Marry the Man Today

by Linda Needham

  “Why is that?” Ross asked, pleased to have settled that particular question.

  “Because it’s a complete fright. Ugly as a blue toad, she said. And I have to agree with her.”

  Ross stood, palming the beads and sticking them into his trouser pocket. “Did Lady Wallace mention any plans she might have for later in the afternoon?”

  “No, not yesterday. But she did once in a while talk about visiting an elderly uncle.”

  “Lord Tuckerton?” Ross asked, pulling his notepad out of his jacket pocket.

  “That’s it, my lord.” Alice nodded as she thought more deeply. “And a club of some sort.”

  “The Huntsman?” Drew asked, striding toward them.

  “No, sir. It was a lady’s name. My mother’s name. Abigail.”

  Ross’s hand froze in midair, his pencil poised above his notepad. “The Abigail Adams?”

  “That’s the one!” Alice beamed.

  Bloody hell!

  “Now there’s a coincidence, Ross. We were mentioning the place ourselves only yesterday.”

  “Weren’t we, though.” Hell and damnation, the woman had played him for a fool. “Come along, Drew, I’ll drop you at the Huntsman. Then I’ve got a call to make on my own.”

  A call that Miss Dunaway wouldn’t soon forget.

  ******************

  Elizabeth and the very smug, very, very happy Lady Ellis were celebrating their stunning victory over the Bank of England in the public tea room of the Abigail Adams, still a pair of well-appointed elderly ladies, sharing a very English ritual.

  A ritual that always made the new account holder more comfortable with her new role.

  “Dear Elizabeth, you are a wonder!”

  “And you, Lady Ellis, were the perfect spinster, still look the part to a T.” Elizabeth loved her popular public tea room—the cozy chintz, and especially its subversive elements. With a fresh selection of newspapers to read without the husband looking on. With intelligent conversation encouraged. With scones and chocolate and sticky toffee pudding and perfectly brewed cream teas.

  Yes, the tea room was proving the perfect tool to recruit new members to the ladies’ club.

  “I’ve never had quite so much fun!” Lady Ellis gave a girlish giggle. “I felt just like a spy!”

  “You’ll have no trouble managing your new account, as long as you come and go from the tea room in an anonymous hack and wear the same wig and bonnet as part of your disguise every time you return to the Bank. You can change into your costume upstairs in the Adams.”

  “You’ve thought of everything, Miss Elizabeth.”

  “I’ve tried to.” Elizabeth poured Lady Ellis another cup of Darjeeling, pleased that she was taking to the disguise so eagerly, even after the fact. “But the important thing is that you never raise suspicions and that your husband never finds out that you have become a woman of independent means.”

  “One miserly pound at a time. But at least the money will belong to me.” Lady Ellis sighed as she idly stirred cream into her tea. “Poor Arthur isn’t a bad man, really, he’s just… well, thick, when it comes to understanding that I might have a life intellectually separate from his. After all, I speak and write seven languages, and he can barely handle the one he was born with.”

  Such a sadly common complaint among the women she’d come to know and admire. “Besides which, you manage a household of how many servants every day?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “And Lord Ellis manages how many employees at his investment firm?”

  “Eight.” Lady Ellis tsked as though she now pitied the man’s insignificant fate. “My mother always said that women ran the world.”

  “But wouldn’t it be better if we had a vote in the casting of the laws that rule the land?”

  Lady Ellis shook her head. “You are so wise for one so young.”

  “Thank you, my lady.” It was wisdom hard-won, inspired and encouraged by so many brave women who’d come before her.

  “Just think, my dear, if I hadn’t joined the Abigail Adams and attended the weekly club meetings, if I hadn’t listened to the lectures by the Strickland sisters and Mrs. Green and all the other speakers you’ve brought to us, if I hadn’t met you, then I would never have found the nerve to break out of my prison.”

  “I merely provided the opportunity, Lady Ellis.”

