A Singular Lady

by Megan Frampton

  “Not just any hat, Miss Stanhope, a very fetching hat.” He held it away from his body, as if to examine it more closely. “And it encases your head, which is one of your better features.” He cast his eyes slowly down her body, and she felt a corresponding quiver in each body part. “I would not wish to judge one feature better than another, I have so many favorites. Which would it be? Your eyes, your lips, your neck, your br—”

  “Sir!”

  “Brains,” he finished with a smirk, bringing his eyes up to meet hers.

  Titania drew a deep breath. “My hat.”

  “No, your hat is not a feature.”

  “No, I meant, you overstep your bounds, sir. Can you please return my hat?”

  “Of course.” He held it out, then withdrew it to his side. “But—perhaps it is too soon to entrust you with the hat that now owes its very existence to me. Perhaps you are still in shock? Most ladies would be swooning with gratitude—or terror—after such an experience. Tell me,” he asked with a hopeful gleam in his eye, “would you not care to swoon right here?” He held his arms out to her.

  Before she could squeak out a reply, he placed his hands around her waist, pulling her to him. She looked over his shoulder, noting the horses were forming a sort of equine sight barrier. Whiskers, in fact, apparently suffering no remorse at having almost killed her, appeared to be dozing on his feet.

  Worthington lifted her dratted hat in front of them to, she presumed, further obscure them from view. “And now,” he said, firmly, “it appears the hat is about to repay me my kindness.”

  The thought that at least she could not be seen was replaced by the shock of his warm mouth on hers. She opened her lips to protest, but that was clearly a mistake. No Northamptonshire boy’s kisses had prepared her for the use of tongues. His moved into her mouth, causing her spine to melt and her body to feel as if it were being set ablaze with a thousand matches.

  Without thinking, she kissed him back, moving her tongue in his mouth as he had in hers. He groaned at her reaction, and his hand moved up the bodice of her riding habit to caress her breast. She leaned closer to him and ran her hands up his chest as she had been dying to do since she had inadvertently touched him when they first met. It was hard and smooth, and she could feel the muscles lying just beneath the warmth of his skin. She felt them tighten underneath her touch, and he pulled her even closer, stroking her breast with one hand and moving down her waist toward her hips with the other.

  Titania heard, rather than saw, the stable boy’s approach and pushed Edwin away. “I got all but a few of ’em, my lord,” the boy said with glee. “Miss, d’ye feel as if you can ride?”

  “Yes, Miss Stanhope, do you feel as if you can ride?” His meaning was so clear it was a single entendre. One which she, of course, should not have had the least hope of understanding. She sneaked a glance at his face, which was both amused and lustful. Probably the way he would look if he were having a good time in b— Titania clamped down on her thoughts before they ran away with her. Like the horse did.

  “Yes,” she said as primly as possible, “I feel once again fully able to control my horse, Lord Worthington, thank you for asking. And once again, for rescuing my hat.” He handed it to her, and she jammed it onto her head, turning to the stable boy as she did so. “Thank you for rescuing the papers. Can you assist me, please?”

  “I will help the lady.” Edwin’s hands moved back around her waist, and he had hoisted her up onto the saddle before she could utter a word of protest. He leaned against the stirrup, looking up at her with the same devilish look of mischief that had been dancing in his eyes before he kissed her. “Miss Stanhope, take good care of that hat. It is now indebted to me for life, after all. I should be a poor protector indeed, if I were to allow you to treat it with further carelessness.”

  “Good day, Lord Worthington,” Titania said, very firmly, as she and her companion set off, the boy making sure they were going so slowly there was no chance for mishap.

  IT WAS LATER THAN TITANIA had anticipated when she and Sarah returned home. She was bone tired and wanted to sit and unravel her tangled thoughts. But Miss Tynte met her at the door, an alarmed expression on her face. Now what, Titania wondered. Has there been yet another will discovered? Does my recent behavior show on my face? Or was there some emergency at the lending library? She gestured to the sitting room, following her governess with a weary step.

