The Duplicitous Debutante (Cotillion Ball)

by Becky Lower

  Yes, both parents were very much in on the plot. Or what he speculated was a plot, anyway. He’d give himself a few more weeks to examine the evidence. And to figure out the reason for the deception. It wasn’t as if they needed the money Rosemary’s career brought into the family. New ink stains could be explained away by any number of reasons. He needed more than a few purple marks to make Rosemary reveal her true identity. He’d let her think he was still in the dark for a bit longer. Then, when he had some unmistakable proof that his idea was sound, he’d have to figure out what to do with it. Right now though, he just wanted to hold her hand again and explore the warmth the contact with her flesh caused in his body whenever she was near.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Penelope’s father turned to Harry. “Do you really think sending her back east is our best course of action? I do enjoy my daughter’s company.”

  “It’s not just Screaming Eagle I’m worried about. I don’t think such a delicate flower is safe in this wild country, be it from Indians or white men. I’d feel a mite easier about things around here if Penelope made her way back home.”

  Penelope’s eyes filled with tears as her gaze bounced back and forth between the two men.

  “If you’ll see to getting her on a ship heading back to Virginia, I’ll agree to send her home.”

  Harry glanced over at the young woman. She had called him her savior, and now she was staring at him with tear-filled eyes. He couldn’t deal with crying women. Made him all soft inside.

  Henry cleaned his weapons as he waited for Rosemary to appear for their next fencing lesson. Instead of cleaning his swords, he should really be girding his loins. If what he surmised was going on with Rosemary was anywhere close to the truth, she was indeed a formidable opponent. And even though his first response was to wonder why she would intentionally try to lead him astray, his smile when he thought about the deception drove all the anger from him. Such a clever woman, she was. She certainly could be F.P. Elliott in disguise. He was eager to begin their dueling, both physical and mental.

  Her footsteps as she walked down the outer hall to his office door caused an immediate response in his body. He ignored the swelling of his manhood as he turned, breath held, and waited for the door handle to turn.

  Rosemary entered the room, and the breath he was holding left his body. Additional footsteps from the hall told him she was not alone. Her friend from the Cotillion, Dorcas, was with her.

  “Mr. Cooper, do you remember Dorcas Winchester from the ball? My mother introduced both of us before I made a scene and fainted dead away.”

  “Of course.” Henry bowed low over Dorcas’s outstretched hand, rising in time to catch the quick glance between the two friends.

  “Mr. Cooper, it’s so nice to see you again. I promised Mrs. Fitzpatrick that I’d accompany Rosemary here today, but I have no interest in fencing. I do, however, have a great deal of interest in the pair of gloves I spied in the shop window a couple storefronts from here. So, I shall leave you two to your swordplay and will return within the hour.”

  Dorcas smiled at Henry and disappeared from the room, leaving only him and Rosemary, with the air crackling between them.

  As Rosemary quickly disrobed, leaving her skirt and petticoat in a puddle, he had trouble catching any further breath. Her feminine shape beneath her riding breeches and close-fitting shirt caused his mind to stutter. He assisted her into her protective vest and, without a word, handed over her weapon. She immediately fell into the basic advance position, remembering it perfectly from last time, lifting the toes of her right foot and straightening her leg. She pushed her heel out and landed on it, bringing her back foot up. Her blade was in his face before he even raised his.

  “Aha,” she yelled, as she brandished the sword in front of him.

  Henry lifted his blade, sliding it along Rosemary’s, effectively performing a coulé, and establishing control. Of the blades, at least. Control of himself was something he didn’t quite get on top of. Using the leverage of the entwined blades and his superior strength, he backed Rosemary against the wall, leaned in close enough to get a whiff of patchouli, and then leaned in further and captured her lips. He was not about to wait today until he bested her at swordplay to claim his prize. He’d waited long enough.

