“Are you planning to give an abolitionist speech on Friday?”
Her mouth fell open. He’d shocked her, and part of him took delight in the fact. He’d always enjoyed besting an adversary, and the fact that this particular adversary was…more compelling than most didn’t change that fact. “I’ll take your astonished countenance for assent.”
She didn’t even bother arguing. “How did you know?”
“I’ve been watching you,” he teased. It was true, of course, but she didn’t need to know the extent of it.
“So you were following me earlier this evening.”
Setting aside the impulse to defend himself, he said, “You know I read the letter you dropped at Clareford Manor. Give me a little credit, Miss Mirren. After that, it wasn’t a great leap to connect you to the mysterious veiled lady who will speak at this event entitled, ‘A Day of Speeches to Reopen the Question of Abolition.’”
“But how do you even know about the event?”
“It’s all over the papers. They’ve run out of tickets.”
Then the infernal woman smiled—a great, wide smile of genuine delight. He tamped down a stab of guilt.
“Miss Mirren, I have a proposition for you.” He almost laughed at the indignant look she shot him. “Not that kind of proposition. You’ve been accusing me of taking an undue interest in your affairs as a result of my loyalty to your late father.” He held up a hand to stop any interjection she might offer. “It’s true, I admit it. I don’t like the idea of Captain Mirren’s daughter putting herself in harm’s way.”
He took the bold step of reaching for her hand—after all, Plan B required her to find him irresistible. Even gloved, her hand transferred a sort of buzzing awareness into his own. “He loved you very much.”
“He had an odd way of showing it,” she said, her voice heartbreakingly small as she pulled her hand away. He had a sudden sense that perhaps the Captain Mirren he’d known was not the same man she had known. But that was a thought to be examined later.
“By all accounts the day of speeches is going to be a mad crush. A dangerous crush.”
“I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”
“It’s not your abilities I question, Miss Mirren. It’s the behavior of an agitated, restless crowd. What if they set upon you? What if they tear off your veil?”
“I’m planning to speak about sugar, my lord. It’s hardly the most incendiary of topics.”
That, and she was planning to dangle the fact that she’d come close to unmasking a major slaver. But he opted not to mention that. It was one thing for her to think he’d been following her around, quite another to admit to entering her home and rifling through her private things.
“Hear me out,” he said. “Let me give the speech in your stead.” Her eyes widened, and he smiled. “Miss Mirren, I find I rather enjoy shocking you.”
“That’s an absurd idea.”
“Think about it logically. Ladies were not unheard of as speakers at the assemblies before the trade was banned. A mysterious veiled lady, I admit, has a certain cache.” He swallowed his guilt as he delivered the line that would win this battle. “But so does an earl, a high-ranking peer of the realm. I’ll announce that I’m reading a speech by an anonymous woman. It will draw everyone’s attention, not just those in attendance. The papers will go mad for it, and the cause of abolition will be on everyone’s lips again.”
Her face softened as she considered his words. “Why would you do this?”
“To atone for the fact that I’m collaborating with Mr. Manning.”
“So you know he’s running slaves,” she said. “I’d planned to tell you this evening. But then I got…”
“Distracted by my incessant exhortations toward matrimony?”
She exhaled a breathy little laugh. “Something like that.”
“Miss Mirren, I am going to level with you.” He glanced around the sparsely populated terrace, his mind weaving the necessary lies. “Will you walk with me?”
Nodding, she let him lead her down the steps on their side of the terrace.
Catharine noticed. Shooting her a beseeching look, he tried for all he was worth to look like a man besotted. She shook her head, but it was a resigned shake. Prompting James to pull out his pocket watch, she made an exaggerated show of looking at it.
Miss Mirren, thankfully, noticed none of this, merely preceded him down a path so dark he couldn’t have chosen better himself.
