by Lynn Messina
The shopkeeper, whose stunned expression had changed little during Agatha’s announcement, suddenly turned panicked as Mr. Holyroodhouse walked to the door. “But what about the Addleson commission? Our arrangement ends after you fulfill the Addleson commission, am I right, sir? All that lovely money on offer. You would not abandon—”
Agatha slammed the door on Mrs. Biddle’s desperate pleas and hailed a hack to take her home. It felt like days had passed since she had first donned her disguise as Mr. Clemmons, and as the prickly fibers of her grandfather’s wig itched her scalp, she surmised that time must move extra slowly when one was wearing a tormenting hairpiece from another century.
Directing the driver to a street adjacent to hers, she climbed down from the carriage, snuck around the house and smuggled herself into her studio through the same window from which she had escaped earlier. Ellen was just where she’d left her, tending the fire and reading a book, and she looked on in amazement as her mistress grabbed the wig from her head, threw it violently onto the floor and stomped on it a few dozen times before throwing the offending article into the fire.
Chapter Eleven
Although no eligible bachelor had ever paid a call—social or otherwise—on Lady Agatha Bolingbroke, her mother kept the staff prepared for such an occurrence with monthly practice sessions, which she called drills. It was not, as she assured Gregson at regular intervals, that she doubted his skill and expertise, for he was by far the most capable butler they had ever had at 31 Portland Place. It was merely that she knew how discomposing surprise could be on one’s ability to think clearly and she wanted to inoculate the staff against its effects. It was almost impossible to treat a gentleman caller with dignified propriety when one’s jaw was skimming the floor.
It was thanks to this preparedness training that Gregson did not bat an eyelash when Lord Addleson appeared on the doorstep requesting an interview with Lady Agatha. His manner perfectly composed, he showed the gentleman into the drawing room and suggested a pot of tea while he waited.
The tea was one of Lady Bolingbroke’s contrivances and she had been particularly emphatic about its offering, for she felt it would make the gentleman less inclined to run out of the house when he realized he had called upon the wrong Lady Agatha. The likelihood of such an event happening was considerably less now than in previous seasons, as only two other girls named Agatha remained on the marriage mart and neither had a title, but her ladyship insisted the butler present a pot of tea just the same.
Impatient to hear about Lady Agatha’s interview with Townshend, the viscount was in no mood for tea or for waiting calmly in the drawing room. He accepted the offer, however, with an appreciative nod and sat down on the settee.
He immediately stood up again.
It had pained him greatly to abandon Agatha to the clutches of the ruthless blackmailer. Oh, how it had pained him! He had wanted to stay and considered the value of arguing for his continued presence, but Townshend seemed determined for the society’s inner sanctum to remain inviolate and he saw no benefit in riling the gentleman up.
Instead, he’d had thought to linger by the door and listen to the conversation, a plan that would have yielded excellent results were it not for Mr. Berry’s determination to move him along. Newly awakened to his duty, the clerk had refused to leave the viscount alone for a single moment, affixing himself like glue to Addleson’s side. He had even resisted efforts to linger in the office, where his lordship had been inclined to admire as many of the society’s publications as necessary to give Agatha time to emerge.
Mr. Berry had gathered an armful of the society’s journals and pressed them on him. “Please read at your leisure,” the clerk had said, ignoring the two that dropped to the floor. “There are many wonderful articles that should not be rushed through.”
“And what is this beautiful item?” the viscount had then asked, spying a rather drab clay flowerpot next to the windowsill. “The artistry is magnificent.”
“Mrs. Berry bought it in a shop in Lambeth,” the clerk had replied before observing, with a glance at the window, that a hack had conveniently paused in front of the building. Although firmly assured by the viscount that many other conveyances would pause with equal convenience, Mr. Berry had insisted on Addleson’s taking this conveyance and would not rest until he had successfully installed his lordship in the carriage. The clerk then stood on the sidewalk, watching and waiting, until the hack had pulled away.