  “And the courage. For which I thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Though she disliked taking credit for the wise decisions made by people who only needed to be shown the way. “Now if I might suggest one last thing regarding your new account.”

  The woman’s eyes sparkled with her smile. “More intrigue, I hope.”

  “It’s just that you should try to carry out each of your transactions with the same clerk, every time. He’ll grow so used to you, he’ll soon not even notice you.”

  “Just like my Arthur. He barely notices me at all anymore. Not like when we were first married.” Lady Ellis leaned forward, arching a brow into her fusty wig, her words conspiring, barely audible. “You know … in the bedroom.”

  “I see.” Though she didn’t really, not fully. Elizabeth hadn’t meant to still be completely virginal at the ripe old age of twenty-two, but there were such risks for a woman in all things sexual.

  And she’d met very few men worth a scandalous pregnancy, let alone an unsuitable marriage.

  Which made her think instantly, unreasonably, of that great lout Blakestone.

  With his enormous shoulders and broad chest, his rumbling voice that had simply turned her knees to jelly.

  And made her heart scamper around like an unhinged hare.

  “Which, my dear, is the very reason I’m going back into the Abigail Adams right now, change out of my disguise, and sign myself up for that class on how to seduce your own husband. I’ve heard so much about it.”

  “Excellent, Lady Ellis.”

  Word-of-mouth at work! The class was getting more popular by the day. Taught by an ex-madam who’d married a marquis twenty years ago and had, apparently, kept him the happiest, most faithful man in the kingdom.

  Not that she herself ever planned to marry. But at least now, if the worst should happen and she should lose not only her independence to a man, but the control of the substantial inheritance that her aunts had left her, she would know what to do to keep her husband from taking comfort in the arms of a mistress.

  At least in theory.

  Should the very worst ever happen to her.

  “And after that class, Miss Elizabeth, I plan to take your class on how to defend myself from an attack on the streets, or God forbid, an abduction.” Lady Ellis was on her feet, still whispering as she adjusted the crumpled black netting on the brim of her dowdy hat. “Then I want to start attending sessions of Parliament like you’ve been talking about, just to see what those men are up to with my rights.”

  Oh, this was fine news indeed. Subversion at its best. One mind at a time.

  “My plan, Lady Ellis, is that eventually there won’t be room enough for all of us in the public gallery.” Elizabeth stood, feeling quite smug at the results of her daring to take matters into her own hands. “Then we’ll have to start taking our rightful places in the chamber itself.”

  “Oh, if that could only happen!” The very thought seemed to have put Lady Ellis into a reverie that required a shake of her head to banish. “Well, now you just sit right there, my dear, relax and enjoy your delicious tea, while I change out of my disguise.” She squeezed Elizabeth’s hand. “And thank you so very much!”

  The woman hurried to the rear of the tea room, stopped at the members-only entrance to the Abigail Adams, handed the attendant her membership card, then sped through the open door, giving Elizabeth a little wave on her way through.

  If only all her clients could be made as happy with such a small adjustment to their lives.

  No matter how delightful it would be to sit at a table, sipping her tea while searching the Tim
es for an article about yesterday’s protest, there were always more pressing matters to be taken care of.

  She hadn’t even made it as far as the rear door when it swung open and Cassie dashed through the doorway, her clerk’s visor dipped low on her forehead.

  “Miss Elizabeth, I was hoping you were here!” The young woman shoved the visor up off her brow, grabbed Elizabeth by the hand and started to tug her through the doorway. “You’ve got to come quickly! There’s trouble.”

  “What is it?”

  Cassie stopped abruptly in the middle of the corridor, thoroughly incensed. “It’s… a man. In the foyer.”

  “A man?”

  “A very large one. He demanded to see you immediately, then pushed right past Hawkins and planted himself in that chair by the fountain, saying he’d wait. Hawkins tried to put him into the visitor’s parlor, but he wouldn’t budge.”

  There was only one man she knew who would be so bloody arrogant. Blakestone.

  Furious, Elizabeth reached for the door latch that would have plunged her right into the foyer.