  “Thibault is here!” Miss Tynte announced.

  “Here?” Titania queried. “But he is supposed to be at school. He’s not due out for a few months now.”

  “He’s been sent off to rusticate for the remainder of the term,” said Miss Tynte. “Disgraceful behavior! He is not at all suited for the academic life. Apparently there was some mischief with a honey pot and a master’s hair pomade... You will want to discuss it with him yourself, to be sure. But now we must decide what we are to do with him. Should we tell him what we are about?”

  “No!” Titania commanded. “That is all we need. I should not want him to concoct one of his grand schemes and end up with all of us in the soup!”

  “Are you in the soup, too, Titania?” an enthusiastic voice sang out. Thibault followed his question by popping his head into the door of the drawing room. He shared his sister’s coloring, the dark hair and blue eyes, but in him the shades were more subdued, and his complexion was ruddier than her swan white. His most attractive feature was his sunny, disarming smile—which he employed to winning effect much too often, Titania thought severely.

  “No, Thibault, I am not in the soup,” Titania said haughtily, ignoring the voice in her head reminding her of her morning encounter. “But apparently you are. Would you care to explain?”

  “Oh, don’t get all missish with me, Ti,” Thibault said with the assurance of an inveterate scamp. “I’ll just stay with you until Mr. Tupper calms down. I’ll be back at Eton soon enough. But what it means is that if you need someone to stand up with you at those fashionable parties, I’m your man. I know it must be very hard for you to find gentlemen willing to put up with your bluestocking ways.” He gave her a saucy wink.

  “Thibault, here you are, in probably the worst scrape of your life, and you have the audacity to change the topic and throw my superior knowledge in my face.”

  “Not the worst scrape—” Thibault frowned in deliberation. “There was the time with those chickens and Mama’s dressing gown, and when I stole Mr. Fripp’s sermon and replaced it with—”

  “Yes, dear, I did not mean to imply this was your absolute worst scrape. I am certain you will find a way to outdo yourself. Just please, do not do so while you are here.”

  “Speaking of being here, I am confused; I thought you were to stay at our aunt Beastly’s... I mean, Aunt Bestley’s,” he corrected quickly at Titania’s disapproving look. “But when I went there, that flounder-faced butler of hers told me I would find you here. What’s going on, Ti?”

  “Oh, a slight misunderstanding,” Titania said, waving a hand in dismissal. “It is nothing to signify...and it is much cozier here, don’t you think? Stillings and some of the other servants are on their way, and we shall all be a little family again.”

  Thibault seemed to accept her explanation without need for further query, and Titania heaved a sigh of relief. She had never kept anything from her brother before, and she felt like the lowest kind of sister to be hiding things from him now.

  Titania’s sanguinity was quickly overturned when the siblings were alone together in his upstairs room.

  “So what is really going on, sister? Why are you set up here rather than with our aunt? Did you have some sort of disagreement?”

  “I should have known you would not be so easily fooled.” She moved to his bag and removed his shirts, hanging them in the wardrobe slowly to buy some time for herself.

  “Ti, I know you better than that. I know you would not upset your plans if there were not something untoward. You are the most excruciatingly detailed, well-organ
ized, least spontaneous person I know, and of course I mean that in the nicest way.”

  Titania only nodded in agreement, her hands smoothing out a wrinkle; it was a comment he had made many times before. He lounged back on the bed watching her continue to unpack. Apparently it did not cross his mind to help.

  “Take your column, for example,” he continued. “You wrote about, of all incredibly dry things, how the Peninsular War and the American blockades at sea affected the price of corn and the fortunes of farming. Those were your main concerns, right?”

  Titania nodded again.

  “And you were excited by just how boring it was! Imagine if you had been writing a local gossip column, or poetry, or something that was at least interesting to the general population. You probably would have suffered a seizure.”

