by Kate Moore
One advantage I may claim for this little volume is that it has been authored by a woman. You will have read in the published lectures, sermons, tracts, and histories of mankind entire catalogues of the follies and frailties of woman. The world of letters apparently judges women to be the weaker sex in intellect and character, as well as in body. Nonsense. Those volumes were written by men. You may toss all the books ever written by men on the subject of love or marriage into the Thames, and they will not stem the tide, nor will those volumes diminish by a single slur the real character and strength of a woman.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Chapter Three
When Hazelwood next met Jane Fawkener, he was in command of himself again. There was nothing, after all, in a dazed girl’s glance to trouble an experienced man about town. He took a minute to observe and approve the changes that Violet’s help had wrought. Upright and clothed in a gown of burnished brown silk with pale color in her cheeks like the pink of morning clouds, the girl looked unexceptional, that is until she met his gaze, her eyes alive with that alert consciousness that looked far too perceptive for a man’s comfort.
He sketched a quick bow to both ladies. “Miss Fawkener, permit me to introduce myself. I’m Hazelwood, your protocol officer, at your disposal to help you as you prepare for your father’s investiture.”
For a moment she didn’t speak. She merely studied him with that shrewd assessing gaze. He felt her take note of the way his hair curled in a fashionable cut, the way his white linen cravat fell in an artful arrangement, the sheen of his gray silk waistcoat, and the high gloss of his boots. She seemed unaware of her own appearance as she assessed his. He knew what any Londoner would make of the blue coat and gray trousers the club’s tailor had crafted for him, but Jane Fawkener had the look of a woman never taken in by flashy merchandise or a shiny bauble.
“Thank you for the offer of assistance, but I won’t be needing a protocol officer.” Her hands remained folded in her lap around the little blue volume.
Hazelwood glanced at Violet whose raised brows and lively eyes revealed her amusement at his situation.
“I will leave you two to settle your differences. Miss Fawkener, you have my full support whatever you decide to do.” She smiled at them both and took her leave.
* * * *
Jane studied the government’s protocol officer. There was nothing about him to suggest a mere…functionary. She guessed him to be thirty or so. He was taller and broader in the shoulders than she’d expected and carelessly handsome. His dark hair had deep fiery lights. He had straight brows, a strong blunt jaw, and a full mouth with a sensuous symmetry. There was far too much assurance in his laughing green eyes. She let her gaze drop. There was too much of him in general. She was unused to English dress. He wore no loose salvar pants, no robe or tunic. Instead the gray wool of his trousers clung to his legs, and his coat was cut in a way that concealed nothing of his maleness.
When she looked up again into his face and met his green gaze fixed on her, he returned her frank scrutiny in equal measure.
She took a moment to steady her hands in her lap and summon her wits. Her instinct said he was her adversary as much as any ruthless bandit bristling with weaponry, or any rapacious official whose palm must be pressed repeatedly with an astonishing amount of coin. She told herself that she had nothing to fear from him. He was not a devious khan who could snap his fingers and lock her up in a cave or order her limbs chopped off. Perhaps it had been unwise to faint in his arms, but she was on her guard now. Her muscles tensed, and her spine stiffened.
“Miss Fawkener,” he began again, a note of patience in his low voice. He took a step closer. It was not a big step. There was still a distance between them, but his nearness warmed her like drawing near to a fire in the hearth on a cold night. His glance shifted as he apparently weighed a strategy of sitting next to or across from her. He chose the confrontational strategy of sitting across from her, on the couch where she’d lain earlier, and she looked away from the spot. “As you’ve not been in England for some time, allow me to assist you in these early days. I will answer any questions you have about the investiture ceremony itself and about London society in general.”
“Thank you. I’m sure you mean well, Mr. Hazelwood—” She wasn’t sure at all, but her father would advise trying a bit of honey before vinegar.
“—just Hazelwood.”
She blinked at the correction, puzzled at the absence of the “mister.” He did not enlighten her. His name, plain and unadorned, invited intimacy. A slight shiver passed over her. “Advising me in this matter would be a waste of your time and mine, as I do not intend to participate in a ceremony that does no honor to my father.”
One of his brows arched upward. “The king might find it awkward to withdraw your father’s nomination.”
“The king will do whatever the king is inclined to do, I’m sure, but he will do so without my presence.”
He made no reply, gave no indication that her refusal to participate in the sham ceremony had any effect on him. If anything he appeared amused by her declaration. He leaned back, his arms extended along the curved edge of the upholstery. She had a feeling that he had taken possession of the couch.
“If you wish to thank me for my small service in catching you earlier as you fell toward the rather unforgiving London pavement, now would be the perfect opportunity.”
She straightened her shoulders. His change of topic was no less provoking than his earlier remarks. She could not recall fainting, ever. He pointed out her moment of weakness to gain the upper hand. She wanted to set him straight on that matter. He should not imagine her some sort of delicate bloom needing protection.
“I don’t faint, you know. As a rule.”
“But, as a rule, you don’t wear stays tighter than an Elizabethan thumbscrew.”
