the answer was too complicated and awful and emotional.
Not that he would explain any of that to the lovely, intrepid, and curious woman on his arm. Alistair could see that she was one of those determined females who were like terriers when it came to men’s secrets. If only he had noticed this earlier before initiating a line of conversation that would not end well for him. But what could he say? She distracted him.
“Nothing to come back to, really.”
“What about your family? Or friends?”
“Truth be told, I don’t really have much of a family.”
“Much? So you must have some.” Terrier indeed.
“Just an uncle,” he said vaguely, trying to make it sound boring, so boring. He had no interest in discussing Baron Wrotham or even acknowledging him as family; in that they were in agreement. Alistair looked around the park, hoping for something interesting to point out—perhaps the horse guards were rehearsing or there was some other distraction to be found.
“Is he horrid?” Amelia asked very bluntly.
That was the thing about Wrotham. He was horrid but understandably so. He was a product of his time. And he was grieving. So if that made him brusque, distant, or cold, that was fine.
Perfectly acceptable.
Utterly understandable.
It just . . . well, Alistair wouldn’t say it hurt. But then again, here he was strolling arm in arm with the woman his uncle had commanded him to wed. So it certainly did something to him.
Not that it was a chore, being with Miss Amy Dish, with her charming smile and her sheer delight at something as simple as strolling in the park on a beautiful day.
Until this moment, that is, when she started asking questions.
“Mr. Finlay-Jones?”
“I’m sorry, I was distracted by that flock of pigeons. My uncle is not fond of me.”
“Why not?”
Because I am a mixed-race burden upon his household and—well, Alistair swallowed—he still couldn’t think about the other reason. He certainly wasn’t going to explain the whole sordid affair to Miss Amy Dish. She would probably try to soothe him.
“It’s a long story.”
“I do have all day.”
“Oh, look! The horse guards are rehearsing. Shall we go watch?”
1:07 in the afternoon
If Mr. Finlay-Jones thought he could distract her with the horse guards, he was only half right. She did marvel at all the men in uniform on horseback as they rehearsed their impressive routine.
But it did not escape her notice that there was some sort of drama between Mr. Finlay-Jones and his uncle. The more evasive he was—there was no flock of pigeons—the more curious she became. But as she said, she had all day.
So she turned and watched the horse guards for a while, though she found herself stealing glances at the man beside her. He was quite pleasing to look at—she had noticed that straightaway. But now she was becoming aware of him. It seemed she could feel the heat of him, which was absurd—it was probably the sun—but still . . . she glanced at his chest. It was broad, and flat, and she had the mad urge to rest her head there, listen to his heartbeat, feel the warmth of him.
When they continued on their walk through the park, arm in arm, she was aware of the muscles in his arm. Of all the asinine things. Of course he had muscles in his arms, everyone did. But she noticed them, felt them, and imagined them holding her.
Amelia knew she was not the first woman to have such feelings—Bridget detailed them extensively in her diary, which Amelia was fond of reading. But this was the first time she’d felt them.
The first time she noticed a man for something other than the terrible choice of waistcoat, or his weak chin, or nose red from drink, or overall sense of arrogance.
She had not met the best men in England.
Until Mr. Finlay-Jones. Who might have kidnapped her. Who clearly had a tortured relationship with his sole relative. Between his good looks and his dark secret and tortured past, he was, plainly, irresistible.
“And what will you tell your family of your whereabouts today?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts.
“I shall tell them that I was kidnapped and drugged and stumbled home as soon as I woke and could escape,” she replied breezily. “And I will mention that on the way home, I fought off a band of ruffians thanks to the knife in my boot and that in order to avoid detection by the prying eyes of the ton, I traveled by rooftop.”
“I imagine it would be difficult to jump across rooftops in a skirt.”
“I love that that is the part you find outlandish.”
“It is the part that I have the least experience with,�
� Alistair said, “as I am not in the habit of wearing dresses or traveling by rooftop.”
“Are you saying that you have a knife in your boot? That you have woken up after being drugged and kidnapped?”
Alistair sighed and smiled at a memory. “There was my eighteenth birthday, when I was brought against my will to the local brothel and plied with excessive quantities alcohol. I hardly knew my own name when I awoke the following afternoon.”
“Against your will,” she said flatly.
He grinned. Lud, but that grin made her giddy. Not that she’d let him know it. Instead she rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh. “Boys. Men.”
“I find it hard to believe that as a young lady in finishing school, you have such experience with men that you can heave long-suffering sighs about their behavior,” he said with a laugh.
“I have an older brother. He has friends. That is sufficient.”
“I hope I might change your mind,” he said softly. Seriously.
Suddenly they weren’t joking anymore, which made her heart race.
She smiled up at him. “As I said, I have all day.”
In which two gentlemen see something. Maybe.
Meanwhile, on a park bench nearby, there were two gentlemen—still dressed from the formal ball they’d attended the night before, and still drunk from the gaming hell they’d attended after that.
“I say, she’s a fine bit of muslin,” Fraser said, waving his hand in the general direction of a few women strolling in the park. Algernon took a look and didn’t see anyone who fit that description.
“I say, you are most likely still deep in your cups,” said someone who was probably still deep in his cups.
“Have a look. Have you ever seen short hair? On a girl?”
Algernon reluctantly had a look. Squinted.
Fraser watched her closely; she did seem familiar. Maybe. Perhaps. Where had he seen her? If he’d had more sleep or less to drink he might be able to place her. But it didn’t matter.
Besides, who thought it was fun to watch the horse guards?
He watched her a little more—she did seem very familiar—and gasped like a shocked old matron as it dawned on him.