  “All right, Cassie, I’ll take care of the man this very minute.”

  How satisfying it would be to throw him out of her club on his fine backside.

  But Cassie gasped and grabbed her arm.

  “You can’t meet a stranger dressed like that.” The young woman pointed in horror at Elizabeth’s dowdy widow’s costume. “What would he think?”

  That she was up to something.

  And he’d be right.

  Damn the man for his power to fluster her so thoroughly!

  “Tell his lordship that I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  And then I’ll throw him out!

  Chapter 6

  Man is the hunter; woman is his game

  Man for the field and woman for the hearth.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Song

  “Miss Dunaway said to tell you she’d be down in a few minutes, Lord Blakestone.”

  Ross glanced up from his folio of reports and into the pert face of a young woman who looked to be every bit as determined and efficient as Miss Dunaway herself.

  “And you are?” he asked, getting to his feet. He’d never seen anyone wearing a green clerk’s visor with such pride of purpose, or with quite so many pencils sticking out of the lustrous blond knot at the back of her head.

  “Miss Cassie MacLauren, Clerk of the Membership of the Abigail Adams Club for Ladies.” A very large title for such a petite woman.

  “Ah, then, thank you, Miss MacLauren,” was all he could think to say.

  “Good day, sir.” With that, she spun on an efficient heel and disappeared through a doorway beneath one of the two dramatically sweeping staircases.

  The Abigail Adams was an impressive sight. Elegant with marble and brass and mahogany. Richly exotic carpets, a small fountain, statuary in niches, a pair of round inlaid tables gracing the center of the foyer, each towering with a massive arrangement of flowers.

  And everywhere he looked, doors closed tightly against the possibility of male intrusion.

  He’d only just returned to his chair when another woman, older than Miss MacLauren, more sturdy, came through the double doors on the right. He got to his feet again, only to have the woman fix a disdainful eye on him as she crossed the width of the foyer, her arms loaded down with what appeared to be ledgers, her frown daring him to offer to help carry the books, her glare threatening bodily harm if he did.

  In the course of the next few minutes a half-dozen different women entered the foyer through various doorways. Each eyed him as though he were a penny curiosity while they strode purposely across the marble floor, then flicked a glare or a scowl at him before heading off on their sundry errands.

  He felt wholly plucked and skewered.

  Wholly out of place.

  Prepared to wait out Miss Dunaway’s persnickety temper, Ross sat down again, picked up his newspaper, read only a single word, when he realized that the temperature in the room had cooled to eddies.

  The air crackled with a familiar scent.

  “Good afternoon, Blakestone.”

  His breath caught in his gut as her sultry voice drifted down from the landing above.

  And caught again when he looked up to find her starting down the stairs, as regal as any queen. He wondered if she knew just how unblushingly her femininity was showing at the moment. Glinting at him through the crystal green of her eyes, from her sly, cat-in-the-cream smile, from the elegantly simple lines and curves of her pale yellow shirtwaist and working skirts.

  Her ankles.

  Her slippers.

  Christ! He staggered to his feet again and moved toward the bottom of the stairs, his mouth dry, his pulse stammering as he tried to recall the purpose of his visit.

  Something he wanted to ask her about.

  “Yes, good afternoon to you, Miss Dunaway.”

  “To what do I owe the honor of your visit, my lord?”

  Lady Wallace! Yes, that was it!

  But before Ross could begin to answer that he had come to dredge the truth from her, the front door opened and a half-dozen women poured in from the glare of the afternoon sun, chattering about yesterday’s protest march, laughing at their triumph.

  Then stopping abruptly to look at Ross.

  “Pay the man no mind, ladies. Lord Blakestone will be leaving in a moment.”

  The women dismissed him with a single harrumph, then one of them broke out of the pack to meet Miss Dunaway at the bottom of the stairs with the front page of the same newspaper Ross had read earlier that morning.

  “Elizabeth! Have you seen the Times?’”

  “We’re in it!”