“How did you know… Oh…” Certain details of their previous encounter came back to her, and heat rose in her cheeks. She quelled the feeling. Blushing was another thing a woman of sense did not do. Clearly, he thought no more of taking charge of her clothing than he thought of taking over a couch. “My borrowed garments were lent me by some very godly women, so I’m sure they were no test of your virtue.”
Like him, she wore English dress and no veil. She could not look out at him from behind the mesh screen of a chadri, her feelings hidden. He was deliberately trying to provoke her, testing for weaknesses, as any bandit would.
“You may not faint again, Miss Fawkener, but London society can trip the unwary in unexpected ways.”
She lifted her chin. It was something her father might have said. One could dress almost any part, but a gesture, a turn of phrase, a missed conversational cue, or even the way she chose to take a seat could mark her as the outsider she was. She had not trained to be an English gentlewoman, yet she must look and act the part to prove that her father lived. “I will find trustworthy people to advise me.”
“You have already found one in Lady Violet. Let me be another. I am at your disposal at no expense through the investiture ceremony.”
There was just that note of sympathy in his voice that brought a lump to her throat as if he were intent on helping her. Then she shook her head. “As I told you…Hazelwood, I have no intention of participating in a ceremony that so wholly ignores the truth of my father’s situation.”
“It is your situation that concerns me. Do you wish me to take you to your family?”
Once again he came at her with the unexpected. Her father’s family had no intention of taking her in. Her gaze dropped to his lap, which was a mistake, the stretch of fabric against muscle, one more sign of immodest English dress. Her hands tightened on the book she held.
“I wish to thank you and send you on your way.”
“Ah, we are at an impasse, then. I’m afraid I’m not permitted to leave your side, Miss Fawkener, un
til the king himself drapes the bejeweled order of Saint Michael and Saint George around your fair neck and lets you back away from the royal presence, or until you pick a husband to take over in my stead. So, let us come to some agreement. Do you wish to become a husband hunter?”
He smiled that green-eyed smile at her. He seemed perfectly cordial. He carried no weapon that she could see. He had not come to their meeting with scimitar-wielding strongmen at his side, but she was not fooled. Though he asked her what she wished, he gave the orders.
She realized that clutching the little book in her lap signaled the importance she attached to it. That would never do. He had seen the book and no doubt read its title. The smart move would be to smile like a proper idiot, a swooning woman grasping a book, as if by magic the slim volume could produce a gentleman’s proposal. Maybe playing along was her best strategy. With a sudden insight, she saw the book as the perfect disguise of her intentions. Perhaps that was her father’s message. He was telling her to play a part, as he so often had on his journeys.
She met her adversary’s gaze. “Do women hunt husbands in England?”
A flash of amusement lit his eyes. “Oh, they do. In all the parks, theatres, and ballrooms of London.”
“Then, I shall, too.”
With her announcement, his manner changed abruptly. His easy smile died. Stupidly, she missed that smile at once. She should not care that this stranger found her a source of amusement or contempt. If husband hunting deceived the government into believing she had abandoned her quest to rescue her father, she would do it. In time the government’s spies would grow careless or be withdrawn all together. First, she had to deceive the man in front of her.
He stood and held out a hand to help her rise. She guessed that he was being polite. No man in Halab would offer his hand in public to a woman, but she was not in Halab, and it was likely that Hazelwood had never heard the saying, “Better to stab yourself in the hand than to touch a woman’s hand.” She hesitated only the briefest instant. She had to unlearn the habits of the past nine years. Her disguise depended on showing comfort with English ways. She took the hand he offered, and let him help her to her feet. Once again dizziness threatened, but his grasp held her steady.
She looked up and met his gaze. Shocking as it was to look so directly into a man’s eyes, she sensed that she must show resistance, not submission, to gain any advantage with such a man.
“If it were merely a matter of the king himself, I’d put my blunt on you, Miss Fawkener,” he said cordially. “But kings have ministers and minions, secretaries and chancellors, all of whom have a vested interest in bestowing the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George upon your father. You have no idea of the forces of government arrayed against you.”
She recognized his words for the warning he intended. She didn’t know why, but the government wanted her father to remain a dead hero.
* * * *
Hazelwood clearly meant every word he’d said about sticking by her side. He escorted her in the English manner from Lady Violet’s office to a black coach crouched on the pavement below the bank steps. Taking a gentleman’s arm was an unfamiliar act of public intimacy. It set them apart from others but bound them together. Hazelwood’s nearness, his height, his distinctly masculine way of moving, and the strength of his arm, impressed themselves upon her senses. She feigned a degree of comfort she was far from feeling. Outside the bank, London washed over her again, a surging wave of noise and movement, pushed by a powerful cold wind, and stinking of brine and dung. It made her cling more tightly to his arm.
Hazelwood pulled her closer against his side. “Is your boat still rocking?”
She nodded. It was easier to admit that she had not yet shaken off the effects of the long sea voyage.