As soon as they were shielded from the house, he got to the point. “Miss Mirren, I can’t pretend to approve of Mr. Manning, but I need money. I can’t put it any plainer than that. My father ignored the estate, and my brother was too compromised to pay it any attention.” She’d stopped walking and turned to face him. This was going to be easier than he thought. “If it was just me, I’d say sod it all. But the tenants are living in leaky cottages. I’ve an army of servants who’ve been with my family since before my birth. People are depending on me, and I’m out of options.”
He could see understanding taking root as she nodded. He was winning her over. She was a kind woman with a big heart, and she understood about responsibility. In fact, she’d built a life around it.
She trusted him, too. And it was beginning to break his stony heart.
“So delivering my abolitionist speech will help assuage your guilty conscience.”
He led her to a small stone bench. “Something like that. But I won’t deny it would serve the dual purpose of ensuring you aren’t trampled by an angry mob when I could have prevented it.”
That earned him another low chuckle as she sat, pulling her shimmering skirts to one side to make room for him. Oddly, winning that laugh seemed like an accomplishment on par with some of his greatest missions. He shoved the thought aside. Now was not the time to get sentimental.
“Lord Blackstone, I need to be quite honest about one thing. I am planning to expose Mr. Manning for the slaver that he is.”
He nodded, noticing how the moonlight illuminated her bosom, which was exposed more than was usual for her. “That’s what’s in the red book.”
“Yes. His accounts. I used to help with the books at Manning Abbey. He always keeps his account books in the top right drawer of his desk. I’d hoped it would have incriminating entries, something to show a trail of money that couldn’t properly be accounted for.”
“And did it?” He sincerely hoped not; otherwise he was going to have to add stealing the red book to his list of things to do. Miss Mirren could not expose Mr. Manning before the boat carrying Le Cafard arrived. It simply could not be allowed, no matter his misgivings about deceiving her.
“No.” She cocked her head. “And I imagine you’re glad about that, because as soon as I expose him, your source of money dries up.”
“You’ve sized up the situation exactly, Miss Mirren.” He did not lie, even if it wasn’t the whole truth. “We cannot pretend that our aims are not opposed.”
“Indeed.”
“But you can allow me to deliver your speech, both to assuage my conscience a bit and to ensure your own safety. After all, if you’re trampled to death, you won’t be able to bring down Manning.”
Another laugh, a jab to his solar plexus.
“I won’t stop trying, you know,” she said.
“Why am I not surprised?”
She stuck out her hand. “So we are allies for the moment.”
He took it. “So it would seem. Wary, temporary allies.” Except allies don’t stab each other in the back.
“Wary, temporary allies!” she exclaimed. He hadn’t let go of her hand, nor she of his. “That’s much better than man and wife, don’t you think?”
“Much better,” he whispered, staring at her lips, barely visible in the light of the half-moon. The speech was taken care of, and so it was time initiate Plan B.
She stepped closer. Plan B was not going to be without its pleasures.
When her lips hit his, he realized with a jolt tha
t it was she who’d moved to kiss him and not the reverse. The very same lady who’d refused his suit not an hour ago was pressing her lips rather ardently against his.
Not acceptable. Not part of Plan B.
So he took control. Dropping her hand, which he was still holding, he took a moment to curse his injury. God be dammed, this was when he most missed having two hands. Still, a man learned to be resourceful.
The good hand stroked her collarbone, shamelessly dipping two fingers into her décolletage, while he used his bad arm to hike up her skirts. A multipronged assault—stun and disarm.
It was working. Her breath was coming fast, and though she continued to kiss him, when he pressed his forearm against her inner thigh, exposing the warm flesh to the cool night air, she gasped and let her head fall back.