Recalling Mr. Berry’s determination brought a slight smile to Addleson’s lips, for the dedicated clerk was surely not accustomed to acting with such forcefulness. Addleson was most certainly not accustomed to being routed so thoroughly.
Once in the carriage, the viscount had decided his concern for Lady Agatha’s welfare was perhaps out of proportion to the situation. Without question, Townshend was a blackguard and a schemer, but he was hardly of the criminal class. ’Twas not as if he would secret her away to a foreign location and toss her off a cliff like a villain in a novel by Mrs. Radcliffe. As his earlier behavior demonstrated, Luther Townshend was a civilized gentleman who respected order and believed in following rules. His insistence that Addleson had no place in the library was petty, yes, but also accurate. In asking him to leave, he was not intentionally interrupting a meeting between allies.
Likewise, Townshend’s interest in Clemmons was impersonal. He had not tracked Mr. Holyroodhouse to ground in the library of the British Horticultural Society after an exhaustive search, but rather sought out Mr. Petrie’s secretary to satisfy a curiosity as half the society had already done that day.
Surely, the deputy director of Kew Gardens had many interests outside the persecution of one gently bred lady with a talent for satire.
These sanguine thoughts had accompanied the viscount on his ride home and had seen him comfortably through a meeting with his steward. It was only several hours later, after he had partaken of a light collation in his study but before dressing for the evening, that his calm deserted him. His positive outlook had been based on the assumption that Lady Agatha would do nothing to give herself away. She was a clever chit who was quite capable of carrying out the disguise she had adopted.
But what a complicated disguise it was—American gentleman. He had borne witness to her pulling it off with aplomb three times in succession, and yet he could not help recalling how easily he had seen through the ruse. What if the register of her voice traveled perilously high in the presence of Townshend as it had in his? Edward hadn’t noticed, but how could he assume the deputy director of Kew was as oblivious as his cousin?
He would not take it well. No, Mr. Townshend would not consider it a great lark to discover the object of his blackmail scheme was pretending to be an American visitor to poke around in the society’s private records.
Whether he divined her true purpose or not, he would react badly. Would his reaction be equal to a villain’s in a gothic novel? Most likely not. The very nature of Townshend’s plan—attacking Miss Harlow through the work of an artist—indicated an unwillingness to directly involve himself in the ugliness he contrived. At best, he might scare Agatha with further threats of ruination and perhaps move up her deadline by a day.
These thoughts, as reasonable as they were, could not quell the apprehension that grew within him, and with images of Agatha constrained and gagged in a coach bound for the wilds of Devonshire, he presented himself at 31 Portland Place. The butler’s cool reception did little to calm him, for it appeared to him to be almost too cool, as if the entire household were conspiring to hide a great tragedy.
Lady Bolingbroke’s smile when she entered the room further discomforted him, as it seemed to him designed to lull a dangerous animal back into its cage.
I am losing my senses, Addleson thought as he greeted her with a bow, and he took some comfort in knowing he had enough sense to realize it.
“This is highly unusual,” he announced without engaging in any prior social niceties. He did not care about
her or her husband’s health.
Her ladyship smiled again with calculated serenity and sat on the settee. “Not at all,” she said softly, reaching for the teapot. “Lady Agatha receives visitors all the time. She is very popular.”
The extravagance of the lie almost unnerved him entirely, for what cause other then deep subterfuge could Lady Bolingbroke have to make such a blatantly untrue statement? And where was her daughter that she had yet to appear in the drawing room? Was the house so cavernously large that it would take half an hour to travel from one end to the other?
“I meant the lateness of the hour,” Addleson explained, smothering his anxiety. “It is past the time for social calls.”
Lady Bolingbroke conceded this with a gracious nod and held out a cup of tea. The viscount, feeling he had no recourse, accepted the beverage and sat next to her on the seat. When he was settled, she added, “But suitors are unpredictable creatures and we have much experience in their erratic ways. After all, my daughter is a sought-after young lady.”