“Let’s get you to your hotel then.” He nudged her down the steps toward the black coach. In Halab she most often traveled by donkey. It was hard to imagine that the coach before her would hold a man of Hazelwood’s height, let alone the two of them. A young man in a dun-colored coat and black top hat held the door open. A narrow iron step hung down.
She gripped Hazelwood’s hand more tightly when she set her foot to the lowered stair. She ducked into the carriage, which tilted and righted itself again under her weight. She settled in the far corner of the front-facing leather seat and closed her eyes against the motion.
Hazelwood followed her in, setting the carriage dipping again. With one hand he pushed her sprawling skirts aside as he took the seat beside her. The stiff fabric brushed against her legs, and she realized she’d betrayed her ignorance of English ways by not subduing her unruly skirts. Hazelwood wore a fawn-colored wool coat with shoulder capes that brushed against her. Their garments touched with no respect for the strict propriety of Halab.
“Open your eyes when we get moving. The dizziness will pass,” he said.
She nodded, keeping her hands folded around the book in her lap. She wanted to be alone to open it and study that map.
“When were you last in London?” he asked.
“Nearly ten years ago.”
“And where have you been since?” He knocked on the carriage roof, and the driver set the vehicle in motion. Immediately she felt better, as if her head and body were no longer at odds with each other.
“In Halab. Do you know it?” She opened her eyes.
“Only as a dot on a map. There was an earthquake, wasn’t there?”
“Four years ago.”
“You’ll find London strange, in contrast, I suspect.” He leaned back against the seat and stretched out his legs, at ease.
“I do.” She straightened and turned away, but really there was nowhere to look in the confines of the carriage that did not include him. She had not expected him to see London through her eyes. Her father would advise her to study him as she would any adversary.
“May I?” Hazelwood indicated the little book in her lap.
She glanced at him. His mouth was drawn in a line of distaste. Her instinct was to clutch the book protectively, but she opened her palms and let him take the thing in his hands. He thumbed to the table of contents. “You think this little book can bag you a husband?”
“Like a bird, you mean? I suspect the writer is not advising young women to aim firearms at prospective fiancés.”
He laughed, and the sound of it, low, warm, and honest, seemed to vibrate in her, an effect that must be due to the close confines of the carriage. “Nevertheless, Miss Fawkener, you must admit the writer’s title suggests that women are in pursuit of a prize.”
“An odd sort of prize, since it is the husband who will control his wife’s fortune, her style of living, and her future.” She had not thought of marrying in Halab, where fathers arranged such matters for their daughters. She wondered briefly if her father had thought of her marrying at all. They had laughed over the two offers he had received for her hand, and she had gone on with the routines of tending her father’s house and aiding in his work. The husbands she had known in Halab were her adversaries in the souks, merchants who bargained hard, and men like Bilal, the camel trader, who always offered the weakest of his lot first, or Nisos, the Greek map dealer with the inflated prices. Dealing with them had sharpened her wits, but it had not inspired dreams of a husband.
“So, why do you wish to hunt a husband, Miss Fawkener?”
Too late Jane realized she’d revealed thoughts best concealed. She reached for the book. She wanted it back in her possession. “Do you dispute the writer’s premise? Do you think that a woman in London has no need of a husband?” She might wish it were true, but she thought of her two hundred pounds. As long as she lived with her father, she’d had no need of money. Now that she was on her own, she had no source of it.
“I’ll take the book, thank you.” She put steel in her voice. She could not be sure that Hazelwood did not already suspect something about the book, an
d until she could examine the little volume thoroughly in the privacy of her own rooms, she must not let him get too close a look. She had no way of knowing in which part of the book her father might have concealed his true message to her.
She held her palm extended, waiting for Hazelwood to return her possession. There was no avoiding his gaze.
He watched her closely. “I suspect there would be fewer husband hunters if more women had bank balances in their favor.” He placed the book in her hand. “Do you know what you’re looking for in a husband, Miss Fawkener?”
She knew what she did not want—a man who would see through her and interfere with her plan to recover her father. She tried to think what Hazelwood expected an earnest husband hunter to say. “A man with connections, with a respectable name, and a decent income.”
“That’s setting the bar quite low. You don’t require any distinction of person or character?”
“I suppose you think every maiden dreams of meeting a handsome prince.”
He shook his head. “Not at all. In my experience princes are fat and dissolute with mistresses old enough to be your grandmother. But if you’ve so few requirements, we should be able to find you a husband in a fortnight. A ball here and there, an appearance or two in an opera box, maybe a few circuits of the park, and some fellow will fall to his knees in the accepted form and offer you his hand and a generous allowance.”
That we bothered her. She might be seasick, or land-sick, or whatever it was that kept her feeling so unsettled, but she wasn’t stupid, and she’d dealt with men trying to maneuver around her before. The Englishman was different in his tactics, but not his aim, after all. There was a word for his attitude. It was something her father would say. It would come to her in a moment.
Just as she became accustomed to the carriage with its ripple of movement over the cobbles like bumping over rapids in a mountain stream, it stopped.
