by Erica Ridley
Was Phineas Mapleton a stallion among pups? Perhaps that was the problem.
Nora dipped the tip of a plume into the inkwell.
Men like him might think they ruled over country-born women like her and baronesses of an advanced age, but Nora’s pen was about to exert dominance over Phineas Mapleton.
She adored Lady Roundtree. The baroness might have just started to consider Nora as something more than a paid companion, but Nora had come to think of her as family. This had become her second home. She would not allow a bully’s ridicule to harm anyone in it.
“Stallion,” she muttered beneath her breath. “Ha.”
Mapleton had been trying to get people to refer to him as a stallion among pups for as long as Nora had been in Town. Tonight was the first time it had worked. At her expense. At Lady Roundtree’s expense.
He wasn’t superior to the baroness. Mapleton wasn’t worthy of the title of gentleman. How high could a society be if its pillars were based on casual cruelty? How lowly would Nora be if she did not stand up for those she loved?
But her options were limited.
Causing a scene in the middle of a ballroom would only have humiliated the baroness more. Their abrupt departure, when others had tittered uncomfortably at Mapleton’s remarks, had mortified Lady Roundtree enough.
Although she wished she could do more, Nora could only stand up for the baroness from the anonymity of a penny cartoon.
This would be her best yet.
Her plume sailed across the page, filling the pristine white foolscap with sure black lines. The caricature bloomed into focus.
Mapleton would finally learn that words had consequences. That her pen was sharper than his tongue.
A sennight from now, she would no longer be present to give the baroness company, to protect her from those who would mock her. This was Nora’s last chance to use her limited power for good.
She finished the drawing and carefully laid it flat to dry. None of the aristocrats would recall a dandy’s brief interaction with a country mouse. But every one of them had heard Mapleton repeat his pet phrase all Season long.
Now they could have an image to match.
Chapter 18
Nora was just finishing afternoon tea with Lady Roundtree when Mr. Grenville was shown into the parlor. He hadn’t strayed from her thoughts ever since the gallery opening. To be so close to him once again…
She put down her fork and dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her serviette. Splendid timing. With her luck, if she smiled at him her teeth would be dotted with mulberry seeds.
“Heath Grenville!” Lady Roundtree smiled at him warmly. “Sit, sit. There’s always room for a handsome man at a tea table.”
Truer words than perhaps Mr. Grenville realized. In the weeks since Nora had come to town, she hadn’t witnessed the baron take a meal with his wife even once. Nonetheless, Lady Roundtree always ensured a place was set for him.
Mr. Grenville bowed and took a seat close to the baroness. “What bother. I’ve just come from my club and haven’t a sliver of space left for another morsel of food. Those scones do look devilishly tempting. Is that blackberry jam or mulberry?”
“Mulberry,” Nora replied, hoping her lips weren’t stained purple from the vast quantity she had just consumed.
With a yip, Captain Pugboat pawed at the corner of Lady Roundtree’s settee.
The baroness surreptitiously lowered a piece of biscuit from her plate to the puppy. It disappeared in a trice. Lady Roundtree affected an innocent expression.
“We can see you,” Nora pointed out with a grin. “Would you like me to arrange a place setting on the floor for Captain Pugboat?”
“Don’t be absurd, Miss Winfield.” Lady Roundtree gave an emphatic sniff. “Pugs don’t eat from plates.”
“Why is his collar festooned with yellow ribbons?” Mr. Grenville asked.
Lady Roundtree beamed at her pet. “Because he wanted to be a lion again today.”
Mr. Grenville cast a baffled look toward Nora. “Captain Pugboat is now a lion?”
“Don’t be absurd.” Nora playfully echoed Lady Roundtree’s words. “Captain Pugboat is playacting. He is still very much a puppy.”
“Aha.” Mr. Grenville nodded gravely. “He is a master of disguise.”
Lady Roundtree let out an agonized sigh. “If only His Highness would master a few simple commands. Can you not teach him to come when called, or heel when so ordered?”