The claim that Lady Agony was sought after was so patently absurd, Addleson became convinced a great conspiracy to hide Agatha’s disappearance was afoot. While Lady Bolingbroke had been dispatched to the drawing room in an outward display of normalcy, her husband and eight of his most trusted men were on the northern road hunting for Agatha’s captors.
Addleson placed his teacup on the table with a loud clatter and opened his mouth to demand the truth just as Agatha stepped into the room.
“Lord Addleson, this is unexpected,” she said pleasantly.
Surprised to see her thus—not merely safe in her own home but perfectly composed and lovely, with her black eyes glowing against her porcelain skin—he rose to his feet and stepped forward. “I’m pleased to see you looking so well.”
Lady Bolingbroke beamed. “She does look well, doesn’t she? The social whirl becomes her.”
“My mother likes to believe I am a simpering miss having her first season,” Agatha explained amiably as she sat down in the armchair. “To be fair, this is a conscious choice she makes every day and not a delusion. My father assures me it is an entirely natural reaction to having an impossible daughter such as myself. Now she will tell you she doesn’t mind my teasing at all.”
To her credit, Lady Bolingbroke did not appear the least bit discomfited by her daughter’s honesty. “I truly don’t mind,” she insisted. “I believe there is value in having an optimistic view of the world and think that the best way to make one’s wishes come true is to act as if they already have.” She lifted the teapot and looked in the viscount’s direction. “More?”
Addleson’s desire at the moment was for a private word with Agatha, but he could not imagine how that would happen. “No, thank you. I am fine.”
“My mother also believes you are here to court me,” Agatha said frankly. “He is not a suitor, Mama.”
Lady Bolingbroke smiled serenely. “Not yet.”
Agatha sought out the viscount’s gaze and rolled her eyes. Then she addressed her mother. “I have something of import I would like to discuss with Lord Addleson, a private matter that concerns another person, a third party with whom you are not familiar. Given that Ellen is here to ensure propriety, I trust you can have no objection,” she said, indicating her maid, who had taken a seat in the far corner of the room by the rarely used escritoire.
“Actually, I have several objections, but I’m going to suppress them because I still have to get ready for Lady Fellingham’s fête, and I know few suitors feel comfortable under the watchful eye of a devoted mother,” she said cheerfully as she stood. “It has been a pleasure, Lord Addleson, and I look forward to seeing you soon.” She reminded her daughter to offer the viscount more tea and walked toward the doorway, where she paused on the threshold. “We are leaving this open, of course.”
“Of course,” Agatha said.
Addleson watched the exchange, a little in awe of how easily and straightforwardly the pair dealt with each other. From the few things Agatha had let drop, he naturally concluded she had a contentious relationship with her mother.
“I like her,” he said, as he sat down again.
Agatha nodded. “I do, too, a good deal of the time, but, I assure you, she frequently makes it difficult. In keeping with her philosophy, she calls me Aggie in hopes that one day I will be an Aggie,” she said. “But that is neither here nor there. We must talk about Townshend. I have remarkable news.”
Addleson nodded firmly. “Yes, we must talk about Townshend. I’m not ashamed to tell you I let my imagination run away with me and imagined dire consequences to my leaving you alone with him,” he explained with a hint of amusement. Now that the danger had passed—the nonexistent danger, he reminded himself—he could find humor in his reaction. His response had been highly unusual for him, for he was not the sort to leap to the worst possible outcome. Indeed, he prided himself on doing the opposite and typically withheld judgment until he knew all the facts of a situation.
That Lady Agatha was at the root of his strange behavior he did not doubt. Having induced her to trust him with her problem, he felt a driving need to solve it. The task itself did not daunt him, for he had always relished a challenge, but the assumption of responsibility for another human being did give him pause. For years he had thought of only his own pleasure, and aside from removing his cousin Edward from the faro table when he was too deep in his cups for play, he had not inconvenienced himself for anybody.