  His kiss was not gentle. He’d been thinking about her since the night of the play. No, not true. He’d been thinking about her since the first day she’d entered his office, as Phoebe Wyatt. He’d never been so taken by a woman before. A woman with many layers and mysteries. He wanted to unmask her, remove the layers of her identity as well as her layers of clothing, to have her reveal all of herself to him, and his frustration was apparent in the way his lips bruised hers. She couldn’t escape his grasp, even with an épée in her hands.

  He finally backed off a step when her whimpers of pain registered with him. His left hand grazed her cheek, as he deposited one last, more tender, kiss on her mouth. He was surprised to find dampness on her face. His eyes sought hers, and her eyes, her lovely gray eyes, were filled with tears, a few of which had escaped. He stared at her.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Fitzpatrick. I lost control of myself.” He couldn’t deal with crying women. It made him all soft inside.

  “You must cease this bosh, this nonsense.”

  “Kissing you is nonsense?”

  She suddenly found the floorboards extremely interesting. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. Not exactly.” Henry scrutinized her as she fought to get her emotions under control. She blinked rapidly, and when she finally returned his gaze, her eyes were clear.

  “I’ve agreed to allow you to court me, and I enjoyed my last fencing lesson. Dorcas is the poorest of chaperones, admittedly, but I’ll go fetch her back if I need to. I am still a well-bred lady, and I will not tolerate any more of your illicit advances.”

  Henry smiled. “You seemed to tolerate it quite well. In fact, unless I miss my guess, that was your tongue I tasted in my mouth just now.”

  Rosemary turned away. “Don’t be crude. Yes, I’ll admit to an attraction. But you, sir, take far too many advances with me. And I hope you respect me enough not to continue to take such liberties. If I can’t trust you, I’ll have to insist on a better chaperone, perhaps my mother, whenever we’re together.”

  Henry blew out a breath and ran his hand over his tied-back hair. He certainly did not want to face Charlotte Fitzpatrick on a frequent basis. “There will be no need for a stronger chaperone, Miss Fitzpatrick. I’ll do my best to ignore your tempting lips in the future. You can put your trust in me. But can I trust you?”

  She whipped around and faced him again. This time her eyes were clear. “Believe me, I won’t be tempted to kiss you from here out. You can trust me not to touch you.”

  “That’s not what I mean, and I’m quite sure you’re smart enough to figure out exactly what it is I do mean. Quit toying with me, Miss Fitzpatrick, and reveal yourself.”

  Rosemary didn’t reply. She simply handed him his sword, donned her skirts again, and left the room.

  Henry took a measured breath. Their encounter surely hadn’t gone the way he had expected it to. He had been planning on spending at least an hour with her, enjoying her company and her utter delight in learning to fence. And verbally sparring with her at the same time. Instead he’d gotten only six minutes. He had pushed her, literally and figuratively, into a corner, and she had bolted like a frightened animal.

  He ran his hand over his face. He never could figure women out. Especially when they added crying to the mix. The fact he was responsible for her tears caused his heart to ache. But it didn’t stop him from wanting her to return to the room, fired up and angry. However, the hallway was silent and Henry turned away.

  • • •

  Rosemary made it to the sidewalk before her vision blurred again with tears. Her relationship with Henry was not going according to plan, despite her mother’s and her careful scheming. Henry was supposed to be over the moon about her,
and that much of the plan seemed to be on track, judging from his searing kisses. She ran her fingers over her lips, which still hummed from the contact.

  But she had never planned on returning his feelings. Yet every time he kissed her, she forgot her well-ordered machinations as she melted against him. It was as if her body was not her own anymore, and she had lost all control. Not only over her wayward body, but her thoughts as well. They kept running off course. Henry was turning her into a simpering woman, similar to Penelope. Good Lord, she’d nearly broken down and bawled in front of him! She could hear herself in her head sighing, Oh, Henry, just as her heroine had done with Harry Hawk.

  Penelope may be willing to flaunt herself in front of men, which could lead to trouble, but Rosemary was nothing like her damsel in distress.