“That’s right,” he whispered, quickly moving his good hand down to the other thigh, using his fingers to stroke it, hoping to contrast the localized sensation of fingers against one thigh with the pressure of his whole forearm against the other. “Just because a lady is resolved not to marry doesn’t mean she should go to her grave unversed in the pleasures available to her.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” she answered, all breathy as she tried to lift her head. “It’s just that I wonder if—”
“Don’t talk. Don’t think.” He let his fingers drift up and experimentally draw aside her smallclothes. Usually a seduction would call for less haste, but the last thing he needed was Catharine marching down the path after them. He brushed his hands over her folds. “Oh, God,” he said, before he could bite his tongue and remind himself to keep the commentary internal. She was ready.
And so was he. But that didn’t signify. He exhaled a raggedy sigh, trying to remember if his cock had ever gone so impossibly hard before.
He made another pass across her wetness, and she whimpered.
“See?” he whispered roughly. “There’s so much available for the asking.”
He wondered if she had any idea what she was feeling, what was possible. Most gently bred young women did not, but a low, throaty sigh suggested that she might be an exception. She was very well read. He thought back to the horrid pamphlet he’d found in her room. Hopefully that was not all she’d read on the topic.
“It seems unfair to me,” she gasped, “that such pleasures are only available to married women.”
“Yes,” he whispered, picking up on her cue as he pressed his lips against the pulse madly fluttering at her throat. “A man is free to find his pleasure where he may, but a woman must wait for a husband—and hope she ends up with one who concerns himself with her pleasure at all.” He began circling her bud, coming close but never touching it. “It’s a gross injustice.”
“Please,” she whispered. He was surprised at how quickly she’d arrived at this point. Though he’d never been with a virgin, he always imagined they required a great deal of careful attention. But then, she’d proven to have passion in spades, hadn’t she? She strove toward pleasure the same way she approached her cause—with a furious intensity that blocked out all distraction.
Arching her back, she was instinctively trying to improve the angle. Gradually shrinking the size of his circular caresses, he homed in on the source of her desire. Moving his lips up to her jawbone, he whispered, “If we’re caught, you’ll have to marry me.”
“And have you arranged for us to be caught?”
“No.” Not this time.
“It doesn’t matter. I still wouldn’t.”
Blast her! Without thinking, he increased the pressure he was exerting, and sped up the now-tiny circles, burying his face in her neck. In less than ten seconds, her shallow breathing stopped and she surrendered to her crisis in utter silence.
Oh, to get Miss Mirren somewhere secluded, somewhere she could make all the noise she liked. His mind began sifting through possibilities—but no, that was not the point here. He had to do things in order—there was a list, after all—and this evening was about leaving her wanting more.
Smoothing her skirts back down, he struggled to make out her expression in the darkness. Satiation, he thought, mixed with a little astonishment. Exactly where he wanted her.
“I’m sorry,” she informed him. “I’m afraid I got quite carried away.” She ducked her head.
Part of him wanted to laugh. She’d apologized to him that night at the lake, too, as if she were a defiling lothario. “There’s no need to be sorry, or embarrassed.” He slid along the bench, away from her, willing the chilly night air to do its work.
She looked like she might say more, but after a moment of silence, she merely nodded. “We should get back before we’re missed.”
Crossing his legs, he cleared his throat. “You go ahead. I need a moment.” Several. I need several moments.
She looked at first like she might argue, but then she flashed him a small, intimate smile—a dagger in his heart—and turned. He watched her disappear down the path, shimmering blue gown gradually swallowed by darkness. Then he rose and went the other way. His work here was done for tonight.
Chapter Fourteen
As she edged her way through the assembled throng, Emily had to admit that Lord Blackstone had been right about the speech.
Bowing to overwhelming demand for tickets, the organizers had moved the event out of doors, erecting a makeshift wooden stage at the eastern edge of St. James’s Park. Initially, there had been a kind of happy hubbub, as the spectators cheered the first few speakers, shouting their outrage at the appropriate places and growing quietly attentive when the orators used dramatic flourishes to make their points.