Now he was committed to thwarting a blackmailer before he could utterly destroy an innocent young woman. He understood the requirements of honor well enough to know the obligation was there regardless of whether it was sought. Only a cad would abandon a lady to her fate once he’d learned of it.
But this detached evaluation of the situation, neatly arrived at in his agile brain, did not sit right with Addleson. He was not helping an indeterminate young lady in an unpleasant predicament. He was helping Agatha—remarkable, surprising, funny, clever, stubborn, reckless, brave, talented, beautiful, desirable Agatha.
He did not feel these things because he was a gentleman saving a lady. He felt them because he was a man saving a woman.
Although the viscount was not one to shrink from complicated concepts, he was not as familiar with complicated emotions and decided it would be best for the success of their alliance if he dismissed these thoughts from his head.
“I am agog to hear what you imagined,” Agatha said, leaning forward in her chair, “for I love a good adventure story, especially when I am the heroine, but it will have to wait until after I’ve said my piece. I promise you, my story is far more unbelievable.”
Addleson leaned forward, too, and noted with regret how far she was from him still. The Bolingbroke drawing room, for all its cheerful comfort, had none of the cherished intimacy of the British Horticultural Society’s library.
“Before I begin,” she added, “you must swear to me that you will react calmly. It does our cause no good if you storm out in a temper or, worse, wave your fist in the air while pledging vengeance.”
As if by design, her statement made him doubly impatient to hear the details of her exchange with Townshend, but he could not help pausing over her priorities. “By what measure is my waving a fist in vengeance worse than storming out?”
“I would have to sit through it,” she explained, “and I cannot imagine anything more tedious.”
“Truly?” he asked in a delighted tone. “After an afternoon of explaining scientific concepts you had no knowledge of, that would be the most tedious thing you can imagine? I fear you have the advantage over me.”
Agatha laughed. “You cannot hoodwink me, Lord Addleson. You thoroughly enjoyed listening to my preposterous explanations. The look in your eye was one perpetual twinkle.”
“Jonah,” he said suddenly.
She drew her brows in confusion. “Excuse me?”
No, he thought, excuse me for bringing my complicated emotions into this conv
ersation despite my resolution not to.
But there was no way around it: He detested hearing the cool formality in her tone, as if they had not been a hair’s breadth from a searing kiss just hours before. If only Waldegrave —damn his imprudence!—had not arrived.
“Jonah,” he said again, his voice husky now with expectation. He was no schoolboy and knew well the excesses of passion, and yet this chaste longing to hear his name on her lips brought him almost unbearable pleasure. “If we are to be conspirators, you should at least call me by my name.”
Although she seemed disconcerted by his explanation, she agreed. “Very well, Jonah. Do I have your agreement to remain calm?”
Distracted by his own perversity, it took him a moment to recall the topic. “Yes, you do, Agatha.”
If it caused her any pleasure to hear her name from his lips, she did not indicate it by look or deed. “Good, then we can proceed. As soon as you left the room, Townshend stomped over to me and—please note: This is the part where you are going to have to exert your self-control—slapped me across the cheek.”
Addleson heard the words and he saw the action play out in his head and still he said with quiet menace, “He what?”
“Slapped me across the cheek,” she repeated matter-of-factly. “It was this cheek here, and you can see there is no mark. The important thing is he did not intend to sl—”
She broke off when his hand made contact with her cheek. He did not blame her, for the feel of her warm cheek against his cool hand surprised him, too. He had not meant to touch her. He’d thought only of examining her face a little more closely to confirm no lasting damage had been done. But then, as if by their own volition, his fingers brushed tenderly against the silky skin Townshend had dared to molest.
“You are wrong,” he said softly. “There is a mark.”
She shook her head gently. “It is only a small one.”
“Yes,” he said, wondering how she would react if he kissed the mark, so very small though it was. Something about the way she was staring at him, hesitant yet hungry, made him think she would be receptive. Very, very receptive.