“I will,” Nora promised. She cast a doubtful glance at the wiggling puppy and added, “That is, I will try.”
The baroness yawned sleepily and nestled her head in the crook of the settee. “Rouse me when you’ve increased his vocabulary.”
Nora peered into Lady Roundtree’s empty teacup. Every drop was gone, including a dose of laudanum. The baroness was unlikely to wake for another hour. “Shall I have a footman escort you to your chamber?”
“I’m not sleeping,” Lady Roundtree mumbled groggily. “I’m resting my eyes. I’ll be waiting right here when he’s ready to give his performance.”
Nora lifted her brows. “Where will I be?”
Without opening her eyes, Lady Roundtree waved a dismissive hand. “You and Mr. Grenville will be teaching my new dog old tricks.”
Nora cast an embarrassed look toward Mr. Grenville.
To her surprise, he grinned right back at her with a what-can-you-do shrug.
He pushed to his feet and whispered to Captain Pugboat, “Come on, boy. Come on. Here, boy. Here, Captain. Who’s a good boy? Come-come, right this way.”
“If any of that rubbish worked,” Lady Roundtree said without cracking an eyelid, “I would not have asked you geniuses for assistance.”
Mr. Grenville’s shoulders wracked with silent laughter at the rebuke.
Nora grabbed the three-tiered silver tea tray from the table and lowered it near the floor.
Captain Pugboat immediately bounded toward her.
She held it just out of reach and backed out of the parlor toward an empty sitting room. Captain Pugboat and Mr. Grenville followed right behind the bouncing cakes, like children trailing the Pied Piper.
When she reached the other side of the empty sitting room, Nora placed the tea tray on a mantel out of the pup’s reach.
She turned to Mr. Grenville. “Thus far, that’s the only reliable way to lead him anywhere.”
“Your kitchen must produce scads of teacakes,” he said gravely.
“We don’t let him have the whole thing,” she protested.
Mr. Grenville tilted his head. “Perhaps that’s the problem.”
He broke off a bit of lemon cake and held it out toward Captain Pugboat.
The puppy scampered up to him with his tongue lolling out.
Mr. Grenville held the cake up higher. “Getting him to come appears to be a simple matter.”
“For anyone with a teacake in their pocket,” Nora agreed.
Captain Pugboat barked for the treat that had not yet fallen from Mr. Grenville’s hand.
“You try,” he said as he kept the cake aloft.
Nora crouched. “Here, Captain Pugboat. Here, snuggle pug. Come here, boy.”
The puppy’s soulful eyes remain trained on Mr. Grenville’s hand.
“Not like that.” He tilted his head toward the mantel. “With a treat.”
Nora broke off another corner of lemon cake and turned around. “Here, Captain—”
The puppy raced to her feet and pawed at the air in an enthusiastic attempt to gobble the treat.
“That’s step one.” Mr. Grenville nodded approvingly.
Nora laughed in disbelief. “Captain Pugboat has no idea what we want of him.”
“That’s step two,” Mr. Grenville amended.
Nora watched as he took a big step back.
“Captain Pugboat,” he called, his voice low and coaxing.
The puppy immediately abandoned his efforts with Nora and gamboled toward the other contender.
Captain Pugboat did not heel.
“Are you going to give him the cake?” Nora asked when utter failure had proven obvious.
Mr. Grenville shook his head. “His Highness will earn it when he learns it. You try.”
Nora put on a singsong voice. “Snuggle pug… Here, boy.”
The puppy dashed back across the carpet and leaped toward her hand.
“Heel,” she said firmly. “Heel, boy. Heel.”
Captain Pugboat did not heel.
Nora did not give him the treat.
He whined pathetically and gave her baleful stares between desperate leaps for the treat.
She looked at Mr. Grenville. “Now what?”
“Now he knows what doesn’t work.” He tilted his head toward the mantel. “Put your teacake back on the tray. This time when I tell him to heel, if he doesn’t listen—”
“When he doesn’t listen,” Nora corrected helpfully.