  Or maybe she was. Her thoughts swirled as she searched for Dorcas, eventually finding her in a small shop. When Dorcas asked why she finished so soon, Rosemary was unable to relate to her friend the reason for her hasty retreat from Henry’s office.

  Henry was on to her; she was sure of it. When he had removed her glove the other night at the theatre, he had noticed the fresh ink stains on her fingers. She had caught his raised eyebrow as he’d stared at her fingers, and could sense he had been putting the pieces of her deception together in his head. Despite her clumsy attempts to draw his attention away from her fingers by brushing his arm with her breast or leaning in to give him the opportunity to catch her scent, she had been able to tell he had a suspicion that she was really the author of the dime novels. She had already deceived him twice, once parading herself in front of him as Phoebe Wyatt. Then again by having her father pretend to be F.P. Elliott. And here she was, trying to deceive him once again. Oh, Lord, what must he think of her? It didn’t take a genius to put the pieces of this puzzle together.

  And the more she got to know Henry, the more she realized he was the closest thing to a genius she had ever met. She was a goner.

  The best thing to do would be to turn in her last novel, reveal to Henry exactly who the author was, and leave him behind, both as a publisher and as a suitor. But what she really wanted to do was to turn around on the sidewalk and go back into his warm embrace. To feel his tongue invade her mouth again, and counter each thrust of his body with one of her own.

  Her body screamed at her not to entertain the notion of leaving him even as her mind weighed the advantages. If she were to take her writing somewhere else, where could she go? If F.P. Elliott were revealed to be a woman, would there be any other publishing house willing to take her on? Women were only supposed to write sonnets and love stories, not westerns with hard-boiled, tobacco-spitting men and guns and arrows. Or pirates.

  Rosemary ran her hand over her eyes, clearing them of all moisture. This was simply a mild setback, both in her career and in her life. Larger things were on the horizon. If Henry Cooper was as small-minded as his father, she didn’t want to work with them, anyway. Cooper and Son, my foot. And she certainly wouldn’t be happy with him as a life partner if his ideas mirrored his father’s, despite her body’s insistence that she really thought otherwise.

  Perhaps her agreement to a courtship had been premature. She’d call it off tomorrow when he came calling for tea. She ran her finger over her bruised lips and closed her eyes, remembering how her body had responded to his touch.

  “Look out!” Dorcas screamed and pulled on Rosemary’s arm.

  The noise and the contact made her eyes pop open. She had nearly walked in front of a heavy wagon full of supplies that was pulled by two horses who weren’t going to stop for anything. The driver gave her a hard stare as he passed.

  “Watch where you’re going, miss.”

  Rosemary shook herself as the wagon rolled by. That was her problem. For the first time in her life, she didn’t know where she was going. Perhaps she was more a damsel in distress than she’d originally thought.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The following afternoon, Penelope and Harry boarded the supply train for its return visit to the port of Galveston, Texas. Despite the fact she was leaving her father, Penelope jumped onto the train without hesitation. She wrapped an arm around Harry’s as they stood at the caboose, and waved a farewell.

  As soon as her father drifted out of sight, her hold on Harry tightened. “Oh, Harry. This is so exciting!”

  Her head rested on his broad shoulder, making Harry very nervous. He unhooked her arm and led her inside the train cab. Galveston was still hours away, and Harry had to gird himself against Penelope’s charms during their long trip. But Harry had faced down Screaming Eagle, hadn’t he? Surely he could withstand Penelope and her machinations for a few hours.

  As they sat down to dinner that evening in a Galveston hotel’s rowdy dining hall, Harry noticed a band of ruffians giving Penelope the eye. They were on the shoot, and Penelope was their target.

  What had become of his steely self-control? Henry really couldn’t blame Rosemary for dashing out of the office, tears filling her eyes. He’d made a right mess of things, acting as if he was a cave man, backing her up against the wall and then laying claim to her tempting lips. What had he been thinking? Obviously, thought was not present and accounted for when it came to dealing with Rosemary. He removed the leather strip from his hair so he could weave his fingers through the strands. Yes, when it came to Miss Fitzpatrick, his response was to tear his hair out. He groaned his frustration.