  “You’re in it!” The first woman held out the paper for Miss Dunaway and jabbed at the middle of it. “See. This is so exciting! ‘Elizabeth Dunaway, of the controversial Abigail Adams, was jailed yesterday for causing a disturbance of the peace in Whitehall.’ “

  “Is that what they called it, Mrs. Niles?” Miss Dunaway’s brows dipped as she peered over the woman’s arm and quickly scanned the article. “That we were merely disturbing the peace?”

  “Let’s see, it says, ‘Miss Dunaway and her unruly band of women—’ See! That’s us! Unruly!” Mrs. Niles shared a proud giggle with the others, then pushed her spectacles up her nose and continued. “Um … ‘band of women … were not charged and were released into the care of their guardians.’”

  “Guardians!” Miss Dunaway’s gaze shot across the room to Ross. As though he had stood over the editor and dictated the copy. “As though we were children!”

  “I see what you mean, Miss Elizabeth!” Mrs. Niles was now frowning at the newspaper as darkly as her mentor was frowning at him. “There’s not a word here about the fact that we were marching on Westminster for women’s rights.”

  “Nothing about our protest signs!”

  “Or our chanting.”

  “Of course not.” Miss Dunaway’s full lips drew into a line of disappointed anger. So the unbiased editor of the Times had obviously failed her. “We shouldn’t really have expected to find a word about the sorry plight of women in this country.”

  “Oh, but at least your name made the morning paper, Miss Elizabeth!”

  “And the Abigail Adams! That’s a good thing.”

  Mrs. Niles carefully folded the newspaper and tucked it into her reticule. “Do join us in the tea room, Miss Elizabeth. To celebrate. Please!”

  Miss Dunaway’s eyes lifted to his again, her mood deeply serious. As though the stakes in this issue were far beyond the understanding of the women who surrounded her with their eagerness.

  “I’d love to, ladies. But I’ve got so much work to do this afternoon.” Which obviously included evicting him from her presence.

  The group sighed as one, happily satisfied with their antics.

  Mrs. Niles grinned broadly, casting a wry glance at Ross. “Then we’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow night, Miss Elizabeth.”

  �
��Indeed.” Miss Dunaway smiled at the group as they gossiped their frothy way across the foyer then disappeared into what he assumed was the tea room beyond.

  She then turned her attention on him again, that deceptively soft gaze, lighting his senses to the marrow, lulling the unwary.

  It was a damn good thing he was as wary as hell of the woman.

  “You’re not supposed to be here in the lobby, Blakestone. The Adams is a club for ladies. We have a visitors’ parlor for your type.”

  “You mean for men? Afraid I’ll learn your secrets?”

  She waved a dismissive hand at him. “Believe me, my lord, if I had any secrets, you’d never get anywhere near them.”

  “Indeed.” The woman was a bundle of riddles and canards.

  “After all, what if I pushed my way past the footman at your club and planted myself in the foyer like a toadstool? Your members would scream bloody murder and have me thrown out on my ear.”

  Ross had to chuckle at the truth of that. At times the men of the club acted just like a gaggle of old ladies.

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t have made it past the front door of the Huntsman.”

  “In that case, you understand the sanctity of one’s private refuge and won’t mind if I insist that you leave. You’ve sent my entire staff into a muddle.” She started past him toward the entrance, as though she believed she could actually convince him to leave when her falsehoods had brought him right to the front steps of the Abigail Adams.

  Miss Dunaway was waiting for him at the front door, her impatient hand resting on the latch. “Please, my lord, don’t make me throw you out.”

  Ross stood his ground and caught back the smile of triumph that was beginning to bunch up inside his chest. “One question first, madam, before you attempt such a feat.”

  She gave an exasperated little huff. “Make it quick, Blakestone.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday that you knew Lady Wallace?”

  She opened her lovely mouth, whether in shock or to launch into an outright denial, he wasn’t sure. But then she closed it again, doing a bad job of hiding her discomfort behind a placid smile.

  “What makes you think I know Lady Wallace?”