“When he fails to listen,” Mr. Grenville amended, “do your best to hold him still. If he behaves, he’ll earn the treat.”
Nora set her bit of teacake back onto the tray, careful not to allow any crumbs to fall to the floor. Captain Pugboat would think they were for him.
“Here, boy,” Mr. Grenville called. “Come here if you want a delicious and only slightly squished lemon cake.”
Captain Pugboat all but climbed up Mr. Grenville’s breeches in an attempt to rescue the treat from its forbidden tower.
Mr. Grenville held up his other hand in the Halt! position. “Heel, boy. Heel.”
Nora rushed forward and bent over Captain Pugboat to hold his wrinkly, wiggling hips in place.
He jumped up and licked her nose, which startled Nora into relaxing her hold. The puppy immediately launched himself back into the air—but this time, her face was still in the way.
His wrinkled shoulders connected with her jaw, sending her head crashing backward—right into Mr. Grenville’s outstretched hand.
A blizzard of cake crumbs fluttered down from the heavens.
Nora dissolved into laughter.
Captain Pugboat dashed about the sitting room in a mad attempt to leave no crumb behind.
Undaunted, Mr. Grenville returned to the mantel to break off another piece of cake. “Second time is the charm.”
As luck would have it, the second time was not the charm. Or the third, or the fifth, or the tenth. But somewhere around attempt number twenty, Captain Pugboat realized what was being asked of him and finally sat on his haunches without requiring Nora’s assistance to still his hips.
“Very good!” Mr. Grenville said approvingly as he gave the puppy his treat.
Nora was proud, but skeptical. “I fear we’ve taught him that ‘heel’ means ‘sit for a treat’ rather than ‘stop.’”
“He has to stop in order to sit,” Mr. Grenville pointed out reasonably. “If Lady Roundtree wished for Captain Pugboat to heel in a nuanced manner, she should have specified the pose before falling asleep.”
“Resting her eyes,” Nora said firmly.
As they shared a grin, she couldn’t help but wish for moments like this together every day.
He made even the mundane fun and exciting. As much as Nora warned herself to keep up her shields, Mr. Grenville was exactly the sort of easy-going, fun-loving person she would love to call a friend.
If he were a blacksmith or a dairy farmer, a girl like her might even hold out hope for an eventual courtship.
But those were not her cards.
He was a baron, not a blacksmith. Their relationship—if indeed she could be arrogant enough to claim she shared one with him—was doomed to be both platonic and temporary.
Yet she could not tear her gaze from his. No matter how platonic and temporary these stolen moments might be, their growing bond was a thousand times more precious than anything she’d ever dreamed of having with someone like him. Even if all she could hope for were crumbs, she’d take them.
“What do you think?” she asked with a smile. “Have we earned our keep for the day?”
Mr. Grenville wiped imaginary sweat from his brow. “I believe we have tamed the lion. Is it showtime?”
She glanced over her shoulder as the sound of Lady Roundtree’s snores wafted down the corridor.
“Curtain call has been delayed.” Nora peered up at him. “She tends to nod off at this time of the afternoon. I’m sorry you wasted your visit.”
Mr. Grenville’s warm gaze melted her to her core. “I’ve done nothing of the sort.”
Her heart pounded in her chest. “Haven’t you come to speak to the baroness?”
He glanced away. “I’ve just come from Bond Street, where I gave up my dancing master position to another man.”
Nora blinked in confusion. “You give dancing lessons on Bond Street?”
“At my sister’s boarding school in St. Giles,” he corrected, his voice warm with affection. “I ran into their new instructor on Bond Street.”
“I see,” said Nora, although she was not at all certain that she did. “And coming here is how you choose to spend your free time instead of dancing?”
He grinned. “One can dance anywhere, can you not?”
“I cannot,” she whispered softly. “The only way I ever attend balls is as a servant, not a young lady with a dance card.”
She thought her admission would splash a dose of much-needed reality into this beautiful, fairytale moment. Remind them both of the roles they played and the rules they were meant to follow.