To think, soon it would be her words echoing over the crowd. The prospect of hearing Lord Blackstone deliver her speech in his deep, masculine voice sent a frisson of excitement up her spine. He’d been—maddeningly—all business when he’d called yesterday to collect the manuscript, giving no hint that he’d been at all affected by their encounter the previous night. After reiterating his opposition to her presence at the day of speeches, he’d formally bowed and made his good-byes, his face unreadable. At least that was better than simply disappearing, as he had at the ball, leaving her to wonder if she’d displeased him somehow.
Regardless of the muddle her thoughts became when they turned to Lord Blackstone, his point about the event had clearly been valid. The sun beat down mercilessly, and the crowd was growing restless. Several hours in, applause was more lackluster, cheers more subdued. It didn’t seem that the event would spin out of control, but she appreciated that she and Catharine were observing the proceedings from the back of the gathering.
From this vantage point she was safe to simply enjoy the afternoon—and her growing excitement. Though her topic might be a tad dull—the last speaker, by contrast, had recounted his firsthand experience toiling on a Jamaican plantation—the man delivering her words would command attention. She could just picture him striding across the stage to the podium, his long legs covering the distance in a few steps. The severity of his appearance would work in their favor here. She could practically see the renderings in tomorrow’s papers.
Smiling, she shrank back a little more beneath the cover of the tree she and Catharine stood under. It wouldn’t do for him to see her.
Catharine waved her fan energetically back and forth. “Emily, dear, when may we expect your speech?” She rolled her eyes in a teasing manner. “And why did I agree to accompany you here?”
“My speech is slated to follow this one. We’ll depart after that. And you agreed to accompany me when I confided in you because, and I quote, ‘I can’t imagine anything more exciting!’”
Another eye roll from Catharine, but this one was accompanied by an affectionate smile. “Yes, it was exciting to learn that my protégé is a fellow reformer! And honestly, I was astonished—astonished!—that Lord Blackstone agreed to give your speech.”
“It’s what he wanted to talk to me about at the ball.”
“And here I thought—
”
“What?”
“Never mind. Have you seen him?” Catharine stood on her tiptoes, scanning the crowd.
“No!” Emily grabbed her friend’s arm and tugged her back under the tree’s canopy. “It won’t do for him to see us here.”
Catharine narrowed her eyes. “Did you promise him you wouldn’t attend?”
Emily bit her lip. “I might have led his lordship to believe something to that effect.”
“Ha! I like you more every day, Emily Mirren.” Catharine snaked her arm though Emily’s. “And I admire you.”
Embarrassed and unsure how to respond, Emily made a dismissive gesture.
“I mean it,” Catharine persisted. “What you’re fighting for is important. And you haven’t let the fact that you’re an unlikely reformer stop you. It’s laudable.”
Pleasure bloomed in her chest at the compliment. Just like that night in the library at Clareford Manor, she felt as if she’d found a kindred spirit. But to have a woman friend—someone besides Sally and Sarah, who, although dear to her in their own ways, were not bosom friends—was wonderful. “I am rather excited,” she confessed, understating the emotion entirely. Excited, proud, optimistic—exhilarated, even. All these feelings swirled through her, along with a rush of gratitude toward Lord Blackstone. At least, she thought it was gratitude. It was an unfamiliar, warm sort of feeling that left her a little shaky when she allowed herself to examine it too closely.
Catharine’s arm was still looped through hers, so she pressed her other hand down atop Catharine’s, as if she could somehow convey the depths of her sentiment with the touch. “I don’t think I’ve ever done something more important or looked forward to something more than seeing my speech delivered here.” Her eyes prickled with unshed tears, but she was not embarrassed, because Catharine understood. She could tell by the fact that her friend’s eyes had grown decidedly dewy, too.
“I’m sure you’re an inspiration to us all.” Catharine cleared her throat. “Now, when is this dratted gentleman going to be done?” The man in question, a Quaker leader, had spent the last twenty minutes quoting and interpreting scripture.
The Miss Mirren Mission Page 17