  She was a society woman, not some common trollop or working-class woman, and he had destroyed the fragile friendship they had been developing. He had just been getting used to the idea they were of the same standing in society, and now he had shattered her trust in him. She’d make certain to never be alone with him again, and he was sure he’d seen the last of her as a sparring partner.

  All well and good, he admonished himself. He hadn’t come to New York to find a partner, either for matrimony or fencing. Rather, he was here to make his mark on the publishing world. He was far too busy to deal with such a scheming, conniving woman anyway. Convinced she was the author, he wondered again why. Why did she feel the need to hide the facts from him?

  Henry ran his hands over his face as he sat in the large office chair and stared at the mounds of paperwork he needed to get through. A snippet of their conversation the night of the play crept through his mind. She’d asked if his views on women in the workplace mirrored the views taken by his father. Did she truly think he was so narrow-minded as to parrot his father’s feelings? Was that the reason behind her deception? It would explain why she covered up the author’s true identity. She wanted to take the full measure of him first.

  He sighed as he picked up the first document on which he needed to focus. It was time to tuck Miss Fitzpatrick away in his mind and get on with business. A quick perusal of the document revealed he could not be so lucky. It was the contract between Cooper and Son and F.P. Elliott, still unsigned. What should he do? If he stuck to his original idea of meeting all the authors before extending a contract, he and Rosemary could continue this peculiar dance of theirs a while longer. That is, if she agreed to continue to see him socially. After today’s encounter, he wasn’t so certain she would. However, he had been amused at how quickly she took his dare when he suggested fencing to her the first time. Maybe he could dare her to continue their lessons, even if their social outings were at an end.

  Surely, she must realize he didn’t have a bit of his father in him. How could he show her? Bringing up his background and his tormented relationship with his father was not something he wanted to do. It was too complicated, trying to explain why he had been sent away immediately following his mother’s death. No, he didn’t want to open up and expose his vulnerability when he was with Rosemary. When he was in the same room with her, the only thing he wanted to do was to touch her, taste her, drink in her fragrance. Perhaps there was a more subtle way around the situation. His mind kicked over ideas as his fingers tapped on the desktop.

  Henry again riffled
through the stack of paper on his desk. He’d much rather be on the production floor, grabbing the first copies of whatever book was being produced, inhaling the new book smell and the aroma of fresh ink, plotting a promotional course of action for each new book. But his sister, Marguerite, with her head for numbers, would be able to plow through his piles of papers in an afternoon. And would love the challenge.

  An idea began to percolate in his head. His father would never allow his daughter into the company in Boston. But what if Henry invited her to join him in New York? She could come for a visit first, experience the city, and meet Rosemary, among others. Surely his father would allow her to come for a visit. Henry could then outline the part of the business he’d want her to take over, and the two of them could run the New York branch of Cooper and Son. Cooper and Family. Cooper Publishing. His father would be furious with them both, but if they turned a tidy profit, what could he say? Maybe they wouldn’t even tell him Marguerite was a partner in the company. She could be a silent partner, and the business could still be called Cooper and Son. As much as the idea appealed to Henry, he’d really want his father to know the success of the business was due, in large part, to two women—Marguerite and Rosemary. But first things first. He had to convince Marguerite to move from Boston.

  As the nebulous idea began to take shape in his head, he grabbed a piece of stationery and a pen. He’d share his idea with Marguerite and see if there was any interest. If she chose to make a trip to New York and took him up on his business offer, Henry could show Rosemary by his actions he did not harbor the same notions about women in the workplace as his father did. And he wouldn’t have to say a word. Then, perhaps, Rosemary would reveal her real self to him. He could expose her any time he wanted to by simply being steadfast in his determination to meet the author before signing the contract. But it was extremely important for Rosemary to trust him enough to impart the information on her own. She made him nervous about their future, yet excited, off-balance. He wanted her to feel the same way about him.