Yet the air around them seemed to sizzle with a delicious tension.
“One does not need a dance card in order to dance,” he said softly. “Why wait for an orchestra when we can waltz right here?”
“Here?” she stammered, her pulse racing out of control.
He lifted her fingers in his and curved his other hand about her hip.
Nora stared up at him in wonder. She placed her palm to his shoulder.
He lowered his mouth to her ear. “Listen to the music.”
She could hear nothing but the erratic pounding of her runaway heart as he led her in small, sweeping circles about the empty parlor into a plane where only the two of them existed.
Her fingers trembled in his. She rested her other hand on his shoulder tentatively, unsure if she could trust herself not to run her palm down the fine black coat sleeve to feel the ridges of the muscle beneath.
She had dreamed of a moment like this for so long. Filled an entire sketchbook with images of what it might be like in his arms. She had underestimated his power tremendously.
Yes, he could be sweet and kind and charming. But that was only part of who he was. He was also strength and passion and arrogance. He had known she yearned to find herself in his arms. And he had known he would not disappoint.
He executed the measured half-circles of the waltz with precise, perfect control. But the hunger in his gaze spoke of something far less restrained. A sensation that he could sweep her into another waltz or into the closest bedchamber and she would follow his lead willingly.
He would not be so rash, of course. She would not be so rash. This was nothing more than a Court-approved, standard waltz, not a mating ritual between two lovers close to combusting.
And yet every half-turn, every sensitive, heated inch where his hand touched her body, all of it was enough to rob her of breath and lead her directly toward temptation.
No wonder this man was a dance instructor. Nora would have begged to be admitted to his sister’s school herself if it meant another opportunity to be swept away in his arms. Never had every inch of her flesh seemed so alive.
She could feel his heat through the layers of cloth separating them. If she moved her palm to his chest, would she be able to feel the beat of his heart? Her own rapid pulse must be plainly visible at the base of her neck, in the breathless sounds she tried to keep in her throat, in the way she stare
d up at him as if no orchestra in any ballroom could ever come close to capturing the magic between them right now.
He focused his hazel eyes on hers. “We shouldn’t be dancing like this.”
She held her breath. “I know.”
His gaze was unreadable. “Do you want me to stop?”
She shook her head and tightened her fingers in his. “I don’t want this dance ever to end.”
Worse than that, she wanted more. More than a stolen moment, a forbidden dance. She wanted to press her mouth to his, to press her entire body to his, to show him without words how close she truly longed to be.
His eyes lowered to her parted lips. “What if the gentleman should try to kiss you?”
“I’ve dreamt of it,” she whispered. Her heart fluttered at the shock of admitting the truth aloud. At the dizzy realization that he had shown no sign of wishing to release her from his arms. “But we cannot.”
His gaze heated. “I would like to see someone try and stop us.”
But he lowered his mouth to hers ever so slowly, giving her every opportunity to turn away.
Her only desire was to pull him closer.
His warm lips brushed hers, seeking, teasing, stoking a fire she had tried so hard to control. Passion engulfed her.
Nora closed her eyes and gave herself over to the moment.
This was the opposite of platonic. This was fireworks at Vauxhall, a storm crashing at sea, rainbows soaring across the heavens.
She couldn’t keep him. They both knew he could not offer anything more permanent than this moment. She herself would be gone soon. Surely there could be no harm in indulging herself with a simple kiss.
His tongue touched hers. Liquid fire raced through her. He tasted as dark and sweet as mulberry jam, and just as addicting. She would never have enough. Her entire body trembled in pleasure.
Girls like her knew better than to believe in love. That was a fairy story that only happened on paper, like the secret drawings of herself on a real dance floor rather than watching from the shadows.
But this, this, was even better. His kiss was deeper, richer, a maelstrom of color and lights, texture and heat. He made her want things she knew she could never have. If she let herself float away on the magic of his kiss, she might start to believe she could keep him.