  “If you think I would have been overset, just think about how upset my readers would be to find out just who Agricola really was. It would be bad enough a person who was supposed to have nothing better to do than sit in their enormous house counting their ducats was scribbling away like a Grub Street hack. It was hard to relinquish the column to Mr. Powell.”

  Titania turned and looked sternly at her brother, pointing at him accusingly with the sleeve of one of his shirts. “And are there not enough gossip columns out there anyway? Who needs to know who is courting whom, and always with those annoying initials, so you feel stupid if you do not know to whom they are referring. I would prefer a society column that reveals not salacious gossip, but a person’s feelings or opinions on a variety of subjects.”

  “That would at least be better than corn prices, although still probably as dull as Mr. Tupper’s endless lessons. Say, Ti, do you think that waistcoat would look suitably dashing with that jacket?”

  “Thibault, I do not think that waistcoat looks good at all. It is a travesty against cloth.”

  “Ti, what do you know about fashion anyway? That waistcoat is in the first stare.”

  “Staring is all I can do at it.”

  “Very funny. And what party are we attending tonight?” He gave her his most engaging smile as he spoke. Even if he was in the way, at least he would be amusing. Rather like his waistcoat, actually.

  “AS DULL AS MR. TUPPER’S lessons” rang in Titania’s ears as she reviewed the correspondence from Ravensthorpe her aunt had forwarded to her. Already she was encountering some unexpected expenses, not least of which would be supporting a burgeoning dandy in his newfound town ways. Was she so dull and predictable?

  She had taken on the task of managing Ravensthorpe as soon as she realized how haphazardly her parents treated the responsibility, and had embarked on the Northamptonshire Gazette column as an outlet for her creative and analytical skills, which were simply not satisfied by deciding whether to purchase a five- or ten-pound roast. Just then, a glimmer of an idea hit her, and she rang the bell for her maid, exercising her new-found impulsiveness before she could regret her action.

  Titania was donning her pelisse as Sarah poked her head around the corner. “Sarah,” she said with a calm she did not feel, “you will accompany me on an errand, one which we need not mention to anyone else in the household.” With a final word to Thibault to stay inside (but out of the way of sweet condiments—Miss Tynte’s hair pomade was not to be tampered with), she and Sarah hailed a hackney before Sarah could ask exactly where Miss was planning on going.

  The two women rode to the old City of London, to Newgate Street in the shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Behind the magnificent church was Paternoster Row, whose shops and signboards proclaimed it the center of London’s printing and bookselling trades. Titania searched the addresses until she found a narrow building with a sign that proclaimed the offices of Town Talk, one of the more literate—though still scandalous—London magazines of social satire. A crowd was gathered outside the street-level window, eyeing the latest prints for sale, which the proprietor had pinned up.

  Titania left Sarah to join in the badinage outside and entered the premises. She purposely spoke in her haughtiest tone. “The editor is available, I presume, to see me. I wish to be taken to him immediately.” Her temerity was rewarded by being immediately escorted to an inner sanctum, where she was seated at a comfortable chair in front of a large desk.

  After a short time, the editor appeared, holding a fresh letterpress proof sheet, which was rapidly staining his hand. The slight widening of his eyes was the only indication that a lady in his office was an unusual occurrence. He dropped the proof on his desk. “Good day, madam. I am Samuel Bell Harris. My assistant said you wished to see me? How may I oblige you?” He took his seat, nervously straightening the various papers strewn carelessly across the desktop.

  “I’ll come directly to the point, Mr. Harris,” Titania said, leaning forward in her chair. “I have a proposition for a column for your newspaper. I have had some modest success writing for our newspaper in Northamptonshire and would like to continue my writing while I am in town for the Season. I have a few samples of my work, if you would be interested to review it. Of course,” she continued hurriedly as he held his hand out for the yellowing pages of newspaper, “the column I am proposing for your publication is not at all the same sort that I have been accustomed to doing. But I wish to assure you at the outset that I have some acquaintance with English prose.”

  Harris began to read her column, glancing up with a look of frank surprise as he finished the first. After reading part way through a second and glancing quickly at another, he dropped the papers on his desk and leaned back in his chair.

  “It is not usual, you understand, for ladies of quality to come into my offices at all, and if they do, it’s usually accompanied by tears and threats,” he said, scraping his thinning blond hair back from his forehead. “Your work is, as you must know, well written; such analysis is hardly what we require, but your abilities and your bona fides are established to my satisfaction. What would you like to do for Town Talk?”

  “Thank you, sir. I like to think I can write. As for Town Talk, well—” Titania began slowly, unconsciously pulling her hair out of its chignon.

  “I am interested in informing the public about all sorts of things, whether it be the war in Europe or more intimate details of life. I am about to embark on my first Season, with the purpose of capturing a husband, and I would like to chronicle my progress in a series of columns. I think your readers would be delighted to have the opportunity to have a glimpse into the mind of a Society lady, written, I would hope, with wit and with an informed mind, of course,” she said.

  Harris regarded her silently for a moment or two, then leaped up so suddenly Titania was startled into dropping her reticule onto the floor.

  “Excellent!” he exclaimed. “Exceedingly good! Not the dubious memoirs of some ancient belle, some Mrs. Bellamy or Sally Poole, with principals as old and forgotten as my mother’s aunt... No! This is fresh stuff, direct from Almack’s and St. James’s, and only available with Town Talk. Capital, m’lady, capital!”

  He rubbed his hands together, practically bouncing out of his seat as he spoke. “We’ll set Cruikshank to work on caricatures, perhaps hire old Gillray as well if we can find him in a sane moment. And when we reveal—subtly, of course—who you are after you’ve landed your fish, why, we’ll have trounced the competition yet again, and Town Talk will be the talk of the town until next Season. And then we shall put out the columns as a book, illustrated, of course...”

  Titania attempted to interrupt, but his eyes were closed and he continued to spin out the future. “Perhaps,” he continued enthusiastically, another idea seeming to take shape in his mind, “we could make it into an annual column, and find another young lady to detail her progress next year...”

  He abruptly gave over his woolgathering and looked directly at her. “After all,” he said matter-of-factly, “there’s certainly no shortage of young ladies attempting to secure a bit of the ready through marriage, is there?” He blinked a few times, cracked his knuckles, an
d then seemed ready to drift off to his dream state again when Titania interrupted.

  “Now, Mr. Harris, sir, if you please!” Titania said, rather more loudly than she had intended. She was nervous now but determined to make sure he understood what she was proposing. She ticked off her demands on her fingers as she spoke.

  “I very much appreciate your enthusiasm, but you must grant me a few concessions before we proceed. We must have a suitable sum paid for my work, with the stipulation that if this venture is a success you will employ me to write for you in the future, although obviously not on the same topic. And you must guarantee my anonymity in perpetuity, so there will be no unmasking.

  “Yes, Mr. Harris,” Titania said, holding up her hand as he opened his mouth to object. “I will not humiliate my future husband before I’ve even met him. Nor will I hold my family up to ridicule. As you should well comprehend, it is one thing to marry for money; it’s another thing entirely to document the farce for all the world to read. My identity shall remain a mystery.”

  Harris sighed, then sat back down in his chair, shaking his head. “The column in which your identity is revealed would be our best-selling edition. You don’t suppose your husband and family would agree if asked, do you?” he queried, a hopeful gleam in his eye.

  “No, sir, I do not. That is my proposal, considered and final. If you do not agree to my terms, I should be most happy to approach the editors at The Satirist or The Scourge...” she said, letting the sentence trail off and hoping he would not call her bluff. It had taken all of her nerve to bring herself here, and if he declined, she doubted she would have the nerves necessary to propose her idea a second time.

  Titania saw a shudder pass through Harris, most likely at the thought of one of his paper’s fierce rivals having the opportunity to print a column he had as much as said he thought would be the on dit of the social world.

  “Very well, then,” he acquiesced. “I agree to your terms.”